Gnome's file browser takes 5 seconds on my home PC (Athlon, 2GHz, 3GB) to list a 161 entry directory. A virtualised W2K instance on the same box takes less than 1 second to list the same directory - even though it's running in a VM and has to go through SAMBA on the host to access the directory. When doing this, I took precautions to ensure no entries were cached on either instance.
What do you mean by that? What you're talking about was a problem years ago, I remember seeing developers talking about it, and it was fixed a long time ago. So I wonder what you mean by "takes 5 seconds". Mine clearly doesn't have this problem since years. Also, which distribution are you using? This is a problem worth taking upstream, whining about it won't do any good. But really, this problem should be fixed.
This beside the fact that Windows Explorer is broken, so that when you put the drawer view on the left, often it won't update, even with few directories. Or it will show directories that supposedly contains other directories, when actually they don't. Common tricks to be faster, but my Gnome file browser (Nautilus) was always faster after the fix, without those tricks.
Monopoly? There are plenty of OSes around, they may not work as good in general as Windows does, but that don't make monopoly the reason stick with Windows. The reason is it's the best for their purpose.
Is that so? Is it the reason why we have to put some companies through lawsuits for them to give us back the money for the forced Windows OS on every PC, even though I don't need it? So everyone that don't want the OS forced on the PC they buy at retail actually goes through this effort? News to me.
Inertia? Yes, if it's not broken why fix it? Also what would be the better alternative for most people? You seriously suggest most people would feel more happy with say Ubuntu than Windows? I think some of them have even tried, and thought not...
I must have dreamed all these days lost helping people with their Windows. I also dreamed when I told them all I was not fixing their Windows anymore, but I can put Linux on their PC for them. Those that switched I think I put them through Mandrake, then Ubuntu. Those that didn't switch, ended up either not using their PC anymore, or buying another one (which still don't work right). All of this was a dream.
Applications and what you can do with your computer matters much more than having a superior solution. Without applications it's useless.
Which is exactly why some people like me switched years ago to Linux. A long time since I answered to this kind of troll though, but I was in the modd, good times...
I did not say the Wii was a poor gaming machine. I just think it is aimed at a different market.
It's aimed at the videogame market, or the larger entertainment market, that is true. Sure enough, it's not always so clear with PS3 and XB360, with loads of features put forward that go against games. For example, movies are competing with videogames in the entertainment market.
The wii untill the the price cuts started happening was the cheapest console. That helped them sell heaps of consoles.
And after XB360 price cuts, it broke records it set up the year before, selling 2 M consoles in november 2008, or selling 700 k consoles in january 2009 in USA alone. What helped them exactly at that time ? If they sell more when they're not the cheapest than when they're the cheapest, sth tells me the price was not what helped made it sell, like you say. I give you that it was supply constrained and still is. But XB360 still doesn't even reach the Wii's sales despite having a cheaper model.
the actual games per console sold showed the wii had less games sales per console sold making it a great selling console but not a great game selling console if you get what I am trying to say here.
What you're trying to say is completely wrong. If you want to know if the console sells games, the ratio is completely useless. Game makers are not paid by a ratio, they're paid by raw numbers of games sold. Make the calculation yourself, you'll see the Wii is a great game selling console, it was already greater at selling games before it even caught up to the XB360 actually. The attach rate of the Wii is low for the simple reason that it sells hardware so fast, and people can't keep up, as their time of ownership is low. The Wii is already selling twice as fast (or faster) than the XB360, with 1 year less on the market. All these people would need to buy many times more games than XB360 owners to reach the same attach rate. Attach rate is a misleading measure which was perfect for MS cherry picking, as the slower your console sells, the faster your attach rate grows. But unprecedented fast selling consoles like the Wii of course can't keep a high attach rate, at least in the beginning. Every single MS misleading points melted to nothingness every month, all they were left with lately was "XB360 sells more 3rd party software". Alas, even that is not true anymore since november 2008, when they stopped talking about that. All they're left with now is Metacritic scores (LOL).
Nothing competes with the 360 for online gaming.
That's your opinion only. Perhaps you're not conscious of your bias. I'm pretty sure Mario Kart players think nothing competes with the Wii (or DS) for online gaming. Paying to play online already makes it the worse system for online gaming for all those people (and even for PC hardcore gamers).
Based on what? how is it clearly the far better system to have in the living room?
Simple, objective : based on its sales. I said "OK, that's your opinion. But now, for the videogame market, the Wii is clearly the far better system to have in the living room.". And you replied with "movies" related things the PS3 can do. This is exactly the problem, I'm talking the videogame market, you talk "movies". People buy a console to play games.
I am not delusional. I know they are competing in the game console sector, but really are suited for different groups of people so therefor should not be directly competing for their audience.
You're still into that "different groups of people" thing ? Whatever. People woke up in shock at every step of the Wii's domination, and this one will surely be another shock to you when you realize it's not true. The worst thing is that the DS went through the same nonsense. Now, the DS is seen for everyone, but it wasn't always the case. I suppose Nintendo always
Sony should start releasing some old classics. Be it free downloads, chap downloads or updates to old games that people would jump on.
Final Fantasy WAS a Nintendo title till Sony came along...it worked before, do it again.
I for one would love to see updates to games like: Dragon Warrior, Battletoads, Contra, Ghouls & Ghosts, RC Pro AM, Baseball Stars and BaseWars...etc.
It's too late for releasing most of those old classics. They're available on the Wii virtual console already. Unfortunately, the brands are installed now, it's too late to change anything.
And Final Fantasy never was a Nintendo title. It always was a Squaresoft title, and then a Square Enix title. These beliefs that 3rd parties' flagship games are tied to a console are part of what put Sony and its fans in this situation this generation.
PS3 is a great gaming system with really nice media center features etc. Xbox 360 is a great gaming system with really good online gaming solution. Far superior online system to Playstation network but you pay for it so meh. Wii is perfect for when the mates come around etc or friends or family for a social visit. Its a hit with my young nieces and nephews, but also a hit with my mother so its very popular. However as an out and out gaming machine the wii graphics are very poor but the social benefits of its setup are plenty.
What ? Wii is a great gaming system, and its graphics are not "very poor". This is pure nonsense, but I see where you come from. Or are you saying the PS2 is not a great gaming system, as its graphics are even "poorer" than the Wii's, and it was still outselling the XB360 when it was alone on the "next-gen" market and even after ? The Wii is just as great a gaming system as its competitors actually. No, actually, it's better, and the sales show it.
Sooo, where am I going with this state the damn obvious here......
The only thing that was obvious here was your bias.
Sony's product IMO is a far better system to have in the living room. I mean you can actually copy movies and music onto the damn thing unlike the 360 (yeah I know direct cd import but not mp3 support???) So to me the extra price is actually worth it!
OK, that's your opinion. But now, for the videogame market, the Wii is clearly the far better system to have in the living room.
Sony are not really competing with Nintendo or Microsoft here as their machines all concentrate on different aspects. PS3 = Home entertainment system Xbox 360 = Gaming system with kickass online play Wii = Family casual gaming fun. So not really competing here in terms of what they are trying to offer. Well the only problem here is that somebody forgot to tell the consumer that they are not competing. They see Call Of Duty World at War on all three systems. To most people they see all three as gaming systems pure and simple and do not know they differences between the xbox 360 and the ps3 and usually go for the cheaper ones.
Unfortunately, Sony forgot to tell Sony that they weren't competing with Nintendo and Microsoft, as most of their PR include Nintendo and Sony, most of their comparisons do too. They also forgot to tell every single analyst out there that all still believe that XB360 and Wii are competing with PS3. Even the developers didn't understand that and make games for all 3 consoles, and even more (DS, PSP, PS2). Actually, you and a bunch of other people are the only ones still believing that they're not competing one against each other. I would call you delusional, but perhaps the world is wrong and you're right.
