I also take issue with the comment in the article about stores becoming free game rental sites which is a load of bollocks basically.
I wasn't sure how to read your comments following this. If they were in support of this statement, then I think you missed the point of the author's argument about retail stores becoming free rental outlets. If you look at it in terms of console games, copying them isn't something the average person has the skill or inclination to do. However, they might have the inclination to buy a game, play it for four days, then return it to a store that allows returns or exchanges. Repeat cycle ad nauseum. I think this is what he was getting at.
That being said, I agree with you. The fact that the default return policy at most software/game retailers is "If it's open, piss off" is ridiculous and infuriating. And for ther record, I consider a game or program "defective" if it has an unreasonable number of bugs and doesn't run adequately under the configuration specified on the box. Just because it isn't physically malformed doesn't mean it isn't defective, and any store managers that tried to argue otherwise would be begging me to take my money back by the time I was through with them.
The ads for the both GTA3 and Vice City I thought were fantastic.
They both used bunches of cutscenes and gameplay footage (granted it was usually using the rarely used cinematic camera) and had music from the in-game soundtrack playing as the commercial track. No other frills or voiceover was necessary. Just your character, shooting people, blowing shit up and running from the law. What else do you need to know? Of course, for me, both sets of commercials were unnecessary since I had planned to buy or already bought the games long before I saw the ads.
Animal Crossing has a couple cool different ways to play with other people. It's not multiplayer as such, but it's still interesting.
One is if you have another person who lives in the same town or you have another town on a different memory card that's plugged into the second slot. In these two cases, you can send them stuff in the mail or leave things for them to pick up.
The other way is to send items to a friend using the store. You tell the store owner what item you want to send, who you want to get it, and where that person lives, and the owner generates a code. You give your friend that code, and then your friend can go to the store in his/her town and retrieve what you sent using the code. I find this very cool. I can "send" things to my friend playing in New York and all I have to do is send him an email to tell him the code to use to pick it up.
Of course I've played them. To me, the games were less about the action and more about the puzzles, and the 3d versions certainly deliver in that area.
the two games on the N64 were about walking a minute in a direction on the world map, kill a monster, walk again, repeat until you reach the next dungeon.
As opposed to all the other Zelda games that were something besides this.
This is true. I believe even Kermit has a star in Hollywood.
In fairness though, the Madden series of games isn't actually a member of the HoF in the strictest sense. It's merely honored and on display there. Also, EA probably wouldn't have agreed to do it if say 989 Sports were the owners of the hall and stood to make money off the Madden franchise name.
Really, I think the best thing would be for companies agree to such a date privately, and then not talk about next generation systems whatsoever, so that we keep demanding support of the current systems as long as possible instead of anticipating the next big thing.
Something like this would most certainly wake up the FTC's antitrust lawyers as it borders on collusion. I think Nintendo has had quite enough of that kind of investigation.
I'm totally in favor of paying homage to video game characters that achieve "legend" status, but this type of thing is bound to run into a snag that other similar places don't worry about.
Video game characters are property. The Hollywood Walk of Fame doesn't have to get permission from Lucille Ball's owner in order to give her an award and honor her, but Mario belongs to Nintendo, Sonic belongs to Sega, etc. There would have to be some serious hoop-jumping in order to get names, images, videos, statues and the like on display in a museum of this kind.
Mario would be first on my list too, but knowing the tightness with which Nintendo grips its IP and given its current competitive stance with Sony, I find it hard to believe that they would allow Mario's likeness to be used to put money into Sony's pockets.
However, I'm all in favor of honoring actual people in this way. Creating a place where gamers could wander through the history of video games and read about the careers of legendary innovators like Ralph Baer, Nolan Bushnell, Shigeru Miyamoto, and John Carmack sounds like an awesome idea.
This is a good thing. I recommend that anyone owning a Cube should own a Wavebird. If I could find a similar product (with such high quality) for the PS2, I'd buy it in a second.
Think of it this way: free focus group for MicroSoft.
1. Float idea of game price hike by silly "games analyst" on MSNBC. 2. Hope story gets posted to major/minor games-related sites. 3. Monitor reactions in said games-related sites' forums. 4. Make decision on whether or not to raise prices of games (and by how much) based on forum posts.
