The ESRB was established in 1994. Only covers about 40% of games on IGN's list were released before that time. Of these, how many, if rated today would receive a Mature rating from the ESRB? Some can be easily removed from speculation since they've been rereleased on the Wii virtual console and have thus been subjected to evaluation by the ESRB. Only a small few (such as Doom) would likely receive an M rating, although it's possible that by today's standards they would receive a T rating.
Does a game being old somehow preclude it from being a great game or one of the best of all time? I'll agree that a bit of nostalgia may have crept into IGN's list, mostly because Super Mario Bros. is rated as the number one game of all time (I contend that Super Mario Bros. 3 is a superior game, but that's only my opinion.) but many other games have legitimate reasons for being there. Super Metroid and Legent of Zelda: OOT are regarded as the best games in their series by many and as the best game of their type by many as well. I think there's a tendency for younger games to overlook many of these games or not appreciate them today. Bioshock has been lauded as an excellent FPS (which I won't argue with much) but does it deserve to be in the top 10 of all time? I'd suggest watching this review that actually takes a critical look at the game and doesn't spend the majority of the reivew lavashing praise on it.
As a personal example, I find Civilization II to be one of the most brilliant games ever designed. The fact that I can still sink hours of my life at a time into the game when it has to compete with the current generation of games speaks something of its excellence. It's not perfect, but there's not much I would change about the game if I could. There are some games like this that can't be improved upon in their gameplay aspect and updating the graphics only goes so far to enhance the experience. A game like Civilization II doesn't need new pretty graphics or anything that would normally cause a game to receive a 'mature' rating in order to be great.
It's also disingenuous to suggest that there weren't any mature games being made before than either. Metal Gear Solid received an M-rating almost a decade ago. There have also been mature themed games all the way back in the Atari generation. A game doesn't need to have an M rating in order to do well and the concept of Mature games isn't something new either. I only bring this up, because I feel that someone would likely use it as a rebuttle.
I'm not trying to say that any of the M rated games on the list are bad either, but with the exception of Half-Life it's hard to argue that any of them should be moved significantly up the list when the games placed in front of them are some of the pinacles of gaming. Some of these games are pushing the limits of the technology we have today, but some of the other games were also pushing those limits over a decade ago. Perhaps it's possible that our culture is becoming more accepting of mature themes in video games and that's why we're seeing more of them, but adding mature themes to a game just for the sake of having them there won't make a game good.
I'm not quite sure that I completely agree with your assessment that "The best games are M." As an example, are games that are rated E or T not capable of being considered as the best? Games such as The Sims, Civilization, Super Mario Bros., Tetris, etc. are not rated M, but are considered among some of the best games of all time. If you look at IGN's Top 100 games list I don't think there are any games in the top 10 that would be rated as Mature. The first M-rated game I could find on the list was Metal Gear Solid which was ranked #19.
It could be possible that you enjoy FPS games, which are generally given a mature rating because they involve death and blood in most cases. It happens that the genre you prefer happens to be tagged as Mature in a vast majority of cases. An interesting question springs to mind though. If you were given an FPS game featuring the best controls, storyline, gameplay, multiplayer, graphics, and game balance (in your opinion) would it still be good if it didn't have enough violence (or other content) to warrent an M rating? If you don't enjoy FPS games, then simply apply the question to a different genre.
After looking over some information from the ESA, this really doesn't come as much of a surprise to me. They point out that the average age gamers is 33. Does it come as any surprise to anyone that a 'mature' audience might prefer 'mature' content? This isn't to say that all gamers in their twenties and thirties like blood, gore, and other things such that they'll buy any game that has them, but if we look at a lot of the most popular games, they deal with subject matters (warfare, the mafia, etc.) that have violent content in them in order to stay true to the subject matter and portray it more accurately. These people have the disposable income to purchase these games which are most suited to their interests.
Another factor is probably young children perceiving these games as 'mature' and that playing them will make them more grown-up. I don't know how much weight this theory holds, but I've heard it used before and don't find it as hard to accept. There might also be the allure of playing a game that you're 'not supposed to' play because it might be too much for you to handle. Curiosity has probably gotten more people to look at goatse (or something else described as incredibly sick), moreso than any actual attraction to such images. Of course, I don't think younger children have as much disposable income to puchase these games directly, but their parents probably do.
I can understand how a computer simulation of a human mind would be able to "think" a lot faster simply because the communication and computational speed is so much faster, but would the machine be more complex or capable of doing any problem that a human isn't capable of? If I have a Finite State Machine, I can use a Turing Machine to do exactly the same thing, however in some cases it's not possible to go the other way. In this sense is it even possible for humans to design something that can design something that we could not design ourselves if given enough time?
There's also the argument that we wouldn't invent or have to invent anything ever again. This assumes that the machine we create understands human problems or even cares about them. If it has no body to move around, would it ever understand that after a while its legs will get tired and that it would like something to sit down in, perhaps a chair? If it can conceive of needing a chair, will it know how to design a comfortable one?
Additionally, there is always the argument that there is more to human consciousness than having a large number of nuerons connected in a certain fashion. Is it sufficient to simulate the human brain with computer components for it to "awaken" or is there some other factor at play? Is wiring this mechanical brain the same as a human brain the best solution, or is there some better or more efficient way to create a brain that will be intelligent? For that matter, is there any other way to do it?
It's a lot of fun to think about this problem and the results, but there are so many things that we don't understand about ourselves that it seems as though before we can make any major progress towards creating an actual intelligence of any kind there are a lof of other things that need to be discovered.
You don't have to give any of the tax cut benefits to the corporate side of things. Even though it would reduce the burden on their end you can just give it all back to the people. If the nearly $300B figure is correct, that's an average savings of $1,000 per American citizen, not because taxes were reduced, but because overhead costs and beaurocratic waste were reduced. That's $1,000 extra that people can spend however they want to do spend it. At least this way it takes a little longer before it all accumulates in one person's pocket.
I've been around technology long enough to see some of the ups and downs of online relationships. I've met people online, both male and female, with whom I've developed good bonds of friendships. I've never 'e-dated' anyone, but I've seen plenty of people do it.
I've played World of Warcraft for the last year and a half or so and when that many people come together it's only natural that some of them develop relationships. Sometimes these things turn out really good and the people actually start seeing each other in real life if they're physically close enough to do so. I don't know if it's happened on the server I've played on, but I have heard of people getting married after meeting in an online game after e-dating for a while and eventually getting to know each other better in real life.
Of course there are also the horror stories of online dating as well. I've seen relationships that haven't worked out and it makes some people bitter. There have been people kicked from guilds or guilds that have been broken up over the drama caused by some online relationships. The worst (and perhaps the funniest) thing I've ever seen is when two people who were e-dating on our server broke up and the girl posted some pictures of the guy posing naked in front of a webcam for her. The thread managed to last overnight before the GM's removed it, but a substantial portion of the server got to see a guy grabbing his junk and trying to strike a sexy pose.
