It's actually almost 390k since the Japanese launch. About 387k or so right now.
The recent Dino Crisis 3 bundle has helped sales a bit, with the Xbox selling over 4k in the first week of the bundle, and it's remained at slightly over 1k per week since then (a feat for the console over there).
The fact that more people use MS makes it a bigger target for hackers.
That's what MS says, yes. They don't often mention that a 12 year old with some rudimentary HTML knowledge can cripple a Windows system, or entire network, with a single email or web page view.
There's more incentive if you can compromise more machines. we're talking about known hacks, not total hacks.
Actually, there's more incentive when the crackers know that they're more likely to get through the security protocols in a system. With Windows, it's a lot easier to do this, than on Unix, Linux, or another Unix-alike.
Windows security is a set standard, and that standard is poor. Get through on one, and you're more than likely going to get through on a hundred. Since the *nix systems rely more on personalized security settings, there's no guarantee that you'll break into multiple systems due to admin security preferences.
Therefore, the fact that a bigger target ended up with reported security problems at the very least casts doubt on Linux security superiority. I'm not on an anti-Linux campaign, I'm just sick of people bashing MS security when Linux isn't any more reliable.
Consider what you just said. The larger target ended up with more reported security problems. Yet, EVERY DAY there are more and more Windows security problems found. Since MS made products are such a huge target, you'd think they'd have fixed this by now. Instead, security wasn't a priority until MS realized people were probably willing to pay for it.
The problem becomes that with the integration of all the MS-made products into Windows, any vunerablity in one product means there's vunerabilities in them all.
A main point with Windows security is that you either have to completely lock out the user, and make Windows all but unuesable; or you have to allow each user on the network access to be able to completely fux0r the network.
For example, if one jackass at my job installs a stupid hotbar.com bar into IE and Outlook, then ALL OF US ARE STUCK WITH IT (my work is dumb, and we're all on these damn Cirtix Windows CE powered terminals) until we get IT to find it and delete the goddamn thing from the main server. This has happened so many times, I can't even begin to count them. The only way to stop it, though, is to pretty much completely lock each individual user out of the network.
On a Unix-alike, however, each user could fux0r his or her own folder, and never even make a dent in the rest of the network.
Both of these games have an NES emulator on the game disks.
Animal Crossing can play a bunch of NES games through itself and the e-Reader adaptor for the GBA.
Metroid Prime just has the original Metroid on the game disk that needs to be unlocked by beating Metroid Fusion on the GBA and linking the games (or getting the cheat disk which allows you to unlock it without a GBA, link cable, and Metroid Fusion).
IIRC, Sonic Mega Collection has a Genesis emulator on it to play the Genesis Sonic games it comes with, but I'm not entirely sure about that...they may have slightly reporgrammed the games to work on the GC.
But, I agree. Putting out disks with emulators and games on them is a good idea. It's how I play my Midway Arcade Hits disk (PSOne) with 720, Smash T.V., Tubin', and others on it...it has an emulator to emulate the arcade machine, much like M.A.M.E.
I think Nintendo could make a fortune by putting out a disk for $10-$20 that contained every NES game they ever published, with the emulator programmed on the disk. Hell, most NES games were 8k-11k in size, at most. Think of how many games could fit on one 1.5 GB (1536 KB) GC disk. Nintendo could also license out the emulator to Capcom, Konami, etc. and have them put out similar disks with their games on them for a cheap price.
Yes and no. Sure, hits are good, we like hits, so yes it's a shameless plug in that respect.
But, like I siad, if I read other reviews on games I may end up reviewing, I may inadvertantly put things from those reviews in mine, or worse yet, already have the game pre-judged by the time I get it (either good or bad).
Think of it as saving myself from contamination; just like the Open Source movement says to stay away from Microsoft's "Shared Source" initiative, since they could become contaminated and accidentally (or purposefully) put MS code into their Open Source projects.
IMHO, the Starwars line of games has never failed to disappoint in all but a few cases (rogue squadron) just as the recent films have done nothing but underwhelm.
I think the Rogue Squadron games have been some of the best SW games, recently. Better than the prequel games, by far, and not a huge glitch-fest like Galaxies.
YMMV, of course, but I've found most SW games recently to be lacking, with the Rogue Squadron games being the glimmer of hope on consoles. Now, what I REALLY want is a port of Sega's Star Wars Arcade game that was out a few years back in the arcades.....THAT would be suuuhweeeeet.
