Note that I said nothing about GUIs being the "proper" way of doing things. I agree that they are fine for some things and slow for others; I personally prefer a command line or keyboard control for most of what I do. But I'm not your typical computer user.
The "proper" way hasn't been found yet and probably won't be, but the old ways of doing things on linux, referencing commands with cryptic names developers created to save keystrokes, is certainly far closer to the way of doing things influence by tech limitations than the way of doing things that makes sense to most people.
My main point was, saying people need to learn unix is a completely backward, developer-centric way of looking at things. People want to use computers to do all kinds of common things besides development, and the challenge is to get unix and the others to learn people. It's a lot harder to do, which is why we're not there yet.
I think that kind of asinine tech elitism is exactly what has held linux back. 90% of the people in the world don't care about using unix "correctly". They want a computer to work the way they want it to work, which means it shouldn't get in the way. You don't need to be a plumber to use a toilet, why should you need to be a unix guru to use a computer?
While happily churning away at vi or emacs or whatever your poison is may make you feel very proud of what you've learned and superior to the masses, you're actually stuck in interfaces and computing paradigms that are dictated more by technical limitations than the "proper" way to do things.
Don't know about you, but I seem to remember Orson Welles kicking some serious double dragon ass in black and white in that movie, so my comment still stands.
Court or Plaza, hardball?
Only if you owned a PS1. I didn't. Lots of people did, lots of people didn't. You can take that into account if you want, but it's not really an even comparison then. That's like saying "PS2 has better sound because I already have a good stereo. My friend's xbox sounds worse because he has a worse stereo. Therefore the xbox sounds worse."
Look, games are what matter. If you like the games better on one system versus another, then that's great. But at this point in the game it's asinine to argue that the PS2 is a better buy on virtue of the hardware alone. It's not as powerful and it doesn't come with as much stuff (at least, stuff that matters). You can get one system equally set up with things like dvd and memory for the same cost as you could get the other. The real argument should revolve around the game libraries.
There is one available, but harder to find that 3rd party memory cards. I was able to find the official dvd player for $13 new, and as low as $7 on ebay (not bidding; a "buy now" purchase). Don't think memory cards (usable ones) are much less than that.
Dumb comparison, one that people make pretty often. The DVD playback kit is about $20 for xbox, and is usually now included in bundles for less.
More importantly, you can't use your PS2 for it's main purpose (playing games) without purchasing a memory card. Well, you could, but you wouldn't want to without having a place to save your games. Xbox has that covered with the built in hard drive. So at best, this comparison is a wash between systems. Personally, I'd rather have an external purchase required for the box's secondary function (DVD viewing) than its primary function (game playing).
Wrong. When you host a game on xbox live, you are hosting it on your machine. If you select the "dedicated" option available in most games, then your machine becomes a dedicated server and you can't actually play yourself. In some games, like Unreal Championship, Microsoft provides their own dedicated servers, but as far as I know, those are just dedicated xboxes. Either way, they're few and far between, and only on some games. 90% of the time when you are playing on xbox live, it is a game actually hosted on another person's machine. Do the research and you'll see it's true.
Go into an EB games and give them $45 for the "bits and bytes" of a recently released game. You'll walk out with nothing. What we're talking about here is the game disc and packaging. Hardware. Games, CDs, and DVDs are not licensed like computer software. You pay for the actual hardware that contains the software. You can't purchase the software alone. Though that may change in the future. For right now, the used game market is all about the hardware.
Irrelevant point. The bits and bytes, or the IP, is not what is being sold here. It's the actual game disc and packaging itself. The hardware. No difference between that and a couch. The depreciation is also of no importance. Cars depreciate faster than either couches or videogames, and there's still a healthy used market for them that no one complains about.
To run Doom 3 on a PC, you'll need a video card that costs more than an xbox. It may not be AS great on the xbox, but it will be close (because it's tuned to the console specifically). For a lot of people, that's pretty financially compelling.
Also, Full Spectrum Warrior is not currently slated for Windows release. This game was designed from the ground up for xbox, specifically because the army wanted the developer to put together a simulation for the xbox (it's easier to deploy). It may eventually come to PC, but no word as yet.
Yeah, if you introduce things like character, motivation, and plot into a movie, it's sure to fail. He should just let moviegoers unlock new weapons and suits.
20 hours of gameplay = $50. That's $2.50 per hour.
