Um, yeah, the Playstation was a huge success and everyone (even this writer for Wired) knows that. Unfortunately, at the same time the PS was rocking, nearly everything else Sony touched turned to shit.
Next time, I recommend you read the article instead of skimming it.
One thing I'm curious about. I wonder if one reason MS delayed shiping the 360 with an HD-DVD drive was to see if Blue-Ray would come out on top over HD-DVD and make sure that they didn't support the losing side prematurely.
Nope. There were two reasons Microsoft decided to go DVD instead of HD-DVD for the 360: The first is the obvious one, which is cost. They were already looking at an expensive device with the new CPU, graphics and continued inclusion of a hard drive - this had already caused them to create a second SKU without the hard drive. Adding HD-DVD would have driven them into PS3 pricing territory, and that's a bad route for "second place" to take. The second reason is that HD-DVD wasn't any more ready for "primetime" than Blu-Ray at the time MS wanted to produce and ship and the 360.
Why would anyone buy consoles if they weren't cheaper than PCs? Well, depending on how much cheaper, convenience could certainly be a factor. Assuming the console works well, it's an entirely "plug'n'play" experience. The games enter into it as well - assuming, of course, that there continued to be games released on consoles that never see a PC release (and, yes, I'm aware that the reverse is true as well).
People do try to compare PC gaming to console gaming in terms of price, attempting to make the PC win out. Why else would prices be mentioned by the GP in the first place? Even the reply above yours tries to play off the cost of the components I listed - case, power supply, motherboard, memory, optical drive and hard drive for the $500 CPU/video card combo are going to run at least $300, and that's for cheap hardware.
You may be a sensible person who would never consider making the argument wo which I was replying, but there are many people who do, and I sometimes feel compelled (by Christ?) to reply.:)
I can't disagree with anything you said - and the truth is that I've had a hard time stopping the game once I've started playing because the story is involving, the mechanics are solid and the game is just plain fun. So, I don't think the section I described needed the countdown. Then again, if such a countdown was there and was even quite generous (say, 6 hours, a number that would just about guarantee nobody would reach 00:00) it would have made the much shorter exit countdown you mentioned that much more exciting, eh?:)
It's just too bad that a $300 CPU and a $200 graphics card don't constitute a PC that can play a game - maybe with a case, power supply, motherboard, memory, optical drive and hard drive, you could actually do something with the CPU and graphics card...
Folks need to stop pretending that PC gaming (at least of new games) is cost effective compared to consoles - it's not and it never will be. That doesn't mean that PC gaming isn't cool and fun (well, as much as any videogaming is "cool"), but it's going to continue to be more expensive for the foreseeable future.
If you're being serious on any level, I think you're way off (at least as regards PA). The boys at PA do creatively participate in advertising, but they seem to do so above board and the comics they create for that purpose are right there on game company websites (e.g., their comics for Ubisoft). I haven't seen any evidence that their regular comic is up for sale to the highest advertising bidder. Their "Armadeaddon" series of comics seemed to be their usual formula of taking the recent "big game" and trying to turn into something funny. Considering the history of zombies in PA, this latest series of strips was a natural for them (plus, I found the strips hilarious).
All that said, I wouldn't have a problem with them if they did "sell out" their regular comic on occasion, as long as the stuff continued to entertain me. I'm all for people making as much money as they possibly can - with the usual "don't hurt other people" caveat, of course.
It's odd, but the time limit that reviewers are describing as a negative is the big thing that's actually getting me excited about playing this game (I've been "about to get an Xbox 360" for about 6 months now). I actually like the idea of a game dominated by a ticking countdown.
For example, I've been playing Beyond Good & Evil (great game BTW) for the last month or so. While I've enjoyed it, I must admit that at times the urgency just isn't there. When your companion is kidnapped early in the game, you then have to sneak your way through a large factory in an attempt to find him; but, the way the game is designed you could take days to do so if you felt like it. After hitting a savepoint or two, the urgency kind of washes away. Now, if there was a ticking clock that kicked off as soon as your buddy was kidnapped, I'd really feel more immersed in the game - it would probably be more frustating, but it would be exciting, too.
I don't get the impression that Sony asked them - it was more likely a fan at the con. I think it was just written like Sony executives might be hearing the question and hoping for the "right" answer."
