Well, Apple's only used eSomething once, and the only iSomething I can remember in the late 90s is the iMac, which is there's, so what's you're point?
eSomething and iSomething are incredibly different, though. One comes out of the shortening for Electronic Mail to eMail, which is techy and hip sounding. iSomething has no greater meaning, other than the "i" is a personal reference, it's friendly, it's non-threatening, it has a general reference to eSomething naming, yet inspires a bit of fun and innocence. The lower-case "i" has always been the most anthropromorphized character in the latin alphibet: the dot resembling a head, and its upper an lower serifs resembling arms and feet... it's cute. As silly as it might sound, it was exactly what the industry needed to fend off one of the industry's biggest image problems: the image of computers as cold, scary, impersonal, complicated, and aggrivating machines. It may look overbearingly cutesy... but "cute" is probably the best image overhaul that could ever happen to the computer industry, since it dissolves the fear of technology at first glance. Now, iPods are treasured items, people excitingly surf their cellphones, computers start to appear more in people's livingrooms... I don't know if these things would have happened if the industry hadn't been injected with a dose of non-threatening cuteness.
Which is too bad, because from a creative standpoint, it's one of the more ingenious marketting naming techniques I've seen in some time. "Anyone can put a lower case i in front of a word and make it their own!" is a silly arguement, because noone else did, that is, until Apple started doing it.
Trademarking should be based on creative thought that went into a unique idea... whether it's a single letter used in a unique way, or a new madeup word... both are creative usages of language. Now, you can argue that the "i" thing is silly, but that's beside the point.
iNaming creates both instantaneous visual recognition and linguistical identification. It's a name that's its own logo. Marketting anylists anywhere would kill to have been the creator of such a naming scheme.
I don't know if maybe things are slow due to traffic, but I can't seem to get on the shop channel, at all. Then again, I've been leaching wireless off my neighbors ever since my router broke last week, so things have been a bit in & out.
Well, these anylists succeeded in completely missing the point of advertising. Advertising is ALL subconcious and subliminal. Do you really think people go out and buy a McDonald's hamburger because they are intently watching the commercial? Bullshit. It's all about brand recognition. Even something as simple as having a distinctive logo, that you can simply flash the outline, and you're brain, somewhere deep inside says "Sun Microsystems" (I'll use that one because it's one of my favorite logos).
In a racing game, you might be concentrating like hell on the terrain, and the track, but every time you do a lap, that bulletin board ad is there, in your periphery, and that logo is ingrained into your head, even if you have no idea what it means. It simply reenforces your recognition of that brand.
Hi, I'm a TV advertiser, I think about these things every day. The astounding thing that I've come to realize, is that, at all levels, a lot of people (especially my clients) believe that advertising is about content: that simply standing up in front of the camera with your product and saying what it does is going to get people to buy your shit. I have clients that request, litterally, paragraphs of text on screen, as if people even give a shit. Simplicity is key. And I think a logo flashed up for half a second along a repeating track in a game is going to be very simple, yet effective in the long run.
Sure, why not... they're tried and ture. I just want them to release more of everything, and a good variety. The back catalogs of all 5 systems is ENORMOUS. At the rate they're going, it'll be a decade before they scratch the surface. I refuse to believe that it takes that much effort, at all, to port a rom over to the VC, especially if they aren't going to change anything. Hell, hackers used to do a few overnight, back when the SNES catalogs were being ripped for emulation. If the VC is a full-blown emulator, which it seems to be, then the roms needn't be reworked at all, or even recompiled.
Now, I can understand not wanting to overwhelm people, but the current list is intensely unbalanced in favor of arcade and sports games (I don't even really remember sports games on the NES, were there really this many?) Why no obscure SNES games? Hell, why so few SNES games, period! Why no N64 games? I've always believed as a nestolgia gamer, that the SNES is kind of at the heart of the "golden age" of gaming, and from what I've seen, this seems to be a common feeling. It was the time that developers sat down, and took all the the ideas they'd come up with, for the last decade, and made them the best they could be.
Then again, maybe Nintendo's plan is to slowly re-enact the late 80s, progressing up from rudimentary arcade games to more advanced platformers, into the late NES and early SNES stages, and then a last hurah of the SNES with games that could very well have been done on the Playstation, and then up through the N64. Who knows? The bottom line is, though, that Nintendo has a plan, but I can't, for the life of me, figure out what the hell they're doing.
