Yep. I easily spent way more time (and had far more fun) with the VR missions in MGS2: Substance, as opposed to the fetchquest- and interruption-heavy main game. Some players maybe can put up with that garbage game design enough to keep replaying the MGS games, but I am certainly not one of those people (and it sounds like most reviewers now feel the same way).
Miyamoto-san should just do like he always does, come up with a new Zelda game with an intricet and elaborate story that makes the player feel for the characters.
Which Zelda game is this? I must have missed one.:D
Ummm, illegal immigration really wouldn't be considered "accepted immigration", would it? And statistics for that kind of thing are notoriously inaccurate, besides...
I just thought I would point out that one of the films you mentioned, Akira, actually has the lips match up really well in the Japanese version. This is because they took the more American approach and recorded the dialogue first (though they did still keep the superior Japanese approach of recording characters together and not all separately). Kaneda is a particularly good character to see this in, as he physically overemotes so much.
The special edition extras disc actually shows parts of the voice recording, which is fascinating.
Not sure about that other state, but in Florida over a quarter of a million registered Democrats voted for Bush. If just the 'Gore voters' had voted for Gore, he would have won.
What happened is pretty simple if you actually, say, read the article (though your conspiracy idea is cute - sure, iD is going to intentionally piss off its PC fanbase because they aren't rich enough). iD is doing the PC game - another team is doing the Xbox version, much of it built from the ground up. iD isn't doing cooperative play. So if you want cooperative play, don't get the version made my iD.
I guess I would ask what genres of games you actually play - the ones I listed are just some of many many examples. If all you play is FPS games, then yeah, you probably don't need a console.
But like I suggested, there is a good chance you don't even know about some genres that you would end up really liking. I have played tons of games I thought initially would be stupid, but grew to really enjoy.
And emulators are certainly one of the better aspects of PCs, but you won't get anything recent, and many of the almost recent stuff (like Playstation 1) can involve a lot of tedious tweaking.
When you aim a gun in the really real world you don't have to think your arm through the process of pointing, you just point; When you aim a gun in a FPS, you don't think about how you're going to move the mouse, you just point....
You realize that is only true because you are so familiar with a mouse, right? I don't have to think about where I am aiming in Halo on Xbox, either, I just 'move' the gun.
I can't think of any game I've seen on a console that I couldn't play on my PC if it were coded for it. Why I should then spend additional money on single purpose, vendor locked boxes that clutter up my entertainment center is a complete mystery to me.
Because gaming is about the games, of course. Consoles simply have more releases every month, along with a larger variation in genre, budgets, and cultural origin.
You aren't going to find fighting games on the PC. You aren't going to find any of the current top-of-the-line racing games (okay, you can get Rallisport Challenge 1, but the sequel is right around the corner). You aren't going to get any Japanese RPGs (not that I am a fan, but tons of people are). You aren't going to get most of the hottest platform games (just started playing Voodoo Vince, which is a lot of fun). The best realistic sports games (i.e. the Sega ones) aren't on a PC. You won't find any new party games. You won't find any snowboarding games, tennis games newer than Virtua Tennis, rail-shooters, or cart-racers. Won't find too many games designed to appeal to younger kids. No real pure action-orientated games, outside of the FPS genre. And you really won't find games as resistant to cheating as what something like Xbox Live offers. And there are plenty of genres I haven't even mentioned.
You will get the occasional FPS and strategy game (almost undoubtedly real-time only) on the PC, along with a smattering of games in less popular genres. I am a huge fan of PC gaming, understand, but if you want the game variety, you have to grab a console too. Costs around the same or even less than a decent new video-card (and far less than a top-of-the-line one). If a Gamecube is what you want, that is the same price right now as only TWO full-price games. And add a memory card and a cheaper 'hits' game for less than the price of another full-price game. And neither PS2 or (especially) Xbox are that much pricier.
And the reason you won't find many of these games 'coded for it' is because it wouldn't matter, of course - PC gaming is a very hard market to sell in, and in some important gaming countries like Japan it is even more of a niche market. The PC gaming market shrunk by over 200 million dollars in sales last year, and it wasn't all that healthy before that. Doom3 and HL2 might bring up sales a little bit this year, but it isn't really looking like the PC market is going to be doing a massive recovery anytime soon.
Basically it comes down to this: if you are completely satisfied with your PC as your sole gaming machine, you simply don't appreciate/value gaming variety. Nothing inherently wrong with that - the only games my dad plays are the original UT and Freecell. But the problem is that it is very likely you don't even realize the huge variety of (fun!) games that are only available outside of the PC world.
