I just downloaded Toblo, and it's a blast. I need to convince some of my friends to get a LAN game going. I have to ask, though: is there any chance of a map editor being released? Some community-created maps could give this game a ton of longevity.
Microsoft is also trying to recoup the losses from selling their console below cost. That's why their prices are so high compared to the current generation. The 360's Wi-Fi adapter at $100 is a prime example of that.
Nintendo is allegedly selling their console at a profit, so they don't really have any reason for the controllers to be out of line with the WaveBird, which debuted at $35. (Assuming that the Wiimote + nunchuk costs about the same as the WaveBird to produce, which seems to be the case.)
Comparing accessory prices to the 360 isn't very accurate, as Microsoft's business model with the 360 is very unusual in the console industry.
The traditional CS weapon buying system didn't add any realism.
Heh, I'm not sure why I said that... it was too early in the morning, I guess.:p
What I should have said is that it adds an interesting mechanic. Rather than starting everyone off with the same guns, players are allowed to make some strategic decisions regarding their weapons. I'm not aware of any games that did that prior to CS, though I could be mistaken.
Of course, the original prices kind of ruined that chance for strategy, since the Deagle was cheaper and more effective than most SMGs, and there was really no match for the Colt and AK.
The entire premise behind buying your weapons is broken and it heavily breaks the game - winning the first round gives you a very real advantage in your quest to win the second round (and conversely, losing the first round ties your hands behind your back for the next round).
I agree, although I don't think the buy system itself is to blame. If implemented properly, it could offer some refreshing variation compared to the "sprint for the rocket launcher/chaingun/powerful-weapon-of-choice" in a lot of FPSes. Hopefully this update pushes things more in that direction.
The traditional Counter-Strike weapon system was one of the biggest flaws of the game, in my opinion. Sure, it added a nice touch of realism and a bit of strategy, but the pricing structure made 90% of the guns effectively useless. It's very rare to join a server and see someone using a gun other than the Colt/AK or sniper, because they're so overwhelmingly powerful and still pretty cheap.
Basically, this means that the weaker guns will now have a purpose, since they'll be much more affordable. I'm sure the Colt and AK will still be heavily favored, but at least now it'll be harder to get them in the second round of a match.
And a note to the critics: If you don't care for these changes, CS 1.6 is still alive and well. CS:Source is a great opportunity for Valve to play around with the previously stagnant formula (by adding a new radar system, for example) without alienating older players. Let's not ruin that... we don't need two versions of the same game.
Isn't it telling that every time Microsoft announces something truly innovative and, frankly, pretty damn refreshing, there has to be a counter-post saying that Nintendo has the same thing... even if they don't?
Actually, Nintendo did have a game development tool in the works for the 64DD before it got cancelled, as part of the Mario Artist series. Sony also had the Net Yaroze for PS1 and the PS2 Linux dev kit available for homebrew, although they were a bit more expensive than this. There are probably other examples, but these types of things have always been pretty niche.
Microsoft will almost certainly be the first developer to pull it off effectively, of course, and I agree that it'll be an awesome feature for gamers to have access to. But it's not a particularly novel idea; I'm kind of surprised they didn't try it with the original Xbox.
An official Nintendo-branded model would probably be a more solid option, though. Still, AA rechargeables aren't really a big deal, especially when they last 30-60 hours. Some rechargeables even last longer than traditional batteries, I think, and they're often cheaper than the battery packs.
The last 3 console releases (ps2, Xbox and Xbox360) where all scalped on ebay for way more than that.
But to how many buyers? 50k? 100k? The Xbox 360 had a pretty weak launch as it was. If Microsoft had sold it at $600 retail, it would have been plain embarrassing.
The eBay market can give the impression that hardcore gamers are willing to pay a lot for a new toy, but it's not entirely accurate. If money was not a concern to gamers, people would have purchased the $300 360 Core system (which was readily available) and upgraded it with the HD and wireless controllers. It might have cost a bit more, but it would have been cheaper than buying on eBay. Instead, most people waited until they could purchase the full bundle at a fair price.
Expect the price to come down pretty quick as sales drop.
