1. Developer support for a Sony handheld is inevitable, particularly given the more cost-friendly disc format. If they have half the developer support of the PS2, the PSP will be in good shape.
2. As was already stated above, your expectations for performance seem ridiculous in the extreme. How many true handhelds available today have the performance of a "budget PC" (before you answer, keep in mind that you can get a 2.4-GHz Celeron-based Dell Dimension desktop for $450).
3. Who the hell complains about more screen real estate? It's nearly three-and-half times the resolution of the GBA (130,560 pixels for PSP versus 38,400 for GBA)! I can understand being miffed about the N-Gage screen considering it's a relatively awkard vertically oriented deal, but 16:9 is becoming the new standard.
It depends on what you and your family are looking for. If it's just a case of your mom wanting to see your face while you're talking, then it's probably fine (just don't move around too much). If you actually want to have a reasonably smooth conversation more closely approximating face-to-face contact, I think a consistent frame rate of 20-25 would be the bare minimum.
For a quick, kind of dirty solution the Beamer product looks to be adequate but, again, it's not going to feel like face to face.
If you're looking for something with higher quality, there are standalone units that work over IP. The obvious advantage is broadband speed allowing much nicer frame rates (as several people have described with the Mac iChat system) and they don't require a PC (though some ISPs require PCs to set up broadband service). The disadvantages are setup (might be tough to talk a non-techie through it) and broadband cost (of course, this is cancelled out with frequent use because of long-distance savings).
D-Link has two TV-connecting IP videophone models, both wireless and wireful (the latter goes for $149.95 after $50 mail-in rebate at Amazon).
They're not claiming to have patented a plot (a good thing since "plot" and "Crazy Taxi" aren't really appropriate for use in the same sentence). Sega is claiming that they patented specific game mechanics used in Simpsons Road Rage. From what little I understand of the patent, those mechanics at least include characters diving away from oncoming vehicles instead of going "splat" and a big floating arrow pointing the player toward a destination.
I obviously can't comment on the validity of their claim, but I can say that Road Rage was intended from the ground up to be a ripoff of Crazy Taxi. I suspect that if Sega can demonstrate damages - specifically that Road Rage took sales away from Crazy Taxi and its sequels - they can probably win their case...of course, there's every possibility that EA, et. al. will settle out of court with Sega since a) they have incredibly deep pockets and b) I don't know that anyone in the video game industry, including Sega, would benefit from this kind of precedent.
Forgive me for stating what should be obvious (and perhaps veering a bit offtopic), but wouldn't it be better to use Mozilla/Firebird rather than giving up on sites that might have content you want to access? I visit Gamespy once a day (mainly to remind myself of new games that I might otherwise forget) and with Firebird I don't get annoying ads - in other words, there are still ads but only the static, banner-types.
Come to think of it, maybe this is why I get a bit confused when people talk about Gamespy in ways that make it sound like the site is a cesspool, since using Firebird means I don't even see the in-between-pages ads.
Wanna see how the real figures probably work out...just look at GameFAQs' Top Games [gamefaqs.com]...this is a telling list, it tells you exactly what ppl are playing right now...
No, it tells you exactly what people who visit particular GameFAQs FAQ pages are playing right now, which has little to do with the rest of the console market. It's like judging the entire clothing market based entirely on people who shop at The Gap.
And, lastly, if developers or producers don't care, why do you still want me to register your games?
Because they want to advertise to you - duh.
Developers can find out whether their game design is flawed through focus groups and testing throughout the development process. Once the game is out, it's over and the only true barometer for how good the game plays is how many copies get sold. Beyond bug fixes, user opinions should generally be considered irrelevant. This is especially true on developer message boards since most people who go to them are looking to complain about something. So, for every one person who decides to complain about a particular aspect of a game, there could be a hundred people who thought that particular aspect was just fine or even good. Instead of taking the pulse of your fans, you're really only taking the pulse of the hardcore and and whiners.
