People bash EA because they produce iterations of their games every single year. How long did we wait between Doom 2 & Doom 3? How long do you have to wait between every new Mario platformer? Between every Final Fantasy? Between each version of Civilization?
Other companies make sequels, there's a lot of money to be made there, there's name recognition that encourages people to buy. But every single year? The problem is too many sequels with not enough changes between them, and that's why people complain about EA and less about other companies.
The gamecube "failed" entirely on how it did at launch when compared to the PS2. The games available at launch aren't the really important factor. The important factor is how well a system sells at launch. If one system launches and shows that it is clearly selling better than the competition, developers will either shift development of existing games or start development of new games for that console.
That's what's happened the past 3 generations, and why there was a clear victor each time. This time, the 360 launched early, but failed to gain a significant lead. Now it's up to Sony & Nintendo. If they both fail to gain a significant league, then the launch won't matter, but if either one clearly pulls ahead of the other two, development houses will spend the extra money to shift development to the more popular console, and that will mean more exclusive games for that console, which will lead to more people buying it.
So the launch is vitally important. It may turn out to mean nothing at all, but all too often it decides who will "win" this console generation.
For question one: At their absolute largest, DS games are 1Gb (=128MB) in size. A demo is not the full game, does not have all the same assets, so will generally, at most, be about 1/4 that size (this is a guess on my part) so I'd say probably 32MB on average.
For your second question: In the interview, Iwata said demos would be a monthly thing. However, game udpates and things like that (such as Animal Crossing Presents) might happen more often.
You are correct sir! China has absolutely no problem whatsoever with foreign terrorists!
Instead they have what they consider a growing problem with domestic terrorists. That's right, their own citizens taking terrorist actions against their government. Except we in America don't consider it terrorism because we don't like the Communist totalitarian rulers of China. So you tell me which is preferable, being hated by extremist members of other countries, or being hated by the general population of your own country. Take your time, I'll wait.
That's pretty sad, and yet another flaw in the system. If there's so much worry about our infrastructure falling apart, maybe we should take precautions so it doesn't.
And these things are not only possible, but seriously in danger of happening.
Why are these things possible?
You'd think, if you have a major security flaw like the ones listed, you would fix it. Who actually puts the controls for their manufacturing process on the internet? No, I'm serious, who does this, and why do we let them get away with it? Screw making kinks in the industrial formation process, if I can get that kind of access over the internet, I'm going to take control of those freakin' huge fabrication robots used to bend metal into shape and go haywire taking out the enitre city. I'm sure that's going to inspire more terror than a few cars exploding. After all, cars have exploded before, but it's not everyday that you have an insane robot go on a rampage and destroy your home (unless you live in Japan).
Seriously, short of a Shadowrun on the corp to take over their computer systems, I don't see this happening. But if it is possible, the best thing to do is fix it. Period.
Realistically, trying to capture terrorists and criminals is going to accomplish one thing for certain, it will create more terrorists and criminals. The only way to make the terrorists go away is education and tolerance, no amount of warmongering or fighting is going to stop terrorists, that just encourages them. If you want to really end terrorism, make their job so ridiculously hard that the next generation of terrorists don't see any value in it. Same for cybercriminals, if the return is too little for the work involved, they'll find a different area to work.
This is FUD, but it's not necessarily bad FUD. He can scream all he wants to justify his job, but if these kinds of things are actually possible, someone needs to work on making them not possible, someone who actually knows how to fix these systems.
That's not cyberterrorism, that's standard terrorism, in that it involves a physical bomb, and cannot, in fact, be done over the internet.
It's also not entirely true. Most computers, especially large, important servers, have several layers of shielding to prevent just such an occurence. Your home pc and the workstations at your office might short out, but most of the major servers that run the internet and businesses would barely hiccup.
In many cases, the same sort of protections exist for real cyberterrorism, and if they don't, they should. I feel it's more important to fix the flaws in our system that make it possible for terrorists to commit such actions than to go after the terrorists. There will always be more terrorists. Software bugs are finite (unless you're using Windows...sorry, I'm obliged to add that because this is slashdot).
