The price of entry for the average Joe looking for a PS3 is still $500. While he's getting more for his money, the minimum amount of cash he needs hasn't changed.
Some people will get ebayed PS3s cheaper, but that isn't the primary method by which any console is bought (save for the first 24 hours after a launch).
For someone like me Resistance, Motorstorm and Ninja Gaidin are dubious exclusives. They're either genres with entries spanning back into the depths of time, or the third iteration of a game I've beaten about 7 times. That's not how it is for you, hence we discover the obvious that people are different.
What we find is that what ultimately brings the most people to a given console are unique games. Katamari Damancy, Guitar Hero, and Wii Sports are these kinds of games. They are practically genres unto themselves. As polished and well made as Metroid Prime: Corruption, Halo 3, or Resistance might be, they don't bring the family/friends together the same way.
For now, all three consoles could stand to have larger libraries. When MGS4 and Brawl arrive on their respective platforms, we'll probably see the end of the library lethargy.
This will help when it comes to anyone who hasn't bought a PS3 or 360 yet, I'm just not sure how much going to impact people who have already bought a 360. There isn't much reason to own both, as the exclusive are (for the most part) rather similar in genre and nature. Barring games like Dead Rising and MGS4, the exclusives are mostly analogous.
It's a fundamental issue of respect. Sony's PR department has been incompetant, and displayed on a consistant basis the attitude that we, the loyal gamers were sheep for them to shear at their leisure. Over time they improved somewhat, but there was a long period following E3 2006 where nothing that came out of Sony's marketing department was anything but an insult to the intelligence of those reading.
Gamers, apparently, have a strong ability to bear grudges. While at this time Sony has definately improved their PR, that means diddly squat to a lot of gamers who are still angry about how they were treated last year.
It doesn't help that Sony hasn't explicitly stated they screwed up their PR, although at this point I'm not sure that would be enough to calm many people.
Most observers misunderstand what's going on with the Wii at present: that once a household purchases a Wii, it will never purchase another console. I completely disagree with this analysis.
In my view, the Wii is bringing in a wider demographic than has ever been exposed to games before, and a meaningful number of them will now consider purchasing a more "hardcore" system. Once the PS3 and the Xbox 360 price points decline to a competitive level -- the magic number is probably around $199, this wider demographic will be more likely to consider purchasing [one] as the second console in the home. I think the tried-and-true strategy of focusing on the hardcore gamer audience first, and expanding to the wider demographic later in the cycle, will again work for Sony and for Microsoft.
What Pachter is forgetting is that the casual market very rarely buys more than one console, which completely screws up the whole "hardcore first, casual second" strategy he's suggesting for the 360 and PS3. That simply won't "work" in the way he thinks it will, because by the time the 360 and PS3 are ready for casuals the vast majority of them will already be playing the Wii. That the Wii has also attracted some number of hardcore players is the icing on the cake.
It will "work" in the sense that Sony and Microsoft might turn a profit, but not in any sense they'd like. It's a strategic failure to let a competitor horn in on your turf while simultaneously leaving them to frollic freely on theirs. The "tried and true" strategy worked previous because everyone was doing it. You don't have to delve far into history to see how often the "tried and true" got usurped as humanity moved forward.
By the time the 360 and PS3 hit the "magic number", it will already be too late. Assuming the PS3 drops at the current rate, that's a $100 drop every 8-9 months, putting the now $499 PS3 at $199 in August 2009. That's 2 full freaking years of letting Nintendo run amok with the casuals. Sony is going to need exclusive rights to Spore in order to rip casuals off of the Wii by then. Nothing short of that kind of casual star power is going to cut it.
Barton:
We expect PS3 uptake to be slow. However, we also feel that the adoption curve will endure for a longer period than previously witnessed in the console industry. Sony believes the expected lifespan of the PS3 will be eight to ten years. The issue one must consider is whether it is better to have a short period of relatively low hardware investment followed by four years of growth, or a short period of losses sustained on hardware sales early in the cycle followed by eight to ten years of growth. It is arguable that Sony's strategy will garner significant, long-term publisher support.
