I was surprised when the Playstation came out and games were $40 by default, $50 for the Square titles.
$50 has been the default price for games on most platforms as long as I can remember, going back to the NES. The Square games on the cartridge systems were usually more expensive because they needed more memory in the carts, and battery saves (Final Fantasy cost ~$60; Ultima 3 for the NES, obviously not developed by Square, was also $60). Because the Playstation was the first major console to use CD-ROM media, and 2 or 3 discs wasn't a significant cost increase over 1 disc (other than the development of the content), the prices flattened with the exception of "Collector's Edition" titles (mostly on the PC). PC developers (or perhaps retailers) tried to push prices up for a little while, but mostly failed to get the base price above $50.
Prices do drop fairly quickly with certain platforms, though, so it's easy to find games for $40 even on a relatively new system (say 1 year old). With the console manufacturers having Greatest Hits lines at $20-30, it becomes even easier in the long run to find cheaper titles, whereas on the PC anything in that price range has usually been sitting on the shelf or in a warehouse a long time and looks more like something out of a scratch-n-dent sale (especially since most still haven't left cardboard boxes behind, or CD-ROM for that matter).
That bit about Sports games is true, but how many people play sports games on their computer?
I only mentioned the sports line because it represented the majority of their recent releases. Additionally, if you look at Links, for instance, you have a title that was previously a PC title primarily, or even Crimson Skies is a sequel to a PC title.
In addition to Crimson Skies and PGR2, which I mentioned, there are Brute Force, Midtown Madness 3 (which is also a sequel to a PC title), Nightcaster, Whacked!, and a number of other MS-developed/published titles for the XBox that are exclusive to the platform. MS' initial push to developers was that cross-platform PC/console development would be easier with the XBox, but at this point it looks like most developers have chosen either multi-console development, or have developed primarily for the XBox and released PC versions either later or almost as an afterthought. Look at the issues PC users had with Deus Ex 2. KOTOR's developers delayed the PC release by 6 months, and planned that delay almost from the start (probably under agreement with MS), even though it's a PC-style RPG at heart. Halo was delayed almost 2 years, even though the Mac and PC were the game's original target platforms. Most people willing to develop for the console just don't care enough about the PC to put it at top priority, so we aren't seeing the PC-to-XBox conversions people expected, and most of the titles on the XBox are not available on the PC (though it could be said that the top XBox titles up through maybe 6-10 months ago are all available on the PC now, it would still be hard to say that there were more than 2 XBox-as-the-only-console titles that were must-have games in the first place).
As the XBox' lineup has incorporated more games that people feel are really worth having an XBox to play, the number of planned ports to the PC has declined. Of course, this may also be caused by the fact that the most popular recent titles on the XBox are in genres that aren't very popular on the PC, with the exception of Brute Force.
sony initially built their market by picking up for sega's faltering, and then by targeting mature gamers whilst nintendo was still aiming at kids.
Additionally, Sony signed a great number of well-known Nintendo developers to develop games for the PS1. A great number of those games were sequels to titles or series previously released on Nintendo consoles only, and some of those developers were signed exclusively to Sony for console releases. Square, Enix, Capcom, and Konami are just a small number of developers that made a name for themselves on Nintendo hardware and pushed PS1 into the lead.
but sony dominated in this generation because they provided compatibility for the ps games,
As much as I agree with this, I also have to point out that Sony also hit home with sequels to almost every game that sold well on the PS1. Square's first release after the US PS2 launch was a PS1 title, but still there was the promise of FFX (and now X-2 and XI, possibly even XII). GT3, GTA3, Tekken Tag Tournament (and Tekken 4), etc. There are a lot of new series and titles on the PS2, but it came in with a lot of sequels either available or in development.
Sony's never been particularly strong in 1st or 2nd party development (though the GT games obviously stand out), but the deals they signed for exclusivity won them a lot of fans, and eventually those 3rd parties could go somewhere else, just as they did to get to Sony in the first place. The signs are already there with FF:CC and the Resident Evil exclusives, as well as MS buying up console developers as if they were actually making money in the business (or buying PC developers and turning them into console developers). I think this may be the most interesting console generation in a while, especially with MS and Nintendo actively planning to meet Sony's release dates, but I don't necessarily think the big change in leadership will come this time around, but rather as they wrap it up with a new generation.
When is the PS3 supposed to be released, anyway? Last I heard it was supposed to be ready for X-mas 2004, but I have heard about other things since then.
They haven't announced a date yet, but it's doubtful it'll be in this year (maybe a Japan release, but that even seems doubtful; they may try to pull a worldwide or North America/Japan simultaneous release this time, too).
Anyway... I don't understand why these type of predictions make news. Remember a couple of years ago when they said the US would have a budget surplus of billions by now? The media doesn't... but I sure do.
The only way to create a budget surplus is to collect more in taxes than you spend. Interestingly enough, that doesn't have anything to do with national debt, either, and iirc much of the last budget surplus went to social security rather than paying the national debt, making it questionable as to whether or not it would be considered a budget surplus at all. The reason there isn't a budget surplus now is simple: Bush not only cut taxes, he increased spending. While I don't care for the latter in many cases, I'll take the former over a budget surplus any day.
Anything can happen in that period of time... direct interpolation of the numbers doesn't mean anything. If Sony botches the PS3 they could lose everything... of course based on the direction the Xbox2 is going, they could be out of existance just as easily.
It's really going to come down to when the consoles launch and what titles will play on the consoles (note: "will play" includes such features as backwards compatibility, which sells consoles early on). If they all launch at the same time, have similar game lineups (ie none of the three really stand out in more than one particular genre), and similar features (which we don't even know yet), but MS and Nintendo don't have backwards compatibility with the current generation consoles, Sony will easily take an early lead, but long-term bets are off. If all three consoles have backwards compatibility with the current generation (unlikely) but Sony drops PS1 compatibility, it could lead to slower early sales for Sony, despite the equality of the features. It's not that PS1 compatibility is of great importance even for those that will buy a PS3, it's simply that it is something that early adopters will perceive as an important feature, even if they end up never using it (I have to say, though, that I play PS1 titles almost as often as PS2 titles).
I guess you can get all the games you want too? I heard Halo is pretty good... I guess I'd rather go with the system that gives me the most choices in terms of games. I think of lot of companies are still producing titles for the PS2/3 first and then worrying about (or not) the XBox, Nintendo, and the PC.
Most multi-console titles look best on the XBox. Other than that, it depends on what types of games you like. PS2 obviously has the most titles, but that doesn't always mean it has the best titles. For RPG players, there really isn't much choice, though FF:CC and KOTOR for the Cube and the XBox (respectively) have recently made some inroads in that area. The Cube seems to have a better experience for multiplayer in-house (ie everyone in the same room or on the same local network). The XBox seems to have more titles that really take advantage of Live for internet multiplayer (though EA hasn't released a title yet that is online with anything but a PS2).
