Easy piracy killed the sales of hardcore games, that's why. MadWorld, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom and others undersold after riding waves of pre-release excitement. Casual buyers didn't employ USB drives full of ripped games. Call it the Dreamcast effect.
Who are the folks buying high-end processors? Us! Ppl who know their OC business. This is no loss and all gain for Intel in a product category whose ability to differentiate is practically nil for the target savvy audience. Good on them for throwing us a worthwhile promotional bone.
Reps from Zipper Interactive confirmed to me that the standard, Sixaxis controller can be used instead of the new "Nav" controller. The Nav replicates the left side of Sixaxis, anyway -- two shoulder buttons, one joystick, and simple gyroscope/motion sensing. Nav also has the face buttons, but so does the Move Wand, so those are a bit superfluous. If you want to save $30 on games that support the Nav, it's an option.
The Slot-1 Secret -- this piece from early December '08 looks not only into rampant DS game piracy but how Nintendo rendered this piracy moot by shifting toward new audiences. The latter point is far more interesting, as the R4 topic is otherwise old hat.
The big question is, why the hell does an MP3 player care about the days of the year? For some, it's as simple as having date/time info on the player, but let's not forget, the Zune is also packed with new DRM to ensure people do not abuse the Zune Pass (flat monthly fee introduced in November for unlimited tunes and some TV shows). DRM, again, is epic fail.
Huh. Microsoft has some cool new thing they want ready by the holidays. They rush it, there's a tiny bug, and it costs the company zillions in $ and PR headaches. Familiar, much?
Dude, Microsoft has been offering free memory cards and cheap hard drives to folks just like you: http://www.xboxstorageupgrade.com/... If your system's serial #/console id check out as "arcade," then MS will offer you a 20GB hard drive and 3 months of XBL Gold for $30. Not free, but not shabby, either.
Uh, Mistwalker already has a game for the DS coming out in Japan this week: Archaic Sealed Heat. Search YouTube for gameplay footage. Essentially, it's an SRPG with an immense amount of FMV; in fact, every battle animation is done with fluid, hand-drawn animation. High production values. Looks nice, if a bit unoriginal.
Isn't this pretty much what Nintendo attempted w/ The Wind Waker? Not just the graphics--though those did seek to create a new level of emotional expression unseen in the previous games--but also the obsession w/ the sea and expansion of the world? That wasn't a massive overhaul, sure, but everyone cried foul and begged for another Ocarina-style game. Just a few years later, they got it. Make up your minds, critics.
No, I'm not a spy--a writer. I conduct phone interviews pretty often for freelance articles, and though I'm sure the throngs can find many a way to record a conversation from a cell phone, I don't trust anything other than my wiretap to record calls at the exact moment I need to conduct an interview.
Other than that, though, it would make financial sense to go cell-only. I pay USD$40/mo -- and that includes all taxes/fees -- for all of the minutes, texts and mobile Web I need, and I don't have to fret about long distance calls. That's already about the amount I'd pay for a landline with long distance, and that doesn't include 1) free personal voice mail, 2) options like caller ID/call waiting/etc, 3) mobility and 4) mobile Web use. And I don't know what everyone else's deal is with call quality--my phone is crisp as the dickens both ways AND allows me to use a convenient headset.
Until scientists scare me off with definitive links to cancer, I'll continue to grow the tumors on the right side of my head with this Sanyo phone of mine...
I'm the former music editor at the Dallas Observer, an "alt-weekly" newspaper whose ad dollars have declined radically in the past two years. My job, as I saw it, was to serve as a critical voice about Dallas' independent music scene, but when I decided to aim my critical sights at concert venues that advertised in the paper, I suddenly heard a lot of noise and hubbub about how my work had become "too critical and reported."
