Really sad when the draw of your uber-1337 powerful system is the ability to emulate games that your competitor (and other companies) made between 1983 and 1994. Emulating seems to be the only major draw for the system that I've been consistently hearing.
If anything it's giving more credibility to Nintendo's Virtual Console idea for the Revolution.
Unfortunately, I'm thinking at this point, they've played the GTA exclusive card and that hasn't gone over well. The Final Fantasy card is coming up next with Crisis Core, but that's still in the very early phases of development, and it's not even anything NEW, it's part of the FF7 compilation. I'm pretty sure once Advent Children is officially released here (hey Sony and Square, where the heck is it?) and Dirge of Cerberus is out, if people aren't sick of Cloud & Co., maybe it'll sell.
Besides, Square-Enix is already working on their third DS title, there is yet to be a PSP one released. Take that for what you will.
I wish he had gotten one, with all the Xbox 360 "news" that was being carried here in the weeks leading up to the launch. At least we wouldn't have to listen to him complain about it.
As I was talking to one of my friends today about Microsoft's japanese strategy we pretty much decided the whole thing is a joke. I don't see how having FFXI and Sakaguchi making games for your system gives you a sure-fire sale in Japan. They must think the Japanese gamers are dumber than American gamers.
Let's not forget how small the backwards compatibility list is for the system right now. I think there's no more than 20 titles on there. Oh wait, the first XBox barely sold 10k systems in Japan (i think, if this isn't right, the fact that they barely had any measure of market penetration isn't deniable), that must be all the titles they sold those 10,000 people.
Are there any titles in the Japanese launch that weren't available at the US launch? The launch line-up here was pretty pathetic, I don't expect to hear good news on this one. Note, I said news, not Redmond, WA issued propaganda.
$249 as a bundle price makes a ton more sense. Didn't the original NES bundle come with two controllers and the SMB/Duck Hunt dual-cartridge? Actually, I wouldn't mind if the system was $149 with 1-2 games bundled with a second controller/accessory for $249. Be a much better deal than the XBox360. Heck, by the time the Revolution rolls out, you should be able to get a Rev + DS for the price of the cheap 360. If Nintendo was smart they could harp on this fact and knock both MS and Sony for a loop in the marketing department (why buy one system when you get buy this and a portable? Take that 360, PS3 and PSP! So say the Nintendo fanboys)
Nintendo has a mindset of desinging for the japanese, which are very space-minded. I'm pretty sure that's why the gamecube was designed the way it was, and I wasn't surprised that the Rev. is the smallest of the three consoles. IMHO, the PS3 looks far too sleek, the Xbox360 looks like a Dell, and the Revolution looks like something I want in my living room. And if the actual device is as small as the mockups/renders show, it'll be very easy to pack up and move around.
It'd be nice to set this up in a car, but I don't see how it'll be functional with the controller scheme (for games that'll use the motion tracking). For classic gaming, it might be the coup de grace though.
$249 eh? I was hoping it'd be closer to the $199 tag. At least that's the impression I got from them saying that the system will be cheaper than the 360 or PS3 ($249 is only $50 cheaper than the base 360 model... not that big a difference IMHO), and that they're hoping to undercut the price of the other two systems to some degree.
I'd imagine they're going to need a larger amount of room for the kiosk with the way the control system works. There'd be injuries if they just flung it in the aisle like all the other Best Buy kiosks I've seen.
Blizzard has been offering Battle.net for free since the mid 90's. I don't see why Nintendo couldn't do something similar with a few strategic partnerships (a la Battle.net which is hosted by AT&T and other companies).
In all seriousness, I'm expecting this to be something about the online play for the system. I'm personally hoping they do something to rival Live, but for free. If they do that (and it's good), they just nailed Microsoft to the wall.
Either that or there's additional peripherals for the controller that'll be included in the box so we don't have to shell out for them at a later date.
Last guess would be more of a clue about the pricing.
If anything this was a nice way to keep the Revolution in the media radar admidst all the 360 hubbub.
If I want to read a story, I'll read a book. If I want to watch a scripted sequence of explosions and dialogue, I'll watch a movie. If I want to see acting and dialogue, I'll go to the theatre. If I want to stare at scenery, I'll go to an art museum. If I want to stare at scenery from every angle, I'll go outside (or get one of those 3d/panorama quicktime thingies).
