What's funny about human nature is that every single group hereabouts thinks that everyone else is biased against them. Pick pretty much any topic and any side in it, and you can find a situation where someone's complaining about how they're being oppressed etc because they're going against groupthink. For Google/Apple in particular, there are ample examples of people complaining about both pro-Google and pro-Apple bias.
To enhance the difference between the two, there's no question that the new Xbox you'll receive in compensation is better than the bricked model. Now imagine the owner of a 60GB backwards compatible PS3 having his unit replaced by one of the newer "superior" models...
If customers succesfully manage to cause PR trouble for 2K over this, developers will have to take notice and they will never do this again with any other game: for subsequent releases, the 108kb key will be padded with 350MB of nothing. PR crisis averted!
I have one source: the book Revolutionaries at Sony by Reiji Asakura. It is a (Sony-approved) chronicle of the development and launch of the original PSX, and there's one entire section that explains how hard was for the original PSX team to convince the upper management to sell the console at a loss (see "The Boldness to Sell at a Loss", p. 191, 1st Edition). I should point out that Sony's strategy was to sell at a loss only at the beginning - as they slowly integrate the production with each revision of the console the productions costs go down until they start getting profits from the hardware sales.
Of course this doesn't prove that the PS2 or the PSP were sold or are bing sold with loss, but if it worked once for them...
INvidia and Sony are co-developing the chip, which means that Nvidia will be able to use it in future cards, while Microsoft used Nvidia's own chips. Sony is also manufacturing the chip at his own facilities instead of buying them from a supplier like Microsoft did.
Unlike Microsoft, who bought different parts from different suppliers, Sony has always stressed that all the components for the PS and PS2 had to come out from Sony facilities to keep costs down during the lifetime of the console. I'm sure NVidia knew this when they signed the contract with Sony.
While I agree that Sony would sooner or later have released its own console, it would have arrived later rathen than sooner if not for Nintendo's actions. Had Nintendo just killed the project Sony would quite likely still have been allied to Nintendo for a while. In fact, according to "Revolutionaries at Sony", a Sony approved "biography" of the original Playstation, Ken Kutaragi, the creator of the Playstation, had tried to convince Sony's upper management to release their own console, but the plan had always been rejected because Sony was happy just being a provider of parts for the Nintendo consoles.
That same book details what happened. The problem was that Nintendo, instead of just pulling the plug for Sony's original Playstation (which was a SNES/CD-ROM hybrid platform), went behind Sony's back and formed an alliance with Philips to develop a SNES CD-ROM add-on. One day after Sony announced that it was working along with Nintendo to develop the Playstation, Nintendo announced that it was working with Phillips to develop the true SNES CD-ROM and that Sony's project wouldn't come to light. This conference made Sony's management appear as complete fools.
Kutaragi saw his chance and told the President of Sony that they could go ahead with the Playstation project and release it as a stand-alone console. The main reason why Kutaragi's plan was approved was not because of a great business plan, but because he stressed how it would be the best way to get even with Nintendo.
Virtual Boy was a mistake, true, but while it was a dismal failure it didn't cause Nintendo's presence in the market to shrink one fourth of what the original PS did just a couple of years after its introduction.
I saw it coming too... Another sign was Sakaguchi leaving Square to create Mist Walker. Sakaguchi had expressed a desire to work with old pal Yoshitaka Amano, so I figured that a collaboration with Uematsu wouldn't that far behind, as well. Uematsu going freelance would give him the possibility to work with Sakaguchi without him burning bridges with Square. Chances are Mist Walker's first project will have Uematsu onboard.
(and that said, I wouldn't be surprised if Uemeatsu collaborated in Final Fantasy XIII - Square has no problems working with freelance composers).
A word of warning: the album mentioned above sucks. Big time. I wish I had read these reviews before wasting my money... (and yes, it is the same album - "Perform the Music of Nobuo Uematsu" is "A Musical Tribute" repackaged and with one extra and sucky track).
