If you had a great game that last 10 hours but had 10 completely different ways to play it, would that be worse than a 30 hour game you'd never play again?
Should Gears of war be downplayed even though it has 3 difficulties and the ability for co-op play?
How can we rate Multiplayer? Exactly how do you define game length? Do you need all achievements?
Overall the "length" of a game differs to much to be considered.
In addition this discusses quality versus quanity? Guess what, that only is good if there is quanity. A 5 minute game can be the best game ever but it's not going to get 50 bucks, however a rpg that is good that last 50 hours will easily get 50 dollars.
You have people on that site saying length isn't important and would rather buy a 50 dollar game that takes 10 hours than a 50 dollar game that takes 50? All I can ask is, is he stupid? I have felt that games are too long also for a time, Tales of the Abyss took me entirely too much time, but I spend almost the same amount of time on the new zelda already and I want another exactly like that. It was a fantastic game.
The bottom line is it's always better for a game to be too long but enjoyable, than too short and be the same thing over and over. But even more so, they are asking people in the industry, as one of those people I can tell you, we don't have the time that the people outside of the industry have to play games. You can invest the hours into games but you also spend your entire day doing the same thing.
"I don't think the Wii is going to be any different than all the other Nintendo platforms. Nintendo is going to have a very significant market share, and all the third party companies are going to have market shares that are single-digit or low double-digits."
Great so they are already admitting defeat before going in. Before the N64 third party games were close to as dominate as the nintendo games, the problem is with the n64 no one really tried, on the Gamecube most third party companies barely made games, and made crappy games at best. If people want to become a significant market share it's easy, support the wii to the fullest, unlike Ubisoft who made it feel like their games were designed for other systems (early gamecube in terms of the racing games) And make sure the games are fun. Making a half hearted effort will assure you get single digit shares.
I'm sick of companies acting like Nintendo is the only one who can do anything on a nintendo console, they should make the best games, just like PS2 should have first and second party support that beats all others, and just like the Xbox has the same. It's because they have a partnership with the console that all third party companies lack. Doesn't mean they will be have a real majority, but they should at least have the best games, shouldn't they?
But then again EA doesn't think this way on other consoles, and floods the market with their half assed games, and earns market share that way. I'm glad if they don't do that on the wii, but I have a feeling most of what headgate is going to do is make Wii ports of other games (games you'll either own on other systems or not want) and then bitch when no one buys them.
50 percent of these "gaming" computers will not be used to do anything but run email and Internet explorer.
Just more proof that "gaming ready" is another bullshit term used by media groups to signify that they might possibly run a game one day. Besides which this all assume Vista works properly and actually is able to shut off the gui when you start a game. If it can't do that, all these "gaming ready" pcs well be "gaming euniched" PC as it will require close to double what we had before.
They've also said basically the reason WHY there's downloadable content is because they are a first party company. They said really don't see it as a good model in the least.
Even better unless the DLC is something that's worthwhile (A new car they couldn't get in time for a racing game.) There's little reason to get DLC, especially Rare's DLC which does little to improve the game. Free downloads is a great way to thank fans or do something special, but charging for additional costumes really gets fans backs up.
That doesn't mean DLC isn't worthwhile, but I think Rare understands that certain games don't really require or get enhanced by it.
Ok I can understand the PS2, but I own a PSP and I have to say there's not much reason to give it to a kid. It's great for a inexpensive music player that plays games, but I bought mine for 200 dollars, and 6 games came with it and I still think I overpaid.
280 percent? That's definatly a case of mistaken identity.
Sad that simple geopolitical facts escaped the group.
But first look on the second page, the list of group members brings up an odd question. Why is Clinton Confidant Vernon Jordan on that list? Why are three out of four of the democrats, people who were under Clinton? Oh right because the Democrats believe he was such a genius. However I think that would make anyone but the most diehard Clinton fans balk. Why is the Fourth democrat a senator who was defeated in an election where he was the only democrat incumbant to lose?
Republicans are slightly better, at least having attorney generals, and Supreme Court Justices from a variety of Area, but there's still a lot of concern to be had there. This just makes me feel there is just reason for anyone to ignore the report.
The bigger problem is they have debated reaching out to Iran and Syria for help on Iraq. Anyone who has a little knowledge of the situation of both countries knows Iran is a quagmire waiting to happen and have likely been sponsoring or instigating the insurgence in Iraq, Syria is normally seen as a group who has in the past conducting state sponsored terrorism, however they have "cleaned up their act" at least enough after 9/11 that we can pretend to work with them. Though both countries would have been better options to attack over Iraq, and still are, the only problem is both have issues that made them less desirable.
