I'm sorry, you're saying that a console (the n64) which sold 10 million more systems than the Xbox, and made more profit for the company that developed it than Microsoft lost on the Xbox, was a failure?
So do you also consider the Xbox, which only outsold it's nearest competitor, the gamecube, by 3 million units, when the market leader outsold the 2 combined by about 30 million units, a failure?
Just so you know, that's 32 million n64's sold over the course of it's lifetime. 22 million Xbox's sold over the course of it's lifetime. 19 million GCN's sold over the course of it's lifetime. And 71 million PS2's shipped over the course of it's liftime.
I can see the argument that the gamecube might be a failure (even though Nintendo still consistenly makes money on what is nearly a dead console), but again, the n64 made Nintendo more money than Microsoft lost on the Xbox.
Nintendo will not become a software only company until they start to lose money, and they have billions of dollars worth of liquid assets to chew through before they're in any danger, and a handheld market that at this point could subsidize the console market through it's entire lifecycle even if the Revolution is the second Nintendo console to lose money (the first being the Virtual Boy).
Hmmm, interesting idea. I'll have to look that up. It seems to me, game developers stand to make more money designing for the DS than the PSP because games are cheaper to develop on the order of millions of dollars per game. And, believe it or not, the more complex DS games sell for about the same as PSP games. $45 - $50 a pop for the major releases.
Also, we don't know how much the hardware costs to make for each system. The PSP obviously costs more to make, but how much more is something it'd be good to know. I wonder how much profit each company makes per unit sold, and what the licensing fees for 3rd party developers are.
Nintendo has always used actual sales numbers instead of shipped numbers. As a company, they prefer to deal in real world numbers so they can plan accordingly. Specifically, I know this isn't an exaggeration. I forget the name of the agency, but there is one in Japan that keeps track of retail sales for games and games systems, and updates it every week.
Last week the DS sold over 500,000 units. The week before it sold over 400,000 units. The week before that, it sold about 100,000 units, which means the DS sold 1 million systems in the last three weeks. This is according to independent sales data, not data from Nintendo itself. According to the same source, Nintendo had sold 4.53 million DS units by the end of November 2005. So this means they've sold at least 5.53 million units up to last week, so they've actually rounded down in this case.
Why do I know all this? Most gaming sites are blocked where I work, so I have nothing better to do than research statistics and figures.
Nintendo will hire the Working Designs team and create a new localization studio to translate all their original Japan only Famicom & Super Famicom releases for WFC release in the US & Europe. This will give them a semi-steady release of "new" games to attract gamers in these markets, while they continue to sell well in Japan due to the quirkiness of their game designs.
The thing about processor power is that, in many designs, you're wasting a good 40% of your processor cycles waiting for memory to respond. In the GC Nintendo worked to minimize that, and it appears they're attempting to do the same with the Rev. Rather than having a faster processor so that your 40% of wasted cycles don't matter, they go with a slower processor, but utilize it at full power.
I think the problem with your statements stems from an assumption that Nintendo is targetting the casual market to the exclusion of the hardcore market.
Which, when you think about it, doesn't make sense. I mean, seriously, how many casual gamers do you know who care about FPSs? The FPS genre is the baby of the hardcore gamer, and they go on and on about it. Too many 'gamers' think their kill count in random FPS Y is the proof that they're a gamer. And what do you hear from Nintendo execs about the controller? How great it will be for FPSs, a genre that has traditionally been targetted almost exclusively at hardcore gamers.
To get an idea of what Nintendo plans, I think the DS is the best example. Nintendo isn't going after the casual market to ignore hardcore gamers, they're going after the casual market because it stands to make them money. The casual games, like Nintendogs and Brain Training cost Nintendo less to make, and sell just as well as games targetted at the hardcore market. Not to mention they can make 2 of those games while working on just one hardcore game. What's more, releasing those games doesn't cost them the hardcore market at all, because they can still point to a Zelda or Metroid currently in progress.
