I agree with you except for one thing, you're wrong about EA.
No, admittedly, EA support means nothing to me. But I guarantee you that over 50% of the PS2 owners in the US own it because of Madden, NCAA, NBA and the other sports franchises.
Sad, but true. People are quick to jump to the Wii's defense saying casual gamers are more numerous than hardcore gamers (which is true). It's important to remember that all sports games are made for casual gamers, not hardcore gamers. There are gamers who the only games they play are sports games. That's 1 reason EA support is a big weapon in the Nintendo arsenal.
Reason 2 EA support is big, is because, well, let's be honest. Nintendo will do just fine in Japan. They have Mario, Zelda, Animal Crossing and plenty of franchises that are just about worshipped over there. Square-Enix is on board with them. They can't help but sell well, and in fact, the GCN sold fairly well in Japan, blasting away the Xbox. Nintendo doesn't sell nearly as well in America, and that is where EA is very important. By offering not just iterations of their major franchises for the Wii, but unique iterations, with offerings that are simply not possible on any other system, that's going to mean a much bigger draw in the US market.
Everything just blew up at work here, so I'm not sure if this is my original reason 3 or not, but the final reason EA support is big is in the quality of the support. EA didn't just say, "And we'll have games for the Wii, too." EA said, "We've set up special teams dedicated to Wii development, and we're going to give you a unique Wii experience." Whether it's a good thing or not, EA is the proverbial 400lb Gorilla, and the other apes (developers) look to see where they're going when they make their decisions. If EA says, "We're behind Nintendo 100%," other developers who may have written Nintendo will reconsider their position. Especially if they make games in the same genre, cause when people get tired of EA's latest offering, they may want something similar, and they'll pick up whatever's on the market for the system they have, even if it's made by a different company.
The answer to your question is Bluetooth. It has a limited bandwidth channel. By making it the way it is, they save channels for other devices they might want to connect through the Wii via bluetooth.
If you spend as much time reading game sites (read: avoiding doing work) as I do, you'll realize the 360 is getting plenty of press...for Xbox Live.
The gaming press loves Live. Everything else about the 360 is apparently pretty meh.
But, mostly, the press goes to Sony & Nintendo because they aren't out yet. There's really nothing to talk about with the 360, cause we know everything. We know next to nothing about the PS3 (no, really, aside from the new controller, nothing we know about it actually tells us anything, there isn't even a decent list that confirms the launch games) and even the Wii still has plenty of secrets. It's human nature to fantasize. Once something exists, it's mundane. Something that doesn't exist yet, that's magical. You'll see more balanced reporting once all 3 systems are out.
What games have you been playing? I've been recently lamenting that games are ridiculously easy compared to orginal NES games. I tried playing MegaMan, the original, the other day, and could not beat it. I breezed through God of War like it was candy. Games are by no means getting harder, they're just getting more mental and less physical.
So what you're saying is the PS2 was a waste of money?
Because, graphically, the difference between a Wii and an Xbox 360 will be less than the difference between a PS2 and a GCN.
People are far too concerned with clock speed. No one bothers to do research and realize that the GPU in the GCN was flat out better than anything else on the market, even in PC GPUs. It's part of the reason ATI bought ArtX in the first place. Add to that the fact that Flipper was developed before ATI perfected several of the technologies they're using in their high end PC cards now, all of which will likely be added to the Wii GPU.
Increasing the clock speed of the CPU & the GPU is the smallest of the changes that are being made to those. Even if the clock speeds were exactly the same as in the GCN, the Wii would be a significant upgrade. With doubled clock speed over their predecessor as well as the other improvements, this is more than a slight upgrade. It's just a really cheap upgrade because they're utilizing technology which is common now, but didn't exist when the GCN was first created.
The only system that's hit the limit of current gen technology though is the PS2. According to developers the Xbox & GCN were never tapped out (although the GCN was severely limited since the main CPU wasn't fast enough to utilize more than 50% of the output of the GPU).
The problem with your argument is that being unprofitable is always a danger that the company will go out of the business. If Xbox 360 is unprofitable, it will not sink Microsoft, but if it loses another 4 billion dollars, Microsoft will move on to something better. If the PS3 loses Sony billiions of dollars, they will stop making Playstations and focus on something that will make them money.
Whether we like it or not, these companies are in business to make money, not to make us happy. They make us happy, because when we're happy we spend money. But if they can't part us from our money, they can't stay in a business that is dragging the rest of the company down.
