This board needs the odd Sony shill around to balance out all the Nintendo shills.
Yeah, because Nintendo is doing fake grassroots campaigns and has been caught paying people to post positive comments about its console. Oh, wait, no, that was Sony.
Is it really any wonder that the Nintendo fanbase come off as a bunch of cultish lunatics wiping the Kool-Aid off their chins?
Yeah, because nobody honestly cares about the DS or the Wii. Oh, wait, no, that isn't true either.
The PS3 sales are not bad per se, but given that Sony owned the console market with the PS2, given that Nintendo's Gamecube was pretty much a failure, and given that the Wii sold twice as much as the PS3, and even the year-old 360 sold comparably, the PS3 is, at this point, not doing anything near how it should be doing.
More processing power doesn't increase the cost of making a game, it actually makes it cheaper since there is less need for optimizations.
Yeah, because optimizations are 90% of a game's dev time, while actually programming it and creating all the assets, models, and high-res textures are only about 10%. Of course, you don't actually need to optimize anything if you are allowed to program for a great architecture like, say, the Cell chip. Just use more cores! Yay!
Just yesterday, I was playing Wii Tennis with a few pals, and I thought to myself: "Golly, that game would be so much more fun if it would look real! I mean, I would rather play as Roger Federer than as that stupid Mii, and playing against Agassi would be so much better than playing against comical versions of my pals!"
I have some doubt that the Wii will ever get out of that casual-gamer niche again.
Dude, I don't think the word "niche" means what you think it means. Either that, or you have no idea what you're talking about. Casual games aren't a niche. In fact, casual gamers utterly destroy "hardcore" gamers in number. If anything, "hardcore" gamers are a niche. If Nintendo manages to corner the casual gamer "niche", they'd be absolutely delirious with joy.
Anyway, I consider myself a pretty hardcore gamer (I own about 30 consoles and probably about 1000 games). I haven't yet bought a 360 or a PS3 (couldn't buy a PS3 if I wanted to, I'm in Europe, and Sony doesn't care about Europe:-). I own a Wii, though. And I play it every day. In fact, this saturday, there's a Wii party at my place, with lots of adult gamers and non-gamers showing up for a few hours of Super Monkey Ball, Wii Sports, Rayman and Wario Ware, with maybe a few rounds of Excite Truck thrown in (damn you, Nintendo, for not including a four-player mode).
The Wii appeals to everyone who loves gaming, whether they are hardcore or casual.
Zelda is a Gamecube game. Check out Sonic and the Secret Rings to see something more on par with what the Wii can do.
And "lack of mature games"? Come on. The Wii is the only console that even my granny plays. Is that mature enough for you? The only immature games are games like GTA or Manhunt (which, ironically, actually is coming to the Wii in its second incarnation.
Generally, I'd say it's a good idea to wait a few months. Not that I do that, of course - I bought a Cube, a DS and a Wii the day it came out (all of these still work, by the way - Nintendo is great about getting stuff right with their first attempt). My bro, otoh, bought a 17" MacBook Pro when it came out, and he has quite a few issues with it (my "normal" MacBook Pro works perfectly well, though), and his Wii (which he also bought when it came out) seems to have some kind of issue with the disc drive - games sometimes don't load on the first attempt.
So while Nintendo is a pretty save bet, buying consumer electronics at launch is probably still not such a great idea.
Depends on your definition of "bad console." The PS3 comes with a slow, unneeded Bluray drive, and its Cell processor is hard to program for and slower than Sony expected it to be, which is why they had to stick a graphics card (which is hardly better than that of a year-old competitor) in as an afterthought. It's an overpriced, underperforming, overweight console with a crappy controller and a motion sensing gimmick.
It's an interesting console, but I wouldn't exactly call it "not bad":-)
I'll probably eventually buy one, just so I can own the twenty first century's 3DO:-)
Nintendo has Mario, Mario Kart, Mario Party, Pokémon, Nintendogs, Metroid, Zelda, Donkey Kong, and many more franchises which are well established, are always of high quality, are known by lots of people (even non-gamers) and sell on name alone. Nintendo can sustain a console on its own. Sony can't.