A 2 hour movie in the US costs $10. Most movies are actually closer to 90 minutes, but we'll assume 2 hours for simplicity's sake. That's $5 per hour.
You're getting double the value of a movie, which more than justifies the price. And that's on a single player, little replay value game. Take UT2004, at $40, and you get value that's pretty tough to calculate, once you take into account all of the extras, mods, and what not. And of course, that's not counting inflation.
Don't bitch about the cost. If you want to play the game, buy it and keep the developers in business so they don't have the sick their lawyer watchdogs on the rest of us. You aren't getting cheated; you're cheating.
God forbid they throw in DVD playback. I don't want it! No, help! It ruins my gaming experience! It's the real reason I don't like the games on playstation and xbox as much!
Please. A DVD player option wasn't useful to you. But it was to everyone else, who figured for an extra $50 they'd get one for free. They weren't cheap then. It's not a must have feature but it was (and still is) a nice freebie. I'd say a lot more people watch movies than chat over IM.
The point is not that Nintendo didn't have a DVD player. That's fine if they chose that. Their console was $50 less. But at the time, they were taking a very arrogant stance about it: "This is a pure game machine; it doesn't need a DVD!".
My point was that they're putting a lot of stuff into this machine that isn't purely necessary from a gaming standpoint but might be nice to have. That's all. That makes their previous stance hypocritical.
Oh, as far as the kitchen sink goes: -wireless: it's not just software. You need hardware, obviously, to pick up a signal -stylus: not only is this hardware, but it also requires a touch-sensitive screen. Again, not strictly necessary for gaming but nice I suppose if you're going to use a stylus -keyboard
That's a lot more than a "pure gaming machine" needs. Not bad to have, and I'm all for extra features, but again, it's silly hearing it coming from Nintendo considering their attitude around the GC launch.
But please, keep arguing if you'd like. I'm sure Nintendo will give you a discount for your fierce loyalty.
You're missing my point. No, consoles didn't really need a DVD player but they were better for it. More features = better. DVD players are a lot cheaper now but when this round of consoles came out, they were more than the $50 difference between a GC and a PS2 or Xbox. Nintendo was taking a "our machine is a pure game machine!" stance, which was a red herring to distract you from the truth: They were cutting features to provide a lower cost.
I'm sure people will find a use for the instant chat and other crap that gets dumped into the DS. But if you're going to dump everything but the kitchen sink into a game machine, it looks a little hypocritical when you were lambasting your competitors for doing the same a few years prior.
Before everyone gets soiled while riding SK's jocks, let's take a look back at Eternal Darkness. An innovative game in a lot of ways, very clever on the novelty front, but actually fun to play? Not really. The actual combat and user interaction (besides where they screwed with you, meaning you sit back and let the game control you) simply wasn't that fun.
I'd personally hate to see their version of Zelda. A lot of really dark cut scenes, with your controller shaking, and maybe some blackouts where you don't know if it's your TV going out or the game screwing with you. But no actually fun gameplay to keep you interested for the length of the game. Oh, and every enemy is a rehash of the enemies you saw before. (doh! doesn't that happen in Zelda already!)
True, but part of the reason the PS2 is so strong now is arguably backwards compatibility. If it hadn't had it, with its weak launch lineup, would it have possibly gotten such a head start? Not saying I know for sure b/c I don't have the visionary power of the BBC, but I think it's arguable that the sales wouldn't have been as high.
I agree with others that this analyst is doing his job, meaning talking out his ass.
The xbox2 may or may not have a hard drive. I believe that it will, for numerous reasons. But this is so obviously a deal to line up memory card tech that it's ridiculous. The analyst's description of what the hard drive is used for is absolutely naive and ill-informed.
Fact is, a lot of games use the hard drive. All don't but a lot do. Some you may have heard of, like Halo. I'd expect that the developers will continue to push for the ability to cache and stream off of the HD.
And lest we forget, the idea of backward compatibility goes straight out the window with no HD. We're not talking about obscure titles; we're talking Halo, DOA3, etc. Backward compatibility may or may not happen, but an analyst with any intelligence would have hit on this, and maybe started speculating out his ass about that. This guy wasn't even that clever.