An 8 to 10 year lifetime might work, if the PS3 attracted the casual crowd. The casual crowd isn't quite as obsessed with aging graphics as the hardcore, and so will keep an older system long after hardcore players have shelved or sold it. The inherent problem here is that the Wii and DS are picking up all the casual players. Unless Sony can find a way to break them away from Nintendo's offerings, the 10 year lifetime won't happen. 4 years from now the hardcore will move onto the next big thing. The Cell is a neat processor, but it is not enough to keep up with the advances that will be made as time passes.
I played Where in Time is Carmen Sandiago a bunch of times. I just remember sucking at it a lot, and I don't remember really learning a whole lot other than how to effectively look up things in the dictionary that came with the game.
I've always found that insofar as the "education" is not tightly coupled to the more fundamental game mechanics it can be ignored. I didn't need to know anything about the incas, the leaning tower, etc. I just needed to be able to relate what I saw in the game to a dictionary.
The Zoombinis games, if I remember them well enough, had some very interesting puzzles that help me get interesting in things such as logic.
The quote is missing context. I'm not sure I can do his position justice through a summary and highly recommend you RTFAs. It's probably the best set of articles on Video Games I've read in ages.
That said, here's my limited understanding.
Croal's position is not that video games, hiking mountains, etc. can't be profound or deep. It's that they are not analogous or similar to movies, books, theatre etc. in that regard. In movies and books, we are merely viewers who are plunging the depths of someone else's content. While the setting may have been created by someone else, video games, hiking and chess put us in the position of players. We are creating the content, and the depths of it are our own.
Video games are not, and can not be by definition, the same as books and "viewer" media. They can share elements such as stories, narratives, characters, musical scores etc. But the ways in which they are deep and profound are fundamentally different.
I think you miss several points to be made about this.
It's "obvious" but at the same time it's obfuscated. How often when playing games, or at any time for that matter, do gamers stop and consider the "obvious" in full detail? Despite the fact that the repetitiveness of many games is clear to the player and any viewers nearby, how often does anyone bring this up?
Despite being "obvious", or perhaps because it is, no one stops to actually talk or discuss these things. Decomposing the essence of video games into its self-evident parts and beginning a conversation about them isn't an attempt to look smart, it's an attempt to become smarter.
Certainly, it's entirely possible that it leads nowhere. Maybe the person or persons you're attempting to converse with are uninterested, unknowledgable or unhelpful. However, the reward for increasing one's understanding of the subject is just that, wisdom and knowledge.
Challenging our assumptions with absurd questions such as "Could 1 + 1 = 3?" or more practical questions such as "Why does 1 + 1 = 2?" leads to better understanding and is in no way pointless. We wouldn't have non-Euclidean geometry or quantum physics without questions like these.
It's not about changing tradition or fact, though that sometimes occurs, it's about understanding both more thoroughly.
1. The purpose of a license is not irrelevant. 2. A license is not a contract. They are similar, but not the same. Consider the following quote by Eglen Moben.
The word 'license' has, and has had for hundreds of years, a specific technical meaning in the law of property. A license is a unilateral permission to use someone else's property. The traditional example given in the first-year law school Property course is an invitation to come to dinner at my house. If, when you cross my threshold, I sue you for trespass, you plead my 'license,' that is, my unilateral permission to enter on and use my property.
A contract, on the other hand, is an exchange of obligations, either of promises for promises or of promises of future performance for present performance or payment. The idea that 'licenses' to use patents or copyrights must be contracts is an artifact of twentieth-century practice, in which licensors offered an exchange of promises with users: 'We will give you a copy of our copyrighted work,' in essence, 'if you pay us and promise to enter into certain obligations concerning the work.' With respect to software, those obligations by users include promises not to decompile or reverse-engineer the software, and not to transfer the software.
Firstly, I'm not speaking in terms of my general opinion as to the quality of the graphics so much as to their actual functional rendering. It looks, as best as I can tell, like when the PS2 has an SD title playing on an HD TV the rendering of polygons suffers greatly in terms of clarity. It is literally like taking one's glasses off.