If you compare Xbox games to PS2 games, devs kind of did abandon the Xbox. The Xbox had a core market of people who bought very specific genres, and they got those games, but all in all, the Xbox had pretty poor games selection. What helped somewhat was that porting from the PC was kind of easy, and since the three last-gen consoles were so similar, many games got made for all three, but looking back, it's obvious that the Xbox was a failure.
The next year matters. After that, it's decided. The console war is a sprint, not a marathon. Early momentum gets developers on your side, which means more games, which means more sales. Sony's between a rock and a hard place: They can't match the Wii on "fun," and they don't really offer that much over the 360, while costing a lot more than both its competitors. So they need games to sell the console, and the games simply aren't coming fast enough. You got Resistance and Motorstorm, both good titles, but no system sellers.
The 360 did not sell enough consoles in its first year to get enough momentum to decide the race, but now that all consoles are available, we'll soon see who is moving ahead. As soon as the first wave of demand is satisfied, and as soon as supply catches up with demand, the winner(s) will become obvious.
In my opinion, Sony's only hope is that they can keep the PS3 alive as a Bluray player, get some system sellers like Final Fantasy, and then get the people who bought it as a Bluray player to buy games. Not the most bulletproof strategy.
Yes, that's precisely my point. 80% of all people own normal TVs, and for those people, HD media may actually decrease their enjoyment. So it makes perfect sense for them to prefer low-def media. HD actually takes value away from media if you don't own a HDTV.
I think you're the first person to ever complain about New Mario's difficulty. I think it was way too easy, especially compared to games like Super Mario World. And yeah, as the other poster has said, if you're having trouble with the DS's d-pad, the PSP will probably be even worse for you. Its d-pad is worse than the DS's, and the analog nub is pretty much useless (I own both consoles, by the way).
But yeah, so you have one game you're through with, and one game which isn't really a game at all. It's hardly the DS's fault that you aren't playing it. There are literally dozens of great games available for the DS. If you don't buy them, obviously, you won't use your DS. So, what genres do you like?
I disagree. I prefer Super Monkey Ball to Rayman. Several reasons. First, it has a great single-player mode. Second, all party games are unlocked right from the start. Third, most have simultaneous four-player multiplayer.
Rayman is great, but why in the world am I forced to unlock those }"ø#f} games? I don't buy this game for single player, I buy it to have fun with pals! This really, really sucks. Now I could download a finished savegame, but I have the Euro version, and I haven't found a site who has Euro savegames!
Also, most Rayman multiplayer games seem to either only be for two players or force the players to play one after the other. What's up with that?
For multiplayer: Wario Ware, Super Monkey Ball, Rayman. I actually prefer Super Monkey Ball to Rayman since all games are unlocked from the start, and lots of games have simultaneous multiplayer modes (the FPS is awesome in particular).
For two players: Wii Play, Excite Truck. Excite Truck is insane fun, but Nintendo should be thrown in jail for not having a four player mode.
Sorry, I'm almost 30...a little old for the console circuit
Funnily enough, it's the opposite for me. Messing around with a PC to get games to run used to be fun. Nowadays, after having stared at IntelliJ all day, I'm happy if I can just sit on my sofa, push to "on" button on the Wii Remote, and start playing.
You need to keep in mind that once a console is released, there's instand demand for 2-5 million units. Now there are several ways console manufacturers could solve this issue. One, they could ramp up production so they can produce, say, 3 million consoles in a month. The only problem here is that even if they manage to sell 10 million consoles, after three months, demand will go down and they will have wasted huge amounts of money on production capacity they don't really need. So they can't do that.
Option two, they could simply produce with their normal capacity, but don't sell any units. So now they are wasting storage space for consoles they aren't yet selling, and if it turns out that there's some kind of manufacturing issue, they'll only find out after having produced tons of consoles.
