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GameCube Production to Halt
avayre writes "Nintendo is to press the pause button on production of its GameCube consoles while it clears inventory of unsold machines. the company's president said on Thursday. But Satoru Iwata promised the struggling games company was developing a radical new product to be announced next year -- however he gave few details save to say it would be a departure from mainstream gaming consoles 'that will have a big impact on the world.'" My prediction is that it's just downtime until Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles ships. That'll help move those units that are gathering dust.
So is it just me, or does this remind anyone else of the whole Sega kaboozle - Genesis went down, Sega released the radical Dreamcast, and... well everyone knows what happened next...
they stil loutsell xbox :)
Maybe MS should buy the company?
Don't Tread on OpenSource
Remember Sega Saturn?... ...yeah me neither.
That will get a bunch of them to sell.
They stack well in a server room!
The fact is this system is mainly aimed at the younger generations...cartoony graphics, cartoony games, mostly harmless adventure games, while the major console market is in the older generations. These young kids who want the gamecube simply can't afford it, while the people who can tend to lean towards the consoles with good shooters/action/sports games.
"struggling games company was developing a radical new product to be announced"
I make that the "stop" button.
would it actually hurt Nintendo at all to follow Sega's path and go multiplatform? With the Game Boy raking in huge wads of cash they could focus on making those classics for Xbox/PS2, slicing a chunk of the market from their would be competitors and spread the ole 'Games are fun' ethos for which Nintendo has become famous for, without get caught up in the hardware wars.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
lets not forget the last time nintendo tried to 'innovate' and developed something 'radical' and 'never before seen' in game hardware.
methinks they should stick to making awesome games, and handheld game systems that you can play for more than 2 hours. (imo, the feature that kept the gameboy on top all these years despite better-equipped rivals).
(btw: i think this whole thread counts as console-war trolling)
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
Mr Iwata, who gave no figures on how much inventory was left to clear, acknowledged that the group had stumbled with the Game Cube console
and conceded that it had made a strategic mistake by not ensuring that it had a consistent flow of attractive software for the Game Cube.
But he cast doubt on the ability of Nintendo's competitors to continue attracting users with games that are becoming more and more
graphically sophisticated and difficult to play.
"Games that are sophisticated require a lot of time and energy," he said. As games became more complicated, players were given up
playing and this was leading to the gradual shrinkage of the market, he warned.
"We are thinking of launching a completely different kind of game. But we are not confident that we can develop a product that anyone can
enjoy, or that will provide people with a new kind of excitement," he said.
Mr Iwata declined to provide any more details about what kind of new product Nintendo is working on, saying only that the company
would make a further announcement with details next week.
He did, however, suggest that the new console would try it's best to return the games industry to its roots of providing fresh excitement
through games that can be enjoyed by anyone, including those who do not normally play video games, like women.
Investors are concerned that Nintendo has not risen to the challenge provided by competitors, such as Sony and Microsoft, by
targeting the casual user, which is where most of the growth in games demand has been coming from.
Earlier this year, Nintendo's share price plunged on news that Sony would begin selling Linux desktops, challenging RedHat in a
market that it has dominated. It was hit again when Sony announced a new multi-function machine that would combine a DVD recorder
with a church.
Nintendo's share price, which closed at Y9,690 on Thursday, is 19 per cent below this year's high of Y11,890.
Nintendo's mission is to develop simple games that anyone can enjoy, and by doing so bring back those people who have given up
playing games into the market. If Nintendo succeeds in doing that, it might even achieve sales of Y1,000bn, Mr Iwata said.
That compares with sales last year of Y504bn.
that will have a big impact on the world
They are going to build a Segway console. Its the only possible thing that could have global impact (apart from a large meteor).
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Nintendo have always been good with Hand helds. How about a portable N64 or something which plugs into the gameboy advance ala the old Sega 32x
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
Try the "Start/Pause" button.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
It's a pity - Nintendo's first-party games have often set themselves apart from the competition. But once a console starts to appear to fail, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy - it's very hard for a console to pull itself back when it's on a downhill slide.
If only Nintendo had produced some more innovative games like the PS2 EyeToy, rather than spending large amounts of effort updating established franchises. Games like that are console sellers, because they appeal to all ages and move gaming outside of a comparatively small niche.
White Hat Research.net
Am I the only one who read that promise of a world-reshaping new product and thought, "Uh oh--another Segway"?
with this large meteor thing.
Struggling games company? Yes the GameCube isn't selling well but that does not mean that Nintendo is struggling. Far from it. In fact just the other day at PlanetGameCube they posted a story about Nintendo posting a profit. Doesn't sound like struggling to me.
"Armed forces abroad are of little value unless there is prudent counsel at home" - Cicero
Where's the mario Kart gc? or the other really fun to play games that are nintendo?
But this seems to be the complaint I have with all the platforms right now. Multi-player games are rare outside of sports games. Mario Kart has always been a big seller and the version for theN64 completely rocked and was one of the games that kept that platform alive for as long as it was (goldeneye is another)
But the biggest problem with the GC is that cince it's aimed at the kid market, the kids cant afford the games. Sorry, your game is NOT worth $50 - $60 bucks. $20.00 to $40.00 is the range that is acceptable to kids with a paper-route and certianly inside the parents instant purchase model.
Playstation2 is killing because if the "classics" line if $19.95 games from last year and older.. I see those constantly picked through and bought while noone is really looking at the overpriced games.
I believe the GC to be a superior machine. I own it as well as the PS2 and the PS2 is kicking it's arse because of the large amount of low-cost games that are available.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
This Gamecube is quite the toy... It made me giddy with joy. But Mario's dead, Link is underfed, I've got my X-box, oh-boy!
'Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?'
that Microsoft buying Rare could have done nothing but harm Nintendo's cause. If you think of the games that Nintendo have become famous for, most people would name those that have had Rare input: Goldeneye, Perfect Dark etc. With Rare out of the picture, the "inconsistent flow" of "attractive software" would be anything but improved.
the group had stumbled with the Game Cube console and conceded that it had made a strategic mistake by not ensuring that it had a consistent flow of attractive software for the Game Cube.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
1- Stop production of main product 2- ?? 3- World DOMINATION!!11!!1
--
I always thought Nintendo was the Japanese word for "No Blood".
"...it would be a departure from mainstream gaming consoles 'that will have a big impact on the world."
I guess I should clean up my bio-port for this new console!
Death to the Demoness Allegra Geller!"
How are you going to keep them down on the farm once they've seen Karl Hungus?
Seems like Nintendo'd be in a better position to go third party than Sega was. Sega, for all the great games they make, haven't been able to sell them since the Genesis days. Nintendo has a much higher "mascot factor" (imagine all the Zelda or Mario games they could sell on PS2), and they are not nearly as strapped as Sega was when the ditched the DC.
...is that it is just another console system. The market is simply unable to support more then two consoles effectively, especially with all the various exclusive titles and multi-platform release titles that exist today..
However, it is just a console, like the Xbox and the Playstation. They are hardly worth their time...
By the time they are worth their time, they will have evolved into full computer systems that are closed systems, similar to the early computer market when C-64's and their ilk reigned supreme. (Meaning no upgradeability.)
A few years after that... Somebody will release a "Back to Basics" console system with simplistic controls, quality graphics and easy to follow storylines that will take the market by storm...
That might take ten years or more though...
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
NINTENDO IS NOT STRUGGLING. They were Nikkei's company of the year last year. The reason their stock has lost ground was because they are so heavily invested in the dollar, which took a beating by the yen. They have not operated at a loss in over two decades. They have, at last number I got, 3 billion in the bank, and last year they made more money than SCE. They are, as last I heard, neck and neck with Xbox in the US, but numbers are hard to come by because a lot of retail release figures exclude places such as Walmart, Nintendo's top distributor. Yes, in Europe they are struggling, but they are doing fine and dandy everywhere else.