Overall, I'd say that I've bought more games for my GameCube than any other system in the last year (ok, maybe more for the GBA). However, I still tend to divide my playing time fairly equally across the three consoles, playing on each system's lineup's strengths. In the few occasions on which I actually buy multi-console titles, I check the reviews for the differences, play them on each if I can, and then make the decision. So far, they've all gone to the XBox, but then I don't buy a lot of them.
This is simply untrue. Tell me how many games MS has ported from PC to the Xbox currently. It's not a large number. If you're thinking games like Counter Strike and Rainbow Six, those weren't made by MS. I know Halo was on Xbox first and its sequel is easily one of the most anticipated games ever.
You're arguing the opposite point, and supporting what he said by using Halo as an example.
It's actually easier to prove that MS is not porting games from the XBox to the PC than to prove that games are not coming from the PC to the XBox (note in the latter I didn't state MS). MS has, in fact, released very few of their XBox titles on the PC, especially if you look at recent titles like Crimson Skies High Road to Revenge, the Project Gotham Racing titles, and the XSN Sports line.
On the other hand, I'd have to say that every console is suffering from the cross-platform development that is now common, in part because of the development costs for a game, and in part because of the number of platforms out there. Each platform has it's must-have games, but the cross-platform games each suffer unique problems because they are rarely optimized for any platform.
Basically the inclusion of DRM just puts a freeze on the program for me since I don't like being told what to do with my $400 program.
As someone else already stated above, it simply supports the DRM, it doesn't really include it. The way it works is simple: - person composing message in Outlook 2003 sets flags to prevent you from remailing message - message gets sent to Exchange 2003 server running on Windows 2003 server with Active Directory enabled - you download message in Outlook 2003 from Exchange 2003 server on Windows 2003 server (with active directory enabled) - when you try to forward message using Outlook 2003 through Exchange 2003 you can't do it
Of course, this all depends on both you and the composer of the message using Outlook 2003, the server being an Exchange 2003 server running on Windows Server 2003 with Active Directory enabled. Finally, the option has to be enabled in Exchange Server 2003 and Active Directory to allow the person writing the email to set the flags to prevent you from forwarding the message.
If you're looking for an email app to use at home, chances are the planets will not align properly for this to ever be a burden on you. In any case, the DRM can't stop you from taking a screenshot and forwarding that. If you're looking at this from a work standpoint, be assured they'll force you to use Outlook 2003 when they want to start sending you crap you can't forward (or print, or whatever), and you won't be able to receive it without Outlook 2003 anyway.
On the bright side, though, once your office locks you into the DRM, you can start irritating the people that did it to you by sending them severely locked down messages that do all kinds of neat stuff, like self-delete and prevent them from printing (I know a few people who seem to always print their email, this would be perfect for them).
To reiterate, under normal circumstances, Outlook 2003 itself has no DRM features, except that it supports those DRM features provided by Exchange 2003 and Windows Server 2003 when used with Active Directory and only Outlook 2003 clients. Not using Outlook 2003 for that reason alone would be like not using WMP because it supports DRM features in WMV and WMA files, when in reality either you can find other reasons not to like it or you can run non-DRM files perfectly fine with it.
Doing a little text formatting with HTML adds a trvial amount to the size of the message. (At least it should, making some text bold doesn't require the ridiculous amount of HTML that some mail clients add to messages.)
If it simply used HTML tags to format messages, rather than composing the entire message as if it were a website, and then didn't use the obscene html that Outlook uses, it probably wouldn't be a problem. As it stands, though, I regularly get email that runs around 23KB for a simple 2 lines, 1 link, a small intro, and signature. Saving the same message as an RTF file in WordPad results in a 1.6KB file if I preserve the headers (since it's mass-mailed to everyone in the office), plain text is 1.25KB. The only html required in the message is for the link, and most mail readers should be able to interpret a link for you from plain text.
Once in a while, 23KB isn't a problem. Considering, though, that I don't clean out my business email very often (which saves my ass more often than not), it adds up over time. As an added bonus, though, if I save the same message out in Outlook's.msg format, it comes out to 183KB.
A simple pair of anchor tags would suffice for a link, and bold and italic tags. Hell, let me use as much or as little html as I want, but we don't need an email message to be a full-on html page with markup that looks like it was generated by MS Word (which is probably the case anyway).
Which brings me to my third and final paragraph. I'm sure most of you are familiar with Doom3 and have probably seen the screenshots, if not played the leaked alpha. I read in a few articles / interviews published in gaming magazines several months back that id was claiming that they were focusing more on sounds than graphics, and that if you thought the screenshots looked good, wait until you heard them. Though they suggested a 6.1 setup.
This goes to another point, though, and that's the fact that bringing in professionals doesn't always result in sub-par music. Most of the articles and interviews have stated that Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) is coming back in to do the music, and possibly sound effects, for Doom 3, as he did with Quake. The latter title was definitely among the first to gain the full benefit of this type of relationship, especially with full CD-quality audio (being an actual audio CD from which the audio tracks were played), and the music was perfect for the game.
I think a lot of people shudder at the thought of musicians doing game music simply because so many games simply use licensed songs today, or because many musicians approach it like just another album instead of approaching it like the score of the game (similar to the score of a movie). The movie industry rarely uses people from the music industry to do film scores, but when they do, they either do the job well or fall flat, and that often determines whether they work on another film again. In the case of Doom 3, if the statements about Trent Reznor working on the music are true, you're looking at an artist that has done a handful of movies and a previous game from the same developers, rather than just another musician looking to open up the audience for his new album. Of course, these types of projects are part of why there is an average of four years between Nine Inch Nails albums, too, so it's a mixed blessing for those of us that enjoy his work.
What FPS are you thinking of? Because most of the significant ones I know have in fact got a difficulty setting, and challenging ones at that.
I wouldn't be able to say exactly, because it's been a while since I replayed (or even played through) the single player of an FPS. In most cases the default difficulty is mind-numbingly easy or the game is just boring in general. On the other hand, the few I can remember had maybe 3 difficulty levels (which I wouldn't generally complain about), while older games like Doom had as many as 5 difficulty levels (though iirc the Nightmare difficulty was added later). The last FPS games I bought were RtCW, BF1942, and UT2k3, and the latter 2 had game-stopping bugs near or at load, so perhaps the real difficulty was in getting FPS games to play in the first place:) (and I am pretty sure all have been fixed, the UT2k3 problem was especially irritating because the demo worked fine).
The UT series has a really nice answer to the problem, since the bots are extremely configurable in terms of behavior and difficulty (even being adaptive if you choose the option). I found the Q3 bots, on the other hand, to be far too easy, regardless of difficulty level, with only the final level of the game being a significant obstacle (though I'd have to say the last level of the first UT game was also very hard for me, and that 1-on-1 isn't my strong point).