The offending game in this case was Dynasty Warriors 5. The first caveat I should make is that I do not have an component cable for my PS2. However, I don't see why a game without an HD mode should need one. I did not experience this with my Gamecube on any titles. I don't remember the model of my television off hand, but it's a Sony brand rear projection LCD.
I think the issue is probably a game by game one. I'd assume if I had a title such as God of War it wouldn't like horrible. I'm not well aware of the number of HD titles for the PS2, but I'm willing to wager that a fair number of important ones aren't and will likely suffer as Dynasty Warriors 5 did (a good friend of mine simultaneously enjoys Guilty Gear on an HD TV, and loathes Ace Combat for the difference in visuals).
The summary is that I haven't had any problems with Gamecube or Wii titles looking good on my HD TV (regardless of cable used), but my PS2 appears to have problems with some games.
Yet they both are licenses; what they do is irrelevent.
A driver's license is also a license, as is a gun license, a marriage license etc. Claiming what they do is irrelevant is, at best, a poor attempt to dodge a valid point.
As another example, two objects can both be machines and have completely different purposes. One is a mechanical toothbrush, and one is a supercollider. Barring extremely vague and largely useless statements about machines, disregarding what the machines actually do is silly when discussing them.
A) Definately. It's absolutely incredible that a specialized business was able to overtake a multifaceted mega-giant, even for a moment. That said, this is probably the worst time to be investing in Nintendo stock. The Wii can be a wild success and dominate the generation and the stock still might recess down to a more sane level. If you didn't jump on the boat before the launch, it's a bad idea to hop on now. It might still go up, but it'll be amazing if it doesn't come down.
B) Assuming Metroid Prime: Corruption, Super Smash Bros: Brawl and Super Mario Galaxy don't suck Nintendo should be good for 2007. I'm actually more concerned about 2008. Any developers who jumped on the Wii train after it charged out of the station will be releasing their offerings then. Chances are a number of them will be rushed in an attempt to hit the market as quickly as possible to take advantage of the currently weak library. I'm guessing there's going to be a large amount of "crap" from the rush and the unfamiliar control system.
I distinctly remember people talking about Nintendo following the Sega model and refocusing only on games. These people were not necessarily informed, but discussion did happen on a semi-regular basis across interested forums. I believe it peaked around the PSP's launch.
At the time the DS was moving slowly, and the PSP's launch was impressive. The "Revolution" was a long ways off, and its features pure speculation. Given they were last in the console market (by market share) and the PSP looked set to steal the handheld market at that time, threads hailing or lamenting the demise of Nintendo as a hardware company were not uncommon. Despite the Gamecube making pure profit, it was hard to imagine that Nintendo could continue making consoles if their market kept shrinking.
People also talked about the Xbox "vastly" outselling the Gamecube. Why? Fanboys of the time would cite specific regions, months, etc. to slant the facts. Just because it was wrong doesn't mean it wasn't spoken.
As a last note, the Gamecube and N64 profits were significant even if they may have been less than the Gameboy Advance (I'm not going to commit either way without numbers). Assuming a mere $1 profit was made on each console sold, that's $50 million in hardware sales. That's distributed over 10 years, but we're making about the harshest assumption possible about systems that were never sold at loss during their time; We're also ignoring software sales, accessories and licensing fees.
Indeed, I know I'm excited about Metroid Prime: Corruption, Super Smash Bros: Brawl, Super Mario Galaxy, and Manhunt 2 (damn the ESRB) etc. Glad to see others are as well./notsarcasm
Hi, I have a 46" HD TV, the sound system to go with it, and an Xbox 360 to play on it. I haven't touched the Xbox except to play movies for some time. Maybe once in the past 6 months (when Armored Core 4 came out).
I also have a Wii.
The Wii is not as impressive graphically as the 360 on the HDTV, but I can not say it looks like crap. It's decent, not "Wow" but decent. The 360 and PS3 are "Wow" when it comes to graphics, I'll give them that much.
However, I play my Wii far more than my other consoles. That's not to say I spend oodles of time playing it, but it garners more of my attention.