One of my friends had a younger brother who met someone online and recently moved to live with them on the east coast after visiting and having a good time. I think there are a lot of people who scoff the idea of online relationships, but with the technology we have in the world today, I think they can be a good thing. Of course when the people in them don't act intelligently they can turn out bad and people you know see you wearing nothing but a smile on the internet.
1. The best way to find missing pickups is to run around with the x-ray visor on. Any power ups will show up as a bright orange color that really stands out against the rest of the gray. This works really well for stuff that's at a long distance.
2. I know I've seen a counter for them somewhere. I think if you bring up the command visor or some other ship menu it has a display somewhere. I'm guessing that they refill at save points similar to how all your regular missiles do.
3. I haven't finished the game yet but I'm going to say no. I was reading some information on the tokens and one of the areas said that the tokes were awarded for killing bosses on different difficulty levels. I'm guessing that they don't reset, but that you can't get the same tokens over and over again for new games.
4. The gamefaqs message board has a lot of threads with people looking to exchange vouchers. I suggest looking into that to find some people.
5. I don't think there's a map for the Valhalla, or at least I never found one of them. There's a map for the Pirate Homeworld. You get it in order to get the option to land at one of the other areas. You get on your way to rescue the captured trooper, I think.
6. I was just in this room, but forgot to try to get back there actually. I'll have to go back there to check it out. Make sure to tell me if you manage to get back there somehow or if it's a known fact that it can't be done so I don't waste too much time on it.
7. I think I got a few others from there, but I played through there late last night and only quit playing when I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. I don't recall too well.
8. Come to think of it, I recall a few other areas where you would have needed to use this that were on the Pirate Homeworld. I think there even may have been a few in the Sky City. I've yet to finish collecting all the remaining pickups that I need.
They've figured out what they need to do, but in some ways I wonder if they're a little late in doing so. Maybe Haze will be an astonishingly brilliant game, but I think Microsoft gobbled up some good exclusive content in Bioshock and the GTA:4 downloadable content. Bioshock is already out and I think it's one of those games that people are going to be talking about for a while and in some ways could potentially overshadow Halo 3.
Sony is still hurting for a big ticket game for this holiday season. A lot of people were banking on Lair or Heavenly Sword being some must have games, but Lair has been getting demolished by reviewers and Heavenly Sword seems to be one of those "good but not great" games that will sell copies, but isn't going to move consoles for the most part. It seems like Sony is always one step behind or waiting for what's just around the corner. The increased hardware sales are good, but unless they really pick up they're just going to be the console that gets Xbox 360 ports that don't look quite as good from the transition.
Having better developer tools is probably a good solution that can help make their games look better or easier to code, but I've never developed for the cell architecture so I can't testify to the current development tools available or how well they work. I think the best solution at this point is for Sony to do what MIcrosoft did and to throw money at some companies in order to pick up some exclusives that look like they have a good shot at moving consoles. Why they didn't take up Take Two to make GTA:4 a PS3 timed (or complete) exclusive is beyond me. However, whether or not Sony will have to settle for second-best exclusives since Microsoft has already picked some of theirs remains to be seen.
In case Sony hasn't noticed yet, a $600 pricetag hasn't been all that great for the PS3. Hopefully they're not stupid enough to keep the new 80 GB PS3 at $600 once the supply of $500 models run out. Then again, this is Sony that we're talking about.
I'm fairly sure that once the supply of 60 GB models is gone they're going to have to drop this package down to $500 if they have any hopes of continuing sales into the holiday season. First of all, for the extra $100 I get a an extra 20 GB that I don't care about and a game that I really don't want. They have some great games coming out between now and next year, but I don't think too many people are going to care if the only way to play them is on a $600 machine. $500 even seems like a steep asking price to me, but it's a lot better than $600. For $600 they'd really need to throw in an extra controller and any game of my choice. At that point it works out to about even in my book. If they really wanted to make a splash, drop it down to $450 and gain some good marketshare over the holidays.
For every good example, there apparently are several bad examples of this so called "wisdom of crowds." I'm not saying it doesn't work, but to pretend that it's the be all and end all of systems is just disingenuous.
Wisdom of crowds is a pretty good concept, but in reality it turns out that the crowds aren't always so wise.
The first video game system I ever owned was the original NES. I still vividly remember the first time I ever played one and it's an interest that's stuck with me to this very day. I had all of the games that are generally considered Nintendo classics: Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and a myriad of other games. Eventually I upgraded to an SNES and picked up the 16-bit versions of those games and many others. I never purchased an N64, but some of my friends had them and I got my fix over at their houses, however, I still enjoyed Mario Kart and other SNES games and played them excessively.
The next game system I bought was a PS2, but a while after that I purchased a GameCube to catch up on all the new games that Nintendo had brought out. I eventually picked up an Xbox as well and even a used Dreamcast to complete that generation. I enjoyed all of them for different reasons and like every other generation there were some incredible games that were produced that you couldn't help but enjoy.
Last November I decided to camp out in front of a Wal-Mart and freeze my ass off so that I could get a Wii on launch day. After playing some of the latest incarnations of games (Zelda) and seeing what's in store for others (Mario, Metroid) I don't feel any differently about them than those old classics I played on the NES and SNES. As someone who's grown up around these Nintendo franchises I don't understand how people who claim to be long time fans can be disappointed in the Wii or the latest versions of their old favorites. I'm wondering if they really ever played and enjoyed these games or if their tastes have simply changed over the years. If you want bleeding edge graphics in your games, I suppose that's fine, but please don't try to pass yourself off as a purist if that's what you really want.
I'm quite glad that I grew up experiencing those games so that if I go back to play them today I'm not turned off by the lack of powerful graphics like some people are today. As cool as the graphical powerhouses that games such as Crysis and others like it with brilliant graphics are, will they ever be able to claim the same level of interest as Pac-Man ever commanded?
I don't think that purist should be confused with graphics whore, or whatever term would be most appropriate. I would think that purists play games to enjoy games, whether they're made using 8-bit sprites or ray traced using the powerful hardware we'll likely see in the future.
I'm not really sure that so many people are looking for a console that does "everything!" If they were, I think the sales of the PS3 and the Xbox 360 would be a lot higher. I think that most people are interested in something that's a gaming machine first and is priced reasonably so. Anything else is a nice addition, but for a lot of people isn't necessary.
The only compelling features that the Xbox 360 or the PS3 offer are the ability for play HD-DVDs or Blu-Ray discs. Unfortunately, those features are generally regarded as an extra $200 and something I'm not interested in paying for at this point. I already have a DVD player, CD player, and Computer (browse internet, download movies/music).
