Regarding the GP : He's an uber-cool dude who never comes here usually, he hangs out in sports.slashdot.org, or in i'mdatinghotbabes.slashdot.org, but he was fucking this playboy model when he tripped over his keyboard and ended up in this very thread, just to tell us "I don't care".
I agree with much of what you have said - you speak wisely.
But I think the DSLite sells like hotcakes because the normal DS was already completely sold out. It's such a *huge* success all over there. The brain training and other "touch generations" series have won them a whole lotta new gamers. Maybe not as much in the western world, where we are somehow fond of sDoRnMy. So when it will be released in a coupla months in the USA and, in three years in Europe (grr!), it will sell as much as the original one.
Somehow, I think Ninty will keep selling original DS'es, because there may still be some people who prefer the larger console? In a nutshell, what you said was right - But I think it's wanted, and there's a hint it might work.
So, my theory is that the sexy new look is rather to try to win some of us over. I know people who bought GBM's and PSP's before seeing what games were on both consoles, there's a lot of trust when the machine looks cool. I am not into marketing techniques, either, so if any people working in advertisement could give a shout? Something like : "Hey! Look at me! I'm sexy! I'm smaller than the copmetition, and I carry *two miniature suns* AND I play Nintendogs and $MARIO_GAME! Buy the fuck outta me!"
Disclaimer : I consider myself a customer, not a fanboi. But... I *want* a DSLite, it'll just be the occasion for me to lend the older console to friends of mine, or give it to a relative:)
I'm gonna go out on a limb, here, but I really wonder what the youth whose first console was the PSX will think about sony fifteen years after crash bandicoot, for example.
Now, Mario, that's staying power. Because yeah, he was a pretty cool guy to hang out with during the eighties.
Lighten up, it was just a JOKE. No need to be all serious and aloof as in "WELL THIS IS NOT FUNNY BECAUSE WE HAVE THOUSANDS OF FEMALE TREKKIES AND THIS IS S TIRED STEREOTYPE", if it's only just that. Geez, you sound like a furry who thinks he's persecuted and posts that rainbow image on/b/.
Come on, mod me troll, you humorless bastards!
PS : If you can't laugh at yourself, you're never gonna get laid.
Sorry, but gaming is a hobby that used to be not so expensive, but it now is. Every actor on the market is to blame. There's one thing that I clamor for openly, and as a flashcart user : Nintendo needs to sell flash carts with a downloadable games system. Stick fifty games in the cart, no issue, put it in the GBA slot, and voilà. Nintendo's flashme system, with a nice, legal interface which would allow indies to develop tons of fun little games.
Hey, Ninty! We also code HOMEBREWS THAT KICK ASS, so stop treating us like thieves. We do try before we buy a bit, but come the fuck on. We have to GIVE OUR MONEY to people who aren't YOU. Think about it.
I own a current-style white DS, and it doesn't have a scratch, nor does it have stains. I don't spill orange juice on it everyday, but I do use it everyday for at least an hour. I made it fall down twice, no scratches.
The screen might need a goos clean wipe now and then, but it's not iPod-scratchy.
The problem is, they will sooner or later have some say in the way the game evolves. Patches, new direction, gameplay fixes, nerfing shit left and right... So it wouldn't be far-fetched to speculate whether this is going to be the next SWG.
And that isn't good because...? It's supposed to be exactly that : not expensive, not a burden, just a game. YOU are trying to make it some kind of dog-owner training. You are wrong and foolish to do so. It's a game geared at little girls, not you, and not "if you treat your virtual dog well enough, I'll buy you a REAL one!" (for cripe's sake I hope you do not have children you said this to)
You're going to break your hands getting the best score you could ever do on , then you'll go and check out the high scores of the losers who play the same game ten hours each day, only to see you're WAY, WAY behind.
How about these greedy slobs try and produce games with lower development costs? It's always the same story : when an industry starts gaining mainstream approval, it just becomes a penis contest to see who will do it more, harder, better, with more explosions, big boobs, and bigger budget!