The Dallas Observer is part of the Village Voice Media chain of papers, and one of the men responsible for overseeing all 17 music sections in the nation, John Lomax, happened to be very good friends with the Dallas publisher (essentially, the city's chief of financial decisions), as they worked together at the VVM's Houston paper for years. Once I wrote about advertisers, my relationship with the publisher vanished, and criticisms from Lomax--which had previously been all but non-existent--jumped tremendously (though he chose to issue his decrees through my Dallas boss rather than send me a single request himself). A month later, the syndicate had a "clean sweep," firing arts and music staff members at a number of papers--particularly the Village Voice's Robert Christgau--in a two-week span. I was fired very abruptly--never EVER given a "do this or else" warning, because as I'd said, Lomax was too gutless to ever issue a directive, nor was I ever given a yearly review. The reason given was "performance issues addressed on a repeated basis," which, as I've redundantly stated, wasn't even true. The replacement editor has followed the "no criticism" rules steadfastly ever since her September 2006 hiring.
The print advertising world is staffed with people who are expected to deliver results on a quarterly basis. The notion of cycles doesn't exist for people who get fired if they have a down MONTH, let alone a down quarter--and the past few years' panic over circulation scandals hasn't helped sanity on that side of any newspaper or magazine's staff. Sadly, that sense of panic has won over most publications' responsibility to deliver trusted content, but any publication that loses its dignity and respect for readers will ultimately be seen for what it is by the target audience.
If anything, this announcement should've come months ago when games like Brain Age took over the Japanese sales charts. Such "productivity" titles make perfect sense for a massive studio's diverse portfolio, as they cost less to make and tap into a broader market. Perhaps the studio's ties with Disney will come into play with educational software, for starters?
http://www.bugmenot.com/ -- for when you need a username/pass to log into a particular free site (New York Times, AllMusic, etc.) but don't want to bother registering. Assumedly, this site will knock out half of your reasons to use these various quickie e-mail services. Enjoy!
"And hardcore gamers like me aren't going to bother with a magic wand that makes us less efficient at killing aliens."
Is he pointing his remote like a gun and holding it to his eye as if it had crosshairs? Cuz otherwise, I don't get how you could miss anything; it has been pretty much effortless for me to aim and shoot in Rayman Raving Rabbids' gun games, for example. Anybody else having accuracy problems out there?
I also have trouble with the guy telling everyone what he thinks "mainstream" and "hardcore" people want. If you're gonna review it, tell us what YOU think. Seems a bit more relevant than what you assume grandma will think (unless, of course, you report on what your grandmother's impressions were, which would be much more valid, not to mention a pretty interesting idea).
Two groups working on the same game at the same time? The only reason in the world that the two groups wouldn't combine forces is pride; here's to hoping pride is pushed aside to get this done sooner, as the mother3.org team already has the original ROM hacked and worked out quite a bit (and, uh, so what if I'm impatient?).
Nothing in this news report explains exactly why Lik-Sang is closing. It makes mention of action against the reselling of PSPs, but it sells plenty of Nintendo hardware and other systems' software...IANAL, but I don't see any precedents set in the most recent ruling that affect software (nor do I see Nintendo legal action brewing on the horizon). Is this a case of Sony being aggressive behind the public's back and ordering Lik-Sang to shut its doors without saying why to avoid future action? Is Lik-Sang using this opportunity to dump the business and divert potentially angry customers at a red herring? This story is dying for more research and explanation.
Xbox Live, GameTap and/or Nintendo's download service could make any of those worth a few bucks in the long run...well, except for Legends of Wrestling.
As much as I'm bothered by the PS3's price and game selection, I think this conversation is way too rushed. Sony and Nintendo both have the factor of undersupplied/overdemanded content this Christmas--both systems are poised to sell out (even if, worst case scenario, only eBay hopefuls buy up most of the stock). It's the 2nd batch that means the most--a matter that, by the way, Microsoft hasn't done incredibly well with in the 2nd batch cycle of its lifespan. The true test comes in February-April 2007. Xbox will have the lead at that point no matter what, but when availability increases and gamers see their options, that's when the clear leader will pull away from the pack...from then on, the industry will judge in April 07 what platforms to focus their Xmas '07 development on....which means that Microsoft is a fucking genius for saving Halo 3 for "mid-2007." If they can have Halo in stores by May or June '07, the race is theirs, I think. If they wait until Xmas, though, then Sony will have a timetable to 1) get a price drop and 2) introduce more competitive games. Halo 3's release date and/or success level will determine all of that.
