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Epic's Mark Rein Expounds On The Revolution

Posted by Zonk on from the throwing-stones-from-high-places dept.

nb caffeine writes "Epic's Mark Rein is shooting his mouth off again, this time bashing the Revolution controller and EA's management style. This seems to be a recurring theme with him." From the article: "I guarantee you there's going to be lots of people who say the whole reason for this game is this controller, we made the perfect game for the controller. And all it'll be is about the controller, and not necessarily a great game...I've heard EA and Activision make absolutely ridiculous statements about, 'Oh, it's going to take 30 million dollars to make a game and we need 300 people' - that's just a bunch of bullsh... They're just covering up for their own management and incompetence. Or mismanagement I should say."

15 of 115 comments (clear)

  1. Single Console owners what a business is made on? by LoverOfJoy · · Score: 5, Insightful
    That said, Rein continued, "Nintendo, you know, is going to make amazing games. I mean that's a given." Rein then conducted a quick audience survey to find out how many people present owned a GameCube - and found that rather a large number of hands were raised.

    He then asked everyone who also owned a PS2 or Xbox to put their hands down - and concluded that under ten per cent of the audience were Cube owners only.

    "Hard to make a business on less than 10 per cent," Rein said.

    Why do you have to make your business be only about those who own ONLY your console? That's like asking PS2 owners how many of them don't also own a gaming pc and saying it's hard for Sony to make a business on that percentage.

  2. This guy is an idiot by (A)*(B)!0_- · · Score: 5, Insightful
    On the XBox 360 controller: "It works just fine for playing games, and it works fine for first-person shooter games"

    That's just what I want to think when I am going to drop half a grand on a new video game console. Just fine is another way of saying, "nothing new." And that begs the question - why not just stick with the current XBox?

    Another gem on the completely unscientific sampling method of who in attendance only owned Gamecubes: "Hard to make a business on less than 10 per cent,"

    Nintendo is in the black. Sony and MS have not made money with the PS2 or the XBox. I would say that making a business doesn't have to be measured by market share - instead focusing on profitability. Nintendo profits. That's a good business.

    1. Re:This guy is an idiot by Shadow+Wrought · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Indeed. I find it also pretty compelling that Nintendo has struck out on their own path while the Xbox and PS fanbois have a pissing contest about which one has better graphics. Nintendo is focusing on games, the other two are focusing on graphics. I'll likely own a Revolution before either of the others.

      --
      If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
  3. Hard to make a business on 10 percent? by -kertrats- · · Score: 3, Insightful

    He says it's hard to make a business on 10 percent of people owning your console exclusively. Why? If all the people from the first call paid Nintendo their money for the Gamecube, what does Nintendo care if they own other consoles? To claim you need to be the exclusive console to be successful is asinine.

    --
    The Braying and Neighing of Barnyard Animals Follows.
    1. Re:Hard to make a business on 10 percent? by MindStalker · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Exactly, infact as this was a gamer expo, you'd be hard pressed to find much more than 15% of people exclusivly having a PS2 or Xbox.

    2. Re:Hard to make a business on 10 percent? by mconeone · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's pretty simple actually. If Epic makes a game only for the PS/XBox, they are only cutting themselves out of 10% of the market. The idea here is that while a number of people own a Gamecube, they can still buy the Epic non-Gamecube game for a system they own. Also, people are more likely to buy a game on the most powerful platform they own (GC would get overlooked for the XBox.)

      Don't get me wrong though, that 10% number is complete BS.

      For the next generation, what this really comes down to is whether the Revolution controller is better for FPSes than the XBox/PS one. If it isn't, then his thinking is on track, as most gamers would buy the game for their other system, instead of the Revolution. If it is, then his reasoning is bogus and the game would be profitable on the Revolution (assuming that the Revolution sells well).

  4. Um, yeah, Mark... by sc0ttyb · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, the company that basically MADE the controller what it is today is getting flak about its new controller? Don't you think you should give Nintendo just a LITTLE credit?

    You know that D-pad on the 360 controller you're holding? Nintendo did that. Vibration? Nintendo. Shouder buttons? Nintendo.

    Just a thought.

    --
    "Apparently so, but suppose you throw a coin enough times. Suppose one day, it lands on its edge."
    1. Re:Um, yeah, Mark... by Admiral+Ackbar+8 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Nintendo also came up with things like Robby the Robot, Virtual Boy, and the Power Glove.

      For the love of everything good, Mattel made the friggin Power Glove. Not Nintendo.

    2. Re:Um, yeah, Mark... by scot4875 · · Score: 5, Informative

      The point of Rob was *not* as an alternate input device. The point was to make the NES seem unlike any of the previous video game consoles. They added him, even though they *knew* it was crap, to distinguish themselves from the 'competition,' which at that point was mainly customers' distaste for video game consoles. Read Game Over or (IIRC) High Score. They both talk about this.