I know the parents who are purchasing the systems do... If you ask a salesman, whats the difference between the Ps3 and the Xbox 360, the most common answer will just be "The PS3 has a built in Blue Ray player which the xbox 360 does not have". In reality there are many more pros and cons that can in use would change their minds about the console they would like. So overall I beleive the PS3 is worth the sale price, but most consumers will not see it that way and they only thing for Sony to do now is drop those prices and try and compete in the consumers ignorant eyes.
LOL, the "consumers ignorant eyes" ? It confirms I know where you come from. It's not the consumer's job to go to your product, it's your job to put your product in consumers' hands. The consumers, the market, will then decide the value of your product, and will weigh the value against the price. Some people have a hard time admitting that the Wii has a higher value, and the PS3 has higher value than the XB360. The PS3 has a higher price tag than XB360, and it sells as much with sales aligned, so its value is clearly better. It's even better when
There's a reason there's a long list of former PS3 exclusives that have Xbox 360 versions: DMC4, FFXIII spring to mind immediately, and rumors have it that Konami is considering porting MGS4 due to poor sales. There are others, (basically any 3rd party game developed for the PS3, ever) but I'm too lazy to look them up.
OK. You're even including rumors in your facts, which shows how well thought out your reply is. Now, can you explain why some XB360 former exclusives are going to PS3 too ? Because of poor sales ? Bioshock, Eternal Sonata comes to mind. There are also rumors of Mass Effect coming to PS3. There are others, (basically any 3rd party game developed for the XB360, ever) but I'm too lazy to look them up.
Seems to me like XB360 and PS3 are in the exact same boat.
And just where exactly did you "cherry pick" your statistics from?
I don't own an XBox, nor PS, but I'd like to know how your statistics are so absolute.
What ? LOL, these numbers are taken right from TFA, using exactly the same data the "analysts" talk about. It's absolutely right that for now, the PS3 sells faster than the XB360 despite the higher price point. You can see this clearly if you align launches. You've clearly been fooled by MS cherry picking. Most people don't realize it, because Nintendo flew past MS, despite being 1 year younger, so it skews most people's visions.
So basically you contradict yourself ? You CAN PLAY the Wii ONLINE without having to pay anything more. The XB360 is the only console that requires that you pay a yearly or monthly fee to play online against others.
Mostly it's due to the controller, which on the 360 is FAR better then the PS3 one.
Actually, that depends on preferences and the kind of games you play. The XB360's D-pad is notoriously flawed, so not good at all for fighting games for example.
Anyway, all of this doesn't matter. What will make you want to buy the console are some features (like no region lock for example), and mainly the games, or rather exclusive games.
dditionally, any student of MS product history will know that by version 3 of a product they've usually got the formula down and understand the market pretty well.
It's funny that you say that, because any student of MS product history also knows that : - they typically don't understand most of the markets they enter, and don't know how to compete, - if they can't use their OS monopoly, they usually fail hard, - they're $6 billion in the hole with their XBox brand since launch (actually $9 billion if we count their R&D before launch), - they typically didn't understand the videogame market, as they made a console catered essentially to hardcore gamers, which are not the mass market for consoles, - they went after Sony, which is far from understanding the market (Nintendo made nearly as much profit as SCE during their PS reign).
SCE never understood the market, it's pretty obvious. But they had the strength and distribution channels to do what Nintendo couldn't do before : distribute their console worldwide (especially Europe) despite the constant barrage of lawsuits made to stop them. They then thought their loss leading business model was working, and believed the market was mainly cinematic games and hardcore gamers. The logical result of that belief is the PS3, but unfortunately, while previously they were in line with the market (luck ?), they just discovered the true videogame market, and it's not in line with the PS3.
These articles are typical examples of why analysts get it wrong most of the time, especially regarding gaming. The articles on the iPhone try very hard and yet make no sense. You can see the wishful thinking, when an article is getting back and forth talking about different things to mislead the reader into believing they have a point. Thus, "40 million devices or more a year that are capable of playing games" is then mixed with iPhone. None of the gaming demographics are even taken into account. The sales curve is not taken into account, the kind of product isn't either. Thus, these analysts expect children to carry away iPhones/iTouch for gaming like they would carry away a DS. Actually they don't talk about the DS much, as it would destroy their argument fast. That's why they mainly talk about PSP. Also, features necessary for mobile gaming are quickly forgotten to talk about interface or number of games so that the reader is lured into believing nothing else is important. They won't talk about battery life or instant sleep mode or things like that. No, they try to tell people that sensitive feedback is useless. They talk about number of games like the games they're talking about are the same, citing a few that are equivalent to handheld consoles, to blur the line.
Wishful thinking, there is so much in those articles, my head spins.
Prince of Persia is a huge bomb sales wise. Now the question is why? This analysis would lead us to understand that it was on the wrong console then. Especially this tidbit from the OP: "as Young notes, modern controllers are designed for players who have been gaming since they were kids, and have evolved to be more complicated to operate than an automobile. The combination of these factors therefore limits or prevents the interest of new players; a problem Prince of Persia has addressed well through intuitive controls and the lack of punitive time sinks."
There is the problem. The audience to whom this was adressed, is not on PS3 or XB360. The game didn't solve anything, as the people scared by these modern controllers just won't buy the consoles that come with them. There's only one home console this generation that solved this, and this is the only one where Prince of Persia wasn't released. Go figure. So basically, they published a game that solves only half of the problem, but unfortunately, they released it for the wrong audience.
The audience on PS3 and XB360 is not scared by these old mechanics, and don't want what they think are dumbed down mechanics. Those that are veterans but still wanted this to change also bought a Wii, but they're not the bulk of the audience needed.
This just shows this PoP was a very stupid move, these 3rd parties look more and more stupid as time passes.
Of course, what you say doesn't make any sense, as North America is the strongest Wii market, meaning where it sold and is selling the most. What you say looks even more ignorant when you learn that the sales of the Wii are breaking record left and right in non-holiday months. The current sales of the Wii in NA are what you usually see in holidays months for other consoles. The Wii is selling faster than any home consoles in history, and they're producing more Wii than the PS2 ever produced every months. So these rumours are pure BS, surely spawn by the competition. But they're ineffective: the Wii still claim the most consoles sold in nearly every country around the world for this generation of consoles... with one year disadvantage against the XBox 360. And NA is XB360 strongest market too. Quite impressive.
The DS which is a hand-held and belongs in a different category to the Wii which is a console.
They're in a different category but both are consoles. The DS is a handheld console and the Wii is a home console.
If you wish to compare then you need to compare the DS (75.8 million world wide) to the PSP (38.3 million world wide). Before the fan-boys start waving the flag there are few reasons why the DS leads the PSP. The first reason the DS's Nintendo brand is synonymous with gaming and the second is if you consider that most parents when choosing a hand-held for their child would chose the DS because it is cheaper and can take more punishment than the PSP.
It's obvious you are the fanboy. So you're telling us Playstation and Sony is not synonymous with gaming? After the Playstation and PS2 success? Either you're ignorant, or you're part of the fanboys that said at DS and PSP launch, that PSP would destroy the DS. Every reporter in the industry said Nintendo was in panic mode when they released the DS. The true reason why the DS is destroying the PSP is because of Nintendo's games. The DS and PSP hardware totals were pretty much equal, until Nintendo released it's new IP like Nintendogs or Brain Training. That's when DS pulled forward and never looked back. The hardware can give a false idea of the big picture, as software wise, the DS is destroying the PSP competition even more. PSP software sales are really poor compared to the DS software sales.