Like a few other lucky souls here, I picked mine up when a SuperTarget in Dallas broke the release date. Not much to say that most everyone else here hasn't--the screens are clear, the redesign is attractive--but I'd like to attest to how the new system feels in comparison to the old one, which I think is still the question mark for a few people here. After 12 days of extensive gaming, here's the skinny:
Mario Kart DS: For old-school d-pad & buttons games, the DS Lite is heaven. The "mushy" buttons have gotten some flak on this strand for not having a clicky feeling, but they're a helluva lot more comfortable for 30-minute-plus sessions, and the d-pad is much more responsive, which helps in a game with a crapload of powersliding.
New Super Mario Bros.: Same improvement, but the relocated, shrunken select/start buttons are a drawback. Sure, they're not essential to normal gameplay, but it's hard to hit them quickly for those occasional emergency pauses...I suppose Nintendo's trying to encourage people to shut the clamshell for sleep mode instead.
Metroid Prime Hunters: The reduced weight helps, but otherwise, my hand cramped up just as much as it would with the old unit. The shoulder buttons are fine and the touch screen is just as responsive (though it took me a second to adjust to the new stylus' larger tip), but it's still not wholly ergonomic stuff for the stylus-aim control scheme.
Brain Age: Lighter weight is nice for the game's vertical mode, but just as I'd heard before, the new microphone dislikes the word "blue" more than the old one...any BA players know exactly what I'm talking about. Annoying.
Although these really aren't new characters so to speak, the "Wii Sports" series features these little models which you can put your own faces on... and then you may start to see those characters, with faces you've created, appearing in different games on the Wii system.
Huh. So your WiiSports avatar might be, say, an enemy in SMG? Make a cameo in a crowd in Smash Bros. Brawl? Methinks this ties into the WiiConnect24 service, as well...your little head popping up in other people's games and so on. I'm surprised nobody's talked about this yet.
...there's also a certain sense to this, which the article digs into to some extent. Really, I don't think the asshole who has a special system logging into and dialing Ticketmaster to acquire the best seats for scalping deserves to make a profit just because the public is willing to pay the extra overhead. I don't think Linkin Park deserves that much $, either, but somebody thinks they do. May as well feed the band's drug habit rather than the annoying scalpers'.
Of course, this system would be fine and dandy if the opposite end of the spectrum worked out--where people could get ridiculously cheap seats for undersold concerts ("Hey! We're gonna see Candlebox for 25 cents a pop"). Something tells me that Ticketmaster hasn't yet implemented the falling-price system for these forthcoming auctions, however. They hint to "fluid" prices, but the premise of the article is about raising ticket prices--not lowering--and that's for a mighty good reason.
In the end, it's a sucky prospect, and it's the market's damn fault. Way to blow it for the real fans, lazy scalper-lovers.
Oh, come on, guys. You're all missing the amazing way that the PS3 will interact with the game community--BY SQUEEZING OUT THEIR EVERY PENNY. Notice how long the karaoke-game presentation went on about things you can pay to download? "Now, for a fee, you can download levels, weapons and songs!" Kill me. The last thing the gaming world needs is a company encouraging developers to ship incomplete products so that people will rush onto the Sony service and buy useless, overpriced add-on content. That shop idea might've been interesting if Sony had promoted buying, oh, I dunno, GAMES on it.....but as it stands, it's just a money-grubbing version of XBox Live without any of the interesting Arcade games that make the M$ service relatively worthwhile.
Otherwise, ditto on what most everyone else is saying. The games that were presented looked utterly boring. A couple of hack-n-slashers, a camera-dependent card game... are you kidding? Cute as a tech demo, I suppose, but I think we're way past the tech demo stage in May 2006. Watch the Sony vs. M$ debate take its sharpest, quickest turn ever in the next few hours.
Labels know damn well that the target audience for hip-hop and R&B is America's young, black audience, a group that predominately isn't as connected to MP3 downloading as white kids. iPod proliferation has shortened the gap between audiences, but I'll wait until this sort of statistic is done on a TRL-beloved rock group before I make a connection about anything more than how hot an R&B artist is.
WTFV. Since the players share the same playing field, interesting stuff happens, particularly when there's a hole in the playing field and players wind up wasting good pieces by sending them all the way through to the other side. This looks like someone finally came up with an interesting twist on the Tetris formula.