Since I've become an editor at Games Are Fun, I actually try and not read reviews of games I may get for review purposes before I know if I'm reviewing them or not.
Much like avoiding Microsoft's "Shared Source" contamination, this helps me avoid contamination from other people's reviews entering mine, even if unwillingly.
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Sony blocked Rockstar titles in the future as a form of punishment.
Microsoft would love this, actually. They'd get an exclusive deal with Take Two Interactive faster than shit through a goose to secure the GTA series on the Xbox.
Then they'd hype it up to no end. "Grad Theft Auto IV, only on Xbox!" (Ballmer does his sweaty monkey dance, and repeats the word 'four' over and over and over again to really hype it up.)
A lot of sales of the PS2 in North America and Europe for the past few years have been for GTA III And GTA VC.
Now, if we just per chance say that the 8 million people who bought GTAIII didn't own an Xbox but wanted GTA IV, well, there's 8 million new sales of Xbox hardware coming up, and 8 million game royalty payments coming in. (I'm assuming most of the 8 million who bought GTA III Also bought GTA VC, since that has also broken the 8 million units sold mark).
Sony would have to be dumber than a dead cockroach to not see that comming.
While I enjoyed Halo on my Xbox, I don't know how well it will now do on the PC.
When we consider there are newer titles coming out like Deus Ex 2, Half-Life 2, and Doom III that people are really eager for... well, I just can't see Halo doing as well on the PC/Mac as it could have done.
By the time it comes out on the PC, it'll be around 2 years old on the Xbox. How many PC gamers actually cared after it took over a year to get a true answer as to whether it was coming or not?
I think by then, most had gotten an Xbox and played it, or played on the Xbox of someone they knew.
Of course, you could say this was Microsoft's plan all along...to string the PC gamers along, promising the PC version...but never letting them get any info for a long time; all in the hopes that they would give in and buy an Xbox and the game.
It may have backfired in a way though....for those who still held out, most probably don't care about Halo anymore and are looking at the other games I mentioned above.
First of all, having played quite a bit of fighters myself (Everything from Virtual Fighter to Capcom vs. SNK 2), I would have to say that Dead or Alive has to be one of my favorites.
And having played fighting games since the original Fighting Street (Street Fighter I), as well as older side scrolling games such as Final Fight and Double Dragon (all in the arcades) I can be fairly sure of myself when I say that the DoA series is a mediocre fighter, at best. It is easy to jump in and play, yes, but the engine itself is mediocre in everything but the graphics department.
Remember, the orignial DoA wasn't marketed as 'the best fighter' around...it was marketed (and the series still is marketed) as 'the best LOOKING fighter'.
We play it on its merits as a fighting game alone.
Obviously our standards differ. The DoA series has very little merit to myself as a fighter. I'd much rather play Soul Edge/Blade/Calibur and Virtua Fighter, and even games like Marvel vs. Capcom and Capcom vs. SNK over the DoA games.
And if you would read reviews (IGN) once in a while, DOA EXB actually had a pretty deep volleyball system and surpassed expectations of just being an oggle-fest.
Firstofall, IWRITEreviews. I think I know what I am talking about. Second of all, IGN just sucks. The amount of rampant fanboi-ism that goes on on each of their console specific parts is nausea inducing. When we add in how often they hype a game, or rag on a game, only to give a review that completely contradicts what they were saying before, and my ability to trust them falls to about as far as I can throw them. Buildings are heavy, so I can't throw them far.
And I'd hardly call a volleyball system where the computer moves your character into place to set/spike the ball for you a 'deep volleyball game'. The 'game' was a tech demo of the DoA 4 engine, with a few things thrown on top to make it appear to be worth spending money on it. The casino aspect ended up being the most fun part of the game.
Your arguments are classic anti-xbox fanboy rants.
Funny, I thought I was saying that Team Ninja focuses more on graphics than gameplay. Hardly anything to do with the Xbox, since even on the Saturn, PSOne, Dreamcast and PS2 Team Ninja has always been the same. In fact, the only mention of the Xbox in the post was to say how horrid the fighting games released exclusively on it have been.
Unless, of course, you think Kabuki Warriors, Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus, and Kakuto Chojin are excellent fighters in their own right. They aren't, and I think even the Holy Grail of Review Sites (IGN according to too many, never will understand why people actually pay for their drivel) agrees with me on these games.
Between those fighters, even I'd choose DoA 3 on the basis of its merits as a fighting game.
