Definitely a strange idea -- what is it with Japan and coming out with the wierdest simulations?? However, having tried out the demo, it's got a little more than just timing. In addition to interrupting the testimonies at the right time, you have to select the correct piece of evidence. It's much more about thinking quickly than rapidly responding to visual stimuli. I'd think of it as more of an interactive novel (much, much more popular there than here) in real-time.
One last point, this game seems to be a lot more like reading tabloids than reading a newspaper!! It' very kooky and more like a comedy (Night Court, anyone?). Just because a setting is typically boring doesn't mean it can't be dramatized. The adaptation, on the other hand, could be very difficult -- peculiar Japanese humour, "funny" names for all of the characters, and a lot of cultural contexts based on everyday life (as opposed to giant robots and collectible cards).
Hunterx11 wrote:
I don't read much Japanese, but the first word I picked up after "yes" was "shit." I'd bet good money it'll be translated as "darn."
Quite likely. "kuso" isn't really an obscenity per se in Japanese -- Although the literal meanings are the same, contextually, "kuso" can be used in children's TV and games in Japan, while "shit" cannot in most English-speaking countries.
This game does have one very interesting feature that I've never seen before. There is a flash demo available on the official site, which lets you try out a few episodes of the game. The slightly grainy graphics and BGM are very GBA-esque, but you're in for a special treat of not having to squint at kanji -- it seems to use a truetype font for the main game text.
The demo can be accessed from the "taikenban" ( in unicode) button, the second from the left on the main page.
My impression? Definitely seems wacky and stylistic. As the reviewer said, it may not be "literature", but it might be a nice break from trashy paperbacks for reading on your commute. Anyway, try it yourself and see. Of course, reading Japanese is necessary, but hopefully, they will have a similar demo for the English version if and when it's released.
Here are a few things that I noticed have been left off or missed by the translation on the article.
Processor:
There are unreadably small words between "Cache:" and "8Kb", as well as "TCM:" and "32Kb" which have been ignored by the translation. They probably refer to two separate types of cache under each category.
Memory:
Main memory: 8MB on debugging version (developer model?)
LCD:
Colour: R:G:B = 6:6:6 (referring perhaps to 6 bits of information for each color channel per pixel?)
Sound:
Up to 8 channels may be assigned for PSG. (I don't know what that is. Anyone?)
Input Device:
"Cross", a translation of "juu-ji kii", refers to what is commonly known as a direction-pad (similar to the four-way controller on most Nintendo gamepads)
The movie ratings (PG, R, etc.) are legally enforceable. The store owner can be fined or imprisoned for allowing the sale or rental of an R-rated product to a minor. Video game ratings are voluntarily provided suggestions to the consumer about the content of the game.
Sorry, but that's bullshit. There is no law that "enforces" the MPAA ratings. It's enforced solely by the MPAA through the use of fines and the threat of withholding major movies from violators.
You're especially right when you're talking about Canada. MPAA has no legal (or other) power here, which is why we don't use their ratings. The article in question is about a rating made by the Ontario film board, which is in fact legally enforceable through the Ontario Theatres Act, Paragraph 47 Section (1):
No film exchange or agent or employee of a film exchange shall distribute a film classified in such class as may be prescribed by the regulations for the purposes of this section to any person apparently under the age of 18 years. 2000, c. 26, Sched. B, s. 19 (16).
Note that "film" includes video games as well. Stores could also be charged with a civil offense for exhibiting the film to minors (demoing the video game in public).
Surprise, surprise... not all democracies work exactly the same as the US.
I concur, although why the Ontario Film Review board? Im not sure having videogame ratings being assigned by the film review board is a good precedent....
...This group probably doesn't have experience with games and dealing with their level of interactivity....
Simply put, they are reviewing the video content and accompanying soundtrack of the game, as they are authorized to do under Ontario's Theatres Act. That's what the film board does. The ESRB rates the game's general content, including gameplay.
You may have noticed that the ESRB rating has not been "overridden" or "sidestepped", it is displayed side-by-side with the Film Board rating. It's just that the Film Board's R-rating has a lot more punch ($25,000 fines for selling vs. a suggestion not to sell), which is probably why Rockstar wants to appeal the rating. I wonder what grounds they will try to use? That the game provides education or instruction?
