That seems to make the most sense. And IIRC, we've come up with some (at least ideas for) techniques to collect CO2 and convert it to something useful. Maybe the designers of this plant could work one of the scrubbing/converting ideas into the plant...
Hmm I don't think the reasons you give will really save the PS3, especially when you don't ignore the Wii. Sure, It has a Blu-Ray player, but Blu-Ray is currently in a format war with HD-DVD, and who can tell which will win out. If HDDVD wins, no one will produce movies to watch on your PS3. Sure you'll have the extra disc capacity, but the discs and surrounding equipment involved in making and using the discs won't fall in price nearly as quickly with only the PS3 carrying the device.
And while the base system PS3 is only $100 more than the extended 360 system, the extended PS3 is a full $200 more expensive than the extended 360, albeit for more advanced technologies, which the average mid-life crisis man and teenaged gamer [read: PS3's target audience] will never use. Of course the $600 price tag places it a full $250-350 (depending on model) above the price of the Wii's announced price cap, which is possibly higher than Nintendo will charge anyway. The Wii has the luxury of not having two models to confuse non-techie parents in the heat of holiday shopping, and has a smaller chance of dissappointing someone searchimg for a particular model once supplies run a little thin at Christmas.
Add to this the fact that everything, from hardware to software, will be cheaper on the wii than its competitors. Already we see the average 360 game costing $60, with wireless controllers costing $50. I still can't understand how Microsoft can justify that hefty price tag when the only major improvement over the GCN's Wavebird is rumble capability. PS3 will likely release all of its wares at the same MSRP as Microsoft has. Meanwhile, Nintendo has pledged to keep prices at the same price or cheaper whenever possible. Games will still cost $50 tops, while some will probably cost less. Conrollers will stay around the $20-$30 dollar range. The average parents looking at price will recognize this distinction and buy the cheaper of the three systems, especially when they know nothing about how to compare software specs (at least if they're like most of the parents I've met, including my own).
In the way of developers, I don't see Sony keeping its edge much longer. GTA is already being duplicated for the 360, and with the release of Metal Gear: Twin Snakes on GameCube, we just may see Konami start to return its Metal Gear franchise to Nintendo in some fashion. There is also talk of Square-Enix migrating numbered Final Fantasies back to Nintendo, based on the fact that it is releasing the older games on portable, and has been working on a second Crystal Chronicles. Those three series alonge accounted for much if not most of the PS2's draw, and if they dissappear or become non-exclusive, Sony's dead in the water, especially if Wii really advertises in force to the average adult, with simple games and things like interactive aerobics programs.
And in part, there was such a frenzy for the 360 because it was the first of the next gen by a long shot, because Halo fanboys already made up their minds that they want an actual ending to the Halo story, and because there were such mass shortages that any parent whose kid wanted it, and who had no other new system to buy instead was willing to pay huge amounts of money to appease him rather than tell him no and let the kid deal with it.
Aye, TNG also had a good amount of character development, especially once the movies came around. They explored the pasts of most of the characters, and developed relationships between many of the crew memebers (such as Geordie and Data's friendship, Riker and Troi's romance, and Picard and Crusher's past linked by Beverly's husband).
The same thing could be said about most of the television shows in the 60's and 70's. Everything was corny, and would appear to lack polish compared to today's shows. Good news for the 60's however, is that they didn't need to live up to TODAY'S standards. They weren't meant for today's audiences- they were meant for yesteryear's audiences.
Although I agree with you that DS9 was enjoyable, and had some really great plots, my favorite still remains TNG. Sure, somtimes the plots relied a little too much on some never-before-seen readation or particle, but the show also exhibited many radically different cultures and physiologies etc. that could be possible in the galaxy, and used them to examine what it meant to be human. DS9 dealt more with political tensions between the Federation and other galactic powers, which i didn't get into as much. Plus, many techs that TOS and TNG came up with are now finding a place in real life, based soley on the fact that geeks grew up dreaming they could have things like communicators and replicators. Shoot, physicists are even starting to examine the possibility of warp drives as a means of travel. Although current models show that it would take too much energy to travel this way, you never know which inventive mind will find a different way of looking at the data, and discover a way to make it feasible.
The one argument I haveas far as MS is concerned is that while the company as a whole can afford for the 360 to flop, It would probably mean the end of the Xbox division (unless MS really is as dumb as they look sometimes). They lost money for each Xbox they sold, and are currently losing even more money for each 360 sold. While Live did a lot to alleviate this the past generation, I'm not sure that Live will help much this generation as Nintendo (and possibly Sony...?) plans to offer their online multiplayer service for free.