Of course, even if you COULD get 100% representation on game feedback, I still think virtually all of it should be ignored. Game design shouldn't be a democracy. The industry is homogenized enough as it is - "Hey, we sold a million copies of [x], let's do that again." Ideally, game design should be the vision of one or two people realized through their design team.
The most obvious explanation is maximum compatibility using the least space and hardware. Looking at the picture of the back panel, it's pretty crowded and a solid 99% of HDTV sets with DVI (typically only one) in also have component in (typically two or more). There is also the fact that the DVI standard on HDTV sets is designed to accommodate HDCP (the evil anti-copying flags), so a consumer is most likely to use their DVI input for their HDTV set-top box/tuner while using the component inputs for other devices (particularly consoles and devices like the one in this article).
Finally, you should be aware that the DVI inputs on HDTV sets will not necessarily accept PC/Mac DVI signals, so keep this in mind (and try before buying) if you're looking for an HDTV to interface with your G4.
Dell is arguably one of the biggest computer manufacturers on the market for now, and if gaming machines are a niche market then Dell must be making a huge mistake...[blah blah blah]
Let's see. Dell is taking computers they're already hoping to sell and making some of them gaming PCs. That's quite the risky proposition - you know, buying OEM video cards. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Dell is trying to have a computer for everyone, so of course they're going to have gaming PCs. It doesn't mean that there's a monstrous demand for them. It simply means that they don't want PC gamers to dismiss the company out of hand as being only for productivity.
As for the rest of the gaming PC manufacturers...er, assemblers...yes, they are catering to a relatively niche market.
I've actually asked people and a friend of mine who works at EBGames about consoles. No one wants to fucking deal with the network adaptor. [blah, blah, blah]
On the PS2, you're apparently changing the subject. Your original sentence referred to the PS2, not the network adapter. Getting any neophyte to figure out any network adapter can be difficult, though frankly if someone can set up their PC for networking, the PS2 is cake in comparison.
As for the Xbox; MechAssault (boring storyline), Rainbow Six : 3 (played the single player on the PC), Madden 2004 (hard to get people together to play a full game), Unreal Championship (I'd rather play Halo online).
MechAssault: Personally, I liked the single-player and played it through several times, though I can see how people wouldn't care for it as much. Of course, it was an Xbox Live LAUNCH TITLE. It's also worth noting that both MechAssault and Unreal Tournament are now budget titles that are easily worth their $20 pricetag.
Unreal Tournament: See above. AGAIN, a launch title. And I would rather play Halo online, too, though I don't know what that has to do with the price of tea in any part of the world. Of course, even without an XBL-enabled Halo, there are several Xbox FPS games released in the past year that can provide many hours of fun, on and offline.
Rainbow Six 3: No, you actually DIDN'T play the same single-player on the PC. They are indeed different.
Madden 2004: Not even an Xbox Live title - thus proving that you don't really know what you're talking about.
Unless you'd like to show me the financial reports based on the sales of console games, I'd take any reports on the console market being profitable with a grain of salt.
Now you're just trolling...unless you think that Sony, Nintendo, EA, Square Enix, etc. are running charities?
I hate to bring little things like facts into a discussion but the truth is there have been NO DVD releases of the original Star Wars trilogy yet, and episodes I and II have each been released exactly ONCE. Thus, I would suggest that keeping up with all the releases of Star Wars movies these days is cake.
Now, bring up The Lord of the Rings and you've got something...Of course, few would want to do that since geeks actually LIKE the new LOTR movies where many didn't care for Episodes I and II of Star Wars.
Whether you enjoy Final Fantasy games or not, there are people who do. It hardly makes them "retards."
The "crime" of which you seem to consider others guilty is one that you yourself have committed in deciding before playing that Acclaim's game is bad. In other words, you seem to be indicating that buying a game because you've enjoyed other games from the same series or company in the past is wrong, while insulting a game from a company that has done bad games in the past is perfectly acceptable.
