Besides why the heck are you worried about the DS? Nintendo for better or worse is releasing a new handheld by the end of this year. So the "handheld king tittle" remains to be disputed.
That's only a rumor, and likely a false one at that. Not only has Nintendo already released a new handheld recently, but the GBA SP is still selling well, and they'll be gearing up for Revolution's next year as well.
The GBA SP, in fact, may remain the handheld king for a while to come, it's much cheaper than either the DS or PSP, it's really durable, it has full multiplayer support for GBA games, and will even play any games going back to the original Gameboy you have lying around.
Plus: Wario Ware is certainly not a port. (It's not as good as the original, but it's just not a port, all the minigames are new and there's more variety.)
Minus: Ping Pals is overrated if you aren't in third grade and have a bunch of friends who also have DS's AND wouldn't rather just use the built-in Pictochat. It's a cool idea (and from a company I like), but it's not worth it.
Yoshi, however, I'm really enjoying. Ocarina of Time probably won't be hitting the DS any time soon, they already rereleased that twice on the Gamecube recently. (And I, ah ha, I have both, and I'll be in the corner all this week for people to come over, point, and yell "GEEK!") I think it's more likely we'll see a 3D Zelda with the Wind Waker style first on the DS -- I heard somewhere that the DS has support for cel shading....
That PDA application would be swell. Rumor has it that both Sony and Nintendo are working on PDA applications for their systems. (Sony in that controversion update which touted a word processor, Nintendo in their "V-Pocket" trademark and rumored deals with Palm.)
I'd get a PSP if it had PDA functions, and if they reduced the price. It would make it a no-brainer for me, and open up entire new markets for the device, though it might hurt Sony's profits in the same way that the PS2 had trouble being profitable at first due to people buying it to use as a DVD player only.
I'm not sure about that. I had a look at the manual to GTA3 a few days ago -- it took a very tongue-in-cheek approach to the violence in the game, with quotes like "Liberty City -- Where Dreams Go To Die." I don't know if this approach survived into the later games, but context is an interesting thing.
And really, are *everyone* who persecuted Jesus in PotC really evil? Pontius Pilate was renowned for being a right bastard, but the movie paints him sympathetically, doesn't it? How about Average Joe Roman?
The kinds of forces that were arrayed against Jessie C. have been arrayed against other figures throughout history. It's called offing the guy who rocks the boat, and yeah, it's evil. But that doesn't mean that each link in the chain is also evil. People who follow orders without questioning, they act as sounding boards through which evil reverberates, and there are plenty of those folk in existance, even today.
(Wow, it feels good to participate a discussion that has nothing to do with Nintendo or Sony!)
Dude, chill out. I was presenting Passion of the Christ as an example to illustrate how ludicrous the D&D-causing-stabbings idea was. As much as I dislike Yon Holy Slasher Flick, I don't think it incites people to violence.
At least, not violence against non-Jews. (ducking and running)
What amazes me is that many people believe that what we watch DOESN'T affect us.
There's some truth to what you say, if our culture were composed entirely of violent images, or if our perceptions were filled with them day and night. After all, don't we learn how to behave, from the earliest age on up, through observation of others? But there's an important difference here.
The thing about movies and video games is that, compared to the amount of real life we experience, the total amount of our psyche taken up by them is relatively low. We can compartmentalize them because we don't play one video game all the time (at least we don't if we're healthy), or watch the same movie constantly. Advertising, on the other hand, is ubiquitous (even one commercial typically gets seen many times by an individual before the end of its run).
Even if we do obsess on a video game, to the extent that we dream of Tetris blocks and start seeing ways to fit them in with objects in our daily life, it's still a leap to presume that these thoughts lead directly to action. The same goes for violent video games. (I do not actually enjoy the violent content in the GTA series, I see it as a distraction from the "real" purpose of the games since the 3D era, to provide a realistic city to mess around with and explore.)
