I agree that it's not a guarantee that every system was used to run pirated copies of games.
But then you would be wrong. Again, by this more informative link (http://www.scpr.org/news/2009/08/03/xbox-crime/), the guy was advertising that he modded consoles specifically to run pirated games, and made a business of it. It's guaranteed every single system he modded was used to run pirated games.
You can legally mod cars (for financial gain even) to exceed speed limits to the extreme.
But they never say that you should exceed speed limits on the road. You still have circuits made specifically for people that want to make races with their cars, where there are no speed limits.
that's my point. It shouldn't be illegal to mod an xbox, it's just a computer which has been built with the hardware and software required to run xbox games. It should be treated just like any other computer
But it's not. Even making a business of modding consoles so that people can import games or use homebrew, I think, would be tolerated. But advertising that you make a business of modding consoles to play pirated games, I understand that won't be tolerated.
PS: in before RTFA, he's modifying consoles for financial gain, how is this different from building a computer for financial gain?
Because as per this link http://www.scpr.org/news/2009/08/03/xbox-crime/ , he was advertising on the Web that he was modding people's consoles for money so that they could play pirated games. So he explicitely wrote that he was making a business of circumventing protections to allow illegal things, like play pirated games on its consoles. There just aren't any excuse for this guy, like the original article try to mislead people into thinking him having not done anything wrong.
It's terrifying to me (and a sign of the times) that we can't do what we please with the material we've paid for. Sure, violating copyright is counter productive in the long-run, which is why we have it, but tinkering with stuff has a long proud history.[...] I doubt this guy was doing anything innovating, but he sure won't be doing so now.
But there's no problem with that. Or perhaps there are problems with that, but you won't get caught and won't face potential 10 years in prison. But if, like this guy (the link : http://www.scpr.org/news/2009/08/03/xbox-crime/ ), you specifically advertise on the Web that you will modify people's consoles for money, so that they can play pirated games, then no wonder you're facing such hardships. Sure what he was doing wasn't innovating, and I hope he won't be doing so ever again.
The "Wii won"? [...] Yes the Wii is leading compared to each Xbox and PS3 individually
This is exactly what "The Wii won" means. So there are still people like you in denial. BTW, the Wii didn't even receive a price cut yet, and it's going on to complete its 3rd year in the market. Just saying...
Improvements in graphics are mattering less and less.
If that was the case we would all be still playing pong and enjoying it.:)
Yet the Wii just proved that improvements in graphics are mattering less and less, by outselling even the XB360 in the USA, despite the USA being the core market of the XB360, and it having 1 year headstart. I see that as a very good proof that improvements in graphics are mattering less and less.
You say it as if limiting capabilities is a bad thing. Hopefully it will force the developers to be more creative and we'll get some decent games instead of the same repackaged shite with slightly higher framerate/pixel count/level of detail.
I'm sure that will fail hard. Look at the Wii! That was Nintendo's message from the start, that developers would have to be more creative with the Wii, as its graphics are good enough, and developers couldn't rely on better graphics. Look at the game's industry answer! Lots of arrogant developers (mostly western ones, but some japanese ones too) saying they don't even know how to work in a "limited" environment like the Wii, and don't even want to try.
I have a backwards compatible PS3 and PS2 games on my HDTV look very good and are still very playable graphically because my PS3 can up-scale and smooth so "good enough" applies here. PS1 games even the good ones do tend to look grainy so they are not acceptable at least to me so there are now only a few PS1 games I would consider playing now so "good enough" does not apply here.
I'll give you anecdotal evidence : I have a backward compatible PS3 too, and I see very clearly the jagged lines on PS2 games. It doesn't deter anything from the enjoyment. Like lots of people, I bought FFVII on PSN (fastest selling PSN game for PS1 BTW) which is far worse, and it still doesn't deter from my enjoyment. So "good enough" applies perfectly well here.
I have a Gamecube and while the games are playable and acceptable on my HDTV (37", 720p) you can pick the reduced graphics quality which does detract from the overall enjoyment of the game. I suppose "good enough" could apply here but I would prefer "just acceptable". So basically if you have a HDTV it is hard to play a game that is made for an SDTV unless that game can be up-scaled and smoothed properly. Unfortunately the larger the HDTV the worse the SDTV graphics looks even when up-scaled and smoothed although "barely acceptable" still comes to mind.
BUt you're wrong anyway. It's funny how you accuse the Gamecube of being the problem, when it's actually your TV that has a problem. On my HDTV (55" 1080p), the Gamecube games were far more beautiful on it than on my old 50" SDTV. There was just no comparison, the HDTV was better. Then again, I chose a HDTV with good electronics, that render most SDTV programs far better than SDTV (and it's calibrated too). A HDTV should be a better piece of equipment than a SDTV, and so display SDTV better, or there's no point in buying one, especially if you expect to view SD content on it. Kuro line of HDTV, which are references, also display SD content better than SDTV. Also, what you're saying is strange, because the games were far better looking from the Gamecube on my HDTV, than any PS2 games upscaled by PS3, on the same HDTV, where the jaggies were very apparent despite the smoothing.
Like it or not HDTV will replace SDTV and people will want HDTV content hence the move to purchasing HDTV ready game machines such as the Xbox360 and the PS3 which together exceed the overall sales of the Wii although not by a huge amount yet.
Yet in Japan, one of the country with the highest HDTV penetration in the world, with lots of HD content already available, the Wii is trouncing both of its HD competitors. HDTV vendors were using the Wii in events to promote their HDTV...
It's also funny that you have to put 2 competitors together to finally come to a number bigger than the Wii, and saying it's the situation "yet".
While the truth is that the XB360 was out one year earlier than its competitors, and went down from the highest 100 % market share in its generation, all the way down to below 40 %, with several price cuts already.
You put 2 competitors together, which have a high chance of having overlap, which both had price cuts, new models, and even were out before the sole SD console, which stil have had no price cut, still has only one model (until tomorrow in Japan were the black Wii will be out) available, and you manage to believe in an optimistic outcome for the HD consoles, so that it can validate your theory ? Well, there's still hope, but I'm amazed at this level of hope.
I think you believe that people buy HDTV primarily for HD. I've always believed they bought them because they were thin.
I think investors are really only looking for a return on their investment for a single generation of hardware. I believe almost everyone overlooks the loss the first XBox took as the price of admission into the console market.
If true then it's bad news, because the division in which XBox is (EDD) is still not profitable as of the latest financial quarter results. They managed a profit for the fiscal year though. But that means they went back in the red after the price drop, and revenues were down. The Xbox 360 is already the cheaper console out there, and if they react to a Sony price drop, they can expect revenues to go down even more.
On the other hand, the longer this console generations life cycle drags on, the more it plays into MS' hands. If nothing else MS is good at steadily improving their products over time (e.g. the old "don't buy MS software until SP2" rule of thumb).
Except that the console market doesn't work like that at all. If anything, improving the product as in more technology won't do anything towards its success. It's the entertainement business, people don't care about the consoles features if it doesn't relate directly to entertainment, i.e. if they don't understand right away the benefits. The problem is that there is a chasm between Xbox interface and the people they want to attract. Changing the controller is one thing, but the GUI ? The services ? Also, the brands are already set anyway. The previous big attempts of MS to attract casual players, with big advertisements, and involving bought-from-Nintendo-fame Rare, were complete failures. Usually, only the winner hardware can sell for long times, the losers are always forced to get new hardware out because their sales become so low they're unsustainable. That's exactly what's happening there. The price cut boost of the XB360 is wearing out and it never sold as much as or more than the Wii despite having a cheaper SKU.
But you're wrong anyway. You're just taking the worst example you can with what some user willing to destroy his data COULD do on Linux and try to portray it as a common thing that every user on Linux has a chance of doing some hypothetical day. The example is absurd because this user should switch between knowledgeable and ignorant state at several points to achieve your nonsense scenario. You don't even have anecdotal evidence, but it won't stop you. BTW, I have anecdotal evidence : 9 years of ignorant people running under Linux and receiving attachments in their mail, and never once they got their home directory deleted, or anything nasty like viruses. If pirates wanted users home directory deleted, don't worry that most Windows computers would be dead by now, or at least without any of their precious personal data.