Jeez' fanboys are like maggots crawling out of the woodwork all over the place.
As is obvious by your defending of the DoA series and Team Ninja. You realize that by rabidly defending the series, you are painting yourself into that fanboi picture. The "You hate the series I love so you must be a fanboi and I can't be" place you seem to be in is meerly just the denial of fanboi-ism.
But, that's ok. I happen to think Team Ninja sucks at making games, but does great at making gorgeous graphics. You actually like their games. Fine. To each his own.
But when you start spouting off like some rabid lunatic for me to read reviews from IGN about the games just to make me see your point
I've heard the same rumor. The one that says the anti-trust settlemts/judgments all revolve around "Windows", so that MS may simply change Longhorn's name to something other than "Windows" when it is released in order to bundle every MS-made product under the sun into it and still get around anti-trust litigation.
I'll be far less skeptical when they quote someone other than an unnamed source.
Especially since IGN's rumor guys don't seem to have very reliable sources. I'd say that IGN's sources are slightly more reliable than the Official Xbox Magazine's sources for the crap that rag spouts.
Either way, it's shit flying from someone's mouth until we hear an official announcement from Rockstar on the matter.
Yes. But you DO realize they are losing MUCH MORE money MUCH FASTER than they anticipated, right?
Microsoft promised sharholders a loss of only $900 million over the entire 5 year lifespan of the Xbox. Without counting losses from April 1 to now, the Xbox was sitting at at least $490 million lost at just a year and 4 months. Over half-way to the $900 million in well under half of the 5 year promise to shareholders.
If calendar Q2 losses were as large as calendar Q1 losses (quite possible, especially with the E3 price drop), the the Xbox will be sitting nigh near $680+ million lost in only a year and a half on the market.
If the losses continue at the rate they are going, Microsoft will hit over a billion lost on the Xbox by the end of this calendar year. If the losses continue after that at the same rate, then by the end of the 5 years, Microsoft will have lost well over $2 billion on the endeavor, and shareholders may not allow an Xbox 2 to come out. Hell, if losses don't signifigantly drop, and soon, the shareholders may demand that MS drop the Xbox entirely.
And, obviously these are concerns to MS, since Ballmer has mentioned the Xbox in internal emails, and said he wants to cut costs at the manufacturing end, rather than lay off employees to make up for the signifigant monetary losses the Xbox is incurring. If Ballmer is mentioning the losses the Xbox is incurring, then that means the shareholders are probably talking about the Xbox's losses.
And, remember, these losses are operational losses and do not include such things as the $300+ million to buy Rare, the $500 million in advertising the Xbox initially got, the $2 billion invenstment sunk into Xbox Live, etc. These were all budgeted; the loss on the console between cost to manufacture and sales was not.
Nintendo is notoriously closed-mouth about such financial details (even more so than, say, Sony or Sega are/were), but the indications are that Nintendo is losing somewhere around US$20-US$30 per GameCube sold in the US, at the new prices. It is believed that Microsoft is losing in the neghborhood of US$120 per XBox sold in the US, again at the `new' prices.
I meant as a whole on their video game endeavors.
Nintendo's SEC filing for their end of fiscal year back in March showed them with over US $500 million in profit. And since practically all Nintendo does is games, then it's safe to say games and the consoles are profitable for them.
Microsoft, on the other hand, posted $190 million lost on $493 million in sales from its Xbox division in calendar Q1 2003 alone (previous year had calendar Q1 show a loss of only $98 million on $953 million in sales), and I expect calendar Q2 reports (which should be with the SEC soon) to be also equally as bad in the losses for the Xbox devision.
Microsoft will end up profiting, overall, thanks to Windows and Office; but this fiscal year will show the Xbox biting into overall company profits.
I also find it funny that the creator of the DOA girls is protective of "his girls" and doesn't like the nude patches/pics/etc, yet the hypocrite has no problem with dressing them up in skimpy outfits and using the sex sells pitch.
Kind of like a father who pays for his daughter's breast enhancement surgery and then wants to see the final results, eh?
I actually have to stick up for DoA:Xtreme Beach Volleyball. Have any of you guys actually played it?
Yep, and it licks an arse.
The volleyball aspect can be played with one hand, since the computer will pretty much move the players into position for you (and I'm sure many a teenage boy has played this one handed...).
The poolside aspect is simply to oogle at the pretty polygonal women. I will, however, admit that the hair on the girls is quite possibly the best hair I've ever seen in an video game.
