You're right, but will still get marked as a troll. I'd have modded you up rather then posted if I had the points.
I'd add some things to what you say though - the fact that the Wii is NOT truly a next gen console, but rather a last gen console with gimmick a controller (even if it winds up being a great gimmick), is going to catch up with it. This is a system just slightly more powerful than the XBOX, note that that's the XBOX not the XBOX 360. This is probabably fine for Christmas 2006, but it's going to look like a relic next year, and how will a 8 year old console (technologically) sell a year after that against $300~200 360's & PS3's?
It all comes back to the controller being revolutionary, and I don't see it. Everyone will want to try it and knowing Nintendo, there will be some gaming gems, but it's not going to bring back the 'awe' for gaming. This is a new age power glove and it's the crux of the whole console, rather then an add-in. Even if this new power glove is great, it's not going to be great for long and it isn't going to make 8 year old looking games any better.
Finally, I am not going to say that Nintendo will fail by pursuing the 'low end' here, but this definitely means handing off any chance of the crown. Even if it sees some success, the Wii will be a bigger threat to the market for last gen consoles/games, the PS2 & XBOX, than it is to the 360 & PS3. Since that's where people not inclined to spend top dollar get their games.
That actually makes sense to me, since there is one goal of poker and it's very obvious to everyone - win. Video games like WOW, on the other hand, give you no chance to win cash. The goal of a Wow appears to be fantasy/escapism & maybe some sort of escapo-socialization.
I tend to believe that anyone who 'prefers' to play women are exploring things, not that there is anything wrong with that.
IF they are going to update they economics of the game, they should go all out..... You can buy Park Place with a 7 turn interest only ARM, inflate the profits using mark-to-market accounting and dump all the loses to a dummy corp setup under the Thimble. Genius!
If this is what is being described, it is going against what the Ipod & PSP SHOULD be now, rather then what they are. Right now the Ipod is for music. The PSP does everything, but nothing good. What the market wants (and don't know it) is true convergence, the one device to unite them all...the OS of the pocket.
It's hard to be humble, but I have to hand it to myself in a post from May 28th....
Apple should be in handheld gaming. They should be shooting for the inevitable, a true convergence of the handheld market. That uber-Phone/PDA/Ipod/Gameboy - all in one - that geeks have dreamed about since the Star Trek communicator.
Apple sells the most expensive device in our pockets right now. It has mass storage, a color screen, significant processing power and it's own OS. Of all the pocket based systems, the Ipod requires the least additional work to accomodate the features of all the others. What you have then is the OS of the pocket.
Still, the path to obscurity or to becoming the overpriced but efficient 'niche' product, like Apple computers have always been to the PC, could be Apple going it alone in all aspects. Taking a leap into handheld gaming would mean directly competing with Sony and Nintendo in a cut throat & solidified market. They would have two options really, as I see it. Build the gaming OS/API's themselves (a tough route) or license it from Sony (the PSP) or Nintendo. How open Sony or Nintendo would be to digital distribution of its games or handing off much of the reins to Apple is questionable, but there is definitely some synergy for a collaboration like this.
Apple should move quick on this. The talk about Microsoft's new IPod/XBOX-handheld product is already in the 'when' not 'if' stage. Microft could care less about builiding the different handheld products individually or as a whole -- they want to own the OS it all runs on. They want to be there at the point of convergence. If Apple doesn't secure their position here it could be a situation of deja vu all over again.
Sony dropped the ball when they let XBOX Live get established without lifting a finger. We know now that it was the first of many balls dropped, but it was huge.
Even if Sony has the most immaculate digital distribution system with the PS3, it's only as good as the audience, and online gamers have likely bought their next-gen console already. Even if it's better than Live Arcade (and there isn't much room for improvement), then it will always be an imitator at this point. Even if publishers fall in love with this digital distribution system, it's going to be cheaper making X360's DVD's for pennies a piece (rather then shelling out a minimum of $20 to produce PS3 Blu-Ray disks (what all games ship on)).
The PS3 is looking less like a product launch and more like rapid immolation of a brand for the sake of a new medium. Sony is playing Roulette and betting everything, including their best brand, on Blue.