Also, while Nintendo was the most profitable of the 3, Sony did not actually lose money on the PS2 overall. They made plenty of money on the PS2, it just wasn't profitable for the first 2 (or maybe it was 3) quarters.
I actually don't know anyone who bought an Xbox because of Halo. In fact, now that I think of it, of all the people I know who own an Xbox, not a single one of them actually owns Halo or Halo 2. But then, the people I hang out with usually only play FPS on PC, and Halo on PC was horrible.
The thing is, the only thing the PS2 really had that the GCN didn't was JRPG's. Everything else was mostly 3rd party and showed up on the GCN as well. The only thing the Xbox had was a few fighting games, ARPGs and even more FPSs. But the GCN had FPSs aplenty, lots of sports titles, and plenty of 3rd party goodness. It existed, it was just never advertised. For instance, GUN, people love GUN, it's critically acclaimed. I've talked to 5 different people who didn't even realize there was a gamecube version. There are over 100 3rd party games released for the GCN that no one realizes even existed, which would have changed many people's views of the GCN as a kiddy console. But because no one bothered to look for them, the GCN versions always sold less, and eventually 3rd parties (for the most part) stopped making games for the system.
Until recently I used to spend appx 15 hours a day reading. I was more than capable of reading while doing other things, I developed consumate skill at multitasking. Would you also consider that an addiction?
None of what you said really disproves his point. The fact remains that the game was a very big part of your life at that point. Look at it a different way, if you hadn't been playing EQ, what would you have been doing? Your complaint when you started was that you had nothing to do with your life except look after your father. Any competent psychologist would see the EQ phase as a necessary stage in your life, something you needed to move forward to where you are now, much like a child has to go through a stage of testing the limits their parents set to properly develop the skills needed to behave in society.
You are a different person than you are then. The people you met while playing EQ were at different stages in their lives. Those who took it upon themselves to keep up with you after you left were affected as much or more by the in-game community as you. Those who didn't probably never saw it as more than a game anyway.
Starting in June of 2005, DS began receiving consistently good releases (this is in the US, possibly sooner in Japan). Meaning that 8 months after release, the DS library went from ignorable to stellar. The PSP has so far been out 15 months, and its library of games is still mediocre. The PSP will need to come with some really spectacular games to compensate for being behind. There are actually 2 or 3 in the works, but there are something like 15 excellent games planned for release for the DS between August-December of this year. The PSP is going to need more than 2 or 3 good games to compete.
My suggestion to you is to get a DS then, and learn Japanese. Another Code is short, but really rather inventive for an adventure game. Project Hacker is longer, but with a much better storyline, but currently only available in Japan (nothing's been said about a US release yet). Hotel Dusk Room 215 will have a US release, but won't be out till near the end of the year, and it looks to be even more clever. Of course, those are the only old-style adventure games on the system, but if they sell well, I'm sure other companies will consider the genre (Project Hacker made it into the Japanese top 10 on its debut, but fell off right after, which admittedly puts it on par with every non-DS game to make it into the Japanese top 10 in the past 4 months).
This is a very good point, one most people haven't even thought of. They all assume the 360 isn't selling because of lack of games, or because people are waiting for a PS3/Wii. The fact that the 360 is still 400 freaking dollars is the reason I haven't gotten one yet, either. I can justify spending ridiculous amounts of money on a new pc, cause I can use it for more than just video games. I can't justify $400 for a new games console, especially one where all but one of the games I want can be purchased for the pc.
Actually, that's incorrect. NPD received criticism for that, and started tracking numbers for Wal-Mart, Target and the like in January of this year. Which would still put them off having missed 360 sales from last year, but their numbers are much more accurate now (they also take longer for them to get the numbers out because of this).
On the other hand, NPD has been known to make errors as well. MediaCreate's numbers for Japan are always fairly accurate, however.
True, you don't need to look photorealistic to be fun. You also don't have to be in 3d to be fun. I happen to enjoy sidescrollers. For instance, Castlevania DS was great, and certainly better than any 3d Castlevania has ever been (and I've played all of them). Forcing a game into 3d that isn't meant to be 3d is an unreasonable bias, and only hurts the game. There will be more 3d games for the DS as developers get more used to the hardware, but that won't automatically make the 2d games worthless.
