The best selling single player RPGs in recent years have been in no particular order: Oblivion - 3 million, Baldur's Gate 1&2 - 2 million each, and the various Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy Games from Square - Around 3 million each That's plain wrong. Are you comparing apples and oranges? 3 million is a maximum for western RPG (and 3 millions was reached by Oblivion thanks to the release on several platforms including consoles), while 3 million is a MINIMUM for the Final Fantasy games, not even counting the remakes. Final Fantasy games sold as much as 7 millions without counting the remakes and international versions. If you count them, you reach 10 millions sold for the best ones. So please, don't compare them. And to be kind, I didn't count handheld JRPG (like Pokemon).
it should be pointed out that American RPGs used to put jRPGs to shame, story-wise Yeah, they "used to" if you want. The fact is that they never sold as much as jRPG, and I think sales are linear to popularity. So when you say they put jRPG to shame, that's only your opinion, not a fact. Reality has a JRPG bias.
Notable behemoths like Final Fantasy 6 and 7 aside, the character customization and storyline (and subplots, for that matter) of Fallout and, even more, Fallout 2 are rarely approached in Japanese RPGs Perhaps they realized that these were not what people wanted. It explains in part why Fallout sold poorly compared to Final Fantasy games. And as these games are mainly about the story, despite what you think, I'd gather they were actually better than Fallout.
The same could be said for the original Deus Ex, Baldur's Gate... storytelling has not always been solely the province of offshore game companies You got to be kidding, both Baldur's Gate stories had no depth at all.
The problem is apparently that Americans (speaking more broadly now) don't buy a great story. Half of the people who love Final Fantasy "for its great story" don't really understand the story, they are just utter Japanophiles who will refuse to acknowledge great American games So you put all american buyers of JRPG into some "japanophile" group so that your poor attempt at an argument is not shattered immediately, yeah right. Oh wait, you just put half of them to be more credible. It seems like that YOU are unable to acknowledge that Final Fantasy games actually have a great story. And that's only taking one of the most known (Pokémon are even more known), but Xenogears or some Tales games shatter your weak argument.
Sadly, story-intensive RPGs have merit and marketability but I think you're wrong about them having a "strong future." They are a niche in America and are likely to remain a niche in America Well, that's true though. But it's not just in America, it's everywhere. If you meant JRPG, sorry, but current JRPG prove you wrong.
The people you really need to focus on are not the American developers, who can actually make some amazing stuff, but the American market that largely rejects a good story in favor of thumb-twitching action and/or graphical feasts Can't disagree, but this means Blue Dragon will fail in the USA?
It happens every five years or so. It's almost like clockwork. A new generation of console systems will come out, and suddenly everybody will be predicting the demise of the PC I and several other people must have suffered of collective hallucination, when we were arguing on many forums (even Slashdot IIRC) against people saying that the PC would kill consoles. I've actually never heard of people saying consoles would be the demise of the PC or PC games. Or what you said was irony ?
And sure, PC game sales and development will lag for a bit, then it'll bounce back. Now I know for a fact this has been going on since the 80's when the original Nintendo generation was supposedly going to spell the demise of the PC for gaming, and of course it never did. Why do people keep acting surprised? Because you have it backwards. For example, I remember clearly people saying consoles were dead when Tomb Raider on 3DFX was "more beautiful" than on PS1.
You're reading it completely wrong. Saying "there's no sense in building something if nobody would buy it" doesn't imply that Nintendo is selling something that "nobody buys." That wouldn't even make sense.
He probably said it to highlight that, at the time the Xbox 360 was conceived and designed, motion-sensing controllers were considered something that nobody would buy Speculation ! What "there's no sense in building something if nobody would buy it" means, is that if they released one motion sensing wiimote-like, for it to be successful, several things that depends on each other would need to happen, and this is unlikely : - 3rd party or good 1st party game that uses it. Nintendo already does that, and that would just lure people to the Wii, as they see everybody is copying them, Nintendo must do sth right - A large part of XB360 owners have to buy this extra controller, for one game... while the Wii has tons of games for the "original" one - The large part of people buying that have to be sure that more games will come that support it...
Nintendo did a great job of creating a market for motion-sensing controllers that simply did not exist two years ago To be more precise, this market didn't exist 6 months ago.
The other statement he makes about motion-sensing controllers is that third party developers aren't embracing it. And honestly, that also seems like an accurate statement to me Honestly, what you says seems like total BS to me. 3rd parties are ALL embracing it, all those on the Wii at least. You'll have problems finding 3rd parties that don't use the Wiimote on the Wii actually. So what you and MS say is a bunch of lies.
Microsoft can afford to bide their time right now and wait for the Xbox 3 (whatever it'll be called) to introduce whatever new controller model makes the most sense You got to be kidding. You don't realize that the motion sensing ability is now associated with the Wii and Nintendo. Besides, MS is still far from being profitable, and they need to keep PS3 at bay while turning a profit. It could have turned a profit in the holidays, but giving $100 rebate on the Premium console sure didn't help them be profitable, despite Gears of War. If Nintendo manages to attracts most customers, all of them sold to motion sensing capability on their console, don't count on graphics difference to sell the other consoles, because that's the sole advantage the XBox360 and PS3 have this gen, and if ti doesn't help... Of course, MS is probably only interested in keeping Sony out, so well...