In fact, if you pay attention, Nintendo is really just telling hardcore gamers what they want to hear. Listen to what they're saying. 'We're going to make games that everyone can play, whether you're hardcore, a kindergartner or a grandmother.' Except, this is what they've always done. Make games targeted at everyone, not limited to a specific market. However, because this philosophy has given them a 'kiddie' image, they're saying it as if it's something new, to stir up the Nintendo fans who are hardcore gamers, and say, "We're changing, really we are. See, we're gonna focus more on gameplay than graphics, cause you like playing games. So not only will you have your hardcore gaming experience, but now you can play with your girlfriend, too." Which, again, is exactly what they've always done. They're just trying to put a positive spin on what some people, for reasons I'm not entirely clear on, see as a negative.
Nintendo is not going to dumb down a game just to make it more accessible. Instead they'll release a kitty simulator that costs them $15,000 to make along with the $30 million dollar 3d adventure the hardcore market thrives on. This means they get good press, they get the hardcore fans on their side with an improved control scheme for a game that's everything they can imagine, and they get casual gamers in droves for a game that's simple and fun and inexpensive.
Nintendo is going to try to do what they did in the 80's so well, be all things to all gamers.
Re:I really stopped playing after FF6
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The Lost Final Fantasy
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Ummm, I think you played the wrong Final Fantasy Tactics.
The original Final Fantasy Tactics was on the Playstation, and it was one of the best Final Fantasy games ever. The story was superior in all ways. The characters were memorable, and the gameplay was very nearly perfect.
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance was on the Gameboy Advance, and pretty much was a result of Square eviscerating everything that made the first game fun. They took out the key game mechanic that made it superior to every other Tactical RPG I've ever played, they added judges, dumbed down the story, added races and thereby limited jobs, and all around shat upon some fond memories.
On the other hand, I agree, FFVI was a great game. I think the story in IV was better, but VI was a better game.
If you like the old Final Fantasy games, pay attention to the development house Mistwalker, and specifically Lost Odyssey (I think that's the name of it) which they are developing for the Xbox 360.
The availability of video games has led to an epidemic of youth violence.
H.J. FBI statistics show that youth crime is at an all time low.
Counterclaim. Statistics can show anything. Can this be accounted for by A: judging minors as adults and therefore getting some serious crime out of the statistics B: things like abortion being legalized C: things like stealing CD/records dropping because piracy makes it physical stealing no longer worth it.
The university of illinois conducted a study. You can do a google search for it, it's on their website somewhere. The study referred only to violent crime. It also parsed out what was considered violent crime into different subjects, including bullying as opposed to gun crime, knife crime, and making violent threats. It was found that while bullying has increased since 1999, all other types of violent crime have decreased to such a degree that the overall rate of violent crime is actually less than it was in 1999.
Scientific evidence links violent game play with youth aggression.
H.J. claims that these studies are limited and done wrong.
Counterclaim. Do them youreselve then "properly" and publish the results.
The problem with this, of course, is that any study is invalidated if conducted by a biased party. H.J. has already proven himself a biased party. Therefore a non-biased third party would need to conduct the study, with specifications done by parties on either side of the issue, so that it can be explored properly.
Children are the primary market for video games.
H.J. claims that the game market is growing up as the first generation is growing up (I an old far myself who played on the Commodore 16 and still does today so it could be true)
Counterclaim. So game makers will not object to every game with violence in it getting an 18+ rating.
Of course they will, for the same reason that movie makers object to a movie getting an NC-17 rating. Most adults will not go to see such a movie, thus costing the movie the majority of it's revenue. For reasons I'm not entirely clear on, a movie that is rated R (meaning you must be 18 to see it?) is more permissible than a movie rated NC-17 (meaning you must be 17 to see it?). By the same token a game rated M (meaning you must be 17 to purchase it) is more permissible than a game rated AO (meaning you must be 18 to purchase it).
Stores/Theatres will refuse to carry a game/movie rated AO/NC-17, meaning that the target audience, people between the ages of 18-25, will not be able to find it and purchase it, even if they want it. And many will not purchase it even if they see it, because they will assume that the game/movie has material that might be offensive to them, even if it only contains a similar level of violence as in games/movies they already consume, because it is rated AO/NC-17. Also, there is a social stigma related to playing/viewing these games/movies, and even as an adult, peer pressure is a terrible thing, and greatly influnces what we consume.
