This article only makes sense if you assume that "social game" or F2P game developers actually care about those metrics because they are trying to find "fun."
They aren't. They care about those metrics because they are trying to maximize revenue for the current title. After experimentation, they then take the combination of factors that had the maximum revenue for the previous title and then repackage it into a rebranded version of the same game with that combination as the starting point. It's more like casino design than game design.
By and large F2P games are not really about creating a "fun" experience. They are about creating an addictive experience loop which yields them income through impulse micro-transaction purchases. While "fun" is a factor (the game has to be interesting, after all) it certainly is not the primary goal of this part of the industry. Although some games buck this trend, the top-grossing ones are certainly not games which would typically be considered wholly "fun" compared to standard console/PC game titles.
None of these acronyms have found their way into mainstream console or PC title development. They are all monetization terms which are primarily applicable to "games" which have the sole purpose of monetization. This should not be surprising.
I ran a database repository for a beta test of an MMO video game some years in the past as a side project. This site ended up being used by the development team for various reasons during the beta period, and members of the QM and GM teams were also instructed as to how to log in to check certain bits of data.
I had put in login logging to detect if people/IPs who shouldn't be there were trying to get to the data, but this had the odd side-effect of gathering a huge number of attempts of the GM/QA teams trying to use their in-game login as was the norm with their internal forums. This gave me about 12+ logins over the beta period of valid GM accounts with GM abilities even on the live servers. Luckily for them, I was not out to mess around and reported it to the QA manager at the time--but if I had wanted to be malicious, I could have done a huge amount of damage. (With some of the accounts being flagged as high enough access to more or less destroy/create anything on the live realms.)
People are generally just not careful with their credentials and often think that if it's ******* on the screen, nobody on the other end (e.g. a webmaster or database guy) can never possibly see what they entered.
"Conventional wisdom says that the primary reason why so many people do not accept Darwin's theory of evolution is that they find it threatening to their religious beliefs. There is no question that religion is a big part of the reason behind the large number of people who reject evolution. But I am convinced that just as often, the cause and effect is reversed: people hold onto their fundamentalist religious beliefs because evolution by natural selection -- the strongest argument against an Old Testament-type creator -- is so counter-intuitive to so many."
Honestly, I find these kinds of statements to be a bit off-base. I really get the feeling that Creationism and Evolution/Darwinism are artificially pitted against each other as if one or the other has to "win."
The interesting thing is that there is absolutely nothing in either of the standpoints that cannot coexist with the other. I would say that the consistant framing of them being exclusive is what causes resistance (from both sides, most likey) when it isn't even needed.
If one wants to get anyone to believe in a scientific theory they are having difficulties with, framing it as, "you should believe this because what you believe is wrong and you are stupid," is not really going to win anyone over. Especially when one could easily take the stance of, "here's why this theory makes sense, and really it doesn't have anything to do with what you may or may not believe."
I've seen no strong theology that would rule out that evolution did not happen. Creationism is about a supernatural force overseeing things--it says nothing specific about how things actually happened. (And, I think, most theologists will agree that Genesis is highly metaphorical.)
So, bottom line is, if science-minded people want others to "see the light" on this one, stick to the facts and leave the religion-bashing alone. Making people defensive generally is not an effective way of getting an idea across.
Sorry, but those figures seem quite inaccurate. All the numbers I've seen indicate that US software sales were in the $9.9bn range (console & handheld--no PC) in 2004, while Japan's *total* game software sales were $2.17bn.
The US made up around 55-60% of all game software sales in 2004, with everything else split in the various regions.
One good example of this is Capcom's economic forecast over the next 3 years... they view it as, "Share ratio by each software market; Japan 2 : North America 5 : Europe 3"
Is Japan important? Sure... is it make or break? Not really. A console which is very successful in the states and moderately successful in Japan will do quite fine. Europe has been surging recently as well, and is forecasted to be near twice the market size of Japan by 2007. (US is projected to be three times the size of Japan.)
I don't know about that... $500mn is a large loss, but I think most companies--regardless of their size--expect to lose money the first 2-3 years of entering a new market, especially one with stiff competition. Also, on the grand scheme of things, $500mn isn't that large in an industry that shuffles $23.2bn a year around.
If Sony had to do it, they would probably would as well.
The other noteworthy point of the last page is the absolutely ridiculous statement of, "Please note that these decisions were not based on accuracy testing."
I'm sure everyone is just amazingly psyched about an "ultimate" anti-spam guide that makes no effort to determine if the products they are reviewing (let alone proclaiming as the "winner") actually stop spam.