Add to the equation the fact that the Live Arcade, made up mostly of games you can find free or cheaper for the PC, probably won't be able to compete against the Wii's Virtual Console with its library of most Nintendo (and Genesis and Turbografix-16) games previously published (along with new games by smaller devs). All of the sudden, the cash farm that kept the Xbox 1 alive last gen disappears.
If that happens, the Xbox division of MS will be pretty deep in the red, and the project will probably be cut. After all, when it comes right down to it, MS is a software development company for the PC, not a video game console company. A similar predicament is likely to happen to Sony, should the PS3 fail (which is likely). At best, Sony cuts off the SCEA division, and focuses on its core market, which is consumer electronics. While the Playstation products are consumer electronics, there's a lot more to keeping it alive than there is with say, a TV. You have to make deals with developers (especially in Sony's case, as they have few second party devs, and I don't think they have any in-house studios), and market your games and such constantly, so that people keep coming back to buy games. With a TV, you just have to wow a person once every several years.
So Nintendo has a leg up over the competition in the simple fact that video games is its core market. While this not only makes office beauacracy more stremlined, with only two lines of hardware to deal with in the whole company (not including future projects), it also allows Nintendo the ability to go for broke should it have to. It has no other markets to fall back on, but it doesn't have any other money pits to deal with either.
Neg, I don't see much of a shot for the PSP to come back. The games they offer are very expensive, and don't tend to come down in price very quickly. Ports of console games are even worse than the original titles- they have worse graphics than the console versions, yet cost an extra $10. Homebrew- a big sales point that drew people to the PSP, is stunted if you want to buy any of Sony's games, due to required version upgrades created to prevent piracy. Many of the methods employed in these newer versions prevent independant homebrew from being playable as well.
The movies they release on UMD end up costing 10-20 dollars more than they do on DVD, just because they are on Sony's proprietary format. This problem is even more accented when you realize you already own the movie. At this point, the only way around this high price is to buy a large capacity Memory stick duo and rip the movie to the stick, because Sony hasn't released the UMD burner they promised, since they realized it could possibly be used to promote piracy.
So when it comes down to it, in both the movie and game market for their PSP, Sony has pretty much shown that it cares less about its users than it does about its phobia of piracy.
In the meantime, Nintendo, who in their active decision to focus near-completely on games, never claimed homebrew and movie capabilities as a selling point on the DS, never had anything to cut short on its portable system. They've also adopted the "blue ocean" strategy that they plan to extend with the wii- create a series of easy-to-use-yet-addictive games that can be spread from the normal gamers to parents, grandparents, and little sisters. This is embodied in the "Brain Age" and "Big Brain Academy" titles, which have been largely responsible for the DS accelerated market growth, what with their low price point of $20 and simple, addictive game play that caters to nongamers. As it turns out, much of the DS' new are people who bought the game for their kids, started playing it, and got addicted enough to buy one to take to work. Co-workers then see someone playing Brain Age, fall in love with it, and go out and buy a DS too. Now these co-workers also see other games such as Nintendogs, Animal Crossing, Metroid, and Mario kart, that they can play via Wi-Fi or short range ad hoc. The whole group of co workers buys 1+ of these titles, and play together in the office. Te DS then spreads to everyone's families, as people decide they want their kids to take part in the action as well.
With this strategy in mind, Nintendo actually sels it's dev kits for much cheaper than those of its rivals, with the stipulation that Nintendo interviews each developer who wants one, in order to decide wheter the developer will make innovative or worthwhile games for the systems, or if they will be poor quality. If you make the dev kits cheap enough to be available to small yet creative upstart developers, you've got a much better chance of getting a really new idea than if stick solely with people like EA, who have done the same thing repeatedly for a decade. (In EA's defense, they look like they'll be doing some really neat stuff with the Wii version of Madden 07).
actually, Battlefield 2 lets me to a lot of things virutally that I couldn't do with paintball, such as sniping (paintball fields rarely have much visibility, and I've never heard of a paintball sniper rifle) drive tanks, and blow up said tanks with guided rockets. Fun Stuff!
Well, considering Call of Cthulhu bears the same name (and is therefore probably based on) Lovecraft's novel, which is an obvious inspiration for ED (especially obvious since Cthulhu is one of the Old Ones in the game), you're probably right.
Silly panda, Ater Dark is the screensaver, not Eternal Darkness...
although After Dark was sometimes freakier than anything I'd ever seen... how I miss it...