Almost no girls play computer games.
H.J. Claims that 40% of girls play games.
Counterclaim that is still less then half of the boy percentage and H.J. himself points out that girls play different games, webbased online games. Not violent shooters.
40% is a significant number, even when dealing with, let's assume we limit this to the US, 200 million people. It's less than half the male demographic, but the male demographic accounts for 90% of all males, which is a huge number.
The fact that they play different types of games has no meaning, the point was saying that girls do play games. Certainly girls play different games. Girls also wear different clothes. That doesn't invalidate the point.
Sony. They know consoles. They've proven it, to me at least. Their new system is supposed to dominate. I just hope it is more like the first xbox in regards to being so easy to mod.
I'm sorry, I have to stop you there. Sony has never put out a decent console. Both the original PSX and the PS2 are complete pieces of crap. I've owned both of them, because they have great 3rd party games, but the actual hardware is literally the worse thing I've ever allowed into my home. Sony knows business politics, and they know it well, but they do not know consoles. Even the original Xbox, as much of a pc as it was, was a better console than anything Sony has ever released.
You may continue with your/.'ing experience.
What happened to the first party developers is that Microsoft Games Division has never really been a first class game developer. They've had some really good names, but nothing that rates with what Capcom, Konami, Nintendo, Square-Enix and the like have produced in their time.
So part of it is just that they didn't really have the experience with programming for a dedicated game system that other First Party companies have.
As for Rare, most of their Xbox games were originally developed for different hardware, so essentially what they've been doing is upgrading ports. The fact that the majority of their best people have split out to form different companies notwithstanding, I think once Rare begins to work on a game developed from the ground up on the 360, we'll get to see what it can really do.
Also, when I say the Xbox can easily exceed what the GC can do, I don't mean by a vast amount, but at least by a noticeable amount. The main problem with the Xbox was that it was not designed as a game machine, it was designed as a mini-pc that only played games. It was altogether less efficient, so while it had these massively high specs, most of it was wasted because there was no real world way to make use of it all. No amount of programming is going to make RAM pass information to the processor any faster than it is capable of doing, and the CPU only has so much cache to store information for processing.
The 360 is in no way built like the original Xbox. The entire core design is different, it's built more like a dedicated gaming machine that can also do other things, and games can only stand to benefit from this. That means less wasted processor cycles, more efficieny in producing effects, and more polygons pushed at faster speeds, because you can utilize all the hardware instead of letting it go to waste. If nothing else, you can pass information to all 3 cores, and have them running processes in sequence so you don't have to wait as long for system memory to respond to requests.
Search around the internet, specifically game sites. You'll find an interview with the lead Director (or maybe he was the Producer) of MK:DS. In the interview, he mentions that there were a lot of things they wanted to do with the WiFi that they eventually chose to leave out because they didn't have the time. Instead they decided to make what they had working work as well as they could manage, and work on new and improved features for later WiFi releases. So while they consider it a success, they don't necessarily consider it completed.
Another thing to remember, the DS uses some form of Flash RAM memory I think. They can actually Flash the cart with updates, which means they could theoretically patch the game at a later date. I don't know how likely Nintendo is to do such a thing, it's not something they've ever had to deal with before (at least, I don't think in any of their previous attempts at online service they ever flashed carts), but it is something that is possible.
I agree this is annoying, but you can turn voice chat off. So you'd rather have a system with no voice chat than one where it's optional?
Nintendo would. They don't feel it's necessary for Mario Kart. Also, they couldn't finish it in time for Mario Kart, so they've hinted that it will be available in Metroid Prime: Hunters. This is unverified to be true, but they are working on voice chat.
I can think of 2 good reasons.
1. They have an NDA with Nintendo. Nintendo NDA's are legendary, and Capcom is unlikely to break one, so they can't say anything just now.
