There's a LOT more taken into account, it's not quite that simple.
The #1 factor in all reality is those damn greedy publishers. They take the majority of the $$$.
But your wrong about developing costs not affecting game costs. Yes, game costs stay at a fairly consistant level no matter a particular games budget. However, there is a corrolation between development costs and sale price.
If I spend $5 million on a game, I'm going to need sell it high enough to make a profit back. If I only spend $10,000, then I can sell it for a fraction of the cost. It's basic economics.
However, currently the industry operates off of cheap games being overpriced and expensive games being underpriced (relatively). I think you'll soon see a shift where games are sold at different levels, more defined by their cost of production than anything else.
Development costs are going to have a much larger impact next-gen, and price points will likely be a bit more across the table. The Revolution especially will likely pull off games ranging from $30-$70 depending on development costs (and of course the publisher's greed).
Just wait, you'll see how important a factor it becomes...
As long as legislation stays within the realm of "you can't sell M and AO games to kids", I have no problem with it. Hell, I practically support it.
Now when they start talking about banning games entirely or setting unreasonably strict censors on things, then their going to have one gamer with a BFG to deal with...
Video games don't cause violence, ignorant politicians do.
...to bring down developing costs! Making things cheaper on both the developer and the consumer to me is much more important than things like High-def. I mean, maybe I'd care a bit more if I had one of these thousand-dollar HDTV's that everyone supposedly owns nowadays...
I hope Nintendo can really pull through with their promises to make game development simple and cheap with the Revolution. I think ease of development may become a HUGE factor in who wins the next console war...
Sony and Microsoft can show me all the pretty graphics they want, but if I just don't have the money than it really doesn't mean anything to me, does it?
That's one of the biggest problems right now, it SEEMS like it's doing fine, and the numbers even back that up...
But if you break everything down and look at it in a different light, you'll see we're actually doing WORSE off than back in the NES days.
Back when the NES was the only console around, it had about a 1/3 household penetration. While sales of consoles and games today are WAY higher than back then, you'll find that in the end, the gaming households percentage actually comes to a little bit UNDER 33%. The reason comes mostly from many people owning multiple consoles. Gamers are buying more games, but there aren't relatively many more gamers. Most of the gamer population increase has come purely from the fact theres just plain more people alive now than 20 years ago.
The market itself is shrinking. People are starting to lose interest in gaming as more and more games just do the same things over and over. On top of that, the population actually appears to be ready to head downwards in gaming's target market: teenage boys. In addition, the evergoing battles between developers and publishers is creating a huge lack of innovation. With all of that, it's easy to see that gaming is actually going downhill.
Nintendo is one of the few companies trying to dodge all of these issues, by taking an amazingly ingenious blue ocean strategy to help demolish the market boundaries. I don't think the Revolution is going to save the industry or anything, but it's a damn good start.
So, don't be so quick to judge the state of the industry based simply off the numbers and public media: the issues go much, much deeper than most people realize.
From Amazon's "Fine Print": If you believe that the product you are reviewing is unsafe, please report this information to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) http://www.cpsc.gov/incident.html or contact Amazon.com directly at product-safety@amazon.com.
The government needs to be informed that Thompson is unsafe for children ages -3 to 962.
Who was it that decided MMO's are worth 3 to 10 times more than the average game? Whoever it was, they should be shot.
To every gamer out there who thinks the current pay system for online gaming is fair, I hate you. Two reasons: Either A...your rich, or B...your stupid. I hate both types of people.
The industry has been suckering players into thinking that the $10-$15/mo range is fair since online gaming got started. In all reality, it's complete price gouging, especially in larger MMOs, like WoW. However, most gamers are either too rich or too stupid to care that they're getting ripped off.
I will never find it fair that I as a hardcore gamer am restricted from playing a game due to my financial status (or lack thereof). Companies have every right to try to turn a good profit on their games, but I know my little Warlock doesn't burden their servers for $150/yr.
Thank you Guild Wars, I love ye' very much. (also, thanks to the GM that runs my WoW Private Server. Stuff it Blizzard!)
Sorry, I meant to say flash tech (in my defense, I was loading pictures off my camera's SD card while I was typing that). But, just like you said, they are read-only ROM's, so it all depends on the flash space available.