If I want to challenge my brain by stacking 4 square linked together, I'll go play Tetris.
I really wish the industry would get off its kick of trying to define "videogame art" in terms of other mediums. I've finally decided that until someone provides a definition of gameplay (or to some degree interactivity) as art, then I'll finally begin to believe games are art. Because that's the only thing they have that the other mediums don't.
In my opinion, this is also the growing pains problem that the industry and gamers are facing. Do we (the games) want them (the industry) to keep pumping out pretty games with little gameplay, or do we want something that pushes the gameplay envelope that may not have 3million polygon scenes complete with HDR on an HDTV 1280i screen?
I think this was reported about a couple weeks back on This Week In Tech or somewhere else (not sure where). Although the link to Sony wasn't very clear then either.
I wouldn't be surprised if this was true though. The PSP marketing blitz hasn't done them much good, so I guess they're thinking a grass-roots / subliminal campaign might be a better option than in your face advertising.
Because they probably expect to dominate the other in the current market, and will let Nintendo go off and do it's own thing?
I've told several people that I'm interested to see if the Revolution controller will become the new standard if the system does well in this console war, which is an idea everyone scoffs at.
That and the fact that the price of games and the systems (aside from what Nintendo is saying about the Revolution) themselves are higher than they were the last time, and they're gonna see less of their target audience (teens and college students) with their "disposable income" not being able to allow them to buy the amount of stuff they're expecting them to buy. I see game prices going up, but I don't see a raise in the future for my college workstudy job.
Isn't this precisely why the V-Chip hullabaloo was created? I guess that didn't work cause people don't know how to set the stupid parental lock password?
So instead of people actually parenting, the government wants people to pick and choose their cable options? This is a horrid idea (i'd be all for it so I could actually limit the number of extranneous channels I have to surf through), everyone knows products customized on a per person basis causes them to be expensive. If people actually knew how to work their tv sets, this wouldn't be a problem (that and if watchdog groups would loosen and grow up). Then again, how many average people know how to set the clock on the VCR?
Unfortunately this is where the industry could be heading. Think about it, games are costing more money to make each generation, forcing developers to stick to what sells (*cough* EA *cough*). This works because they don't need to worry about whether or not it will sell especially if the last one was a smash hit.
On the same line, assets from the previous game can be re-used. Art, game setting, engine, characters, etc. can be re-used (and maybe touched up some) for a cheaper cost than having to pay artists to create new characters, programmers to research and develop the new engine, getting a writer to cook up a new world to set the game in, etc.
I'm a big fan of Square-Enix and Final Fantasy, but when you look at Compilation of Final Fantasy VII and take the above into account, you realize that there's gotta be a lot of art being shared between the 4 projects (Advent Children, Before Crisis, Crisis Core and Dirge of Cerberus). I wouldn't be surprised if they took the character models from Advent Children and downsampled them for the other platforms (or the FMV sequences in said games).
Need another example? Go take a look at screenshots for Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories.
Despite this, it is good to see companies like id, Square-Enix, Epic actively stating that they are working on new IP for games.
I've also been thinking a lot lately about Nintendo's "Revolution". Sequels in a way are the purist emobidiment of the way games have been going for the last 20 years. I don't think it's coincidence that Nintendo is attempting to cause a paradigm shift in how games are played at the same time when the number of sequels and copycat games are on the rise. This was the same reason why Nintendo was able to get into the marketplace in the first place, since the first game crash happened in the late 70's/early 80's with all the copycat games on the market for the Atari era systems. Lack of innovation = stagnation = market crash.
Induction of Lara Croft before Samus Aran just proves how much farther the industry has to go on getting bettter female characters into their games.
Cool that Carmack and Meier got in, all 4 nominees have outstanding credentials. Hopefully Wright will make it in next year (especially with his next big title to launch next year as well).
"The company established its credibility in 2002 when RCA used its method to determine the order in which the singles from Christina Aguilera's album Stripped should be released to maximize record sales. Since then, other labels have turned into regular customers."
Yeah. I agree with your point. I don't find them objectifying. I was just wondering if any women would consider the endings objectification? Of course, it's no more objectifying than your local lingerie model. *shrugs*
On a somewhat unrelated note, yay for Mother 3 almost being done!
Even if this is an artificial shortage... what happened to there being a global launch? If you can afford to launch world-wide, you ought to be able to get enough units in stores.
