More Powerhouse Designers on Next-Gen Xbox

Just a few days after the announcement that the creator of the Final Fantasy series was joining Microsoft Games Studio, Voodoo Express has the news that more venerable designers will be joining the company. Yoshiki Okamoto and Tetsuya Mizuguchi will be teaming up with Microsoft Games to produce titles for the next generation Xbox. From the article: "Microsoft is now happy to announce that the driving creative minds behind the likes of Resident Evil, Rez, Street Fighter and Space Channel 5 have joined forces with the company to create exciting new titles for the Xbox Next, primarily designed to attract Japanese gamers to the system:"

Comments

Microsoft meddling?

[MilenCent]

Will MS let them work and make the games they want to make, which are not always commercially successful, even in Japan?

Bungie may seem to be instructive, but they're making Halo, arguably the system's saving grace -- it's easier to keep hands off of something which is extremely popular. Even so, I've seen people complain about Halo 2 that the story looks stretched out in order to make a Halo 3 possible. Also remember Rare, who's only released ONE, fairly lackluster, Xbox game since getting bought by Microsoft.

The temptation to meddle will be great for Microsoft's managers, but if they can overcome that then this is probably excellent news for their new system.

Re:Microsoft meddling?

[superpulpsicle]

I give M$ alot of credit for trying hard. But what they are doing is nothing new. Sony has always acquired creative minds in the industry. They do it so often, they make no public announcement about it.

If M$ really want to really hog up the video game space, they need to buy companies out with exclusivity. Go buy Capcom, Rockstar, SquareEnix.

Learn from the EA/Ubisoft ownership problem. You might have stake in the company or have a few famous architects working for you. But unless you claim that company yours entirely, you don't have 100% control.

Re:Microsoft meddling?

[AaronBrethorst]

You haven't seen demos for Conker - Live and Reloaded yet, then, have you? This is an abso-fucking-lutely gorgeous game (except for the big splatters of blood and squirrel vomit that end up on the TV)...

Re:Microsoft meddling?

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair : Rare didn't do much better on the gamecube.

Re:Microsoft meddling?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I have seen them take what, 4 years working on a N64 port. I have also seen 3DR take longer with Duke Nukem Forever, and some of their screen shots at the time looked good.

I really hope people don't just judge their game by how pretty they are. Games that take this long to develop usually turn out to be crap, and judging by how well they have been doing the last few years I wouldn't be surprised if this is the case.

Re:Microsoft meddling?

[MilenCent]

This is an abso-fucking-lutely gorgeous game (except for the big splatters of blood and squirrel vomit that end up on the TV)...

I'm not quite sure what this has to do with my point, but I'll give it a shot.

Let's see. Conker's Bad Fur Day. Isn't that the remake of the game we've all seen on the N64 a couple of years ago?

The gorgeousness of a game is not at all related to its quality as a game -- the game I've been playing the most of late has been venerable, almighty Nethack. And with none of these pansy VGA graphics either, but over Telnet!

So I'm afraid I am not as enthuised about it as you are.

Re:Microsoft meddling?

[MilenCent]

Microsoft has owned Rare for a couple of years now, while they were a Nintendo second-party for only a few months back at the beginning of the generation. So I don't see how fairness applies there -- Rare's been working for Microsoft for much longer, in this generation, than Nintendo.

On the other hand... Star Fox Adventures wasn't that great.

Re:Microsoft meddling?

[AaronBrethorst]

OK, since we appear to have a miscommunication here: from what I can infer from the demo, the game is of high-quality, and appears to provide great entertainment.

What is MS offering that Sony isn't?

[MBraynard]

Why isn't Sony or Nintendo going after these guys? Or are they and did they get out-bid?

Note that these are individuals that were lured or companies that were wholly the support staff of an individual.

Also, it isn't clear what is meant by 'aligned' or 'teamed up.' Are they now on staff of MS Games? Are they agreeing to exclusive titles? Or are they just agreeing that anything they make will come out on Xbox along with PS2/3/Nintendo R?

The only thing to conclude from this is that MS is serious about knocking down the paper door to the Japanese market.

Re:What is MS offering that Sony isn't?

