Well, yes, as I mentioned in my original post, but they're asking $22 compared with the $13-15 WoW charges, for example. It would be interesting to see what would happen if they charged $15 for the whole bunch.
As MMORPGs become more mainstream, and there are more and more games competing for the same players, I think you're going to see the big guys doing more of this. After all, it's kind of a no-brainer if one company charges $20/month for their game, and another charges $20/month for their stable of 10 games.
I'm kind of surprised SOE hasn't gone this route. If they undercut all the competition (I believe right now they charge more than the average monthly fee for a group of games), they could likely force smaller operators out of business. If their business model just counted subscribers (rather than subscribers to a particular game) they could just figure out what they needed to support an individual (server load, lines, etc.) and just skip the rest of the equation. The same servers can support a variety of games. It's just a matter of balancing out the load.
Japanese businesses have always been better at thinking long-term than ours. Yes, Sony is suffering losses right now, but they are in it for the long haul. I don't think selling at a loss is beyond their abilities, and their shareholders tend to be more understanding of short-term losses. It isn't about the next quarter if you're thinking long-term. Even Microsoft (who admittedly has fairly deep pockets) has sold the Xbox at a loss throughout it's life. The question then becomes whether Sony is willing to do the same.
Your proposed Microsoft response has numerous "If's" in it. Time will tell if they will have "a truckload of quality games" and "a lower price point" (that's the point of this discussion, right?) The fact is we really don't have a clue what the PS3 will cost. Or more to the point, what Sony is willing to sell it for. Yes, we can easily make estimates based on the technology required to do what it does, but that doesn't take into account how consoles are priced; the five-year profit on the PS3 may well include a loss in the first two years.
Blu-ray is the most probable loss-leader of all the technologies. Sony has a vested interest in seeing it succeed, not just in the PS3. They may well be willing to eat the cost of that technology in order to make it back in their home entertainment line. Long-term thinking again, coupled with broader corporate interest.
It's fun to speculate. It's frustrating not to know. Last generation I bought all three consoles at different times, and you're right - it's all about the games. When each had sufficiently compelling games, I bought them. I'll likely do the same this generation, and it isn't clear at this point when that will be. But it's going to be fun, considering the power of all the next-gens.
Perhaps you are right. Not being privy to the future as you clearly are, I can only speculate.
But consider: you are a major company coming out with your next generation console, and know you will be releasing it after your closest competitor. What do you do? One approach would be to continually make noise about how expensive your product will be (without actually revealing any figures) and hope the competition will take the bait. They will hazard a guess as to what your selling point will be, price theirs somewhat lower, and hope to undercut you before you've even come out.
But what if it the speculation of a high-priced PS3 is just that? If Sony decided to announce theirs for less after the Xbox 360 debuts (even if that means what the Xbox 360 base is selling for) then they can indeed influence those buyers who think they'll be getting a better system for less.
Likewise; I was one of those who pre-ordered the PS2 and picked it up on the day of its release. On the other hand, I bought the Xbox and the Gamecube after they'd had a price drop and a fairly good bundle deal.
I won't make the same mistake again. I'm not in a big hurry to own any of the next generation consoles - I'll make my purchase when each realeases a game I feel is worth owning.
I couldn't agree more - inovation is important and Nintendo is second to none in this area. But all the inovation in the world will come to naught if the games built around it aren't fun. The DS as a prime example. It's undoubtably inovative, but I haven't seen a compelling game for it yet (defined as one that would make me go out and get a DS to play it.)
Inovation is not an end in itself. Games that are fun to play are essential if the inovation is to be adopted.
What you mean is you plug your antenna into the unit, and then from the unit into your TV. The unit only provides analog pass-through. It has no OTA tuner.
If I can't get this, I don't see why I should switch. Why should I pay more for less?
Well, the main reason you should switch is that your old set won't work any more after transmissions become digital. At the very least, you'll need to come up with a converter box.
So for another $100-200 (who knows, really?) you'll have exactly what you have now.
Or you can choose to pay nothing. But then you will have a non-functional TV. Is that more or less than you have now?
He said PSP outsold DS every month this year. Your dazzling response was to point to an article describing total sales since both units shipped, which is arguably irrelevant, since the DS shipped first.
His point stands: since the beginning of the year, PSP outsold DS, unless you have another link up your sleave...
I totally understand where you're coming from, but is there anyone on the planet still making money off of SNES/NES/Genesis games?