"10 New VC games did not come out Monday as promised. Only 3 (I think), 2 TurboGraphix16 titles and Ecco the Dolphin. Where the hell is my Pilotwings? SMB? Come on guys, you want me to buy NES games at $5 a pop you're going to have to give me decent choices and soon. Playing these games legally on my TV is at least 30% of the reason I bought the Wii, don't disappoint me."
This is completely wrong.
First they never said 10 new games a monday. They said new VC titles every monday, 30 games by the end of the year, and then 10 games a month starting in January.
Second. It was 1 turbographix16, 2 genisis games (Ecco and Golden axe).
We all want all the games, but give them time to get it all right.
"Some information in this article or section has not been verified and may not be reliable. Please check for any inaccuracies, and modify and cite sources as needed."
Apparently there's no experts on experts, so no one could properly verify the expert opinions of experts.
A. Most movies suck. Let's not discount this fact. I will still go to great movies, but that's like once a year (last one was The departed, I love Scorsese)
B. The experience is lacking. Why not watch a movie at home, get the pause button, rewind, chapter seek, I just got a 52 inch tv, I got free popcorn, and I can do something else if the movie sucks. Do I get anything out of sitting around 300 other people watching the same movie? Not really.
C. I have to drive to a movie, sit through 15 minutes of TV commercials, 10 minutes of trailers, and then get to see my movie. Why? I paid 8 bucks for it, why don't they just show propegenda films before time? For double that price I could get the movie on a DVD.
Personally I buy TV shows on Dvds currently because of three factors as well.
A. Per hour they are way cheaper than DVDs (1-3 dollars an hour vs 8 dollars and hour).
B. Except for the first disc there's not 100 ads. preceding the videos. I don't care about any other fucking movie, I bought THIS movie because I wanted THIS movie. If I wanted to look at other movies, put it under "trailers".
C. Again movies suck. Even a shitty tv show has better character development then a movie, because of time and style.
Watch 24 and Lost on Dvd, and tell me that any movie compares to what you get out of those two shows?
No company is going to spend multi million dollar budgets on a game to make fantastic "gameplay" and be happy with low sales numbers. The simple fact is games are about making money, pure and simple. There are a couple companies out there not interested in making money and they are usually called independents for a reason. However they have to have money to make games and where ever that money is coming from has to not care about making a return. Most companies that produce games don't want to "make a return" they want to aim for a 3x-5x return if possible.
No studio is going to act like selling games isn't important, even Nintendo doesn't act like that. Nintendo is just smart to keep costs down while keeping quality gameplay alive.
However even more so many companies do care about gameplay, but they want to appeal to the entire gamer audience (larger audience, larger sales) so they'll put in great gameplay as well as great graphics. That doesn't mean they don't care about gameplay, it's just not the only concern. I'm sure in a happy world we could allow places like clover studios to live, even while it's hemorrhaging dollars. But in the real world that's not going to happy, not in America, definitely not in Japan, and definitely not in the game industry.
Just remember, it isn't Illinois if it isn't hopelessly political, corrupt, and inept. Once and while we can toss in illegal too.
I recently moved here, and between here, Florida and Massachuttes, I have to say I've lost all hope for the country. Though with my luck the next state I'll reach is California. At least there I'll get to watch the Terminator put the smack down on the state congress every so often.
I don't know about the Amiga, but the Jaguar was pretty poor as well. Saturn probably had a great launch but it seemed to slam into a brick wall right after that point, not to meantion stuff like 32x or sega CD which... well you know the story.
If you look at the games for the wii they arn't "mediocrity" in the least, they arn't scored as highly though and most of the problem is "graphics" and the control is taking time to get used to (not to say the fault is in the gamer. Some companies.... (UBI!) just screwed up the wii's control systems.) Trauma center, and Excite trucks are both great lasting games.
However if you're comparing the Wii to those games you've meantioned, with the exception of Condemned and Far Cry none of those are even near launch. Launch usually refers to the day of the console's launch, though it can be expanded to launch window, which becomes the first three monthes of a game.
Putting aside bias for a minute I've played all next gen launches. The Xbox 360s launch was moderate. It did have some high points (COD2) but overall there was few break out games. Though it does have a lot of what the system would become known for.
ON the other hand the Ps3 has the worse. Nothing feels innovative, there's only three or four games that isn't on the 360 in some form already. And the ones that used motion control were poor (ridge racer and tony hawk both felt laggy in their responsiveness). That being said their "break out hit" Resistance, felt like a FPS, and only a FPS. Seeing as insomniacs record that was a low.
The Wii on the other hand had a truely unique controller so even ported hits couldn't be played the same way, yet the control has such tight controls that games which would be problematic with lag feel tight. What drags down the launch however is Ubisoft's titles, Red steel which was supposed to be the second best game at launch turns out to be a pretty big dud. The two racing games they released are budget titles at best. And the systems graphics are constantly dinged by Gamespot mostly.