The biggest difference is that the ESRB rating is simply an advisory or suggestion for the audience. ESRB rating a game "M" has no legal effect on how it is sold. On the other hand, when the provincial Film Board gives it an "R" rating, it becomes illegal to sell the game to a minor. (In the case of a film, it's illegal to let a minor into an R-rated film at all, whether accompanied by a parent or not.)
Most game shops don't want to risk a lawsuit over accidentally selling this game to a kid, so shops in Ontario are pulling it off the shelves and keeping it behind counters available on request or special order only. It's also illegal to display the game where kids might see it. This is why Rockstar is appealing the rating -- they are not only losing advertising space in shops, but they are probably losing a key market of kids who aren't adequately supervised by parents.
Incidentally, video games are already in the jurisdiction of the Ontario Film Board. Remember, in Ontario, "film" means "cinematographic film, videotape and any other medium from which may be produced visual images that may be viewed as moving pictures and includes film that is used for advertising purposes." You could publish a pornographic flip-book and they could R-rate it. They aren't "overriding" or "sidestepping" the ESRB as some previous posters have suggested. They are, however, setting a precident by applying a film rating to a video game. They could also be setting an example for other provincial Film Boards to follow, which is why Rockstar is so worried.
As some other people have pointed out, this technology has been tried before (Seaman). But the post further gets it wrong with the idea that it's a "new" game -- as the article mentions, Lifeline is the US localization of an existing Japanese game.
The original game was called "Operator's Side" and was released over a year ago in Japan, where it did well enough to go to a "PlayStation 2 the Best" Release within 8 months.
Linguistically speaking, voice-rec may be easier to do in Japanese. Japanese has a very regular syllabic structure, consisting almost entirely of open syllables, with long syllables composed of shorter ones.
Japanese cellular phones have had voice recognition based on breaking down words for a long time, and it was only natural that the tech find its way into games. For example, if you input the word "sakura", it would be parsed as "sa" "ku" "ra", instead of compared outright to the waveform of entire words.
Now what would be really interesting to see this sort of game software used in a language learning environment... It would also be interesting to play a Japanese game that for once requires spoken fluency in Japanese instead of written!!
I'm just waiting for the follow up story on how it was a worm on his computer sending out the spam and he had no idea.
I'd be pissed if my mom got arrested under this law because she didn't have her computer patched and got some spam-worm.
Consider this hypothetical situation:
My mom didn't have a clue to operate a car, but she decided to hop in and give it a go, because everyone else was doing it. She crashed into some people or property, causing lots of damage.
But it's not her fault, because she didn't know how to drive, right?
As viruses and backdoors get more and more powerful, the amount of potential damage caused by an inept computer user will increase. I'm just waiting for there to finally be some sort of "Online Competence License" for operators, and virus scanners are required on OSes.
Assuming that resale of online music becomes legalized, practicalized, and widespread, this could mean the end, or at least reasonable limits to the mass-consumption pop crap that floods the music market.
With resale available at the press of a button, after the initial catchiness has worn off and the latest Britney song has become just as sickening as the rest, the User A can release his copy for a resale at the going market rate. This rate would depend on the original track price, number of copies for sale and the number of potential buyers.
User B, who hasn't become sick of the song yet, can pick up A's used copy instead of buying another new copy. This curbs the sale of a song to the number of unique users actually interested in the song at one time.
Instead of releasing lowest-common-denominator slop to try to appeal to all people at once, recording artists will be forced to make solid works aimed at specific listeners, who will want to hold onto it for a long time. Or at least it will even the field between those who do and the slop-shovellers at Sony.
It could even start a futures market -- people buying thousands of copies of a song at a cheap point, hoping that it will regain popularity at some future point. This could redefine the term "entertainment industry" as we know it.
Of course, this is all based on the above (false) assumption that companies have their consumer's interests at heart. Since they want to sell as many songs at as high of a price as possible, Apple will design iTunes to make sure that this never becomes possible.
I remember Max Payne's advertisements stating that it was the first game to feature auto-adjusting difficulty to "keep you in the sweet spot" of gaming bliss. I postulate that this technique was invented long ago, and just forgotten by the new generations that want gratification and want it now.
Does anyone else remember the Good Ol' Days where games didn't have a difficulty setting? Take the original "Super Mario Brothers", or Sega's "Wonderboy" on the Master System, for example. The first few levels are ludicrously easy so that even your mom could pick up the controller and have a chance at it.