[king-manic]

Seems like the spin doctors have spun "Ted and rob are going to make a game for xbox2" to "Ted and Rob have signedon to make an amazing new project for the xbox2".

Re:What is MS offering that Sony isn't?

[PhotoBoy]

I think if MS had secured an exclusive on Capcom games like Resident Evil they'd be telling us that. The whole "joined forces with the company" sounds to me like Mizuguchi and Okamoto are going to executive produce some games. i.e. MS will make the game, and the Capcom guys will then give them suggestions and feedback.

This could be something similar to Hideo Kojima's interaction with Silicon Knights on Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes. If it is like this then it suggests that Capcom have committed their resources to developing primarily on PS3 (and maybe Revolution) and that this is the best deal MS were able to get out of Capcom.

I can see it now....

[LordPhantom]

Thunderhead (or some other "cloud"/"Squall" derivative)
"Wow - that looks like a save point"
--
Would you like to save??
(YES) (NO)
--

Saving...........
Error: *** Stop: 0x000000 ED (0x86371900, 0xC0000032, 0x00000000, 0x00000000) Microsoft has not paid our fine devlopment staff enough to ensure stability in your shiny new FFXXI game... please reboot to start your game over!

Re:I can see it now....

[sw33tjimmy]

so, which is it? Did microsoft only win this support by throwing bottomless buckets of money around, or is MS forcing these Japanese developers to work for minumum wage? All the trash talk is beginning to confuse me.

Re:I can see it now....

[LordPhantom]

Perhaps both? :)
And if you'll note, FFXXI is a -long- time in the future, I'm not referring to tomorow ;-)

Re:I can see it now....

[sw33tjimmy]

thank you for the clarification =)

Hold off...

[grub]

Sounds good, but I won't be buying one until Team Xecuter is designing product for the xbox2.

Re:Hold off...

[Anonymous Coward]

People who mod their console are assholes.

Voodoo Express?

[sw33tjimmy]

I hope that was an intentional screw up. VE might not be the website it once was, but it should at least be known by its rightful name (Voodoo Extreme).

Huge article mistakes

[Anonymous Coward]

First, just like others pointed out in the original /. story, Sakaguchi Hironobu-san didn't "join" Microsoft Game Studios, the same way he didn't "join" Nintendo. His studio, Mistwalker, simply announced that they were developing two games for the Xbox's successor, just as they are also working on Nintendo DS software.

Second, these two venerable designers will not be "joining the company." Zonk's very next sentence almost corrects this, but it is in no way accurate to describe any of these three men as being employed by Microsoft. That would imply things that are not true, such as development exclusivity (which itself implies absolute faith on the part of these men in Microsoft's business model, which has yet to be determined beyond just making games for the Xbox's successor).

Really guys, you have to be more careful with the way you read Microsoft press releases. "Joined forces with" != "joined." This is the second time /. has made this implication, the first being in the original write-up of similar circumstances with Sakaguchi.

Finally, meh. It just means that the Xbox's successor will finally offer at least a few more Japanese-style games like those that have been available on PS2 and GameCube for years. These announcements are "hey, us too" affairs, not "booya, in your face Sony and Nintendo" kinds of announcements. After all, both Sony and Nintendo have had/still have good working relationships with all three of these fine developers as I type this. This is about MS catching up, akin to Peter Molyneux saying to Nintendo, "I want to make a GBA game, and you can use my name in your PR." Boring. Next story.

Re:Huge article mistakes

[drxray]

"Finally, meh. It just means that the Xbox's successor will finally offer at least a few more Japanese-style games like those that have been available on PS2 and GameCube for years."

As far as I'm concerned, that's a good thing. But I'm not sure it is for Microsoft. I think a fair part of their marketshare is parents worried and confused by their ten-year-old's love of Pokemon and Beyblade getting him a console that doesn't expose him to more quirky and inexplicable Japanese memes. Xbox's white-bread nature is a selling point in some quarters.

I can imagine the scene in the XBX frat now:
"Dude! You're playing 'Final Fantasy'? Oh, it's not porno? It's a roleplaying game!? Why not just put on a dress and run round campus pretending you're a flower fairy?"

