I'm surprised you could find three good PS3 games, though. Unless you're a sports fan or FPS, in which case it's easier. I did say non-cross-platform, however. That's why I listed the Sims stuff last, it's cross-platform like Lego: Star Wars and other such.
Err, I hope that was a typo, because I never said I could find three good PS3 games. I was just saying that I'm sure there's someone out there that thinks that way. Now obviously, Sony wishes there were more people that thought like that...
Well, if the retailers are marking it down, isn't that called supply and demand? Analysts show that PS3 stocks in stores aren't going out the doors, while they can barely keep the Wii in stock for more than a couple of hours max at almost any store.
To me, that's the market sending Sony a price signal to cut their MSRP to $299 USD. Or at least cut it $100.
I don't any business should make such a major decision after only being a few months on the market. Plus, it's apparently isolated to Japan at the moment. I haven't seen any indication that retail markdowns are happening in the US.
Also, let us remember that mark downs typically aren't always a bad thing. After all, things go on sale all the time. For example, there was a nice MicroCenter $100 rebate for the 360 that generated a ton of demand, which was great for both MS and MicroCenter. (I am guessing MC made up the money on the markup of other items)
Now, if it turns out that retailers everywhere have way too many PS3s, can't get rid of them, and they're all slashing prices, and this is all happening over the course of several more months... then yes, I agree that's a pretty major sign that something needs to be done. But Sony's not there yet, and I doubt it'll ever get that dire. More games are coming, most notably VF5 which is a huge hit in Japan.
Really? I've found the following all to be good: Zelda, Rayman's Raving Rabbids, Excite Truck, Wii Sports (bundled), Elebits, and Trauma Center: Second Opinion.
Remember, games are all subjective. I've already read up on a lot of the games you've mentioned, and many of them are "not my thing". As the saying goes, "to each his own". I'm sure there are people that LOVE all the PS3 games, in that respect.:)
Plus my new copy of Sims 2: Pets for the GameCube runs with wonderful graphics and close to nil load times and no glitches, unlike my prior Sims 2 games on the GameCube. I'm looking forward to Sims for the Wii (which I call Wii Sims), quite frankly.
I've already played Sims 2 to death on the PC, and that just seems like a better platform for the game, thanks to all the user-content you can get for it.
It's the retailers in Japan that are marking it down, because there's an oversupply of consoles. Anecdotal evidence seems to point towards the same thing in the US (consoles sitting on shelves), although apparently not bad enough to make retailers want to do the same thing. Well, at least not yet. The funny thing, though, is that you can apparently go to eBay and get a Core PS3 for slightly cheaper than retail ($50 or so) from scalpers that got burned.
PS3 for $299 is a pipe-dream. Honestly, I don't think it'll happen until 2010, maybe 2009. There's just too much in that machine, and given the past history of console price drops... it certainly won't be any time soon. My prediction is some fancy bundling this holiday season, and then an actual (but minor) drop in 2008, around the $50 level.
I would wait it out a bit longer until the platform gets at least three excellent games you want to play. In my experience, shelling out a lot of cash - even if you can - will cause more regrets than waiting.
Gee, if that's the case, then I should probably wait on the Wii, since Zelda is really the only game I want to play.:) Maybe Wii Sports, but that's a pack-in and it's debatable if that counts. The other Wii games are... personally not that interesting to me.
That said, I think what a lot of people do is purchase systems on the promise of the console, as long as it's at a decent price point. Plunking down $250 for a Wii for me, even though there's only one game I'd like to play... is not a big deal. I know a lot of people that did the same with the PS2 at launch. I can't say I'd do the same for the higher priced systems (360/PS3) though, and that's where your "three excellent games" rule makes a lot of sense. The 360 has already hit that for many folks. The PS3 still has a ways to go, although arguably VF5 and Resistance may now fill up two out of the three for many hardcore gamers.
BTW - Still no Wii around here. It looks like another couple of weeks, maybe, before it's really a "Gee, I'll pick one up on the way home" situation.
Certainly a price drop would help, but a lot of what people are waiting for are good games to come out for the system. There is certainly lots of potential with the system, with it being the home of mega-hits such as Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy, Gran Turismo, and so forth. However, with more exclusives getting away from Sony (such as Virtua Fighter and Grand Theft Auto), the more likely your average hardcore gamer is just going to wait until a price drop and/or the much-anticipated PS3 games to actually ship. (Well, that's certainly what I'm doing)
With the PS2, it was a no-brainer. You already knew that the Sony console was going to get all the big name games. Not so much with the PS3 anymore, and coupled with the high price, there's a lot of people sitting on the fence this time around.
What if your character isn't a Marine, he's a squad leader. He gets a dozen marines, half a dozen firebats, a couple of goliaths. And maybe by leveling up you can move up the tech tree and get different units, command more units, ultimately become an Admiral, and soforth. The gameplay could be like Starcraft, but unlike online Starcraft- where you face the same units over, and over, and over no matter how long you've been playing- you'd have the opportunity to acquire new technologies and face ever more challenging enemies.