The Wii is actually in a category of its own since it is the only Standard Definition console out of the PS3 and Xbox 360. It is also very popular since the majority of its games cater to the casual gamer.
The reason why the Wii is very popular is not the one you gave. It's far more sophisticated than this nonsense. Exactly like your nonsense about the DS. You read like a blinded fanboy actually.
I have had nearly every Nintendo machine since the NES and have enjoyed many games on them. What has turned me off the Wii is that the only games that are interesting to me have been milked again and again to the point were I don't want to play the latest Zelda, Metroid or Mario game. Even the graphics which should appear better then the Gamecube's (which I have) appear to have been poorly implemented and on a large screen HDTV the graphics appear to be worse.
The graphics of the Wii appear very good on my large screen (55") HDTV, but whatever. You're a perfect example of someone that can't understand what Nintendo is doing, and you're the proof that if Nintendo had counted on gamers like you, the Wii would be dead. You say yourself that you're jaded and don't want to play their games. Don't worry, they understood that in the Gamecube era, when you and your fellow gamers didn't buy their more powerful console. So they found other customers. Fair enough.
OK, I have a OPPO DV-981HD (arguably one of the best upconverting DVD players on the market) connected via HDMI to a 55" Sony SXRD KDS55A2000 AEP (Europe version). Everything has been properly calibrated. Upconverted to 1080p (my display's native resolution), all my DVD look like BETTER than they were on my old 52" SDTV.
BTW, like I said, if you have a poop display, your content will like poop, and FYI, LCD is the worst HDTV technology quality wise. It's pretty common knowledge that it delivers the worst experience with SD content (with numerous inherent defects like smearing, screendoor, poor black levels, banding,...). So I'm not surprised, and it just confirms what I said : a poop display will make the content look like poop.
HDTV is one of the sole technology where there are supposedly improved hardware that can't render old content as good as on poorest hardware. At least that's the case for the most sold technology : LCD. SD content should look better on a good HDTV than on SDTV, and it actually does on good ones.
I don't think so. The ISPs are not going to want to face Microsoft, Google, Apple, Disney, and Sony. Yes I know that it seems that it is a battle of who can buy the most congressmen but Microsoft, Google, Apple, Disney, and Sony all have deep pockets and they all feel this is a battle they must win. This is an obvious narrow view, and thus completely false. Unless you think the USA alone can decide all of this. Even in the USA alone, I doubt the ISP are so powerless.
If need be Google and Microsoft both have the bucks to become the worlds largest ISPs. They both have the technology base and the motivation if the ISPs get too nasty with them. But they don't have the infrastructure. I can tell you right now, that NO, they can't become the largest ISP in any Europe country, or even in Japan, so I doubt they can become the world's largest ISP. This is wishful thinking at best. The USA is not the world, as it seems you don't realize that.
Because one thing that Microsoft does better than almost any other company is look to the future. They seem more than willing to sacrifice $1 billion today (or $20b for Yahoo!) if they think there is a good chance of $2 billion in a few years. For example, I believe last year their video game department finally broke even (don't quote me on that). So, for 7 years, they lost money to develop a new market. So much flamebait... The one thing that MS does better than any other company sure enough is not look in the future. You could say that of Nintendo for the videogame market, but MS? Come on! FYI, last quarter, their videogame department was still $6.5 BILLIONS in a hole since the start of XBox brand. They're far from having broken even. $6.5 Billions of loss in 7 years is not what I call being good at looking in the future, unless the threat from Sony was really huge. What you read is that they were finally in the black the two last quarters, not that they broke even, they're far from reaching that point.
The second sentence is a clueless statement. Every BluRay player is able to output 1080p through HDMI, as that's the default format for HD media output, every consumer grade ones are outputting 1080p through HDMI, that's the spec.. Same for movies, 1080p being the default encoding. Documentaries are another beast, where some parts can even be SD (Planet Earth for example).
The actual "hard" part, is selecting the correct display, which will be able to show all of the 1920x1080 pixels of a 1080p frame, at standard rates.
Which war? Nintendo is a videogame company, and everything it makes is videogame related. Nintendo never intended to do anything but make money in the videogame business, and the only war in which they participate is the videogame console war. As such, they already won it, and are raking up the profit.
Videogame war implies hardware AND software sales. If you believe one way or another that BluRay will make Sony win the videogame consoles war, you're in for a rude awakening. Perhaps the PSP precedent wasn't enough for some people to open their eyes.
For starters, I know a lot more about Japanese culture than you'd think. I also know that it has basically no bearing on how well a Japanese-developed game does outside of Japan. The term "JRPG" doesn't need to imply a cultural theme, and usually doesn't. Just because JRPGs can draw on specifically Japanese culture doesn't mean they do or that it is this cultural infusion that drives their commercial success.
Wow! And as you resort to name calling, excuse me if I avoid a troll like you from now on. I shouldn't even have answered the constant strawmen you put in all your posts. I see you love putting words in other peoples mouth. And you call me disingenuous. In case you didn't notice, I saw your scheme from the start.
I'm not going to argue numbers with you and how much of a future Microsoft's gaming division has. It's not even the point of this discussion.
It wasn't mine either. My point was, as far as we got, the sole future of JRPG genre on the XB360.
As for the last bit of your response, you really ought to be ashamed of yourself. First you claim that Western devs can only make shooters, racers, and sports games.
That's what they do best is what I said, yes.
A subjective and baseless claim. I provide counterexamples with commercially and critically successful games from RPG and RTS genres, but that goes right over your head and you assume I'm talking only about sheer numbers when those games have set standards for their respective genres or sub-genres as far as all developers across the world are concerned.
Yeah, a 10 years old RTS and 7 years old RPG which is no JRPG, but a WRPG. I see your point. I'll even concede I left RTS out, on purpose, because the latest high profile one in the genre is a japanese one, so I've made it a tie. But as it's more represented on PC with western devs, I'll concede the point to you, even though we're not talking PC games here, but XB360 games. I bet you would have felt better if I told you the same thing for japanese devs, or if I inverted the sentence : "japanese devs are really behind in genres like shooters and uh...". No, I couldn't decently write "racers and sports" because of Gran Turismo for example. I understand you like these pissing contests though, and take them very seriously to boot.
You further continue with "games on XBL" which has *nothing* to do with the games I presented, showing that you don't actually have a clue about what you're discussing.
I'll explain myself better (even though I know you're trolling). I was talking about the games most played online on the XB360, but I'm sure you understood that very well. And it had everything to do with what I was talking about, which are the most played genres on the XB360. Anyway, I told you already, you're very transparent. That you had to tell me about very old PC games when we're talking the XB360 game library is enough to me.
Let me make it clear: Western game developers have, either in the past or recently, revolutionized a number of mainstream genres, including fighting games, and your ignorance of the majority of these contributions is inexcusable if you choose to go toe-to-toe with me like this.
Wow! Now you're going to go as far as believeing I said your own strawmen? You are the one who believe your own nonsense that I don't know what Starcraft or BG II is. You must have wrongly believed that I was 15 and didn't know these games or Bioware, or that I hate western devs. I'd rather not tell you I have the two BG and their extensions, Neverwinter Nights and all the extensions except the online only ones (but I have the free one they rejected), you wouldn't believe me.
Frankly I'm surprised you entered the conversation to begin with given your knowledge of basically nothing here. It seems to me you're basically a troll who dislikes non-Japanese games.