Overall though the Wii has a great variety, improved by their unique controls. However the proper way to find out how good a launch is, isn't through scores, at least not averaging all the scores of the system. It's better to look at the uniqueness of the launch (AKA port city from the 360 and PS3), the variety available, and the quality of the top games. If there's 5 good games that come out, why should we care there's 10 crap games. We don't blame the Ps2 for having 50 good games and 200 crap games do we? Why does the N64 get high marks? EASY! they have 3 games at launch! That doesn't make it a great launch either.
Of course on the other hand 1up is about as worthwhile as a gaming source as crap is a painting source. They arn't biased, but they have awful reviews and complain about minor things while ignoring the best part of games. They post biased top 10s and such, or they'll back up their facts with flawed or weak math (aka let's take the average of all games launched). If you read the worst games at launch you'll probably notice you don't know many of them. So why are we averaging them in?
Oh you need A B and C.... Find the version get the version, 20 gets you one, but that's not good enough, 40 gets you two but no no no. 100 gets you them all but you feel like fool, and choose!
Of course the prices are more like 100 to get the first. Seriously though Microsoft can become a great company with three steps.
1. Get rid of all the versions, give 2 versions, one for corporate one for home, both versions are fully unlocked.
2. Drop the prices, 100 for the home, 200 for the corporate, you're already doing OEM around that price, however by doing this people with XP will buy it rather then sticking around with the old version.
3. Drop the DRM, drop the litigation, and make sure the customer comes first ALWAYS. ALWAYS, A customer wants to change something and they do it, don't get pissed. If they break your system and do something illegal get pissed, but just because they changed the system so it says "microsoft sucks" How does that hurt you?
IF you do all three of those things any company can grow and become respected. Of course Microsoft is so caught up in pleasing Hollywood, they are playing the "PS3" game, and we can see what a great machine the PS3 after focusing so much on the nextgen DVD wars. They are an OS, not a home media center, not a Gaming platform, an Operating system, it should be useful as all the stuff, but a focus on one hurts all the rest...
What is the purpose of a "language"? The common use is open communication. If people are supposed to be able to talk in the open with the language and exchange ideas then yes it's in the public domain. If on the other hand the language is used for private communications, and not for open use, then that's debatable but even there it's only use is if it's open.
There's little point to even "copyrighting" a language, but even beyond that if it's an IP it's worthless. Then we can slip into the fact the language is 90 years old. And that IPs need to have spans of 20 or 40. But This is also a different story.
Of course then Microsoft has another option, point out the fact that the language is not being used. just a couple words of it. Which brings up another issue. Imagine if Computer became trademarked. That shouldn't happen but it could have. We have trademarked for using "google" why can't we have one for the word computer. However if we assume this is about language, and the words they used arn't trademarked they should be fine. Even if we have the trade mark for the words, they are used in the correct context, there's little point in making an argument about that too.
It comes down to this. You can't copyright a word and charge people who use that word, you can try, but it wouldn't work. Expand that to the fact you can't copyright a language, and thus the lawsuit is frivilious. Let them go to the Supreme court, and let the supreme court say "what are you stupid" Then Human rights will likely say the same thing. No one has stolen their langauge, they have only offered them an OS that utilizes their language, and as such that should be received kindly, not with a lawsuit.
"High Tech Marketing Disasters" Sony's ps3 marketing seems to fit the bill with that. Their PSP marketing would also.
Say what you want about their products, sony has completely boggled the recent ball. They might have the best system, they might not but the only thing the marketing has done has been to hurt them.
Time will tell how deep it cuts (as big as Apple's decision to work with Microsoft? probably not. But at least as big as Apple's decision to sell Microsoft stock which undermined a lot of Apple's position)
I'm sure in recent year's there's been a lot of failed marketting that they can add for the next one. All the Ipod killers and such come to mind quickly. Windows Vista might hit near there too. The real question that he can tackle in his next book is, are current High tech marketing failures only because of poor marketing or is the media also to blame for it?
See that's a completely valid question (though the other side is, there's more games for it). However acting like this is useful data in showing that the PS3 is better than the 360 is pointless. Bill Gates said it, and I hate to quote him or paraphrase him but he nailed it on the head. "Sony can make 80,000 bricks, and people would buy them."
While the data is completely valid, the conclusions someone might draw from them are not, and when 1up is saying the ps3 is doing better, it's not even technically valid unless you'd take the speed of everyone in a f1 race as the first driver drives over the finish line and then claim "Scott Speed won the race from 20th place. Because he was going 2 miles per hour faster then everyone else". I wouldn't do that, you shouldn't either.
Why don't we get USEFUL numbers. Sony launches a console, Microsoft has a console that's been out for a year. Why do we expect Microsoft's console to sell as many?