Violence may sell, but when the consumer realizes the lack of anything besides the violence, the game stops selling. BMX:XXX tanked, to my knowledge, as did DOA:Extreme Beach Volleyball. I think its too early to say about Manhunt (which is widely regarded as really disgusting and way too far, even by gamers).
What violence does DOA Volleyball have, exactly?
And it sold really well, actually - maybe the fact that it is actually a pretty good game (taken for what it is - a vacation/relationship sim) had something to do with that. Creating such an addictive yet massively relaxing game is pretty amazing.
(Oh yeah, and women in bathing suits isn't 'sex' by any reasonable standards I can think of.)
And honestly, I picked up BMXXX for a few bucks and it isn't at all a bad game. Not an awesome game, but certainly not crap. Its main problem, IMO, was that it was really freaking hard - it was obviously designed for experienced BMX players, which is a strange design decision considering how they tried to attract such a large audience. Some of the humor is really funny, too, and I am not remotely a fan of potty humor... Certainly funnier than the 'jokes' in your average Tony Hawk game.
They used to make money by being innovative and releasing funny and great games like Sam & Max Hit the Road, Day of the Tentacle, and later Grim Fandango. Now they seem to think they can only make money by rehashing yet another tired Star Wars game.
Grim Fandango bombed, actually. Just didn't sell.
And I know people seem pretty ignorant about (scary!) console games on Slashdot, but Lucasarts has released some great original games recently (mostly on the consoles). See Gladius, for example.
In terms of US releases... and in terms of the Game Cube, which is where I do most of my gaming... I got Prince of Persia, 1080, Mario Kart, Pac-Man Vs., and Rebel Strike. Which of the big releases did I miss?
You probably didn't. But both of the other systems had a huge number of other, awesome games released for them. I don't think this article really applies to GC owners, just like you wouldn't do it for the N64 back in the day. It is so easy for a primarily Nintendo-orientated gamer to get 'all of' the big games released every year.:D
I've been thinking this is the real reason why Half-Life 2 has been delayed. Well, that and the fact that game isn't close to being content-complete.:D
RE1 and RE0 are mostly prerendered, with the exception of the monster/character models. It would be like saying a DVD of Toy Story or Final Fantasy looks great on my Xbox, proving how powerful it is - it has nothing to do with the system's graphics capabilities whatsoever. Every other console, probably including the Dreamcast, could do RE1 or RE0. The same essential technique was used for the original RE on PSX!
I think it is hard not to second-guess the DS at this point - that is just good, honest journalism. Nintendo has done a terrible job on selling the system to the public, basically just announcing it with a few weird details, sans any game info, then telling everyone to wait for E3. They have similar problems with the connectivity angle - Western journalists just didn't find the idea very favorable, no matter the publication. Neither does the public, really. Nintendo hasn't done a good job selling these ideas, so they are right to see some skeptism.
And IGN also features a huge amount of articles that are more than a little heavy in the "ra ra Nintendo yea!" factor (especially compared to Gamespot or Gamespy). For example, in the latest letters section, the editor says: "But, good, timely ports usually sell comparably or better on GameCube compared to Xbox and PS2." This is simply a gross exaggeration, and is the exception rather than the rule - the only big game I can think of it being true for is SCII, and the GC version was far superior in terms of the popularity of its bonus character (and the Xbox port was nothing to write home about, being intentionally cripped as well as being just an ugly, glitchy game to begin with).
I wouldn't really call it a reprint, as that would imply they are going to be selling this everywhere. This is more of a limited edition rerelease to rake in some cash. Interplay isn't doing too hot lately.
(since the DOA3 engine could be adapted to handle the gameplay & animation, and they could steal the code-base from any of a hundred "H" games to handle the relationship management part.)
Actually, Team Ninja reportedly wrote an all-new graphics engine to handle DOAX - it is much better at animation, 'limb connections', and errr... physics. But they then reused at least large parts of it for the upcoming Dead or Alive Ultimate. So you are basically correct, but just backwards.:D
And IMO, it would be much easier to just write a gameplay system for scratch, rather than adapting the ultimately very different (and complex) fighting engine for a (much simpler) volleyball game.
Remember the Xbox-GCN wars before they came out? Microsoft gave out untextured, unfilled, unenhanced polygon counts. So their numbers were through the roof.