If you want a system that looks like crap on an HDTV, get a PS2. Several of my games were literally unplayable because of how it was displayed. It was visibly different than how it would look on an SDTV to the point of being a garbled mess. Unless the game is explicitly HD, it's probably going to look terrible.
I doubt the GP fits into the "trailer trash" stereotype anymore than I do. There are far better arguments to make against the Wii than ad hominem attacks. You're intelligent enough to spell, you should be intelligent enough to come up with something more substancial than pure insults.
Even in the case where there are no current third party titles that sold significantly (although I believe titles such as Rayman contest this), the statement can still be true.
If we assume that every third party publisher of repute and skill ignored the Wii or otherwise gave it passing attention, then it would make perfect sense that there are no (or very few) notable third party titles. Almost everyone missed the boat.
Install base doesn't guarantee sales, and I'm sure most companies are taking into consideration the demographics of the three consoles when they choose which to support, but it does push sales higher. A hypothetical install base of 10 million PS3s is almost certain to have more sales than a hypothetical 1 million. It's more blurry across different consoles, but the fundamental principle is the same. A larger installbase is a larger market, which can support larger sales.
I have no problem with games being rated AO, and I have no problems with trailers being rated AO. However, given the way in which the AO rating is practically being applied (and quite explicitly here) I believe it needs a new name: NFA (Not for ANYONE).
What bothers me about this is that decisions are being made for us concerning what we can do and watch. It is not the place of the ESRB to say what can and cannot be on the internet. The power of the ESRB is entirely within its ratings and should be extended no further. Don't like a trailer for "Gorefest Maimkiller", slap it with AO. Congratulations, your job is finished.
I don't like that Nintendo and Sony won't allow production of AO games, but at the very least they have the right to do so. Their consoles, their rules. The internet, however, is not owned by the ESRB. There is no government sanction (nor should there be) that gives them the right to tell us what can and can't be there.
I never intended on buying Manhunt 2, and I didn't care or know about the titles in the article. I'm about 100x more likely to take interest in these if only for the fact that they're the ridiculous targets of needless censorship.
Nothing could possible hurt EA, and even Will Wright, more than to abandon one of the most highly anticipated titles ever. It's often considered the sole bastion of innovation at an otherwise super-conservative company. To lose that would be to destroy EAs best and perhaps only chance at redeeming themselves in eyes of gamers.
Besides, they're literally creating 5-6 games at once. Having it take a long time/lots of money isn't necessarily unexpected or unwarranted. Disappointing perhaps, but understandable.
It's not about the 1 year gap, which is ridiculous unto itself. It's about the label.
Whether or not an AO title is port is irrelevant. People are going to make assumptions about an AO title they won't about an M title, and very few of them are favorable. Many stores won't carry any AO title because of these assumptions and how they will affect the perception of the store.
It also doesn't help that video games are viewed as specifically an activity for kids rather than adults by many people. Having an "Adults Only" title in a industry perceived as aimed at children is analogous to Disney releasing an NC-17 cartoon. It breaks from the cultural understanding of the medium.
The understanding of video games, and also cartoons, is slowly changing in the US. However, as it stands there's a long ways to go yet (probably after my generation is retired) before the current perceptions have fully faded.
In defense of being rich, you can potentially use that money to help people in need.
In defense of not caring about one's social status, I live how I live regardless of how much money I have. I'm content to not have the best of the best, and in fact I am quite happy.
In defense of laziness. If I could work fewer hours for a proportionally smaller amount of money, I would. I'd rather work late into my life having had the time to enjoy my youth rather than saving all my free time for when I'll spend most of it unable to do the things I like.
Step 1) By some miracle, weasel a provision into your settlement that forces the other company to pay you some money if your biggest competitor also settles. Step 2) In a humorous turn of events, watch as the other company reaches a "business agreement" and weasels you out of your money. Step 3) People's Court.
Get out the popcorn, this is going to be the weaseldom battle of the century.