You are correct. Moving to both the new "standards" HD-DVD & Blu-ray, North America & Japan are considered a single region. There are several reasons for this, mostly in that it stands to help both the Japanese & American economies greatly.
You may be right, and time will tell, but from a purely marketing standpoint, all this bitching is worrying. Consumer frustration is a serious consideration when it comes to marketing. If you price your product too high to begin with, people who may have wanted it will choose not to buy it, even after the price decreases to less than half it's original price, because they no longer feel it's worth their money.
When the price was first announced, sure there was a lot of bitching, that sort of thing you can expect. The ones to worry about are the ones who are still bitching. Those are the ones who, no matter how much they want your product, will in the end refuse to buy it because they feel cheated/wronged. The same thing applis to the name Wii. Everyone was up in arms in the beginning, now most people don't care, and the ones who are still bitching about it? Those are the people who probably won't be picking up a Wii, no matter what games it has on it.
It doesn't matter if it's true that they've been wronged, all that matters is how they feel. And any human being is 100% more likely to spend money according to how they feel than they are according to the facts.
You're both very right, and very wrong, but I still think people should read what you wrote.
Japanese gamers do buy innovative games, they just also buy tried and true games. And to be fair everyone in Japan buys Dragon Quest games, not just gamers, so that makes two weaknesses in your argument.
The Wii then, is the perfect system for Japan. It overs innovation and newness, as well as a catalog of nostalgia, the two things that are most likely to sell in the Japanese market.
To be fair, his numbers were for first purchased console. Some people will purchase a PS3/360 initially, then purchase a Wii a year or so later when they've recovered funds from their previous major expenditure. His numbers were not a final estimate, but an initial estimate of what we're most likely to see within the first 6 months of the two new consoles releases.
6 millions units by March? I hope that's only for Japan. With system launches being the way that they are, a launch around Christmas, and a price point coming in at around half of their major competitors, 6 million units may not be enough worldwide.
Especially if Nintendo wants to bury Sony and Microsoft, they need to produce enough units early on to meet what is predicted (at least on slashdot) to be high demand. If I want a Wii at launch, looks like I'm going to be preordering it.
I'm sorry, no, no, no. Gamecube is not a good name. It is an absolutely horrid name that I have never been able to stand.
Xbox is not any better. Neither is Playstation, in fact, Playstation is worse.
The only consoles that have ever had good names are as follows: Atari 2600, Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, Intellivision, Dreamcast.
Every other name for a gaming machine (and this includes the DS and the gameboy) has been purely awful, from an aesthetic standpoint, as well as from a marketing/branding standpoint.
With all the crap we've tolerated so far, Wii isn't really that bad comparatively.
...and a Playstation doesn't sound like a toy set for infants, and the Xbox with it's X-treme branding isn't meant only for the niche market that cliff jumps and slides down mountains on cordwood.
If you're going to start criticizing the names of gaming systems, I don't think Wii is the place you should start.
Well crap, all that typing. In the 4th paragraph, the consumer is the second party (buying the game from Capcom) and Nintendo is at best an unrelated 3rd party. (Although, that's not precisely correct either since you're actually buying the game from a retailer, but that's more complicated than it's worth.)
The transaction is between Nintendo (as the first party) and Retro (as the second party). The transaction between Nintendo and the Consumer is a totally separate transaction.
The transaction we are speaking of is not a financial transaction, it is a transaction in the development of the game. Every game made by a second party for a console is made totally at the discretion of the first party. What that means is, if Rare is making a game called Dinosaur Planet, but Rare is a second party develepor for Nintendo, at Nintendo's discretion, Dinosaur Planet can become Star Fox Adventures (and this is what actually happened).
The same is true of all second party developers. Retro Studios is a second party dev for Nintendo. Retro has had several games in the pipeline, none of which they've made because Nintendo told them to make Metroid Prime.