Bingo... as rashly as you put that, I believe that you're (mostly) correct (there are Sony fanboys out there, just a lot less than people would make out to believe). At this point, there are two large groups of gamers: Console Gamers, and PC gamers: there's very little crossover, the two groups have been at each other's throats since the beginning of time... yeah whatever, let's move on. On the console hardware end of things, there are (effectively, for buying practices), three major camps: the Nintendo fans, the anti-Nintendo camp, and the much bigger "I don't really care" camp. It's just like the PC world during the early '00s, you had Apple, Dell, and Gateway. You had the Apple people (like me... but not in the early '00s) who would just go out and by a mac, and you had the Windows crowd, who would look to see which brand was cheeper, and looked coolest on display at Walmart, and picked out either a Dell or Gateway.
The only thing closest to a "Sony fanboy" that I've ever seen is the JRPG crowd (of which I'll admit to belonging to), who basically go to whichever system Square seems to be endorsing at the moment. Currently, that has been Sony systems... but with the new trend away from the PSP and towards the DS, and more openness to releasing games on multipul consoles, it's starting to look like the wind may be shifting to at least a 50/50, Sony/Nintendo, split. Furthermore, it may only be 50/50 now, but what we're really seeing is just the middle of a fullblown switch back to Nintendo. I give it a 50% shot.
Whatever happens, this generation is going to be a wild ride, folks. Probably the most interesting quirk, even more than total breakaway (in console design) of the Wii, is the emergence of the DS as a major player in the console wars. Usually, handhelds are off by themselves, and have little effect on the TV console wars... however, even though we may be calling this generation a 3-way battle, the industry may be caught with it's pants down, only to find that it's become a 4-way battle, with the DS far in the lead, and becoming a major influencer. We're beginning to see, for the first time, major series releases (Dragon Quest 9, for example), being released exclusively on a handheld. Could Final Fantasy 14 wind up being a DS exclusive? With DQ9 on the DS, anything is possible. In many ways, its even more surprising that DQ9 ended up on the DS than FF14, as this may really fuck up Sony in Japan.
Bottom line, expect the unexpected this generation.
Wait, wasn't SMB one of the launch titles? I've seen it on the Wii Shop area every day since its launch! This isn't new.
And please... good times is when they finally release Link to the Past, Super Metroid, Final Fantasy, Secret of Mana, Mario 2 & 3, Mario World, Megaman. And some more obscure goodies like Gardian Legend, Kid Icarus, Karnov, and such. 90% of the games I've seen so far are either generic NES sports titles, or the same kinds of shit I could get for my iPod for a dollar.
And why are there 4x as many Genesis and TG16 games as SNES games? The SNES is OWNED by Nintendo, and it had more games, period. Something fishy is going on here. Seriously, I was more concerned, back when they talked about "fan favorites", that all they would have would be the big titles that everyone's already played, so I'm glad to see them jump on board with more obscure titles, but they haven't released very many large, and more lengthy titles yet. Give me my SNES epics... PLEASE! Stop giving me generic sports games, block puzzles, and arcade bullshit.
I can see both Sony and Microsoft finding ways to clone the Wiimote and add it's functionality to their games. Nintendo's best bet could be to prove the technology and then to license it to Sony and Microsoft. They could get a slice of the profits from all three consoles.
That is HIGHLY unlikely, if soully for the reason that no alternate controllers, even first party controllers, ever catch on on a massive scale, aside from slight alterations like the Wavebird (wireless) and XBox S controller (smaller). Even DDR pads are a fairly niche market, when you look at the grand scheme of things: it's justified for basically only one game series. The controller you're talking about would practically require exclusively written games for it... we're not talking Wavebirds and S Controllers, here.
Secondly, why the hell would Nintendo want to give up the ONE THING that makes its console unique and attractive to the public (besides the feeling that you're buying into a company that is actually striving for innovation for the long term)? They'd be pratactically writing their own death sentance, at least in the hardware market. We're looking at a possible leader or strong second place in this coming generation, and you're suggesting they simply throw it away? No, Nintendo's got something to prove: that balls-to-the-walls processing power doesn't automatically make for a good game or a successful console. They could not have done a better job of proving that, so far. It's better for business, it's better for gamers, and it's better for developers, in the long run.
Also, Nintendo spent years developing and honing the Wiimote to get it to the surprisingly usable piece of machinery it is today. The logistical hoops that Sony or Microsoft would have to go through, simply to include precision tracking (plug-in for LED sensor), would be staggering... and let's not even get into the legal reprocusions.
No, Sony and Microsoft will, and should, stick to their guns in maintaining systems that target their prime demographics. I think it's really refreshing to finally see some real separation between consoles, this time around, with huge differences in design philosophy and gameplay expectations. It starts to kinda make all the various consoles in past generations seem redundant.
Ya know what this reminds me of? Two eight-year-olds who don't like each other, and who automatically disagree with everything the other says, regardless of their own opinion. Remarkable how international coorporate politics resembles the mind of an 8-year-old with a bug up his ass.