For a place that complains about so much FUD, you would think people would know the difference between Sega (operating at a loss for a decade with millions in red) and Nintendo. It's astounding.
The GC is by far not as childish as the arguments of non-GC owners why the GC is childish.
I agree with this - I have been playing computer games for 20 years, and own a GameBoy an N64 and a GC; but these days I have a wife and a young son, and I just don't have time to finsh X or Y fiendishly difficult level/ boss. I loved the latest Zelda game, but the final boss stage was too difficult and I gave up in dissapointment.
Yer - I know - many other folks thought it was too EASY to kill them bosses. Well...
Why don't they have "EASY" and "DIFFICULT" settings, like (if I remember rightly) they have in Halo. I can play on easy, and the bosses move slower/ require less hits, and I can finish the game, while the experts can have their super-hard bosses...
Or at least something similar.
Yay!!! Yet another device that is going to revolutionize the world!! First the Segway, now Nintendo is releasing another world halting device!! I can barely contain myself to all the devices that are completely reshaping my world!!
---
Mike
I'm going to kick the next person that I see with their karma rating in their sig.
"...it would be a departure from mainstream gaming consoles 'that will have a big impact on the world." Can anyone say MEGATON? Let's face it, Nintendo isn't failing quickly with their share price just to lul their opposition into a false sense of security where they can release some great revolutionary product. Nintendo is mortal.
is a web site with a "catchy" domain name like www.offficial-console-sales-figures.com that is just a plain black background with white text showing the sales figures for each console, with the numbers updated on a real time basis, constantly ticking up like a movie or something!
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
it's like 2x more games have been sold for Xbox than Gamecube
I meant to say: 2x more games have been sold per system for Xbox than Gamecube.
i guess people are sick of paying for Mario for the xxth time or Zelda or FinalFantasy 273
maybe if they created some new innovative PS2/Xbox ass kicking games (for less $) people would support them more
they should stick to the cellphone market as thats where the growth/innovation lies
Zelda looked like a great game. It is a very good game indeed , but it is spoiled because the stupid boat and the fish give away almost all secrets (zelda 1 and 3 where so cool). Now I'm "solving" the puzzles on my private oasis, they are pictures from which 1 square is missing and you have to shuffle them until you've got the picture right. There are 14 of them !!!!! If you can do one, you can do them all, but you have to leave the house 13 times and come back. Boooooring. Most parts of the game are very good, but everything is spoiled by tons of stupid dull puzzles.
Wario World is fun .... for 5 minutes. And then you realize that you have already encountered almost all creatures in the entire game. In the next level, they look a bit different, but they behave _exactly_ the same. Hey Nintendo, how many minutes did you guys spend making this game ?
Metroid Prime looked great, everybody else finds it great, but I think it stinks. People who like a gamepad for first person shooters haven't played Q3 (or anything like it) with a keyboard and a mouse simultaneously. The gamepad doesn't work for 1st person shooters, you simply can't aim with it, which is why the "L" button is for locking on a target, but that way is easy. And no, I'm not a bad gamer, I completed zillions of SNES games within 2 days (lucky we could rent these things). And, as usual everything is very dark so you can barely see what's happening.
All of these games cost 60 euro. You 'd think they can make something decent for that price, but even flock of total retards can do better than this crap.
On top of that, they sell the Zelda pack WITHOUT a memory card. Am I supposed to play 3 weeks non-stop ??? Nintendo, I hope you know where you can shove your next money-sucking fsck-up.
Teenagers in the U.S. seem to belong to the category that they don't want to look like they're doing something immature. If they do anything viewed as potentially "un-cool" then they risk being "un-cool." The problem is, the stuff they turn to in order to be mature and cool are games where they run over hookers and shoot random people in the streets (i.e. GTA III).
Nintendo clearly hasn't been aiming for that crowd, and I for one am happier for it. I grew up with the NES, and since then have owned every console they've put out. They continue to make games that I get a great deal of enjoyment out of (Legend of Zelda : The Wind Waker, Super Mario Sunshine, Metroid Prime, Eternal Darkness, etc.), and they are consistantly failing to sell as well as other more mediocre games on other consoles. Worldwide, the GameCube and the Xbox are even in sales, but you would never know it by talking to a teenager. It's a shame too, because Nintendo has stated that if they ever stop making a console, they will leave the market rather than make games as a third party. If that should ever happen, the world will have lost one of the most influential and innovative developers in existence, only to be replaced with games focusing completely on graphics and/or violence.
"Chances of RHIC-induced Armageddon are exceedingly rare, but... you never know." - MIT Physicist Bob Jaffe
Sega should never have gone exclusive Xbox for their games.
Noone had baught a sega game for years (Sega CD, Saturn, And DreamCast did poorly). People weren't phyched about sega.
Same with Nintendo and the GC.
The People with a SNES were phyched, but the millions of new gamers were like so what if we don't get Nintendo games.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
"Games that are sophisticated require a lot of time and energy," he said. As games became more complicated, players were given up playing and this was leading to the gradual shrinkage of the market, he warned. "We are thinking of launching a completely different kind of game. We are confident that we can develop a product that anyone can enjoy and that will provide people with a new kind of excitement," he said.
My guess is that they're going to rehash the old "Silpheed", "It came from the desert" and "Ayatis" concepts, which were basically ultra spectacular, linear plot based games that were among the first true interactive movie games that were fun to play.
We might see the return of shooters such as R-Type and Einhander. And of course Mario will be stripped down to it's classic gameplay elements that made it so much fun to play.
What I want are games that are enjoyable even if played for 30 minutes. Games should make you spend your free time in an enjoyable manner, putting your head off other thoughts, and shoudn't make you waste any more time.
Super spectacular, linear story driven games are good for me, as long as they make me feel I am part of the action.
I'd like game reviewers to start thinking about this.
Hack your mind out of its sandbox.
> however he gave few details save to say [...] 'that will have a big impact on the world.'
The Nintendo-Segway?
.. if the 'cast doubt on the ability of Nintendo's competitors to continue attracting users with games that are becoming more and more graphically sophisticated and difficult to play.' quote is anything to go buy is that crap games a la Enter The Matrix sell, but actually producing good complex games is the way to business oblivion. Presumably their new console, HomeBoy Advance or whatever it'll be called, will ship with Super Mario Simple Simon and Game Hero Hits A Big Red Button And Does Nothing Else At All Between The Flashy Intro And Outro sequences. Oh, no, wait, that last one's already been done with Metal Gear Solid 2.
Will this be a Gameboy with MP3 player with Palm functionality? Perhaps some combo with a cell phone? I have heard of studies that show that most Americans want their cell phones to be simple to operate and small. But how many would love a Gameboy that could replace their cell, their Palm and their iPod!
Or are we talking a set-top box that crosses a Next Gen Gamecube with a DVR and perhaps a DVD burner? Perhaps it will also contain an incorporated CD ripper and MP3 player or HDTV output. Anyone have other ideas?
I'm worried that more and more we're going to get a lot less choices as far as the quality of the gaming consoles of the future, and seeing the 100-ton gorilla that is Nintendo going downhill really doesn't do much for the future outlook.
Nintendo has been screwing the pooch for awhile with their game marketing. Let's face it, no one is spending $200+ for their eight years or younger to play video games when they're just as happy with a Sega Genesis/Nomad or the SNES. This is the market that the cube has been cavorting with since it's release. (and this is the impression they want you to have, based on the fact that the included games would be super mario kart.. etc..)