If you think about how a patch would work on such a platform, it seems hard to manage it using such little space unless you planned for it in the original coding. For instance, what if you wrote the game using numerous tiny config files, and left them in the flash area, and used reference code when applicable. So, if you ever need to make a minor tweak, a user basically just needs to download a new version of that config file, which is nothing but text and could easily fit under 10 kb. There's some security issues that could be argued by putting config files in an editable space (teh hax0rz), but Nintendo could use file validation over their Wi-fi to check and make sure everyone has their patch, and no other version...(including a hacked one). Of course, graphics-related issues, or other types of heavy disc-usage files, present another issue...
I guess my point is that I think it's entirely feasible for games to be patchable on the DS, but the coders are going to have to prep for it.
Of course I think a small bug might be able to get through, your right of course about a few dozen testers not being able to replace millions of gamers. But you have to remember that this is Nintendo's flagship Wi-fi title, I have a feeling it went through a lot more strenuous work than your standard game...and of course any known bug in one of their previous Mario Kart games will be checked, so you won't see any of those...
Yeah, and I was thinking about that patching too. Since the DS uses SD-technology for their games, I don't see why it wouldn't be feasible to just update the card. Seems easy enough...
Nintendo wouldn't let a bug that big get out in one of their biggest titles ever. And if there were any big ones, the testers would have found them by now...remember, testers have been playing MKDS for a couple weeks now. A bug like that wouldn't have gone undiscovered...
I'm so excited about Nintendo's Wi-Fi Connection, it's just implemented so well. Their nintendowifi.com is a very well-built, easy to navigate site. And allowing you to see all the stats and things, as well as track your own stats...it's all awesome. Nintendo's really has come through with this...
He kind of lost credibility when he started talking about how Nintendo might be developing a visor or something for the Revolution. I think he took Miyamoto's recent comments about how games shouldn't be restricted by TVs a bit to serious. The controller is Revolutionary enough, Nintendo's not gonna go so far out as to get rid of TVs...yet...
Indeed, I agree. To what degree you believe God played his hand in our creation is a matter of your own faith, but I personally agree with you. I personally find it hard to believe that humans evolved naturally, I think it was done with a bit of divine intervention. I still believe we came about through evolution, but I think it was a sort of guided evolution. God knew what he wanted and set all the conditions so he would get his desired result...man...
It amazes me how absolutely stupid people are with the whole Creation versus Evolution debate. There is nothing in the bible that says evolution is wrong. Evolution is common sense if you think about.
Those who think God just poofed all of existence into being in a week are complete morons. "But that's what the Bible said." Well if you haven't figured it out by now, God isn't a very literal guy. And besides, last I checked, a week is like a few billion years to him...
It's really simple. God started the universe. Evolution brought it to where it is today (with possibly a little divine intervention in between). The two theories sit perfectly together, no conflict. God makes the amoeba, evolution turns that amoeba into a human over a few billion years. I don't see the issue.
The fact someone in the Vatican had the balls to come out and say that is wonderful. Maybe there's hope for the Church yet...
(Note: I am a firm Christian believer. I believe completely in the Bible, but feel people take it WAY to literally some times. In addition to that, I like to think of myself as an unprofessional scientist, because I prefer to examine the world from a logical standpoint. God may not be a logical answer to our being, but science doesn't exactly offer up anything better. Combining logic with faith is the only way to achieve a fractional understanding of our existence.)
Why not just remove the tobacco?
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Safe Cigarettes?
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· Score: 1
I understand the tobacco industry wouldn't want this to happen, but I can't understand why no one's invented this yet:
Why can't someone invent a cigarette that has no harmful side effects whatsoever. Technically, it wouldn't be a cigarette at all, but some kind of cane that you could smoke that would taste good. Many times I feel I need a smoke, but it's not the nicotine or anything I'm looking for, it's the habit itself. (note: I don't smoke, I think it's retarted. I've lost my Grandpa to it, and my dad has cancer because of it...)
I've seen products like these, little fake cigs you can put in your mouth to suck on or whatever to try to help cig-addicts quit. But I've never seen a product like this actually done right...I think it would be interesting, and would probably also help smokers that want to quit too...
"I personally think Twilight Princess will be a great seller software wise, but I don't think it'll shift many more consoles, I think it might be too late."
That's where your wrong. It'll shift quite a few Nintendo consoles, how many of them are Gamecube is a different story...
"Check the figures. They've not been able to claim 2nd place worldwide for over a year now, as the X-Box has stomped them in the late-cycle. Currently over a million units behind the X-Box worldwide."
I'm not sure who gave you those figures, but that's not true. The exact sales numbers worldwide are not currently known for either system. It is speculated that the two are within a million units of each other, but to try to speculate to an exact number is ridiculous. It's such a small margin, that could easily sway either way with the release of a big game, and most just consider it even.