Oh, and Live, the jewel in the crown of microsoft's console gaming experience so far, is extremely reliant on the hard drive. The downloads, the levels, etc., these are all huge selling points, great features, and they're just getting started. I believe that MS will try to make its major innovation push in the online arena, and the hard drive enables a lot. Without it, options are much more limited. I especially love the analysts who predict that online storage will replace the Hard drive. Do they have some insight into an unprecedented rollout of broadband technology that will make this actually reliable? Have they ever downloaded a level on Live, and thought about what it would be like to go through that every time you wanted to play the level? Obviously not.
And these people affect the flow of capital. Sheesh.
Did anyone else notice the pop in at the end? As the camera pans over a sea of pansies (?!), more pansies pop in on the horizon. I can understand pop-in to a certain extent. But what about color? The grass is green and as the pansies pop into view, they're purple. I think that even if you couldn't see the pansies at a distance, you'd at least notice that the ground was purplish. I don't think color pops in.
A couple of things:
1) I agree with you about the business. Nintendo doesn't care about you the consumer any more than any other company. The whole POINT of my original post was to call that to attention, indicating Nintendo's decidedly consumer unfriendly decisions over the past few years. The reason I felt the need to bring this up is because I'm tired of hearing everyone praise nintendo and act as if they care so much about the little guy, especially when compared to those mean bullies Sony and Microsoft. The fact is, despite Sony and Microsoft's business practices in everything else they do, they're far more accommodating to the consumer in the console arena. They give you a lot more value, and don't drop features just to save a buck or two. Maybe it's not the best business practice, maybe they lose money because they can afford to. That's not the point. The point is, everyone on every message board I've ever read acts like Nintendo is a company of saints and they are not. In fact, they act like they care less about you than the other guys. At least the other guys have to act like they care and give you features you want because of the competition.
So I agree with you about the business aspect, and if you check my previous posts, you'll see that I have been pretty clear about what's good business and what's not. I don't sit on Nintendo's board and I don't have Nintendo stock, so my opinion of them is based solely on how they treat me as a consumer.
2) Yes, I am in a minority. Sales of the system have nothing to do with it. Kids will buy anything Nintendo shoves down their throat. It's apparent that adults will, too, based on their memories of Nintendo. I guess that's why I take such offense to their mercenary behavior: I, too, have pleasant memories of Nintendo and I don't like watching them get so callously exploited. I suppose there's no hope for it, but I don't remember Sega (another company for whom I hold fond memories) trying so hard to deny me features in their last console just to trim a buck or two. In fact, as you indicated, they offered multiplayer first. Why, after Sega did it and Sony and MS were soon to offer it did Nintendo not? Because it didn't hit the cost-effectiveness margins they wanted. Oh well. I'll play Zelda and Metroid and then hope they start just selling software, like Sega.
3) Now this is a different argument, but have you checked sales of games lately, specifically console versus PC? The PC has nowhere near the market penetration that this generation of consoles does. Have you noticed that nearly every major PC game coming out (except for strategy games) has a console port soon on its heels? That's because console sales for equivalent titles do better than PC sales by an order of magnitude. I love PC games, but man, to say that consoles will never top PCs as the multiplayer system of choice when it's pretty much already happened is ludicrous.
Please unplug yourself from the Nintendo hype machine for a minute and remember the point of my post. The point is that Nintendo does things from a very mercenary standpoint and has repeatedly acted arrogant and unresponsive to the needs of their customers. SOunds like someone's been reading too much Nintendo Power recently.
