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Lumines Live! Creator Defends Content Downloads
Eurogamer reports that Lumines Live! creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi is defending the extra content downloads required to play the entire game on the 360. From the article: "Mizuguchi told IGN that one reason for the download/pricing strategy was technical ('We have to include everything in 50MB') but that the other reason was the desire to let people customise Lumines. 'We want people to look at Lumines and, depending on the artist, or the season, or the music, we want to give them different reasons to consider buying the game,' he explained." Relatedly, the Live service hit 4 Million users, Microsoft has announced. "Microsoft reckons it's on track for six million users by June 2007. 'We openly welcome other console platforms to join us in [the online] space,' [they say], a bit mockingly."
Part of the problem is that there's not much to the game to begin with. You place blocks down to make squares and try to sneak more in before the line moves across and clears everything. It's similar to Bejeweled or Zuma as far as complexity is concerned, and those games are fully featured and only cost $10 on XBLA, wheras Lumines STARTS at $15, without all the content.
They've got a bit more of an argument with the 50 MB limit, but really, we're seeing some amazing games being made chock full of content that are sneaking in at under that limit (Roboblitz made with the Unreal 3 engine with hi-res textures, the upcoming sprite-animation-heavy Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers)... I doubt that's as big of an issue as they claim it is (although, to be fair, music tends to be the big size hog for casual games, and Lumines is big on the music).
Creator of the popular web game Proximity
The best situation here is if it was 0 dollars to download the FULL engine and have one level of each type available. Then make it clear how to buy each mode. If you want puzzle mode you're forced to by the based game. If you want to play just puzzle mode you're not customizing your game you're enhancing it. Customizing content is a great idea, but don't force people to buy stuff in Bundles like this.
Then of course they blame Microsoft's 50 meg limit? That's easy, make a 50 meg game that costs 1500 points, and then give all the add ons for free, again I get a customized game, but I'm paying one cost. not 5.
As for Microsoft, or shall I say Weasel soft? Those numbers suck.
We have 4 million LIVE users, how many Gold users? Still no numbers, people arn't paying for the system (I am and a couple buds are but they still are avoiding those numbers for some reason)
Factor in 1 year ago at launch they had 2 million. So for the 6 million consoles they sold, only 1/3 are new subscribers and at most 2/3 are online with a FREE account (and remember 2 accounts on the same console, so it could be lower then 1/3)
70 million piece of content? Include how many patches, How many freebees, how many 'oh we forgot to add this in the game"?
12 million XBLA downloads? that's 3 a person... except that's DOWNLOADS again. Not purchases. so with 24 percent of the demos becoming real purchases the minimum actual purchases are around 2 million (likely moremore)?
Time logged on? Who knows. I leave my console on over night some times. I hang on Xbox live and chat with my buddy while playing Ps2 games (tales of Abyss rocks) It all counts towards this goal.
9 million text and voices weekly are the only one that's impressive And that really is an impressive number.
These are interesting, but Microsoft is touting these numbers because they have 0 competition. First thing I do with my Wii will be put it online too, if I got a PS3 that's the same thing I'll do. Since both are free, I'm guessing we'll see similar numbers from them too.
I love my 360 but god Microsoft, stop being Microsoft.
In defense of MS the description is very specific as to what is included and that some features will need additional packs even if the name should have been listed as Base Pack. Also when you come across a mode that needs an additional pack to use the trial says exactly what is needed, like Base Pack and Puzzle Pack or something to that effect. Also on the PSP game I never played much vs CPU and I might never play any on the xbox considering I have online multiplayer and the vsCPU on my PSP version. I don't mind being able to choose what content I'm going to pay for.
I kinda think this game is being used as a test for micro-transactions and that is the reason the game's implementation isn't very graceful. For all we know Q walked into MS with its game weighing in at 200megs 2 months ago and has been rushing to figure out some way to get this monster out via live.