It seems to me you're a troll that believes his own
If the combat system is enough for you to classify a game by genre and simply regard the rest of the gameplay as "additional elements" then a) you're arguing from a position that's not common to most folks, especially w.r.t. RPGs b) you make me laugh because at the same time you don't what 'real-time RPG' means. Let me help you out: it means 'not turn-based' with regards to combat. Morrowind as opposed to Mario RPG, for instance. OK right. And I can tell the sole reason people are even calling this game a RPG, is because it's made by Bioware. The game plays and feels exactly like a 3rd person shooter, when you move or when you combat. With a cover system... OK, and I'm the one arguing from a position not common to most folks w.r.t. RPGs. Just tell me it's made by Bioware, try to be honest at least. I don't want to argue this with you anyway, except that it has nothing to do in replacement of a JRPG.
As for Blue Dragon, that game was also marketed terribly in the US. Halo, Gears, Mass Effect -- these games had a presence in retail stores. They had pre-orders being collected. They had TV ads on non-VG-dedicated channels. Blue Dragon, not so much. Besides that, it wasn't good enough to become a "sleeper hit" the way some other poorly-marketed-but-good games do. It just wasn't. OK right. But I can tell you every JRPG fan knew about this game, I know this at least. Which confirms to me that the JRPG fans on XB360 is ridiculously small, and that these games will all fail.
JRPGs *can and do* perform well in the US, just look at Playstation software sales. (And hardware sales driven by the JPRG games.) They just need to be marketed well (look at Kingdom Hearts), and there has to be something decent to market in order to keep the sales afloat and people with 360s interested. So basically, every JRPG outside of FF will fail on XB360. Thanks for the confirmation.
Anyway, to say that the JRPG game design needs to draw on Japanese culture, well that's a rather baseless claim. For success in Japan, that may help (though to say the absense would hurt is merely an assumption), but for success in the US and Europe, hardly.
Any amount of knowledge of japanese culture would show you otherwise as for the "baseless claim". And the previous japanese hits that were released outside Japan weren't tailored for western audience, except for the usual censorship.
I'm well aware of the RPGs released so far on all consoles, and I know how poorly Blue Dragon did. That it's *not really a good game* isn't to blame, though, is it? ~_^
It's strange, really. Every XB360 owner that has this game want to tout it as the best JRPG of its kind. But when I hear every other XB360 owner that don't want this game, they all say it's a bad game. Myself, I wouldn't buy this game, I think it's a poor DQ clone, but I would never say that to the XB360 owners that have this game. It's very interesting how blinded some of the XB360 owners can be. And this is a game paid a fortune by MS money to boot.
As for correcting me that it's not DBZ character design but rather Toriyama Akira design, how's that for disingenuity considering he designed both Dragon Ball characters and Blue Dragon characters and they are noticeably similar? My comment at least shined a light on the unoriginal design in the 360 game.
Thus why I was disingenuous. You wouldn't have done that for a successful game that uses his design, like DQ VIII. So, NO, the design was not the cause of this game being "bad", or at least sell poorly, as you claim. Or you'll further my feeling that all JRPG are doomed on XB360.
As for fighting games, my comment regarding the Smash Bros series is fully valid. To assume that if it's easy to improve on the game someone would have already done it is flawed because to date no competent developer has even bothered to. Why they haven't escapes me, but publishers aren't always in tune with *the whole* of what will sell and tend to go with what they are most comfortable with.
I rather think that the reason is that it's developed by Nintendo. Most developers are scared to go againts them. See Capcom and its Okami. They must have insured with Nintendo that it was no problem to put it on Wii, as they previously said it would never happen, for fear of competing with Zelda.
Smash Bros also doesn't prove me wrong about fighters not having progressed much. Brawl isn't out yet, and to say that we've seen a big jump from the original to Melee would be stretching the truth.
Except that I was talking about Melee, which was the evolution you say never happened in 10 years. It did, it was Melee. And you can have your opinion that there wasn't a big jump from Melee to Brawl, but excuse me to think otherwise, when I see the histery that follows each "big" revelation of new feature on the Brawl website.
Regarding your last comment, the NA market is still the biggest gaming market in the world. Europe is a close-enough second. The XBox 360 is doing well in those regions so far, especially in terms of software sales. So yes, things are good for the console.
I'll let you believe that then... I've no need to argue. If I was to argue that would be on Europe only anyway. And if you think that a console brand that lost $7 BILLIONS ($3 BILLIONS for the XB360 alone) is fine with decent *3rd party* software sales in one gaming region, the biggest one, well, good for you. I'll keep my view that this is very bad. I would go as far as to say that it is very dangerous for 3rd party, to rely solely on good sales in one region, on a console that is on life support since the start from a company that can pull the plug whenever it deems necessary (PlayForSure.... You'd better pray for Playstation brand long survival then... Unless you think MS is losing billions for your pleasure,
Mass Effect is not "yet another third person shooter with RPG elements." You either have a very narrow definition of "RPG" all the way down to the combat system, or you haven't played the game, or both. Mass Effect is a real-time RPG with a 3rd person shooter *combat system.* Excuse me? you just described a third person shooter with RPG elements. Thanks! "real time RPG"? That doesn't even mean anything. Anyway, the argument was that it had nothing to do with a JRPG, and uh, it doesn't, any way you look at it. There is a japanese SRPG with optional 3rd party shooter stages, but more in a RPG like fashion, not like Mass Effect. Perhaps that will work better with the XB360 user base.
It's not "JRPG"s that bomb on the 360 I'd say but "bad games" on the whole. Bad games that happen to be all JRPG. OK right, whatever...
Blue Dragon was simply not a good enough game. Eternal Sonata is somewhat esoterically designed and it was hardly marketed as far as I could tell. When a *good* JRPG, something on the level of FFXII or a Golden Sun makes its way onto the 360 and despite being marketed does poorly, then your generalization would certainly have some weight to it. For now I believe it is unfounded. Except that Blue Dragon was directed by the director of the first 9 Final Fantasy, Hironobu Sakaguchi, and everything was paid for by MS, so it had huge production value. It was made as a competitor to Dragon Quest, and used the same 'mechanics'. DQ VIII was a big success on the PS2, in the west as much as in Japan, that's the appeal of japanese design and games. So they thought that would work. Your reaction to this game (that was not bad, but above average) just proves further to me that JRPG are doomed on XB360.
Actually most of us 'hardcore' gamers would still like to see longer periods between consoles. Casuals too...
It's my firm belief the last generation was cut short by at LEAST a year before it needed to be, the PS2, GC and Xbox all were quite capable of outputting some fairly nice graphics in their final days, also 2 of the 3 had network capability, 2 of them could hold full DVD sized data (9gb) they had digital audio out (in most cases) supported 5.1 audio or pro logic 1 / 2 and all 3 could (in most cases) output via component in progressive scan, infact there was a small selection of high definition games to boot. Even if not a belief, everyone knows the last generation was cut short by MS. Besides, none of the competitors gave in, though Sony could have lasted 2 years more, but it was too dangerous for them. And all three consoles had network capability and 5.1 audio, some through SPDIF, others through Dolby Prologic II.
The Xbox obviously couldn't for financial reasons, this doesn't change the fact,...that sucks for us - it was by far the most powerful console and some of it's top end games just looked great The XB360 has as many financial problems, and a powerful console or games that look great are useless : you need fun games.
I'd much prefer 'milking' my dollar out with 6 / 7 or even 8 year cycles, this also ensures the next console is damn well NEXT gen. The only thing that ensures a console is NEXT gen is if it's out in the next generation. The number of years in a cycle have nothing to do with a generation. Like, all your kids are by definition the next generation, it doesn't depend on when you give birth to them. Well, almost...