Linux doesn't default to granting root privileges, I know. And you don't need root privileges to delete files out of your own home directory. Hence the tilde before the slash: ~/* not/*
Linux does have executable files.
Now, I am not entirely certain it could have the +x flag set on the file after being an e-mailed attachment, though, actually. I could be mistaken there.
Your example is pure nonsense as attachments don't have executable bits set. You obviously stated a worst possible scenario that tends to be on the absurd side, without even knowing how Linux desktops, apps and OS work. Well done!
On the other hand, you could just bundle it up into an RPM, make it look "real" and people will "install" the "video." If you switch the average Windows user to Linux, they'll know even less about Linux than they do about Windows. They'll install RPMs (or whatever) as quickly as they will install Smilie Packs on Windows. If that means typing in their password - which they'd be used to, by now, if they've been installing updates - then they will type it in.
Nonsense again. You'll at least get security warnings, if it's even possible to do what you say, which I'm pretty sure isn't possible (you usually have to save these files somewhere first). Contrary to videos that play immediately when you click on them (actually, you will be presented with several choices, but never "execute this" one of them), it will be so different from the usual process to look at a video that the ignorant user will most likely abandon right there saying the video doesn't work.
5 million people are playing my game. 500k people are pirating it. 1 million people are buying it used.
I get $30 for each new copy sold.
Ergo, I am LOSING $15 million to piracy, and I am LOSING $30 million to second-hand sales.
But this is stupid because 4.5 millions copies have been bought, so they didn't actually lose anything to second-hand sales. Because the 1 million copies that have been bought used, have been bought new, which they got their money from. And nearly no publisher (Nintendo being the only exception I know of) expect to get their $30 from every copy of their games, as most of them agree to have their games price reduced after some time on the market.
I had a GameCube way back. I found the problem with it was the lack of mature titles as well. The other problem with the Wii is that it does not serve as a "media console". The 360 and PS3 play DVDs and MP3s out of the box. The Wii can't play anything but its own games.
and Gamecube games, and NES games, and SNES games, and Genesis games, and Neo Geo games,... The ignorance you display is amazing. BTW, the Wii is the console with the least problem for now, as newsflash, it's the market leader crushing the HD consoles. This without being a "media console".
The Wiimote is just a gimmick. If the Sony or MS did a Wiimote type controller and made games to go with (assuming the console prices and games were lower), I'm sure that if the remote is the selling point, Sony and MS would wipe Nintendo's sales off the map.
I'm not surprised you believe that, given how ignorant you are of the actual situation. The same argument was made with price of the XB360, that once it would be below Wii's price, it would destroy it in sales, and would forced Nintendo to cut the Wii's price. Actually, there's a XB360 cheaper than the Wii, and the Wii still vastly outsells it everywhere in the world, and the Wii's price still hasn't been cut. I can predict your scenario is bound to fail miserably too. Basically, the remote alone is not the selling point of the Wii, as the price alone is not the selling point of the Wii either.
Everyone thought that, and every single game to date has sucked because the original WiiMote does not have 1-to-1 tracking. The WiiPlus supposedly adds that, and maybe then we'll finally get some fun hack and slash games... But I wouldn't hold my breath.
But what you say is BS. Most Wii games are not simulations, they're games. 1 to 1 is just too much precision for most games, so they're forced to tone it down. The point of the Wiimote is not to reproduce reality perfectly. Saying every single game to date has sucked is just stupid anyway, especially when you have 1+ year old games still selling higher than new releases, just from word of mouth. This isn't the behaviour of games that suck.
My brother has hit the same problem. At first the whole Wii-mote concept seemed cool. Looked gimmicky to me so I skipped on it and bought an Xbox 360 (despite me traditionally being a Nintendo person - I've literally owned every home console they've made up until the Wii. I've owned lots of the others too, but I ALWAYS had the latest Nintendo system).
It's funny how every single post from MS astroturfers (or anti Wii trolls, whatever) start all exactly in the same way : I'm the biggest Nintendo fanboy of all, but this time, I magically passed on Nintendo just because. Yours starts exactly as these astroturfers posts.
He liked it for a while. WiiFit was cool and such and he got a few more games like that (Resident Evil 4 he liked), but now the system is just sitting in a corner at his house unused every time I go over there. Any time a new video game commercial shows that looks cool he always makes the comment "You know that looks awesome. Wait till we get to the end of the commercial; I bet it's out on 360 and PS3 but not Wii.". And he's always right. He's not a hardcore gamer by any stretch of the imagination.
So he's part of the strange minority of Wii owners whose Wii is collecting dust because they noticed every cool game on the HD consoles, but managed to miss all the games supposedly made for them on the Wii, like the OP's mentionned MadWorld or HotD Overkill. You can't imagine how stupid these gamers look, managing to miss the games made for them. Especially when the people that don't know anything about gaming are the ones buying a lot of games for the Wii. With the few games people like your brother buy, that means the people clueless to gaming are buying lots of games to compensate, and for the Wii to reach its insane number of games sold. I guess they will be pleased to remove the dust on their Wii as lots of games for them are out this year already, and a lot are to come yet. I guess he went to buy the Conduit, MadWorld, HotD..., right? If your brother is real, his Wii is not collecting dust anymore since a long time ago. So why did you forgot to mention that?
Even when he's got a game he wants to play through he might put in an hour or two per week tops. Still though, the Wii's kiddified games eventually just don't cut it. It'd be like if every movie that came out from now on were from Pixar. Sure they're "fun for the whole family!", and I can say that I enjoy them quite a bit, but realistically SOMETIMES I want something that's a bit more mature.
What is the problem? The Wii is your brother's console, and you are the one who bought an HD console, so why the complaining? I agree that the Wii's kiddified games don't cut it, that's why they mostly fail, like EA "All Play" series. Serves them right. Fortunately, Nintendo put lots of good games on the console, which explains why they run with all the profits. And people who are not hardcore gamers don't have lots of time to put in games every week, so your brother's behaviour is not shocking at all in this context.
Apparently, over 9.8 million people who bought Final Fantasy VII, a sequel on a Sony console to three or six games (depending on region) that had come out on Nintendo consoles, disagreed with you.
Unfortunately for you, the mainline Final Fantasy games never were sequels of each other. So FFVII is not a sequel of FFVI, which is not a sequel of FFV,... So basically you're wrong.
He doesn't get it. The hardcore gamers aren't gone, Nintendo has just tapped into a new market - parents, girlfriends, grandparents, young, old and everything in between.
OK
From what I've seen about my friends and family that play wii (and have never played Playstation or XBOX), they get bored of wii sports/guitar hero/wii fit/etc. after 2 or 3 months and then never pick up their wii again. If anything, the hardcore gamers are the ones that are going to stick around and continue to buy new games
This is just another proof that anecdotal evidence is useless. In the USA, the Wii, until January 31, 2009, was closing in on the number of games sold on the XBox 360 which is 1 year older (121 million to 124 million games) and has surely past it right now. These numbers are according to NPD. If we had to believe your anecdotal evidence, that would mean that the Wii has the hardcore of the hardcore gamers that buy games at an unprecedented rate, far higher than the XBox 360. Which would destroy this article and nearly all the other retarded ones about the Wii owners demographic and buying habits. End of January 2009 makes the Wii 26 months old, and the XB360 38 months old. That makes sth like 3.2M games/month for XB360 and 4.7M games/month on Wii. How is this even possible? To me, it's saner to think that the people you know are not representative AT ALL of most casual players (and actually have an opposite behaviour), and that casual players on Wii actually buy a lot of games. But you are free to believe that the Wii is host to the hardcore of the hardcore players.
