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When I came into the video game industry in 1997, the Nintendo 64 was one the way out. Duck Dodgers was the last game I worked on for that platform.

I think Sony has a bigger problem with their consoles. Playstation 1 was still kicking long after Playstation 2 came out. Playstation 2 was still kicking long after Playstation 3 came out. That might change if Sony comes out with a Playstation 4 sooner.

http://pc.ign.com/articles/106/1061783p1.html

Plus several other sites that have been talking about the huge mass of DLC they will be releasing for Mass Effect 2.

Have you not read about the game at all over the past year?

Hey, did anyone here ever see the ign.com April Fools joke trailer for 2008? Watch it here. Compare this with the YouTube trailer for The Hero of Time movie (alternate version). You will immediately notice a difference in quality (in IGN's favor). Nintendo probably didn't pursue IGN for their joke trailer, but that may be due to the fact that IGN wasn't actually making a movie, just an April Fools trailer. But, if I were Nintendo, and I were inclined to grant trademark lenience, having seen both of these samples, I would choose the IGN version, because the Hero of Time movie looks puerile by comparison (and, yes, I do mean that it looks like a child filmed and post-produced it).

Now I'm stuck in this dilemma of whether or not to watch even just a part of it. Having never seen it, the worst piece of anything I've ever watched was the Sequel to Starship Troopers, which is similar in to how you describe it. It's so bad I had to turn it off, and I can not possibly bring myself to watch it again.

But since I know there is something worse... something so terrible... It's like I have to see it to broaden my perspectives. Maybe it will be a life changing situation for me (Like someone else commented, it drove his friend to drink). Maybe I will reach an ultimate state of enlightenment after seeing the worst piece of recorded entertainment. Just to push the boundaries of what is possible, seems like a goal anyone would set.

But on the other hand, I -LIKE- Star Wars. Like, more than like, but not quite obsessive fan love. See when I was a Kid I owned the entire Star Wars: The Essential Guide collection of books. I had every line memorized and could spew the dialogue back to you without any hesitation. I -WAS- a fanboy. But I've kind of grown out of it, but it still holds a special place in my heart. I still play X-Wing vs Tie Fighter every now and then. I still claim that Dark Forces were the highlight of Lucas Art's first person shooters, and that Battlefront 2 still doesn't reach the entertainment value of Jedi Academy (though Jedi Outcast was a much better storyline by far). And while Force Unleashed was good in it's own right, it never earned an emotional spot like Droid Works.

So what will it be - A gift to perception to help me better understand the world around me, despite how painful it might be to endure...

Or a horrible piece of Malice that will destroy everything my childhood has loved and charished, leaving me a half empty shell of a human being not worth living...

You're right, there's hardly anything at all to check for in Eve. There's no such things as planets, astroids, moons, stations, starbases, NPC ships, containers, jetcans, other players' ships, deployable weapons, drones, stargates, etc moving in three dimensions with collision detection to worry about. Very easy to avoid lag when all you've got is hundreds of players firing weapons at each other that need to calculate for explosion radius, tracking speed, shifting distances, angular velocity, transversal velocity, flight times, etc.

It's not even like there's anything cool to look at while that stuff's happening...
http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/51662/EVE-Online-Dominion-Screenshots-Trailer

According to an article on IGN, the PlayStation 3's production cost at launch was as much as $840.35. They had a hard enough time pushing the console at $600, and an additional $240.35 wasn't going to make that any easier, which would have been the bare minimum without the current business model.

Licensing fees are rather high for the PS3, so it can be argued that you'd make up for the high initial investment buy paying less for games, but there's no guarantee that publisher's won't just take the savings for themselves. Do you know why Activision is suddenly selling Wii and PC games for $60? I'll give you a hint... It isn't because licensing fees suddenly went up.

Not true by a long shot.

The entire reason that Nintendo is so selective in which games it licenses is because of the flood of games that came out for all consoles in the 80s, and the video game crash shortly after. Companies like Quaker Oats were actually trying to publish games. The market became so over-saturated with games that the public became disgusted with them.

When nintendo finally released the Famicom in the US they had to market it as a home computer rather than a video game system due to the negative connotations that 'video game' still had. You'll notice that every legitimate game that came out for nintendo and super nintendo ( I stopped looking after that) came with the nintendo seal of approval. That's because they started making certain that only reputable publishers were releasing games for their system, to keep their reputation intact. There's a lot more about it if you search for the video game crash of 1983 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash_of_1983

Opening up the console to anyone who wants is definitely not guaranteed to increase the quality of games. In fact, history tells us that the exact opposite will happen. But hey, who knows! History doesn't repeat itself all that often, right?

Not quite. Haven't you seen M&M's Kart Racing? Or what about the release of Toy Story Mania for Wii? Not to mention virtually every game involving the word "We" (not Wii, We) or cute animals or exercise. Deal or No Deal for the DS isn't even random with its case selections, earning a 1 out of 10 for being a cheap cash-in. And lets not forget Elf Bowling, Homie Rollerz (what the crap is that), Ninjabread Man, and God forbid that I mention all of the terrible cash-in music games (if you can even call some of them games). I'm not even showing you the worst of them all. And yes, some games that are cash-ins aren't too bad, but when they're covering up everything that's actually worth paying 30-60 bucks for, I can easily see why the crash might happen again.