2. RE5 is iterative, they want to start an offshoot franchise for the Rev that takes advantage of the new controller, so instead of releasing RE5, they'll release RE:ROG (Rev only game). This would work with Nintendo's and strategy, since true RE fans will have a 360/PS3 and a Rev to play both games. And Capcom makes extra money.
The impressive thing was that the GPU could do 8 layer texture mapping, bump mapping, lighting and shadow effects on the fly. Unfortunately, the processor and frame buffer weren't able to handle those kind of effects while also calculating physics and AI. I'm still hoping for a seperate PPU in the Rev, that would make the other listed specs a non-issue.
There's also the construction of the hardware to take into account. One of the reasons the GC was able to produce visuals so nearly matching what the Xbox did was because even though all it's numbers were less, the actual components it used were superior to what the Xbox had. Specifically, it had faster RAM and the Flipper video card which did all the effects on the fly, so you were only loading about 10% as much stuff into RAM as you were on the Xbox or PS2.
The 360 is using an ATI video card this time around, and if it's able to do effects on the fly, even with slower RAM than what the Rev will be using it will prove to be more than 2-3 times as powerful, maybe 4-5 times as powerful as the original Xbox. Then again, maybe not, guess we'll see.
That's great and all, but I can tell you the reason that is wrong, and it's a simple one.
Ganon has never, not once, ever, held the power of the entire Tri-Force.
Had Ganon ever possessed the entire Tri-Force, Power, Courage & Knowledge, he would have been impossible to defeat. The Tri-Force is literally the ultimate power, with all of it, Link would have had no chance, Master Sword, Four Sword or no. It would not have been possible. Therefore, even in ALttP, Ganon did not possess all 3 parts of the Tri-Force. I don't remember the game that well, so I'm not sure where the Tri-Force of Knowledge & Courage were, but Ganon most certainly did not have both of them.
This does not mean Minish Cap cannot be first, but it does take away your strongest argument for it being first. Everything else works fine.
Actually, I was fairly certain that at the time it was made, Ocarina of Time was chronologically first, because it was before Ganondorf became Ganon. The GB & GBA LoZ's are so very much aside from the real games that they could fit literally anywhere in the chronology and not make a bit of difference.
People still complain that the FF8 demo was faked, yet we have games like Jak 3, God of War, Shadow of the Colossus, and others that far surpass it. Even the Cube has had various graphically awesome works (despite the involvement of some bafmodads). Unfortunately, the XBOX never really got that much spectacularly better than its first generation; maybe it never had the time to mature, or maybe there was just nothing else there. In the same way, maybe the 360 will... but maybe it won't, too. Especially if it'll only last another 4 years.
I can tell you the reason for that. The best looking Nintendo games look better than the best looking Xbox games, because the games were made by developers who took the time scrape together every bit of power and magic the cube was able to produce.
Shadow of the Colossus specifically, was made by a very dedicated developer, and quite literally maxes out what the PS2 can do. Graphically, that's as good as it gets, the hardware simply isn't capable of anything else.
The Xbox suffered partially from it's pc-like architecture, and partially from it's newness. Most games for it were cross-platform, which will always look inferior to a game developed only for that platform. Even the first/second party developers were never really able to bring the most out of the system, and Microsoft abandoned it before it could be pushed that far.
Meanwhile, Nintendo's primary game developer is Nintendo itself, and they will push the hardware. Better graphics have a lot to do with what hardware is available, and how easy/hard it is to program, but even more to do with how much work the developer is willing to put into hacking the hardware and making it work for them.
The Xbox could easily match, and exceed what the GC can do, but no one's been willing to bother with it so far. Supposedly the 360 is easier to program for, and has a lot of great features going for it, so maybe we'll see that kind of dedication in it's future.
Actually, he's right. My friend feels the same way about DVDs. I personally watch DVDs on my computer monitor, because it's a pretty high quality monitor. He only watches them on his TV, cause his TV is larger than his monitor by a significant margin. Even though they're both in the same room, he thinks it's silly to watch on a computer monitor when his tv monitor is inherently superior.
Yeah, so far no one knows. Not much has been said about how the controller calibration works. I assume it'll work like current analog calibration, ie, it calibrates to whatever position you're in when the game starts.