Okay, I ususally let you get away with this without comment, but what is your problem? Did you read the article, or the summary? They're hardly in favor of the 360.
The 360 has been out for 8 months, and has only sold 5 million units total in all markets. That includes the markets they've started selling in that neither Sony nor Nintendo have ever significantly broached before. Now they're saying that in the next 12 months, they expect to sell double what they've sold so far, this time with competition from 2 competitors. It clearly explains what their disadvantages are and what their advantages are in this competition. I'm willing to accept your hypothesis that Zonk is biased in his console preference, but your proof is sorely lacking.
...is getting to do a Final Fantasy-esque level up dance when you turn your reports in on time at the office.
Now all I need is to get the level up music set as my cellphone ringtone, then I can level up each time I take a call!
Who cares about a browser for the DS? The reason I'll be picking this up is the RAM expansion pack that comes with it. With the new passthroughs that plug in through the DS cart port, that thing will be great for homebrew and emulation. Can't wait to see what I can pull off with that.
Well, to be fair, new IPs on a brand new system are not the way to go, from a business standpoint. First you release games that actually have a chance of selling, and once you're sure you have a reasonable install base, then you go for new IPs.
I've been designing an MMO for a while now, and I wonder if this one fact has occurred to anyone else yet.
Maybe balancing the different races/classes/whatever, isn't actually a good idea. I mean, think about it. 95% of all patches made in any MMO are to correct balance issues, and people still complain about it. But really, there's only one balance that needs to be struck in any game. The balance between reality and fantasy. Games are fun becuase they're fantasy, but they're believable because they're realistic. The game might actually be more fun if things weren't balanced at all, but every class was a unique play experience that you could only get by playing that class.
It is not news, in the classic sense of the word, but the commonly appear on news programs. A human interest story is literally a story that draws interest for it's emotional qualities, not because it contains anything newsworthy. These are common in ever television news program, newpaper & magazine.
This is a similar thing. The story is not simply that you can buy a lot of games for $600, it's a thoughtful breakdown of exactly what you can buy for $600 that might offer a similar experience to purchasing a ps3. It's something anyone could figure out on their own if they wanted to, but something most won't bother to do. It's interesting and thought-provoking, but no, not actually news. It still fits.
If you want to take a single feature of the ps3 and write a blog entry or article about it and submit it, you're welcome to do so, but don't expect it to get accepted unless it actually is interesting. Which means it has to be something people care about, and it has to include actual information. It doesn't have to be new information, it just has to be enough information, and presented in a way that actually provokes discussion and thought.
But that also was not the point of this thread. The point of this thread is that you say you've submitted articles which present the ps3 in a positive light. The ps3 interests me, so I am inclined to read articles about it, even if they aren't, strictly speaking, news, so I would still like links to the aforementioned articles.
First off, I think he wanted you to post the articles praising the ps3. I would like to see those as well, all 5 of them. If there is good press about the ps3, and you want people to know about it, you can link to it yourself in your comments.
I'm going to stop there. Your arguments are all valid, but essentially meaningless to me, as I already have a ps2 and a pc.
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No, admittedly, EA support means nothing to me. But I guarantee you that over 50% of the PS2 owners in the US own it because of Madden, NCAA, NBA and the other sports franchises.
Sad, but true. People are quick to jump to the Wii's defense saying casual gamers are more numerous than hardcore gamers (which is true). It's important to remember that all sports games are made for casual gamers, not hardcore gamers. There are gamers who the only games they play are sports games. That's 1 reason EA support is a big weapon in the Nintendo arsenal.
Reason 2 EA support is big, is because, well, let's be honest. Nintendo will do just fine in Japan. They have Mario, Zelda, Animal Crossing and plenty of franchises that are just about worshipped over there. Square-Enix is on board with them. They can't help but sell well, and in fact, the GCN sold fairly well in Japan, blasting away the Xbox. Nintendo doesn't sell nearly as well in America, and that is where EA is very important. By offering not just iterations of their major franchises for the Wii, but unique iterations, with offerings that are simply not possible on any other system, that's going to mean a much bigger draw in the US market.
