Well clearly the Xbox 360 is the most popular. It's right there in the data. People prefer it over the Wii by more than two to one.
These graphs are irrefutable "proof" of the 360s popularity over the Wii and the fact that people prefer excellent graphics and bloody games to gimmicky controllers, aren't they?
Or maybe not.
If you could jump to the wild conclusion that high availability of the console and a year head start might be influencing the 360 numbers, you might also want to consider that a constrained supply line might have impacted the PS3s results. And it appears to be impacting the Wii's as well.
Numbers don't lie, but unless you can interpret them, they don't tell the truth either.
This isn't even true. If it where true, then Nessie and Big Foot are real, both Jesus and Mohamed are the Messiah and every weight loss plan ever created will make you lose 40 pounds in a month while you eat whatever you want and don't exercise.
I'm very surprised at the reaction of Slashdotters to this. I'd have thought you'd all be a little less susceptible to this kind of argument than other folks. Even a guy with a few hours to kill and a randomized list of retail establishments could give halfway decent data, but a few Slashdotters with an axe to grind who see the things in store shelve and declare that no one is buying them, well, lets just say that doesn't reach the same level of accuracy.
I'm not even saying they're not right. I did ask for more data, if anyone has any, and I asked for it because the situation is pretty fluid and I didn't have great data myself. But this kind of "he saw 'em so they're not selling" argument is almost no better than you saying, "I just feel it in my gut." Yes, you're getting some data points, but you don't know what those data points mean. You can go ahead and guess, but to make the types of declarations I've read is just not supported by some guy seeing some boxes at walmart.
I fairly often shop at my local Best Buy, target and EBX. I don't stalk all my local electronic outlets like it appears some Slashdotters do, but I've never seen PS3 boxes on the shelf on any of my shopping trips. My Costco has pallets of 360s, but I've never seen a PS3 there. This doesn't mean nobody has them. You could even call me a liar. But if think my simple anecdotal data is all fucked up, I at least hope you take it as a lesson that this kind of "proof" isn't worth much.
I thought the same until I saw Far Cry. I've played Far Cry on the PC and I've seen it on the PS2, but the Wii looked very different than they did. It wasn't good. It wasn't even close. I am NOT saying that makes the Wii inferior. I am saying that if graphical excellence is important to you, you're going to have a hard time feeling happy with a Wii. On the other hand, Sixaxis isn't going to make any difference to you if you find the Wii controller compelling. If you want to play tennis or golf, who would consider a Xbox controller a viable substitute? Like the Wii's graphic, it will work, but it will be such a poor comparison that no one would take the "loser" seriously.
This is good information from several different sources, but I liked the last one the best. First, it had a whole inventory sheet from quite a few Best Buy's, which suggests a trend, unlike the rest of the articles which are purely "I saw one here and there" pieces. But second, it points out that availability is spotty, with some states and cites having them and others not.
This is why anecdotal evidence is so problematic. If it's raining at my house and ten of my pal's houses across the country, it says nothing about your chances of having rain. It does not mean we're headed for a flood. Anecdotal info does have it's uses, but people at Slashdot have been claiming it as "proof." These people are no better than diet pill salesman, who will give you testimonial after testimonial, but it turns out a whole lot of the users still stay fat.
Should Sony have some concern based on this? You bet. Does it mean sales figures accurately reflect a market where supply is flexible enough to meat demand? Hell no. If lots of people in lots of places have trouble getting it at retail, it doesn't really matter if it's sitting on the shelf elsewhere. It may not be out of stock in general, but it's very significantly supply constricted which will greatly affect sales figures.
There's one more thing to remember. If you're a Wii fan and you like seeing good Wii numbers, consider that these are not the best you can get. If Sony does have a full supply and if Nintendo is still choked by demand, it could mean that the potential difference in PS3 and Wii sales is much higher than this story suggests. Stories that suggest sales in the current environment bare any resemblance to full supply sales are hurting you as much as the Sony fan.
Thank you for posting anecdotal evidence from the area where you live. I was so very afraid I would be forced to read this important information from an authoritative source that has recent data from either Sony or the retail industry. Knowing that you're on top of this situation will help me feel confidant that the matter is conclusive and accurate. I will be sure to cite your post in further discussions on this topic.
