You can always mute other players voices, but it usually means muting all other players. If there are games out there that allow you to mute specific players, they are few and far between.
Certainly some of them will do that, but a good portion of them will just go find an older brother or an irresponsible parent to buy it for them. Less than 10% of games are purchased by someone under 18. I understand that it's important for companies like Gamestop to be responsible about selling to minors, but these rules are almost worthless when it comes to keeping violent games out of the hands of children. The onus is on the parents to ensure that their children aren't playing these games. They're the only ones with any real control over the situation.
Actually, I think it's circular. The industry doesn't make those games because people outside the fan base won't buy games. People won't buy those games because the industry has a stigma associated with it. The industry has a stigma associated with it because it only supports it's fan base. It only supports it's fan base because people outside the fan base won't buy games...
I've hit a wall on pretty much every Final Fantasy game. It's more psychological than anything. I reach a point in the game, usually near the final boss when I don't feel like I'm at the appropriate skill level to progress any further. I then spend the rest of my time leveling up my characters until I lose interest in the game.
I did the same thing when I ditched my PSP for a DS. At first I thought it was the most amazing machine ever. It wasn't until several months later that I realized that there wasn't anything special about the system. I was playing the same Mario Kart, SMB, Animal Crossing, etc... that I had played on Nintendo systems for years. There wasn't something inherently special about the DS that made these games good. It was the games that made the DS good.
I hear this sentiment echoed all over the place these days. I seem to be the only one left who does not share it. The truth of the matter is that it's the customers who have taken the industry down this so called "headlong dive". Go look in any bargain bin and you'll find countless gems like Psychonauts or Oddworld or Darwinia that did not hold to the status quo of GTA rip-offs, medieval RPGs, or Sci-Fi/WW2 shooters. The problem is that nobody buys them. You can hardly fault a publisher for not making games that nobody will buy.
The truth is that there have been many companies in the industry to take a stand only to get run over by the rush to pick up "Japanese RPG #25". The only reason that Nintendo gets any credit is because they have a rabidly loyal fanbase that even Steve Jobs would envy. For some reason they can put out a console supported pretty much by mini games and a 20 year old franchise and their fans hail it as a rebirth of the industry. They can produce a single adventure game for their hand-held platform and they "saving the genre".
Hotel Dusk is a fantastic game, as are a myriad of other games for both the DS and the Wii. Why can't they just stand as that? Why do they always have to be saving something or taking a stand for something?
I saw this article, and frankly I'm not convinced. There's so much hype surrounding the Wii right now and all the amazing innovative things people expect out of it. If adventure games succeed on the Wii, it won't be because there was some kind of pent up demand for adventure games that wasn't being served. There have been some excellent titles over the last couple of years like Dreamfall and Indigo Prophecy the people just flat out ignored. Rather, if Adventure titles succeed on the Wii, I think it will be because of the excitement that surrounds that machine. Nintendo has done such an amazing job marketing this thing that people are practically falling over themselves to just to play games like Mario Party 8. Pretty much any game that comes out for the system is viewed through rose colored glasses at the moment. I suppose in that sense, it certainly could bring back the genre.
Apple has recently been in legal troubles in Europe for not licensing their DRM to other companies. This is clearly a response to that particular situation. He's essentially saying that an open DRM standard is not something that Apple views as feasible and if people don't want restrictions on their music they need to go after the record companies instead. It's hardly the selfless gesture that the summary would have you believe. However, if the end result is more people putting pressure on the record companies to abandon DRM then more power to him.
That's my point. Viva Pinata is the same way. It's an incredibly deep game. But how many people overlook these games simply because they have a cartoony appearance to them? I know the commenter above was joking about the movie industry just making action flicks, but it's really a different scenario. Take pretty much any Pixar movie for example. When Cars came out millions of people went to see it. They didn't car that it was a cartoon, they knew it would be a good movie. That just doesn't happen with video games. People see a game with cell shaded graphics and say "oh that must be a game for kids". They don't even give them a chance.