Maybe the casual gamers have moved on and now only the hardcore gamers remain to purchase new software and peripherals? The Wii is at market saturation nearly everywhere and now it's time for the PS3 and X360 to move ahead at least in month to month sales.
LOL, no! It's just the recurring monthly "Wii is doomed" stupid articles again. It's very simple actually: software sells hardware. And while PS3 and XB360 got blockbusters lately, like, you know, Ryu Ga Gotoku 3, Street Fighter 4, Resident Evil 5, Star Ocean The Last Hope, actually, in the last 2 months, it's no wonder they sold more. While the Wii didn't get anything significant since December. Except Animal Crossing and Wii Music which weren't blockbuster, and all from Nintendo. Thus explaining why the Wii sales are going down in Japan. The Wii is not at market saturation in Japan, it's just at 8 M sold, which is far from 20 M. It just doesn't have any decent software from 3rd parties, despite Nintendo yet again leaving the field wide open for them. Now 3rd parties have no more excuses of "we can't compete against Nintendo", as even when Nintendo leaves the field open, they don't make anything decent for it.
For some anecdotal evidence I own all three consoles, each one since their own launch date, and I never touch my Wii (cue childish sexual jokes). In the last month I've hammered away at Valkyria Chronicles and Metal Gear Online for my PS3 for hours upon hours every day. For my 360 I play Virtua Fighter 5 and Fallout 3 regularly as well. And between both the PS3 and 360 I play Street Fighter II HD Remix and Street Fighter IV daily as well. My Wii? Maybe when Dead Space Wii comes out I'll plug the console back in but my god has that thing been collecting dust for months.
Your anecdotal evidence is good. It shows you are part of the problem for not buying supposedly hardcore games like MadWorld or House of the Dead or the other hardcore Wii games that got released lately. So it shows clearly that Nintendo is not killing hardcore gaming, hardcore gaming is actually imploding, killing itself in the process.
Microsoft and Sony are doing this not because they in any way want to do away with hardcore games on their title, but because they want to expand their market.
So 3 years later they finally understand what Nintendo was saying they were doing back in 2006? Talk about dense competitors.
Ironically, he is suggesting that Nintendo is going to do extremely well because they're pushing the casual games market. Unfortunately, this is why Nintendo will actually fall behind if they don't take action - Microsoft and Sony are moving into casual games whilst also strongly supporting hardcore games, whilt Nintendo isn't diversifying in this way. Effectively, Microsoft and Sony are holding ground in the hardcore market whilst pushing to gain ground in the casual market whilst Nintendo are sat purely in the casual market seemingly refusing to budge into hardcore whilst simultaneously risking having their market share chewed away by Microsoft and Sony.
Unfortunately, you're completely wrong because your premise is wrong. Better hope MS and Sony understood better than you what Nintendo says it's doing since years. It's very simple to see where you're wrong. You say Nintendo push casual gaming which is completely wrong. Nintendo is pushing games for EVERYONE! Every time they say it, it falls on deaf ears from their competitors. No wonders the competitors "casual games" are flop after flop. Nintendo is already doing incredibly well, and will go on doing so, because they don't focus at all on casual games, but on games for everyone. Just looking at their line up show that clearly. It's just that their more casual oriented games sell more than the other ones. These talk of Nintendo falling behind are just laughable, and I think no more than wishful thinking drowned in bitter tears of seeing Nintendo crush everyone after all these stupid BS of them dying or going 3rd party. Seriously. The Wii is pulling numbers in slow months, that any other consoles never pulled outside of holiday months (November and December). The brands are already set. The people that started gaming on the Wii are mostly people that would never have bought the PS3 or X360. I don't know where this belief comes that these people, that hardcore gamers are denigrating, would suddenly becomes so highly hardcore gamers that they would buy another console with last gen controls. The only thing that will happen is that people will be pushed to hardcore Wii games. Even the competition putting out motion controls will only help Nintendo. Now "casual gamers" have the choice of a little HD games library of motion controlled games, or the huge SD games library of the Wii with motion control. The casual gamer will go for the Wii library without even thinking twice. Wii Fit alone will assure that people won't go to other consoles ("OK, it has HD and all, but does it support Wii Fit?").
To give an example in numbers, what I'm saying is that the hardcore section of the market makes it's profits by selling 10 different games to each of 10 different users, whilst the casual market makes it's profits by selling 1 game to 100 users - both shift as many units, but in a different manner.
Except that even some good hardcore games are losing money en masse, while the good games for everyone are making money hand over fist. Didn't you hear of all these closing studios since the PS2 era? It just accelerated in this generation, with HD just killing them all even more. Just look at the financial reports: losses after losses.
Even the retarded tie ratio numbers proves you wrong. In the USA, it shows that Wii owners are buying as many games as PS3 owners, which is just one less than XB360 owners. And it's a huge feat for Wii owners, because most of them have the Wii since far less time than most PS3 or X360 owners, because of the outstanding growth rate of the Wii. Because when in two months you have say 500 000 more X360 owners, you have
As another fencer, I would have to disagree. There's still too many things that can't be measured with just a wiimote. Wrist angle is the most important, as the wiimote would have no way to verify the wrist was absolutely straight. Body lean, distance between the elbow and body, and foot position are also very important. Simply attempting to teach, or even practice, fencing with a wiimote could lead to poor habits that will be difficult to correct later on. The problems you would create would outweigh any benefit.
I agree with the earlier comment, leave the learning on the piste. Use the wiimote for what it is, a game. A Kendo or fencing game would be great, but a training tool is out of the question.
I completely agree with this. What's worse is learning how to strike. In japanese fencing arts (perhaps it's the same in western fencing), you don't use the same muscles that people normally use. When it's done well, you can strike a thousand times without being tired, and it's basically the only way to strike effectively with a katana. None of this could be learned with a wiimote, especially not Iaido.
Not because the Wiimote is not precise enough, it sure is, but its form factor is not made for this. Also, I'm not sure that's what people would consider fun to do, if they're not dedicated to it. Finally, these martial arts require all kind of attitude that will determine your posture, and they also require an opponent. There's a huge difference with an opponent : you could swing your sword right when no force is opposed to you, but actually do it wrong, which is revealed as soon as an opponent force is applied to you. The Wiimote can never make that happen.
if these so-called pop stars are being made up that way to attract girls, that really doesn't say anything about how they are considered amongst Japanese males.
But guys that attract lots of girls impress other men who don't (which is most), so it all perfectly makes sense. The protagonist in your typical JRPG is this guy that is very tough and also is attractive to girls.
By sexual identity issues I think the point is that the game has these characters who are supposed to be male but end up looking like girls.
But that's the point, they actually don't look like girls, like not at all.
As for the girly guys, I think it's really drawing on fashion trends in Japan where young guys do sometimes appear somewhat effeminate.
This is what I think is fascinating: they are not girly guys, like not at all. Those fashion trends you talk about are for music pop stars most of the time, which are made to appeal to girls. So these characters are actually fashioned to attract girls, meaning to be beautiful. How can this become girly guys for some cultures, or rather for some guys? I wonder.
Given the kinds of activities these characters engage in they really should appear tougher and more masculine.
Actually no, they shouldn't. But most western cultures mostly make use of the strength in the higher part of the body, and thus are only being able to see someone as strong if he develops always the same muscles. These are the easier to master because they are the most obvious moves. eastern cultures usually concentrate on all the other muscles and moves that are rarely used, and don't require you to have huge muscles bulging everywhere. The best way to understand that is through traditional martial arts. Meaning, for judo, not the judo you see at the olympics, but the true traditional one. The one that makes experts that go stronger when they get older (up to 70 years older and older), while westernized ones must give up after reaching 35 (and I'm generous). When you understand, or rather feel this cultural difference, there is no way slender characters look girly at all.
But I bet only younger gamers find them girly, I'm sure even in the USA, older gamers have no problem with these characters, and don't think of them as girly.