No offense... :)

Re:Huge article mistakes

[fondue]

Save your breath. Item after item posted by Zonk are riddled with factual errors or simply links to baseless rumours from the most laughably disreputable 'news' sites. They're never corrected or removed.

Slashdot Games is a joke, and it's only serving to make general /. readers with a casual interest in games MORE ignorant than they were before.

Re:Huge article mistakes

[Babbster]

Obviously, the posted article is weak, especially in its links, though also for being regurgitated press release material. That being said, this particular article isn't factually incorrect at all. Of course, the link that SHOULD have been used is this one which points at the press release right on Microsoft's own website. (This one provides a similar release for the announcement about Sakaguchi referenced by others' comments.)

While none of the mentioned people are now actually working FOR Microsoft, the fact that they are now being published (and, presumably, at least partially funded) by Microsoft is significant. Smaller developers have only so many resources to devote to projects and the fact that they're developing Xbox Next exclusives is a big deal in that it will be a lot more difficult to simultaneously develop other games for the other various platforms (ask Lionhead about "B.C." and trying to keep too many balls in the air).

Re:OT question

[sw33tjimmy]

might have something to do with their webserver being fubar. have you been to that site lately? they're running on backup right now.

Wow! I bet they make as many games

[the_skywise]

for the XBox as Rare has!

Although Conker should be out just in time before the XBox 2 gets released...

Press Release Confusion

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm confused, I thought Shinji Mikami was the creator and creative lead of the Resident Evil series. The PR piece makes it sound like Okamoto was the head guy?

Re:Press Release Confusion

[Alkaiser]

You're right. Mikami is. (He's also past his prime. I'm sure that means he'll have 2 NextBox exclusive games announced within 3 weeks.)

Check out Okamoto's Mobygames credits. Do you see the original Resident Evil on there? Nope. What about Street Fighter? Also a nope. The first time he shows up on anything RE related, it's RE2...for the PC...his credit? Supervisor. Actual impact on the game? 0 or less.

Mizuguchi is the far more interesting announcement. Maybe he'll get to make that sequel to Rez he was hoping for. Although, of his Mobygames credits, he's only hitting .400. At least his last 2 games have been the better ones, as opposed to Sakaguchi.

Re:Press Release Confusion

[bVork]

Okamoto has done FAR more than what is listed. First, he really did develop the original Street Fighter 2. Not to mention Final Fight. Before then, he worked at Konami and made games such as Time Pilot and Gyruss. The thing is, Mobygames only tracks home games. Okamoto developed the ARCADE version of Street Fighter 2. Though the omission of his Resident Evil credits is odd. He was 'general planner' on Resident Evil 1. Mobygames isn't 100% reliable.

Re:Press Release Confusion

[Anonymous Coward]

Oddly enough, a slashdot poster who cites no references is not 100% reliable either.

Re:Press Release Confusion

[Alkaiser]

Looking at anywhere I can find a list of Arcade credits (remember, those boards didn't have a whole lot of extra bits to be using on programmer names.) for SF II, I don't see Okamoto anywhere, unless you're going to claim one of those pseudonyms is him. The Arcade History Database lists a lot more of his credits, SF II isn't among them, and neither is Final Fight, but for Time Pilot, Gyruss and 1942 he is listed as designer. Then he sort of coasts along as Producer, Exec Producer for the rest of his career.

Well Crap!

[Nathonix]

I dont even have an xbox yet, and now they are putting the finishing touches on xbox 2! ARGH!!!

Re:Well Crap!

[JimmehAH]

Once the new xbox comes out you'll be able to get an old one on eBay for next to nothing.

Re:Wow! I bet they make as many games

[gl4ss]

well..

ms's point (traditonally?) is not to buy them to make a shitload of great products for them..

rather to buy them to keep them from making shitload of good products for everyone else.

when halo 6 is the only game in the block everyone will have to buy it, and it only.

beautiful

[rnd()]

It's beautiful how capitalism works. Microsoft's shareholders want to make money, management chooses video games as an avenue, and then puts shareholder dollars to work recruiting the best possible minds. Think of how powerful that is. I can't wait to buy my next gen XBox when they come out.