Slashdot Mirror
Easy piracy killed the sales of hardcore games, that's why. MadWorld, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom and others undersold after riding waves of pre-release excitement. Casual buyers didn't employ USB drives full of ripped games. Call it the Dreamcast effect.
Solution to issues of boredom? Allow mouse+keyboard!
Who are the folks buying high-end processors? Us! Ppl who know their OC business. This is no loss and all gain for Intel in a product category whose ability to differentiate is practically nil for the target savvy audience. Good on them for throwing us a worthwhile promotional bone.
Reps from Zipper Interactive confirmed to me that the standard, Sixaxis controller can be used instead of the new "Nav" controller. The Nav replicates the left side of Sixaxis, anyway -- two shoulder buttons, one joystick, and simple gyroscope/motion sensing. Nav also has the face buttons, but so does the Move Wand, so those are a bit superfluous. If you want to save $30 on games that support the Nav, it's an option.
The Slot-1 Secret -- this piece from early December '08 looks not only into rampant DS game piracy but how Nintendo rendered this piracy moot by shifting toward new audiences. The latter point is far more interesting, as the R4 topic is otherwise old hat.
The big question is, why the hell does an MP3 player care about the days of the year? For some, it's as simple as having date/time info on the player, but let's not forget, the Zune is also packed with new DRM to ensure people do not abuse the Zune Pass (flat monthly fee introduced in November for unlimited tunes and some TV shows). DRM, again, is epic fail.
Huh. Microsoft has some cool new thing they want ready by the holidays. They rush it, there's a tiny bug, and it costs the company zillions in $ and PR headaches. Familiar, much?
Dude, Microsoft has been offering free memory cards and cheap hard drives to folks just like you: http://www.xboxstorageupgrade.com/ ... If your system's serial #/console id check out as "arcade," then MS will offer you a 20GB hard drive and 3 months of XBL Gold for $30. Not free, but not shabby, either.
Uh, Mistwalker already has a game for the DS coming out in Japan this week: Archaic Sealed Heat. Search YouTube for gameplay footage. Essentially, it's an SRPG with an immense amount of FMV; in fact, every battle animation is done with fluid, hand-drawn animation. High production values. Looks nice, if a bit unoriginal.
Isn't this pretty much what Nintendo attempted w/ The Wind Waker? Not just the graphics--though those did seek to create a new level of emotional expression unseen in the previous games--but also the obsession w/ the sea and expansion of the world? That wasn't a massive overhaul, sure, but everyone cried foul and begged for another Ocarina-style game. Just a few years later, they got it. Make up your minds, critics.
No, I'm not a spy--a writer. I conduct phone interviews pretty often for freelance articles, and though I'm sure the throngs can find many a way to record a conversation from a cell phone, I don't trust anything other than my wiretap to record calls at the exact moment I need to conduct an interview.
Other than that, though, it would make financial sense to go cell-only. I pay USD$40/mo -- and that includes all taxes/fees -- for all of the minutes, texts and mobile Web I need, and I don't have to fret about long distance calls. That's already about the amount I'd pay for a landline with long distance, and that doesn't include 1) free personal voice mail, 2) options like caller ID/call waiting/etc, 3) mobility and 4) mobile Web use. And I don't know what everyone else's deal is with call quality--my phone is crisp as the dickens both ways AND allows me to use a convenient headset.
Until scientists scare me off with definitive links to cancer, I'll continue to grow the tumors on the right side of my head with this Sanyo phone of mine...
I'm the former music editor at the Dallas Observer, an "alt-weekly" newspaper whose ad dollars have declined radically in the past two years. My job, as I saw it, was to serve as a critical voice about Dallas' independent music scene, but when I decided to aim my critical sights at concert venues that advertised in the paper, I suddenly heard a lot of noise and hubbub about how my work had become "too critical and reported."