Yes. And they plan to make more. Their name is Nintendo.
The Revolution's big claim at E3 was that it would play downloadable games from all of Nintendo's library. Surely they will charge for these, probably even if you already own them on cartridge.
Nintendo is still actively seeking out ROM sites and pursuing black market cartridge makers. It looks to me like they still consider these to be viable revenue streams.
I've had a similar conversation with dozens of people of all ages. The question? What's the best spaghetti sauce you've ever had?
Many talk about various restaurants they've been to as having the second best. But the best is always the sauce their Mom made. Why?
Because it was the first they encountered, and it defined what spaghetti sauce was for them. All others fell short in one way or another.
FF fans are like that. "FFn is the best FF. After that, they series fell apart. FFn+1 and FFn+2 were crap. None of them are any good any more."
I suspect that, for the vast majority of these speakers, FFn was the first FF they played. All others will be compared to FFn, but come up short because they were different in many ways from FFn. And that's a good thing - I'd hate to think SE won't try anything new or different for FFXII because they'd never ever be better than FFn.
Give it up, folks. FFn isn't the ultimate FF. What appeals to you doesn't necessarily appeal to me. The next FF, and the one after that, will be very different from what came before, and from each other. Personally, that's why I like the series.
Re:Sony is deluded.
on
Out Of The XBox
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· Score: 2, Informative
Classic revisionist history - Sony released the PS2 a year before the Xbox. Don't trust your memory on this one. What you "seem to recall" is the opposite of what actually happened.
Agreed. As the owner of a PS2, GameCube and Xbox, and a fan of Sony for years, I went out last weekend in search of PSP's to look at and try out. Nada. None available to look at. My only option was to buy one sight-unseen. Not likely.
1) I don't buy bundles. Period. Don't tell me what I need/want. I know what I need/want. 2) I don't buy game systems if I can't at least try them out in the store. Every other system was there to demo - except the PSP.
I have no doubt that both of these problems will go away over time. When they do, I'll probably get one.
Keep in mind, folks - if bundles continue to sell, the stores will continue to bundle. Don't buy bundles!
I've tried for two weeks to use this. By default, when added to my toolbar menu on FireFox 1.0, I was banned. I asked for the ban to be lifted, and it was - until the next day. Then I asked again, and was able to use it again - for a day. Third time I asked, I got a reply that my IP address doesn't show up in the logs, so it must be my reader. FireFox 1.0 is my reader - hard to imagine I'm the only one.
So now I use it as an RSS reader for a half dozen other RSS sites, except/., which I had to delete. It was useless to me, after all, and there appears no interest in fixing my problem. Too bad - cool while it lasted.
No, you only have to buy a new box if you cancelled your free, no-monthly-fee, PlayOnline ID. If you cancelled your Content ID (the thing you pay $12.95/month for), you can buy a new one any time.
Some advice: SE doesn't pro-rate your Content ID purchase, so whether you buy it Oct 1st or Oct 31st, you'll still pay $12.95 for October. The cost-conscious will reactivate now, or wait until November 1st.
Agreed. I decided to give FFXI a try against my better judgement - I'd been a beta tester for EverQuest Online Adventures, and didn't enjoy it much - it just seemed repetitive and got old fast.
So I coughed up the bucks for FFXI ($100! - with the HDD) and tried it out. That was over Memorial Day weekend. I've never looked back - there is so much to this game I discover something new every time I play.
Now games fall into two categories: FFXI and everything else. I'm looking forward to MGS3 and Killzone and Halo 2. But - then I'd have to stop playing FFXI! I don't know what I'll do...
Comparing the modern console market to the modern handheld market doesn't hold up either. There are different considerations that buyers take into account when buying a portable versus a non-portable product.
Battery-life is a big one, and one Sony appears to have lost(regardless of their claims that they get 8 hours of life, I don't see how it's possible they get more than the 2-2 1/2 hours they claim to get with video in real life with the current model). If they can't wring 6 hours+(minimum, no exceptions) out of the thing, it's dead in the water.
I suspect the 2 1/2 hour figure is playing a movie from the internal drive, i.e., the drive is being accessed and read continuously, something which would draw more power (MPEG decoding not considered.) Typical gameplay would access the disk far less, which could explain the disparity.