They would do well to learn from history just one time. Atari 2600's sucked compared to the other consoles released in the early-eighties (Colecovision was probably my favorite at the time), but the games catered to everyone. Think of a topic or something you would like to do and most likely there was an Atari 2600 game for it. Even my mother-in-law was highly addicted to Kaboom -- that speaks greatly of the breadth of experience to be had with one little black box. Whether it be the Atari vs. Coleco, NES vs. Sega Master System (nice machine, no friggin games), SNES vs. Genesis, or Playstation vs. Saturn the thing to know is better hardware doesn't mean jack. It's all about the content, people can make due with an adequate interface.
If Nintendo doesn't want to make consoles anymore we'll be fine, because they currently are sucking at it completely. We are losing nothing -- their games suck.. AND.. if they think they can make money by just doing the games, well think again! The reason Nintendo is sucking isn't because the Game Cube isn't a nice box, it's that the GAMES suck. Why exactly would we buy their games any more than we do now if they came out on a Playstation 2 or XBox? Sega has already tried this move, and it's not working for them.
- Mind
developing a radical new product
so, once again, nintendo owners will have to go buy all new games.
!(^((ri)|(mp))aa$)
I love the Powerglove. It's so bad.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
But it makes sucky pancakes for a skillet
Banaaaana!
Whatever their new product is, it better be backward compatable.
> People weren't phyched about sega.
They weren't what?
You mean four months? When Mario Kart: Double Dash is released? http://www.planetgamecube.com/games.cfm?action=pro file&id=308
"BEHOLD, CORN!!" - Dr. Weird, ATHF
I think it's sad if Nintendo gets out of the console deal... hell, when I think video games I think Nintendo... good old Mike Tyson's Punch Out!! yeye! Nintendo basically got me into video games as a kid... (I had a coleco before that but urm...) I still remember that one night when my mom came back with the Nintendo, the whole family sitting there playing Mario Bros and trying to figure out how to use those that weird gamepad! ahhh memories... Hope at least Nintendo survives in the handheld... I mean,if the PSP really has PS2 quality graphics - which to me seems a little unrealistic - it should hut the gameboy advanced...
I can't believe you have a GC and don't know when Double Dash is coming out.. that's just wrong. ;)
I agree though, multi-player games seem to be seriously lacking. I try to get more multiplayer games because I figure my gf can play them with me and maybe won't get quite so mad when I spend too much time playing games.
I was also kind of disappointed with Mario Golf Toadstool Tour. I don't really care for sports games much but I like the nintendo themed sports games. While Mario Golf had the characters, it didn't feel much like the nintendo world to me until the last couple of courses and those were pushing it. I guess I was expecting it to be more like mini-golf where the obstacles would move in and out of your path. It's still a fun game though and I'll probably buy a copy once it gets to my price range on half.com (around $30.. I another point I agree with you on).
On a side note, you can play multiplayer Mario Karts via the internet with most emulators like nemu
Then perhaps focus their hardware into the one area they are the supreme almighty ruler, the handheld gaming market? Perhaps make the next gameboy a truly excellent piece of engineering and marketing without such obvious ommissions as a backlight or a headphone jacket?
Perhaps realize that a fair proportion of gameboy owners are adults and make more adult type games for it?
Put a technology like bluetooth on it with easy matchmaking capabilty?
Extend the battery life by realising adults can hold a heavier device then a 8yr old and can pay more for both hardware and software?
Realize that the iPod has shown their are plenty of rich bastards out there who are willing to pay top dollar for true excellence? (archos is way way way way cheaper and offers the same base product)
That is crazy talk mister.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Nintendo: I'm your target market. I'm a 27 year old male, I have a LOT of money. I spend a lot on video games. I don't have a Game Cube and I don't want a Game Cube. Why? Your controller sucks and you've only got two games I want to play (Metroid and Zelda).
Stop making kids games. Start making games targetted at me. Until you do so, all my money is going to continue going to so Sony, Microsoft, and my PC. You can't win this war without my demographic.
What happened next?
They weren't phyched. Pay attention.
Did any of the moderators who modded this informative or interesting actually read what they were moderating? This is an altered troll version of the text. Sony isn't challenging Redhat, it's launching a handheld device to challenge Nintendo; and it's not combining a DVD recorder with a church but rather with a PlayStation. There are other differences, and someone reading this troll is not likely to get the same idea of what's happening as someone who reads the actual article.
I own a GC and love it, but everything I've read points to this platform being the one with the most tenuous grasp on the retail market at the moment. Nintendo is a relatively healthy company, but that's mostly because it moves HUGE numbers of gameboys
Is that atrocity supposed to be FUCKED or PSYCHED?
Learn to fucking read and write you dozy slob.
That was classic intercourse!
Exclusive for Xbox? What are you talking about? They have a site just for their Gamecube games. If they were really exclusive, I'd be able to get Super Monkey Ball and Sonic for my Xbox. Not that I'm complaining too much, we've gotten a lot of great Sega releases for the platform - JSRF, Crazy Taxi 3, Panzer Dragoon Orta, etc.
Please subscribe to see the more insightful version of th
My prediction is that it's just downtime until Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles ships. That'll help move those units that are gathering dust.
Look, as good as FFCC looks, it ain't no Zelda. If there was ever a game to move Gamecube units, that game would be Zelda. What's worse is that Nintendo was *giving Wind Waker for free*. Mario, Metroid, Zelda - these are the big guns and they didn't really sell many GCs anyway.
...I find Nintendo's losing market share rather perculiar. The only real difference between the two competitors, is that one releases many more adult theme games than the other. Funny, because by the looks of it, it appears that the GC has 3 good 'kiddie' game per 1 good adult game from PS2.
But what is even more funny, is that if Nintendo continues on the same track of creating fun family games, it's going to end up back on top, due to a generation of gamers settling down, getting married and having kids. I've had 5 friends in the last year talk about what console they should get for their rugrats and each one ended up with the GC, because of the family oriented games.
Mad Hatter
itll be a ppc970 (aka G5) and a radeon post 9800 chip. since the GC is basicly a G3 and a radeon, thisll let it be backward compatable, a HUGE selling point. I doubt theyll change the media though, maybe make it a little bigger, but still not standard. and the pricell be right. people complain that the Xbox is just a PC, well the GC isnt that far off, chip wise.
I want 2D games back.
I'm a huge fan of this series and was surprised sony let a deal with capcom slip away. The previous games on the playstation were ported to pc. Any word on these being ported to something else? It never seemed like a good fit RE being on a cutsy game console. Now if nintendo locked up a few more mature titles and advertised that 'it's not just for the kiddies' it might have went somewhere. As it is, I don't think RE did too well on the gamecube.
So anyone got any word on whats the deal? Is capcom locked into gamecube with the RE series? And usually pc is excempt from such deals, but so far I haven't heard any word of a port.
How is the parent modded to troll? mod parent up!!
God damn it, I just got my gamecube!
Same damn thing happened when I bought the dreamcast...
when all is said and done, all a man has left are his blades and his honor.
Well all i can say is revise the old stuff. My friends and i dug out our old super nintendo and have been playing it for weeks non stop. We wish we could find old games for it but they are just gone. I say if you revise the old games they will sell, just like what they did with mario all stars for the snes
..."it would be a departure from mainstream gaming consoles 'that will have a big impact on the world."
Could this be.....(drumrole please)VR?????
HaHaHaHaHa
WTF? Nintendo sells more consoles and games than any other manufacturer. They're in a fine position, and give me Zelda, Mario Sunshine and Animal Crossing -- truly innovative, clever and FUN games -- over the usual FPS and racing dross any day.
Ok, so you can buy a PS/2 or an X-"box"...
But the GameCube.. It's a CUBE!! I mean, how cool is that?! Even the psone isn't as cubic as the GC! Ok, so it's not entirely cube-shaped, but that's why you buy one of those gameboy adapters that slots underneath, et voila, it's a perfect cube!
If you stack two gameboy advance SPs.. It's a cube! *salivate*
Ok, so apple had a cube before nintendo did. But that wasn't a cube for games! This cube is! It's like Rubik's cube, only even more gamey!