... Sonic for Europe, Excite Truck, soon Fire Emblem for Japan, Dragonball Z. 6 games, 6 different genres. Seems like good to me, less than 3 months after launch, with developers that weren't even ready to develop for the Wii less than one year before. Of course there are lots of mini games and ports, as the devs were caught with their pants down, when they saw the popularity of the Wii at the last E3. I'm sure some of them waited the launch to be sure, and felt stupid for missing the opportunity to sell 200k+ poor games and make lots of money easily. "Devs going on easy" time will end soon, if it hasn't already. When Nintendo start launching the quality titles, devs will have a harder time justifying poor quality games or ports. Seems like Sega knows it, and Capcom knows it too, but notice these are japanese game companies. Notice that most of the poor ports come from western companies. One of the reasons having the japanese market is such a good thing. They better get familiar with the wiimote... fast !
"The best tactical RPG I've played" is my opinion obviously. I sure enough wouldn't say my tastes are those that everyone should have. I said it like that just in case you didn't know about this particular instance of Fire Emblem (the one on GC).
Now, of course, I don't buy the console for games in the future, that are not even confirmed yet. The fact is that Fire Emblem was part of my choices, and as all 3 games were from 1st party, and all 3 were confirmed for before end of 2007, adding to the fact that one was available at launch, the choice was straight-forward. Had none of them been available at launch, or 1 of them had been 3rd party and not confirmed, you can be sure I would not have bought the console at launch, but would have delayed my purchase.
Your opinion looks strange to me. I'm also not interested at all in shooters, but there are exceptions. My thing is also mainly RPG. And I bought the Wii on launch day (first time ever), knowing that the best tactical RPG I've played since FFT on PS1, Fire Emblem GC (Souen no kiseki), was to have a sequel on the Wii. So being a hardcore gamer, you should have known about this. And I'm a casual gamer, so I didn't even buy the console just for it and one game either. I need 3 games I know I will buy before investing money on a console. In my case, it was Zelda : Twilight Princess, Fire Emblem : akatsuki no megami and Mario Party 8. All the other games I'll buy are just bonus to me, as well as Wii Sports. To be honest, I wanted some PC Engine games too (PC Kid, Neutopia, Granzort). As for Fire Emblem, it's out this month in Japan, so I can reasonnably expect it in Europe for this year. Of course, in case they destroy it with english dub, I'll have to mod my Wii to never again pay far more to have a degraded game (as I understand japanese, and Nintendo of Europe already destroyed most RPG I liked on the Gamecube, like Fire Emblem or Tales of Symphonia). I mean, the native language here is not english, so there's no point in paying for an english dub, especially when the original is far better.
How do you get to that bar and possibly surpass it while still having lots of resources to focus on the gameplay? By having someone else do the work of course! That's where engines like Unreal come in - they do all the fancy shading techniques so you don't have to
No wonder FPS are all the same. How exactly do you focus on gameplay when you're using the stock engine ? You mean RE4 quality on Gamecube was attained by using a stock engine ?
You have extra costs in the terms of artists, but in your average shop the realities of the situation are artists and art techs are cheap, graphics engineers are not
You really believe that the arts are not the biggest part of a game's cost ?
Its a shame they're losing Unreal, which is a great engine
They're not losing it, they don't get the new one. Anyway, you didn't expect PS3 quality FPS on the Wii, did you ?
To sum up: gameplay for graphics was a trade-off made by Nintendo to reduce costs for the system. Its not quite the same for gamedevs - you don't magically get a game thats more fun by firing all your graphics engineers and hiring 2x more designers. You still make models, textures, build sets, etc. Its at least as much work as it was last-gen. BUT those tasks can be done in parallel, and having the code partly done for you gets them completed faster
Actually, Nintendo estimated graphics would be good enough with the small upgrade, and this choice was made to reduce costs for the *games*. They never talked about firing your graphics engineers, but about reducing the cost of game development. You think your graphics engineers are paid one month or what ? They are paid for as long as they work on the game, and a higher graphics quality game means more work, meaning bigger costs, with the exact same number of graphics engineers.
The new Wii controller isn't necessarily going to work with "traditional" games like Unreal
What do you mean ? You having blinders doesn't mean everyone has some. These "traditional" games like you say, weren't even made for thumsticks, they were made for a mouse and keyboard. Some years ago (even now), most PC gamers were saying the same thing about console FPS, because of the controller. If they managed to adapt FPS for thumbsticks, they can do it for Wiimote too.
Red Steel for example was completely crap... even if you factor out the bad graphics and horrible voice acting, the gameplay itself was pretty lame *because of the controller*
That's your opinion that it was lame because of the controller. Other FPS for the Wii already prove you wrong (CoD 3 for example).
I agree with you entirely on this. That's why I don't understand why there are differences. And I hoped you'd be able to tell me. Because VGA cables, though expensive, are not so expensive (I know the marketing plays a role, my video equipment was always more expensive). Actually, I know one of the differences is simply caused by the conversions. The conversions (analog-digital) induce a loss of quality, which should be unnoticeable at 720p, but that you can see at 1080p, even at my 1600x1200 resolution (perhaps because it's 85Hz). I always used 1600x1200x85Hz resolution. Well, it's not a problem at all really, but as HDTV is about quality, I would be mad at paying so much to not have what was advertised.
I'm an electrical engineer; I'm not so easily swayed by advertising claims made by Monster and the like. Most of their 'independant tests' are of thin-gauge wire vs (their) thick-gauge wire. When you compare an el cheapo wire with the same gauge as Monster's cable, there is no difference. Quite a profitable marketing ploy on the "premium" cable makers, though
I agree, but still, you won't get enough bandwidth with an el-cheapo cable with thin wires, even at 720p.
