The idea that the PS3 is responsible for the delay is unfounded speculation. It would be just as valid to suggest that the XBox 360 is causing problems with its inferior media capacity, or that Rockstar itself simply underestimated how much work the project would involve. Unless Rockstar itself reveals what's going on, we're never going to know the truth.
All Halo 3 does is give Microsoft the fans that they already have. GTA4 gives them new users. I don't think it's going to have a major effect since the XBox always got GTA games after a while anyway, but it's going to be a bigger effect on system sales than Halo 3. Halo 3 was always going to be about the sales of the game itself, the profits of which MS gets to itself.
Another name for OIN is GNU/Linux Open Invention Network (GLOIN). I've also heard rumors that the companies involved are going to create a group to endorse the increased usage of Linux on Internet servers. It'll be called the Greater Internet Mobilization of Linux Initiative (GIMLI).
The word "model" has a different meaning in the console world. The SCPH-10000 and the SCPH-15000 were two different models of the PS2, for example, but they were exactly the same to the vast majority of end users. What you're looking for is "version," but "SKU" is less vague even than that, since you can't possibly construe that acronym to be referring to anything other than the different flavors of the XBox 360 or what have you.
Uh, I do most of those things because they're quicker to type and/or make more sense, not because they make me feel like some awesome smark.
"SKU:" Quicker to type than "version," less ambiguous than "model." "Squenix:" Quicker to type. "Shmups:" An abbreviation of "shoot-'em-ups," not "shooters." Shooters make up a totally different genre. I usually type it out, but I have no problem with people who use the abbreviation. "Roguelike:" OK, genius, tell us how you would describe those RPGs that contain randomized dungeons and a focus on challenging, complex gameplay in just one word. BTW, your petulance about people who haven't played Rogue makes you the elite asshole if anything. "Shiggy:" Now that's just stupid, and no one I know uses it seriously.
Any other retarded complaints you'd like to make about terms that gamers have agreed on to make communication easier?
If you don't mind downloading a GB of data for ten minutes of gameplay, anyway. What did they waste all that space on, big fat titties and bloom effects?
This will spark interest in the 60GB console, and when all the supplies are moved they will cut the price of the 80GB console to $499.
Well, I'd certainly hope that that's true, but remember that this is Sony we're talking about. The sales and marketing part of the company hasn't exactly been attentive to the wishes of the consumer in the recent past.
Sony sells a bunch of PS3s at $500, getting their marketshare up and bolstering the confidence of third-party developers, then when they've done that they sell a slightly better PS3 exclusively at $600, hoping that the better line-up (and, hopefully, better press) at that point will keep sales going.
I don't know if this will work or just bite them in the ass. I think it would've been a good idea to sell the new PS3 at $550 and leave Motorstorm out of it, and maybe a better idea to just sell the 60GB PS3 at $450 and stop trying to screw around with the market, but only time can tell.
The article also contains some commentary from a marketing executive who conducted an informal survey of the game and discovered that 'One of the most frequently purchased items in Second Life is genitalia.'
Yes, it makes a lot more sense to do such a survey now, rather than before you wasted a bunch of money putting your company presence on this POS "game."
I swear, if the average corporate marketing division was a person, he'd have an IQ roughly between that of a flying penis and that of the jizz on a furry's suit, both of which are common themes in Second Life.
But I'm wondering if this will be considered a basic feature of the console, and Sony will require all new games to use the rumble feature.
They didn't with the PS2, which started with rumble. Plenty of games allowed you to turn it off, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were some that didn't even use it.
Either the New York Times, who says that very few people copy and burn DVDs and the people who download DVDs are as likely to be getting porn as not, or the MPAA, who says that movie piracy is rampant and costing the movie industry billions (yes, with a B) of dollars a year.
Since the PS3 wasn't shipped with rumble controllers, does this mean developers have to code with the assumption that nobody has the rumble feature?
Rumble is subtle enough to where it wouldn't really be that hard to emulate it using on-screen features, and turn off those features when vibration is turned on. In MGS4 you might have to buy a new controller to get a slightly more immersive gameplay experience, but that would only really make a difference to the hardcore gamers who are going to buy new controllers anyway.
I wouldn't worry about the early adopters anyway; early adopters always get the screw due to their inability to wait for technology to stabilize before buying it. That $100 price drop is something that they would be more likely pissed off about, besides.