Also, realistically, it should be programmable (from the developer end) exactly how sensitive it is to movement, as different objects move differently. While you may want it to sense every little vibration of movement in an FPS, in a rhythm simulation game, general awareness of what direction you're moving it is probably sufficient.
Notice every single game you mentioned was a Gamecube game? That has been the major complaint about the gamecube, at least from Nintendo fans, who don't buy into the Kiddy image. It's that all Nintendo's greatest franchises have produced nothing but sequels on the new system. When you get used to jumpng from Super Mario Bros 3 to Super Mario World to Mario 64, and then you get Mario Sunshine, not matter how good a game sunshine is, it feels like a let down.
I wasn't trying to say that sequels are bad, or that Nintendo doesn't make sequels, they make plenty of sequels, but the parent was confusing franchise games with sequels, which isn't the same thing at all.
Except, launch titles don't always look like "shit", except in comparison to titles released after them.
People are complaining that 360 titles look like "shit" in comparison to titles that were released before them. That's what the concern is.
Sure, Ocarina of Time blew Mario 64 out of the water in every way (graphics, sound, control, world design), but when Mario 64 first came out, people's jaws dropped, because even with the PS1 having already released, people had never seen anything like it. Now it looks dated and simplistic, but if something already looks dated when it's brand new, people tend to complain.
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So do you also consider the Xbox, which only outsold it's nearest competitor, the gamecube, by 3 million units, when the market leader outsold the 2 combined by about 30 million units, a failure?
Just so you know, that's 32 million n64's sold over the course of it's lifetime. 22 million Xbox's sold over the course of it's lifetime. 19 million GCN's sold over the course of it's lifetime. And 71 million PS2's shipped over the course of it's liftime.
I can see the argument that the gamecube might be a failure (even though Nintendo still consistenly makes money on what is nearly a dead console), but again, the n64 made Nintendo more money than Microsoft lost on the Xbox.
Nintendo will not become a software only company until they start to lose money, and they have billions of dollars worth of liquid assets to chew through before they're in any danger, and a handheld market that at this point could subsidize the console market through it's entire lifecycle even if the Revolution is the second Nintendo console to lose money (the first being the Virtual Boy).
Also, we don't know how much the hardware costs to make for each system. The PSP obviously costs more to make, but how much more is something it'd be good to know. I wonder how much profit each company makes per unit sold, and what the licensing fees for 3rd party developers are.
Last week the DS sold over 500,000 units. The week before it sold over 400,000 units. The week before that, it sold about 100,000 units, which means the DS sold 1 million systems in the last three weeks. This is according to independent sales data, not data from Nintendo itself. According to the same source, Nintendo had sold 4.53 million DS units by the end of November 2005. So this means they've sold at least 5.53 million units up to last week, so they've actually rounded down in this case.
Why do I know all this? Most gaming sites are blocked where I work, so I have nothing better to do than research statistics and figures.
Nintendo will hire the Working Designs team and create a new localization studio to translate all their original Japan only Famicom & Super Famicom releases for WFC release in the US & Europe. This will give them a semi-steady release of "new" games to attract gamers in these markets, while they continue to sell well in Japan due to the quirkiness of their game designs.
The thing about processor power is that, in many designs, you're wasting a good 40% of your processor cycles waiting for memory to respond. In the GC Nintendo worked to minimize that, and it appears they're attempting to do the same with the Rev. Rather than having a faster processor so that your 40% of wasted cycles don't matter, they go with a slower processor, but utilize it at full power.
Which, when you think about it, doesn't make sense. I mean, seriously, how many casual gamers do you know who care about FPSs? The FPS genre is the baby of the hardcore gamer, and they go on and on about it. Too many 'gamers' think their kill count in random FPS Y is the proof that they're a gamer. And what do you hear from Nintendo execs about the controller? How great it will be for FPSs, a genre that has traditionally been targetted almost exclusively at hardcore gamers.