So in cross-rebuttal: 1) OK, so I was $20 off. The point isn't how great DVD playback is or isn't. The point is that at the time these consoles launched, it was a selling point. Nintendo's attitude was "a game machine doesn't need a DVD player." To a consumer who thought that a DVD player was a cool value-add to a game machine, that sounds like a company that doesn't respond to what the consumer wants. Nintendo's reason was valid, I think, b/c not having DVD playback did let them price the GC cheaper, but it is their attitude towards the consumer that is being called into question. 2) I could seriously give 2 shits about street corner ps2 bootleggers. Who cares if people are bootlegging games? I'm still paying for mine, so the only one who suffers is the console manufacturer. All I really care about is that the game I buy for $50 offers me the most value. If I can spend the same amount of money on an xbox or ps2 version of a game without compressed textures or audio, then I'll do it. Again the point is that Nintendo puts their bottom line before your interest as a consumer. The whole point of competition is to coerce companies into doing the opposite as much as possible. Nintendo's worries about copyright protection are their own concern. My contract with them is strictly thus: if I like their product and I feel I'm getting value from it, I buy it. THAT'S IT. Their business woes are their own problem. I feel no need to justify their actions, especially if they (by comparison to their competitors) shortchange me. 3) A lot of people care about online. Again, while I can understand Nintendo's stance from a business perspective, as a consumer I once again see Nintendo telling me that what I think is a good idea and kind of cool isn't worth their time. The real multiplayer games are the games the multiple people can play; the PC has no monopoly on that. A lot of the games that consoles have been typically better at are now going online, like fighting games, sports games, RPGs, etc. It's a fast growing market and a lot of people are into it. That's fine if you're not, but that doesn't mean other people aren't. I would go so far as to say that the only real innovation going on in the games industry now is happening in the online arena. Things like what MS is doing with live, what lots of people are doing with online sports leagues, these are the truly new and interesting things happening in console gaming. Cel-shading an existing character isn't very innovative, like Nintendo did with Zelda. No knock on Zelda, it's one of the best games I've ever played, but there's no innovation there (especially if you compare it to Ocarina of time, which actually was innovative). Nintendo's new big innovation, the dual screen portable, strikes me as innovative but not interesting. A new console could gut and clean fish and that would be innovative. But not particularly interesting. 4) My point about connectivity is not that "i don't like it". The point is that they are pushing a very transparent cross-marketing scheme on the public and calling it innovation. I find it absolutely abhorrent that buying a $100 console and a $50 game doesn't get me the full value I would get if I spent more on Nintendo accessories like a game link cable, a game boy, and a game boy version of the $50 game. Games are pricey enough. Give me value for the money I buy; don't try to bait and switch me into buying more crap. If you want me to buy the gameboy version of a game, make it worth my while on its own merits. If you look at the new FF:CC game on gamecube, it looks like you have to spend upwards of $400 to get absolutely everything you need to get the most out of that game. That's ridiculous! If I were on Nintendo's boar
No, for an extra $200. At the time (2001), DVD players were around $200 on average. If you were lucky, you might get one for $100. Now you can get one for $50 but then you couldn't.
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Note that I said nothing about GUIs being the "proper" way of doing things. I agree that they are fine for some things and slow for others; I personally prefer a command line or keyboard control for most of what I do. But I'm not your typical computer user.
The "proper" way hasn't been found yet and probably won't be, but the old ways of doing things on linux, referencing commands with cryptic names developers created to save keystrokes, is certainly far closer to the way of doing things influence by tech limitations than the way of doing things that makes sense to most people.
My main point was, saying people need to learn unix is a completely backward, developer-centric way of looking at things. People want to use computers to do all kinds of common things besides development, and the challenge is to get unix and the others to learn people. It's a lot harder to do, which is why we're not there yet.
I think that kind of asinine tech elitism is exactly what has held linux back. 90% of the people in the world don't care about using unix "correctly". They want a computer to work the way they want it to work, which means it shouldn't get in the way. You don't need to be a plumber to use a toilet, why should you need to be a unix guru to use a computer? While happily churning away at vi or emacs or whatever your poison is may make you feel very proud of what you've learned and superior to the masses, you're actually stuck in interfaces and computing paradigms that are dictated more by technical limitations than the "proper" way to do things.
Don't know about you, but I seem to remember Orson Welles kicking some serious double dragon ass in black and white in that movie, so my comment still stands. Court or Plaza, hardball?
Isn't the "Citizen Kane of films" actually "Citizen Kane"? That's up there with heroin being the opiate of the people.
Only if you owned a PS1. I didn't. Lots of people did, lots of people didn't. You can take that into account if you want, but it's not really an even comparison then. That's like saying "PS2 has better sound because I already have a good stereo. My friend's xbox sounds worse because he has a worse stereo. Therefore the xbox sounds worse." Look, games are what matter. If you like the games better on one system versus another, then that's great. But at this point in the game it's asinine to argue that the PS2 is a better buy on virtue of the hardware alone. It's not as powerful and it doesn't come with as much stuff (at least, stuff that matters). You can get one system equally set up with things like dvd and memory for the same cost as you could get the other. The real argument should revolve around the game libraries.
There is one available, but harder to find that 3rd party memory cards. I was able to find the official dvd player for $13 new, and as low as $7 on ebay (not bidding; a "buy now" purchase). Don't think memory cards (usable ones) are much less than that.
Dumb comparison, one that people make pretty often. The DVD playback kit is about $20 for xbox, and is usually now included in bundles for less.
