Probably not a fair assumption. I personally read it as a plain ole "stick it to the man" thing, where he was swapping the ad with a direct competitor's ad. Like wearing a Bugs Bunny shirt to Disneyland or bringing a bunch of Pepsis to drink at an amusement park sponsored by Coke. It's not real protest, just a little taking of the piss.
I swear, I must be the most unobservantant schlub in the universe: I never noticed any Nokia stuff or McDonalds stuff in THUG either. In fact, the only marketing I noticed were all the lame product logos you can put on your shirt. I must be an advertiser's nightmare.
Yeah. I didn't really plan it that way, but since I was going to be spending over $100 for a Region 1 DVD player anyway, and Japanese XBox games cost on the average $10 or $15 more than American ones, I figured as long as I bought 7 or more games over the lifespan of the system, I'd actually be saving money by getting it. With Tony Hawk Underground, Tony Hawk 4, KOTOR, SSX 3, Morrowind, GTA, and Splinter Cell, I'm most of the way there already.
Yep...eventually. The first XBox (Japanese) turned out to be a bad bad choice, as they never released any decent games for it. Then, eventually, when I decided to buy a region 1 DVD player, I realized for just a little bit more I would have access to all those Region 1 XBox games I was drooling over. Now I have a happy Region 1 DVD player / game system, and Japan's largest black plastic Region 2 DVD player.
Umm....us XBox owners living in Japan. All 20 or so of us. And people who like Japanese-style RPGs (Final Fantasy, etc.). And people who like other Japanese games.
Proud of your XBox? What, did you make it or something? Next you're going to be proud of your nationality or proud of your sexual orientation or some other bizarre thing people are proud of these days.
I believe the implication is that it is waning, not that it has entirely disappeared.
Still, back in the day, Japanese games were critical to Western gamers, regardless of their play type. Now there are a lot more players who wouldn't really be affected if Japanese game producers slowed up on production. I don't think Japanese game producers need to worry much though: I'd attribute it to people who weren't into games before getting into them now (witness the proliferation of sports games), and I doubt American RPGs will be kicking Japanese RPGs out of the market. Still, the times definitely are a-changin'.
Wow, I never realized just how much I unconsciously cut out visual clutter. I tried to recall the finish line area from memory, but all I can remember is the shape of the gate itself. I don't remember if there are crowds behind it, stands, balconies, anything.
The helicopter mission took for frickin' ever to complete on the PC version. On the XBox version I completed it on the first try. Man, those helicopter controls on the PC sucked!
On the other hand, the gun aiming controls on the XBox suck!
Vehicles are allotted based on area (and rightly so). Lots of convertibles by the beach, lots of cargo trucks near the docks, lots of sports cars in the nice areas, lots of beat up cars in the low rent districts, etc. Finding specific cars can be hard, but if it took you a week you were probably just looking in the wrong place the whole time.
Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I personally preferred the VC map for the ability to pick up a lot of speed and weave between traffic over the original GTAIII map where I kept having to slow down for the ubiquitous intersection.
I remember reading somewhere that if you use licensed vehicles in a game, the licensers generally don't allow you to destroy them. I guess with GTA they decided it would be too much trouble convincing Ferrari that their cars would still be effective adertisements with broken doors, windows, and hoods. Probably even harder to convince SUV makers to allow their vehicles to be the easiest to roll over.
Ok, now I finally remember the Honda...Funny, I'd always assumed it was an old VW bug or something. Needless to say, I was looking at my boarder too much to really notice anything about the car itself. Are there any other Hondas in there?
Sure, it would be nice, but Sony isn't in the market to be nice, it's in the market to make money, and a PS2 based Linux desktop would make no money in Japan. It would be the production equivalent of Sony locking money in a warehouse and then setting the warehouse on fire.
True. My guess is, just like Nintendo called the Famicon an "NES" in America, and Sega called the Megadrive a "Genesis" in America, Sony will pick a completely new name for the export version. "PSAdvance" or something ^_^
Japanese companies using totally different names for the same products in different markets is nothing new. Just check out car names!
Check out Japanese electronics prices, and you might be less surprised. The cheapest Tivo-like device I found at Yodobashi Camera was $580, and that was with an 80 GB hard drive. The $941 dollar PSX is the one with a 250 GB hard drive. The cheapest 250 GB Tivo-like device I could find was the Toshiba RD-X4, which costs $1,442. So you get a pretty decent Tivo-like device for comparatively cheaper.
However, I agree in spirit. Sure, the PSX may be comparatively well priced, but it's still too darn expensive. Any sane person would just wait the thing out with their trusty VCR until the prices come down to something not-incredibly-high. There's nothing on TV that it's worth $900-some-odd dollars to record.
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"The server response could not be read because of an error. Contact your system administrator. (SERVER_RESPONSE_RESET)"?
Probably not a fair assumption. I personally read it as a plain ole "stick it to the man" thing, where he was swapping the ad with a direct competitor's ad. Like wearing a Bugs Bunny shirt to Disneyland or bringing a bunch of Pepsis to drink at an amusement park sponsored by Coke. It's not real protest, just a little taking of the piss.
