Fact is, people don't care about uncompressed audio. Heck, when I'm listening to tunes or playing a game, I don't care about audio compression, and I'm an audio producer. Most people can't tell the difference between an 128kbps MP3 and a CD (16bit/44.1k), most people can't even FEEL the difference between them.
You're kidding yourself if you think audio quality is going to define ANYTHING about this generation.
Not to mention, we're talking "creative bankruptcy" not financial bankruptcy. Nintendo, as far as I'm concerned, has NEVER been in creative bankruptcy. SEGA, on the other hand, has just been going downhill ever since the Genesis left us. It poked its head out of the clouds (no pun intended) once to give us Skies of Arcadia, and maybe a few other times. But for the most part, they've shown themselves to be entirely creatively bankrupt. ESPECIALLY the Sonic Team (who I believe is doing NiGHTs).
I saw a really interesting comparison using albums from the rock band "Rush", who have been putting out albums consistantly since 1974 (18 studio albums, 5 live albums). They took something like every 3 albums, or every 5 years and displayed a waveform from them, and the difference was distrubing.
Then again, could this also increase our sensitivity to dynamic range? If music is compressed and limited to the point that the dynamics change only very slightly, might we become more attuned to dynamic changes?
We're talking about ALL huge titles by large game developers, here. The buzz behind Eternal Sonata (Trusty Bell) has been huge, possibly almost as much as Blue Dragon. In fact, it's Blue Dragon that's by a fairly small, indy company: Mistwalker (and no, Mistwalker is not owned by Microsoft). Eternal Sonata is made by Tri-Crescendo, a branch of Tri-Ace, which is a huge company, comparitively. In the RPG community, you don't hear much about Blue Dragon these days, but ES is getting more hype than anything else. It'll do fine. I, for one, am buying an XBox360 the day ES comes out.
And NiGHTS? That's being produced by Sega's Sonic Team, one of the most (in)famous console development teams in the history of gaming. Yes, it won't outsell Myamodo's franchises... and really, can you really justify that happening?
Well, I don't know whether unrealistic hollywood physics are really hurting students' understanding (probably a little... but likely not that much, especially since REAL physics is mostly math calculations, which has little to do with visual observation. However, I do find that unreal physics can detract from a movie. Die Hard 4 jolted me out of my immersion a few times with completely impossible physics, and that's not a good thing. I like to see things that are physically possible, but incredibly difficult for a human to do... right at the edge of plausibility. That's what movies are TRYING to do, anyway. I don't think film makers realise that they're doing it so grossly over-the-top when they do it, though. Sure, use wide angle lenses to make things look far away, do lots of cinematic trickery, but don't break my immersion with things that make me go, "wait... that's not possible!" It's distracting.
I'd like to hear more ballsy politicians make ultimatums like JFK did. We lack vissionaries in politics, these days. Everything must now be carefully calculated and measured for exact efficiency and cost. The creative and exploritory nature of our society is lost in the processes.
Japan seems to be the one making the big scientific ultimatums these days. The government will take on improbable missions in the name of progress, even if there's a high chance of failior. Furthermore, it can't hurt to have that extra employment, it's sort of like a continuous "new deal" but with scientific breakthroughs on the line.
I just want to see some visionaries at the head of our country.
This idea sounds along the lines of "sweeping up the sand in the desert." If, by space junk, you're refering to man-made objects... all of them happen to be space-craft, the smallest piece you're going to find is probably a broken off solar panel from a satallite, and that's probably about 20ft long. So no, it's not really very relivent. But if you're REALLY insistant on it, for, smaller objects, it would just be better to de-orbit them. Most satallites will break up and burn up into non-harmful compounds upon re-entry.
"To reach the billion-dollar mark, the market will have to overcome the common wisdom that games are inherently not serious."
I disagree, to reach the billion-dollar mark, the market will have to ACCEPT the common wisdom that games are inherently not serious. Currently, not being "serious" is a turn off. Games will never be inherently "serious". But businesses as of late, have been quickly realizing that "serious" does not always translate to productivity. More likely, what we're going to see is the market accepting the non-serious side of games... not games becoming serious as a result.
The fact is, the game industry is booming right now. Game developers have no reason to change their business strategies, drastically, to accommodate for markets which may disagree with their fundimental principals.
For reals? You mean, I'm not the only person who plays Tetris with bathroom tiles? SWEET, "Mom! You hear that! It looks like I'm not crazy after all!" But no really, I think the bathroom tetris thing is more a product of a very mildly OCD mind that's trying to make sense of everything... better while on acid, though; trying to fit blocks together when they REALLY ARE MOVING is a lot more fun.