Did I miss something? How did DS game sales and comments about the Wii end up in the same write-up? Did Microsoft start planning on producing a handheld while I was hiding under a rock or is there some other Microsoft vs. DS competition I'm missing?
As far as the Wii is concerned, I think Bill has less to worry about than he's letting on. The two are practically in a different market. The big draws of the 360 are visually impressive games, High Definition and media center functionality, none of which are big selling points of the Wii. On the other hand, people interested only in the unique controller and game lineup on the Wii wouldn't give the 360 any serious thought.
Nintendo's spent quite a bit of energy trying to distance itself from direct competition with Microsoft and Sony. In my opinion, they've succeeded. The only competition that's really there is whether you like the Sony/Microsoft style of gaming or the Wii's.
SUVs don't compete with sports cars. People just chose which they'd rather have and then go choose from the available SUVs or the available sports cars. Nintendo is in the enviable position of having lots and lots of people chose their style, but as it turns out, they're the only company offering it.
Larger inventory + more demand than inventory = sold out, but more units sold
Smaller inventory + more demand than inventory = sold out, but fewer units sold
Fun games + lower price point = Happy customers that are irrelevant to any kind of sales metrics at the moment.
Meaning no disrespect to Sony or Nintendo, or video game journalists in general, but it's kind of moronic to compare sales of the two when both of these companies are selling as many as they can make.
If there is more demand for the Wii, no one can say how much. Would they sell 10 times as many if that many units were available? If there was actually more demand for the PS3, nobody could prove it. Does the fact that the Xbox sold 8 million units mean it has happier customers, more fun games, or a lower price point? Maybe it just has have high availability and a year head start.
Wake me up when Sony and Nintendo have enough inventory to satisfy demand for any walk-in customer. If that was true now, this story would actually be interesting.
BTW, if you have inventory statistics, thank you very much for posting them. They would be quite useful. If you don't, please don't bother telling me all about that WalMart near your house that has 5 units on the shelf. It says nothing about inventories in general. It is irrelevant.
Just curious, have you used the xbox controller and do you consider it a big improvement? I've only ever used it at kiosks in stores, and though it didn't feel bad, it also didn't feel any better to me.
I'm not stuck on symmetry as a general concept, but when playing shooters it seems like a natural arrangement. If I wanted one of them up high, it would just seem natural to put the other up high as well on. Do you know of any controllers that do this, and if so, what did you think of them?
Ok, I'll bite. This one goes to both you and the GP. Warranties will get your money back if something breaks, but it doesn't really say anything about reliability. If I really want to see who's better, I'm going to have to go with vendor reliability stats. If you have independent stats, all the better, but I don't think I've ever personally seen those.
Vendor MTBF on almost any 3.5" SATA or PATA drive is between 600k and 1.4 million hours. The Annual Failure Rates are between about.3% and.7%. These numbers actually compare very favorably with most any SCSI drive.
Yes, the best are more reliable with almost a 100% difference in MTBF, but lets look at it from a different angle: Even the worst one is awesome. If you get any of these drives, the MTBF says you should be able to run it 24/7/365 for the entire time you're likely to own it. Even if you're planning on running the drive from the time your kids are born to the time they die, the MTBF on the lowest one suggests you wouldn't see breakage.
With Annual Failure Rate, most every major manufacturer gives you about a 99.3% to 99.7% chance of your drive surviving any given year. Any drive with either of those stats would be, by definition, very unlikely to fail on any given year. The chance of failure of either drive is roughly that of drawing a straight in a single deal of five card stud (~.4%) once a year. If both pass, the additional chance that the "less reliable" drive will still fail is roughly that of drawing another straight.
I realize that trust is a bid deal. First off, you have to trust that those numbers are accurate, which is far from a sure thing. I wouldn't fault anyone for following their own gut reputation. But I would think this difference in reliability isn't anywhere big enough get worked up about, and is almost certainly less important than other factors such as cost, speed and capacity.
This is a great point. Lots of people screw up emulation. I got two different collections for the PSP (Midway and I forget the title of the other) , one was great, the other had issues.
You have to think about how you're going to do this stuff with wide screen displays, different controls, etc. Thoughtful translators will take the original ROM and tweek it ever so slightly for those factors, like putting score displays on the side for wide aspect ratio. They'll give you the same tweaks, and maybe more than were available in the cabinate. The other folks will just throw a ROM on a disk and claim the job done.