If you believe what you read here you'd think the Wii is the second coming. Like you say - things like shelf space, marketing along with stuff like developer support are going to hurt it when going against Sony and Microsoft. I think Nintendo has corrected some problems it made before, but not all of them and they show signs of dumb mistakes already (the name). Can they get a broad range of games and market the system to everyone this time?
The gimmicky factor is going to fade fast for the Wii, and what you will have is a low powered gaming system. It's not going to look that appealling after the first price drop for the XBOX 360 or PS3, unless they run the price to $99 fast. It'll be interesting to see if they can make a niche in gaming at the low end, something that has always been left for last generation consoles & in the past.
I also think the analyst is about right. If I question anything it would be if the PS's brand has the legs to beat the sticker shock. I don't see a market for a 'high end' console above the 360 and I don't believe that the PS3 has any solid technical advantage over the 360, at least nowhere near enough to make a difference. I think the 360's dominance may extend well beyond 09.
Apple should be in handheld gaming. They should be shooting for the inevitable, a true convergence of the handheld market. That uber-Phone/PDA/Ipod/Gameboy - all in one - that geeks have dreamed about since the Star Trek communicator.
Apple sells the most expensive device in our pockets right now. It has mass storage, a color screen, significant processing power and it's own OS. Of all the pocket based systems, the Ipod requires the least additional work to accomodate the features of all the others. What you have then is the OS of the pocket.
Still, the path to obscurity or to becoming the overpriced but efficient 'niche' product, like Apple computers have always been to the PC, could be Apple going it alone in all aspects. Taking a leap into handheld gaming would mean directly competing with Sony and Nintendo in a cut throat & solidified market. They would have two options really, as I see it. Build the gaming OS/API's themselves (a tough route) or license it from Sony (the PSP) or Nintendo. How open Sony or Nintendo would be to digital distribution of its games or handing off much of the reins to Apple is questionable, but there is definitely some synergy for a collaboration like this.
Apple should move quick on this. The talk about Microsoft's new IPod/XBOX-handheld product is already in the 'when' not 'if' stage. Microft could care less about builiding the different handheld products individually or as a whole -- they want to own the OS it all runs on. They want to be there at the point of convergence. If Apple doesn't secure their position here it could be a situation of deja vu all over again.
The article is about Sony enforcing a no-resale license....stopping the resale outlets from doing their thing with PS3 games. The article is not about locking games to a single console, something Sony HAS denied.
They are denying that games will be locked to one machine. They have said NOTHING up to this point about enforcing a license on games that would not allow resale.
Two different things.
That's not the denial we need to hear.
The original point of the thread was that Sony would enforce a license that does not allow the resale of games. What Sony denies in that article is that the PS3 is technically designed to limit disks to play solely on the one machine.
Locking games to a particular console could be a support nightmare. Enforcing a no-resale policy, even if they only hit the top handful of game resale outlets....eBay, Gamestop, Blockbuster Video, etc, would make a big difference.
Sony has never really come close to matching the service XBOX Live provides, that's why it is 'free' now. They plan to do it with the PS3 and it most definitely will cost money...a monthly or annual fee...for what is likely to be substandard and half ass supported service. XBOX Live is what it is, with features, developer support, etc, because it is established.
This whole thread reads like another anti-MS Slashdot tear cause based on everything I've read....MS is going to dominate gaming soon. Sony is coming in with a product that offers no added benefit to anyone outside of brand and costs 50% more.
....and the Beatles suck cause they haven't had new material in decades.
Please.
I'd put Sid Meier on the level of Will Wright or Shigeru Miyamoto even if all he did was Civilization. It's a game that encompasses all of human history while being as addictive as crack. Add to that Railroad Tycoon, which actually makes an economic simulator fun and Pirates, or Ye Olde Grande Theft Auto, and you gotta show some respect people.
You're optimistic.
You expect them to delay 6 months and: 1) be ready for a NA & Japan release on day one which is not what they were planning to do originally 2) The blue-ray price to come down significantly before the first major sales period for the devices (Christmas 06) 3) Develop a XBOX Live
This is not good for Sony. They are going to have a launch against a mature XBOX 360 that can drop its price and won't be selling at a major loss. That's not a good position to be in. Sony can't afford to get into a money throwing contest.