Dude, it's not a lack of intelligence, it's a lack of adaptiviness that keeps people from playing video games with current controllers. Last time I checked, the vast majority of people 30 and older type using only two fingers. They don't know how to use a keyboard, and they can't wrap their minds around multiple buttons per finger. The GC controller is actually less complex than the PS2 controller, as it has less buttons, and besides the Z button, all of it's controlls are color coded, shaped differently, and labeled in a way that makes some amount of sense. When I first got the PS2, I had to dig out the manual to figure out where the R3 button was. And what's the deal with labeling buttons with shapes? Shoot, half the people I talk to can't decide whether the X button is X or Cross. My mom is an extremely intelligent woman, but you sit her down in front of Mario Kart, and she can barely steer. She can't handle Smash Bros, much less any FPS. The buttons overwhelm her even when the game doesn't move quickly- She can't enjoy RPG's because she isn't comfortable with the controller.
And to back up to your first statement, you just agreed with your parent post. The whole point of the Wii is to take a genre like FPS that most people can't play because it takes too much knowledge of a complicated layout, including two seperate control sticks that do different things, and gives them a more intuitive way to play it. That's why Nintendo is showcasing the fact that both Red Steel and Metroid Prime 3 will be release games.
And Wii is of course counting on converting people who don't buy consoles- they've said that about 1459 times so far. One reason that they made a controller look similar to a remote (besides the fact that it fits in one hand better than a standard controller) is so that a father or mother would look on the cofee table of their family room, see the Wii controller, and think "well, it's like a remote, only it has even less buttons. How hard could be be?" So they start playing the copy of WiiSports or WarioWare that Junior left in the console, and get addicted. These parents then tell their adult friends how much fun they had with the Wii. The friends then get curious enough to visit and try it out, and get hooked as well. Repeat cycle. It's the same thing that is allowing the DS to succeed so well. Brain Age costs 20 bucks. A kid buys it, shows it to the parent. The parent likes it enough to buy a DS and Brain Age. They play it at work. The collegues get hooked, and buy a DS and Brain Age. All of these new owners of the DS then decide that a few minutes a day of Brain Age isn't enough fun, so they go and buy more games. It's a crazy form of Grassroots marketing, and it's paying off big time for Nintendo. That's one reason the DS is killing the PSP sales-wise, even though technically speaking, the PSP is a superior system.
Does that last statement sound similar to a certain upcoming console generation?
Re:Call it what it is...
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WinFS Gets the Axe
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· Score: 3, Informative
right, but did Microsoft have you beleive you believe that WinFS was in each version at the time you bought it, only to find upon installation that Windows did not provide a file system at all? That would be fraud. Continually failing to provide a new file system, and announcing it months before the release of a new version, maybe stupid and annoying, but it is not fraud.
I think the fact that Miyamoto addressed this issue means they've probably gone a long way in preventing it. I highly doubt that pointing the cursor at a bad guy will get tiring, even after a few hours. And while a single DDR round is short, the large majority of people I know who play the game do so for over an hour straight. Sure they get tired and sweaty, but it's enjoyable.
I'm not sure I understand the point you're making. While the DDR mat is innovative, it makes little sense to compare it to the Wiimote. So you can't play DDR with a Wiimote. You can't play FPS's with a DDR mat. You know, come to think of it, if you took two Wiimotes, and put one on each leg with a strap, the console could interpret the movement of your legs and translate that to the different arrow pads. And if you add relative positioning (the only way for the Wiimote to do it), you wouldn't have to worry about problems the soft DDR pads have- mainly the fact that the pads move as you play, and the sensors shift inside the material. And to help the user keep track, the game itself could come with two marker sheets made out of the same stuff the use for Twister. Wow, it already looks like the Wiimote can do DDR btter than a pad...
Anyway, it appears the beef you have with your parent post is that video games isn't physical activity. Congratulations for solving the code. It's about entertainment, and exercising the mind (well, some games anyway). What your parent is saying is that the games currently out are just more of the same old ideas. There's nothing new to sink your mental teeth into, and the playstyle is so old that it's not entertaining anymore. I'm looking forward to the Wii because as a 17 year-old future engineer, I enjoy seeing how the Wii will change the control for each genre, and I'm hoping that these control changes will make it easier to immerse yourself into the game, and focus more on the puzzles and challenges that the games will have (and there should be many new, never-before possible challenges to figure out, because you can do so much more in-game that pushing a button at the right time).
And the Wii has a bigger shot at weaving physical activity into the console experience than PS3 or Xbox 360. Similar to my DDR example, you could add a controller to each wrist (or other parts of the body, such as the torso) with straps, and now the console can detect you entire body's movements. Can anyone see a series of aerobic exercise games, marketed mainly to the busy businesswoman? A men's version and kid's version would also be extremely successful. (well, adult men and women could share a version, but I would think you would need to make some changes to the exercises, and make the UI kiddy and able to hold a child's attention).