Bandwidth is a red herring; until you're to the point where signals start to 'mush' together (into the GHz range), there's not going to be an issue
OK. Isn't it the case at 1080p ?
The signal is 1080p, but I know your point. Some games are 1080, but most are 720 and scaled up (just like the PS3). But 720 games make an even stronger case that HDMI is not necessary
They aren't, as people with HDTV sets say they prefer playing the game in 720p, because the 1080 looks worse.
HDMI's virtue is that it is compliant with HDCP DRM-- something every movie studio have stated they won't use for fear of angering customers. HDMI is the digital cable of choice, and Component is the analog. Both can output a full 1080p signal at 60Hz
If ICT won't be used, then what's the problem exactly with using these HDMI ports you paid for ? And yes, both can output at 1080p at 60Hz, but in the case of component, two different cables won't give you the same quality at 1080p, and most of the time, it's worse than HDMI. With HDMI, you're sure it will be the best, which is the point of HDTV : image quality.
To replace the drive, you pull back on the catch, and lift the drive off. Then you just snap the new drive in place
I've not made myself clear. i was talking of buying a cheaper generic HDD, and replace the official XB360 one with this cheaper, larger drive.
No it's not, especially with 1080p. You mean component can attain the same quality. It's sure at 720p, not at 1080p. I don't say it will make a huge difference, but it's noticeable.
besides DLPs are the only true digital display format available today (LCDs and Plasmas are still technically analog) and most scaler chips in TVs are analog as well meaning the whole keeping the signal digital is crap
Nonsense ! True HDTV use digital signals, and there are some among Plasma and LCD. And do you mean these make a digital-analog conversion, scale the image, then a analog-digital conversion ? That is even more nonsense, there's just no point in doing that, when digital scalers are cheaper to make.
not to mention decoding DRM adds a few milliseconds to the signal processing which is bad for any hardcore gaming
Huh ? So you say DRM is negociated at each frame ?
And if you really need more inputs buy a switcher. It will probably cost less then the costs added to the console for an HDMI out, not to mention you can use it for other things as well
Not if you want as good quality as the HDMI. And what's the point of buying a switcher, whose quality is again one point of failure, when you have two unused connectors on your TV ? That doesn't make sense.
These supposed 'Upgrades' are laregly fanboy dreams. There is no *need* for HDMI -- at all, ever, period
That's BS, of course there's a need for that. Most HDTV sets, the true 1080 ones, comes with at least 2 HDMI ports, but only one component entry. HDMI will give you the best quality at 1080p, unless you buy ungodly priced component cables with enough bandwidth from the connectors to the cable.
The Component video the 360 uses is quite capable of full 1080p @60 Hz. The Optical out can handle the 5.1 surround the 360 cranks out
Yes, theoretically. Now, we don't even know if the games can be output at true 1080p on the 360. This information seems very hard to get. Is the 1080p games from XB360 true 1080p, or just 720p scaled up to 1080p ?
There simply is no reason that HDMI is a 'must-have'; those who believe otherwise have been drinking too much of Sony's HD kool-aid. Adding HDMI will add absolutely nothing to the consumer experience, but will add quite a bit to the cost of the unit
Like saying 1080p will add nothing to the consumer experience. Accept it or not, but HDMI seems to have won the connectors' war. Unless the PC HD connectors (UDI, DisplayPort) can make a come back, but I highly doubt it, given who is behind HDMI (mainly HDTV display makers).
The 120 GB drive is, quite frankly, overkill. Some fanboy must've decided that twice what Sony is offering is worth bragging rights. If you want more space, get another drive. You can swap drives in a few seconds flat -- try that with a PS3
First time I heard any of that. Every time I discussed with XB360 owners, it was the other way around : the current size of XB360 HDD is not enough, and that's on PS3 you can swap drives in a few seconds, not on XB360. Do you have a source for what you're saying ?
I never knew anybody who watched them on a Playstation. It's not because they weren't capable players: It's that stand-alone DVD players were already plentiful and cheap
Except that currently, BD or HD-DVD players aren't cheap or plentiful.
The HD DVD drive is probably the most successful add-on drive on any console. I bought one, and I can't complain abot it. The HD DVD drive lets Xbox owners get a high definition player at a modest price.
So, when I as a 99.9% user tries that 0.1% of the time to contribute, why is it always a pain?
Let's see. Two tries were on Win32 related problems, and one on Linux wasn't a contribution at all, as you didn't have time. So the answer is clear : contributing to FOSS projects on Windows is a pain. On Linux, I never got these problems at all when contributing.
DX though didn't stand still and has eclipsed OGL for the most part
Of course, you're quick to forget that MS was on OGL board and made all they could to slow it down, then resigned when they thought they had slowed it enough. A shame really, that people don't see these evil tactics from MS. OGL have taken up since as soon as MS quitted the board, how strange. Hopefully it's not too late, as it's the only cross-platform professional 3D toolkit.
