LAN was a mistype. It should have read: 'Live' as in Xbox Live - as in: I don't have to deal with wallhacks, headshot-scripts, et al when I play counterstrike anymore.
But so long as PC gamers can find a no-cd patch by 5 minutes of reading #crakz, the platform doesn't have meaningful DRM.
It takes slightly more effort to mod your Xbox to obviate its DRM. (1 game rental + 1 cd)
I was referring to the 'out of the box' experience, which increasingly has PC games with Copy Protection that just plain doesn't run on many systems.
Microsoft would like it if those dangerous, terrorist tools are eliminated in the future. If the XBox-PC hybrid takes off, then they can eat away at the non-DRM PC market through a variety of corrosive techniques.
So long as IPv4 gets routed on the backbones, there's no chance of any evil MS plot destroying the internet as we know it. The only thing they can do, is make it an increasing PITA to pirate their software, which I believe is well within their rights to do. All their machinations will do is increase the incentive for the average user to use Linux full-time for general purpose computing.
How EQ could become more of a grind and time sink, I cannot fathom.
In all honesty, I have EQ'ing friends, and they tell me that the game got much better after the first couple expansions, and that the end-game didn't play anything like the low-level game. But there was never anything about the low-level game that made me want to pay a monthly fee for 2 years (let alone 5) while they got their shit straight. Particularly since all I hear from these EQ'ing friends is how every expansion comes with broken and misbalanced content that takes months to get corrected.
That said, I tend to think Everquest will die with a whimper, not a bang. It'll slowly bleed players over the next couple years, and then Sony will spin off its support to a subsidiary or 3rd party who cares enough to operate with mere mortal profit margins.
you mean like the anticopying software that every PC game ships with nowadays?
PC gamers already have crippling DRM. Console gamers have DRM to be sure, but it isn't slowing the game down, it isn't causing compatibility problems, and it has the side benefit of ensuring that no-one's cheating in LAN games. That's an acceptable tradeoff for an entertainment machine.
I emphatically disagree with the editorial in question. I don't think content creators should care about 'acting responsibly'. I think they should tell their story, paint their picture, try to entertain. If they're so irresponsibly bad, the market will tell them so, and show them the door. Social responsibility for content is not something any creator in any media should be concerned with as a matter of course.
However, social responsibility for industry business practicesis something that needs more attention and positive action.
The problem with your analogies are that the MPAA's rating system is well understood, and local legislation in the U.S. dictates that magazines like playboy be kept behind the counter. If a 9 year old asks his mother to see an R movie or buy him a magazine from behind the counter at 7-11, she knows (more or less) what to expect - regardless of how that 9 year old might want to convince her otherwise.
What gaming needs is precisely that same thing: an honest attempt at achieving consumer awareness of content rating. It needs a system that actually communicates the sort of content provided by the media, so parents can decide for themselves what they want their children to see and play.
Parents have no idea wtf an 'M' rating means, and the ESRB either can, or chooses to, do nothing against retailers who don't restrict the sales of 'M' titles to minors. Hell, the ESRB doesn't even require retailers to post an education poster that breaks down game ratings for consumers the way the MPAA still does.
If the ESRB is unwilling to even try to educate consumers, or enforce its policies upon retailers - at the very least they could lift the MPAA's system wholesale, replace 'M' with 'R', and let us move on with life.
What the ESRB should do, is take a nod from satellite and cable content ratings, and simply spell out all the themes in question. If the game has cartoon violence, say so on the box. If the game has graphic realistic violence, say so on the box. If the game has brief nudity, say so on the box. If the game has sexual themes, say so on the box. If the game deals with substance abuse, say so on the box.
The problem is, game publishers don't want that. They don't want 'R', 'graphic violence', or 'sexual themes' slathered across video game shelves. But why not? Are they afraid that parents might actually parent? Are they intentionally leveraging ingorance to drive game sales? What logic can there be for intentionally obfuscating their rating scheme and doing nothing against those retailers who ignore it?
The longer the ESRB pussy-foots around the problem, the more they make such questionable policies and decisions, the more steam Senator Lieberman builds up - and the closer we come to legislative intervention. And no-one: not the industry, not the consumer, not Senator Lieberman himself - wants that.
All these pressures would evaporate overnight if the ESRB would be honest with its consumers.
Games Workshop has also had drugs and dependency in its tabletop and pen-and-paper games for years (almost decades).
The fact that a player is protesting this mechanic is the only thing 'new' here imo.
