Fans making sequels does not equate to getting sales for an official sequel. Fans are very interested in the product and will go to much greater lengths than other people, the problem is that it's not the level of devotion your fans show that makes you money but the number of people overall who are interested in a sequel. Famitsu's top 50 wanted sequels list was full of games that failed commercially but developed a devoted fanbase, suggesting that these fans had enthusiasm but not numbers.
Besides, if Intel isn't already pricing as high as they can (including all constraints like competition and simple demand) they're just stupid. Unless they are that stupid increasing prices would NOT increase profits.
Yeah but buying EA only to make Sims 4 a Mac exclusive while ignoring the rest of their output is a bit too expensive. Spore wasn't low-end I think. Also I'm wondering how the sales for the Sims franchise are going. Are the later PC iterations still selling as much as the earlier ones? Are the sales staying on the PC or are they migrating to the consoles? How many people only bought The Sims because they already had a PC anyway and could play it on that and would NOT buy a Mac even if that was the only way to get The Sims 4?
Oh, the DS does have quite some appeal to older people as the sales of Cooking Navi show (18 million units!). It also appeals to children. I think if you add it all up the DS appeals to everyone but the graphics whores.
Apples aren't overpriced for their specs but their purpose. You can usually get a vastly cheaper computer by going with specs picked for your purpose since Apple has so few models that you don't have much choice with them. It's popular with Apple defenders to point at spec matching prices but if you did spec matching the other way, take a random PC and look for the cheapest Mac that meets or exceeds the PC's specs, you'd get a completely different result because the target specs won't fit neatly in one of Apple's product categories. An Apple computer bought for web browsing is overpriced because a web browsing PC needs almost zero specs, an Apple computer bought for gaming is overpriced because gaming spec graphics hardware is AFAIK only offered in workstation-level systems.
The video card stopped working and it's going to cost $500 for the replacement for a wimpy GeForce 6800.
Uh, what? Does the thing explode if the replacement is not installed by an Alienware employee? Couldn't you just have plonked a new card in there and called it a day?
But when the dealer types the VIN into his computer and it comes up "stolen"[..]
They aren't checking the computer, they're checking the owner. If the dealer took your name instead of the VIN and checked if he had records of a car being sold to you, then calling you a thief because he does not that IS wrong.
Among console makers, Microsoft makes it easy for a smaller game developer to publish on Xbox 360; Apple copied Microsoft's XNA model for its App Store. Nintendo, on the other hand, has stated on warioworld.com that it doesn't want to deal with the riff-raff.
Which is all the same to me because that XNA marketplace doesn't exist in my country (wouldn't be surprised if that's because selling unrated games to minors is illegal and they can't be arsed to check the user's age so they just block the whole thing, after all they did the same to quite a few high profile retail games). From what I heard from those who do have access to it there's only garbage on there anyway so I'm not really sad about it.
EA is already unprofitable, if you cut their market down more that's going to get worse. In a worst case I could see something on the level of the XBox disaster in addition to the acquisition costs. The result could easily eat half of those 20 billion dollars.
One of the reasons EA is so big is that you can get their games on any platform that plays games, there's almost no hardware hurdle. If you change that you change EA's size.
But they'd have to alter their hardware offerings too, currently you need a really expensive Mac to get decent gaming hardware because that's where the cheaper ones cut their costs the most. A significant part of the Mac userbase couldn't play games on their system if they wanted. Just forcing EA to put its games on the Mac wouldn't really work because the average customer would end up buying one of the cheaper Macs and find out too late that games run like crap on those. These customers prefer consoles for a reason. Buying EA only to appeal to high end PC users would be a massive waste of money, there aren't that many of those (AFAIK that's the biggest complaint of companies who make PC games, average PCs can't do gaming either and the number of high-end PCs is dwindling as more people just use consoles).
Re:I'm not seeing the benefit for them to purchase
on
Apple Eyeing EA?
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· Score: 1
Gaming now is all about graphics.
No, it was 3 years ago, now it's about motion controls and games that appeal to the average joe who hasn't been gaming before. Graphics are so advanced that the average customer just doesn't care enough about further increases, making the graphics better has about zero effect on sales (but an exponential increase on development costs) while pushing something like the Wii's motion controls is a MASSIVE advantage.
Re:I'm not seeing the benefit for them to purchase
on
Apple Eyeing EA?
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· Score: 1
EA is already deep enough in the hole with their games not selling enough (they're currently posting LOSSES), limiting them to a platform that isn't bought for its gaming capabilities (and not suitable for gaming either AFAIK, don't consumer-grade Macs tend to have fairly shitty graphics cards?) would just be a disaster, yeah. Plus they'd be trying to sell gaming computers in an age where the average consumer (especially the kind who plays EA's super-mass-market games) prefers a console.