A price drop within the first six months would be seen as desperate, especially if it was due to a lack of sales. Typically, the oldest console leads the price drop wars, so Sony probably won't make the first move unless sales are really weak. Plus, Sony has been using the PS3's price to imply a certain degree of value. It would be tacky for them to turn around and drop the price so soon, effectively telling early buyers that they paid too much.
"To me, all these names sounded ridiculous, and I know I'm not alone."
Agreed.
I find it incredibly amusing that TFA sites "Dreamcast" and "Xbox" as names that needed no explanation. I don't know how the author interprets those words, but to most people, they were just as nonsensical as Wii. "Revolution" isn't much better, unless Nintendo really wants casual gamers to associate their console with orbital motion or political unrest.
One author actually cited the Gizmondo for having a "cool" name. The online media is really out of touch with reality, I think. I don't know how the general public will accept the Rev's new moniker, but they're sure to take it better than all the fanboy web journalists who honestly believe "Revolution" is a good product name.
"Yeah, but ports are the only way you can hope to bulk up your games catalogue."
The Nintendo 64 had a library of around 250 titles in the US. The PlayStation (One) had a North American library of well over 1000, meaning that at least 750 of those titles were exclusive.
Clearly the PlayStation was able to bulk up its library without ports, even though Sony was completely unproven as a console manufacturer. As long as a console is attractive to developers and is moderately successful in the retail market, it will recieve exclusive support from publishers. If Revolution development is as easy and affordable as Nintendo implies, the Revolution will likely be more appealing as a platform for exclusive content than its competition, simply because developers can afford to experiment with it.
And a pocket calculator in the 1970's cost $345, which is more than $1600 in today's money. By that logic, the 360 is a steal.;)
I'm not picking on you in particular, just pointing out a fallacy that I see around here a lot. It's innacurate to compare prices to older technology, simply because the price of electronic components is decreasing so rapidly. It's virtually impossible to know whether the N64 or the 360 provides more tech for the dollar with respect to their own time frames.
Again, don't take this personally. It just kind of irks me when someone says, "I think the 360 is too expensive," and someone else responds, "it's cheaper than the Atari 2600 in today's dollars." This IGN article is perhaps one of the worst offenders. Technology has improved so much in the last 20 years... we should be expecting prices to go down, actually, as they have in other sectors of the electronics industry.
Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if I overestimated it. AFAIK, the only MMO to surpass a million subscribers in the US is WoW. It's sold 6 million + worldwide, but around half of those accounts are in China and Europe.
Apart from WoW, and the Lineage games (which sell mostly in Korea), only one or two MMOs have more than half a million subscribers worldwide. I don't have any recent numbers, but 4 million doesn't seem too far off, considering that beyond WoW, the MMO market is relatively small. Maybe 5 million in the US (3 million WoW players, 2 million in other games combined)? And I'm counting subscriptions, since companies can't really know who owns multiple accounts. So the "4 million subscribers * $30 a month" formula is a bit high, since it's more like 4-5 million subscriptions (at $10-15 a month).
Regardless, I don't think pure dollar figures are the best indicator, either. If you weren't spending $50 a month on MMOs, would that money have actually gone to other games (in March, during a console transition)? And how many WoW subscribers even played videogames before? At least half of the players I know were extremely casual gamers before subscribing to WoW. Their "gaming budget" was more like $40 per year, so WoW is drawing from entirely new income. And regardless of the dollars spent, there are at least 100 million console gamers who aren't subscribed to MMOs. Clearly their buying habits have diminished, too.
MMOs may have had an effect, but the majority of this downturn is due to the console transition. The analysts are completely right on this one (for once).
The number of MMO gamers in the US probably totals to around 3-4 million gamers. Even if we assume that each of those players has stopped buying other games, they still make up less than 5% of the total American market. That doesn't account for the 18% decrease.
Also, Xbox Live had already accumulated a fairly large userbase over the last four years on the Xbox. The article is only counting the "new" Xbox Live Marketplace, which is more of an upgrade than a brand new product. iTunes had no established userbase when it first launched.
Perhaps a more accurate comparison would be to iTunes sales after the release of version 4.1, the first Windows version. At that time, iTunes had been available on the Mac for two years, putting it in a similar situation as the current version of Xbox Live. I imagine those statistics would look very different.
"So will the ps3 come with a triple-shock controller?"