(must... stop.. reading.. pennyarcade...)
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
This new product is going to be announced in early 2004. The N5 is going to ship in 2005 or early 2006 (according to Nintendo at the same press conferance where they mentioned the new technology for 2004.)
This alone suggests strongly that they are not talking about the N5, simply because they wouldn't want to focus attention on a console that isn't coming out for over a year.
.
WELCO
METOT
HENEX
TLEVEL
Shinji Mikami, the director and producer of the Resident Evil series, has publicly criticized Sony's cheap production quality of PS2's. He claims he has had to buy four PS2 simply because they break so easily, and said that PS2 sales figures are almost undoubtedly inflated due to people buying replacement machines.
He also is very public about his love of Nintendo. Why do you think he's producing PN.03, Viewtiful Joe, Killer 7, and Resident Evil 4 for the GC? (there was a fifth game, Dead Phoenix, but I suspect it has been cancelled.)
(well, the Resident Evil games are contractually exclusive to the Gamecube, not counting light gun and online games)
At one point, there was even talk of Capcom going exclusive on Gamecube, though talks broke down in January.
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Ikaruga is my favorite game of all time. I've got about 70 hours racked up in the past year, on my dreamcast and on my gamecube... I'm getting close to beating it on one credit even! (on easy, haha.)
The traditional model is to sell the consoles at a loss, and make up the money by selling or licensing games. If the consoles aren't selling, and the games are selling, that would indicate that enough people have the consoles.
What is important to the survival of a system is not that people are buying the console, it's that people are buying the games, because the games are the interesting part, and because a devoted player will buy games regularly, but the console only once.
Well... this is kinda off topic... kinda not... so what the hell, im posting it!
Anyways, I see alot of people talking about the nostalga of the older game systems, and how the games themselves are what make a console great. If you truely believe that your going to love this!
alt="X game station">XGameStation
Its a build it yourself ( sorta... its actually pre-assembled) 16 bit console, that comes complete with instructions on how to build your own. Plus it ships with a full SDK, and a port GNU tool set. This thing could be fun as hell to play with... plus, its only 99$. I may just have to pick one of these up.
On a side note... its design / distributed by Andre LeMoth (sp?)... basically the biggest author of game programming books. Ive always thought the guy was a bit of a loon... but his books are/were pretty good, at least for beginners.
Enjoy.
Damn... this is out of hand. I've never seen someone read into a post as much as you just have.
Very much a NEC fanboy (my Duo gets more time than the other systems I have), so...
The Express could also double as a portable TV. Given that, and you could take a game in progress on the road, it had a lot of appeal (to me at least). It was just hard to justify $300 when the base system was $150 (and you were terminally broke from buying new games). They never really pushed the portable TV aspect. A handheld color TV for $300, at the time, was a steal.
It was also a matter of timing. There really wasn't a base of mature gamers to afford the Express. For that, Nintendo makes the grade not because of an intrinsic value other than it being disposable.
Now things are very much different. People routinely drop more than $300 on PDAs just to play games. Cell phones are common to a younger subset, and with that, games. Nintendo still dominates the handheld market, but if you include every mobile device that can play games, its' market share has dwindled.
This tendency of console manufacturers to focus on target groups is misguided. Why bother with GBA or the next console to be when I can get similar games on a PDA plus porn, and driving directions? Indra(?)probably had the best shot at toppling the Sony juggernaught just because the game range would be all over the place. Even billions of dollars won't buy you creativity (X-box).
Unless Nintendo can develop an entirely new market or make something that will appeal across the board... well, I'm not holding my breath for their next foray (nor Sony's or Microsoft's).
I prefer PCs to Consoles...
I am saying that there will eventually be two or three "PC/Consoles" that evolve from the Xbox, PS2 or 3 and whatever else...
Much like back in the day when the C-64 reigned supreme alongside a number of other Television connectible Computers. Except with the advent of the modern computer running MacOS, Windows and even Linux, there is little need for such a single tasked gaming computer...
Not that it won't stop those companies from trying to market such beast...
In the end, they will have a machine like that and will see issues with keeping it afloat... Then some newcomer, or old-timer, will cut all of the complexity of a full-on computer system out of the equation...
Meaning no keyboard/mouse and bizarre torture device of a game controller... turning out a easy to use voice/controller based system that has compelling titles for it...
This will, in effect, once again kill the Game Console cum Console Computer Game System that will happen...
It has happened before, it will VERY likely happen again...
Of course Nintendo is making games like that today, but first, I don't do consoles since the days of the Sega Genesis, second the market is moving away from what Nintendo is offering and will eventually return to it, once people get bored of having a "Real Computer" and one or more seperate "Game Computers" Cluttering up their homes...
It's only a matter of time...
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
The portable TV feature of the TurboExpress required that you buy a TV Tuner add-on. It cost something like $120 (about the cost of a portable TV all by itself) and made the already-large TurboExpress even larger. A similarly-styled and similarly expensive TV Tuner was made for the Game Gear.
Having owned a portable TV, I can safely tell you that it works well only if you live very close to a transmitter and/or have a huge antenna. Seeing that most people didn't want to make these concessions to have a $420 portable television, I'm still not surprised the TurboExpress failed.
Incidentally, you can buy a TV Tuner for Game Boy Advance if you really want one.
For more information, click here.
You're right, I dont know why this is in the news.
Gamecube production has been halted since January. Console making routinely stop and start production in order to not have too much overstocked in inventory at any one time. They were just making them so fast, that they halted to let the sales numbers catch up.
see this link
FUNK!
I loved this game on SNES and can't wait for its release this month for GC.
It's most likely a typo for "psyched", which the American Heritage dictionary defines as "excite[d] emotionally".
Will I retire or break 10K?
It's not often you find someone else willing to admit they had a Saturn. They DID have good games. I payed full price the first week they were out just to get Virtua Fighter. When VF2 came out, nobody had anything as good. Sega Rally, Daytonna...
The problem? I think I saw ONE Saturn commercial during the whole christmas season that year. I know they had more, but god knows where they were playing them. Meanwhile you couldn't watch anything without being inundated by Sony propoganda. Well, more power too them. They were willing to spend the bucks to get noticed, and they won.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Bigger, heavier, with no Firewire (you gotta load all 20 Gigs using a pathetic USB connection!), and no support for AAC files.
Why is the lack of support for AAC so bad? Because 128-bit AAC sounds as good as VBR MP3's while taking up less space, so that 20G Archos ends up holding about the same number of songs as the 15G iPod.
The FM tuner is nice, i guess, if you are one of those people who still listen to FM radio for anything anymore.
There's a reason why people are willing to pay more for the iPod, and it ain't Mac zealotry. Roughly half of all iPod buyers are not Mac users. It's because some people know a good product when they see it.
Though the PS2 barely outsells the GBA (by 500 units), consider that a considerable number of those 13,000 GameCube systems are in GBA player bundles, and you see that Nintendo's most popular current platform is at least tied with Sony's.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Perhaps make the next gameboy a truly excellent piece of engineering and marketing without such obvious ommissions as a backlight or a headphone jacket?
Where would you have put a headphone jack on the SP case?
Perhaps realize that a fair proportion of gameboy owners are adults and make more adult type games for it?
By "adult type games", do you refer to the types of games endemic of PCs? First-person shooters have been made for the GBA (see Dark Arena, Wolfenstein, Doom, Serious Sam, 007, etc). Real-time tactical sims wouldn't work well because of lack of controller buttons (even the PS2 has the same problem), but Advance Wars and other turn-based war games work well. There are even decent RPGs such as Golden Sun and Pokemon Ruby, but anything massively multiplayer would in theory require a wireless Internet access subscription and a game subscription, and most GBA owners can't afford that. Or by "adult" do you refer to explicit sexual themes?
