It's not that, but rather that they would have had NO means to do such a thing if they were just "xbox" on launch. It is because they were rolling in money from their monopoly that they had the cash to market xbox so much, AND sell it at a LARGE loss. Any other company trying to enter this market (with the possibly exception of, ironically, sony, but perhaps not even them) wouldn't have taken such an action (or even had the means to do so).
Well the reason Microshit is considered a success is because they went from zero market (they didn't have a console) to out-doing Nintendo in the US (though less in Japan, and I have no idea in Europe).
But people are forgetting: WHY did people by an Xbox? What was the killer app?
Halo.
Obvious, but WHY was Halo a launch title for the Xbox?
Because the Monopoly of Bill bought out Bungie.
That game was going to be a PC game (first). And as for consoles, I never heard any words about it. But honestly, if Halo hadn't been there, how many people REALLY would have bought an Xbox? I would argue FAR less. Sure they've had more things since then that have been good and quality, but the "initial push" is purely Halo. Without that, the Xbox would have been a "semi-obscure" console. All that would have propelled it would be Microshit's anti-competitive pricing, as they'd have made sure to sell them by taking an even GREATER loss.
And then there's Nintendo. With little 3rd-party support (some, but not LOTS) they made a PROFITABLE console, some truely awesome games (If you haven't played Metroid Prime, you are seriously missing out), and did just as well or better than Xbox in a hostile review environment (I noticed the same thing from reviewers).
I may buy multiple consoles in the next-gen, but assuredly one of the is NOT going to be XBox360, and one of them will almost certainly be the Revolution. PS3 is quite tempting too, but we'll have to see there. But whatever you can say about Nintendo's mis-steps, I don't think this controller is one of them by a long shot.
I'm with you on most of what you said, but ESPECIALLY about the extra buttons. I'm quite suprised (disappointed) that they didn't add x and y to the right/lower side for snes parity in that respect. I really do think it is needed, since after playing some snes ports on my GBA, I REALLY noticed the lack of those buttons for those games, and so won't it be a similar limitation here? The lack of those honestly gave me a negative impression the moment I saw this controller and seriously worried me, as most people LIKE playing their "old games" with the button layout they're used to.
Considering the amount of time before launch (late next year? Can't remember...) hopefully this will change. But everything else is seriously intriguing. Be interesting to see how it will work out.
Worth it. Definitely a different "feel" than the first one. Probably due to the light/dark divisions. Kinda like "A Link to the Past" in nature, though it is a whole different thing. The first one was more "scour the evil space pirates from Tallon IV", whereas the 2nd was a bit more of a "horror" feel with the "WTF is happening?" feeling.
But one thing about both: you MUST read the log files. 100% of the story in MP and 90%+ of the story in MP2 are in the stuff you scan. You only get a REAL feeling for both of them if you scan the log entries and read the progression.
Well the system-seller for me was Metroid Prime. Pick up a copy of that and MP2: Echoes, and then along with this purchase would really make it worth it.
Since you seem to be in to action-adventure (Zelda), I don't think you'll be disappoined with MP. Just go into the game knowing that it is NOT a First-Person-Shooter, and you'll be happy. With the way weapons lock on to targets, it is more like Zelda than an FPS.
That actually makes a lot of sense... from a business perspective. CRAPPY from the player's perspective, as it means that there is a definite disconnect between what the players want, and what the developers are thinking (allows more management influence). But from a business perspective, it makes sense, so that major "defections" (like all the people that left Blizzard to make Guild Wars) don't take playerbase with them. "devs" are generic people that don't make waves in the press when they leave, whereas if Absor (just an example) left SoE, it MAY have an effect.
Basically, whenever somebody leaves that used to be prominent in the community, it hurts the company. By making everything "non-famous" it protects the company from people leaving with them, or believing they left for a good reason. Very shrewd from bliz's perspective.
Poor caydiem..../comfort Exactly. I'm not blaming Cay for these problems. I'm not necessarily saying any of them are doing a bad job (though IMO some of them are), but I AM saying her position shouldn't exist (as anything more than a simple moderator).
Let us talk directly to the devs, with few (if any) restrictions about what they think is going to happen in the future so that there is as much input as possible.
In the WoW community, we have "community managers" that continually insist "sometimes the devs don't tell us" or "we need to check with them", etc. Why don't the devs speak for themselves? On many (most?) other MMOs, the developers (even down to the programmer level) speak for themselves on the boards, and are often VERY open on the direction they are thinking of going. Then even if the players disagree with what occurs, they at least understand it, and know that SOMEBODY is listening to what they say.