Further, the disconnect between controlling on-screen action via a controller and acting upon real objects with an actual gun is considerable. It could easily be argued that our subconscious doesn't connect the virtual act with the real one precisely because of the artificiality involved.
Anyway, I think regardless of how I feel about the violence in GTA Rockstar should be free to make whatever game they want, and deriding D&D for it is simply crazy. Outlawing one thing because it appears violent is a slippery slope -- and in this censorous social climate, with the FCC fining people relatively large sums due to the complains of a handful of people, it's one we'd best be wary of.
I mean, the violence in D&D is typically glossed over (some might say to its detrement -- barbarian heroes don't seem to live up to their Conanic legacy without rivers of gore to wade through). You roll. You hit. You kill the monster or it kills you. The survivors gets on with their lives. Not a lot of description going on, when it comes to combat.
Now The Passion of the Christ... there you have some violence! And no matter how you couch it, as being history, religion, passion play, statement of faith, what have you, it cannot be denied that it presents its violent images much more vividly than any DM ever did. If you buy into the watching-violence-causes-violence thing, then it seems obvious that it undoubtedly causes more RL violent behavior than D&D does. (And kids do watch it -- sometimes at parental behest!)
When is a lawyer going to come out and say that stabbings may be caused by Mel Gibson movies, is what I'd like to know.
I'm looking forward to the Castevania as well, but more than that, I can't wait for Jam With The Band. Nintendogs looks cool too, though it reminds me vaguely of those old Dogz and Catz things.
Well actually, Internet capable Animal Crossing could also be cool. (Can you use it as an email client?) Pac Pix is a cool premise (the player draws both the Pac Men that actually clear each screen and the board itself that they travel through). Polarium looks to be yet another interesting Nintendo puzzle game. And Meteos got that incredible Famitsu score (38 out of 40!). Bomberman DS is supposed to support up to eight players, and with actual 2D gameplay and graphics again it might be the game to put it back on the multiplayer map. And the Kirby thing they're working on looks like it may have similar gameplay to Yoshi Touch & Go but a longer game. Then there's a new Advance Wars, and Electroplankton, a new Mario Kart....
Heh, I didn't mean to turn this into a release list, but it does seem like its game drought won't last long, especially when you consider that GBA releases are still rolling out: coming up are WarioWare Twisted, another Fire Emblem, and a new game from WayForward (the Shantae people).
If you have enough room for any TV, you have more then enough room for the Xbox. We're not talking about a 10 foot projector screen here - we're talking about a small box here. It's not that big.
The X-box I used to own was not a small piece of machinery. A Gamecube has a handle (which has hurt it in the PR department maybe, but it DOES have a handle), it's typical Nintendo workmanship so it's almost indestructable compared to a PS2 or X-box, And it's not true if you have room for a TV you have room for an X-box -- there are all kinds of situations there are circumstances where there's just no room to put anything else. Gamecube isn't immune to this either, but by being smaller, less massive, more damage resistant, and covering less shelf area, it's easier to slot in on the average. (The handle, on the other hand, can cause problems, and it *does* take more vertical space due to its cubic shape and top-loading design.)
ps. Not that it matters, but the Game Cube isn't nearly as powerful as a game system. You also can't mod it in order to upgrade the drive and install emulators, media players, and all sorts of cool stuff on it.
PS. But at least it has games to play other than Halo.
What? That seems strange, given everyone's statements here and on the IGN page on the issue. If they sold them to stores then... well, then how is that even news?
I'm confused by this. Maybe there'll be hard details tomorrow.
Ah-ha! I spoke too soon! Last night apparently the videogame fairies had blessed my DS, for I managed to actually get to 10,000 yards (but not much further) and was on cloud nine. There is a goldenish Yoshi for getting there (I also got White Yoshis a couple of times earlier that game, apparently for playing well, who seem to have unlimited eggs). I don't know what the benefits of the gold Yoshis are, there were none that I could spot.
Um, er, but anyway.... yeah, it's an unexpectedly cool game.