Of course, previous games with drugs were played in tight-knit groups or by individuals, so those not wanting to see/experience drugs simply didn't. In a persistent world, that's not really an option.
Well, if they could dig up the rights to an XFL game, 'He Hate Me' would be able to sell his likeness for such a title. The NFL Player's Union collectively bargains for likeness rights, but only as pertains to depictions within the game of NFL football.
For example, consider that EA would have to pay seperately for, say, Bo Jackson's likeness for an MLB game, and Bo Jackson's likeness for an NFL game. Yes, likeness' rights are bargained collectively now, but i'm just trying to make a point: holding the likeness rights for Bo Jackson as a Raider does not allow one to insert Bo Jackson into their baseball game. So Rod Smart is open to license his likeness to another party as part of a theoretical XFL property.
Also, Smart already spent time in the CFL as well, so that option is also open -- should anyone ever desire a "He Hate Me" CFL title.::shudders::
Madden 2k3 was the #4 best selling console game in 2003 -- selling 2.6m units for the PS2 alone. (~$130m USD) Madden 2k2 was the #6 best selling game in 2003 -- selling 1.99m units (~$97m USD) Madden 2k1 was the #33 best selling console game -- selling a respectable 900k units (~$46m USD) Madden 2k3 for the XBoX is way down at #76 with 490k units (~$22m USD) Madden 2k2 for the XBox is clinging to #96 with 411k units (~$19m USD)
So the Madden franchise brought in ~$314m USD in 2003 on the consoles alone. EA also has the NFL Blitz and NFL Street franchises which also require likeness rights' licensing.
Also keep in mind retailers don't typically make much profit (if any) off video game sales. (the publisher/distribution/storefront business is more hackneyed and assinine than film distribution) -- So nearly all of the revenue goes right back to EA, who as we all know, puts very little development money back into its minute incremental gameplay updates for each season. However, it's marketing budget is likely quite sizeable for the industry.
The shocking part of this is that EA can afford this contract. But will it be worth squeezing out their competitors?
Sega NFL 2k3 sold only 600k units (~$16m), and MS Fever 2k2 sold only 500k units (~$25m) Is a potential increase of $40m worth spending $250m to get? (granted we don't know what the current fees are for non-exclusive likeness rights -- but I have to assume exclusivity adds more than $40m to the price)
Likely it is a fluke - or at least not something that will be available to the general public for free when they go live. I can't imagine it being anything other than a large ticket item.
But I personally didn't notice the limit until I read this thread, and my account is still displaying:
You are currently using 41 MB (0%) of your 1000000 MB.
And I am not a Google employee or affiliate - though I am a fairly avid google-product user. (deskbar, browserbar, blogger, etc)
Perhaps only the original invitees are getting the TB? and those people they invited (i got 2 'invites' to bring friends into the beta) are still at 1 GB?
Firstly, the paper was written (and all data collected) in 2001. 616 auctions was about the entire breadth of the EBaying scene for EQ at the time, and IGE/Yantis weren't around. Certainly if you amassed new numbers you'd get a slightly different result.
Next, it's amusing that you mention TerraNova, since the author of the original paper (Edward Castronova) is a moderator and heavy contributor there. Amusing that you pooh-pooh the source of the (3 year old) data, and then refer people directly back to that source.
Since The Walrus article was slashdotted before I had a chance to read it, I have to assume that the interesting information/commentary is there - not in Mr Castronova's 3 year old paper.
If I couldn't have played the Halo campaign co-op, I'd probably label it as just 'darn good'. It had solid controls, clear and concise mechanics, good story, few load times, expansive areas, good voice acting, good AI, some fun-as-hell vehicles, and even a sense of humor.
In a time when its contemporaries were trying to resell us ever-longer loadtimes, polys for the sake of polys and deathmatch for the sake of deathmatch - bungie delivered a solid game. Honestly, let me know if any other FPS in 2001 delivered half as well over as many areas - because I'd love to play them.
Without co-op, it's a well polished FPS, and admittedly not deserving of the 'great' accolades that are heaped upon it. It's much like Half-life in that respect. Hell, there's a few parts of the campaign I'd call downright 'poorly thought-out', or even 'amatuerish'. But throw in a friend and jack up the difficulty, and I get over even those spots in a hurry.
Co-op makes the game great. Too many game developers and publishers seem to ignore the fact that gaming originally was, and is again becoming, primarily a social activity.
good game + social element == great game
In the opinions of many gamers: If Halo2 isn't 'different' from Halo -- that'd be the greatest accomplishment Bungie could hope for.