Lots of old PS1 titles for the PSP. One semi-big first run PS3 title (GripShift). A few smaller first-run titles like Blast Factor and Sudoku(sp?). A lot of demos.
The demos are nice, and free, and I've been having a hell of a good time with GripShift. Although they have a "wallet" unlike as I've heard others state, you don't have to pre-buy in $50 or $100 increments. You can put just as much in your wallet as you need to spend for the one transaction and you can do it at the time of the transaction. You can give them your credit card for single transactions or they can store it, your choice.
Remember, the DS isn't just a portable platform, anymore, it fills a bit of the roll for a full-sized console as well (especially since it can do things that other full sized consoles can't). Quite a few people are getting DSs as their MAIN platform, which means that it WILL compete with the Wii in some cases... this is one of them.
This is probably the main reason we don't see TV out ports on the DS and the PSP (a lot of people have bean clambering for a PSP TV out). They'd be more (cannibalistic) competition for the set-top consoles.
I think the Wii has less to worry about because of the different unique controllers of it and the DS, but it would make a whole lot of sense to many more people to not buy a separate box if they could play their handheld on the big screen. I could definitely see the PSP cutting into PS2 sales for some people who would otherwise have both.
Demos(Motor Storm): Free More advanced demos they refer to as "concepts" (Gran Tourismo): Free Classic games(Crash Bandicoot): about 6 bucks First run downloadable games(GripShift for PS3): about 10 bucks First run on store shelves(Resistance): about 60 bucks (obviously)
I've played all categories, plus a bunch of PS2 tiles, and they're all fun. I love the new stuff, like Resistance, but why not play the old stuff and the demos too?
I can see how some people might think it's a waste to spend $600 to play old games, but I see it more as versatility. If I bought a fancy high-end, stainless steel oven, I'd expect it too do a great job cooking a delicate souffle, but I'd be pretty disappointed if it wouldn't also bake a Betty Crocker cake mix.
I think all the consoles have this kind of service now, and I'm quite happy this is the direction the industry has gone. We're going to get a lot of variety out of our systems instead of just being directed to the store to pay $60 for everything.
Nice. Great point. Though I don't think games developed as advertisements quite compare with classic game, I can't help but think that the two combined point to a very good trend in the gaming industry.
It's not good to have all your content priced at $50 to $60. Hollywood movies did awesomely well on DVD primarily because they were affordable. Putting out more affordable content is going to get more people buying more games instead of having libraries of 3-5 games like a lot of people do.
An inexpensive console, like the PS2 is now, nearly doubles it's price with just two first run games and only five "Greatest Hits" titles. For a whole lot of households, that's a very large burden. There were many times in my life where $50 represented big money, and even $20 made me think. Getting games into the price range of fast food will get a lot of people with modest incomes buying content more often, because they'll have that much spare money more often.
BTW, the version of GripShift I got was a brand new version for the PS3, not a classic game. I think both are important, but I think the ability to get out new stuff in this price range, even like the Burger King Xbox games, is especially good for the industry.
I hate replying to my own post, but I wanted to add that I sincerely believe a very large part of the Slashdot community brings, "insightful conversation with fair and thoughtful people," to their posts. The people who don't bring this style of conversation tend to stick out like the proverbial sore thumb, so it can sometimes feel like Slashdot has a problem instead of the individual posters.
It would be nice if the modders tried a little harder to root out mean-spirited posts, but I don't think they always recognize them, especially if the bulk of the poster's comments track with their own thoughts. If I believe that product X is flawed, I might have a tendency to see a rant about product X as passing on good info, rather than just being a rant. Being mad about something doesn't necessarily make you a "troll" or your post, "flaimbait" either.
I'm not sure if anything can, or should be done about this. I'm guessing "not civil," "personal attack," or "mean-spirited" mods would cause more problems than they would help. You can't force people to be nice. But it sure would be helpful if they tried harder to be nice all on their own.
Sony, and their fanbase, really brought it on themselves. So either quit your bitching or uncheck the games section until the Summer, by which time it should have all completely burnt out(it already mostly has).
Translation: Stop crying, you just brought it on yourself. If those kids are too mean, just don't play with them.
Dad? I didn't even know you read Slashdot. How's mom doing?