It's an interesting idea. They did a little bit of that with Warcraft III, with the elite units and experience, although the bonuses weren't persistent. What you're describing sounds a bit like combining a traditional RTS with some Diablo-like features (persistency in your stats).
That said, a part of me would just like to see Blizzard stick to the traditional RTS model (with maybe a few tweaks here and there), and just do it really well. You could argue that this is what they did with WoW. It's not a tremendous innovation over previous MMORPGs. If you're not a fan of the genre, then there's really nothing new for you in that game (just boils down to a level/rep grind and treadmill). However, what Blizzard did polish and balance the heck out of that game, and it really shows.
I sincerely hope that the next Starcraft game is not a MMO. Starcraft is still my favorite Blizzard game because it was a delicious union of sci-fi coolness with three wildly unique races. Blizzard has talented designers, but I hate to see them ignore those of us who prefer real time strategy games. If they want to chase the money pot of another MMO, they should make one from Diablo since I don't care if they whore that franchise out. (Plus I think they'll just be stealing their own customers away from WOW.)
As a big fan of pretty much all of Blizzard's games, and a current WoW-addict as well, I couldn't agree more. Why start another MMO? It's not like a Starcraft MMO is suddenly going to convince all the Blizzard fans who don't like MMOs and aren't into WoW... to now go play an MMO. Plus, you've got a ton of people dedicated to their characters in WoW, so they're not going to switch suddenly to a Starcraft-based one. (And even if you do, well, you're just shuffling subscriptions around) Finally, you're certainly not going to have someone subscribe to both of them, at least for very long.
Your comments are typical of what I get from those critical of Microsoft. Unfortunately, I can't really answer them, because they're really "out there". Team windows? No idea what you're talking about, nor do any of the other people I've asked. I can't say anything about what PR does, since I really don't work in that area, nor would I really be able to do anything about it. As for this whole "locked into one technology" side, to be honest, I don't really follow any of that. It doesn't matter to me. Maybe it should, but this company is large enough as it is, and I can honestly say there are lots of things that it does that I wouldn't agree with. But in my little chunk of space, I think we're heading in the right direction, otherwise I wouldn't be here.
I think a lot of folks, like you, assume that if someone works in Microsoft, they MUST share the opinion of the entire company, that we're all anti-Linux, hate OSS, love DRM, etc. Frankly, that's not the case.
Your employers past history in this area is legendary. Since you can't use Google, let me provide a few links:
BTW, I can, and often, use Google. Why? Because frankly, it's currently a better search product, and I need to get my job done. I'm not alone either. Granted, there's a lot of incentive to try to get Microsofties to switch over to Windows Live Search, but there's also a lot of frank discussion of, "We'll use Live Search when it does what we need it to do". There's actually a lot of respect for what our competitors do, with obviously the goal to try to make our own products better as well.
I made a career choice back in the 90's to not be locked into any one technology (Microsoft DDE) . That decision has benefited me compensation wise very well. I can program in any embedded/PC/Mainframe envrionment. If your serious about your specialty (craft), I can look forward to seeing (purchasing) your games on a Wii/Linux/PS3/Mac system soon.
Maybe you don't understand the games industry very well, but being locked into technology is basically a given with consoles. So if you're trying to say that Wii and PS3 development isn't locked, then you're mistaken.:)
Anyway, if I'm serious in my craft, then the right choice is to go for the platforms where the users are, which are the major consoles and Windows PCs. As a maker of games, I don't really care about which platform I'm on. But what I really want to do is reach the most people. If, for some reason, we see that totally change and suddenly gaming on Linux is the big thing 10 years from now, well, you'll know where I be then.
First of all, standard disclaimer that I work at MS (specifically the games studios). Anyways...
Some Wikipedia articles about Microsoft products already sound suspiciously similar to their sales pitches and advertising material, so this is probably already happening. It might not be Microsoft employees themselves, but the article authors must at least be big fans of Microsoft.
It was some time since I read those articles, so I don't remember specifically which one I reacted on. So no link, sorry.
Believe it or not, there are plenty of "fans of Microsoft" that don't work here, contrary to what your average Slashdotter might believe.:) That said, you could be right, but just wanted to throw out the apparently not-so-obvious statement...
As for TFA, when I first read the title, I was thinking, "Oh good lord, what the hell did PR do this time?". But after reading the actual article, I can understand a bit of the reason why they did it. (However, my personal stance is that it's still something they shouldn't have done)
I dislike FUD regardless of where it comes from, who it's targeted towards, etc. However, if you take your average Slashdotter's opinion, they'll think that all FUD must originate from big corporations looking out to take down the "little guy". While that's certainly the case for lots of things, it also happens the other way around. MS is arguably the biggest example of this, since it's by no means a "favorite" company for your typical Linux/OSS/etc-friendly Slashdotter. So it's not surprising that a lot of this FUD will stick on a site like Wikipedia, which (I would imagine) has a higher percentage of your tech-savvy "Linux/OSS/etc-friendly" userbase. I speak from personal experience as well, since from time-to-time I will run into some very vehement anti-MS zealots that really have an incorrect idea on how things work here, and refuse to hear anything otherwise.