No matter though, since single player gaming is only one side of (FPS) gaming - if you're looking for the ultimate in difficulty, enroll in gaming tournaments and prepare for your unmaking.;)
Been there, done that, and unmade as much as I may have been unmade myself;) On the other hand, I've been quite irritated lately at the praise heaped on Counterstrike and the tendency of games to move towards the model it used (I'd say based on Action Quake 2, but then someone would find an older mod that had the same model). I guess I've still got my breath held to see what TF2 will be, knowing all the while that they'll probably hose it up completely to try to appeal to the CS crowd and/or the mass-market (well, they bought TFS for exactly that reason, as TF was the most popular multiplayer FPS at the time). Anyway, at least the leagues were fun for a couple of years, and gave me my money's worth from Half-Life, which I thought was an absurdly boring, mindless, and definitely not challenging single-player game.
I would recommend R-Type Final and Ikaruga. For comparison, pick up Gradius III & IV as well (the latter being available on one disc for the PS2). In general, there are easier difficulty levels available in the newer games, but the overall difficulty of the newer games is as hard as, if not moreso than, the older games.
On the other hand, if you look at FPS games, the tendency has been in the opposite direction, with difficulty levels being removed from games and the "Nightmare" type difficulty levels almost completely gone. I think this is probably because these games are developed with the idea that multiplayer will make up most of the replayability, when in reality there are still plenty of people not playing these games online. If they focused more on replayability, that ability to change difficulty levels, and ramp it up to an extreme level of difficulty, could really help a lot.
Other things that have helped reduce the overall difficulty of games are mostly simple features that reduce the confusion for the players. Indicators for what you're supposed to do next, auto-mapping in the game, and so on. A game is more difficult if you have to map it out by hand or keep the map in your head, but this is an artificial difficulty.
Of course, arcade-style games also deal with the transition from coin-op, where you're trying to get people to pump more quarters into the machine by killing them quickly, but balancing that with a need to keep them playing. On consoles you don't need quarters, and the constant deaths either do nothing to slow down some players or turn them off of the game completely.
I'm pretty sure I saw a "Collector's Edition" at Toys'R'Us recently. However, I may be mistaken about the "Wind Waker" game you mentioned. The $59.99 on the pricetag was unmistakable, either way.
The Zelda Collector's Edition (I, II, Majora's Mask, Ocarina of Time) is supposed to only be sold with a system or through a couple of other offers (it looks like most of them have expired looking at http://www.nintendo.com/zeldaclassic/ and http://www.nintendopower.com/zelda/ ). Either way, you can still pick up that disc used for $10-20, and it never had an official list price to begin with. I have seen it sold new seperately, but never with a price tag, so I couldn't say if $60 was common, but I know I wouldn't pay that much for something that was offered free with a Cube, a Nintendo Power subscription, or purchase of two qualifying games (I think I own almost every game that qualified, but never bothered sending in for an additional copy beyond what I got with my 2nd Cube).
In other words, if that's the disc they were offering for $59.99, and they weren't offering anything else with it, they were screwing people.
). I am very used to paying less than $20 to $25 for PS2 games and was disappointed to see most GC games were still above $25 to $30.
On average, I've paid $15-25 for most of my GameCube games, the exceptions generally being the newest titles (F-Zero, FF:CC, Mario Kart, Viewtiful Joe). Even the more expensive titles that were not new ran in the $25-35 range, and have since become "Players Choice" titles and dropped another $5-10. Generally speaking, though, the prices on the games seem to drop before they reach "Players Choice" status, to the point where they get the label around the same time they hit the typical price point ($30). If you look at the lists most people post of "must have" games for the Cube and take out the newest titles, you'll probably find that you can get most of the titles in the $15-30 range, especially if you're willing to buy used (but then new copies of games like Eternal Darkness have been going for less than $20 and it's almost not worth the couple of dollars difference for a used copy).
The PS2 has been out longer, of course, and has far more titles. Eventually you're going to end up with a handful of titles worth buying in the $20 bin. I've got to say, though, that in terms of proportions of good to bad titles in the price range, you're still better off on the Cube. If you're looking for pure numbers of titles, of course the PS2 is going to hit it off, you just have to be careful what you buy.
I saw $60 on the Zelda bundle and choked.
umm what Zelda bundle? I'm sure Wind Waker may still be going for $50 in some places (I got it with my Cube after finding Metroid Prime for $20), but anything else I'm aware of Zelda-related has been freely bundled with either the Cube itself or with a pre-order of Wind Waker. Either bundled disc can be picked up used on occasion for $10 (which could explain finding a Zelda bundle for $60, but they're not supposed to be selling new discs that way afaik).
The truth, of course, is that the Dreamcast was not being restocked and that stores had stopped carrying it because it was dead as a system.
But you have to also remember that Sega stopped producing and supporting the Dreamcast before it became hard to find. In this case, Nintendo is producing the system (they started the manufacturing back up near the time of the price drop) and is definitely still supporting the system.
Additionally, since hardware sales are up over the previous year, comparisons to the DreamCast become even more problematic. The DC really didn't even have a 2nd year in which sales could be compared to the previous year, because it was cancelled 15 months after the US release.
Sony still sold out on the damn thing with every early shipment. It's easy to forget that while gamers measure such things based on how much fun they had, Sony (and any other company) measures them based on how much money they make.:)
and how do you think the shareholders at Sony were feeling when they saw PS2s going for $500 on eBay? If supply is so bad that a buyer can resell for a $200 mark-up, and you've got people on a waiting list all across the country for 6 months, what you see is not money coming in, but instead money going down the drain.
That being said, at this point the only reason they care about the PS2 launch is to avoid making the same mistake again.
Sony has proven before that they can sell an expensive piece of hardware on the strength of VERY (VERY) few decent games.
Sony hasn't proven anything in this market. Everyone that's tried to compete against Nintendo with a more expensive product (usually technically superior), in this market, has failed.
That being said, it will only take a couple of games to get me to buy one, I know myself too well to think otherwise. Will it replace my GBA-SP? That's unlikely, at least for a while, since I have a decent library of games for the system at this point, but it is likely that it will sit beside it if Sony can bring together a decent library of their own.
No one can hold a market forever, but this market in particular has been tricky for anyone to enter, and we're at a point now where there are a fair number of poor competitors that just didn't understand the market before they entered. Whether Sony will put themselves among them remains to be seen. The DS from Nintendo is in the same position for different reasons. The primary feature of the DS is unproven, and most people won't understand it until they see the real thing in action.
If it was, then it certainly wasn't to the extent of Vice City. It actually is a feature that I don't care for at all, and I didn't notice it in GTA3, but saw it all the time in Vice City. Of course, since I only have the XBox versions now, I can't go back and check for myself without renting the PS2 version.
Uhm.... Crimson Skies came out for the PC. Actually, I'd known about it on the PC for a rather long time before I ever heard about it on Xbox. I guess the PC version just didn't sell nearly as well.
Ah, a quick search on MobyGames reveals that Crimson Skies came out for Windows in 2000, while the Xbox version was 2003. Although I guess only making it for Windows kind of counts as it being exclusive to Microsoft...
The Crimson Skies for the XBox (High Road to Revenge) is not the same game as the older Windows title. It's sortof a sequel, but not quite, because they more or less started from scratch on the XBox. So, Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge is an XBox exclusive, while the older Crimson Skies is a PC title that has little to do with the newer game except for the name and some basic story elements.