But get into the game and it would pick up and up and up... not just in number and difficuty of enemies, but also level design. There's no on-screen tutorials, just a well-balanced and rewarding natural curve of challenge. The game forced you to figure out why you were dying and become a better player. It didn't really matter who played it -- you would hit the sweet spot just by playing the game.
Why don't games (nethack excluded) do this any more? Diablo is (arguably) pretty and all, but once you've completed to first level, it doesn't really do anything different... just the same game with higher numbers. You don't have to be any better of a player to finish the 5th level than the 1st. The game rewards you for playing obsessively and racking up your character, not for really being better at playing the game.
Now we have cheats to contend with difficulty. In Wonder Boy's age, the most common cheat wasn't "God Mode", it was "Level Select".. instead of allowing munchkins to walk through the game, it allowed advanced players to skip ahead to where the challenge was.
Did making games more complex actually make them any better or more enjoyable? If you need me, I'll be digging my Master System out of the closet and blowing the dust off of "Choplifter"...
In Japan, a lot of used bookstores stock used copies of old games. Lately, used games are also spreading to video rental chains, such as GEO (the company that took over all of the bankrupt YES stores.)
You can find a lot of real gems for under 2,000 yen (about US$15). Then there are the few rare Super Famicon / SNES games that are still going for 6,000 yen (about US$40). (Most of those were published back when games used to cost over 10,000 yen.)
The real finds, though, are for "dead" systems like the DC and Saturn. PowerStone for $2, Shenmue for $3, Panzer Dragoon Saga for $5, heaps of Bomberman goodness at various prices around there. Some of these are even new, unsold copies.
The Japanese game industry even tried, unsuccessfully, to shut down used game sales.
Oddly, what you cannot do in Japan is rent games. It seems the only choice is to buy them and then sell them back to the used bookstores.
... originality is just not that easy to define. Rez is a rail shooter. Ico is a 3rd person adventure...
I think this is the difference between "original genre" and "original content". I would call most of those games original not because they play very different from existing games, but because they include original stories, artstyles, themes, and characters.
Not every good story has been written, and not every good game has been made.
I like how you (perhaps unintentionally?) linked those two together. There is still a lot of potential for original gaming, if developers would only abolish schticks like the "A young boy has a mysterious birthmark, invading army burns down his hometown in search of him..." cliche.
Not everybody has a broadband connection,
how could anyone in their right mind, expect for the numbers to be even similar?
That's a good point. Another point along those lines -- most of us who game with PCs can rationalize that we want broadband so we can have always-on e-mail, reliable file transfers, and speedy access to Windows security updates.
I think it would be pretty hard for most casual gamers to rationalize paying for broadband JUST for online console gaming at this point. I would suspect that a good chunk of broadband console gamers are also online PC gamers.
IMO Nintendo is NOT making a wise decission by keeping their games offline. (they already lost Final fantasy XI due to this)
As for Nintendo, they have a proud history of losing Final Fantasy games for failing to adapt the standard hardware of their competitors. In Nintendo's motherland, the GBA (ie. portable gaming) is their major counter to lack of online gaming, we'll have to see how they do in the long run. It makes sense for Japan, because people tend to spend a bit less time at home anyway, and non-broadband access costs per minute.
... that nobody has brought up the topic of Sega pulling the network plug on the DreamCast.
IIRC, they had quite a few fighting games, and due to poor availability of the Broadband Adapter, most people were on 56k, at least for a while. I never really had the chance to play them, but how did they do?
There was also a little game called "Phantasy Star Online" (which I also can't believe hasn't been mentioned yet.) In Japan, it was the top online game in 2001, even compared to PC games such as Diablo 2 and the like. This shows us that platform games can have a good chunk of the online market, at least in platform-crazy countries like Japan. I think this may have more to do with the poor market penetration / insanely high prices of PC games in Japan than anything else, though.
Unfortunately, I stopped reading Japanese gaming magazines about two years back, so I'm not too sure how the next generation of PSO-wannabes (True Fantasy Online, FFXI) are doing.
I can share the following humourus anecdote, though: I recently bought a generic Japanese USB keyboard for my computer. On the box, right along with "Windows 2000 / ME / XP Compatible" was "Final Fantasy XI Compatible". Not "PS2 Compatible", "FFXI Compatible." So at least the marketing departments of cheap electronics companies are hedging their bets...
Fighting games require fast reflexes to win against good players. If you'd have lag more than 25-50 milliseconds the game would not play right at all. That means the game would be limited to LAN play pretty much.
