To be completely fair, those series do appear on other consoles. The Metal Gear games, for instance, have appeared on all of the current consoles if I'm not mistaken, and GTA has been ported to the Xbox and PC.
That still doesn't change the fact that they're exclusives for Sony for a decent period of time and that they're being used in the same manner that Nintendo has used their characters, though.:)
I'd assume that that was meant to be a reply to my post...
The answer is a simple one: the skills may be useful for something where a prepackaged answer might not be available...and who knows if that answer will still be available for the next time it's needed?
I think that the main difference here is the ideals of the program.
FIRST teams are made up of high school students, people who would never be able to experience this otherwise. The competition isn't an issue - FIRST provides the game every year. The money can be hard to come by, but donations from large companies such as General Motors (our sponsor) or from other groups or individuals take care of a large portion of that. Supervision isn't hard to find either; most teams are led by engineers, teachers, and other volunteers.
The main empasis of FIRST is not the game itself - as Dean said today, "the robot is just a vehicle, no pun intended." FIRST emphasizes what is known as "gracious professionalism" - in essence, remembering that playing fairly and developing respect and possibly even friendship for your opponents should NEVER come after winning the game. FIRST is trying to get students to become interested in engineering, in math and science. The UK may be different, but America needs those people to fill the holes in the already-falling number of technically skilled employees.
It may sound corny and stupid, but the main goal of FIRST is literally to change the world. I'd bet that the BBC shows aren't going to benefit society quite as much in the long run.:)
To be honest, I'd have to agree with you completely.
I'm the student head of our programming group, and I'm surprised at how much they gave us. We spent endless hours trying to get our robot to drive in a straight line last year (motor power issues). This year? We've got software that will auto-correct its path...software that FIRST gave us.
That said, I still think that there's room for the programmers to work here. There are actually many, many options for the autonomous mode - we could block other robots, for example, or maybe go to the human player pad instead of for the magical green pyramids.
Besides...who said that you have to use the code that FIRST gives us? If it bothers you that much, write your own!:)
I agree that drivers and mechanical issues will decide the game, but I still think there's room for us to be important in the team's success.
Why not just make Mario Basketball if you want him to play?
That would require a significant investment of time and money for Nintendo. If they can get a company like EA to agree to use the characters (and possibly pay for the privilege) in an established series, that's worlds better than developing a basketball game of their own.
Beyond that, if Nintendo really is losing the console race so badly (though I doubt they're doing as badly as has been reported here), they need all the help they can get. If that means licensing out characters to increase sales of GC versions of games, so be it.
It seems a bit odd that Nintendo is doing this after all of these years (how long has it been since the CD-i debacle?)...but if it's what it takes to keep them around for the next generation of consoles, I'm all for it.
I think that the use of Mario is only to differentiate it from the other consoles...especially since the promise of new songs may not be enough to sway more casual players.
Besides...did the presence of Disney characters hurt the PS1 game DDR: Disney Mix? It may mean different backgrounds and songs, to be sure, but the game itself doesn't change.
If the presence of Mario means we get a Cube version of DDR, I'm all for it.
Immediately after running a story on how great the PSP is, Slashdot runs a story like this one, one that strongly criticizes Nintendo.
It's also worth noting that the article about the PSP was submitted by its own author and blatantly ignored the complaints about the system, whereas this article was written in October and ran on IGN, where most of the readers of this section of Slashdot had a chance to see it.
Look at the kinds of games for each system, and you'll see that Nintendo is right.
While online play covers a wide variety of genres, there are two in particular that are played (from my experience) much more frequently online: first person shooters and sports games.
Nintendo has never been known for sports games. Ever since the Genesis era, Nintendo has lagged behind in sports titles. If you bought a system for sports gaming, you bought a Genesis, a Dreamcast, an Xbox...because everyone knows (or thinks) that Nintendo's consoles just can't handle the sports games as well as the other consoles can.
Similarly, Nintendo has never been known for first person shooters. They've still got the most family-friendly reputation, despite apparent attempts to change that (Eternal Darkness, exclusive Resident Evil titles). More importantly, the one shooter that WAS incredibly successful on a Nintendo console - Goldeneye - was popular because of its multiplayer...where you sat next to the people you played against.
The games Nintendo succeeds with are ones that require interaction between others. Hell, Animal Crossing (and Pokémon, to an extent) is built almost entirely on social behavior. If you took games like those two online, you'd lose something. Trading a Pikachu for your best friend's Dragonite isn't the same as swapping with someone across the continent that you've never met and will never speak to again. The same holds true for other titles in Nintendo's stable as well. Playing Mario Kart or Mario Tennis against a nameless, faceless 13 year old takes something away from the experience. The fun with these titles is playing against friends, relatives, people you know.
It could just be my opinion, but I think that Nintendo has a damn good reason for not including online play in their titles. They'd lose what makes their games so much fun to play.
Something tells me that this could be a temporary price hike.