Of course, I guess this kind of article is developed to benifit CIOs with no technical experience, who just want something to tell the IT department to install. (Thus: price and ease of installation are far more important than it actually doing what it is supposed to.)
Harris county (http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/st ates/TX/P/00/county.004.html) was won by Bush with only 110,000 votes.
If you compare that graphically to something like Los Angeles county, it looks about right that LA is roughly 6-7 times as tall. (Won by 717,000)
If anything, there may just be a slight illusion given the curvature of the globe on the map which makes the bars on the edges look a bit more graphically distinct.
If you took a look at the map for a bit longer, you may notice that your fix is not required to make the map correct. Based on the height of Cook County in Illinois compared to the height of the others, you would realize that the map is plotting the height of the advantage in the county, not just the population colored by winner.
That's why Cook County (advantage of 805,857 votes from 1,984,508 total) is higher than Los Angeles County (advantage of 715,577 votes from 2,657,113 total.)
-Jayde
You're wrong about the 15.5 vs. 15.2 million figures. Microsoft made a press release published all over the place (just Google for it) in mid-July (around the 23rd) in regard to "through June" worldwide figures--which was pegged at 15.5 million. This is a pretty easy figure to find.
The 15.22 million figure through the end of June (same time-frame as the Microsoft figures) is also documents in a Nintendo press release/financial statement here (Page 6): http://www.nintendo.co.jp/n10/news/040728e.pd f
As for shipped vs. sold, really it doesn't matter a whole lot--it's mostly symantical. Retailers only buy what they think they can sell--and nobody keeps buying something that isn't selling at all. Shipped vs. sold may have mattered early in the lives of the respective consoles, but now that we're down the road a ways, it really isn't a difference worth considering too much. (Also, it's not as if Nintendo has any better tools for tracking "actual" sales in Europe, for instance, than Sony or Microsoft does.)
Well, to clarify... Nintendo as a company is not "hanging by a thread"--but I honestly think their console division is.
I mean, to have a console newcomer, with all the adoption hurdles that come with that, coming up at a dead-heat (and, as of the June, perhaps a touch higher--Nintendo reported 15.22 million Gamecube's worldwide, and Microsoft reported 15.5 million Xbox's) with a long-time behemoth like Nintendo really does add insult to the injury Sony has inflicted on Nintendo.
The Xbox has next to zero support from Japan and Japanese-centric developers, yet still has managed to put up numbers at the same rate as Nintendo. Should Microsoft be able to break through into the Japanese market with their next console, Nintendo would be in a very bad position for the next wave of competition.
IMO, Nintendo is just shooting themselves in the foot if they continue to focus on a market they have lost touch with... The GBA is a wonderful success--really close to PS2-level sales--but the Gamecube seems to be pulling them down.
Nintendo's profit, however, primarily comes from their handheld success--not the N64 or the Gamecube.
30 million N64s is a failure, yes. Sony has moved over 100 million original PSX's, and sold volumes more in overall games. (As console companies make most of their money from sales royalties, this makes a huge difference.)
In the market, the N64 was a pretty dramatic failure compared to the competition.
The Gamecube is really no different. Sony has moved over 70 million+ PS2's as of last year, while the Gamecube is only somewhere in the 15 million range. Total market size of the Xbox and Gamecube are pretty comparable on the worldwide market. Really, Nintendo is directly competing with Microsoft for second-place mindshare--Sony is securely locked in at #1, over doubling both the Gamecube and Xbox installed base combined.
As for Nintendo "hanging by a thread", the proof is in the pudding, as you can read about here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/37542 23.stm
When you consider that they are saying profits this year are down 50%, and that last year they posted their first ever quarterly net loss...things are looking rather grim for Nintendo's 2004's year-end figures.
Nintendo is more or less surviving off the GBA... not their console market share (or lack thereof.) If something doesn't dramatically change for them soon, they will be out of the console business a la Sega in not too many years.
It's no question that the GBA is a very healthy platform--they have an installed base of over 60 million units. The handheld market continues to be Nintendo's strength, and that's probably not likely to go away any time soon. However, their console strategy has been ailing for many, many years now.
If their console holdings don't improve, they will probably drop out of the market as a console maker eventually--and reclaim the massive profit they reap from their handheld share, instead of using it to subsidize more failed console attempts.
Unless you can link otherwise, IIRC the metro area statistics on census.gov are pretty old--the ones on the linked PDF are based on projected 2003 US census data and not 2000 figures. (The Portland metro area has grown at a higher than average rate over the last number of years.)
http://www.census.gov/popest/metro.html
The linked PDF also shows the official 2000 figures for comparison.