Honestly, the casino is the best gameplay part...but what fun is playing 1 player blackjack? Or 1 player video poker? The only time you even see other characters attempt to play the casino games is roulette.
The game sucks, plain and simple. It sold on sex appeal and nothing else...hence the steep drop off in sales after week one.
I'd care more of what Itagaki had to say if his games had more to them than just gorgeous graphics.
All the Dead or Alive games pretty much suck in comparrison to other fighting games (although, ironically, it is probably the best fighter on the Xbox...but considering the compeition (Kabuki Warriors, Tao Feng, Kakuto Chojin, etc.), that isn't saying much). DoAXBV had no gameplay to it, just graphics of girls in skimpy bikinis.
Taking DoA online isn't going to suddenly make it a better fighter.
I fear for Ninja Gaiden, myself. I loved the Ninja Gaiden series on the NES, and I hate to think of how horribly Team "All Graphics, No Gameplay" Ninja will destroy this once proud franchise. The game looks spectacular, as all Team Ninja games do; but I fear it will have little to no gameplay, as all Team Ninja games do.
Halo is consitently the only Xbox title that sells all the time, and in good numbers. I've been saying they should have dropped the price for at least 6 months now.
But, it's the only title MS can be pretty much assured their making money on right now. And with the Xbox Division losing $190 million in calendar Q1 2003 alone, well, you can expect Halo to stay full price until Halo 2 comes out.
the GameCube more so than the XBox, if for no other reason than the lack of a statement from Nintendo that they're expecting to lose approximately US$1.5 *billion* per year on the XBox for at least the next couple years (over US$40 billion in the bank lets you do things like that).
So why should Nintendo be the ones mentioning they expect to lose money on the Xbox? Microsoft puts that out.
Nintendo is profiting from sales of the GameCube, its games, and the GameBoy Advance and its games.
Microsoft is the one losing the money on their console, not Nintendo.
I wrote it, so it's nice to see people reading it. And you let me see a spelling mistake I hadn't noticed before, which is now fixed.
However, you're a bit off on the layoff situation. The Xbox division only had 200 employees, and only a little over 30 of them got laid off.
But the Xbox is a complete failure in Japan, with only 385k sold in over a year on the market. And Peter Moore's thoughts on helping the Xbox in Japan certainly isn't going to help it much there (another article I wrote). Well, at least not the bringing of Western-style games to Japan, anyway.
A little over 500k Live subscribers, worldwide, with a little over 8 million (according to MS themselves at E3) Xboxes shipped. The 13 million unit number you state is from EGM, and they pulled that out of their ass; since they say it's from 03/31/03, and as of 05/14/03 MS said they had shipped a little over 8 million since launch.
Xbox Live is at around a 6.25% saturation of Xbox owners. Ironically, Japan has the highest percentage of Xbox Live subscribers, with around 100k Xbox Live subscribers and only 385K units sold since the Japanese launch.
I'd expect something more like $200-250 currently, if not less. It's possible that they make money on each XBox sold now, but unlikely. It's more likely that they make money when you factor in the number of games sold per console, but you have to remember that they are still trying to make up for the original production, as well as the costs incurred in setting up XBox Live.
Considering Microsoft lost $190 million (on $493 million in sales) in calendar Q1 on the Xbox, I highly doubt they're making any money at all. And it's safe to assume with the losses that high, they're still losing US $100 or more per Xbox sold...and the software isn't helping make up the money like they thought it would.
Supposed to, and actually done are two very different things, however.
MS also recently changed their licenses with OEMs forcing them to have some form of OS installed or coming with the computer, because they were afraid people were upgrading their PCs and just using their old OS disks if they could get the PC naked.
As a result most CONSUMER PCs will now come fully instaled with Windows XP. CORPORATE costomers can get other things...like Dell's use of a free DOS OS with each computer... It has an OS, but the PC is naked.
Thursdæ
Pikacthulu! I choose you!
Re:If MS were to use such strategies, would anyone
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Platform Evangelism
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1) Assuming the Opera reference is regarding the Hotmail fiasco, I believe the outcome was that there was a bug in Opera that was being accounted for by Hotmail in a specific CSS file. Opera was patched to fix the problem, and so there was a lag between the release and Hotmail being changed to not send the CSS file to the updated browser. If this is the case, and if anyone is to blame, why not look towards the Opera team? I'd have thought that somewhere in a small beta release of the update the issue would have been discovered.