We're not just upping the ante with texture detail, polygons, quantity of multi-textures per surface, we're also increasing the resolution which impacts us 4x slower (well approximately) But you're wrong. A few games use these resolutions. The flagship game of the XB360, Halo 3, is not even 720p! And you can count on one hand the 1920x1080 games, which are only on PS3.
We're already seeing HD games which are rendered at a lower resolution and upsampled by the onboard chips. What do you mean? If they are rendered at lower than 720p, they are not HD games. My HDTV upscales anything to 1920x1080 in progressive mode, which doesn't make the Wii games HD.
Movement control in all 3 next gen systems (to clarify, I personally couldn't care about this) HD capability on the Wii Digital audio out on the Wii (WTF?) Better online infrastructure. The first year of the next gen consoles not being crap! (1 or 2 great games per system:/ ) No chance on any of this. And indeed, WTF?
HDMI across all 3, following STANDARDS Wishful thinking! Some people have problems understanding that Nintendo would never had gone HD.
I'd like to NOT see a new system from anyone for at least 4 years from now, bare minimum or I simply won't be joining them. Be prepared to play the end of this gen on the Wii then.
Slashdot Mirror
Gnome's file browser takes 5 seconds on my home PC (Athlon, 2GHz, 3GB) to list a 161 entry directory. A virtualised W2K instance on the same box takes less than 1 second to list the same directory - even though it's running in a VM and has to go through SAMBA on the host to access the directory. When doing this, I took precautions to ensure no entries were cached on either instance.
What do you mean by that?
What you're talking about was a problem years ago, I remember seeing developers talking about it, and it was fixed a long time ago. So I wonder what you mean by "takes 5 seconds". Mine clearly doesn't have this problem since years.
Also, which distribution are you using?
This is a problem worth taking upstream, whining about it won't do any good. But really, this problem should be fixed.
This beside the fact that Windows Explorer is broken, so that when you put the drawer view on the left, often it won't update, even with few directories. Or it will show directories that supposedly contains other directories, when actually they don't. Common tricks to be faster, but my Gnome file browser (Nautilus) was always faster after the fix, without those tricks.
Monopoly? There are plenty of OSes around, they may not work as good in general as Windows does, but that don't make monopoly the reason stick with Windows. The reason is it's the best for their purpose.
Is that so?
Is it the reason why we have to put some companies through lawsuits for them to give us back the money for the forced Windows OS on every PC, even though I don't need it?
So everyone that don't want the OS forced on the PC they buy at retail actually goes through this effort?
News to me.
Inertia? Yes, if it's not broken why fix it? Also what would be the better alternative for most people? You seriously suggest most people would feel more happy with say Ubuntu than Windows? I think some of them have even tried, and thought not ...
I must have dreamed all these days lost helping people with their Windows. I also dreamed when I told them all I was not fixing their Windows anymore, but I can put Linux on their PC for them.
Those that switched I think I put them through Mandrake, then Ubuntu. Those that didn't switch, ended up either not using their PC anymore, or buying another one (which still don't work right).
All of this was a dream.
Applications and what you can do with your computer matters much more than having a superior solution. Without applications it's useless.
Which is exactly why some people like me switched years ago to Linux.
A long time since I answered to this kind of troll though, but I was in the modd, good times...
I did not say the Wii was a poor gaming machine. I just think it is aimed at a different market.
It's aimed at the videogame market, or the larger entertainment market, that is true. Sure enough, it's not always so clear with PS3 and XB360, with loads of features put forward that go against games.
For example, movies are competing with videogames in the entertainment market.
The wii untill the the price cuts started happening was the cheapest console. That helped them sell heaps of consoles.
And after XB360 price cuts, it broke records it set up the year before, selling 2 M consoles in november 2008, or selling 700 k consoles in january 2009 in USA alone. What helped them exactly at that time ?
If they sell more when they're not the cheapest than when they're the cheapest, sth tells me the price was not what helped made it sell, like you say. I give you that it was supply constrained and still is. But XB360 still doesn't even reach the Wii's sales despite having a cheaper model.
the actual games per console sold showed the wii had less games sales per console sold making it a great selling console but not a great game selling console if you get what I am trying to say here.
What you're trying to say is completely wrong. If you want to know if the console sells games, the ratio is completely useless. Game makers are not paid by a ratio, they're paid by raw numbers of games sold. Make the calculation yourself, you'll see the Wii is a great game selling console, it was already greater at selling games before it even caught up to the XB360 actually.
The attach rate of the Wii is low for the simple reason that it sells hardware so fast, and people can't keep up, as their time of ownership is low. The Wii is already selling twice as fast (or faster) than the XB360, with 1 year less on the market. All these people would need to buy many times more games than XB360 owners to reach the same attach rate.
Attach rate is a misleading measure which was perfect for MS cherry picking, as the slower your console sells, the faster your attach rate grows. But unprecedented fast selling consoles like the Wii of course can't keep a high attach rate, at least in the beginning.
Every single MS misleading points melted to nothingness every month, all they were left with lately was "XB360 sells more 3rd party software". Alas, even that is not true anymore since november 2008, when they stopped talking about that. All they're left with now is Metacritic scores (LOL).
Nothing competes with the 360 for online gaming.
That's your opinion only. Perhaps you're not conscious of your bias. I'm pretty sure Mario Kart players think nothing competes with the Wii (or DS) for online gaming. Paying to play online already makes it the worse system for online gaming for all those people (and even for PC hardcore gamers).
Based on what? how is it clearly the far better system to have in the living room?
Simple, objective : based on its sales.
I said "OK, that's your opinion. But now, for the videogame market, the Wii is clearly the far better system to have in the living room.".
And you replied with "movies" related things the PS3 can do. This is exactly the problem, I'm talking the videogame market, you talk "movies". People buy a console to play games.
I am not delusional. I know they are competing in the game console sector, but really are suited for different groups of people so therefor should not be directly competing for their audience.
You're still into that "different groups of people" thing ? Whatever. People woke up in shock at every step of the Wii's domination, and this one will surely be another shock to you when you realize it's not true. The worst thing is that the DS went through the same nonsense. Now, the DS is seen for everyone, but it wasn't always the case.
I suppose Nintendo always
Sony should start releasing some old classics. Be it free downloads, chap downloads or updates to old games that people would jump on.
Final Fantasy WAS a Nintendo title till Sony came along...it worked before, do it again.
I for one would love to see updates to games like: Dragon Warrior, Battletoads, Contra, Ghouls & Ghosts, RC Pro AM, Baseball Stars and BaseWars...etc.
It's too late for releasing most of those old classics. They're available on the Wii virtual console already.
Unfortunately, the brands are installed now, it's too late to change anything.
And Final Fantasy never was a Nintendo title. It always was a Squaresoft title, and then a Square Enix title. These beliefs that 3rd parties' flagship games are tied to a console are part of what put Sony and its fans in this situation this generation.
PS3 is a great gaming system with really nice media center features etc. Xbox 360 is a great gaming system with really good online gaming solution. Far superior online system to Playstation network but you pay for it so meh. Wii is perfect for when the mates come around etc or friends or family for a social visit. Its a hit with my young nieces and nephews, but also a hit with my mother so its very popular. However as an out and out gaming machine the wii graphics are very poor but the social benefits of its setup are plenty.
What ?
Wii is a great gaming system, and its graphics are not "very poor". This is pure nonsense, but I see where you come from.
Or are you saying the PS2 is not a great gaming system, as its graphics are even "poorer" than the Wii's, and it was still outselling the XB360 when it was alone on the "next-gen" market and even after ?