But not in WoW. Apparently the community needs to be "handled" by go-betweens. I don't blame the go-betweens as much for this, as this is their job, but why not be as open as others? Feedback could actually come on ideas BEFORE they are implemented on a test server (of which I have yet to see anything NOT implemented on there, INCLUDING bugs), and result in a more streamlined process overall.
"Community Managers" just seem like a way to keep the community away from making the game better, which seems like a mistake. The cries of the majority are RIGHTLY not always heeded, but never knowing the direction of the development at all is far more frustrating from a player's perspective. Why can't the development team speak for themselves, and forget about keeping secrets? We all want to know the future of our game.
Thanks for the explanation. Makes some sense as to why it got such a cold shoulder then.
And thanks to the other guys below about reminding me that there WAS a sequel to Startropics. As soon as you said the name I remembered, but I must have just had a bad connection in my brain in that I forgot it. =P
Too bad this game never had a sequel. It may not have been 100% innovative, or 100% polished, or anything else, but it WAS a lot of fun.
One thing the article missed though is about Metroid, specifically how Retro got into it and produced Metroid Prime (possibly one of the best games ever made)? R&D1 made Fusion, which came out around the same time, but the Retro question remains unanswered.
But they specifically mentioned that e-paper would be too slow, so I'm thinking that they will have animation on the keys, and at a relatively good rate.
Though of course, this is all speculation. I'm taking a "wait-and-see" attitude. But if it lives up to expectation... could be cool.
Er... actually, Blizzard has agreed that Will of the Forsaken IS badly broken compared to other racial abilities.
Of course they've been saying that since JANUARY (at least).
Even EQ was (and is) updating more often than WoW is. They REALLY need to work on their team, and get a LOT more changes out MUCH quicker. And even if that causes more problems, the faster they are to react, the less time they can cause problems. I played EQ2, and left it for WoW (I won't go in to those reasons), but at least they update semi-often, and with SIGNIFICANT lists of things changed/tweaked.
Betty: You're a Nerd! You were WONDERFUL! How is that? Louis: All jocks ever think about is sports. All we ever think about is sex!
Revenge of the Nerds. Great movie. Interesting to see how many actors are there hit it big later, such as: -Anthony Edwards (Gilbert. Hit it big on "ER" later) -Ted McGinley (Stan. Everybody now knows him as "Jefferson Darcy" from Married with Children) -John Goodman (Coach. Lots of other things since) -James Cromwell (Louis's Dad. Definitely a big name now)
So slavery was good in, say, 1750, and became evil sometime in the 1800s? That makes for an interesting system...whenever faced with an ethical choice, take a poll.
Exactly. Things are good and evil independant of human perception. Humans can disagree on what the nature of something is, but that doesn't change the act itself.
I disagree with you on Majora's Mask. I couldn't play that game a 2nd time through because of all the minigames. I WANTED dungeons, and they just weren't there. That was what was so great about A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time: they both had a lot of dungeons. For me, the low number of dungeons REALLY cut down on the replayability. The game was more about getting INTO the dungeon rather than the dungeon itself IMO. And aside from that, to have ANY power you needed to do 10B different side-quests that had little to do with the main story. In OoT for instance, you could probably do ONLY the activities necessary to get into the dungeons and kill the bosses, and still have a decent amount of hearts, and a decent shot at the later end bosses. But in Majora's, it's ALL about the side quests, and you'd be SEVERLY gimped not doing them (and I did them. ALL the masks for me, no matter how excruciatingly painful it was (the f'n aliens SUCKED!!!!!! Have to wait half the night even for the damned event. Waiting around sucks!!!)).
There's my rant on Majora's Mask. I've tried to pick it up again. I really have. But OoT just blows it out of the water on the "fun" factor. Majora's Mask just felt more like grind than fun.
I'm sure I could give you a laundry list of Good and Evil acts, and you'd probably agree with 100% of them, but the moment somebody disagrees, and does one of those heinious (sp?) acts, it's OK because nobody can tell another what is good or bad?
I'm just curious if anybody has an idea on the size of the NES games? I'm somewhat interested in the individual games, but I mean if you took the ENTIRE library of NES games, would they even add up to 1 CD's worth? SNES I'm sure would be more than that (they had many games at least a few megs large I'm sure), but NES? Maybe not...
There was a guy who had a table at my university that sold used music and games, and I noticed he had a copy of Chrono trigger up for sale for $150. I commented on the high price, and he said he sold one for $200 the year before, and he sold Secret of Mana for $175 a few months before.
Boy am I glad I already own both of those (and they work). =)
Slashdot Mirror
Truer words were never spoken. This whole thing is just more of the same: we don't want you talking to the developers, ever.