A possible, and plausible thing to do, if not for one thing: Microsoft is known for purposefully attempting to destroy interoperability between their products and products that do similar or the same things as Microsoft's products.
Examples being: Windows 3.X being programmed to crash if it detected any other OS underneath it besides MS DOS; Micorsoft's attempting to hijack HTML and use.chm as an IE-only readable web script; WMP 8 and 9 files not opening in Mozilla/Netscape (and possibly other browsers as well), instead showing up as text files of unreadable ASCII; the fact that Office 2003 will read XML files, but will never save as them to prevent them from working in other office suite programs (holding onto and attempting to increase their monopoly); and the blocking of some of their own Microsoft.com pages from opening under other browsers besides IE; as well as many others.
2) You comment that you would have been embarrassed to sell a product with 3000 bugs in it. Maybe if you were selling a normal application that has a standard interface to the computer (eg. the Windows API), I would agree. Windows itself does not have the luxury of a standard interface. Its the bit that provides the interface to begin with.
However, each version of Windows since 95 has shipped with more and more known bugs. Windows 2000 shipped with around 60,000 *known* bugs by Microsoft, and around 27,000 of those bugs were described as 'potential security threats'. Yet, they still shipped the product.
It's become quite evident that Microsoft does not care about stability or security in their products. In fact, Ballmer even admitted that security wasn't a focus because they didn't think it was profitable. All they care about is maintaining and expanding their monopoly, and if this means shipping prducts with known bugs, tens of thousands of known bugs, then so be it.
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The recent Dino Crisis 3 bundle has helped sales a bit, with the Xbox selling over 4k in the first week of the bundle, and it's remained at slightly over 1k per week since then (a feat for the console over there).
That's what MS says, yes. They don't often mention that a 12 year old with some rudimentary HTML knowledge can cripple a Windows system, or entire network, with a single email or web page view.
There's more incentive if you can compromise more machines. we're talking about known hacks, not total hacks.
Actually, there's more incentive when the crackers know that they're more likely to get through the security protocols in a system. With Windows, it's a lot easier to do this, than on Unix, Linux, or another Unix-alike.
Windows security is a set standard, and that standard is poor. Get through on one, and you're more than likely going to get through on a hundred. Since the *nix systems rely more on personalized security settings, there's no guarantee that you'll break into multiple systems due to admin security preferences.
Therefore, the fact that a bigger target ended up with reported security problems at the very least casts doubt on Linux security superiority. I'm not on an anti-Linux campaign, I'm just sick of people bashing MS security when Linux isn't any more reliable.
Consider what you just said. The larger target ended up with more reported security problems. Yet, EVERY DAY there are more and more Windows security problems found. Since MS made products are such a huge target, you'd think they'd have fixed this by now. Instead, security wasn't a priority until MS realized people were probably willing to pay for it.
The problem becomes that with the integration of all the MS-made products into Windows, any vunerablity in one product means there's vunerabilities in them all.
A main point with Windows security is that you either have to completely lock out the user, and make Windows all but unuesable; or you have to allow each user on the network access to be able to completely fux0r the network.
For example, if one jackass at my job installs a stupid hotbar.com bar into IE and Outlook, then ALL OF US ARE STUCK WITH IT (my work is dumb, and we're all on these damn Cirtix Windows CE powered terminals) until we get IT to find it and delete the goddamn thing from the main server. This has happened so many times, I can't even begin to count them. The only way to stop it, though, is to pretty much completely lock each individual user out of the network.
On a Unix-alike, however, each user could fux0r his or her own folder, and never even make a dent in the rest of the network.
Thursdæ
Animal Crossing can play a bunch of NES games through itself and the e-Reader adaptor for the GBA.
Metroid Prime just has the original Metroid on the game disk that needs to be unlocked by beating Metroid Fusion on the GBA and linking the games (or getting the cheat disk which allows you to unlock it without a GBA, link cable, and Metroid Fusion).
IIRC, Sonic Mega Collection has a Genesis emulator on it to play the Genesis Sonic games it comes with, but I'm not entirely sure about that...they may have slightly reporgrammed the games to work on the GC.
But, I agree. Putting out disks with emulators and games on them is a good idea. It's how I play my Midway Arcade Hits disk (PSOne) with 720, Smash T.V., Tubin', and others on it...it has an emulator to emulate the arcade machine, much like M.A.M.E.