The Dallas Observer is part of the Village Voice Media chain of papers, and one of the men responsible for overseeing all 17 music sections in the nation, John Lomax, happened to be very good friends with the Dallas publisher (essentially, the city's chief of financial decisions), as they worked together at the VVM's Houston paper for years. Once I wrote about advertisers, my relationship with the publisher vanished, and criticisms from Lomax--which had previously been all but non-existent--jumped tremendously (though he chose to issue his decrees through my Dallas boss rather than send me a single request himself). A month later, the syndicate had a "clean sweep," firing arts and music staff members at a number of papers--particularly the Village Voice's Robert Christgau--in a two-week span. I was fired very abruptly--never EVER given a "do this or else" warning, because as I'd said, Lomax was too gutless to ever issue a directive, nor was I ever given a yearly review. The reason given was "performance issues addressed on a repeated basis," which, as I've redundantly stated, wasn't even true. The replacement editor has followed the "no criticism" rules steadfastly ever since her September 2006 hiring.
The print advertising world is staffed with people who are expected to deliver results on a quarterly basis. The notion of cycles doesn't exist for people who get fired if they have a down MONTH, let alone a down quarter--and the past few years' panic over circulation scandals hasn't helped sanity on that side of any newspaper or magazine's staff. Sadly, that sense of panic has won over most publications' responsibility to deliver trusted content, but any publication that loses its dignity and respect for readers will ultimately be seen for what it is by the target audience.
Or, better put, PC World will get theirs.
If anything, this announcement should've come months ago when games like Brain Age took over the Japanese sales charts. Such "productivity" titles make perfect sense for a massive studio's diverse portfolio, as they cost less to make and tap into a broader market. Perhaps the studio's ties with Disney will come into play with educational software, for starters?
http://www.bugmenot.com/ -- for when you need a username/pass to log into a particular free site (New York Times, AllMusic, etc.) but don't want to bother registering. Assumedly, this site will knock out half of your reasons to use these various quickie e-mail services. Enjoy!
"And hardcore gamers like me aren't going to bother with a magic wand that makes us less efficient at killing aliens."
Is he pointing his remote like a gun and holding it to his eye as if it had crosshairs? Cuz otherwise, I don't get how you could miss anything; it has been pretty much effortless for me to aim and shoot in Rayman Raving Rabbids' gun games, for example. Anybody else having accuracy problems out there?
I also have trouble with the guy telling everyone what he thinks "mainstream" and "hardcore" people want. If you're gonna review it, tell us what YOU think. Seems a bit more relevant than what you assume grandma will think (unless, of course, you report on what your grandmother's impressions were, which would be much more valid, not to mention a pretty interesting idea).
Two groups working on the same game at the same time? The only reason in the world that the two groups wouldn't combine forces is pride; here's to hoping pride is pushed aside to get this done sooner, as the mother3.org team already has the original ROM hacked and worked out quite a bit (and, uh, so what if I'm impatient?).
But can it run Linux? ...Maybe.
Nothing in this news report explains exactly why Lik-Sang is closing. It makes mention of action against the reselling of PSPs, but it sells plenty of Nintendo hardware and other systems' software...IANAL, but I don't see any precedents set in the most recent ruling that affect software (nor do I see Nintendo legal action brewing on the horizon). Is this a case of Sony being aggressive behind the public's back and ordering Lik-Sang to shut its doors without saying why to avoid future action? Is Lik-Sang using this opportunity to dump the business and divert potentially angry customers at a red herring? This story is dying for more research and explanation.
Xbox Live, GameTap and/or Nintendo's download service could make any of those worth a few bucks in the long run...well, except for Legends of Wrestling.
As much as I'm bothered by the PS3's price and game selection, I think this conversation is way too rushed. Sony and Nintendo both have the factor of undersupplied/overdemanded content this Christmas--both systems are poised to sell out (even if, worst case scenario, only eBay hopefuls buy up most of the stock). It's the 2nd batch that means the most--a matter that, by the way, Microsoft hasn't done incredibly well with in the 2nd batch cycle of its lifespan. The true test comes in February-April 2007. Xbox will have the lead at that point no matter what, but when availability increases and gamers see their options, that's when the clear leader will pull away from the pack...from then on, the industry will judge in April 07 what platforms to focus their Xmas '07 development on. ...which means that Microsoft is a fucking genius for saving Halo 3 for "mid-2007." If they can have Halo in stores by May or June '07, the race is theirs, I think. If they wait until Xmas, though, then Sony will have a timetable to 1) get a price drop and 2) introduce more competitive games. Halo 3's release date and/or success level will determine all of that.