The Wii is just as great a gaming system as its competitors actually. No, actually, it's better, and the sales show it.
Sooo, where am I going with this state the damn obvious here......
The only thing that was obvious here was your bias.
Sony's product IMO is a far better system to have in the living room. I mean you can actually copy movies and music onto the damn thing unlike the 360 (yeah I know direct cd import but not mp3 support???) So to me the extra price is actually worth it!
OK, that's your opinion. But now, for the videogame market, the Wii is clearly the far better system to have in the living room.
Sony are not really competing with Nintendo or Microsoft here as their machines all concentrate on different aspects. PS3 = Home entertainment system Xbox 360 = Gaming system with kickass online play Wii = Family casual gaming fun. So not really competing here in terms of what they are trying to offer. Well the only problem here is that somebody forgot to tell the consumer that they are not competing. They see Call Of Duty World at War on all three systems. To most people they see all three as gaming systems pure and simple and do not know they differences between the xbox 360 and the ps3 and usually go for the cheaper ones.
Unfortunately, Sony forgot to tell Sony that they weren't competing with Nintendo and Microsoft, as most of their PR include Nintendo and Sony, most of their comparisons do too.
They also forgot to tell every single analyst out there that all still believe that XB360 and Wii are competing with PS3.
Even the developers didn't understand that and make games for all 3 consoles, and even more (DS, PSP, PS2).
Actually, you and a bunch of other people are the only ones still believing that they're not competing one against each other.
I would call you delusional, but perhaps the world is wrong and you're right.
I know the parents who are purchasing the systems do... If you ask a salesman, whats the difference between the Ps3 and the Xbox 360, the most common answer will just be "The PS3 has a built in Blue Ray player which the xbox 360 does not have". In reality there are many more pros and cons that can in use would change their minds about the console they would like. So overall I beleive the PS3 is worth the sale price, but most consumers will not see it that way and they only thing for Sony to do now is drop those prices and try and compete in the consumers ignorant eyes.
LOL, the "consumers ignorant eyes" ?
It confirms I know where you come from.
It's not the consumer's job to go to your product, it's your job to put your product in consumers' hands.
The consumers, the market, will then decide the value of your product, and will weigh the value against the price.
Some people have a hard time admitting that the Wii has a higher value, and the PS3 has higher value than the XB360.
The PS3 has a higher price tag than XB360, and it sells as much with sales aligned, so its value is clearly better.
It's even better when
There's a reason there's a long list of former PS3 exclusives that have Xbox 360 versions: DMC4, FFXIII spring to mind immediately, and rumors have it that Konami is considering porting MGS4 due to poor sales. There are others, (basically any 3rd party game developed for the PS3, ever) but I'm too lazy to look them up.
OK. You're even including rumors in your facts, which shows how well thought out your reply is.
Now, can you explain why some XB360 former exclusives are going to PS3 too ? Because of poor sales ?
Bioshock, Eternal Sonata comes to mind. There are also rumors of Mass Effect coming to PS3.
There are others, (basically any 3rd party game developed for the XB360, ever) but I'm too lazy to look them up.
Seems to me like XB360 and PS3 are in the exact same boat.
[Citation Need]
And just where exactly did you "cherry pick" your statistics from?
I don't own an XBox, nor PS, but I'd like to know how your statistics are so absolute.
What ?
LOL, these numbers are taken right from TFA, using exactly the same data the "analysts" talk about.
It's absolutely right that for now, the PS3 sells faster than the XB360 despite the higher price point. You can see this clearly if you align launches.
You've clearly been fooled by MS cherry picking.
Most people don't realize it, because Nintendo flew past MS, despite being 1 year younger, so it skews most people's visions.
So basically you contradict yourself ?
You CAN PLAY the Wii ONLINE without having to pay anything more.
The XB360 is the only console that requires that you pay a yearly or monthly fee to play online against others.
Mostly it's due to the controller, which on the 360 is FAR better then the PS3 one.
Actually, that depends on preferences and the kind of games you play. The XB360's D-pad is notoriously flawed, so not good at all for fighting games for example.
Anyway, all of this doesn't matter.
What will make you want to buy the console are some features (like no region lock for example), and mainly the games, or rather exclusive games.
dditionally, any student of MS product history will know that by version 3 of a product they've usually got the formula down and understand the market pretty well.
It's funny that you say that, because any student of MS product history also knows that :
- they typically don't understand most of the markets they enter, and don't know how to compete,
- if they can't use their OS monopoly, they usually fail hard,
- they're $6 billion in the hole with their XBox brand since launch (actually $9 billion if we count their R&D before launch),
- they typically didn't understand the videogame market, as they made a console catered essentially to hardcore gamers, which are not the mass market for consoles,
- they went after Sony, which is far from understanding the market (Nintendo made nearly as much profit as SCE during their PS reign).
SCE never understood the market, it's pretty obvious. But they had the strength and distribution channels to do what Nintendo couldn't do before : distribute their console worldwide (especially Europe) despite the constant barrage of lawsuits made to stop them.
They then thought their loss leading business model was working, and believed the market was mainly cinematic games and hardcore gamers. The logical result of that belief is the PS3, but unfortunately, while previously they were in line with the market (luck ?), they just discovered the true videogame market, and it's not in line with the PS3.
These articles are typical examples of why analysts get it wrong most of the time, especially regarding gaming.
The articles on the iPhone try very hard and yet make no sense.
You can see the wishful thinking, when an article is getting back and forth talking about different things to mislead the reader into believing they have a point.
Thus, "40 million devices or more a year that are capable of playing games" is then mixed with iPhone.
None of the gaming demographics are even taken into account.
The sales curve is not taken into account, the kind of product isn't either.
Thus, these analysts expect children to carry away iPhones/iTouch for gaming like they would carry away a DS. Actually they don't talk about the DS much, as it would destroy their argument fast. That's why they mainly talk about PSP.
Also, features necessary for mobile gaming are quickly forgotten to talk about interface or number of games so that the reader is lured into believing nothing else is important.
They won't talk about battery life or instant sleep mode or things like that. No, they try to tell people that sensitive feedback is useless.
They talk about number of games like the games they're talking about are the same, citing a few that are equivalent to handheld consoles, to blur the line.
Wishful thinking, there is so much in those articles, my head spins.
Prince of Persia is a huge bomb sales wise.
Now the question is why?
This analysis would lead us to understand that it was on the wrong console then.
Especially this tidbit from the OP: "as Young notes, modern controllers are designed for players who have been gaming since they were kids, and have evolved to be more complicated to operate than an automobile. The combination of these factors therefore limits or prevents the interest of new players; a problem Prince of Persia has addressed well through intuitive controls and the lack of punitive time sinks."
There is the problem. The audience to whom this was adressed, is not on PS3 or XB360. The game didn't solve anything, as the people scared by these modern controllers just won't buy the consoles that come with them. There's only one home console this generation that solved this, and this is the only one where Prince of Persia wasn't released. Go figure.
So basically, they published a game that solves only half of the problem, but unfortunately, they released it for the wrong audience.
The audience on PS3 and XB360 is not scared by these old mechanics, and don't want what they think are dumbed down mechanics. Those that are veterans but still wanted this to change also bought a Wii, but they're not the bulk of the audience needed.
This just shows this PoP was a very stupid move, these 3rd parties look more and more stupid as time passes.
Of course, what you say doesn't make any sense, as North America is the strongest Wii market, meaning where it sold and is selling the most.
What you say looks even more ignorant when you learn that the sales of the Wii are breaking record left and right in non-holiday months. The current sales of the Wii in NA are what you usually see in holidays months for other consoles.