I think Nintendo could make a fortune by putting out a disk for $10-$20 that contained every NES game they ever published, with the emulator programmed on the disk. Hell, most NES games were 8k-11k in size, at most. Think of how many games could fit on one 1.5 GB (1536 KB) GC disk. Nintendo could also license out the emulator to Capcom, Konami, etc. and have them put out similar disks with their games on them for a cheap price.
Thursdæ
Thursdæ
But, like I siad, if I read other reviews on games I may end up reviewing, I may inadvertantly put things from those reviews in mine, or worse yet, already have the game pre-judged by the time I get it (either good or bad).
Think of it as saving myself from contamination; just like the Open Source movement says to stay away from Microsoft's "Shared Source" initiative, since they could become contaminated and accidentally (or purposefully) put MS code into their Open Source projects.
Thursdæ
I think the Rogue Squadron games have been some of the best SW games, recently. Better than the prequel games, by far, and not a huge glitch-fest like Galaxies.
YMMV, of course, but I've found most SW games recently to be lacking, with the Rogue Squadron games being the glimmer of hope on consoles. Now, what I REALLY want is a port of Sega's Star Wars Arcade game that was out a few years back in the arcades.....THAT would be suuuhweeeeet.
Thursdæ
Much like avoiding Microsoft's "Shared Source" contamination, this helps me avoid contamination from other people's reviews entering mine, even if unwillingly.
Thursdæ
Microsoft would love this, actually. They'd get an exclusive deal with Take Two Interactive faster than shit through a goose to secure the GTA series on the Xbox.
Then they'd hype it up to no end. "Grad Theft Auto IV, only on Xbox!" (Ballmer does his sweaty monkey dance, and repeats the word 'four' over and over and over again to really hype it up.)
A lot of sales of the PS2 in North America and Europe for the past few years have been for GTA III And GTA VC.
Now, if we just per chance say that the 8 million people who bought GTAIII didn't own an Xbox but wanted GTA IV, well, there's 8 million new sales of Xbox hardware coming up, and 8 million game royalty payments coming in. (I'm assuming most of the 8 million who bought GTA III Also bought GTA VC, since that has also broken the 8 million units sold mark).
Sony would have to be dumber than a dead cockroach to not see that comming.
Thursdæ
When we consider there are newer titles coming out like Deus Ex 2, Half-Life 2, and Doom III that people are really eager for... well, I just can't see Halo doing as well on the PC/Mac as it could have done.
By the time it comes out on the PC, it'll be around 2 years old on the Xbox. How many PC gamers actually cared after it took over a year to get a true answer as to whether it was coming or not?
I think by then, most had gotten an Xbox and played it, or played on the Xbox of someone they knew.
Of course, you could say this was Microsoft's plan all along...to string the PC gamers along, promising the PC version...but never letting them get any info for a long time; all in the hopes that they would give in and buy an Xbox and the game.
It may have backfired in a way though....for those who still held out, most probably don't care about Halo anymore and are looking at the other games I mentioned above.
Thursdæ
And having played fighting games since the original Fighting Street (Street Fighter I), as well as older side scrolling games such as Final Fight and Double Dragon (all in the arcades) I can be fairly sure of myself when I say that the DoA series is a mediocre fighter, at best. It is easy to jump in and play, yes, but the engine itself is mediocre in everything but the graphics department.
Remember, the orignial DoA wasn't marketed as 'the best fighter' around...it was marketed (and the series still is marketed) as 'the best LOOKING fighter'.
We play it on its merits as a fighting game alone.
Obviously our standards differ. The DoA series has very little merit to myself as a fighter. I'd much rather play Soul Edge/Blade/Calibur and Virtua Fighter, and even games like Marvel vs. Capcom and Capcom vs. SNK over the DoA games.
And if you would read reviews (IGN) once in a while, DOA EXB actually had a pretty deep volleyball system and surpassed expectations of just being an oggle-fest.
First of all, I WRITE reviews. I think I know what I am talking about. Second of all, IGN just sucks. The amount of rampant fanboi-ism that goes on on each of their console specific parts is nausea inducing. When we add in how often they hype a game, or rag on a game, only to give a review that completely contradicts what they were saying before, and my ability to trust them falls to about as far as I can throw them. Buildings are heavy, so I can't throw them far.
And I'd hardly call a volleyball system where the computer moves your character into place to set/spike the ball for you a 'deep volleyball game'. The 'game' was a tech demo of the DoA 4 engine, with a few things thrown on top to make it appear to be worth spending money on it. The casino aspect ended up being the most fun part of the game.