It's not that, but rather that they would have had NO means to do such a thing if they were just "xbox" on launch. It is because they were rolling in money from their monopoly that they had the cash to market xbox so much, AND sell it at a LARGE loss. Any other company trying to enter this market (with the possibly exception of, ironically, sony, but perhaps not even them) wouldn't have taken such an action (or even had the means to do so).
Well the reason Microshit is considered a success is because they went from zero market (they didn't have a console) to out-doing Nintendo in the US (though less in Japan, and I have no idea in Europe).
But people are forgetting: WHY did people by an Xbox? What was the killer app?
Halo.
Obvious, but WHY was Halo a launch title for the Xbox?
Because the Monopoly of Bill bought out Bungie.
That game was going to be a PC game (first). And as for consoles, I never heard any words about it. But honestly, if Halo hadn't been there, how many people REALLY would have bought an Xbox? I would argue FAR less. Sure they've had more things since then that have been good and quality, but the "initial push" is purely Halo. Without that, the Xbox would have been a "semi-obscure" console. All that would have propelled it would be Microshit's anti-competitive pricing, as they'd have made sure to sell them by taking an even GREATER loss.
And then there's Nintendo. With little 3rd-party support (some, but not LOTS) they made a PROFITABLE console, some truely awesome games (If you haven't played Metroid Prime, you are seriously missing out), and did just as well or better than Xbox in a hostile review environment (I noticed the same thing from reviewers).
I may buy multiple consoles in the next-gen, but assuredly one of the is NOT going to be XBox360, and one of them will almost certainly be the Revolution. PS3 is quite tempting too, but we'll have to see there. But whatever you can say about Nintendo's mis-steps, I don't think this controller is one of them by a long shot.
I'm with you on most of what you said, but ESPECIALLY about the extra buttons. I'm quite suprised (disappointed) that they didn't add x and y to the right/lower side for snes parity in that respect. I really do think it is needed, since after playing some snes ports on my GBA, I REALLY noticed the lack of those buttons for those games, and so won't it be a similar limitation here? The lack of those honestly gave me a negative impression the moment I saw this controller and seriously worried me, as most people LIKE playing their "old games" with the button layout they're used to.
Considering the amount of time before launch (late next year? Can't remember...) hopefully this will change. But everything else is seriously intriguing. Be interesting to see how it will work out.
Worth it. Definitely a different "feel" than the first one. Probably due to the light/dark divisions. Kinda like "A Link to the Past" in nature, though it is a whole different thing. The first one was more "scour the evil space pirates from Tallon IV", whereas the 2nd was a bit more of a "horror" feel with the "WTF is happening?" feeling.
But one thing about both: you MUST read the log files. 100% of the story in MP and 90%+ of the story in MP2 are in the stuff you scan. You only get a REAL feeling for both of them if you scan the log entries and read the progression.
Well the system-seller for me was Metroid Prime. Pick up a copy of that and MP2: Echoes, and then along with this purchase would really make it worth it.
Since you seem to be in to action-adventure (Zelda), I don't think you'll be disappoined with MP. Just go into the game knowing that it is NOT a First-Person-Shooter, and you'll be happy. With the way weapons lock on to targets, it is more like Zelda than an FPS.
lol. Good analogy.
That actually makes a lot of sense... from a business perspective. CRAPPY from the player's perspective, as it means that there is a definite disconnect between what the players want, and what the developers are thinking (allows more management influence). But from a business perspective, it makes sense, so that major "defections" (like all the people that left Blizzard to make Guild Wars) don't take playerbase with them. "devs" are generic people that don't make waves in the press when they leave, whereas if Absor (just an example) left SoE, it MAY have an effect.
Basically, whenever somebody leaves that used to be prominent in the community, it hurts the company. By making everything "non-famous" it protects the company from people leaving with them, or believing they left for a good reason. Very shrewd from bliz's perspective.
Poor caydiem.... /comfort
Exactly. I'm not blaming Cay for these problems. I'm not necessarily saying any of them are doing a bad job (though IMO some of them are), but I AM saying her position shouldn't exist (as anything more than a simple moderator).
Let us talk directly to the devs, with few (if any) restrictions about what they think is going to happen in the future so that there is as much input as possible.
In the WoW community, we have "community managers" that continually insist "sometimes the devs don't tell us" or "we need to check with them", etc. Why don't the devs speak for themselves? On many (most?) other MMOs, the developers (even down to the programmer level) speak for themselves on the boards, and are often VERY open on the direction they are thinking of going. Then even if the players disagree with what occurs, they at least understand it, and know that SOMEBODY is listening to what they say.
But not in WoW. Apparently the community needs to be "handled" by go-betweens. I don't blame the go-betweens as much for this, as this is their job, but why not be as open as others? Feedback could actually come on ideas BEFORE they are implemented on a test server (of which I have yet to see anything NOT implemented on there, INCLUDING bugs), and result in a more streamlined process overall.
