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360 Has Best Launch Lineup Ever?
J. Allard had a chat with Edge magazine about the launch lineup of the Xbox 360, and makes the claim that they have the best launch lineup ever associated with a console. He also talks about the overall vision they had for the launch, and how well their expectations are being met. From the article: "I think it's pretty much spot on. I spoke with someone who was very involved in the planning about three years ago - he came over for about five minutes to drop something off and ended up spending three hours looking at all the capabilities of the machine, and he said, 'Son of a gun, if you guys didn't do 95 per cent of the original vision of the machine!' And I looked at him and said, 'Well, what was the other five per cent, what did we drop?' and he said, 'I don't know. I couldn't find it!'"
And that's fine with me. It was expensive to buy all three consoles this generation, not to mention how much space they take up.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Mr. Allard misses the point to broading the video game market. They ask him:
Looking at the Revolution, with its controller and game download service, how important is technology like that for growing the market, or is there still room for growth with conventional games?
He then starts talking about the cost of games. As if the cost was the thing preventing more people from picking up the newest console and start gaming. Granted, it some way it does impede some people, but most likely if they like gaming they have a older generation console and play games on that. He then throws out this gem:
And what we haven't done in the gaming industry is that we haven't brought advertising, sponsorship and product placement to bear in a way that could broaden the audience. Now, I don't think anyone in the world - except maybe people who work in advertising - would stand up and say: "I love advertising, I want more of it!" But the flipside of it is that I like the price of the internet, I like the price of TV which comes as a result of advertising. I like the fact I can buy your magazine on the store shelf and it doesn't cost me $27
Yes, it isn't like you have to pay for an ISP or have to pay for cable to get more than 7 channels. And lets just ignore the fact that they already do product advertisement in some sports games, which from what I can tell hasn't lower the cost for games at all. Putting that all aside, let's look at the gaming market..
It consists mostly of males ranging from somewhere around 8 to 40. And a lot of the older ones have grew up playing video games for a while. The point Mr. Allard is missing with Nintendo's controller is accessability. TV, movies, and the Internet don't have a wider audience because of advertising(and thus a cheaper entry fee). They have a broader audience because it's very easy to stare at screen
or read a web browser and use a mouse.
Looking at the accessability for video games it's easy to see why they're only enticing to those who've grown up with them(or young enough that it's much easier to pick up). Now a days, most games make use of 2 direction pads/sticks and I would say around 8 actions buttons. For someone who hasn't grown up playing video games, that's a lot to deal with if you want to start playing video games.
If Nintendo plays this right with its more intuitative controller and its download service of older, simplier games, I think they might just be able to find that broader gaming market that won't be won by advertising.
-Shawn "If the Name Don't Rhyme It Ain't Mine" Conn
OK this is just sad. This is, perhaps, the main reason Microsoft fails in this market. They do something and declare it's the best ever: and they believe their own propaganda. That's just sad. It would be one thing if it was, "well, we had fairly strong launch, and we have a lot of games lined up in the future". But no, this sheer stubborn arrogance.
Let's look at a few things: The PSP sold 500k units in 2 days and many people consider it to have had a weak launch. (Possibly because it didn't entirely sell out.) It also had a more diverse launch title list Exclude Ren Goku and Smart Bomb as they weren't available for a couple weeks (and sucked anyway). The remaining games were solid titles available the day of launch.
And again, many people consider this a weak launch.
The PS2 had a more sizeable list at launch than the X360---also more diverse. (Yeah, so the graphics weren't good; gee, it was 2000. Compare it to the PSX or N64.)
The N64 launched with Mario64, which is widely considered to be one of the best games ever. The SNES was launched with Super Mario World; the NES with Super Mario Bros. All of these are AAA titles, and a single AAA title outweighs any number of B titles.
So in conclusion: Microsoft's claim is laughable at best---but mostly, sad and pathetic.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Please explain to me what a "famale game" is. And why should weather or not other females play games on the 360 make any difference to if you do or not?
How about this litmus test?
Are there games on the 360 that you want to play? If so, can you justify the expense?
What more do you need? Does it have to come in pink with bows on it, and have Barbie Fassion games? Or perhaps games that are published by the Lifetime network?
Please, spare us.
I don't have a 360, nor an origional x-box, nor will I probably ever buy either, but get over yourself. Kameo is neither a male, nor a female game. From what I can tell, the same can be said for the entire library of 360 games so far.
You don't use your genitals to play. It doesn't matter. Get over it.
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.