That said, I think it's a potential indicator of a bad thing for the PS3. The PA crew are exactly the people a Sony exec should expect to have in the bag for launch: They're "hardcore" gamers, avid PS2 players, have bought multiple consoles at launch, have HDTV and, presumably, have the disposable income necessary to buy a $500 console - as a bonus, their livelihood depends to some degree on playing videogames.
If someone meets all the above criteria and still isn't interested in getting a PS3 this year because of the price, then Sony has reason to be worried.
For me, I could afford to get a PS3 at launch but it's not going to happen. Of course, I never buy consoles at launch, so I was never a part of Sony's launch hopes...then again, the Wii does look pretty cool.:)
The short answer to the question you didn't ask is that I found your post inflammatory (not personally offensive) and decided to respond like an A-hole - it's just who I am...:)
It depends on the game. Some games are (as the article suggests) ridiculously complicated in their execution, and those complications may be addressed in various portions of a FAQ. Also, when I talk about printing out many pages of a GameFAQs FAQ, part of that is due to the horrible layout of most user-generated text files and part is due to the often "free-form" nature of a modern game - while it's great to be able to go wherever, and do whatever, you want in a large game, it makes it that much harder to sort through a text file to find the information you might need at a given moment.
Personally, I've never gone "step by step" using a walkthrough because it wouldn't be any fun. But, there might be information I want in many parts of the file, and the more time I spend cutting and pasting just the references I need (or going back and forth to the PC), the less time I can be playing the game.
As for maps, there are times when I just relate better to a paper map than the one provided in game (assuming there is one and it has the "right" notations). Also, in the case of the GTA games (III, VC and SA), for example, there are all the "secrets" which aren't going to be available on the in-game map. While I'm not in the habit of immediately going and grabbing all of them I can when I first start the game, I also don't find it all that fun to spend hours specifically looking for them later on so that I get my free M16s.:)
The truth is that I don't buy strategy guides all that often. Right now I'm playing Beyond Good & Evil and Mercenaries on my Xbox, and I haven't been using guides - online or off - at all (despite BG&E making strong efforts to irritate me). In fact, now that I think of it, the last guide I bought was for GTA:SA.:)
By the tone of your post, one would think that people "cheating" their way through games was causing you some sort of pain. If so, I recommend Tylenol, though not if you have any liver problems. I'd also recommend not taking it with alcohol, but I suspect you're drunk enough on your own importance that you don't need further inebriation.
1) Some people do like "blasting" through a game fast with the use of a strategy guide. If that's their thing, I say go to it. 2) Some people use the actual "strategy" portions of a strategy guide (most have them) in order to figure things out that the modern, anemic game manual doesn't tell them. 3) Still other people buy a strategy guide so that if they're stuck on a game for an hour or more and can't figure out what the hell they're supposed to do next, they won't have to make another run to the store to buy the guide they could have bought while they were there the first time. 4) Finally, some people know that they're going to want the strategy guide so that they can do all the weird crap that they missed their first time through, and they buy it with the game so that they can get the discount that you described.
Personally, I fall into categories 3 and 4 (plus, in some games a big map - provided with most strategy guides - is very nice to have) and, every once in a while, I buy a strategy guide along with the game, especially if I get a deal on the combo.
As a final note, retailers encourage the purchase of game guides because they have a much higher profit margin than videogames (especially console games). It's no different than the old "Do you want fries with that?" ditty, and if that still annoys you then you should probably consider psychiatric drugs in addition to the Tylenol I recommended above...
I'd be the first (though that's impossible now) to say that GameFAQs is awesome. If you want a guide or walkthrough (at least after a game has been available for a time), it's usually there and it's usually more up to date than a strategy guide bought in the store - the guides on GameFAQs also tell you about bugs when a game has them, which the store-bought guides never do.
That said, a store-bought guide is often laid out better, it's usually prettier to look at and it's usually available either the day the game comes out, or even before. It's also more convenient than using a laptop while playing or printing out page after page (some files on GameFAQs can be hundreds of pages) of a text file. There are also usually nice maps when appropriate that are much better than anything I could print myself (the maps are why I bought the Vice City and San Andreas strategy guides).