It's a matter of creative freedom. It is very hard to draw concrete lines on what should and should not be censored, especially when everyone is of different opinions. What you consider an abomination of violence and brutality might be someone else's reminder that life is not all roses and rainbows.
The possibility exists that some unstable person will get a hold of these games and go ballistic, but similar arguments have been made about all media over the years. It's the "corrupting our youth" fallacy. Even in a utopia free from any violent media or influences, there's no guarantee that peace itself won't act as a catalyst for some unstable psycho's massacre.
We minimize censorship because of an implicit understanding that everyone is different. We're allowed to judge for ourselves what we should and shouldn't consume. That some people are unable to make that call is a fault of other aspects of society, not the media it produces.
So despite the fact that the murderer never owned or played the game, the parents of the victim still blame the game for their son's death.
I thought the standard for when bad things happen without an apparent reason was to blame God. That at least makes some sense, rather than some video game that the killer never played.
Slashdot Mirror
The price of entry for the average Joe looking for a PS3 is still $500. While he's getting more for his money, the minimum amount of cash he needs hasn't changed.
Some people will get ebayed PS3s cheaper, but that isn't the primary method by which any console is bought (save for the first 24 hours after a launch).
It's a matter of taste.
For someone like me Resistance, Motorstorm and Ninja Gaidin are dubious exclusives. They're either genres with entries spanning back into the depths of time, or the third iteration of a game I've beaten about 7 times. That's not how it is for you, hence we discover the obvious that people are different.
What we find is that what ultimately brings the most people to a given console are unique games. Katamari Damancy, Guitar Hero, and Wii Sports are these kinds of games. They are practically genres unto themselves. As polished and well made as Metroid Prime: Corruption, Halo 3, or Resistance might be, they don't bring the family/friends together the same way.
For now, all three consoles could stand to have larger libraries. When MGS4 and Brawl arrive on their respective platforms, we'll probably see the end of the library lethargy.
This will help when it comes to anyone who hasn't bought a PS3 or 360 yet, I'm just not sure how much going to impact people who have already bought a 360. There isn't much reason to own both, as the exclusive are (for the most part) rather similar in genre and nature. Barring games like Dead Rising and MGS4, the exclusives are mostly analogous.
It's a fundamental issue of respect. Sony's PR department has been incompetant, and displayed on a consistant basis the attitude that we, the loyal gamers were sheep for them to shear at their leisure. Over time they improved somewhat, but there was a long period following E3 2006 where nothing that came out of Sony's marketing department was anything but an insult to the intelligence of those reading.
Gamers, apparently, have a strong ability to bear grudges. While at this time Sony has definately improved their PR, that means diddly squat to a lot of gamers who are still angry about how they were treated last year.
It doesn't help that Sony hasn't explicitly stated they screwed up their PR, although at this point I'm not sure that would be enough to calm many people.
What Pachter is forgetting is that the casual market very rarely buys more than one console, which completely screws up the whole "hardcore first, casual second" strategy he's suggesting for the 360 and PS3. That simply won't "work" in the way he thinks it will, because by the time the 360 and PS3 are ready for casuals the vast majority of them will already be playing the Wii. That the Wii has also attracted some number of hardcore players is the icing on the cake.
It will "work" in the sense that Sony and Microsoft might turn a profit, but not in any sense they'd like. It's a strategic failure to let a competitor horn in on your turf while simultaneously leaving them to frollic freely on theirs. The "tried and true" strategy worked previous because everyone was doing it. You don't have to delve far into history to see how often the "tried and true" got usurped as humanity moved forward.
By the time the 360 and PS3 hit the "magic number", it will already be too late. Assuming the PS3 drops at the current rate, that's a $100 drop every 8-9 months, putting the now $499 PS3 at $199 in August 2009. That's 2 full freaking years of letting Nintendo run amok with the casuals. Sony is going to need exclusive rights to Spore in order to rip casuals off of the Wii by then. Nothing short of that kind of casual star power is going to cut it.