Almost forgot the Seal of Quality mentioned earlier. Earlier I can see how Nintendo cared about it, but now it just shows something is licensed. "Hey Nintendo, we want your seal on our product." "That'll be [so-and-so] dollars/yen please." As long as Nintendo's making money from it, they couldn't care less about the quality of their games (at least the 3rd-party ones. 1st-party games are still great).

Not true by a long shot.

The entire reason that Nintendo is so selective in which games it licenses is because of the flood of games that came out for all consoles in the 80s, and the video game crash shortly after. Companies like Quaker Oats were actually trying to publish games. The market became so over-saturated with games that the public became disgusted with them.

When nintendo finally released the Famicom in the US they had to market it as a home computer rather than a video game system due to the negative connotations that 'video game' still had. You'll notice that every legitimate game that came out for nintendo and super nintendo ( I stopped looking after that) came with the nintendo seal of approval. That's because they started making certain that only reputable publishers were releasing games for their system, to keep their reputation intact. There's a lot more about it if you search for the video game crash of 1983 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash_of_1983

Opening up the console to anyone who wants is definitely not guaranteed to increase the quality of games. In fact, history tells us that the exact opposite will happen. But hey, who knows! History doesn't repeat itself all that often, right?

Not quite. Haven't you seen M&M's Kart Racing? Or what about the release of Toy Story Mania for Wii? Not to mention virtually every game involving the word "We" (not Wii, We) or cute animals or exercise. Deal or No Deal for the DS isn't even random with its case selections, earning a 1 out of 10 for being a cheap cash-in. And lets not forget Elf Bowling, Homie Rollerz (what the crap is that), Ninjabread Man, and God forbid that I mention all of the terrible cash-in music games (if you can even call some of them games). I'm not even showing you the worst of them all. And yes, some games that are cash-ins aren't too bad, but when they're covering up everything that's actually worth paying 30-60 bucks for, I can easily see why the crash might happen again.

Almost forgot the Seal of Quality mentioned earlier. Earlier I can see how Nintendo cared about it, but now it just shows something is licensed. "Hey Nintendo, we want your seal on our product." "That'll be [so-and-so] dollars/yen please." As long as Nintendo's making money from it, they couldn't care less about the quality of their games (at least the 3rd-party ones. 1st-party games are still great).

Not true by a long shot.

The entire reason that Nintendo is so selective in which games it licenses is because of the flood of games that came out for all consoles in the 80s, and the video game crash shortly after. Companies like Quaker Oats were actually trying to publish games. The market became so over-saturated with games that the public became disgusted with them.

When nintendo finally released the Famicom in the US they had to market it as a home computer rather than a video game system due to the negative connotations that 'video game' still had. You'll notice that every legitimate game that came out for nintendo and super nintendo ( I stopped looking after that) came with the nintendo seal of approval. That's because they started making certain that only reputable publishers were releasing games for their system, to keep their reputation intact. There's a lot more about it if you search for the video game crash of 1983 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash_of_1983

Opening up the console to anyone who wants is definitely not guaranteed to increase the quality of games. In fact, history tells us that the exact opposite will happen. But hey, who knows! History doesn't repeat itself all that often, right?

Not quite. Haven't you seen M&M's Kart Racing? Or what about the release of Toy Story Mania for Wii? Not to mention virtually every game involving the word "We" (not Wii, We) or cute animals or exercise. Deal or No Deal for the DS isn't even random with its case selections, earning a 1 out of 10 for being a cheap cash-in. And lets not forget Elf Bowling, Homie Rollerz (what the crap is that), Ninjabread Man, and God forbid that I mention all of the terrible cash-in music games (if you can even call some of them games). I'm not even showing you the worst of them all. And yes, some games that are cash-ins aren't too bad, but when they're covering up everything that's actually worth paying 30-60 bucks for, I can easily see why the crash might happen again.

Almost forgot the Seal of Quality mentioned earlier. Earlier I can see how Nintendo cared about it, but now it just shows something is licensed. "Hey Nintendo, we want your seal on our product." "That'll be [so-and-so] dollars/yen please." As long as Nintendo's making money from it, they couldn't care less about the quality of their games (at least the 3rd-party ones. 1st-party games are still great).

Not true by a long shot.

The entire reason that Nintendo is so selective in which games it licenses is because of the flood of games that came out for all consoles in the 80s, and the video game crash shortly after. Companies like Quaker Oats were actually trying to publish games. The market became so over-saturated with games that the public became disgusted with them.

When nintendo finally released the Famicom in the US they had to market it as a home computer rather than a video game system due to the negative connotations that 'video game' still had. You'll notice that every legitimate game that came out for nintendo and super nintendo ( I stopped looking after that) came with the nintendo seal of approval. That's because they started making certain that only reputable publishers were releasing games for their system, to keep their reputation intact. There's a lot more about it if you search for the video game crash of 1983 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash_of_1983

Opening up the console to anyone who wants is definitely not guaranteed to increase the quality of games. In fact, history tells us that the exact opposite will happen. But hey, who knows! History doesn't repeat itself all that often, right?