I agree that if you can't play a game for 8-10 hours, they may be in trouble. I suppose I have more confidence that they will achieve this. I would consider the exception of just using the PSP for movie playback to be acceptable. I don't actually anticipate doing this, mind you, but if I did, I wouldn't be terribly upset at 2.5 hours.
I also wonder how both the PSP and the DS will do on battery life if they are doing WiFi. My laptop battery behaves quite differently using 802.11b than it does connected via Ethernet cable.
--- In the beginning, there was nothing, then God said, "Let there be light." And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a lot better.
If history repeats itself, then the PSP will crash and burn.
An interesting comment, without any explanation. Neither the PS1 nor the PS2 crashed and burned. Why would the PSP?
--- In the beginning, there was nothing, then God said, "Let there be light." And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a lot better.
when i'm looking to play games on the road, i don't want a gigantor game system taking up precious space in my laptop bag. the smaller the game system the better.
I guess I don't understand this. I've seen pictures of the PSP and the original Gameboy Advance side-by-side (well, actually, one above the other) and the PSP is slightly longer, and slightly narrower. Otherwise, they are of comparable size. The GBA did very well (I have one.) The GBA SP is certainly smaller and easier to carry about (I have one of these as well) but the new DS isn't a GBA SP by a long shot.
Why would you choose the DS over the PSP, size wise?
--- In the beginning, there was nothing, then God said, "Let there be light." And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a lot better.
Doesn't anyone recall? Nintendo had dominance in the market. Sony released a more expensive system, which differed from Nintendo's in that it had games on a medium which gave them far more impressive impact, due to the inclusion of cut scenes and pre-rendered video. Nintendo stuck with smaller cartridges with less capacity.
The average buyer looked at both, and preferred the system that had the cooler looking games. I suspect history is about to repeat itself.
--- In the beginning, there was nothing, then God said, "Let there be light." And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a lot better.
"A lithium-ion battery rather than awkward AA batteries (like the GBA SP) ".. all GBA SPs use LiIon, rather than AAs.
Funny, I read that differently. I read it as "They use LiIon batteries, rather than AA's - just like the GBA does (uses LiIon batteries, that is.) But it was awkwardly phrased, to be sure.
"This refrigerator is really environmentally friendly..."
"What?" "It cools through the use of extremely loud accoustical waves..."
"WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?" "At first I was worried it would affect my hearing..."
"I CAN'T HEAR YOU! WHAT'S WITH THE NOISY FRIDGE?"
> There can, there will. In time, subscription-based gaming will be the only thing in the market (why would I want to publish a game that can only make money once?)
Because there is a significant section of the market for whom on-line games hold little appeal. You won't get their money, and currently, they are the vast majority. Why would you turn down their money?
Slashdot Mirror
Well, yes, as I mentioned in my original post, but they're asking $22 compared with the $13-15 WoW charges, for example. It would be interesting to see what would happen if they charged $15 for the whole bunch.
As MMORPGs become more mainstream, and there are more and more games competing for the same players, I think you're going to see the big guys doing more of this. After all, it's kind of a no-brainer if one company charges $20/month for their game, and another charges $20/month for their stable of 10 games.
I'm kind of surprised SOE hasn't gone this route. If they undercut all the competition (I believe right now they charge more than the average monthly fee for a group of games), they could likely force smaller operators out of business. If their business model just counted subscribers (rather than subscribers to a particular game) they could just figure out what they needed to support an individual (server load, lines, etc.) and just skip the rest of the equation. The same servers can support a variety of games. It's just a matter of balancing out the load.
Who wouldn't see this as a better deal?
Japanese businesses have always been better at thinking long-term than ours. Yes, Sony is suffering losses right now, but they are in it for the long haul. I don't think selling at a loss is beyond their abilities, and their shareholders tend to be more understanding of short-term losses. It isn't about the next quarter if you're thinking long-term. Even Microsoft (who admittedly has fairly deep pockets) has sold the Xbox at a loss throughout it's life. The question then becomes whether Sony is willing to do the same.
Your proposed Microsoft response has numerous "If's" in it. Time will tell if they will have "a truckload of quality games" and "a lower price point" (that's the point of this discussion, right?) The fact is we really don't have a clue what the PS3 will cost. Or more to the point, what Sony is willing to sell it for. Yes, we can easily make estimates based on the technology required to do what it does, but that doesn't take into account how consoles are priced; the five-year profit on the PS3 may well include a loss in the first two years.