The PS2 shortage was due to the excitement of the system. Sony had dominated over Nintendo in the previous generation. Everyone wanted the next thing from Sony. There was no possible way for them to satisfy demand.
For XBox being number 2 or 3 (depending on who you ask and where) in the rankings, there is no reason for there to be a shortage like this. I call bs on the marketing departments.
Granted it's going to work. The fanboys are probably all up in arms saying the system will ownz0r because no one can get one.
It's good to give Metroid credit for Samus, true. She's not an overglorified sexual object (*cough* Lara Croft *cough* DOA/Soul Calibur *cough*).
However, as has been pointed out, there is still the "hidden" (I use this loosely, since it's pretty much standard in every entry of the series and is well known) reward of beating the game in a short time frame which gives you Samus sans suit. This is nothing more than a fan service, and I have no idea where to place this. Is this objectification? Or not?
On the whole, Samus has been far ahead of other heroines in games. Much farther than most of those in Final Fantasy and the like. ALthough I will say, Paula from Earthbound is one you shouldn't mess with unless you want a frying pan upside the head followed by being scorched, frozen or electrocuted;)
Well if you can use the system as a media center (which I'm pretty sure MS intends it to be), 20 gb isn't going to be a whole lot. I was just curious as to whether or not the size of game-specific emulators, dl content, etc. would be a major competitor to the media center capabilities.
Isn't the HDD only standard on the non-core system? Also, how big are the emulators going to be? The XBox HDD is only 20 gb right? Is this going to conflict with everything else on your drive?
A lot of fun was poked at Nintendo over the entry cost of FF:CC I don't see why this is any different. To some degree this might be worse?
And Hi-Def is no where near those resolutions anyways. I don't see why you're singling out Nintendo, which is also going to have standard monitor out jacks.
It may not be HD, but the higher DPI on monitors will make up for it.
Slashdot Mirror
Really sad when the draw of your uber-1337 powerful system is the ability to emulate games that your competitor (and other companies) made between 1983 and 1994. Emulating seems to be the only major draw for the system that I've been consistently hearing.
If anything it's giving more credibility to Nintendo's Virtual Console idea for the Revolution.
Unfortunately, I'm thinking at this point, they've played the GTA exclusive card and that hasn't gone over well. The Final Fantasy card is coming up next with Crisis Core, but that's still in the very early phases of development, and it's not even anything NEW, it's part of the FF7 compilation. I'm pretty sure once Advent Children is officially released here (hey Sony and Square, where the heck is it?) and Dirge of Cerberus is out, if people aren't sick of Cloud & Co., maybe it'll sell.
Besides, Square-Enix is already working on their third DS title, there is yet to be a PSP one released. Take that for what you will.
I've seen TGM2 before on MAME. And I thought Level 9 on the NES Tetris game was nuts.
I wish he had gotten one, with all the Xbox 360 "news" that was being carried here in the weeks leading up to the launch. At least we wouldn't have to listen to him complain about it.
As I was talking to one of my friends today about Microsoft's japanese strategy we pretty much decided the whole thing is a joke. I don't see how having FFXI and Sakaguchi making games for your system gives you a sure-fire sale in Japan. They must think the Japanese gamers are dumber than American gamers.
Let's not forget how small the backwards compatibility list is for the system right now. I think there's no more than 20 titles on there. Oh wait, the first XBox barely sold 10k systems in Japan (i think, if this isn't right, the fact that they barely had any measure of market penetration isn't deniable), that must be all the titles they sold those 10,000 people.
Are there any titles in the Japanese launch that weren't available at the US launch? The launch line-up here was pretty pathetic, I don't expect to hear good news on this one. Note, I said news, not Redmond, WA issued propaganda.
$249 as a bundle price makes a ton more sense. Didn't the original NES bundle come with two controllers and the SMB/Duck Hunt dual-cartridge? Actually, I wouldn't mind if the system was $149 with 1-2 games bundled with a second controller/accessory for $249. Be a much better deal than the XBox360. Heck, by the time the Revolution rolls out, you should be able to get a Rev + DS for the price of the cheap 360. If Nintendo was smart they could harp on this fact and knock both MS and Sony for a loop in the marketing department (why buy one system when you get buy this and a portable? Take that 360, PS3 and PSP! So say the Nintendo fanboys)
Nintendo has a mindset of desinging for the japanese, which are very space-minded. I'm pretty sure that's why the gamecube was designed the way it was, and I wasn't surprised that the Rev. is the smallest of the three consoles. IMHO, the PS3 looks far too sleek, the Xbox360 looks like a Dell, and the Revolution looks like something I want in my living room. And if the actual device is as small as the mockups/renders show, it'll be very easy to pack up and move around.