Well, mainly because nothing like the nunchaku attachment has been around before- there's never been an intuitive way for the player to walk through a level, or look around. That's why light guns are normally used with rail-shooters. The game simply moves you where it wants.
Re:Wii will become known as the XXXbox
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Wii-mote In Action
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· Score: 1
Although the dev kit is inexpensive, Nintendo is very particular about who they hand one out to. They'll accept new firms, but it has to be someone they decide is serious about working with the Wii and Nintendo's vision for the console. While I'm sure it would be possible for a firm to pull one on Nintendo and create a dirty game, I'm not sure it would last for too long.
I don't remember Nintendo saying they would do this to their entire library. I remember hearing other sources saying it would be a crazy good idea, and I agree. Personally, I would love to play upgraded versions of all these games, and if Nintendo makes botht he upgraded and the original version available for downlad, I know several people (myself excluded) who would buy both versions. The only problem is that the upgrade process is harder than it seems, from what I've heard several sources say- the boost in sales would have to be large enough to warrant several programmers for a hefty amount of time.
you do realize that every console for the past four generations or so has required you to hold a controller in front of you do play, don't you? You don't have to to stand to use the Wiimote, and you don't have to hold your arms straight to ensure proper controll. Imagine taking a Gamecube/PS2/Xbox controller, and remove the middle bridge area between the two handles. Now you know how to hold the Wiimote. In fact, since you can move the 'mote and nunchaku a little farther away from each other, it makes it easier to hold, because you don't have to rotate your arms into the center as much to keep a hold on each.
Re:Total Revolution - flame on
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Wii-mote In Action
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· Score: 2, Interesting
That actually reminds me of an interview http://wii.ign.com/articles/713/713627p1.html on IGN where Nintendo's leaders basically state that the DS will prove to be a bigger competitor to the Wii than the 360 or PS3, simply because both are similarly innovative and many families can't or won't buy more than one system, portable or no.
Personally though, my family has (thankfully) always recognized the distinction between portable and tv-bound systems when allowing systems into the house. I play the DS when I'm out and about, and my home console instead of watching a movie at home during evening family time. The family gets into watching me play almost as much they get into watching a movie.
Re:Total Revolution - flame on
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Wii-mote In Action
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Dude, if you would read the next line of Pablo's post, you would realize that he's saying Nintendo has done well in the areas of development and marketing both to developers and to consumers. While I agree that this doesn't neccesarily mean that the Wii will be a good system, I myself plan to get a Wii on launch day, a few extra controllers, and some games. I've played every major (and some minor) game consoles since the NES, and I've always prefered Nintendo. I got the CameCube the Christmas it came out, and although my dad got a PS2 and Xbox for free shortly thereafter, I've been most satisfied with the Gamecube. So I'm willing to take the risk that Wii won't be that good, because the risk is slim. I see no reason to pay $600 (plus games & accessories) to play upgraded versions of the PS2 games that were more of the same even in the previous generation. Worse yet, $400 (plus yadda yadda) so I can play the crummy game that PDZ is (tried it at a friend's, hated it), or to get the opportunity to download zuma, which I can find online.
And if it turns out that the Wii's new control scheme isn't as fun as I had hoped, there's still a good number of old games I missed out on availble on VC.
Re:Ok, I was interested before but now....
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Wii-mote In Action
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· Score: 3, Informative
The FUD originiates because when Nintendo gives the basic explanation, people think that the only way to control the tennis game through fluid movements. Nintendo's PR department actually feverishly denies that this is the only control method. They want to emphasize that all games save for things like WarioWare can be played with ver conservative moements, so that you don't get exhausted playing zelda for 18 hours straight- well, any more exhausted than you did with OOT anyway...
Re:Ok, I was interested before but now....
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Wii-mote In Action
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· Score: 1
Actually, everything I've read (especially IGN) said that the movements aren't really overexaggerated, as the promotional videos would have you believe. with Prime, all you do is rotate the Wiimote.
Although I am not great fan of anime, I have to note the lack of logic in that post. Who gives the actors and directors their coveted awards? Why, an academy made up of actors and directors! And one needs only drive to the nearest blockbuster to find popular movies such as Kill Bill, ripe with gratuitous violence and revenge, taking the forefront. I fail to see the difference between the illustrious live action industry and the anime industry.
Like Thing said, the idustry itself has changed very little- iTunes is just an extension of the computer industry that's reselling music. I remember reading an article (I think it was on/.- does anyone have it?) where Jobs stated that as contract renewal time came for many companies, they tried to force him into pricing each song differently based on the artist, album, song, or record company. Thankfully he refused outright. The stupid industry fails to realize that the whole reason iTunes is doing so well is that you can rely on the fact that every individual song costs a flat 99 cents. That's what's made iTunes so popular.