Finally, Nintendo clearly didn't expect the Wii to do as well as it does. They are ramping up production right now, or so it seems, but that is probably not such an easy thing to do. They can be faulted for mispredicting demand, but let's be frank: Even the people who thought the Wii would do well didn't expect that kind of reaction from the public. The Wii isn't just doing well, it's a freaking cultural phenomenon with mainstream media singing its praise, doctors telling parents to go with the Wii, Wii parties being held by normal, non-gaming adults... I mean, the Wii even managed to start a whole counter-movement in just a few months - even now, few people care about the 360 enough to start hate sites.
but to say the Wii looks the same as the PS3 and 360 on normal TVs is just false.
You're right. Since the Wii is actually targeted at normal TVs, it looks much better on these than the PS3:-)
No, of course not, but at least you're guaranteed to be able to read the text in your games:-)
The delay, by the way, is hugely different between different games. Some have big delays (Red Stell), others dont' seem to have any noticeable delay at all (the "Duck Hunt" in Wii Play is very responsive, in my opinion). I don't think it's an inherent issue with the controller.
I own an HD beamer. I watch some HD content, but frankly, the novelty has worn off. It was exciting to see all the details, but after watching the first five minutes of an episode of 24, you just forget about it. HD doeesn't actually add anything to your enjoyment of media.
Not once have I played Wii Tennis and thought, "wow, that game would be so much more fun with better graphics."
Additionally, for all those people who don't own HDTVs, buying media targeted at their lower resolutions makes more sense. They know that games will work and look good on their TV. They don't have to worry about things like unreadably small text.
Fighting games are going to be interesting, and already now, we see them diverging. Mortal Kombat uses the Nunchuck and the Remote and is controlled by "traditional" means as well as by gestures. Super Smash Bros seems to require the classic or cube controller - which is always an option, too. Games aren't forced to use the Remote.
I feel the exact same way about my DS Lite. It sits all alone collecting dust. I played it for 2 or 3 weeks, once the gimmick of the touchscreen wore off, I turned it off and sat it down.
I own a DS. I bought it when it came out. I still play it regularly - when great games come out, daily. So, my question: Which games do you own?
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, because Nintendo is doing fake grassroots campaigns and has been caught paying people to post positive comments about its console. Oh, wait, no, that was Sony.
Yeah, because nobody honestly cares about the DS or the Wii. Oh, wait, no, that isn't true either.
The PS3 sales are not bad per se, but given that Sony owned the console market with the PS2, given that Nintendo's Gamecube was pretty much a failure, and given that the Wii sold twice as much as the PS3, and even the year-old 360 sold comparably, the PS3 is, at this point, not doing anything near how it should be doing.
The PS2 is dead. Sony needs to get the PS3 up to speed if they want to remain competitive. PS2 sales don't help Sony in two years.
Yeah, because optimizations are 90% of a game's dev time, while actually programming it and creating all the assets, models, and high-res textures are only about 10%. Of course, you don't actually need to optimize anything if you are allowed to program for a great architecture like, say, the Cell chip. Just use more cores! Yay!
Just yesterday, I was playing Wii Tennis with a few pals, and I thought to myself: "Golly, that game would be so much more fun if it would look real! I mean, I would rather play as Roger Federer than as that stupid Mii, and playing against Agassi would be so much better than playing against comical versions of my pals!"
Or maybe not.
Dude, I don't think the word "niche" means what you think it means. Either that, or you have no idea what you're talking about. Casual games aren't a niche. In fact, casual gamers utterly destroy "hardcore" gamers in number. If anything, "hardcore" gamers are a niche. If Nintendo manages to corner the casual gamer "niche", they'd be absolutely delirious with joy.