Do this:
1. Find a stopwatch with top-mounted buttons that resemble a controller.
2. Press the start/stop button twice as fast as you can. Most game players' very fastest mechanical ability is 4/100 (40ms) with a mean of about 7/100. (I conducted an experiment for the science fair on this topic when I was in grade 4.)
3. Try to convince me that your "gamer reflexes" allow you to see your opponent's move and react (including seeing, processing, and moving your fingers to another button) FASTER than you can repeatedly mash a button.
4. Try to make that into a meaningful argument about how lag of 25-50ms cripples a reflex-based game.
I found the same with my PS2, a Japanese model SPC-11000. Most of the DVD games were quiet enough, but some CD PS2 games (especially "Sagashi ni Ikou") were horribly loud. Fortunately, that game was horribly unplayable to begin with, so there was no real loss...
They probably learned their lessons from the Japanese TV and electricity fiascos (they have both PAL and NTSC TV systems, and both 110 and 220 volt power)!
This is only very partially correct -- some Japanese international hotels are wired with 200 volt power in addition to Japan's standard 100 volt. This is simply a convenience for customers bringing appliances from other countries.
You are probably thinking of the cycle difference between east and west Japan. Basically everywhere west of Shizuoka is 60 hertz, while everywhere east of there is 50 hertz. This is a fairly minor difference, and all Japanese appliances are designed to work in either. In fact, I have never had any problems using 120V/60Hz North American appliances in the 100V/50Hz regions of Japan.
I have never seen, or heard of a PAL TV in Japan, but again, it is possible to get dual PAL / NTSC VCRs. Japan does manufacture PAL devices for export to other countries, as well.
The idea that Japanese customers could buy an appliance and have it not work in their homes due to multiple power systems / TV systems is pretty ludicrous.
1) The Japanese are a people that seem to have an affinity for the latest gadgets and technology which is the reason a lot of really cool things show up first in Japan. Not sure if you can say the same about the average American.
That may pertain to the lightest, smallest MD players and newest game consoles, but in fact, it took almost three years longer than America or Korea just for ADSL to get around Japan. In the meanwhile, most people paid by the minute for dial-up or for obsolete ISDN.
If anything, the sad state of Japanese land-based telecom is the reason for the incredible success of cell phones, especially cellular based e-mail and internet applications, and other associated gadgets such as cell-based cameras.
And there you'd have the reason why it wouldn't work over here. If you boil it down to the basics, it's nothing but corporate greed.
And greed has nothing to do with Softbank's president's motives? This is the guy who was once the eighth richest man in the world and known as "The Japanese Bill Gates". By combining internet, voice, and TV / PVP services, together at an unbeatable package rate, he stands to create an even bigger monopoly than NTT. He's taking a loss selling the systems so he can hook the customers... not unlike Microsoft's X-Box strategy.
Then again, I am glad that there are some options to NTT coming out for high speed internet at last. OCN (NTT's provider) has been one of the worst I've ever used in my life, with technicians repeatedly failing to show and useless technical support. I paid for two months of "access" even before my neighborhood had the technology to support ADSL just because I signed up early.
Now, with serious competition (especially Yahoo!BB) surfacing, they're at last starting to shape up. Ironically, their current campaign is for two months of free ADSL when you sign up. But I've used them for over a year and a half, with never a price cut or an improvement in service for the customers -- just sign-up packages to hook more.
Slashdot Mirror
The original Yoshinoya shop is in Tsukiji district, Tokyo. While you're there, you might want to check out the largest marketplace in the country.
And now you know!
Definitely a strange idea -- what is it with Japan and coming out with the wierdest simulations?? However, having tried out the demo, it's got a little more than just timing. In addition to interrupting the testimonies at the right time, you have to select the correct piece of evidence. It's much more about thinking quickly than rapidly responding to visual stimuli. I'd think of it as more of an interactive novel (much, much more popular there than here) in real-time.
One last point, this game seems to be a lot more like reading tabloids than reading a newspaper!! It' very kooky and more like a comedy (Night Court, anyone?). Just because a setting is typically boring doesn't mean it can't be dramatized. The adaptation, on the other hand, could be very difficult -- peculiar Japanese humour, "funny" names for all of the characters, and a lot of cultural contexts based on everyday life (as opposed to giant robots and collectible cards).