I was impressed by what I saw. The series has been on a downward slide for me since FFIX, but after watching the demo I think I'm ready to jump back into the pool again. I plan on importing this if it gets released on time in Japan, as I'll actually be over there when it gets released here.
For me, the series is on a downward slide since FFVIII, FFVIII being my worst FF ever (still didn't finish it and probably never will). I'm still mixed about importing this one. I wasn't impressed at all actually, but I have a better feeling than before, when I believed it would be a complete failure. It's still not good enough for me to buy the demo though. Oops, I mean, buy the movie (which is region free, or at least works with region A and B BRD players) with the demo.
One comment though, any other Japanese speakers notice the manner Lightning was speaking in? After years of male protagonists who could get mistaken as chicks, now we have a female protagonist who talks like a dude. For once I'd like to see a protagonist with no sexual identity issues and no antisocial behavior. Is that even possible anymore?
You lost me there. Someone who has enough japanese culture to notice that Lightning was talking like a dude can't at the same time say things like "male protagonists who could get mistaken as chicks", because only someone with no japanese culture and feeling very insecure would say sth like this. Sth that just isn't true. I've yet to see a FF protagonist with sexual identity issues. Same for antisocial behaviour (there may be one or two though, which depends on the story). But I see this said a lot by mostly USA gamers, who seem to have huge problems of insecurity as soon as sth could remotely make them labeled as gay. So I see lots of these comments, and it's fascinating to read, because I just can't understand where is this coming from. Usually, it seems like "blond spiky hair" is enough for some USA gamers to believe someone has "sexual identity issues". The mind boggles...
I've had the general feeling that Lightning had the behaviour of a man, but didn't really realise why. I dismissed it as being only because of the way she moves, but it didn't strike me that she was talking like a man. I'll check that.
It's the Atari 2600 syndrome all over again. 2000+ games, the vast majority of which were cack. People just gave up buying and the whole market collapsed.
No it's not, at all. In the Atari 2600 syndrome, there were lots of console clones on the market too, not just lots of games. And by clones I mean lots of consoles that had no differenciation from each other. This generation of console is not the same thing at all, with one console clearly differentiated from the others, being the clear market leader.
If lots of bad games will do sth, that will be to force the same 3rd parties that put them out, to advertise heavily their good games, unless they see them drown among the bad ones. Of course, there are other drawbacks, like people starting to recognise the companies that put out the bad games, and avoiding them at all costs. 3rd parties are killing themselves since the start of this generation and it will only become more apparent as the generation goes on.
Nintendo's advantage was always going to decay in the second half of the cycle. Despite the arrival of the economic downturn, HDTVs are continuing their steady penetration of the home TV market.
Which Nintendo's advantage are you talking about? Given its sales growth, the Wii has not yet entered its second half of the cycle. People were touting how the XB360 didn't have a price drop 18 months after its release. Yet, the Wii is nearly 2.5 years old and still has not seen one single price drop. So they still have the advantage of price drop, colors and redesign. You can add the new control scheme. What exactly is decaying? It's funny you talk about HDTV. These are old rehashed stupid debunked arguments from 2005 though. You believe people buy HDTV because of HD? Whatever, but the Wii, despite the arrival of the economic downturn, is posting huge sales in february, sales that the other consoles usually get in november only, the highest month for sales behind december. It was above 700k consoles sold in the USA alone this february. Despite the economic downturn, that stupid analysts, who once again show how clueless they are about Nintendo's strategy, said was going to be hit harder by this economic downturn.
The technological gap between the Wii and its competitors is going to start becoming more apparent to the average game-player (which is to say, people who don't see themselves as gamers, but do buy and play the odd game).
Still the same silly argument. A console is not in the technology business, it's in the entertainment business. Just like movies. If people don't care about your games, HD will not make them care more. People don't care about the technological gap, they care about the entertainment value. A SD movie looks better for most people than any HD game. Same for a HD game versus a SD one. People just don't care, and rightly so, as it's not what's important.
Moreover, the Wii-mote isn't quite the "cool new thing" like it once was. After the hype of the first year or two, there's a growing recognisation that it's basically a fun little gizmo which is good for some types of game and dreadful for others. It's fairly clear now that there are plenty of genres where it won't supplant the more traditional console controller, or the keyboard+mouse combo.
LOL, it's a fad amirite? That's why it sold 700k in february 2009 in the USA alone? That's why it sells more than any other home consoles worldwide every month? The guys that publish those genres that don't translate well to motion control, or rather to the Wii controller, should go to task quickly to find some gameplay that does, unless they want to die with their genre. Keyboard + mouse now? This is getting pathetic really. We're talking consoles, things you play in your living room with others, not closed in your dorm room in front of a computer.
It's cool because your post clearly puts out nearly every real reason why all these publishers are taking heavy losses, and what's wrong with them.
The Wii market isn't actually as big as it appears. In reality, it's quite possibly smaller than the 360 and PS3 markets.
Nintendo did a great job of selling the Wii to non-gamers. They've got a huge installed base out there now and should, in theory, have the kind of market dominance that the PS2 enjoyed last time around. But they don't.
And it begins... Some people stil have not recovered from the shock of the Wii's success it seems. Actually, what isn't as big as it appears is the HD consoles market. People in the game industry are so desperate, that they try to put the HD consoles together and try to beleive they have a market as big as the Wii, but this is not the case at all. The Wii market is actually bigger than it appears. As this article is centered around the USA, let's stay there. No need to talk about the two other big markets, where the Wii just obliterates its HD competition (Japan), or put them to shame (Europe). USA is less clear, with the year headstart of XB360 alone on the market. The Wii flew past the XB360 in installed base. Cognitive dissonance impose to the people shocked by this to say that the Wii market is not as big as it seems because of non-gamers. But NPD, the very company that puts the USA games sales every month for the USA and Canada, said explicitely that the Wii is selling more games than the HD consoles since early last year. Then MS retaliated by saying that 3rd parties still sold most on their console. Yet, NPD also revealed explicitely that the Wii sells more 3rd parties than the HD ones since november 2008. And it consistently does since then, despite blockbusters going out for the HD consoles, and nothing new for the Wii. Actually, the growth seen in the games industry is entirely thanks to the Wii console and its market, with unprecedented hardware sales and software sales. If someone actually believes (and not wishful thinking) that the Wii market is lower than it seems despite obliterating its competitors in the USA, it only contradicts their point that non-gamers don't buy games : they would have to buy far more games for the WIi than gamers for HD consoles.
The "PS2 market dominance" bitter people are talking about, that the Wii lack, is only the 3rd parties support. The Wii is dominating even better than the PS2. The PS2 was first to market among the 3 staying competitors, and rode on PS1 success. The Wii is dominating more than the PS2 was despite no correct support from 3rd parties, and not being first to market among the 3 competitors.
See, the flip side of selling consoles to non-gamers is that they are... well... non-gamers. If you look at the weekly games sales charts, the only Wii games that really make an impact are Wii Sports, Wii Fit and, to a lesser degree, Mario Kart Wii. All games that are bundled with the Wii console in the most common packages. Elsewhere, the chart is dominated by your Call of Duty games, your Resident Evils, your Maddens and so on.
It was apparent you didn't know what you are talking about, and this sets it. Wii Fit and Mario Kart Wii are not bundled with the Wii in any common package. Especially these two games that come with peripherals. Only Wii Sports is bundled with the console. It's funny also that you manage to mistake the NPD top 10 with "weekly games sales charts". Actually, the weekly games sales charts show thme full of Wii games, even 3rd party ones despite them being of lower quality. Because if the 1st party games cited sell more than 10 millions units each, it's just because they're the best games on the console, those with the most effort put into them, on the best selling console with the bigger market. If the Wii games you magically forgot about, like Guitar Hero, Tiger Woods,... sell more on the Wii, there's a reason.
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I agree that it's not a guarantee that every system was used to run pirated copies of games.