Anyway, I consider myself a pretty hardcore gamer (I own about 30 consoles and probably about 1000 games). I haven't yet bought a 360 or a PS3 (couldn't buy a PS3 if I wanted to, I'm in Europe, and Sony doesn't care about Europe :-). I own a Wii, though. And I play it every day. In fact, this saturday, there's a Wii party at my place, with lots of adult gamers and non-gamers showing up for a few hours of Super Monkey Ball, Wii Sports, Rayman and Wario Ware, with maybe a few rounds of Excite Truck thrown in (damn you, Nintendo, for not including a four-player mode).
The Wii appeals to everyone who loves gaming, whether they are hardcore or casual.
Zelda is a Gamecube game. Check out Sonic and the Secret Rings to see something more on par with what the Wii can do.
And "lack of mature games"? Come on. The Wii is the only console that even my granny plays. Is that mature enough for you? The only immature games are games like GTA or Manhunt (which, ironically, actually is coming to the Wii in its second incarnation.
Nobody expected the Wii's success. Third parties are moving teams from the PS3 to the Wii as we speak. Let's see who has the last laugh.
If they sell less, they need to produce less.
Generally, I'd say it's a good idea to wait a few months. Not that I do that, of course - I bought a Cube, a DS and a Wii the day it came out (all of these still work, by the way - Nintendo is great about getting stuff right with their first attempt). My bro, otoh, bought a 17" MacBook Pro when it came out, and he has quite a few issues with it (my "normal" MacBook Pro works perfectly well, though), and his Wii (which he also bought when it came out) seems to have some kind of issue with the disc drive - games sometimes don't load on the first attempt.
So while Nintendo is a pretty save bet, buying consumer electronics at launch is probably still not such a great idea.
Depends on your definition of "bad console." The PS3 comes with a slow, unneeded Bluray drive, and its Cell processor is hard to program for and slower than Sony expected it to be, which is why they had to stick a graphics card (which is hardly better than that of a year-old competitor) in as an afterthought. It's an overpriced, underperforming, overweight console with a crappy controller and a motion sensing gimmick.
It's an interesting console, but I wouldn't exactly call it "not bad" :-)
I'll probably eventually buy one, just so I can own the twenty first century's 3DO :-)
Gran Turismo sells consoles. The others, not so much.
Nintendo has Mario, Mario Kart, Mario Party, Pokémon, Nintendogs, Metroid, Zelda, Donkey Kong, and many more franchises which are well established, are always of high quality, are known by lots of people (even non-gamers) and sell on name alone. Nintendo can sustain a console on its own. Sony can't.
If you compare Xbox games to PS2 games, devs kind of did abandon the Xbox. The Xbox had a core market of people who bought very specific genres, and they got those games, but all in all, the Xbox had pretty poor games selection. What helped somewhat was that porting from the PC was kind of easy, and since the three last-gen consoles were so similar, many games got made for all three, but looking back, it's obvious that the Xbox was a failure.
The next year matters. After that, it's decided. The console war is a sprint, not a marathon. Early momentum gets developers on your side, which means more games, which means more sales. Sony's between a rock and a hard place: They can't match the Wii on "fun," and they don't really offer that much over the 360, while costing a lot more than both its competitors. So they need games to sell the console, and the games simply aren't coming fast enough. You got Resistance and Motorstorm, both good titles, but no system sellers.
The 360 did not sell enough consoles in its first year to get enough momentum to decide the race, but now that all consoles are available, we'll soon see who is moving ahead. As soon as the first wave of demand is satisfied, and as soon as supply catches up with demand, the winner(s) will become obvious.
In my opinion, Sony's only hope is that they can keep the PS3 alive as a Bluray player, get some system sellers like Final Fantasy, and then get the people who bought it as a Bluray player to buy games. Not the most bulletproof strategy.
Yes, that's precisely my point. 80% of all people own normal TVs, and for those people, HD media may actually decrease their enjoyment. So it makes perfect sense for them to prefer low-def media. HD actually takes value away from media if you don't own a HDTV.
I think you're the first person to ever complain about New Mario's difficulty. I think it was way too easy, especially compared to games like Super Mario World. And yeah, as the other poster has said, if you're having trouble with the DS's d-pad, the PSP will probably be even worse for you. Its d-pad is worse than the DS's, and the analog nub is pretty much useless (I own both consoles, by the way).