Quite likely. "kuso" isn't really an obscenity per se in Japanese -- Although the literal meanings are the same, contextually, "kuso" can be used in children's TV and games in Japan, while "shit" cannot in most English-speaking countries.
This game does have one very interesting feature that I've never seen before. There is a flash demo available on the official site, which lets you try out a few episodes of the game. The slightly grainy graphics and BGM are very GBA-esque, but you're in for a special treat of not having to squint at kanji -- it seems to use a truetype font for the main game text.
The demo can be accessed from the "taikenban" ( in unicode) button, the second from the left on the main page.
My impression? Definitely seems wacky and stylistic. As the reviewer said, it may not be "literature", but it might be a nice break from trashy paperbacks for reading on your commute. Anyway, try it yourself and see. Of course, reading Japanese is necessary, but hopefully, they will have a similar demo for the English version if and when it's released.
Gratuitous not-quite-G-rated Link
Processor:
Memory:
LCD:
Sound:
Input Device:
Electric Power Control:
You're especially right when you're talking about Canada. MPAA has no legal (or other) power here, which is why we don't use their ratings. The article in question is about a rating made by the Ontario film board, which is in fact legally enforceable through the Ontario Theatres Act, Paragraph 47 Section (1):
Note that "film" includes video games as well. Stores could also be charged with a civil offense for exhibiting the film to minors (demoing the video game in public).
Surprise, surprise... not all democracies work exactly the same as the US.
Simply put, they are reviewing the video content and accompanying soundtrack of the game, as they are authorized to do under Ontario's Theatres Act. That's what the film board does. The ESRB rates the game's general content, including gameplay.
You may have noticed that the ESRB rating has not been "overridden" or "sidestepped", it is displayed side-by-side with the Film Board rating. It's just that the Film Board's R-rating has a lot more punch ($25,000 fines for selling vs. a suggestion not to sell), which is probably why Rockstar wants to appeal the rating. I wonder what grounds they will try to use? That the game provides education or instruction?
The biggest difference is that the ESRB rating is simply an advisory or suggestion for the audience. ESRB rating a game "M" has no legal effect on how it is sold. On the other hand, when the provincial Film Board gives it an "R" rating, it becomes illegal to sell the game to a minor. (In the case of a film, it's illegal to let a minor into an R-rated film at all, whether accompanied by a parent or not.)
Most game shops don't want to risk a lawsuit over accidentally selling this game to a kid, so shops in Ontario are pulling it off the shelves and keeping it behind counters available on request or special order only. It's also illegal to display the game where kids might see it. This is why Rockstar is appealing the rating -- they are not only losing advertising space in shops, but they are probably losing a key market of kids who aren't adequately supervised by parents.
Incidentally, video games are already in the jurisdiction of the Ontario Film Board. Remember, in Ontario, "film" means "cinematographic film, videotape and any other medium from which may be produced visual images that may be viewed as moving pictures and includes film that is used for advertising purposes." You could publish a pornographic flip-book and they could R-rate it. They aren't "overriding" or "sidestepping" the ESRB as some previous posters have suggested. They are, however, setting a precident by applying a film rating to a video game. They could also be setting an example for other provincial Film Boards to follow, which is why Rockstar is so worried.
As some other people have pointed out, this technology has been tried before (Seaman). But the post further gets it wrong with the idea that it's a "new" game -- as the article mentions, Lifeline is the US localization of an existing Japanese game.
The original game was called "Operator's Side" and was released over a year ago in Japan, where it did well enough to go to a "PlayStation 2 the Best" Release within 8 months.
Linguistically speaking, voice-rec may be easier to do in Japanese. Japanese has a very regular syllabic structure, consisting almost entirely of open syllables, with long syllables composed of shorter ones.
Japanese cellular phones have had voice recognition based on breaking down words for a long time, and it was only natural that the tech find its way into games. For example, if you input the word "sakura", it would be parsed as "sa" "ku" "ra", instead of compared outright to the waveform of entire words.
Now what would be really interesting to see this sort of game software used in a language learning environment... It would also be interesting to play a Japanese game that for once requires spoken fluency in Japanese instead of written!!
Consider this hypothetical situation:
My mom didn't have a clue to operate a car, but she decided to hop in and give it a go, because everyone else was doing it. She crashed into some people or property, causing lots of damage.
But it's not her fault, because she didn't know how to drive, right?
As viruses and backdoors get more and more powerful, the amount of potential damage caused by an inept computer user will increase. I'm just waiting for there to finally be some sort of "Online Competence License" for operators, and virus scanners are required on OSes.