A 3rd party developer is a 3rd party not because of the financial transaction, but because of the development transaction. To whit, Nintendo develops the console, and the 3rd party (as a financial transaction) pays for a licensce to develop games. Once they have that licensce, the 3rd party conducts a second transaction with the consumer, meaning they are the 1st party (because you do not buy Capcom games from Nintendo, you buy them from Capcom), the consumer is the 3rd party, and Nintendo is at best a 2nd party, and at worst pretty much totally uninvolved once the game gets to the stage of actually being sold.
On the other hand, from the development standpoint, as Nintendo has no say in the development decisions of Capcom, they are the 1st party in that they provide the development platform. Capcom is a 3rd party as any and all development they do is at their own discretion. There is no transaction there, so there is no 2nd party.
The problem is you're attempting to apply contract speak to actual real world situations, without taking into account that in the development and sale of a game, there are anywhere from 3 to 5 completely different transactions going on, and who is the 'Party of the First Part' and who is the 'Party of the Second Part' is explicity different for each transaction.
The rest of us pick convenient monikers like 1st party, 2nd party and 3rd party because they define the development situation without overcomplicating it with contract speak that few, if any, consumers actually care about.
Which just goes to show you didn't read the entire thread. Nor does the nature of my initial statement in anyway invalidate the strength of my argument. As you'll note, the two were unrelated.
One of these days, when I have the time, I will prove using the mathematics of game theory that there is less difference between LoZ:OoT & GTA3:Vice City than there is between Super Mario World & Mario 64.
And an upgrade from 2d to 3d is not a simple evolution. I'm quite certain Sega (Sonic) and Capcom (Castlevania) can tell you how very true that is.
For the life of me, I've been unable to understand what people who don't play video games or read books do with their time. Everything they come up with seems so incredibly boring, it pales in comparison. But I don't deride them for their choices just because they don't make any sense. If they're having fun, they're welcome to it. And while they're doing that, I'll do something I enjoy, instead of trying to conform to what other people think I should be doing.
Nintendo keeps rehashing Mario Kart because everyone wants to play it. To their credit, they've only done it once for each new console, however. And even with that, they still change the way it plays every single time (which a lot of people have complained about).
They keep rehashing Mario Party which is up to freakin' 8 now. Except each edition has completely different mini-games.
They keep rehashing pokemon, except with different pokemon, and of course they've made changes to that, too, what with the ability to not only capture but breed pokemon and other stuff they've added. I don't keep up with it, I don't play pokemon.
Not every single game has to be a revolution. You have years of evolution between revolutions. At least Nintendo tries to make significant changes between sequels. If you can manage to prove there is an actual difference between, say, Dynasty Warriors 3 & Dynasty Warriors 4, then we can have a discussion. And we've already covered the Mario/Zelda/Metroid thing, so no reason to go back into that.
Slashdot Mirror
Other companies make sequels, there's a lot of money to be made there, there's name recognition that encourages people to buy. But every single year? The problem is too many sequels with not enough changes between them, and that's why people complain about EA and less about other companies.
That's what's happened the past 3 generations, and why there was a clear victor each time. This time, the 360 launched early, but failed to gain a significant lead. Now it's up to Sony & Nintendo. If they both fail to gain a significant league, then the launch won't matter, but if either one clearly pulls ahead of the other two, development houses will spend the extra money to shift development to the more popular console, and that will mean more exclusive games for that console, which will lead to more people buying it.
So the launch is vitally important. It may turn out to mean nothing at all, but all too often it decides who will "win" this console generation.
So does Nintendo. In fact, Sony already does it. It helps somewhat, but mostly depends on which games are exclusive.
For question one: At their absolute largest, DS games are 1Gb (=128MB) in size. A demo is not the full game, does not have all the same assets, so will generally, at most, be about 1/4 that size (this is a guess on my part) so I'd say probably 32MB on average. For your second question: In the interview, Iwata said demos would be a monthly thing. However, game udpates and things like that (such as Animal Crossing Presents) might happen more often.
Instead they have what they consider a growing problem with domestic terrorists. That's right, their own citizens taking terrorist actions against their government. Except we in America don't consider it terrorism because we don't like the Communist totalitarian rulers of China. So you tell me which is preferable, being hated by extremist members of other countries, or being hated by the general population of your own country. Take your time, I'll wait.