Oh, I'll agree to that one, that's what sidequests and alternate routes are for. I have no problem with branching progressions; basically as long as someone was at the helm, creating a unified game experience, I have no problem. What I have a problem with is that some people seem to be complaining that "the creators are trying to take away our freedom!" To me, this is like getting angry at a composer for not letting you hear your favorite melody played by the horns instead of string section.
Unfortunately, with computers they way they currently are, when you sacrifice external creative decisions you pretty much have to sacrifice complexity, drama, plot, and non-repetition. When we get to the point that a game can generate an interesting and complex game progression, on the fly, due to your actions... THEN we'll talk.
I'm more of a cool bop and early fusion kinda guy myself. Of course, my bread and butter is prog rock... very very thoroughly crafted to create an intricate auditory experience... same basic compositional premise as classical. I think your analogy is right on, though. I've tried my hand at avant garde: listened to it, composed some of it... but I never feel as if I'm really creating my own work when I do... that my soul is less "in it" then with my thought-out material. Even though my degree is in electro-acoustic music, even when I was writing for hyper-instruments and creating instrument & tape pieces, I felt that all my best stuff was meticulously worked out.
Don't get me wrong, I love to improvise. Most of my composition starts with improv, but then the stuff that sticks goes through the grinders. Bottom line is, I like exploration, but give me something to explore... don't just give me "nothing" because you're afraid of creating some structure.
I like my non-linearity like I like my women... short, and sucking my cock.
Let me clarify: Fuck non-linearity. I'm sick of the pedistal that many in the gaming community have made for it; it seems to be some people's be-all-and-end-all of gaming. It reminds me of when I used to play trumpet back in high school; the only thing anyone ever cared about is being able to play as high as possible; that was our benchmark for a "good" player. Our dream was to be able to hit double Cs, while at the same time, our low Cs sounded like shit. What I'm trying to say is that there's nothing wrong with non-linearity, a healthy dose is great, but without some linearity or structure, a game has no purpose. It's like a trumpet playing playing nothing but double-Cs throughout a solo, just to show his balls. That's what I feel when I hear people talk about non-linearity: "you're some kinda pussy if you're taste doesn't revolve around being as non-linear as possible." Just the day, I saw someone flaming someone else's post because they dared to bring up the importance of dramatic elements in video games. Are we, as gamers, becoming a culture so afraid of experiencing another person's creative vision, that we're willing to turn our backs on artistic intent?
THIS is why video games aren't embraced as Art, and will never be, until we stop creating these intrinsic benchmarks.
And this is coming from a sound designer. All these systems are capable of high quality audio, it's called "digital recording". There are only two instances that I can think of where "high power" would make any difference what-so-ever:
1) Real-time MIDI instrumentation that can be changed on the fly. Building interactive midi music is not a processing nightmare, but playing back good quality samples IS. Still, very few game developers have had any interest in this. In fact, the only one recently is Zelda, which has music that transitions into other themes depending on the gameplay circumstances... that's not possible with acoustic recordings. This is the only place where midi has an advantage over pre-recorded audio. There's really no reason to use a low powered software synth on a game system, when your audio engineers and composer have $40,000 setups with banks of K2600s and GigaStudio samples. Might as well just record those (or an orchestra, if you can afford it). No matter how powerful the PS3 is, it's not going to compare to the quality of Hans Zimmer's 50 networked render boxes with individually sampled GigaSample instruments.
2) Mesh-traced audio: this is the audio equivelent of ray-tracing. Mesh-tracing creates a series of virtual soundwave vectors that change when intersecting polygons with different absorbtion and reflective properties. This creates the sound of an envirnmental space, and the audio sources within it without "faking" reverb with pre-written digital algorythms. It also positions audio properly in 3d space. That said, I've seen zero interest in perfecting spacial audio within the mainstream video game industry. Most people think that the current psycho-acoustic tricks that are used are "good enough". And to be honest, I'd rather see more concentration on really good composition, sound design, and clean production, then delving into advanced environmental synthesis.
Don't hold your breath... AT ALL. I'll be surprised if it's out by the end of the summer. The 2005 E3 announcement was a bungle... the director had already walked away from the series (or hadn't been hired back to do another one) and there was no Smash in developement. In fact, the E3 announcement is what "forced" Nintendo to hire the director back and start work on Brawl. If it hadn't been for that screw-up (maybe it was purposeful), there would probably be no Brawl.
It is still highly "in progress". I see a late summer release, just in time for people to start going back in doors, and kids going back to college dorms... if I was marketting director, that's what I would target, anyway. Even-though, as a gamer, I definitely wouldn't complain about a Febuary release.