But then you would be wrong. Again, by this more informative link (http://www.scpr.org/news/2009/08/03/xbox-crime/), the guy was advertising that he modded consoles specifically to run pirated games, and made a business of it. It's guaranteed every single system he modded was used to run pirated games.
Why is it illegal, though?
Car Analogy:
You can legally mod cars (for financial gain even) to exceed speed limits to the extreme.
But they never say that you should exceed speed limits on the road.
You still have circuits made specifically for people that want to make races with their cars, where there are no speed limits.
that's my point. It shouldn't be illegal to mod an xbox, it's just a computer which has been built with the hardware and software required to run xbox games. It should be treated just like any other computer
But it's not.
Even making a business of modding consoles so that people can import games or use homebrew, I think, would be tolerated.
But advertising that you make a business of modding consoles to play pirated games, I understand that won't be tolerated.
PS: in before RTFA, he's modifying consoles for financial gain, how is this different from building a computer for financial gain?
Because as per this link http://www.scpr.org/news/2009/08/03/xbox-crime/ , he was advertising on the Web that he was modding people's consoles for money so that they could play pirated games.
So he explicitely wrote that he was making a business of circumventing protections to allow illegal things, like play pirated games on its consoles.
There just aren't any excuse for this guy, like the original article try to mislead people into thinking him having not done anything wrong.
It's terrifying to me (and a sign of the times) that we can't do what we please with the material we've paid for. Sure, violating copyright is counter productive in the long-run, which is why we have it, but tinkering with stuff has a long proud history.[...] I doubt this guy was doing anything innovating, but he sure won't be doing so now.
But there's no problem with that. Or perhaps there are problems with that, but you won't get caught and won't face potential 10 years in prison.
But if, like this guy (the link : http://www.scpr.org/news/2009/08/03/xbox-crime/ ), you specifically advertise on the Web that you will modify people's consoles for money, so that they can play pirated games, then no wonder you're facing such hardships.
Sure what he was doing wasn't innovating, and I hope he won't be doing so ever again.
The "Wii won"? [...] Yes the Wii is leading compared to each Xbox and PS3 individually
This is exactly what "The Wii won" means. So there are still people like you in denial.
BTW, the Wii didn't even receive a price cut yet, and it's going on to complete its 3rd year in the market. Just saying...
Improvements in graphics are mattering less and less.
If that was the case we would all be still playing pong and enjoying it. :)
Yet the Wii just proved that improvements in graphics are mattering less and less, by outselling even the XB360 in the USA, despite the USA being the core market of the XB360, and it having 1 year headstart. I see that as a very good proof that improvements in graphics are mattering less and less.
You say it as if limiting capabilities is a bad thing. Hopefully it will force the developers to be more creative and we'll get some decent games instead of the same repackaged shite with slightly higher framerate/pixel count/level of detail.
I'm sure that will fail hard.
Look at the Wii! That was Nintendo's message from the start, that developers would have to be more creative with the Wii, as its graphics are good enough, and developers couldn't rely on better graphics.
Look at the game's industry answer! Lots of arrogant developers (mostly western ones, but some japanese ones too) saying they don't even know how to work in a "limited" environment like the Wii, and don't even want to try.
I have a backwards compatible PS3 and PS2 games on my HDTV look very good and are still very playable graphically because my PS3 can up-scale and smooth so "good enough" applies here. PS1 games even the good ones do tend to look grainy so they are not acceptable at least to me so there are now only a few PS1 games I would consider playing now so "good enough" does not apply here.
I'll give you anecdotal evidence : I have a backward compatible PS3 too, and I see very clearly the jagged lines on PS2 games. It doesn't deter anything from the enjoyment.
Like lots of people, I bought FFVII on PSN (fastest selling PSN game for PS1 BTW) which is far worse, and it still doesn't deter from my enjoyment.
So "good enough" applies perfectly well here.
I have a Gamecube and while the games are playable and acceptable on my HDTV (37", 720p) you can pick the reduced graphics quality which does detract from the overall enjoyment of the game. I suppose "good enough" could apply here but I would prefer "just acceptable". So basically if you have a HDTV it is hard to play a game that is made for an SDTV unless that game can be up-scaled and smoothed properly. Unfortunately the larger the HDTV the worse the SDTV graphics looks even when up-scaled and smoothed although "barely acceptable" still comes to mind.
BUt you're wrong anyway. It's funny how you accuse the Gamecube of being the problem, when it's actually your TV that has a problem.
On my HDTV (55" 1080p), the Gamecube games were far more beautiful on it than on my old 50" SDTV. There was just no comparison, the HDTV was better. Then again, I chose a HDTV with good electronics, that render most SDTV programs far better than SDTV (and it's calibrated too).
A HDTV should be a better piece of equipment than a SDTV, and so display SDTV better, or there's no point in buying one, especially if you expect to view SD content on it.
Kuro line of HDTV, which are references, also display SD content better than SDTV.
Also, what you're saying is strange, because the games were far better looking from the Gamecube on my HDTV, than any PS2 games upscaled by PS3, on the same HDTV, where the jaggies were very apparent despite the smoothing.
Like it or not HDTV will replace SDTV and people will want HDTV content hence the move to purchasing HDTV ready game machines such as the Xbox360 and the PS3 which together exceed the overall sales of the Wii although not by a huge amount yet.
Yet in Japan, one of the country with the highest HDTV penetration in the world, with lots of HD content already available, the Wii is trouncing both of its HD competitors.
HDTV vendors were using the Wii in events to promote their HDTV...
It's also funny that you have to put 2 competitors together to finally come to a number bigger than the Wii, and saying it's the situation "yet".
While the truth is that the XB360 was out one year earlier than its competitors, and went down from the highest 100 % market share in its generation, all the way down to below 40 %, with several price cuts already.
You put 2 competitors together, which have a high chance of having overlap, which both had price cuts, new models, and even were out before the sole SD console, which stil have had no price cut, still has only one model (until tomorrow in Japan were the black Wii will be out) available, and you manage to believe in an optimistic outcome for the HD consoles, so that it can validate your theory ?
Well, there's still hope, but I'm amazed at this level of hope.
I think you believe that people buy HDTV primarily for HD. I've always believed they bought them because they were thin.
I think investors are really only looking for a return on their investment for a single generation of hardware. I believe almost everyone overlooks the loss the first XBox took as the price of admission into the console market.
If true then it's bad news, because the division in which XBox is (EDD) is still not profitable as of the latest financial quarter results. They managed a profit for the fiscal year though. But that means they went back in the red after the price drop, and revenues were down.
The Xbox 360 is already the cheaper console out there, and if they react to a Sony price drop, they can expect revenues to go down even more.
On the other hand, the longer this console generations life cycle drags on, the more it plays into MS' hands. If nothing else MS is good at steadily improving their products over time (e.g. the old "don't buy MS software until SP2" rule of thumb).
Except that the console market doesn't work like that at all.
If anything, improving the product as in more technology won't do anything towards its success. It's the entertainement business, people don't care about the consoles features if it doesn't relate directly to entertainment, i.e. if they don't understand right away the benefits.
The problem is that there is a chasm between Xbox interface and the people they want to attract. Changing the controller is one thing, but the GUI ? The services ?
Also, the brands are already set anyway. The previous big attempts of MS to attract casual players, with big advertisements, and involving bought-from-Nintendo-fame Rare, were complete failures.
Usually, only the winner hardware can sell for long times, the losers are always forced to get new hardware out because their sales become so low they're unsustainable.
That's exactly what's happening there. The price cut boost of the XB360 is wearing out and it never sold as much as or more than the Wii despite having a cheaper SKU.
But you're wrong anyway.
You're just taking the worst example you can with what some user willing to destroy his data COULD do on Linux and try to portray it as a common thing that every user on Linux has a chance of doing some hypothetical day.
The example is absurd because this user should switch between knowledgeable and ignorant state at several points to achieve your nonsense scenario.
You don't even have anecdotal evidence, but it won't stop you.