The saddest thing about Mario 64 DS' control scheme is that it *could* have worked out pretty well. I think the stylus thing wouldn't have worked out badly at all, if they had only locked the position of the little motion bullseye. As it is all my runs (players are always running in Mario 64) tend to turn into walks after a few seconds as the circle slowly moves in the direction I'm running.
One thing I've discovered about the control pad movement: the momentum-based running happens when you hold down the dash (B) button. Letting go of it for a second seems to let the player move the character more directly, and makes it much easier to perform things like U-turn somersaults.
Note: by "loyalist," I mean that I tend to cheer on Nintendo -- their games (esp. first party) tend to appeal to me a lot more than those that tend to come out for PS1/2, and apparently now the PSP. But I'll freely admit they've made mistakes, that in the past (and even today, but in the past especially) they have had a non-zero "evil" value in some areas, and I was prepared for a huge PSP opening day.
Sony may be able to carve out a 20-30 something market for the thing, but meanwhile there are also 20-30 somethings who will be buying the DS, for some of the same reasons as the kids (I've lost a PDA to an accidental drop before), and by next Christmas Nintendo may have an insurmountable lead.
Of course, Sony could pull out of it in the next few days. We'll just have to see what happens.
Neither the PSP nor the DS are rehashes. The DS has some major differences from the N64, not the least of which being real, dedicated sound hardware, two GBA-level 2D graphics chips, not to mention the two screen-touch screen-microphone thing. And a PSP is at least a little better than a PS1, and can do a lot more out of the box.
And wait a moment... the GBA isn't a portable SNES, it ran at a much faster clock speed, had more communication related hardware features, supported up to two simultaneous hardware scaling and rotating "Mode 7" backgrounds, and has scalable and rotatable sprites, a feature the SNES could seriously have used.
And the Gameboy Color wasn't a portable NES either -- again, it had considerably faster clock speed, didn't have the NES' flicker issues, and its microprocessor was a Z80 for crying out loud.
And the Gameboy wasn't -- well, okay, there was nothing for it to copy. But still!
Well I still prefer Nintendo's games more, I can't say that I like games like Twisted Metal, Lumines is great but it's just one game, what does the market know after all, and--
Wait a second. Hold on... (scrolling up and reading the article again)
The PSP isn't selling well??
Wow. I'd gloat, except I'm too busy being in shock. Iwata must be on cloud nine right about now!
I'm not holding my breath for that, as it'd make piracy much easier. (Write a small program to read the UMD drive, store the bytes on a 1gb memory stick, presto, a disk image that can be shifted to a PC and posted on the net.)
But yeah, it *would* rock! I'd get one if I could write software for it, though I don't think Sony'll be quick to release user-level development tools....
Interesting comment about the nub. The DS' version of analog control (in Mario 64 DS) wasn't so hot either. Hmm.
Oh, and Yoshi's Touch & Go *is* really cool, and I've been puzzled about reviewers saying it'll have a short lifespan... but man, is it challenging! I'm lucky to make it 5,000 yards in Marathon, and my record is slightly over 6,000! Apparently at 10k there's a special Yoshi color, but at this rate I won't be seeing it for weeks....
I'm a Nintendo loyalist, and I'm surprised. I was so expecting to be having to listen to a bunch of "I told you so" PSP fans right now. It is obvious that Sony has actually made an error for once, though they might correct it rapidly.
No display units is your best guess, but your others are good too. My guess as to why the PSP isn't launching so well is considered from the perspective of people who don't know a lot about the system. And that is:
It's not kid-friendly.
The biggest market, by a good margin, is probably kids. A GBA, or a DS, those are systems that one can go onto a playground with and, with their flip-top design, their fun, easy-to-understand interface, and library of kid-friendly games (like Pokemon -- few third-graders know what Darkstalkers is, even if they've seen Lillith in Marvel vs. Capcom). And they're smaller and made with a flip-top lid, and thus easily stashed into a backpack without worrying about space or their screen. Meanwhile the PSP looks similar in style to a (very) non-portable PS2, which may be swell at home, but bad news in a sandbox.