And it wouldn't surprise me if Twilight Princess alone moves over a million 'Cubes...
Re:Most ridiculous piece of hardware ever concepte
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PS3 To Run At 120 FPS?
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· Score: 1
By fujiman: Sony has just put too much burden on the Cell. They have no dedicated sound processor for the PS3... "oh, the Cell will handle it". AI, Physics?... "oh, the Cell will handle it". Keep in mind this CPU has ONE CORE worth talking about, and 7 SPEs that, well, do the best they can. I work for a defense contractor that is using the cell, and I know a lot about it too, me bucko. An objective voice will tell you the SPEs are not good for 3D gaming... it's that simple. And what good is ease of chaining Cells if the PS3 only has one. Here's the bottom line. For the first two years, 360, PS3, and Revolution games will look the same. After that, no one can say which combination of tools, hardware, and talent will pull through.
Exactly my point, well put my friend.
Re:Most ridiculous piece of hardware ever concepte
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PS3 To Run At 120 FPS?
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· Score: 1
Talk to a programmer. They'll tell you how ridiculous the Cell is. Sure, it'll be great when we can start using it, but that's about 4 or 5 years away. So basically, your paying for this huge processor that runs the same as any other processor for the first few years. By the time it IS being utilized, Nintendo and Microsoft will bring forth their own multi-core processors. So basically, for the first 4 or 5 years, it's nothing more than something for Sony to market, not an actually functioning piece of the hardware. To me, that's just ripping off the customers.
If I were Sony, I'd bring forth a cheaper multi-core processor now, give developers the Cell to work on, and release it in the PS4. Anyone who buys a PS3 early in it's life cycle is just getting ripped off (but they will. It's unfortunate that such a huge percentage of the gamer market have no idea what their buying, they just run off hype).
I think he just meant that it's nice to get that old-school feel on a next-gen system...
Speaking of that, can't wait for Sonic Rush...
Most ridiculous piece of hardware ever concepted
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PS3 To Run At 120 FPS?
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· Score: 0, Flamebait
Alright, that draws the line....
This doesn't make ANY sense! Apparently, Sony's plot is to make you pay hundreds of dollars for the most useless features EVER!
A) An expensive DVD drive that uses a new format that hasn't even been established yet!
B) A processor NOBODY knows how to program for (I spoke with a guy at IBM about the Cell. He said it'd be at least 4 years before you start seeing anything that takes advantage of it)!
C) The ability to display more colors THAN THE HUMAN EYE CAN PROCESS!
D) And now a framerate that 90% of televisions can't even use!
Normally I don't like to get so worked up about these things, but this is just plain ridiculous. I want to see Sony shut about their specs and see some industry professionals evaluate how actually USEFUL this stuff is. I have a feeling that, in the end, all these numbers don't amount to squat, and you'll be able to play the exact same games on the Xbox 360 and Revolution. When these technologies do start to establish themselves and become noticeable, in about 5 years or so, Nintendo and Microsoft will be ready with new consoles. Sony is essentially trying to skip a generation, not in an effort to actually improve gameplay mind you, but as a marketing tool. Sony sure likes to play the deception game...
Oh, that's just 'cause of on-campus housing. I just didn't feel like dealing with some idiot complaining and having the housing rep yell at me. It's not worth the fight...
Slashdot Mirror
There's a LOT more taken into account, it's not quite that simple.
The #1 factor in all reality is those damn greedy publishers. They take the majority of the $$$.
But your wrong about developing costs not affecting game costs. Yes, game costs stay at a fairly consistant level no matter a particular games budget. However, there is a corrolation between development costs and sale price.
If I spend $5 million on a game, I'm going to need sell it high enough to make a profit back. If I only spend $10,000, then I can sell it for a fraction of the cost. It's basic economics.
However, currently the industry operates off of cheap games being overpriced and expensive games being underpriced (relatively). I think you'll soon see a shift where games are sold at different levels, more defined by their cost of production than anything else.
Development costs are going to have a much larger impact next-gen, and price points will likely be a bit more across the table. The Revolution especially will likely pull off games ranging from $30-$70 depending on development costs (and of course the publisher's greed).
Just wait, you'll see how important a factor it becomes...
As long as legislation stays within the realm of "you can't sell M and AO games to kids", I have no problem with it. Hell, I practically support it.
Now when they start talking about banning games entirely or setting unreasonably strict censors on things, then their going to have one gamer with a BFG to deal with...
