To everyone bitching about Nintendo 'milking' money out of them by 'forcing' them to buy a 2nd GBA and an e-Reader:
Do you bitch when Blizzard releases expansions to their games? That's what e-Reader cards are. Expansions. The e-Reader is the only mechanism the GBA has for expansion. If you don't have one, you can't magically get more stuff onto your cart.
Good god... It's a f'ing optional bonus feature and people are complaining about it.
but eventually i want to play sunshine, and at the moment thats just about the only game i think might be worth the money on gc
There are much better games than Mario Sunshine on the 'Cube. That's not to say that Sunshine is bad by any means... But it's certainly not the best reason to get a 'Cube. Eternal Darkness, Viewtiful Joe, F-Zero... now those are tough to top.
8? what ever, 8 means 4v4 which is below the minimum for a fun game really.
Really? Damn. I guess I must not have been having fun in all those 2, 3, and 4-player Doom deathmatches back in the day. And to think, all these 22 years I've been playing, I didn't even realize that you needed > 8 people to have fun at a video game...
So does this thing have your standard 90-day warranty? It's bad enough to have a $300 PlayStation 2 crap out on you after 6-12 months. I'd be looking for blood if this $700-$900 unit broke down just out of warranty.
Although, if you think about it, that'd be a great way for Nintendo to give Microsoft the finger.
It'd never happen, because I honestly don't think that Nintendo is interested in waving their dicks back at Microsoft. They're more concerned about making good games, profitably.
Oh, yeah, and they both have 4 controller ports, too! I forgot that one. So I guess you're right -- because of some coincidences, they're the same. Flawless logic.
And the power cord -- can't forget that. They both have power cords. Gee, I guess I just didn't see all of these parallels before.
Gee, thanks for your insight, Mr. Video Game Market Analyst Expert.
I hear this tired straw man argument so often that I wonder if people actually believe it's true. Can you offer one piece of evidence other than the anecdotal "Dreamcast had many 1st party games, Gamecube has many 1st party games, therefore they're the same thing!" Can you give *any* supported arguments that back up your implication that the Gamecube is going the way of the Dreamcast?
Here -- I'll offer some other bullet points to consider: Sega of America was horribly mismanaged during the Dreamcast's demise. The Dreamcast had to compete with the Sony marketing juggernaut/hype machine far more than the Gamecube did/does. Sega has far fewer huge franchises than Nintendo does. I'd even go so far as to say that a larger part of Sega's fanbase was the more casual "I play X because it's cooler" segment of the market, whose loyalty stayed with Sega as long as they stayed in fashion.
Maybe there was more to the Dreamcast's failure than just lack of 3rd party support.
Maybe if US citizens could get a clue and see that serving the interest of the world also serves the interest of the US, instead of just looking at it from a childish "us and them" perspective, we wouldn't even be having this pointless discussion now.
If the GBA were up against a platform that had PS2 level graphics, at the same price point, the GBA would get crushed.
Counter example to prove this is an invalid point: the Gamecube and XBox have clearly superior graphics capabilities, yet which console has sold the most? (Not to mention -- the Gamecube is significantly cheaper and has far better load times)
It's all marketing. Period. Consoles are popular for the same reason Britney Spears and her ilk are popular.
Funny, I've died a few times because of 'dumb luck,' (on Half Pipe mostly) bust most often it has been because of my lack of skill, not luck. (and I tend to be a pretty skilled player)
I spent the last few days working on Master difficulty. I was getting my ass handed to me repeatedly on some of the tracks. I ran the tracks a bunch to practice, and I got better. I just beat the diamond cup with 1st, 2nd, 1st, 5th, and 18th place finishes.
It was an extremely satisfying experience. (1st on Undulation was great, 2nd on Shift was even better) In fact, it's one of few times I've actually talked smack to computer opponents.
My *only* complaint about the difficulty is that the computer opponents don't seem to be fazed whatsoever by impacts. When going through the boosts with 15 other racers at the end of Green Tree 2 (Intersecting Track, I think), you never see *them* lose control because of a collision and end up dead last because of it. Other than that, I think the game is perfectly fair.
I think the key is to just learn from your mistakes. Died on a turn when you got bumped by someone? Remember that and be more careful next time. Lost too much speed going through a corner and got passed by 12 people? Run the track on practice mode and learn how to get through the turn better. Don't like situations where you can't react to something? Learn to avoid those situations.
Learn the best places on the track to make aggressive moves for position -- learn the places on the track to just relax and keep moving.
Games are supposed to entertain. Some insanely addictive games (Bejewelled for example) don't ramp up the difficulty.
And as soon as I found that I could basically play Bejeweled for an indefinite amount of time with no change in challenge, I got bored of it.