Also, it will be free eventually. They're just trying to recoup some of the losses.
Some of the losses?! Halo 2 is the most popular game for the X-box, and one of the most popular games around right now! It was the big hit this past holiday season! Both Microsoft and Bungie have made a pile on this game, and X-box Live is one of the big reasons for it. Now they're trying to make it profitable by selling multiplayer maps?
By the way, you can reencode your DVDs down to 300mb each and play them from your Memory Sticks without having to buy a UMD.
Unless Sony's motion picture arm (and the rest of the MPAA) have their way....
Re:Because it's never been done is not a reason...
on
PSP Launch Coverage
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· Score: 1
When the PS1 came out, though, Nintendo was in a different position. They had aging console hardware out, new titles were slowing down, and most of those big core names they had (Metroid, Mario, Zelda) hadn't had a major, successful release two to three years.
Amend that last sentence to read "major release." Every Mario (2+All Stars), Zelda (1) and Metroid release (1) for the system was successful.
Further, I don't think the DS is in as bad a position as people here are saying. Nintendo has some *really nice* software in the works for it -- Nintendogs, Animal Crossing DS, hell Jam with the Band alone would get me to spring for a DS.
Also, for the record, there are fewer games on the shelf at my local Walmart for PSP than DS: 10 vs. 13. That seems weird to me, but I don't think I counted wrong.
Re:Because it's never been done is not a reason...
on
PSP Launch Coverage
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· Score: 2, Informative
The DS is only a gimmick stop gap between the GBA SP and the next gameboy, Nintendo don't claim it to be anything more.
They didn't claim it was that, either. Nintendo has always said the DS is a third platform. They're not only still making GBA games, but they haven't even slowed down making GBA games.
Slashdot Mirror
Besides why the heck are you worried about the DS? Nintendo for better or worse is releasing a new handheld by the end of this year. So the "handheld king tittle" remains to be disputed.
That's only a rumor, and likely a false one at that. Not only has Nintendo already released a new handheld recently, but the GBA SP is still selling well, and they'll be gearing up for Revolution's next year as well.
The GBA SP, in fact, may remain the handheld king for a while to come, it's much cheaper than either the DS or PSP, it's really durable, it has full multiplayer support for GBA games, and will even play any games going back to the original Gameboy you have lying around.
Plus: Wario Ware is certainly not a port. (It's not as good as the original, but it's just not a port, all the minigames are new and there's more variety.)
Minus: Ping Pals is overrated if you aren't in third grade and have a bunch of friends who also have DS's AND wouldn't rather just use the built-in Pictochat. It's a cool idea (and from a company I like), but it's not worth it.
Yoshi, however, I'm really enjoying. Ocarina of Time probably won't be hitting the DS any time soon, they already rereleased that twice on the Gamecube recently. (And I, ah ha, I have both, and I'll be in the corner all this week for people to come over, point, and yell "GEEK!") I think it's more likely we'll see a 3D Zelda with the Wind Waker style first on the DS -- I heard somewhere that the DS has support for cel shading....
That PDA application would be swell. Rumor has it that both Sony and Nintendo are working on PDA applications for their systems. (Sony in that controversion update which touted a word processor, Nintendo in their "V-Pocket" trademark and rumored deals with Palm.)
I'd get a PSP if it had PDA functions, and if they reduced the price. It would make it a no-brainer for me, and open up entire new markets for the device, though it might hurt Sony's profits in the same way that the PS2 had trouble being profitable at first due to people buying it to use as a DVD player only.
I thought the button sensitivity thing only affected Japanese systems?
I'm not sure about that. I had a look at the manual to GTA3 a few days ago -- it took a very tongue-in-cheek approach to the violence in the game, with quotes like "Liberty City -- Where Dreams Go To Die." I don't know if this approach survived into the later games, but context is an interesting thing.