Assuming that resale of online music becomes legalized, practicalized, and widespread, this could mean the end, or at least reasonable limits to the mass-consumption pop crap that floods the music market.
With resale available at the press of a button, after the initial catchiness has worn off and the latest Britney song has become just as sickening as the rest, the User A can release his copy for a resale at the going market rate. This rate would depend on the original track price, number of copies for sale and the number of potential buyers.
User B, who hasn't become sick of the song yet, can pick up A's used copy instead of buying another new copy. This curbs the sale of a song to the number of unique users actually interested in the song at one time.
Instead of releasing lowest-common-denominator slop to try to appeal to all people at once, recording artists will be forced to make solid works aimed at specific listeners, who will want to hold onto it for a long time. Or at least it will even the field between those who do and the slop-shovellers at Sony.
It could even start a futures market -- people buying thousands of copies of a song at a cheap point, hoping that it will regain popularity at some future point. This could redefine the term "entertainment industry" as we know it.
Of course, this is all based on the above (false) assumption that companies have their consumer's interests at heart. Since they want to sell as many songs at as high of a price as possible, Apple will design iTunes to make sure that this never becomes possible.
I'll buy that for a dime!
I remember Max Payne's advertisements stating that it was the first game to feature auto-adjusting difficulty to "keep you in the sweet spot" of gaming bliss. I postulate that this technique was invented long ago, and just forgotten by the new generations that want gratification and want it now.
Does anyone else remember the Good Ol' Days where games didn't have a difficulty setting? Take the original "Super Mario Brothers", or Sega's "Wonderboy" on the Master System, for example. The first few levels are ludicrously easy so that even your mom could pick up the controller and have a chance at it.
But get into the game and it would pick up and up and up... not just in number and difficuty of enemies, but also level design. There's no on-screen tutorials, just a well-balanced and rewarding natural curve of challenge. The game forced you to figure out why you were dying and become a better player. It didn't really matter who played it -- you would hit the sweet spot just by playing the game.
Why don't games (nethack excluded) do this any more? Diablo is (arguably) pretty and all, but once you've completed to first level, it doesn't really do anything different... just the same game with higher numbers. You don't have to be any better of a player to finish the 5th level than the 1st. The game rewards you for playing obsessively and racking up your character, not for really being better at playing the game.
Now we have cheats to contend with difficulty. In Wonder Boy's age, the most common cheat wasn't "God Mode", it was "Level Select".. instead of allowing munchkins to walk through the game, it allowed advanced players to skip ahead to where the challenge was.
Did making games more complex actually make them any better or more enjoyable? If you need me, I'll be digging my Master System out of the closet and blowing the dust off of "Choplifter"...
In Japan, a lot of used bookstores stock used copies of old games. Lately, used games are also spreading to video rental chains, such as GEO (the company that took over all of the bankrupt YES stores.)
You can find a lot of real gems for under 2,000 yen (about US$15). Then there are the few rare Super Famicon / SNES games that are still going for 6,000 yen (about US$40). (Most of those were published back when games used to cost over 10,000 yen.)
The real finds, though, are for "dead" systems like the DC and Saturn. PowerStone for $2, Shenmue for $3, Panzer Dragoon Saga for $5, heaps of Bomberman goodness at various prices around there. Some of these are even new, unsold copies.
The Japanese game industry even tried, unsuccessfully, to shut down used game sales.
Oddly, what you cannot do in Japan is rent games. It seems the only choice is to buy them and then sell them back to the used bookstores.
I think this is the difference between "original genre" and "original content". I would call most of those games original not because they play very different from existing games, but because they include original stories, artstyles, themes, and characters.
I like how you (perhaps unintentionally?) linked those two together. There is still a lot of potential for original gaming, if developers would only abolish schticks like the "A young boy has a mysterious birthmark, invading army burns down his hometown in search of him..." cliche.
AzraelKans wrote:
That's a good point. Another point along those lines -- most of us who game with PCs can rationalize that we want broadband so we can have always-on e-mail, reliable file transfers, and speedy access to Windows security updates.
I think it would be pretty hard for most casual gamers to rationalize paying for broadband JUST for online console gaming at this point. I would suspect that a good chunk of broadband console gamers are also online PC gamers.
