Sounds like they wanted to keep the layout so they could force quicktime events on the player. I think dropping the QTEs would have been a perfectly acceptable "conversion error".
I think 3D platforming with kb+m works just fine as long as the mouse can move the camera freely so you can line it up with the jump and make sure you're actually moving straight towards the next platform when you start running.
Depends on how easy it's supposed to be controlled. A mouse is more accurate than a lightgun (that doesn't show the crosshairs onscreen) but it's not supposed to be more accurate in a lightgun shooter as lining the gun up with the target is one of the skills the player should possess.
If you have e.g. a golf game the easiest way to translate the player's plans into the game is to let him mark the target position and automatically calculate the trajectory and perform the shot for him but that's not supposed to happen.
Depends on how specific you define it, there's a recently pretty popular defense genre where you build an energy network and turrets to deal with waves coming from all directions that attack all buildings they see and have to expand outwards to harvest resources (a game I have at hand with that style is Harvest: Massive Encounter). I've had something remotely similar in Fibre (mod for the Spring engine) though that was based on Perimeter.
You can get Swords & Soldiers for the Wii, it's pretty unconventional but a lot of fun and fairly cheap (10$/€). I think there are some RPGs in the works (Monado, Arc Rise Fantasia) but I don't know when they are coming out (there's also an RTSRPG named Takt of Magic).
Singleplayer means you cannot play with ANY other people, not that you cannot play with specific other people. If I've got a friend who plays WoW but is in a different region whose servers I cannot access does that make WoW singleplayer?
I'd like to see someone release a AAA game with only midi music and see how it fares.
I think Nintendo regularly does that even with their main franchises. One of the reasons Gamecube games needed so little disc space was the midi music.
No, make it more accessible! The number of people who neither buy nor pirate major PC games is VASTLY larger than the number who pirate and that's in a large part because their PCs don't run the games, the subject matter isn't appealing to them and the game would probably be no fun to them anyway. If piracy was killing game sales on the PC it should hurt the sales of cross-platform releases with a PC version as well yet PC ports are getting more common, not less so the losses through piracy have to be significantly lower than the profits from those sales.
Piracy is always there, it's pretty much a law of nature by now. However the number of people who will buy a game is very large and PC games are obviously profitable or companies wouldn't greenlight them. Piracy is a red herring thrown by companies who fail to expand beyond their existing customer base and would rather blame user behaviour than their own product, pacifying investors with stories of "if we can JUST get this DRM working we'll be growing like mad!" when asked about their lack of growth. Even if piracy was defeated it would be a momentary growth (remember competing for the "piracy market" is significantly easier than competing for the real market because in the real market customers have to choose between your product and other uses for the money) and merely leave the company without excuses.
Companies can claim pirates as potential customers they'd get if they just improved their tech slightly, without them the companies would have no obvious (no matter how impossible to reach) growth potential to point at and would actually have to revise their product in order to increase its appeal. The core gaming market is stagnating so companies selling products in it have a hard time growing, they are currently going for the approach of draining more money from each individual customer with higher prices and tons of paid DLC but that growth potential is capped as each customer has a spending limit.
Then maybe ask B-Plus how they managed to get a dev kit with two people and zero ability between them. Overall though the service is not meant for zero budget development and wasn't even originally intended for smaller devs, it was intended as a lab for experiments in game design that don't cost much. If you want real near-zero budget development go for XBLA indie.
EA's last financial statement was something like 200 million losses. Both MS and Sony are in the red. I'm not sure about Activision, I think they're currently riding on a high but their entire income plan for the near future seems to rest on Call of Duty 6 and their CEO is talking about massive price hikes. GRIN just went out of business.
Totals are deceiving as it doesn't tell you how many of the companies in the market are healthy, especially when you throw companies from different markets together.
From what I've read they used the money gained from preorders for the devbelopment process as well and even then ran out of money and had to sign a contract with a publisher which almost resulted in a full price retail release in Europe (with a fifth chapter).
Then the third parties should try making games people actually want. Making the nth Wii Sports knockoff is pointless, there's already a Wii Sports included with every Wii and if anything people are looking for more elaborate implementations of the sports (like, say, Tiger Wood 10 which just sold quite well). You can even compete with Nintendo's own offerings (like, say, EA Sports Active vs Wii Fit) if you realize what made those games popular. If you're really unsure just use a concept that worked on another console, the Wii isn't that different (Call of Duty: World at War). Maybe even just release an improved port of an old game (Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition) The Wii isn't some magical system, if you make a game noone wants like MadWorld (too violent for most people and alienates most of the rest with its unconventional art style) then you won't see sales on it. If you aren't up to the standards of the genre like The Conduit (it would have been mediocre even on the PS2) you will similarily suffer. Note how many of those "failed to sell" games from third parties would at best be niche games even on the PS2.
Note that a "secure business office" can mean an attic with a company sign on the door and some PC tables set up. Try watching those "We are WiiWare" videos on the Nintendo Channel, they show the offices of the companies making these games.
Slashdot Mirror
Sounds like they wanted to keep the layout so they could force quicktime events on the player. I think dropping the QTEs would have been a perfectly acceptable "conversion error".
I think 3D platforming with kb+m works just fine as long as the mouse can move the camera freely so you can line it up with the jump and make sure you're actually moving straight towards the next platform when you start running.
25 million actually, 10 million is for Wii games.
I'll point at your sig...