The population of Portland is more like 550k nowadays, and the metro area (all within affected area of the 1980 St. Helens blast) is 1.95 million people.
That makes it the 24th largest metro area in the United States, beating out a number of other "high profile" metro areas that may have larger name recognition.
I never stated that Iwata is a failure, just that he naysays the console industry with little basis in fact other than Nintendo not doing well personally.
Nintendo's dominance of the handheld market is a totally different ballgame, and shaped by many different historical reasons.
Of course, we'll see what happens when an major player finally steps into the ring... (Sony's PSP is the biggest entry into the handheld market from a non-Nintendo company sine the GameGear--and even the GG was half-hearted. Nintendo will never fall to the likes of Nokia, SNK, or any of the other minor players attempting to enter the market.)
In regard to Xbox Live!... It reached as many as 500,000 subscribers as early as April of this year, so downplaying its impact on the Xbox's ability to say (remotely) viable would be a mistake. It's the main thing the platform "has going for it", in terms of reasons someone would buy an Xbox over a Gamecube or PS2 if given a choice.
Sadly, Iwata has maintained variations of the, "We are facing a critical situation, in which the number of game players will decrease unless we change tack," line for quite some time--and often applies it to the game market as a whole. Unfortunately, it's less of a factual statement on the condition of the gaming market, and more of an excuse for the fact that many of Nintendo's recent tactics for regaining console market share have failed.
Really, though, the gaming market is quite strong and will likely continue to be quite strong for quite some time... The PS2 has enjoyed very good times, and thus Iwata--if he stays to form--will probably predict the "demise" of the industry every single year that Sony beats Nintendo's console sales into the ground.
Some of the bullet points in that article are just laughable as little more than sour grape, such as, "Iwata downplayed the PlayStation as a 'home electronic appliance,' and not a 'game machine.'" Really, the PS and PS2 are 99% focused on games, so calling them anything other than a "game machine" is rather silly. While I could see that claim being possibly applied to the Xbox, trying to launch it against the PlayStation--which has a simply massive game library--just seems petty.
As for the online games, Nintendo has been continuously out of touch with the online market for quite some time... If he wants to take a good look at online games and their appeal, he should note that Xbox Live! is one of the main reasons the Xbox is managing to roughly keep up with the Gamecube in console sales, or the fact that Square Enix's Final Fantasy XI has been an absolute cash cow for them.
Anyway, not that it's a travesty (pretty normal, actually,) but Iwata is running a business more than actually having deep insight into the future of the industry. His statements seem to be directed in an attempt to lower confidence in Sony and Microsoft--and little else.
Well, you're forgetting the fact that games back then cost a lot more to distribute than they do today. The cost of a CD or DVD is miniscule compared to the cost of the chips they needed to use for cartridge systems. During the SNES and Genesis days, there were even late-gen games that run in the 48-meg cart range which went for around $90 apiece.
The Neo-Geo--which was well known for using massive 200+meg carts (got all the way up to the 600+ range eventually)--was mostly as expensive as it was due to the cost of the chips involved in producing the cart. It was pretty normal for Neo-Geo games to run in the $500 range, even back then.
So, yes.. while the price point hasn't changed much, the overhead for distribution has lowered dramatically. Publishers no longer have to spend gobs of money on the media itself.
The other issue is volume.. SMB3 was, by far, an exception in terms of sales. Most games back then did not sell that well, and there were a very small amount of million-sellers. Nowadays, there are tons of million sellers, and quite a few double-platinums as well on a yearly basis. In addition, many of these come from the same publishing houses.
So, really.. they are going for volume and tapping the mass market as opposed to selling for high prices. It's not really a bad way to go.
The game industry makes a lot more profit than it did in the NES days... but, anyway, greed is always present and they will always look for new ways to make more profit regardless.
Noticed in some of the screens that the Longhorn IE has both a pop-up blocker/manager as well as a download manager (ala GetRight).. Kinda interesting developments--although I suppose we'll have to buy Longhorn to get that version of IE. Heh.
However, anyone with a nVidia card can do this very easily. The tools that come with the newer Detonator drivers allow for all kinds of window-play, including transparacy. It works like a charm, and as it is all done in hardware it is very speedy as well.
Well, you're certainly free to make the argument that the dissenting opinion brought up "good points." However, statements as:
"First of all, when the (Democrat majority) USCCR held hearings on the Florida election, they were not able to find a single person that was disenfranchised by the felon list."...are pretty inaccurate and misleading. First off, they imply that the entire USCCR ("they")was unable to find that--that is not true. Second, it implies at the Democrat majority was unable to find that--also untrue.