But the strafing around corners... I definitely do, once in a while. I've seen a lot of people do it, it's actually very efficient sometimes.
I think, by his actions, that Powell proved he was a decent human being, but probably not a great politician. That's nothing against him, I just don't think he has the ability to stand aside really powerful people and still look in control, which is a must. I hope he and his familly have a wonderful, quiet life, because that's what he really seems to want, and I wish him the best of luck.
Hows this: "I'd rather play this game than Motorstorm, Need For Speed Carbon, GranTourismo, or any other racing game that the PS3 has to offer." Now, granted, I'm not a fan of racing games, and that's sort of the point, Excite Truck *IS* more of an arcade game. Is it the kind of game I'd buy a $600 console for? Absolutely not. But neither is Motorstorm. At least Excite Truck has the Wiimote control scheme (which is REALLY FUN, I might add).
What are you babbling about? Excite Truck is probably the most fun racing game I've ever played/owned. Sure, I don't play it all the time, but for the hours of time spent sitting around laughing my head off while playing friends, it is DEFINITELY worth the price.
Because the N64 was a big letdown, and people didn't want to be burned again.
Seriously, a large part of a console's success is owed to how well the previous generation was recieved. In actuality, the GameCube was recieved VERY WELL, even if it didn't sell very well. It cleared up about 90% of the mistakes that Nintendo had made with the N64 (which lost them control), but it was going to take another generation for sales to really reflect that. Hence the popularity of the Wii.
Wrong... Mario Party is still 480p Widescreen, it just doesn't use the screen realestate for content... it "pillar boxes" the sides of the screen with colorred bars. If a game was truly 4:3 only, it would show as black pillar boxes. There's a fundimental difference between running widescreen, but with pillar boxes, and running true 4:3. It means that the programmers at least recognized that the system was running 16:9, but chose not to use that extra screen realestate.
It's a perfectly exceptable resolution, after all. For non-cinematic content, 4:3 actually has many advantages. Now, it sucks when you have a widescreen TV, like I do, but it is understandable.
I completely dissagree, as do most people around here. It's completely unecconomical for them to sell the 80GB version at $500. I saw this comming even before they announced the drop. It's basically a repeat of what happened at launch: as a publicity stunt, drop the price of one unit, but then sell 20x more of the expensive model. That way, you can CLAIM that the price is $500, but in actuality, 95% of the population is forced into paying $600.
Honestly, I don't think anyone with half a brain thinks that the price will change to $500 after the 60GB versions are gone. Sony has given us NO reason to assume this will happen, and the ecconomics just don't add up, either. They're already losing almost $200 on each model, why would they stand to lose even more?
I agree. But, seeing how well the Wii is selling, it's kinda hard to point fingers at Nintendo. Honestly, they could have sold at $300, and they'd probably still be behind demand. You can't fault a company for selling below demand.
$400 is not out of the question for a BRAND NEW console at launch, especially when there's also a $300 version. But $500-$600 is WAY out there. Wasn't the PS2 something like $350 at launch? The 360 isn't completely out of the question, although maybe a little pricey. The PS3 is completely rediculous though.
720p (which is the vast majority of HD titles) uses only about 3x the screen realestate as 480i/p, and thus requires about 3x more processing power. The leap to HDTV is not the first resolution change, actually, just the first one to require different TV hardware. The SNES to N64/PS1 required a 4x processing power boost when it went from 240i to 480i. A 15x processing jump between generations, when taking into account new graphical processing procedures, clockspeed upgrades, and everything else involved, is pretty much par for the course, even 20x or 25x is not uncommon. The SNES to N64 was an absolutely huge processing jump when compared to the one from the PS2 to PS3. The PS3 is pretty much in line with where it should be considering the jump from PS1 to PS2... it's just that Sony had to make a big stink about it, mainly because BluRay and Cell technology jacked up the price, more than people would be willing to pay for the realistic processing increase.
But the bottom line is... "is it worth it?" Sony and Microsoft can spout that there's a 25x processing jump, all they want, but does the system LOOK like it's 25x more powerful? That's all people care about. And no, I can't justify saying that anything looks 25x more godly on those systems. Well, the PS3 may only look it, only if because the PS2 looks so damn ancient by todays standards. I just played RE4 on my Wii (GameCube graphics), and went back to playing Shadow of the Colossus on my PS2... and as much as I love the artful construction of SotC, the games really look like two different generations, even if they basically came out at the same time. PS2 -> GC/XBox, now THERE'S a gap in ACTUAL graphical improvement that's immediately noticable.
"I think that's a fundamental part of good gameplay."