I suppose if I wanted a Blu-ray player I could just pick up a PS3, as it would also be a gaming console, but I'm just not that interested in purchasing either of the new formats at this time.
If you look at the sales so far you see that the Wii got it right by being a gaming console first and not worrying about extras that would drive the cost up so much. The Xbox 360 is somewhere in the middle ground, and the "do everything" PS3 is trailing in last place at the moment. It's fairly obvious that most people don't need to a "do everything" console and the market is reflecting this.
Re:Nintendo is not neglecting its roots.
on
Where the Wii Fits In
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Haven't you heard that if you make controversial statements and attempt to troll Nintendo fans that your article will get picked up on sites like Slashdot and Digg where thousands of members will click through to read the article and give you more page hits?
It's the same whenever Dvorak writes some sensationalist column about how Apple is going to be driven out of the industry or fail in some other manner. He's just trolling to get a few more page hits and ad revenue.
It's the same reason tabloids and other yellow journalism rags print the news they do. People are attracted to sensationalist crap and will pay money to read it.
I've heard this particular argument that the article presents at least two other times on Slashdot in the past month. Every time it's refuted by common sense thinking and posters pointing out evidence to the contrary. Everyone seems to confuse "expanding the market" with "neglecting the base." This article should be modded troll, because it really is one, and also redundant, because it's already cropped up a few times before. Just because some journalist couldn't think up a good idea for a decent article doesn't mean this tripe is newsworthy.
And prior to the most recent generation of games, Mario was somehow hardcore only or completely different?
The only major change that Mario has undergone is a transition from 2D to 3D, but beyond that the game hasn't changed a lot. If you think the new Mario games are too easy have you ever collected all 120 stars in any of the more recent titles? It's not too terribly hard to collect enough stars to fight the final boss and beat the game, but to collect every single star requires a lot more effort. It's a game that's accessible to most people who are able to work the controller. You can do the bare minimum and finish the game, or you can collect everything. It's fairly accomodating.
I'd say the only major change is that the new 3D Mario games are on a whole less accessible to people than the old 2D games. I think using more simplified control methods make these games available to other audiances who would not have given them a chance otherwise.
I also fail to see how Zelda isn't "feeling its roots lately either." The last incarnation of the game in Twilight Princess was easily the best since Ocarina of Time and in some ways surpassed that game. I had a great time with Twilight Princess and it's one of those games that can easily suck up forty hours of your life. I fail to see how a game like this with dungeons that can take hours to fully explore and solve can be labled as more casual. If anything, Twilight Princess and Phantom Hourglass make the game more accessible with their new control schemes while at the same time providing a new and novel approach for vetrens of the series. Repackaging the same exact game over and over with a slightly different story doesn't necessarily make a game good or exciting.
Don't mistake more accessible for more casual. Accessible means that more people are able to pick it up and play it and enjoy their experience. Casual means that they are able to do this while not devoting hours to it at a time in order to enjoy it.
"But, see how poorly online only games do in the market (e.g. Shadowrun) I wonder."
Ever heard of World of Warcraft?
I think there's a healthy market for online only games. I'd say that I probably spent 99% of the time I played Halo either onine over Xbox Live or on a LAN. The single player story was alright, but it's largely the plot of some older sci-fi novels mashed together. The story in the second game paled compared to that of the first, which doesn't leave me looking forward to playing the third installment any way but online with my friends agaist other human opponents.
You do make a good point though. I have no real way of knowing if I'm the rule or the exception or if there's some happy medium, but from my own observations I'd say that people play online significantly more than they don't.
I'm quite certain that the vast majority of people who purchase this game will play it online against other players in death match or capture the flag games. Although online co-op is a nice feature, it's hardly necessary for the vast majority of the people who purchase it. Hell, this franchise is so about online play that the single player campaign could probably be considered optional.
"Under heavy pressure from whom? Xbox Live subscriptions are up, beating projections (I think Moore said they crossed the 7 million subscriber mark at E3). The only people I've seen who care about the price of Live are those coming from an environment without a cohesive online story (Sony fanboys, mostly)."
Xbox Live is certainly a supperior offering to anything found on the Playstation or Wii consoles, but I think the numbers have beed fudged a little bit. Because there are two different Xbox Live service levels, one of which is free, it makes me wonder exactly how many of these subscriptions are paid for and how many are silver members. The Nintendo DS supposedly has had around five million unique users connect to their online service. There have been about five million virtual console sales on the Wii to date.
However, these numbers really don't tell us much useful information. For starters, we don't know how many of those Xbox Live subscriptions are gold memberships. We also don't know the amount of content purchased or arcade game sales either. Without more information Xbox Live could be pulling in money hand over fist, or it could be something that's barely scraping by. The Nintendo DS number doesn't tell us how many regular online users there are. For all we know the vast majority tried it out a few times and then quit playing online. The Wii numbers don't give us a good idea of the number of unique users that have purchased a game. I've bought around ten VC titles personally and if that's how it generally plays out, maybe only half a million Wii owners buy VC games.
Without better information it's pretty stupid to say that Xbox Live is a huge success for Microsoft. Unless they produced a report on exactly whith parts of their gaming division are profitable, we can't really determine if Xbox Live is a money maker or if it's bleeding money just like most of the division. In 2004, they had surpased the one million subscriber mark, which is significant because all subscriptions were paid at that time. However it still didn't indicate whether or not that was total subscriptions or active users. However, even if they're not making money from gold memberships, they still do sell arcade games and other online content now, but I haven't seen any figures on this information to indicate how successful it's been.
Keep in mind that any numbers that come from a company are usually deceptive in some way or another.
I fail to see how you can claim to be a traditional gamer in the same sense and then whine about Nintendo lacking HD support or something for "real gamers."
I've already explained that in the next six months you will have Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime: Corruption, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and Mario Kart. How those aren't games for real gamers or don't appeal to the "traditional" gamer is beyond me. I don't know what kind of kool aid you've been drinking, but when it causes you to spout crap like that I'm really left scratching my head. What confuses me even more is how you somehow think that Microsoft and Sony are going to provide you with what you want, unless it's first person shooters, realistic racing games, or games with a high level of graphical detail. Unfortunately, none of those things really seem to fit in with traditional Nintendo offerings.
Somehow you've mistaken Nintendo catering to other markets as abandoning you, which clearly isn't the case.
From a few of your comments I've noticed you like a lot of different RPG's, some of which belong to a franchise that was on Nintendo. For the most part, they're third party games and Nintendo doesn't always get to choose whether or not these games will show up on their systems. Nintendo didn't abandon you, the third parties did.