Yes. Sony has already announced that the current "boomerang" model is not final.
Fortunately, an industry insider has been granted access to a beta version of this rumored "Triple Shock controller". He has generously taken a photograph of this top-secret prototype, which can be found here.
Nintendo most likely has a tiered distribution plan for development hardware: Big studios like EA, Ubisoft, and Capcom probably received these "controller dev kits" a long time ago, when smaller studios had nothing. Once Nintendo revised the hardware, the big studios traded their models in for newer ones, and Nintendo passed the smaller dev kits out to slightly smaller developers, repeating the process several times over the course of the year.
Currently, the biggest dev houses likely have the most complete hardware, while others have some lesser version of it, depending on their influence, importance to Nintendo, and level of commitment to the platform. At this point, the developers who still have "controller dev kits" are probably the smaller ones who have shown less interest in the Revolution, but are still curious about it. It's entirely possible that this was the newest hardware at the studio IGN visited.
I think your idea is probably more likely than you think.
Instead of simply using the same screens as the GBA and GBASP, Nintendo upped the resolution slightly on the DS's screens, to 256x192 (from 240x160 on the GBA). The DS's screens use the same horizontal resolution as the NES and SNES, so emulation could be more accurate. The NES Classics series for the GBA had to scale the images down slightly to fit on the GBA's screen, but that would be mostly unnecessary for the DS.
Also, the DS's Download Play feature would work quite well for emulated classics. Only one downloaded title can be stored in RAM at a time, so Nintendo wouldn't have to worry about piracy.
Re:Animal Crossing 43, Pokemon 51 ... slate voting
on
Japan's Top 100 Games
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I don't know that it's an age problem necessarily, but I'm sure Famitsu's market is a fairly limited demographic.
If the readers of say, PC Gamer (in the US) were to be polled with the same question, their list would likely be dominated by FPSes and strategy games, probably ignoring less "hardcore" games like The Sims. Likewise, if you were to survey the readers of a European Nintendo mag, they'd probably favor Nintendo games over any others.
This isn't a case of ballot stuffing; it's just a matter of demographics... the people who read Famitsu tend to favor traditional, Japanese RPGs. In reality, there are Yu-Gi-Oh games that have outsold some of those top-ranking FF titles, so clearly this list isn't a very accurate representation of game popularity.
"No, you kept playing because there was nothing else and you didn't know better gameplay yet."
While that's certainly the case for a lot of games, it's not always so cut and dried. There are still plenty of games from the 80's that have excellent gameplay by today's standards. The Mario Bros. titles, for instance, have sold millions of copies on the GBA, and they're still leagues above the average Game Boy title in terms of gameplay. (And as a personal anecdote, I never really played much of the original SMB games until the late 90's, when they were well over 10 years old. They were still amazing.) Remakes of the early Final Fantasy games have seen similar success. Dozens of "classics series" compilations still sell well, like the Mega Man and Sonic collections. These games generally aren't selling on nostalgia alone.
I can't speak for M.U.L.E., as I've never played it, but it has been acclaimed in recent years by a lot of journalists. Perhaps everyone is blinded by nostalgia, or maybe it's just a good game.
Slashdot Mirror
Hm, interesting... I'll be sure to keep an eye on it. Thanks!
Congrats on the nomination!
I just downloaded Toblo, and it's a blast. I need to convince some of my friends to get a LAN game going.
I have to ask, though: is there any chance of a map editor being released? Some community-created maps could give this game a ton of longevity.
Microsoft is also trying to recoup the losses from selling their console below cost. That's why their prices are so high compared to the current generation. The 360's Wi-Fi adapter at $100 is a prime example of that.
Nintendo is allegedly selling their console at a profit, so they don't really have any reason for the controllers to be out of line with the WaveBird, which debuted at $35. (Assuming that the Wiimote + nunchuk costs about the same as the WaveBird to produce, which seems to be the case.)
Comparing accessory prices to the 360 isn't very accurate, as Microsoft's business model with the 360 is very unusual in the console industry.
What I should have said is that it adds an interesting mechanic. Rather than starting everyone off with the same guns, players are allowed to make some strategic decisions regarding their weapons. I'm not aware of any games that did that prior to CS, though I could be mistaken.