And really, are *everyone* who persecuted Jesus in PotC really evil? Pontius Pilate was renowned for being a right bastard, but the movie paints him sympathetically, doesn't it? How about Average Joe Roman?
The kinds of forces that were arrayed against Jessie C. have been arrayed against other figures throughout history. It's called offing the guy who rocks the boat, and yeah, it's evil. But that doesn't mean that each link in the chain is also evil. People who follow orders without questioning, they act as sounding boards through which evil reverberates, and there are plenty of those folk in existance, even today.
(Wow, it feels good to participate a discussion that has nothing to do with Nintendo or Sony!)
Dude, chill out. I was presenting Passion of the Christ as an example to illustrate how ludicrous the D&D-causing-stabbings idea was. As much as I dislike Yon Holy Slasher Flick, I don't think it incites people to violence.
At least, not violence against non-Jews. (ducking and running)
What amazes me is that many people believe that what we watch DOESN'T affect us.
There's some truth to what you say, if our culture were composed entirely of violent images, or if our perceptions were filled with them day and night. After all, don't we learn how to behave, from the earliest age on up, through observation of others? But there's an important difference here.
The thing about movies and video games is that, compared to the amount of real life we experience, the total amount of our psyche taken up by them is relatively low. We can compartmentalize them because we don't play one video game all the time (at least we don't if we're healthy), or watch the same movie constantly. Advertising, on the other hand, is ubiquitous (even one commercial typically gets seen many times by an individual before the end of its run).
Even if we do obsess on a video game, to the extent that we dream of Tetris blocks and start seeing ways to fit them in with objects in our daily life, it's still a leap to presume that these thoughts lead directly to action. The same goes for violent video games. (I do not actually enjoy the violent content in the GTA series, I see it as a distraction from the "real" purpose of the games since the 3D era, to provide a realistic city to mess around with and explore.)
Further, the disconnect between controlling on-screen action via a controller and acting upon real objects with an actual gun is considerable. It could easily be argued that our subconscious doesn't connect the virtual act with the real one precisely because of the artificiality involved.
Anyway, I think regardless of how I feel about the violence in GTA Rockstar should be free to make whatever game they want, and deriding D&D for it is simply crazy. Outlawing one thing because it appears violent is a slippery slope -- and in this censorous social climate, with the FCC fining people relatively large sums due to the complains of a handful of people, it's one we'd best be wary of.
I mean, the violence in D&D is typically glossed over (some might say to its detrement -- barbarian heroes don't seem to live up to their Conanic legacy without rivers of gore to wade through). You roll. You hit. You kill the monster or it kills you. The survivors gets on with their lives. Not a lot of description going on, when it comes to combat.
Now The Passion of the Christ... there you have some violence! And no matter how you couch it, as being history, religion, passion play, statement of faith, what have you, it cannot be denied that it presents its violent images much more vividly than any DM ever did. If you buy into the watching-violence-causes-violence thing, then it seems obvious that it undoubtedly causes more RL violent behavior than D&D does. (And kids do watch it -- sometimes at parental behest!)
When is a lawyer going to come out and say that stabbings may be caused by Mel Gibson movies, is what I'd like to know.
I'm looking forward to the Castevania as well, but more than that, I can't wait for Jam With The Band. Nintendogs looks cool too, though it reminds me vaguely of those old Dogz and Catz things.
Well actually, Internet capable Animal Crossing could also be cool. (Can you use it as an email client?) Pac Pix is a cool premise (the player draws both the Pac Men that actually clear each screen and the board itself that they travel through). Polarium looks to be yet another interesting Nintendo puzzle game. And Meteos got that incredible Famitsu score (38 out of 40!). Bomberman DS is supposed to support up to eight players, and with actual 2D gameplay and graphics again it might be the game to put it back on the multiplayer map. And the Kirby thing they're working on looks like it may have similar gameplay to Yoshi Touch & Go but a longer game. Then there's a new Advance Wars, and Electroplankton, a new Mario Kart....
