Just sort of thinking about what the typical PS2 or Xbox buyer thinks of when they think of Nintendo - this thing called the "game cube" with the little black handle attached and a very unsturdy, immature looking controller.
Maybe repackage it - not calling it the "Game cube" but maybe just the "n-cube"- make it look sleeker, less childish. Make games that appeal to a somewhat older audience. No, not pr0n, but something a little more than that farm game and pokemon.
Then again, it may be hopeless. PS2 has the games, Xbox has the hardware - where is Nintendo's edge?
Agreed, the PS2 sells more machines, sells more games, etc. So in that sense GTA, etc. are all "Halo-killers."
But in terms of quality of an FPS, it just ain't gonna happen on a PS2 because the graphics and the processor are not as capable. The difference between the two is massive. Halo is 720p - and judging by the screen shots posted, this thing looks like Metal Gear Solid - fugly.
Game Guides aren't THAT old. See, the game use to COME with essentially the same thing in the form of a manual.
However, the devs figured they could make the extra cash by selling a $15 game guide that was seemingly necessary to suceed at a game.
Oh, and btw - most game guides are crap. Essentially reprinting information from the manual or ingame help with LOTS of oversized image and white space. Needless. Most of the useful information in these game guides (espececially those from Prima) can be distilled down to a page or less.
Besides, forget gamefaq, just ask a question on the fansite or even official bulliten board.
Forget paying professionals for reviews - games or movies. I use to write them for a magazine and can tell you that my opinion is no better than yours.
The *best* sources for reviews of games are the comments on Amazon or EBGames. Amazon is particularly good for getting reviews because you can sort them on how helpful they have been rated. I typically look at the reviews that were voted most helpful and for the reviews that are lowest rated.
Another great source are the newsgroups and various game boards out there
So buy the magazines for the demo disks and previews, but the best reviews are definitely the free ones.
I disagree that massive advance promotion is needed. The reason it seems this way is that marketing employees are full time and need something to do while the game is developed.
I understand the business constraints, but to make a quality game the timeframes really have to be dispensed with. I'd rather not even really be told it was in development and have it surprise me when it's done than being teased for months with screen shots.
As a programmer, I chafe whenever I'm asked to give a time frame, so I've started using the Scotty Rule (from Star Trek TOS) and taken the amount of time I think the project will take and doubled it. Worse case scenario- I'm a little late, while normally I just seem to be done ahead of time which makes everyone happy.
DARPA should have set this up through a private, off-shore front and avoided the contraversy by attaching this brilliant operation directly with the DoD.
And I think they will probably do just that eventually.
Or - they won't even have to. Someone else will and they will get all the intel they need by monitoring the prices.
While both the PSP and the GBA are "handhelds," the cost/features/size suggest that rather than competing in the same market at the GBA, this device is going into it's own market.
Just like the SUV doesn't compete in the same market as "trucks" or "station wagons," the SUV created it's own market. And unlike the in the car industry, the PSP and GBA will not be chasing the same dollars nearly as much.
In fact, there may instead be three classes here as the NGage seems to lie somewhere between the GBA and the PSP in terms of cost and capabilities.
MMORPG's require constant updates to add new quests/content. Given how limited the liscence is for this game - "We're only allowed to use the Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and parts of the appendices, which are not in the Silmarillion" - how are they going to grow beyong the licence of the game in those books?
This compares to the Star Wars games, where Lucas has approved an entire expanded lore, as has Paramount with Star Trek.
Ultimatly, this game will force the creation of non-Tolkien, expanded lore or it will fail.
Typical Price of a new game: $50
Price of this game: 12 lbs (~$18?)
Assuming this isn't a crap game (and often enough those $50 games are), this is the price you can expect to pay when you wipe out all the expenses of the box, the disc and jewel case, the instruction booklet, and the cut that everyone along the way gets.
So that means that even with the developer making a profit along withthe distribution bandwidth, they cut the price of a game by +60%.
Given how many stupid Xbox games I've bought, I hope that Phantom is able to have games similarly cheaply distributed using this same model. And considering it's a closed system, maybe it's the only fool-proof way to distrubute games this way.
1) The increasing complexity of the games on consoles means more opportunity for bugs. Any programmer knows that the more complex a program becomes, the more likely bugs are.
2) With Enter the Matrix, there finish date was not determined by the status of the game but by the realease date of the movie (they were meant to come out at about the same time). I suspect the release of the Croft title corresponds to the new movie, though I am not sure.
3) Consoles have never really been bug free. Granted, they had a much better track record than PC games (since PC developers always figured they could patch). However, I remember even Super Mario Brothers and Donkie Kong having minor unintended glitches/exploits.
1) Valve fixes HL2 so that it runs on NV.
2) NV releases a major patch so that HL2 runs on their chips.
3) Valve and NV cooperate and both work together to find a solution.
4) Neither company bends, and NV users have to buy ATI (bleh) or sit and spin.
I suspect this will be as successful as the French government's subsidy of the movie industry in making Paris a dominant film making city. Yeah, right up there with Wilmington, North Carolina.