Not quite. Haven't you seen M&M's Kart Racing? Or what about the release of Toy Story Mania for Wii? Not to mention virtually every game involving the word "We" (not Wii, We) or cute animals or exercise. Deal or No Deal for the DS isn't even random with its case selections, earning a 1 out of 10 for being a cheap cash-in. And lets not forget Elf Bowling, Homie Rollerz (what the crap is that), Ninjabread Man, and God forbid that I mention all of the terrible cash-in music games (if you can even call some of them games). I'm not even showing you the worst of them all. And yes, some games that are cash-ins aren't too bad, but when they're covering up everything that's actually worth paying 30-60 bucks for, I can easily see why the crash might happen again.

Almost forgot the Seal of Quality mentioned earlier. Earlier I can see how Nintendo cared about it, but now it just shows something is licensed. "Hey Nintendo, we want your seal on our product." "That'll be [so-and-so] dollars/yen please." As long as Nintendo's making money from it, they couldn't care less about the quality of their games (at least the 3rd-party ones. 1st-party games are still great).

Not true by a long shot.

The entire reason that Nintendo is so selective in which games it licenses is because of the flood of games that came out for all consoles in the 80s, and the video game crash shortly after. Companies like Quaker Oats were actually trying to publish games. The market became so over-saturated with games that the public became disgusted with them.

When nintendo finally released the Famicom in the US they had to market it as a home computer rather than a video game system due to the negative connotations that 'video game' still had. You'll notice that every legitimate game that came out for nintendo and super nintendo ( I stopped looking after that) came with the nintendo seal of approval. That's because they started making certain that only reputable publishers were releasing games for their system, to keep their reputation intact. There's a lot more about it if you search for the video game crash of 1983 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash_of_1983

Opening up the console to anyone who wants is definitely not guaranteed to increase the quality of games. In fact, history tells us that the exact opposite will happen. But hey, who knows! History doesn't repeat itself all that often, right?

Not quite. Haven't you seen M&M's Kart Racing? Or what about the release of Toy Story Mania for Wii? Not to mention virtually every game involving the word "We" (not Wii, We) or cute animals or exercise. Deal or No Deal for the DS isn't even random with its case selections, earning a 1 out of 10 for being a cheap cash-in. And lets not forget Elf Bowling, Homie Rollerz (what the crap is that), Ninjabread Man, and God forbid that I mention all of the terrible cash-in music games (if you can even call some of them games). I'm not even showing you the worst of them all. And yes, some games that are cash-ins aren't too bad, but when they're covering up everything that's actually worth paying 30-60 bucks for, I can easily see why the crash might happen again.

Almost forgot the Seal of Quality mentioned earlier. Earlier I can see how Nintendo cared about it, but now it just shows something is licensed. "Hey Nintendo, we want your seal on our product." "That'll be [so-and-so] dollars/yen please." As long as Nintendo's making money from it, they couldn't care less about the quality of their games (at least the 3rd-party ones. 1st-party games are still great).

Not true by a long shot.

The entire reason that Nintendo is so selective in which games it licenses is because of the flood of games that came out for all consoles in the 80s, and the video game crash shortly after. Companies like Quaker Oats were actually trying to publish games. The market became so over-saturated with games that the public became disgusted with them.

When nintendo finally released the Famicom in the US they had to market it as a home computer rather than a video game system due to the negative connotations that 'video game' still had. You'll notice that every legitimate game that came out for nintendo and super nintendo ( I stopped looking after that) came with the nintendo seal of approval. That's because they started making certain that only reputable publishers were releasing games for their system, to keep their reputation intact. There's a lot more about it if you search for the video game crash of 1983 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash_of_1983

Opening up the console to anyone who wants is definitely not guaranteed to increase the quality of games. In fact, history tells us that the exact opposite will happen. But hey, who knows! History doesn't repeat itself all that often, right?

Not quite. Haven't you seen M&M's Kart Racing? Or what about the release of Toy Story Mania for Wii? Not to mention virtually every game involving the word "We" (not Wii, We) or cute animals or exercise. Deal or No Deal for the DS isn't even random with its case selections, earning a 1 out of 10 for being a cheap cash-in. And lets not forget Elf Bowling, Homie Rollerz (what the crap is that), Ninjabread Man, and God forbid that I mention all of the terrible cash-in music games (if you can even call some of them games). I'm not even showing you the worst of them all. And yes, some games that are cash-ins aren't too bad, but when they're covering up everything that's actually worth paying 30-60 bucks for, I can easily see why the crash might happen again.

Almost forgot the Seal of Quality mentioned earlier. Earlier I can see how Nintendo cared about it, but now it just shows something is licensed. "Hey Nintendo, we want your seal on our product." "That'll be [so-and-so] dollars/yen please." As long as Nintendo's making money from it, they couldn't care less about the quality of their games (at least the 3rd-party ones. 1st-party games are still great).

Not true by a long shot.

The entire reason that Nintendo is so selective in which games it licenses is because of the flood of games that came out for all consoles in the 80s, and the video game crash shortly after. Companies like Quaker Oats were actually trying to publish games. The market became so over-saturated with games that the public became disgusted with them.