In america the amount of consoles Microsoft sell weekly isn't that many (probably 5 digits on a good week, but not much more)
Of course it wouldn't be 1up article if it was biased in some random direction.
Then again Microsoft's numbers are picking up in preperation for Blue Dragon, only a couple monthes ago they were barely breaking 1K units. However now it's much more.
Actually it would be Dilbert and Samuel L. Jackson, because you know he's such a geek because he hosts the VGA awards.
There's many more geeks than they posted, but what's wrong is they push two that don't even make sense. How does a fictious characters and a celeb that appears to have a psp make a list like this. Hilton wouldn't even be on the "game girl geeks".
How about Roberta Williams? Her and her husband did King's quesT? Oh we forgot about that didn't we?
Also why is Mary Shelley on there? She wrote a book that has a "robot" in it? Wow she's really geeky... isn't she?
Let's start at the begining. Play a nintendo game. Don't want to pay for it? Play Wii Sports. Wii sports is suprisingly spot on with it's controls (Zelda and excite truck is too). So that means the controller is good and the system is amazingly responsive.
Now let's look at the problem with the controller. Point the controller at the screen, can you hold it there for 3 minutes. I can't either. Know why? Because it's a new system. You're not going to completely master the wii mote in the first minute. It takes a couple hours at least. I'm pretty good with the control now, and I expect to get far better. Try holding up a hand and not moving it for 3 minutes, can't do that either right? Again it takes time and practice with it.
Now let's look at the games being too "Easy"? They might be simple (though Again zelda is far from simple) but they arn't "Easy". And why is that? Because companies didn't know how far they could push the new control scheme. You could program a Xbox 360 game years before it came out, because of a simple fact. It's the same as a Xbox control scheme with minor changes you tweak when you get the final dev kits.
As for unresponsive? Out of 4 games (including wii sports) the only unresponsive game was Red Steel, and that was hardly the only problem with that game. There was numerous problems with ubi's launch titles, either being graphically inept (both racing games). Being minigame, with out a real game (rayman) and being Red steel (with a number of problems). So the system sucks right? Well excitetruck showed that the system is more than a little good with racing games, Monkey ball shows we can have full games with mini games, and Call of duty 3 which looks weaker, is said to have the best controls out of all three systems.
The bottom line is that this is a NEW console, with radically NEW control schemes, just because reviewers have had it a week doesn't mean you'll master it in that time. You should already be better at it, and just like us, developers should be getting better and better at it. Just don't blame Nintendo for Ubi's crappy titles when Nintendo and Activision both prove the Wii is more than capable at holding it's own.
Can we rename these "zonk's bitch sessions"?
on
Gears of War Review
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Seriously everyone seems to love it, but Zonk has problems with it... ok. But he's faulting stuff that people love. I find it odd when this is one of the first games to beat Halo 2 in popularity and he doesn't like the multiplayer? Well apparently people do like it? Faulting the AI and all and then giving one paragraph to the fact that this has Co-op, and not just a tacked on one but one of the finest co-op sessions yet?
Personally I found the characters to be lacking, and the story to be abysmal but that's because me and my bud were laughing our asses off making fun of them because we where hanging out together online. We were saying stuff like "He said What? what a loser". The simple fact this is the perfect game not because of the sum of the parts but because of the sum to each player. I don't know many people who like any type of shooter who doesn't enjoy this one. It might not have brilliant AI for partners, but the enemies are so intellegent you're in trouble on hard core, and the co-op gameplay give an experience over live not found in many places. If you two are hard core gamers, insane will challenge you, if you're good gamers you'll enjoy casual and struggle through hard core. But the challenges the game presents will keep you riveted.
But then again Zonk is the editor so his opinions are what matters here I guess, lets keep fileting this game even if he's one of the few people who find faults with it.
IM is very similar to Email to the point of the same thing. The courts have a job of upholding the law, and protecting the public interest, in this case this is a good decision, the problem is we need someone to revamp the laws and define e-mail.
The biggest problem is no one has defined it and really any law applied to e-mail should be applied to IM. It is a personalized form of communication, it works the same as e-mail but it's intended for even faster communication. It's like trying to say the cell phone isn't a telephone because it's mobile and always available.
Is there really that much difference in IM and email? Are you doing something illegal on IM that would put you in jail on Email? The simple answer is Stop it then. Don't fight against the law if it's just or being applied correctly. I'm really getting sick of hearing "outrage" and looking behind it to find someone trying to hide their own illicit activities. At the very least be honest to yourself.
I never said these error codes were wrong, I said this exact error might not happen. Repeatedly getting the same two error codes? Of course instead of swearing a blue streak I actually thought about this, but then again we all play to our strengths.
Slashdot Mirror
If you had a great game that last 10 hours but had 10 completely different ways to play it, would that be worse than a 30 hour game you'd never play again?