Again, citing it as a reference is fine. Misrepresenting it as if it was the unanimous and/or official position, on the other hand, is not.
FUD. Sorry, but it doesn't. I just whipped out an HTML editor, and various word processors. IE displays the font exactly the same as MS Word, Wordpad, and Wordperfect.
Interestingly enough, it looks the same in Netscape 6.2.3 as well.
Oh, yeah... then I opened up the same page in Netscape 4.79 and, guess what? The font looked markedly smaller than IE, any of the text editors, and Netscape 6.2.3--which all looked identical.
Well, not to be harsh at all, bunch considering your nick is Mario64, I assume you hold Miyamoto in a bit higher regard than he really deserves.
Yes, he is a very talanted game designer. However, he is not the only one who drove the video game market since its inception--he was more the poster child than the sole innovator.
I don't need to read a highly-summerized Wired article (although I did) to know about the history of the gaming business, as I am a member of the gaming media and have followed the industry since around the time of Pong.
Miyamoto gets a bit too much credit, in my opinion, for the work of others. Such hype leaves people with the impression that if not for Miyamoto, the gaming industry would not exist. That is simply not true. There have been many driving forces of the industry, and so many of the names have been forgotten, or never remembered at all.
With so much emphasis on the companies when referncing gaming history (i.e. "Capcom's" Mega Man series) very few game designers ever get recognized for their work. Miyomoto is a rare example (along with Hironobu Sakaguchi of Squaresoft) due to his involvement in both creating games *and* being a suit in the company at the same time.
To be sure, Miyamoto is a great designer... But it's highly arguable if he is "the best." Even more, it is important not to attribute gaming success to him that he really doesn't deserve. (e.g. Metroid Prime.)
It may be worth noting that Mario Sunshine has not set any real sales records. In Japan, it has still not even broken a million copies being out for almost a year. In fact, it is only hovering around 700,000 copies, with is rather disappointing considering the hype of the title.
It has fared a bit better in the US, selling about 810,000 so far. But, overall, it is rather lackluster performance from a rather lackluster (in my opinion) game.
Also, I saw one poster say that Miyamoto produced Metroid Prime. This is only half-correct. Miyamoto was a representitive from Nintendo HQ in overseeing the development of Metroid Prime. Retro Studios came up with the concept, and did all the work. They deserve pretty much all the credit, not Miyamoto.
While one can respect Miyamoto for his achivements, many people in the industry only respect him for his reputation and past work. His recent works has fared rather lackluster in the market, and most critisize him for trying to simplify his games too much. (Such as his goal that all games be playable with only two buttons.)
Miyamoto is not "God", as some would put it, but mearly a very talanted game designer. There are many others that are quite talanted (such as Yuji Naka, Hideo Kojima, or Shinji Mikami for instance) but don't get the recognition due to lack of the "star" status.
I realize this is an unpopular view among the Slashdot crowd, but it's more of the view from inside the gaming industry.
Enix had little to nothing to do with Chrono Trigger. Square hired a character designer that was currently under contract with Enix (who, by and large is msotly known for his Dragon Ball work), therefore Yuji Horii was involved in the approval process.
Kazuhiko Aoki is an employee of Squaresoft, and has been involved in many Final Fantasy games--the most recent being Final Fantasy IX, I believe.
Many people in the "Dream Team" room are nothing more than a marketing ploy, and had little to nothing to do with the actual content of the game.
Horii and Sakaguchi played little more than "rubber stamp" roles in the production of the game. Nobuo Uematsu, while a talented composer, had almost nothing to do with the soundtrack--only composing 2 songs, if I remember correctly.
The main roles in the production of an RPG are: Director Producer Scenario Writer
Executive Producer or Supervisor titles are usually reserved for company executives which played little role in the development of the game itself.
One of the more integral members of the Chrono Trigger team that was not mention was Masatou Kato, at well... And any site which is doing an analysis of the CT staff and does not mention him at all is questionable at best.;-)
Seems to me that MS may be doing this as a (prudant) way to avoid potential conflict-of-interest issues.
As has been reported, they are developing XDocs in the future, and this consortium could potentially be putting together something fairly similar to XDocs.
I doubt MS wants to be involved in something that appears like the whole DDR SDRAM/RDRAM fiasco.
Slashdot Mirror
This article only makes sense if you assume that "social game" or F2P game developers actually care about those metrics because they are trying to find "fun."
They aren't. They care about those metrics because they are trying to maximize revenue for the current title. After experimentation, they then take the combination of factors that had the maximum revenue for the previous title and then repackage it into a rebranded version of the same game with that combination as the starting point. It's more like casino design than game design.