When nintendo finally released the Famicom in the US they had to market it as a home computer rather than a video game system due to the negative connotations that 'video game' still had. You'll notice that every legitimate game that came out for nintendo and super nintendo ( I stopped looking after that) came with the nintendo seal of approval. That's because they started making certain that only reputable publishers were releasing games for their system, to keep their reputation intact. There's a lot more about it if you search for the video game crash of 1983 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash_of_1983

Opening up the console to anyone who wants is definitely not guaranteed to increase the quality of games. In fact, history tells us that the exact opposite will happen. But hey, who knows! History doesn't repeat itself all that often, right?

Not quite. Haven't you seen M&M's Kart Racing? Or what about the release of Toy Story Mania for Wii? Not to mention virtually every game involving the word "We" (not Wii, We) or cute animals or exercise. Deal or No Deal for the DS isn't even random with its case selections, earning a 1 out of 10 for being a cheap cash-in. And lets not forget Elf Bowling, Homie Rollerz (what the crap is that), Ninjabread Man, and God forbid that I mention all of the terrible cash-in music games (if you can even call some of them games). I'm not even showing you the worst of them all. And yes, some games that are cash-ins aren't too bad, but when they're covering up everything that's actually worth paying 30-60 bucks for, I can easily see why the crash might happen again.

Almost forgot the Seal of Quality mentioned earlier. Earlier I can see how Nintendo cared about it, but now it just shows something is licensed. "Hey Nintendo, we want your seal on our product." "That'll be [so-and-so] dollars/yen please." As long as Nintendo's making money from it, they couldn't care less about the quality of their games (at least the 3rd-party ones. 1st-party games are still great).

Not true by a long shot.

The entire reason that Nintendo is so selective in which games it licenses is because of the flood of games that came out for all consoles in the 80s, and the video game crash shortly after. Companies like Quaker Oats were actually trying to publish games. The market became so over-saturated with games that the public became disgusted with them.

When nintendo finally released the Famicom in the US they had to market it as a home computer rather than a video game system due to the negative connotations that 'video game' still had. You'll notice that every legitimate game that came out for nintendo and super nintendo ( I stopped looking after that) came with the nintendo seal of approval. That's because they started making certain that only reputable publishers were releasing games for their system, to keep their reputation intact. There's a lot more about it if you search for the video game crash of 1983 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash_of_1983

Opening up the console to anyone who wants is definitely not guaranteed to increase the quality of games. In fact, history tells us that the exact opposite will happen. But hey, who knows! History doesn't repeat itself all that often, right?

Not quite. Haven't you seen M&M's Kart Racing? Or what about the release of Toy Story Mania for Wii? Not to mention virtually every game involving the word "We" (not Wii, We) or cute animals or exercise. Deal or No Deal for the DS isn't even random with its case selections, earning a 1 out of 10 for being a cheap cash-in. And lets not forget Elf Bowling, Homie Rollerz (what the crap is that), Ninjabread Man, and God forbid that I mention all of the terrible cash-in music games (if you can even call some of them games). I'm not even showing you the worst of them all. And yes, some games that are cash-ins aren't too bad, but when they're covering up everything that's actually worth paying 30-60 bucks for, I can easily see why the crash might happen again.

Almost forgot the Seal of Quality mentioned earlier. Earlier I can see how Nintendo cared about it, but now it just shows something is licensed. "Hey Nintendo, we want your seal on our product." "That'll be [so-and-so] dollars/yen please." As long as Nintendo's making money from it, they couldn't care less about the quality of their games (at least the 3rd-party ones. 1st-party games are still great).

Not true by a long shot.

The entire reason that Nintendo is so selective in which games it licenses is because of the flood of games that came out for all consoles in the 80s, and the video game crash shortly after. Companies like Quaker Oats were actually trying to publish games. The market became so over-saturated with games that the public became disgusted with them.

When nintendo finally released the Famicom in the US they had to market it as a home computer rather than a video game system due to the negative connotations that 'video game' still had. You'll notice that every legitimate game that came out for nintendo and super nintendo ( I stopped looking after that) came with the nintendo seal of approval. That's because they started making certain that only reputable publishers were releasing games for their system, to keep their reputation intact. There's a lot more about it if you search for the video game crash of 1983 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash_of_1983

Opening up the console to anyone who wants is definitely not guaranteed to increase the quality of games. In fact, history tells us that the exact opposite will happen. But hey, who knows! History doesn't repeat itself all that often, right?

Not quite. Haven't you seen M&M's Kart Racing? Or what about the release of Toy Story Mania for Wii? Not to mention virtually every game involving the word "We" (not Wii, We) or cute animals or exercise. Deal or No Deal for the DS isn't even random with its case selections, earning a 1 out of 10 for being a cheap cash-in. And lets not forget Elf Bowling, Homie Rollerz (what the crap is that), Ninjabread Man, and God forbid that I mention all of the terrible cash-in music games (if you can even call some of them games). I'm not even showing you the worst of them all. And yes, some games that are cash-ins aren't too bad, but when they're covering up everything that's actually worth paying 30-60 bucks for, I can easily see why the crash might happen again.

