Gamecube Hits US Early

Request. by RyanFenton · 2001-11-13 05:02 · Score: 5, Insightful

Please people - remember be kind to your local software/electronics store employees. This is likely to be a long week for quite a few of them with unaware management.

:^)

Ryan Fenton

Re:Why Not a PC? by NineNine · 2001-11-13 05:12 · Score: 5, Insightful

PC's are still too complicated for games. To run most games on PC's, you still have to use a DOS-based OS, (Win 95/98/ME) and deal with all of the headaches that that brings. If I want to play a game, I want to have FUN. Configuring memory access or video drivers, etc. i snot my idea of fun. I like the idea of putting a CD/DVD in the game box, and pressing one buttton. It works first time, every time.

Also, game boxes are MUCH cheaper. I paid $300 for a PS/2. To get the same quality games on a PC, I'd have to buy a P3 something, an expensive video card, a large monitor, a joystick, etc.

And, even better, the new consoles are also DVD players, so with one box in your living room, you can play games, watch movies, and listen to music, and none of the boxes are more complicated than having a "power" and a "reset" button.

Re:Why dedicated games machines? by egomaniac · 2001-11-13 05:25 · Score: 5, Insightful

Great for the non-technically inclined who doesn't understand how all the components in a computer work.

That's not how I look at it at all. I program computers for a living, and I still prefer console games to PC games.

Reason #1: Controls

The main issue is the controller. PC gamepads are inferior to console controllers and very few people have them in the first place. So, PC games can all be played with the keyboard/mouse. A game like Mario 64 simply doesn't translate to the keyboard, so game manufacturers just don't make games like that for the PC -- most people wouldn't have a suitable controller.

Reason #2: Gameplay

This is a correllary to Reason #1. Console games have controllers more suited to action gaming, and therefore end up with more action games. If you like action games (as opposed to FPS games or RTS games, which are easier to control on the PC), you'll do better on a console. If you like FPSs or strategy games, stick to the PC.

Reason #3: Audience

Consoles are cheap and easy to use. PCs aren't. Because of that, there are at least ten times as many console gamers as PC gamers, and therefore console games tend to be higher budget and have higher production values. Only a few PC game companies, like Blizzard, have a large enough audience to justify multi-million-dollar budgets. Tons of console games have budgets that big.

Reason #4: Graphics

Console games look better, despite the fact that PCs are more powerful. This is due to the fact that developers know the exact capabilities of the console, and can tweak and optimize to their heart's content, while in PC gaming they have to run on everything from a PII-400 to a P4-2000, with every video card you can think of as well. You usually end up with better-looking console games as a result. Console games also tend to be smoother -- even high-end PCs stutter now and then, and anything running Windows is more infinitely more likely to crash than a console.

Reason #5: Experience

My PC is up in my office. My consoles are down in my living room, hooked up to my entertainment center. This is the case for everybody else I know, as well. Given the choice, I'd rather kick back on my couch and let the surround sound wash over me while watching the action on my TV than sit at my keyboard.

Reason #6: Party Gaming

The PC rules the online world, no question. However, many of us find multiplayer gaming a lot more fun when your friends are in the same room, because trash talking and beer passing are a lot easier. Having four people hooked up to a GameCube, all playing the same game, doesn't sound at all weird. The only PC equivalent is a LAN party, but those are a very niche gathering.

It's not just about tech savvyness, folks -- consoles have a lot of advantages over PCs.

--
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck

Re:Why Not a PC? by squaretorus · 2001-11-13 05:35 · Score: 4, Insightful

Its all about the games. The GameCube is a TV Game - it says so on the box. Its built to enable Nintendo style games to be written easily. This - to me - makes it a thousand times more attractive than the PS2 or Xbox, both of which are pretty much PCs with bits missing. CPU speed etc doesn't come into it - give it 6 months and the PS2 / Xbox 'numbers' will be laughable compared to a £800 PC from PC World - the GameCube will still rock! Why?

Ah - the warm feeling looking forward to Mario Kart Cubed! Show me a PC game that comes CLOSE to the purity of Mario Kart and I'll sell my Nintendo shares - until that far distant day there'll be a nintendo cluttering up my living room floor!