You'd be much better with "The N Generation" and "The S Generation" albums - compilations of songs from several arranged japanese albums. They were domestic releases, so finding them at decent prices through eBay is not too hard. Heck, I've seen new copies of them in my local SamGoodie: look for them in the soundtrack section.
If that doesn't work, then your best shot is going to Animenation.com or some other import store and look for the compilation albums. lav-chan's suggestions are pretty good (I'd go with 20020220).
PSX was an acronym used mainly by the videogame press. Sony of America's press releases (like this one) use "PlayStation", "PS" and "PS one" to refer to the original Playstation. They've been doing that at least since 2001.
AFAIK, after Nintendo dropped Sony's contract to create a SNES console with CD capabilities (which was referred as the Playstation), Sony decided to create its own console using the Playstation as its base, and this project was baptized as Playstation X. When the console was marketed the 'X' was dropped fron its official name, but the press still used the X in the acronym. Dunno why... maybe because it sounded cool?
I agree that Playstation X may sound unoriginal, but since Sony of Japan never used the name in a released product in that market I don't see much trouble. I think it fits - after all the PSX is more than a PS2, but it is not a new Playstation console. Of course, they might run a bit of a problem when they try to market a PS3 with added functionality... will it be known as PSX2? Or a PS3X, maybe?
Given the fact that the Xbox sells poorly in Japan, I wouldn't count on it. Any game that Square Enix makes for GBA or PS2 is going to sell thousand of copies because the user base for those consoles is much, much larger: why spend money on porting the game to a platform that has a small user base when I could use that same money to make (or remake) a game that has the potential to sell a thousand times more if I release it in a console with a larger user base? That's why we have stuff life Final Fantasy I & II for the GBA and Dragon Quest V for the PS2 instead of any game for the Xbox.
FFXI was a perfect game for the Xbox, since it already had a hard drive and could connect online with minimal hassle, plus Square had already ported the game to PC. And Square Enix still hasn't released it for the Xbox. The console is not in Squeenix's radar as of now. And frankly, I don't think that porting or making games for the Xbox would count as a next level, anyway,
There's another article about the ICO conference at 1up.
ICO is one of the most amazing games I've played, and much of that is due to the attention to details. The first time I held Yorda's hand and I felt the tug through the Dual Shock I was sold on the game. A pity it didn't do better in the market, though - it really deserved to do better.
SaGa Frontier was a console RPG from Square for the Playstation 1 that passed almost unnoticed in the USA (the weird and argueably broken gameplay presumably had something to do with it). One of the playable characters was a woman, Asellus, who developed a somewhat romantic relationship with another female character. I remember finding out about this in the GIA review, and corraborated later when I had the chance to play the game.
For some reason I didn't consider this that shocking... I've always found that anime and manga are open to same-sex relationships and gender-bending characters (like the lesbiancouple in Sailor Moon and the affeminate Pisces Aphrodite in Saint Seiya), so I wasn't that shocked to find it out in a japanese videogame. But it was pretty novel for american released videogames for that time - I don't think Nintendo would have allowed during the NES or SNES eras!
Simple. Company X will release the new compelling game as an exclusive for its new console, Y. As long as the company releases good, solid new titles in one console the consumers will follow - of course you can't release new hardware every other year *cough!*32X!*cough!*Saturn*cough!*, but I'd think most companies have learned the lesson.
And, well, technological advances can give us better storytelling and better gameplay. Technology isn't everything, but it does help.:)
I agree with you in all but one small point. While storytelling is important in movies, in games it is only one factor. We can also improve in one other critical aspect.
The way I see it there are three factors that can help you sell a game: the technology, the story and the gameplay. The article discusses technology, so we won't go there. But what about the other two?
I am one of those people who buy the game not because of the story or the graphics, but because of the gameplay. Sure, the other two are nice bonuses, but I only care about how the game plays. My favorite game is Civilization, which I fund incredibly fun even if it does not have cutting edge graphics or even a storyline. I still have plenty fun with Tetris, and small quirky games like Warioware and Space Channel 5 can keep me glued to the screen for hours. So what if they are not the most graphically detailed games ever? As long as they are fun, that's all that matters.