Everything just blew up at work here, so I'm not sure if this is my original reason 3 or not, but the final reason EA support is big is in the quality of the support. EA didn't just say, "And we'll have games for the Wii, too." EA said, "We've set up special teams dedicated to Wii development, and we're going to give you a unique Wii experience." Whether it's a good thing or not, EA is the proverbial 400lb Gorilla, and the other apes (developers) look to see where they're going when they make their decisions. If EA says, "We're behind Nintendo 100%," other developers who may have written Nintendo will reconsider their position. Especially if they make games in the same genre, cause when people get tired of EA's latest offering, they may want something similar, and they'll pick up whatever's on the market for the system they have, even if it's made by a different company.
The answer to your question is Bluetooth. It has a limited bandwidth channel. By making it the way it is, they save channels for other devices they might want to connect through the Wii via bluetooth.
The gaming press loves Live. Everything else about the 360 is apparently pretty meh.
But, mostly, the press goes to Sony & Nintendo because they aren't out yet. There's really nothing to talk about with the 360, cause we know everything. We know next to nothing about the PS3 (no, really, aside from the new controller, nothing we know about it actually tells us anything, there isn't even a decent list that confirms the launch games) and even the Wii still has plenty of secrets. It's human nature to fantasize. Once something exists, it's mundane. Something that doesn't exist yet, that's magical. You'll see more balanced reporting once all 3 systems are out.
What games have you been playing? I've been recently lamenting that games are ridiculously easy compared to orginal NES games. I tried playing MegaMan, the original, the other day, and could not beat it. I breezed through God of War like it was candy. Games are by no means getting harder, they're just getting more mental and less physical.
Because, graphically, the difference between a Wii and an Xbox 360 will be less than the difference between a PS2 and a GCN.
People are far too concerned with clock speed. No one bothers to do research and realize that the GPU in the GCN was flat out better than anything else on the market, even in PC GPUs. It's part of the reason ATI bought ArtX in the first place. Add to that the fact that Flipper was developed before ATI perfected several of the technologies they're using in their high end PC cards now, all of which will likely be added to the Wii GPU.
Increasing the clock speed of the CPU & the GPU is the smallest of the changes that are being made to those. Even if the clock speeds were exactly the same as in the GCN, the Wii would be a significant upgrade. With doubled clock speed over their predecessor as well as the other improvements, this is more than a slight upgrade. It's just a really cheap upgrade because they're utilizing technology which is common now, but didn't exist when the GCN was first created.
The only system that's hit the limit of current gen technology though is the PS2. According to developers the Xbox & GCN were never tapped out (although the GCN was severely limited since the main CPU wasn't fast enough to utilize more than 50% of the output of the GPU).
Whether we like it or not, these companies are in business to make money, not to make us happy. They make us happy, because when we're happy we spend money. But if they can't part us from our money, they can't stay in a business that is dragging the rest of the company down.
Also, while Nintendo was the most profitable of the 3, Sony did not actually lose money on the PS2 overall. They made plenty of money on the PS2, it just wasn't profitable for the first 2 (or maybe it was 3) quarters.
The thing is, the only thing the PS2 really had that the GCN didn't was JRPG's. Everything else was mostly 3rd party and showed up on the GCN as well. The only thing the Xbox had was a few fighting games, ARPGs and even more FPSs. But the GCN had FPSs aplenty, lots of sports titles, and plenty of 3rd party goodness. It existed, it was just never advertised. For instance, GUN, people love GUN, it's critically acclaimed. I've talked to 5 different people who didn't even realize there was a gamecube version. There are over 100 3rd party games released for the GCN that no one realizes even existed, which would have changed many people's views of the GCN as a kiddy console. But because no one bothered to look for them, the GCN versions always sold less, and eventually 3rd parties (for the most part) stopped making games for the system.
Until recently I used to spend appx 15 hours a day reading. I was more than capable of reading while doing other things, I developed consumate skill at multitasking. Would you also consider that an addiction?
You are a different person than you are then. The people you met while playing EQ were at different stages in their lives. Those who took it upon themselves to keep up with you after you left were affected as much or more by the in-game community as you. Those who didn't probably never saw it as more than a game anyway.
Starting in June of 2005, DS began receiving consistently good releases (this is in the US, possibly sooner in Japan). Meaning that 8 months after release, the DS library went from ignorable to stellar. The PSP has so far been out 15 months, and its library of games is still mediocre. The PSP will need to come with some really spectacular games to compensate for being behind. There are actually 2 or 3 in the works, but there are something like 15 excellent games planned for release for the DS between August-December of this year. The PSP is going to need more than 2 or 3 good games to compete.