Resident Evil: Codename Veronica was a dreamcast excluive... Code Veronica X came out for PS2 later, the X makes it a whollllle new game.. Now resident evil is a gamecube "exclusive"..
The primary Resident Evil series has all been re-released on the Cube, with RE0 and RE4 as exclusives and the RE1 remake being an exclusive (RE2 and Code Veronica being ports). They still have a handful of RE releases that are only being released on the PS2, as well.
GTA3 & Vice City were PS2 "exclusives", until the PC versions, and later XBox versions came out.
The Final Fantasy series is PS2 "exclusive", nevermind that Crystal Chronicles thing.
Sony hasn't (as of yet) excluded PC releases when they sign a developer to do PS 1/2 exclusives. The Final Fantasy series has only had 3 titles on the PS2 (one of which isn't available in the US, yet, though will be within a couple of weeks, depending on supply). Most of the FF PS1 re-releases (FF1-6, excluding 3, + Chrono Cross & Chrono Trigger) were originally Nintendo-console exclusives. FF7 and FF8 were both released on the PC within a fairly short time of the console release (in the US).
Basically, when Sony brings in a developer for an "exclusive", it usually means that a particular series of games will be released on their console as the only console release for a particular period of time. When Microsoft brings in a developer for an "exclusive" and doesn't actually buy that developer, it means you probably won't see the PC version of the title for at least 6 months and may never see it on another console. Nintendo hasn't done enough exclusives with 3rd parties for me to really have any idea how that works with them, except that we know that so far RE0 hasn't shown up anywhere else, nor Viewtiful Joe (though the latter hasn't been around nearly long enough).
It just doesnt make sense for third party developers to lock themselves into one platform in such a fragmented market.
The developers rarely lock themselves into one platform entirely, unless they become a second party developer. Generally they just lock up a particular franchise for a period of time or a number of titles. Often that franchise exclusivity doesn't even include titles using the franchise name with a non-linear title and/or plot (ie FF: Crystal Chronicles, FF:Tactics Advance, and the RE: PS2 games). Additionally, they get big wads of cash, which look really good on a developer's bottom line sometimes, especially to companies like SquareSoft, Rockstar, and Capcom that are looking at an industry that isn't being very friendly to small developers and possibly a shaky financial ground (SquareSoft obviously became SquareEnix to deal with some of the problems they caused after taking big wads of cash from Sony, Rockstar is probably doing just fine these days after GTA:VC broke all kinds of records, and Capcom, well, I don't know how they're doing).
Apparently, there are plenty of other companies that thought an even closer relationship with one of the console manufacturers would be helpful, such as Silicon Knights, Bungie, Rare, and so forth.
Compared to the console versions, sales were laughable. In fact, the total sales of the PC and XBox versions of GTA3 and GTA:Vice City combined are less than the sales of GTA:VC on the PS2 alone.
That being said, the PC sales were no slouch compared to other PC games, excepting the obvious titles like The Sims and Half-Life, which sold comparable numbers to Vice City's PS2 version.
BTW, at this mission I was somewhat flabbergasted as this is "cheating" or is this a "legit" the way to make this mission. I mean, you play the role of a gangster, you are supposed to cheat.
This is part of the beauty of the GTA series, imo. Most of the missions have numerous ways for the player to win, if they just try to think of something less obvious. On GTA3, an early sequence involves going into China Town to kill someone; a friend of mine noticed that the particular character would run to his car almost every time, so instead of going after the guy right away, he stole his car, had it wired up with a bomb, and brought it back. Then he went after the guy, the bomb went off at the appropriate time, and he won the mission.
At the same time, there are quite a few missions (maybe even the majority) that can only be done with little or no variation from the "one way", but most of the time there are a few little tricks that can help you out if you just think about the problem in a different way.
Let me guess...cause you read on Usenet that "teh xbox is most powerful"
Yes, because I trust everything I read on Usenet, just like Slashdot.
On the other hand, I could have picked up the games at Blockbuster, put them into the XBox that I bought primarily to play Halo and PGR, and realized that they were blatantly better-looking versions of the games I already had, and therefore worth the $30 the pair cost when I traded in the PS2 versions of the games.
Oh, wait, I forgot, somehow the PS2 is both more powerful than every system I own (*cough* Soul Calibur on my DreamCast looks better than Soul Calibur 2 on my PS2), and not used for nefarious purposes by the company that owns it (despite being the most profitable arm of a company that is a multiple-times-over member of the RIAA and MPAA, as opposed to the biggest money-sink from a company with a monopoly on desktop operating systems).
"The same GTA engine [...] with a new locale" isn't necessarily a bad thing. Both the games based on the GTA 3 engine have been very playable.
If they have got a game engine that does what they need, there is no need to re-write it for every version.
Additionally, it's not like the hardware got any better in the time from the start of the work on GTA3 to the present. Incremental additions, even minor, to the existing engine are far more effective on a fixed platform than they ever would be on a variable platform like the PC. At the same time, they have an existing engine that has counterparts on the PC and XBox, all of which probably use a lot of common content (though the artwork on the PC and XBox games is obviously superior to the PS2 version, the PS2 art could be generated from the PC art if they made this game with future ports in mind). They can always add the incremental improvements into the engine's ports and then polish the ports according to the platform's capabilities (ie the PC version could increase quite a bit more than either the PS2 or XBox versions), but all of that is a matter of adding workload to what is essentially supposed to be the same game.
If this were a strictly PC-based series, I'd expect much more improvement between titles, but in the case of a series in which 3 titles are released on the same platform, with absolutely no change in the platform's capabilities in the interim, there's not much point to rewriting the engine. They certainly added to it technically in GTA:VC, giving the game motion blur, better graphics, and interior areas. None of these things are really the items most people mention when they talk about the changes in Vice City, but in reality they were probably the biggest challenges they faced, technically, in building the game (of course, I don't know whether 2-wheeled vehicles were an engine limitation or not, and it's quite possible that was among the most technically challenging portions of the game's development).
I traded in my PS2 versions when I bought the XBox versions. Personally, I'd like to see this one released on the XBox as well, but I realize that due to Rockstar's pre-existing agreement with Sony it's unlikely that it will happen until quite some time after the game's initial release.
Is this console exclusivity or won't it be reaching the PC at all.
If any previous game with PS2 exclusivity (including Rockstar's games) is any indicator, this announcement has no impact on any possible PC release. That being said, it's doubtful it will be released for the PC for a while.
They've been vauge in the past and having just released 3 & 4 for the xbox I expect that cash will speak the loudest words
Just a note, GTA:Vice City isn't GTA4, and neither is San Andreas. VC and SA are simply continuations of GTA3 (given that Liberty City, Vice City, and San Andreas are the playable areas in GTA, and that Rockstar was very explicit about this before and during the launch of Vice City). GTA4 has been hovering around for quite some time, but it doesn't really appear that they've done much on that, given the amount of work they've put into the GTA3 titles.
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I was surprised when the Playstation came out and games were $40 by default, $50 for the Square titles.
