Thats a pretty weak complaint. It only means that you've allowed yourself to be locked into a certain music store. And if thats the argument, then basically anything that isn't the iPod is "less functional" than the iPod.
I own an iPod. Its not nearly as great, functional, and easy to use as people like to say. I could go out and buy players with more features, better interfaces, and no iTunes lock-in, for less money. iPod sells because they're "cool." Its all marketing.
How does the Zune have less functionality than the iPod? Seriously, I haven't heard anyone explain to me how its supposably worse than the iPod. It can play music and MP3s just like iPod. Pictures? Check. I'm pretty sure it plays video too.
I hear "Its BROWN LOLOLOL" or "The wireless is lame." Well, the iPod doesn't even have an option to wirelessly share, DRM or no.
Seriously, the OP is right. How is it any less technically capable than the iPod? How does it have less functionality? All I can see is a bunch of people who are bashing something because it isn't "cool," which is a marketing failure.
I asked the other day at a GameStop in Lincoln Park in Chicago, and they had PS3s in. Didn't ask what type or how many though. Best Buy seemed to be out last time I was there.
PSU is mainly an online game, its not traditional style, and as the ac said, its also available on PC and PS2, which means that there's no incentive to buy a 360 for the game.
As far as mediocre rpgs go, yes PS2 had a ton, but those weren't the ones that sold systems. FFX, FFXII, Dragon Quest VIII... those were the ones that sold systems.
You need more than 3, one of which is mediocre, and one of which is available on much more widespread platforms. Lets also not forget that the XBox360 has to overcome the bad precedence set by the original.
It's the same company. The whole "its a separate division" argument is a cop-out, because you don't want to admit you sacrificed your principles for a shiny new toy. At least be honest about it.
Of course, your conjecture is bullshit. Above and beyond the Levis and IPods, there are plenty of American products they consume. Music and movies were especially popular. The women liked french fashion. Yeah, the Japanese are somewhat isolationist, but they'll still buy it if you market it to them appropriately.
In case you hadn't noticed, XBox360, while a good system, has jack and shit in the way of Japanese RPGs. These are the types of games that are most popular over there. No, there isn't some grand conspiricy to lock Microsoft out of the market.
I was under the impression that, when Halo game out, XBox was just starting to get some worthwhile games. Now, I couldn't name them for you, since I didn't really pay attention to the first XBox, but I do remember hearing this from XBox fans.
XBox did have KOTOR, Jade Empire, and Panzer Dragoon Orta, amongst some other gems. None that I would buy a system for though.
They aren't jRPGs. jRPGs are what sell systems in Japan. Well, those and dating games.
Dead Rising and Lost Planet are much more American style than Japanese anyway. Just because they have Japanese developers, doesn't necessarily mean they cater to Japanese tastes. That being said, I am severely tempted to get a 360 for those two games, plus GoW and XNA, so I agree with you that they are system sellers.
Probably because thats an accurate description of game journalism, if you can call it that, in America. Its sad, but in most game magazines, all a high score means is that the company that made it coughed up enough advertising dollars./cynic
I take it you forgot Ocarina of Time? Navi and Issun are the same. damn. character.
Nope, I didn't forget it. Yeah they're the same character. The difference is that Navi didn't bug you nearly as much, and when she did you had an option of listening (you had to press a button to activate), and usually had semi-useful advice. Issun just interrupts you, using the god-awful slooooooooow text boxes.
You also forgot how I mentioned level design. It's important. Okami's levels were very very straightforward. Maybe one or two puzzles, and very linear. Zelda's, by comparison, are much more complex and interesting.
Finding hidden items was monotonous, and gave little reward. It often involved crawling the map to find that one hookshot target/block you couldn't lift a few hours ago/whatever that you remember seeing 4 hours ago so you can get 100 rupees.
No, the difference is that if you had to backtrack to something you saw 3 hours ago in Zelda, it gave you something substantial. At least a heart piece. And they used these kinds of things sparingly, and were often easy to remember, like big boulders you could bomb. Okami's equivalent is a little patch of dirt.
"Advancing your character was dull"? No moreso than in Zelda, where all "advancing your character" meant was crawling the map to find 1/4 heart containers.
Thats better than trucking around seeds and spending tons of time feeding every little animal you see just so you can get points to increase your life. With Zelda you got some interesting powers. Okami had 3 weapons, where you pick a main and a sub. The other items were useless. The brush powers added some variety, but they were such a pain in the ass to use, and quite often had limited usefulness. I felt Zelda had a lot more variety.
I could continue, but I'm not going to bother. If you can't see that there are a lot more similarities, then take off the fanboy goggles and look at the real game.