It'd be nice to set this up in a car, but I don't see how it'll be functional with the controller scheme (for games that'll use the motion tracking). For classic gaming, it might be the coup de grace though.
$249 eh? I was hoping it'd be closer to the $199 tag. At least that's the impression I got from them saying that the system will be cheaper than the 360 or PS3 ($249 is only $50 cheaper than the base 360 model... not that big a difference IMHO), and that they're hoping to undercut the price of the other two systems to some degree.
I'd imagine they're going to need a larger amount of room for the kiosk with the way the control system works. There'd be injuries if they just flung it in the aisle like all the other Best Buy kiosks I've seen.
Blizzard has been offering Battle.net for free since the mid 90's. I don't see why Nintendo couldn't do something similar with a few strategic partnerships (a la Battle.net which is hosted by AT&T and other companies).
They're going back to cartridges?
In all seriousness, I'm expecting this to be something about the online play for the system. I'm personally hoping they do something to rival Live, but for free. If they do that (and it's good), they just nailed Microsoft to the wall.
Either that or there's additional peripherals for the controller that'll be included in the box so we don't have to shell out for them at a later date.
Last guess would be more of a clue about the pricing.
If anything this was a nice way to keep the Revolution in the media radar admidst all the 360 hubbub.
If I want to read a story, I'll read a book. If I want to watch a scripted sequence of explosions and dialogue, I'll watch a movie. If I want to see acting and dialogue, I'll go to the theatre. If I want to stare at scenery, I'll go to an art museum. If I want to stare at scenery from every angle, I'll go outside (or get one of those 3d/panorama quicktime thingies).
If I want to challenge my brain by stacking 4 square linked together, I'll go play Tetris.
I really wish the industry would get off its kick of trying to define "videogame art" in terms of other mediums. I've finally decided that until someone provides a definition of gameplay (or to some degree interactivity) as art, then I'll finally begin to believe games are art. Because that's the only thing they have that the other mediums don't.
In my opinion, this is also the growing pains problem that the industry and gamers are facing. Do we (the games) want them (the industry) to keep pumping out pretty games with little gameplay, or do we want something that pushes the gameplay envelope that may not have 3million polygon scenes complete with HDR on an HDTV 1280i screen?
I think this was reported about a couple weeks back on This Week In Tech or somewhere else (not sure where). Although the link to Sony wasn't very clear then either.
I wouldn't be surprised if this was true though. The PSP marketing blitz hasn't done them much good, so I guess they're thinking a grass-roots / subliminal campaign might be a better option than in your face advertising.
Because they probably expect to dominate the other in the current market, and will let Nintendo go off and do it's own thing?
I've told several people that I'm interested to see if the Revolution controller will become the new standard if the system does well in this console war, which is an idea everyone scoffs at.
That and the fact that the price of games and the systems (aside from what Nintendo is saying about the Revolution) themselves are higher than they were the last time, and they're gonna see less of their target audience (teens and college students) with their "disposable income" not being able to allow them to buy the amount of stuff they're expecting them to buy. I see game prices going up, but I don't see a raise in the future for my college workstudy job.
Sadly, this is the "solution" to there being too much "seamy" stuff on television.
http://www.tv.com/story/story.html&story_id=2524
Isn't this precisely why the V-Chip hullabaloo was created? I guess that didn't work cause people don't know how to set the stupid parental lock password?
So instead of people actually parenting, the government wants people to pick and choose their cable options? This is a horrid idea (i'd be all for it so I could actually limit the number of extranneous channels I have to surf through), everyone knows products customized on a per person basis causes them to be expensive. If people actually knew how to work their tv sets, this wouldn't be a problem (that and if watchdog groups would loosen and grow up). Then again, how many average people know how to set the clock on the VCR?
Unfortunately this is where the industry could be heading. Think about it, games are costing more money to make each generation, forcing developers to stick to what sells (*cough* EA *cough*). This works because they don't need to worry about whether or not it will sell especially if the last one was a smash hit.