Should Gears of war be downplayed even though it has 3 difficulties and the ability for co-op play?
How can we rate Multiplayer? Exactly how do you define game length? Do you need all achievements?
Overall the "length" of a game differs to much to be considered.
In addition this discusses quality versus quanity? Guess what, that only is good if there is quanity. A 5 minute game can be the best game ever but it's not going to get 50 bucks, however a rpg that is good that last 50 hours will easily get 50 dollars.
You have people on that site saying length isn't important and would rather buy a 50 dollar game that takes 10 hours than a 50 dollar game that takes 50? All I can ask is, is he stupid? I have felt that games are too long also for a time, Tales of the Abyss took me entirely too much time, but I spend almost the same amount of time on the new zelda already and I want another exactly like that. It was a fantastic game.
The bottom line is it's always better for a game to be too long but enjoyable, than too short and be the same thing over and over. But even more so, they are asking people in the industry, as one of those people I can tell you, we don't have the time that the people outside of the industry have to play games. You can invest the hours into games but you also spend your entire day doing the same thing.
"I don't think the Wii is going to be any different than all the other Nintendo platforms. Nintendo is going to have a very significant market share, and all the third party companies are going to have market shares that are single-digit or low double-digits."
Great so they are already admitting defeat before going in. Before the N64 third party games were close to as dominate as the nintendo games, the problem is with the n64 no one really tried, on the Gamecube most third party companies barely made games, and made crappy games at best. If people want to become a significant market share it's easy, support the wii to the fullest, unlike Ubisoft who made it feel like their games were designed for other systems (early gamecube in terms of the racing games) And make sure the games are fun. Making a half hearted effort will assure you get single digit shares.
I'm sick of companies acting like Nintendo is the only one who can do anything on a nintendo console, they should make the best games, just like PS2 should have first and second party support that beats all others, and just like the Xbox has the same. It's because they have a partnership with the console that all third party companies lack. Doesn't mean they will be have a real majority, but they should at least have the best games, shouldn't they?
But then again EA doesn't think this way on other consoles, and floods the market with their half assed games, and earns market share that way. I'm glad if they don't do that on the wii, but I have a feeling most of what headgate is going to do is make Wii ports of other games (games you'll either own on other systems or not want) and then bitch when no one buys them.
50 percent of these "gaming" computers will not be used to do anything but run email and Internet explorer.
Just more proof that "gaming ready" is another bullshit term used by media groups to signify that they might possibly run a game one day. Besides which this all assume Vista works properly and actually is able to shut off the gui when you start a game. If it can't do that, all these "gaming ready" pcs well be "gaming euniched" PC as it will require close to double what we had before.
They've also said basically the reason WHY there's downloadable content is because they are a first party company. They said really don't see it as a good model in the least.
Even better unless the DLC is something that's worthwhile (A new car they couldn't get in time for a racing game.) There's little reason to get DLC, especially Rare's DLC which does little to improve the game. Free downloads is a great way to thank fans or do something special, but charging for additional costumes really gets fans backs up.
That doesn't mean DLC isn't worthwhile, but I think Rare understands that certain games don't really require or get enhanced by it.
Ok I can understand the PS2, but I own a PSP and I have to say there's not much reason to give it to a kid. It's great for a inexpensive music player that plays games, but I bought mine for 200 dollars, and 6 games came with it and I still think I overpaid.
280 percent? That's definatly a case of mistaken identity.
Sad that simple geopolitical facts escaped the group.
But first look on the second page, the list of group members brings up an odd question. Why is Clinton Confidant Vernon Jordan on that list? Why are three out of four of the democrats, people who were under Clinton? Oh right because the Democrats believe he was such a genius. However I think that would make anyone but the most diehard Clinton fans balk. Why is the Fourth democrat a senator who was defeated in an election where he was the only democrat incumbant to lose?
Republicans are slightly better, at least having attorney generals, and Supreme Court Justices from a variety of Area, but there's still a lot of concern to be had there. This just makes me feel there is just reason for anyone to ignore the report.
The bigger problem is they have debated reaching out to Iran and Syria for help on Iraq. Anyone who has a little knowledge of the situation of both countries knows Iran is a quagmire waiting to happen and have likely been sponsoring or instigating the insurgence in Iraq, Syria is normally seen as a group who has in the past conducting state sponsored terrorism, however they have "cleaned up their act" at least enough after 9/11 that we can pretend to work with them. Though both countries would have been better options to attack over Iraq, and still are, the only problem is both have issues that made them less desirable.
"10 New VC games did not come out Monday as promised. Only 3 (I think), 2 TurboGraphix16 titles and Ecco the Dolphin. Where the hell is my Pilotwings? SMB? Come on guys, you want me to buy NES games at $5 a pop you're going to have to give me decent choices and soon. Playing these games legally on my TV is at least 30% of the reason I bought the Wii, don't disappoint me."