It makes sense that they'd need the extra money to redo the games for the next gen systems. But once they've got a year or two under their belts, why not lower the price again? It seems to have done wonders for sales and for popularity, and if they can do that once they've got the basic framework in place, I can't see how it could be a bad thing.
Selling a game at $50 won't make as much money as selling many more games at $20, after all...
Doesn't this strike people as Nintendo being stunningly... Uninnovative? A case of 'well, everyone else will be doing it, so we will too'?
When it comes down to survival of the fittest, you can't not follow the herd. It's not original, to be sure, but if it ensues that Nintendo will live on for the next few generations of consoles, why not do it?
FPS games have been making people sick for years. Ever since Doom exploded onto the scene, this has been an issue for some people. Of course, it's worse in some games than others - Descent is a perfect example - and I haven't heard about wide-scale problems in a huge release such as HL2 before.
Remember, kiddies: Playing HL2 can also cause epileptic seizures or carpal tunnel in addition to the nausea. Just like every other game out there can...
Maybe it's just me, but I think that the "harshness" is indelibly linked to the scoring system.
Look at GameSpy. Their overall scores are out of five stars, with the possibility of half stars in the score. The overall score that a game can get is severely restricted, and as long as it's decent, it's almost guaranteed to get seven stars or higher - a score that most of us would consider to be "good."
On the other hand, look at the mainstream media. Papers like the USA Today and the Detroit Free Press grade games on a scale of one to four. This is even more restrictive...but not in a good way. A game can only get one of two positive scores - a three or a four - and it's usually got to be bloody amazing to reach the four star level. Most of the games that I see get revieved in papers tend to get scores of two or three stars. That's not terrible, but I know that most of the people I know tend to think of a 3/4 as being much worse than a 7/10. Maybe it just seems harsher. I'm not sure why that is, but observations that I've made over the years seem to back that up.
The scoring systems vary from site to site and from one kind of media to another, and that could be enough to make up the difference.
It's not quite the same as the topic at hand, but Wired ran an article about a group that uses the original eight-big Game Boys to make music. The article is here. This is more advanced, but the basic idea is similar: the Game Boy becomes a tool for making music that's unique.
Does this mean that Nintendo has the monopoly on game consoles used as intruments?
FPS games aren't related to the workplace any more than Tetris, hockey, tiddlywinks, or llamas are.
I mean, how often do you have to save the world from your boss, who just happens to be a hellspawned demon who lurks below the building within flunky-filled caverns and throws fireballs around for fun?
There is a possibility that this could work. Hello Kitty has been huge in Japan for ages, and games like The Sims Online or A Tale In The Desert have performed decently.
And lest we forget, NeoPets is still insanely popular with younger kids...the demographic of this game.
I wouldn't be caught dead playing it, but if it will make a little girl in Japan happy, it's served its purpose.
Slashdot Mirror
That still doesn't change the fact that they're exclusives for Sony for a decent period of time and that they're being used in the same manner that Nintendo has used their characters, though. :)
Sorry about that first sentence - I was looking at the wrong post when I clicked on your response. Oops...
The answer is a simple one: the skills may be useful for something where a prepackaged answer might not be available...and who knows if that answer will still be available for the next time it's needed?
FIRST teams are made up of high school students, people who would never be able to experience this otherwise. The competition isn't an issue - FIRST provides the game every year. The money can be hard to come by, but donations from large companies such as General Motors (our sponsor) or from other groups or individuals take care of a large portion of that. Supervision isn't hard to find either; most teams are led by engineers, teachers, and other volunteers.
The main empasis of FIRST is not the game itself - as Dean said today, "the robot is just a vehicle, no pun intended." FIRST emphasizes what is known as "gracious professionalism" - in essence, remembering that playing fairly and developing respect and possibly even friendship for your opponents should NEVER come after winning the game. FIRST is trying to get students to become interested in engineering, in math and science. The UK may be different, but America needs those people to fill the holes in the already-falling number of technically skilled employees.
It may sound corny and stupid, but the main goal of FIRST is literally to change the world. I'd bet that the BBC shows aren't going to benefit society quite as much in the long run. :)
I'm the student head of our programming group, and I'm surprised at how much they gave us. We spent endless hours trying to get our robot to drive in a straight line last year (motor power issues). This year? We've got software that will auto-correct its path...software that FIRST gave us.
That said, I still think that there's room for the programmers to work here. There are actually many, many options for the autonomous mode - we could block other robots, for example, or maybe go to the human player pad instead of for the magical green pyramids.
Besides...who said that you have to use the code that FIRST gives us? If it bothers you that much, write your own! :)
I agree that drivers and mechanical issues will decide the game, but I still think there's room for us to be important in the team's success.
Then again, if anyone has the bandwidth to withstand Slashdot, I think that it'd be NASA... :)
That would require a significant investment of time and money for Nintendo. If they can get a company like EA to agree to use the characters (and possibly pay for the privilege) in an established series, that's worlds better than developing a basketball game of their own.