Barton:
An 8 to 10 year lifetime might work, if the PS3 attracted the casual crowd. The casual crowd isn't quite as obsessed with aging graphics as the hardcore, and so will keep an older system long after hardcore players have shelved or sold it. The inherent problem here is that the Wii and DS are picking up all the casual players. Unless Sony can find a way to break them away from Nintendo's offerings, the 10 year lifetime won't happen. 4 years from now the hardcore will move onto the next big thing. The Cell is a neat processor, but it is not enough to keep up with the advances that will be made as time passes.
I played Where in Time is Carmen Sandiago a bunch of times. I just remember sucking at it a lot, and I don't remember really learning a whole lot other than how to effectively look up things in the dictionary that came with the game.
I've always found that insofar as the "education" is not tightly coupled to the more fundamental game mechanics it can be ignored. I didn't need to know anything about the incas, the leaning tower, etc. I just needed to be able to relate what I saw in the game to a dictionary.
The Zoombinis games, if I remember them well enough, had some very interesting puzzles that help me get interesting in things such as logic.
The quote is missing context. I'm not sure I can do his position justice through a summary and highly recommend you RTFAs. It's probably the best set of articles on Video Games I've read in ages.
That said, here's my limited understanding.
Croal's position is not that video games, hiking mountains, etc. can't be profound or deep. It's that they are not analogous or similar to movies, books, theatre etc. in that regard. In movies and books, we are merely viewers who are plunging the depths of someone else's content. While the setting may have been created by someone else, video games, hiking and chess put us in the position of players. We are creating the content, and the depths of it are our own.
Video games are not, and can not be by definition, the same as books and "viewer" media. They can share elements such as stories, narratives, characters, musical scores etc. But the ways in which they are deep and profound are fundamentally different.
I think you miss several points to be made about this.
It's "obvious" but at the same time it's obfuscated. How often when playing games, or at any time for that matter, do gamers stop and consider the "obvious" in full detail? Despite the fact that the repetitiveness of many games is clear to the player and any viewers nearby, how often does anyone bring this up?
Despite being "obvious", or perhaps because it is, no one stops to actually talk or discuss these things. Decomposing the essence of video games into its self-evident parts and beginning a conversation about them isn't an attempt to look smart, it's an attempt to become smarter.
Certainly, it's entirely possible that it leads nowhere. Maybe the person or persons you're attempting to converse with are uninterested, unknowledgable or unhelpful. However, the reward for increasing one's understanding of the subject is just that, wisdom and knowledge.
Challenging our assumptions with absurd questions such as "Could 1 + 1 = 3?" or more practical questions such as "Why does 1 + 1 = 2?" leads to better understanding and is in no way pointless. We wouldn't have non-Euclidean geometry or quantum physics without questions like these.
It's not about changing tradition or fact, though that sometimes occurs, it's about understanding both more thoroughly.
1. The purpose of a license is not irrelevant.
2. A license is not a contract. They are similar, but not the same. Consider the following quote by Eglen Moben.
Firstly, I'm not speaking in terms of my general opinion as to the quality of the graphics so much as to their actual functional rendering. It looks, as best as I can tell, like when the PS2 has an SD title playing on an HD TV the rendering of polygons suffers greatly in terms of clarity. It is literally like taking one's glasses off.
The offending game in this case was Dynasty Warriors 5. The first caveat I should make is that I do not have an component cable for my PS2. However, I don't see why a game without an HD mode should need one. I did not experience this with my Gamecube on any titles. I don't remember the model of my television off hand, but it's a Sony brand rear projection LCD.
I think the issue is probably a game by game one. I'd assume if I had a title such as God of War it wouldn't like horrible. I'm not well aware of the number of HD titles for the PS2, but I'm willing to wager that a fair number of important ones aren't and will likely suffer as Dynasty Warriors 5 did (a good friend of mine simultaneously enjoys Guilty Gear on an HD TV, and loathes Ace Combat for the difference in visuals).
The summary is that I haven't had any problems with Gamecube or Wii titles looking good on my HD TV (regardless of cable used), but my PS2 appears to have problems with some games.
A driver's license is also a license, as is a gun license, a marriage license etc. Claiming what they do is irrelevant is, at best, a poor attempt to dodge a valid point.