Think Parallel or Higher

[robbway]

Most people get recruited by being given a parallel or higher responsibility. These two are successful businessmen in the video games industry. I can't imagine they're going to get into the nitty-gritty, but instead anticipate executive producing. The important thing to consider is what kind of teams they will pull together. They will most likely recruit Japanese video game engineers, so there's your real impact.

Re:Think Parallel or Higher

[Alkaiser]

They already have their own companies. They aren't working for Microsoft. This impact you're assuming isn't going to be there. These are one-off exclusive game contracts for the most part.

beautiful? hideous

[biryokumaru]

but it doesnt work.

as many people have pointed out, the great minds (eg rare, bungie) microsoft has recruited in the past have not actually produced any truely quality products since "joinging forces" with microsoft."

Re:beautiful? hideous

[rnd()]

I think that C#, the first X-Box, SQL Server, and WINNT HAL, are excellent examples of Microsoft bringing in top experts and creating cutting edge technology. Sure there have been some flops, and shareholders ought to hold MS accountable...

The beauty of capitalism is the way it can at least put the top minds together on a team and let them have a shot at a higher level of excellence.

Re:beautiful? hideous

[FLAGGR]

C#
Ew.

the first X-Box
higher level of excellence? Now I'm not saying it sucks, but it's not a higher level of excellence. It's an older pc repackaged into a smaller box, with usb controllers, the first of which were halariously huge. Nothing higher level about it (for better or worse) Seriously, its what any non gaming 45 year old buisness man (if they had ms's credit card # to front the loses of being more costly to produce) would think up. Cut and dry. (Again, not trolling on the xbox, just your views :) )

SQL Server
When you are trying to prove a serious point, don't use sarcasm against yourself :)

WINNT HAL
Higher level of excellence? Me thinks you don't have a clue what you are talking about ;)

Re:beautiful? hideous

[vadim_t]

Heh, SQL Server (I use 2000 here) isn't all that great.

I hate the interface, for instance. Whoever made the Enterprise Manager UI should be shot.

It's completely bizarre. Views can be edited normally, but stored procedures use a modal window. To tweak permissions not only it also uses a modal window, but you can't resize it!

And it insists on popping up dialogs asking me if I'd like to close the query to conserve resources. No, I wouldn't like to, I've got a testing server all for myself!

Then opening a big query keeps locks, until you scroll down to the bottom. This can result in Enterprise Manager locking up on itself. It was sure fun to hang the whole company that way...

Then there's the transaction support, which is far from perfect. Can't do nested transactions properly.

Re:beautiful? hideous

[SuiteSisterMary]

Now I'm not saying it sucks, but it's not a higher level of excellence. It's an older pc repackaged into a smaller box, with usb controllers, the first of which were halariously huge. Nothing higher level about it (for better or worse)

Why do people insist on comparing the Xbox to a PC? Compare it to it's market competitors; the GameCube and the PlayStation 2. Who the fuck CARES that it's a repacked PC? An average Xbox game still looks and sounds better than a top-flight PS2 or GC game, and that's the important part. Throwing in a hard drive, while it seems to us an obvious move, is a revolution in the console world. I still shudder at brand new, top-flight RPGs on the PS2 that have...save points.

Re:beautiful? hideous

[biryokumaru]

space flight (1), the klashnikov series (2) and the beautiful masterpiece that is the st petersburg public transit system (3) are among many of the great advances to come out of communist russia.

i think the real boon lies in the incredible efficiency of fascism, which is the natural state within a bussiness environment (regardless of outside competitive practices) and is also most applicable to so-called soviet russia.

my original point was regarding the artistic aspect of games, that subtle design that engages and compells a player. you cant force that.

1 - russian space "stuff" has proven much more reliable than american, regardless of individual failures.

2 - the klashnikov represents a revolutionary step not only toward modern automatic rifles, but in general application of fuzzy logic, as its design is built to handle wear and misuse.

3 - what? thats not an invention! so? american public transit is sooooo bad compared to st petersburg... it should count...