By and large F2P games are not really about creating a "fun" experience. They are about creating an addictive experience loop which yields them income through impulse micro-transaction purchases. While "fun" is a factor (the game has to be interesting, after all) it certainly is not the primary goal of this part of the industry. Although some games buck this trend, the top-grossing ones are certainly not games which would typically be considered wholly "fun" compared to standard console/PC game titles.
None of these acronyms have found their way into mainstream console or PC title development. They are all monetization terms which are primarily applicable to "games" which have the sole purpose of monetization. This should not be surprising.
This is actually really, really common.
I ran a database repository for a beta test of an MMO video game some years in the past as a side project. This site ended up being used by the development team for various reasons during the beta period, and members of the QM and GM teams were also instructed as to how to log in to check certain bits of data.
I had put in login logging to detect if people/IPs who shouldn't be there were trying to get to the data, but this had the odd side-effect of gathering a huge number of attempts of the GM/QA teams trying to use their in-game login as was the norm with their internal forums. This gave me about 12+ logins over the beta period of valid GM accounts with GM abilities even on the live servers. Luckily for them, I was not out to mess around and reported it to the QA manager at the time--but if I had wanted to be malicious, I could have done a huge amount of damage. (With some of the accounts being flagged as high enough access to more or less destroy/create anything on the live realms.)
People are generally just not careful with their credentials and often think that if it's ******* on the screen, nobody on the other end (e.g. a webmaster or database guy) can never possibly see what they entered.
"Conventional wisdom says that the primary reason why so many people do not accept Darwin's theory of evolution is that they find it threatening to their religious beliefs. There is no question that religion is a big part of the reason behind the large number of people who reject evolution. But I am convinced that just as often, the cause and effect is reversed: people hold onto their fundamentalist religious beliefs because evolution by natural selection -- the strongest argument against an Old Testament-type creator -- is so counter-intuitive to so many."
Honestly, I find these kinds of statements to be a bit off-base. I really get the feeling that Creationism and Evolution/Darwinism are artificially pitted against each other as if one or the other has to "win."
The interesting thing is that there is absolutely nothing in either of the standpoints that cannot coexist with the other. I would say that the consistant framing of them being exclusive is what causes resistance (from both sides, most likey) when it isn't even needed.
If one wants to get anyone to believe in a scientific theory they are having difficulties with, framing it as, "you should believe this because what you believe is wrong and you are stupid," is not really going to win anyone over. Especially when one could easily take the stance of, "here's why this theory makes sense, and really it doesn't have anything to do with what you may or may not believe."
I've seen no strong theology that would rule out that evolution did not happen. Creationism is about a supernatural force overseeing things--it says nothing specific about how things actually happened. (And, I think, most theologists will agree that Genesis is highly metaphorical.)
So, bottom line is, if science-minded people want others to "see the light" on this one, stick to the facts and leave the religion-bashing alone. Making people defensive generally is not an effective way of getting an idea across.
Also, to follow up... total worldwide console hardware sales are broken up into:
North America - 47%
Europe - 32%
Japan - 21%
Sorry, but those figures seem quite inaccurate. All the numbers I've seen indicate that US software sales were in the $9.9bn range (console & handheld--no PC) in 2004, while Japan's *total* game software sales were $2.17bn.
The US made up around 55-60% of all game software sales in 2004, with everything else split in the various regions.
One good example of this is Capcom's economic forecast over the next 3 years... they view it as, "Share ratio by each software market; Japan 2 : North America 5 : Europe 3"
Is Japan important? Sure... is it make or break? Not really. A console which is very successful in the states and moderately successful in Japan will do quite fine. Europe has been surging recently as well, and is forecasted to be near twice the market size of Japan by 2007. (US is projected to be three times the size of Japan.)
I don't know about that... $500mn is a large loss, but I think most companies--regardless of their size--expect to lose money the first 2-3 years of entering a new market, especially one with stiff competition. Also, on the grand scheme of things, $500mn isn't that large in an industry that shuffles $23.2bn a year around.
If Sony had to do it, they would probably would as well.
The other noteworthy point of the last page is the absolutely ridiculous statement of, "Please note that these decisions were not based on accuracy testing."
I'm sure everyone is just amazingly psyched about an "ultimate" anti-spam guide that makes no effort to determine if the products they are reviewing (let alone proclaiming as the "winner") actually stop spam.
Of course, I guess this kind of article is developed to benifit CIOs with no technical experience, who just want something to tell the IT department to install. (Thus: price and ease of installation are far more important than it actually doing what it is supposed to.)