Extend the battery life by realising adults can hold a heavier device then a 8yr old
Though adults can hold a heavier device, this doesn't mean they want to. Look at mobile phones for adults: they've still gone in the direction of smaller. And if you really want to add weight to add battery life, larger batteries are available for both cellphones and the GBA SP.
and can pay more for both hardware and software?
That's called a "laptop."
Will I retire or break 10K?
Simply put. PS2 likely has more games then Gamecube and Xbox combined. It already has more games than N64 which is saying something. PS2 has a lot of adult games, kids games, sports games....it has a lot of games. The sheer number and variety makes it a desirable system to get. It's why the original PS beast N64. Xbox right now is banking on multi-player but without the large number of good games, they will not be able to eat into PS2's market share. Outside of the few Nintendo greats: Metroid, Zelda, Mario, etc... there's not much to look forward to. More 3rd party support and more games in general could give Nintendo the edge it needs.
Green Monkey san
A PS2 in a home doesn't preclude a GameCube in the same space.
Correct theoretically, but I grew up in the working class, and having both a PS2 and a GameCube does preclude feeding one's kids for a couple weeks.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Animal Crossing is great. I haven't logged so many hours into a game since Diablo II. It's very relaxing and satisfying.
Actually I loaded all 60gigs on my Archos with the *USB 2.0* connection quite quickly. 60gig you ask? Yes well as the Archos uses a standard 2.5inch harddisk retailers can upgrade them for you.
hey you guys is it ture that nintendo is going to release a GC version that is portable... like that GBA... because thats what i been hearing because of sony releasing the psp.... that will be so kool to play GC games and taking it like a GBA...
Nintendo really pisses me off. They are a great company. The write the best games in the business. So many classics... But the are stubborn and refuse to change with the times. When gamers grew up, Nintendo was still making games for kids. To this day, their biggest titles for the GameCube are kids games.
It all started when Mortal Kombat was released for both Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. Sega released an uncensored version, and Nintendo REFUSED to give in and release a bloody, fatality version. At the time Mortal Kombat was the biggest game in the business. This pissed off a lot of gamers, mature and young. Many bought a Genesis just for the blood, and then ripped on how lame Nintendo was. Their reputation with gamers hasn't recovered since.
Another issue people have with Nintendo is that they refused to go with CDs during the Playstation/Saturn/N64 generation. The games were always more expensive for Nintendo, partly because of their licensing, but also because the format (cartridge) was more expensive.
What has kept Nintendo alive has been GAMEBOY SALES. Which is ironic because the Gameboy Advanced fuckin sucks. The processing power is about equivalent to a 16Bit SNES, even though the system is 32Bit. The screen is difficult to see. They fixed this issue with the new Gameboy, but I believe it's too little too late.
Nintendo made billions of dollars of the original Gameboy, Pocket Gameboy, Color Gameboy. The games for Gameboy were all extremely overpriced, yet they sold like hotcakes even though the system had been OBSOLETE FOR YEARS because there simply wasnt any real competition. Gamegear was the closest competitor. Today the trend is cell phone gaming, and what has nintendo been doing about it? You would think they would start making games for cell phones. But no. They are asleep at the wheel. and ultimately they will just become a software developer, like Sega. We will see Mario on PS3 and XBOX 2.
I don't have a GameCube, but I was really tempted to get one when I saw the Viewtiful Joe teasers. Maybe that'll help sales. Or better yet for me, maybe Capcom will release the game on Playstation2...
sept when you on that train, GOD I want to shoot that stupid cat
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
You need to recalibrate your Anonymous Coward posting device, Mr. Yablonski-Partridge.
You also need to recalibrate your word similarity detector.
PHYCHED-FUCKED
PHYCHED-PSYCHED
I never post AC, only fuckers like you do THAT.
That was classic intercourse!
Another good multiplayer game for the GC is Mario Party. Mario Pary 5 is going to be released November 11.
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
Are you from the FUTURE?
What are the women like in your time?
That was classic intercourse!
NOT a typo - he did it TWICE
it's called stupidity, different thing altogether
That was classic intercourse!
whoa now, that AC was not me,
Call me the dozy slob.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
The main reason I bought a PS2 was to play Final Fantasy X, because I'm a huge fan of the series. FFX-2 may prove my investment in the PS2 to be good, since I've yet to find another PlayStation 2 game that I like (although I can also play my older PS Final Fantasy games on it).
Now, why can't GC support these games? NES and SNES both had good SquareSoft games, so why not the later systems (granted N64 sucked on storage because of the card-form as opposed to disc-form).
I may consider getting a GameCube, after the prices have dipped a bit more and a few other games come out, because I like the other games such as Metroid, Zelda, etc. But really, why should I have to by 2-3 different consoles to do this (hell, while I'm ranting, why not bring out FF9+ on PC, they can't be that hard to port). Games make the console, and I think Nintendo was a bit behind on this, but I also wonder why there seems to be a current exclusiveness to titles that really could be cross-platform.
Hell, if I could get FFX on GC today, I'd probably sell my PS2 version and just get a "cube" - I just want my games, the console itself doesn't matter except for clutter/money issues with owning several.
This is a typical MS marketing tactic. Nintendo is not going down. Its only in trouble because you gullible fools believe everything microsoft puts in print.
I have that on DVD and at first I didn't think much of it. After a few run throughs I found it can be quite +5 Insightful on some issues, including the bleeding of games into reality (and vice versa) and the difficulty to tell the two apart.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
But how many towns do you create while playing AC?
What I find much more annoying is when I try being the biggest shithead to my shithead neighbours, but they won't leave (and all the kick-ass animals DO move town).
I have been off The Crack for a couple months, tho...
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Me spell chucker work grate. Need grandma chicken.
You guys who think the game cube has kiddy games should rent enternal darkness. The most inovative survival horror genre game ever. I only made it 1/2 way thru, and one of my friends lost it, but i'm glad. I can laugh at the ring, but that game scared the hell out of me.. The game convinces you littlerly that your going insane...
come comment on the madness at http://slashdot.org/~phreak03/journal/
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
It being monocrome wasn't a huge issue since GameBoy had been monocrome for years and was hugely popular.
The main technical problem was that they cramed the CPU and display all into one box. They claimed it was portable but because of that, it wasn't really. It was uncomfortable to play for long periods of time. You couldn't play it in a car. I later picked a second system up for $30 and ripped it apart to create the HMD VB.
HMD VB
Basically I just took out all the extra weight and put some straps on it so it was wearable.
The other problem was lack of games. Only a few were any good and those were too short.
LCDs are cheap enough now (~$200 to build a two LCD headset yourself) that they don't need to use mirrors which cause headaches and if they make a lightweight headset connected to at least a GameBoy Advance quality base (or even just use a standard connector that can be disconnected and plugged into the GameCube) they'll have a major product.
The main thing would be that it works with the GameCube in order to have a large library all ready to go. Then it has to be under $100 (unless it's a complete system). And it has to be light weight and comfortable and not retarded looking.
But who knows maybe they've got something completely different up their sleeves.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Rare has already proven itself to produce great games, so let's give them a little time to restructure and build a game before you start ranting. Good games take years, not 11 months.
Conker's Bad Fur Day was done by Rare and that was a damn funny game. And it wasn't targeted at kids, either, which is unusual for Nintendo :-)
PHYCHED-PHUCKED
Some communities spell the synonym for "screw (v)" as "phuck" rather than "fuck". But "psyched" still fits better than "screwed" in the original sentence.
first looks to be us sales figures for consoles (halfway down page). second looks like japanese console figures (again halfway down the page).
Anyone else find it weird that this article appears on an MSN, site?