Almost forgot the Seal of Quality mentioned earlier. Earlier I can see how Nintendo cared about it, but now it just shows something is licensed. "Hey Nintendo, we want your seal on our product." "That'll be [so-and-so] dollars/yen please." As long as Nintendo's making money from it, they couldn't care less about the quality of their games (at least the 3rd-party ones. 1st-party games are still great).

Not true by a long shot.

The entire reason that Nintendo is so selective in which games it licenses is because of the flood of games that came out for all consoles in the 80s, and the video game crash shortly after. Companies like Quaker Oats were actually trying to publish games. The market became so over-saturated with games that the public became disgusted with them.

When nintendo finally released the Famicom in the US they had to market it as a home computer rather than a video game system due to the negative connotations that 'video game' still had. You'll notice that every legitimate game that came out for nintendo and super nintendo ( I stopped looking after that) came with the nintendo seal of approval. That's because they started making certain that only reputable publishers were releasing games for their system, to keep their reputation intact. There's a lot more about it if you search for the video game crash of 1983 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash_of_1983

Opening up the console to anyone who wants is definitely not guaranteed to increase the quality of games. In fact, history tells us that the exact opposite will happen. But hey, who knows! History doesn't repeat itself all that often, right?

Not quite. Haven't you seen M&M's Kart Racing? Or what about the release of Toy Story Mania for Wii? Not to mention virtually every game involving the word "We" (not Wii, We) or cute animals or exercise. Deal or No Deal for the DS isn't even random with its case selections, earning a 1 out of 10 for being a cheap cash-in. And lets not forget Elf Bowling, Homie Rollerz (what the crap is that), Ninjabread Man, and God forbid that I mention all of the terrible cash-in music games (if you can even call some of them games). I'm not even showing you the worst of them all. And yes, some games that are cash-ins aren't too bad, but when they're covering up everything that's actually worth paying 30-60 bucks for, I can easily see why the crash might happen again.

Almost forgot the Seal of Quality mentioned earlier. Earlier I can see how Nintendo cared about it, but now it just shows something is licensed. "Hey Nintendo, we want your seal on our product." "That'll be [so-and-so] dollars/yen please." As long as Nintendo's making money from it, they couldn't care less about the quality of their games (at least the 3rd-party ones. 1st-party games are still great).

Not true by a long shot.

The entire reason that Nintendo is so selective in which games it licenses is because of the flood of games that came out for all consoles in the 80s, and the video game crash shortly after. Companies like Quaker Oats were actually trying to publish games. The market became so over-saturated with games that the public became disgusted with them.

When nintendo finally released the Famicom in the US they had to market it as a home computer rather than a video game system due to the negative connotations that 'video game' still had. You'll notice that every legitimate game that came out for nintendo and super nintendo ( I stopped looking after that) came with the nintendo seal of approval. That's because they started making certain that only reputable publishers were releasing games for their system, to keep their reputation intact. There's a lot more about it if you search for the video game crash of 1983 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash_of_1983

Opening up the console to anyone who wants is definitely not guaranteed to increase the quality of games. In fact, history tells us that the exact opposite will happen. But hey, who knows! History doesn't repeat itself all that often, right?

Not quite. Haven't you seen M&M's Kart Racing? Or what about the release of Toy Story Mania for Wii? Not to mention virtually every game involving the word "We" (not Wii, We) or cute animals or exercise. Deal or No Deal for the DS isn't even random with its case selections, earning a 1 out of 10 for being a cheap cash-in. And lets not forget Elf Bowling, Homie Rollerz (what the crap is that), Ninjabread Man, and God forbid that I mention all of the terrible cash-in music games (if you can even call some of them games). I'm not even showing you the worst of them all. And yes, some games that are cash-ins aren't too bad, but when they're covering up everything that's actually worth paying 30-60 bucks for, I can easily see why the crash might happen again.

Almost forgot the Seal of Quality mentioned earlier. Earlier I can see how Nintendo cared about it, but now it just shows something is licensed. "Hey Nintendo, we want your seal on our product." "That'll be [so-and-so] dollars/yen please." As long as Nintendo's making money from it, they couldn't care less about the quality of their games (at least the 3rd-party ones. 1st-party games are still great).

Not true by a long shot.

The entire reason that Nintendo is so selective in which games it licenses is because of the flood of games that came out for all consoles in the 80s, and the video game crash shortly after. Companies like Quaker Oats were actually trying to publish games. The market became so over-saturated with games that the public became disgusted with them.

When nintendo finally released the Famicom in the US they had to market it as a home computer rather than a video game system due to the negative connotations that 'video game' still had. You'll notice that every legitimate game that came out for nintendo and super nintendo ( I stopped looking after that) came with the nintendo seal of approval. That's because they started making certain that only reputable publishers were releasing games for their system, to keep their reputation intact. There's a lot more about it if you search for the video game crash of 1983 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash_of_1983

Opening up the console to anyone who wants is definitely not guaranteed to increase the quality of games. In fact, history tells us that the exact opposite will happen. But hey, who knows! History doesn't repeat itself all that often, right?