You're going to hear about it when an official release date is announced, and it will be MONTHS in advance, you can be sure of that... with a stead stream of leakings of new characters and levels for quite a while, I'm guessing the announcement of Sonic (I don't see how Nintendo can't include him now, with all the whining) held until just days before launch. We're looking at a minimum of 6 months down the line, and even that would surprise me.
I'm confused... they have a "Best First Person Shooter" award, but nothing for Sports, Action/Adventure, RPG, Platformer, or any other type of game, why do FPSs stand out on their own? It's not like they're particularly innovative in any way, and outside of the US, they're pretty much dead.
Some of these awards, although probably justified, seemed completely made up in order to put one game or system in the spotlight. For one thing, would they have given out a "worst console launch" at all if Sony hadn't bungled theirs? Or was this an "honor" made specifically to them. Let's just call it the "Blundering Behemoth Special Recognition" and be done with it. "best game on an old console", what old console? the PS2 and GameCube was the only game in town (besides 360) until last month, so obviously most of the games chosen would be for them anyway.
That said, it was a chance to plug Okami, which leaves me happy. Twilight Princess, Okami, and Final Fantasy 12 are my games of the year (in that order), but Zelda and FF12 have gotten their rightful dues (although I'll still stand by TP being the best game of all time, just ABOVE Ocarina of Time), Okami has been sadly overlooked due to low sales. Hell, I'd give it the award for "best use of PS2 hardware", as I believe it was one of the few games that was exactly what it was intended to be, without any noticable glitches or graphical compromises... it still would have been more at home on the GameCube though.
I am still sad to see Oblivion win, though, as it shows such a bias toward PC "style" gaming (even if was released similtaneously for consoles). And if we're going to go there, what about Battlefield 2142? From everything I've heard, that game is PERFECT, much less complaining from fans than Oblivion gets. And still, Zelda should at LEAST get a mention. When it gets an 11th place EVER from GameRankings (compiled scores of all major game publications), far above Oblivion and FF12, it just looks ignorent not to say anything.
If one point in space is expanding fast enough ("edge" of space) in relationship to another point (us), and then if the first object was accellerated to close to light speed velocities, away from the second point, wouldn't it appear as if the first object was moving away from the second object faster than the speed of light?
Okay, another way of putting it: if there's a governed "speed limit" on your ant balloon, of 10" per minute, and the ant is travelling out from the center at that speed, while at the same time I'm blowing up the balloon, wouldn't the ant appear to be moving away from all points behind it, faster than 10" per minute?
The thing is, we know the speed of light within space is constant, and under normal circumstances (all that we know, anyway) can't be breached. But that isn't accounting for the displacement due to "expanding space". Is it, then, possible to observe two extremely distant objects as moving away from each other faster than the speed of light?
Sure, obviously any press is good for them, but there are better and easier ways of getting press than purposefully making faulty hardware so that it will get press.
My one question is: after you're discussion over thrown video-game equipment, his first thought was about his wife... do I sense some... uhhh... trouble at home?
Holy shit, I like these guys' picks! It's nice to see Okami get some more recognition, that game deserves a lot more accolades than it has. The only thing is that I would have given Game of the Year to Twilight Princess (which is currently in the running for "best game of all time" on my list), but FF12 is a damn fine game too. I think Zelda was bound to be highly scrutinized, even more than FF12, since it A) had an entire console launch riding on it, B) is a lot easier to compare to the rest of it's series than FF games are to each other, C) was specifically created to go up against the "best game of all time" (Ocarina of Time, on pretty much all major game ranking sites), while there are no particular "expectations" for FF12, other than "to be good." Either way, both games deserve emmense accolades.
...would be a headline from 1995, or possibly something circa 1989... NOT 2007. Microsoft needs to get its head out of its ass, and realize that people are not going to see Vista as a revolutionary new tool that will change their lives. NO operating system has ever been THAT important to layman. Even Windows 95, as big as it was, changed gaming only slightly... most game developers, back then, still prefered to code for DOS, as they could get more power out of it. It wasn't until about a third into the life-cycle of Windows98 that a large percentage of games were being made for Windows. I remember back in the "Whistler" days, Microsoft said the same thing, the next OS was going to revolutionize gaming, make it more convenient, and draw huge new demographics in. Eh, PC gaming has grown, sure, but GAMING has grown, and PC gaming has actually grown far less than console gaming in the last 5 years. Anyone who's not an uber-gamer is just sick of compatability issues, and other inconveniences. Also, the bottom line is that anything in the "entertainment room" is going to dominate gaming, over anything that is in the office, until people feel able to sit back in an armchair or sofa and play a PC game, consoles will win.