Of course, the original prices kind of ruined that chance for strategy, since the Deagle was cheaper and more effective than most SMGs, and there was really no match for the Colt and AK.
I agree, although I don't think the buy system itself is to blame. If implemented properly, it could offer some refreshing variation compared to the "sprint for the rocket launcher/chaingun/powerful-weapon-of-choice" in a lot of FPSes. Hopefully this update pushes things more in that direction.
The traditional Counter-Strike weapon system was one of the biggest flaws of the game, in my opinion. Sure, it added a nice touch of realism and a bit of strategy, but the pricing structure made 90% of the guns effectively useless. It's very rare to join a server and see someone using a gun other than the Colt/AK or sniper, because they're so overwhelmingly powerful and still pretty cheap.
Basically, this means that the weaker guns will now have a purpose, since they'll be much more affordable. I'm sure the Colt and AK will still be heavily favored, but at least now it'll be harder to get them in the second round of a match.
And a note to the critics: If you don't care for these changes, CS 1.6 is still alive and well. CS:Source is a great opportunity for Valve to play around with the previously stagnant formula (by adding a new radar system, for example) without alienating older players. Let's not ruin that... we don't need two versions of the same game.
Microsoft will almost certainly be the first developer to pull it off effectively, of course, and I agree that it'll be an awesome feature for gamers to have access to. But it's not a particularly novel idea; I'm kind of surprised they didn't try it with the original Xbox.
An official Nintendo-branded model would probably be a more solid option, though. Still, AA rechargeables aren't really a big deal, especially when they last 30-60 hours. Some rechargeables even last longer than traditional batteries, I think, and they're often cheaper than the battery packs.
The eBay market can give the impression that hardcore gamers are willing to pay a lot for a new toy, but it's not entirely accurate. If money was not a concern to gamers, people would have purchased the $300 360 Core system (which was readily available) and upgraded it with the HD and wireless controllers. It might have cost a bit more, but it would have been cheaper than buying on eBay. Instead, most people waited until they could purchase the full bundle at a fair price.
A price drop within the first six months would be seen as desperate, especially if it was due to a lack of sales. Typically, the oldest console leads the price drop wars, so Sony probably won't make the first move unless sales are really weak. Plus, Sony has been using the PS3's price to imply a certain degree of value. It would be tacky for them to turn around and drop the price so soon, effectively telling early buyers that they paid too much.
I find it incredibly amusing that TFA sites "Dreamcast" and "Xbox" as names that needed no explanation. I don't know how the author interprets those words, but to most people, they were just as nonsensical as Wii. "Revolution" isn't much better, unless Nintendo really wants casual gamers to associate their console with orbital motion or political unrest.
One author actually cited the Gizmondo for having a "cool" name. The online media is really out of touch with reality, I think. I don't know how the general public will accept the Rev's new moniker, but they're sure to take it better than all the fanboy web journalists who honestly believe "Revolution" is a good product name.
Clearly the PlayStation was able to bulk up its library without ports, even though Sony was completely unproven as a console manufacturer. As long as a console is attractive to developers and is moderately successful in the retail market, it will recieve exclusive support from publishers. If Revolution development is as easy and affordable as Nintendo implies, the Revolution will likely be more appealing as a platform for exclusive content than its competition, simply because developers can afford to experiment with it.
And a pocket calculator in the 1970's cost $345, which is more than $1600 in today's money. By that logic, the 360 is a steal. ;)
I'm not picking on you in particular, just pointing out a fallacy that I see around here a lot. It's innacurate to compare prices to older technology, simply because the price of electronic components is decreasing so rapidly. It's virtually impossible to know whether the N64 or the 360 provides more tech for the dollar with respect to their own time frames.
Again, don't take this personally. It just kind of irks me when someone says, "I think the 360 is too expensive," and someone else responds, "it's cheaper than the Atari 2600 in today's dollars." This IGN article is perhaps one of the worst offenders. Technology has improved so much in the last 20 years... we should be expecting prices to go down, actually, as they have in other sectors of the electronics industry.