Video games don't cause violence, ignorant politicians do.
lol, definitly a good point...
I hope Nintendo can really pull through with their promises to make game development simple and cheap with the Revolution. I think ease of development may become a HUGE factor in who wins the next console war...
Sony and Microsoft can show me all the pretty graphics they want, but if I just don't have the money than it really doesn't mean anything to me, does it?
Never heard of copyleft, but I have heard of copywrong...
But if you break everything down and look at it in a different light, you'll see we're actually doing WORSE off than back in the NES days.
Back when the NES was the only console around, it had about a 1/3 household penetration. While sales of consoles and games today are WAY higher than back then, you'll find that in the end, the gaming households percentage actually comes to a little bit UNDER 33%. The reason comes mostly from many people owning multiple consoles. Gamers are buying more games, but there aren't relatively many more gamers. Most of the gamer population increase has come purely from the fact theres just plain more people alive now than 20 years ago.
The market itself is shrinking. People are starting to lose interest in gaming as more and more games just do the same things over and over. On top of that, the population actually appears to be ready to head downwards in gaming's target market: teenage boys. In addition, the evergoing battles between developers and publishers is creating a huge lack of innovation. With all of that, it's easy to see that gaming is actually going downhill.
Nintendo is one of the few companies trying to dodge all of these issues, by taking an amazingly ingenious blue ocean strategy to help demolish the market boundaries. I don't think the Revolution is going to save the industry or anything, but it's a damn good start.
So, don't be so quick to judge the state of the industry based simply off the numbers and public media: the issues go much, much deeper than most people realize.
If you believe that the product you are reviewing is unsafe, please report this information to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) http://www.cpsc.gov/incident.html or contact Amazon.com directly at product-safety@amazon.com.
The government needs to be informed that Thompson is unsafe for children ages -3 to 962.
Who was it that decided MMO's are worth 3 to 10 times more than the average game? Whoever it was, they should be shot.
To every gamer out there who thinks the current pay system for online gaming is fair, I hate you.
Two reasons: Either A...your rich, or B...your stupid. I hate both types of people.
The industry has been suckering players into thinking that the $10-$15/mo range is fair since online gaming got started. In all reality, it's complete price gouging, especially in larger MMOs, like WoW. However, most gamers are either too rich or too stupid to care that they're getting ripped off.
I will never find it fair that I as a hardcore gamer am restricted from playing a game due to my financial status (or lack thereof). Companies have every right to try to turn a good profit on their games, but I know my little Warlock doesn't burden their servers for $150/yr.
Thank you Guild Wars, I love ye' very much.
(also, thanks to the GM that runs my WoW Private Server. Stuff it Blizzard!)
In all my life, I don't think anyone's explained that well with such wonderful passion...
If you think about how a patch would work on such a platform, it seems hard to manage it using such little space unless you planned for it in the original coding. For instance, what if you wrote the game using numerous tiny config files, and left them in the flash area, and used reference code when applicable. So, if you ever need to make a minor tweak, a user basically just needs to download a new version of that config file, which is nothing but text and could easily fit under 10 kb. There's some security issues that could be argued by putting config files in an editable space (teh hax0rz), but Nintendo could use file validation over their Wi-fi to check and make sure everyone has their patch, and no other version...(including a hacked one). Of course, graphics-related issues, or other types of heavy disc-usage files, present another issue...
I guess my point is that I think it's entirely feasible for games to be patchable on the DS, but the coders are going to have to prep for it.
Of course I think a small bug might be able to get through, your right of course about a few dozen testers not being able to replace millions of gamers. But you have to remember that this is Nintendo's flagship Wi-fi title, I have a feeling it went through a lot more strenuous work than your standard game...and of course any known bug in one of their previous Mario Kart games will be checked, so you won't see any of those...
Yeah, and I was thinking about that patching too. Since the DS uses SD-technology for their games, I don't see why it wouldn't be feasible to just update the card. Seems easy enough...
Nintendo wouldn't let a bug that big get out in one of their biggest titles ever. And if there were any big ones, the testers would have found them by now...remember, testers have been playing MKDS for a couple weeks now. A bug like that wouldn't have gone undiscovered...
I'm so excited about Nintendo's Wi-Fi Connection, it's just implemented so well. Their nintendowifi.com is a very well-built, easy to navigate site. And allowing you to see all the stats and things, as well as track your own stats...it's all awesome. Nintendo's really has come through with this...