This is completely wrong.
First they never said 10 new games a monday. They said new VC titles every monday, 30 games by the end of the year, and then 10 games a month starting in January.
Second. It was 1 turbographix16, 2 genisis games (Ecco and Golden axe).
We all want all the games, but give them time to get it all right.
The fact that a graduate student made a game similar to early levels of Spore.
The fact a graduate student thinks a casual gamer is going to buy a 600 dollar console.
Or the fact that the graduate student thinks a console is better for a casual gamer than a flash?
"Some information in this article or section has not been verified and may not be reliable.
Please check for any inaccuracies, and modify and cite sources as needed."
Apparently there's no experts on experts, so no one could properly verify the expert opinions of experts.
It's three fold with me.
A. Most movies suck. Let's not discount this fact. I will still go to great movies, but that's like once a year (last one was The departed, I love Scorsese)
B. The experience is lacking. Why not watch a movie at home, get the pause button, rewind, chapter seek, I just got a 52 inch tv, I got free popcorn, and I can do something else if the movie sucks. Do I get anything out of sitting around 300 other people watching the same movie? Not really.
C. I have to drive to a movie, sit through 15 minutes of TV commercials, 10 minutes of trailers, and then get to see my movie. Why? I paid 8 bucks for it, why don't they just show propegenda films before time? For double that price I could get the movie on a DVD.
Personally I buy TV shows on Dvds currently because of three factors as well.
A. Per hour they are way cheaper than DVDs (1-3 dollars an hour vs 8 dollars and hour).
B. Except for the first disc there's not 100 ads. preceding the videos. I don't care about any other fucking movie, I bought THIS movie because I wanted THIS movie. If I wanted to look at other movies, put it under "trailers".
C. Again movies suck. Even a shitty tv show has better character development then a movie, because of time and style.
Watch 24 and Lost on Dvd, and tell me that any movie compares to what you get out of those two shows?
No company is going to spend multi million dollar budgets on a game to make fantastic "gameplay" and be happy with low sales numbers. The simple fact is games are about making money, pure and simple. There are a couple companies out there not interested in making money and they are usually called independents for a reason. However they have to have money to make games and where ever that money is coming from has to not care about making a return. Most companies that produce games don't want to "make a return" they want to aim for a 3x-5x return if possible.
No studio is going to act like selling games isn't important, even Nintendo doesn't act like that. Nintendo is just smart to keep costs down while keeping quality gameplay alive.
However even more so many companies do care about gameplay, but they want to appeal to the entire gamer audience (larger audience, larger sales) so they'll put in great gameplay as well as great graphics. That doesn't mean they don't care about gameplay, it's just not the only concern. I'm sure in a happy world we could allow places like clover studios to live, even while it's hemorrhaging dollars. But in the real world that's not going to happy, not in America, definitely not in Japan, and definitely not in the game industry.
Just remember, it isn't Illinois if it isn't hopelessly political, corrupt, and inept. Once and while we can toss in illegal too.
I recently moved here, and between here, Florida and Massachuttes, I have to say I've lost all hope for the country. Though with my luck the next state I'll reach is California. At least there I'll get to watch the Terminator put the smack down on the state congress every so often.
I don't know about the Amiga, but the Jaguar was pretty poor as well. Saturn probably had a great launch but it seemed to slam into a brick wall right after that point, not to meantion stuff like 32x or sega CD which... well you know the story.
If you look at the games for the wii they arn't "mediocrity" in the least, they arn't scored as highly though and most of the problem is "graphics" and the control is taking time to get used to (not to say the fault is in the gamer. Some companies.... (UBI!) just screwed up the wii's control systems.) Trauma center, and Excite trucks are both great lasting games.
However if you're comparing the Wii to those games you've meantioned, with the exception of Condemned and Far Cry none of those are even near launch. Launch usually refers to the day of the console's launch, though it can be expanded to launch window, which becomes the first three monthes of a game.
Putting aside bias for a minute I've played all next gen launches. The Xbox 360s launch was moderate. It did have some high points (COD2) but overall there was few break out games. Though it does have a lot of what the system would become known for.
ON the other hand the Ps3 has the worse. Nothing feels innovative, there's only three or four games that isn't on the 360 in some form already. And the ones that used motion control were poor (ridge racer and tony hawk both felt laggy in their responsiveness). That being said their "break out hit" Resistance, felt like a FPS, and only a FPS. Seeing as insomniacs record that was a low.
The Wii on the other hand had a truely unique controller so even ported hits couldn't be played the same way, yet the control has such tight controls that games which would be problematic with lag feel tight. What drags down the launch however is Ubisoft's titles, Red steel which was supposed to be the second best game at launch turns out to be a pretty big dud. The two racing games they released are budget titles at best. And the systems graphics are constantly dinged by Gamespot mostly.