$50 has been the default price for games on most platforms as long as I can remember, going back to the NES. The Square games on the cartridge systems were usually more expensive because they needed more memory in the carts, and battery saves (Final Fantasy cost ~$60; Ultima 3 for the NES, obviously not developed by Square, was also $60). Because the Playstation was the first major console to use CD-ROM media, and 2 or 3 discs wasn't a significant cost increase over 1 disc (other than the development of the content), the prices flattened with the exception of "Collector's Edition" titles (mostly on the PC). PC developers (or perhaps retailers) tried to push prices up for a little while, but mostly failed to get the base price above $50.
Prices do drop fairly quickly with certain platforms, though, so it's easy to find games for $40 even on a relatively new system (say 1 year old). With the console manufacturers having Greatest Hits lines at $20-30, it becomes even easier in the long run to find cheaper titles, whereas on the PC anything in that price range has usually been sitting on the shelf or in a warehouse a long time and looks more like something out of a scratch-n-dent sale (especially since most still haven't left cardboard boxes behind, or CD-ROM for that matter).
That bit about Sports games is true, but how many people play sports games on their computer?
I only mentioned the sports line because it represented the majority of their recent releases. Additionally, if you look at Links, for instance, you have a title that was previously a PC title primarily, or even Crimson Skies is a sequel to a PC title.
In addition to Crimson Skies and PGR2, which I mentioned, there are Brute Force, Midtown Madness 3 (which is also a sequel to a PC title), Nightcaster, Whacked!, and a number of other MS-developed/published titles for the XBox that are exclusive to the platform. MS' initial push to developers was that cross-platform PC/console development would be easier with the XBox, but at this point it looks like most developers have chosen either multi-console development, or have developed primarily for the XBox and released PC versions either later or almost as an afterthought. Look at the issues PC users had with Deus Ex 2. KOTOR's developers delayed the PC release by 6 months, and planned that delay almost from the start (probably under agreement with MS), even though it's a PC-style RPG at heart. Halo was delayed almost 2 years, even though the Mac and PC were the game's original target platforms. Most people willing to develop for the console just don't care enough about the PC to put it at top priority, so we aren't seeing the PC-to-XBox conversions people expected, and most of the titles on the XBox are not available on the PC (though it could be said that the top XBox titles up through maybe 6-10 months ago are all available on the PC now, it would still be hard to say that there were more than 2 XBox-as-the-only-console titles that were must-have games in the first place).
As the XBox' lineup has incorporated more games that people feel are really worth having an XBox to play, the number of planned ports to the PC has declined. Of course, this may also be caused by the fact that the most popular recent titles on the XBox are in genres that aren't very popular on the PC, with the exception of Brute Force.
sony initially built their market by picking up for sega's faltering, and then by targeting mature gamers whilst nintendo was still aiming at kids.
Additionally, Sony signed a great number of well-known Nintendo developers to develop games for the PS1. A great number of those games were sequels to titles or series previously released on Nintendo consoles only, and some of those developers were signed exclusively to Sony for console releases. Square, Enix, Capcom, and Konami are just a small number of developers that made a name for themselves on Nintendo hardware and pushed PS1 into the lead.
but sony dominated in this generation because they provided compatibility for the ps games,
As much as I agree with this, I also have to point out that Sony also hit home with sequels to almost every game that sold well on the PS1. Square's first release after the US PS2 launch was a PS1 title, but still there was the promise of FFX (and now X-2 and XI, possibly even XII). GT3, GTA3, Tekken Tag Tournament (and Tekken 4), etc. There are a lot of new series and titles on the PS2, but it came in with a lot of sequels either available or in development.
Sony's never been particularly strong in 1st or 2nd party development (though the GT games obviously stand out), but the deals they signed for exclusivity won them a lot of fans, and eventually those 3rd parties could go somewhere else, just as they did to get to Sony in the first place. The signs are already there with FF:CC and the Resident Evil exclusives, as well as MS buying up console developers as if they were actually making money in the business (or buying PC developers and turning them into console developers). I think this may be the most interesting console generation in a while, especially with MS and Nintendo actively planning to meet Sony's release dates, but I don't necessarily think the big change in leadership will come this time around, but rather as they wrap it up with a new generation.
When is the PS3 supposed to be released, anyway? Last I heard it was supposed to be ready for X-mas 2004, but I have heard about other things since then.
They haven't announced a date yet, but it's doubtful it'll be in this year (maybe a Japan release, but that even seems doubtful; they may try to pull a worldwide or North America/Japan simultaneous release this time, too).
Anyway... I don't understand why these type of predictions make news. Remember a couple of years ago when they said the US would have a budget surplus of billions by now? The media doesn't... but I sure do.
The only way to create a budget surplus is to collect more in taxes than you spend. Interestingly enough, that doesn't have anything to do with national debt, either, and iirc much of the last budget surplus went to social security rather than paying the national debt, making it questionable as to whether or not it would be considered a budget surplus at all. The reason there isn't a budget surplus now is simple: Bush not only cut taxes, he increased spending. While I don't care for the latter in many cases, I'll take the former over a budget surplus any day.
Anything can happen in that period of time... direct interpolation of the numbers doesn't mean anything. If Sony botches the PS3 they could lose everything... of course based on the direction the Xbox2 is going, they could be out of existance just as easily.
It's really going to come down to when the consoles launch and what titles will play on the consoles (note: "will play" includes such features as backwards compatibility, which sells consoles early on). If they all launch at the same time, have similar game lineups (ie none of the three really stand out in more than one particular genre), and similar features (which we don't even know yet), but MS and Nintendo don't have backwards compatibility with the current generation consoles, Sony will easily take an early lead, but long-term bets are off. If all three consoles have backwards compatibility with the current generation (unlikely) but Sony drops PS1 compatibility, it could lead to slower early sales for Sony, despite the equality of the features. It's not that PS1 compatibility is of great importance even for those that will buy a PS3, it's simply that it is something that early adopters will perceive as an important feature, even if they end up never using it (I have to say, though, that I play PS1 titles almost as often as PS2 titles).
I guess you can get all the games you want too? I heard Halo is pretty good ... I guess I'd rather go with the system that gives me the most choices in terms of games. I think of lot of companies are still producing titles for the PS2/3 first and then worrying about (or not) the XBox, Nintendo, and the PC.
Most multi-console titles look best on the XBox. Other than that, it depends on what types of games you like. PS2 obviously has the most titles, but that doesn't always mean it has the best titles. For RPG players, there really isn't much choice, though FF:CC and KOTOR for the Cube and the XBox (respectively) have recently made some inroads in that area. The Cube seems to have a better experience for multiplayer in-house (ie everyone in the same room or on the same local network). The XBox seems to have more titles that really take advantage of Live for internet multiplayer (though EA hasn't released a title yet that is online with anything but a PS2).