I think you answered your own question.... by kaisyain · 2001-11-13 05:44 · Score: 4, Insightful

Try playing PowerStone 2 on your PC. You can't because:

1. The game will never be available for the PC.
2. Virtually no PC game allows head-to-head play without everyone owning their own PC and then networking them together.
3. Even if all of the above were satisfied you can't crowd 6 people around a 17" monitor.
4. Even if you could, most people don't have couches and tables around their computer for spectators to watch them game.

The PC may have more titles but consoles have different titles. When are you going to see Gran Turismo 3 on a PC? How about Shen Mue? Crazy Taxi? Dead or Alive 3? Devil May Cry? Metal Gear Solid 2? Mario Party 3?

Most of those games don't have any comparable counterpart on the PC platform.

You buy a console because you want to play the kinds of games that come out for consoles. Just like I don't buy a console because I want to play a good RPG...those are usually only available on a PC.

Re:Very clever... by SethJohnson · 2001-11-13 06:12 · Score: 5, Insightful

I think what Cutriss was saying is that he prefers competition to exist in the console market as opposed to microsoft exploiting its monopoly to take over the market.

I'll probably get an XBox because MS seems willing to put their weight (and $$) behind it.

I think this is what Cutriss and I are afraid of. History has demonstrated that microsoft putting its 'weight (and $$) behind' something doesn't necessarily mean a benefit for consumers. In the console arena, this is going to mean more titles exclusively released for the xBOx, plain and simple. Would console gaming have been a better place if Tony Hawk Pro Skater had ONLY been released on the PlayStation? Is microsoft going to work with developers to help them make more games better, or will they work with developers to stifle releases on other platforms?

Here's a probable tactic that is a page right out of Bill Gates' playbook.

1. Offer to waive development fees and licensing for any titles released exclusively for the xBOx.
2. Over time, it will become 'more expensive' for developers to release a title on other systems because those console manufacturers' business model is based on licensing revenue for each title sold on their platform.
3. microsoft can afford to not make money from licensing for many years and can hold out while the other console manufacturers have their 'air supply cut off.'
4. After other console makers pull out of the market, microsoft raises their licensing rates for developers and owns the marketplace.
5. Bling-Bling.

The thing that has most bothered me recently with microsoft is that this is a company that doesn't have to partner with shit. They don't have to build alliances. If any other company wants to build a standard for their product to work, they've got to go out and convince a bunch of other companies to sign on with them. You'll usually see Adobe, Sun, Oracle listed in announcements for whatever XYZ web publishing standard a company is promoting. Since when did microsoft ever go out and say, "Here's this new thing, and all these other companies are really excited about it, and they've already committed to support it."? Take the .NET offensive. They just announce this thing and say, "Well, this is the way we've decided things are going to be. Get used to it."

2

--
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!

Re:Nintendo's games are horrible by jacobito · 2001-11-13 06:42 · Score: 5, Insightful

Yes. Grown adults do enjoy playing Mario, Zelda, and other "kids" games because they're fun, challenging, brilliantly designed, and imaginative. Grown adults also enjoy playing Monopoly, chess, cards, RPGs, soccer/football, and basketball, despite the fact that these games are equally enjoyable for kids.

Please explain to us how violence makes a game "adult" or mature. Seriously, I truly want to know. I suppose that if you're with the MPAA or ESRB, then violence makes a work of entertainment mature, but otherwise I don't get it. To me, the "adult gamer" brand of bloodthirstiness is a mark of the kind of "maturity" that begins and ends at age 14.

-jacob

Nintendo nervous about XBox? by phillymjs · 2001-11-13 09:24 · Score: 5, Insightful

IIRC, Sega began selling its ill-fated Saturn in a surprise, early release before the PlayStation debuted in the U.S. They did this at least in selected markets, because I bought one in Philadelphia the day they went on sale (I really liked Virtua Fighter). It could be argued that Sega, then a reigning home-system champ with the Genesis, was nervous about a newcomer and wanted to grab a market foothold.

Seems like Nintendo is now the nervous incumbent, trying to grab the bucks of people dying for a next-gen system and willing to buy the first one that comes out, and who will be unable to afford to buy a competitor's subsequently-released system.

~Philly

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