Blu-ray is the most probable loss-leader of all the technologies. Sony has a vested interest in seeing it succeed, not just in the PS3. They may well be willing to eat the cost of that technology in order to make it back in their home entertainment line. Long-term thinking again, coupled with broader corporate interest.
It's fun to speculate. It's frustrating not to know. Last generation I bought all three consoles at different times, and you're right - it's all about the games. When each had sufficiently compelling games, I bought them. I'll likely do the same this generation, and it isn't clear at this point when that will be. But it's going to be fun, considering the power of all the next-gens.
Perhaps you are right. Not being privy to the future as you clearly are, I can only speculate.
But consider: you are a major company coming out with your next generation console, and know you will be releasing it after your closest competitor. What do you do? One approach would be to continually make noise about how expensive your product will be (without actually revealing any figures) and hope the competition will take the bait. They will hazard a guess as to what your selling point will be, price theirs somewhat lower, and hope to undercut you before you've even come out.
But what if it the speculation of a high-priced PS3 is just that? If Sony decided to announce theirs for less after the Xbox 360 debuts (even if that means what the Xbox 360 base is selling for) then they can indeed influence those buyers who think they'll be getting a better system for less.
Time will tell.
Likewise; I was one of those who pre-ordered the PS2 and picked it up on the day of its release. On the other hand, I bought the Xbox and the Gamecube after they'd had a price drop and a fairly good bundle deal.
I won't make the same mistake again. I'm not in a big hurry to own any of the next generation consoles - I'll make my purchase when each realeases a game I feel is worth owning.
I couldn't agree more - inovation is important and Nintendo is second to none in this area. But all the inovation in the world will come to naught if the games built around it aren't fun.
The DS as a prime example. It's undoubtably inovative, but I haven't seen a compelling game for it yet (defined as one that would make me go out and get a DS to play it.)
Inovation is not an end in itself. Games that are fun to play are essential if the inovation is to be adopted.
What you mean is you plug your antenna into the unit, and then from the unit into your TV. The unit only provides analog pass-through. It has no OTA tuner.
Your TV, however, does have a tuner.
That unit has no OTA tuner in it. Even if it did, it is unlikely it would be a digital OTA tuner. Why do you think it does?
So for another $100-200 (who knows, really?) you'll have exactly what you have now. Or you can choose to pay nothing. But then you will have a non-functional TV. Is that more or less than you have now?
...I only bought it for the games!
He said PSP outsold DS every month this year. Your dazzling response was to point to an article describing total sales since both units shipped, which is arguably irrelevant, since the DS shipped first.
His point stands: since the beginning of the year, PSP outsold DS, unless you have another link up your sleave...
The Revolution's big claim at E3 was that it would play downloadable games from all of Nintendo's library. Surely they will charge for these, probably even if you already own them on cartridge.
Nintendo is still actively seeking out ROM sites and pursuing black market cartridge makers. It looks to me like they still consider these to be viable revenue streams.
I've had a similar conversation with dozens of people of all ages. The question? What's the best spaghetti sauce you've ever had?
Many talk about various restaurants they've been to as having the second best. But the best is always the sauce their Mom made. Why?
Because it was the first they encountered, and it defined what spaghetti sauce was for them. All others fell short in one way or another.
FF fans are like that. "FFn is the best FF. After that, they series fell apart. FFn+1 and FFn+2 were crap. None of them are any good any more."
I suspect that, for the vast majority of these speakers, FFn was the first FF they played. All others will be compared to FFn, but come up short because they were different in many ways from FFn. And that's a good thing - I'd hate to think SE won't try anything new or different for FFXII because they'd never ever be better than FFn.
Give it up, folks. FFn isn't the ultimate FF. What appeals to you doesn't necessarily appeal to me. The next FF, and the one after that, will be very different from what came before, and from each other. Personally, that's why I like the series.
Classic revisionist history - Sony released the PS2 a year before the Xbox. Don't trust your memory on this one. What you "seem to recall" is the opposite of what actually happened.
Fanboys.
Agreed. As the owner of a PS2, GameCube and Xbox, and a fan of Sony for years, I went out last weekend in search of PSP's to look at and try out. Nada. None available to look at. My only option was to buy one sight-unseen. Not likely.
1) I don't buy bundles. Period. Don't tell me what I need/want. I know what I need/want.
2) I don't buy game systems if I can't at least try them out in the store. Every other system was there to demo - except the PSP.