Overall, I'd say that I've bought more games for my GameCube than any other system in the last year (ok, maybe more for the GBA). However, I still tend to divide my playing time fairly equally across the three consoles, playing on each system's lineup's strengths. In the few occasions on which I actually buy multi-console titles, I check the reviews for the differences, play them on each if I can, and then make the decision. So far, they've all gone to the XBox, but then I don't buy a lot of them.
This is simply untrue. Tell me how many games MS has ported from PC to the Xbox currently. It's not a large number. If you're thinking games like Counter Strike and Rainbow Six, those weren't made by MS. I know Halo was on Xbox first and its sequel is easily one of the most anticipated games ever.
You're arguing the opposite point, and supporting what he said by using Halo as an example.
It's actually easier to prove that MS is not porting games from the XBox to the PC than to prove that games are not coming from the PC to the XBox (note in the latter I didn't state MS). MS has, in fact, released very few of their XBox titles on the PC, especially if you look at recent titles like Crimson Skies High Road to Revenge, the Project Gotham Racing titles, and the XSN Sports line.
On the other hand, I'd have to say that every console is suffering from the cross-platform development that is now common, in part because of the development costs for a game, and in part because of the number of platforms out there. Each platform has it's must-have games, but the cross-platform games each suffer unique problems because they are rarely optimized for any platform.
Basically the inclusion of DRM just puts a freeze on the program for me since I don't like being told what to do with my $400 program.
As someone else already stated above, it simply supports the DRM, it doesn't really include it. The way it works is simple:
- person composing message in Outlook 2003 sets flags to prevent you from remailing message
- message gets sent to Exchange 2003 server running on Windows 2003 server with Active Directory enabled
- you download message in Outlook 2003 from Exchange 2003 server on Windows 2003 server (with active directory enabled)
- when you try to forward message using Outlook 2003 through Exchange 2003 you can't do it
Of course, this all depends on both you and the composer of the message using Outlook 2003, the server being an Exchange 2003 server running on Windows Server 2003 with Active Directory enabled. Finally, the option has to be enabled in Exchange Server 2003 and Active Directory to allow the person writing the email to set the flags to prevent you from forwarding the message.
If you're looking for an email app to use at home, chances are the planets will not align properly for this to ever be a burden on you. In any case, the DRM can't stop you from taking a screenshot and forwarding that. If you're looking at this from a work standpoint, be assured they'll force you to use Outlook 2003 when they want to start sending you crap you can't forward (or print, or whatever), and you won't be able to receive it without Outlook 2003 anyway.
On the bright side, though, once your office locks you into the DRM, you can start irritating the people that did it to you by sending them severely locked down messages that do all kinds of neat stuff, like self-delete and prevent them from printing (I know a few people who seem to always print their email, this would be perfect for them).
To reiterate, under normal circumstances, Outlook 2003 itself has no DRM features, except that it supports those DRM features provided by Exchange 2003 and Windows Server 2003 when used with Active Directory and only Outlook 2003 clients. Not using Outlook 2003 for that reason alone would be like not using WMP because it supports DRM features in WMV and WMA files, when in reality either you can find other reasons not to like it or you can run non-DRM files perfectly fine with it.
Doing a little text formatting with HTML adds a trvial amount to the size of the message. (At least it should, making some text bold doesn't require the ridiculous amount of HTML that some mail clients add to messages.)
.msg format, it comes out to 183KB.
If it simply used HTML tags to format messages, rather than composing the entire message as if it were a website, and then didn't use the obscene html that Outlook uses, it probably wouldn't be a problem. As it stands, though, I regularly get email that runs around 23KB for a simple 2 lines, 1 link, a small intro, and signature. Saving the same message as an RTF file in WordPad results in a 1.6KB file if I preserve the headers (since it's mass-mailed to everyone in the office), plain text is 1.25KB. The only html required in the message is for the link, and most mail readers should be able to interpret a link for you from plain text.
Once in a while, 23KB isn't a problem. Considering, though, that I don't clean out my business email very often (which saves my ass more often than not), it adds up over time. As an added bonus, though, if I save the same message out in Outlook's
A simple pair of anchor tags would suffice for a link, and bold and italic tags. Hell, let me use as much or as little html as I want, but we don't need an email message to be a full-on html page with markup that looks like it was generated by MS Word (which is probably the case anyway).
Which brings me to my third and final paragraph. I'm sure most of you are familiar with Doom3 and have probably seen the screenshots, if not played the leaked alpha. I read in a few articles / interviews published in gaming magazines several months back that id was claiming that they were focusing more on sounds than graphics, and that if you thought the screenshots looked good, wait until you heard them. Though they suggested a 6.1 setup.
This goes to another point, though, and that's the fact that bringing in professionals doesn't always result in sub-par music. Most of the articles and interviews have stated that Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) is coming back in to do the music, and possibly sound effects, for Doom 3, as he did with Quake. The latter title was definitely among the first to gain the full benefit of this type of relationship, especially with full CD-quality audio (being an actual audio CD from which the audio tracks were played), and the music was perfect for the game.
I think a lot of people shudder at the thought of musicians doing game music simply because so many games simply use licensed songs today, or because many musicians approach it like just another album instead of approaching it like the score of the game (similar to the score of a movie). The movie industry rarely uses people from the music industry to do film scores, but when they do, they either do the job well or fall flat, and that often determines whether they work on another film again. In the case of Doom 3, if the statements about Trent Reznor working on the music are true, you're looking at an artist that has done a handful of movies and a previous game from the same developers, rather than just another musician looking to open up the audience for his new album. Of course, these types of projects are part of why there is an average of four years between Nine Inch Nails albums, too, so it's a mixed blessing for those of us that enjoy his work.
What FPS are you thinking of? Because most of the significant ones I know have in fact got a difficulty setting, and challenging ones at that.
:) (and I am pretty sure all have been fixed, the UT2k3 problem was especially irritating because the demo worked fine).
;)
;) On the other hand, I've been quite irritated lately at the praise heaped on Counterstrike and the tendency of games to move towards the model it used (I'd say based on Action Quake 2, but then someone would find an older mod that had the same model). I guess I've still got my breath held to see what TF2 will be, knowing all the while that they'll probably hose it up completely to try to appeal to the CS crowd and/or the mass-market (well, they bought TFS for exactly that reason, as TF was the most popular multiplayer FPS at the time). Anyway, at least the leagues were fun for a couple of years, and gave me my money's worth from Half-Life, which I thought was an absurdly boring, mindless, and definitely not challenging single-player game.
I wouldn't be able to say exactly, because it's been a while since I replayed (or even played through) the single player of an FPS. In most cases the default difficulty is mind-numbingly easy or the game is just boring in general. On the other hand, the few I can remember had maybe 3 difficulty levels (which I wouldn't generally complain about), while older games like Doom had as many as 5 difficulty levels (though iirc the Nightmare difficulty was added later). The last FPS games I bought were RtCW, BF1942, and UT2k3, and the latter 2 had game-stopping bugs near or at load, so perhaps the real difficulty was in getting FPS games to play in the first place
The UT series has a really nice answer to the problem, since the bots are extremely configurable in terms of behavior and difficulty (even being adaptive if you choose the option). I found the Q3 bots, on the other hand, to be far too easy, regardless of difficulty level, with only the final level of the game being a significant obstacle (though I'd have to say the last level of the first UT game was also very hard for me, and that 1-on-1 isn't my strong point).