That is kind of harsh. It might not have been the best controller for everyone but it wasn't on the level of the power glove.
The most recent bad controller was the Dreamcast. Too small, not flared and it felt cheap. I couldn't use it for long before cramping up.
The N64 was weird too. It had 3 handles and never felt right to me. It was revolutionary for its time though, I guess.
If the machine was ready to go to the manufacture tomorrow, the soonest it would see retail would be June. They don't have games and they don't have retail primed.
Lets not kid ourselves. Bluray (Sony's media gambit) + Cell (hokey architecture) + NVidia (late addition) = clusterfuck. It might wind up being a great clusterfuck in the end, but it sure as hell amounts to one big clusterfuck to work with & design.
They are denying a delay cause they don't want the news released in pieces and they want it on their terms. They will wait till they have something tangible to show, to whet the appetite, and then announce....whoops, give us another 6 months.
My prediction, based on what has been shown, is Japan in the 4Q 06, US 1Q 07 and then Europe 2Q 07 (or later).
While it's undisputed that there is an abundance of power, how much of that is theoretical vs practical/useful remains an open question. Memory bandwidth, practicality of SPE's for game development, etc....lots of questions.
What does seem to be clear is that PS3 development costs are going to be at best high and often astronomical. I really don't see Sony having some wunderkind-middleware that is going to cut this back either. That probably won't hurt the big budget titles, the Grand Theft Autos and Madden Football games, but you have to wonder how a Katarmi Damarcy(sp?) would ever get made.
You got it. It's not even so much the INITIAL cost - it's long term pricing that will kill them, especially when Microsoft has a great deal of flexibility to compete with.
The fact is that Sony could release these at $750 and it would probably sell relatively well at launch given the brand, but only to the early adopting ubergaminggeeks. That isn't where the long term money is.
Even if they launch it at $400....it will be pulling teeth to subsidize it down to $300 anytime soon. To hit that sweet spot of $200 or so....possibly never. Less consoles sold means less games sold. Therefore higher game cost. Harder to make a profit. More risk for Devs means less games made for it.
When I was a kid, back around the days of Pac Man (like '82), there still existed the singluar arcade - aimed at kids/teens. It was a place that I wasn't allowed and always reaked of weak 70's weed. Adults didn't play games then, cause they didn't grow up playing games.
Kids today don't need that. It's cheaper to own a XBOX or PS2 and it takes alot less effort than actually commuting to wherever.
Gaming at home is better for adults too - we all have computers much more powerful than TI-994a's at home, at work and built into our cell phones (we have cell phones). We have entertainment centers more impressive than those old theaters too, and that's why the kids are the only ones that go to theaters now - to get away from us.
The only really viable market is for the family or for games that just cannot be repeated at home. The arcade is in the Dave & Buster era. Shallow, materialistic, lots of machine guns and gaudy plastic appendages....it's the material excess that comes from reaching maturity, making money, and going corporate. That's where arcade gaming is.
Eventually gaming will reach the zen state, and the level of Shuffleboarding. I can see it now. I'll be retired, on a park bench in Florida, pwning some 80 yr old noob over a global-supe-dupe-fi connection in Doom XI (sponsored by Efferdent Denture Cream).
You never hear of World of Warcraft players addicted to heroin. You just don't have time to be depressed while playing Halo. You can feed all that anti-social rage into GTA.
Seriously, outside pure escapism , games do nothing good. The fact is that video games are far more likely the cause of, or add to mental problems, rather then do anything to help them.
Good question. The game or at least the Animal Crossing I'm familiar with, involves a single player virtual community. It's sad that it shocks us to see what could, possibly, be different opinions offered in a community setting. Anything out of lock step and it deserves writeup in the NYT.
I'm not making a judgement on the right and wrong of piracy either. Breaking the law is breaking the law, but there are gray areas and abundant idiocy is rampant in IP laws. The point is that intellectual property is not best used by society solely to maximize profits.