That's pretty sad, and yet another flaw in the system. If there's so much worry about our infrastructure falling apart, maybe we should take precautions so it doesn't.
To be fair, these are critics, not actual people. /ducks
Why are these things possible?
You'd think, if you have a major security flaw like the ones listed, you would fix it. Who actually puts the controls for their manufacturing process on the internet? No, I'm serious, who does this, and why do we let them get away with it? Screw making kinks in the industrial formation process, if I can get that kind of access over the internet, I'm going to take control of those freakin' huge fabrication robots used to bend metal into shape and go haywire taking out the enitre city. I'm sure that's going to inspire more terror than a few cars exploding. After all, cars have exploded before, but it's not everyday that you have an insane robot go on a rampage and destroy your home (unless you live in Japan).
Seriously, short of a Shadowrun on the corp to take over their computer systems, I don't see this happening. But if it is possible, the best thing to do is fix it. Period.
Realistically, trying to capture terrorists and criminals is going to accomplish one thing for certain, it will create more terrorists and criminals. The only way to make the terrorists go away is education and tolerance, no amount of warmongering or fighting is going to stop terrorists, that just encourages them. If you want to really end terrorism, make their job so ridiculously hard that the next generation of terrorists don't see any value in it. Same for cybercriminals, if the return is too little for the work involved, they'll find a different area to work.
This is FUD, but it's not necessarily bad FUD. He can scream all he wants to justify his job, but if these kinds of things are actually possible, someone needs to work on making them not possible, someone who actually knows how to fix these systems.
It's also not entirely true. Most computers, especially large, important servers, have several layers of shielding to prevent just such an occurence. Your home pc and the workstations at your office might short out, but most of the major servers that run the internet and businesses would barely hiccup.
In many cases, the same sort of protections exist for real cyberterrorism, and if they don't, they should. I feel it's more important to fix the flaws in our system that make it possible for terrorists to commit such actions than to go after the terrorists. There will always be more terrorists. Software bugs are finite (unless you're using Windows...sorry, I'm obliged to add that because this is slashdot).
Hold on, I hardly think now is the time to go bringing logic and reality into this conversation.
And I did, because I can't possibly resist doing anything a video game character tells me.
You are correct. Moving to both the new "standards" HD-DVD & Blu-ray, North America & Japan are considered a single region. There are several reasons for this, mostly in that it stands to help both the Japanese & American economies greatly.
When the price was first announced, sure there was a lot of bitching, that sort of thing you can expect. The ones to worry about are the ones who are still bitching. Those are the ones who, no matter how much they want your product, will in the end refuse to buy it because they feel cheated/wronged. The same thing applis to the name Wii. Everyone was up in arms in the beginning, now most people don't care, and the ones who are still bitching about it? Those are the people who probably won't be picking up a Wii, no matter what games it has on it.
It doesn't matter if it's true that they've been wronged, all that matters is how they feel. And any human being is 100% more likely to spend money according to how they feel than they are according to the facts.
No, just any game inextricably tied to an anime license. Especially if it's a good anime. It can only ruin your memories.
Japanese gamers do buy innovative games, they just also buy tried and true games. And to be fair everyone in Japan buys Dragon Quest games, not just gamers, so that makes two weaknesses in your argument.
The Wii then, is the perfect system for Japan. It overs innovation and newness, as well as a catalog of nostalgia, the two things that are most likely to sell in the Japanese market.
To be fair, his numbers were for first purchased console. Some people will purchase a PS3/360 initially, then purchase a Wii a year or so later when they've recovered funds from their previous major expenditure. His numbers were not a final estimate, but an initial estimate of what we're most likely to see within the first 6 months of the two new consoles releases.
It seems to me you really haven't been paying attention then. You can calculate for yourself from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gamecube_game s
Looks to me that, in this particular generation, Mario has made an appearance in less than 5% of all games released for the system.