Now, I'm not saying the actual article in question has a lot of FUD either way (I really don't have an opinion ODF/OOXML, nor do I really care). But I can understand Microsoft PR wishing there was someone more independent going through the articles. I think it's safe to say that a lot of companies and individuals think the same way about the same thing. The problem is that you can't self-edit, for very good reason, so you essentially just have to hope that "the right thing" happens in the end.
That said, I think it's still stupid for the PR department to through an incentive like this in the first place. But anyway, that's my 2 cents.
As much as I like Wikipedia and use it for so many things, it's things like this which make it very obvious that we users need to be careful about how we use the information. You could very well have FUD flying in both camps, and it'll be hard to tell what's right (or that there's a debate going on in the first place). I'm finding that reading what's going on in the "discussions" tab can be very important at times.
Yes it does. Yoshi, a block-stacking game for NES and Game Boy, has a "B-type" mode where the player is supposed to remove all blocks from the field. The random piece generator likes to asshole me by repeatedly not giving me the exact set of blocks I need to finish the level. In fact it is a roughly 1 out of 36 chance that the next pair of blocks is going to be appropriate.
So, the conversation is about an FPS game and how the AI typically reacts in them, and now you throw in a puzzle game example?
There are plenty of games across all genres where the AI is cheap (fighting games, especially, make me mad). But again, I was referring to AI opponents in a FPS. No developer is going to code the AI to do something like backtrack a level to grief the user. You could have situations where the AI inexplicably does something stupid that could irritate the player (camp in a really bad spot, etc.), though.
That said, given the complexity of FPS games (very wide range of actions) versus, say, a 2-D puzzle or fighting game... more often than not, the AI in an FPS is too easy because they do dumb things. Not the other way around. The default way of increasing the difficulty in FPS games has typically been to artificially do things such as increase the damage of the AI or add more opponents... settings that are much easier to tweak up and down.
It's called play testing.
Your quote reminds me of that game design school commercial that everyone makes fun of. It's the one where the guy casually says something like "Oh, just tighten up the graphics on level 3".
You could end many debates with "It's called play testing.", but that's a cop out. Besides, play testing is not the be-all-end-all to catching problems, especially when the issues might be with the design itself. So, if during play testing, someone runs into a balance issue, it's easy for the triage team to think, "Well, I guess that's just part of the design" and let the problem continue (especially if you're tight on deadline, and fixing it means re-doing a significant part of the design). That's why it's always worthwhile to have gameplay discussions early on to root out potential issues, rather than think, "Well, play testing is where we'll find and fix all the problems."
I've had AI opponents dodge, camp, and team up on me when playing as the hero in various single-player games. What's the issue here?
Normally, you can adjust the difficulty level if you're having a hard time in a shooter. AI being too cheap? Or you're just not that good? Simple enough, tweak the settings down, and you should be able to get by.
I can't really see that working in this system. Sure, it will try to quick-match your rating, pitting you against people that it thinks are at your skill level. But that's an awfully easy thing to grief. (Pretend to be really bad, so that you get matched with FPS newbies... then proceed to kick the crap out of them, even if they are Elites)
Besides, in games, the AI will dodge and camp normally. But what I'm talking about are opponents that find ways to do things that no AI would ever be programmed to do. For example, let's say that as the Elite, you're supposed to kill every last mercenary. So, as an asshole thing to do, I can just backtrack the entire level and make it very difficult for you to even find me, let alone kill me. That's not what an AI will do. Yeah, the designers can get around this by not having those type of objectives, but you can see where there's a challenge in designing objectives around NOT being griefable.
I just wonder how many players will be interested being an expendable minion. The article/company claims that the PKs will be drawn to this role, but the griefer PKs will likely prefer the "elite" role that is closer to a PvE experience (griefing has always been closer to a PvE experience, but with realistic suffering/domination).
I don't think you quite understand the mentality of your average griefer. It's not that they like having more power, or enjoy beating up on people. Rather, they get joy out of causing grief to others. In team games, that can mean being a total ass and team-killing, or causing havoc and preventing your team from doing well, etc.
I would imagine that many griefers are going to want to be in the non-Elite role, and do their best to be a total ass for the "Elite" player. The latter is looking to get through the single-player campaign, and they're supposed to be able to take down a few mercenaries along the way. Well, a couple things the griefer would do to spoil that: run around constantly to avoid being killed, camp in weird locations, exploit bad map geometry (etc), or better yet, get a bunch of griefer friends together and find a way to constantly kill the Elite, so that they can't get to the next part of the campaign.
Yeah, that sounds like a lot of fun.:P
That said, I do think it's an interesting idea, and I like to see that there are still developers willing to take risks and innovate. But they're going to have a lot of challenges to get through first.
Oh, I'm not doubting the fact that there are a lot of non-casual indie games and developers. But I don't think that's what the original article was referring to. It mentions "casual games" several times.