Funny how Ubisoft became so dominant without such a program.
I've tried playing driving games with a wheel and with the controller. The controller has far better performance and to do well in nearly all driving games requires it.
No, you are incorrect and simple logic demonsrates it.
MSFT knew that as time went on, the AC1 engine would become dated and, compared to others, more limited in what it could offer.
In order to retain the business of players who would leave AC1 inevitably over time, MS made AC2 - also with the intention of attracting new people to the franchise.
No, you are incorrect. AC2 was meant to be the place that AC1 would migrate to as MS has discontinued the sales of AC1 and their tech support people have been asking people who call in with AC1 related questions to go play AC2 instead.
AC1, while old, was still the 4th largest MMORPG game and it had a pretty solid player development model and combat model. I, like many other AC1 players, was hoping AC2 would be a REAL sequel, taking what was good about AC1 and building on it, making it prettier and more potent.
Well, the Devs at Turbine/MS decided to scrap what was great about AC1 completely, and made a very pretty yet very laggy brand new game. They also forgot about the content. So to this day there are many, many, many more players still in AC1 than in AC2, sort of the definition of a failure. And I don't see that turning around anytime soon.
Good thing you are posting anonymously. Please continue so that folks need not waist points on lowering what you say.
A) I know NFL 2k3 was last years game. There are no reviews for 2k4 or madden 2004.
b) Technically, yes, Madden was out before 1996, but Visual Concepts actually was producing it until then, and EA has had the same crew working since then.
c) I know more than you do.
d) EA has nothing to do with MNF. And Madden has been with EA since before he was with MNF. So one entity - Madden - went with EA, while another, ESPN, went with VC/Sega.
Nearly every publication that lined up the various football franchise games found that once Visual Concepts got involved (2k3) that the Sega product was superior to the EA. But EA has been in this game since... 1996 and has a much much bigger following.
So give sega a few years to catch up - and continue to outplay Madden and you will see those figures improve. I think that this year they are going to be much much closer. Especailly with ESPN hyping their game full time.
You are seriously lacking in education.
- First, the RCC doesn't disapprove of the KJV and considers it legitemate for study, though there are better versions.
- The Inquisition killed an average of one person a year, not for being Jewish, but for serious crimes of the day like adultery. This compares to the 1000s killed in the same period by protestants putting witches to the stake.
- The RCC's corrupt manuscripts? The RCC composed the Bible in the 390s.
- If anyone's bible is corrupt, it is the Protestants who not only mistranlated intentionally the Greek, but who took away several books of the Old Testament by going with the Palestinian version rather than the Septurgian version. Essentially, they took the side of those who put Christ to death on the basis of having difficulty finding Hebrew versions of the missing books- yet most were found in Hebrew in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
- Martin Luther corruptly translated into German, for example, adding the word "alone" to the statement that Faith can save you.
The JW Bible is more like the Protestant bibles for that reason, too.
So how about backing up what you have to say with fact?
Protestants faith depends on ignorance of history. YOu are proving my points.
You might think that, and I did at first, but with Halo and a few other FPSs I have tried on the Xbox, it's not that bad, and in some ways it's an improvement.
The major area of improvement is in player versus player, because it levels the playing field from the super twitch players and requires more tactics than twitch to be sucessful.
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Maybe repackage it - not calling it the "Game cube" but maybe just the "n-cube"- make it look sleeker, less childish. Make games that appeal to a somewhat older audience. No, not pr0n, but something a little more than that farm game and pokemon.
Then again, it may be hopeless. PS2 has the games, Xbox has the hardware - where is Nintendo's edge?
But in terms of quality of an FPS, it just ain't gonna happen on a PS2 because the graphics and the processor are not as capable. The difference between the two is massive. Halo is 720p - and judging by the screen shots posted, this thing looks like Metal Gear Solid - fugly.
However, the devs figured they could make the extra cash by selling a $15 game guide that was seemingly necessary to suceed at a game.
Oh, and btw - most game guides are crap. Essentially reprinting information from the manual or ingame help with LOTS of oversized image and white space. Needless. Most of the useful information in these game guides (espececially those from Prima) can be distilled down to a page or less.
Besides, forget gamefaq, just ask a question on the fansite or even official bulliten board.
Are you suggesting that you don't like JeffK?
The *best* sources for reviews of games are the comments on Amazon or EBGames. Amazon is particularly good for getting reviews because you can sort them on how helpful they have been rated. I typically look at the reviews that were voted most helpful and for the reviews that are lowest rated.
Another great source are the newsgroups and various game boards out there
So buy the magazines for the demo disks and previews, but the best reviews are definitely the free ones.
My point is that good games sell themselves.
I disagree that massive advance promotion is needed. The reason it seems this way is that marketing employees are full time and need something to do while the game is developed.
As a programmer, I chafe whenever I'm asked to give a time frame, so I've started using the Scotty Rule (from Star Trek TOS) and taken the amount of time I think the project will take and doubled it. Worse case scenario- I'm a little late, while normally I just seem to be done ahead of time which makes everyone happy.