As another example, two objects can both be machines and have completely different purposes. One is a mechanical toothbrush, and one is a supercollider. Barring extremely vague and largely useless statements about machines, disregarding what the machines actually do is silly when discussing them.
A) Definately. It's absolutely incredible that a specialized business was able to overtake a multifaceted mega-giant, even for a moment. That said, this is probably the worst time to be investing in Nintendo stock. The Wii can be a wild success and dominate the generation and the stock still might recess down to a more sane level. If you didn't jump on the boat before the launch, it's a bad idea to hop on now. It might still go up, but it'll be amazing if it doesn't come down.
B) Assuming Metroid Prime: Corruption, Super Smash Bros: Brawl and Super Mario Galaxy don't suck Nintendo should be good for 2007. I'm actually more concerned about 2008. Any developers who jumped on the Wii train after it charged out of the station will be releasing their offerings then. Chances are a number of them will be rushed in an attempt to hit the market as quickly as possible to take advantage of the currently weak library. I'm guessing there's going to be a large amount of "crap" from the rush and the unfamiliar control system.
I distinctly remember people talking about Nintendo following the Sega model and refocusing only on games. These people were not necessarily informed, but discussion did happen on a semi-regular basis across interested forums. I believe it peaked around the PSP's launch.
At the time the DS was moving slowly, and the PSP's launch was impressive. The "Revolution" was a long ways off, and its features pure speculation. Given they were last in the console market (by market share) and the PSP looked set to steal the handheld market at that time, threads hailing or lamenting the demise of Nintendo as a hardware company were not uncommon. Despite the Gamecube making pure profit, it was hard to imagine that Nintendo could continue making consoles if their market kept shrinking.
People also talked about the Xbox "vastly" outselling the Gamecube. Why? Fanboys of the time would cite specific regions, months, etc. to slant the facts. Just because it was wrong doesn't mean it wasn't spoken.
As a last note, the Gamecube and N64 profits were significant even if they may have been less than the Gameboy Advance (I'm not going to commit either way without numbers). Assuming a mere $1 profit was made on each console sold, that's $50 million in hardware sales. That's distributed over 10 years, but we're making about the harshest assumption possible about systems that were never sold at loss during their time; We're also ignoring software sales, accessories and licensing fees.
Indeed, I know I'm excited about Metroid Prime: Corruption, Super Smash Bros: Brawl, Super Mario Galaxy, and Manhunt 2 (damn the ESRB) etc. Glad to see others are as well. /notsarcasm
Hi, I have a 46" HD TV, the sound system to go with it, and an Xbox 360 to play on it. I haven't touched the Xbox except to play movies for some time. Maybe once in the past 6 months (when Armored Core 4 came out).
I also have a Wii.
The Wii is not as impressive graphically as the 360 on the HDTV, but I can not say it looks like crap. It's decent, not "Wow" but decent. The 360 and PS3 are "Wow" when it comes to graphics, I'll give them that much.
However, I play my Wii far more than my other consoles. That's not to say I spend oodles of time playing it, but it garners more of my attention.
If you want a system that looks like crap on an HDTV, get a PS2. Several of my games were literally unplayable because of how it was displayed. It was visibly different than how it would look on an SDTV to the point of being a garbled mess. Unless the game is explicitly HD, it's probably going to look terrible.
I doubt the GP fits into the "trailer trash" stereotype anymore than I do. There are far better arguments to make against the Wii than ad hominem attacks. You're intelligent enough to spell, you should be intelligent enough to come up with something more substancial than pure insults.
Even in the case where there are no current third party titles that sold significantly (although I believe titles such as Rayman contest this), the statement can still be true.
If we assume that every third party publisher of repute and skill ignored the Wii or otherwise gave it passing attention, then it would make perfect sense that there are no (or very few) notable third party titles. Almost everyone missed the boat.
Install base doesn't guarantee sales, and I'm sure most companies are taking into consideration the demographics of the three consoles when they choose which to support, but it does push sales higher. A hypothetical install base of 10 million PS3s is almost certain to have more sales than a hypothetical 1 million. It's more blurry across different consoles, but the fundamental principle is the same. A larger installbase is a larger market, which can support larger sales.