ESRB rating is used in the Games Browser, which is expected to be your "one stop shop" for games on Vista. True, most casual games are going to be "E for Everyone", but as you know, there are plenty of Mature hardcore titles, which could be on the same machine.
Here's a good example: Dad likes having FPS games on the computer, so he has a couple of them installed (rated M). Mom likes her Bejeweled games (rated E). Since they have children, they've setup age restriction. That way, their 10-year old son, when he logs into the PC under his account, will only see Mom's casual games listed.
The problem is that getting a game ESRB rated takes money. If a game isn't rated, I believe it won't show up for the son at all.
I can't see that as a bad thing, frankly. If indie games start showing up natively in Linux out of necessity, it might create an atmosphere where:
The community puts more effort into supporting game developers on Linux (tools, APIs, etc.) Linux begins to gain a reputation as a viable target for games (which it currently lacks) Innovative games show up on Linux rather than Windows, possibly convincing people to convert Granted, this doesn't mean that AAA titles will show up right away, but, given point #2, it might convince some developers apart from id and Epic to hit Linux with a native client for their games.
Plus, does anybody remember when Doom was an indie game and sold PCs? The bar has been raised, of course, but our tools have also become much more sophisticated in the interim.
I think you have the wrong idea of "indie game". DOOM? No. The article is referring to casual games, found in places such as Yahoo Games and MSN Games. Think of games like Bejeweled, Diner Dash, Zuma, and Cake Mania.
The primary audience for these games, believe it or not, is something like 30+ year old women. It's not surprising, actually, when you consider what type of games these are. And yes, many of these small titles are created by small dev houses with very small budgets, especially if you compare them against your typical EA game.
I agree that it may be more difficult to get an ESRB rating, and I think that's a requirement if you want to be in the "Games Browser" in Vista. I would hope that the ESRB comes up with a tiered plan so that smaller titles, which shouldn't take nearly as long to test as say, Grand Theft Auto, have a cheaper option.
That said, if I were an indie developer, I would much rather spend the $2,000 - 3,000 it takes to get an ESRB rating than to go Linux, since that demographic in no way matches my current audience (30+ year old women).
It just pains me to see possible innovation being killed because it's difficult!!! Is the PS2 tough to develop for, heck yes...PS3...even harder...remember when this was a good thing? The 360 is great, easy, straight forward and BORING!!!!!! Don't get me wrong, I like writing code for the thing, because it makes my job darn easy and I pretty much know what I am going to get on the back end.
But, call me crazy, I got into this business to innovate, not write mindless code and chase the same bugs. Heck if I wanted that I'd have stayed in the telecom industry.
In my time with the PS3 I've seen the potential to pull some amazing things out of it graphically and even moreso in AI; a lot more than the 360. This is what we developers asked Sony for when they were developing this thing remember. We wanted the most powerful box they could muster with capability to burn and we got it. Now that we have it it's too hard...WTF!!!!! With any new tech comes new hurdles, GET OVER IT!
Let's stop with the EA development mentality and remember why we got in this business.
For me, it's difficult to believe someone "in the industry" who writes the way you do. First of all, you're anonymous. Second, what's with the "!!!!!"? Being someone who actually works in the games industry, I know plenty of developers, tester, managers, etc. and none of them write the way you do. Or specifically, some of the things you say: "We wanted the most powerful box they could muster with capability to burn and we got it. Now that we have it it's too hard...WTF!!!!! With any new tech comes new hurdles, GET OVER IT!"
You're a fool if you think developers only want "the most powerful box". There's a lot more to the industry, heck software programming in general, than power. Also, you completely ignore the fact that if you were right, then you'd have developers flocking to the Xbox, since it was the most powerful console last generation.
Ease of development is definately a pro, but from what I understand, the PS2 was a pain to develop for. I've heard horror stories of development teams using Internet forums to do shop talk, because the official documentation was just utterly useless.
However, when you're the market leader by far, as the PS2 undoubtedly was, game companies will do almost anything to make sure their titles come out on that console.
Say, isn't Nintendo of America located in Redmond WA too?
Yup, they're down the street. I've heard cool things about their company store (lots of Wii to be had, if you know a friend who works there). Granted, I don't think much development actually occurs there. I think it's mostly marketing, sales, and localization work. It's a small building, located right next to DigiPen.
There are actually quite a few Nintendo fanboys working in MS, since for years they were the "home team" when it came to video games before the Xbox came around. There are still a lot of folks working in MGS that respect what Nintendo has done (myself included). Sony, not so much, due to their increasing arrogance.
Har, when I was a kid, I got video game every time I got good grades. Suffice to say, I was a good student, and an avid gamer growing up.:)
Well, since you own 500 shares of Nintendo, I can see why you have a pro-Nintendo slant on your comments. Obviously the better the company and the Wii do, the better your investment.
No, they work for me. I own something like 500 shares of Nintendo. Just like I own shares of Microsoft - and actually my ex may be working for them soon.
Just for kicks, I wanted to see how much a share of Nintendo was. So, I looked up a quote. It's around 30,000 yen, which according to a currency calculator, is about $250 USD. Each. And, finally, 500 shares at $250 is a rather large total of: $125,000.
