I live in Purvis, Mississippi (which is about 80 miles north of the Gulf Coast). Today is my first day to get back online because I drove 40 miles north of my home to the University I work at to find gas and to check things out. Everything around is nothing but destruction, with thousands and thousands of trees on power lines, houses, and cars. The flooding was not as bad as on the coast, but this area got the worst of the winds. My family and friends have trees through their homes and car, or the winds peeled their roofs off. No matter how you donate, any little bit helps, and if selling T-shirts gets 100 kids to beg their parents to donate that wouldn't have previously, then I say go for it. Unless you've driven South of Jackson, MS, you can't imagine the destruction. The vast majority of areas still have no power and water. The sick, elderly, and children are suffering and dying under the humid heat from which there is no relief. I've seen elderly that cannot find enough gas to fuel a small generator for their oxygen tanks, and diseased children who cannot get treatments because hospitals are all but shut down. People have to drive for hours to find gas and fill 55 gallon drums that are illegal to haul and risk jail just to keep their children and elderly cool enough to live by generators. Please give any little bit you can, no matter what method it comes through, and thank you to anybody that already has.
If anybody out there has read into or was around for the "video game crash" of the early 80's, you know it was there for one main reason: development was easy enough that people could flood the market with games that were just like all the others. Nothing new or fun was made, and people got tired of the same sorry crap, sequels, remakes, and ripoffs, and just quit buying games. Enter: Nintendo, with innovation, creativity, and most of all, fun gameplay. I personally believe that gaming will reach a near-crash again. Development isn't as easy as it used to be, but as companies get bought out and games becomes more distributed, more and more generic FPS, sports, racing games, crappy sequels, and generally weak titles will come out. Then Sony and Microsoft will both be in trouble as they're both probably going to be losing money on their consoles to get market share. After they flood the market and people get tired of just another Halo, Half-Life, EA sport game, generic fighter, and other sequels, they will seek innovation and fun, despite any graphics inferiority. Enter: Nintendo.
I don't believe Nintendo is going anywhere in the hardware market, they're comfortable in their niche. They sell hardware that is accessible by families with lower price points and high quality. At $99 the gamecube has pulled off graphics better than the PS2 on many games. Even at low price points, they make PROFIT, which is more than MS can say. Sure, they don't turn out expensive do-it-all machines, and they don't churn out as many games as the other consoles. When they do churn something out, its a fun, well made product at a good price. They're in it for win-win situations, they profit, and the customer's get good products at a good price point. They still pride themselves on innovation, which I believe will be the key to the next generation as people will get sick of weak sequels and pretty games that are so-so for $300-$400 consoles. People will always buy Nintendo's inexpensive hardware to access family oriented games that are just plain fun, even if they don't have the biggest gross numbers, they still have the best fanbase and profits.
The console market will probably make a small slump in the PC market for the first year after the new consoles are out, then things will probably level off as usual. As probably already stated, there are always people who find controllers "awkward" and prefer keyboard and mouse. MMORPG's will never be the same on Consoles. You can't defeat the ease of development on Windows/Linux vs trying to develop and publish on consoles. Lastly, other innovations that will be developed after the consoles are released will always drive the market to innovative and new aspects to games. E.g., physics hardware cards will probably hit PC's within a year, allowing games physics to surpass that of consoles.
As a last note...I retain my opinion that whoever comes up with games that are actually fun to play will make the $$$. Eventually, the market will get sick of sequels, sports games, and weak FPS games. If no one comes up with some games that are just plain fun to play, despite how pretty it is, I see a slump for the entire market, PC and Console coming.
Slashdot Mirror
I live in Purvis, Mississippi (which is about 80 miles north of the Gulf Coast). Today is my first day to get back online because I drove 40 miles north of my home to the University I work at to find gas and to check things out. Everything around is nothing but destruction, with thousands and thousands of trees on power lines, houses, and cars. The flooding was not as bad as on the coast, but this area got the worst of the winds. My family and friends have trees through their homes and car, or the winds peeled their roofs off. No matter how you donate, any little bit helps, and if selling T-shirts gets 100 kids to beg their parents to donate that wouldn't have previously, then I say go for it. Unless you've driven South of Jackson, MS, you can't imagine the destruction. The vast majority of areas still have no power and water. The sick, elderly, and children are suffering and dying under the humid heat from which there is no relief. I've seen elderly that cannot find enough gas to fuel a small generator for their oxygen tanks, and diseased children who cannot get treatments because hospitals are all but shut down. People have to drive for hours to find gas and fill 55 gallon drums that are illegal to haul and risk jail just to keep their children and elderly cool enough to live by generators. Please give any little bit you can, no matter what method it comes through, and thank you to anybody that already has.
If anybody out there has read into or was around for the "video game crash" of the early 80's, you know it was there for one main reason: development was easy enough that people could flood the market with games that were just like all the others. Nothing new or fun was made, and people got tired of the same sorry crap, sequels, remakes, and ripoffs, and just quit buying games. Enter: Nintendo, with innovation, creativity, and most of all, fun gameplay. I personally believe that gaming will reach a near-crash again. Development isn't as easy as it used to be, but as companies get bought out and games becomes more distributed, more and more generic FPS, sports, racing games, crappy sequels, and generally weak titles will come out. Then Sony and Microsoft will both be in trouble as they're both probably going to be losing money on their consoles to get market share. After they flood the market and people get tired of just another Halo, Half-Life, EA sport game, generic fighter, and other sequels, they will seek innovation and fun, despite any graphics inferiority. Enter: Nintendo.
I don't believe Nintendo is going anywhere in the hardware market, they're comfortable in their niche. They sell hardware that is accessible by families with lower price points and high quality. At $99 the gamecube has pulled off graphics better than the PS2 on many games. Even at low price points, they make PROFIT, which is more than MS can say. Sure, they don't turn out expensive do-it-all machines, and they don't churn out as many games as the other consoles. When they do churn something out, its a fun, well made product at a good price. They're in it for win-win situations, they profit, and the customer's get good products at a good price point. They still pride themselves on innovation, which I believe will be the key to the next generation as people will get sick of weak sequels and pretty games that are so-so for $300-$400 consoles. People will always buy Nintendo's inexpensive hardware to access family oriented games that are just plain fun, even if they don't have the biggest gross numbers, they still have the best fanbase and profits.
The console market will probably make a small slump in the PC market for the first year after the new consoles are out, then things will probably level off as usual. As probably already stated, there are always people who find controllers "awkward" and prefer keyboard and mouse. MMORPG's will never be the same on Consoles. You can't defeat the ease of development on Windows/Linux vs trying to develop and publish on consoles. Lastly, other innovations that will be developed after the consoles are released will always drive the market to innovative and new aspects to games. E.g., physics hardware cards will probably hit PC's within a year, allowing games physics to surpass that of consoles. As a last note...I retain my opinion that whoever comes up with games that are actually fun to play will make the $$$. Eventually, the market will get sick of sequels, sports games, and weak FPS games. If no one comes up with some games that are just plain fun to play, despite how pretty it is, I see a slump for the entire market, PC and Console coming.