SNES released, Nintendo touts its graphical superiority Nintendo 64 released, Nintendo touts its graphical superiority Gamecube released, Nintendo touts its graphical superiority Wii released, graphics don't matter anymore! Nintendo will always promote its strong points, like any sane company would. And there will always be fans out there parroting their talking points
BS. This is your strawman, that you and your fellow parrot everywhere. Nintendo never said graphics don't matter anymore, that's a plain lie. There was a run for the best graphics, because it was the limiting factor, and companies could deal with it. But every developer agrees that costs have skyrocketed, and that the market started to decline. So, Nintendo said they stopped the race, they never said graphics don't matter. They did that, because contrary to Sony and MS, games are their core business, so they have to take care of it. The other two don't care, they can use gaming as a loss leader, losing billions on their consoles. Thus Nintendo stopped the graphics race, because being developers too, they saw that if they were struggling to produce games, smaller studios (most of them) must have problems too. So no, Nintendo never said graphics don't matter, but said that as the market is less and less (at least in Japan), graphics must not be what holds games back. The DS started to prove it, and if Wii has a high success against graphics powerhouses, I think it will be the final proof of it.
Oh, and that's beside all the non-graphical improvements that next-gen hardware can bring. Like advanced physics, better AI, bigger and more complex game environments, and procedural content generation Because to you, next-gen hardware means more powerful hardware ? No wonder the game industry was declining. Fortunately, there's still a good company like Nintendo to get gaming back on its feet. Alone, it pushed the market 30% higher in 2006, which is some big feat. And they restarted gaming in Japan too.
There are no way near any 10+ millions 360 owners. MS has sold 10+ millions XB360 to retailers, what normal people call "shipped". Actual number of XB360 owners is lower (8-9 millions).
Nintendo already have a similar system. But it's different because the kind of people targeted by Nintendo is different. Nintendo has stars. You get stars each time you buy some game, and by doing some things on their official web site, where you must have an account of course. Until now, except in Japan, what you could get with stars was useless. Actually, it's still useless now. We are waiting for Nintendo to tell us if these stars can be converted to Wii points, which would be a good move.
I found the same thing and figured that it was just Nintendo trying to ensure that even the most retarded person could play their games
Actually, you figured badly. You thought the wiimote was some kind of simulation device for elite players. Of course, you being so elite, "normal" people, or rather casual players, look like retarded to you. Nintendo doesn't do simulations, they do "fun" devices and games. I think you have a hard time understanding that, or the difference. I wonder how you assumed sth easy to play was a simulation. Did you really thought people (grandparents, children,...) would enjoy Wii Sports as much if you had to really swing the thing like in reality, to touch the ball ? You'll never understand why Nintendo games rank so high then...
The games fall into two categories based on what I've seen: Tech demos (Wii Sports) or 3rd party XBOX ports (usually bad ones). Still, it's a pretty strong launch, solely based on Zelda
Like, mmmh, Elebits or Excite Truck, or Red Steel ? Man, some people have blinders it's amazing.
The problem is that the Wii launch, constitutes almost the entire production from Nintendo game studios over the last couple years, cause they sure weren't making Gamecube games
Only you and your fellow NA hardcore FPS gamers see any problem.
I'm sure they have a Mario and Metroid game in 2007, but what has Nintendo done to prevent a drought after that?
The fact is there will be no drought. You talk like there are only Nintendo games on the Wii, which is not the case.
The real problem is that Nintendo consoles still rely on Nintendo providing all the games worth playing and they just don't make them fast enough, for a broad enough market, or even at the same level as in the past. The reason the PS1 or PS2 was consistent was not cause of Sony's games, but cause of 3rd parties
Which is pure BS, unless you believe Konami, Capcom, Ubisoft, Square Enix, Grasshoper, EA,... are not third parties, or don't make any game worth playing. To which I would say you're pretty wrong.
3rd party Developers are not looking at the Wii as a place to make new creative games - why do it on old technology?
So what is Elebits exactly ? or Rayman RR ? Remove these blinders please !
The Wii is going to be looked at as a dumping ground or a place to make a cheap buck. PS2/XBOX ports, new levels on an old engine, rework the control scheme and push it out the door. Look at the Wii version of Far Cry or the fact that the 'new' Wii Prince of Persia is actually the OLD Prince of Persia (with NEW control scheme!) that came out last year for examples of this
Using poor launch ports to predict the future huh ? What's more, you're talking about Western style games made by western companies, which never were known for their innovative behaviour. Anyway, I say it's no problem, as long as the Wii gets lots of games, and attracts lots of people.
You mean the answer is flogging dead horses by using the same franchises over and over again
No, that's a misinterpretation of yours. You obviously don't understand anything about brand. Even worse, you assume once sth is a huge success, the name can't be used anymore. You don't even search far either. How about Fire Emblem, Super Smash Brawl Melee, Starfox, Pokemon, Animal Crossing, Nintendogs,... Nintendo is doing so much successful games already, but it's not enough to you, you would like them to name each iteration of these differently so that people stay confused ? They have one franchise for nearly any game genre, how much do you need ?
Please, for the love of god. Give us some fresh meat
You didn't pay attention to the fact that that's what Nintendo has been doing all along.
Mario doesn't have to retire, just, let him take a short vacation, and focus some of that Mario energy into a new project, a new product, that's gonna make us scream
Where have you been these past years ? I'm sure Jump All Stars wouldn't be enough for you. Anyway, most people obviously disagree with you, as they buy much more of Nintendo "old" franchises that even Jump All Stars.