That's ok, I'll continue. Besides the sub-par level design I mentioned, Okami really liked to rub its story and characters in your face using freakin slow text boxes, instead of keeping the story mostly out of your way like Zelda. The level design leaves a lot to be desired. The brush skills get very monontonous very quickly. This game really needed the Nintendo DS's stylus.
It had a nice unique graphics and made a great attempt at a new gameplay mechanism. Unfortunately, the brush thing wasn't very well suited for the Playstation 2, and they severely neglected the level design. Given how much they wanted to rub the story in your face, they should have spent a lot more time on it to make it actually interesting.
Feel free to label me a fanboy though. I realize its hard to accept that some people might have valid complaints about a game you like, but I find it hard to swallow that Okami was just this beautiful misunderstood flower that people failed to appreciate, when other niche games like Katamari and unique games like Shadow of the Colossus did so well with just as much critical acclaim. All I know is, that 10 hours into Okami, I realized that I could be playing something I actually enjoyed. So I switched to FFXII.
I've played Okami, and I found it to be mediocre. I realize this isn't a popular opinion, but while the whole brush-to-use-special-powers mechanic was wonderfully innovative at first, it became old very quickly. The dungeons were poorly designed and much too straight-forward. The puzzles were incredibly simple, but practically every time you messed up, your sidekick launched into a stupid and even more obvious explanation. Finding hidden items was monontonous, and gave little reward. It often involved crawling the map to find that one little mound of dirt on the ground that you remembered seeing 3 hours ago, so you can get an item that is only useful for selling for money. It didn't have the wonderful assortment of items that Zelda did, which means I found myself using the same items and powers over and over, and growing incredibly bored with it.
Levels were dull. Advancing your character was dull. Exploring was dull. The rewards you were given for going out of your way and exploring were lame. The plot was simplistic. Puzzles were simplistic. Your sidekick treats you like an idiot.
Yeah it had pretty graphics. And the brushing mechanic was great... for the first 5 hours. But at 10 hours I had to force myself to turn on the PS2. It just wasn't that great of a game.
Cheap knockoff of Zelda with a couple of gimicks. The problem isn't that gamers don't like innovation. Innovation for the sake of innovation isn't good enough. You have to deliver a solid game too.
That's pretty much what they have with Mistwalker, which is who put out Blue Dragon. They have Lost Odyssey comming too, but I think they need more than token support from Square, and some of the other RPG developing studios out there.
And even with Blue Dragon, you have a console chart that looks like this: http://the-magicbox.com/toptenlast.htm/. You're not going to a lot of growth in Japan unless you have a sizable cache of jRPGs.
One game isn't going to suddenly turn around a dying system. Blue Dragon did sell systems, just not enough. If they can deliver a good selection of Japanese style games, then they might still be able to turn things around, especially considering how poorly PS3 is doing.
I'm sure Sony's PR department is grinning from ear to ear that people are falling for this shit.
Listen.... it doesn't matter that they're separate departments. Its. The. Same. Company. Saying "Oh its just the music department, all those other departments are ok," is just a cop-out. At least be honest that you don't really care.
Functional programming languages are highly suited to parallelization. I think in the future we'll see functional languages become more mainstream, and/or a lot of functional programming paradigms
There was an animated series of Xenosaga ep 1 comming out. I didn't bother watching it, so I don't know if they finished it, or plan to go through with the whole plot.
If they finish, hopefully they patch up some of the inconsistancies between ep 1 and ep 2 & 3. The writers did a pretty good job, but some of the changes between the first and the rest of the games makes me think that they rewrote significant parts of their story after they were done with the first one.
Xenosaga 3 was much much better than 2 in just about every way. I agree with you on the battle system, and yes they swapped it out for a new one. Amongst friends, Xenosaga 2 is referred to as "the one you have to play through to understand 3." They also spent way way too much time with Jr's backstory in 2, which made it extremely boring.
Yes, because with PS3 you can enjoy the huge library of Resistance and.... Resistance........
Oh wait, the PS3 lineup is even worse than the Wii's.
Seriously, what reality do you live in? I'd like to know because I've been trying to find a Wii, and apparently they're nowhere to be found in Illinois, but your personal reality apparently has them in stock.
Huhm. See, last Sunday I got a tip that a local Best Buy was going to get Wiis in. Given that all the retailers around here flat out told me "If you aren't lucky enough to be there when we open the box, you're screwed," I decided to head over at opening time and try to grab one. Unfortunately, I had to work that day, which means I had to head in an hour before Best Buy opened. As I walked past (its on my way to work), I noticed an absolutely huge line outside.
So basically, the Wii is so scarce that people are still lining up for it an hour before the store opens here.
Slashdot Mirror
Thats a pretty weak complaint. It only means that you've allowed yourself to be locked into a certain music store. And if thats the argument, then basically anything that isn't the iPod is "less functional" than the iPod.