I think that their best bet would be to sell the currently available 60 GB models at $500 until their supply runs out and then immediately drop the 80 GB model down to $500, or possibly even lower in time for the holidays. Sony has a lot of inventory to move and if they're hoping to meet their sales goals that they set at E3, they really need to drop the price down to about $400.
I can easily see Microsoft releasing a new version of their hardware in time for the holidays and having a firesale of their own on the old models around the holiday season, which would really cut into Sony's sales. Sony is going to look bad selling at $500 when you can get an Xbox 360 at $300.
I honestly think that Sony should slash prices down to at least $400, which would get a lot of consumers to purchase one. This would help to turn things around for them and to catch up to the lead of the Xbox 360, but more importantly it would give Blu-ray a big advantage over HD-DVD and might allow that war to come to an end. I think the short term loses would be worth it in the long term.
Unfortunately a "higher education" might not do much good when you have a population that is largely apathetic to political participation, and by this I mean truly researching the candidates and issues instead of looking at how whatever political party they identify themselves as belonging to would vote on the issue.
I don't know how the rest of the country operates, but I just don't think that having a single civics class in the senior year of high school is enough to motivate the young adults to be politically active. Some, like myself, were postively affected by the class and have become more political as a result, but for the most part there were too many other students who left that class the same as they went in to it.
Unless you want to take classes in college you're really not forced to do so. There may be requirements to take a certain number of science courses or a certain amount of math regardless of what your major is, I can't think of any universities that require a civics course. If they do require one, good for them as I feel it's vastly more important than learning a little bit of chemistry and is certainly more applicable to the lives of the majority of the students who go through that university.
I honestly believe that the best solution is to start civics courses in school much earlier on, hopefully fostering a love for the political process instead of disdain. Hopefully students would have a greater interest in participating in politics as well as a better understanding of how to be a good citizen. I think that America would largely be a better country if more people were politically active and thinking for themselves.
I'm glad that there are people out there who have spent the time to become well acquinted with civics and history, but I fear that there are no longer enough people who take the time to become knowledgable in such fields. The vast amount of anti-intellectualism in this country is frightening and taking steps to reduce such traits in future generations would hopefully be a great benefit to not only our country, but also to the rest of the world as well.
"Wow I really didn't expect a line by line refutation of my diatribe. In any case, I am justifiably mad because Nintendo has sold out in the past few generations to the casual gamers, abandoning those who like to play more traditional games. They didn't even bother to ship the Wii with a proper controller, making their intentions incredibly clear."
I fail to see how Nintendo has sold in the past few generations. Up until the DS and the Wii, they seemed to be releasing the same types of consoles as everyone else. Pray tell where is all this support for casual gamers that you think existed? I'm not even going to bother with the rest of the flamebait in that comment.
"Exactly what justification is there for not even supporting HD. How does this simple feature prevent your ability to innovate? I am justifiably mad that Nintendo refused to make their product produce a good picture by modern standards."
Their justification is that it keeps the cost down and makes the console more accessable to a broader demographic. There is also the fact that a majority of the target audience for the Wii do not have an HDTV. While this number is steadily increasing, there are still plenty of people who receive no benefit from the inclusion of HD on the console. To suggest that 1080p or any other HD quality signal is necessary to make a good looking game seems silly to me. Simply look at all the great titles from the last gereration and games such as Super Mario Galaxy that have very crisp and brilliant graphics.
"I am not a hardcore gamer, I am just a traditional gamer, and Nintendo has abandoned me to the likes of Microsoft and Sony. I'm not complaining that I have to buy a Wii, I am complaining that I have to buy a 360. I am not a hater either; I'm a Nintendo fan. I'm just a fan of the old Nintendo and not what it's become."
I fail to see how Nintendo abandoned you. The virtual console should appeal to a traditional gamer such as yourself (Which really makes me wonder why a traditional gamer cares about HD so much) as it offers a wide variety of old school games.
Everything you've said smacks of being a troll and several of your comments seem to contradict each other. I think it's fairly obvious to everyone that you really don't like Nintendo at all, for what reasons I don't know, but you'd rather lamment all of their supposed shortcomings and point out flaws while thinly veiling yourself as a Nintendo supporter.
'Young people shouldn't be involved, I guess because they're not serious enough or they don't have the education.'
I'm not up to date on the civics education in Japan, but I feel that in America it's sorely lacking and really explains why we have such poor turnouts for our elections. I didn't have Civics (American Government, or whatever you may have had instead) until Senior year in high school, and by then it was obvious that most of the students in my class didn't care. It seemed as though most were content to sleep or slack off during the class or agonize the teacher with idiotic questions or annoying answers.
I think if we would have had the class at a much younger age and a teacher who promoted the importance of voting and participating in government, more students would have been interested in their government and the political process, perhaps to the point that they would research candidates on their own and make informed political decisions or have intelligent political discussion beyond "Bush is a Nazi!"
Looking back on my education as a child, I really wished that there would have been more classes like this at a younger age or just more schooling in general. I look at the other countries where children receive more schooling than here in America and wonder why this isn't something that we as a country aren't attempting to emulate.
"Okay from now on when I'm bitching and moaning I will qualify my requests for innovation with a request the innovative games actually be fun. Now Mario Bros., that shit was hard. What do I get now, Wii bowling?"
I suppose if you don't enjoy bowling then Wii bowling isn't very fun. There are several other games in Wii Sports that you might enjoy though. I've found Wii Boxing to be incredibly fun when played with friends. To say Wii Bowling isn't difficult doesn't sound right. I'd say that it has a low learning curve because people like my mother and father were able to pick it up and easily play and enjoy it. However, I've never seen anyone bowl a perfect game yet. Easy to learn, difficult to master; perhaps more games should be that way so they're accessable to everyone but still contain a challenge.
"Also models that look like a drawing by a retarded 4th grader are not innovation."
No one said the graphics of Wii Sports were innovative in any way. It's the control that makes the game innovative. You're missing the point.
"Has anyone noticed that nearly everyone has an HDTV now? Don't bullshit me with statistics either -- I know the kind of people who buy games and I have been to they and their parents' houses."
I play games and I can't afford an HDTV. I'd like one, but it's not something I can swing right now. Some of the older folks who buy a Wii probably don't have an HDTV either. Not everyone has one and it's not really necessary for innovative game play. Go ahead and name something innovative that's been done on the Xbox 360 or the PS3. Odds are that anything you suggest was already being done on the PC, especially in terms of graphics or AI. The Wii has created a new way to play games that really hasn't been tried before in many cases.
"Good luck selling games to my Grandpa, douchebags."
Funny that Nintendo has made a few hundred dollars in revenue off of my mother, whereas Sony and Microsoft haven't made a cent.