This is especially poignant (and somewhat ironic)given the reason why most people are saying they can't boycott this week (and the giant banner ad that I'm staring as I type this).
You are forgetting the most obscene part of this scenario: paying $0.01 per skipped commercial is the most ridiculous rip-off since the Louisiana Purchase.
Broadcasters don't know whether or not you are sitting in front of your television watching their shows or not. If you are a Nielsen family and the show is tuned in, it counts in the ratings (which is how advertising rates are calculated during sweeps). In other words, their rates don't change if you use a PVR. The only person that is pissed is the advertisers because they "know" that 45% (or whatever percentage) of the people are PVRing the shows and not seeing their inane commercials since their sales are down or whatever.
I'm going to make up some numbers here, so bear with me. Let's say that 50% of all cable subscribers use a PVR and 100% of those people skip every commercial. And let's say that the cable company charges $300 for a 30-second spot at a certain time on a certain channel during a popular show. Let's say that in your large metropolitan area, 80 thousand people watch the show. So about 40 thousand PVR it and skip the commercials. So those 40 thousand people pay 1 cent to the cable company ($400) which already collected the $300 for the commercial from the advertiser, leaving them $700 for a 30-second commercial (more than twice their advertising rate). Even if the advertiser convinced them to give back half of the money since half the people never saw the ad, that still leaves the cable company with over $500 for a 30-second spot. In this scenario, it's better for them if half the people get to skip the commercial anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
I also take issue with the comment in the article about stores becoming free game rental sites which is a load of bollocks basically.
I wasn't sure how to read your comments following this. If they were in support of this statement, then I think you missed the point of the author's argument about retail stores becoming free rental outlets. If you look at it in terms of console games, copying them isn't something the average person has the skill or inclination to do. However, they might have the inclination to buy a game, play it for four days, then return it to a store that allows returns or exchanges. Repeat cycle ad nauseum. I think this is what he was getting at.
That being said, I agree with you. The fact that the default return policy at most software/game retailers is "If it's open, piss off" is ridiculous and infuriating. And for ther record, I consider a game or program "defective" if it has an unreasonable number of bugs and doesn't run adequately under the configuration specified on the box. Just because it isn't physically malformed doesn't mean it isn't defective, and any store managers that tried to argue otherwise would be begging me to take my money back by the time I was through with them.
The ads for the both GTA3 and Vice City I thought were fantastic.
They both used bunches of cutscenes and gameplay footage (granted it was usually using the rarely used cinematic camera) and had music from the in-game soundtrack playing as the commercial track. No other frills or voiceover was necessary. Just your character, shooting people, blowing shit up and running from the law. What else do you need to know? Of course, for me, both sets of commercials were unnecessary since I had planned to buy or already bought the games long before I saw the ads.
This is offtopic, but here goes.
Animal Crossing has a couple cool different ways to play with other people. It's not multiplayer as such, but it's still interesting.
One is if you have another person who lives in the same town or you have another town on a different memory card that's plugged into the second slot. In these two cases, you can send them stuff in the mail or leave things for them to pick up.
The other way is to send items to a friend using the store. You tell the store owner what item you want to send, who you want to get it, and where that person lives, and the owner generates a code. You give your friend that code, and then your friend can go to the store in his/her town and retrieve what you sent using the code. I find this very cool. I can "send" things to my friend playing in New York and all I have to do is send him an email to tell him the code to use to pick it up.
After looking through all the screenshots (which are now down as far as I can tell) I'm surprised the Kingdom Hearts didn't make the list.
If ever there was a game that is consistently rated amongst the best PS2 games that doesn't deserve such a rating, it's this one.
Of course I've played them. To me, the games were less about the action and more about the puzzles, and the 3d versions certainly deliver in that area.
the two games on the N64 were about walking a minute in a direction on the world map, kill a monster, walk again, repeat until you reach the next dungeon.
As opposed to all the other Zelda games that were something besides this.
Looks like Gamespy caught on and took down the screenshots.
I figured out that #6 is a game called Blinx: The Time Sweeper for XBox. #11 is still bugging me because it looks familiar.
Don't know #4, #11, #15, or #20 either.
#13 is Battletoads
#17 is The Getaway
#18 is American McGee's Alice
#19 Homeworld maybe?
Now we can play a fun game called Match the Screenshot to the Game Title.