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Well, Apple's only used eSomething once, and the only iSomething I can remember in the late 90s is the iMac, which is there's, so what's you're point?
eSomething and iSomething are incredibly different, though. One comes out of the shortening for Electronic Mail to eMail, which is techy and hip sounding. iSomething has no greater meaning, other than the "i" is a personal reference, it's friendly, it's non-threatening, it has a general reference to eSomething naming, yet inspires a bit of fun and innocence. The lower-case "i" has always been the most anthropromorphized character in the latin alphibet: the dot resembling a head, and its upper an lower serifs resembling arms and feet... it's cute. As silly as it might sound, it was exactly what the industry needed to fend off one of the industry's biggest image problems: the image of computers as cold, scary, impersonal, complicated, and aggrivating machines. It may look overbearingly cutesy... but "cute" is probably the best image overhaul that could ever happen to the computer industry, since it dissolves the fear of technology at first glance. Now, iPods are treasured items, people excitingly surf their cellphones, computers start to appear more in people's livingrooms... I don't know if these things would have happened if the industry hadn't been injected with a dose of non-threatening cuteness.
Which is too bad, because from a creative standpoint, it's one of the more ingenious marketting naming techniques I've seen in some time. "Anyone can put a lower case i in front of a word and make it their own!" is a silly arguement, because noone else did, that is, until Apple started doing it.
Trademarking should be based on creative thought that went into a unique idea... whether it's a single letter used in a unique way, or a new madeup word... both are creative usages of language. Now, you can argue that the "i" thing is silly, but that's beside the point.
iNaming creates both instantaneous visual recognition and linguistical identification. It's a name that's its own logo. Marketting anylists anywhere would kill to have been the creator of such a naming scheme.
I don't know if maybe things are slow due to traffic, but I can't seem to get on the shop channel, at all. Then again, I've been leaching wireless off my neighbors ever since my router broke last week, so things have been a bit in & out.
Look out, Google's planning on releasing one, it's called the "WiiGii Board", and supposedly, with it, you can email the dead.
Well, these anylists succeeded in completely missing the point of advertising. Advertising is ALL subconcious and subliminal. Do you really think people go out and buy a McDonald's hamburger because they are intently watching the commercial? Bullshit. It's all about brand recognition. Even something as simple as having a distinctive logo, that you can simply flash the outline, and you're brain, somewhere deep inside says "Sun Microsystems" (I'll use that one because it's one of my favorite logos).
In a racing game, you might be concentrating like hell on the terrain, and the track, but every time you do a lap, that bulletin board ad is there, in your periphery, and that logo is ingrained into your head, even if you have no idea what it means. It simply reenforces your recognition of that brand.
Hi, I'm a TV advertiser, I think about these things every day. The astounding thing that I've come to realize, is that, at all levels, a lot of people (especially my clients) believe that advertising is about content: that simply standing up in front of the camera with your product and saying what it does is going to get people to buy your shit. I have clients that request, litterally, paragraphs of text on screen, as if people even give a shit. Simplicity is key. And I think a logo flashed up for half a second along a repeating track in a game is going to be very simple, yet effective in the long run.
Sure, why not... they're tried and ture. I just want them to release more of everything, and a good variety. The back catalogs of all 5 systems is ENORMOUS. At the rate they're going, it'll be a decade before they scratch the surface. I refuse to believe that it takes that much effort, at all, to port a rom over to the VC, especially if they aren't going to change anything. Hell, hackers used to do a few overnight, back when the SNES catalogs were being ripped for emulation. If the VC is a full-blown emulator, which it seems to be, then the roms needn't be reworked at all, or even recompiled.
Now, I can understand not wanting to overwhelm people, but the current list is intensely unbalanced in favor of arcade and sports games (I don't even really remember sports games on the NES, were there really this many?) Why no obscure SNES games? Hell, why so few SNES games, period! Why no N64 games? I've always believed as a nestolgia gamer, that the SNES is kind of at the heart of the "golden age" of gaming, and from what I've seen, this seems to be a common feeling. It was the time that developers sat down, and took all the the ideas they'd come up with, for the last decade, and made them the best they could be.
Then again, maybe Nintendo's plan is to slowly re-enact the late 80s, progressing up from rudimentary arcade games to more advanced platformers, into the late NES and early SNES stages, and then a last hurah of the SNES with games that could very well have been done on the Playstation, and then up through the N64. Who knows? The bottom line is, though, that Nintendo has a plan, but I can't, for the life of me, figure out what the hell they're doing.
Bingo... as rashly as you put that, I believe that you're (mostly) correct (there are Sony fanboys out there, just a lot less than people would make out to believe). At this point, there are two large groups of gamers: Console Gamers, and PC gamers: there's very little crossover, the two groups have been at each other's throats since the beginning of time... yeah whatever, let's move on. On the console hardware end of things, there are (effectively, for buying practices), three major camps: the Nintendo fans, the anti-Nintendo camp, and the much bigger "I don't really care" camp. It's just like the PC world during the early '00s, you had Apple, Dell, and Gateway. You had the Apple people (like me... but not in the early '00s) who would just go out and by a mac, and you had the Windows crowd, who would look to see which brand was cheeper, and looked coolest on display at Walmart, and picked out either a Dell or Gateway.