Heh, I didn't mean to turn this into a release list, but it does seem like its game drought won't last long, especially when you consider that GBA releases are still rolling out: coming up are WarioWare Twisted, another Fire Emblem, and a new game from WayForward (the Shantae people).
If you have enough room for any TV, you have more then enough room for the Xbox. We're not talking about a 10 foot projector screen here - we're talking about a small box here. It's not that big.
The X-box I used to own was not a small piece of machinery. A Gamecube has a handle (which has hurt it in the PR department maybe, but it DOES have a handle), it's typical Nintendo workmanship so it's almost indestructable compared to a PS2 or X-box, And it's not true if you have room for a TV you have room for an X-box -- there are all kinds of situations there are circumstances where there's just no room to put anything else. Gamecube isn't immune to this either, but by being smaller, less massive, more damage resistant, and covering less shelf area, it's easier to slot in on the average. (The handle, on the other hand, can cause problems, and it *does* take more vertical space due to its cubic shape and top-loading design.)
ps. Not that it matters, but the Game Cube isn't nearly as powerful as a game system. You also can't mod it in order to upgrade the drive and install emulators, media players, and all sorts of cool stuff on it.
PS. But at least it has games to play other than Halo.
What? That seems strange, given everyone's statements here and on the IGN page on the issue. If they sold them to stores then... well, then how is that even news?
I'm confused by this. Maybe there'll be hard details tomorrow.
Wow. I stand corrected!
Ah-ha! I spoke too soon! Last night apparently the videogame fairies had blessed my DS, for I managed to actually get to 10,000 yards (but not much further) and was on cloud nine. There is a goldenish Yoshi for getting there (I also got White Yoshis a couple of times earlier that game, apparently for playing well, who seem to have unlimited eggs). I don't know what the benefits of the gold Yoshis are, there were none that I could spot.
Um, er, but anyway.... yeah, it's an unexpectedly cool game.
The saddest thing about Mario 64 DS' control scheme is that it *could* have worked out pretty well. I think the stylus thing wouldn't have worked out badly at all, if they had only locked the position of the little motion bullseye. As it is all my runs (players are always running in Mario 64) tend to turn into walks after a few seconds as the circle slowly moves in the direction I'm running.
One thing I've discovered about the control pad movement: the momentum-based running happens when you hold down the dash (B) button. Letting go of it for a second seems to let the player move the character more directly, and makes it much easier to perform things like U-turn somersaults.
Note: by "loyalist," I mean that I tend to cheer on Nintendo -- their games (esp. first party) tend to appeal to me a lot more than those that tend to come out for PS1/2, and apparently now the PSP. But I'll freely admit they've made mistakes, that in the past (and even today, but in the past especially) they have had a non-zero "evil" value in some areas, and I was prepared for a huge PSP opening day.
Sony may be able to carve out a 20-30 something market for the thing, but meanwhile there are also 20-30 somethings who will be buying the DS, for some of the same reasons as the kids (I've lost a PDA to an accidental drop before), and by next Christmas Nintendo may have an insurmountable lead.
Of course, Sony could pull out of it in the next few days. We'll just have to see what happens.
Well....
Neither the PSP nor the DS are rehashes. The DS has some major differences from the N64, not the least of which being real, dedicated sound hardware, two GBA-level 2D graphics chips, not to mention the two screen-touch screen-microphone thing. And a PSP is at least a little better than a PS1, and can do a lot more out of the box.
And wait a moment... the GBA isn't a portable SNES, it ran at a much faster clock speed, had more communication related hardware features, supported up to two simultaneous hardware scaling and rotating "Mode 7" backgrounds, and has scalable and rotatable sprites, a feature the SNES could seriously have used.
And the Gameboy Color wasn't a portable NES either -- again, it had considerably faster clock speed, didn't have the NES' flicker issues, and its microprocessor was a Z80 for crying out loud.
And the Gameboy wasn't -- well, okay, there was nothing for it to copy. But still!