The Internet is a great place to find information, especially information about videogames. But, it still loses the convenience race with a book sitting next to me on the couch and, depending on the game, I'm often willing to blow $10-15 for that convenience.:)
I think the better breakdown is that Pac-Man is for people who value nostalgia over gameplay, while Ms. Pac-Man is for for the true connoisseurs of Pac fun. Super Pac-Man, of course, is for those who believe that size is more important than style.
Was your system based on automatic generation of said hierarchical database from a series of metadata tags on digital music files transferred to a portable music player? If so, then you must have been the coolest kid ever, walking around school listening to your "pickyPod."
Since I'm neither an inventor nor a patent attorney, I can't comment on whether the patent should have been granted or not. But, the patent is very specific as to what it does and how it does it, and it is specifically directed at portable digital music players. I would also note that Creative preceded Apple in the hard-drive MP3 player market by a year (the first Nomad Jukebox was released in 2000, while the iPod debuted in 2001), and that the patent application was filed before the iPod hit the market.
Then, if you're not reading [H]ardOCP reviews, you should be. What you're describing is exactly the tack they take in their evaluations, trying to look at performance under conditions gamers care about instead of seeing how high they can jack the frame rate at low resolutions. Even when comparing two cards, they don't force a card into conditions that make a game unplayable just to make the tests match, and instead simply tell you what settings didn't make it into the test (i.e., turning down grass detail in Oblivion, lowering the AA level for a card, etc.).
I actually agree with you. Unfortunately, constantly raising the stakes became such a tradition with the series that I think people would have missed it. Personally, I would have been happy to have an entire season or two take place exclusively on Earth, dealing with the inevitable terrestrial consequences of such a large amount of alien contact, and the knowledge those aliens had of our planet. Some of my favorite episodes were those that placed the team against both aliens on our planet and other earthlings who wanted to take advantage of interstellar problems for their own benefit.
Family Guy and Futurama have new leases on life because people went out and bought the DVDs. Presumably, that factor has already been taken into consideration since SG1 box sets have been on the shelves for years now.
Personally, I think 10 years is a fantastic run and there's no reason to feel bad that the show is ending - most shows do (and a few that don't should). Besides, there will be at least one season's worth of chances to see the classic characters as they're sure to appear at least intermittently on Atlantis. Who knows? That show might even improve when it's out of SG1's shadow.
While I generally agree with your sentiment, the truth is that in SG1 the good guys had to get more powerful or the show wouldn't have lasted for 10 years - not necessarily because the Goauld (I never remember where the apostrophe[s] go) would win, but because the government would have stopped funding the program. The program's entire reason for existing was to acquire alien technology [to protect the planet], so they had to start acquiring some. It was pointed out during the series that the electricity required to run the gate was ridiculously expensive, let alone the cost of staff and other materials (guns were probably the least of the SG program's expenses).
Dean Devlin, who wrote the original Stargate movie, still wants to do sequels to the original movie with Kurt Russell and James Spader reprising their roles (as opposed to Richard Dean Anderson and Michael Shanks who took over the O'Neill and Jackson characters for the TV series).
To sell the sort of mass quantities that can keep the factories humming and sustain developer interest that price does have to drop, and fairly fast. Can they do it?
Not if history is any guide. The PS2 was out for about 18 months before the first price drop of $100 (33%). Then, after 12 months it dropped 10%, the following year 16%, and finally 13% this year to its current price of $130.
If they could follow the same pattern in terms of percentages (and these numbers are rounded a bit), the PS3 price would drop to $335 in 2008, $300 in 2009, $250 in 2010 and $220 in 2011. If the Xbox 360 followed the same guide, we would see (premium - the core prices would be more like the PS2) $270 in 2007, $240 in 2008, $200 in 2009, $170 in 2010.
Of course, Sony could end up being a lot more aggressive if things start working out better in terms of Cell production, and if Blu-Ray manages to knock HD-DVD out of the movie market (I'm sure MS could hang with them easily, staying lower priced no matter what Sony does). If not, we could be looking at PS3 consoles costing a minimum $300 up to 3 years from now - that would seem to be something that would put a dent in PS3 sales compared to those Sony enjoyed with the much less expensive PS2.