I would also suggest to you that just because you feel that Super Smash Brothers, with or without great graphics, can "rock the house," it doesn't make it a great video game achievement - it's a fighting game with Nintendo characters. There are probably plenty of people who DON'T like the game (I didn't care for it that much myself). It's certainly not like Nintendo started some revolution with the series, and the unassailable fact is that the game would NOT have been as successful had it not included Nintendo characters from other games.
Me? I think that Acclaim tends, on average, to produce sub-par games and that their marketing strategies are often tacky and inappropriate. Of course, that's true of most advertising and probably shouldn't warrant extra attention just because they happen to be selling video games.
I want to note, too, that I managed to write all of the above without referring to you or anyone else by using offensive terminology. My rule of thumb is that anyone who would throw the term "retard" around is probably someone in a glass house.
Do you even have the slightest clue what you're talking about?
PC games don't get advertised as heavily because a) the number of people interested in playing PC games is much, MUCH smaller than the number of people interested in playing console games and b) the PC, despite what some believe, was not designed as a video game machine and was in fact designed as a productivity tool. It requires a significant investment to turn a basic PC (with CPU, 256MB of RAM, onboard video and sound, hard drive, monitor, etc.) into a capable gaming device, whereas it takes less than $200 to obtain the hardware necessary to play console games (a little more than $200 in the case of the PS2).
Further, your system-specific points barely make sense and provide no information to back them up. Who claims that the PS2 is "most difficult...to figure out"? Which gamers, besides the most lunatic proponents of other consoles, call the Gamecube "kiddie"? And which Xbox games have "little replay value without Xbox Live"?
I'll save you the trouble of answering those questions. Nobody but the addle-minded find the PS2 hard to operate, ONLY rabid anti-Nintendo nuts dismiss the Gamecube as being a kiddie console, and very damn few Xbox games can be considered as needing Xbox Live to be enjoyed.
The truth is that console titles sell more units and, in general, make more money than PC games. Thus, the console games are naturally going to be more of a marketing priority than PC games owing to the fact that 'it takes money to make money' and television advertising still isn't what I would call cheap.
I'll finish by addressing one more of your points: Even though I watch television via ReplayTV, and thus watch VERY few commercials, I do see snippets and Sony and Nintendo do plenty of advertising for systems and games. There is no way that 29 of 30 video game ads are for Xbox titles. If you think so, then you're not watching a lot of TV - which, of course, most would consider a good thing.
Yeah, Sony sure is looking out for their customers better than Microsoft in this area. Their hard drive still isn't released [outside of Japan], their Xbox Live-like service (optional for third-parties and announced to be in development early this year) still hasn't seen the light of day and they don't offer downloadable expansions at all at the moment given the limitations of memory cards (you'd have to buy a new one every time a couple of new maps were released).
I had nightmares about nuclear war from about age 10 to age 20. Some of that has to do with what was going on the world while I was growing up, but some of it was due to specific images to which I was exposed as a child (specifically, a rather sensationalist special about Nostradamus and the movie The Day After). When I heard jets flying over head, I would experience a fleeting fear that I was hearing a missile. I thought about the possibility of nuclear war a LOT. All this, despite being talked to and educated about said television programs by my mom, and despite having a ridiculous knowledge of politics and war as a child (including the fact that if an ICBM were coming in, I'd be very unlikely to hear it).
While it's true I wasn't "scarred for life," in retrospect I still wish a couple more years had passed before I was exposed to said material. I might have been better able to process what I was seeing rationally instead of having the emotional reaction I did.
Finally, I have to comment on this:
Establish a moral base, teach him values, show him anything he wants to find out... and by age 12, be sure you can let him do pretty much anything he likes or wants, as you can trust his judgement.
Age 12? I have to call that pure hogwash. I had a moral base, values, and was shown very nearly anything I wanted to find out. Looking back, I'm shocked I was trusted to cross the street, let alone to do "pretty much anything." Nobody at age 12 has had enough experience in life to have their judgement trusted that far. For God's sake, a large portion of children haven't even started puberty at that age. I say again: Hogwash.