The Wii is selling faster than any home consoles in history, and they're producing more Wii than the PS2 ever produced every months.
So these rumours are pure BS, surely spawn by the competition. But they're ineffective: the Wii still claim the most consoles sold in nearly every country around the world for this generation of consoles... with one year disadvantage against the XBox 360.
And NA is XB360 strongest market too.
Quite impressive.
The DS which is a hand-held and belongs in a different category to the Wii which is a console.
They're in a different category but both are consoles. The DS is a handheld console and the Wii is a home console.
If you wish to compare then you need to compare the DS (75.8 million world wide) to the PSP (38.3 million world wide). Before the fan-boys start waving the flag there are few reasons why the DS leads the PSP. The first reason the DS's Nintendo brand is synonymous with gaming and the second is if you consider that most parents when choosing a hand-held for their child would chose the DS because it is cheaper and can take more punishment than the PSP.
It's obvious you are the fanboy. So you're telling us Playstation and Sony is not synonymous with gaming?
After the Playstation and PS2 success?
Either you're ignorant, or you're part of the fanboys that said at DS and PSP launch, that PSP would destroy the DS. Every reporter in the industry said Nintendo was in panic mode when they released the DS.
The true reason why the DS is destroying the PSP is because of Nintendo's games. The DS and PSP hardware totals were pretty much equal, until Nintendo released it's new IP like Nintendogs or Brain Training. That's when DS pulled forward and never looked back.
The hardware can give a false idea of the big picture, as software wise, the DS is destroying the PSP competition even more.
PSP software sales are really poor compared to the DS software sales.
The Wii is actually in a category of its own since it is the only Standard Definition console out of the PS3 and Xbox 360. It is also very popular since the majority of its games cater to the casual gamer.
The reason why the Wii is very popular is not the one you gave. It's far more sophisticated than this nonsense.
Exactly like your nonsense about the DS. You read like a blinded fanboy actually.
I have had nearly every Nintendo machine since the NES and have enjoyed many games on them. What has turned me off the Wii is that the only games that are interesting to me have been milked again and again to the point were I don't want to play the latest Zelda, Metroid or Mario game. Even the graphics which should appear better then the Gamecube's (which I have) appear to have been poorly implemented and on a large screen HDTV the graphics appear to be worse.
The graphics of the Wii appear very good on my large screen (55") HDTV, but whatever.
You're a perfect example of someone that can't understand what Nintendo is doing, and you're the proof that if Nintendo had counted on gamers like you, the Wii would be dead. You say yourself that you're jaded and don't want to play their games.
Don't worry, they understood that in the Gamecube era, when you and your fellow gamers didn't buy their more powerful console.
So they found other customers. Fair enough.
OK, I have a OPPO DV-981HD (arguably one of the best upconverting DVD players on the market) connected via HDMI to a 55" Sony SXRD KDS55A2000 AEP (Europe version). Everything has been properly calibrated. Upconverted to 1080p (my display's native resolution), all my DVD look like BETTER than they were on my old 52" SDTV.
...).
BTW, like I said, if you have a poop display, your content will like poop, and FYI, LCD is the worst HDTV technology quality wise. It's pretty common knowledge that it delivers the worst experience with SD content (with numerous inherent defects like smearing, screendoor, poor black levels, banding,
So I'm not surprised, and it just confirms what I said : a poop display will make the content look like poop.
HDTV is one of the sole technology where there are supposedly improved hardware that can't render old content as good as on poorest hardware. At least that's the case for the most sold technology : LCD.
SD content should look better on a good HDTV than on SDTV, and it actually does on good ones.
Even in the USA alone, I doubt the ISP are so powerless. If need be Google and Microsoft both have the bucks to become the worlds largest ISPs. They both have the technology base and the motivation if the ISPs get too nasty with them. But they don't have the infrastructure. I can tell you right now, that NO, they can't become the largest ISP in any Europe country, or even in Japan, so I doubt they can become the world's largest ISP. This is wishful thinking at best.
The USA is not the world, as it seems you don't realize that.
The one thing that MS does better than any other company sure enough is not look in the future.
You could say that of Nintendo for the videogame market, but MS? Come on!
FYI, last quarter, their videogame department was still $6.5 BILLIONS in a hole since the start of XBox brand. They're far from having broken even.
$6.5 Billions of loss in 7 years is not what I call being good at looking in the future, unless the threat from Sony was really huge.
What you read is that they were finally in the black the two last quarters, not that they broke even, they're far from reaching that point.
The second sentence is a clueless statement.
Every BluRay player is able to output 1080p through HDMI, as that's the default format for HD media output, every consumer grade ones are outputting 1080p through HDMI, that's the spec..
Same for movies, 1080p being the default encoding. Documentaries are another beast, where some parts can even be SD (Planet Earth for example).
The actual "hard" part, is selecting the correct display, which will be able to show all of the 1920x1080 pixels of a 1080p frame, at standard rates.
Which war?
Nintendo is a videogame company, and everything it makes is videogame related.
Nintendo never intended to do anything but make money in the videogame business, and the only war in which they participate is the videogame console war. As such, they already won it, and are raking up the profit.
Videogame war implies hardware AND software sales. If you believe one way or another that BluRay will make Sony win the videogame consoles war, you're in for a rude awakening.
Perhaps the PSP precedent wasn't enough for some people to open their eyes.
For starters, I know a lot more about Japanese culture than you'd think. I also know that it has basically no bearing on how well a Japanese-developed game does outside of Japan. The term "JRPG" doesn't need to imply a cultural theme, and usually doesn't. Just because JRPGs can draw on specifically Japanese culture doesn't mean they do or that it is this cultural infusion that drives their commercial success.
Wow! And as you resort to name calling, excuse me if I avoid a troll like you from now on.
I shouldn't even have answered the constant strawmen you put in all your posts.
I see you love putting words in other peoples mouth. And you call me disingenuous.
In case you didn't notice, I saw your scheme from the start.
I'm not going to argue numbers with you and how much of a future Microsoft's gaming division has. It's not even the point of this discussion.
It wasn't mine either. My point was, as far as we got, the sole future of JRPG genre on the XB360.
As for the last bit of your response, you really ought to be ashamed of yourself. First you claim that Western devs can only make shooters, racers, and sports games.
That's what they do best is what I said, yes.
A subjective and baseless claim. I provide counterexamples with commercially and critically successful games from RPG and RTS genres, but that goes right over your head and you assume I'm talking only about sheer numbers when those games have set standards for their respective genres or sub-genres as far as all developers across the world are concerned.
Yeah, a 10 years old RTS and 7 years old RPG which is no JRPG, but a WRPG. I see your point.
I'll even concede I left RTS out, on purpose, because the latest high profile one in the genre is a japanese one, so I've made it a tie. But as it's more represented on PC with western devs, I'll concede the point to you, even though we're not talking PC games here, but XB360 games.
I bet you would have felt better if I told you the same thing for japanese devs, or if I inverted the sentence : "japanese devs are really behind in genres like shooters and uh...". No, I couldn't decently write "racers and sports" because of Gran Turismo for example. I understand you like these pissing contests though, and take them very seriously to boot.
You further continue with "games on XBL" which has *nothing* to do with the games I presented, showing that you don't actually have a clue about what you're discussing.
I'll explain myself better (even though I know you're trolling). I was talking about the games most played online on the XB360, but I'm sure you understood that very well. And it had everything to do with what I was talking about, which are the most played genres on the XB360.
Anyway, I told you already, you're very transparent.
That you had to tell me about very old PC games when we're talking the XB360 game library is enough to me.