Slashdot Mirror
[kburn]No offense, but go shoot yourself.[/kburn]
Um, yeah, the Playstation was a huge success and everyone (even this writer for Wired) knows that. Unfortunately, at the same time the PS was rocking, nearly everything else Sony touched turned to shit.
Next time, I recommend you read the article instead of skimming it.
Nope. There were two reasons Microsoft decided to go DVD instead of HD-DVD for the 360: The first is the obvious one, which is cost. They were already looking at an expensive device with the new CPU, graphics and continued inclusion of a hard drive - this had already caused them to create a second SKU without the hard drive. Adding HD-DVD would have driven them into PS3 pricing territory, and that's a bad route for "second place" to take. The second reason is that HD-DVD wasn't any more ready for "primetime" than Blu-Ray at the time MS wanted to produce and ship and the 360.
Why would anyone buy consoles if they weren't cheaper than PCs? Well, depending on how much cheaper, convenience could certainly be a factor. Assuming the console works well, it's an entirely "plug'n'play" experience. The games enter into it as well - assuming, of course, that there continued to be games released on consoles that never see a PC release (and, yes, I'm aware that the reverse is true as well).
:)
People do try to compare PC gaming to console gaming in terms of price, attempting to make the PC win out. Why else would prices be mentioned by the GP in the first place? Even the reply above yours tries to play off the cost of the components I listed - case, power supply, motherboard, memory, optical drive and hard drive for the $500 CPU/video card combo are going to run at least $300, and that's for cheap hardware.
You may be a sensible person who would never consider making the argument wo which I was replying, but there are many people who do, and I sometimes feel compelled (by Christ?) to reply.
I can't disagree with anything you said - and the truth is that I've had a hard time stopping the game once I've started playing because the story is involving, the mechanics are solid and the game is just plain fun. So, I don't think the section I described needed the countdown. Then again, if such a countdown was there and was even quite generous (say, 6 hours, a number that would just about guarantee nobody would reach 00:00) it would have made the much shorter exit countdown you mentioned that much more exciting, eh? :)
It's just too bad that a $300 CPU and a $200 graphics card don't constitute a PC that can play a game - maybe with a case, power supply, motherboard, memory, optical drive and hard drive, you could actually do something with the CPU and graphics card...
Folks need to stop pretending that PC gaming (at least of new games) is cost effective compared to consoles - it's not and it never will be. That doesn't mean that PC gaming isn't cool and fun (well, as much as any videogaming is "cool"), but it's going to continue to be more expensive for the foreseeable future.
If you're being serious on any level, I think you're way off (at least as regards PA). The boys at PA do creatively participate in advertising, but they seem to do so above board and the comics they create for that purpose are right there on game company websites (e.g., their comics for Ubisoft). I haven't seen any evidence that their regular comic is up for sale to the highest advertising bidder. Their "Armadeaddon" series of comics seemed to be their usual formula of taking the recent "big game" and trying to turn into something funny. Considering the history of zombies in PA, this latest series of strips was a natural for them (plus, I found the strips hilarious).
All that said, I wouldn't have a problem with them if they did "sell out" their regular comic on occasion, as long as the stuff continued to entertain me. I'm all for people making as much money as they possibly can - with the usual "don't hurt other people" caveat, of course.
It's odd, but the time limit that reviewers are describing as a negative is the big thing that's actually getting me excited about playing this game (I've been "about to get an Xbox 360" for about 6 months now). I actually like the idea of a game dominated by a ticking countdown.
For example, I've been playing Beyond Good & Evil (great game BTW) for the last month or so. While I've enjoyed it, I must admit that at times the urgency just isn't there. When your companion is kidnapped early in the game, you then have to sneak your way through a large factory in an attempt to find him; but, the way the game is designed you could take days to do so if you felt like it. After hitting a savepoint or two, the urgency kind of washes away. Now, if there was a ticking clock that kicked off as soon as your buddy was kidnapped, I'd really feel more immersed in the game - it would probably be more frustating, but it would be exciting, too.
I don't get the impression that Sony asked them - it was more likely a fan at the con. I think it was just written like Sony executives might be hearing the question and hoping for the "right" answer."