What it comes down to is that this is a topic which is pertinent to the market for this game. (8 to 14 year olds maybe?) Do we lock step them into the corporate view - fileshare=bad ('say no' or 'duck and cover' in another decade) - or do we teach them all sides and let them decide what's best for society.
Fox News is 'fair and balanced' and we don't need any other opinions kids. We have alwasy been at war with Eurasia folks, move along, there is nothing to think here.
The trick to selling games to women is that you have to take your time. The male market is established quickly and fades fast after a game's release. On the other hand, the women's market takes alot longer to get started, but can go on and on, just think of the Sim's. You can rely on simple pictures and video from the internet to bring in the males. Since the female market isn't as easily swayed, it can often take repeated oral prodding from friends before they are ready.
Respect where respect is due
on
How The 360 Works
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
It's like a reflex action to bash Microsoft here.
First off, quality is always shaky on the first batch of any gaming console. It's a business where the hardware launches are historically tight. The only company that releases solid, well built, well tested consoles at launch is Nintendo, and look where their share of the market has gone.
Second, based on everything I've read about the XBOX 360 it has a solid, almost textbook design, for the best technology of the next 5 years (multi core processor, unified pipeline shader/vertex on the graphics card, etc). I see alot more to question about the PS3's cell (limitations of SPE's etc) & the late addition of NVidia, since Sony only pulled them into the PS3 when they realized the Cell wouldn't be able to do the GPU work.
Need I remind everyone that you are bashing a 3-GHZ G5 w/ 3 Core's paired with ATI's finest and all for $400? Yes, the marketing BS is just that, but if this was anyone else's product it would get treated alot better.
Halo 2 may have flaws, but it's still gaming crack.
Graphics and technology aside - the gameplay is really what sets Halo apart from other shooters. It's just so fluid, so damn smooth. It doesn't have the twitchiness of Counterstrike or the nonsense of Quake or its like.
Yes, the modders and kiddies make you want to reach through the communicator and strangle someone.....but I keep going back, even a year later.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd add some things to what you say though - the fact that the Wii is NOT truly a next gen console, but rather a last gen console with gimmick a controller (even if it winds up being a great gimmick), is going to catch up with it. This is a system just slightly more powerful than the XBOX, note that that's the XBOX not the XBOX 360. This is probabably fine for Christmas 2006, but it's going to look like a relic next year, and how will a 8 year old console (technologically) sell a year after that against $300~200 360's & PS3's?
It all comes back to the controller being revolutionary, and I don't see it. Everyone will want to try it and knowing Nintendo, there will be some gaming gems, but it's not going to bring back the 'awe' for gaming. This is a new age power glove and it's the crux of the whole console, rather then an add-in. Even if this new power glove is great, it's not going to be great for long and it isn't going to make 8 year old looking games any better.
Finally, I am not going to say that Nintendo will fail by pursuing the 'low end' here, but this definitely means handing off any chance of the crown. Even if it sees some success, the Wii will be a bigger threat to the market for last gen consoles/games, the PS2 & XBOX, than it is to the 360 & PS3. Since that's where people not inclined to spend top dollar get their games.
Anything over $200 and the PS3 looks like a good deal.
$200 is a fair deal.
$150 is a great deal.
If they manage to squeeze HDDVD into the 360 for $399 USD, there is really no reason for Sony to make video game systems anymore.
That actually makes sense to me, since there is one goal of poker and it's very obvious to everyone - win. Video games like WOW, on the other hand, give you no chance to win cash. The goal of a Wow appears to be fantasy/escapism & maybe some sort of escapo-socialization.
I tend to believe that anyone who 'prefers' to play women are exploring things, not that there is anything wrong with that.
No, that's the jar, this is from the tray....that everyone puts their money in. They did it in Superman III, underrated movie, really. /mixing scenes
IF they are going to update they economics of the game, they should go all out..... You can buy Park Place with a 7 turn interest only ARM, inflate the profits using mark-to-market accounting and dump all the loses to a dummy corp setup under the Thimble. Genius!
If this is what is being described, it is going against what the Ipod & PSP SHOULD be now, rather then what they are. Right now the Ipod is for music. The PSP does everything, but nothing good. What the market wants (and don't know it) is true convergence, the one device to unite them all...the OS of the pocket.