The only thing closest to a "Sony fanboy" that I've ever seen is the JRPG crowd (of which I'll admit to belonging to), who basically go to whichever system Square seems to be endorsing at the moment. Currently, that has been Sony systems... but with the new trend away from the PSP and towards the DS, and more openness to releasing games on multipul consoles, it's starting to look like the wind may be shifting to at least a 50/50, Sony/Nintendo, split. Furthermore, it may only be 50/50 now, but what we're really seeing is just the middle of a fullblown switch back to Nintendo. I give it a 50% shot.
Whatever happens, this generation is going to be a wild ride, folks. Probably the most interesting quirk, even more than total breakaway (in console design) of the Wii, is the emergence of the DS as a major player in the console wars. Usually, handhelds are off by themselves, and have little effect on the TV console wars... however, even though we may be calling this generation a 3-way battle, the industry may be caught with it's pants down, only to find that it's become a 4-way battle, with the DS far in the lead, and becoming a major influencer. We're beginning to see, for the first time, major series releases (Dragon Quest 9, for example), being released exclusively on a handheld. Could Final Fantasy 14 wind up being a DS exclusive? With DQ9 on the DS, anything is possible. In many ways, its even more surprising that DQ9 ended up on the DS than FF14, as this may really fuck up Sony in Japan.
Bottom line, expect the unexpected this generation.
Wait, wasn't SMB one of the launch titles? I've seen it on the Wii Shop area every day since its launch! This isn't new.
And please... good times is when they finally release Link to the Past, Super Metroid, Final Fantasy, Secret of Mana, Mario 2 & 3, Mario World, Megaman. And some more obscure goodies like Gardian Legend, Kid Icarus, Karnov, and such. 90% of the games I've seen so far are either generic NES sports titles, or the same kinds of shit I could get for my iPod for a dollar.
And why are there 4x as many Genesis and TG16 games as SNES games? The SNES is OWNED by Nintendo, and it had more games, period. Something fishy is going on here. Seriously, I was more concerned, back when they talked about "fan favorites", that all they would have would be the big titles that everyone's already played, so I'm glad to see them jump on board with more obscure titles, but they haven't released very many large, and more lengthy titles yet. Give me my SNES epics... PLEASE! Stop giving me generic sports games, block puzzles, and arcade bullshit.
That is HIGHLY unlikely, if soully for the reason that no alternate controllers, even first party controllers, ever catch on on a massive scale, aside from slight alterations like the Wavebird (wireless) and XBox S controller (smaller). Even DDR pads are a fairly niche market, when you look at the grand scheme of things: it's justified for basically only one game series. The controller you're talking about would practically require exclusively written games for it... we're not talking Wavebirds and S Controllers, here.
Secondly, why the hell would Nintendo want to give up the ONE THING that makes its console unique and attractive to the public (besides the feeling that you're buying into a company that is actually striving for innovation for the long term)? They'd be pratactically writing their own death sentance, at least in the hardware market. We're looking at a possible leader or strong second place in this coming generation, and you're suggesting they simply throw it away? No, Nintendo's got something to prove: that balls-to-the-walls processing power doesn't automatically make for a good game or a successful console. They could not have done a better job of proving that, so far. It's better for business, it's better for gamers, and it's better for developers, in the long run.
Also, Nintendo spent years developing and honing the Wiimote to get it to the surprisingly usable piece of machinery it is today. The logistical hoops that Sony or Microsoft would have to go through, simply to include precision tracking (plug-in for LED sensor), would be staggering... and let's not even get into the legal reprocusions.
No, Sony and Microsoft will, and should, stick to their guns in maintaining systems that target their prime demographics. I think it's really refreshing to finally see some real separation between consoles, this time around, with huge differences in design philosophy and gameplay expectations. It starts to kinda make all the various consoles in past generations seem redundant.
Ya know what this reminds me of? Two eight-year-olds who don't like each other, and who automatically disagree with everything the other says, regardless of their own opinion. Remarkable how international coorporate politics resembles the mind of an 8-year-old with a bug up his ass.
Or any woman, for that matter!
I heard this on NPR this morning while I was driving to work—my first thought: "well duh". Must be a slownewsday for everyone...