Sony delivers the most expensive console, but they chose to cut costs by not licensing a highly desirable technology for their controller over the strong protests of their gamers long before launch.
FSVO "highly desirable," "strong protests," and especially "their gamers." Most of the complaints came from people who were looking for any excuse to bash Sony; everyone who was honest with himself could admit that while losing rumble wasn't a good thing, it was hardly something that should be hyped up to the extremes that the fanboys reached either.
And it wasn't to cut costs anyway; it was because there was ongoing litigation between Sony and the patent trolls^W^Wguys who licensed out the rumble technology. They very well couldn't design new controllers with rumble in them until that was settled.
Yes, much like the anti-Sony fanboys who didn't really care about rumble until they heard that the PS3 wouldn't have it. No such thing as a side with no stupid people on it.
That's why this price cut is so mind-boggling -- it just brings the current price back inline with what was offered at launch. To gamers, the difference between the original 500/600 dollar SKUs just wasn't relevant. If there was anyone out there who was willing to pay $500 for a PS3, they already have one.
That would only be the case if the $500 version was available in any significant quantity in the past eight months. It wasn't. And there's also the fact that the difference between the versions was relevant to at least some people, just like the differences between the roughly similar XBox 360 Elite and the Premium are also relevant.
I do agree that $100 is not a big enough price drop to ensure success, though, especially when faced with a near-inevitable 360 price drop. $150 would've been a lot better, and the only reason I can think of that they didn't drop the price that far is that Sony thinks that they can succeed at $500. Drops in production costs of BluRay and the Cell processor combined with the removal of the Emotion Engine should have been enough to cover a $150 price drop.
Have you ever played any RPGs(especially Japanese/console RPGs) or advendure games?
Yes. A lot of people would argue that those are closer to movies than games. Certainly the literary aspects of both generally require little to no interactivity (offering a "choose your own adventure" style of plot branching at most), while (for example) the plot elements of FPSes tend to progress during gameplay with few cutscenes breaking up the action.
In other words, the fact that most of the games that have strong literary aspects are also games that are more like more passive forms of media just goes to prove my point.
No. Croal is pretty much straight on the mark with his assessment of the current artistic value of video games for two reasons:
1. Video games have only been around in any meaningful form for about 30 years. Television has been around for over 60 (disregarding the fact that it's a fairly natural extension of cinema anyway), cinema for over 100, theatre since centuries before the birth of Christ, and prose (whether spoken or written) since the dawn of civilization. In addition to the added maturity that comes from age and standing upon the shoulders of giants, the older media are much cheaper and easier to produce than the newer, allowing for a greater infusion of ideas unfettered by commercial considerations. Any literate person can write a novel or a play, and most people can make their own movies with little training. You can't say the same for video games.
2. An activity, such as playing a video game, can never be as profound and thought-provoking as a passive form of art can be. It's much easier to be circumspect over a movie or a book, where you can easily stop, think, and review what you've seen, pondering what the creator was trying to say. You can't do that with a video game because it's always changing, never progressing the same way every time. And if you tried to make a game that did progress the same way every time--well, then it wouldn't be a game anymore, would it?
There's nothing wrong with being honest about the limitations of your favored form of art.
Another example of the "consolification" of once-great PC-game franchises. See also: Deus Ex and Thief. At least Sid Meier is working on it, so it might not completely suck.
I agree completely. Fortunately, there are signs that Sega does have an inkling of understanding of this problem, as they have made a few relatively simple 2D Sonic games for handhelds over the past few years. I don't know how good they are, though.
There's no real reason why a good old-fashioned Sonic game can't be 3D, though. All you have to do is make a decent camera and move past the idea that all 3D platformers have to have extensive exploration in them. Interesting level design is really the easiest part.
Slashdot Mirror
The idea that the PS3 is responsible for the delay is unfounded speculation. It would be just as valid to suggest that the XBox 360 is causing problems with its inferior media capacity, or that Rockstar itself simply underestimated how much work the project would involve. Unless Rockstar itself reveals what's going on, we're never going to know the truth.
Rob
All Halo 3 does is give Microsoft the fans that they already have. GTA4 gives them new users. I don't think it's going to have a major effect since the XBox always got GTA games after a while anyway, but it's going to be a bigger effect on system sales than Halo 3. Halo 3 was always going to be about the sales of the game itself, the profits of which MS gets to itself.