That's a nice chunk of change you have there. I hope you bought early though. Their stock price has done incredibly well the past few years.
True. Maybe there it is possible to switch off unneeded bells and whistles, but I'm berating the fact that with Vista Windows has moved away further from being a productive environment for people who do know the ins and outs about computing. Compared to its predecessors it will require even more time and work to remove all the annoyances and get the OS into a usable state. All the current approach will do is have even more people use Linux or BSD whenever possible, and in turn the industry (e.g. the game developers) might feel pressured to start supporting those operating systems better.
To be honest, when I took the dive and moved to Vista as my main work OS, I had a lot of the same reservations. And a lot of my teammates also thought I'd have a lot of "Vista problems". Maybe it's because I came in with lower expectations or something, but my experience has been pretty good. I wouldn't say Vista has increased my productivity, but it hasn't really reduced it either.
Are there more security warnings when I'm installing some new software? Sure. But you know what? It's not like I install new software every day. Not even close. Also, now that I have a better idea of what's going on, it's slowly turning into a "feature" that I get a warning when the new software is doing something above and beyond what it's supposed to. Here's what I mean...
It used to be that once you installed, say, an ActiveX control... it had pretty much full rein over the system. That's why so many people had problems with malware, because it did all sorts of nasty things like writing itself to replicate, hiding bits of pieces of itself in the registry, constantly communicating with the home server, etc. From my experience, I don't think that can happen in Vista anymore (although I haven't tried to install spyware), and if it did, you'd get a bloody dialog for each naughty thing it tried to do. That's arguably a good thing, actually.
Now, if you're installing something which is supposed to do all of that, then I think you have to install it as Administrator (which isn't by default). From what I can understand, this is actually similar to what users do under Linux as well (although it's been a long time since I've tinkered with it). Some things you can install as regular users, while others require the super-user account.
Anyway, you should obviously take my comments with a grain of salt since I work for MS (although no where near the OS division). Yeah, there are pain points, and the comment that it does make things possibly harder for "power users" has some truth. However, considering the scope of the OS and how mainstream it's supposed to be, I can understand some of the decisions that were made. I should also point out that I'm on the Enterprise edition, so naturally there will be lots of bells and whistles that I can't turn off, for good reason.:)
One console can't turn it around? *cough* Final Fantasy VII *cough* I can't count the number of friends who bought a PS to play that. Too bad #8 turned around and stank up the joint.:)
Hey now, I actually liked FF8. To be honest, FF7 is the only FF game that I haven't played through (except for FF11, which doesn't really count since it's an MMO). I will shamelessly admit to being a Nintendo fanboy when younger, so it took me a long time to warm up to the PlayStation. So, I'll never understand a lot of the hype the "young-ins" have for FF7, which is often their "first FF experience".
Anyway, I think one game can have a major impact. There's FF7 for the PS, as you mention, and more recently, GTA3 for the PS2. However, I wouldn't say those games themselves "turned the console around", since they were many other high-profile titles that came out for Sony's consoles. Also, much of the impact comes from the fact that these were fairly highly regarded franchises.
While Blue Dragon for the 360 comes from some very strong talent, it's still new IP from a new studio. Same goes with Gears of War. Both have sold plenty of systems, but I think what MS really needs is more of the really popular franchises. They've already got GTA4 secured as multi-platform. They really need an MGS (Metal Gear Solid), or Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, etc.
And even that may not be enough, since those would be multi-platform. What would be killer is for the 360 to secure exclusive rights to a major franchise, which is exactly what Sony was able to do for their consoles. Unfortunately for MS, I don't see that happening... but having them as multi-platform may be enough anyway.
That and Fable and Fable II. I'd love to play a Wii version of those.
I'm starting to wonder if you're really on the Nintendo payroll, since you almost seem to sneak in a "pro-Nintendo" comment in every one of your postings. At least I make my biases known (I work at MS, specifically their game studios). Even then, I don't drown myself in the "kool-aid", acknowledging all the good things that do come out for Nintendo and Sony.:P
Anyway, back to gaming on Vista, I haven't tried it yet myself, although I will be once I get the Ultimate version on my home PC. That said, there's an excellent interview of John Carmack, where part of it he talks about gaming on Vista. In short, Vista doesn't appear to give all that much too gaming, aside from the already mentioned Game Explorer. It's certainly not like the advancement from Win98 to WinXP. IMHO, the main benefit is going to be security, and the fact that users aren't running in Administrator mode all the time. Not a big deal for gamers, since we tend to be savvy power users anyway. But I don't think Vista otherwise hurts gaming. *shrugs* (It does, however, mean more work for developers, since it's another configuration that needs QA, support, etc. but that's the case whenever any platform changes occur)
Of course, until the OS actually ships to consumers, and people get to experience it first hand... there's going to be a lot of FUD for and against the OS. It's the same way fanboys spouted FUD regarding the Wii and PS3, prior to launch. I think making any proclamation of "I'm never going to do X", with X not even being out, is a silly thing to do, no matter what it is.