Isn't it funny that one of Nintendo's biggest competitors is the one reporting on this supposed "struggling" company. Nintendo actually exceeded stock holder expectations on profit last year, In stark contrast to the games division at Microsoft which finished deep down in the red.
Media consolidation at work. Maybe if Nintendo had it's own news network we could catch some stories about how badly MS is doing.
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
Why is the second place company always "struggling?" Nintendo is not struggling. Their company is worth 25 billion dollars. They make the Gameboy. Remember the Gameboy? Yeah. 20 million units. They own about 47 phenomenally successful franchises.
Enough with the hype. Next we'll be hearing how "sleek" the new Playstation is going to be, or a $10 billion purchase described as "snapping up."
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
simply because they wouldn't want to focus attention on a console that isn't coming out for over a year.
Just like Sony didn't start the hype machine for the PS2 more than a year before it shipped in Japan. Part of the reason that the PS2 did so well in the beginning, is that Sony had people drooling for it for more than a year before it came out. Then they artificially increased demand by lowering the number of consoles they shipped to the US. Thus giving the impression that everybody and their brother was waiting on one when it came out. Its all marketing. I think Nintendo has given up on dominating this round of consoles and is going the Sony route of overhyping things, with an attempt to get out before everybody else. Hopefully it works.
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 Race
12112
Despite what you read on discussion threads, the PS2 and GameCube can coexist harmoniously. As a matter of fact, I have domesticated both my PS2 and GameCube so well they sit right next to each other even sharing the same TV!
Fuck that shit. I bought a GameCube because I want to play GAMES. I don't want to pay $200 more for a console/dvd player/washing machine/whatever the fuck else they put in their systems just to play great Nintendo games.
my little theory is that games are getting much more mature, and Nintende is sticking to the types of games that they have been marketing for years. They have mainly been marketing to the younger generations.
To prove this point, jsut take a look at their system, sure, it looks good, i guess, but not anything like their competitors' systems. It, in comparison, looks childish.
In order for N's next system to flourish, they will need to develop for the older audience, by making a sexier/sleeker system, and by designing games that appeal to older people. After all, the people that grew up w/ mario are now playing Vice City, and N is still making Mario games.
Nintendo has the technology, they just need to re-evaluate how they should make best use of it.
Also, Nintendo's console is good, it is up their with the best, but what makes the console is the games. Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft all lose money on each console they sell. The money is in the games.
note: I do not intend to hate Nintendo, I love their games, but as the gaming population gets older, sellign to the older audience would be in their best interest.
The problem with Nintendo is not that it doesn't have good games. Nintendo makes some of the most fun and innovative games there are, regardless of your age. The problem is that the only people making good games for GC is Nintendo. All the cross platform games suck on GC and very few of the 3rd party developers make anything decent with Nintendo in mind. I especially know you hate this comment Yomiko, but it needs said...Nintendo should do what it does best, that means Game Boy and making great games. They should bail out of the console wars and PROFIT!!! off the success of the PS2 and X-box. Metroid would look sw33t on the X. Oh and your comment about 90% of the other guys games being rated M is absolute crap sports games or no.
Trust Your Technolust
Anyone remember the Simpson's Christmas episode where Bart steals the game Bonestorm? At the store some brat makes his mom buy two copies of the game because he doesn't want to share it with his sister. Well, I know of 3 cases where where parents bought multiple x-box and ps2 consoles and multiple copies of the same game for their kids (yeah it's not a good sample but consider them case studies). All the kids had to do to get something was whine long and hard enough for it-parents will cave these days. If you noticed, I left out GC. The kids simply don't whine for that system. When I was in college, fellow students loved Nintendo type games but now they've developed more 'sophisticated' tastes and view Nintendo type games a kids stuff. Even little kids know what's cool and what's not. No surprise that facter hasn't been mentioned here yet.
Except every big game has supposed to be the one that boosted GC sales through the roof, and they haven't. Metroid was a blip in turns of being the killer app*. Mario and Zelda both failed as killer apps as well. (PLEASE PLEASE DO NOT MOD THIS AS FLAMEBAIT, I AM NOT SAYING THEY ARE BAD GAMES, MERELY THAT THE NUMBERS SHOW THEY WERE NOT THE KILLER APPS THEY WERE EXPECTED TO BE, now back to the point I was making...) Why are we to believe that Mario Kart is going to do what Mario, Zelda and Metroid continue to fail to do? Metroid and Zelda, two of the supposed killer apps, are now among those that you can get FREE with the system and it still has not created a sales skyrocket.
*Killer app: The single piece of software that people buy the system to use (see Goldeneye or Halo). A game or application peceived as so desirable that it alone sells systems.
I really don't like how this has turned into a war between the different consoles. You'd think they'd sell these things based on their merits--the games, controllers, ease of use--but instead it seems to be more about numbers.
Everyone always quotes the number of PS2 and XBoxes out there, and then scoffs at the Gamecubes. Okay, I understand what you're saying, if what you're most concerned about with is having a large number of people to play against online. If you're just concerned about having enough userbase out there that companies will want to fund a game on your platform, I think GC's still got enough. It's just a matter of actually connecting with your audience. I'll get to that in a second.
PS2 development is a pain in the ass. So says anyone I've talked to who has worked on it. Sure you can licence an engine to get around that little problem, but then you're giving a cheque to someone else, too. And what about studios that already have their own engines in-house? Wasted money.
XBox is good for companies used to developing for Windows. This is well-known. Unfortunately, for gamers it's just not the best option, unless what you're interested in is DOA3 or their Beach Volleyball game. Nearly every other popular game available for the XBox is also available for either the PS2 or the PC. Or they have worthy competition on another console.
The Gamecube is just a nice gaming console. Its appeal is to those in the audience who are just after the games. They don't want to have to think about what kind of DVD player is included, or getting the specific type of surround sound system to get the audio working at 100% of potential. They just want something that they can plug in quickly, and get as much enjoyment out of it as the next person. DVD, MP3 ripping, hard drive attachments.. they'll just get another box to look after that. If they decide to get a new gaming system in a few years, it just means they won't have to look for a new DVD player when they get rid of their game console. Simplicity.
I think by now it's kind of obvious where my prejudices lie, now, so lets get back to my little connecting with the audience theory.
The reason I think Gamecube hasn't done as well as the others has to do with the way the game industry is set up. In order for a game company to keep operating, it needs to have cash flow. Guaranteed cash flow is even better. To guarantee cash flow, companies have a full playbook of possibilities:
- Release sequels to popular games
- Create franchises with a yearly refresh cycle, such as EA Sports
- Integrate an online component into the game, and require the user to continue to pay for the priviledge to play the game with others
Notice that nowhere in there is "Innovate new titles." This is not a guaranteed method of success, especially in today's gaming society. Why is that? I think it's because of the way companies handle their advertising.
Let's say you're Nintendo. You have a totally new game idea, like sayyy... Pikmon. You want people to buy it. What do you do? If a product is totally new, with a totally different type of gameplay, then people are going to want to know how it plays before they go about purchasing it. They want more than a few pictures or videos or testimonials.. they want a FEEL for how the product handles.
This is where demo discs come in handy. Sure, I can go into my local gaming store and maybe see a GC running Wind Waker, but how often do they put the game I want to try on for me to play-test? Am I going to be able to play it long enough to "get into it?"
The XBox people know this; XBox Magazine comes with a demo disc every month. It features demos of upcoming games, some videos.. you know, the usual. You can play it in your very own home, at your own pace, with no annoying sales people or even more annoying my-life-is-games-ers telling you how to get past that certain point.
Sony's PS2 people get it too; their PS2 Magazine also comes with a demo
All I can say is Nintendo sells its consoles at a profit and it's games at a profit, something that Microsoft appears unable to do.
...
If it weren't for the Yen-USD/Euro exchange rate, I'd be really happy about how profitable the company was.