I have no doubt that both of these problems will go away over time. When they do, I'll probably get one.
Keep in mind, folks - if bundles continue to sell, the stores will continue to bundle. Don't buy bundles!
I've tried for two weeks to use this. By default, when added to my toolbar menu on FireFox 1.0, I was banned. I asked for the ban to be lifted, and it was - until the next day. Then I asked again, and was able to use it again - for a day. Third time I asked, I got a reply that my IP address doesn't show up in the logs, so it must be my reader. FireFox 1.0 is my reader - hard to imagine I'm the only one.
/., which I had to delete. It was useless to me, after all, and there appears no interest in fixing my problem. Too bad - cool while it lasted.
So now I use it as an RSS reader for a half dozen other RSS sites, except
No, you only have to buy a new box if you cancelled your free, no-monthly-fee, PlayOnline ID. If you cancelled your Content ID (the thing you pay $12.95/month for), you can buy a new one any time.
Some advice: SE doesn't pro-rate your Content ID purchase, so whether you buy it Oct 1st or Oct 31st, you'll still pay $12.95 for October. The cost-conscious will reactivate now, or wait until November 1st.
Agreed. I decided to give FFXI a try against my better judgement - I'd been a beta tester for EverQuest Online Adventures, and didn't enjoy it much - it just seemed repetitive and got old fast.
So I coughed up the bucks for FFXI ($100! - with the HDD) and tried it out. That was over Memorial Day weekend. I've never looked back - there is so much to this game I discover something new every time I play.
Now games fall into two categories: FFXI and everything else. I'm looking forward to MGS3 and Killzone and Halo 2. But - then I'd have to stop playing FFXI! I don't know what I'll do...
I suspect the 2 1/2 hour figure is playing a movie from the internal drive, i.e., the drive is being accessed and read continuously, something which would draw more power (MPEG decoding not considered.) Typical gameplay would access the disk far less, which could explain the disparity.
I agree that if you can't play a game for 8-10 hours, they may be in trouble. I suppose I have more confidence that they will achieve this. I would consider the exception of just using the PSP for movie playback to be acceptable. I don't actually anticipate doing this, mind you, but if I did, I wouldn't be terribly upset at 2.5 hours.
I also wonder how both the PSP and the DS will do on battery life if they are doing WiFi. My laptop battery behaves quite differently using 802.11b than it does connected via Ethernet cable.
---
In the beginning, there was nothing, then God said, "Let there be light." And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a lot better.
An interesting comment, without any explanation. Neither the PS1 nor the PS2 crashed and burned. Why would the PSP?
---
In the beginning, there was nothing, then God said, "Let there be light." And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a lot better.
I guess I don't understand this. I've seen pictures of the PSP and the original Gameboy Advance side-by-side (well, actually, one above the other) and the PSP is slightly longer, and slightly narrower. Otherwise, they are of comparable size. The GBA did very well (I have one.) The GBA SP is certainly smaller and easier to carry about (I have one of these as well) but the new DS isn't a GBA SP by a long shot.
Why would you choose the DS over the PSP, size wise?
---
In the beginning, there was nothing, then God said, "Let there be light." And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a lot better.
Doesn't anyone recall? Nintendo had dominance in the market. Sony released a more expensive system, which differed from Nintendo's in that it had games on a medium which gave them far more impressive impact, due to the inclusion of cut scenes and pre-rendered video. Nintendo stuck with smaller cartridges with less capacity.
The average buyer looked at both, and preferred the system that had the cooler looking games. I suspect history is about to repeat itself.
---
In the beginning, there was nothing, then God said, "Let there be light." And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a lot better.
Funny, I read that differently. I read it as "They use LiIon batteries, rather than AA's - just like the GBA does (uses LiIon batteries, that is.) But it was awkwardly phrased, to be sure.
"This refrigerator is really environmentally friendly..."
"What?"
"It cools through the use of extremely loud accoustical waves..."
"WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?"
"At first I was worried it would affect my hearing..."
"I CAN'T HEAR YOU! WHAT'S WITH THE NOISY FRIDGE?"
> There can, there will. In time, subscription-based gaming will be the only thing in the market (why would I want to publish a game that can only make money once?)
Because there is a significant section of the market for whom on-line games hold little appeal. You won't get their money, and currently, they are the vast majority. Why would you turn down their money?