You are absolutely correct in your observations about the Wii-purchasing demographic. I constantly see anecdotes along the lines of "My Aunt Sally played Wii sports and now she went out and bought one too. OMG the Wii revolution is here!!1" But just as you said, Aunt Sally won't be buying Madden 20XX or the next Resident Evil. She's content to pick up one or two games if any and probably won't be buying any more.
As much as Nintendo may be making a profit by selling their underpowered hardware, this will certainly put a damper on the enthusiasm of 3rd party developers to support the console if they can't get the sales they would on the burgeoning 360. I don't know if this means doom for Nintendo at all, but it certainly can't be what they want. There's a lot of money to be made in licensing fees, and they'd love to have a cut of that.
I don't mean just about this game, specifically, but how many times are we shown a pre-rendered video or told a "target" release date for the sole purpose of keeping our interest piqued for a game that hasn't even a remote chance of getting out on time (i.e. Spore) or never looking like that (the PS3 pre-renders a couple of E3's ago)...and we never learn.
Good porting means balancing and mitigating the strengths and weaknesses of each platform.
Please note that you said "good porting". That's the problem. Many ports are shit and do get held back by the lowest common demoninator. Xbox owners were constantly receiving substandard ports of PS2 games because the PS2 happened to be the main development platform last generation.
If you really want people to believe you're "sorry" and you've cleaned up your act, then fire a few people. Of coure everyone knows that the firings are mostly P.R. maneuvers, too, but at least they seem more dramatic than this farce of an oversight committee.
"I envision this council being made up of nine members selected by the players themselves, where you announce your candidacy, and if you win the election, they come here to Iceland, and they can look at every nook and cranny and get to see that we are here to run this company on a professional basis," said Mr. Petursson, CCP's chief executive. "They can see that we did not make this game to win it."
Wait...are they going to be checking for roaches in the cafeteria or something? Looking in "every nook and cranny" means looking at source code, checking logs on home computers, and reading in-game chat logs. i.e. it's not possible. The problem is a social one, not necessarily a technical one. Even if in-game exploits and "god commands" were removed, the extra information from being an employee is still enough to tip the game in your corp's favor.
So "The 9" are going to go for what amounts to a P.R. visit so that CCP can wash its hands of the mess and say "See? I told you we were a fine, upstanding company! Just look at how clean our cubicles are!"
Maybe I'm missing something, but how would not crippling the 360 media center be a blow to the content producers? Are you saying they can't legally give us a the free xVid codec? If you're claiming that by doing so they (MS) are advocating piracy, then I direct your attention to the built-in MP3 codec on the 360 - supporting arguably the single most pirated type of file in the world.
But since we're talking about DivX, I'm quite sure that Microsoft could open up the 360 slightly to allow for different codecs to be downloaded/uploaded to it for a fee. I'd pay $10 for a license to play DivX movies on my 360 were that choice offered to me.
You'll be happy to know that if you have Action Replay, you can extract your save file from your Jap import, move it over to your US copy, and it will work. I believe even the Pokemon names change, too.
Hey, I never said they'd win against him if they brought suit. The OP's assertion was that by releasing it publicly was tantamount to a protective shield against lawsuits, and it's not.
Right now "the market" consists of people who've yet to get their hands on a Wii at all and still think Wii Bowling is the best thing since sliced bread.
Many of us who were fortunate enough to get a Wii console at launch have long since moved on from Wii Sports and on to....what? Besides Rayman and a couple of other titles, there isn't much to speak of on the Wii right now. And, remember, the so-called casual gamer doesn't buy a whole lot of games by definition. Many posters in this thread got it right: The Wii is already a generational leap behind in graphics and horsepower - this isn't even the PS2 vs. XBox, this is XBox 360 vs Gamecube, essentially. The Wii is riding a huge wave of hype, but I think it'll quickly go the way of the Gamecube unless they have compelling exclusives. I'm sorry, but I'm not trading the beauty and online play of Tiger Woods 07 for the 360 for a tacked on swing gimmick with no online play, etc. It needs games now that have compelling features and better use of the Wii remote. Exchanging a swinging motion for a button press isn't creating a more immersive gaming experience...it's just a more annoying way to press a button.
And before you chalk me up as a graphics whore, remember that horsepower and graphical prowess aren't just there to make objects more shiny - Dead Rising, with its hundreds of on-screen zombies, could have never been done on the Wii like it was on the 360, and that translates directly into a poorer gameplay experience on something as underpowered as the Wii.
I think you guys are blowing this up into something bigger than it is. Please listen to the entire podcast before jumping to conclusions.