"Community Managers" just seem like a way to keep the community away from making the game better, which seems like a mistake. The cries of the majority are RIGHTLY not always heeded, but never knowing the direction of the development at all is far more frustrating from a player's perspective. Why can't the development team speak for themselves, and forget about keeping secrets? We all want to know the future of our game.
Thanks for the explanation. Makes some sense as to why it got such a cold shoulder then.
And thanks to the other guys below about reminding me that there WAS a sequel to Startropics. As soon as you said the name I remembered, but I must have just had a bad connection in my brain in that I forgot it. =P
Too bad this game never had a sequel. It may not have been 100% innovative, or 100% polished, or anything else, but it WAS a lot of fun.
One thing the article missed though is about Metroid, specifically how Retro got into it and produced Metroid Prime (possibly one of the best games ever made)? R&D1 made Fusion, which came out around the same time, but the Retro question remains unanswered.
I wonder how long until Leeroy makes it to this status... /shudder
But they specifically mentioned that e-paper would be too slow, so I'm thinking that they will have animation on the keys, and at a relatively good rate.
Though of course, this is all speculation. I'm taking a "wait-and-see" attitude. But if it lives up to expectation... could be cool.
Most important piece of it is in the final (and shortest) section.
Still, needs to be done.
Of course they've been saying that since JANUARY (at least).
Even EQ was (and is) updating more often than WoW is. They REALLY need to work on their team, and get a LOT more changes out MUCH quicker. And even if that causes more problems, the faster they are to react, the less time they can cause problems. I played EQ2, and left it for WoW (I won't go in to those reasons), but at least they update semi-often, and with SIGNIFICANT lists of things changed/tweaked.
That's it. Sorry for botching it, but it's been a while since I've seen it, and IMDB didn't have that quote either.
Betty: You're a Nerd! You were WONDERFUL! How is that?
Louis: All jocks ever think about is sports. All we ever think about is sex!
Revenge of the Nerds. Great movie. Interesting to see how many actors are there hit it big later, such as:
-Anthony Edwards (Gilbert. Hit it big on "ER" later)
-Ted McGinley (Stan. Everybody now knows him as "Jefferson Darcy" from Married with Children)
-John Goodman (Coach. Lots of other things since)
-James Cromwell (Louis's Dad. Definitely a big name now)
Maybe a few others, but still, awesome movie.
Exactly. Things are good and evil independant of human perception. Humans can disagree on what the nature of something is, but that doesn't change the act itself.
I disagree with you on Majora's Mask. I couldn't play that game a 2nd time through because of all the minigames. I WANTED dungeons, and they just weren't there. That was what was so great about A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time: they both had a lot of dungeons. For me, the low number of dungeons REALLY cut down on the replayability. The game was more about getting INTO the dungeon rather than the dungeon itself IMO. And aside from that, to have ANY power you needed to do 10B different side-quests that had little to do with the main story. In OoT for instance, you could probably do ONLY the activities necessary to get into the dungeons and kill the bosses, and still have a decent amount of hearts, and a decent shot at the later end bosses. But in Majora's, it's ALL about the side quests, and you'd be SEVERLY gimped not doing them (and I did them. ALL the masks for me, no matter how excruciatingly painful it was (the f'n aliens SUCKED!!!!!! Have to wait half the night even for the damned event. Waiting around sucks!!!)).
There's my rant on Majora's Mask. I've tried to pick it up again. I really have. But OoT just blows it out of the water on the "fun" factor. Majora's Mask just felt more like grind than fun.
I'm sure I could give you a laundry list of Good and Evil acts, and you'd probably agree with 100% of them, but the moment somebody disagrees, and does one of those heinious (sp?) acts, it's OK because nobody can tell another what is good or bad?
I call BS.
A (joke) headline I saw once:
Dyslexia for Cure Found!
lol. I like how dogbert is having a problem with batteries in the remote in that episode.
Dilbert: It's the left one.
Dogbert: Now that's just spooky.
Dilbert: I told you, I have The Knack.
Dogbert replaces only the left battery, and the remote works perfectly.
I'm just curious if anybody has an idea on the size of the NES games? I'm somewhat interested in the individual games, but I mean if you took the ENTIRE library of NES games, would they even add up to 1 CD's worth? SNES I'm sure would be more than that (they had many games at least a few megs large I'm sure), but NES? Maybe not...
There was a guy who had a table at my university that sold used music and games, and I noticed he had a copy of Chrono trigger up for sale for $150. I commented on the high price, and he said he sold one for $200 the year before, and he sold Secret of Mana for $175 a few months before.
Boy am I glad I already own both of those (and they work). =)