But that is how things are done in the gaming world. You will also notice they also then gave out specs for textured, lit, etc. polygons in the same articles/papers. The same thing was done with the PS2, PSX, N64, Saturn, Dreamcast, and various 3D arcade hardware platforms. Pretty sure Nintendo did it too for the GC.
The Xbox (and PS2, I believe) can push more polygons than the GC does - it isn't like this is some lie MS made up. The GC is exceptionally good with textures, and is cheaper hardware - potentially worthy tradeoffs that Nintendo chose to make. And if Nintendo is getting slammed by the media for it nowadays (which I don't buy, unless you mean media as in "some 12 year old posting on a Gamefaqs message board"), it is because they really don't struggle to make most of their games look all that better than what they had on the N64. Exceptions to this, like Metroid Prime or Wind Waker, are certainly praised for their visual artistry by the media and gamers alike. But really only the two Star Wars games by Factor 5 show what the Gamecube hardware is truly capable of, with a couple of various additional exceptions (like F-Zero to some extent), so it isn't surprising that people criticize the GC's graphics capability.
Devs (especially Nintendo's own) need to be encouraged to actually show off the graphics capabilities of the GC.
But that problem is more because Square-Enix chose not to design an effective interface for such things. You could easily do a minimal transparent item changing interface to pop up in the corners (one for each player) of the screen, for example. You could even just shrink the main screen view for a little bit instead, allowing the game to still be played by others. Sure, it wouldn't be as immediately intuitive as the current interface, but that really doesn't matter in a game that is intended to be played for quite some time. And it would be easier to see what is still going on in the game. A nice quick tutorial should be more than enough, considering how basic the RPG system aspects are anyway. The better control ergonomics alone would make it a great tradeoff.
I do find the PC thing suspicious, no question. Maybe it was a rights thing though? Like they didn't have the PC distribution rights?
And it isn't like this Xbox bonus is really advertised, as it is in games like Burnout2. I really do believe it was just a time/hardware issue - the Xbox runs on just a spiffy (but backwards compatible) hardware version of what the PC version originally ran on (and this was a hard disk game, mind you). Not too hard to emulate at all, compared to the completely different architecture of the PS2, or the less different was still more exotic GC. I also wouldn't be surprised if there was an official DOS/Windows emulator for devs on Xbox - Smilebit did a similar but harder task when they emulated the Windows version of Panzer Dragoon for PDO. Maybe this is based on standard MS libraries?
Interesting Nintendo factoid. Yamauchi is one crazy dude.
Of course, we all remember the early Xbox flash cartoon making fun of Nintendo, don't we?
No, I personally don't - even then, it doesn't really sound all that bad. I do remember, however, Nintendo threatening retailers not to advertise for the Xbox in the USA prior to the GC and Xbox's release, otherwise they wouldn't get GBAs to sell.
And the price-fixing was already mentioned by others (though I was not clear if this was referring to the case they lost in the USA or one of the many ones in Europe).
And let's not forget the congressional hearings on videogame violence that Nintendo launched (by sending propoganda vids and similar to Senator Lieberman) to fight off Sega's success with the Genesis. Real classy.
You are a fool if you think any of the current major console makers can be considered completely ethical, especially Nintendo.
And though the 'forgiveness benefit' of it can be debated, Bill Gates' various donations have done far more good for the world than anything Nintendo has even tried to do in its hundred year history. Things aren't so black and white.
(And it wasn't that Prince of Persia 2 wouldn't fit, it is just that it would have been very hard to emulate on the GC or especially the PS2. I mean, the PS2 has problems emulating an old game like SmashTV. The GC just has very different hardware than what PoP2 ran on originally, which isn't a problem with the Xbox. That the PC version didn't include any bonus games is worse, besides. But regardless, these old games were just bonus features - the devs can only devote so much time to such stuff, especially with a game like PoP that was so rushed that they had to remove some boss fights.)
Yeah, it is bizarre. Compare the world to something like your average steampunk novel - everything should be changed in some way by this major radical technology.
At least the trailers for GitS2 seem to suggest the director might now understand the need for a fleshed-out, or hell, just halfway evocative world - or at least some of his crew does. Maybe Shirow talked to him...
Not really. There are a lot more console gamers out there, it is a lot more international (a lot of computer types are far more specific to regions, historically), and there are a lot more console games. Makes sense to me.