Look at hollywood actually BRAG about production costs, the same is happening to videogames, only this time, video games are supposed to be more fulfilling than two hours of non-interactive eye candy!
I interviewed for a guerilla marketing business in San Francisco that targeted web forums.
I was told that if I accepted the job, I was to have at LEAST 50 identities on as many forums as I could muster (they wanted 100 eventually), with a goal of 5 posts an hour. The posts had to be well thought out, and the idea was that I was to establish multiple identities with a history on the forums, so that when the timing was right a well written but subtly placed marketing post could be finessed in. And regular visitors would recognize the post as coming from a long time poster.
They had 12 people working there full time, and were hiring 10 more. You do the math. No wait, I'll do it for you: that's 880 posts a day (if minimum was met). However he said the better ones could do around 8 or 10 an hour. And they had different "verticals" so there was the sports guy, and the games guy, the hentai, excuse me I mean anime guy, etc.
But the most critical point was this: develop and integrate the identity. No random "HEY EB GAMES IS AWESOME BUY THIS" stuff.
I'm a Nintendo fanboy, have always been, will always be. But currently, Nintendo WFC supports a grand total of three games. I haven't given Tony Hawk a try yet, so I can only speak for Mario kart and Animal Crossing.
"It's there" is the only good thing I can say about it. Yes, it is a huge leap forward to at last be able to play like-minded individuals who were bored outta their minds while playing their friends on regular Mario Kart, watching the others duke it out for a good thirty seconds to see who would be in second place. Yes, it's a fun game, possibly the best Mario Kart ever. However, disconnecting pieces of shit suck. Friend codes suck. The interface is really NOT GOOD. Finding a game can take some time. It just sucks. The game in itself rocks all hell, and actually playing with some "nice guys" (by the way, spread the love, www.dsmeet.com ) is a great experience. But this "OH WE DON'T WANT PEDOS TO PLAY WITH TEH KIDDIES" bullshit could have been handled in other ways, and even though IANAL, I'm sure there was a sensible way to avoid any kind of "MY KID GOT RAPED BECAUSE HE MET A PERVERT PLAYING POKEMON ONLINE" without pissing the old-school crowd too much.
Animal Crossing is great fun. If you like to type 15 characters per line when you wanna chat, instead of simply incorporating pictochat, if you find something to do with people, heck it's fun! But at the end of the day, playing dollhouse is MY secret shame, and I'm not inviting you to steal my furry girlfriend away.
All in all, as a first shot, it's well-done, I'm glad they succeed, I'm glad it's free, but Big N has a few kinks to work out.
I'm not really saying it sucks. It's just that it sucks LESS than the competition, and I'm not holding my breath for the DRM3, thankyouverymuch!
"Damn, google are huge bastards, they help china's leaders censor the intarbutt and they approve of the communist repressive regime!"...ONE FUCKING DAY LATER...
"WHOA, WAY COOL, GOOGLE'S GONNA STRANGLE MICROSOFT THANKS TO THAT PHILANTROPIC JOHNNY CLEGG OR SOMETHING!"
Oh yeah, take an average slashdotter, add some goldfish, multiply by ADD, to the power of DUUUUH, and you get to pass off worthless advertisement as "newsworthy".
Yay, google is back to "not doing evil"! Let's all celebrate in candytown!
Maybe that's because when sony fanbois pull this argument, they wrap it around a nice helping of "yeah, becuz nintendo's for pokémon and mario kiddiez LOL"
Browse a few pages with useless info, cramped with ads and banners left and right, instead of loading a txt file on gamefaqs? I'm signing up right now...
I dunno about the rest of the world, but when the PS2 was release, HORDES OF MORONS that weren't even hardcore gamers (even saw parents when this was on the news - yes, on the evening news!) lined up to buy the 3,000 francs console. Let's divide by 6, bingo, about 500 bucks or euros, give or take a few.
You guys are either naïve or forgetful. I predict the PS3 will come out at whatever price Sony wants it to be, and it will sell like hotcakes because it appeals to the lowest common denomiator. Why would they fix a business model that isn't broken?