More importantly, you can't use your PS2 for it's main purpose (playing games) without purchasing a memory card. Well, you could, but you wouldn't want to without having a place to save your games. Xbox has that covered with the built in hard drive. So at best, this comparison is a wash between systems. Personally, I'd rather have an external purchase required for the box's secondary function (DVD viewing) than its primary function (game playing).
Wrong. When you host a game on xbox live, you are hosting it on your machine. If you select the "dedicated" option available in most games, then your machine becomes a dedicated server and you can't actually play yourself. In some games, like Unreal Championship, Microsoft provides their own dedicated servers, but as far as I know, those are just dedicated xboxes. Either way, they're few and far between, and only on some games. 90% of the time when you are playing on xbox live, it is a game actually hosted on another person's machine. Do the research and you'll see it's true.
Go into an EB games and give them $45 for the "bits and bytes" of a recently released game. You'll walk out with nothing. What we're talking about here is the game disc and packaging. Hardware. Games, CDs, and DVDs are not licensed like computer software. You pay for the actual hardware that contains the software. You can't purchase the software alone. Though that may change in the future. For right now, the used game market is all about the hardware.
Irrelevant point. The bits and bytes, or the IP, is not what is being sold here. It's the actual game disc and packaging itself. The hardware. No difference between that and a couch. The depreciation is also of no importance. Cars depreciate faster than either couches or videogames, and there's still a healthy used market for them that no one complains about.
To run Doom 3 on a PC, you'll need a video card that costs more than an xbox. It may not be AS great on the xbox, but it will be close (because it's tuned to the console specifically). For a lot of people, that's pretty financially compelling. Also, Full Spectrum Warrior is not currently slated for Windows release. This game was designed from the ground up for xbox, specifically because the army wanted the developer to put together a simulation for the xbox (it's easier to deploy). It may eventually come to PC, but no word as yet.
Yeah, if you introduce things like character, motivation, and plot into a movie, it's sure to fail. He should just let moviegoers unlock new weapons and suits.
20 hours of gameplay = $50. That's $2.50 per hour.
A 2 hour movie in the US costs $10. Most movies are actually closer to 90 minutes, but we'll assume 2 hours for simplicity's sake. That's $5 per hour.
You're getting double the value of a movie, which more than justifies the price. And that's on a single player, little replay value game. Take UT2004, at $40, and you get value that's pretty tough to calculate, once you take into account all of the extras, mods, and what not. And of course, that's not counting inflation.
Don't bitch about the cost. If you want to play the game, buy it and keep the developers in business so they don't have the sick their lawyer watchdogs on the rest of us. You aren't getting cheated; you're cheating.
God forbid they throw in DVD playback. I don't want it! No, help! It ruins my gaming experience! It's the real reason I don't like the games on playstation and xbox as much!
Please. A DVD player option wasn't useful to you. But it was to everyone else, who figured for an extra $50 they'd get one for free. They weren't cheap then. It's not a must have feature but it was (and still is) a nice freebie. I'd say a lot more people watch movies than chat over IM.
The point is not that Nintendo didn't have a DVD player. That's fine if they chose that. Their console was $50 less. But at the time, they were taking a very arrogant stance about it: "This is a pure game machine; it doesn't need a DVD!".
My point was that they're putting a lot of stuff into this machine that isn't purely necessary from a gaming standpoint but might be nice to have. That's all. That makes their previous stance hypocritical.
Oh, as far as the kitchen sink goes:
-wireless: it's not just software. You need hardware, obviously, to pick up a signal
-stylus: not only is this hardware, but it also requires a touch-sensitive screen. Again, not strictly necessary for gaming but nice I suppose if you're going to use a stylus
-keyboard
That's a lot more than a "pure gaming machine" needs. Not bad to have, and I'm all for extra features, but again, it's silly hearing it coming from Nintendo considering their attitude around the GC launch.
But please, keep arguing if you'd like. I'm sure Nintendo will give you a discount for your fierce loyalty.
You're missing my point. No, consoles didn't really need a DVD player but they were better for it. More features = better. DVD players are a lot cheaper now but when this round of consoles came out, they were more than the $50 difference between a GC and a PS2 or Xbox. Nintendo was taking a "our machine is a pure game machine!" stance, which was a red herring to distract you from the truth: They were cutting features to provide a lower cost.