Re:beautiful? hideous

[rnd()]

C# is a revolutionary improvement over Java and is much closer to the ideal that Java has been striving toward for quite some time. Many of the language features are quite elegant and expressive, and it took someone with a very strong design sense to put it all together and still have it make sense to the vb programmers who make up a large part of the microsoft talent pool in a lot of companies.

The sister post rips apart your criticism of the x-box. For a company with no experience to become a serious contender in one shot is fairly impressive.

SQL Server is a fantastic database, and in my benchmarks it's 500 times faster than mysql without indexing and 100 times faster with indexing. I know those numbers sound farfetched, but testw were run on identical hardware, identical table structure, etc.

WINNT hal was designed by some of the premier OS designers and in its day was one of the more advanced approaches to OS design, in many respects, which you can read about.

Re:beautiful? hideous

[rnd()]

but the db itself is very fast.

Re:beautiful? hideous

[rnd()]

Hah. Those examples are creative, but it's funny to sing the praises of a system that self-destructed.

Soviet space flight was reliable only to the extent that its low tech systems were less prone to failure... admittedly that's a valid design approach, but it was not intentional, merely an accident of comparably slow technology growth.

I don't see how rifles are relevant.

I do not know when the basic design of transit in St. Petersburg was designed. It could have been designed prior to the Soviets. In the US people prefer to have cars, and the highways in most cities are only hindered by the fact that they are controlled by a central government. If American highways and railways were sold to the highest bidder, the infrastructure would quickly improve and the cost of maintaining it would quickly decrease.

Re:beautiful? hideous

[vadim_t]

No, it's not fast in the conditions I use it. Yeah, it probably works great if you use it as if it was mySQL, but here the workload mainly consists of big transactions, and that results in very crappy concurrency.

SQL Server doesn't actually support nested transactions, it turns out. Each "begin trans" simply increments a counter, and it's all committed only at the end. This means this big operation, which can easily take a few minutes will end creating a metric ton of locks in several tables, then remove them all when it's all done.

My data here indicates that PostgreSQL should be a whole lot faster with this kind of workload, but unfortunately there's way too much stuff that would need to be changed at the moment.

Re:beautiful? hideous

[rnd()]

I'm using postgres in my current project, and asp.net 2.0 (planning on using the mono implementation)...

I do like mssql, though... I haven't used oracle so my experience is somewhat limited, but considering that Oracle is a db company and MS is a very broad software company, it doesn't seem to be doing too badly.

Re:beautiful? hideous

[scot4875]

An average Xbox game still looks and sounds better than a top-flight PS2 or GC game...

Umm, bullshit? You might be able to get away with that statement if you left the GC out, but I've not seen anything on the XBox that can compete with Resident Evil 4 graphically -- and that's only one example. ...and that's the important part.

Umm, wrong. I won't even bother explaining this one.

--Jeremy

Re:beautiful? hideous

[JFMulder]

Ninja Gaiden is by far the most gorgeous game I've played in this generation of consoles, especially in widescreen 480p. RE4 comes close second tough I have to admit.

Re:beautiful? hideous

[SuiteSisterMary]

I'll admit I've not seen RE4. You'll probably admit you've never seen Ninja Gaiden, any of the DOA games, off the top of my head.

Re:beautiful? hideous

[biryokumaru]

the bolsheviks designed the st petersburg public transit system, and it works beautifully, you can get anywhere in the entire city in 6-10 minutes. in the city i live here in the US, the transit system is privatized, and it usually takes longer to ride the bus somewhere than to simply walk there. but thats just a neat fact, praising the glory of st petersburg, heh... actually, most of the things the bolsheviks did were really incredible.

but the railways used to belong to a whole bunch of campanies, didnt they? like, back when trains were the in thing? and not only were all the track incompatible with eachother, but the major companies had some huge insider trading scandal...

selling things to the highest bidder only means the guy with the most money will do all the work, and usually a guy has the most money because he knows which corners to cut.

haliburton is doing the repair in iraq, and they have a fairly well documented poor record for quality of craftsmanship.