Slashdot Mirror
The ESRB was established in 1994. Only covers about 40% of games on IGN's list were released before that time. Of these, how many, if rated today would receive a Mature rating from the ESRB? Some can be easily removed from speculation since they've been rereleased on the Wii virtual console and have thus been subjected to evaluation by the ESRB. Only a small few (such as Doom) would likely receive an M rating, although it's possible that by today's standards they would receive a T rating.
I think we're just splitting hairs at this point.
Does a game being old somehow preclude it from being a great game or one of the best of all time? I'll agree that a bit of nostalgia may have crept into IGN's list, mostly because Super Mario Bros. is rated as the number one game of all time (I contend that Super Mario Bros. 3 is a superior game, but that's only my opinion.) but many other games have legitimate reasons for being there. Super Metroid and Legent of Zelda: OOT are regarded as the best games in their series by many and as the best game of their type by many as well. I think there's a tendency for younger games to overlook many of these games or not appreciate them today. Bioshock has been lauded as an excellent FPS (which I won't argue with much) but does it deserve to be in the top 10 of all time? I'd suggest watching this review that actually takes a critical look at the game and doesn't spend the majority of the reivew lavashing praise on it.
As a personal example, I find Civilization II to be one of the most brilliant games ever designed. The fact that I can still sink hours of my life at a time into the game when it has to compete with the current generation of games speaks something of its excellence. It's not perfect, but there's not much I would change about the game if I could. There are some games like this that can't be improved upon in their gameplay aspect and updating the graphics only goes so far to enhance the experience. A game like Civilization II doesn't need new pretty graphics or anything that would normally cause a game to receive a 'mature' rating in order to be great.
It's also disingenuous to suggest that there weren't any mature games being made before than either. Metal Gear Solid received an M-rating almost a decade ago. There have also been mature themed games all the way back in the Atari generation. A game doesn't need to have an M rating in order to do well and the concept of Mature games isn't something new either. I only bring this up, because I feel that someone would likely use it as a rebuttle.
I'm not trying to say that any of the M rated games on the list are bad either, but with the exception of Half-Life it's hard to argue that any of them should be moved significantly up the list when the games placed in front of them are some of the pinacles of gaming. Some of these games are pushing the limits of the technology we have today, but some of the other games were also pushing those limits over a decade ago. Perhaps it's possible that our culture is becoming more accepting of mature themes in video games and that's why we're seeing more of them, but adding mature themes to a game just for the sake of having them there won't make a game good.
I'm not quite sure that I completely agree with your assessment that "The best games are M." As an example, are games that are rated E or T not capable of being considered as the best? Games such as The Sims, Civilization, Super Mario Bros., Tetris, etc. are not rated M, but are considered among some of the best games of all time. If you look at IGN's Top 100 games list I don't think there are any games in the top 10 that would be rated as Mature. The first M-rated game I could find on the list was Metal Gear Solid which was ranked #19.
It could be possible that you enjoy FPS games, which are generally given a mature rating because they involve death and blood in most cases. It happens that the genre you prefer happens to be tagged as Mature in a vast majority of cases. An interesting question springs to mind though. If you were given an FPS game featuring the best controls, storyline, gameplay, multiplayer, graphics, and game balance (in your opinion) would it still be good if it didn't have enough violence (or other content) to warrent an M rating? If you don't enjoy FPS games, then simply apply the question to a different genre.
After looking over some information from the ESA, this really doesn't come as much of a surprise to me. They point out that the average age gamers is 33. Does it come as any surprise to anyone that a 'mature' audience might prefer 'mature' content? This isn't to say that all gamers in their twenties and thirties like blood, gore, and other things such that they'll buy any game that has them, but if we look at a lot of the most popular games, they deal with subject matters (warfare, the mafia, etc.) that have violent content in them in order to stay true to the subject matter and portray it more accurately. These people have the disposable income to purchase these games which are most suited to their interests.
Another factor is probably young children perceiving these games as 'mature' and that playing them will make them more grown-up. I don't know how much weight this theory holds, but I've heard it used before and don't find it as hard to accept. There might also be the allure of playing a game that you're 'not supposed to' play because it might be too much for you to handle. Curiosity has probably gotten more people to look at goatse (or something else described as incredibly sick), moreso than any actual attraction to such images. Of course, I don't think younger children have as much disposable income to puchase these games directly, but their parents probably do.
I can understand how a computer simulation of a human mind would be able to "think" a lot faster simply because the communication and computational speed is so much faster, but would the machine be more complex or capable of doing any problem that a human isn't capable of? If I have a Finite State Machine, I can use a Turing Machine to do exactly the same thing, however in some cases it's not possible to go the other way. In this sense is it even possible for humans to design something that can design something that we could not design ourselves if given enough time?
There's also the argument that we wouldn't invent or have to invent anything ever again. This assumes that the machine we create understands human problems or even cares about them. If it has no body to move around, would it ever understand that after a while its legs will get tired and that it would like something to sit down in, perhaps a chair? If it can conceive of needing a chair, will it know how to design a comfortable one?
Additionally, there is always the argument that there is more to human consciousness than having a large number of nuerons connected in a certain fashion. Is it sufficient to simulate the human brain with computer components for it to "awaken" or is there some other factor at play? Is wiring this mechanical brain the same as a human brain the best solution, or is there some better or more efficient way to create a brain that will be intelligent? For that matter, is there any other way to do it?
It's a lot of fun to think about this problem and the results, but there are so many things that we don't understand about ourselves that it seems as though before we can make any major progress towards creating an actual intelligence of any kind there are a lof of other things that need to be discovered.
You don't have to give any of the tax cut benefits to the corporate side of things. Even though it would reduce the burden on their end you can just give it all back to the people. If the nearly $300B figure is correct, that's an average savings of $1,000 per American citizen, not because taxes were reduced, but because overhead costs and beaurocratic waste were reduced. That's $1,000 extra that people can spend however they want to do spend it. At least this way it takes a little longer before it all accumulates in one person's pocket.
Yes, but pigs will begin flying at around the 24 hour mark and hell is most likely to freeze over somewhere around the 36 hour mark.
I've been around technology long enough to see some of the ups and downs of online relationships. I've met people online, both male and female, with whom I've developed good bonds of friendships. I've never 'e-dated' anyone, but I've seen plenty of people do it.
I've played World of Warcraft for the last year and a half or so and when that many people come together it's only natural that some of them develop relationships. Sometimes these things turn out really good and the people actually start seeing each other in real life if they're physically close enough to do so. I don't know if it's happened on the server I've played on, but I have heard of people getting married after meeting in an online game after e-dating for a while and eventually getting to know each other better in real life.