Look at pen computing: since the late 80's many companies (other than Microsoft) tried to push for pen computing and failed utterly, whereas Microsoft decided to take a crack at it and was very successful with the Tablet PC
TabletPC is a failure. When someone has to lie to say something good about a company that showed time and again that you can't trust it, these feelings happen. What you see as hatred is in fact just plain distrust. When MS fanboys have to depict everyone that don't love them as people who hate them, you know there's a big problem with the company.
I'm happy this is coming to Games for Windows. do not need a nice box and I can easily read specs, but I also recognize that common folks (not everyone is a geek like us guys) will find it useful, and the extra testing will only help quality. And so what if Microsoft uses their Windows dominance to help the Xbox?
Actually, I don't care about all of this, as I don't play under Windows anymore. I wonder how common folks will benefit from this though. You still will have to setup everything for your games to work on a PC. It still won't be a console experience. And I didn't know the XB360 needed help, really. Except for its abysmal failure rate, but this initiative won't help.
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Oblivion - 3 million, Baldur's Gate 1&2 - 2 million each, and the various Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy Games from Square - Around 3 million each That's plain wrong. Are you comparing apples and oranges?
3 million is a maximum for western RPG (and 3 millions was reached by Oblivion thanks to the release on several platforms including consoles), while 3 million is a MINIMUM for the Final Fantasy games, not even counting the remakes.
Final Fantasy games sold as much as 7 millions without counting the remakes and international versions. If you count them, you reach 10 millions sold for the best ones. So please, don't compare them. And to be kind, I didn't count handheld JRPG (like Pokemon).
It seems like that YOU are unable to acknowledge that Final Fantasy games actually have a great story.
And that's only taking one of the most known (Pokémon are even more known), but Xenogears or some Tales games shatter your weak argument. Sadly, story-intensive RPGs have merit and marketability but I think you're wrong about them having a "strong future." They are a niche in America and are likely to remain a niche in America Well, that's true though. But it's not just in America, it's everywhere.
If you meant JRPG, sorry, but current JRPG prove you wrong. The people you really need to focus on are not the American developers, who can actually make some amazing stuff, but the American market that largely rejects a good story in favor of thumb-twitching action and/or graphical feasts Can't disagree, but this means Blue Dragon will fail in the USA?
Or what you said was irony ? And sure, PC game sales and development will lag for a bit, then it'll bounce back. Now I know for a fact this has been going on since the 80's when the original Nintendo generation was supposedly going to spell the demise of the PC for gaming, and of course it never did. Why do people keep acting surprised? Because you have it backwards. For example, I remember clearly people saying consoles were dead when Tomb Raider on 3DFX was "more beautiful" than on PS1.
- 3rd party or good 1st party game that uses it. Nintendo already does that, and that would just lure people to the Wii, as they see everybody is copying them, Nintendo must do sth right
- A large part of XB360 owners have to buy this extra controller, for one game... while the Wii has tons of games for the "original" one
- The large part of people buying that have to be sure that more games will come that support it... Nintendo did a great job of creating a market for motion-sensing controllers that simply did not exist two years ago To be more precise, this market didn't exist 6 months ago. The other statement he makes about motion-sensing controllers is that third party developers aren't embracing it. And honestly, that also seems like an accurate statement to me Honestly, what you says seems like total BS to me. 3rd parties are ALL embracing it, all those on the Wii at least. You'll have problems finding 3rd parties that don't use the Wiimote on the Wii actually. So what you and MS say is a bunch of lies. Microsoft can afford to bide their time right now and wait for the Xbox 3 (whatever it'll be called) to introduce whatever new controller model makes the most sense You got to be kidding. You don't realize that the motion sensing ability is now associated with the Wii and Nintendo.
Besides, MS is still far from being profitable, and they need to keep PS3 at bay while turning a profit.
It could have turned a profit in the holidays, but giving $100 rebate on the Premium console sure didn't help them be profitable, despite Gears of War.
If Nintendo manages to attracts most customers, all of them sold to motion sensing capability on their console, don't count on graphics difference to sell the other consoles, because that's the sole advantage the XBox360 and PS3 have this gen, and if ti doesn't help...
Of course, MS is probably only interested in keeping Sony out, so well
... Sonic for Europe, Excite Truck, soon Fire Emblem for Japan, Dragonball Z. 6 games, 6 different genres. ... fast !
Seems like good to me, less than 3 months after launch, with developers that weren't even ready to develop for the Wii less than one year before.
Of course there are lots of mini games and ports, as the devs were caught with their pants down, when they saw the popularity of the Wii at the last E3.
I'm sure some of them waited the launch to be sure, and felt stupid for missing the opportunity to sell 200k+ poor games and make lots of money easily.
"Devs going on easy" time will end soon, if it hasn't already.
When Nintendo start launching the quality titles, devs will have a harder time justifying poor quality games or ports. Seems like Sega knows it, and Capcom knows it too, but notice these are japanese game companies. Notice that most of the poor ports come from western companies. One of the reasons having the japanese market is such a good thing.
They better get familiar with the wiimote
"The best tactical RPG I've played" is my opinion obviously. I sure enough wouldn't say my tastes are those that everyone should have. I said it like that just in case you didn't know about this particular instance of Fire Emblem (the one on GC).
Now, of course, I don't buy the console for games in the future, that are not even confirmed yet. The fact is that Fire Emblem was part of my choices, and as all 3 games were from 1st party, and all 3 were confirmed for before end of 2007, adding to the fact that one was available at launch, the choice was straight-forward. Had none of them been available at launch, or 1 of them had been 3rd party and not confirmed, you can be sure I would not have bought the console at launch, but would have delayed my purchase.