You could alternately consider the Xbox to be half a generation 'ahead' of the DC, or 2 years late. It doesn't much matter to me, either is arguably correct. The DC is certainly in line with the PS2 and GC, but the additional capabilities of the XBox (namely: ethernet, HD, Dolby, HDTV Support) imo place it a half step ahead of the PS2/DC/GC generation technologically.
Rampant misuse of terms doesn't dilute legitimate uses of it. If it did, we'd have had a permanent moratorium on the word 'ironic' for the last decade at least.
Or do you think Sony's PR track against the Dreamcast wasn't technologically unfounded, and wasn't specifically crafted to sow Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt? Do you remember the PR promises Sony made regarding the PS2? Did the PS2 deliver on any of them?
Hoax or no hoax, I didn't think it was possible to come up with a worse business plan than Infinium originally had.
I am dumbfounded by how wrong I'm proven by this new release.
I'm hesitant to state that now it couldn't possibly sound any more ridiculous... only because the company still exists. One wonders why they don't just hire Baghdad Bob to do their PR.
CD Sales were still rising in 1999 and 2000. IIRC, 2000 is their 'record year' for sales and profit which coincides nicely with the height of the Napster phenomenon. 2001 was the first year their sales dropped, and they then reported it as 'due to piracy'. 2001 interestingly saw only a 4.1% drop in sales revenue despite a 10.3% drop in units sold.
That's right, thanks to their price fixing they not only didn't drop prices to compete, they raised prices in a recession and then blamed piracy for their losses.
File-sharers after all, were a convenient boogeyman to keep investors from pushing for actual competition.
One wonders if they'll be pressured to keep up the attack on their scapegoat while their numbers continue to rise.
Well, I'm a bit of an old-school gamer. Graphics really aren't that important to me. Bad animation, bad lighting and bad physics bother me more than low resolution. I'd rather have interactivity than curved surfaces. The best part is: I can rent Doom3 for the xbox and decide for myself.
I understand that I don't need a super high-end rig - but I've got a 1ghz celly, and a geforce3 as stands. Getting a new processor requires a new motherboard - which requires a new power supply and new memory. (my current PSU isn't capable of juicing the newer gfx cards, with the newer processors, and a couple IDE devices. The case is due my current )
So we're talking $200 for the videocard, $200 for a 'good enough' mobo/proc, at least $200 for a decent amount of memory, and we'll ignore the PSU entirely because $600 for even -3- games is out of the question.
Sure, I'll miss out on doom3's custom content - at first. But, by the time custom content comes out that's done well, the required cost for the upgrade will be cheaper. And there's nothing stopping me from picking up Doom3 in one-years time and playing through it all.
I don't doubt the PC versions will look better and have more options. I don't doubt that a game like Far Cry will never be ported to the xbox. I'm just not going to pay $600 to run a few games. Not when every day the required hardware to run those games gets cheaper and cheaper.
Eventually I will upgrade. But the justification isn't there for me right now, and Doom3, half-life2, and far cry don't change that.
And then, in the best case, they're just another persistent game. Albeit with a slight 'free trial' gimmick - but a fairly stale PvP experience.
Healthy competition is seeded with a steady stream of new players and fresh ideas. If the 'skill' component of competition is trivialized through 'required' upgrades, the skill-based aspect will stagnate (because it's trivialized).
Such phat lewt, like any power-amplification-based 'advancement' system, disincentivize new players from joining. This is not healthy whatsoever and combined with the previous paragraph completely make moot two of Guild Wars most heavily promoted selling-points.
Take away the free-play-ability, and the skill-based PvP and all they have is a heavy reliance on instanced adventuring (maybe good maybe bad) and a relatively novel (in this genre) ability system.
Which is why I'd assume they'd try like hell to avoid such a situation - but who knows.
Slashdot Mirror
Leave money on the table? Provide reasonable pricing in the absence of crushing market pressure?
You must be new here.
So we can expect HL2 on the XBox2 then?
LAN was a mistype. It should have read: 'Live' as in Xbox Live - as in: I don't have to deal with wallhacks, headshot-scripts, et al when I play counterstrike anymore.
But so long as PC gamers can find a no-cd patch by 5 minutes of reading #crakz, the platform doesn't have meaningful DRM.
It takes slightly more effort to mod your Xbox to obviate its DRM. (1 game rental + 1 cd)
I was referring to the 'out of the box' experience, which increasingly has PC games with Copy Protection that just plain doesn't run on many systems.