Slashdot Mirror
Yep. I easily spent way more time (and had far more fun) with the VR missions in MGS2: Substance, as opposed to the fetchquest- and interruption-heavy main game. Some players maybe can put up with that garbage game design enough to keep replaying the MGS games, but I am certainly not one of those people (and it sounds like most reviewers now feel the same way).
Miyamoto-san should just do like he always does, come up with a new Zelda game with an intricet and elaborate story that makes the player feel for the characters.
:D
Which Zelda game is this? I must have missed one.
Ummm, illegal immigration really wouldn't be considered "accepted immigration", would it? And statistics for that kind of thing are notoriously inaccurate, besides...
I just thought I would point out that one of the films you mentioned, Akira, actually has the lips match up really well in the Japanese version. This is because they took the more American approach and recorded the dialogue first (though they did still keep the superior Japanese approach of recording characters together and not all separately). Kaneda is a particularly good character to see this in, as he physically overemotes so much.
The special edition extras disc actually shows parts of the voice recording, which is fascinating.
Not sure about that other state, but in Florida over a quarter of a million registered Democrats voted for Bush. If just the 'Gore voters' had voted for Gore, he would have won.
What happened is pretty simple if you actually, say, read the article (though your conspiracy idea is cute - sure, iD is going to intentionally piss off its PC fanbase because they aren't rich enough). iD is doing the PC game - another team is doing the Xbox version, much of it built from the ground up. iD isn't doing cooperative play. So if you want cooperative play, don't get the version made my iD.
I guess I would ask what genres of games you actually play - the ones I listed are just some of many many examples. If all you play is FPS games, then yeah, you probably don't need a console.
But like I suggested, there is a good chance you don't even know about some genres that you would end up really liking. I have played tons of games I thought initially would be stupid, but grew to really enjoy.
And emulators are certainly one of the better aspects of PCs, but you won't get anything recent, and many of the almost recent stuff (like Playstation 1) can involve a lot of tedious tweaking.
When you aim a gun in the really real world you don't have to think your arm through the process of pointing, you just point; When you aim a gun in a FPS, you don't think about how you're going to move the mouse, you just point. ...
You realize that is only true because you are so familiar with a mouse, right? I don't have to think about where I am aiming in Halo on Xbox, either, I just 'move' the gun.
I can't think of any game I've seen on a console that I couldn't play on my PC if it were coded for it. Why I should then spend additional money on single purpose, vendor locked boxes that clutter up my entertainment center is a complete mystery to me.
Because gaming is about the games, of course. Consoles simply have more releases every month, along with a larger variation in genre, budgets, and cultural origin.
You aren't going to find fighting games on the PC. You aren't going to find any of the current top-of-the-line racing games (okay, you can get Rallisport Challenge 1, but the sequel is right around the corner). You aren't going to get any Japanese RPGs (not that I am a fan, but tons of people are). You aren't going to get most of the hottest platform games (just started playing Voodoo Vince, which is a lot of fun). The best realistic sports games (i.e. the Sega ones) aren't on a PC. You won't find any new party games. You won't find any snowboarding games, tennis games newer than Virtua Tennis, rail-shooters, or cart-racers. Won't find too many games designed to appeal to younger kids. No real pure action-orientated games, outside of the FPS genre. And you really won't find games as resistant to cheating as what something like Xbox Live offers. And there are plenty of genres I haven't even mentioned.
You will get the occasional FPS and strategy game (almost undoubtedly real-time only) on the PC, along with a smattering of games in less popular genres. I am a huge fan of PC gaming, understand, but if you want the game variety, you have to grab a console too. Costs around the same or even less than a decent new video-card (and far less than a top-of-the-line one). If a Gamecube is what you want, that is the same price right now as only TWO full-price games. And add a memory card and a cheaper 'hits' game for less than the price of another full-price game. And neither PS2 or (especially) Xbox are that much pricier.
And the reason you won't find many of these games 'coded for it' is because it wouldn't matter, of course - PC gaming is a very hard market to sell in, and in some important gaming countries like Japan it is even more of a niche market. The PC gaming market shrunk by over 200 million dollars in sales last year, and it wasn't all that healthy before that. Doom3 and HL2 might bring up sales a little bit this year, but it isn't really looking like the PC market is going to be doing a massive recovery anytime soon.
Basically it comes down to this: if you are completely satisfied with your PC as your sole gaming machine, you simply don't appreciate/value gaming variety. Nothing inherently wrong with that - the only games my dad plays are the original UT and Freecell. But the problem is that it is very likely you don't even realize the huge variety of (fun!) games that are only available outside of the PC world.