In pre-conclusion: buy your kid just about anything he can play... but look at him the first times he plays it... then again in about one week, etc (ok, I'm *NOT* going to start a child-psychology lecture here).
What? I'm pretty liberal, but that's just ridiculous. There are very good reasons not to expose children, especially very young children, to certain material and no reputable child psychologist would say different. We put limits on what children are permitted to explore so that they can experience things in at least a somewhat logical order and in such a way that they're ready to understand what they're seeing/hearing/feeling/etc.
Let's say, for example, that an 8-year-old starts learning about World War II and hears something about the Holocaust. Would it then be appropriate to indulge the child's curiosity by showing graphic films of concentration camp victims being bulldozed into mass graves, possibly giving them weeks of nightmares or worse? Granted, there are 8-year-olds who might be able to handle such images, but they're not likely the majority.
In short, what you're proposing is that we turn children's lives over to them completely. If we do that, then why bother parenting at all?
The main problem lies in the expectations for game ratings. Some people expect that the rating of a game will tell them all they need to know about whether or not it's suitable for particular age groups. Those who know better understand that knowing the rating can only be the start of that process.
As is standard for this kind of discussion, I'll use a movie comparison. Both "Bound" and "The Matrix" were rated R by the MPAA. However, one (The Matrix) is far more likely to be acceptable to a parent for viewing by their 14-year-old than the other (Bound). The Matrix was rated R primarily for violence, secondarily for language with a relatively small amount of [non-sexual] nudity. Bound, on the other hand, was rated R primarily for violence and sexual content (specifically, the homosexual aspect) and secondarily for language. Thus we have two movies with the same rating that are going to be judged differently as to appropriateness by parents.
The same applies to the ESRB ratings. "Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball" was rated M primarily for its perceived sexual content/nudity while "Manhunt" received an M based on graphic violence. The former would be acceptable to any parent whose children would be permitted to peruse the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, while the latter would probably bother most parents of children under 16 (and probably many parents of children OVER 16).
I think the television ratings system is probably a better direction for video games in that it provides a much better breakdown of ratings (seven ratings plus descriptors) and it covers content which parents are less likely to view in full (few parents want to sit through a half-hour of Pokemon, and even fewer want to sit and watch their children play two hours of a video game).
So, I think the ESRB is doing its job within the framework that already exists (five ratings with only three that truly matter - E for Everyone, T for Teen and M for Mature). It's just that some people are expecting that simple framework to provide more information than it truly can. Adopting a system with a larger number of simple ratings based on a more complex decision-making process would probably provide the information in a way that would be more useful.
Forgive me, but you're saying that if you go out today and spend $20 for MechAssault, you should get MORE content than people who paid $50? Not only does that not make sense, but it doesn't jibe with your opinion that it's okay for companies to charge money for additional content developed after a game's release.
I'm not a DDR expert (or even player), but don't they have to program the steps and distribute that program in addition to the actual audio of the songs? If so, that would make them more expensive (than iTunes, for example) and would make distributing a very large selection of songs a more complex endeavor.
Actually, two MechAssault download packs were already released for free. The first included two new mechs for use in multiplayer, along with a new map. The second included capture-the-flag mode, two CTF maps and yet another two mechs.
It's only this third pack (adding one real new game-type and two rules-based mods, and three new maps) that costs money to download.
Added into this discussion is the fact that as of right now MechAssault is available for $20 (and under if bought used).
I can understand PC gamers having trepidation about any pay-for-play game model because they haven't had it before (though Valve's Steam is going to change that), but the truth is that Microsoft IS spending money to develop these additions and I don't see any logical (as opposed to emotional and/or miserly) reason they shouldn't charge for them. Citing Counterstrike for Half-Life isn't a good argument since Valve didn't develop it, despite taking over development later; neither is it appropriate to cite other community-developed mods.