I swear, I must be the most unobservantant schlub in the universe: I never noticed any Nokia stuff or McDonalds stuff in THUG either. In fact, the only marketing I noticed were all the lame product logos you can put on your shirt. I must be an advertiser's nightmare.
The more people own XBoxes, the more games are sold, and MS makes their money back off games sold. It's only the hardware that's sold at a loss.
Which is fine, as he didn't come off as criticizing the techniques, but their method of implementation.
Yeah. I didn't really plan it that way, but since I was going to be spending over $100 for a Region 1 DVD player anyway, and Japanese XBox games cost on the average $10 or $15 more than American ones, I figured as long as I bought 7 or more games over the lifespan of the system, I'd actually be saving money by getting it. With Tony Hawk Underground, Tony Hawk 4, KOTOR, SSX 3, Morrowind, GTA, and Splinter Cell, I'm most of the way there already.
Yep...eventually. The first XBox (Japanese) turned out to be a bad bad choice, as they never released any decent games for it. Then, eventually, when I decided to buy a region 1 DVD player, I realized for just a little bit more I would have access to all those Region 1 XBox games I was drooling over. Now I have a happy Region 1 DVD player / game system, and Japan's largest black plastic Region 2 DVD player.
Umm....us XBox owners living in Japan. All 20 or so of us. And people who like Japanese-style RPGs (Final Fantasy, etc.). And people who like other Japanese games.
Odd question, now that I think about it.
Boy, Acidic Diarrhea, I sure hope your user name isn't product placement...
Proud of your XBox? What, did you make it or something? Next you're going to be proud of your nationality or proud of your sexual orientation or some other bizarre thing people are proud of these days.
I believe the implication is that it is waning, not that it has entirely disappeared.
Still, back in the day, Japanese games were critical to Western gamers, regardless of their play type. Now there are a lot more players who wouldn't really be affected if Japanese game producers slowed up on production. I don't think Japanese game producers need to worry much though: I'd attribute it to people who weren't into games before getting into them now (witness the proliferation of sports games), and I doubt American RPGs will be kicking Japanese RPGs out of the market. Still, the times definitely are a-changin'.
XBox beats Playstation!!
7 developers plan on developing for XBox, while only 4 plan on developing for Playstation.
Of course, we're talking about Playstation 1, not Playstation 2, but hey, I'll take what I can get ^_^
Thanks.
Wow, I never realized just how much I unconsciously cut out visual clutter. I tried to recall the finish line area from memory, but all I can remember is the shape of the gate itself. I don't remember if there are crowds behind it, stands, balconies, anything.
The helicopter mission took for frickin' ever to complete on the PC version. On the XBox version I completed it on the first try. Man, those helicopter controls on the PC sucked!
On the other hand, the gun aiming controls on the XBox suck!
Vehicles are allotted based on area (and rightly so). Lots of convertibles by the beach, lots of cargo trucks near the docks, lots of sports cars in the nice areas, lots of beat up cars in the low rent districts, etc. Finding specific cars can be hard, but if it took you a week you were probably just looking in the wrong place the whole time.
No, Rockstar's a Scottish company, not a Japanese company.
There are ads on Slashdot? I must have had them blocked so long I forgot.
Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I personally preferred the VC map for the ability to pick up a lot of speed and weave between traffic over the original GTAIII map where I kept having to slow down for the ubiquitous intersection.
I remember reading somewhere that if you use licensed vehicles in a game, the licensers generally don't allow you to destroy them. I guess with GTA they decided it would be too much trouble convincing Ferrari that their cars would still be effective adertisements with broken doors, windows, and hoods. Probably even harder to convince SUV makers to allow their vehicles to be the easiest to roll over.
Ok, now I finally remember the Honda...Funny, I'd always assumed it was an old VW bug or something. Needless to say, I was looking at my boarder too much to really notice anything about the car itself. Are there any other Hondas in there?
Whoops! The advertising must not have worked on me well enough...I remember all the 7UP in SSX3, but where is there a Honda Element ad?
Sure, it would be nice, but Sony isn't in the market to be nice, it's in the market to make money, and a PS2 based Linux desktop would make no money in Japan. It would be the production equivalent of Sony locking money in a warehouse and then setting the warehouse on fire.
No, you couldn't. Not in Japan. A 250 GB Tivo-like device itself will probably run you about $900.
True. My guess is, just like Nintendo called the Famicon an "NES" in America, and Sega called the Megadrive a "Genesis" in America, Sony will pick a completely new name for the export version. "PSAdvance" or something ^_^
Japanese companies using totally different names for the same products in different markets is nothing new. Just check out car names!
Check out Japanese electronics prices, and you might be less surprised. The cheapest Tivo-like device I found at Yodobashi Camera was $580, and that was with an 80 GB hard drive. The $941 dollar PSX is the one with a 250 GB hard drive. The cheapest 250 GB Tivo-like device I could find was the Toshiba RD-X4, which costs $1,442. So you get a pretty decent Tivo-like device for comparatively cheaper.
However, I agree in spirit. Sure, the PSX may be comparatively well priced, but it's still too darn expensive. Any sane person would just wait the thing out with their trusty VCR until the prices come down to something not-incredibly-high. There's nothing on TV that it's worth $900-some-odd dollars to record.