Your opinion looks strange to me.
I'm also not interested at all in shooters, but there are exceptions.
My thing is also mainly RPG. And I bought the Wii on launch day (first time ever), knowing that the best tactical RPG I've played since FFT on PS1, Fire Emblem GC (Souen no kiseki), was to have a sequel on the Wii.
So being a hardcore gamer, you should have known about this.
And I'm a casual gamer, so I didn't even buy the console just for it and one game either. I need 3 games I know I will buy before investing money on a console. In my case, it was Zelda : Twilight Princess, Fire Emblem : akatsuki no megami and Mario Party 8.
All the other games I'll buy are just bonus to me, as well as Wii Sports. To be honest, I wanted some PC Engine games too (PC Kid, Neutopia, Granzort).
As for Fire Emblem, it's out this month in Japan, so I can reasonnably expect it in Europe for this year. Of course, in case they destroy it with english dub, I'll have to mod my Wii to never again pay far more to have a degraded game (as I understand japanese, and Nintendo of Europe already destroyed most RPG I liked on the Gamecube, like Fire Emblem or Tales of Symphonia).
I mean, the native language here is not english, so there's no point in paying for an english dub, especially when the original is far better.
How do you get to that bar and possibly surpass it while still having lots of resources to focus on the gameplay? By having someone else do the work of course! That's where engines like Unreal come in - they do all the fancy shading techniques so you don't have to
No wonder FPS are all the same. How exactly do you focus on gameplay when you're using the stock engine ?
You mean RE4 quality on Gamecube was attained by using a stock engine ?
You have extra costs in the terms of artists, but in your average shop the realities of the situation are artists and art techs are cheap, graphics engineers are not
You really believe that the arts are not the biggest part of a game's cost ?
Its a shame they're losing Unreal, which is a great engine
They're not losing it, they don't get the new one. Anyway, you didn't expect PS3 quality FPS on the Wii, did you ?
To sum up: gameplay for graphics was a trade-off made by Nintendo to reduce costs for the system. Its not quite the same for gamedevs - you don't magically get a game thats more fun by firing all your graphics engineers and hiring 2x more designers. You still make models, textures, build sets, etc. Its at least as much work as it was last-gen. BUT those tasks can be done in parallel, and having the code partly done for you gets them completed faster
Actually, Nintendo estimated graphics would be good enough with the small upgrade, and this choice was made to reduce costs for the *games*.
They never talked about firing your graphics engineers, but about reducing the cost of game development. You think your graphics engineers are paid one month or what ?
They are paid for as long as they work on the game, and a higher graphics quality game means more work, meaning bigger costs, with the exact same number of graphics engineers.
The new Wii controller isn't necessarily going to work with "traditional" games like Unreal
What do you mean ? You having blinders doesn't mean everyone has some.
These "traditional" games like you say, weren't even made for thumsticks, they were made for a mouse and keyboard.
Some years ago (even now), most PC gamers were saying the same thing about console FPS, because of the controller.
If they managed to adapt FPS for thumbsticks, they can do it for Wiimote too.
Red Steel for example was completely crap... even if you factor out the bad graphics and horrible voice acting, the gameplay itself was pretty lame *because of the controller*
That's your opinion that it was lame because of the controller. Other FPS for the Wii already prove you wrong (CoD 3 for example).
I agree with you entirely on this.
That's why I don't understand why there are differences. And I hoped you'd be able to tell me.
Because VGA cables, though expensive, are not so expensive (I know the marketing plays a role, my video equipment was always more expensive).
Actually, I know one of the differences is simply caused by the conversions. The conversions (analog-digital) induce a loss of quality, which should be unnoticeable at 720p, but that you can see at 1080p, even at my 1600x1200 resolution (perhaps because it's 85Hz). I always used 1600x1200x85Hz resolution. Well, it's not a problem at all really, but as HDTV is about quality, I would be mad at paying so much to not have what was advertised.
I'm an electrical engineer; I'm not so easily swayed by advertising claims made by Monster and the like. Most of their 'independant tests' are of thin-gauge wire vs (their) thick-gauge wire. When you compare an el cheapo wire with the same gauge as Monster's cable, there is no difference. Quite a profitable marketing ploy on the "premium" cable makers, though
I agree, but still, you won't get enough bandwidth with an el-cheapo cable with thin wires, even at 720p.
Bandwidth is a red herring; until you're to the point where signals start to 'mush' together (into the GHz range), there's not going to be an issue
OK. Isn't it the case at 1080p ?
The signal is 1080p, but I know your point. Some games are 1080, but most are 720 and scaled up (just like the PS3). But 720 games make an even stronger case that HDMI is not necessary
They aren't, as people with HDTV sets say they prefer playing the game in 720p, because the 1080 looks worse.
HDMI's virtue is that it is compliant with HDCP DRM-- something every movie studio have stated they won't use for fear of angering customers. HDMI is the digital cable of choice, and Component is the analog. Both can output a full 1080p signal at 60Hz
If ICT won't be used, then what's the problem exactly with using these HDMI ports you paid for ? And yes, both can output at 1080p at 60Hz, but in the case of component, two different cables won't give you the same quality at 1080p, and most of the time, it's worse than HDMI. With HDMI, you're sure it will be the best, which is the point of HDTV : image quality.
To replace the drive, you pull back on the catch, and lift the drive off. Then you just snap the new drive in place
I've not made myself clear. i was talking of buying a cheaper generic HDD, and replace the official XB360 one with this cheaper, larger drive.