Look at it as a collection of expansions for MechAssault and suddenly Microsoft isn't charging that much, especially if you look at all three download sets together. A player coming to MechAssault today is going to pay $25 for MechAssault and a bunch of downloads that make the multiplayer game a LOT better (plus $50 for Xbox Live for a year, but if you're not already resigned to that then nothing can help).
I think that if developers want to take the chance and charge additional money for their online downloadable content, that's fine. People will either consider them a good value and buy them, or they won't. If they decide to make people pay for already existing content (on the DVD) to be unlocked, then they would be taking a bigger chance but, again, people can choose whether or not to buy those games; since that hasn't happened yet, though, I would suggest burning the bridge when we get to it.
I haven't played the newest PGR 2, but I know the original had the same effect on me in that I couldn't play it for more than an hour at a time before wanting to do my patented controller toss (patented because I always have a pillow around designated for cushioning my frustration). Getting those Kudos consistently takes quite a bit of work and one mistake can really drive a person batty - much like linking long combos in trick games like Tony Hawk and SSX. Fortunately, I like tough games...in one-hour doses.:)
Metal Arms doesn't have XBL support because it's a multi-platform game.
Small note: Being multiplatform doesn't preclude including Xbox Live capability - Midnight Club 2, for example, includes pretty nice XBL support. There are also Phantasy Star Online, Capcom vs. SNK 2, the Sega ESPN Sports series, etc.
Of course, as you correctly point out, not every game needs to be online to be fun. It just helps.:)
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1. Developer support for a Sony handheld is inevitable, particularly given the more cost-friendly disc format. If they have half the developer support of the PS2, the PSP will be in good shape.
2. As was already stated above, your expectations for performance seem ridiculous in the extreme. How many true handhelds available today have the performance of a "budget PC" (before you answer, keep in mind that you can get a 2.4-GHz Celeron-based Dell Dimension desktop for $450).
3. Who the hell complains about more screen real estate? It's nearly three-and-half times the resolution of the GBA (130,560 pixels for PSP versus 38,400 for GBA)! I can understand being miffed about the N-Gage screen considering it's a relatively awkard vertically oriented deal, but 16:9 is becoming the new standard.
In short, nice troll. You got me. :)
For a quick, kind of dirty solution the Beamer product looks to be adequate but, again, it's not going to feel like face to face.
If you're looking for something with higher quality, there are standalone units that work over IP. The obvious advantage is broadband speed allowing much nicer frame rates (as several people have described with the Mac iChat system) and they don't require a PC (though some ISPs require PCs to set up broadband service). The disadvantages are setup (might be tough to talk a non-techie through it) and broadband cost (of course, this is cancelled out with frequent use because of long-distance savings).
D-Link has two TV-connecting IP videophone models, both wireless and wireful (the latter goes for $149.95 after $50 mail-in rebate at Amazon).
I obviously can't comment on the validity of their claim, but I can say that Road Rage was intended from the ground up to be a ripoff of Crazy Taxi. I suspect that if Sega can demonstrate damages - specifically that Road Rage took sales away from Crazy Taxi and its sequels - they can probably win their case...of course, there's every possibility that EA, et. al. will settle out of court with Sega since a) they have incredibly deep pockets and b) I don't know that anyone in the video game industry, including Sega, would benefit from this kind of precedent.
Actually, you're thinking of Simpsons Hit&Run which is the GTA3/VC ripoff. Simpsons Road Rage was indeed pure Crazy Taxi action.
Come to think of it, maybe this is why I get a bit confused when people talk about Gamespy in ways that make it sound like the site is a cesspool, since using Firebird means I don't even see the in-between-pages ads.
No, it tells you exactly what people who visit particular GameFAQs FAQ pages are playing right now, which has little to do with the rest of the console market. It's like judging the entire clothing market based entirely on people who shop at The Gap.
It's a hit counter, not a scientific survey.
"Even" if they have computers and post on message boards? How about especially if they have computers on message boards.
Because they want to advertise to you - duh.