He kind of lost credibility when he started talking about how Nintendo might be developing a visor or something for the Revolution. I think he took Miyamoto's recent comments about how games shouldn't be restricted by TVs a bit to serious. The controller is Revolutionary enough, Nintendo's not gonna go so far out as to get rid of TVs...yet...
Can't wait for my Nintendo Holodeck though...
Indeed, I agree. To what degree you believe God played his hand in our creation is a matter of your own faith, but I personally agree with you. I personally find it hard to believe that humans evolved naturally, I think it was done with a bit of divine intervention. I still believe we came about through evolution, but I think it was a sort of guided evolution. God knew what he wanted and set all the conditions so he would get his desired result...man...
It amazes me how absolutely stupid people are with the whole Creation versus Evolution debate. There is nothing in the bible that says evolution is wrong. Evolution is common sense if you think about.
Those who think God just poofed all of existence into being in a week are complete morons. "But that's what the Bible said." Well if you haven't figured it out by now, God isn't a very literal guy. And besides, last I checked, a week is like a few billion years to him...
It's really simple. God started the universe. Evolution brought it to where it is today (with possibly a little divine intervention in between). The two theories sit perfectly together, no conflict. God makes the amoeba, evolution turns that amoeba into a human over a few billion years. I don't see the issue.
The fact someone in the Vatican had the balls to come out and say that is wonderful. Maybe there's hope for the Church yet...
(Note: I am a firm Christian believer. I believe completely in the Bible, but feel people take it WAY to literally some times. In addition to that, I like to think of myself as an unprofessional scientist, because I prefer to examine the world from a logical standpoint. God may not be a logical answer to our being, but science doesn't exactly offer up anything better. Combining logic with faith is the only way to achieve a fractional understanding of our existence.)
Why can't someone invent a cigarette that has no harmful side effects whatsoever. Technically, it wouldn't be a cigarette at all, but some kind of cane that you could smoke that would taste good. Many times I feel I need a smoke, but it's not the nicotine or anything I'm looking for, it's the habit itself. (note: I don't smoke, I think it's retarted. I've lost my Grandpa to it, and my dad has cancer because of it...)
I've seen products like these, little fake cigs you can put in your mouth to suck on or whatever to try to help cig-addicts quit. But I've never seen a product like this actually done right...I think it would be interesting, and would probably also help smokers that want to quit too...
That's where your wrong. It'll shift quite a few Nintendo consoles, how many of them are Gamecube is a different story...
I'm not sure who gave you those figures, but that's not true. The exact sales numbers worldwide are not currently known for either system. It is speculated that the two are within a million units of each other, but to try to speculate to an exact number is ridiculous. It's such a small margin, that could easily sway either way with the release of a big game, and most just consider it even.
And it wouldn't surprise me if Twilight Princess alone moves over a million 'Cubes...
Exactly my point, well put my friend.
If I were Sony, I'd bring forth a cheaper multi-core processor now, give developers the Cell to work on, and release it in the PS4. Anyone who buys a PS3 early in it's life cycle is just getting ripped off (but they will. It's unfortunate that such a huge percentage of the gamer market have no idea what their buying, they just run off hype).
Speaking of that, can't wait for Sonic Rush...
This doesn't make ANY sense! Apparently, Sony's plot is to make you pay hundreds of dollars for the most useless features EVER!
A) An expensive DVD drive that uses a new format that hasn't even been established yet!
B) A processor NOBODY knows how to program for (I spoke with a guy at IBM about the Cell. He said it'd be at least 4 years before you start seeing anything that takes advantage of it)!
C) The ability to display more colors THAN THE HUMAN EYE CAN PROCESS!
D) And now a framerate that 90% of televisions can't even use!
Normally I don't like to get so worked up about these things, but this is just plain ridiculous. I want to see Sony shut about their specs and see some industry professionals evaluate how actually USEFUL this stuff is. I have a feeling that, in the end, all these numbers don't amount to squat, and you'll be able to play the exact same games on the Xbox 360 and Revolution. When these technologies do start to establish themselves and become noticeable, in about 5 years or so, Nintendo and Microsoft will be ready with new consoles. Sony is essentially trying to skip a generation, not in an effort to actually improve gameplay mind you, but as a marketing tool. Sony sure likes to play the deception game...
In the end, it's PS3 buyers that lose...
Microsoft Office: $10 per 1 second less load-time
But, yeah, you have a point...
Well, at least he admits that he looks dumb. Although, in the pictures I've seen, it looks more like he's stoned...
My Anti-Jack-Thompson Door ( Door Comic Closeup )
Thanks to Ctrl-Alt-Del for that excellent comic.