Your arguments are classic anti-xbox fanboy rants.
Funny, I thought I was saying that Team Ninja focuses more on graphics than gameplay. Hardly anything to do with the Xbox, since even on the Saturn, PSOne, Dreamcast and PS2 Team Ninja has always been the same. In fact, the only mention of the Xbox in the post was to say how horrid the fighting games released exclusively on it have been.
Unless, of course, you think Kabuki Warriors, Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus, and Kakuto Chojin are excellent fighters in their own right. They aren't, and I think even the Holy Grail of Review Sites (IGN according to too many, never will understand why people actually pay for their drivel) agrees with me on these games.
Between those fighters, even I'd choose DoA 3 on the basis of its merits as a fighting game.
Jeez' fanboys are like maggots crawling out of the woodwork all over the place.
As is obvious by your defending of the DoA series and Team Ninja. You realize that by rabidly defending the series, you are painting yourself into that fanboi picture. The "You hate the series I love so you must be a fanboi and I can't be" place you seem to be in is meerly just the denial of fanboi-ism.
But, that's ok. I happen to think Team Ninja sucks at making games, but does great at making gorgeous graphics. You actually like their games. Fine. To each his own.
But when you start spouting off like some rabid lunatic for me to read reviews from IGN about the games just to make me see your point
We talking about the same rumor here?
Thursdæ
Especially since IGN's rumor guys don't seem to have very reliable sources. I'd say that IGN's sources are slightly more reliable than the Official Xbox Magazine's sources for the crap that rag spouts.
Either way, it's shit flying from someone's mouth until we hear an official announcement from Rockstar on the matter.
Thursdæ
Microsoft promised sharholders a loss of only $900 million over the entire 5 year lifespan of the Xbox. Without counting losses from April 1 to now, the Xbox was sitting at at least $490 million lost at just a year and 4 months. Over half-way to the $900 million in well under half of the 5 year promise to shareholders.
If calendar Q2 losses were as large as calendar Q1 losses (quite possible, especially with the E3 price drop), the the Xbox will be sitting nigh near $680+ million lost in only a year and a half on the market.
If the losses continue at the rate they are going, Microsoft will hit over a billion lost on the Xbox by the end of this calendar year. If the losses continue after that at the same rate, then by the end of the 5 years, Microsoft will have lost well over $2 billion on the endeavor, and shareholders may not allow an Xbox 2 to come out. Hell, if losses don't signifigantly drop, and soon, the shareholders may demand that MS drop the Xbox entirely.
And, obviously these are concerns to MS, since Ballmer has mentioned the Xbox in internal emails, and said he wants to cut costs at the manufacturing end, rather than lay off employees to make up for the signifigant monetary losses the Xbox is incurring. If Ballmer is mentioning the losses the Xbox is incurring, then that means the shareholders are probably talking about the Xbox's losses.
And, remember, these losses are operational losses and do not include such things as the $300+ million to buy Rare, the $500 million in advertising the Xbox initially got, the $2 billion invenstment sunk into Xbox Live, etc. These were all budgeted; the loss on the console between cost to manufacture and sales was not.
Thursdæ
I meant as a whole on their video game endeavors.
Nintendo's SEC filing for their end of fiscal year back in March showed them with over US $500 million in profit. And since practically all Nintendo does is games, then it's safe to say games and the consoles are profitable for them.
Microsoft, on the other hand, posted $190 million lost on $493 million in sales from its Xbox division in calendar Q1 2003 alone (previous year had calendar Q1 show a loss of only $98 million on $953 million in sales), and I expect calendar Q2 reports (which should be with the SEC soon) to be also equally as bad in the losses for the Xbox devision.
Microsoft will end up profiting, overall, thanks to Windows and Office; but this fiscal year will show the Xbox biting into overall company profits.
Thursdæ
Lord knows I need something to play in my Xbox other than NHL 2K3 right now, since otherwise it's gathering a lot of dust.
Thursdæ
Soviet Russian First Psoter?
Kind of like a father who pays for his daughter's breast enhancement surgery and then wants to see the final results, eh?
Thursdæ
Yep, and it licks an arse.
The volleyball aspect can be played with one hand, since the computer will pretty much move the players into position for you (and I'm sure many a teenage boy has played this one handed...).
The poolside aspect is simply to oogle at the pretty polygonal women. I will, however, admit that the hair on the girls is quite possibly the best hair I've ever seen in an video game.