That's odd, I was skipping past many comments just to see if anyone had pointed out "Of course SHITTY sequels won't sell, just look at Nintendo, they can take anything and slap a "mario" or "zelda" on it and it will be guaranteed it's a good game", but then I remembered I didn't even buy the gamecube : "correct" mario (equals failure), shitty "oh yeah, we have, like, five dungeons" zelda, shitty "zelda-like" starfox, disappointing "normal" starfox, correct metroid primes, and the shittiest EVAR mario kart, that was quite a blow to my fanboyism. Now, the GC does have many good games - But the "immortals" aren't as numerous as on the NES, SNES or even N64 (anyone up for some goldeneye?).
When a sequel is well-made, and that the developer's talent shines through the whole game, I am more than happy to feel "at home" with my pal Mario. I mean, really, I'm not some kind of no-lifer or anything, but Nintendo games feel just like family, for the kid that grew up with the NES. Seems like they're back on the right track with the DS, so we'll see if a correct mario sequel will sell well enough.
I sure hope the holy Mario Kart DS has outsold the gamecube episode I will only refer to as "Mario Kart : In name only".
So, I understand where you're coming from. There is a large difference between asking for legitimate, good sequels filled with optimization and playing PES fucking FIVE. (tired of the madden meme)
Slashdot Mirror
Regarding the GP : He's an uber-cool dude who never comes here usually, he hangs out in sports.slashdot.org, or in i'mdatinghotbabes.slashdot.org, but he was fucking this playboy model when he tripped over his keyboard and ended up in this very thread, just to tell us "I don't care".
Boy, he sure showed us no-lifers!
I agree with much of what you have said - you speak wisely.
:)
But I think the DSLite sells like hotcakes because the normal DS was already completely sold out. It's such a *huge* success all over there. The brain training and other "touch generations" series have won them a whole lotta new gamers. Maybe not as much in the western world, where we are somehow fond of sDoRnMy. So when it will be released in a coupla months in the USA and, in three years in Europe (grr!), it will sell as much as the original one.
But here's an interesting thing; if you look up recent sales charts, you can see this kind of thing :
GBA: 105 (1,584)
source : http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=6085
Somehow, I think Ninty will keep selling original DS'es, because there may still be some people who prefer the larger console? In a nutshell, what you said was right - But I think it's wanted, and there's a hint it might work.
So, my theory is that the sexy new look is rather to try to win some of us over. I know people who bought GBM's and PSP's before seeing what games were on both consoles, there's a lot of trust when the machine looks cool. I am not into marketing techniques, either, so if any people working in advertisement could give a shout? Something like : "Hey! Look at me! I'm sexy! I'm smaller than the copmetition, and I carry *two miniature suns* AND I play Nintendogs and $MARIO_GAME! Buy the fuck outta me!"
Disclaimer : I consider myself a customer, not a fanboi. But... I *want* a DSLite, it'll just be the occasion for me to lend the older console to friends of mine, or give it to a relative
I'm gonna go out on a limb, here, but I really wonder what the youth whose first console was the PSX will think about sony fifteen years after crash bandicoot, for example.
Now, Mario, that's staying power. Because yeah, he was a pretty cool guy to hang out with during the eighties.
Lighten up, it was just a JOKE. No need to be all serious and aloof as in "WELL THIS IS NOT FUNNY BECAUSE WE HAVE THOUSANDS OF FEMALE TREKKIES AND THIS IS S TIRED STEREOTYPE", if it's only just that. Geez, you sound like a furry who thinks he's persecuted and posts that rainbow image on /b/.
Come on, mod me troll, you humorless bastards!
PS : If you can't laugh at yourself, you're never gonna get laid.
Doesn't he first need to meet the wizard of Oz for one of the pre-requisites to happen?
Open-ended roll, they better make it a good score.
Sorry, but gaming is a hobby that used to be not so expensive, but it now is. Every actor on the market is to blame.
There's one thing that I clamor for openly, and as a flashcart user : Nintendo needs to sell flash carts with a downloadable games system. Stick fifty games in the cart, no issue, put it in the GBA slot, and voilà. Nintendo's flashme system, with a nice, legal interface which would allow indies to develop tons of fun little games.