The problem is that while there are many people who will enjoy it regardless, myself included, there are a great many morons out there with cash to spend that will shy away from games like this as long as there is a stigma attached to them. Until the industry can move beyond retarded stereotypes then those morons will have tremendous influence over the decisions publishers make in terms of what games they chose to bankroll. As a result, don't expect to see anything like a Viva Pinata 2 any time soon.
This is one of the biggest problems with the games industry expanding beyond it's current core demographic of 18-34 males. Pretty much anything that does not feature gritty blood and guts is immediately labeled as kiddy or for girls (see the Sims, Animal Crossing, Psychonauts, hell even Wind Waker has been labeled as kiddy despite being part of one of the best franchises out there). It's a perception that extends beyond gamers into the outside world's perception of the medium and is reflected in Gates' comments here. Imagine what the movie industry would be like if Hollywood only made blockbuster action flicks. As long as people continue to label anything that strays away from the formula negatively, then publishers will continue to shy away from taking chances with something different.
It's a pretty fair assertion that Apple has a strong foothold in the market. I doubt it's anywhere near what it is with digital music though. As for the 360 downloadable service, I love it. There's HD content, I can play it on my TV in my living room, and I'm renting instead of buying. I doubt it has as much penetration as iTunes does though simply because of the fact that there are only about 10 million 360s out there vs about 200 million PCs.
That's pretty much the crux of economics. Different people are willing to pay different amounts. You can shout till you're blue in the face how you'd buy more if it only cost less, but it won't make much difference. If they lowered the prices on DVDs and CDs then they would certainly gain more customers. Doubling their customer base doesn't help any though if it means cutting margins by any more than 1/2. CDs and DVDs are both massively profitable items. I imagine that the prices are very carefully calculated to yield the maximum amount of profit (feel free to correct me if anyone has statistics to prove otherwise).
In contrast though, I would say that downloadable videos and songs are nowhere near their ideal price. The biggest problem is all this DRM and poor quality drastically reduces their worth to consumers. As an alternative to current options, they're abysmal. Take a look at Walmart's store here. I haven't seen many details, but it's pretty safe to assume that these will not be burnable to DVD, will not play on anything other than the PC they're downloaded on, will likely be fairly heavily compressed, and will be DRM'd to hell. Given even one of those conditions is true, why the hell would I pay the exact same price as a DVD for one of these downloads? At least iTunes gives me some break on the price. This store will be dead in the water from the first minute and we'll just here more croaking from the **AA execs about how they can't compete with illegal downloading.
Agreed. I think the media's biggest offense in this issue is the propagation of the idea that this was somehow a hoax. A hoax implies that there was intent. I don't it could be any clearer that this is not what these signs were intended for.
It hasn't just been negative, it's been terrible. Pretty much every major news outlet I've seen seems to be applauding the city of Boston for their "speedy response" (never mind that the signs had been up for 3 weeks). At most, you might get a line in a report that goes something like, "some have criticized the city of Boston for overreacting."
Actually, it wasn't until Halo 2 that the franchise adopted online multi-player. Halo CE, however did have LAN play for up to 16 players on 4 screens. Although nothing new for PC gamers, that was a big deal for console players who had been previously been restricted to 4 player split screen (not exactly the best way to experience a multiplayer FPS). If anything, I was a little miffed that they would include Goldeneye on their list but not Halo. Goldeneye is a great game, and a classic to be sure, but Halo did far more as far improving the miserable state of console multiplayer gaming.
Although there are some old school throwbacks, the majority of games on this list are first person shooters. What about other genres? I would think there should at least be a spot on there for an RTS like Warcraft 2 or Command & Conquer. Also, the article specifically does not include MMO's. Why? It hardly seems relevant to make a list of ground breaking multi-player games without at least mentioning Everquest or WOW. And of course there's the glaringly obvious omission of Counterstrike. I like Gamasutra, but this is a pretty poor list.