Bullshit. I just finished "Ico", an early 2001 PS2 game, that was incredibly intense, and with the acception of a few pointlessly easy battles, had no bad guys. If anything, I could have done completely without the baddies, and the game would have been just as good. It's not a fundamental part of good gameplay, it's called "status quo". Obviously, every game, story, even piece of music, needs to have something that causes tension, but "bad guys" are only one of many options. In Ico, the antagonist was mainly gravity, the wall in front of you, and the frailty of the little girl you were leading around. Those were good enough. The baddies added a little in some areas, subtracted in others.
This line completely destroys any credibility this developer ever had in my mind. Good bye.
I'm going to have to dissagree here. The 360 and PS3 are really no more a leap than any other generation, even if the companies have been acting like they are. But that's ALWAYS the case, isn't it? A company claims that their newest product is not only the best, but a bigger jump than any of their previous ones. Well, we're going on the 3rd generation of 3D gaming (the last MAJOR jump in game design) and nothing really extraordinary. Sure, we're one step closer to photorealistic graphics, but then, that's sort of a moving target, too. People said we were almost there when FF7 was released, believe it or not... but the more we go, the more attuned we are to the small inconsistancies between 3D modeling and reality. And even if/when we DO get there, will it mean anything? Do we really respond any differently to film than we do to 3D graphics? When we're absorbed in the game, I don't think we do.
But I digress. Nintendo truly offered something new, for the first time since the PS1 lept into the fray with full 3D graphics. It's the 360 and the PS3, while being more powerful, that don't offer any distinct course in the development in gaming. And people welcome a change of pace.
Demographics speak for themselves. Actually, the Wii is the favorite choice of the older and more serious gamer. It's also the choice of the casual gamer too. It's the 12-18 "extreme teen" gamer whose been left behind.
There's no doubt that Nintendo has a hold on the casual gaming market. But go check ANY weboard with gamers serious enough to spend significant parts of their lives discussing games, and you'll find that the Wii is the chosen system.
Slashdot Mirror
One word: iPod
Fact is, people don't care about uncompressed audio. Heck, when I'm listening to tunes or playing a game, I don't care about audio compression, and I'm an audio producer. Most people can't tell the difference between an 128kbps MP3 and a CD (16bit/44.1k), most people can't even FEEL the difference between them.
You're kidding yourself if you think audio quality is going to define ANYTHING about this generation.
Not to mention, we're talking "creative bankruptcy" not financial bankruptcy. Nintendo, as far as I'm concerned, has NEVER been in creative bankruptcy. SEGA, on the other hand, has just been going downhill ever since the Genesis left us. It poked its head out of the clouds (no pun intended) once to give us Skies of Arcadia, and maybe a few other times. But for the most part, they've shown themselves to be entirely creatively bankrupt. ESPECIALLY the Sonic Team (who I believe is doing NiGHTs).
I saw a really interesting comparison using albums from the rock band "Rush", who have been putting out albums consistantly since 1974 (18 studio albums, 5 live albums). They took something like every 3 albums, or every 5 years and displayed a waveform from them, and the difference was distrubing.
Then again, could this also increase our sensitivity to dynamic range? If music is compressed and limited to the point that the dynamics change only very slightly, might we become more attuned to dynamic changes?
We're talking about ALL huge titles by large game developers, here. The buzz behind Eternal Sonata (Trusty Bell) has been huge, possibly almost as much as Blue Dragon. In fact, it's Blue Dragon that's by a fairly small, indy company: Mistwalker (and no, Mistwalker is not owned by Microsoft). Eternal Sonata is made by Tri-Crescendo, a branch of Tri-Ace, which is a huge company, comparitively. In the RPG community, you don't hear much about Blue Dragon these days, but ES is getting more hype than anything else. It'll do fine. I, for one, am buying an XBox360 the day ES comes out.
And NiGHTS? That's being produced by Sega's Sonic Team, one of the most (in)famous console development teams in the history of gaming. Yes, it won't outsell Myamodo's franchises... and really, can you really justify that happening?
Well, I don't know whether unrealistic hollywood physics are really hurting students' understanding (probably a little... but likely not that much, especially since REAL physics is mostly math calculations, which has little to do with visual observation. However, I do find that unreal physics can detract from a movie. Die Hard 4 jolted me out of my immersion a few times with completely impossible physics, and that's not a good thing. I like to see things that are physically possible, but incredibly difficult for a human to do... right at the edge of plausibility. That's what movies are TRYING to do, anyway. I don't think film makers realise that they're doing it so grossly over-the-top when they do it, though. Sure, use wide angle lenses to make things look far away, do lots of cinematic trickery, but don't break my immersion with things that make me go, "wait... that's not possible!" It's distracting.