What's wrong with Houston, exactly?
t ates/TX/P/00/county.004.html) was won by Bush with only 110,000 votes.
Harris county (http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/s
If you compare that graphically to something like Los Angeles county, it looks about right that LA is roughly 6-7 times as tall. (Won by 717,000)
If anything, there may just be a slight illusion given the curvature of the globe on the map which makes the bars on the edges look a bit more graphically distinct.
-Jayde
If you took a look at the map for a bit longer, you may notice that your fix is not required to make the map correct. Based on the height of Cook County in Illinois compared to the height of the others, you would realize that the map is plotting the height of the advantage in the county, not just the population colored by winner. That's why Cook County (advantage of 805,857 votes from 1,984,508 total) is higher than Los Angeles County (advantage of 715,577 votes from 2,657,113 total.) -Jayde
You're wrong about the 15.5 vs. 15.2 million figures. Microsoft made a press release published all over the place (just Google for it) in mid-July (around the 23rd) in regard to "through June" worldwide figures--which was pegged at 15.5 million. This is a pretty easy figure to find.
d f
The 15.22 million figure through the end of June (same time-frame as the Microsoft figures) is also documents in a Nintendo press release/financial statement here (Page 6):
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/n10/news/040728e.p
As for shipped vs. sold, really it doesn't matter a whole lot--it's mostly symantical. Retailers only buy what they think they can sell--and nobody keeps buying something that isn't selling at all. Shipped vs. sold may have mattered early in the lives of the respective consoles, but now that we're down the road a ways, it really isn't a difference worth considering too much. (Also, it's not as if Nintendo has any better tools for tracking "actual" sales in Europe, for instance, than Sony or Microsoft does.)
-Jayde
Well, to clarify... Nintendo as a company is not "hanging by a thread"--but I honestly think their console division is.
I mean, to have a console newcomer, with all the adoption hurdles that come with that, coming up at a dead-heat (and, as of the June, perhaps a touch higher--Nintendo reported 15.22 million Gamecube's worldwide, and Microsoft reported 15.5 million Xbox's) with a long-time behemoth like Nintendo really does add insult to the injury Sony has inflicted on Nintendo.
The Xbox has next to zero support from Japan and Japanese-centric developers, yet still has managed to put up numbers at the same rate as Nintendo. Should Microsoft be able to break through into the Japanese market with their next console, Nintendo would be in a very bad position for the next wave of competition.
IMO, Nintendo is just shooting themselves in the foot if they continue to focus on a market they have lost touch with... The GBA is a wonderful success--really close to PS2-level sales--but the Gamecube seems to be pulling them down.
-Jayde
Nintendo's profit, however, primarily comes from their handheld success--not the N64 or the Gamecube.
2 23.stm
30 million N64s is a failure, yes. Sony has moved over 100 million original PSX's, and sold volumes more in overall games. (As console companies make most of their money from sales royalties, this makes a huge difference.)
In the market, the N64 was a pretty dramatic failure compared to the competition.
The Gamecube is really no different. Sony has moved over 70 million+ PS2's as of last year, while the Gamecube is only somewhere in the 15 million range. Total market size of the Xbox and Gamecube are pretty comparable on the worldwide market. Really, Nintendo is directly competing with Microsoft for second-place mindshare--Sony is securely locked in at #1, over doubling both the Gamecube and Xbox installed base combined.
As for Nintendo "hanging by a thread", the proof is in the pudding, as you can read about here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3754
When you consider that they are saying profits this year are down 50%, and that last year they posted their first ever quarterly net loss...things are looking rather grim for Nintendo's 2004's year-end figures.
Nintendo is more or less surviving off the GBA... not their console market share (or lack thereof.) If something doesn't dramatically change for them soon, they will be out of the console business a la Sega in not too many years.
It's no question that the GBA is a very healthy platform--they have an installed base of over 60 million units. The handheld market continues to be Nintendo's strength, and that's probably not likely to go away any time soon. However, their console strategy has been ailing for many, many years now.
If their console holdings don't improve, they will probably drop out of the market as a console maker eventually--and reclaim the massive profit they reap from their handheld share, instead of using it to subsidize more failed console attempts.
-Jayde
Unless you can link otherwise, IIRC the metro area statistics on census.gov are pretty old--the ones on the linked PDF are based on projected 2003 US census data and not 2000 figures. (The Portland metro area has grown at a higher than average rate over the last number of years.)
http://www.census.gov/popest/metro.html
The linked PDF also shows the official 2000 figures for comparison.