Not quite. Haven't you seen M&M's Kart Racing? Or what about the release of Toy Story Mania for Wii? Not to mention virtually every game involving the word "We" (not Wii, We) or cute animals or exercise. Deal or No Deal for the DS isn't even random with its case selections, earning a 1 out of 10 for being a cheap cash-in. And lets not forget Elf Bowling, Homie Rollerz (what the crap is that), Ninjabread Man, and God forbid that I mention all of the terrible cash-in music games (if you can even call some of them games). I'm not even showing you the worst of them all. And yes, some games that are cash-ins aren't too bad, but when they're covering up everything that's actually worth paying 30-60 bucks for, I can easily see why the crash might happen again.

Almost forgot the Seal of Quality mentioned earlier. Earlier I can see how Nintendo cared about it, but now it just shows something is licensed. "Hey Nintendo, we want your seal on our product." "That'll be [so-and-so] dollars/yen please." As long as Nintendo's making money from it, they couldn't care less about the quality of their games (at least the 3rd-party ones. 1st-party games are still great).

Bioshock, FEAR, L4D I was too busy playing the game to actually spend much time looking at the pretty.

The fact that you don't remember the graphics being ugly means that they were, in fact, pretty. Or at least, the artists and developers successfully collaborated to provide a game world [predominantly] without offensive glitches. When it comes right down to it, that is a massively difficult task, and consists of a truly massive and complex work of absolute art. Not that I've actually played any of those games. I'm getting ready to try out Lost Planet on the 360.

And doesn't the X360 use DX9? Considering how many PC games are nothing but shitty X360 ports anymore DX11 will probably be waiting until the x720 before getting adopted.

DirectX would be dead now if not for Xbox. Bastards :( Of course, I have one, and have even bought games (well, addons for GTA IV) online. Shame on me. DX11 will come on slow just as you suggest, mostly for the reason you suggest.

Oh well, that is what MSFT gets for killing MechWarrior and turning every game company they touch into an X360 company.

Well, we all know that games often fail before hitting the shelf, but there is some hope there. I enjoyed MechAssault, but not so much that I'm not far more excited about the impending Mechwarrior IV rerelease. I have a Logitech Extreme 3D pro for my right hand, and a Cyborg 3D USB Gold for my left, and joystick mixing solutions for both Windows and Linux... And a history of riding the number one spot in the Attrition and Team Attrition rankings. Oh yeah, my spanking new GT 240 has HDMI out :D

Actually, you'll love this. In Japan, there have been authorized flashcarts. Convenience stores will have kiosks where you can pay to overwrite your cart with a new game. Apparently Japan has sufficiently more convenience stores than any other nation to make this digitial distribution method work. I guess it's closed in favor of internet downloads now.

I think it's pretty safe to say Cuban is a publicity slut... Not that there's anything wrong with it.

http://tvmedia.ign.com/tv/image/article/936/936352/the-simpsons-billionairesrule_1228751251.jpg

When I look at one of his books it's just a bunch of random explosions and women with bizarrely large breasts.

You mean.. like this? http://fandangogroovers.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/mystique.jpg http://alisonburkley.com/galleries/true/images/psylocke_jpg.jpg http://bluraymedia.ign.com/bluray/image/article/976/976510/x-men-trilogy-20090424062834623-000.jpg

Further Analysis From what we can gather from the dialogue and gritty video, the role of the playable character is that of a C.I.A. operative who has infiltrated the group in order to gather intel. The loading screen, which reveals the transition between playable characters and factions, begins with a C.I.A. logo and morphs into the logo of the Russian ultranationalist organization which the game's antagonist, Vladimir Makarov, leads. The graphical transition is accompanied by an alteration to the C.I.A. text directly below the logo, which is then extended and followed by illegible words, presumably identifying the official title of the ultranationalist faction. Clues after the loading screen are hard to identify, however, the theory is later reaffirmed when Makarov shoots your character as you attempt to climb into the getaway van, and says "Here's your message," almost teasing your character for the presumption that your infiltration had gone unrecognized.

So you are undercover, and can probably get away with not shooting anyone yourself.

There's word of cross-server instances. I expect the functionality to support these features is baked into the newer authentication system.

He was disbarred in Florida & had his license to practice law removed in Alabama. I'm not sure how those two things differ, but there you have it.

http://kotaku.com/5054772/jack-thompson-disbarred

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/668/668351p1.html

Why haven't we instated a gamers holiday to commemorate such wonderous events? We could have it like the guy fawkes effigy burning that they do in Brittan. At least have a minor ceremony at PAX or some sort of comemoration!

It's not added after the fact as much as it was shipped on the disk and to play it, you'd have to download an unlock key. http://au.xboxlive.ign.com/articles/970/970396p1.html There's no way a full online mode is only 1.60MB, despite what Capcom said. On top of that, the US players have to pay more than double of what Japan has to.

E3 2009 - Shigeru Miyamoto Roundtable Liveblog. Also listed on wikipedia

"7:22 p.m.: Unfortunately, no online mode in New Super Mario Bros. Wii, by the way. Miyamoto just confirmed. Wii is already being overpowered by what's happening on screen in New Super Mario Bros Wii. So no power left for online."

Why would the man himself say this if there wasn't a problem?