It's hard to be humble, but I have to hand it to myself in a post from May 28th....
Apple should be in handheld gaming. They should be shooting for the inevitable, a true convergence of the handheld market. That uber-Phone/PDA/Ipod/Gameboy - all in one - that geeks have dreamed about since the Star Trek communicator.
Apple sells the most expensive device in our pockets right now. It has mass storage, a color screen, significant processing power and it's own OS. Of all the pocket based systems, the Ipod requires the least additional work to accomodate the features of all the others. What you have then is the OS of the pocket.
Still, the path to obscurity or to becoming the overpriced but efficient 'niche' product, like Apple computers have always been to the PC, could be Apple going it alone in all aspects. Taking a leap into handheld gaming would mean directly competing with Sony and Nintendo in a cut throat & solidified market. They would have two options really, as I see it. Build the gaming OS/API's themselves (a tough route) or license it from Sony (the PSP) or Nintendo. How open Sony or Nintendo would be to digital distribution of its games or handing off much of the reins to Apple is questionable, but there is definitely some synergy for a collaboration like this.
Apple should move quick on this. The talk about Microsoft's new IPod/XBOX-handheld product is already in the 'when' not 'if' stage. Microft could care less about builiding the different handheld products individually or as a whole -- they want to own the OS it all runs on. They want to be there at the point of convergence. If Apple doesn't secure their position here it could be a situation of deja vu all over again.
http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=186874&Sony dropped the ball when they let XBOX Live get established without lifting a finger. We know now that it was the first of many balls dropped, but it was huge.
Even if Sony has the most immaculate digital distribution system with the PS3, it's only as good as the audience, and online gamers have likely bought their next-gen console already. Even if it's better than Live Arcade (and there isn't much room for improvement), then it will always be an imitator at this point. Even if publishers fall in love with this digital distribution system, it's going to be cheaper making X360's DVD's for pennies a piece (rather then shelling out a minimum of $20 to produce PS3 Blu-Ray disks (what all games ship on)).
The PS3 is looking less like a product launch and more like rapid immolation of a brand for the sake of a new medium. Sony is playing Roulette and betting everything, including their best brand, on Blue.
If you believe what you read here you'd think the Wii is the second coming. Like you say - things like shelf space, marketing along with stuff like developer support are going to hurt it when going against Sony and Microsoft. I think Nintendo has corrected some problems it made before, but not all of them and they show signs of dumb mistakes already (the name). Can they get a broad range of games and market the system to everyone this time?
The gimmicky factor is going to fade fast for the Wii, and what you will have is a low powered gaming system. It's not going to look that appealling after the first price drop for the XBOX 360 or PS3, unless they run the price to $99 fast. It'll be interesting to see if they can make a niche in gaming at the low end, something that has always been left for last generation consoles & in the past.
I also think the analyst is about right. If I question anything it would be if the PS's brand has the legs to beat the sticker shock. I don't see a market for a 'high end' console above the 360 and I don't believe that the PS3 has any solid technical advantage over the 360, at least nowhere near enough to make a difference. I think the 360's dominance may extend well beyond 09.
Apple should be in handheld gaming. They should be shooting for the inevitable, a true convergence of the handheld market. That uber-Phone/PDA/Ipod/Gameboy - all in one - that geeks have dreamed about since the Star Trek communicator.
Apple sells the most expensive device in our pockets right now. It has mass storage, a color screen, significant processing power and it's own OS. Of all the pocket based systems, the Ipod requires the least additional work to accomodate the features of all the others. What you have then is the OS of the pocket.
Still, the path to obscurity or to becoming the overpriced but efficient 'niche' product, like Apple computers have always been to the PC, could be Apple going it alone in all aspects. Taking a leap into handheld gaming would mean directly competing with Sony and Nintendo in a cut throat & solidified market. They would have two options really, as I see it. Build the gaming OS/API's themselves (a tough route) or license it from Sony (the PSP) or Nintendo. How open Sony or Nintendo would be to digital distribution of its games or handing off much of the reins to Apple is questionable, but there is definitely some synergy for a collaboration like this.