Of course there are also the horror stories of online dating as well. I've seen relationships that haven't worked out and it makes some people bitter. There have been people kicked from guilds or guilds that have been broken up over the drama caused by some online relationships. The worst (and perhaps the funniest) thing I've ever seen is when two people who were e-dating on our server broke up and the girl posted some pictures of the guy posing naked in front of a webcam for her. The thread managed to last overnight before the GM's removed it, but a substantial portion of the server got to see a guy grabbing his junk and trying to strike a sexy pose.
One of my friends had a younger brother who met someone online and recently moved to live with them on the east coast after visiting and having a good time. I think there are a lot of people who scoff the idea of online relationships, but with the technology we have in the world today, I think they can be a good thing. Of course when the people in them don't act intelligently they can turn out bad and people you know see you wearing nothing but a smile on the internet.
1. The best way to find missing pickups is to run around with the x-ray visor on. Any power ups will show up as a bright orange color that really stands out against the rest of the gray. This works really well for stuff that's at a long distance.
2. I know I've seen a counter for them somewhere. I think if you bring up the command visor or some other ship menu it has a display somewhere. I'm guessing that they refill at save points similar to how all your regular missiles do.
3. I haven't finished the game yet but I'm going to say no. I was reading some information on the tokens and one of the areas said that the tokes were awarded for killing bosses on different difficulty levels. I'm guessing that they don't reset, but that you can't get the same tokens over and over again for new games.
4. The gamefaqs message board has a lot of threads with people looking to exchange vouchers. I suggest looking into that to find some people.
5. I don't think there's a map for the Valhalla, or at least I never found one of them. There's a map for the Pirate Homeworld. You get it in order to get the option to land at one of the other areas. You get on your way to rescue the captured trooper, I think.
6. I was just in this room, but forgot to try to get back there actually. I'll have to go back there to check it out. Make sure to tell me if you manage to get back there somehow or if it's a known fact that it can't be done so I don't waste too much time on it.
7. I think I got a few others from there, but I played through there late last night and only quit playing when I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. I don't recall too well.
8. Come to think of it, I recall a few other areas where you would have needed to use this that were on the Pirate Homeworld. I think there even may have been a few in the Sky City. I've yet to finish collecting all the remaining pickups that I need.
They've figured out what they need to do, but in some ways I wonder if they're a little late in doing so. Maybe Haze will be an astonishingly brilliant game, but I think Microsoft gobbled up some good exclusive content in Bioshock and the GTA:4 downloadable content. Bioshock is already out and I think it's one of those games that people are going to be talking about for a while and in some ways could potentially overshadow Halo 3.
Sony is still hurting for a big ticket game for this holiday season. A lot of people were banking on Lair or Heavenly Sword being some must have games, but Lair has been getting demolished by reviewers and Heavenly Sword seems to be one of those "good but not great" games that will sell copies, but isn't going to move consoles for the most part. It seems like Sony is always one step behind or waiting for what's just around the corner. The increased hardware sales are good, but unless they really pick up they're just going to be the console that gets Xbox 360 ports that don't look quite as good from the transition.
Having better developer tools is probably a good solution that can help make their games look better or easier to code, but I've never developed for the cell architecture so I can't testify to the current development tools available or how well they work. I think the best solution at this point is for Sony to do what MIcrosoft did and to throw money at some companies in order to pick up some exclusives that look like they have a good shot at moving consoles. Why they didn't take up Take Two to make GTA:4 a PS3 timed (or complete) exclusive is beyond me. However, whether or not Sony will have to settle for second-best exclusives since Microsoft has already picked some of theirs remains to be seen.
In case Sony hasn't noticed yet, a $600 pricetag hasn't been all that great for the PS3. Hopefully they're not stupid enough to keep the new 80 GB PS3 at $600 once the supply of $500 models run out. Then again, this is Sony that we're talking about.
I'm fairly sure that once the supply of 60 GB models is gone they're going to have to drop this package down to $500 if they have any hopes of continuing sales into the holiday season. First of all, for the extra $100 I get a an extra 20 GB that I don't care about and a game that I really don't want. They have some great games coming out between now and next year, but I don't think too many people are going to care if the only way to play them is on a $600 machine. $500 even seems like a steep asking price to me, but it's a lot better than $600. For $600 they'd really need to throw in an extra controller and any game of my choice. At that point it works out to about even in my book. If they really wanted to make a splash, drop it down to $450 and gain some good marketshare over the holidays.
For every good example, there apparently are several bad examples of this so called "wisdom of crowds." I'm not saying it doesn't work, but to pretend that it's the be all and end all of systems is just disingenuous.
Wisdom of crowds is a pretty good concept, but in reality it turns out that the crowds aren't always so wise.
The first video game system I ever owned was the original NES. I still vividly remember the first time I ever played one and it's an interest that's stuck with me to this very day. I had all of the games that are generally considered Nintendo classics: Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and a myriad of other games. Eventually I upgraded to an SNES and picked up the 16-bit versions of those games and many others. I never purchased an N64, but some of my friends had them and I got my fix over at their houses, however, I still enjoyed Mario Kart and other SNES games and played them excessively.
The next game system I bought was a PS2, but a while after that I purchased a GameCube to catch up on all the new games that Nintendo had brought out. I eventually picked up an Xbox as well and even a used Dreamcast to complete that generation. I enjoyed all of them for different reasons and like every other generation there were some incredible games that were produced that you couldn't help but enjoy.
Last November I decided to camp out in front of a Wal-Mart and freeze my ass off so that I could get a Wii on launch day. After playing some of the latest incarnations of games (Zelda) and seeing what's in store for others (Mario, Metroid) I don't feel any differently about them than those old classics I played on the NES and SNES. As someone who's grown up around these Nintendo franchises I don't understand how people who claim to be long time fans can be disappointed in the Wii or the latest versions of their old favorites. I'm wondering if they really ever played and enjoyed these games or if their tastes have simply changed over the years. If you want bleeding edge graphics in your games, I suppose that's fine, but please don't try to pass yourself off as a purist if that's what you really want.
I'm quite glad that I grew up experiencing those games so that if I go back to play them today I'm not turned off by the lack of powerful graphics like some people are today. As cool as the graphical powerhouses that games such as Crysis and others like it with brilliant graphics are, will they ever be able to claim the same level of interest as Pac-Man ever commanded?
I don't think that purist should be confused with graphics whore, or whatever term would be most appropriate. I would think that purists play games to enjoy games, whether they're made using 8-bit sprites or ray traced using the powerful hardware we'll likely see in the future.
I'm not really sure that so many people are looking for a console that does "everything!" If they were, I think the sales of the PS3 and the Xbox 360 would be a lot higher. I think that most people are interested in something that's a gaming machine first and is priced reasonably so. Anything else is a nice addition, but for a lot of people isn't necessary.