If it's history I want, then I'll buy a movie, or a book. However I know plenty of people who prefer storytelling over gameplay, and there's nothing wrong with that - just a matter of taste. I've also fallen in that bracket every now and then, what with those SCUMM games. For people who prefer storytelling we have games like Xenosaga and all the old LucasArts graphical adventures and all the interactive fiction.
And of course, there are games that cater to people from all audiences - technology, gameplay and storytelling. Halo is an example, and Final Fantasy is another.
And now, to my point, which is very similar to yours: technology is only one aspect of gaming. There are people who prefer technology, but there's only so much growth you can get out of it. But storytelling and gameplay still have plenty room for growth. As you said, we don't need technological innovation to make them better, just better storytellers, and/or better gameplay. The videogame industry will survive.
Actually the I/O Processor in the PS2 is based on the PS1's CPU - this chip is the one that takes over when you boot the PS2 with a PSOne game. Sony killed two birds with one stone with this "Playstation-in-a-chip": they got an I/O processor and a way to get almost flawless PS1 emulation... the keyword being almost flawless, since there are PS1 games that are incompatible. This wouldn't be the case if Sony had decided to just stick a PS1 inside a PS2.
Anyway, I can see Sony working right now in a "PS2 in a chip" for the PS3 - they have been revising the hardware for the PS2 to reduce the number of components with every new model, just as they did with the PS1, and I expect they eventually will get around to having most of the functionality of the Emotion Engine in a single, cheap chip. We can also expect a smaller, cuter and cheaper PSTwo after the PS3 is launched.
But now that I think about it... Since they are separate chips, will the PS3 be compatible with the PS1? I'd think so, but they would have to use two different chips into the PS3. I/O processor and matemathical co-processor? Or will they integrate the "PS1-in-a-chip" in the new mini-Emotion Engine?
Kojima did his best to hide Raiden until the release of the game. I watched all the trailers as soon as they came out (I was there at the E3 this year when he presented the new trailer at the Sony conference) and he never revealed anything that might suggest that you wouldn't control Solid Snake for the best part of the game. They even used Snake's model for some scenes that used Raiden's model in the final game.
I managed to stay safe, intentionally avoiding any spoilers or reviews of the game when it came out until I got my copy and played it myself.
Turns out, I shouldn't have bothered to avoid the spoilers. Even while Kojima kept Raiden as a secret for almost two years, the *manual* gives him away right at page two or three (along with several other spoilers). Thankfully I didn't read the manual for the first time until I was well along the game, and after realizing it had plenty of spoilage material I just tucked it away until I had finished the game.
So, we didn't even need the Internet this time to give it all away. While Kojima was busy hiding all the important stuff in the trailers, some people at the packaging department of Konami of America decided to print everything in the manual. Thanks for the spoilers, Konami!
The Ethernet adapter/modem is comiing out this November at $39.99 Keyboard, mouse, hard drive and LCD screen are coming out at the same time but no price has been given (but I don't really expect the HDD and LCD screen to come cheaply).
And, by the way, the PS2s at E3 were running Unix. I was there when they shut them down on the last day. And it was really weird to see somebody turn off a PS2 with a 'shutdown' command;) ---------------------------------------------- -------------
The creator of Pokemon was Satoshi Tajiri, and Nintendo bought the concept from him. You cand find more about Pokemon and Nintendo at http://www.elecplay.com/feature_4096_page1.html ------------------------------------------------ -----------
Well, several sources (like the GIA) have commented that Play Online, Square's online gaming service, is entering in beta testing this fall in Japan. So modems might be ready for this fall, which is when the PSX2 will be released in the US,so I wouldn't dismiss this so soon...