What we have here is simply a difference of opinion on how to maximize the return on Gears of War - something both Epic and Microsoft want to do. While we create products like Gears because we love games, and we have a passion for making them, at the end of the day this is a business for both companies and how we earn our living.
Epic thinks the way to maximize the return on Gears of War is to give the maps away for free and Microsoft thinks the way to maximize the return on Gears of War is to sell the maps. So what we've agreed to do is to put these maps on sale at a reasonable price then make them free a few months later. They did this with the original Halo2 map pack and it was a huge success. Lots of people bought the maps and lots of people downloaded them when they became free. That's what is going to happen and it seems like a fair compromise for both companies and a win-win for Gears players.
Why does Epic not have control over this even though we created this content on our own time and our own dime? Quite frankly Xbox Live Marketplace isn't our store. It's Microsoft's store. Like any retailer they have the right to figure out what goes on the shelves of their store and what price they sell it at. They spend the money to operate the store and deliver the content. They've also spent billions of dollars to create and build Xbox and subsidize it's the price so you can afford it and we can make games for it. As our publisher, they also invested tens of millions of dollars marketing Gears of War, and have done an awesome job for us, so they have a right to a good return on that investment.
As Tim Sweeney and I said in the podcast, we want the download economy to work - it is something the industry needs, something we hope to use in the future, something that will help bring more variety to end-users and ultimately could help bring prices down for end-users. If we had to put this map pack on a disc and sell it in retail it would be more expensive to end-users and maybe we wouldn't have done it because of all the extra work and cost involved.
In the mean time we are planning to bring out an awesome new Gears of War multi-player gametype called Annex that works will all of the existing multi-player maps and the new pack we're talking about here. The 1UP guys who got to play it a few weeks ago left the office raving about how it could be our best Gears gametype yet and I think a lot of people will enjoy it. Best of all, it is totally FREE and will come in the new Gears update that we expect to see released this week.
Slashdot Mirror
You are absolutely correct in your observations about the Wii-purchasing demographic. I constantly see anecdotes along the lines of "My Aunt Sally played Wii sports and now she went out and bought one too. OMG the Wii revolution is here!!1" But just as you said, Aunt Sally won't be buying Madden 20XX or the next Resident Evil. She's content to pick up one or two games if any and probably won't be buying any more.
As much as Nintendo may be making a profit by selling their underpowered hardware, this will certainly put a damper on the enthusiasm of 3rd party developers to support the console if they can't get the sales they would on the burgeoning 360. I don't know if this means doom for Nintendo at all, but it certainly can't be what they want. There's a lot of money to be made in licensing fees, and they'd love to have a cut of that.
Except Microsoft doesn't appear (as a general rule) to be crying about someone "stealing" their ideas.
I don't mean just about this game, specifically, but how many times are we shown a pre-rendered video or told a "target" release date for the sole purpose of keeping our interest piqued for a game that hasn't even a remote chance of getting out on time (i.e. Spore) or never looking like that (the PS3 pre-renders a couple of E3's ago)...and we never learn.
Great retort. I'd mod you up if I had the points.
Good porting means balancing and mitigating the strengths and weaknesses of each platform.
Please note that you said "good porting". That's the problem. Many ports are shit and do get held back by the lowest common demoninator. Xbox owners were constantly receiving substandard ports of PS2 games because the PS2 happened to be the main development platform last generation.
If you really want people to believe you're "sorry" and you've cleaned up your act, then fire a few people. Of coure everyone knows that the firings are mostly P.R. maneuvers, too, but at least they seem more dramatic than this farce of an oversight committee.
that a PS3 price cut is coming. I just bought one :\
"I envision this council being made up of nine members selected by the players themselves, where you announce your candidacy, and if you win the election, they come here to Iceland, and they can look at every nook and cranny and get to see that we are here to run this company on a professional basis," said Mr. Petursson, CCP's chief executive. "They can see that we did not make this game to win it."
Wait...are they going to be checking for roaches in the cafeteria or something? Looking in "every nook and cranny" means looking at source code, checking logs on home computers, and reading in-game chat logs. i.e. it's not possible. The problem is a social one, not necessarily a technical one. Even if in-game exploits and "god commands" were removed, the extra information from being an employee is still enough to tip the game in your corp's favor.
So "The 9" are going to go for what amounts to a P.R. visit so that CCP can wash its hands of the mess and say "See? I told you we were a fine, upstanding company! Just look at how clean our cubicles are!"
You envy insanity?
I don't.
And neither do I.
One joystick and one button should be enough for anyone.
- Atari, circa 1983
Maybe I'm missing something, but how would not crippling the 360 media center be a blow to the content producers? Are you saying they can't legally give us a the free xVid codec? If you're claiming that by doing so they (MS) are advocating piracy, then I direct your attention to the built-in MP3 codec on the 360 - supporting arguably the single most pirated type of file in the world.