Rob
Another name for OIN is GNU/Linux Open Invention Network (GLOIN). I've also heard rumors that the companies involved are going to create a group to endorse the increased usage of Linux on Internet servers. It'll be called the Greater Internet Mobilization of Linux Initiative (GIMLI).
Rob
The word "model" has a different meaning in the console world. The SCPH-10000 and the SCPH-15000 were two different models of the PS2, for example, but they were exactly the same to the vast majority of end users. What you're looking for is "version," but "SKU" is less vague even than that, since you can't possibly construe that acronym to be referring to anything other than the different flavors of the XBox 360 or what have you.
Rob
Uh, I do most of those things because they're quicker to type and/or make more sense, not because they make me feel like some awesome smark.
"SKU:" Quicker to type than "version," less ambiguous than "model."
"Squenix:" Quicker to type.
"Shmups:" An abbreviation of "shoot-'em-ups," not "shooters." Shooters make up a totally different genre. I usually type it out, but I have no problem with people who use the abbreviation.
"Roguelike:" OK, genius, tell us how you would describe those RPGs that contain randomized dungeons and a focus on challenging, complex gameplay in just one word. BTW, your petulance about people who haven't played Rogue makes you the elite asshole if anything.
"Shiggy:" Now that's just stupid, and no one I know uses it seriously.
Any other retarded complaints you'd like to make about terms that gamers have agreed on to make communication easier?
Rob
Now that is a laugh. Keep promising us the world, you crazy Frenchman...
Rob
Microsoft developed BITS 3.0 many months ago and included it with Vista. It allows for what Microsoft calls "peer caching."
Rob
If you don't mind downloading a GB of data for ten minutes of gameplay, anyway. What did they waste all that space on, big fat titties and bloom effects?
Rob
I didn't think it could get more sophisticated than the classic Breakin 2.0: Electric Boogaloo. Bravo, hackers!
What's with the whining about the word "hacker," anyway? Talk about beating a dead horse.
Rob
Source is the engine for Half-Life 2, while Xen was only in the original Half-Life. The name should be "XenGoldSrc."
What?
Rob
People seem to have forgotten that there already was a $500 PS3, right at launch.
That's probably because it might as well not even have existed considering the low quantities in which it was produced.
Rob
This will spark interest in the 60GB console, and when all the supplies are moved they will cut the price of the 80GB console to $499.
Well, I'd certainly hope that that's true, but remember that this is Sony we're talking about. The sales and marketing part of the company hasn't exactly been attentive to the wishes of the consumer in the recent past.
Rob
Sony sells a bunch of PS3s at $500, getting their marketshare up and bolstering the confidence of third-party developers, then when they've done that they sell a slightly better PS3 exclusively at $600, hoping that the better line-up (and, hopefully, better press) at that point will keep sales going.
I don't know if this will work or just bite them in the ass. I think it would've been a good idea to sell the new PS3 at $550 and leave Motorstorm out of it, and maybe a better idea to just sell the 60GB PS3 at $450 and stop trying to screw around with the market, but only time can tell.
Rob
The article also contains some commentary from a marketing executive who conducted an informal survey of the game and discovered that 'One of the most frequently purchased items in Second Life is genitalia.'
Yes, it makes a lot more sense to do such a survey now, rather than before you wasted a bunch of money putting your company presence on this POS "game."
I swear, if the average corporate marketing division was a person, he'd have an IQ roughly between that of a flying penis and that of the jizz on a furry's suit, both of which are common themes in Second Life.
Rob
But I'm wondering if this will be considered a basic feature of the console, and Sony will require all new games to use the rumble feature.
They didn't with the PS2, which started with rumble. Plenty of games allowed you to turn it off, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were some that didn't even use it.
Rob
Either the New York Times, who says that very few people copy and burn DVDs and the people who download DVDs are as likely to be getting porn as not, or the MPAA, who says that movie piracy is rampant and costing the movie industry billions (yes, with a B) of dollars a year.
I know which side I'm betting on.
Rob
Since the PS3 wasn't shipped with rumble controllers, does this mean developers have to code with the assumption that nobody has the rumble feature?
Rumble is subtle enough to where it wouldn't really be that hard to emulate it using on-screen features, and turn off those features when vibration is turned on. In MGS4 you might have to buy a new controller to get a slightly more immersive gameplay experience, but that would only really make a difference to the hardcore gamers who are going to buy new controllers anyway.