But yeah, so you have one game you're through with, and one game which isn't really a game at all. It's hardly the DS's fault that you aren't playing it. There are literally dozens of great games available for the DS. If you don't buy them, obviously, you won't use your DS. So, what genres do you like?
I disagree. I prefer Super Monkey Ball to Rayman. Several reasons. First, it has a great single-player mode. Second, all party games are unlocked right from the start. Third, most have simultaneous four-player multiplayer.
Rayman is great, but why in the world am I forced to unlock those }"ø#f} games? I don't buy this game for single player, I buy it to have fun with pals! This really, really sucks. Now I could download a finished savegame, but I have the Euro version, and I haven't found a site who has Euro savegames!
Also, most Rayman multiplayer games seem to either only be for two players or force the players to play one after the other. What's up with that?
For multiplayer: Wario Ware, Super Monkey Ball, Rayman. I actually prefer Super Monkey Ball to Rayman since all games are unlocked from the start, and lots of games have simultaneous multiplayer modes (the FPS is awesome in particular).
For two players: Wii Play, Excite Truck. Excite Truck is insane fun, but Nintendo should be thrown in jail for not having a four player mode.
Funnily enough, it's the opposite for me. Messing around with a PC to get games to run used to be fun. Nowadays, after having stared at IntelliJ all day, I'm happy if I can just sit on my sofa, push to "on" button on the Wii Remote, and start playing.
You need to keep in mind that once a console is released, there's instand demand for 2-5 million units. Now there are several ways console manufacturers could solve this issue. One, they could ramp up production so they can produce, say, 3 million consoles in a month. The only problem here is that even if they manage to sell 10 million consoles, after three months, demand will go down and they will have wasted huge amounts of money on production capacity they don't really need. So they can't do that.
Option two, they could simply produce with their normal capacity, but don't sell any units. So now they are wasting storage space for consoles they aren't yet selling, and if it turns out that there's some kind of manufacturing issue, they'll only find out after having produced tons of consoles.
Finally, Nintendo clearly didn't expect the Wii to do as well as it does. They are ramping up production right now, or so it seems, but that is probably not such an easy thing to do. They can be faulted for mispredicting demand, but let's be frank: Even the people who thought the Wii would do well didn't expect that kind of reaction from the public. The Wii isn't just doing well, it's a freaking cultural phenomenon with mainstream media singing its praise, doctors telling parents to go with the Wii, Wii parties being held by normal, non-gaming adults... I mean, the Wii even managed to start a whole counter-movement in just a few months - even now, few people care about the 360 enough to start hate sites.
You're right. Since the Wii is actually targeted at normal TVs, it looks much better on these than the PS3 :-)
No, of course not, but at least you're guaranteed to be able to read the text in your games :-)
The delay, by the way, is hugely different between different games. Some have big delays (Red Stell), others dont' seem to have any noticeable delay at all (the "Duck Hunt" in Wii Play is very responsive, in my opinion). I don't think it's an inherent issue with the controller.
I own an HD beamer. I watch some HD content, but frankly, the novelty has worn off. It was exciting to see all the details, but after watching the first five minutes of an episode of 24, you just forget about it. HD doeesn't actually add anything to your enjoyment of media.
Not once have I played Wii Tennis and thought, "wow, that game would be so much more fun with better graphics."
Additionally, for all those people who don't own HDTVs, buying media targeted at their lower resolutions makes more sense. They know that games will work and look good on their TV. They don't have to worry about things like unreadably small text.
Fighting games are going to be interesting, and already now, we see them diverging. Mortal Kombat uses the Nunchuck and the Remote and is controlled by "traditional" means as well as by gestures. Super Smash Bros seems to require the classic or cube controller - which is always an option, too. Games aren't forced to use the Remote.
I own a DS. I bought it when it came out. I still play it regularly - when great games come out, daily. So, my question: Which games do you own?