BTW, I have anecdotal evidence : 9 years of ignorant people running under Linux and receiving attachments in their mail, and never once they got their home directory deleted, or anything nasty like viruses. If pirates wanted users home directory deleted, don't worry that most Windows computers would be dead by now, or at least without any of their precious personal data.
Linux doesn't default to granting root privileges, I know. And you don't need root privileges to delete files out of your own home directory. Hence the tilde before the slash: ~/* not /*
Linux does have executable files.
Now, I am not entirely certain it could have the +x flag set on the file after being an e-mailed attachment, though, actually. I could be mistaken there.
Your example is pure nonsense as attachments don't have executable bits set.
You obviously stated a worst possible scenario that tends to be on the absurd side, without even knowing how Linux desktops, apps and OS work. Well done!
On the other hand, you could just bundle it up into an RPM, make it look "real" and people will "install" the "video." If you switch the average Windows user to Linux, they'll know even less about Linux than they do about Windows. They'll install RPMs (or whatever) as quickly as they will install Smilie Packs on Windows. If that means typing in their password - which they'd be used to, by now, if they've been installing updates - then they will type it in.
Nonsense again. You'll at least get security warnings, if it's even possible to do what you say, which I'm pretty sure isn't possible (you usually have to save these files somewhere first). Contrary to videos that play immediately when you click on them (actually, you will be presented with several choices, but never "execute this" one of them), it will be so different from the usual process to look at a video that the ignorant user will most likely abandon right there saying the video doesn't work.
But this is how the game publishers see it:
5 million people are playing my game.
500k people are pirating it.
1 million people are buying it used.
I get $30 for each new copy sold.
Ergo, I am LOSING $15 million to piracy, and I am LOSING $30 million to second-hand sales.
But this is stupid because 4.5 millions copies have been bought, so they didn't actually lose anything to second-hand sales.
Because the 1 million copies that have been bought used, have been bought new, which they got their money from.
And nearly no publisher (Nintendo being the only exception I know of) expect to get their $30 from every copy of their games, as most of them agree to have their games price reduced after some time on the market.
I had a GameCube way back. I found the problem with it was the lack of mature titles as well. The other problem with the Wii is that it does not serve as a "media console". The 360 and PS3 play DVDs and MP3s out of the box. The Wii can't play anything but its own games.
and Gamecube games, and NES games, and SNES games, and Genesis games, and Neo Geo games, ...
The ignorance you display is amazing.
BTW, the Wii is the console with the least problem for now, as newsflash, it's the market leader crushing the HD consoles.
This without being a "media console".
The Wiimote is just a gimmick. If the Sony or MS did a Wiimote type controller and made games to go with (assuming the console prices and games were lower), I'm sure that if the remote is the selling point, Sony and MS would wipe Nintendo's sales off the map.
I'm not surprised you believe that, given how ignorant you are of the actual situation.
The same argument was made with price of the XB360, that once it would be below Wii's price, it would destroy it in sales, and would forced Nintendo to cut the Wii's price.
Actually, there's a XB360 cheaper than the Wii, and the Wii still vastly outsells it everywhere in the world, and the Wii's price still hasn't been cut.
I can predict your scenario is bound to fail miserably too.
Basically, the remote alone is not the selling point of the Wii, as the price alone is not the selling point of the Wii either.
Everyone thought that, and every single game to date has sucked because the original WiiMote does not have 1-to-1 tracking. The WiiPlus supposedly adds that, and maybe then we'll finally get some fun hack and slash games... But I wouldn't hold my breath.
But what you say is BS.
Most Wii games are not simulations, they're games.
1 to 1 is just too much precision for most games, so they're forced to tone it down.
The point of the Wiimote is not to reproduce reality perfectly.
Saying every single game to date has sucked is just stupid anyway, especially when you have 1+ year old games still selling higher than new releases, just from word of mouth. This isn't the behaviour of games that suck.
My brother has hit the same problem. At first the whole Wii-mote concept seemed cool. Looked gimmicky to me so I skipped on it and bought an Xbox 360 (despite me traditionally being a Nintendo person - I've literally owned every home console they've made up until the Wii. I've owned lots of the others too, but I ALWAYS had the latest Nintendo system).
It's funny how every single post from MS astroturfers (or anti Wii trolls, whatever) start all exactly in the same way : I'm the biggest Nintendo fanboy of all, but this time, I magically passed on Nintendo just because. Yours starts exactly as these astroturfers posts.
He liked it for a while. WiiFit was cool and such and he got a few more games like that (Resident Evil 4 he liked), but now the system is just sitting in a corner at his house unused every time I go over there. Any time a new video game commercial shows that looks cool he always makes the comment "You know that looks awesome. Wait till we get to the end of the commercial; I bet it's out on 360 and PS3 but not Wii.". And he's always right. He's not a hardcore gamer by any stretch of the imagination.
So he's part of the strange minority of Wii owners whose Wii is collecting dust because they noticed every cool game on the HD consoles, but managed to miss all the games supposedly made for them on the Wii, like the OP's mentionned MadWorld or HotD Overkill.
You can't imagine how stupid these gamers look, managing to miss the games made for them. Especially when the people that don't know anything about gaming are the ones buying a lot of games for the Wii. With the few games people like your brother buy, that means the people clueless to gaming are buying lots of games to compensate, and for the Wii to reach its insane number of games sold.
I guess they will be pleased to remove the dust on their Wii as lots of games for them are out this year already, and a lot are to come yet.
I guess he went to buy the Conduit, MadWorld, HotD..., right?
If your brother is real, his Wii is not collecting dust anymore since a long time ago. So why did you forgot to mention that?
Even when he's got a game he wants to play through he might put in an hour or two per week tops. Still though, the Wii's kiddified games eventually just don't cut it. It'd be like if every movie that came out from now on were from Pixar. Sure they're "fun for the whole family!", and I can say that I enjoy them quite a bit, but realistically SOMETIMES I want something that's a bit more mature.
What is the problem? The Wii is your brother's console, and you are the one who bought an HD console, so why the complaining?
I agree that the Wii's kiddified games don't cut it, that's why they mostly fail, like EA "All Play" series. Serves them right.
Fortunately, Nintendo put lots of good games on the console, which explains why they run with all the profits.
And people who are not hardcore gamers don't have lots of time to put in games every week, so your brother's behaviour is not shocking at all in this context.
Apparently, over 9.8 million people who bought Final Fantasy VII, a sequel on a Sony console to three or six games (depending on region) that had come out on Nintendo consoles, disagreed with you.
Unfortunately for you, the mainline Final Fantasy games never were sequels of each other. So FFVII is not a sequel of FFVI, which is not a sequel of FFV, ...
So basically you're wrong.
He doesn't get it. The hardcore gamers aren't gone, Nintendo has just tapped into a new market - parents, girlfriends, grandparents, young, old and everything in between.
OK
From what I've seen about my friends and family that play wii (and have never played Playstation or XBOX), they get bored of wii sports/guitar hero/wii fit/etc. after 2 or 3 months and then never pick up their wii again. If anything, the hardcore gamers are the ones that are going to stick around and continue to buy new games
This is just another proof that anecdotal evidence is useless.
In the USA, the Wii, until January 31, 2009, was closing in on the number of games sold on the XBox 360 which is 1 year older (121 million to 124 million games) and has surely past it right now.
These numbers are according to NPD.
If we had to believe your anecdotal evidence, that would mean that the Wii has the hardcore of the hardcore gamers that buy games at an unprecedented rate, far higher than the XBox 360.
Which would destroy this article and nearly all the other retarded ones about the Wii owners demographic and buying habits.
End of January 2009 makes the Wii 26 months old, and the XB360 38 months old. That makes sth like 3.2M games/month for XB360 and 4.7M games/month on Wii.
How is this even possible?
To me, it's saner to think that the people you know are not representative AT ALL of most casual players (and actually have an opposite behaviour), and that casual players on Wii actually buy a lot of games.
But you are free to believe that the Wii is host to the hardcore of the hardcore players.