Beyond that, if Nintendo really is losing the console race so badly (though I doubt they're doing as badly as has been reported here), they need all the help they can get. If that means licensing out characters to increase sales of GC versions of games, so be it.
It seems a bit odd that Nintendo is doing this after all of these years (how long has it been since the CD-i debacle?)...but if it's what it takes to keep them around for the next generation of consoles, I'm all for it.
Besides...did the presence of Disney characters hurt the PS1 game DDR: Disney Mix? It may mean different backgrounds and songs, to be sure, but the game itself doesn't change.
If the presence of Mario means we get a Cube version of DDR, I'm all for it.
It's also worth noting that the article about the PSP was submitted by its own author and blatantly ignored the complaints about the system, whereas this article was written in October and ran on IGN, where most of the readers of this section of Slashdot had a chance to see it.
Am I the only one bothered by this?
While online play covers a wide variety of genres, there are two in particular that are played (from my experience) much more frequently online: first person shooters and sports games.
Nintendo has never been known for sports games. Ever since the Genesis era, Nintendo has lagged behind in sports titles. If you bought a system for sports gaming, you bought a Genesis, a Dreamcast, an Xbox...because everyone knows (or thinks) that Nintendo's consoles just can't handle the sports games as well as the other consoles can.
Similarly, Nintendo has never been known for first person shooters. They've still got the most family-friendly reputation, despite apparent attempts to change that (Eternal Darkness, exclusive Resident Evil titles). More importantly, the one shooter that WAS incredibly successful on a Nintendo console - Goldeneye - was popular because of its multiplayer...where you sat next to the people you played against.
The games Nintendo succeeds with are ones that require interaction between others. Hell, Animal Crossing (and Pokémon, to an extent) is built almost entirely on social behavior. If you took games like those two online, you'd lose something. Trading a Pikachu for your best friend's Dragonite isn't the same as swapping with someone across the continent that you've never met and will never speak to again. The same holds true for other titles in Nintendo's stable as well. Playing Mario Kart or Mario Tennis against a nameless, faceless 13 year old takes something away from the experience. The fun with these titles is playing against friends, relatives, people you know.
It could just be my opinion, but I think that Nintendo has a damn good reason for not including online play in their titles. They'd lose what makes their games so much fun to play.
Why rent when you can build? It's more fun, and chances are you'll learn af ew things in the process. Do it the geek way - build it from scratch! :)
Even if technology were to that point, I don't think Slashdot users should be asked about biological engineering... :)
It makes sense that they'd need the extra money to redo the games for the next gen systems. But once they've got a year or two under their belts, why not lower the price again? It seems to have done wonders for sales and for popularity, and if they can do that once they've got the basic framework in place, I can't see how it could be a bad thing.
Selling a game at $50 won't make as much money as selling many more games at $20, after all...
It has one. It's called TiVo.
Was it fair? No. But it's theirs now.
Mario is still recognizable, to be sure, but I don't think that he's the number one character anymore.
Please tell me I'm not the only one who noticed that...
When it comes down to survival of the fittest, you can't not follow the herd. It's not original, to be sure, but if it ensues that Nintendo will live on for the next few generations of consoles, why not do it?
FPS games have been making people sick for years. Ever since Doom exploded onto the scene, this has been an issue for some people. Of course, it's worse in some games than others - Descent is a perfect example - and I haven't heard about wide-scale problems in a huge release such as HL2 before.
Remember, kiddies: Playing HL2 can also cause epileptic seizures or carpal tunnel in addition to the nausea. Just like every other game out there can...
Hell, I've had a year's worth of AP Statistics in school - probably more than most people are ever exposed to - and even I'm confused by them. :)
Look at GameSpy. Their overall scores are out of five stars, with the possibility of half stars in the score. The overall score that a game can get is severely restricted, and as long as it's decent, it's almost guaranteed to get seven stars or higher - a score that most of us would consider to be "good."
On the other hand, look at the mainstream media. Papers like the USA Today and the Detroit Free Press grade games on a scale of one to four. This is even more restrictive...but not in a good way. A game can only get one of two positive scores - a three or a four - and it's usually got to be bloody amazing to reach the four star level. Most of the games that I see get revieved in papers tend to get scores of two or three stars. That's not terrible, but I know that most of the people I know tend to think of a 3/4 as being much worse than a 7/10. Maybe it just seems harsher. I'm not sure why that is, but observations that I've made over the years seem to back that up.
The scoring systems vary from site to site and from one kind of media to another, and that could be enough to make up the difference.
Does this mean that Nintendo has the monopoly on game consoles used as intruments?
I mean, how often do you have to save the world from your boss, who just happens to be a hellspawned demon who lurks below the building within flunky-filled caverns and throws fireballs around for fun?
And lest we forget, NeoPets is still insanely popular with younger kids...the demographic of this game.
I wouldn't be caught dead playing it, but if it will make a little girl in Japan happy, it's served its purpose.
Yet another case where I've been proven wrong on Slashdot. Thanks for correcting me. :)