I own an iPod. Its not nearly as great, functional, and easy to use as people like to say. I could go out and buy players with more features, better interfaces, and no iTunes lock-in, for less money. iPod sells because they're "cool." Its all marketing.
How does the Zune have less functionality than the iPod? Seriously, I haven't heard anyone explain to me how its supposably worse than the iPod. It can play music and MP3s just like iPod. Pictures? Check. I'm pretty sure it plays video too.
I hear "Its BROWN LOLOLOL" or "The wireless is lame." Well, the iPod doesn't even have an option to wirelessly share, DRM or no.
Seriously, the OP is right. How is it any less technically capable than the iPod? How does it have less functionality? All I can see is a bunch of people who are bashing something because it isn't "cool," which is a marketing failure.
There was some quote in reference to writing sci-fi by some author. Can't remember the source.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
I asked the other day at a GameStop in Lincoln Park in Chicago, and they had PS3s in. Didn't ask what type or how many though. Best Buy seemed to be out last time I was there.
PSU is mainly an online game, its not traditional style, and as the ac said, its also available on PC and PS2, which means that there's no incentive to buy a 360 for the game.
As far as mediocre rpgs go, yes PS2 had a ton, but those weren't the ones that sold systems. FFX, FFXII, Dragon Quest VIII... those were the ones that sold systems.
You need more than 3, one of which is mediocre, and one of which is available on much more widespread platforms. Lets also not forget that the XBox360 has to overcome the bad precedence set by the original.
My point still stands.
It's the same company. The whole "its a separate division" argument is a cop-out, because you don't want to admit you sacrificed your principles for a shiny new toy. At least be honest about it.
Of course, your conjecture is bullshit. Above and beyond the Levis and IPods, there are plenty of American products they consume. Music and movies were especially popular. The women liked french fashion. Yeah, the Japanese are somewhat isolationist, but they'll still buy it if you market it to them appropriately.
In case you hadn't noticed, XBox360, while a good system, has jack and shit in the way of Japanese RPGs. These are the types of games that are most popular over there. No, there isn't some grand conspiricy to lock Microsoft out of the market.
Lets try to keep the bigotry in check, shall we?
I was under the impression that, when Halo game out, XBox was just starting to get some worthwhile games. Now, I couldn't name them for you, since I didn't really pay attention to the first XBox, but I do remember hearing this from XBox fans.
XBox did have KOTOR, Jade Empire, and Panzer Dragoon Orta, amongst some other gems. None that I would buy a system for though.
They aren't jRPGs. jRPGs are what sell systems in Japan. Well, those and dating games.
Dead Rising and Lost Planet are much more American style than Japanese anyway. Just because they have Japanese developers, doesn't necessarily mean they cater to Japanese tastes. That being said, I am severely tempted to get a 360 for those two games, plus GoW and XNA, so I agree with you that they are system sellers.
Probably because thats an accurate description of game journalism, if you can call it that, in America. Its sad, but in most game magazines, all a high score means is that the company that made it coughed up enough advertising dollars. /cynic
Mostly, I just found the rate at which the text appeared intolerably slow, with no way to configure it. Especially in cutscenes.
Nope, I didn't forget it. Yeah they're the same character. The difference is that Navi didn't bug you nearly as much, and when she did you had an option of listening (you had to press a button to activate), and usually had semi-useful advice. Issun just interrupts you, using the god-awful slooooooooow text boxes.
You also forgot how I mentioned level design. It's important. Okami's levels were very very straightforward. Maybe one or two puzzles, and very linear. Zelda's, by comparison, are much more complex and interesting.
Finding hidden items was monotonous, and gave little reward. It often involved crawling the map to find that one hookshot target/block you couldn't lift a few hours ago/whatever that you remember seeing 4 hours ago so you can get 100 rupees.
No, the difference is that if you had to backtrack to something you saw 3 hours ago in Zelda, it gave you something substantial. At least a heart piece. And they used these kinds of things sparingly, and were often easy to remember, like big boulders you could bomb. Okami's equivalent is a little patch of dirt.
"Advancing your character was dull"? No moreso than in Zelda, where all "advancing your character" meant was crawling the map to find 1/4 heart containers.
Thats better than trucking around seeds and spending tons of time feeding every little animal you see just so you can get points to increase your life. With Zelda you got some interesting powers. Okami had 3 weapons, where you pick a main and a sub. The other items were useless. The brush powers added some variety, but they were such a pain in the ass to use, and quite often had limited usefulness. I felt Zelda had a lot more variety.
I could continue, but I'm not going to bother. If you can't see that there are a lot more similarities, then take off the fanboy goggles and look at the real game.
That's ok, I'll continue. Besides the sub-par level design I mentioned, Okami really liked to rub its story and characters in your face using freakin slow text boxes, instead of keeping the story mostly out of your way like Zelda. The level design leaves a lot to be desired. The brush skills get very monontonous very quickly. This game really needed the Nintendo DS's stylus.