But since we're talking about DivX, I'm quite sure that Microsoft could open up the 360 slightly to allow for different codecs to be downloaded/uploaded to it for a fee. I'd pay $10 for a license to play DivX movies on my 360 were that choice offered to me.
"Fun" and "sport" are not mutually exclusive.
How many times does this have to be debunked before this myth will go away?
VanCleave himself is the last boss of Dead Mines, the first Alliance instance
Spoilers, man, spoilers!!!!
WTF, you forgot Yoda? Didn't SWG take place between Episode IV and V?
At one point cellphones were a "niche" market, too.
You'll be happy to know that if you have Action Replay, you can extract your save file from your Jap import, move it over to your US copy, and it will work. I believe even the Pokemon names change, too.
Hey, I never said they'd win against him if they brought suit. The OP's assertion was that by releasing it publicly was tantamount to a protective shield against lawsuits, and it's not.
Kinda how no one sued DVD Jon?
Nope, it's modded correctly. Get the stick out of your ass.
Apparently Marlin also stole your sense of humor.
But someone ought to take a good look at Marlin Studios. Apparently some of their textures were lifted straight from HL2!
Sadly, some ignorant mods out there got a hold of you. Great joke!
Right now "the market" consists of people who've yet to get their hands on a Wii at all and still think Wii Bowling is the best thing since sliced bread.
Many of us who were fortunate enough to get a Wii console at launch have long since moved on from Wii Sports and on to....what? Besides Rayman and a couple of other titles, there isn't much to speak of on the Wii right now. And, remember, the so-called casual gamer doesn't buy a whole lot of games by definition. Many posters in this thread got it right: The Wii is already a generational leap behind in graphics and horsepower - this isn't even the PS2 vs. XBox, this is XBox 360 vs Gamecube, essentially. The Wii is riding a huge wave of hype, but I think it'll quickly go the way of the Gamecube unless they have compelling exclusives. I'm sorry, but I'm not trading the beauty and online play of Tiger Woods 07 for the 360 for a tacked on swing gimmick with no online play, etc. It needs games now that have compelling features and better use of the Wii remote. Exchanging a swinging motion for a button press isn't creating a more immersive gaming experience...it's just a more annoying way to press a button.
And before you chalk me up as a graphics whore, remember that horsepower and graphical prowess aren't just there to make objects more shiny - Dead Rising, with its hundreds of on-screen zombies, could have never been done on the Wii like it was on the 360, and that translates directly into a poorer gameplay experience on something as underpowered as the Wii.
This thread contains more insight into the situation from the Epic Games CEO:
Click here
Full text from his post below:
Folks,
I think you guys are blowing this up into something bigger than it is. Please listen to the entire podcast before jumping to conclusions.
What we have here is simply a difference of opinion on how to maximize the return on Gears of War - something both Epic and Microsoft want to do. While we create products like Gears because we love games, and we have a passion for making them, at the end of the day this is a business for both companies and how we earn our living.
Epic thinks the way to maximize the return on Gears of War is to give the maps away for free and Microsoft thinks the way to maximize the return on Gears of War is to sell the maps. So what we've agreed to do is to put these maps on sale at a reasonable price then make them free a few months later. They did this with the original Halo2 map pack and it was a huge success. Lots of people bought the maps and lots of people downloaded them when they became free. That's what is going to happen and it seems like a fair compromise for both companies and a win-win for Gears players.
Why does Epic not have control over this even though we created this content on our own time and our own dime? Quite frankly Xbox Live Marketplace isn't our store. It's Microsoft's store. Like any retailer they have the right to figure out what goes on the shelves of their store and what price they sell it at. They spend the money to operate the store and deliver the content. They've also spent billions of dollars to create and build Xbox and subsidize it's the price so you can afford it and we can make games for it. As our publisher, they also invested tens of millions of dollars marketing Gears of War, and have done an awesome job for us, so they have a right to a good return on that investment.
As Tim Sweeney and I said in the podcast, we want the download economy to work - it is something the industry needs, something we hope to use in the future, something that will help bring more variety to end-users and ultimately could help bring prices down for end-users. If we had to put this map pack on a disc and sell it in retail it would be more expensive to end-users and maybe we wouldn't have done it because of all the extra work and cost involved.
In the mean time we are planning to bring out an awesome new Gears of War multi-player gametype called Annex that works will all of the existing multi-player maps and the new pack we're talking about here. The 1UP guys who got to play it a few weeks ago left the office raving about how it could be our best Gears gametype yet and I think a lot of people will enjoy it. Best of all, it is totally FREE and will come in the new Gears update that we expect to see released this week.