Violence may sell, but when the consumer realizes the lack of anything besides the violence, the game stops selling. BMX:XXX tanked, to my knowledge, as did DOA:Extreme Beach Volleyball. I think its too early to say about Manhunt (which is widely regarded as really disgusting and way too far, even by gamers).
What violence does DOA Volleyball have, exactly?
And it sold really well, actually - maybe the fact that it is actually a pretty good game (taken for what it is - a vacation/relationship sim) had something to do with that. Creating such an addictive yet massively relaxing game is pretty amazing.
(Oh yeah, and women in bathing suits isn't 'sex' by any reasonable standards I can think of.)
And honestly, I picked up BMXXX for a few bucks and it isn't at all a bad game. Not an awesome game, but certainly not crap. Its main problem, IMO, was that it was really freaking hard - it was obviously designed for experienced BMX players, which is a strange design decision considering how they tried to attract such a large audience. Some of the humor is really funny, too, and I am not remotely a fan of potty humor... Certainly funnier than the 'jokes' in your average Tony Hawk game.
They used to make money by being innovative and releasing funny and great games like Sam & Max Hit the Road, Day of the Tentacle, and later Grim Fandango. Now they seem to think they can only make money by rehashing yet another tired Star Wars game.
Grim Fandango bombed, actually. Just didn't sell.
And I know people seem pretty ignorant about (scary!) console games on Slashdot, but Lucasarts has released some great original games recently (mostly on the consoles). See Gladius, for example.
In terms of US releases... and in terms of the Game Cube, which is where I do most of my gaming... I got Prince of Persia, 1080, Mario Kart, Pac-Man Vs., and Rebel Strike. Which of the big releases did I miss?
:D
You probably didn't. But both of the other systems had a huge number of other, awesome games released for them. I don't think this article really applies to GC owners, just like you wouldn't do it for the N64 back in the day. It is so easy for a primarily Nintendo-orientated gamer to get 'all of' the big games released every year.
I've been thinking this is the real reason why Half-Life 2 has been delayed. :D
Well, that and the fact that game isn't close to being content-complete.
RE1 and RE0 are mostly prerendered, with the exception of the monster/character models. It would be like saying a DVD of Toy Story or Final Fantasy looks great on my Xbox, proving how powerful it is - it has nothing to do with the system's graphics capabilities whatsoever. Every other console, probably including the Dreamcast, could do RE1 or RE0. The same essential technique was used for the original RE on PSX!
I think it is hard not to second-guess the DS at this point - that is just good, honest journalism. Nintendo has done a terrible job on selling the system to the public, basically just announcing it with a few weird details, sans any game info, then telling everyone to wait for E3. They have similar problems with the connectivity angle - Western journalists just didn't find the idea very favorable, no matter the publication. Neither does the public, really. Nintendo hasn't done a good job selling these ideas, so they are right to see some skeptism.
And IGN also features a huge amount of articles that are more than a little heavy in the "ra ra Nintendo yea!" factor (especially compared to Gamespot or Gamespy). For example, in the latest letters section, the editor says: "But, good, timely ports usually sell comparably or better on GameCube compared to Xbox and PS2." This is simply a gross exaggeration, and is the exception rather than the rule - the only big game I can think of it being true for is SCII, and the GC version was far superior in terms of the popularity of its bonus character (and the Xbox port was nothing to write home about, being intentionally cripped as well as being just an ugly, glitchy game to begin with).
I wouldn't really call it a reprint, as that would imply they are going to be selling this everywhere. This is more of a limited edition rerelease to rake in some cash. Interplay isn't doing too hot lately.
(since the DOA3 engine could be adapted to handle the gameplay & animation, and they could steal the code-base from any of a hundred "H" games to handle the relationship management part.)
:D
Actually, Team Ninja reportedly wrote an all-new graphics engine to handle DOAX - it is much better at animation, 'limb connections', and errr... physics. But they then reused at least large parts of it for the upcoming Dead or Alive Ultimate. So you are basically correct, but just backwards.
And IMO, it would be much easier to just write a gameplay system for scratch, rather than adapting the ultimately very different (and complex) fighting engine for a (much simpler) volleyball game.
Remember the Xbox-GCN wars before they came out? Microsoft gave out untextured, unfilled, unenhanced polygon counts. So their numbers were through the roof.