Slashdot Mirror
That seems to make the most sense. And IIRC, we've come up with some (at least ideas for) techniques to collect CO2 and convert it to something useful. Maybe the designers of this plant could work one of the scrubbing/converting ideas into the plant...
I'm going to guess "just being silly," considering this was the plot of an episode of Futurama...
Hmm I don't think the reasons you give will really save the PS3, especially when you don't ignore the Wii. Sure, It has a Blu-Ray player, but Blu-Ray is currently in a format war with HD-DVD, and who can tell which will win out. If HDDVD wins, no one will produce movies to watch on your PS3. Sure you'll have the extra disc capacity, but the discs and surrounding equipment involved in making and using the discs won't fall in price nearly as quickly with only the PS3 carrying the device. And while the base system PS3 is only $100 more than the extended 360 system, the extended PS3 is a full $200 more expensive than the extended 360, albeit for more advanced technologies, which the average mid-life crisis man and teenaged gamer [read: PS3's target audience] will never use. Of course the $600 price tag places it a full $250-350 (depending on model) above the price of the Wii's announced price cap, which is possibly higher than Nintendo will charge anyway. The Wii has the luxury of not having two models to confuse non-techie parents in the heat of holiday shopping, and has a smaller chance of dissappointing someone searchimg for a particular model once supplies run a little thin at Christmas. Add to this the fact that everything, from hardware to software, will be cheaper on the wii than its competitors. Already we see the average 360 game costing $60, with wireless controllers costing $50. I still can't understand how Microsoft can justify that hefty price tag when the only major improvement over the GCN's Wavebird is rumble capability. PS3 will likely release all of its wares at the same MSRP as Microsoft has. Meanwhile, Nintendo has pledged to keep prices at the same price or cheaper whenever possible. Games will still cost $50 tops, while some will probably cost less. Conrollers will stay around the $20-$30 dollar range. The average parents looking at price will recognize this distinction and buy the cheaper of the three systems, especially when they know nothing about how to compare software specs (at least if they're like most of the parents I've met, including my own). In the way of developers, I don't see Sony keeping its edge much longer. GTA is already being duplicated for the 360, and with the release of Metal Gear: Twin Snakes on GameCube, we just may see Konami start to return its Metal Gear franchise to Nintendo in some fashion. There is also talk of Square-Enix migrating numbered Final Fantasies back to Nintendo, based on the fact that it is releasing the older games on portable, and has been working on a second Crystal Chronicles. Those three series alonge accounted for much if not most of the PS2's draw, and if they dissappear or become non-exclusive, Sony's dead in the water, especially if Wii really advertises in force to the average adult, with simple games and things like interactive aerobics programs. And in part, there was such a frenzy for the 360 because it was the first of the next gen by a long shot, because Halo fanboys already made up their minds that they want an actual ending to the Halo story, and because there were such mass shortages that any parent whose kid wanted it, and who had no other new system to buy instead was willing to pay huge amounts of money to appease him rather than tell him no and let the kid deal with it.
Aye, TNG also had a good amount of character development, especially once the movies came around. They explored the pasts of most of the characters, and developed relationships between many of the crew memebers (such as Geordie and Data's friendship, Riker and Troi's romance, and Picard and Crusher's past linked by Beverly's husband).
The same thing could be said about most of the television shows in the 60's and 70's. Everything was corny, and would appear to lack polish compared to today's shows. Good news for the 60's however, is that they didn't need to live up to TODAY'S standards. They weren't meant for today's audiences- they were meant for yesteryear's audiences. Although I agree with you that DS9 was enjoyable, and had some really great plots, my favorite still remains TNG. Sure, somtimes the plots relied a little too much on some never-before-seen readation or particle, but the show also exhibited many radically different cultures and physiologies etc. that could be possible in the galaxy, and used them to examine what it meant to be human. DS9 dealt more with political tensions between the Federation and other galactic powers, which i didn't get into as much. Plus, many techs that TOS and TNG came up with are now finding a place in real life, based soley on the fact that geeks grew up dreaming they could have things like communicators and replicators. Shoot, physicists are even starting to examine the possibility of warp drives as a means of travel. Although current models show that it would take too much energy to travel this way, you never know which inventive mind will find a different way of looking at the data, and discover a way to make it feasible.