Especially if Nintendo wants to bury Sony and Microsoft, they need to produce enough units early on to meet what is predicted (at least on slashdot) to be high demand. If I want a Wii at launch, looks like I'm going to be preordering it.
Xbox is not any better. Neither is Playstation, in fact, Playstation is worse.
The only consoles that have ever had good names are as follows: Atari 2600, Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, Intellivision, Dreamcast.
Every other name for a gaming machine (and this includes the DS and the gameboy) has been purely awful, from an aesthetic standpoint, as well as from a marketing/branding standpoint.
With all the crap we've tolerated so far, Wii isn't really that bad comparatively.
If you're going to start criticizing the names of gaming systems, I don't think Wii is the place you should start.
Well crap, all that typing. In the 4th paragraph, the consumer is the second party (buying the game from Capcom) and Nintendo is at best an unrelated 3rd party. (Although, that's not precisely correct either since you're actually buying the game from a retailer, but that's more complicated than it's worth.)
The transaction we are speaking of is not a financial transaction, it is a transaction in the development of the game. Every game made by a second party for a console is made totally at the discretion of the first party. What that means is, if Rare is making a game called Dinosaur Planet, but Rare is a second party develepor for Nintendo, at Nintendo's discretion, Dinosaur Planet can become Star Fox Adventures (and this is what actually happened).
The same is true of all second party developers. Retro Studios is a second party dev for Nintendo. Retro has had several games in the pipeline, none of which they've made because Nintendo told them to make Metroid Prime.
A 3rd party developer is a 3rd party not because of the financial transaction, but because of the development transaction. To whit, Nintendo develops the console, and the 3rd party (as a financial transaction) pays for a licensce to develop games. Once they have that licensce, the 3rd party conducts a second transaction with the consumer, meaning they are the 1st party (because you do not buy Capcom games from Nintendo, you buy them from Capcom), the consumer is the 3rd party, and Nintendo is at best a 2nd party, and at worst pretty much totally uninvolved once the game gets to the stage of actually being sold.
On the other hand, from the development standpoint, as Nintendo has no say in the development decisions of Capcom, they are the 1st party in that they provide the development platform. Capcom is a 3rd party as any and all development they do is at their own discretion. There is no transaction there, so there is no 2nd party.
The problem is you're attempting to apply contract speak to actual real world situations, without taking into account that in the development and sale of a game, there are anywhere from 3 to 5 completely different transactions going on, and who is the 'Party of the First Part' and who is the 'Party of the Second Part' is explicity different for each transaction.
The rest of us pick convenient monikers like 1st party, 2nd party and 3rd party because they define the development situation without overcomplicating it with contract speak that few, if any, consumers actually care about.
One of these days, when I have the time, I will prove using the mathematics of game theory that there is less difference between LoZ:OoT & GTA3:Vice City than there is between Super Mario World & Mario 64.
And an upgrade from 2d to 3d is not a simple evolution. I'm quite certain Sega (Sonic) and Capcom (Castlevania) can tell you how very true that is.
For the life of me, I've been unable to understand what people who don't play video games or read books do with their time. Everything they come up with seems so incredibly boring, it pales in comparison. But I don't deride them for their choices just because they don't make any sense. If they're having fun, they're welcome to it. And while they're doing that, I'll do something I enjoy, instead of trying to conform to what other people think I should be doing.
Nintendo keeps rehashing Mario Kart because everyone wants to play it. To their credit, they've only done it once for each new console, however. And even with that, they still change the way it plays every single time (which a lot of people have complained about).
They keep rehashing Mario Party which is up to freakin' 8 now. Except each edition has completely different mini-games.
They keep rehashing pokemon, except with different pokemon, and of course they've made changes to that, too, what with the ability to not only capture but breed pokemon and other stuff they've added. I don't keep up with it, I don't play pokemon.
Not every single game has to be a revolution. You have years of evolution between revolutions. At least Nintendo tries to make significant changes between sequels. If you can manage to prove there is an actual difference between, say, Dynasty Warriors 3 & Dynasty Warriors 4, then we can have a discussion. And we've already covered the Mario/Zelda/Metroid thing, so no reason to go back into that.