"Dumbing down" the whole system to help grandma deal with security issues while alienating the power users can't be the correct approach. It should be optional to get rid of all these restrictions and confirmation boxes and any other annoyances that turn simple tasks into an obstacle course. - Preferably as a choice when installing the OS.
I am pretty certain you can do this, although I haven't tinkered with it myself. (I'm also on the Enterprise version of Vista, so I'm pretty certain it would be set not to let me change these security settings... which makes sense) I think this is the right approach. Default the security of the OS to high, and then power users who know better, will dig and find out where they can reduce the restrictions ("I want to run as Administrator all the time!"). Honestly, although it sounds like "security through obfuscation", I think it makes pragmatic sense.
What makes it so hard to develop operating systems tailored to the needs of the users? Why not create a version, let's call it the "Home" edition that ensures security by enforcing the use of admin passwords, cascading confirmation boxes, ESRB ratings for games, and running all sorts of "security tools" in the background. This version would be used by most of the "home" users who just want a system that works and not rtfm all the time.
Obviously developers, geeks, enthusiasts - let's call them "professional" users get pissed off by this sort of intrusive hand-holding, so why not create a... - oh let's say "Professional" edition of the same OS that by default gives the users freedom about what they want to run and install, lets them decide how to deal with security issues and that only bugs them if really necessary?
There are actually multiple versions of Vista, including a Home version and an Ultimate version. That said, I don't know what security settings that start/default out with. You also have to consider that system builders (Dell, HP, etc.) usually pre-install all the software for users, and the safe bet is to use conservative security settings. (I wonder how many support calls Dell gets from frustrated users who think the computer sucks, but it's because they've riddled it with spyware)
Slashdot Mirror
Also, let us remember that mark downs typically aren't always a bad thing. After all, things go on sale all the time. For example, there was a nice MicroCenter $100 rebate for the 360 that generated a ton of demand, which was great for both MS and MicroCenter. (I am guessing MC made up the money on the markup of other items)
Now, if it turns out that retailers everywhere have way too many PS3s, can't get rid of them, and they're all slashing prices, and this is all happening over the course of several more months
BTW - It feels weird defending Sony for once.
I've already played Sims 2 to death on the PC, and that just seems like a better platform for the game, thanks to all the user-content you can get for it.
It's the retailers in Japan that are marking it down, because there's an oversupply of consoles. Anecdotal evidence seems to point towards the same thing in the US (consoles sitting on shelves), although apparently not bad enough to make retailers want to do the same thing. Well, at least not yet. The funny thing, though, is that you can apparently go to eBay and get a Core PS3 for slightly cheaper than retail ($50 or so) from scalpers that got burned.
PS3 for $299 is a pipe-dream. Honestly, I don't think it'll happen until 2010, maybe 2009. There's just too much in that machine, and given the past history of console price drops
That said, I think what a lot of people do is purchase systems on the promise of the console, as long as it's at a decent price point. Plunking down $250 for a Wii for me, even though there's only one game I'd like to play
BTW - Still no Wii around here. It looks like another couple of weeks, maybe, before it's really a "Gee, I'll pick one up on the way home" situation.
Certainly a price drop would help, but a lot of what people are waiting for are good games to come out for the system. There is certainly lots of potential with the system, with it being the home of mega-hits such as Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy, Gran Turismo, and so forth. However, with more exclusives getting away from Sony (such as Virtua Fighter and Grand Theft Auto), the more likely your average hardcore gamer is just going to wait until a price drop and/or the much-anticipated PS3 games to actually ship. (Well, that's certainly what I'm doing)
With the PS2, it was a no-brainer. You already knew that the Sony console was going to get all the big name games. Not so much with the PS3 anymore, and coupled with the high price, there's a lot of people sitting on the fence this time around.
That said, a part of me would just like to see Blizzard stick to the traditional RTS model (with maybe a few tweaks here and there), and just do it really well. You could argue that this is what they did with WoW. It's not a tremendous innovation over previous MMORPGs. If you're not a fan of the genre, then there's really nothing new for you in that game (just boils down to a level/rep grind and treadmill). However, what Blizzard did polish and balance the heck out of that game, and it really shows.
I think a lot of folks, like you, assume that if someone works in Microsoft, they MUST share the opinion of the entire company, that we're all anti-Linux, hate OSS, love DRM, etc. Frankly, that's not the case.
BTW, I can, and often, use Google. Why? Because frankly, it's currently a better search product, and I need to get my job done. I'm not alone either. Granted, there's a lot of incentive to try to get Microsofties to switch over to Windows Live Search, but there's also a lot of frank discussion of, "We'll use Live Search when it does what we need it to do". There's actually a lot of respect for what our competitors do, with obviously the goal to try to make our own products better as well.
Maybe you don't understand the games industry very well, but being locked into technology is basically a given with consoles. So if you're trying to say that Wii and PS3 development isn't locked, then you're mistaken.