Developers can find out whether their game design is flawed through focus groups and testing throughout the development process. Once the game is out, it's over and the only true barometer for how good the game plays is how many copies get sold. Beyond bug fixes, user opinions should generally be considered irrelevant. This is especially true on developer message boards since most people who go to them are looking to complain about something. So, for every one person who decides to complain about a particular aspect of a game, there could be a hundred people who thought that particular aspect was just fine or even good. Instead of taking the pulse of your fans, you're really only taking the pulse of the hardcore and and whiners.
Of course, even if you COULD get 100% representation on game feedback, I still think virtually all of it should be ignored. Game design shouldn't be a democracy. The industry is homogenized enough as it is - "Hey, we sold a million copies of [x], let's do that again." Ideally, game design should be the vision of one or two people realized through their design team.
Finally, you should be aware that the DVI inputs on HDTV sets will not necessarily accept PC/Mac DVI signals, so keep this in mind (and try before buying) if you're looking for an HDTV to interface with your G4.
Exactly. This works much like 'tude (attitude), 'em (them), or 'blishmentarianism' (establishmentarianism).
Let's see. Dell is taking computers they're already hoping to sell and making some of them gaming PCs. That's quite the risky proposition - you know, buying OEM video cards. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Dell is trying to have a computer for everyone, so of course they're going to have gaming PCs. It doesn't mean that there's a monstrous demand for them. It simply means that they don't want PC gamers to dismiss the company out of hand as being only for productivity.
As for the rest of the gaming PC manufacturers...er, assemblers...yes, they are catering to a relatively niche market.
I've actually asked people and a friend of mine who works at EBGames about consoles. No one wants to fucking deal with the network adaptor. [blah, blah, blah]
On the PS2, you're apparently changing the subject. Your original sentence referred to the PS2, not the network adapter. Getting any neophyte to figure out any network adapter can be difficult, though frankly if someone can set up their PC for networking, the PS2 is cake in comparison.
As for the Xbox; MechAssault (boring storyline), Rainbow Six : 3 (played the single player on the PC), Madden 2004 (hard to get people together to play a full game), Unreal Championship (I'd rather play Halo online).
MechAssault: Personally, I liked the single-player and played it through several times, though I can see how people wouldn't care for it as much. Of course, it was an Xbox Live LAUNCH TITLE. It's also worth noting that both MechAssault and Unreal Tournament are now budget titles that are easily worth their $20 pricetag.
Unreal Tournament: See above. AGAIN, a launch title. And I would rather play Halo online, too, though I don't know what that has to do with the price of tea in any part of the world. Of course, even without an XBL-enabled Halo, there are several Xbox FPS games released in the past year that can provide many hours of fun, on and offline.
Rainbow Six 3: No, you actually DIDN'T play the same single-player on the PC. They are indeed different.
Madden 2004: Not even an Xbox Live title - thus proving that you don't really know what you're talking about.
Unless you'd like to show me the financial reports based on the sales of console games, I'd take any reports on the console market being profitable with a grain of salt.
Now you're just trolling...unless you think that Sony, Nintendo, EA, Square Enix, etc. are running charities?
I hate to bring little things like facts into a discussion but the truth is there have been NO DVD releases of the original Star Wars trilogy yet, and episodes I and II have each been released exactly ONCE. Thus, I would suggest that keeping up with all the releases of Star Wars movies these days is cake.
Now, bring up The Lord of the Rings and you've got something...Of course, few would want to do that since geeks actually LIKE the new LOTR movies where many didn't care for Episodes I and II of Star Wars.
The "crime" of which you seem to consider others guilty is one that you yourself have committed in deciding before playing that Acclaim's game is bad. In other words, you seem to be indicating that buying a game because you've enjoyed other games from the same series or company in the past is wrong, while insulting a game from a company that has done bad games in the past is perfectly acceptable.