Re:beautiful? hideous

[rnd()]

You are welcome to start a company to compete with Halliburton, as is everyone else. Not to defend Halliburton, but it's really the government's job to write contracts that demand high quality services, etc. We are not demanding enough of our elected officials, and so they do occasionally create bad policy.

Imagine if the railroads were sold, real-estate and all, and private companies were allowed to build private highways in their place. For a subscription fee (or tolls) you'd be able to drive 120 MPH in broad, safe, pothole-free lanes, with such things as wifi access, free roadside assistance, etc.

Re:beautiful? hideous

[FriedTurkey]

Heh, SQL Server (I use 2000 here) isn't all that great. I hate the interface, for instance. Whoever made the Enterprise Manager UI should be shot.

Obviously never worked with Oracle eh? I wish there was a tool like Enterprise Manager that shipped with Oracle.

Wahh. You can't resize the modal window?? Try figuring out the Oracle command in the console and you won't care if SQL server creates a window twice your screen size.

Re:beautiful? hideous

[NonSequor]

No one would insure a private company using that business model, especially if speeds were unrestricted. Also, maintaining safety requires some sort of policing. With the large initial cost and the relatively small profit after maintenance costs, no company would touch this idea. There are better ways to invest your money.

You have too much faith in the free market. The market is a mechanism that is intended to reward people who excel at something. It achieves this goal... sometimes. In an ideal world, the only way to succeed in business would be to sell a product with a price that adequately reflects its quality with respect to its competitors. However, businesses compete on things other than quality and price and in fact many of the market's participants scheme to avoid competing on quality or price.

Of course the government isn't much better. Many people seem to think that political and economic philosophy dictate that one must trust the government or trust the market. One shouldn't trust either one.

Never trust any ideology. There is no reason to believe that a certain philosophy will solve everyone's problems so you should fear any system that uses the same answer for every problem. Be prepared to look at things on a case by case basis.

Re:beautiful? hideous

[biryokumaru]

its government policy to simply give projects to the highest bidder (actually lowest bidder, the organization who say they can do it cheapest). no other aspects come under consideration. the only goal is to get the job done as cheap as possible.

most of the subscription services ive every applied for have been all show and no substance. the only reliable and consistant things i pay for come from large companies with virtually no competition, such as Puget Sound Energy, or Comcast (there is no reasonable alternative to their ISP services in my area). where there is competition, there is always a reduction in quality to decrease prices to remain competitive. and frankly, there isnt enough space to have a dozen or so companies compete over freeways.

unless you disregard that pesky lorax.

Re:beautiful? hideous

[Anonymous Coward]

Free market?

What's that?

I think you mean the corporate welfare market. My personal favourite is the market where my free expression comes fourth to whoever can afford to rent billboards or buy airtime, and to whoever owns them (the only lawful medium, at that).

Competition is great -- it drives local governments to hand more of my tax dollars over to multi-billion dollar corporations so they don't close the factory where I work. It's also the competitive spirit that gives banks record profits quarter after quarter while my savings actually shrink from the servic^H^H^H^H^H^H convenience fees.

Whatever it is, at least in this market there are safety standards and environmental regulations and age restrictions and minimum wages to be met before Johnny Consumer ever sees the product on the shelf. A free market would be a hideous baby-eating beast indeed.

Re:beautiful? hideous

[rnd()]

You have said that nobody should trust anything, but you haven't suggested how policy ought to be created. Of course, politicians want you to believe that markets don't work so that you will give them the power to fix them. You seem to have bought into that ideology.

Markets are markets. They act to optimize resource allocation, nothing more, nothing less. You may not like the outcome, just as you may not always enjoy the effect of gravity, but both are rules of the universe, not ideologies.

The question to be asked is not "how are markets not always great compared to something that's invisible", but "knowing that markets are good at solving resource allocation problems, how can policy be created that doesn't stand in the way?"