Of course a question is what kind of "sign visible from the distance" is expected. Soldiers use camouflage to avoid being visible from far away, would that still count as a sign or would they have to use something that just makes them targeting practice for any enemies nearby?
I have always bought Nintendo consoles. They have removed regional restrictions temporarily. And now they are back.
When was that? AFAIK all the cart-based ones had different physical shapes for different regions and I know both disc based ones are locked (though trivial to circumvent). Were you thinking about the handhelds?
Considering the NES had no competition, probably not.
It did, people just forgot about it. For example I grew up with a C64 while a friend had a Master System. I heard there was something crappy available from Atari at the time, too.
All I can say is that I pretty much lost interest half way through Ravenholm, in part because I've seen a friend play past it and knew that the sequence after it wouldn't be worth finishing Ravenholm for.
You only see the objects in the 3D world and have to read them yourself to understand their storywise meaning; nothing with them is directly narrated.
Which means that if your graphics settings were slightly lower than maximum the text was so blurry you could forget about reading any of it. For some reason the Source Engine gets used a lot for stories that can't be deciphered because the text cannot be understood, I can't understand what characters in its games say without enabling subtitles and those tend to lack some of the information.
Ugh, karma systems... For some reason game developers these days tend to think that "morality" means either lawful good or chaotic evil with nothing in between. They don't give you a complex question where you have to weight your own desires against the fate of others, they just ask you whether you'll help someone or stab them in the face with no reason why you'd want to do the latter other than the game giving you better powers if your karma barometer points at "evil" (in some cases). You get to decide between being a saturday morning cartoon hero or villain, no proper motivation except "Hi, I'm a good guy!", "Hi, I'm a bad guy!". Often good characters get flooded with rewards while evil characters get nothing except attacked on sight by any NPC.
Didn't Nintendo invent it with the NES publishing contract requiring that the game is NES-exclusive? Ironically they seem to do the least to bribe third parties into Wii exclusivity now though the different hardware still leads to plenty of exclusives.
I think he meant the game asa whole getting a big delay for the PS3 and the port being crap AFAIK. Dunno why you'd buy that for a console anyway, the PC version is a LOT cheaper...
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Fans making sequels does not equate to getting sales for an official sequel. Fans are very interested in the product and will go to much greater lengths than other people, the problem is that it's not the level of devotion your fans show that makes you money but the number of people overall who are interested in a sequel. Famitsu's top 50 wanted sequels list was full of games that failed commercially but developed a devoted fanbase, suggesting that these fans had enthusiasm but not numbers.
Besides, if Intel isn't already pricing as high as they can (including all constraints like competition and simple demand) they're just stupid. Unless they are that stupid increasing prices would NOT increase profits.
Even then it's a hollow victory. The people will be the ones paying the fine via increased prices.
Why would they wait until they get fined to raise prices?
Yeah but buying EA only to make Sims 4 a Mac exclusive while ignoring the rest of their output is a bit too expensive. Spore wasn't low-end I think. Also I'm wondering how the sales for the Sims franchise are going. Are the later PC iterations still selling as much as the earlier ones? Are the sales staying on the PC or are they migrating to the consoles? How many people only bought The Sims because they already had a PC anyway and could play it on that and would NOT buy a Mac even if that was the only way to get The Sims 4?
Oh, the DS does have quite some appeal to older people as the sales of Cooking Navi show (18 million units!). It also appeals to children. I think if you add it all up the DS appeals to everyone but the graphics whores.
Apples aren't overpriced for their specs but their purpose. You can usually get a vastly cheaper computer by going with specs picked for your purpose since Apple has so few models that you don't have much choice with them. It's popular with Apple defenders to point at spec matching prices but if you did spec matching the other way, take a random PC and look for the cheapest Mac that meets or exceeds the PC's specs, you'd get a completely different result because the target specs won't fit neatly in one of Apple's product categories. An Apple computer bought for web browsing is overpriced because a web browsing PC needs almost zero specs, an Apple computer bought for gaming is overpriced because gaming spec graphics hardware is AFAIK only offered in workstation-level systems.
The video card stopped working and it's going to cost $500 for the replacement for a wimpy GeForce 6800.
Uh, what? Does the thing explode if the replacement is not installed by an Alienware employee? Couldn't you just have plonked a new card in there and called it a day?
But when the dealer types the VIN into his computer and it comes up "stolen"[..]
They aren't checking the computer, they're checking the owner. If the dealer took your name instead of the VIN and checked if he had records of a car being sold to you, then calling you a thief because he does not that IS wrong.