The one argument I haveas far as MS is concerned is that while the company as a whole can afford for the 360 to flop, It would probably mean the end of the Xbox division (unless MS really is as dumb as they look sometimes). They lost money for each Xbox they sold, and are currently losing even more money for each 360 sold. While Live did a lot to alleviate this the past generation, I'm not sure that Live will help much this generation as Nintendo (and possibly Sony...?) plans to offer their online multiplayer service for free. Add to the equation the fact that the Live Arcade, made up mostly of games you can find free or cheaper for the PC, probably won't be able to compete against the Wii's Virtual Console with its library of most Nintendo (and Genesis and Turbografix-16) games previously published (along with new games by smaller devs). All of the sudden, the cash farm that kept the Xbox 1 alive last gen disappears. If that happens, the Xbox division of MS will be pretty deep in the red, and the project will probably be cut. After all, when it comes right down to it, MS is a software development company for the PC, not a video game console company. A similar predicament is likely to happen to Sony, should the PS3 fail (which is likely). At best, Sony cuts off the SCEA division, and focuses on its core market, which is consumer electronics. While the Playstation products are consumer electronics, there's a lot more to keeping it alive than there is with say, a TV. You have to make deals with developers (especially in Sony's case, as they have few second party devs, and I don't think they have any in-house studios), and market your games and such constantly, so that people keep coming back to buy games. With a TV, you just have to wow a person once every several years. So Nintendo has a leg up over the competition in the simple fact that video games is its core market. While this not only makes office beauacracy more stremlined, with only two lines of hardware to deal with in the whole company (not including future projects), it also allows Nintendo the ability to go for broke should it have to. It has no other markets to fall back on, but it doesn't have any other money pits to deal with either.
Neg, I don't see much of a shot for the PSP to come back. The games they offer are very expensive, and don't tend to come down in price very quickly. Ports of console games are even worse than the original titles- they have worse graphics than the console versions, yet cost an extra $10. Homebrew- a big sales point that drew people to the PSP, is stunted if you want to buy any of Sony's games, due to required version upgrades created to prevent piracy. Many of the methods employed in these newer versions prevent independant homebrew from being playable as well. The movies they release on UMD end up costing 10-20 dollars more than they do on DVD, just because they are on Sony's proprietary format. This problem is even more accented when you realize you already own the movie. At this point, the only way around this high price is to buy a large capacity Memory stick duo and rip the movie to the stick, because Sony hasn't released the UMD burner they promised, since they realized it could possibly be used to promote piracy. So when it comes down to it, in both the movie and game market for their PSP, Sony has pretty much shown that it cares less about its users than it does about its phobia of piracy. In the meantime, Nintendo, who in their active decision to focus near-completely on games, never claimed homebrew and movie capabilities as a selling point on the DS, never had anything to cut short on its portable system. They've also adopted the "blue ocean" strategy that they plan to extend with the wii- create a series of easy-to-use-yet-addictive games that can be spread from the normal gamers to parents, grandparents, and little sisters. This is embodied in the "Brain Age" and "Big Brain Academy" titles, which have been largely responsible for the DS accelerated market growth, what with their low price point of $20 and simple, addictive game play that caters to nongamers. As it turns out, much of the DS' new are people who bought the game for their kids, started playing it, and got addicted enough to buy one to take to work. Co-workers then see someone playing Brain Age, fall in love with it, and go out and buy a DS too. Now these co-workers also see other games such as Nintendogs, Animal Crossing, Metroid, and Mario kart, that they can play via Wi-Fi or short range ad hoc. The whole group of co workers buys 1+ of these titles, and play together in the office. Te DS then spreads to everyone's families, as people decide they want their kids to take part in the action as well. With this strategy in mind, Nintendo actually sels it's dev kits for much cheaper than those of its rivals, with the stipulation that Nintendo interviews each developer who wants one, in order to decide wheter the developer will make innovative or worthwhile games for the systems, or if they will be poor quality. If you make the dev kits cheap enough to be available to small yet creative upstart developers, you've got a much better chance of getting a really new idea than if stick solely with people like EA, who have done the same thing repeatedly for a decade. (In EA's defense, they look like they'll be doing some really neat stuff with the Wii version of Madden 07).
actually, Battlefield 2 lets me to a lot of things virutally that I couldn't do with paintball, such as sniping (paintball fields rarely have much visibility, and I've never heard of a paintball sniper rifle) drive tanks, and blow up said tanks with guided rockets. Fun Stuff!
Well, considering Call of Cthulhu bears the same name (and is therefore probably based on) Lovecraft's novel, which is an obvious inspiration for ED (especially obvious since Cthulhu is one of the Old Ones in the game), you're probably right.
you do realize you don't have to use the purple spells just because you have the rune...