I thought things would changed now that I've grown up, but I guess it's more of the same. Do you know where I could have insightful conversations with fair and thoughtful people? How about that girl with the "great personality," mom was always saying I should go out with? I know there has to be somebody out there. I should try the Kiwanis with you and mom? Do they talk much about tech? Sigh.
I just reread my post. I didn't mean it in the way you took it, but I can see how it could look that way. When I said, "actually, it's kind of a nice price," I was referring to the actual price, not the "price he gave. oh well.
I'm sure one of the three next gen consoles will have "the best" download service and one will have "the worst," but I just think it's cool that whatever you got, you should be able to download classic and new games for a good price, directly to your hard drive from the internet. It means they all kind of got it right.
Does anyone know the status of steering wheels for the PS3? I saw that Gran Turismo will take a few logitech steering wheels, but I haven't checked if they're PC wheels or proprietary to the PS3. Also, I haven't seen a steering wheel option in any of the other demos.
That sony will charge a mere $400/title for these downloadables.
Actually it's kind of a nice price. I got Crash Bandicoot for the PSP for about 6 bucks and Grip Shift for the PS3 for about 10 bucks. I'm glad all the new consoles are offering downloads like this. It probably doesn't make sense to sell a disk consisting of a single old game for a cheapo prices, but it makes a hell of a lot of sense for a download. I pay more for two people to eat at Burger King than I did for Crash.
Using "M$" for Microsoft removed any questions I may have had about the objectivity of the author. I found it difficult to finish reading after I hit that point. It's like listening to Rush Limbaugh or Al Franken for the news. Why bother? You're only gonna get half of it.
Seriously, you guys that pick out the stories, shouldn't that term be an automatic round-file?
Great link. Could save a lot on breath of/. if it got out more widely.
For clarification, I NEVER said Japan sales don't matter in a general sense, especially if you happen to be a Nintendo or Sony stockholder. That said, the aren't any kind of indicator of which console is more popular in America and for that specific purpose, they don't matter at all.
Unfortunately, lots of folks don't seem to get that. They talk to a largely American audience and wave those numbers around as "proof" of how much more "popular" the DS is.
"But wait," you might be saying to yourself," what if they really are trying to prove general popularity? Aren't the numbers useful then?" Well, no, they're not. If that was the point, don't you think they'd use worldwide sales figures instead of Japanese sales figures? The truth is, they skip by the worldwide numbers altogether because the Japanese numbers are so much more impressive.
Now some people, like yourself, try to point out that since the consoles and quite a large number of the game developers come from Japan that the Japanese numbers have unique relevance. Too true. If that was the point these other people were making, I would have no problem with it. But all too often it's not.
Bottom line: Japan sales figures don't matter one little bit when gaging American popularity, but they do matter quite a reasonable amount for several other important reasons. Every time I see the someone try to misuse the figures to insinuate the DS is either more popular generally or especially if they insinuate the numbers have any relevance to popularity in the US, I'm gonna call them on it.
By the way this is the WORLD WIDE WEB if you don't like it go back to logging on to your local BBS.
Sure, and I live on the world. And I speak worldese. And when manufacturers want to sell a product, they sell exactly the same product everywhere in the world, they start selling it everywhere at exactly the same time, and they expect exactly the same sales breakdown throughout the world. Everyone in the world has the same tastes, like anime, Chuck Norris films, peanut butter and jelly and, of course, sushi. Christianity and Shinto have uniform distribution and we all have both an emperor and a president.
Or you can just get real and admit that the Japanese and American markets are very different as a whole and you can admit that Slashdot has an overwhelmingly American readership.
This is reality. People are different. That's something to be celebrated, but also not to be ignored. People who sell stuff recognize this and do not expect big Chevy Suburban sales in Japan. The fact that I recognize this doesn't mean I'm jingoistic or exclusionary, just that I have a brain.
I wasn't amused when you started painting me as some kind of flag waving moron who doesn't care about the rest of the world. It's not what I wrote and it's flat out wrong. You're getting too personal with this. It's time for you to back off.
High scores are great and all, but total scores across all games available no matter how bad they are?
Sorry, but that's like fucking every ill-tempered, ugly chick you can find and then bragging to your friends about how many times you got laid. If that's what you really want, then more power to ya.