I would also suggest to you that just because you feel that Super Smash Brothers, with or without great graphics, can "rock the house," it doesn't make it a great video game achievement - it's a fighting game with Nintendo characters. There are probably plenty of people who DON'T like the game (I didn't care for it that much myself). It's certainly not like Nintendo started some revolution with the series, and the unassailable fact is that the game would NOT have been as successful had it not included Nintendo characters from other games.
Me? I think that Acclaim tends, on average, to produce sub-par games and that their marketing strategies are often tacky and inappropriate. Of course, that's true of most advertising and probably shouldn't warrant extra attention just because they happen to be selling video games.
I want to note, too, that I managed to write all of the above without referring to you or anyone else by using offensive terminology. My rule of thumb is that anyone who would throw the term "retard" around is probably someone in a glass house.
PC games don't get advertised as heavily because a) the number of people interested in playing PC games is much, MUCH smaller than the number of people interested in playing console games and b) the PC, despite what some believe, was not designed as a video game machine and was in fact designed as a productivity tool. It requires a significant investment to turn a basic PC (with CPU, 256MB of RAM, onboard video and sound, hard drive, monitor, etc.) into a capable gaming device, whereas it takes less than $200 to obtain the hardware necessary to play console games (a little more than $200 in the case of the PS2).
Further, your system-specific points barely make sense and provide no information to back them up. Who claims that the PS2 is "most difficult...to figure out"? Which gamers, besides the most lunatic proponents of other consoles, call the Gamecube "kiddie"? And which Xbox games have "little replay value without Xbox Live"?
I'll save you the trouble of answering those questions. Nobody but the addle-minded find the PS2 hard to operate, ONLY rabid anti-Nintendo nuts dismiss the Gamecube as being a kiddie console, and very damn few Xbox games can be considered as needing Xbox Live to be enjoyed.
The truth is that console titles sell more units and, in general, make more money than PC games. Thus, the console games are naturally going to be more of a marketing priority than PC games owing to the fact that 'it takes money to make money' and television advertising still isn't what I would call cheap.
I'll finish by addressing one more of your points: Even though I watch television via ReplayTV, and thus watch VERY few commercials, I do see snippets and Sony and Nintendo do plenty of advertising for systems and games. There is no way that 29 of 30 video game ads are for Xbox titles. If you think so, then you're not watching a lot of TV - which, of course, most would consider a good thing.
Bah! They're all ripoffs of Speed Buggy!
Spank away, Sony.
While it's true I wasn't "scarred for life," in retrospect I still wish a couple more years had passed before I was exposed to said material. I might have been better able to process what I was seeing rationally instead of having the emotional reaction I did.
Finally, I have to comment on this:
Establish a moral base, teach him values, show him anything he wants to find out... and by age 12, be sure you can let him do pretty much anything he likes or wants, as you can trust his judgement.
Age 12? I have to call that pure hogwash. I had a moral base, values, and was shown very nearly anything I wanted to find out. Looking back, I'm shocked I was trusted to cross the street, let alone to do "pretty much anything." Nobody at age 12 has had enough experience in life to have their judgement trusted that far. For God's sake, a large portion of children haven't even started puberty at that age. I say again: Hogwash.
What? I'm pretty liberal, but that's just ridiculous. There are very good reasons not to expose children, especially very young children, to certain material and no reputable child psychologist would say different. We put limits on what children are permitted to explore so that they can experience things in at least a somewhat logical order and in such a way that they're ready to understand what they're seeing/hearing/feeling/etc.
Let's say, for example, that an 8-year-old starts learning about World War II and hears something about the Holocaust. Would it then be appropriate to indulge the child's curiosity by showing graphic films of concentration camp victims being bulldozed into mass graves, possibly giving them weeks of nightmares or worse? Granted, there are 8-year-olds who might be able to handle such images, but they're not likely the majority.
In short, what you're proposing is that we turn children's lives over to them completely. If we do that, then why bother parenting at all?