And I think they will probably do just that eventually.
Or - they won't even have to. Someone else will and they will get all the intel they need by monitoring the prices.
Just like the SUV doesn't compete in the same market as "trucks" or "station wagons," the SUV created it's own market. And unlike the in the car industry, the PSP and GBA will not be chasing the same dollars nearly as much.
In fact, there may instead be three classes here as the NGage seems to lie somewhere between the GBA and the PSP in terms of cost and capabilities.
This compares to the Star Wars games, where Lucas has approved an entire expanded lore, as has Paramount with Star Trek.
Ultimatly, this game will force the creation of non-Tolkien, expanded lore or it will fail.
Price of this game: 12 lbs (~$18?)
Assuming this isn't a crap game (and often enough those $50 games are), this is the price you can expect to pay when you wipe out all the expenses of the box, the disc and jewel case, the instruction booklet, and the cut that everyone along the way gets.
So that means that even with the developer making a profit along withthe distribution bandwidth, they cut the price of a game by +60%.
Given how many stupid Xbox games I've bought, I hope that Phantom is able to have games similarly cheaply distributed using this same model. And considering it's a closed system, maybe it's the only fool-proof way to distrubute games this way.
Am I alone in thinking that graphics, aside from water, got worse when they went from sprites to full 3d? I think AoK looks so much better than AoM.
2) With Enter the Matrix, there finish date was not determined by the status of the game but by the realease date of the movie (they were meant to come out at about the same time). I suspect the release of the Croft title corresponds to the new movie, though I am not sure.
3) Consoles have never really been bug free. Granted, they had a much better track record than PC games (since PC developers always figured they could patch). However, I remember even Super Mario Brothers and Donkie Kong having minor unintended glitches/exploits.
1) Valve fixes HL2 so that it runs on NV.
2) NV releases a major patch so that HL2 runs on their chips.
3) Valve and NV cooperate and both work together to find a solution.
4) Neither company bends, and NV users have to buy ATI (bleh) or sit and spin.
Correct response: 3. Or am I wrong?
Funny how Ubisoft became so dominant without such a program.
It's all about what was released. Last year's June had bigger/better releases than this month.
In general, though, the the trend for game buying is up and doesn't show any sign of stopping.
I've tried playing driving games with a wheel and with the controller. The controller has far better performance and to do well in nearly all driving games requires it.
MSFT knew that as time went on, the AC1 engine would become dated and, compared to others, more limited in what it could offer.
In order to retain the business of players who would leave AC1 inevitably over time, MS made AC2 - also with the intention of attracting new people to the franchise.
No, you are incorrect. AC2 was meant to be the place that AC1 would migrate to as MS has discontinued the sales of AC1 and their tech support people have been asking people who call in with AC1 related questions to go play AC2 instead.
Well, the Devs at Turbine/MS decided to scrap what was great about AC1 completely, and made a very pretty yet very laggy brand new game. They also forgot about the content.
So to this day there are many, many, many more players still in AC1 than in AC2, sort of the definition of a failure. And I don't see that turning around anytime soon.
Good thing you are posting anonymously. Please continue so that folks need not waist points on lowering what you say. A) I know NFL 2k3 was last years game. There are no reviews for 2k4 or madden 2004. b) Technically, yes, Madden was out before 1996, but Visual Concepts actually was producing it until then, and EA has had the same crew working since then. c) I know more than you do. d) EA has nothing to do with MNF. And Madden has been with EA since before he was with MNF. So one entity - Madden - went with EA, while another, ESPN, went with VC/Sega.
So give sega a few years to catch up - and continue to outplay Madden and you will see those figures improve. I think that this year they are going to be much much closer. Especailly with ESPN hyping their game full time.
Also, EA's refusal to go XBL will also help 2k3.
You are seriously lacking in education. - First, the RCC doesn't disapprove of the KJV and considers it legitemate for study, though there are better versions. - The Inquisition killed an average of one person a year, not for being Jewish, but for serious crimes of the day like adultery. This compares to the 1000s killed in the same period by protestants putting witches to the stake. - The RCC's corrupt manuscripts? The RCC composed the Bible in the 390s. - If anyone's bible is corrupt, it is the Protestants who not only mistranlated intentionally the Greek, but who took away several books of the Old Testament by going with the Palestinian version rather than the Septurgian version. Essentially, they took the side of those who put Christ to death on the basis of having difficulty finding Hebrew versions of the missing books- yet most were found in Hebrew in the Dead Sea Scrolls. - Martin Luther corruptly translated into German, for example, adding the word "alone" to the statement that Faith can save you. The JW Bible is more like the Protestant bibles for that reason, too. So how about backing up what you have to say with fact? Protestants faith depends on ignorance of history. YOu are proving my points.
You might think that, and I did at first, but with Halo and a few other FPSs I have tried on the Xbox, it's not that bad, and in some ways it's an improvement. The major area of improvement is in player versus player, because it levels the playing field from the super twitch players and requires more tactics than twitch to be sucessful.