It had a nice unique graphics and made a great attempt at a new gameplay mechanism. Unfortunately, the brush thing wasn't very well suited for the Playstation 2, and they severely neglected the level design. Given how much they wanted to rub the story in your face, they should have spent a lot more time on it to make it actually interesting.
Feel free to label me a fanboy though. I realize its hard to accept that some people might have valid complaints about a game you like, but I find it hard to swallow that Okami was just this beautiful misunderstood flower that people failed to appreciate, when other niche games like Katamari and unique games like Shadow of the Colossus did so well with just as much critical acclaim. All I know is, that 10 hours into Okami, I realized that I could be playing something I actually enjoyed. So I switched to FFXII.
I've played Okami, and I found it to be mediocre. I realize this isn't a popular opinion, but while the whole brush-to-use-special-powers mechanic was wonderfully innovative at first, it became old very quickly. The dungeons were poorly designed and much too straight-forward. The puzzles were incredibly simple, but practically every time you messed up, your sidekick launched into a stupid and even more obvious explanation. Finding hidden items was monontonous, and gave little reward. It often involved crawling the map to find that one little mound of dirt on the ground that you remembered seeing 3 hours ago, so you can get an item that is only useful for selling for money. It didn't have the wonderful assortment of items that Zelda did, which means I found myself using the same items and powers over and over, and growing incredibly bored with it.
Levels were dull. Advancing your character was dull. Exploring was dull. The rewards you were given for going out of your way and exploring were lame. The plot was simplistic. Puzzles were simplistic. Your sidekick treats you like an idiot.
Yeah it had pretty graphics. And the brushing mechanic was great... for the first 5 hours. But at 10 hours I had to force myself to turn on the PS2. It just wasn't that great of a game.
Cheap knockoff of Zelda with a couple of gimicks. The problem isn't that gamers don't like innovation. Innovation for the sake of innovation isn't good enough. You have to deliver a solid game too.
That's pretty much what they have with Mistwalker, which is who put out Blue Dragon. They have Lost Odyssey comming too, but I think they need more than token support from Square, and some of the other RPG developing studios out there.
On another note, do you know how the most-wanted list is generated? I can't seem to find info on that.
And even with Blue Dragon, you have a console chart that looks like this: http://the-magicbox.com/toptenlast.htm/. You're not going to a lot of growth in Japan unless you have a sizable cache of jRPGs.
One game isn't going to suddenly turn around a dying system. Blue Dragon did sell systems, just not enough. If they can deliver a good selection of Japanese style games, then they might still be able to turn things around, especially considering how poorly PS3 is doing.
I'm sure Sony's PR department is grinning from ear to ear that people are falling for this shit.
Listen.... it doesn't matter that they're separate departments. Its. The. Same. Company. Saying "Oh its just the music department, all those other departments are ok," is just a cop-out. At least be honest that you don't really care.
If you really believe that, you're either ignorant, prejudiced, or simply not paying attention.
Functional programming languages are highly suited to parallelization. I think in the future we'll see functional languages become more mainstream, and/or a lot of functional programming paradigms
I guess Sony is forgetting all those systems that came before the Playstation.
Remember when that Sony exec was interviewed and they claimed that they weren't arrogant? Yeah me too.
There was an animated series of Xenosaga ep 1 comming out. I didn't bother watching it, so I don't know if they finished it, or plan to go through with the whole plot.
If they finish, hopefully they patch up some of the inconsistancies between ep 1 and ep 2 & 3. The writers did a pretty good job, but some of the changes between the first and the rest of the games makes me think that they rewrote significant parts of their story after they were done with the first one.
Xenosaga 3 was much much better than 2 in just about every way. I agree with you on the battle system, and yes they swapped it out for a new one. Amongst friends, Xenosaga 2 is referred to as "the one you have to play through to understand 3." They also spent way way too much time with Jr's backstory in 2, which made it extremely boring.
Yes, because with PS3 you can enjoy the huge library of Resistance and.... Resistance........
Oh wait, the PS3 lineup is even worse than the Wii's.
Seriously, what reality do you live in? I'd like to know because I've been trying to find a Wii, and apparently they're nowhere to be found in Illinois, but your personal reality apparently has them in stock.
Huhm. See, last Sunday I got a tip that a local Best Buy was going to get Wiis in. Given that all the retailers around here flat out told me "If you aren't lucky enough to be there when we open the box, you're screwed," I decided to head over at opening time and try to grab one. Unfortunately, I had to work that day, which means I had to head in an hour before Best Buy opened. As I walked past (its on my way to work), I noticed an absolutely huge line outside.
So basically, the Wii is so scarce that people are still lining up for it an hour before the store opens here.