I'd like to hear more ballsy politicians make ultimatums like JFK did. We lack vissionaries in politics, these days. Everything must now be carefully calculated and measured for exact efficiency and cost. The creative and exploritory nature of our society is lost in the processes.
Japan seems to be the one making the big scientific ultimatums these days. The government will take on improbable missions in the name of progress, even if there's a high chance of failior. Furthermore, it can't hurt to have that extra employment, it's sort of like a continuous "new deal" but with scientific breakthroughs on the line.
I just want to see some visionaries at the head of our country.
This idea sounds along the lines of "sweeping up the sand in the desert." If, by space junk, you're refering to man-made objects... all of them happen to be space-craft, the smallest piece you're going to find is probably a broken off solar panel from a satallite, and that's probably about 20ft long. So no, it's not really very relivent. But if you're REALLY insistant on it, for, smaller objects, it would just be better to de-orbit them. Most satallites will break up and burn up into non-harmful compounds upon re-entry.
"To reach the billion-dollar mark, the market will have to overcome the common wisdom that games are inherently not serious."
I disagree, to reach the billion-dollar mark, the market will have to ACCEPT the common wisdom that games are inherently not serious. Currently, not being "serious" is a turn off. Games will never be inherently "serious". But businesses as of late, have been quickly realizing that "serious" does not always translate to productivity. More likely, what we're going to see is the market accepting the non-serious side of games... not games becoming serious as a result.
The fact is, the game industry is booming right now. Game developers have no reason to change their business strategies, drastically, to accommodate for markets which may disagree with their fundimental principals.
For reals? You mean, I'm not the only person who plays Tetris with bathroom tiles? SWEET, "Mom! You hear that! It looks like I'm not crazy after all!" But no really, I think the bathroom tetris thing is more a product of a very mildly OCD mind that's trying to make sense of everything... better while on acid, though; trying to fit blocks together when they REALLY ARE MOVING is a lot more fun.
But the strafing around corners... I definitely do, once in a while. I've seen a lot of people do it, it's actually very efficient sometimes.
I think, by his actions, that Powell proved he was a decent human being, but probably not a great politician. That's nothing against him, I just don't think he has the ability to stand aside really powerful people and still look in control, which is a must. I hope he and his familly have a wonderful, quiet life, because that's what he really seems to want, and I wish him the best of luck.
Hows this: "I'd rather play this game than Motorstorm, Need For Speed Carbon, GranTourismo, or any other racing game that the PS3 has to offer." Now, granted, I'm not a fan of racing games, and that's sort of the point, Excite Truck *IS* more of an arcade game. Is it the kind of game I'd buy a $600 console for? Absolutely not. But neither is Motorstorm. At least Excite Truck has the Wiimote control scheme (which is REALLY FUN, I might add).
What are you babbling about? Excite Truck is probably the most fun racing game I've ever played/owned. Sure, I don't play it all the time, but for the hours of time spent sitting around laughing my head off while playing friends, it is DEFINITELY worth the price.
Because the N64 was a big letdown, and people didn't want to be burned again.
Seriously, a large part of a console's success is owed to how well the previous generation was recieved. In actuality, the GameCube was recieved VERY WELL, even if it didn't sell very well. It cleared up about 90% of the mistakes that Nintendo had made with the N64 (which lost them control), but it was going to take another generation for sales to really reflect that. Hence the popularity of the Wii.
WTF are you talking about? I own about 8 Wii titles, 4 of them launch titles, and every single one runs widescreen. I've yet to see one that doesn't.
Wii Sports
Zelda
Excite Truck
Rayman
WarioWare
Super Paper Mario
Sonic & Secret Rings
Resident Evil 4
Wrong... Mario Party is still 480p Widescreen, it just doesn't use the screen realestate for content... it "pillar boxes" the sides of the screen with colorred bars. If a game was truly 4:3 only, it would show as black pillar boxes. There's a fundimental difference between running widescreen, but with pillar boxes, and running true 4:3. It means that the programmers at least recognized that the system was running 16:9, but chose not to use that extra screen realestate.
It's a perfectly exceptable resolution, after all. For non-cinematic content, 4:3 actually has many advantages. Now, it sucks when you have a widescreen TV, like I do, but it is understandable.
I completely dissagree, as do most people around here. It's completely unecconomical for them to sell the 80GB version at $500. I saw this comming even before they announced the drop. It's basically a repeat of what happened at launch: as a publicity stunt, drop the price of one unit, but then sell 20x more of the expensive model. That way, you can CLAIM that the price is $500, but in actuality, 95% of the population is forced into paying $600.