HDMI delivering the best quality is debatable
No it's not, especially with 1080p. You mean component can attain the same quality. It's sure at 720p, not at 1080p. I don't say it will make a huge difference, but it's noticeable.
besides DLPs are the only true digital display format available today (LCDs and Plasmas are still technically analog) and most scaler chips in TVs are analog as well meaning the whole keeping the signal digital is crap
Nonsense ! True HDTV use digital signals, and there are some among Plasma and LCD.
And do you mean these make a digital-analog conversion, scale the image, then a analog-digital conversion ? That is even more nonsense, there's just no point in doing that, when digital scalers are cheaper to make.
not to mention decoding DRM adds a few milliseconds to the signal processing which is bad for any hardcore gaming
Huh ? So you say DRM is negociated at each frame ?
And if you really need more inputs buy a switcher. It will probably cost less then the costs added to the console for an HDMI out, not to mention you can use it for other things as well
Not if you want as good quality as the HDMI. And what's the point of buying a switcher, whose quality is again one point of failure, when you have two unused connectors on your TV ? That doesn't make sense.
These supposed 'Upgrades' are laregly fanboy dreams. There is no *need* for HDMI -- at all, ever, period
That's BS, of course there's a need for that. Most HDTV sets, the true 1080 ones, comes with at least 2 HDMI ports, but only one component entry.
HDMI will give you the best quality at 1080p, unless you buy ungodly priced component cables with enough bandwidth from the connectors to the cable.
The Component video the 360 uses is quite capable of full 1080p @60 Hz. The Optical out can handle the 5.1 surround the 360 cranks out
Yes, theoretically. Now, we don't even know if the games can be output at true 1080p on the 360. This information seems very hard to get.
Is the 1080p games from XB360 true 1080p, or just 720p scaled up to 1080p ?
There simply is no reason that HDMI is a 'must-have'; those who believe otherwise have been drinking too much of Sony's HD kool-aid. Adding HDMI will add absolutely nothing to the consumer experience, but will add quite a bit to the cost of the unit
Like saying 1080p will add nothing to the consumer experience. Accept it or not, but HDMI seems to have won the connectors' war. Unless the PC HD connectors (UDI, DisplayPort) can make a come back, but I highly doubt it, given who is behind HDMI (mainly HDTV display makers).
The 120 GB drive is, quite frankly, overkill. Some fanboy must've decided that twice what Sony is offering is worth bragging rights. If you want more space, get another drive. You can swap drives in a few seconds flat -- try that with a PS3
First time I heard any of that. Every time I discussed with XB360 owners, it was the other way around : the current size of XB360 HDD is not enough, and that's on PS3 you can swap drives in a few seconds, not on XB360. Do you have a source for what you're saying ?
I never knew anybody who watched them on a Playstation. It's not because they weren't capable players: It's that stand-alone DVD players were already plentiful and cheap
Except that currently, BD or HD-DVD players aren't cheap or plentiful.
The HD DVD drive is probably the most successful add-on drive on any console. I bought one, and I can't complain abot it. The HD DVD drive lets Xbox owners get a high definition player at a modest price.
People know it's coming, and so they're probably waiting for it
You mean japanese gamers are waiting for these improvements since the XB360 launch in Japan ?
That doesn't make any sense.
So, when I as a 99.9% user tries that 0.1% of the time to contribute, why is it always a pain?
Let's see. Two tries were on Win32 related problems, and one on Linux wasn't a contribution at all, as you didn't have time. So the answer is clear : contributing to FOSS projects on Windows is a pain.
On Linux, I never got these problems at all when contributing.
DX though didn't stand still and has eclipsed OGL for the most part
Of course, you're quick to forget that MS was on OGL board and made all they could to slow it down, then resigned when they thought they had slowed it enough. A shame really, that people don't see these evil tactics from MS. OGL have taken up since as soon as MS quitted the board, how strange. Hopefully it's not too late, as it's the only cross-platform professional 3D toolkit.
Nintendo 64 released, Nintendo touts its graphical superiority
Gamecube released, Nintendo touts its graphical superiority
Wii released, graphics don't matter anymore!
Nintendo will always promote its strong points, like any sane company would.
And there will always be fans out there parroting their talking points
BS. This is your strawman, that you and your fellow parrot everywhere.
Nintendo never said graphics don't matter anymore, that's a plain lie.
There was a run for the best graphics, because it was the limiting factor, and companies could deal with it.
But every developer agrees that costs have skyrocketed, and that the market started to decline.
So, Nintendo said they stopped the race, they never said graphics don't matter. They did that, because contrary to Sony and MS, games are their core business, so they have to take care of it. The other two don't care, they can use gaming as a loss leader, losing billions on their consoles.
Thus Nintendo stopped the graphics race, because being developers too, they saw that if they were struggling to produce games, smaller studios (most of them) must have problems too.
So no, Nintendo never said graphics don't matter, but said that as the market is less and less (at least in Japan), graphics must not be what holds games back. The DS started to prove it, and if Wii has a high success against graphics powerhouses, I think it will be the final proof of it. Oh, and that's beside all the non-graphical improvements that next-gen hardware can bring. Like advanced physics, better AI, bigger and more complex game environments, and procedural content generation Because to you, next-gen hardware means more powerful hardware ?