No matter though, since single player gaming is only one side of (FPS) gaming - if you're looking for the ultimate in difficulty, enroll in gaming tournaments and prepare for your unmaking.
Been there, done that, and unmade as much as I may have been unmade myself
I would recommend R-Type Final and Ikaruga. For comparison, pick up Gradius III & IV as well (the latter being available on one disc for the PS2). In general, there are easier difficulty levels available in the newer games, but the overall difficulty of the newer games is as hard as, if not moreso than, the older games.
On the other hand, if you look at FPS games, the tendency has been in the opposite direction, with difficulty levels being removed from games and the "Nightmare" type difficulty levels almost completely gone. I think this is probably because these games are developed with the idea that multiplayer will make up most of the replayability, when in reality there are still plenty of people not playing these games online. If they focused more on replayability, that ability to change difficulty levels, and ramp it up to an extreme level of difficulty, could really help a lot.
Other things that have helped reduce the overall difficulty of games are mostly simple features that reduce the confusion for the players. Indicators for what you're supposed to do next, auto-mapping in the game, and so on. A game is more difficult if you have to map it out by hand or keep the map in your head, but this is an artificial difficulty.
Of course, arcade-style games also deal with the transition from coin-op, where you're trying to get people to pump more quarters into the machine by killing them quickly, but balancing that with a need to keep them playing. On consoles you don't need quarters, and the constant deaths either do nothing to slow down some players or turn them off of the game completely.
I'm pretty sure I saw a "Collector's Edition" at Toys'R'Us recently. However, I may be mistaken about the "Wind Waker" game you mentioned. The $59.99 on the pricetag was unmistakable, either way.
The Zelda Collector's Edition (I, II, Majora's Mask, Ocarina of Time) is supposed to only be sold with a system or through a couple of other offers (it looks like most of them have expired looking at http://www.nintendo.com/zeldaclassic/ and http://www.nintendopower.com/zelda/ ). Either way, you can still pick up that disc used for $10-20, and it never had an official list price to begin with. I have seen it sold new seperately, but never with a price tag, so I couldn't say if $60 was common, but I know I wouldn't pay that much for something that was offered free with a Cube, a Nintendo Power subscription, or purchase of two qualifying games (I think I own almost every game that qualified, but never bothered sending in for an additional copy beyond what I got with my 2nd Cube).
In other words, if that's the disc they were offering for $59.99, and they weren't offering anything else with it, they were screwing people.
). I am very used to paying less than $20 to $25 for PS2 games and was disappointed to see most GC games were still above $25 to $30.
On average, I've paid $15-25 for most of my GameCube games, the exceptions generally being the newest titles (F-Zero, FF:CC, Mario Kart, Viewtiful Joe). Even the more expensive titles that were not new ran in the $25-35 range, and have since become "Players Choice" titles and dropped another $5-10. Generally speaking, though, the prices on the games seem to drop before they reach "Players Choice" status, to the point where they get the label around the same time they hit the typical price point ($30). If you look at the lists most people post of "must have" games for the Cube and take out the newest titles, you'll probably find that you can get most of the titles in the $15-30 range, especially if you're willing to buy used (but then new copies of games like Eternal Darkness have been going for less than $20 and it's almost not worth the couple of dollars difference for a used copy).
The PS2 has been out longer, of course, and has far more titles. Eventually you're going to end up with a handful of titles worth buying in the $20 bin. I've got to say, though, that in terms of proportions of good to bad titles in the price range, you're still better off on the Cube. If you're looking for pure numbers of titles, of course the PS2 is going to hit it off, you just have to be careful what you buy.
I saw $60 on the Zelda bundle and choked.
umm what Zelda bundle? I'm sure Wind Waker may still be going for $50 in some places (I got it with my Cube after finding Metroid Prime for $20), but anything else I'm aware of Zelda-related has been freely bundled with either the Cube itself or with a pre-order of Wind Waker. Either bundled disc can be picked up used on occasion for $10 (which could explain finding a Zelda bundle for $60, but they're not supposed to be selling new discs that way afaik).
The truth, of course, is that the Dreamcast was not being restocked and that stores had stopped carrying it because it was dead as a system.
But you have to also remember that Sega stopped producing and supporting the Dreamcast before it became hard to find. In this case, Nintendo is producing the system (they started the manufacturing back up near the time of the price drop) and is definitely still supporting the system.
Additionally, since hardware sales are up over the previous year, comparisons to the DreamCast become even more problematic. The DC really didn't even have a 2nd year in which sales could be compared to the previous year, because it was cancelled 15 months after the US release.
Sony still sold out on the damn thing with every early shipment. It's easy to forget that while gamers measure such things based on how much fun they had, Sony (and any other company) measures them based on how much money they make. :)
and how do you think the shareholders at Sony were feeling when they saw PS2s going for $500 on eBay? If supply is so bad that a buyer can resell for a $200 mark-up, and you've got people on a waiting list all across the country for 6 months, what you see is not money coming in, but instead money going down the drain.
That being said, at this point the only reason they care about the PS2 launch is to avoid making the same mistake again.
Sony has proven before that they can sell an expensive piece of hardware on the strength of VERY (VERY) few decent games.
Sony hasn't proven anything in this market. Everyone that's tried to compete against Nintendo with a more expensive product (usually technically superior), in this market, has failed.
That being said, it will only take a couple of games to get me to buy one, I know myself too well to think otherwise. Will it replace my GBA-SP? That's unlikely, at least for a while, since I have a decent library of games for the system at this point, but it is likely that it will sit beside it if Sony can bring together a decent library of their own.
No one can hold a market forever, but this market in particular has been tricky for anyone to enter, and we're at a point now where there are a fair number of poor competitors that just didn't understand the market before they entered. Whether Sony will put themselves among them remains to be seen. The DS from Nintendo is in the same position for different reasons. The primary feature of the DS is unproven, and most people won't understand it until they see the real thing in action.
Motion blur was in the GTA3
If it was, then it certainly wasn't to the extent of Vice City. It actually is a feature that I don't care for at all, and I didn't notice it in GTA3, but saw it all the time in Vice City. Of course, since I only have the XBox versions now, I can't go back and check for myself without renting the PS2 version.
Uhm.... Crimson Skies came out for the PC. Actually, I'd known about it on the PC for a rather long time before I ever heard about it on Xbox. I guess the PC version just didn't sell nearly as well.
Ah, a quick search on MobyGames reveals that Crimson Skies came out for Windows in 2000, while the Xbox version was 2003. Although I guess only making it for Windows kind of counts as it being exclusive to Microsoft...
The Crimson Skies for the XBox (High Road to Revenge) is not the same game as the older Windows title. It's sortof a sequel, but not quite, because they more or less started from scratch on the XBox. So, Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge is an XBox exclusive, while the older Crimson Skies is a PC title that has little to do with the newer game except for the name and some basic story elements.