-Jayde
The population of Portland is more like 550k nowadays, and the metro area (all within affected area of the 1980 St. Helens blast) is 1.95 million people.
That makes it the 24th largest metro area in the United States, beating out a number of other "high profile" metro areas that may have larger name recognition.
http://www.demographia.com/db-usmet2003.pdf
-Jayde
I never stated that Iwata is a failure, just that he naysays the console industry with little basis in fact other than Nintendo not doing well personally.
Nintendo's dominance of the handheld market is a totally different ballgame, and shaped by many different historical reasons.
Of course, we'll see what happens when an major player finally steps into the ring... (Sony's PSP is the biggest entry into the handheld market from a non-Nintendo company sine the GameGear--and even the GG was half-hearted. Nintendo will never fall to the likes of Nokia, SNK, or any of the other minor players attempting to enter the market.)
In regard to Xbox Live!... It reached as many as 500,000 subscribers as early as April of this year, so downplaying its impact on the Xbox's ability to say (remotely) viable would be a mistake. It's the main thing the platform "has going for it", in terms of reasons someone would buy an Xbox over a Gamecube or PS2 if given a choice.
-Jayde
Sadly, Iwata has maintained variations of the, "We are facing a critical situation, in which the number of game players will decrease unless we change tack," line for quite some time--and often applies it to the game market as a whole. Unfortunately, it's less of a factual statement on the condition of the gaming market, and more of an excuse for the fact that many of Nintendo's recent tactics for regaining console market share have failed.
Really, though, the gaming market is quite strong and will likely continue to be quite strong for quite some time... The PS2 has enjoyed very good times, and thus Iwata--if he stays to form--will probably predict the "demise" of the industry every single year that Sony beats Nintendo's console sales into the ground.
Some of the bullet points in that article are just laughable as little more than sour grape, such as, "Iwata downplayed the PlayStation as a 'home electronic appliance,' and not a 'game machine.'" Really, the PS and PS2 are 99% focused on games, so calling them anything other than a "game machine" is rather silly. While I could see that claim being possibly applied to the Xbox, trying to launch it against the PlayStation--which has a simply massive game library--just seems petty.
As for the online games, Nintendo has been continuously out of touch with the online market for quite some time... If he wants to take a good look at online games and their appeal, he should note that Xbox Live! is one of the main reasons the Xbox is managing to roughly keep up with the Gamecube in console sales, or the fact that Square Enix's Final Fantasy XI has been an absolute cash cow for them.
Anyway, not that it's a travesty (pretty normal, actually,) but Iwata is running a business more than actually having deep insight into the future of the industry. His statements seem to be directed in an attempt to lower confidence in Sony and Microsoft--and little else.
-Jayde
Well, you're forgetting the fact that games back then cost a lot more to distribute than they do today. The cost of a CD or DVD is miniscule compared to the cost of the chips they needed to use for cartridge systems. During the SNES and Genesis days, there were even late-gen games that run in the 48-meg cart range which went for around $90 apiece.
The Neo-Geo--which was well known for using massive 200+meg carts (got all the way up to the 600+ range eventually)--was mostly as expensive as it was due to the cost of the chips involved in producing the cart. It was pretty normal for Neo-Geo games to run in the $500 range, even back then.
So, yes.. while the price point hasn't changed much, the overhead for distribution has lowered dramatically. Publishers no longer have to spend gobs of money on the media itself.
The other issue is volume.. SMB3 was, by far, an exception in terms of sales. Most games back then did not sell that well, and there were a very small amount of million-sellers. Nowadays, there are tons of million sellers, and quite a few double-platinums as well on a yearly basis. In addition, many of these come from the same publishing houses.
So, really.. they are going for volume and tapping the mass market as opposed to selling for high prices. It's not really a bad way to go.
The game industry makes a lot more profit than it did in the NES days... but, anyway, greed is always present and they will always look for new ways to make more profit regardless.
-Jayde
Noticed in some of the screens that the Longhorn IE has both a pop-up blocker/manager as well as a download manager (ala GetRight).. Kinda interesting developments--although I suppose we'll have to buy Longhorn to get that version of IE. Heh.
-Jayde
Out of the box? Probably not, sure.
However, anyone with a nVidia card can do this very easily. The tools that come with the newer Detonator drivers allow for all kinds of window-play, including transparacy. It works like a charm, and as it is all done in hardware it is very speedy as well.
-Jayde
Well, you're certainly free to make the argument that the dissenting opinion brought up "good points." However, statements as:
...are pretty inaccurate and misleading. First off, they imply that the entire USCCR ("they")was unable to find that--that is not true. Second, it implies at the Democrat majority was unable to find that--also untrue.