I'm sure people will find a use for the instant chat and other crap that gets dumped into the DS. But if you're going to dump everything but the kitchen sink into a game machine, it looks a little hypocritical when you were lambasting your competitors for doing the same a few years prior.
Wow, all this from a company that defended its lack of a DVD player in the GC by saying it was purely a game machine. You don't need a dvd player!
Yeah, and I don't need a clamshell instant messenger, either.
Before everyone gets soiled while riding SK's jocks, let's take a look back at Eternal Darkness. An innovative game in a lot of ways, very clever on the novelty front, but actually fun to play? Not really. The actual combat and user interaction (besides where they screwed with you, meaning you sit back and let the game control you) simply wasn't that fun.
I'd personally hate to see their version of Zelda. A lot of really dark cut scenes, with your controller shaking, and maybe some blackouts where you don't know if it's your TV going out or the game screwing with you. But no actually fun gameplay to keep you interested for the length of the game. Oh, and every enemy is a rehash of the enemies you saw before. (doh! doesn't that happen in Zelda already!)
True, but part of the reason the PS2 is so strong now is arguably backwards compatibility. If it hadn't had it, with its weak launch lineup, would it have possibly gotten such a head start? Not saying I know for sure b/c I don't have the visionary power of the BBC, but I think it's arguable that the sales wouldn't have been as high.
I agree with others that this analyst is doing his job, meaning talking out his ass.
The xbox2 may or may not have a hard drive. I believe that it will, for numerous reasons. But this is so obviously a deal to line up memory card tech that it's ridiculous. The analyst's description of what the hard drive is used for is absolutely naive and ill-informed.
Fact is, a lot of games use the hard drive. All don't but a lot do. Some you may have heard of, like Halo. I'd expect that the developers will continue to push for the ability to cache and stream off of the HD.
And lest we forget, the idea of backward compatibility goes straight out the window with no HD. We're not talking about obscure titles; we're talking Halo, DOA3, etc. Backward compatibility may or may not happen, but an analyst with any intelligence would have hit on this, and maybe started speculating out his ass about that. This guy wasn't even that clever.
Oh, and Live, the jewel in the crown of microsoft's console gaming experience so far, is extremely reliant on the hard drive. The downloads, the levels, etc., these are all huge selling points, great features, and they're just getting started. I believe that MS will try to make its major innovation push in the online arena, and the hard drive enables a lot. Without it, options are much more limited. I especially love the analysts who predict that online storage will replace the Hard drive. Do they have some insight into an unprecedented rollout of broadband technology that will make this actually reliable? Have they ever downloaded a level on Live, and thought about what it would be like to go through that every time you wanted to play the level? Obviously not.
And these people affect the flow of capital. Sheesh.
Did anyone else notice the pop in at the end? As the camera pans over a sea of pansies (?!), more pansies pop in on the horizon. I can understand pop-in to a certain extent. But what about color? The grass is green and as the pansies pop into view, they're purple. I think that even if you couldn't see the pansies at a distance, you'd at least notice that the ground was purplish. I don't think color pops in.
I'll give you longest, replayable, and open-ended. It's all that. It's just not fun to actually play.
A couple of things: 1) I agree with you about the business. Nintendo doesn't care about you the consumer any more than any other company. The whole POINT of my original post was to call that to attention, indicating Nintendo's decidedly consumer unfriendly decisions over the past few years. The reason I felt the need to bring this up is because I'm tired of hearing everyone praise nintendo and act as if they care so much about the little guy, especially when compared to those mean bullies Sony and Microsoft. The fact is, despite Sony and Microsoft's business practices in everything else they do, they're far more accommodating to the consumer in the console arena. They give you a lot more value, and don't drop features just to save a buck or two. Maybe it's not the best business practice, maybe they lose money because they can afford to. That's not the point. The point is, everyone on every message board I've ever read acts like Nintendo is a company of saints and they are not. In fact, they act like they care less about you than the other guys. At least the other guys have to act like they care and give you features you want because of the competition. So I agree with you about the business aspect, and if you check my previous posts, you'll see that I have been pretty clear about what's good business and what's not. I don't sit on Nintendo's board and I don't have Nintendo stock, so my opinion of them is based solely on how they treat me as a consumer. 2) Yes, I am in a minority. Sales of the system have nothing to do with it. Kids will buy anything Nintendo shoves down their throat. It's apparent that adults will, too, based on their memories of Nintendo. I guess that's why I take such offense to their mercenary behavior: I, too, have pleasant memories of Nintendo and I don't like watching them get so callously exploited. I suppose there's no hope for it, but I don't remember Sega (another company for whom I hold fond memories) trying so hard to deny me features in their last console just to trim a buck or two. In fact, as you indicated, they offered multiplayer first. Why, after Sega did it and Sony and MS were soon to offer it did Nintendo not? Because it didn't hit the cost-effectiveness margins they wanted. Oh well. I'll play Zelda and Metroid and then hope they start just selling software, like Sega. 3) Now this is a different argument, but have you checked sales of games lately, specifically console versus PC? The PC has nowhere near the market penetration that this generation of consoles does. Have you noticed that nearly every major PC game coming out (except for strategy games) has a console port soon on its heels? That's because console sales for equivalent titles do better than PC sales by an order of magnitude. I love PC games, but man, to say that consoles will never top PCs as the multiplayer system of choice when it's pretty much already happened is ludicrous.