Slashdot Mirror
Well clearly the Xbox 360 is the most popular. It's right there in the data. People prefer it over the Wii by more than two to one.
These graphs are irrefutable "proof" of the 360s popularity over the Wii and the fact that people prefer excellent graphics and bloody games to gimmicky controllers, aren't they?
Or maybe not.
If you could jump to the wild conclusion that high availability of the console and a year head start might be influencing the 360 numbers, you might also want to consider that a constrained supply line might have impacted the PS3s results. And it appears to be impacting the Wii's as well.
Numbers don't lie, but unless you can interpret them, they don't tell the truth either.
TW
Maybe I'm missinterpretting "hundreds" compared to 3,700, but basically he's saying the vast majority of the stores have nothing, right?
TW
This isn't even true. If it where true, then Nessie and Big Foot are real, both Jesus and Mohamed are the Messiah and every weight loss plan ever created will make you lose 40 pounds in a month while you eat whatever you want and don't exercise.
I'm very surprised at the reaction of Slashdotters to this. I'd have thought you'd all be a little less susceptible to this kind of argument than other folks. Even a guy with a few hours to kill and a randomized list of retail establishments could give halfway decent data, but a few Slashdotters with an axe to grind who see the things in store shelve and declare that no one is buying them, well, lets just say that doesn't reach the same level of accuracy.
I'm not even saying they're not right. I did ask for more data, if anyone has any, and I asked for it because the situation is pretty fluid and I didn't have great data myself. But this kind of "he saw 'em so they're not selling" argument is almost no better than you saying, "I just feel it in my gut." Yes, you're getting some data points, but you don't know what those data points mean. You can go ahead and guess, but to make the types of declarations I've read is just not supported by some guy seeing some boxes at walmart.
I fairly often shop at my local Best Buy, target and EBX. I don't stalk all my local electronic outlets like it appears some Slashdotters do, but I've never seen PS3 boxes on the shelf on any of my shopping trips. My Costco has pallets of 360s, but I've never seen a PS3 there. This doesn't mean nobody has them. You could even call me a liar. But if think my simple anecdotal data is all fucked up, I at least hope you take it as a lesson that this kind of "proof" isn't worth much.
TW
I thought the same until I saw Far Cry. I've played Far Cry on the PC and I've seen it on the PS2, but the Wii looked very different than they did. It wasn't good. It wasn't even close. I am NOT saying that makes the Wii inferior. I am saying that if graphical excellence is important to you, you're going to have a hard time feeling happy with a Wii. On the other hand, Sixaxis isn't going to make any difference to you if you find the Wii controller compelling. If you want to play tennis or golf, who would consider a Xbox controller a viable substitute? Like the Wii's graphic, it will work, but it will be such a poor comparison that no one would take the "loser" seriously.
TW
This is good information from several different sources, but I liked the last one the best. First, it had a whole inventory sheet from quite a few Best Buy's, which suggests a trend, unlike the rest of the articles which are purely "I saw one here and there" pieces. But second, it points out that availability is spotty, with some states and cites having them and others not.
This is why anecdotal evidence is so problematic. If it's raining at my house and ten of my pal's houses across the country, it says nothing about your chances of having rain. It does not mean we're headed for a flood. Anecdotal info does have it's uses, but people at Slashdot have been claiming it as "proof." These people are no better than diet pill salesman, who will give you testimonial after testimonial, but it turns out a whole lot of the users still stay fat.
Should Sony have some concern based on this? You bet. Does it mean sales figures accurately reflect a market where supply is flexible enough to meat demand? Hell no. If lots of people in lots of places have trouble getting it at retail, it doesn't really matter if it's sitting on the shelf elsewhere. It may not be out of stock in general, but it's very significantly supply constricted which will greatly affect sales figures.
There's one more thing to remember. If you're a Wii fan and you like seeing good Wii numbers, consider that these are not the best you can get. If Sony does have a full supply and if Nintendo is still choked by demand, it could mean that the potential difference in PS3 and Wii sales is much higher than this story suggests. Stories that suggest sales in the current environment bare any resemblance to full supply sales are hurting you as much as the Sony fan.