Anyway, if I'm serious in my craft, then the right choice is to go for the platforms where the users are, which are the major consoles and Windows PCs. As a maker of games, I don't really care about which platform I'm on. But what I really want to do is reach the most people. If, for some reason, we see that totally change and suddenly gaming on Linux is the big thing 10 years from now, well, you'll know where I be then.
Believe it or not, there are plenty of "fans of Microsoft" that don't work here, contrary to what your average Slashdotter might believe.
As for TFA, when I first read the title, I was thinking, "Oh good lord, what the hell did PR do this time?". But after reading the actual article, I can understand a bit of the reason why they did it. (However, my personal stance is that it's still something they shouldn't have done)
I dislike FUD regardless of where it comes from, who it's targeted towards, etc. However, if you take your average Slashdotter's opinion, they'll think that all FUD must originate from big corporations looking out to take down the "little guy". While that's certainly the case for lots of things, it also happens the other way around. MS is arguably the biggest example of this, since it's by no means a "favorite" company for your typical Linux/OSS/etc-friendly Slashdotter. So it's not surprising that a lot of this FUD will stick on a site like Wikipedia, which (I would imagine) has a higher percentage of your tech-savvy "Linux/OSS/etc-friendly" userbase. I speak from personal experience as well, since from time-to-time I will run into some very vehement anti-MS zealots that really have an incorrect idea on how things work here, and refuse to hear anything otherwise.
Now, I'm not saying the actual article in question has a lot of FUD either way (I really don't have an opinion ODF/OOXML, nor do I really care). But I can understand Microsoft PR wishing there was someone more independent going through the articles. I think it's safe to say that a lot of companies and individuals think the same way about the same thing. The problem is that you can't self-edit, for very good reason, so you essentially just have to hope that "the right thing" happens in the end.
That said, I think it's still stupid for the PR department to through an incentive like this in the first place. But anyway, that's my 2 cents.
As much as I like Wikipedia and use it for so many things, it's things like this which make it very obvious that we users need to be careful about how we use the information. You could very well have FUD flying in both camps, and it'll be hard to tell what's right (or that there's a debate going on in the first place). I'm finding that reading what's going on in the "discussions" tab can be very important at times.
There are plenty of games across all genres where the AI is cheap (fighting games, especially, make me mad). But again, I was referring to AI opponents in a FPS. No developer is going to code the AI to do something like backtrack a level to grief the user. You could have situations where the AI inexplicably does something stupid that could irritate the player (camp in a really bad spot, etc.), though.
That said, given the complexity of FPS games (very wide range of actions) versus, say, a 2-D puzzle or fighting game
Your quote reminds me of that game design school commercial that everyone makes fun of. It's the one where the guy casually says something like "Oh, just tighten up the graphics on level 3".
You could end many debates with "It's called play testing.", but that's a cop out. Besides, play testing is not the be-all-end-all to catching problems, especially when the issues might be with the design itself. So, if during play testing, someone runs into a balance issue, it's easy for the triage team to think, "Well, I guess that's just part of the design" and let the problem continue (especially if you're tight on deadline, and fixing it means re-doing a significant part of the design). That's why it's always worthwhile to have gameplay discussions early on to root out potential issues, rather than think, "Well, play testing is where we'll find and fix all the problems."
I can't really see that working in this system. Sure, it will try to quick-match your rating, pitting you against people that it thinks are at your skill level. But that's an awfully easy thing to grief. (Pretend to be really bad, so that you get matched with FPS newbies
Besides, in games, the AI will dodge and camp normally. But what I'm talking about are opponents that find ways to do things that no AI would ever be programmed to do. For example, let's say that as the Elite, you're supposed to kill every last mercenary. So, as an asshole thing to do, I can just backtrack the entire level and make it very difficult for you to even find me, let alone kill me. That's not what an AI will do. Yeah, the designers can get around this by not having those type of objectives, but you can see where there's a challenge in designing objectives around NOT being griefable.
I would imagine that many griefers are going to want to be in the non-Elite role, and do their best to be a total ass for the "Elite" player. The latter is looking to get through the single-player campaign, and they're supposed to be able to take down a few mercenaries along the way. Well, a couple things the griefer would do to spoil that: run around constantly to avoid being killed, camp in weird locations, exploit bad map geometry (etc), or better yet, get a bunch of griefer friends together and find a way to constantly kill the Elite, so that they can't get to the next part of the campaign.
Yeah, that sounds like a lot of fun.
That said, I do think it's an interesting idea, and I like to see that there are still developers willing to take risks and innovate. But they're going to have a lot of challenges to get through first.
Oh, I'm not doubting the fact that there are a lot of non-casual indie games and developers. But I don't think that's what the original article was referring to. It mentions "casual games" several times.
ESRB rating is used in the Games Browser, which is expected to be your "one stop shop" for games on Vista. True, most casual games are going to be "E for Everyone", but as you know, there are plenty of Mature hardcore titles, which could be on the same machine.