:)
That said, I think it's a potential indicator of a bad thing for the PS3. The PA crew are exactly the people a Sony exec should expect to have in the bag for launch: They're "hardcore" gamers, avid PS2 players, have bought multiple consoles at launch, have HDTV and, presumably, have the disposable income necessary to buy a $500 console - as a bonus, their livelihood depends to some degree on playing videogames.
If someone meets all the above criteria and still isn't interested in getting a PS3 this year because of the price, then Sony has reason to be worried.
For me, I could afford to get a PS3 at launch but it's not going to happen. Of course, I never buy consoles at launch, so I was never a part of Sony's launch hopes...then again, the Wii does look pretty cool.
The short answer to the question you didn't ask is that I found your post inflammatory (not personally offensive) and decided to respond like an A-hole - it's just who I am... :)
It depends on the game. Some games are (as the article suggests) ridiculously complicated in their execution, and those complications may be addressed in various portions of a FAQ. Also, when I talk about printing out many pages of a GameFAQs FAQ, part of that is due to the horrible layout of most user-generated text files and part is due to the often "free-form" nature of a modern game - while it's great to be able to go wherever, and do whatever, you want in a large game, it makes it that much harder to sort through a text file to find the information you might need at a given moment.
:)
:)
Personally, I've never gone "step by step" using a walkthrough because it wouldn't be any fun. But, there might be information I want in many parts of the file, and the more time I spend cutting and pasting just the references I need (or going back and forth to the PC), the less time I can be playing the game.
As for maps, there are times when I just relate better to a paper map than the one provided in game (assuming there is one and it has the "right" notations). Also, in the case of the GTA games (III, VC and SA), for example, there are all the "secrets" which aren't going to be available on the in-game map. While I'm not in the habit of immediately going and grabbing all of them I can when I first start the game, I also don't find it all that fun to spend hours specifically looking for them later on so that I get my free M16s.
The truth is that I don't buy strategy guides all that often. Right now I'm playing Beyond Good & Evil and Mercenaries on my Xbox, and I haven't been using guides - online or off - at all (despite BG&E making strong efforts to irritate me). In fact, now that I think of it, the last guide I bought was for GTA:SA.
By the tone of your post, one would think that people "cheating" their way through games was causing you some sort of pain. If so, I recommend Tylenol, though not if you have any liver problems. I'd also recommend not taking it with alcohol, but I suspect you're drunk enough on your own importance that you don't need further inebriation.
1) Some people do like "blasting" through a game fast with the use of a strategy guide. If that's their thing, I say go to it.
2) Some people use the actual "strategy" portions of a strategy guide (most have them) in order to figure things out that the modern, anemic game manual doesn't tell them.
3) Still other people buy a strategy guide so that if they're stuck on a game for an hour or more and can't figure out what the hell they're supposed to do next, they won't have to make another run to the store to buy the guide they could have bought while they were there the first time.
4) Finally, some people know that they're going to want the strategy guide so that they can do all the weird crap that they missed their first time through, and they buy it with the game so that they can get the discount that you described.
Personally, I fall into categories 3 and 4 (plus, in some games a big map - provided with most strategy guides - is very nice to have) and, every once in a while, I buy a strategy guide along with the game, especially if I get a deal on the combo.
As a final note, retailers encourage the purchase of game guides because they have a much higher profit margin than videogames (especially console games). It's no different than the old "Do you want fries with that?" ditty, and if that still annoys you then you should probably consider psychiatric drugs in addition to the Tylenol I recommended above...
I'd be the first (though that's impossible now) to say that GameFAQs is awesome. If you want a guide or walkthrough (at least after a game has been available for a time), it's usually there and it's usually more up to date than a strategy guide bought in the store - the guides on GameFAQs also tell you about bugs when a game has them, which the store-bought guides never do.
:)
That said, a store-bought guide is often laid out better, it's usually prettier to look at and it's usually available either the day the game comes out, or even before. It's also more convenient than using a laptop while playing or printing out page after page (some files on GameFAQs can be hundreds of pages) of a text file. There are also usually nice maps when appropriate that are much better than anything I could print myself (the maps are why I bought the Vice City and San Andreas strategy guides).
The Internet is a great place to find information, especially information about videogames. But, it still loses the convenience race with a book sitting next to me on the couch and, depending on the game, I'm often willing to blow $10-15 for that convenience.