My suggestion to you is to get a DS then, and learn Japanese. Another Code is short, but really rather inventive for an adventure game. Project Hacker is longer, but with a much better storyline, but currently only available in Japan (nothing's been said about a US release yet). Hotel Dusk Room 215 will have a US release, but won't be out till near the end of the year, and it looks to be even more clever. Of course, those are the only old-style adventure games on the system, but if they sell well, I'm sure other companies will consider the genre (Project Hacker made it into the Japanese top 10 on its debut, but fell off right after, which admittedly puts it on par with every non-DS game to make it into the Japanese top 10 in the past 4 months).
This is a very good point, one most people haven't even thought of. They all assume the 360 isn't selling because of lack of games, or because people are waiting for a PS3/Wii. The fact that the 360 is still 400 freaking dollars is the reason I haven't gotten one yet, either. I can justify spending ridiculous amounts of money on a new pc, cause I can use it for more than just video games. I can't justify $400 for a new games console, especially one where all but one of the games I want can be purchased for the pc.
On the other hand, NPD has been known to make errors as well. MediaCreate's numbers for Japan are always fairly accurate, however.
True, you don't need to look photorealistic to be fun. You also don't have to be in 3d to be fun. I happen to enjoy sidescrollers. For instance, Castlevania DS was great, and certainly better than any 3d Castlevania has ever been (and I've played all of them). Forcing a game into 3d that isn't meant to be 3d is an unreasonable bias, and only hurts the game. There will be more 3d games for the DS as developers get more used to the hardware, but that won't automatically make the 2d games worthless.
The 360 has been out for 8 months, and has only sold 5 million units total in all markets. That includes the markets they've started selling in that neither Sony nor Nintendo have ever significantly broached before. Now they're saying that in the next 12 months, they expect to sell double what they've sold so far, this time with competition from 2 competitors. It clearly explains what their disadvantages are and what their advantages are in this competition. I'm willing to accept your hypothesis that Zonk is biased in his console preference, but your proof is sorely lacking.
...is getting to do a Final Fantasy-esque level up dance when you turn your reports in on time at the office. Now all I need is to get the level up music set as my cellphone ringtone, then I can level up each time I take a call!
I prefer the BESM moniker of calling it Katanaspace.
Who cares about a browser for the DS? The reason I'll be picking this up is the RAM expansion pack that comes with it. With the new passthroughs that plug in through the DS cart port, that thing will be great for homebrew and emulation. Can't wait to see what I can pull off with that.
How did this get rated insightful? Funny I could see, but insightful?
Well, to be fair, new IPs on a brand new system are not the way to go, from a business standpoint. First you release games that actually have a chance of selling, and once you're sure you have a reasonable install base, then you go for new IPs.
Yes, it can, if you're talented enough with the appropriate renderware. Shiny water can do anything.
Maybe balancing the different races/classes/whatever, isn't actually a good idea. I mean, think about it. 95% of all patches made in any MMO are to correct balance issues, and people still complain about it. But really, there's only one balance that needs to be struck in any game. The balance between reality and fantasy. Games are fun becuase they're fantasy, but they're believable because they're realistic. The game might actually be more fun if things weren't balanced at all, but every class was a unique play experience that you could only get by playing that class.
It is not news, in the classic sense of the word, but the commonly appear on news programs. A human interest story is literally a story that draws interest for it's emotional qualities, not because it contains anything newsworthy. These are common in ever television news program, newpaper & magazine.
This is a similar thing. The story is not simply that you can buy a lot of games for $600, it's a thoughtful breakdown of exactly what you can buy for $600 that might offer a similar experience to purchasing a ps3. It's something anyone could figure out on their own if they wanted to, but something most won't bother to do. It's interesting and thought-provoking, but no, not actually news. It still fits.
If you want to take a single feature of the ps3 and write a blog entry or article about it and submit it, you're welcome to do so, but don't expect it to get accepted unless it actually is interesting. Which means it has to be something people care about, and it has to include actual information. It doesn't have to be new information, it just has to be enough information, and presented in a way that actually provokes discussion and thought.
But that also was not the point of this thread. The point of this thread is that you say you've submitted articles which present the ps3 in a positive light. The ps3 interests me, so I am inclined to read articles about it, even if they aren't, strictly speaking, news, so I would still like links to the aforementioned articles.
I'm going to stop there. Your arguments are all valid, but essentially meaningless to me, as I already have a ps2 and a pc.