Overall though the Wii has a great variety, improved by their unique controls. However the proper way to find out how good a launch is, isn't through scores, at least not averaging all the scores of the system. It's better to look at the uniqueness of the launch (AKA port city from the 360 and PS3), the variety available, and the quality of the top games. If there's 5 good games that come out, why should we care there's 10 crap games. We don't blame the Ps2 for having 50 good games and 200 crap games do we? Why does the N64 get high marks? EASY! they have 3 games at launch! That doesn't make it a great launch either.
Of course on the other hand 1up is about as worthwhile as a gaming source as crap is a painting source. They arn't biased, but they have awful reviews and complain about minor things while ignoring the best part of games. They post biased top 10s and such, or they'll back up their facts with flawed or weak math (aka let's take the average of all games launched). If you read the worst games at launch you'll probably notice you don't know many of them. So why are we averaging them in?
Business at usual at Microsoft.
Oh you need A B and C.... Find the version get the version, 20 gets you one, but that's not good enough, 40 gets you two but no no no. 100 gets you them all but you feel like fool, and choose!
Of course the prices are more like 100 to get the first. Seriously though Microsoft can become a great company with three steps.
1. Get rid of all the versions, give 2 versions, one for corporate one for home, both versions are fully unlocked.
2. Drop the prices, 100 for the home, 200 for the corporate, you're already doing OEM around that price, however by doing this people with XP will buy it rather then sticking around with the old version.
3. Drop the DRM, drop the litigation, and make sure the customer comes first ALWAYS. ALWAYS, A customer wants to change something and they do it, don't get pissed. If they break your system and do something illegal get pissed, but just because they changed the system so it says "microsoft sucks" How does that hurt you?
IF you do all three of those things any company can grow and become respected. Of course Microsoft is so caught up in pleasing Hollywood, they are playing the "PS3" game, and we can see what a great machine the PS3 after focusing so much on the nextgen DVD wars. They are an OS, not a home media center, not a Gaming platform, an Operating system, it should be useful as all the stuff, but a focus on one hurts all the rest...
What is the purpose of a "language"? The common use is open communication. If people are supposed to be able to talk in the open with the language and exchange ideas then yes it's in the public domain. If on the other hand the language is used for private communications, and not for open use, then that's debatable but even there it's only use is if it's open.
There's little point to even "copyrighting" a language, but even beyond that if it's an IP it's worthless. Then we can slip into the fact the language is 90 years old. And that IPs need to have spans of 20 or 40. But This is also a different story.
Of course then Microsoft has another option, point out the fact that the language is not being used. just a couple words of it. Which brings up another issue. Imagine if Computer became trademarked. That shouldn't happen but it could have. We have trademarked for using "google" why can't we have one for the word computer. However if we assume this is about language, and the words they used arn't trademarked they should be fine. Even if we have the trade mark for the words, they are used in the correct context, there's little point in making an argument about that too.
It comes down to this. You can't copyright a word and charge people who use that word, you can try, but it wouldn't work. Expand that to the fact you can't copyright a language, and thus the lawsuit is frivilious. Let them go to the Supreme court, and let the supreme court say "what are you stupid" Then Human rights will likely say the same thing. No one has stolen their langauge, they have only offered them an OS that utilizes their language, and as such that should be received kindly, not with a lawsuit.
"High Tech Marketing Disasters" Sony's ps3 marketing seems to fit the bill with that. Their PSP marketing would also.
Say what you want about their products, sony has completely boggled the recent ball. They might have the best system, they might not but the only thing the marketing has done has been to hurt them.
Time will tell how deep it cuts (as big as Apple's decision to work with Microsoft? probably not. But at least as big as Apple's decision to sell Microsoft stock which undermined a lot of Apple's position)
I'm sure in recent year's there's been a lot of failed marketting that they can add for the next one. All the Ipod killers and such come to mind quickly. Windows Vista might hit near there too. The real question that he can tackle in his next book is, are current High tech marketing failures only because of poor marketing or is the media also to blame for it?
Oh I am thinking of the night elves. mmmm Oh wait there's male night elves now?
See that's a completely valid question (though the other side is, there's more games for it). However acting like this is useful data in showing that the PS3 is better than the 360 is pointless. Bill Gates said it, and I hate to quote him or paraphrase him but he nailed it on the head. "Sony can make 80,000 bricks, and people would buy them."
While the data is completely valid, the conclusions someone might draw from them are not, and when 1up is saying the ps3 is doing better, it's not even technically valid unless you'd take the speed of everyone in a f1 race as the first driver drives over the finish line and then claim "Scott Speed won the race from 20th place. Because he was going 2 miles per hour faster then everyone else". I wouldn't do that, you shouldn't either.