Resident Evil: Codename Veronica was a dreamcast excluive... Code Veronica X came out for PS2 later, the X makes it a whollllle new game.. Now resident evil is a gamecube "exclusive"..
The primary Resident Evil series has all been re-released on the Cube, with RE0 and RE4 as exclusives and the RE1 remake being an exclusive (RE2 and Code Veronica being ports). They still have a handful of RE releases that are only being released on the PS2, as well.
GTA3 & Vice City were PS2 "exclusives", until the PC versions, and later XBox versions came out.
The Final Fantasy series is PS2 "exclusive", nevermind that Crystal Chronicles thing.
Sony hasn't (as of yet) excluded PC releases when they sign a developer to do PS 1/2 exclusives. The Final Fantasy series has only had 3 titles on the PS2 (one of which isn't available in the US, yet, though will be within a couple of weeks, depending on supply). Most of the FF PS1 re-releases (FF1-6, excluding 3, + Chrono Cross & Chrono Trigger) were originally Nintendo-console exclusives. FF7 and FF8 were both released on the PC within a fairly short time of the console release (in the US).
Basically, when Sony brings in a developer for an "exclusive", it usually means that a particular series of games will be released on their console as the only console release for a particular period of time. When Microsoft brings in a developer for an "exclusive" and doesn't actually buy that developer, it means you probably won't see the PC version of the title for at least 6 months and may never see it on another console. Nintendo hasn't done enough exclusives with 3rd parties for me to really have any idea how that works with them, except that we know that so far RE0 hasn't shown up anywhere else, nor Viewtiful Joe (though the latter hasn't been around nearly long enough).
It just doesnt make sense for third party developers to lock themselves into one platform in such a fragmented market.
The developers rarely lock themselves into one platform entirely, unless they become a second party developer. Generally they just lock up a particular franchise for a period of time or a number of titles. Often that franchise exclusivity doesn't even include titles using the franchise name with a non-linear title and/or plot (ie FF: Crystal Chronicles, FF:Tactics Advance, and the RE: PS2 games). Additionally, they get big wads of cash, which look really good on a developer's bottom line sometimes, especially to companies like SquareSoft, Rockstar, and Capcom that are looking at an industry that isn't being very friendly to small developers and possibly a shaky financial ground (SquareSoft obviously became SquareEnix to deal with some of the problems they caused after taking big wads of cash from Sony, Rockstar is probably doing just fine these days after GTA:VC broke all kinds of records, and Capcom, well, I don't know how they're doing).
Apparently, there are plenty of other companies that thought an even closer relationship with one of the console manufacturers would be helpful, such as Silicon Knights, Bungie, Rare, and so forth.
Weren't GTA3 and VC big sellers on the PC?
Compared to the console versions, sales were laughable. In fact, the total sales of the PC and XBox versions of GTA3 and GTA:Vice City combined are less than the sales of GTA:VC on the PS2 alone.
That being said, the PC sales were no slouch compared to other PC games, excepting the obvious titles like The Sims and Half-Life, which sold comparable numbers to Vice City's PS2 version.
BTW, at this mission I was somewhat flabbergasted as this is "cheating" or is this a "legit" the way to make this mission. I mean, you play the role of a gangster, you are supposed to cheat.
This is part of the beauty of the GTA series, imo. Most of the missions have numerous ways for the player to win, if they just try to think of something less obvious. On GTA3, an early sequence involves going into China Town to kill someone; a friend of mine noticed that the particular character would run to his car almost every time, so instead of going after the guy right away, he stole his car, had it wired up with a bomb, and brought it back. Then he went after the guy, the bomb went off at the appropriate time, and he won the mission.
At the same time, there are quite a few missions (maybe even the majority) that can only be done with little or no variation from the "one way", but most of the time there are a few little tricks that can help you out if you just think about the problem in a different way.
Let me guess...cause you read on Usenet that "teh xbox is most powerful"
Yes, because I trust everything I read on Usenet, just like Slashdot.
On the other hand, I could have picked up the games at Blockbuster, put them into the XBox that I bought primarily to play Halo and PGR, and realized that they were blatantly better-looking versions of the games I already had, and therefore worth the $30 the pair cost when I traded in the PS2 versions of the games.
Oh, wait, I forgot, somehow the PS2 is both more powerful than every system I own (*cough* Soul Calibur on my DreamCast looks better than Soul Calibur 2 on my PS2), and not used for nefarious purposes by the company that owns it (despite being the most profitable arm of a company that is a multiple-times-over member of the RIAA and MPAA, as opposed to the biggest money-sink from a company with a monopoly on desktop operating systems).
"The same GTA engine [...] with a new locale" isn't necessarily a bad thing. Both the games based on the GTA 3 engine have been very playable.
If they have got a game engine that does what they need, there is no need to re-write it for every version.
Additionally, it's not like the hardware got any better in the time from the start of the work on GTA3 to the present. Incremental additions, even minor, to the existing engine are far more effective on a fixed platform than they ever would be on a variable platform like the PC. At the same time, they have an existing engine that has counterparts on the PC and XBox, all of which probably use a lot of common content (though the artwork on the PC and XBox games is obviously superior to the PS2 version, the PS2 art could be generated from the PC art if they made this game with future ports in mind). They can always add the incremental improvements into the engine's ports and then polish the ports according to the platform's capabilities (ie the PC version could increase quite a bit more than either the PS2 or XBox versions), but all of that is a matter of adding workload to what is essentially supposed to be the same game.
If this were a strictly PC-based series, I'd expect much more improvement between titles, but in the case of a series in which 3 titles are released on the same platform, with absolutely no change in the platform's capabilities in the interim, there's not much point to rewriting the engine. They certainly added to it technically in GTA:VC, giving the game motion blur, better graphics, and interior areas. None of these things are really the items most people mention when they talk about the changes in Vice City, but in reality they were probably the biggest challenges they faced, technically, in building the game (of course, I don't know whether 2-wheeled vehicles were an engine limitation or not, and it's quite possible that was among the most technically challenging portions of the game's development).
I traded in my PS2 versions when I bought the XBox versions. Personally, I'd like to see this one released on the XBox as well, but I realize that due to Rockstar's pre-existing agreement with Sony it's unlikely that it will happen until quite some time after the game's initial release.
Is this console exclusivity or won't it be reaching the PC at all.
If any previous game with PS2 exclusivity (including Rockstar's games) is any indicator, this announcement has no impact on any possible PC release. That being said, it's doubtful it will be released for the PC for a while.
They've been vauge in the past and having just released 3 & 4 for the xbox I expect that cash will speak the loudest words
Just a note, GTA:Vice City isn't GTA4, and neither is San Andreas. VC and SA are simply continuations of GTA3 (given that Liberty City, Vice City, and San Andreas are the playable areas in GTA, and that Rockstar was very explicit about this before and during the launch of Vice City). GTA4 has been hovering around for quite some time, but it doesn't really appear that they've done much on that, given the amount of work they've put into the GTA3 titles.