Among console makers, Microsoft makes it easy for a smaller game developer to publish on Xbox 360; Apple copied Microsoft's XNA model for its App Store. Nintendo, on the other hand, has stated on warioworld.com that it doesn't want to deal with the riff-raff.
Which is all the same to me because that XNA marketplace doesn't exist in my country (wouldn't be surprised if that's because selling unrated games to minors is illegal and they can't be arsed to check the user's age so they just block the whole thing, after all they did the same to quite a few high profile retail games). From what I heard from those who do have access to it there's only garbage on there anyway so I'm not really sad about it.
EA is already unprofitable, if you cut their market down more that's going to get worse. In a worst case I could see something on the level of the XBox disaster in addition to the acquisition costs. The result could easily eat half of those 20 billion dollars.
One of the reasons EA is so big is that you can get their games on any platform that plays games, there's almost no hardware hurdle. If you change that you change EA's size.
But they'd have to alter their hardware offerings too, currently you need a really expensive Mac to get decent gaming hardware because that's where the cheaper ones cut their costs the most. A significant part of the Mac userbase couldn't play games on their system if they wanted. Just forcing EA to put its games on the Mac wouldn't really work because the average customer would end up buying one of the cheaper Macs and find out too late that games run like crap on those. These customers prefer consoles for a reason. Buying EA only to appeal to high end PC users would be a massive waste of money, there aren't that many of those (AFAIK that's the biggest complaint of companies who make PC games, average PCs can't do gaming either and the number of high-end PCs is dwindling as more people just use consoles).
Gaming now is all about graphics.
No, it was 3 years ago, now it's about motion controls and games that appeal to the average joe who hasn't been gaming before. Graphics are so advanced that the average customer just doesn't care enough about further increases, making the graphics better has about zero effect on sales (but an exponential increase on development costs) while pushing something like the Wii's motion controls is a MASSIVE advantage.
EA is already deep enough in the hole with their games not selling enough (they're currently posting LOSSES), limiting them to a platform that isn't bought for its gaming capabilities (and not suitable for gaming either AFAIK, don't consumer-grade Macs tend to have fairly shitty graphics cards?) would just be a disaster, yeah. Plus they'd be trying to sell gaming computers in an age where the average consumer (especially the kind who plays EA's super-mass-market games) prefers a console.
Of course a question is what kind of "sign visible from the distance" is expected. Soldiers use camouflage to avoid being visible from far away, would that still count as a sign or would they have to use something that just makes them targeting practice for any enemies nearby?
Well, he said 360 so he was probably talking about GTA4... and wrong because it was released simultaneously on the PS3 and 360.
unless you only have a SDTV and then why would you have a PS3 or an Xbox360?
For the games?
I have always bought Nintendo consoles. They have removed regional restrictions temporarily. And now they are back.
When was that? AFAIK all the cart-based ones had different physical shapes for different regions and I know both disc based ones are locked (though trivial to circumvent). Were you thinking about the handhelds?
Since when is "but he's doing it too!" a valid defense?
Considering the NES had no competition, probably not.
It did, people just forgot about it. For example I grew up with a C64 while a friend had a Master System. I heard there was something crappy available from Atari at the time, too.
All I can say is that I pretty much lost interest half way through Ravenholm, in part because I've seen a friend play past it and knew that the sequence after it wouldn't be worth finishing Ravenholm for.
You only see the objects in the 3D world and have to read them yourself to understand their storywise meaning; nothing with them is directly narrated.
Which means that if your graphics settings were slightly lower than maximum the text was so blurry you could forget about reading any of it. For some reason the Source Engine gets used a lot for stories that can't be deciphered because the text cannot be understood, I can't understand what characters in its games say without enabling subtitles and those tend to lack some of the information.
I bet they're not doing Homeworld 3 because they can't somehow shoehorn a cover and suppression system into it.
Ugh, karma systems... For some reason game developers these days tend to think that "morality" means either lawful good or chaotic evil with nothing in between. They don't give you a complex question where you have to weight your own desires against the fate of others, they just ask you whether you'll help someone or stab them in the face with no reason why you'd want to do the latter other than the game giving you better powers if your karma barometer points at "evil" (in some cases). You get to decide between being a saturday morning cartoon hero or villain, no proper motivation except "Hi, I'm a good guy!", "Hi, I'm a bad guy!". Often good characters get flooded with rewards while evil characters get nothing except attacked on sight by any NPC.
Didn't Nintendo invent it with the NES publishing contract requiring that the game is NES-exclusive? Ironically they seem to do the least to bribe third parties into Wii exclusivity now though the different hardware still leads to plenty of exclusives.
I think he meant the game asa whole getting a big delay for the PS3 and the port being crap AFAIK. Dunno why you'd buy that for a console anyway, the PC version is a LOT cheaper...