Why don't we get USEFUL numbers. Sony launches a console, Microsoft has a console that's been out for a year. Why do we expect Microsoft's console to sell as many?
In america the amount of consoles Microsoft sell weekly isn't that many (probably 5 digits on a good week, but not much more)
Of course it wouldn't be 1up article if it was biased in some random direction.
Then again Microsoft's numbers are picking up in preperation for Blue Dragon, only a couple monthes ago they were barely breaking 1K units. However now it's much more.
Actually it would be Dilbert and Samuel L. Jackson, because you know he's such a geek because he hosts the VGA awards.
There's many more geeks than they posted, but what's wrong is they push two that don't even make sense. How does a fictious characters and a celeb that appears to have a psp make a list like this. Hilton wouldn't even be on the "game girl geeks".
How about Roberta Williams? Her and her husband did King's quesT? Oh we forgot about that didn't we?
Also why is Mary Shelley on there? She wrote a book that has a "robot" in it? Wow she's really geeky... isn't she?
Ubisoft sucks.
Let's start at the begining. Play a nintendo game. Don't want to pay for it? Play Wii Sports. Wii sports is suprisingly spot on with it's controls (Zelda and excite truck is too). So that means the controller is good and the system is amazingly responsive.
Now let's look at the problem with the controller. Point the controller at the screen, can you hold it there for 3 minutes. I can't either. Know why? Because it's a new system. You're not going to completely master the wii mote in the first minute. It takes a couple hours at least. I'm pretty good with the control now, and I expect to get far better. Try holding up a hand and not moving it for 3 minutes, can't do that either right? Again it takes time and practice with it.
Now let's look at the games being too "Easy"? They might be simple (though Again zelda is far from simple) but they arn't "Easy". And why is that? Because companies didn't know how far they could push the new control scheme. You could program a Xbox 360 game years before it came out, because of a simple fact. It's the same as a Xbox control scheme with minor changes you tweak when you get the final dev kits.
As for unresponsive? Out of 4 games (including wii sports) the only unresponsive game was Red Steel, and that was hardly the only problem with that game. There was numerous problems with ubi's launch titles, either being graphically inept (both racing games). Being minigame, with out a real game (rayman) and being Red steel (with a number of problems). So the system sucks right? Well excitetruck showed that the system is more than a little good with racing games, Monkey ball shows we can have full games with mini games, and Call of duty 3 which looks weaker, is said to have the best controls out of all three systems.
The bottom line is that this is a NEW console, with radically NEW control schemes, just because reviewers have had it a week doesn't mean you'll master it in that time. You should already be better at it, and just like us, developers should be getting better and better at it. Just don't blame Nintendo for Ubi's crappy titles when Nintendo and Activision both prove the Wii is more than capable at holding it's own.
Seriously everyone seems to love it, but Zonk has problems with it... ok. But he's faulting stuff that people love. I find it odd when this is one of the first games to beat Halo 2 in popularity and he doesn't like the multiplayer? Well apparently people do like it? Faulting the AI and all and then giving one paragraph to the fact that this has Co-op, and not just a tacked on one but one of the finest co-op sessions yet?
Personally I found the characters to be lacking, and the story to be abysmal but that's because me and my bud were laughing our asses off making fun of them because we where hanging out together online. We were saying stuff like "He said What? what a loser". The simple fact this is the perfect game not because of the sum of the parts but because of the sum to each player. I don't know many people who like any type of shooter who doesn't enjoy this one. It might not have brilliant AI for partners, but the enemies are so intellegent you're in trouble on hard core, and the co-op gameplay give an experience over live not found in many places. If you two are hard core gamers, insane will challenge you, if you're good gamers you'll enjoy casual and struggle through hard core. But the challenges the game presents will keep you riveted.
But then again Zonk is the editor so his opinions are what matters here I guess, lets keep fileting this game even if he's one of the few people who find faults with it.
IM is very similar to Email to the point of the same thing. The courts have a job of upholding the law, and protecting the public interest, in this case this is a good decision, the problem is we need someone to revamp the laws and define e-mail.
The biggest problem is no one has defined it and really any law applied to e-mail should be applied to IM. It is a personalized form of communication, it works the same as e-mail but it's intended for even faster communication. It's like trying to say the cell phone isn't a telephone because it's mobile and always available.
Is there really that much difference in IM and email? Are you doing something illegal on IM that would put you in jail on Email? The simple answer is Stop it then. Don't fight against the law if it's just or being applied correctly. I'm really getting sick of hearing "outrage" and looking behind it to find someone trying to hide their own illicit activities. At the very least be honest to yourself.
Perhaps you should read the article.
I never said these error codes were wrong, I said this exact error might not happen. Repeatedly getting the same two error codes? Of course instead of swearing a blue streak I actually thought about this, but then again we all play to our strengths.