Maybe the casual gamers have moved on and now only the hardcore gamers remain to purchase new software and peripherals? The Wii is at market saturation nearly everywhere and now it's time for the PS3 and X360 to move ahead at least in month to month sales.
LOL, no! It's just the recurring monthly "Wii is doomed" stupid articles again. It's very simple actually: software sells hardware.
And while PS3 and XB360 got blockbusters lately, like, you know, Ryu Ga Gotoku 3, Street Fighter 4, Resident Evil 5, Star Ocean The Last Hope, actually, in the last 2 months, it's no wonder they sold more.
While the Wii didn't get anything significant since December. Except Animal Crossing and Wii Music which weren't blockbuster, and all from Nintendo. Thus explaining why the Wii sales are going down in Japan.
The Wii is not at market saturation in Japan, it's just at 8 M sold, which is far from 20 M. It just doesn't have any decent software from 3rd parties, despite Nintendo yet again leaving the field wide open for them.
Now 3rd parties have no more excuses of "we can't compete against Nintendo", as even when Nintendo leaves the field open, they don't make anything decent for it.
For some anecdotal evidence I own all three consoles, each one since their own launch date, and I never touch my Wii (cue childish sexual jokes). In the last month I've hammered away at Valkyria Chronicles and Metal Gear Online for my PS3 for hours upon hours every day. For my 360 I play Virtua Fighter 5 and Fallout 3 regularly as well. And between both the PS3 and 360 I play Street Fighter II HD Remix and Street Fighter IV daily as well. My Wii? Maybe when Dead Space Wii comes out I'll plug the console back in but my god has that thing been collecting dust for months.
Your anecdotal evidence is good. It shows you are part of the problem for not buying supposedly hardcore games like MadWorld or House of the Dead or the other hardcore Wii games that got released lately.
So it shows clearly that Nintendo is not killing hardcore gaming, hardcore gaming is actually imploding, killing itself in the process.
Microsoft and Sony are doing this not because they in any way want to do away with hardcore games on their title, but because they want to expand their market.
So 3 years later they finally understand what Nintendo was saying they were doing back in 2006?
Talk about dense competitors.
Ironically, he is suggesting that Nintendo is going to do extremely well because they're pushing the casual games market. Unfortunately, this is why Nintendo will actually fall behind if they don't take action - Microsoft and Sony are moving into casual games whilst also strongly supporting hardcore games, whilt Nintendo isn't diversifying in this way. Effectively, Microsoft and Sony are holding ground in the hardcore market whilst pushing to gain ground in the casual market whilst Nintendo are sat purely in the casual market seemingly refusing to budge into hardcore whilst simultaneously risking having their market share chewed away by Microsoft and Sony.
Unfortunately, you're completely wrong because your premise is wrong. Better hope MS and Sony understood better than you what Nintendo says it's doing since years.
It's very simple to see where you're wrong. You say Nintendo push casual gaming which is completely wrong. Nintendo is pushing games for EVERYONE!
Every time they say it, it falls on deaf ears from their competitors. No wonders the competitors "casual games" are flop after flop.
Nintendo is already doing incredibly well, and will go on doing so, because they don't focus at all on casual games, but on games for everyone. Just looking at their line up show that clearly.
It's just that their more casual oriented games sell more than the other ones.
These talk of Nintendo falling behind are just laughable, and I think no more than wishful thinking drowned in bitter tears of seeing Nintendo crush everyone after all these stupid BS of them dying or going 3rd party.
Seriously. The Wii is pulling numbers in slow months, that any other consoles never pulled outside of holiday months (November and December).
The brands are already set.
The people that started gaming on the Wii are mostly people that would never have bought the PS3 or X360. I don't know where this belief comes that these people, that hardcore gamers are denigrating, would suddenly becomes so highly hardcore gamers that they would buy another console with last gen controls. The only thing that will happen is that people will be pushed to hardcore Wii games.
Even the competition putting out motion controls will only help Nintendo. Now "casual gamers" have the choice of a little HD games library of motion controlled games, or the huge SD games library of the Wii with motion control. The casual gamer will go for the Wii library without even thinking twice.
Wii Fit alone will assure that people won't go to other consoles ("OK, it has HD and all, but does it support Wii Fit?").
To give an example in numbers, what I'm saying is that the hardcore section of the market makes it's profits by selling 10 different games to each of 10 different users, whilst the casual market makes it's profits by selling 1 game to 100 users - both shift as many units, but in a different manner.
Except that even some good hardcore games are losing money en masse, while the good games for everyone are making money hand over fist.
Didn't you hear of all these closing studios since the PS2 era? It just accelerated in this generation, with HD just killing them all even more. Just look at the financial reports: losses after losses.
Even the retarded tie ratio numbers proves you wrong. In the USA, it shows that Wii owners are buying as many games as PS3 owners, which is just one less than XB360 owners.
And it's a huge feat for Wii owners, because most of them have the Wii since far less time than most PS3 or X360 owners, because of the outstanding growth rate of the Wii.
Because when in two months you have say 500 000 more X360 owners, you have
As another fencer, I would have to disagree. There's still too many things that can't be measured with just a wiimote. Wrist angle is the most important, as the wiimote would have no way to verify the wrist was absolutely straight. Body lean, distance between the elbow and body, and foot position are also very important. Simply attempting to teach, or even practice, fencing with a wiimote could lead to poor habits that will be difficult to correct later on. The problems you would create would outweigh any benefit.
I agree with the earlier comment, leave the learning on the piste. Use the wiimote for what it is, a game. A Kendo or fencing game would be great, but a training tool is out of the question.
I completely agree with this.
What's worse is learning how to strike. In japanese fencing arts (perhaps it's the same in western fencing), you don't use the same muscles that people normally use. When it's done well, you can strike a thousand times without being tired, and it's basically the only way to strike effectively with a katana. None of this could be learned with a wiimote, especially not Iaido.
Not because the Wiimote is not precise enough, it sure is, but its form factor is not made for this.
Also, I'm not sure that's what people would consider fun to do, if they're not dedicated to it.
Finally, these martial arts require all kind of attitude that will determine your posture, and they also require an opponent. There's a huge difference with an opponent : you could swing your sword right when no force is opposed to you, but actually do it wrong, which is revealed as soon as an opponent force is applied to you. The Wiimote can never make that happen.
if these so-called pop stars are being made up that way to attract girls, that really doesn't say anything about how they are considered amongst Japanese males.
But guys that attract lots of girls impress other men who don't (which is most), so it all perfectly makes sense.
The protagonist in your typical JRPG is this guy that is very tough and also is attractive to girls.
By sexual identity issues I think the point is that the game has these characters who are supposed to be male but end up looking like girls.
But that's the point, they actually don't look like girls, like not at all.
As for the girly guys, I think it's really drawing on fashion trends in Japan where young guys do sometimes appear somewhat effeminate.
This is what I think is fascinating: they are not girly guys, like not at all.
Those fashion trends you talk about are for music pop stars most of the time, which are made to appeal to girls. So these characters are actually fashioned to attract girls, meaning to be beautiful. How can this become girly guys for some cultures, or rather for some guys? I wonder.
Given the kinds of activities these characters engage in they really should appear tougher and more masculine.
Actually no, they shouldn't. But most western cultures mostly make use of the strength in the higher part of the body, and thus are only being able to see someone as strong if he develops always the same muscles. These are the easier to master because they are the most obvious moves. eastern cultures usually concentrate on all the other muscles and moves that are rarely used, and don't require you to have huge muscles bulging everywhere. The best way to understand that is through traditional martial arts. Meaning, for judo, not the judo you see at the olympics, but the true traditional one. The one that makes experts that go stronger when they get older (up to 70 years older and older), while westernized ones must give up after reaching 35 (and I'm generous).
When you understand, or rather feel this cultural difference, there is no way slender characters look girly at all.
But I bet only younger gamers find them girly, I'm sure even in the USA, older gamers have no problem with these characters, and don't think of them as girly.