Well I still prefer Nintendo's games more, I can't say that I like games like Twisted Metal, Lumines is great but it's just one game, what does the market know after all, and--
Wait a second. Hold on... (scrolling up and reading the article again)
The PSP isn't selling well??
Wow. I'd gloat, except I'm too busy being in shock. Iwata must be on cloud nine right about now!
I'm not holding my breath for that, as it'd make piracy much easier. (Write a small program to read the UMD drive, store the bytes on a 1gb memory stick, presto, a disk image that can be shifted to a PC and posted on the net.)
But yeah, it *would* rock! I'd get one if I could write software for it, though I don't think Sony'll be quick to release user-level development tools....
Interesting comment about the nub. The DS' version of analog control (in Mario 64 DS) wasn't so hot either. Hmm.
Oh, and Yoshi's Touch & Go *is* really cool, and I've been puzzled about reviewers saying it'll have a short lifespan... but man, is it challenging! I'm lucky to make it 5,000 yards in Marathon, and my record is slightly over 6,000! Apparently at 10k there's a special Yoshi color, but at this rate I won't be seeing it for weeks....
I'm a Nintendo loyalist, and I'm surprised. I was so expecting to be having to listen to a bunch of "I told you so" PSP fans right now. It is obvious that Sony has actually made an error for once, though they might correct it rapidly.
No display units is your best guess, but your others are good too. My guess as to why the PSP isn't launching so well is considered from the perspective of people who don't know a lot about the system. And that is:
It's not kid-friendly.
The biggest market, by a good margin, is probably kids. A GBA, or a DS, those are systems that one can go onto a playground with and, with their flip-top design, their fun, easy-to-understand interface, and library of kid-friendly games (like Pokemon -- few third-graders know what Darkstalkers is, even if they've seen Lillith in Marvel vs. Capcom). And they're smaller and made with a flip-top lid, and thus easily stashed into a backpack without worrying about space or their screen. Meanwhile the PSP looks similar in style to a (very) non-portable PS2, which may be swell at home, but bad news in a sandbox.
Meteos got a surreal Famitsu score, something like all 9's or close to it. It's looking like it might be something really awesome.
That said... what's it about? I have no idea.
Expences that were more than paid for (greatly more probably) by the game's sales.
And let's not forget: X-box Live itself is not a free service.
And also let's not forget: how much of a cash surplus does Microsoft have, again?
I have no sympathy.
Also, it will be free eventually. They're just trying to recoup some of the losses.
Some of the losses?! Halo 2 is the most popular game for the X-box, and one of the most popular games around right now! It was the big hit this past holiday season! Both Microsoft and Bungie have made a pile on this game, and X-box Live is one of the big reasons for it. Now they're trying to make it profitable by selling multiplayer maps?
Lame.
By the way, you can reencode your DVDs down to 300mb each and play them from your Memory Sticks without having to buy a UMD.
Unless Sony's motion picture arm (and the rest of the MPAA) have their way....
When the PS1 came out, though, Nintendo was in a different position. They had aging console hardware out, new titles were slowing down, and most of those big core names they had (Metroid, Mario, Zelda) hadn't had a major, successful release two to three years.
Amend that last sentence to read "major release." Every Mario (2+All Stars), Zelda (1) and Metroid release (1) for the system was successful.
Further, I don't think the DS is in as bad a position as people here are saying. Nintendo has some *really nice* software in the works for it -- Nintendogs, Animal Crossing DS, hell Jam with the Band alone would get me to spring for a DS.
Also, for the record, there are fewer games on the shelf at my local Walmart for PSP than DS: 10 vs. 13. That seems weird to me, but I don't think I counted wrong.
The DS is only a gimmick stop gap between the GBA SP and the next gameboy, Nintendo don't claim it to be anything more.
They didn't claim it was that, either. Nintendo has always said the DS is a third platform. They're not only still making GBA games, but they haven't even slowed down making GBA games.