I've always thought that rather strange as well. I imagine that the producers force retailers to sign a contract that they will sell the game at a certain price. There are other things rather fishy with the state of game retail too. For instance, how come DVDs always arrive on store shelves on Tuesdays, yet with games they are only guaranteed to ship on Tues. and the game may arrive on shelves a day later, maybe 3 or 4 or 5 days later. Another thing is retailers' odd reliance on pre-orders (even though they can't guarantee to fulfill them), something else you don't see with DVDs.
Anyways, as was already noted, Google trends don't exactly indicate hard scientific data, and especially sales. The 360 outsold the Wii 3/2 in the US over the holidays and the PS3 3/1 yet it lagged behind both of them in the Google trends for that period.
That was my point though. 360 production and PS3 production were held back because the 360 processor, Cell, and Blu-ray diodes were all new technologies with inefficient manufacturing processes. A large percentage of these items manufactured had to be thrown out due to flaws. Sony and MS couldn't have made more units even if they had paid for them. However, the Wii has no such new technologies in it that would have those inefficient manufacturing processes. I'm sure there must be some part that's difficult to get ahold of, but I can't think of what it would be.
No, seriously, most PS3 were bought for reselling, while most wii's are bought for playing. And it, for me, it's a pretty big difference. And I'm sure you have some sort of data or source to back up this claim. A cursory search on eBay or a news story about the launch line at a particular Best Buy doesn't really qualify. I'm only calling you out, because I hear this line repeated fairly often with pretty much no evidence to support such an assertion. It seems fairly intuitive that more PS3s are sold on eBay than Wiis, but that doesn't necessarily translate to most.
I find it strange that Nintendo has not been able to produce more Wiis, given that most of the technology in the system is rather old. The NPD numbers say they moved 1.1 million units in the US between November and December. By contrast, they moved 1.21 million Gamecubes in the US in Nov & Dec 2001. The Gamecube utilized much newer technology at the time, including a new, proprietary disk media.
Slashdot Mirror
You can always mute other players voices, but it usually means muting all other players. If there are games out there that allow you to mute specific players, they are few and far between.
A feature like this is long overdue for dealing with the assholes who seemingly dominate Xbox Live.
Certainly some of them will do that, but a good portion of them will just go find an older brother or an irresponsible parent to buy it for them. Less than 10% of games are purchased by someone under 18. I understand that it's important for companies like Gamestop to be responsible about selling to minors, but these rules are almost worthless when it comes to keeping violent games out of the hands of children. The onus is on the parents to ensure that their children aren't playing these games. They're the only ones with any real control over the situation.
Actually, I think it's circular. The industry doesn't make those games because people outside the fan base won't buy games. People won't buy those games because the industry has a stigma associated with it. The industry has a stigma associated with it because it only supports it's fan base. It only supports it's fan base because people outside the fan base won't buy games...
I've hit a wall on pretty much every Final Fantasy game. It's more psychological than anything. I reach a point in the game, usually near the final boss when I don't feel like I'm at the appropriate skill level to progress any further. I then spend the rest of my time leveling up my characters until I lose interest in the game.
I did the same thing when I ditched my PSP for a DS. At first I thought it was the most amazing machine ever. It wasn't until several months later that I realized that there wasn't anything special about the system. I was playing the same Mario Kart, SMB, Animal Crossing, etc... that I had played on Nintendo systems for years. There wasn't something inherently special about the DS that made these games good. It was the games that made the DS good.
I hear this sentiment echoed all over the place these days. I seem to be the only one left who does not share it. The truth of the matter is that it's the customers who have taken the industry down this so called "headlong dive". Go look in any bargain bin and you'll find countless gems like Psychonauts or Oddworld or Darwinia that did not hold to the status quo of GTA rip-offs, medieval RPGs, or Sci-Fi/WW2 shooters. The problem is that nobody buys them. You can hardly fault a publisher for not making games that nobody will buy.