To get an idea of what Nintendo plans, I think the DS is the best example. Nintendo isn't going after the casual market to ignore hardcore gamers, they're going after the casual market because it stands to make them money. The casual games, like Nintendogs and Brain Training cost Nintendo less to make, and sell just as well as games targetted at the hardcore market. Not to mention they can make 2 of those games while working on just one hardcore game. What's more, releasing those games doesn't cost them the hardcore market at all, because they can still point to a Zelda or Metroid currently in progress.
In fact, if you pay attention, Nintendo is really just telling hardcore gamers what they want to hear. Listen to what they're saying. 'We're going to make games that everyone can play, whether you're hardcore, a kindergartner or a grandmother.' Except, this is what they've always done. Make games targeted at everyone, not limited to a specific market. However, because this philosophy has given them a 'kiddie' image, they're saying it as if it's something new, to stir up the Nintendo fans who are hardcore gamers, and say, "We're changing, really we are. See, we're gonna focus more on gameplay than graphics, cause you like playing games. So not only will you have your hardcore gaming experience, but now you can play with your girlfriend, too." Which, again, is exactly what they've always done. They're just trying to put a positive spin on what some people, for reasons I'm not entirely clear on, see as a negative.
Nintendo is not going to dumb down a game just to make it more accessible. Instead they'll release a kitty simulator that costs them $15,000 to make along with the $30 million dollar 3d adventure the hardcore market thrives on. This means they get good press, they get the hardcore fans on their side with an improved control scheme for a game that's everything they can imagine, and they get casual gamers in droves for a game that's simple and fun and inexpensive.
Nintendo is going to try to do what they did in the 80's so well, be all things to all gamers.
The original Final Fantasy Tactics was on the Playstation, and it was one of the best Final Fantasy games ever. The story was superior in all ways. The characters were memorable, and the gameplay was very nearly perfect.
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance was on the Gameboy Advance, and pretty much was a result of Square eviscerating everything that made the first game fun. They took out the key game mechanic that made it superior to every other Tactical RPG I've ever played, they added judges, dumbed down the story, added races and thereby limited jobs, and all around shat upon some fond memories.
On the other hand, I agree, FFVI was a great game. I think the story in IV was better, but VI was a better game.
If you like the old Final Fantasy games, pay attention to the development house Mistwalker, and specifically Lost Odyssey (I think that's the name of it) which they are developing for the Xbox 360.
H.J. FBI statistics show that youth crime is at an all time low.
Counterclaim. Statistics can show anything. Can this be accounted for by A: judging minors as adults and therefore getting some serious crime out of the statistics B: things like abortion being legalized C: things like stealing CD/records dropping because piracy makes it physical stealing no longer worth it.
The university of illinois conducted a study. You can do a google search for it, it's on their website somewhere. The study referred only to violent crime. It also parsed out what was considered violent crime into different subjects, including bullying as opposed to gun crime, knife crime, and making violent threats. It was found that while bullying has increased since 1999, all other types of violent crime have decreased to such a degree that the overall rate of violent crime is actually less than it was in 1999.
Scientific evidence links violent game play with youth aggression.
H.J. claims that these studies are limited and done wrong.
Counterclaim. Do them youreselve then "properly" and publish the results.
The problem with this, of course, is that any study is invalidated if conducted by a biased party. H.J. has already proven himself a biased party. Therefore a non-biased third party would need to conduct the study, with specifications done by parties on either side of the issue, so that it can be explored properly.
Children are the primary market for video games.
H.J. claims that the game market is growing up as the first generation is growing up (I an old far myself who played on the Commodore 16 and still does today so it could be true)
Counterclaim. So game makers will not object to every game with violence in it getting an 18+ rating.
Of course they will, for the same reason that movie makers object to a movie getting an NC-17 rating. Most adults will not go to see such a movie, thus costing the movie the majority of it's revenue. For reasons I'm not entirely clear on, a movie that is rated R (meaning you must be 18 to see it?) is more permissible than a movie rated NC-17 (meaning you must be 17 to see it?). By the same token a game rated M (meaning you must be 17 to purchase it) is more permissible than a game rated AO (meaning you must be 18 to purchase it).