But, I must admit, the PSX2 shipping with a modem and a hard disk certainly looks to good to be true, so it probably is a rumor... ---------------------------------------- -------------------
Slashdot Mirror
What's funny about human nature is that every single group hereabouts thinks that everyone else is biased against them. Pick pretty much any topic and any side in it, and you can find a situation where someone's complaining about how they're being oppressed etc because they're going against groupthink. For Google/Apple in particular, there are ample examples of people complaining about both pro-Google and pro-Apple bias.
FTFY!
To enhance the difference between the two, there's no question that the new Xbox you'll receive in compensation is better than the bricked model. Now imagine the owner of a 60GB backwards compatible PS3 having his unit replaced by one of the newer "superior" models...
Unfortunately, he can't return the game because Bionic Commando 2 is a downloadable game from PSN.
And people wonder why the most important question that guides any of my game purchases is "what DRM does it use?"
I'm not sure if the parent's post qualifies as a Tu Quoque fallacy or as a personal attack.
If customers succesfully manage to cause PR trouble for 2K over this, developers will have to take notice and they will never do this again with any other game: for subsequent releases, the 108kb key will be padded with 350MB of nothing. PR crisis averted!
The point is moot if all those devces are iPods.
Curiously, they both were Spanish artists. I wish I could say it is mere coincidence...
I have one source: the book Revolutionaries at Sony by Reiji Asakura. It is a (Sony-approved) chronicle of the development and launch of the original PSX, and there's one entire section that explains how hard was for the original PSX team to convince the upper management to sell the console at a loss (see "The Boldness to Sell at a Loss", p. 191, 1st Edition). I should point out that Sony's strategy was to sell at a loss only at the beginning - as they slowly integrate the production with each revision of the console the productions costs go down until they start getting profits from the hardware sales.
Of course this doesn't prove that the PS2 or the PSP were sold or are bing sold with loss, but if it worked once for them...
INvidia and Sony are co-developing the chip, which means that Nvidia will be able to use it in future cards, while Microsoft used Nvidia's own chips. Sony is also manufacturing the chip at his own facilities instead of buying them from a supplier like Microsoft did.
Unlike Microsoft, who bought different parts from different suppliers, Sony has always stressed that all the components for the PS and PS2 had to come out from Sony facilities to keep costs down during the lifetime of the console. I'm sure NVidia knew this when they signed the contract with Sony.
While I agree that Sony would sooner or later have released its own console, it would have arrived later rathen than sooner if not for Nintendo's actions. Had Nintendo just killed the project Sony would quite likely still have been allied to Nintendo for a while. In fact, according to "Revolutionaries at Sony", a Sony approved "biography" of the original Playstation, Ken Kutaragi, the creator of the Playstation, had tried to convince Sony's upper management to release their own console, but the plan had always been rejected because Sony was happy just being a provider of parts for the Nintendo consoles.
That same book details what happened. The problem was that Nintendo, instead of just pulling the plug for Sony's original Playstation (which was a SNES/CD-ROM hybrid platform), went behind Sony's back and formed an alliance with Philips to develop a SNES CD-ROM add-on. One day after Sony announced that it was working along with Nintendo to develop the Playstation, Nintendo announced that it was working with Phillips to develop the true SNES CD-ROM and that Sony's project wouldn't come to light. This conference made Sony's management appear as complete fools.
Kutaragi saw his chance and told the President of Sony that they could go ahead with the Playstation project and release it as a stand-alone console. The main reason why Kutaragi's plan was approved was not because of a great business plan, but because he stressed how it would be the best way to get even with Nintendo.
Virtual Boy was a mistake, true, but while it was a dismal failure it didn't cause Nintendo's presence in the market to shrink one fourth of what the original PS did just a couple of years after its introduction.
I saw it coming too... Another sign was Sakaguchi leaving Square to create Mist Walker. Sakaguchi had expressed a desire to work with old pal Yoshitaka Amano, so I figured that a collaboration with Uematsu wouldn't that far behind, as well. Uematsu going freelance would give him the possibility to work with Sakaguchi without him burning bridges with Square. Chances are Mist Walker's first project will have Uematsu onboard.