As is standard for this kind of discussion, I'll use a movie comparison. Both "Bound" and "The Matrix" were rated R by the MPAA. However, one (The Matrix) is far more likely to be acceptable to a parent for viewing by their 14-year-old than the other (Bound). The Matrix was rated R primarily for violence, secondarily for language with a relatively small amount of [non-sexual] nudity. Bound, on the other hand, was rated R primarily for violence and sexual content (specifically, the homosexual aspect) and secondarily for language. Thus we have two movies with the same rating that are going to be judged differently as to appropriateness by parents.
The same applies to the ESRB ratings. "Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball" was rated M primarily for its perceived sexual content/nudity while "Manhunt" received an M based on graphic violence. The former would be acceptable to any parent whose children would be permitted to peruse the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, while the latter would probably bother most parents of children under 16 (and probably many parents of children OVER 16).
I think the television ratings system is probably a better direction for video games in that it provides a much better breakdown of ratings (seven ratings plus descriptors) and it covers content which parents are less likely to view in full (few parents want to sit through a half-hour of Pokemon, and even fewer want to sit and watch their children play two hours of a video game).
So, I think the ESRB is doing its job within the framework that already exists (five ratings with only three that truly matter - E for Everyone, T for Teen and M for Mature). It's just that some people are expecting that simple framework to provide more information than it truly can. Adopting a system with a larger number of simple ratings based on a more complex decision-making process would probably provide the information in a way that would be more useful.
Forgive me, but you're saying that if you go out today and spend $20 for MechAssault, you should get MORE content than people who paid $50? Not only does that not make sense, but it doesn't jibe with your opinion that it's okay for companies to charge money for additional content developed after a game's release.
I'm not a DDR expert (or even player), but don't they have to program the steps and distribute that program in addition to the actual audio of the songs? If so, that would make them more expensive (than iTunes, for example) and would make distributing a very large selection of songs a more complex endeavor.
The only title of which I'm aware that will have ("does have" in Japan) multi-platform online capability is Final Fantasy XI, PCPS2.
It's only this third pack (adding one real new game-type and two rules-based mods, and three new maps) that costs money to download.
Added into this discussion is the fact that as of right now MechAssault is available for $20 (and under if bought used).
I can understand PC gamers having trepidation about any pay-for-play game model because they haven't had it before (though Valve's Steam is going to change that), but the truth is that Microsoft IS spending money to develop these additions and I don't see any logical (as opposed to emotional and/or miserly) reason they shouldn't charge for them. Citing Counterstrike for Half-Life isn't a good argument since Valve didn't develop it, despite taking over development later; neither is it appropriate to cite other community-developed mods.
Look at it as a collection of expansions for MechAssault and suddenly Microsoft isn't charging that much, especially if you look at all three download sets together. A player coming to MechAssault today is going to pay $25 for MechAssault and a bunch of downloads that make the multiplayer game a LOT better (plus $50 for Xbox Live for a year, but if you're not already resigned to that then nothing can help).
I think that if developers want to take the chance and charge additional money for their online downloadable content, that's fine. People will either consider them a good value and buy them, or they won't. If they decide to make people pay for already existing content (on the DVD) to be unlocked, then they would be taking a bigger chance but, again, people can choose whether or not to buy those games; since that hasn't happened yet, though, I would suggest burning the bridge when we get to it.
I haven't played the newest PGR 2, but I know the original had the same effect on me in that I couldn't play it for more than an hour at a time before wanting to do my patented controller toss (patented because I always have a pillow around designated for cushioning my frustration). Getting those Kudos consistently takes quite a bit of work and one mistake can really drive a person batty - much like linking long combos in trick games like Tony Hawk and SSX. Fortunately, I like tough games...in one-hour doses. :)
Small note: Being multiplatform doesn't preclude including Xbox Live capability - Midnight Club 2, for example, includes pretty nice XBL support. There are also Phantasy Star Online, Capcom vs. SNK 2, the Sega ESPN Sports series, etc.
Of course, as you correctly point out, not every game needs to be online to be fun. It just helps. :)