Quick! Someone shoot someone!Oh, I'll agree to that one, that's what sidequests and alternate routes are for. I have no problem with branching progressions; basically as long as someone was at the helm, creating a unified game experience, I have no problem. What I have a problem with is that some people seem to be complaining that "the creators are trying to take away our freedom!" To me, this is like getting angry at a composer for not letting you hear your favorite melody played by the horns instead of string section.
Unfortunately, with computers they way they currently are, when you sacrifice external creative decisions you pretty much have to sacrifice complexity, drama, plot, and non-repetition. When we get to the point that a game can generate an interesting and complex game progression, on the fly, due to your actions... THEN we'll talk.
Fairy dust and female pheromones... I believe.
I'm more of a cool bop and early fusion kinda guy myself. Of course, my bread and butter is prog rock... very very thoroughly crafted to create an intricate auditory experience... same basic compositional premise as classical. I think your analogy is right on, though. I've tried my hand at avant garde: listened to it, composed some of it... but I never feel as if I'm really creating my own work when I do... that my soul is less "in it" then with my thought-out material. Even though my degree is in electro-acoustic music, even when I was writing for hyper-instruments and creating instrument & tape pieces, I felt that all my best stuff was meticulously worked out.
Don't get me wrong, I love to improvise. Most of my composition starts with improv, but then the stuff that sticks goes through the grinders. Bottom line is, I like exploration, but give me something to explore... don't just give me "nothing" because you're afraid of creating some structure.
I like my non-linearity like I like my women... short, and sucking my cock.
Let me clarify: Fuck non-linearity. I'm sick of the pedistal that many in the gaming community have made for it; it seems to be some people's be-all-and-end-all of gaming. It reminds me of when I used to play trumpet back in high school; the only thing anyone ever cared about is being able to play as high as possible; that was our benchmark for a "good" player. Our dream was to be able to hit double Cs, while at the same time, our low Cs sounded like shit. What I'm trying to say is that there's nothing wrong with non-linearity, a healthy dose is great, but without some linearity or structure, a game has no purpose. It's like a trumpet playing playing nothing but double-Cs throughout a solo, just to show his balls. That's what I feel when I hear people talk about non-linearity: "you're some kinda pussy if you're taste doesn't revolve around being as non-linear as possible." Just the day, I saw someone flaming someone else's post because they dared to bring up the importance of dramatic elements in video games. Are we, as gamers, becoming a culture so afraid of experiencing another person's creative vision, that we're willing to turn our backs on artistic intent?
THIS is why video games aren't embraced as Art, and will never be, until we stop creating these intrinsic benchmarks.
And this is coming from a sound designer. All these systems are capable of high quality audio, it's called "digital recording". There are only two instances that I can think of where "high power" would make any difference what-so-ever:
1) Real-time MIDI instrumentation that can be changed on the fly. Building interactive midi music is not a processing nightmare, but playing back good quality samples IS. Still, very few game developers have had any interest in this. In fact, the only one recently is Zelda, which has music that transitions into other themes depending on the gameplay circumstances... that's not possible with acoustic recordings. This is the only place where midi has an advantage over pre-recorded audio. There's really no reason to use a low powered software synth on a game system, when your audio engineers and composer have $40,000 setups with banks of K2600s and GigaStudio samples. Might as well just record those (or an orchestra, if you can afford it). No matter how powerful the PS3 is, it's not going to compare to the quality of Hans Zimmer's 50 networked render boxes with individually sampled GigaSample instruments.
2) Mesh-traced audio: this is the audio equivelent of ray-tracing. Mesh-tracing creates a series of virtual soundwave vectors that change when intersecting polygons with different absorbtion and reflective properties. This creates the sound of an envirnmental space, and the audio sources within it without "faking" reverb with pre-written digital algorythms. It also positions audio properly in 3d space. That said, I've seen zero interest in perfecting spacial audio within the mainstream video game industry. Most people think that the current psycho-acoustic tricks that are used are "good enough". And to be honest, I'd rather see more concentration on really good composition, sound design, and clean production, then delving into advanced environmental synthesis.
Don't hold your breath... AT ALL. I'll be surprised if it's out by the end of the summer. The 2005 E3 announcement was a bungle... the director had already walked away from the series (or hadn't been hired back to do another one) and there was no Smash in developement. In fact, the E3 announcement is what "forced" Nintendo to hire the director back and start work on Brawl. If it hadn't been for that screw-up (maybe it was purposeful), there would probably be no Brawl.
It is still highly "in progress". I see a late summer release, just in time for people to start going back in doors, and kids going back to college dorms... if I was marketting director, that's what I would target, anyway. Even-though, as a gamer, I definitely wouldn't complain about a Febuary release.
You're going to hear about it when an official release date is announced, and it will be MONTHS in advance, you can be sure of that... with a stead stream of leakings of new characters and levels for quite a while, I'm guessing the announcement of Sonic (I don't see how Nintendo can't include him now, with all the whining) held until just days before launch. We're looking at a minimum of 6 months down the line, and even that would surprise me.