(and that said, I wouldn't be surprised if Uemeatsu collaborated in Final Fantasy XIII - Square has no problems working with freelance composers).
A word of warning: the album mentioned above sucks. Big time. I wish I had read these reviews before wasting my money... (and yes, it is the same album - "Perform the Music of Nobuo Uematsu" is "A Musical Tribute" repackaged and with one extra and sucky track).
You'd be much better with "The N Generation" and "The S Generation" albums - compilations of songs from several arranged japanese albums. They were domestic releases, so finding them at decent prices through eBay is not too hard. Heck, I've seen new copies of them in my local SamGoodie: look for them in the soundtrack section.
If that doesn't work, then your best shot is going to Animenation.com or some other import store and look for the compilation albums. lav-chan's suggestions are pretty good (I'd go with 20020220).
It was released for the PS2 in the US in May 14, 2002.
PSX was an acronym used mainly by the videogame press. Sony of America's press releases (like this one) use "PlayStation", "PS" and "PS one" to refer to the original Playstation. They've been doing that at least since 2001.
AFAIK, after Nintendo dropped Sony's contract to create a SNES console with CD capabilities (which was referred as the Playstation), Sony decided to create its own console using the Playstation as its base, and this project was baptized as Playstation X. When the console was marketed the 'X' was dropped fron its official name, but the press still used the X in the acronym. Dunno why... maybe because it sounded cool?
I agree that Playstation X may sound unoriginal, but since Sony of Japan never used the name in a released product in that market I don't see much trouble. I think it fits - after all the PSX is more than a PS2, but it is not a new Playstation console. Of course, they might run a bit of a problem when they try to market a PS3 with added functionality... will it be known as PSX2? Or a PS3X, maybe?
Ask and you you shall receive.
Given the fact that the Xbox sells poorly in Japan, I wouldn't count on it. Any game that Square Enix makes for GBA or PS2 is going to sell thousand of copies because the user base for those consoles is much, much larger: why spend money on porting the game to a platform that has a small user base when I could use that same money to make (or remake) a game that has the potential to sell a thousand times more if I release it in a console with a larger user base? That's why we have stuff life Final Fantasy I & II for the GBA and Dragon Quest V for the PS2 instead of any game for the Xbox.
FFXI was a perfect game for the Xbox, since it already had a hard drive and could connect online with minimal hassle, plus Square had already ported the game to PC. And Square Enix still hasn't released it for the Xbox. The console is not in Squeenix's radar as of now. And frankly, I don't think that porting or making games for the Xbox would count as a next level, anyway,
There's another article about the ICO conference at 1up.
ICO is one of the most amazing games I've played, and much of that is due to the attention to details. The first time I held Yorda's hand and I felt the tug through the Dual Shock I was sold on the game. A pity it didn't do better in the market, though - it really deserved to do better.
SaGa Frontier was a console RPG from Square for the Playstation 1 that passed almost unnoticed in the USA (the weird and argueably broken gameplay presumably had something to do with it). One of the playable characters was a woman, Asellus, who developed a somewhat romantic relationship with another female character. I remember finding out about this in the GIA review, and corraborated later when I had the chance to play the game.
For some reason I didn't consider this that shocking... I've always found that anime and manga are open to same-sex relationships and gender-bending characters (like the lesbian couple in Sailor Moon and the affeminate Pisces Aphrodite in Saint Seiya), so I wasn't that shocked to find it out in a japanese videogame. But it was pretty novel for american released videogames for that time - I don't think Nintendo would have allowed during the NES or SNES eras!
Simple. Company X will release the new compelling game as an exclusive for its new console, Y. As long as the company releases good, solid new titles in one console the consumers will follow - of course you can't release new hardware every other year *cough!*32X!*cough!*Saturn*cough!*, but I'd think most companies have learned the lesson.
:)
And, well, technological advances can give us better storytelling and better gameplay. Technology isn't everything, but it does help.
I agree with you in all but one small point. While storytelling is important in movies, in games it is only one factor. We can also improve in one other critical aspect.