Here's a good example: Dad likes having FPS games on the computer, so he has a couple of them installed (rated M). Mom likes her Bejeweled games (rated E). Since they have children, they've setup age restriction. That way, their 10-year old son, when he logs into the PC under his account, will only see Mom's casual games listed.
The problem is that getting a game ESRB rated takes money. If a game isn't rated, I believe it won't show up for the son at all.
The primary audience for these games, believe it or not, is something like 30+ year old women. It's not surprising, actually, when you consider what type of games these are. And yes, many of these small titles are created by small dev houses with very small budgets, especially if you compare them against your typical EA game.
I agree that it may be more difficult to get an ESRB rating, and I think that's a requirement if you want to be in the "Games Browser" in Vista. I would hope that the ESRB comes up with a tiered plan so that smaller titles, which shouldn't take nearly as long to test as say, Grand Theft Auto, have a cheaper option.
That said, if I were an indie developer, I would much rather spend the $2,000 - 3,000 it takes to get an ESRB rating than to go Linux, since that demographic in no way matches my current audience (30+ year old women).
You're a fool if you think developers only want "the most powerful box". There's a lot more to the industry, heck software programming in general, than power. Also, you completely ignore the fact that if you were right, then you'd have developers flocking to the Xbox, since it was the most powerful console last generation.
Ease of development is definately a pro, but from what I understand, the PS2 was a pain to develop for. I've heard horror stories of development teams using Internet forums to do shop talk, because the official documentation was just utterly useless.
However, when you're the market leader by far, as the PS2 undoubtedly was, game companies will do almost anything to make sure their titles come out on that console.
There are actually quite a few Nintendo fanboys working in MS, since for years they were the "home team" when it came to video games before the Xbox came around. There are still a lot of folks working in MGS that respect what Nintendo has done (myself included). Sony, not so much, due to their increasing arrogance.
Har, when I was a kid, I got video game every time I got good grades. Suffice to say, I was a good student, and an avid gamer growing up. :)
Well, since you own 500 shares of Nintendo, I can see why you have a pro-Nintendo slant on your comments. Obviously the better the company and the Wii do, the better your investment.
That's a nice chunk of change you have there. I hope you bought early though. Their stock price has done incredibly well the past few years.
Are there more security warnings when I'm installing some new software? Sure. But you know what? It's not like I install new software every day. Not even close. Also, now that I have a better idea of what's going on, it's slowly turning into a "feature" that I get a warning when the new software is doing something above and beyond what it's supposed to. Here's what I mean
It used to be that once you installed, say, an ActiveX control
Now, if you're installing something which is supposed to do all of that, then I think you have to install it as Administrator (which isn't by default). From what I can understand, this is actually similar to what users do under Linux as well (although it's been a long time since I've tinkered with it). Some things you can install as regular users, while others require the super-user account.
Anyway, you should obviously take my comments with a grain of salt since I work for MS (although no where near the OS division). Yeah, there are pain points, and the comment that it does make things possibly harder for "power users" has some truth. However, considering the scope of the OS and how mainstream it's supposed to be, I can understand some of the decisions that were made. I should also point out that I'm on the Enterprise edition, so naturally there will be lots of bells and whistles that I can't turn off, for good reason.
Anyway, I think one game can have a major impact. There's FF7 for the PS, as you mention, and more recently, GTA3 for the PS2. However, I wouldn't say those games themselves "turned the console around", since they were many other high-profile titles that came out for Sony's consoles. Also, much of the impact comes from the fact that these were fairly highly regarded franchises.
While Blue Dragon for the 360 comes from some very strong talent, it's still new IP from a new studio. Same goes with Gears of War. Both have sold plenty of systems, but I think what MS really needs is more of the really popular franchises. They've already got GTA4 secured as multi-platform. They really need an MGS (Metal Gear Solid), or Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, etc.
And even that may not be enough, since those would be multi-platform. What would be killer is for the 360 to secure exclusive rights to a major franchise, which is exactly what Sony was able to do for their consoles. Unfortunately for MS, I don't see that happening
Anyway, back to gaming on Vista, I haven't tried it yet myself, although I will be once I get the Ultimate version on my home PC. That said, there's an excellent interview of John Carmack, where part of it he talks about gaming on Vista. In short, Vista doesn't appear to give all that much too gaming, aside from the already mentioned Game Explorer. It's certainly not like the advancement from Win98 to WinXP. IMHO, the main benefit is going to be security, and the fact that users aren't running in Administrator mode all the time. Not a big deal for gamers, since we tend to be savvy power users anyway. But I don't think Vista otherwise hurts gaming. *shrugs* (It does, however, mean more work for developers, since it's another configuration that needs QA, support, etc. but that's the case whenever any platform changes occur)
Of course, until the OS actually ships to consumers, and people get to experience it first hand
There are actually multiple versions of Vista, including a Home version and an Ultimate version. That said, I don't know what security settings that start/default out with. You also have to consider that system builders (Dell, HP, etc.) usually pre-install all the software for users, and the safe bet is to use conservative security settings. (I wonder how many support calls Dell gets from frustrated users who think the computer sucks, but it's because they've riddled it with spyware)