On the same line, assets from the previous game can be re-used. Art, game setting, engine, characters, etc. can be re-used (and maybe touched up some) for a cheaper cost than having to pay artists to create new characters, programmers to research and develop the new engine, getting a writer to cook up a new world to set the game in, etc.
I'm a big fan of Square-Enix and Final Fantasy, but when you look at Compilation of Final Fantasy VII and take the above into account, you realize that there's gotta be a lot of art being shared between the 4 projects (Advent Children, Before Crisis, Crisis Core and Dirge of Cerberus). I wouldn't be surprised if they took the character models from Advent Children and downsampled them for the other platforms (or the FMV sequences in said games).
Need another example? Go take a look at screenshots for Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories.
Despite this, it is good to see companies like id, Square-Enix, Epic actively stating that they are working on new IP for games.
I've also been thinking a lot lately about Nintendo's "Revolution". Sequels in a way are the purist emobidiment of the way games have been going for the last 20 years. I don't think it's coincidence that Nintendo is attempting to cause a paradigm shift in how games are played at the same time when the number of sequels and copycat games are on the rise. This was the same reason why Nintendo was able to get into the marketplace in the first place, since the first game crash happened in the late 70's/early 80's with all the copycat games on the market for the Atari era systems. Lack of innovation = stagnation = market crash.
The writer's machine got rootkitted by Sony? Maybe that's Sony's tactic for the future?
Induction of Lara Croft before Samus Aran just proves how much farther the industry has to go on getting bettter female characters into their games.
Cool that Carmack and Meier got in, all 4 nominees have outstanding credentials. Hopefully Wright will make it in next year (especially with his next big title to launch next year as well).
But I swear I've heard about this before...
Oh wait... FTFA:
"The company established its credibility in 2002 when RCA used its method to determine the order in which the singles from Christina Aguilera's album Stripped should be released to maximize record sales. Since then, other labels have turned into regular customers."
Yeah. I agree with your point. I don't find them objectifying. I was just wondering if any women would consider the endings objectification? Of course, it's no more objectifying than your local lingerie model. *shrugs*
On a somewhat unrelated note, yay for Mother 3 almost being done!
Even if this is an artificial shortage... what happened to there being a global launch? If you can afford to launch world-wide, you ought to be able to get enough units in stores.
The PS2 shortage was due to the excitement of the system. Sony had dominated over Nintendo in the previous generation. Everyone wanted the next thing from Sony. There was no possible way for them to satisfy demand.
For XBox being number 2 or 3 (depending on who you ask and where) in the rankings, there is no reason for there to be a shortage like this. I call bs on the marketing departments.
Granted it's going to work. The fanboys are probably all up in arms saying the system will ownz0r because no one can get one.
It's good to give Metroid credit for Samus, true. She's not an overglorified sexual object (*cough* Lara Croft *cough* DOA/Soul Calibur *cough*).
;)
However, as has been pointed out, there is still the "hidden" (I use this loosely, since it's pretty much standard in every entry of the series and is well known) reward of beating the game in a short time frame which gives you Samus sans suit. This is nothing more than a fan service, and I have no idea where to place this. Is this objectification? Or not?
On the whole, Samus has been far ahead of other heroines in games. Much farther than most of those in Final Fantasy and the like. ALthough I will say, Paula from Earthbound is one you shouldn't mess with unless you want a frying pan upside the head followed by being scorched, frozen or electrocuted
Well if you can use the system as a media center (which I'm pretty sure MS intends it to be), 20 gb isn't going to be a whole lot. I was just curious as to whether or not the size of game-specific emulators, dl content, etc. would be a major competitor to the media center capabilities.
Isn't the HDD only standard on the non-core system? Also, how big are the emulators going to be? The XBox HDD is only 20 gb right? Is this going to conflict with everything else on your drive?
A lot of fun was poked at Nintendo over the entry cost of FF:CC I don't see why this is any different. To some degree this might be worse?
Considering this: http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/11/ 2110226
I don't think it's that reaching a conclusion.
And Hi-Def is no where near those resolutions anyways. I don't see why you're singling out Nintendo, which is also going to have standard monitor out jacks.
It may not be HD, but the higher DPI on monitors will make up for it.