Please unplug yourself from the Nintendo hype machine for a minute and remember the point of my post. The point is that Nintendo does things from a very mercenary standpoint and has repeatedly acted arrogant and unresponsive to the needs of their customers. SOunds like someone's been reading too much Nintendo Power recently.
So in cross-rebuttal:
1) OK, so I was $20 off. The point isn't how great DVD playback is or isn't. The point is that at the time these consoles launched, it was a selling point. Nintendo's attitude was "a game machine doesn't need a DVD player." To a consumer who thought that a DVD player was a cool value-add to a game machine, that sounds like a company that doesn't respond to what the consumer wants. Nintendo's reason was valid, I think, b/c not having DVD playback did let them price the GC cheaper, but it is their attitude towards the consumer that is being called into question.
2) I could seriously give 2 shits about street corner ps2 bootleggers. Who cares if people are bootlegging games? I'm still paying for mine, so the only one who suffers is the console manufacturer. All I really care about is that the game I buy for $50 offers me the most value. If I can spend the same amount of money on an xbox or ps2 version of a game without compressed textures or audio, then I'll do it. Again the point is that Nintendo puts their bottom line before your interest as a consumer. The whole point of competition is to coerce companies into doing the opposite as much as possible. Nintendo's worries about copyright protection are their own concern. My contract with them is strictly thus: if I like their product and I feel I'm getting value from it, I buy it. THAT'S IT. Their business woes are their own problem. I feel no need to justify their actions, especially if they (by comparison to their competitors) shortchange me.
3) A lot of people care about online. Again, while I can understand Nintendo's stance from a business perspective, as a consumer I once again see Nintendo telling me that what I think is a good idea and kind of cool isn't worth their time. The real multiplayer games are the games the multiple people can play; the PC has no monopoly on that. A lot of the games that consoles have been typically better at are now going online, like fighting games, sports games, RPGs, etc. It's a fast growing market and a lot of people are into it. That's fine if you're not, but that doesn't mean other people aren't. I would go so far as to say that the only real innovation going on in the games industry now is happening in the online arena. Things like what MS is doing with live, what lots of people are doing with online sports leagues, these are the truly new and interesting things happening in console gaming. Cel-shading an existing character isn't very innovative, like Nintendo did with Zelda. No knock on Zelda, it's one of the best games I've ever played, but there's no innovation there (especially if you compare it to Ocarina of time, which actually was innovative). Nintendo's new big innovation, the dual screen portable, strikes me as innovative but not interesting. A new console could gut and clean fish and that would be innovative. But not particularly interesting.
4) My point about connectivity is not that "i don't like it". The point is that they are pushing a very transparent cross-marketing scheme on the public and calling it innovation. I find it absolutely abhorrent that buying a $100 console and a $50 game doesn't get me the full value I would get if I spent more on Nintendo accessories like a game link cable, a game boy, and a game boy version of the $50 game. Games are pricey enough. Give me value for the money I buy; don't try to bait and switch me into buying more crap. If you want me to buy the gameboy version of a game, make it worth my while on its own merits. If you look at the new FF:CC game on gamecube, it looks like you have to spend upwards of $400 to get absolutely everything you need to get the most out of that game. That's ridiculous! If I were on Nintendo's boar
No, for an extra $200. At the time (2001), DVD players were around $200 on average. If you were lucky, you might get one for $100. Now you can get one for $50 but then you couldn't.