TW
Thank you for posting anecdotal evidence from the area where you live. I was so very afraid I would be forced to read this important information from an authoritative source that has recent data from either Sony or the retail industry. Knowing that you're on top of this situation will help me feel confidant that the matter is conclusive and accurate. I will be sure to cite your post in further discussions on this topic.
Thank you,
TW
Did I miss something? How did DS game sales and comments about the Wii end up in the same write-up? Did Microsoft start planning on producing a handheld while I was hiding under a rock or is there some other Microsoft vs. DS competition I'm missing?
As far as the Wii is concerned, I think Bill has less to worry about than he's letting on. The two are practically in a different market. The big draws of the 360 are visually impressive games, High Definition and media center functionality, none of which are big selling points of the Wii. On the other hand, people interested only in the unique controller and game lineup on the Wii wouldn't give the 360 any serious thought.
Nintendo's spent quite a bit of energy trying to distance itself from direct competition with Microsoft and Sony. In my opinion, they've succeeded. The only competition that's really there is whether you like the Sony/Microsoft style of gaming or the Wii's.
SUVs don't compete with sports cars. People just chose which they'd rather have and then go choose from the available SUVs or the available sports cars. Nintendo is in the enviable position of having lots and lots of people chose their style, but as it turns out, they're the only company offering it.
TW
Larger inventory + more demand than inventory = sold out, but more units sold
Smaller inventory + more demand than inventory = sold out, but fewer units sold
Fun games + lower price point = Happy customers that are irrelevant to any kind of sales metrics at the moment.
Meaning no disrespect to Sony or Nintendo, or video game journalists in general, but it's kind of moronic to compare sales of the two when both of these companies are selling as many as they can make.
If there is more demand for the Wii, no one can say how much. Would they sell 10 times as many if that many units were available? If there was actually more demand for the PS3, nobody could prove it. Does the fact that the Xbox sold 8 million units mean it has happier customers, more fun games, or a lower price point? Maybe it just has have high availability and a year head start.
Wake me up when Sony and Nintendo have enough inventory to satisfy demand for any walk-in customer. If that was true now, this story would actually be interesting.
BTW, if you have inventory statistics, thank you very much for posting them. They would be quite useful. If you don't, please don't bother telling me all about that WalMart near your house that has 5 units on the shelf. It says nothing about inventories in general. It is irrelevant.
TW
Just curious, have you used the xbox controller and do you consider it a big improvement? I've only ever used it at kiosks in stores, and though it didn't feel bad, it also didn't feel any better to me.
I'm not stuck on symmetry as a general concept, but when playing shooters it seems like a natural arrangement. If I wanted one of them up high, it would just seem natural to put the other up high as well on. Do you know of any controllers that do this, and if so, what did you think of them?
TW
Ok, I'll bite. This one goes to both you and the GP. Warranties will get your money back if something breaks, but it doesn't really say anything about reliability. If I really want to see who's better, I'm going to have to go with vendor reliability stats. If you have independent stats, all the better, but I don't think I've ever personally seen those.
.3% and .7%. These numbers actually compare very favorably with most any SCSI drive.
Vendor MTBF on almost any 3.5" SATA or PATA drive is between 600k and 1.4 million hours. The Annual Failure Rates are between about
Yes, the best are more reliable with almost a 100% difference in MTBF, but lets look at it from a different angle: Even the worst one is awesome. If you get any of these drives, the MTBF says you should be able to run it 24/7/365 for the entire time you're likely to own it. Even if you're planning on running the drive from the time your kids are born to the time they die, the MTBF on the lowest one suggests you wouldn't see breakage.
With Annual Failure Rate, most every major manufacturer gives you about a 99.3% to 99.7% chance of your drive surviving any given year. Any drive with either of those stats would be, by definition, very unlikely to fail on any given year. The chance of failure of either drive is roughly that of drawing a straight in a single deal of five card stud (~.4%) once a year. If both pass, the additional chance that the "less reliable" drive will still fail is roughly that of drawing another straight.
I realize that trust is a bid deal. First off, you have to trust that those numbers are accurate, which is far from a sure thing. I wouldn't fault anyone for following their own gut reputation. But I would think this difference in reliability isn't anywhere big enough get worked up about, and is almost certainly less important than other factors such as cost, speed and capacity.
TW
This is a great point. Lots of people screw up emulation. I got two different collections for the PSP (Midway and I forget the title of the other) , one was great, the other had issues.