No wonder the game industry was declining. Fortunately, there's still a good company like Nintendo to get gaming back on its feet. Alone, it pushed the market 30% higher in 2006, which is some big feat. And they restarted gaming in Japan too.
There are no way near any 10+ millions 360 owners. MS has sold 10+ millions XB360 to retailers, what normal people call "shipped".
Actual number of XB360 owners is lower (8-9 millions).
Nintendo already have a similar system.
But it's different because the kind of people targeted by Nintendo is different.
Nintendo has stars. You get stars each time you buy some game, and by doing some things on their official web site, where you must have an account of course.
Until now, except in Japan, what you could get with stars was useless. Actually, it's still useless now.
We are waiting for Nintendo to tell us if these stars can be converted to Wii points, which would be a good move.
I found the same thing and figured that it was just Nintendo trying to ensure that even the most retarded person could play their games
...) would enjoy Wii Sports as much if you had to really swing the thing like in reality, to touch the ball ? ...
Actually, you figured badly. You thought the wiimote was some kind of simulation device for elite players.
Of course, you being so elite, "normal" people, or rather casual players, look like retarded to you.
Nintendo doesn't do simulations, they do "fun" devices and games.
I think you have a hard time understanding that, or the difference.
I wonder how you assumed sth easy to play was a simulation. Did you really thought people (grandparents, children,
You'll never understand why Nintendo games rank so high then
The games fall into two categories based on what I've seen: Tech demos (Wii Sports) or 3rd party XBOX ports (usually bad ones). Still, it's a pretty strong launch, solely based on Zelda
... are not third parties, or don't make any game worth playing.
Like, mmmh, Elebits or Excite Truck, or Red Steel ?
Man, some people have blinders it's amazing.
The problem is that the Wii launch, constitutes almost the entire production from Nintendo game studios over the last couple years, cause they sure weren't making Gamecube games
Only you and your fellow NA hardcore FPS gamers see any problem.
I'm sure they have a Mario and Metroid game in 2007, but what has Nintendo done to prevent a drought after that?
The fact is there will be no drought. You talk like there are only Nintendo games on the Wii, which is not the case.
The real problem is that Nintendo consoles still rely on Nintendo providing all the games worth playing and they just don't make them fast enough, for a broad enough market, or even at the same level as in the past. The reason the PS1 or PS2 was consistent was not cause of Sony's games, but cause of 3rd parties
Which is pure BS, unless you believe Konami, Capcom, Ubisoft, Square Enix, Grasshoper, EA,
To which I would say you're pretty wrong.
3rd party Developers are not looking at the Wii as a place to make new creative games - why do it on old technology?
So what is Elebits exactly ? or Rayman RR ? Remove these blinders please !
The Wii is going to be looked at as a dumping ground or a place to make a cheap buck. PS2/XBOX ports, new levels on an old engine, rework the control scheme and push it out the door. Look at the Wii version of Far Cry or the fact that the 'new' Wii Prince of Persia is actually the OLD Prince of Persia (with NEW control scheme!) that came out last year for examples of this
Using poor launch ports to predict the future huh ? What's more, you're talking about Western style games made by western companies, which never were known for their innovative behaviour. Anyway, I say it's no problem, as long as the Wii gets lots of games, and attracts lots of people.
You mean the answer is flogging dead horses by using the same franchises over and over again
...
No, that's a misinterpretation of yours. You obviously don't understand anything about brand.
Even worse, you assume once sth is a huge success, the name can't be used anymore.
You don't even search far either. How about Fire Emblem, Super Smash Brawl Melee, Starfox, Pokemon, Animal Crossing, Nintendogs,
Nintendo is doing so much successful games already, but it's not enough to you, you would like them to name each iteration of these differently so that people stay confused ?
They have one franchise for nearly any game genre, how much do you need ?
Please, for the love of god. Give us some fresh meat
You didn't pay attention to the fact that that's what Nintendo has been doing all along.
Mario doesn't have to retire, just, let him take a short vacation, and focus some of that Mario energy into a new project, a new product, that's gonna make us scream
Where have you been these past years ?
I'm sure Jump All Stars wouldn't be enough for you.
Anyway, most people obviously disagree with you, as they buy much more of Nintendo "old" franchises that even Jump All Stars.
Look at pen computing: since the late 80's many companies (other than Microsoft) tried to push for pen computing and failed utterly, whereas Microsoft decided to take a crack at it and was very successful with the Tablet PC
TabletPC is a failure. When someone has to lie to say something good about a company that showed time and again that you can't trust it, these feelings happen.
What you see as hatred is in fact just plain distrust. When MS fanboys have to depict everyone that don't love them as people who hate them, you know there's a big problem with the company.
I'm happy this is coming to Games for Windows. do not need a nice box and I can easily read specs, but I also recognize that common folks (not everyone is a geek like us guys) will find it useful, and the extra testing will only help quality. And so what if Microsoft uses their Windows dominance to help the Xbox?
Actually, I don't care about all of this, as I don't play under Windows anymore.
I wonder how common folks will benefit from this though. You still will have to setup everything for your games to work on a PC. It still won't be a console experience.
And I didn't know the XB360 needed help, really. Except for its abysmal failure rate, but this initiative won't help.
I have the feeling the reason is because most people tend to face their TV when using their Wii
...
And yet, some of them broke their light in the ceiling
Seems even more unlikely.
I think the population is a better gauge than console sales
...?
What the
So you sell Zelda to people without a console too ? Don't be silly please !