As for Nintendo, they have a proud history of losing Final Fantasy games for failing to adapt the standard hardware of their competitors. In Nintendo's motherland, the GBA (ie. portable gaming) is their major counter to lack of online gaming, we'll have to see how they do in the long run. It makes sense for Japan, because people tend to spend a bit less time at home anyway, and non-broadband access costs per minute.
How about for online watered-down-PC-with-a-console-controller gaming? I've heard that the X-Box is dominating that market, too, oddly enough.
IIRC, they had quite a few fighting games, and due to poor availability of the Broadband Adapter, most people were on 56k, at least for a while. I never really had the chance to play them, but how did they do?
There was also a little game called "Phantasy Star Online" (which I also can't believe hasn't been mentioned yet.) In Japan, it was the top online game in 2001, even compared to PC games such as Diablo 2 and the like. This shows us that platform games can have a good chunk of the online market, at least in platform-crazy countries like Japan. I think this may have more to do with the poor market penetration / insanely high prices of PC games in Japan than anything else, though.
Unfortunately, I stopped reading Japanese gaming magazines about two years back, so I'm not too sure how the next generation of PSO-wannabes (True Fantasy Online, FFXI) are doing.
I can share the following humourus anecdote, though: I recently bought a generic Japanese USB keyboard for my computer. On the box, right along with "Windows 2000 / ME / XP Compatible" was "Final Fantasy XI Compatible". Not "PS2 Compatible", "FFXI Compatible." So at least the marketing departments of cheap electronics companies are hedging their bets...
Radix37 said:
Do this:
1. Find a stopwatch with top-mounted buttons that resemble a controller.
2. Press the start/stop button twice as fast as you can. Most game players' very fastest mechanical ability is 4/100 (40ms) with a mean of about 7/100. (I conducted an experiment for the science fair on this topic when I was in grade 4.)
3. Try to convince me that your "gamer reflexes" allow you to see your opponent's move and react (including seeing, processing, and moving your fingers to another button) FASTER than you can repeatedly mash a button.
4. Try to make that into a meaningful argument about how lag of 25-50ms cripples a reflex-based game.
I found the same with my PS2, a Japanese model SPC-11000. Most of the DVD games were quiet enough, but some CD PS2 games (especially "Sagashi ni Ikou") were horribly loud. Fortunately, that game was horribly unplayable to begin with, so there was no real loss...
You mean something like this? Not quite Homeworld starships, but close... well, at least sci-fi.
As a Natural Selection junkie and Homeworld lover, I have to say that your idea does have me salivating.
You are probably thinking of the cycle difference between east and west Japan. Basically everywhere west of Shizuoka is 60 hertz, while everywhere east of there is 50 hertz. This is a fairly minor difference, and all Japanese appliances are designed to work in either. In fact, I have never had any problems using 120V/60Hz North American appliances in the 100V/50Hz regions of Japan.
I have never seen, or heard of a PAL TV in Japan, but again, it is possible to get dual PAL / NTSC VCRs. Japan does manufacture PAL devices for export to other countries, as well.
The idea that Japanese customers could buy an appliance and have it not work in their homes due to multiple power systems / TV systems is pretty ludicrous.
That may pertain to the lightest, smallest MD players and newest game consoles, but in fact, it took almost three years longer than America or Korea just for ADSL to get around Japan. In the meanwhile, most people paid by the minute for dial-up or for obsolete ISDN.
If anything, the sad state of Japanese land-based telecom is the reason for the incredible success of cell phones, especially cellular based e-mail and internet applications, and other associated gadgets such as cell-based cameras.
And greed has nothing to do with Softbank's president's motives? This is the guy who was once the eighth richest man in the world and known as "The Japanese Bill Gates". By combining internet, voice, and TV / PVP services, together at an unbeatable package rate, he stands to create an even bigger monopoly than NTT. He's taking a loss selling the systems so he can hook the customers ... not unlike Microsoft's X-Box strategy.
Then again, I am glad that there are some options to NTT coming out for high speed internet at last. OCN (NTT's provider) has been one of the worst I've ever used in my life, with technicians repeatedly failing to show and useless technical support. I paid for two months of "access" even before my neighborhood had the technology to support ADSL just because I signed up early.
Now, with serious competition (especially Yahoo!BB) surfacing, they're at last starting to shape up. Ironically, their current campaign is for two months of free ADSL when you sign up. But I've used them for over a year and a half, with never a price cut or an improvement in service for the customers -- just sign-up packages to hook more.