Depends on how easy it's supposed to be controlled. A mouse is more accurate than a lightgun (that doesn't show the crosshairs onscreen) but it's not supposed to be more accurate in a lightgun shooter as lining the gun up with the target is one of the skills the player should possess.
If you have e.g. a golf game the easiest way to translate the player's plans into the game is to let him mark the target position and automatically calculate the trajectory and perform the shot for him but that's not supposed to happen.
Maniac Mansion was more than two decades ago! These days Nintendo doesn't care anymore with games like MadWorld coming out uncensored.
Depends on how specific you define it, there's a recently pretty popular defense genre where you build an energy network and turrets to deal with waves coming from all directions that attack all buildings they see and have to expand outwards to harvest resources (a game I have at hand with that style is Harvest: Massive Encounter). I've had something remotely similar in Fibre (mod for the Spring engine) though that was based on Perimeter.
StarCraft 1 had robots already. And ninjas if you count the Dark Templars.
You can get Swords & Soldiers for the Wii, it's pretty unconventional but a lot of fun and fairly cheap (10$/€). I think there are some RPGs in the works (Monado, Arc Rise Fantasia) but I don't know when they are coming out (there's also an RTSRPG named Takt of Magic).
A real Wii won't get you banned from XBox Live?
Break into a Korean nuclear weapons testing facility and hide the disk in a bomb, then set it off.
Don't you need both the number and the expiry date? I don't think that date will stay relevant for that long.
Could get difficult, politicians are extremely dense.
Singleplayer means you cannot play with ANY other people, not that you cannot play with specific other people. If I've got a friend who plays WoW but is in a different region whose servers I cannot access does that make WoW singleplayer?
They must be signed so the system will accept the disc. Datel has been working around it but firmware patches broke their workaround.
I'd like to see someone release a AAA game with only midi music and see how it fares.
I think Nintendo regularly does that even with their main franchises. One of the reasons Gamecube games needed so little disc space was the midi music.
You want PC gaming to be #1? Stop the pirates.
No, make it more accessible! The number of people who neither buy nor pirate major PC games is VASTLY larger than the number who pirate and that's in a large part because their PCs don't run the games, the subject matter isn't appealing to them and the game would probably be no fun to them anyway. If piracy was killing game sales on the PC it should hurt the sales of cross-platform releases with a PC version as well yet PC ports are getting more common, not less so the losses through piracy have to be significantly lower than the profits from those sales.
Piracy is always there, it's pretty much a law of nature by now. However the number of people who will buy a game is very large and PC games are obviously profitable or companies wouldn't greenlight them. Piracy is a red herring thrown by companies who fail to expand beyond their existing customer base and would rather blame user behaviour than their own product, pacifying investors with stories of "if we can JUST get this DRM working we'll be growing like mad!" when asked about their lack of growth. Even if piracy was defeated it would be a momentary growth (remember competing for the "piracy market" is significantly easier than competing for the real market because in the real market customers have to choose between your product and other uses for the money) and merely leave the company without excuses.
Companies can claim pirates as potential customers they'd get if they just improved their tech slightly, without them the companies would have no obvious (no matter how impossible to reach) growth potential to point at and would actually have to revise their product in order to increase its appeal. The core gaming market is stagnating so companies selling products in it have a hard time growing, they are currently going for the approach of draining more money from each individual customer with higher prices and tons of paid DLC but that growth potential is capped as each customer has a spending limit.
I find the company name much more suspicious than that. Eye for an eye?
Then maybe ask B-Plus how they managed to get a dev kit with two people and zero ability between them. Overall though the service is not meant for zero budget development and wasn't even originally intended for smaller devs, it was intended as a lab for experiments in game design that don't cost much. If you want real near-zero budget development go for XBLA indie.
You claimed PC games can only do singleplayer unless you buy a whole LAN's worth of machines. that's patently false as PCs can do online multiplayer.
EA's last financial statement was something like 200 million losses. Both MS and Sony are in the red. I'm not sure about Activision, I think they're currently riding on a high but their entire income plan for the near future seems to rest on Call of Duty 6 and their CEO is talking about massive price hikes. GRIN just went out of business.
Totals are deceiving as it doesn't tell you how many of the companies in the market are healthy, especially when you throw companies from different markets together.
Yes but you need to buy extra stuff either way which OnLive specifically promised you would no longer have to.
From what I've read they used the money gained from preorders for the devbelopment process as well and even then ran out of money and had to sign a contract with a publisher which almost resulted in a full price retail release in Europe (with a fifth chapter).
Third party titles sell atrociously on the Wii.
Then the third parties should try making games people actually want. Making the nth Wii Sports knockoff is pointless, there's already a Wii Sports included with every Wii and if anything people are looking for more elaborate implementations of the sports (like, say, Tiger Wood 10 which just sold quite well). You can even compete with Nintendo's own offerings (like, say, EA Sports Active vs Wii Fit) if you realize what made those games popular. If you're really unsure just use a concept that worked on another console, the Wii isn't that different (Call of Duty: World at War). Maybe even just release an improved port of an old game (Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition) The Wii isn't some magical system, if you make a game noone wants like MadWorld (too violent for most people and alienates most of the rest with its unconventional art style) then you won't see sales on it. If you aren't up to the standards of the genre like The Conduit (it would have been mediocre even on the PS2) you will similarily suffer. Note how many of those "failed to sell" games from third parties would at best be niche games even on the PS2.
Note that a "secure business office" can mean an attic with a company sign on the door and some PC tables set up. Try watching those "We are WiiWare" videos on the Nintendo Channel, they show the offices of the companies making these games.