Hey, Ninty! We also code HOMEBREWS THAT KICK ASS, so stop treating us like thieves. We do try before we buy a bit, but come the fuck on. We have to GIVE OUR MONEY to people who aren't YOU. Think about it.
You have to give it a try. /v/? Nevermind.
Oh, wait, is this
I own a current-style white DS, and it doesn't have a scratch, nor does it have stains. I don't spill orange juice on it everyday, but I do use it everyday for at least an hour. I made it fall down twice, no scratches.
The screen might need a goos clean wipe now and then, but it's not iPod-scratchy.
The problem is, they will sooner or later have some say in the way the game evolves. Patches, new direction, gameplay fixes, nerfing shit left and right...
So it wouldn't be far-fetched to speculate whether this is going to be the next SWG.
And that isn't good because...?
It's supposed to be exactly that : not expensive, not a burden, just a game.
YOU are trying to make it some kind of dog-owner training. You are wrong and foolish to do so.
It's a game geared at little girls, not you, and not "if you treat your virtual dog well enough, I'll buy you a REAL one!" (for cripe's sake I hope you do not have children you said this to)
...But there's one thing sony could do to annihilate the competition.
They killed the Saturn with one sentence : "It's 100$ cheaper".
They killed the competition with : "It plays DVDs".
Even though I deem it not feasible, they have been known to surprise people.
My greatest fear about their show at next E3, would be "IT PLAYS DIVX".
Fucking scary...
Of your paycheck
From SONY
Fucking plant.
Ai ai ai
I'm your little butterfly
Green, black and blue
Make the colors in the sky
*shakes fist angrily*
DAMN YOU, GRANDPARENT!
DAMN YOUUUUUU!
You're going to break your hands getting the best score you could ever do on , then you'll go and check out the high scores of the losers who play the same game ten hours each day, only to see you're WAY, WAY behind.
Wohoo, lotsa fun!
How about these greedy slobs try and produce games with lower development costs?
It's always the same story : when an industry starts gaining mainstream approval, it just becomes a penis contest to see who will do it more, harder, better, with more explosions, big boobs, and bigger budget!
Look at hollywood actually BRAG about production costs, the same is happening to videogames, only this time, video games are supposed to be more fulfilling than two hours of non-interactive eye candy!
The pot told the Kettle : "You're black".
"
Hey guys,
I interviewed for a guerilla marketing business in San Francisco that targeted web forums.
I was told that if I accepted the job, I was to have at LEAST 50 identities on as many forums as I could muster (they wanted 100 eventually), with a goal of 5 posts an hour. The posts had to be well thought out, and the idea was that I was to establish multiple identities with a history on the forums, so that when the timing was right a well written but subtly placed marketing post could be finessed in. And regular visitors would recognize the post as coming from a long time poster.
They had 12 people working there full time, and were hiring 10 more. You do the math. No wait, I'll do it for you: that's 880 posts a day (if minimum was met). However he said the better ones could do around 8 or 10 an hour. And they had different "verticals" so there was the sports guy, and the games guy, the hentai, excuse me I mean anime guy, etc.
But the most critical point was this: develop and integrate the identity. No random "HEY EB GAMES IS AWESOME BUY THIS" stuff.
Kinda spooky.
Didn't take the job. It was a fucking mill."
http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/show/21589
Hmm. So you were wowed by the PS2 at launch? Can you remind us the name of the wowie-games? Oh, and learn grammar, your last sentence contradicts you.
I'm a Nintendo fanboy, have always been, will always be.
But currently, Nintendo WFC supports a grand total of three games. I haven't given Tony Hawk a try yet, so I can only speak for Mario kart and Animal Crossing.
"It's there" is the only good thing I can say about it. Yes, it is a huge leap forward to at last be able to play like-minded individuals who were bored outta their minds while playing their friends on regular Mario Kart, watching the others duke it out for a good thirty seconds to see who would be in second place. Yes, it's a fun game, possibly the best Mario Kart ever.