Apple should move quick on this. The talk about Microsoft's new IPod/XBOX-handheld product is already in the 'when' not 'if' stage. Microft could care less about builiding the different handheld products individually or as a whole -- they want to own the OS it all runs on. They want to be there at the point of convergence. If Apple doesn't secure their position here it could be a situation of deja vu all over again.
The article is about Sony enforcing a no-resale license....stopping the resale outlets from doing their thing with PS3 games. The article is not about locking games to a single console, something Sony HAS denied.
They are denying that games will be locked to one machine. They have said NOTHING up to this point about enforcing a license on games that would not allow resale. Two different things.
That's not the denial we need to hear. The original point of the thread was that Sony would enforce a license that does not allow the resale of games. What Sony denies in that article is that the PS3 is technically designed to limit disks to play solely on the one machine. Locking games to a particular console could be a support nightmare. Enforcing a no-resale policy, even if they only hit the top handful of game resale outlets....eBay, Gamestop, Blockbuster Video, etc, would make a big difference.
Sony has never really come close to matching the service XBOX Live provides, that's why it is 'free' now. They plan to do it with the PS3 and it most definitely will cost money...a monthly or annual fee...for what is likely to be substandard and half ass supported service. XBOX Live is what it is, with features, developer support, etc, because it is established. This whole thread reads like another anti-MS Slashdot tear cause based on everything I've read....MS is going to dominate gaming soon. Sony is coming in with a product that offers no added benefit to anyone outside of brand and costs 50% more.
....and the Beatles suck cause they haven't had new material in decades.
Please.
I'd put Sid Meier on the level of Will Wright or Shigeru Miyamoto even if all he did was Civilization. It's a game that encompasses all of human history while being as addictive as crack. Add to that Railroad Tycoon, which actually makes an economic simulator fun and Pirates, or Ye Olde Grande Theft Auto, and you gotta show some respect people.
You're optimistic. You expect them to delay 6 months and: 1) be ready for a NA & Japan release on day one which is not what they were planning to do originally 2) The blue-ray price to come down significantly before the first major sales period for the devices (Christmas 06) 3) Develop a XBOX Live This is not good for Sony. They are going to have a launch against a mature XBOX 360 that can drop its price and won't be selling at a major loss. That's not a good position to be in. Sony can't afford to get into a money throwing contest.
That is kind of harsh. It might not have been the best controller for everyone but it wasn't on the level of the power glove. The most recent bad controller was the Dreamcast. Too small, not flared and it felt cheap. I couldn't use it for long before cramping up. The N64 was weird too. It had 3 handles and never felt right to me. It was revolutionary for its time though, I guess.
If the machine was ready to go to the manufacture tomorrow, the soonest it would see retail would be June. They don't have games and they don't have retail primed. Lets not kid ourselves. Bluray (Sony's media gambit) + Cell (hokey architecture) + NVidia (late addition) = clusterfuck. It might wind up being a great clusterfuck in the end, but it sure as hell amounts to one big clusterfuck to work with & design. They are denying a delay cause they don't want the news released in pieces and they want it on their terms. They will wait till they have something tangible to show, to whet the appetite, and then announce....whoops, give us another 6 months. My prediction, based on what has been shown, is Japan in the 4Q 06, US 1Q 07 and then Europe 2Q 07 (or later).
While it's undisputed that there is an abundance of power, how much of that is theoretical vs practical/useful remains an open question. Memory bandwidth, practicality of SPE's for game development, etc....lots of questions.
What does seem to be clear is that PS3 development costs are going to be at best high and often astronomical. I really don't see Sony having some wunderkind-middleware that is going to cut this back either. That probably won't hurt the big budget titles, the Grand Theft Autos and Madden Football games, but you have to wonder how a Katarmi Damarcy(sp?) would ever get made.
You got it. It's not even so much the INITIAL cost - it's long term pricing that will kill them, especially when Microsoft has a great deal of flexibility to compete with.
The fact is that Sony could release these at $750 and it would probably sell relatively well at launch given the brand, but only to the early adopting ubergaminggeeks. That isn't where the long term money is.