I'm confused... they have a "Best First Person Shooter" award, but nothing for Sports, Action/Adventure, RPG, Platformer, or any other type of game, why do FPSs stand out on their own? It's not like they're particularly innovative in any way, and outside of the US, they're pretty much dead.
Some of these awards, although probably justified, seemed completely made up in order to put one game or system in the spotlight. For one thing, would they have given out a "worst console launch" at all if Sony hadn't bungled theirs? Or was this an "honor" made specifically to them. Let's just call it the "Blundering Behemoth Special Recognition" and be done with it. "best game on an old console", what old console? the PS2 and GameCube was the only game in town (besides 360) until last month, so obviously most of the games chosen would be for them anyway.
That said, it was a chance to plug Okami, which leaves me happy. Twilight Princess, Okami, and Final Fantasy 12 are my games of the year (in that order), but Zelda and FF12 have gotten their rightful dues (although I'll still stand by TP being the best game of all time, just ABOVE Ocarina of Time), Okami has been sadly overlooked due to low sales. Hell, I'd give it the award for "best use of PS2 hardware", as I believe it was one of the few games that was exactly what it was intended to be, without any noticable glitches or graphical compromises... it still would have been more at home on the GameCube though.
I am still sad to see Oblivion win, though, as it shows such a bias toward PC "style" gaming (even if was released similtaneously for consoles). And if we're going to go there, what about Battlefield 2142? From everything I've heard, that game is PERFECT, much less complaining from fans than Oblivion gets. And still, Zelda should at LEAST get a mention. When it gets an 11th place EVER from GameRankings (compiled scores of all major game publications), far above Oblivion and FF12, it just looks ignorent not to say anything.
So what you're saying is the PS2 launch was actually more similar to the Wii launch, right?
And look how the PS2 crashed and burned... riiiiight.
If one point in space is expanding fast enough ("edge" of space) in relationship to another point (us), and then if the first object was accellerated to close to light speed velocities, away from the second point, wouldn't it appear as if the first object was moving away from the second object faster than the speed of light?
Okay, another way of putting it: if there's a governed "speed limit" on your ant balloon, of 10" per minute, and the ant is travelling out from the center at that speed, while at the same time I'm blowing up the balloon, wouldn't the ant appear to be moving away from all points behind it, faster than 10" per minute?
The thing is, we know the speed of light within space is constant, and under normal circumstances (all that we know, anyway) can't be breached. But that isn't accounting for the displacement due to "expanding space". Is it, then, possible to observe two extremely distant objects as moving away from each other faster than the speed of light?
Sure, obviously any press is good for them, but there are better and easier ways of getting press than purposefully making faulty hardware so that it will get press.
My one question is: after you're discussion over thrown video-game equipment, his first thought was about his wife... do I sense some... uhhh... trouble at home?
Controller, no... Wiimote... Yeeeeaaahhhh!!!!
"Oh fuck, I hit the wrong one again!"
Holy shit, I like these guys' picks! It's nice to see Okami get some more recognition, that game deserves a lot more accolades than it has. The only thing is that I would have given Game of the Year to Twilight Princess (which is currently in the running for "best game of all time" on my list), but FF12 is a damn fine game too. I think Zelda was bound to be highly scrutinized, even more than FF12, since it A) had an entire console launch riding on it, B) is a lot easier to compare to the rest of it's series than FF games are to each other, C) was specifically created to go up against the "best game of all time" (Ocarina of Time, on pretty much all major game ranking sites), while there are no particular "expectations" for FF12, other than "to be good." Either way, both games deserve emmense accolades.
...would be a headline from 1995, or possibly something circa 1989... NOT 2007. Microsoft needs to get its head out of its ass, and realize that people are not going to see Vista as a revolutionary new tool that will change their lives. NO operating system has ever been THAT important to layman. Even Windows 95, as big as it was, changed gaming only slightly... most game developers, back then, still prefered to code for DOS, as they could get more power out of it. It wasn't until about a third into the life-cycle of Windows98 that a large percentage of games were being made for Windows. I remember back in the "Whistler" days, Microsoft said the same thing, the next OS was going to revolutionize gaming, make it more convenient, and draw huge new demographics in. Eh, PC gaming has grown, sure, but GAMING has grown, and PC gaming has actually grown far less than console gaming in the last 5 years. Anyone who's not an uber-gamer is just sick of compatability issues, and other inconveniences. Also, the bottom line is that anything in the "entertainment room" is going to dominate gaming, over anything that is in the office, until people feel able to sit back in an armchair or sofa and play a PC game, consoles will win.