You have to think about how you're going to do this stuff with wide screen displays, different controls, etc. Thoughtful translators will take the original ROM and tweek it ever so slightly for those factors, like putting score displays on the side for wide aspect ratio. They'll give you the same tweaks, and maybe more than were available in the cabinate. The other folks will just throw a ROM on a disk and claim the job done.
TW
Lots of old PS1 titles for the PSP. One semi-big first run PS3 title (GripShift). A few smaller first-run titles like Blast Factor and Sudoku(sp?). A lot of demos.
The demos are nice, and free, and I've been having a hell of a good time with GripShift. Although they have a "wallet" unlike as I've heard others state, you don't have to pre-buy in $50 or $100 increments. You can put just as much in your wallet as you need to spend for the one transaction and you can do it at the time of the transaction. You can give them your credit card for single transactions or they can store it, your choice.
TW
This is probably the main reason we don't see TV out ports on the DS and the PSP (a lot of people have bean clambering for a PSP TV out). They'd be more (cannibalistic) competition for the set-top consoles.
I think the Wii has less to worry about because of the different unique controllers of it and the DS, but it would make a whole lot of sense to many more people to not buy a separate box if they could play their handheld on the big screen. I could definitely see the PSP cutting into PS2 sales for some people who would otherwise have both.
TW
Demos(Motor Storm): Free
More advanced demos they refer to as "concepts" (Gran Tourismo): Free
Classic games(Crash Bandicoot): about 6 bucks
First run downloadable games(GripShift for PS3): about 10 bucks
First run on store shelves(Resistance): about 60 bucks (obviously)
I've played all categories, plus a bunch of PS2 tiles, and they're all fun. I love the new stuff, like Resistance, but why not play the old stuff and the demos too?
I can see how some people might think it's a waste to spend $600 to play old games, but I see it more as versatility. If I bought a fancy high-end, stainless steel oven, I'd expect it too do a great job cooking a delicate souffle, but I'd be pretty disappointed if it wouldn't also bake a Betty Crocker cake mix.
I think all the consoles have this kind of service now, and I'm quite happy this is the direction the industry has gone. We're going to get a lot of variety out of our systems instead of just being directed to the store to pay $60 for everything.
TW
Nice. Great point. Though I don't think games developed as advertisements quite compare with classic game, I can't help but think that the two combined point to a very good trend in the gaming industry.
It's not good to have all your content priced at $50 to $60. Hollywood movies did awesomely well on DVD primarily because they were affordable. Putting out more affordable content is going to get more people buying more games instead of having libraries of 3-5 games like a lot of people do.
An inexpensive console, like the PS2 is now, nearly doubles it's price with just two first run games and only five "Greatest Hits" titles. For a whole lot of households, that's a very large burden. There were many times in my life where $50 represented big money, and even $20 made me think. Getting games into the price range of fast food will get a lot of people with modest incomes buying content more often, because they'll have that much spare money more often.
BTW, the version of GripShift I got was a brand new version for the PS3, not a classic game. I think both are important, but I think the ability to get out new stuff in this price range, even like the Burger King Xbox games, is especially good for the industry.
I hate replying to my own post, but I wanted to add that I sincerely believe a very large part of the Slashdot community brings, "insightful conversation with fair and thoughtful people," to their posts. The people who don't bring this style of conversation tend to stick out like the proverbial sore thumb, so it can sometimes feel like Slashdot has a problem instead of the individual posters.
It would be nice if the modders tried a little harder to root out mean-spirited posts, but I don't think they always recognize them, especially if the bulk of the poster's comments track with their own thoughts. If I believe that product X is flawed, I might have a tendency to see a rant about product X as passing on good info, rather than just being a rant. Being mad about something doesn't necessarily make you a "troll" or your post, "flaimbait" either.
I'm not sure if anything can, or should be done about this. I'm guessing "not civil," "personal attack," or "mean-spirited" mods would cause more problems than they would help. You can't force people to be nice. But it sure would be helpful if they tried harder to be nice all on their own.
TW
Translation: Stop crying, you just brought it on yourself. If those kids are too mean, just don't play with them.
Dad? I didn't even know you read Slashdot. How's mom doing?