I'm sorry, but if there's no challenge, there's no game. Can you name a single game outside of video games that offers no (or little) challenge, and is still entertaining to intelligent adults? Of course, there are games like Candyland that are purely luck and have a winner predetermined if you play long enough, but the suggested age group for that game is what, 3-6?
The problem with video games is that we're getting nothing but Candyland equivalents because people aren't interested in a challenge -- they just want to see the next FMV. I don't get why anybody would take any enjoyment or satisfaction out of succeeding at completing something when there was no chance of failure to begin with.
Your example about Tony Hawk 2 -- I haven't played, but I *have* played 3, and completed it with nearly every character. Why? It was a fun game. In the course of playing it, I played with everyone (since they're all roughtly equivalent), and finished everything. My question to you is -- if you don't like playing it to begin with, why do you even care about unlocking more stuff to bore yourself with?
It's another entirely to punish mediocre players by locking out 90% of the game they've paid for.
So let's just aim for the lowest common denominator and make an easy game so that *everyone* can be a winner! It's worked great for the education system!
Well, if you'd played Eternal Darkness, you'd be excited too.
Way back when, Silicon Knights did the original Legacy of Kain. The story rocked, the game itself was so-so. Nintendo steps in, guides them through the development of Eternal Darkness -- lo-and-behold -- story rocks, gameplay rocks.
Here, we've got Silicon Knights, Nintendo (Miyamoto), and Konami (Kojima) collaborating on a remake to what was originally a pretty good game on crappy hardware. Hell yeah I'm looking forward to it.
You need to read up on what happened between Nintendo/Square/Sony during the transition period after the SNES.
Basically, Nintendo set them up with a bunch of SGI workstations for N64 development, and Square then screwed Nintendo by jumping ship and taking as many developers as they could (Enix included) with them.
If *anyone* deserves scorn, it's Square for backstabbing the company that published their (could-have-been) last shot at a successful game: Final Fantasy.
This is just wrong. Lots of articles have mentioned how games make more money than Hollywood, but usually they're talking about a) the worldwide video game industry vs b) US box office sales. So we've got the entire video game industry vs one part of one market of the entire movie industry.
Yeah, the video game industry has grown, but it's still nowhere near the size of the motion picture industry.
So if he had something running pre-OSX (which would be likely, given the options available for Macs when Win98SE was out), a wireless card would have 'just worked'? I find that hard to believe.
Maybe if the laptop had been running *any* modern OS, it would've 'just worked.' Maybe a 4-year old OS just isn't cut out to handle all the latest gadgets.
And why the hell would anybody contact hardware vendor's IT department for drivers? Have him try customer support next time -- he might have better luck.
And, for the record, I like Apple, and I think the most recent Mac lines are awesome. But this post just sounds like a pro-Apple tool that needs to vent because s/he feels so incensed about the fact that their chosen computing platform is such a distant #2 to Windows/Intel.
Oh boo hoo. So Nintendo's giving them funding and then *expecting* someting from it? Oh dear, what kind of evil corporation would do *that*? You mean, they aren't just *giving* stuff away for absolutely nothing? Bastards!
Part of the reason that they're (basically) giving away money to these development houses is to keep them exclusive to Nintendo platforms. If they just give them a dev kit, then the game may or may not be finished, and it may or may not be exclusive. Why would you pay someone to develop games for your competitor? Why would you pay someone to maybe never finish a game?
And whre do you come up with the strings on funding 'for already sequelled games'?
Besides, if you think that it's *so* evil that a console manufacturer should pay for an exclusive title, then you'd better not own an XBox, PS2, *or* Gamecube. (Though, actually, Nintendo hasn't done much of that -- instead they just pay Retro Studios, Silicon Knights, HAL, Camelot, and others to make stuff like works for hire.)
Slashdot Mirror
To everyone bitching about Nintendo 'milking' money out of them by 'forcing' them to buy a 2nd GBA and an e-Reader:
... It's a f'ing optional bonus feature and people are complaining about it.
Do you bitch when Blizzard releases expansions to their games? That's what e-Reader cards are. Expansions. The e-Reader is the only mechanism the GBA has for expansion. If you don't have one, you can't magically get more stuff onto your cart.
Good god
--Jeremy
but eventually i want to play sunshine, and at the moment thats just about the only game i think might be worth the money on gc
... now those are tough to top.
There are much better games than Mario Sunshine on the 'Cube. That's not to say that Sunshine is bad by any means... But it's certainly not the best reason to get a 'Cube. Eternal Darkness, Viewtiful Joe, F-Zero
--Jeremy
Do you compare P4's and Athlons based on clock rate as well?