Honestly, I don't think anyone with half a brain thinks that the price will change to $500 after the 60GB versions are gone. Sony has given us NO reason to assume this will happen, and the ecconomics just don't add up, either. They're already losing almost $200 on each model, why would they stand to lose even more?
I agree. But, seeing how well the Wii is selling, it's kinda hard to point fingers at Nintendo. Honestly, they could have sold at $300, and they'd probably still be behind demand. You can't fault a company for selling below demand.
No, that's "Echo"... "Ico" is a an early-gen PS2 adventure game with an incredibly artist aesthetic setting.
$400 is not out of the question for a BRAND NEW console at launch, especially when there's also a $300 version. But $500-$600 is WAY out there. Wasn't the PS2 something like $350 at launch? The 360 isn't completely out of the question, although maybe a little pricey. The PS3 is completely rediculous though.
Bzzzzz, wrong!
720p (which is the vast majority of HD titles) uses only about 3x the screen realestate as 480i/p, and thus requires about 3x more processing power. The leap to HDTV is not the first resolution change, actually, just the first one to require different TV hardware. The SNES to N64/PS1 required a 4x processing power boost when it went from 240i to 480i. A 15x processing jump between generations, when taking into account new graphical processing procedures, clockspeed upgrades, and everything else involved, is pretty much par for the course, even 20x or 25x is not uncommon. The SNES to N64 was an absolutely huge processing jump when compared to the one from the PS2 to PS3. The PS3 is pretty much in line with where it should be considering the jump from PS1 to PS2... it's just that Sony had to make a big stink about it, mainly because BluRay and Cell technology jacked up the price, more than people would be willing to pay for the realistic processing increase.
But the bottom line is... "is it worth it?" Sony and Microsoft can spout that there's a 25x processing jump, all they want, but does the system LOOK like it's 25x more powerful? That's all people care about. And no, I can't justify saying that anything looks 25x more godly on those systems. Well, the PS3 may only look it, only if because the PS2 looks so damn ancient by todays standards. I just played RE4 on my Wii (GameCube graphics), and went back to playing Shadow of the Colossus on my PS2... and as much as I love the artful construction of SotC, the games really look like two different generations, even if they basically came out at the same time. PS2 -> GC/XBox, now THERE'S a gap in ACTUAL graphical improvement that's immediately noticable.
"I think that's a fundamental part of good gameplay."
Bullshit. I just finished "Ico", an early 2001 PS2 game, that was incredibly intense, and with the acception of a few pointlessly easy battles, had no bad guys. If anything, I could have done completely without the baddies, and the game would have been just as good. It's not a fundamental part of good gameplay, it's called "status quo". Obviously, every game, story, even piece of music, needs to have something that causes tension, but "bad guys" are only one of many options. In Ico, the antagonist was mainly gravity, the wall in front of you, and the frailty of the little girl you were leading around. Those were good enough. The baddies added a little in some areas, subtracted in others.
This line completely destroys any credibility this developer ever had in my mind. Good bye.
11:40pm at -40F, launch at 1am. Day one Wii owner, and enjoying every minute of it.
I'm going to have to dissagree here. The 360 and PS3 are really no more a leap than any other generation, even if the companies have been acting like they are. But that's ALWAYS the case, isn't it? A company claims that their newest product is not only the best, but a bigger jump than any of their previous ones. Well, we're going on the 3rd generation of 3D gaming (the last MAJOR jump in game design) and nothing really extraordinary. Sure, we're one step closer to photorealistic graphics, but then, that's sort of a moving target, too. People said we were almost there when FF7 was released, believe it or not... but the more we go, the more attuned we are to the small inconsistancies between 3D modeling and reality. And even if/when we DO get there, will it mean anything? Do we really respond any differently to film than we do to 3D graphics? When we're absorbed in the game, I don't think we do.
But I digress. Nintendo truly offered something new, for the first time since the PS1 lept into the fray with full 3D graphics. It's the 360 and the PS3, while being more powerful, that don't offer any distinct course in the development in gaming. And people welcome a change of pace.
February 2006, baby:
"Why Apple Won and Why Nintendo Will"
Demographics speak for themselves. Actually, the Wii is the favorite choice of the older and more serious gamer. It's also the choice of the casual gamer too. It's the 12-18 "extreme teen" gamer whose been left behind.
There's no doubt that Nintendo has a hold on the casual gaming market. But go check ANY weboard with gamers serious enough to spend significant parts of their lives discussing games, and you'll find that the Wii is the chosen system.