The true costs of highways are difficult to measure. What is the cost of potholes? What is the cost of two lane highways that lead to congestion and stop and go accidents? What about the cost of all of the pollution caused by traffic jams, or the cost of an extra hour or two of tens of thousands of people's lives every day while they plod along at 5mph trying to get to work? Speed limits are set at 70, even though the governmnent designed interstates to support 90mph. Taxpayers pay for highways, as do toll payers, as do those who pay all of the above costs. Who is to say that charging a trucking fleet $20M per year for a 'subscription' to a particularly fast stretch of highway (ideally decomissioned railway) wouldn't be a highly beneficial proposition for all parties involved? I would personally pay upwards of $25/day to cut my commute in half, and I'm sure most people earning decent salaries would as well. I would also save money on car repairs if I could avoid all of the poorly maintained roads, etc. With appropriate design and maintenance, insurance prices would likely fall, as would pollution emissions which are another hidden cost of the current system.

I have often observed creationists expressing skepticism about evolution's 'ability' to create various marvels of nature. You sound like a creationist when you express disbelief. The fundamental principle is that markets are good at resource allocation (the essence of economic behavior) and they are far cleverer than you are (or than any of us is).

Re:beautiful? hideous

[rnd()]

Think about what you said. "when there is competition, there is always a reduction in quality to decrease prices and remain competitive".

if consumers demand lower prices, then of course companies will do what it takes to compete for business while offering lower prices... similarly, if people demand higher quality, companies will compete on that front. It's not a failure of capitalism, it's a success. Imagine an economy in which the only cars available were Rolls Royces and nobody could get a car unless they could afford a Rolls. That would be a very suboptimal situation, but it's essentially the one you're idealizing.

Energy companies are so heavily regulated that there really isn't competition and so I agree that the consumer experience is typically quite negative. Why should everyone pay for 99% uptime when some people need 99.9999999% but most would be happy to get discounted power at 98% uptime. The recent blackout illustrated how flawed the one-size-fits-all system is, since there was no way that businesses who required premium service could purchase from power companies (they had to have their own generators and thousands of gallons of fuel storage)...

Re:beautiful? hideous

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen Ninja Gaiden and wasn't that impressed. It was alright. Certainly way way way better than a PS2.

Designed to Attract Japanese Gamers...

[GaryPatterson]

Wow. Games designed primarily to attract certain people.

I bet we'll see anime-style characters, with huge eyes, tiny mouths and weird icons appearing next to them to indicate emotions. Maybe they'll have special moves like flying or fireballs. Who can tell?

But what's next? When we're targeting specific groups with games, why not design games for other groups? How about a game set in the US 'hoods with streetwise urban R&B African Americans vying for top spot on a rap chart. Or maybe target that lucrative Hispanic market with a game based around getting out of Cuba or from South America into the good old US of A.

I can see it now. Commitees set up to determine the makeup of focus groups, who in turn will be asked for all the features they want in a game. And then the designer will collate those features and pump out code and artwork, and hey presto! Another demographic added to the score.

Heaven forfend that a designer might have their own ideas or goals. They are subservient to their masters now - the focus groups, the demographic, the marketing people.

I can't wait to see more gaming ideas put up by marketing people. After all - we all know they have the best ideas, and they'll make the best games.

Remember Poochy from The Simpsons?

Re:Designed to Attract Japanese Gamers...

[Leynos]

Have you ever actually played a Tetsuya Mizuguchi game? You sound like you haven't a clue what you're talking about. If there's one game developer who's out to do his own thing, then it's him.

Re:Designed to Attract Japanese Gamers...

[birder]

>Remember Poochy from The Simpsons?

You kids don't know what you want! That's why you're still kids, 'cause you're stupid!

Interesting theory...

[the_skywise]

Then we'll see a game ad reminiscient of Apple's 1984 ad with a girl running up and throwing a new game system's joystick through the screen...

Re:Wow! I bet they make as many games

[h0mer]

I never see anyone mention the possibility that Rare has been working on Xbox2 projects and they will launch with the system? I bet E3 will answer the question as to what the hell Rare's been doing since being bought out.

Re:Wow! I bet they make as many games

[AlexMax2742]

You know, as opposed to Tecmo which has created at least two slam dunk games for the system (DOA3, NG), probably more. Not to mention Sega's Smilebit studio's which have cranked out top notch games like JSRF, Gunvalkyrie and Panzer Dragoon Orta.

You win some, you lose some.