I got my Pac-Man pattern guide on the record sleeve of my LP copy of "Pac-Man Fever." It was...driving me crazy?
I think the better breakdown is that Pac-Man is for people who value nostalgia over gameplay, while Ms. Pac-Man is for for the true connoisseurs of Pac fun. Super Pac-Man, of course, is for those who believe that size is more important than style.
Was your system based on automatic generation of said hierarchical database from a series of metadata tags on digital music files transferred to a portable music player? If so, then you must have been the coolest kid ever, walking around school listening to your "pickyPod."
Since I'm neither an inventor nor a patent attorney, I can't comment on whether the patent should have been granted or not. But, the patent is very specific as to what it does and how it does it, and it is specifically directed at portable digital music players. I would also note that Creative preceded Apple in the hard-drive MP3 player market by a year (the first Nomad Jukebox was released in 2000, while the iPod debuted in 2001), and that the patent application was filed before the iPod hit the market.
Then, if you're not reading [H]ardOCP reviews, you should be. What you're describing is exactly the tack they take in their evaluations, trying to look at performance under conditions gamers care about instead of seeing how high they can jack the frame rate at low resolutions. Even when comparing two cards, they don't force a card into conditions that make a game unplayable just to make the tests match, and instead simply tell you what settings didn't make it into the test (i.e., turning down grass detail in Oblivion, lowering the AA level for a card, etc.).
I actually agree with you. Unfortunately, constantly raising the stakes became such a tradition with the series that I think people would have missed it. Personally, I would have been happy to have an entire season or two take place exclusively on Earth, dealing with the inevitable terrestrial consequences of such a large amount of alien contact, and the knowledge those aliens had of our planet. Some of my favorite episodes were those that placed the team against both aliens on our planet and other earthlings who wanted to take advantage of interstellar problems for their own benefit.
You can't service all the fans all the time... :)
Family Guy and Futurama have new leases on life because people went out and bought the DVDs. Presumably, that factor has already been taken into consideration since SG1 box sets have been on the shelves for years now.
Personally, I think 10 years is a fantastic run and there's no reason to feel bad that the show is ending - most shows do (and a few that don't should). Besides, there will be at least one season's worth of chances to see the classic characters as they're sure to appear at least intermittently on Atlantis. Who knows? That show might even improve when it's out of SG1's shadow.
While I generally agree with your sentiment, the truth is that in SG1 the good guys had to get more powerful or the show wouldn't have lasted for 10 years - not necessarily because the Goauld (I never remember where the apostrophe[s] go) would win, but because the government would have stopped funding the program. The program's entire reason for existing was to acquire alien technology [to protect the planet], so they had to start acquiring some. It was pointed out during the series that the electricity required to run the gate was ridiculously expensive, let alone the cost of staff and other materials (guns were probably the least of the SG program's expenses).
Dean Devlin, who wrote the original Stargate movie, still wants to do sequels to the original movie with Kurt Russell and James Spader reprising their roles (as opposed to Richard Dean Anderson and Michael Shanks who took over the O'Neill and Jackson characters for the TV series).
The $2 tacos also have HDMI interfaces. I'll only consume tacos in fully digital form...analog is so over.
Not if history is any guide. The PS2 was out for about 18 months before the first price drop of $100 (33%). Then, after 12 months it dropped 10%, the following year 16%, and finally 13% this year to its current price of $130.
If they could follow the same pattern in terms of percentages (and these numbers are rounded a bit), the PS3 price would drop to $335 in 2008, $300 in 2009, $250 in 2010 and $220 in 2011. If the Xbox 360 followed the same guide, we would see (premium - the core prices would be more like the PS2) $270 in 2007, $240 in 2008, $200 in 2009, $170 in 2010.
Of course, Sony could end up being a lot more aggressive if things start working out better in terms of Cell production, and if Blu-Ray manages to knock HD-DVD out of the movie market (I'm sure MS could hang with them easily, staying lower priced no matter what Sony does). If not, we could be looking at PS3 consoles costing a minimum $300 up to 3 years from now - that would seem to be something that would put a dent in PS3 sales compared to those Sony enjoyed with the much less expensive PS2.
It's so much easier for Sony that they apparently haven't been able to get it out to their developers...