"First of all, when the (Democrat majority) USCCR held hearings on the Florida election, they were not able to find a single person that was disenfranchised by the felon list."
Again, citing it as a reference is fine. Misrepresenting it as if it was the unanimous and/or official position, on the other hand, is not.
FUD. Sorry, but it doesn't. I just whipped out an HTML editor, and various word processors. IE displays the font exactly the same as MS Word, Wordpad, and Wordperfect.
Interestingly enough, it looks the same in Netscape 6.2.3 as well.
Oh, yeah... then I opened up the same page in Netscape 4.79 and, guess what? The font looked markedly smaller than IE, any of the text editors, and Netscape 6.2.3--which all looked identical.
-Jayde
Well, not to be harsh at all, bunch considering your nick is Mario64, I assume you hold Miyamoto in a bit higher regard than he really deserves.
Yes, he is a very talanted game designer. However, he is not the only one who drove the video game market since its inception--he was more the poster child than the sole innovator.
I don't need to read a highly-summerized Wired article (although I did) to know about the history of the gaming business, as I am a member of the gaming media and have followed the industry since around the time of Pong.
Miyamoto gets a bit too much credit, in my opinion, for the work of others. Such hype leaves people with the impression that if not for Miyamoto, the gaming industry would not exist. That is simply not true. There have been many driving forces of the industry, and so many of the names have been forgotten, or never remembered at all.
With so much emphasis on the companies when referncing gaming history (i.e. "Capcom's" Mega Man series) very few game designers ever get recognized for their work. Miyomoto is a rare example (along with Hironobu Sakaguchi of Squaresoft) due to his involvement in both creating games *and* being a suit in the company at the same time.
To be sure, Miyamoto is a great designer... But it's highly arguable if he is "the best." Even more, it is important not to attribute gaming success to him that he really doesn't deserve. (e.g. Metroid Prime.)
-Jayde
It may be worth noting that Mario Sunshine has not set any real sales records. In Japan, it has still not even broken a million copies being out for almost a year. In fact, it is only hovering around 700,000 copies, with is rather disappointing considering the hype of the title.
It has fared a bit better in the US, selling about 810,000 so far. But, overall, it is rather lackluster performance from a rather lackluster (in my opinion) game.
Also, I saw one poster say that Miyamoto produced Metroid Prime. This is only half-correct. Miyamoto was a representitive from Nintendo HQ in overseeing the development of Metroid Prime. Retro Studios came up with the concept, and did all the work. They deserve pretty much all the credit, not Miyamoto.
While one can respect Miyamoto for his achivements, many people in the industry only respect him for his reputation and past work. His recent works has fared rather lackluster in the market, and most critisize him for trying to simplify his games too much. (Such as his goal that all games be playable with only two buttons.)
Miyamoto is not "God", as some would put it, but mearly a very talanted game designer. There are many others that are quite talanted (such as Yuji Naka, Hideo Kojima, or Shinji Mikami for instance) but don't get the recognition due to lack of the "star" status.
I realize this is an unpopular view among the Slashdot crowd, but it's more of the view from inside the gaming industry.
Just some friendly perspective... =)
-Jayde
Enix had little to nothing to do with Chrono Trigger. Square hired a character designer that was currently under contract with Enix (who, by and large is msotly known for his Dragon Ball work), therefore Yuji Horii was involved in the approval process.
;-)
Kazuhiko Aoki is an employee of Squaresoft, and has been involved in many Final Fantasy games--the most recent being Final Fantasy IX, I believe.
Many people in the "Dream Team" room are nothing more than a marketing ploy, and had little to nothing to do with the actual content of the game.
Horii and Sakaguchi played little more than "rubber stamp" roles in the production of the game. Nobuo Uematsu, while a talented composer, had almost nothing to do with the soundtrack--only composing 2 songs, if I remember correctly.
The main roles in the production of an RPG are:
Director
Producer
Scenario Writer
Executive Producer or Supervisor titles are usually reserved for company executives which played little role in the development of the game itself.
One of the more integral members of the Chrono Trigger team that was not mention was Masatou Kato, at well... And any site which is doing an analysis of the CT staff and does not mention him at all is questionable at best.
-Jayde
Seems to me that MS may be doing this as a (prudant) way to avoid potential conflict-of-interest issues.
As has been reported, they are developing XDocs in the future, and this consortium could potentially be putting together something fairly similar to XDocs.
I doubt MS wants to be involved in something that appears like the whole DDR SDRAM/RDRAM fiasco.
-Jayde