I wouldn't worry about the early adopters anyway; early adopters always get the screw due to their inability to wait for technology to stabilize before buying it. That $100 price drop is something that they would be more likely pissed off about, besides.
Rob
Sony delivers the most expensive console, but they chose to cut costs by not licensing a highly desirable technology for their controller over the strong protests of their gamers long before launch.
FSVO "highly desirable," "strong protests," and especially "their gamers." Most of the complaints came from people who were looking for any excuse to bash Sony; everyone who was honest with himself could admit that while losing rumble wasn't a good thing, it was hardly something that should be hyped up to the extremes that the fanboys reached either.
And it wasn't to cut costs anyway; it was because there was ongoing litigation between Sony and the patent trolls^W^Wguys who licensed out the rumble technology. They very well couldn't design new controllers with rumble in them until that was settled.
I'm a Wii owner myself.
What a surprise.
Rob
Yes, much like the anti-Sony fanboys who didn't really care about rumble until they heard that the PS3 wouldn't have it. No such thing as a side with no stupid people on it.
Rob
That's why this price cut is so mind-boggling -- it just brings the current price back inline with what was offered at launch. To gamers, the difference between the original 500/600 dollar SKUs just wasn't relevant. If there was anyone out there who was willing to pay $500 for a PS3, they already have one.
That would only be the case if the $500 version was available in any significant quantity in the past eight months. It wasn't. And there's also the fact that the difference between the versions was relevant to at least some people, just like the differences between the roughly similar XBox 360 Elite and the Premium are also relevant.
I do agree that $100 is not a big enough price drop to ensure success, though, especially when faced with a near-inevitable 360 price drop. $150 would've been a lot better, and the only reason I can think of that they didn't drop the price that far is that Sony thinks that they can succeed at $500. Drops in production costs of BluRay and the Cell processor combined with the removal of the Emotion Engine should have been enough to cover a $150 price drop.
Rob
Have you ever played any RPGs(especially Japanese/console RPGs) or advendure games?
Yes. A lot of people would argue that those are closer to movies than games. Certainly the literary aspects of both generally require little to no interactivity (offering a "choose your own adventure" style of plot branching at most), while (for example) the plot elements of FPSes tend to progress during gameplay with few cutscenes breaking up the action.
In other words, the fact that most of the games that have strong literary aspects are also games that are more like more passive forms of media just goes to prove my point.
Rob
Anybody see anything wrong with this?
No. Croal is pretty much straight on the mark with his assessment of the current artistic value of video games for two reasons:
1. Video games have only been around in any meaningful form for about 30 years. Television has been around for over 60 (disregarding the fact that it's a fairly natural extension of cinema anyway), cinema for over 100, theatre since centuries before the birth of Christ, and prose (whether spoken or written) since the dawn of civilization. In addition to the added maturity that comes from age and standing upon the shoulders of giants, the older media are much cheaper and easier to produce than the newer, allowing for a greater infusion of ideas unfettered by commercial considerations. Any literate person can write a novel or a play, and most people can make their own movies with little training. You can't say the same for video games.
2. An activity, such as playing a video game, can never be as profound and thought-provoking as a passive form of art can be. It's much easier to be circumspect over a movie or a book, where you can easily stop, think, and review what you've seen, pondering what the creator was trying to say. You can't do that with a video game because it's always changing, never progressing the same way every time. And if you tried to make a game that did progress the same way every time--well, then it wouldn't be a game anymore, would it?
There's nothing wrong with being honest about the limitations of your favored form of art.
Rob
Another example of the "consolification" of once-great PC-game franchises. See also: Deus Ex and Thief. At least Sid Meier is working on it, so it might not completely suck.
Rob
I agree completely. Fortunately, there are signs that Sega does have an inkling of understanding of this problem, as they have made a few relatively simple 2D Sonic games for handhelds over the past few years. I don't know how good they are, though.
There's no real reason why a good old-fashioned Sonic game can't be 3D, though. All you have to do is make a decent camera and move past the idea that all 3D platformers have to have extensive exploration in them. Interesting level design is really the easiest part.
Rob
It's a fair analogy, but I never thought that a Mario RPG was ever quite as completely ridiculous as a Sonic RPG would be.
Rob