Even if they launch it at $400....it will be pulling teeth to subsidize it down to $300 anytime soon. To hit that sweet spot of $200 or so....possibly never. Less consoles sold means less games sold. Therefore higher game cost. Harder to make a profit. More risk for Devs means less games made for it.
When I was a kid, back around the days of Pac Man (like '82), there still existed the singluar arcade - aimed at kids/teens. It was a place that I wasn't allowed and always reaked of weak 70's weed. Adults didn't play games then, cause they didn't grow up playing games.
Kids today don't need that. It's cheaper to own a XBOX or PS2 and it takes alot less effort than actually commuting to wherever.
Gaming at home is better for adults too - we all have computers much more powerful than TI-994a's at home, at work and built into our cell phones (we have cell phones). We have entertainment centers more impressive than those old theaters too, and that's why the kids are the only ones that go to theaters now - to get away from us.
The only really viable market is for the family or for games that just cannot be repeated at home. The arcade is in the Dave & Buster era. Shallow, materialistic, lots of machine guns and gaudy plastic appendages....it's the material excess that comes from reaching maturity, making money, and going corporate. That's where arcade gaming is.
Eventually gaming will reach the zen state, and the level of Shuffleboarding. I can see it now. I'll be retired, on a park bench in Florida, pwning some 80 yr old noob over a global-supe-dupe-fi connection in Doom XI (sponsored by Efferdent Denture Cream).
You never hear of World of Warcraft players addicted to heroin. You just don't have time to be depressed while playing Halo. You can feed all that anti-social rage into GTA. Seriously, outside pure escapism , games do nothing good. The fact is that video games are far more likely the cause of, or add to mental problems, rather then do anything to help them.
Good question. The game or at least the Animal Crossing I'm familiar with, involves a single player virtual community. It's sad that it shocks us to see what could, possibly, be different opinions offered in a community setting. Anything out of lock step and it deserves writeup in the NYT.
I'm not making a judgement on the right and wrong of piracy either. Breaking the law is breaking the law, but there are gray areas and abundant idiocy is rampant in IP laws. The point is that intellectual property is not best used by society solely to maximize profits.
What it comes down to is that this is a topic which is pertinent to the market for this game. (8 to 14 year olds maybe?) Do we lock step them into the corporate view - fileshare=bad ('say no' or 'duck and cover' in another decade) - or do we teach them all sides and let them decide what's best for society.
Fox News is 'fair and balanced' and we don't need any other opinions kids. We have alwasy been at war with Eurasia folks, move along, there is nothing to think here.
The trick to selling games to women is that you have to take your time. The male market is established quickly and fades fast after a game's release. On the other hand, the women's market takes alot longer to get started, but can go on and on, just think of the Sim's. You can rely on simple pictures and video from the internet to bring in the males. Since the female market isn't as easily swayed, it can often take repeated oral prodding from friends before they are ready.
It's like a reflex action to bash Microsoft here. First off, quality is always shaky on the first batch of any gaming console. It's a business where the hardware launches are historically tight. The only company that releases solid, well built, well tested consoles at launch is Nintendo, and look where their share of the market has gone. Second, based on everything I've read about the XBOX 360 it has a solid, almost textbook design, for the best technology of the next 5 years (multi core processor, unified pipeline shader/vertex on the graphics card, etc). I see alot more to question about the PS3's cell (limitations of SPE's etc) & the late addition of NVidia, since Sony only pulled them into the PS3 when they realized the Cell wouldn't be able to do the GPU work. Need I remind everyone that you are bashing a 3-GHZ G5 w/ 3 Core's paired with ATI's finest and all for $400? Yes, the marketing BS is just that, but if this was anyone else's product it would get treated alot better.
Halo 2 may have flaws, but it's still gaming crack. Graphics and technology aside - the gameplay is really what sets Halo apart from other shooters. It's just so fluid, so damn smooth. It doesn't have the twitchiness of Counterstrike or the nonsense of Quake or its like. Yes, the modders and kiddies make you want to reach through the communicator and strangle someone.....but I keep going back, even a year later.