Silly panda, Ater Dark is the screensaver, not Eternal Darkness... although After Dark was sometimes freakier than anything I'd ever seen... how I miss it...
Dude, it's not a lack of intelligence, it's a lack of adaptiviness that keeps people from playing video games with current controllers. Last time I checked, the vast majority of people 30 and older type using only two fingers. They don't know how to use a keyboard, and they can't wrap their minds around multiple buttons per finger. The GC controller is actually less complex than the PS2 controller, as it has less buttons, and besides the Z button, all of it's controlls are color coded, shaped differently, and labeled in a way that makes some amount of sense. When I first got the PS2, I had to dig out the manual to figure out where the R3 button was. And what's the deal with labeling buttons with shapes? Shoot, half the people I talk to can't decide whether the X button is X or Cross. My mom is an extremely intelligent woman, but you sit her down in front of Mario Kart, and she can barely steer. She can't handle Smash Bros, much less any FPS. The buttons overwhelm her even when the game doesn't move quickly- She can't enjoy RPG's because she isn't comfortable with the controller. And to back up to your first statement, you just agreed with your parent post. The whole point of the Wii is to take a genre like FPS that most people can't play because it takes too much knowledge of a complicated layout, including two seperate control sticks that do different things, and gives them a more intuitive way to play it. That's why Nintendo is showcasing the fact that both Red Steel and Metroid Prime 3 will be release games. And Wii is of course counting on converting people who don't buy consoles- they've said that about 1459 times so far. One reason that they made a controller look similar to a remote (besides the fact that it fits in one hand better than a standard controller) is so that a father or mother would look on the cofee table of their family room, see the Wii controller, and think "well, it's like a remote, only it has even less buttons. How hard could be be?" So they start playing the copy of WiiSports or WarioWare that Junior left in the console, and get addicted. These parents then tell their adult friends how much fun they had with the Wii. The friends then get curious enough to visit and try it out, and get hooked as well. Repeat cycle. It's the same thing that is allowing the DS to succeed so well. Brain Age costs 20 bucks. A kid buys it, shows it to the parent. The parent likes it enough to buy a DS and Brain Age. They play it at work. The collegues get hooked, and buy a DS and Brain Age. All of these new owners of the DS then decide that a few minutes a day of Brain Age isn't enough fun, so they go and buy more games. It's a crazy form of Grassroots marketing, and it's paying off big time for Nintendo. That's one reason the DS is killing the PSP sales-wise, even though technically speaking, the PSP is a superior system. Does that last statement sound similar to a certain upcoming console generation?
right, but did Microsoft have you beleive you believe that WinFS was in each version at the time you bought it, only to find upon installation that Windows did not provide a file system at all? That would be fraud. Continually failing to provide a new file system, and announcing it months before the release of a new version, maybe stupid and annoying, but it is not fraud.
I think the fact that Miyamoto addressed this issue means they've probably gone a long way in preventing it. I highly doubt that pointing the cursor at a bad guy will get tiring, even after a few hours. And while a single DDR round is short, the large majority of people I know who play the game do so for over an hour straight. Sure they get tired and sweaty, but it's enjoyable.
I'm not sure I understand the point you're making. While the DDR mat is innovative, it makes little sense to compare it to the Wiimote. So you can't play DDR with a Wiimote. You can't play FPS's with a DDR mat. You know, come to think of it, if you took two Wiimotes, and put one on each leg with a strap, the console could interpret the movement of your legs and translate that to the different arrow pads. And if you add relative positioning (the only way for the Wiimote to do it), you wouldn't have to worry about problems the soft DDR pads have- mainly the fact that the pads move as you play, and the sensors shift inside the material. And to help the user keep track, the game itself could come with two marker sheets made out of the same stuff the use for Twister. Wow, it already looks like the Wiimote can do DDR btter than a pad... Anyway, it appears the beef you have with your parent post is that video games isn't physical activity. Congratulations for solving the code. It's about entertainment, and exercising the mind (well, some games anyway). What your parent is saying is that the games currently out are just more of the same old ideas. There's nothing new to sink your mental teeth into, and the playstyle is so old that it's not entertaining anymore. I'm looking forward to the Wii because as a 17 year-old future engineer, I enjoy seeing how the Wii will change the control for each genre, and I'm hoping that these control changes will make it easier to immerse yourself into the game, and focus more on the puzzles and challenges that the games will have (and there should be many new, never-before possible challenges to figure out, because you can do so much more in-game that pushing a button at the right time). And the Wii has a bigger shot at weaving physical activity into the console experience than PS3 or Xbox 360. Similar to my DDR example, you could add a controller to each wrist (or other parts of the body, such as the torso) with straps, and now the console can detect you entire body's movements. Can anyone see a series of aerobic exercise games, marketed mainly to the busy businesswoman? A men's version and kid's version would also be extremely successful. (well, adult men and women could share a version, but I would think you would need to make some changes to the exercises, and make the UI kiddy and able to hold a child's attention).