Personally, DDR2 vs DDR3 has WAY too many variables like RAS, CAS, and RAS-to-CAS delay, burst memory sends, etc. When I had my brother do this analysis for me (he designs RAM...) he found that in many cases DDR2 was smoking early DDR3 in random access and was only slightly slower in burst. That was until I found a CAS20 DDR3 chip running at 1600MHz in my price range (which sealed the deal for me going with DDR3). Just letting you know, though - if you have fast DDR2, it may be faster than early DDR3.

Memory bandwidth and transfers rates are generally quick enough now that they really don't have a huge impact on game performance (especially with 1+GB of cache memory to work with).

Ok, now on to CPUs, and interesting that you mentioned it - really one core generally runs most games, so there is little need of a quad HOWEVER, I believe one feature of DX11 (actually, confirmed via google: http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/50217/ATI-On-DirectX-11-Gaming ) is thread safe access from multiple CPUs to the GPU. What that means is if CPU1 is trying to push pixels to GPU and CPU2 is trying to do the same at the same time, it is allowed and won't blow up, so it may be possible to distribute the load more evenly. You could, therefore and for instance, assign a core for each display and let the API send it to the correct GPU (which may or may not be on a separate card) and everything is peachy.

And really, they are trying to test the GPU, so having parts that will not restrict the GPU is best for a review. I really doubt there will be much of a speed degradation due to CPU hardware or memory, but you may lose 1-2 FPS. Since that 1-2FPS will be lost for all GPUs across the board, does it really matter?

A lot of games with 'high end' graphics like Crysis or Age of Conan for example, have APPALLING color depth.

 
"High-end" graphics has nothing to do with colour depth, per se. I think that it has much more to do with:

(1) the "photo-realism" effect that those games were aiming for (as opposed to the "fantasy" setting of WoW); for better or worse, Age of Conan was aiming to be "dark and gritty", for instance; and,

(2) laziness on the part of the developers. For example, I think that both Age of Conan's and Crysis' opening levels were fairly colourful, but the colour tended to wash away as the game wore on, suggesting that the graphics artists spent more time at the beginning than the ending.

(In contrast, I was fairly impressed by a recent Star Wars: The Old Republic walkthrough video which showed a really vibrant, interesting universe.)

The anti-cheating technologies in SC2 will be up to you if the friends list and Battle.Net2 works as they have planned. They plan on implementing a friends list like steam or wow has and it will even be integrated with some in-game features(wow friends list, creating raids outside of wow, etc.).

This means, if somebody is a hacker you will most likely be able to add them to a blacklist and just never play with them again. The alternative method is to make new friends and just don't play with people that are not on your friends list and that you do not know and trust. Hackers only ruin your game if you force yourself to keep playing with them.

Here is a link to some information about BNet2 from IGN:

http://pc.ign.com/articles/101/1017149p1.html

After all, they spent all that effort to genetically engineer Maenads.

If you want Wii games, why not just go get a Wii?
Xbox360 has a failure rate of 54%.

It doesn't have to cost a lot. World of Goo cost only $100,000 to make. Which sounds like a lot of money to some people, but is way less than the tens of millions of dollars that other games cost.

Some mention should go to http://au.xbox360.ign.com/articles/908/908609p1.htmlFifa 09 which does allow 10 v 10 online. And then there is http://www.footballmanagerlive.com/Football Manager Live which has thousands of managers around the world building their teams to glory.

Actually, there was a game I quite liked called Urban Chaos. The main character was a Caribbean black woman, a police officer. Though it wasn't groundbreaking, I enjoyed it immensely.

If you can pretend you're an orc, elf or zerg, why not a black warrior?

...are getting a sequel announced this summer: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/100/1008671p1.html

If you liked the Gold Box games, you might want to buy NWN ($9.99 at NewEgg) & give these a shot.

Eye of the Beholder

Pool of Radiance

If you liked the Gold Box games, you might want to buy NWN ($9.99 at NewEgg) & give these a shot.

Eye of the Beholder

Pool of Radiance

go here for a trailer: http://pc.ign.com/articles/100/1002275p1.html

Actually, it's a hundred percent accurate that this rose from the ashes of Halo. Peter Jackson said in an interview that after the Halo movie fell through he and Neil decided to do D-9 instead. If it wasn't for Halo, Peter Jackson may never have partnered up with Neil. And if it wasn't for Halo getting killed, this film may not have been made.

And here's my reference

You've got to give credit to Atlus - they've done a good job bringing the Shin Megami Tensei series over to the western world, especially when Final Fantasy gets way more attention. But they did a hatchet job on Maken X - to the point where the plot was incomprehensible and the voice acting was laughable. Still, it's good to see that they're working so hard at a job that so many other companies do so wrong. Jaleco's USA division didn't even try to translate stories in most cases. They did one of the worse localization jobs in history when they brought over the third game in Rushing Beat series.

Reading about Atlus's localization process really makes me miss Working Designs, who no one really properly appreciated for their localization efforts.