Oh, and I do own Microsoft shares too
> --- All Of The Above --- >
>>Perhaps realize that a fair proportion of gameboy owners are adults and make more adult type games for it?
>There are even decent RPGs such as Golden Sun and Pokemon Ruby
I don't think you understand American culture.
A Usenet Troll Triumphs on Slashdot
with the best Tomb Raider version
My friend had a PS and I had a Saturn. He bought Tomb Raider when it came out and I enjoyed it. I bought it on the Saturn and it was noticably worse than its PS counter part. Its colors were more muddy; its textures weren't as good; and it lacked some transparency effects with the plants and stuff.
A Usenet Troll Triumphs on Slashdot
Xbox, PS2, and GameCube are all the same price.
The truth about Michael
Nintendo is exhibiting excellent business strategy. They have targeted a niche market within the gaming industry: the young gamer. They are targeting their games at kids and the parents who will be buying them. History has shown that the earlier you can get a consumer to use your product, the more likely they are to continue using it throughout their life. Nintendo is making excellent business decisions with regard to pursuing this young market. By standing firm on decisions to not allow games with extremely graphic violence on their systems, they are catering to the parents who will be buying the games. Until the GC, Nintendo systems used cartridges, which prevented widespread copying of their games.
I continue to buy and play Nintendo games because they are fun, and they remind me of the games I played as a kid. My brother and I begged and begged to get our first Nintendo. We would play Super Mario Brothers, Zeldo, Metroid, Dragon Warrior, and many others for hours on end. And we were always having fun at it. I was thrilled that I was able to buy a GameCube and play a lot of those same titles. Super Mario Sunshine is sheer fun. Banjo Kazooie on the N64 was a blast to play too. Sure, they are targetted at kids, but it is hard to play them without getting a smile on your face.
If Nintendo continues to be a niche player, generating systems and games that cater to a younger crowd, that will be fine by me. My wife and I will be having children soon, and I would definitely get a Nintendo product for my kids before I got an XBOX or a PS. I'll continue to play the Metroid and Zelda series for as long as Nintendo continues to develop those lines.
Nintendo knows that their success is with the Gameboy... so they are going to release a GAMEBOY/GAMECUBE system that is basically a handhold that plugs directly into the tv.
"But Satoru Iwata promised the struggling games company was developing a radical new product to be announced next year"
Yea, avayre, because profiting $95 Million US dollars is so struggling. It'd be nice if posters would fact check their stories before they post it, or that the editors would link in apropos stories. This is just silly.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I know the GBA SP has a frontlight, but I don't think it's an ommission that this is not a backlight. It's a design choice. Look at all the backlit handhelds, and the pile of batteries they used.
Again, the headphone jack was a design choice. Do you use headphones? The first GameBoy had headphones that came with it. Most people don't care that it requires an adaptor. Some people, like myself, and a few other people I know, will go spend the 8$ on the adaptor. Nintendo has saved 8$ * the number of units shipped (2 million SPs so far, IIRC), versus raising the price 8$. For the nearly 2 million people who didn't want headphones, it's not there, and they don't care anyways.
Do you whine about the Xbox and GameCube not coming with 2 controllers? That happened a long, long time ago. Nintendo's just packaging what most people want, with extras available for those who want it. Simple, efficient.
Speaking of addons, TritonLabs has been talking about making bluetooth linkers for the GBA.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
You mean Blanca, or the other one? I kinda like Blanca, I have varying degrees of success drawing in her face.
Check your facts.
Nintendo reports profits on recent quarter. The Gamecube is struggling, not Nintendo.
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
The other one, Blanca is annoying but the other one WOW is he a pain
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
>>>Dear Troll/Ignorant Buffoon, >>>Please seize and desist all further attempts at such blatant disinformation.
Don't call me a Troll or Buffon, nothing in my posting was wrong, the GPU is NOT a Radeon and the design of the chip is Nintendos, the fact that ArtX designed it for them and was originaly meant to produce it doesent change the fact that the design belongs to Nintendo.
OK, I got a little mixed up. I made the mistake of mentioning a game that is a kids' RPG but is still an RPG nonetheless. What exactly are "adult themed" video games, other than games featuring porn and/or gore?
Will I retire or break 10K?
The Dreamcast used a special geometry engine that required you to work in strange patches instead of the typical triangles. Nobody's middleware from the 32-bit era was compatible with such a backwards system and they weren't about to develop all new middleware just for one damn console.
In the end, EA said "screw it" to Dreamcast because of the incompatible geometry and everyone else followed suite. Ever wonder why nobody did many 3D games on the Dreamcast despite capable hardware?
THere is something more human and fun about them. I lined them up at KMart and chose the Gamecube. I dont really want to invade the alien hords, just smoke some cheeb and enjoy some fun. Try Gamecube stoned - it is perfect. :)
"But Satoru Iwata promised the struggling games company was developing a radical new product to be announced next year" ah yeah if it's another kiddie console, i'm not interested.
More recently they put 32bit processors in the palm of your hand
Ironic that you use "palm". Palm had a 32-bit handheld before Nintendo did, but you correctly point out that GBA outsells any PDA platform unit-for-unit, if only because the GBA plus a game costs less than the magic $100 psychological price point.
It is a fact Nintendo squashes misfires such as as the virtual boy, superscopre, power pad
Power Pad may have been a misfire, but the idea behind it has rebounded tremendously since then. Had Konami developed for the Power Pad, the revolution might have come much sooner, possibly back when DDR was still a country.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Umm, $120 is closer to what a portable costs today (retail). Go back 13 years, and the cost is WELL over $200 (closer to $300). The TV tuner dropped to about $80 after the first year of release. So $380-$420 for a portable TV and the first 16-bit handheld. Yeah doomed to fail-20/20. And the furor with Nintendo's marketing practices had nothing to do with it (would have been nice to buy one if you could find one).
Eternal Darkness is a good example.
Since when was $199 = $149? We should just refer to you as Pheer.
I work in a large retail store. We used to sell just as many Gamecubes as Xboxes. About two of each every day. In the past few months, I've noticed Xbox console sales have gone down only slightly, while Gamecube sales have almost halted. We sell about 2 gamecubes each MONTH now..
Why people get so hung up on hardware, when it's really the games that I'm interested in, especially in relation to console systems.
I mean how often does someone come into your house and criticize your choice in refridgerator? Not often.
Now, granted I'll buy Nintendo products before others, but that's becuase I just like and feel comfortable with the company. I like what they do with the controlers, I like what they do with case designs, I like what kind of games they offer. I just always equate Nintendo with Apple, so lower sales numbers don't make me go crazy.
All I can do is just sit back and enjoy, even though I don't like to get in and mix it up in these kinds of debates, I do like to read viewpoints. It just gives me more reason to keep making "Super Console Wars", which has almost nothing to do with any console wars, but does have a point, albeit kind of obtuse.
"Super Console Wars" - a goofball retelling of "Star Wars" with Darth Mario.
You didn't use any punctuation in your posts. I guess that was stupidity too.
Seriously though, anyone with half a brain knows what (s)he meant. Stop being pedantic. It serves no constructive purpose.
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
Some obvious examples of adult-themed games, just off the top of my (exhausted) head:
:P
Panzer Dragoon Series - Relatively sophisticated settings, themes, and storylines - especially the last two games.
Dead or Alive Series - Many adult gamers want their games to at least acknowledge the fact that some people enjoy sexuality. The fact that it has a very complex, deep (and massively, massively underrated) fighting engine doesn't hurt, either!
Jet Set Radio Series - Music and counterculture themes that you just don't find in Saturday morning cartoons - admittedly this was recently ported to GBA, though I am not sure how much was really retained.
Virtua Fighter Series - Very complicated/complex gameplay - you really have to work at it to achieve a basic level of competency.