The way I see it there are three factors that can help you sell a game: the technology, the story and the gameplay. The article discusses technology, so we won't go there. But what about the other two?
I am one of those people who buy the game not because of the story or the graphics, but because of the gameplay. Sure, the other two are nice bonuses, but I only care about how the game plays. My favorite game is Civilization, which I fund incredibly fun even if it does not have cutting edge graphics or even a storyline. I still have plenty fun with Tetris, and small quirky games like Warioware and Space Channel 5 can keep me glued to the screen for hours. So what if they are not the most graphically detailed games ever? As long as they are fun, that's all that matters.
If it's history I want, then I'll buy a movie, or a book. However I know plenty of people who prefer storytelling over gameplay, and there's nothing wrong with that - just a matter of taste. I've also fallen in that bracket every now and then, what with those SCUMM games. For people who prefer storytelling we have games like Xenosaga and all the old LucasArts graphical adventures and all the interactive fiction.
And of course, there are games that cater to people from all audiences - technology, gameplay and storytelling. Halo is an example, and Final Fantasy is another.
And now, to my point, which is very similar to yours: technology is only one aspect of gaming. There are people who prefer technology, but there's only so much growth you can get out of it. But storytelling and gameplay still have plenty room for growth. As you said, we don't need technological innovation to make them better, just better storytellers, and/or better gameplay. The videogame industry will survive.
Actually the I/O Processor in the PS2 is based on the PS1's CPU - this chip is the one that takes over when you boot the PS2 with a PSOne game. Sony killed two birds with one stone with this "Playstation-in-a-chip": they got an I/O processor and a way to get almost flawless PS1 emulation... the keyword being almost flawless, since there are PS1 games that are incompatible. This wouldn't be the case if Sony had decided to just stick a PS1 inside a PS2.
Anyway, I can see Sony working right now in a "PS2 in a chip" for the PS3 - they have been revising the hardware for the PS2 to reduce the number of components with every new model, just as they did with the PS1, and I expect they eventually will get around to having most of the functionality of the Emotion Engine in a single, cheap chip. We can also expect a smaller, cuter and cheaper PSTwo after the PS3 is launched.
But now that I think about it... Since they are separate chips, will the PS3 be compatible with the PS1? I'd think so, but they would have to use two different chips into the PS3. I/O processor and matemathical co-processor? Or will they integrate the "PS1-in-a-chip" in the new mini-Emotion Engine?
You know what the funny part is?
Kojima did his best to hide Raiden until the release of the game. I watched all the trailers as soon as they came out (I was there at the E3 this year when he presented the new trailer at the Sony conference) and he never revealed anything that might suggest that you wouldn't control Solid Snake for the best part of the game. They even used Snake's model for some scenes that used Raiden's model in the final game.
I managed to stay safe, intentionally avoiding any spoilers or reviews of the game when it came out until I got my copy and played it myself.
Turns out, I shouldn't have bothered to avoid the spoilers. Even while Kojima kept Raiden as a secret for almost two years, the *manual* gives him away right at page two or three (along with several other spoilers). Thankfully I didn't read the manual for the first time until I was well along the game, and after realizing it had plenty of spoilage material I just tucked it away until I had finished the game.
So, we didn't even need the Internet this time to give it all away. While Kojima was busy hiding all the important stuff in the trailers, some people at the packaging department of Konami of America decided to print everything in the manual. Thanks for the spoilers, Konami!
And, by the way, the PS2s at E3 were running Unix. I was there when they shut them down on the last day. And it was really weird to see somebody turn off a PS2 with a 'shutdown' command ;)- -------------
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The creator of Pokemon was Satoshi Tajiri, and Nintendo bought the concept from him. You cand find more about Pokemon and Nintendo at http://www.elecplay.com/feature_4096_page1.html- -----------
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But, I must admit, the PSX2 shipping with a modem and a hard disk certainly looks to good to be true, so it probably is a rumor...- -------------------
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