The only compelling features that the Xbox 360 or the PS3 offer are the ability for play HD-DVDs or Blu-Ray discs. Unfortunately, those features are generally regarded as an extra $200 and something I'm not interested in paying for at this point. I already have a DVD player, CD player, and Computer (browse internet, download movies/music).
I suppose if I wanted a Blu-ray player I could just pick up a PS3, as it would also be a gaming console, but I'm just not that interested in purchasing either of the new formats at this time.
If you look at the sales so far you see that the Wii got it right by being a gaming console first and not worrying about extras that would drive the cost up so much. The Xbox 360 is somewhere in the middle ground, and the "do everything" PS3 is trailing in last place at the moment. It's fairly obvious that most people don't need to a "do everything" console and the market is reflecting this.
Haven't you heard that if you make controversial statements and attempt to troll Nintendo fans that your article will get picked up on sites like Slashdot and Digg where thousands of members will click through to read the article and give you more page hits?
It's the same whenever Dvorak writes some sensationalist column about how Apple is going to be driven out of the industry or fail in some other manner. He's just trolling to get a few more page hits and ad revenue.
It's the same reason tabloids and other yellow journalism rags print the news they do. People are attracted to sensationalist crap and will pay money to read it.
I've heard this particular argument that the article presents at least two other times on Slashdot in the past month. Every time it's refuted by common sense thinking and posters pointing out evidence to the contrary. Everyone seems to confuse "expanding the market" with "neglecting the base." This article should be modded troll, because it really is one, and also redundant, because it's already cropped up a few times before. Just because some journalist couldn't think up a good idea for a decent article doesn't mean this tripe is newsworthy.
And prior to the most recent generation of games, Mario was somehow hardcore only or completely different?
The only major change that Mario has undergone is a transition from 2D to 3D, but beyond that the game hasn't changed a lot. If you think the new Mario games are too easy have you ever collected all 120 stars in any of the more recent titles? It's not too terribly hard to collect enough stars to fight the final boss and beat the game, but to collect every single star requires a lot more effort. It's a game that's accessible to most people who are able to work the controller. You can do the bare minimum and finish the game, or you can collect everything. It's fairly accomodating.
I'd say the only major change is that the new 3D Mario games are on a whole less accessible to people than the old 2D games. I think using more simplified control methods make these games available to other audiances who would not have given them a chance otherwise.
I also fail to see how Zelda isn't "feeling its roots lately either." The last incarnation of the game in Twilight Princess was easily the best since Ocarina of Time and in some ways surpassed that game. I had a great time with Twilight Princess and it's one of those games that can easily suck up forty hours of your life. I fail to see how a game like this with dungeons that can take hours to fully explore and solve can be labled as more casual. If anything, Twilight Princess and Phantom Hourglass make the game more accessible with their new control schemes while at the same time providing a new and novel approach for vetrens of the series. Repackaging the same exact game over and over with a slightly different story doesn't necessarily make a game good or exciting.
Don't mistake more accessible for more casual. Accessible means that more people are able to pick it up and play it and enjoy their experience. Casual means that they are able to do this while not devoting hours to it at a time in order to enjoy it.
"But, see how poorly online only games do in the market (e.g. Shadowrun) I wonder."
Ever heard of World of Warcraft?
I think there's a healthy market for online only games. I'd say that I probably spent 99% of the time I played Halo either onine over Xbox Live or on a LAN. The single player story was alright, but it's largely the plot of some older sci-fi novels mashed together. The story in the second game paled compared to that of the first, which doesn't leave me looking forward to playing the third installment any way but online with my friends agaist other human opponents.
You do make a good point though. I have no real way of knowing if I'm the rule or the exception or if there's some happy medium, but from my own observations I'd say that people play online significantly more than they don't.
I'm quite certain that the vast majority of people who purchase this game will play it online against other players in death match or capture the flag games. Although online co-op is a nice feature, it's hardly necessary for the vast majority of the people who purchase it. Hell, this franchise is so about online play that the single player campaign could probably be considered optional.
"Under heavy pressure from whom? Xbox Live subscriptions are up, beating projections (I think Moore said they crossed the 7 million subscriber mark at E3). The only people I've seen who care about the price of Live are those coming from an environment without a cohesive online story (Sony fanboys, mostly)."
Xbox Live is certainly a supperior offering to anything found on the Playstation or Wii consoles, but I think the numbers have beed fudged a little bit. Because there are two different Xbox Live service levels, one of which is free, it makes me wonder exactly how many of these subscriptions are paid for and how many are silver members. The Nintendo DS supposedly has had around five million unique users connect to their online service. There have been about five million virtual console sales on the Wii to date.
However, these numbers really don't tell us much useful information. For starters, we don't know how many of those Xbox Live subscriptions are gold memberships. We also don't know the amount of content purchased or arcade game sales either. Without more information Xbox Live could be pulling in money hand over fist, or it could be something that's barely scraping by. The Nintendo DS number doesn't tell us how many regular online users there are. For all we know the vast majority tried it out a few times and then quit playing online. The Wii numbers don't give us a good idea of the number of unique users that have purchased a game. I've bought around ten VC titles personally and if that's how it generally plays out, maybe only half a million Wii owners buy VC games.
Without better information it's pretty stupid to say that Xbox Live is a huge success for Microsoft. Unless they produced a report on exactly whith parts of their gaming division are profitable, we can't really determine if Xbox Live is a money maker or if it's bleeding money just like most of the division. In 2004, they had surpased the one million subscriber mark, which is significant because all subscriptions were paid at that time. However it still didn't indicate whether or not that was total subscriptions or active users. However, even if they're not making money from gold memberships, they still do sell arcade games and other online content now, but I haven't seen any figures on this information to indicate how successful it's been.
Keep in mind that any numbers that come from a company are usually deceptive in some way or another.
One last time so it sinks in for you.
I fail to see how you can claim to be a traditional gamer in the same sense and then whine about Nintendo lacking HD support or something for "real gamers."
I've already explained that in the next six months you will have Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime: Corruption, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and Mario Kart. How those aren't games for real gamers or don't appeal to the "traditional" gamer is beyond me. I don't know what kind of kool aid you've been drinking, but when it causes you to spout crap like that I'm really left scratching my head. What confuses me even more is how you somehow think that Microsoft and Sony are going to provide you with what you want, unless it's first person shooters, realistic racing games, or games with a high level of graphical detail. Unfortunately, none of those things really seem to fit in with traditional Nintendo offerings.
Somehow you've mistaken Nintendo catering to other markets as abandoning you, which clearly isn't the case.
From a few of your comments I've noticed you like a lot of different RPG's, some of which belong to a franchise that was on Nintendo. For the most part, they're third party games and Nintendo doesn't always get to choose whether or not these games will show up on their systems. Nintendo didn't abandon you, the third parties did.