      Rob was an investment. He was smoke and mirrors. You'll notice that they didn't sell it in anything but the first NES packages.

      And, as someone else already pointed out, Mattel made the power glove, not Nintendo. The only alternate input devices that Nintendo provided for the NES were the Advantage and the NES Max, which were both good controllers.

      --Jeremy

      --
      Jesus was a liberal
  5. hmm.. by Darune · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Well he's probably right about a lot of games being made for the Revolution just for the controller. Some will definitely suck, but I think(hope) that overall they should be good games, and as he said, Nintendo will provide some A+ titles.

    His comment on the FPS's I'm not so sure about. All the consoles currently handle FPS's relatively the same, the XBox trigger buttons may give it a slight advantage. As for the Revolution though, companies could make their own attachments for FPS's. The shotgun mockup from IGN is an example of something companies could (in theory) do. Hopefully game companies will take advantage of controller add-ons, but somehow I doubt it will be as magical and widespread as I hope. I'm worried that without the right addon for the controller the user will get a "magic wand" feeling with Revolution FPS's.

    In the end I will side with the majority of the comments, and agree that he is just trolling anyways.

    --
    Oh crap, I'm on fire again.
  6. Bizarre Definition of Failure by skryche · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This proof of Nintendo's failure seems about as suitable:

    Rein then conducted a quick audience survey to find out how many people present owned a GameCube - and found that rather a large number of hands were raised.

    He then asked everyone who also ate at McDonald's in the past week to put their hands down - and concluded that under ten per cent of the audience were Cube owners who hadn't eaten at McDonald's recently.

    "Hard to make a business on less than 10 per cent," Rein said.

  7. Re:Single Console owners what a business is made o by Defiant00 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Of course, the next big cross-platform game could always be a FPS or some sort of RTS-type game that would work better with the Revolution controller than an analog stick setup.

    For that matter, if more developers start making these types of games for next-gen consoles, it's possible that the Revolution version could be the version created first and then the PS3 and 360 versions are just ports with higher res textures/higher poly models. I'd imagine that'd make it a bit easier to go cross-platform instead of then having to try and downgrade the visuals for the Revolution (if it does turn out to be graphically inferior), then just change the controls for looking around/selecting units to work with an analog stick and you'd have a prettier but (most likely) more difficult to use version of the game.

    This of course is just speculation, but at least for me I'd probably pick up a cross-platform FPS on the Revolution over the PS3 or 360 if the controller works as well as is being claimed.

  8. this opinion brought to you by... by dr.fishopolis · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Reading the article, I got the distinct impression that he was schilling for Microsoft... Bashing PS3, revolution, gamecube, and calling the xbox 360 controller all but perfect. Kneepads like that don't come cheap, so you do a search for "Epic Microsoft partnerships" and you get this... http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/ut2004/news_6120 091.html

    Epic Games today announced that its Unreal Engine 3 technology will be used in games from Microsoft's internal development team, Microsoft Game Studios ... While no specific titles were mentioned, Epic confirmed that the technology will be used for "the next-generation Xbox platform." ... "We are hugely excited that Microsoft Game Studios have selected Unreal Engine 3 for its next generation Xbox platform games," said Epic Games president Mark Rein.

  9. Gimick!?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    QUOTE
    Rein then conducted a quick audience survey to find out how many people present owned a GameCube - and found that rather a large number of hands were raised.

    He then asked everyone who also owned a PS2 or Xbox to put their hands down - and concluded that under ten per cent of the audience were Cube owners only.

    "Hard to make a business on less than 10 per cent," Rein said. /QUOTE

    Who would listen to someone who has such poor logic skills? If he were to switch the systems around would he be saying "Hard to make a business on less than 15 per cent" (in reference to the PS2 or XBox) because that is the reality; if you throw in a gaming PC I bet the number would be under 10% for any system you choose. [And don't say that the PS2 has sold uber-billions of units more than the XBox or Gamecube, If you look at the number of PS2s that have had a new game (rented or purchased) played on them in the past 12 months it would likely only be 1.5-2 times as many as there are Gamecubes/XBoxes. This is because a lot of PS2s were sold as cheap DVD players, are only used by pirates, or have died from the famous disc-read error]

    Any developer who is worth listening to should be supporting Nintendo (at least in spirit); at one point in time every new game style was just a gimick.

    Grand Theft Auto was just a gimick ...
    The Sims were just a gimick ...
    Tomb Raider was just a gimick ...
    Mario 64 was just a gimick ...
    Starfox was just a gimick ...
    Wolfenstein 3D was just a gimick ...
    Super Mario Bros. was just a gimick ...
    Donkey Kong was just a gimick ...
    Pong was just a gimick ...

    It is through time and refinement that a gimicky game becomes a whole new genre all to itself

  10. The real reason for the Nintendo bashing... by Zangief · · Score: 3, Interesting

    is the fact that Nintendo hasn't licensed the Unreal Engine for the Revolution.