How 'bout this:
Gamecube: 256k l2 cache
XBox: <=128k l2 cache (I forget how much exactly)
--Jeremy
8? what ever, 8 means 4v4 which is below the minimum for a fun game really.
Really? Damn. I guess I must not have been having fun in all those 2, 3, and 4-player Doom deathmatches back in the day. And to think, all these 22 years I've been playing, I didn't even realize that you needed > 8 people to have fun at a video game...
--Jeremy
So does this thing have your standard 90-day warranty? It's bad enough to have a $300 PlayStation 2 crap out on you after 6-12 months. I'd be looking for blood if this $700-$900 unit broke down just out of warranty.
--Jeremy
There is NO SUCH THING as security through obscurity
Sure there is. What principle do you think passwords work on?
--Jeremy
There's no protection of one application from another
Spoken like someone who hasn't used Windows in years.
And BTW, even Win'95 protected apps from each other. It just did a really shitty job of protecting itself from the apps.
--Jeremy
Although, if you think about it, that'd be a great way for Nintendo to give Microsoft the finger.
It'd never happen, because I honestly don't think that Nintendo is interested in waving their dicks back at Microsoft. They're more concerned about making good games, profitably.
--Jeremy
Oh, yeah, and they both have 4 controller ports, too! I forgot that one. So I guess you're right -- because of some coincidences, they're the same. Flawless logic.
And the power cord -- can't forget that. They both have power cords. Gee, I guess I just didn't see all of these parallels before.
--Jeremy
Gee, thanks for your insight, Mr. Video Game Market Analyst Expert.
I hear this tired straw man argument so often that I wonder if people actually believe it's true. Can you offer one piece of evidence other than the anecdotal "Dreamcast had many 1st party games, Gamecube has many 1st party games, therefore they're the same thing!" Can you give *any* supported arguments that back up your implication that the Gamecube is going the way of the Dreamcast?
Here -- I'll offer some other bullet points to consider: Sega of America was horribly mismanaged during the Dreamcast's demise. The Dreamcast had to compete with the Sony marketing juggernaut/hype machine far more than the Gamecube did/does. Sega has far fewer huge franchises than Nintendo does. I'd even go so far as to say that a larger part of Sega's fanbase was the more casual "I play X because it's cooler" segment of the market, whose loyalty stayed with Sega as long as they stayed in fashion.
Maybe there was more to the Dreamcast's failure than just lack of 3rd party support.
--Jeremy
Unless you can clearly differentiate
BZZZZT! That obviously isn't Microsoft's strategy.
or you're willing to spend billions of dollars in losses
Ding ding ding ding! I think we have a winner!
--Jeremy
PS1 Graphics > N64 Graphics
Only if you don't get headaches from non-antialiased, non-mip-mapped, non-perspective-corrected twitching messes.
--Jeremy
Maybe if US citizens could get a clue and see that serving the interest of the world also serves the interest of the US, instead of just looking at it from a childish "us and them" perspective, we wouldn't even be having this pointless discussion now.
--Jeremy
Yeah, but Jedi mind tricks only work on the simple-minded.
Err, nevermind. Carry on.
--Jeremy
Bilinear filtering is an anti-aliasing technique. So yes, he is seeing AA.
And the only way to get AA out of a Playstation was to play it on a crappy TV. (Still no perspective correction, tho)
--Jeremy
If the GBA were up against a platform that had PS2 level graphics, at the same price point, the GBA would get crushed.
Counter example to prove this is an invalid point: the Gamecube and XBox have clearly superior graphics capabilities, yet which console has sold the most? (Not to mention -- the Gamecube is significantly cheaper and has far better load times)
It's all marketing. Period. Consoles are popular for the same reason Britney Spears and her ilk are popular.
--Jeremy
Nevermind that those *could* have been the reasons that they were available in Japan since launch to begin with.
--Jeremy
Funny, I've died a few times because of 'dumb luck,' (on Half Pipe mostly) bust most often it has been because of my lack of skill, not luck. (and I tend to be a pretty skilled player)
I spent the last few days working on Master difficulty. I was getting my ass handed to me repeatedly on some of the tracks. I ran the tracks a bunch to practice, and I got better. I just beat the diamond cup with 1st, 2nd, 1st, 5th, and 18th place finishes.
It was an extremely satisfying experience. (1st on Undulation was great, 2nd on Shift was even better) In fact, it's one of few times I've actually talked smack to computer opponents.
My *only* complaint about the difficulty is that the computer opponents don't seem to be fazed whatsoever by impacts. When going through the boosts with 15 other racers at the end of Green Tree 2 (Intersecting Track, I think), you never see *them* lose control because of a collision and end up dead last because of it. Other than that, I think the game is perfectly fair.