Stores/Theatres will refuse to carry a game/movie rated AO/NC-17, meaning that the target audience, people between the ages of 18-25, will not be able to find it and purchase it, even if they want it. And many will not purchase it even if they see it, because they will assume that the game/movie has material that might be offensive to them, even if it only contains a similar level of violence as in games/movies they already consume, because it is rated AO/NC-17. Also, there is a social stigma related to playing/viewing these games/movies, and even as an adult, peer pressure is a terrible thing, and greatly influnces what we consume.
Almost no girls play computer games.
H.J. Claims that 40% of girls play games.
Counterclaim that is still less then half of the boy percentage and H.J. himself points out that girls play different games, webbased online games. Not violent shooters.
40% is a significant number, even when dealing with, let's assume we limit this to the US, 200 million people. It's less than half the male demographic, but the male demographic accounts for 90% of all males, which is a huge number.
The fact that they play different types of games has no meaning, the point was saying that girls do play games. Certainly girls play different games. Girls also wear different clothes. That doesn't invalidate the point.
Video game play is socially isolating.
Sony. They know consoles. They've proven it, to me at least. Their new system is supposed to dominate. I just hope it is more like the first xbox in regards to being so easy to mod. I'm sorry, I have to stop you there. Sony has never put out a decent console. Both the original PSX and the PS2 are complete pieces of crap. I've owned both of them, because they have great 3rd party games, but the actual hardware is literally the worse thing I've ever allowed into my home. Sony knows business politics, and they know it well, but they do not know consoles. Even the original Xbox, as much of a pc as it was, was a better console than anything Sony has ever released. You may continue with your /.'ing experience.
So part of it is just that they didn't really have the experience with programming for a dedicated game system that other First Party companies have.
As for Rare, most of their Xbox games were originally developed for different hardware, so essentially what they've been doing is upgrading ports. The fact that the majority of their best people have split out to form different companies notwithstanding, I think once Rare begins to work on a game developed from the ground up on the 360, we'll get to see what it can really do.
Also, when I say the Xbox can easily exceed what the GC can do, I don't mean by a vast amount, but at least by a noticeable amount. The main problem with the Xbox was that it was not designed as a game machine, it was designed as a mini-pc that only played games. It was altogether less efficient, so while it had these massively high specs, most of it was wasted because there was no real world way to make use of it all. No amount of programming is going to make RAM pass information to the processor any faster than it is capable of doing, and the CPU only has so much cache to store information for processing.
The 360 is in no way built like the original Xbox. The entire core design is different, it's built more like a dedicated gaming machine that can also do other things, and games can only stand to benefit from this. That means less wasted processor cycles, more efficieny in producing effects, and more polygons pushed at faster speeds, because you can utilize all the hardware instead of letting it go to waste. If nothing else, you can pass information to all 3 cores, and have them running processes in sequence so you don't have to wait as long for system memory to respond to requests.
Another thing to remember, the DS uses some form of Flash RAM memory I think. They can actually Flash the cart with updates, which means they could theoretically patch the game at a later date. I don't know how likely Nintendo is to do such a thing, it's not something they've ever had to deal with before (at least, I don't think in any of their previous attempts at online service they ever flashed carts), but it is something that is possible.
I agree this is annoying, but you can turn voice chat off. So you'd rather have a system with no voice chat than one where it's optional? Nintendo would. They don't feel it's necessary for Mario Kart. Also, they couldn't finish it in time for Mario Kart, so they've hinted that it will be available in Metroid Prime: Hunters. This is unverified to be true, but they are working on voice chat.
I can think of 2 good reasons. 1. They have an NDA with Nintendo. Nintendo NDA's are legendary, and Capcom is unlikely to break one, so they can't say anything just now. 2. RE5 is iterative, they want to start an offshoot franchise for the Rev that takes advantage of the new controller, so instead of releasing RE5, they'll release RE:ROG (Rev only game). This would work with Nintendo's and strategy, since true RE fans will have a 360/PS3 and a Rev to play both games. And Capcom makes extra money.