Like a few other lucky souls here, I picked mine up when a SuperTarget in Dallas broke the release date. Not much to say that most everyone else here hasn't--the screens are clear, the redesign is attractive--but I'd like to attest to how the new system feels in comparison to the old one, which I think is still the question mark for a few people here. After 12 days of extensive gaming, here's the skinny:
Mario Kart DS: For old-school d-pad & buttons games, the DS Lite is heaven. The "mushy" buttons have gotten some flak on this strand for not having a clicky feeling, but they're a helluva lot more comfortable for 30-minute-plus sessions, and the d-pad is much more responsive, which helps in a game with a crapload of powersliding.
New Super Mario Bros.: Same improvement, but the relocated, shrunken select/start buttons are a drawback. Sure, they're not essential to normal gameplay, but it's hard to hit them quickly for those occasional emergency pauses...I suppose Nintendo's trying to encourage people to shut the clamshell for sleep mode instead.
Metroid Prime Hunters: The reduced weight helps, but otherwise, my hand cramped up just as much as it would with the old unit. The shoulder buttons are fine and the touch screen is just as responsive (though it took me a second to adjust to the new stylus' larger tip), but it's still not wholly ergonomic stuff for the stylus-aim control scheme.
Brain Age: Lighter weight is nice for the game's vertical mode, but just as I'd heard before, the new microphone dislikes the word "blue" more than the old one...any BA players know exactly what I'm talking about. Annoying.
Overall, of course, it's a thumbs-up.
Although these really aren't new characters so to speak, the "Wii Sports" series features these little models which you can put your own faces on ... and then you may start to see those characters, with faces you've created, appearing in different games on the Wii system.
Huh. So your WiiSports avatar might be, say, an enemy in SMG? Make a cameo in a crowd in Smash Bros. Brawl? Methinks this ties into the WiiConnect24 service, as well...your little head popping up in other people's games and so on. I'm surprised nobody's talked about this yet.
Of course, this system would be fine and dandy if the opposite end of the spectrum worked out--where people could get ridiculously cheap seats for undersold concerts ("Hey! We're gonna see Candlebox for 25 cents a pop"). Something tells me that Ticketmaster hasn't yet implemented the falling-price system for these forthcoming auctions, however. They hint to "fluid" prices, but the premise of the article is about raising ticket prices--not lowering--and that's for a mighty good reason.
In the end, it's a sucky prospect, and it's the market's damn fault. Way to blow it for the real fans, lazy scalper-lovers.
Oh, come on, guys. You're all missing the amazing way that the PS3 will interact with the game community--BY SQUEEZING OUT THEIR EVERY PENNY. Notice how long the karaoke-game presentation went on about things you can pay to download? "Now, for a fee, you can download levels, weapons and songs!" Kill me. The last thing the gaming world needs is a company encouraging developers to ship incomplete products so that people will rush onto the Sony service and buy useless, overpriced add-on content. That shop idea might've been interesting if Sony had promoted buying, oh, I dunno, GAMES on it.....but as it stands, it's just a money-grubbing version of XBox Live without any of the interesting Arcade games that make the M$ service relatively worthwhile.
Otherwise, ditto on what most everyone else is saying. The games that were presented looked utterly boring. A couple of hack-n-slashers, a camera-dependent card game... are you kidding? Cute as a tech demo, I suppose, but I think we're way past the tech demo stage in May 2006. Watch the Sony vs. M$ debate take its sharpest, quickest turn ever in the next few hours.
Labels know damn well that the target audience for hip-hop and R&B is America's young, black audience, a group that predominately isn't as connected to MP3 downloading as white kids. iPod proliferation has shortened the gap between audiences, but I'll wait until this sort of statistic is done on a TRL-beloved rock group before I make a connection about anything more than how hot an R&B artist is.
WTFV. Since the players share the same playing field, interesting stuff happens, particularly when there's a hole in the playing field and players wind up wasting good pieces by sending them all the way through to the other side. This looks like someone finally came up with an interesting twist on the Tetris formula.