I think the key is to just learn from your mistakes. Died on a turn when you got bumped by someone? Remember that and be more careful next time. Lost too much speed going through a corner and got passed by 12 people? Run the track on practice mode and learn how to get through the turn better. Don't like situations where you can't react to something? Learn to avoid those situations.
Learn the best places on the track to make aggressive moves for position -- learn the places on the track to just relax and keep moving.
Most of all, learn from defeat.
--Jeremy
Games are supposed to entertain. Some insanely addictive games (Bejewelled for example) don't ramp up the difficulty.
And as soon as I found that I could basically play Bejeweled for an indefinite amount of time with no change in challenge, I got bored of it.
I'm sorry, but if there's no challenge, there's no game. Can you name a single game outside of video games that offers no (or little) challenge, and is still entertaining to intelligent adults? Of course, there are games like Candyland that are purely luck and have a winner predetermined if you play long enough, but the suggested age group for that game is what, 3-6?
The problem with video games is that we're getting nothing but Candyland equivalents because people aren't interested in a challenge -- they just want to see the next FMV. I don't get why anybody would take any enjoyment or satisfaction out of succeeding at completing something when there was no chance of failure to begin with.
Your example about Tony Hawk 2 -- I haven't played, but I *have* played 3, and completed it with nearly every character. Why? It was a fun game. In the course of playing it, I played with everyone (since they're all roughtly equivalent), and finished everything. My question to you is -- if you don't like playing it to begin with, why do you even care about unlocking more stuff to bore yourself with?
It's another entirely to punish mediocre players by locking out 90% of the game they've paid for.
So let's just aim for the lowest common denominator and make an easy game so that *everyone* can be a winner! It's worked great for the education system!
--Jeremy
Well, if you'd played Eternal Darkness, you'd be excited too.
Way back when, Silicon Knights did the original Legacy of Kain. The story rocked, the game itself was so-so. Nintendo steps in, guides them through the development of Eternal Darkness -- lo-and-behold -- story rocks, gameplay rocks.
Here, we've got Silicon Knights, Nintendo (Miyamoto), and Konami (Kojima) collaborating on a remake to what was originally a pretty good game on crappy hardware. Hell yeah I'm looking forward to it.
--Jeremy
You need to read up on what happened between Nintendo/Square/Sony during the transition period after the SNES.
Basically, Nintendo set them up with a bunch of SGI workstations for N64 development, and Square then screwed Nintendo by jumping ship and taking as many developers as they could (Enix included) with them.
If *anyone* deserves scorn, it's Square for backstabbing the company that published their (could-have-been) last shot at a successful game: Final Fantasy.
--Jeremy
This is just wrong. Lots of articles have mentioned how games make more money than Hollywood, but usually they're talking about a) the worldwide video game industry vs b) US box office sales. So we've got the entire video game industry vs one part of one market of the entire movie industry.
Yeah, the video game industry has grown, but it's still nowhere near the size of the motion picture industry.
--Jeremy
So if he had something running pre-OSX (which would be likely, given the options available for Macs when Win98SE was out), a wireless card would have 'just worked'? I find that hard to believe.
Maybe if the laptop had been running *any* modern OS, it would've 'just worked.' Maybe a 4-year old OS just isn't cut out to handle all the latest gadgets.
And why the hell would anybody contact hardware vendor's IT department for drivers? Have him try customer support next time -- he might have better luck.
And, for the record, I like Apple, and I think the most recent Mac lines are awesome. But this post just sounds like a pro-Apple tool that needs to vent because s/he feels so incensed about the fact that their chosen computing platform is such a distant #2 to Windows/Intel.
--Jeremy
You forget:
A motherboard, a case/power supply, controller, cables, labor, packaging, shipping, advertising...
--Jeremy
Oh boo hoo. So Nintendo's giving them funding and then *expecting* someting from it? Oh dear, what kind of evil corporation would do *that*? You mean, they aren't just *giving* stuff away for absolutely nothing? Bastards!
Part of the reason that they're (basically) giving away money to these development houses is to keep them exclusive to Nintendo platforms. If they just give them a dev kit, then the game may or may not be finished, and it may or may not be exclusive. Why would you pay someone to develop games for your competitor? Why would you pay someone to maybe never finish a game?
And whre do you come up with the strings on funding 'for already sequelled games'?
Besides, if you think that it's *so* evil that a console manufacturer should pay for an exclusive title, then you'd better not own an XBox, PS2, *or* Gamecube. (Though, actually, Nintendo hasn't done much of that -- instead they just pay Retro Studios, Silicon Knights, HAL, Camelot, and others to make stuff like works for hire.)
--Jeremy