But that is how things are done in the gaming world. You will also notice they also then gave out specs for textured, lit, etc. polygons in the same articles/papers. The same thing was done with the PS2, PSX, N64, Saturn, Dreamcast, and various 3D arcade hardware platforms. Pretty sure Nintendo did it too for the GC.
The Xbox (and PS2, I believe) can push more polygons than the GC does - it isn't like this is some lie MS made up. The GC is exceptionally good with textures, and is cheaper hardware - potentially worthy tradeoffs that Nintendo chose to make. And if Nintendo is getting slammed by the media for it nowadays (which I don't buy, unless you mean media as in "some 12 year old posting on a Gamefaqs message board"), it is because they really don't struggle to make most of their games look all that better than what they had on the N64. Exceptions to this, like Metroid Prime or Wind Waker, are certainly praised for their visual artistry by the media and gamers alike. But really only the two Star Wars games by Factor 5 show what the Gamecube hardware is truly capable of, with a couple of various additional exceptions (like F-Zero to some extent), so it isn't surprising that people criticize the GC's graphics capability.
Devs (especially Nintendo's own) need to be encouraged to actually show off the graphics capabilities of the GC.
...so cease any complaints about games being too easy nowadays and go buy it instead. :D
(The best thing is how fair it feels, too.)
But that problem is more because Square-Enix chose not to design an effective interface for such things. You could easily do a minimal transparent item changing interface to pop up in the corners (one for each player) of the screen, for example. You could even just shrink the main screen view for a little bit instead, allowing the game to still be played by others. Sure, it wouldn't be as immediately intuitive as the current interface, but that really doesn't matter in a game that is intended to be played for quite some time. And it would be easier to see what is still going on in the game. A nice quick tutorial should be more than enough, considering how basic the RPG system aspects are anyway. The better control ergonomics alone would make it a great tradeoff.
I do find the PC thing suspicious, no question. Maybe it was a rights thing though? Like they didn't have the PC distribution rights?
And it isn't like this Xbox bonus is really advertised, as it is in games like Burnout2. I really do believe it was just a time/hardware issue - the Xbox runs on just a spiffy (but backwards compatible) hardware version of what the PC version originally ran on (and this was a hard disk game, mind you). Not too hard to emulate at all, compared to the completely different architecture of the PS2, or the less different was still more exotic GC. I also wouldn't be surprised if there was an official DOS/Windows emulator for devs on Xbox - Smilebit did a similar but harder task when they emulated the Windows version of Panzer Dragoon for PDO. Maybe this is based on standard MS libraries?
Interesting Nintendo factoid. Yamauchi is one crazy dude.
Of course, we all remember the early Xbox flash cartoon making fun of Nintendo, don't we?
No, I personally don't - even then, it doesn't really sound all that bad. I do remember, however, Nintendo threatening retailers not to advertise for the Xbox in the USA prior to the GC and Xbox's release, otherwise they wouldn't get GBAs to sell.
And the price-fixing was already mentioned by others (though I was not clear if this was referring to the case they lost in the USA or one of the many ones in Europe).
And let's not forget the congressional hearings on videogame violence that Nintendo launched (by sending propoganda vids and similar to Senator Lieberman) to fight off Sega's success with the Genesis. Real classy.
You are a fool if you think any of the current major console makers can be considered completely ethical, especially Nintendo.
And though the 'forgiveness benefit' of it can be debated, Bill Gates' various donations have done far more good for the world than anything Nintendo has even tried to do in its hundred year history. Things aren't so black and white.
(And it wasn't that Prince of Persia 2 wouldn't fit, it is just that it would have been very hard to emulate on the GC or especially the PS2. I mean, the PS2 has problems emulating an old game like SmashTV. The GC just has very different hardware than what PoP2 ran on originally, which isn't a problem with the Xbox. That the PC version didn't include any bonus games is worse, besides. But regardless, these old games were just bonus features - the devs can only devote so much time to such stuff, especially with a game like PoP that was so rushed that they had to remove some boss fights.)
Yeah, it is bizarre. Compare the world to something like your average steampunk novel - everything should be changed in some way by this major radical technology.
At least the trailers for GitS2 seem to suggest the director might now understand the need for a fleshed-out, or hell, just halfway evocative world - or at least some of his crew does. Maybe Shirow talked to him...
(the digital X-Box triggers were quite annoying)
Which digital triggers are these? A prototype or something?
console-oriented, which is largely arbitrary
Not really. There are a lot more console gamers out there, it is a lot more international (a lot of computer types are far more specific to regions, historically), and there are a lot more console games. Makes sense to me.