Well, mainly because nothing like the nunchaku attachment has been around before- there's never been an intuitive way for the player to walk through a level, or look around. That's why light guns are normally used with rail-shooters. The game simply moves you where it wants.
Although the dev kit is inexpensive, Nintendo is very particular about who they hand one out to. They'll accept new firms, but it has to be someone they decide is serious about working with the Wii and Nintendo's vision for the console. While I'm sure it would be possible for a firm to pull one on Nintendo and create a dirty game, I'm not sure it would last for too long.
I don't remember Nintendo saying they would do this to their entire library. I remember hearing other sources saying it would be a crazy good idea, and I agree. Personally, I would love to play upgraded versions of all these games, and if Nintendo makes botht he upgraded and the original version available for downlad, I know several people (myself excluded) who would buy both versions. The only problem is that the upgrade process is harder than it seems, from what I've heard several sources say- the boost in sales would have to be large enough to warrant several programmers for a hefty amount of time.
you do realize that every console for the past four generations or so has required you to hold a controller in front of you do play, don't you? You don't have to to stand to use the Wiimote, and you don't have to hold your arms straight to ensure proper controll. Imagine taking a Gamecube/PS2/Xbox controller, and remove the middle bridge area between the two handles. Now you know how to hold the Wiimote. In fact, since you can move the 'mote and nunchaku a little farther away from each other, it makes it easier to hold, because you don't have to rotate your arms into the center as much to keep a hold on each.
That actually reminds me of an interview http://wii.ign.com/articles/713/713627p1.html on IGN where Nintendo's leaders basically state that the DS will prove to be a bigger competitor to the Wii than the 360 or PS3, simply because both are similarly innovative and many families can't or won't buy more than one system, portable or no. Personally though, my family has (thankfully) always recognized the distinction between portable and tv-bound systems when allowing systems into the house. I play the DS when I'm out and about, and my home console instead of watching a movie at home during evening family time. The family gets into watching me play almost as much they get into watching a movie.
Dude, if you would read the next line of Pablo's post, you would realize that he's saying Nintendo has done well in the areas of development and marketing both to developers and to consumers. While I agree that this doesn't neccesarily mean that the Wii will be a good system, I myself plan to get a Wii on launch day, a few extra controllers, and some games. I've played every major (and some minor) game consoles since the NES, and I've always prefered Nintendo. I got the CameCube the Christmas it came out, and although my dad got a PS2 and Xbox for free shortly thereafter, I've been most satisfied with the Gamecube. So I'm willing to take the risk that Wii won't be that good, because the risk is slim. I see no reason to pay $600 (plus games & accessories) to play upgraded versions of the PS2 games that were more of the same even in the previous generation. Worse yet, $400 (plus yadda yadda) so I can play the crummy game that PDZ is (tried it at a friend's, hated it), or to get the opportunity to download zuma, which I can find online. And if it turns out that the Wii's new control scheme isn't as fun as I had hoped, there's still a good number of old games I missed out on availble on VC.
The FUD originiates because when Nintendo gives the basic explanation, people think that the only way to control the tennis game through fluid movements. Nintendo's PR department actually feverishly denies that this is the only control method. They want to emphasize that all games save for things like WarioWare can be played with ver conservative moements, so that you don't get exhausted playing zelda for 18 hours straight- well, any more exhausted than you did with OOT anyway...
Actually, everything I've read (especially IGN) said that the movements aren't really overexaggerated, as the promotional videos would have you believe. with Prime, all you do is rotate the Wiimote.
Although I am not great fan of anime, I have to note the lack of logic in that post. Who gives the actors and directors their coveted awards? Why, an academy made up of actors and directors! And one needs only drive to the nearest blockbuster to find popular movies such as Kill Bill, ripe with gratuitous violence and revenge, taking the forefront. I fail to see the difference between the illustrious live action industry and the anime industry.
Like Thing said, the idustry itself has changed very little- iTunes is just an extension of the computer industry that's reselling music. I remember reading an article (I think it was on /.- does anyone have it?) where Jobs stated that as contract renewal time came for many companies, they tried to force him into pricing each song differently based on the artist, album, song, or record company. Thankfully he refused outright. The stupid industry fails to realize that the whole reason iTunes is doing so well is that you can rely on the fact that every individual song costs a flat 99 cents. That's what's made iTunes so popular.