Honestly, the casino is the best gameplay part...but what fun is playing 1 player blackjack? Or 1 player video poker? The only time you even see other characters attempt to play the casino games is roulette.
The game sucks, plain and simple. It sold on sex appeal and nothing else...hence the steep drop off in sales after week one.
Thursdæ
All the Dead or Alive games pretty much suck in comparrison to other fighting games (although, ironically, it is probably the best fighter on the Xbox...but considering the compeition (Kabuki Warriors, Tao Feng, Kakuto Chojin, etc.), that isn't saying much). DoAXBV had no gameplay to it, just graphics of girls in skimpy bikinis.
Taking DoA online isn't going to suddenly make it a better fighter.
I fear for Ninja Gaiden, myself. I loved the Ninja Gaiden series on the NES, and I hate to think of how horribly Team "All Graphics, No Gameplay" Ninja will destroy this once proud franchise. The game looks spectacular, as all Team Ninja games do; but I fear it will have little to no gameplay, as all Team Ninja games do.
Thursdæ
But, it's the only title MS can be pretty much assured their making money on right now. And with the Xbox Division losing $190 million in calendar Q1 2003 alone, well, you can expect Halo to stay full price until Halo 2 comes out.
Thursdæ
So why should Nintendo be the ones mentioning they expect to lose money on the Xbox? Microsoft puts that out.
Nintendo is profiting from sales of the GameCube, its games, and the GameBoy Advance and its games.
Microsoft is the one losing the money on their console, not Nintendo.
Thursdæ
I wrote it, so it's nice to see people reading it. And you let me see a spelling mistake I hadn't noticed before, which is now fixed.
However, you're a bit off on the layoff situation. The Xbox division only had 200 employees, and only a little over 30 of them got laid off.
But the Xbox is a complete failure in Japan, with only 385k sold in over a year on the market. And Peter Moore's thoughts on helping the Xbox in Japan certainly isn't going to help it much there (another article I wrote). Well, at least not the bringing of Western-style games to Japan, anyway.
Thursdæ
Newsie for GAF
Xbox Live is at around a 6.25% saturation of Xbox owners. Ironically, Japan has the highest percentage of Xbox Live subscribers, with around 100k Xbox Live subscribers and only 385K units sold since the Japanese launch.
Thursdæ
Considering Microsoft lost $190 million (on $493 million in sales) in calendar Q1 on the Xbox, I highly doubt they're making any money at all. And it's safe to assume with the losses that high, they're still losing US $100 or more per Xbox sold...and the software isn't helping make up the money like they thought it would.
MS also recently changed their licenses with OEMs forcing them to have some form of OS installed or coming with the computer, because they were afraid people were upgrading their PCs and just using their old OS disks if they could get the PC naked.
As a result most CONSUMER PCs will now come fully instaled with Windows XP. CORPORATE costomers can get other things...like Dell's use of a free DOS OS with each computer... It has an OS, but the PC is naked.
Thursdæ
Pikacthulu! I choose you!
A possible, and plausible thing to do, if not for one thing: Microsoft is known for purposefully attempting to destroy interoperability between their products and products that do similar or the same things as Microsoft's products.
Examples being: Windows 3.X being programmed to crash if it detected any other OS underneath it besides MS DOS; Micorsoft's attempting to hijack HTML and use .chm as an IE-only readable web script; WMP 8 and 9 files not opening in Mozilla/Netscape (and possibly other browsers as well), instead showing up as text files of unreadable ASCII; the fact that Office 2003 will read XML files, but will never save as them to prevent them from working in other office suite programs (holding onto and attempting to increase their monopoly); and the blocking of some of their own Microsoft.com pages from opening under other browsers besides IE; as well as many others.
2) You comment that you would have been embarrassed to sell a product with 3000 bugs in it. Maybe if you were selling a normal application that has a standard interface to the computer (eg. the Windows API), I would agree. Windows itself does not have the luxury of a standard interface. Its the bit that provides the interface to begin with.
However, each version of Windows since 95 has shipped with more and more known bugs. Windows 2000 shipped with around 60,000 *known* bugs by Microsoft, and around 27,000 of those bugs were described as 'potential security threats'. Yet, they still shipped the product.
It's become quite evident that Microsoft does not care about stability or security in their products. In fact, Ballmer even admitted that security wasn't a focus because they didn't think it was profitable. All they care about is maintaining and expanding their monopoly, and if this means shipping prducts with known bugs, tens of thousands of known bugs, then so be it.