Re:Wow! I bet they make as many games

[the_skywise]

Which is great news for those of us who have XBox 1's...

Beautiful, or Completely Incorrect?

[Alkaiser]

Sakaguchi's fading, if not already completely spent. Okamoto has as far as I can tell from his credits, absolutely nothing to do with the creative process, and is a talking head. Mizuguchi is the only coup in the bunch so far, and you can't really call it a coup, because this isn't recruiting...it's RENTING.

These guys aren't working for Microsoft. They're working for their own companies, and are helming *1 or 2* exclusive XBox2 projects. Honestly, I thought people here would know better...but I guess this is mostly Zonk's fault for posting it as misleadingly as he has.

Capitalism is indeed beautiful...just like the free agency market in sports is...from the standpoint of the free agent only.

Re:Beautiful, or Completely Incorrect?

[rnd()]

Capitalism is indeed beautiful...just like the free agency market in sports is...from the standpoint of the free agent only.

Not at all. Capitalism is beautiful because someone is paying the cost of the talent and benefitting... in baseball that is typically the team's owner and shareholders. Fans also benefit because they choose to watch games, buy tickets, etc.

Sounds like a sound plan...

[MatW]

Looks like a good plan to me, using a popular japanese brand to attract consumers for the XBOX. Looks like MS is still up to it's devilish ways. I mean haven't they conquered enough yet?

Re:Sounds like a sound plan...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an idiot...

Re:Wow! I bet they make as many games

[Deliveranc3]

Didn't Conkers get nerfed?

When is the release date?

The title.

[schild]

The most important thing in this article is the title of the Xbox Next. It's not the 360, it's the Xbox Next. No one would name their system the 360. It's just too goddamned stupid.

Re:The title.

[sw33tjimmy]

enter, stage left: Playstation 361

Until 2 weeks ago...

[the_skywise]

It was supposed to be out this month. Now it'll be out in June.

Definitely June... Definitely June 21st... June the 21st... yeah... Time for Wapner... Yeah... People's Court...

Re:Wow! I bet they make as many games

[AvantLegion]

Great point!

I like how some are trash-talking about how MS is going to force this or that out of these developers. You know, really squeeze them.

Which is the opposite of what they have done with Rare.

Err Duh...

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a game set in the US 'hoods with streetwise urban R&B African Americans vying for top spot on a rap chart.

Def Jam's wrestling series?
NBA/NFL Street?

Different people like different things, those differences often are seperated by cultural/social/economic/geographic boundries.

Xbox and Japan

[Rousterfarian]

I'm sure I will be marked a troll again for saying this as it seems a lot of people on slashdot games are a little sensitive about their Xbox, but it needs to be said. This won't change things. The Xbox2 won't sell in Japan. Nothing short of MS having a Japanese company sell their console in the land of the rising sun under their own name will change this. The Japanese won't by large buy and American made video game system.

Re:Xbox and Japan

[Anonymous Coward]

No, all they need is to allow Tecmo to release the DOA porn games that Tecmo really wants to sell.

Re:Xbox and Japan

[sw33tjimmy]

just as japan rejects american films, american music, american-made computer components, software, aircraft, american pop-culture... american baseball... Japan is not snobbish toward the states. Not sure if that's what you were implying or not. The xbox was just big, ugly, and the competition had better/more games. Releasing Kung-Fu Chaos over there probably didn't help MS's Far-Eastern cause, either.

I hate to say it, but....

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember what happened the last time SquareEnix was asked to produce a release RPG for a new system? Final Fantasy X, the game that brought you stunning new advances in gameplay such as five second sound loading pauses, prom dresses in lieu of character design, and fascinating side quests such as killing monsters, killing more monsters, and killing monsters with special weapons, for which the reward was...a new monster to kill!

Engross yourself in the vapid and obnoxious temple puzzles! Thrill as you go out for dinner in the middle of battle! Explore a completely linear world, overflowing with arbitrary invisible walls and not much else! Pretend to be shocked at the overplayed reveal of Yuna's "shocking secret" that everybody knows already, goddamnit!

Oh yeah, this is going to be a REAL incentive to buy the next X-Box.