Let me make it clear: Western game developers have, either in the past or recently, revolutionized a number of mainstream genres, including fighting games, and your ignorance of the majority of these contributions is inexcusable if you choose to go toe-to-toe with me like this.
Wow! Now you're going to go as far as believeing I said your own strawmen?
You are the one who believe your own nonsense that I don't know what Starcraft or BG II is.
You must have wrongly believed that I was 15 and didn't know these games or Bioware, or that I hate western devs. I'd rather not tell you I have the two BG and their extensions, Neverwinter Nights and all the extensions except the online only ones (but I have the free one they rejected), you wouldn't believe me.
Frankly I'm surprised you entered the conversation to begin with given your knowledge of basically nothing here. It seems to me you're basically a troll who dislikes non-Japanese games.
It seems to me you're a troll that believes his own
a) you're arguing from a position that's not common to most folks, especially w.r.t. RPGs
b) you make me laugh because at the same time you don't what 'real-time RPG' means. Let me help you out: it means 'not turn-based' with regards to combat. Morrowind as opposed to Mario RPG, for instance. OK right. And I can tell the sole reason people are even calling this game a RPG, is because it's made by Bioware. The game plays and feels exactly like a 3rd person shooter, when you move or when you combat.
With a cover system... OK, and I'm the one arguing from a position not common to most folks w.r.t. RPGs.
Just tell me it's made by Bioware, try to be honest at least.
I don't want to argue this with you anyway, except that it has nothing to do in replacement of a JRPG. As for Blue Dragon, that game was also marketed terribly in the US. Halo, Gears, Mass Effect -- these games had a presence in retail stores. They had pre-orders being collected. They had TV ads on non-VG-dedicated channels. Blue Dragon, not so much. Besides that, it wasn't good enough to become a "sleeper hit" the way some other poorly-marketed-but-good games do. It just wasn't. OK right. But I can tell you every JRPG fan knew about this game, I know this at least.
Which confirms to me that the JRPG fans on XB360 is ridiculously small, and that these games will all fail. JRPGs *can and do* perform well in the US, just look at Playstation software sales. (And hardware sales driven by the JPRG games.) They just need to be marketed well (look at Kingdom Hearts), and there has to be something decent to market in order to keep the sales afloat and people with 360s interested. So basically, every JRPG outside of FF will fail on XB360. Thanks for the confirmation.
Anyway, to say that the JRPG game design needs to draw on Japanese culture, well that's a rather baseless claim. For success in Japan, that may help (though to say the absense would hurt is merely an assumption), but for success in the US and Europe, hardly.
Any amount of knowledge of japanese culture would show you otherwise as for the "baseless claim". And the previous japanese hits that were released outside Japan weren't tailored for western audience, except for the usual censorship.
I'm well aware of the RPGs released so far on all consoles, and I know how poorly Blue Dragon did. That it's *not really a good game* isn't to blame, though, is it? ~_^
It's strange, really. Every XB360 owner that has this game want to tout it as the best JRPG of its kind.
But when I hear every other XB360 owner that don't want this game, they all say it's a bad game.
Myself, I wouldn't buy this game, I think it's a poor DQ clone, but I would never say that to the XB360 owners that have this game. It's very interesting how blinded some of the XB360 owners can be.
And this is a game paid a fortune by MS money to boot.
As for correcting me that it's not DBZ character design but rather Toriyama Akira design, how's that for disingenuity considering he designed both Dragon Ball characters and Blue Dragon characters and they are noticeably similar? My comment at least shined a light on the unoriginal design in the 360 game.
Thus why I was disingenuous. You wouldn't have done that for a successful game that uses his design, like DQ VIII. So, NO, the design was not the cause of this game being "bad", or at least sell poorly, as you claim. Or you'll further my feeling that all JRPG are doomed on XB360.
As for fighting games, my comment regarding the Smash Bros series is fully valid. To assume that if it's easy to improve on the game someone would have already done it is flawed because to date no competent developer has even bothered to. Why they haven't escapes me, but publishers aren't always in tune with *the whole* of what will sell and tend to go with what they are most comfortable with.
I rather think that the reason is that it's developed by Nintendo. Most developers are scared to go againts them. See Capcom and its Okami. They must have insured with Nintendo that it was no problem to put it on Wii, as they previously said it would never happen, for fear of competing with Zelda.
Smash Bros also doesn't prove me wrong about fighters not having progressed much. Brawl isn't out yet, and to say that we've seen a big jump from the original to Melee would be stretching the truth.
Except that I was talking about Melee, which was the evolution you say never happened in 10 years. It did, it was Melee. And you can have your opinion that there wasn't a big jump from Melee to Brawl, but excuse me to think otherwise, when I see the histery that follows each "big" revelation of new feature on the Brawl website.
Regarding your last comment, the NA market is still the biggest gaming market in the world. Europe is a close-enough second. The XBox 360 is doing well in those regions so far, especially in terms of software sales. So yes, things are good for the console.
I'll let you believe that then... I've no need to argue.
If I was to argue that would be on Europe only anyway.
And if you think that a console brand that lost $7 BILLIONS ($3 BILLIONS for the XB360 alone) is fine with decent *3rd party* software sales in one gaming region, the biggest one, well, good for you.
I'll keep my view that this is very bad.
I would go as far as to say that it is very dangerous for 3rd party, to rely solely on good sales in one region, on a console that is on life support since the start from a company that can pull the plug whenever it deems necessary (PlayForSure.... You'd better pray for Playstation brand long survival then...
Unless you think MS is losing billions for your pleasure,
"real time RPG"? That doesn't even mean anything.
Anyway, the argument was that it had nothing to do with a JRPG, and uh, it doesn't, any way you look at it.
There is a japanese SRPG with optional 3rd party shooter stages, but more in a RPG like fashion, not like Mass Effect. Perhaps that will work better with the XB360 user base. It's not "JRPG"s that bomb on the 360 I'd say but "bad games" on the whole. Bad games that happen to be all JRPG. OK right, whatever... Blue Dragon was simply not a good enough game. Eternal Sonata is somewhat esoterically designed and it was hardly marketed as far as I could tell. When a *good* JRPG, something on the level of FFXII or a Golden Sun makes its way onto the 360 and despite being marketed does poorly, then your generalization would certainly have some weight to it. For now I believe it is unfounded. Except that Blue Dragon was directed by the director of the first 9 Final Fantasy, Hironobu Sakaguchi, and everything was paid for by MS, so it had huge production value.
It was made as a competitor to Dragon Quest, and used the same 'mechanics'.
DQ VIII was a big success on the PS2, in the west as much as in Japan, that's the appeal of japanese design and games. So they thought that would work.
Your reaction to this game (that was not bad, but above average) just proves further to me that JRPG are doomed on XB360.
And all three consoles had network capability and 5.1 audio, some through SPDIF, others through Dolby Prologic II. The Xbox obviously couldn't for financial reasons, this doesn't change the fact
And you can count on one hand the 1920x1080 games, which are only on PS3. We're already seeing HD games which are rendered at a lower resolution and upsampled by the onboard chips. What do you mean? If they are rendered at lower than 720p, they are not HD games.
My HDTV upscales anything to 1920x1080 in progressive mode, which doesn't make the Wii games HD. Movement control in all 3 next gen systems (to clarify, I personally couldn't care about this)
HD capability on the Wii
Digital audio out on the Wii (WTF?)
Better online infrastructure.
The first year of the next gen consoles not being crap! (1 or 2 great games per system
Some people have problems understanding that Nintendo would never had gone HD. I'd like to NOT see a new system from anyone for at least 4 years from now, bare minimum or I simply won't be joining them. Be prepared to play the end of this gen on the Wii then.