The truth is that there have been many companies in the industry to take a stand only to get run over by the rush to pick up "Japanese RPG #25". The only reason that Nintendo gets any credit is because they have a rabidly loyal fanbase that even Steve Jobs would envy. For some reason they can put out a console supported pretty much by mini games and a 20 year old franchise and their fans hail it as a rebirth of the industry. They can produce a single adventure game for their hand-held platform and they "saving the genre".
Hotel Dusk is a fantastic game, as are a myriad of other games for both the DS and the Wii. Why can't they just stand as that? Why do they always have to be saving something or taking a stand for something?
I saw this article, and frankly I'm not convinced. There's so much hype surrounding the Wii right now and all the amazing innovative things people expect out of it. If adventure games succeed on the Wii, it won't be because there was some kind of pent up demand for adventure games that wasn't being served. There have been some excellent titles over the last couple of years like Dreamfall and Indigo Prophecy the people just flat out ignored. Rather, if Adventure titles succeed on the Wii, I think it will be because of the excitement that surrounds that machine. Nintendo has done such an amazing job marketing this thing that people are practically falling over themselves to just to play games like Mario Party 8. Pretty much any game that comes out for the system is viewed through rose colored glasses at the moment. I suppose in that sense, it certainly could bring back the genre.
Apple has recently been in legal troubles in Europe for not licensing their DRM to other companies. This is clearly a response to that particular situation. He's essentially saying that an open DRM standard is not something that Apple views as feasible and if people don't want restrictions on their music they need to go after the record companies instead. It's hardly the selfless gesture that the summary would have you believe. However, if the end result is more people putting pressure on the record companies to abandon DRM then more power to him.
That's my point. Viva Pinata is the same way. It's an incredibly deep game. But how many people overlook these games simply because they have a cartoony appearance to them? I know the commenter above was joking about the movie industry just making action flicks, but it's really a different scenario. Take pretty much any Pixar movie for example. When Cars came out millions of people went to see it. They didn't car that it was a cartoon, they knew it would be a good movie. That just doesn't happen with video games. People see a game with cell shaded graphics and say "oh that must be a game for kids". They don't even give them a chance.
The problem is that while there are many people who will enjoy it regardless, myself included, there are a great many morons out there with cash to spend that will shy away from games like this as long as there is a stigma attached to them. Until the industry can move beyond retarded stereotypes then those morons will have tremendous influence over the decisions publishers make in terms of what games they chose to bankroll. As a result, don't expect to see anything like a Viva Pinata 2 any time soon.
This is one of the biggest problems with the games industry expanding beyond it's current core demographic of 18-34 males. Pretty much anything that does not feature gritty blood and guts is immediately labeled as kiddy or for girls (see the Sims, Animal Crossing, Psychonauts, hell even Wind Waker has been labeled as kiddy despite being part of one of the best franchises out there). It's a perception that extends beyond gamers into the outside world's perception of the medium and is reflected in Gates' comments here. Imagine what the movie industry would be like if Hollywood only made blockbuster action flicks. As long as people continue to label anything that strays away from the formula negatively, then publishers will continue to shy away from taking chances with something different.
It's a pretty fair assertion that Apple has a strong foothold in the market. I doubt it's anywhere near what it is with digital music though. As for the 360 downloadable service, I love it. There's HD content, I can play it on my TV in my living room, and I'm renting instead of buying. I doubt it has as much penetration as iTunes does though simply because of the fact that there are only about 10 million 360s out there vs about 200 million PCs.
Not to mention data security if they're going to be handling my credit card information.
That's pretty much the crux of economics. Different people are willing to pay different amounts. You can shout till you're blue in the face how you'd buy more if it only cost less, but it won't make much difference. If they lowered the prices on DVDs and CDs then they would certainly gain more customers. Doubling their customer base doesn't help any though if it means cutting margins by any more than 1/2. CDs and DVDs are both massively profitable items. I imagine that the prices are very carefully calculated to yield the maximum amount of profit (feel free to correct me if anyone has statistics to prove otherwise).