I was impressed by what I saw. The series has been on a downward slide for me since FFIX, but after watching the demo I think I'm ready to jump back into the pool again. I plan on importing this if it gets released on time in Japan, as I'll actually be over there when it gets released here.
For me, the series is on a downward slide since FFVIII, FFVIII being my worst FF ever (still didn't finish it and probably never will). I'm still mixed about importing this one. I wasn't impressed at all actually, but I have a better feeling than before, when I believed it would be a complete failure. It's still not good enough for me to buy the demo though. Oops, I mean, buy the movie (which is region free, or at least works with region A and B BRD players) with the demo.
One comment though, any other Japanese speakers notice the manner Lightning was speaking in? After years of male protagonists who could get mistaken as chicks, now we have a female protagonist who talks like a dude. For once I'd like to see a protagonist with no sexual identity issues and no antisocial behavior. Is that even possible anymore?
You lost me there.
Someone who has enough japanese culture to notice that Lightning was talking like a dude can't at the same time say things like "male protagonists who could get mistaken as chicks", because only someone with no japanese culture and feeling very insecure would say sth like this. Sth that just isn't true.
I've yet to see a FF protagonist with sexual identity issues. Same for antisocial behaviour (there may be one or two though, which depends on the story).
But I see this said a lot by mostly USA gamers, who seem to have huge problems of insecurity as soon as sth could remotely make them labeled as gay.
So I see lots of these comments, and it's fascinating to read, because I just can't understand where is this coming from.
Usually, it seems like "blond spiky hair" is enough for some USA gamers to believe someone has "sexual identity issues". The mind boggles...
I've had the general feeling that Lightning had the behaviour of a man, but didn't really realise why. I dismissed it as being only because of the way she moves, but it didn't strike me that she was talking like a man. I'll check that.
It's the Atari 2600 syndrome all over again. 2000+ games, the vast majority of which were cack. People just gave up buying and the whole market collapsed.
No it's not, at all.
In the Atari 2600 syndrome, there were lots of console clones on the market too, not just lots of games. And by clones I mean lots of consoles that had no differenciation from each other.
This generation of console is not the same thing at all, with one console clearly differentiated from the others, being the clear market leader.
If lots of bad games will do sth, that will be to force the same 3rd parties that put them out, to advertise heavily their good games, unless they see them drown among the bad ones. Of course, there are other drawbacks, like people starting to recognise the companies that put out the bad games, and avoiding them at all costs.
3rd parties are killing themselves since the start of this generation and it will only become more apparent as the generation goes on.
Nintendo's advantage was always going to decay in the second half of the cycle. Despite the arrival of the economic downturn, HDTVs are continuing their steady penetration of the home TV market.
Which Nintendo's advantage are you talking about? Given its sales growth, the Wii has not yet entered its second half of the cycle.
People were touting how the XB360 didn't have a price drop 18 months after its release. Yet, the Wii is nearly 2.5 years old and still has not seen one single price drop. So they still have the advantage of price drop, colors and redesign. You can add the new control scheme. What exactly is decaying?
It's funny you talk about HDTV. These are old rehashed stupid debunked arguments from 2005 though. You believe people buy HDTV because of HD?
Whatever, but the Wii, despite the arrival of the economic downturn, is posting huge sales in february, sales that the other consoles usually get in november only, the highest month for sales behind december. It was above 700k consoles sold in the USA alone this february. Despite the economic downturn, that stupid analysts, who once again show how clueless they are about Nintendo's strategy, said was going to be hit harder by this economic downturn.
The technological gap between the Wii and its competitors is going to start becoming more apparent to the average game-player (which is to say, people who don't see themselves as gamers, but do buy and play the odd game).
Still the same silly argument. A console is not in the technology business, it's in the entertainment business. Just like movies.
If people don't care about your games, HD will not make them care more. People don't care about the technological gap, they care about the entertainment value.
A SD movie looks better for most people than any HD game. Same for a HD game versus a SD one. People just don't care, and rightly so, as it's not what's important.
Moreover, the Wii-mote isn't quite the "cool new thing" like it once was. After the hype of the first year or two, there's a growing recognisation that it's basically a fun little gizmo which is good for some types of game and dreadful for others. It's fairly clear now that there are plenty of genres where it won't supplant the more traditional console controller, or the keyboard+mouse combo.
LOL, it's a fad amirite?
That's why it sold 700k in february 2009 in the USA alone? That's why it sells more than any other home consoles worldwide every month?
The guys that publish those genres that don't translate well to motion control, or rather to the Wii controller, should go to task quickly to find some gameplay that does, unless they want to die with their genre. Keyboard + mouse now? This is getting pathetic really. We're talking consoles, things you play in your living room with others, not closed in your dorm room in front of a computer.
It's cool because your post clearly puts out nearly every real reason why all these publishers are taking heavy losses, and what's wrong with them.
The Wii market isn't actually as big as it appears. In reality, it's quite possibly smaller than the 360 and PS3 markets.
Nintendo did a great job of selling the Wii to non-gamers. They've got a huge installed base out there now and should, in theory, have the kind of market dominance that the PS2 enjoyed last time around. But they don't.
And it begins... Some people stil have not recovered from the shock of the Wii's success it seems. Actually, what isn't as big as it appears is the HD consoles market. People in the game industry are so desperate, that they try to put the HD consoles together and try to beleive they have a market as big as the Wii, but this is not the case at all.
The Wii market is actually bigger than it appears. As this article is centered around the USA, let's stay there. No need to talk about the two other big markets, where the Wii just obliterates its HD competition (Japan), or put them to shame (Europe).
USA is less clear, with the year headstart of XB360 alone on the market. The Wii flew past the XB360 in installed base. Cognitive dissonance impose to the people shocked by this to say that the Wii market is not as big as it seems because of non-gamers. But NPD, the very company that puts the USA games sales every month for the USA and Canada, said explicitely that the Wii is selling more games than the HD consoles since early last year.
Then MS retaliated by saying that 3rd parties still sold most on their console. Yet, NPD also revealed explicitely that the Wii sells more 3rd parties than the HD ones since november 2008. And it consistently does since then, despite blockbusters going out for the HD consoles, and nothing new for the Wii.
Actually, the growth seen in the games industry is entirely thanks to the Wii console and its market, with unprecedented hardware sales and software sales.
If someone actually believes (and not wishful thinking) that the Wii market is lower than it seems despite obliterating its competitors in the USA, it only contradicts their point that non-gamers don't buy games : they would have to buy far more games for the WIi than gamers for HD consoles.
The "PS2 market dominance" bitter people are talking about, that the Wii lack, is only the 3rd parties support. The Wii is dominating even better than the PS2. The PS2 was first to market among the 3 staying competitors, and rode on PS1 success. The Wii is dominating more than the PS2 was despite no correct support from 3rd parties, and not being first to market among the 3 competitors.
See, the flip side of selling consoles to non-gamers is that they are... well... non-gamers. If you look at the weekly games sales charts, the only Wii games that really make an impact are Wii Sports, Wii Fit and, to a lesser degree, Mario Kart Wii. All games that are bundled with the Wii console in the most common packages. Elsewhere, the chart is dominated by your Call of Duty games, your Resident Evils, your Maddens and so on.
It was apparent you didn't know what you are talking about, and this sets it. Wii Fit and Mario Kart Wii are not bundled with the Wii in any common package. ... sell more on the Wii, there's a reason.
Especially these two games that come with peripherals. Only Wii Sports is bundled with the console.
It's funny also that you manage to mistake the NPD top 10 with "weekly games sales charts". Actually, the weekly games sales charts show thme full of Wii games, even 3rd party ones despite them being of lower quality. Because if the 1st party games cited sell more than 10 millions units each, it's just because they're the best games on the console, those with the most effort put into them, on the best selling console with the bigger market.
If the Wii games you magically forgot about, like Guitar Hero, Tiger Woods,