I thought things would changed now that I've grown up, but I guess it's more of the same. Do you know where I could have insightful conversations with fair and thoughtful people? How about that girl with the "great personality," mom was always saying I should go out with? I know there has to be somebody out there. I should try the Kiwanis with you and mom? Do they talk much about tech? Sigh.
TW
I just reread my post. I didn't mean it in the way you took it, but I can see how it could look that way. When I said, "actually, it's kind of a nice price," I was referring to the actual price, not the "price he gave. oh well.
I'm sure one of the three next gen consoles will have "the best" download service and one will have "the worst," but I just think it's cool that whatever you got, you should be able to download classic and new games for a good price, directly to your hard drive from the internet. It means they all kind of got it right.
Does anyone know the status of steering wheels for the PS3? I saw that Gran Turismo will take a few logitech steering wheels, but I haven't checked if they're PC wheels or proprietary to the PS3. Also, I haven't seen a steering wheel option in any of the other demos.
TW
Actually it's kind of a nice price. I got Crash Bandicoot for the PSP for about 6 bucks and Grip Shift for the PS3 for about 10 bucks. I'm glad all the new consoles are offering downloads like this. It probably doesn't make sense to sell a disk consisting of a single old game for a cheapo prices, but it makes a hell of a lot of sense for a download. I pay more for two people to eat at Burger King than I did for Crash.
TW
Using "M$" for Microsoft removed any questions I may have had about the objectivity of the author. I found it difficult to finish reading after I hit that point. It's like listening to Rush Limbaugh or Al Franken for the news. Why bother? You're only gonna get half of it.
Seriously, you guys that pick out the stories, shouldn't that term be an automatic round-file?
TW
Great link. Could save a lot on breath of /. if it got out more widely.
For clarification, I NEVER said Japan sales don't matter in a general sense, especially if you happen to be a Nintendo or Sony stockholder. That said, the aren't any kind of indicator of which console is more popular in America and for that specific purpose, they don't matter at all.
Unfortunately, lots of folks don't seem to get that. They talk to a largely American audience and wave those numbers around as "proof" of how much more "popular" the DS is.
"But wait," you might be saying to yourself," what if they really are trying to prove general popularity? Aren't the numbers useful then?" Well, no, they're not. If that was the point, don't you think they'd use worldwide sales figures instead of Japanese sales figures? The truth is, they skip by the worldwide numbers altogether because the Japanese numbers are so much more impressive.
Now some people, like yourself, try to point out that since the consoles and quite a large number of the game developers come from Japan that the Japanese numbers have unique relevance. Too true. If that was the point these other people were making, I would have no problem with it. But all too often it's not.
Bottom line: Japan sales figures don't matter one little bit when gaging American popularity, but they do matter quite a reasonable amount for several other important reasons. Every time I see the someone try to misuse the figures to insinuate the DS is either more popular generally or especially if they insinuate the numbers have any relevance to popularity in the US, I'm gonna call them on it.
TW
Much nicer that the solution the other guy gave. Not the cheapest thing in the world at $125, but far more elegant.
TW
By the way this is the WORLD WIDE WEB if you don't like it go back to logging on to your local BBS.
Sure, and I live on the world. And I speak worldese. And when manufacturers want to sell a product, they sell exactly the same product everywhere in the world, they start selling it everywhere at exactly the same time, and they expect exactly the same sales breakdown throughout the world. Everyone in the world has the same tastes, like anime, Chuck Norris films, peanut butter and jelly and, of course, sushi. Christianity and Shinto have uniform distribution and we all have both an emperor and a president.
Or you can just get real and admit that the Japanese and American markets are very different as a whole and you can admit that Slashdot has an overwhelmingly American readership.
This is reality. People are different. That's something to be celebrated, but also not to be ignored. People who sell stuff recognize this and do not expect big Chevy Suburban sales in Japan. The fact that I recognize this doesn't mean I'm jingoistic or exclusionary, just that I have a brain.
I wasn't amused when you started painting me as some kind of flag waving moron who doesn't care about the rest of the world. It's not what I wrote and it's flat out wrong. You're getting too personal with this. It's time for you to back off.
TW
High scores are great and all, but total scores across all games available no matter how bad they are?
Sorry, but that's like fucking every ill-tempered, ugly chick you can find and then bragging to your friends about how many times you got laid. If that's what you really want, then more power to ya.
TW