This point is addressed directly in the interview that IGN did.
http://pc.ign.com/articles/100/1002164p1.html

IGN: That actually brings me to my next question. As far as PC gamers were concerned, part of the appeal of controlling your mech in the MechWarrior franchise was feeling like you were in control of your mech, having access to multiple cockpit commands at one time with your keyboard and your mouse. How are you planning to keep this classic control scheme feel, and will you be adding any new elements for your mechs, especially now that you want to create this full cockpit experience?

Russ Bullock: First and foremost, in this day and age and this time, we've all played the PC games in the past and absolutely loved them. But certainly going forward, just out of necessity and because we think we can, we're definitely very focused also on the Xbox 360. So we're very focused on the console standpoint moving forward. Now, we still need to work out a lot with our chosen publishing partner, so some of these questions will become answered, but I think that Jordan and I are in agreement that we want to make a MechWarrior game.

The MechAssault games were interesting in the role they played inside the universe for the consoles at the time, but we feel the technology is there that we can make a true MechWarrior game, a MechWarrior experience on both the Xbox 360 and the PC and not lose anything from that true MechWarrior feeling. We feel confident obviously in the PC and its control scheme that can be realized because it's been done before. But for the Xbox 360, we've spent a lot of thought and a lot of time in playing around with the controller and finding ways to give the same level of control in the way that you throttle, in the way that you turn and move, use your jump jets, and everything that gives you that MechWarrior experience that doesn't turn it into a power-up pickup sort of arcade style game. So that is something that we're spending a lot of time on â" all the answers aren't there yet, but we want to make a MechWarrior experience and we feel like we can do it both on the 360 and the PC.

It is, read this for some more info on the DLC.

Unlockable: Unlock All To unlock everything in the game, insert the following code on your guitar at the title screen: Blue, Yellow, Orange, Red, Orange, Yellow, Red, Yellow, Red, Yellow, Red, Yellow.

I cant say that it works (don't own the game so I can't check) but Guitar Hero and other "sandbox" games usually have modes like that.

"a top-of-the-line iPhone game typically sells for no more than $10" That's because the top of the line game on iPhone is no where near comparable to the new games and new ports of those systems

Compare the scores of Assassin's Creed on the iPhone/iPod Touch vs. Assassin's Creed on the DS. The games are almost identical, but the iPhone version is considered quite a bit better.

"a top-of-the-line iPhone game typically sells for no more than $10" That's because the top of the line game on iPhone is no where near comparable to the new games and new ports of those systems

Compare the scores of Assassin's Creed on the iPhone/iPod Touch vs. Assassin's Creed on the DS. The games are almost identical, but the iPhone version is considered quite a bit better.

There are some complex games, though, and I hope there'll be more. I just finished Zenonia on my iPhone. It's an original content game, reminiscent of Zelda on the SNES, but with modern updates like a Diablo-style loot system. The first play-through took me 38 hours. That's a real game. I mean, it's the sort of game people would have bought for $60 on the SNES and said "this is a good game!" And now I get it on my phone for $4.99. That's not bad. Oh, and you can play it in line at the bank, because you just click off you phone and it freezes the game and saves all your progress.

I spend more time playing with my Xbox, PC, and even my Pocket PC (lately anyway) than with my Wii. Yet, the Wii is the only system of the current generation that I've bothered to buy. I bought it basically because of Wii Fit; that is why Microsoft is now, for me, a viable competitor what with their new MoCap stuff. I find it easiest to play casual games on Pocket PC or PC; both of these are always on (or sleeping) and I don't have to fight with anyone to get access to the display device.

The thing that's yet kept me from buying an Xbox has actually been the lack of Blu-Ray support. The PS3 is not a compelling enough package to me even with one, but the Xbox 360 would be. Unfortunately, it's not really on the list of things to do over at Microsoft. I guess they'll have to knock my socks completely off with their new motion capture equipment in order to pull me in.

("Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's Entertainment & Devices Division" is a complete moron BTW. No Blu-Ray for Xbox 360 because current players don't want it. Guess what? Those players that want Blu-Ray in their console bought a PS3. Maybe someone who isn't one of your customers now would be if you sold them what they want to buy. Nobody asked for HD-DVD, lots of people have asked for Blu-Ray.)

Publishers don't get anywhere near that percentage of the sale price. This article about the economics of game development is a couple years old, but using it as reference, I would be surprised if publishers were getting more than $20 for every game sold. (And the developers are getting even less)

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/41219/Left-4-Dead-DLC-Promised
"Chet Faliszek said that Valve plans to get the DLC rolling much more quickly with Left 4 Dead than it has been able to for Team Fortress 2. Plans already in the works call for new campaigns, weapons, and boss infected (the game's zombie enemies). In addition, there were strong hints at a flamethrower coming not long after launch."

Yes, the valve team promised L4D 1 content, including new special infected AND weapons AND new campaigns. Turns out they saved all that for L4D2 instead. L4D2 will have a new special infected (charger), new weapons, and new campaigns. And no, they didn't add any new campaigns in L4D1, just tweaked versions of the old ones for versus, and a single new mini map for survival (the rest of the survival levels are just portions of the old maps in old campaigns)

That same guy at valve in an interview said they have been working on L4D2 since the launch of L4D1.
http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=1138
"Shack: When did development on Left 4 Dead 2 start?

Chet Faliszek: Pretty much after Left 4 Dead launched."