Microsoft would like it if those dangerous, terrorist tools are eliminated in the future. If the XBox-PC hybrid takes off, then they can eat away at the non-DRM PC market through a variety of corrosive techniques.
So long as IPv4 gets routed on the backbones, there's no chance of any evil MS plot destroying the internet as we know it. The only thing they can do, is make it an increasing PITA to pirate their software, which I believe is well within their rights to do. All their machinations will do is increase the incentive for the average user to use Linux full-time for general purpose computing.
Casual Everquest Player is an oxymoron.
How EQ could become more of a grind and time sink, I cannot fathom.
In all honesty, I have EQ'ing friends, and they tell me that the game got much better after the first couple expansions, and that the end-game didn't play anything like the low-level game. But there was never anything about the low-level game that made me want to pay a monthly fee for 2 years (let alone 5) while they got their shit straight. Particularly since all I hear from these EQ'ing friends is how every expansion comes with broken and misbalanced content that takes months to get corrected.
That said, I tend to think Everquest will die with a whimper, not a bang. It'll slowly bleed players over the next couple years, and then Sony will spin off its support to a subsidiary or 3rd party who cares enough to operate with mere mortal profit margins.
you mean like the anticopying software that every PC game ships with nowadays?
PC gamers already have crippling DRM. Console gamers have DRM to be sure, but it isn't slowing the game down, it isn't causing compatibility problems, and it has the side benefit of ensuring that no-one's cheating in LAN games. That's an acceptable tradeoff for an entertainment machine.
I've still got my non-DRM'd PCs anyway.
Personally, I'm with you:
I emphatically disagree with the editorial in question. I don't think content creators should care about 'acting responsibly'. I think they should tell their story, paint their picture, try to entertain. If they're so irresponsibly bad, the market will tell them so, and show them the door. Social responsibility for content is not something any creator in any media should be concerned with as a matter of course.
However, social responsibility for industry business practices is something that needs more attention and positive action.
The problem with your analogies are that the MPAA's rating system is well understood, and local legislation in the U.S. dictates that magazines like playboy be kept behind the counter. If a 9 year old asks his mother to see an R movie or buy him a magazine from behind the counter at 7-11, she knows (more or less) what to expect - regardless of how that 9 year old might want to convince her otherwise.
What gaming needs is precisely that same thing: an honest attempt at achieving consumer awareness of content rating. It needs a system that actually communicates the sort of content provided by the media, so parents can decide for themselves what they want their children to see and play.
Parents have no idea wtf an 'M' rating means, and the ESRB either can, or chooses to, do nothing against retailers who don't restrict the sales of 'M' titles to minors. Hell, the ESRB doesn't even require retailers to post an education poster that breaks down game ratings for consumers the way the MPAA still does.
If the ESRB is unwilling to even try to educate consumers, or enforce its policies upon retailers - at the very least they could lift the MPAA's system wholesale, replace 'M' with 'R', and let us move on with life.
What the ESRB should do, is take a nod from satellite and cable content ratings, and simply spell out all the themes in question.
If the game has cartoon violence, say so on the box.
If the game has graphic realistic violence, say so on the box.
If the game has brief nudity, say so on the box.
If the game has sexual themes, say so on the box.
If the game deals with substance abuse, say so on the box.
The problem is, game publishers don't want that. They don't want 'R', 'graphic violence', or 'sexual themes' slathered across video game shelves. But why not? Are they afraid that parents might actually parent? Are they intentionally leveraging ingorance to drive game sales? What logic can there be for intentionally obfuscating their rating scheme and doing nothing against those retailers who ignore it?
The longer the ESRB pussy-foots around the problem, the more they make such questionable policies and decisions, the more steam Senator Lieberman builds up - and the closer we come to legislative intervention. And no-one: not the industry, not the consumer, not Senator Lieberman himself - wants that.
All these pressures would evaporate overnight if the ESRB would be honest with its consumers.
Games Workshop has also had drugs and dependency in its tabletop and pen-and-paper games for years (almost decades).
The fact that a player is protesting this mechanic is the only thing 'new' here imo.
Of course, previous games with drugs were played in tight-knit groups or by individuals, so those not wanting to see/experience drugs simply didn't.
In a persistent world, that's not really an option.
"3 by my count, but close"
A larger pair of jeans.
oh... sorry, I thought you were talking about Americans...