GTA Series - Not just for the over-commented-on violence, but just the fact that the games are filled with references to films, music, television shows, etc. - adults generally enjoy that kind of brain candy.
Shenmue - Slower-paced, rather thoughtful storyline with some interesting characters - the Saturday morning cartoon quality dubbing for the American versions admittedly hurts the maturity of the presentation.
Alpha Centauri - BIG ideas, and loads of them. Questions conventional morality/values. Lots of grays...
Grim Fandango - Both for the wonderful art direction, something better appreciated by more-experienced adults, as well as the interesting storyline - pretty sophisticated stuff here.
Planescape Torment - Probably my favorite storyline in a videogame ever. I can't possibly do it justice with a summary. Wonderfully complicated, mournful, perplexing, etc. Amazing stuff.
Deus Ex/System Shock 2 - Awesome, amazingly complex universes and storylines. Again, they will make you question your beliefs (especially Deus Ex) - a hallmark of adult art, IMO. Complicated game engines, too. System Shock 2 made me so terrified, I can only imagine what it would do some fragile young Mario fan's mind.
Ikaruga (unedited non-US release) - In some ways, more of a lession in Zen Buddhism than an actual game. Everything in the game, from the art style to the play mechanics, serves the theme of overcoming oneself, be it the stagnation that dualism creates, regret for one's past choices, the fear of death, etc. Admittedly the storyline is subtle (even calling it a storyline is a little much), conveyed more through visual motion and symbolism than conventional storytelling methods. But plenty of adult films do the same.
With the exception of GTA and System Shock 2, none of these games feature large amounts of gore or any pornography. I realize the concept of 'adult themes' has been corrupted by its use in (child-centered) rating systems, but if you really think about what it means, it isn't that hard (tip: if you can't do it with games for some reason, think of movies or books that you would categorize as having adult themes, as in stuff children just probably wouldn't appreciate). Adults generally have 'bigger brains', and many of us like to have it actually utilized by our games, and not just for (increasing simple) Nintendo platform puzzles. Some people look to games for mostly escapism, some people (like myself) look to them as just another artform to enjoy and enrich my life with.
And I would like to note that I am sure many non-adults can enjoy some of these games (and similar movies) - I was one of them, and I have met plenty of kids now who are similar. No ageism is implied, 'adult' is just a very good word to describe what we are talking about when we say we want 'adult games'.
Just an easy example to finish with: plenty of adult films, plays, and books deal with huge topics, like religious faith. I can think of several very famous, popular films that question a viewer's faith in god - how many games have we played that have reached for similar heights?
IMHO, not enough.
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. -- Francis Bacon
hell i'm TRYING to buy a game-cube. i live in thailand.
...
i got the cash etc.
but i'm burnt-out running after the equipment.
i was huntin for SuperFamicom (SNES) for 1 month.
i was huntin for N64 for a month.
i just want to walk into ANY(!) shop pay the money, get a game free and go home. finish.
this talking about products half a years bevor they are acctually available left me half brain-dead a few times!
how about i know nothing, walk into a store
and hoppla! a new product. this happens to me
alot with sony stuff.
quote: "WOAH! i had no idea! quickly find a ATM!"
but with microsoft and nintendo the problem is, that they just produce ONE product and they HAVE to hype about it half a year befor hand; leaving in their wake children that can't sleep at night until that (your attribut here) release-day.
terrible
But it DOES serve a purpose. English is a "live" language, for sure, and therefore subject to a constant evolution, but basic rules remain and we cannot communicate effectively without them. Computers can help us by providing spell checking services to our various text editing applications, at Slashdot you';d at LEAST expect to find the computer literate, if the not the conventionally literate.
I can usually understand what someone says when they speak with their mouth full too, but it doesn't make it a good idea to express yourself that way.
That was classic intercourse!
Through all this, I agree with most. I've had all the Nintendo systems with the exception of the red-hazed VirtualBoy. I have over 30 gamecube games. I have the obligatory Zelda, Metroid, Mario, Luigi, even Mario Party (my nephews love it, not to mention my game-hating wife), Godzilla, and even have Hitman2, Matrix, LOTR, Splinter Cell and the like. I've only considered the xbox and ps2 for moments, but quickly realize that there are no "must-have" titles that I can't get on my pc. I have GTA for pc, and will get halo soon.
However, the one thing that most fail to mention, is the GCN's portability. I bought a 5.4" screen battery, and using the included car adapter, played Mortal Kombat for 1200 miles on a trip. Played Matrix it in the train station with the battery pack, and Zelda for the 1200 miles back on a train. I still have a GBA, with a self-installed AfterBurner, but for long trips with a nearby power source, the GCN is the most portable device out there. It's even smaller than a shuttle!
Not to mention it gives me something to do at my Mother-in-law's, and lets me play GCN while my wife watches those awful reality shows.
Rock on Nintendo, what's next?
"The more you suffer, the more it shows you really care, right?" -Offspring
Should Nintendo ever go out of business, the dolphins will bring in a thriving and successful replacement Nintendo from an alternate dimension. That's what the "Dolphin" project really was, a diplomatic mission to arrange for last-minute insurance.
Guess that drop in price they had to compete with the drop in the price of PS2 didn't last long, hmm? Maybe I should go buy one to help em out.
This is wrong from trout to trousers. Adults want more interesting stories? The "Die Hard" series, "Speed," the "Lethal Weapon" movies, "Bad Boys," "S.W.A.T.," "Cliffhanger" ... how many of these do I have to list? How many movies about mad bombers were there in the 90s that raked in the cash, from adults, over and over? You know for a fact that interesting intelligent movies don't make much money, and that people read Cornwell rather than Dickens.
So when you start arguing that the reason people are abanding Nintendo games for Playstation ones is that the games on the Playstation are smarter, you need extra evidence. It may be that the characters and story are, at the moment, more complex on the Playstation, but that isn't what's attracting people. What's getting them is that PS2 is where the bread and circuses are. People went to watch Shakespeare because he told a good tale with jokes, and they went to watch Le Petomane fart through an ocarina.
I like playing co-op multi-player. Gauntlet may not have had the greatest graphic in the world, but you could play together with up to 4 player (though tended to get stuck around corners a lot). We have Baulders Gate which we will start playing after we've both finished Zelda.
My husband plays much more often than I do, and has played console games since early childhood, I'm never going to be as good at it as he is. Competitive multiplayer generally means I just get my butt kicked again and again. That gets pretty boring fairly quickly.
You never know, the 'trick' to getting women to game could be simply the difference between co-op and competitive.
In 2001, Nintendo could not have made the GBA SP and sold it at the price point they were able to in 2003. Why? LiIons are getting cheaper, and because they designed a system for frontlighting that was based largely on cellphone lighting technology. In 2 years, my cell phone has gotten smaller, more battery life, and more featured because of advances in technology.
While the hindsight view on the lighting is 20-20, do you think that it wouldn't be possible to miss this in a development cycle? If you play the GBA in a fairly well lit room (most that are lit with flourecent strip lighting, etc), you won't notice that it's a bit darker than the old GameBoy Colour and Pocket. It was a design mistake, but I don't think it was as obvious before the release as you think it is. Plus, I don't think they could've met their price goal, as mentioned above.
As for the headphone adaptor: "If third party developers think they can make a selling something to a fraction of youre customers, then perhaps you could make a killing on it." What's a killing? 3$ on a little dongle that hooks to the GBA SP and lets you use headphones? How many people use headphones? Nintendo already researched it, and found that few used headphones. Enough that removing the port wouldn't hinder the design's success. If there are that few people, why bother trying to market an addon? Most of the time, Nintendo's addons sell poorly compared to 3rd party ones anyways.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
> I never post AC, only fuckers like you do THAT.
Hey, I was the original AC poster.
It is true though, I do fuck people. This is bad?