However, disconnecting pieces of shit suck. Friend codes suck. The interface is really NOT GOOD. Finding a game can take some time. It just sucks. The game in itself rocks all hell, and actually playing with some "nice guys" (by the way, spread the love, www.dsmeet.com ) is a great experience. But this "OH WE DON'T WANT PEDOS TO PLAY WITH TEH KIDDIES" bullshit could have been handled in other ways, and even though IANAL, I'm sure there was a sensible way to avoid any kind of "MY KID GOT RAPED BECAUSE HE MET A PERVERT PLAYING POKEMON ONLINE" without pissing the old-school crowd too much.
Animal Crossing is great fun. If you like to type 15 characters per line when you wanna chat, instead of simply incorporating pictochat, if you find something to do with people, heck it's fun! But at the end of the day, playing dollhouse is MY secret shame, and I'm not inviting you to steal my furry girlfriend away.
All in all, as a first shot, it's well-done, I'm glad they succeed, I'm glad it's free, but Big N has a few kinks to work out.
I'm not really saying it sucks. It's just that it sucks LESS than the competition, and I'm not holding my breath for the DRM3, thankyouverymuch!
"Damn, google are huge bastards, they help china's leaders censor the intarbutt and they approve of the communist repressive regime!" ...ONE FUCKING DAY LATER...
"WHOA, WAY COOL, GOOGLE'S GONNA STRANGLE MICROSOFT THANKS TO THAT PHILANTROPIC JOHNNY CLEGG OR SOMETHING!"
Oh yeah, take an average slashdotter, add some goldfish, multiply by ADD, to the power of DUUUUH, and you get to pass off worthless advertisement as "newsworthy".
Yay, google is back to "not doing evil"! Let's all celebrate in candytown!
Maybe that's because when sony fanbois pull this argument, they wrap it around a nice helping of "yeah, becuz nintendo's for pokémon and mario kiddiez LOL"
So, in all fairness, stfu.
Browse a few pages with useless info, cramped with ads and banners left and right, instead of loading a txt file on gamefaqs? I'm signing up right now...
I dunno about the rest of the world, but when the PS2 was release, HORDES OF MORONS that weren't even hardcore gamers (even saw parents when this was on the news - yes, on the evening news!) lined up to buy the 3,000 francs console. Let's divide by 6, bingo, about 500 bucks or euros, give or take a few.
You guys are either naïve or forgetful. I predict the PS3 will come out at whatever price Sony wants it to be, and it will sell like hotcakes because it appeals to the lowest common denomiator. Why would they fix a business model that isn't broken?
Anyway, enjoy your DRM.
You're right, I'm either blind, or a dense moron. :)
*ahem* On an unrelated note, those braille keyboards really kick ass, you know?
That's odd, I was skipping past many comments just to see if anyone had pointed out "Of course SHITTY sequels won't sell, just look at Nintendo, they can take anything and slap a "mario" or "zelda" on it and it will be guaranteed it's a good game", but then I remembered I didn't even buy the gamecube : "correct" mario (equals failure), shitty "oh yeah, we have, like, five dungeons" zelda, shitty "zelda-like" starfox, disappointing "normal" starfox, correct metroid primes, and the shittiest EVAR mario kart, that was quite a blow to my fanboyism. Now, the GC does have many good games - But the "immortals" aren't as numerous as on the NES, SNES or even N64 (anyone up for some goldeneye?).
When a sequel is well-made, and that the developer's talent shines through the whole game, I am more than happy to feel "at home" with my pal Mario. I mean, really, I'm not some kind of no-lifer or anything, but Nintendo games feel just like family, for the kid that grew up with the NES. Seems like they're back on the right track with the DS, so we'll see if a correct mario sequel will sell well enough.
I sure hope the holy Mario Kart DS has outsold the gamecube episode I will only refer to as "Mario Kart : In name only".
So, I understand where you're coming from. There is a large difference between asking for legitimate, good sequels filled with optimization and playing PES fucking FIVE. (tired of the madden meme)