Well, if they could dig up the rights to an XFL game, 'He Hate Me' would be able to sell his likeness for such a title. The NFL Player's Union collectively bargains for likeness rights, but only as pertains to depictions within the game of NFL football.
::shudders::
For example, consider that EA would have to pay seperately for, say, Bo Jackson's likeness for an MLB game, and Bo Jackson's likeness for an NFL game. Yes, likeness' rights are bargained collectively now, but i'm just trying to make a point: holding the likeness rights for Bo Jackson as a Raider does not allow one to insert Bo Jackson into their baseball game. So Rod Smart is open to license his likeness to another party as part of a theoretical XFL property.
Also, Smart already spent time in the CFL as well, so that option is also open -- should anyone ever desire a "He Hate Me" CFL title.
::shrug::
I don't know any Google employees either.
I got in on the blogger invite.
From what I googled:
Madden 2k3 was the #4 best selling console game in 2003 -- selling 2.6m units for the PS2 alone. (~$130m USD)
Madden 2k2 was the #6 best selling game in 2003 -- selling 1.99m units (~$97m USD)
Madden 2k1 was the #33 best selling console game -- selling a respectable 900k units (~$46m USD)
Madden 2k3 for the XBoX is way down at #76 with 490k units (~$22m USD)
Madden 2k2 for the XBox is clinging to #96 with 411k units (~$19m USD)
So the Madden franchise brought in ~$314m USD in 2003 on the consoles alone. EA also has the NFL Blitz and NFL Street franchises which also require likeness rights' licensing.
Also keep in mind retailers don't typically make much profit (if any) off video game sales. (the publisher/distribution/storefront business is more hackneyed and assinine than film distribution) -- So nearly all of the revenue goes right back to EA, who as we all know, puts very little development money back into its minute incremental gameplay updates for each season. However, it's marketing budget is likely quite sizeable for the industry.
The shocking part of this is that EA can afford this contract. But will it be worth squeezing out their competitors?
Sega NFL 2k3 sold only 600k units (~$16m), and MS Fever 2k2 sold only 500k units (~$25m)
Is a potential increase of $40m worth spending $250m to get?
(granted we don't know what the current fees are for non-exclusive likeness rights -- but I have to assume exclusivity adds more than $40m to the price)
Likely it is a fluke - or at least not something that will be available to the general public for free when they go live. I can't imagine it being anything other than a large ticket item.
But I personally didn't notice the limit until I read this thread, and my account is still displaying:
You are currently using 41 MB (0%) of your 1000000 MB.
And I am not a Google employee or affiliate - though I am a fairly avid google-product user. (deskbar, browserbar, blogger, etc)
Perhaps only the original invitees are getting the TB? and those people they invited (i got 2 'invites' to bring friends into the beta) are still at 1 GB?
Strange indeed:
You are currently using 41 MB (0%) of your 1000000 MB
You laugh, but if you ask me, it sounds like they're already using miniature giant space hamsters (pic).
In which case, I do hope they're careful.
It's best not to underestimate Giant Space Hamsters in general.
Firstly, the paper was written (and all data collected) in 2001. 616 auctions was about the entire breadth of the EBaying scene for EQ at the time, and IGE/Yantis weren't around. Certainly if you amassed new numbers you'd get a slightly different result.
Next, it's amusing that you mention TerraNova, since the author of the original paper (Edward Castronova) is a moderator and heavy contributor there. Amusing that you pooh-pooh the source of the (3 year old) data, and then refer people directly back to that source.
Since The Walrus article was slashdotted before I had a chance to read it, I have to assume that the interesting information/commentary is there - not in Mr Castronova's 3 year old paper.
If I couldn't have played the Halo campaign co-op, I'd probably label it as just 'darn good'. It had solid controls, clear and concise mechanics, good story, few load times, expansive areas, good voice acting, good AI, some fun-as-hell vehicles, and even a sense of humor.
In a time when its contemporaries were trying to resell us ever-longer loadtimes, polys for the sake of polys and deathmatch for the sake of deathmatch - bungie delivered a solid game. Honestly, let me know if any other FPS in 2001 delivered half as well over as many areas - because I'd love to play them.
Without co-op, it's a well polished FPS, and admittedly not deserving of the 'great' accolades that are heaped upon it. It's much like Half-life in that respect. Hell, there's a few parts of the campaign I'd call downright 'poorly thought-out', or even 'amatuerish'. But throw in a friend and jack up the difficulty, and I get over even those spots in a hurry.