I think that their best bet would be to sell the currently available 60 GB models at $500 until their supply runs out and then immediately drop the 80 GB model down to $500, or possibly even lower in time for the holidays. Sony has a lot of inventory to move and if they're hoping to meet their sales goals that they set at E3, they really need to drop the price down to about $400.
I can easily see Microsoft releasing a new version of their hardware in time for the holidays and having a firesale of their own on the old models around the holiday season, which would really cut into Sony's sales. Sony is going to look bad selling at $500 when you can get an Xbox 360 at $300.
I honestly think that Sony should slash prices down to at least $400, which would get a lot of consumers to purchase one. This would help to turn things around for them and to catch up to the lead of the Xbox 360, but more importantly it would give Blu-ray a big advantage over HD-DVD and might allow that war to come to an end. I think the short term loses would be worth it in the long term.
Unfortunately a "higher education" might not do much good when you have a population that is largely apathetic to political participation, and by this I mean truly researching the candidates and issues instead of looking at how whatever political party they identify themselves as belonging to would vote on the issue.
I don't know how the rest of the country operates, but I just don't think that having a single civics class in the senior year of high school is enough to motivate the young adults to be politically active. Some, like myself, were postively affected by the class and have become more political as a result, but for the most part there were too many other students who left that class the same as they went in to it.
Unless you want to take classes in college you're really not forced to do so. There may be requirements to take a certain number of science courses or a certain amount of math regardless of what your major is, I can't think of any universities that require a civics course. If they do require one, good for them as I feel it's vastly more important than learning a little bit of chemistry and is certainly more applicable to the lives of the majority of the students who go through that university.
I honestly believe that the best solution is to start civics courses in school much earlier on, hopefully fostering a love for the political process instead of disdain. Hopefully students would have a greater interest in participating in politics as well as a better understanding of how to be a good citizen. I think that America would largely be a better country if more people were politically active and thinking for themselves.
I'm glad that there are people out there who have spent the time to become well acquinted with civics and history, but I fear that there are no longer enough people who take the time to become knowledgable in such fields. The vast amount of anti-intellectualism in this country is frightening and taking steps to reduce such traits in future generations would hopefully be a great benefit to not only our country, but also to the rest of the world as well.
"Wow I really didn't expect a line by line refutation of my diatribe. In any case, I am justifiably mad because Nintendo has sold out in the past few generations to the casual gamers, abandoning those who like to play more traditional games. They didn't even bother to ship the Wii with a proper controller, making their intentions incredibly clear."
I fail to see how Nintendo has sold in the past few generations. Up until the DS and the Wii, they seemed to be releasing the same types of consoles as everyone else. Pray tell where is all this support for casual gamers that you think existed? I'm not even going to bother with the rest of the flamebait in that comment.
"Exactly what justification is there for not even supporting HD. How does this simple feature prevent your ability to innovate? I am justifiably mad that Nintendo refused to make their product produce a good picture by modern standards."
Their justification is that it keeps the cost down and makes the console more accessable to a broader demographic. There is also the fact that a majority of the target audience for the Wii do not have an HDTV. While this number is steadily increasing, there are still plenty of people who receive no benefit from the inclusion of HD on the console. To suggest that 1080p or any other HD quality signal is necessary to make a good looking game seems silly to me. Simply look at all the great titles from the last gereration and games such as Super Mario Galaxy that have very crisp and brilliant graphics.
"I am not a hardcore gamer, I am just a traditional gamer, and Nintendo has abandoned me to the likes of Microsoft and Sony. I'm not complaining that I have to buy a Wii, I am complaining that I have to buy a 360. I am not a hater either; I'm a Nintendo fan. I'm just a fan of the old Nintendo and not what it's become."
I fail to see how Nintendo abandoned you. The virtual console should appeal to a traditional gamer such as yourself (Which really makes me wonder why a traditional gamer cares about HD so much) as it offers a wide variety of old school games.
Everything you've said smacks of being a troll and several of your comments seem to contradict each other. I think it's fairly obvious to everyone that you really don't like Nintendo at all, for what reasons I don't know, but you'd rather lamment all of their supposed shortcomings and point out flaws while thinly veiling yourself as a Nintendo supporter.
'Young people shouldn't be involved, I guess because they're not serious enough or they don't have the education.'
I'm not up to date on the civics education in Japan, but I feel that in America it's sorely lacking and really explains why we have such poor turnouts for our elections. I didn't have Civics (American Government, or whatever you may have had instead) until Senior year in high school, and by then it was obvious that most of the students in my class didn't care. It seemed as though most were content to sleep or slack off during the class or agonize the teacher with idiotic questions or annoying answers.
I think if we would have had the class at a much younger age and a teacher who promoted the importance of voting and participating in government, more students would have been interested in their government and the political process, perhaps to the point that they would research candidates on their own and make informed political decisions or have intelligent political discussion beyond "Bush is a Nazi!"
Looking back on my education as a child, I really wished that there would have been more classes like this at a younger age or just more schooling in general. I look at the other countries where children receive more schooling than here in America and wonder why this isn't something that we as a country aren't attempting to emulate.
"Okay from now on when I'm bitching and moaning I will qualify my requests for innovation with a request the innovative games actually be fun. Now Mario Bros., that shit was hard. What do I get now, Wii bowling?"
I suppose if you don't enjoy bowling then Wii bowling isn't very fun. There are several other games in Wii Sports that you might enjoy though. I've found Wii Boxing to be incredibly fun when played with friends. To say Wii Bowling isn't difficult doesn't sound right. I'd say that it has a low learning curve because people like my mother and father were able to pick it up and easily play and enjoy it. However, I've never seen anyone bowl a perfect game yet. Easy to learn, difficult to master; perhaps more games should be that way so they're accessable to everyone but still contain a challenge.
"Also models that look like a drawing by a retarded 4th grader are not innovation."
No one said the graphics of Wii Sports were innovative in any way. It's the control that makes the game innovative. You're missing the point.
"Has anyone noticed that nearly everyone has an HDTV now? Don't bullshit me with statistics either -- I know the kind of people who buy games and I have been to they and their parents' houses."
I play games and I can't afford an HDTV. I'd like one, but it's not something I can swing right now. Some of the older folks who buy a Wii probably don't have an HDTV either. Not everyone has one and it's not really necessary for innovative game play. Go ahead and name something innovative that's been done on the Xbox 360 or the PS3. Odds are that anything you suggest was already being done on the PC, especially in terms of graphics or AI. The Wii has created a new way to play games that really hasn't been tried before in many cases.
"Good luck selling games to my Grandpa, douchebags."
Funny that Nintendo has made a few hundred dollars in revenue off of my mother, whereas Sony and Microsoft haven't made a cent.
Don't be a hater.