I don't know what #4 is, but I agree with Black and White as being overrated. Can't wait to see what all the fanboys think of Halo being #10.
Aside from the fact that this is a stupid idea, 7300 emails per year @ 1 cent per email equals $73.00 per year, not $7.30.
This is true. I believe even Kermit has a star in Hollywood.
In fairness though, the Madden series of games isn't actually a member of the HoF in the strictest sense. It's merely honored and on display there. Also, EA probably wouldn't have agreed to do it if say 989 Sports were the owners of the hall and stood to make money off the Madden franchise name.
Really, I think the best thing would be for companies agree to such a date privately, and then not talk about next generation systems whatsoever, so that we keep demanding support of the current systems as long as possible instead of anticipating the next big thing.
Something like this would most certainly wake up the FTC's antitrust lawyers as it borders on collusion. I think Nintendo has had quite enough of that kind of investigation.
I'm totally in favor of paying homage to video game characters that achieve "legend" status, but this type of thing is bound to run into a snag that other similar places don't worry about.
Video game characters are property. The Hollywood Walk of Fame doesn't have to get permission from Lucille Ball's owner in order to give her an award and honor her, but Mario belongs to Nintendo, Sonic belongs to Sega, etc. There would have to be some serious hoop-jumping in order to get names, images, videos, statues and the like on display in a museum of this kind.
Mario would be first on my list too, but knowing the tightness with which Nintendo grips its IP and given its current competitive stance with Sony, I find it hard to believe that they would allow Mario's likeness to be used to put money into Sony's pockets.
However, I'm all in favor of honoring actual people in this way. Creating a place where gamers could wander through the history of video games and read about the careers of legendary innovators like Ralph Baer, Nolan Bushnell, Shigeru Miyamoto, and John Carmack sounds like an awesome idea.
How long before Vivendi gets word of this and sues these guys for IP infringement?
Apparently you never tried playing it with a NES controller. *tears hair out*
Maybe so, but not cheaper than buying a DualShock and a USB adapter. =)
This is a good thing. I recommend that anyone owning a Cube should own a Wavebird. If I could find a similar product (with such high quality) for the PS2, I'd buy it in a second.
Think of it this way: free focus group for MicroSoft.
1. Float idea of game price hike by silly "games analyst" on MSNBC.
2. Hope story gets posted to major/minor games-related sites.
3. Monitor reactions in said games-related sites' forums.
4. Make decision on whether or not to raise prices of games (and by how much) based on forum posts.
Has simoniker been receiving the Dictionary.com Word of the Day lately?
No, it just means it has much more mature taste in hue than either of the other two.
Yes! I love Nintendo Guy!
I have no idea what Big Dig is. Can someone enlighten me?
This is especially poignant (and somewhat ironic)given the reason why most people are saying they can't boycott this week (and the giant banner ad that I'm staring as I type this).
LOTR:Slashdotters::The One Ring:Middle Earthlings
"My precious" indeed...
Regardless of whether or not SMB2 (U.S.) was a Miyamoto creation, calling it horrible is blasphemous.
You are forgetting the most obscene part of this scenario: paying $0.01 per skipped commercial is the most ridiculous rip-off since the Louisiana Purchase.
Broadcasters don't know whether or not you are sitting in front of your television watching their shows or not. If you are a Nielsen family and the show is tuned in, it counts in the ratings (which is how advertising rates are calculated during sweeps). In other words, their rates don't change if you use a PVR. The only person that is pissed is the advertisers because they "know" that 45% (or whatever percentage) of the people are PVRing the shows and not seeing their inane commercials since their sales are down or whatever.
I'm going to make up some numbers here, so bear with me. Let's say that 50% of all cable subscribers use a PVR and 100% of those people skip every commercial. And let's say that the cable company charges $300 for a 30-second spot at a certain time on a certain channel during a popular show. Let's say that in your large metropolitan area, 80 thousand people watch the show. So about 40 thousand PVR it and skip the commercials. So those 40 thousand people pay 1 cent to the cable company ($400) which already collected the $300 for the commercial from the advertiser, leaving them $700 for a 30-second commercial (more than twice their advertising rate). Even if the advertiser convinced them to give back half of the money since half the people never saw the ad, that still leaves the cable company with over $500 for a 30-second spot. In this scenario, it's better for them if half the people get to skip the commercial anyway.