In contrast though, I would say that downloadable videos and songs are nowhere near their ideal price. The biggest problem is all this DRM and poor quality drastically reduces their worth to consumers. As an alternative to current options, they're abysmal. Take a look at Walmart's store here. I haven't seen many details, but it's pretty safe to assume that these will not be burnable to DVD, will not play on anything other than the PC they're downloaded on, will likely be fairly heavily compressed, and will be DRM'd to hell. Given even one of those conditions is true, why the hell would I pay the exact same price as a DVD for one of these downloads? At least iTunes gives me some break on the price. This store will be dead in the water from the first minute and we'll just here more croaking from the **AA execs about how they can't compete with illegal downloading.
Agreed. I think the media's biggest offense in this issue is the propagation of the idea that this was somehow a hoax. A hoax implies that there was intent. I don't it could be any clearer that this is not what these signs were intended for.
It hasn't just been negative, it's been terrible. Pretty much every major news outlet I've seen seems to be applauding the city of Boston for their "speedy response" (never mind that the signs had been up for 3 weeks). At most, you might get a line in a report that goes something like, "some have criticized the city of Boston for overreacting."
Actually, it wasn't until Halo 2 that the franchise adopted online multi-player. Halo CE, however did have LAN play for up to 16 players on 4 screens. Although nothing new for PC gamers, that was a big deal for console players who had been previously been restricted to 4 player split screen (not exactly the best way to experience a multiplayer FPS). If anything, I was a little miffed that they would include Goldeneye on their list but not Halo. Goldeneye is a great game, and a classic to be sure, but Halo did far more as far improving the miserable state of console multiplayer gaming.
Although there are some old school throwbacks, the majority of games on this list are first person shooters. What about other genres? I would think there should at least be a spot on there for an RTS like Warcraft 2 or Command & Conquer. Also, the article specifically does not include MMO's. Why? It hardly seems relevant to make a list of ground breaking multi-player games without at least mentioning Everquest or WOW. And of course there's the glaringly obvious omission of Counterstrike. I like Gamasutra, but this is a pretty poor list.
I've always thought that rather strange as well. I imagine that the producers force retailers to sign a contract that they will sell the game at a certain price. There are other things rather fishy with the state of game retail too. For instance, how come DVDs always arrive on store shelves on Tuesdays, yet with games they are only guaranteed to ship on Tues. and the game may arrive on shelves a day later, maybe 3 or 4 or 5 days later. Another thing is retailers' odd reliance on pre-orders (even though they can't guarantee to fulfill them), something else you don't see with DVDs.
It looks a little different when you get the punctuation right
t ion+3%2C+wii&ctab=1&geo=all&date=all
http://www.google.com/trends?q=xbox360%2C+playsta
Anyways, as was already noted, Google trends don't exactly indicate hard scientific data, and especially sales. The 360 outsold the Wii 3/2 in the US over the holidays and the PS3 3/1 yet it lagged behind both of them in the Google trends for that period.
That was my point though. 360 production and PS3 production were held back because the 360 processor, Cell, and Blu-ray diodes were all new technologies with inefficient manufacturing processes. A large percentage of these items manufactured had to be thrown out due to flaws. Sony and MS couldn't have made more units even if they had paid for them. However, the Wii has no such new technologies in it that would have those inefficient manufacturing processes. I'm sure there must be some part that's difficult to get ahold of, but I can't think of what it would be.
I find it strange that Nintendo has not been able to produce more Wiis, given that most of the technology in the system is rather old. The NPD numbers say they moved 1.1 million units in the US between November and December. By contrast, they moved 1.21 million Gamecubes in the US in Nov & Dec 2001. The Gamecube utilized much newer technology at the time, including a new, proprietary disk media.