Co-op makes the game great. Too many game developers and publishers seem to ignore the fact that gaming originally was, and is again becoming, primarily a social activity.
good game + social element == great game
In the opinions of many gamers: If Halo2 isn't 'different' from Halo -- that'd be the greatest accomplishment Bungie could hope for.
You could alternately consider the Xbox to be half a generation 'ahead' of the DC, or 2 years late. It doesn't much matter to me, either is arguably correct. The DC is certainly in line with the PS2 and GC, but the additional capabilities of the XBox (namely: ethernet, HD, Dolby, HDTV Support) imo place it a half step ahead of the PS2/DC/GC generation technologically.
Rampant misuse of terms doesn't dilute legitimate uses of it. If it did, we'd have had a permanent moratorium on the word 'ironic' for the last decade at least.
Or do you think Sony's PR track against the Dreamcast wasn't technologically unfounded, and wasn't specifically crafted to sow Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt? Do you remember the PR promises Sony made regarding the PS2? Did the PS2 deliver on any of them?
They're announcing the dev kits that should ship 'sometime' before the end of the year.
Personally I see it as the Sony PR FUD machien is running again: "no no, our machine will be much more powerful than theirs".
It worked the last time they were going to show up a year late to the next hardware generation. Why not go back to the well?
2.5 hours of gameplay?
If that's true, Sony already lost.
It is one of the monoliths from 2001.
Which explains why I have this sudden urge to wield my remote as a weapon...
Hoax or no hoax, I didn't think it was possible to come up with a worse business plan than Infinium originally had.
... only because the company still exists. One wonders why they don't just hire Baghdad Bob to do their PR.
I am dumbfounded by how wrong I'm proven by this new release.
I'm hesitant to state that now it couldn't possibly sound any more ridiculous
Or maybe they did.
CD Sales were still rising in 1999 and 2000. IIRC, 2000 is their 'record year' for sales and profit which coincides nicely with the height of the Napster phenomenon. 2001 was the first year their sales dropped, and they then reported it as 'due to piracy'. 2001 interestingly saw only a 4.1% drop in sales revenue despite a 10.3% drop in units sold.
That's right, thanks to their price fixing they not only didn't drop prices to compete, they raised prices in a recession and then blamed piracy for their losses.
File-sharers after all, were a convenient boogeyman to keep investors from pushing for actual competition.
One wonders if they'll be pressured to keep up the attack on their scapegoat while their numbers continue to rise.
Well, I'm a bit of an old-school gamer. Graphics really aren't that important to me. Bad animation, bad lighting and bad physics bother me more than low resolution. I'd rather have interactivity than curved surfaces. The best part is: I can rent Doom3 for the xbox and decide for myself.
I understand that I don't need a super high-end rig - but I've got a 1ghz celly, and a geforce3 as stands. Getting a new processor requires a new motherboard - which requires a new power supply and new memory. (my current PSU isn't capable of juicing the newer gfx cards, with the newer processors, and a couple IDE devices. The case is due my current )
So we're talking $200 for the videocard, $200 for a 'good enough' mobo/proc, at least $200 for a decent amount of memory, and we'll ignore the PSU entirely because $600 for even -3- games is out of the question.
Sure, I'll miss out on doom3's custom content - at first. But, by the time custom content comes out that's done well, the required cost for the upgrade will be cheaper. And there's nothing stopping me from picking up Doom3 in one-years time and playing through it all.
I don't doubt the PC versions will look better and have more options. I don't doubt that a game like Far Cry will never be ported to the xbox. I'm just not going to pay $600 to run a few games. Not when every day the required hardware to run those games gets cheaper and cheaper.
Eventually I will upgrade. But the justification isn't there for me right now, and Doom3, half-life2, and far cry don't change that.
And then, in the best case, they're just another persistent game. Albeit with a slight 'free trial' gimmick - but a fairly stale PvP experience.
Healthy competition is seeded with a steady stream of new players and fresh ideas. If the 'skill' component of competition is trivialized through 'required' upgrades, the skill-based aspect will stagnate (because it's trivialized).
Such phat lewt, like any power-amplification-based 'advancement' system, disincentivize new players from joining. This is not healthy whatsoever and combined with the previous paragraph completely make moot two of Guild Wars most heavily promoted selling-points.
Take away the free-play-ability, and the skill-based PvP and all they have is a heavy reliance on instanced adventuring (maybe good maybe bad) and a relatively novel (in this genre) ability system.
Which is why I'd assume they'd try like hell to avoid such a situation - but who knows.