The impressive thing was that the GPU could do 8 layer texture mapping, bump mapping, lighting and shadow effects on the fly. Unfortunately, the processor and frame buffer weren't able to handle those kind of effects while also calculating physics and AI. I'm still hoping for a seperate PPU in the Rev, that would make the other listed specs a non-issue.
The 360 is using an ATI video card this time around, and if it's able to do effects on the fly, even with slower RAM than what the Rev will be using it will prove to be more than 2-3 times as powerful, maybe 4-5 times as powerful as the original Xbox. Then again, maybe not, guess we'll see.
Ganon has never, not once, ever, held the power of the entire Tri-Force.
Had Ganon ever possessed the entire Tri-Force, Power, Courage & Knowledge, he would have been impossible to defeat. The Tri-Force is literally the ultimate power, with all of it, Link would have had no chance, Master Sword, Four Sword or no. It would not have been possible. Therefore, even in ALttP, Ganon did not possess all 3 parts of the Tri-Force. I don't remember the game that well, so I'm not sure where the Tri-Force of Knowledge & Courage were, but Ganon most certainly did not have both of them.
This does not mean Minish Cap cannot be first, but it does take away your strongest argument for it being first. Everything else works fine.
And you deserve to be kicked for even bringing that up.
Actually, I was fairly certain that at the time it was made, Ocarina of Time was chronologically first, because it was before Ganondorf became Ganon. The GB & GBA LoZ's are so very much aside from the real games that they could fit literally anywhere in the chronology and not make a bit of difference.
I can tell you the reason for that. The best looking Nintendo games look better than the best looking Xbox games, because the games were made by developers who took the time scrape together every bit of power and magic the cube was able to produce.
Shadow of the Colossus specifically, was made by a very dedicated developer, and quite literally maxes out what the PS2 can do. Graphically, that's as good as it gets, the hardware simply isn't capable of anything else.
The Xbox suffered partially from it's pc-like architecture, and partially from it's newness. Most games for it were cross-platform, which will always look inferior to a game developed only for that platform. Even the first/second party developers were never really able to bring the most out of the system, and Microsoft abandoned it before it could be pushed that far.
Meanwhile, Nintendo's primary game developer is Nintendo itself, and they will push the hardware. Better graphics have a lot to do with what hardware is available, and how easy/hard it is to program, but even more to do with how much work the developer is willing to put into hacking the hardware and making it work for them.
The Xbox could easily match, and exceed what the GC can do, but no one's been willing to bother with it so far. Supposedly the 360 is easier to program for, and has a lot of great features going for it, so maybe we'll see that kind of dedication in it's future.
Actually, he's right. My friend feels the same way about DVDs. I personally watch DVDs on my computer monitor, because it's a pretty high quality monitor. He only watches them on his TV, cause his TV is larger than his monitor by a significant margin. Even though they're both in the same room, he thinks it's silly to watch on a computer monitor when his tv monitor is inherently superior.
Now that is an excellent idea. Auto-calibration on the fly would work very well. Would sure make recentering your camera easier.
Also, realistically, it should be programmable (from the developer end) exactly how sensitive it is to movement, as different objects move differently. While you may want it to sense every little vibration of movement in an FPS, in a rhythm simulation game, general awareness of what direction you're moving it is probably sufficient.
I wasn't trying to say that sequels are bad, or that Nintendo doesn't make sequels, they make plenty of sequels, but the parent was confusing franchise games with sequels, which isn't the same thing at all.
People are complaining that 360 titles look like "shit" in comparison to titles that were released before them. That's what the concern is.
Sure, Ocarina of Time blew Mario 64 out of the water in every way (graphics, sound, control, world design), but when Mario 64 first came out, people's jaws dropped, because even with the PS1 having already released, people had never seen anything like it. Now it looks dated and simplistic, but if something already looks dated when it's brand new, people tend to complain.
Anyone who's never used a sword, when they get such a game, will swing it in an attempt to decapitate everyone, or push it far forward to skewer them.
After which it will be blocked, and while they're trying to recover, they'll get lightsabered to death, which will teach them not to do that.