I have no problem with games being rated AO, and I have no problems with trailers being rated AO. However, given the way in which the AO rating is practically being applied (and quite explicitly here) I believe it needs a new name: NFA (Not for ANYONE).
What bothers me about this is that decisions are being made for us concerning what we can do and watch. It is not the place of the ESRB to say what can and cannot be on the internet. The power of the ESRB is entirely within its ratings and should be extended no further. Don't like a trailer for "Gorefest Maimkiller", slap it with AO. Congratulations, your job is finished.
I don't like that Nintendo and Sony won't allow production of AO games, but at the very least they have the right to do so. Their consoles, their rules. The internet, however, is not owned by the ESRB. There is no government sanction (nor should there be) that gives them the right to tell us what can and can't be there.
I never intended on buying Manhunt 2, and I didn't care or know about the titles in the article. I'm about 100x more likely to take interest in these if only for the fact that they're the ridiculous targets of needless censorship.
If it weren't for the stores not wanting to carry the title, this would be an easy way for the PS3 to get a free exclusive.
I'll give you that. Serves me right for making an absolute and exclusive statement like that.
Nothing could possible hurt EA, and even Will Wright, more than to abandon one of the most highly anticipated titles ever. It's often considered the sole bastion of innovation at an otherwise super-conservative company. To lose that would be to destroy EAs best and perhaps only chance at redeeming themselves in eyes of gamers.
Besides, they're literally creating 5-6 games at once. Having it take a long time/lots of money isn't necessarily unexpected or unwarranted. Disappointing perhaps, but understandable.
It's not about the 1 year gap, which is ridiculous unto itself. It's about the label.
Whether or not an AO title is port is irrelevant. People are going to make assumptions about an AO title they won't about an M title, and very few of them are favorable. Many stores won't carry any AO title because of these assumptions and how they will affect the perception of the store.
It also doesn't help that video games are viewed as specifically an activity for kids rather than adults by many people. Having an "Adults Only" title in a industry perceived as aimed at children is analogous to Disney releasing an NC-17 cartoon. It breaks from the cultural understanding of the medium.
The understanding of video games, and also cartoons, is slowly changing in the US. However, as it stands there's a long ways to go yet (probably after my generation is retired) before the current perceptions have fully faded.
In defense of being rich, you can potentially use that money to help people in need.
In defense of not caring about one's social status, I live how I live regardless of how much money I have. I'm content to not have the best of the best, and in fact I am quite happy.
In defense of laziness. If I could work fewer hours for a proportionally smaller amount of money, I would. I'd rather work late into my life having had the time to enjoy my youth rather than saving all my free time for when I'll spend most of it unable to do the things I like.
Step 1) By some miracle, weasel a provision into your settlement that forces the other company to pay you some money if your biggest competitor also settles.
Step 2) In a humorous turn of events, watch as the other company reaches a "business agreement" and weasels you out of your money.
Step 3) People's Court.
Get out the popcorn, this is going to be the weaseldom battle of the century.
It's a matter of creative freedom. It is very hard to draw concrete lines on what should and should not be censored, especially when everyone is of different opinions. What you consider an abomination of violence and brutality might be someone else's reminder that life is not all roses and rainbows.
The possibility exists that some unstable person will get a hold of these games and go ballistic, but similar arguments have been made about all media over the years. It's the "corrupting our youth" fallacy. Even in a utopia free from any violent media or influences, there's no guarantee that peace itself won't act as a catalyst for some unstable psycho's massacre.
We minimize censorship because of an implicit understanding that everyone is different. We're allowed to judge for ourselves what we should and shouldn't consume. That some people are unable to make that call is a fault of other aspects of society, not the media it produces.
So despite the fact that the murderer never owned or played the game, the parents of the victim still blame the game for their son's death.
I thought the standard for when bad things happen without an apparent reason was to blame God. That at least makes some sense, rather than some video game that the killer never played.