Apart from WoW, and the Lineage games (which sell mostly in Korea), only one or two MMOs have more than half a million subscribers worldwide. I don't have any recent numbers, but 4 million doesn't seem too far off, considering that beyond WoW, the MMO market is relatively small. Maybe 5 million in the US (3 million WoW players, 2 million in other games combined)? And I'm counting subscriptions, since companies can't really know who owns multiple accounts. So the "4 million subscribers * $30 a month" formula is a bit high, since it's more like 4-5 million subscriptions (at $10-15 a month).
Regardless, I don't think pure dollar figures are the best indicator, either. If you weren't spending $50 a month on MMOs, would that money have actually gone to other games (in March, during a console transition)? And how many WoW subscribers even played videogames before? At least half of the players I know were extremely casual gamers before subscribing to WoW. Their "gaming budget" was more like $40 per year, so WoW is drawing from entirely new income. And regardless of the dollars spent, there are at least 100 million console gamers who aren't subscribed to MMOs. Clearly their buying habits have diminished, too.
MMOs may have had an effect, but the majority of this downturn is due to the console transition. The analysts are completely right on this one (for once).
The number of MMO gamers in the US probably totals to around 3-4 million gamers. Even if we assume that each of those players has stopped buying other games, they still make up less than 5% of the total American market. That doesn't account for the 18% decrease.
Could it be time for another landfill?
I hate to break it to you, but your mother is only acting impressed because she bought it for you.
And you better not let her catch you posting messages like this, or she might not drive you home from your LAN parties any more.
Also, Xbox Live had already accumulated a fairly large userbase over the last four years on the Xbox. The article is only counting the "new" Xbox Live Marketplace, which is more of an upgrade than a brand new product. iTunes had no established userbase when it first launched.
Perhaps a more accurate comparison would be to iTunes sales after the release of version 4.1, the first Windows version. At that time, iTunes had been available on the Mac for two years, putting it in a similar situation as the current version of Xbox Live. I imagine those statistics would look very different.
Are those pictures to scale?
Fortunately, an industry insider has been granted access to a beta version of this rumored "Triple Shock controller". He has generously taken a photograph of this top-secret prototype, which can be found here.
Nintendo most likely has a tiered distribution plan for development hardware: Big studios like EA, Ubisoft, and Capcom probably received these "controller dev kits" a long time ago, when smaller studios had nothing. Once Nintendo revised the hardware, the big studios traded their models in for newer ones, and Nintendo passed the smaller dev kits out to slightly smaller developers, repeating the process several times over the course of the year.
Currently, the biggest dev houses likely have the most complete hardware, while others have some lesser version of it, depending on their influence, importance to Nintendo, and level of commitment to the platform. At this point, the developers who still have "controller dev kits" are probably the smaller ones who have shown less interest in the Revolution, but are still curious about it. It's entirely possible that this was the newest hardware at the studio IGN visited.
I think your idea is probably more likely than you think.
Instead of simply using the same screens as the GBA and GBASP, Nintendo upped the resolution slightly on the DS's screens, to 256x192 (from 240x160 on the GBA). The DS's screens use the same horizontal resolution as the NES and SNES, so emulation could be more accurate. The NES Classics series for the GBA had to scale the images down slightly to fit on the GBA's screen, but that would be mostly unnecessary for the DS.
Also, the DS's Download Play feature would work quite well for emulated classics. Only one downloaded title can be stored in RAM at a time, so Nintendo wouldn't have to worry about piracy.
I don't know that it's an age problem necessarily, but I'm sure Famitsu's market is a fairly limited demographic.
If the readers of say, PC Gamer (in the US) were to be polled with the same question, their list would likely be dominated by FPSes and strategy games, probably ignoring less "hardcore" games like The Sims. Likewise, if you were to survey the readers of a European Nintendo mag, they'd probably favor Nintendo games over any others.
This isn't a case of ballot stuffing; it's just a matter of demographics... the people who read Famitsu tend to favor traditional, Japanese RPGs. In reality, there are Yu-Gi-Oh games that have outsold some of those top-ranking FF titles, so clearly this list isn't a very accurate representation of game popularity.
I can't speak for M.U.L.E., as I've never played it, but it has been acclaimed in recent years by a lot of journalists. Perhaps everyone is blinded by nostalgia, or maybe it's just a good game.
An Xbox is also a far cry from being a mobile PC.
Hey now, you have to give Microsoft a little more credit than that...
;)
It was only four years.