This deserves some 'funny' mod points for a 2 fold joke! And as a Detroit Lions fan (in Packer country)... it's true, the Lions have sucked for as long as I have been a fan... even in the 90's when they had Barry Sanders and made some good playoff runs, they sucked because they 1) still proved they can overestimate other teams and loose 'easy' games. 2) Have yet to reach or win a Super Bowl! (though, they have won 4 NFL championships... before there was a Super Bowl)
OTOH, its probable that educational technology and methods improved, and the social conditions have changed in ways (such as the elimination of poverty) that reduce some of the drags on education in our world.
WoW is popular in China, just like in the US, Europe, and S.Korea. In the WoW website released the Coke sponsered TV ad some time ago for people to see. It was a good ad, but I had no idea who the 'famous' people where.
Cheers,
Fozzy
Switching theory is considered the "calculus" of computer engineering. And like calculus, it is being dropped from many undergrad curriculum with the assumption that software can best manage this aspect of microprocessor and other digital design.
This has always been one of my pondering points of Star Trek. Where, in the development of the Earth, did they find the time to 'educate' students on the likes of Calculus and 'general education requirements' while also being able to teach them the intricacies of Quantum Mechanics, deflector dish re-alignment, and power coupling re-direction, all by the age of like 18 and flying around on a star ship!
Calculus was pretty difficult enough, let alone the difficulties of studying as a teen-age when the temptations of a holo-suit are sitting in your own 'dorm'. There's enough addiction in games like WoW, I cannot imagine what it would be like on the Enterprise. =D
That description of combat sounds very interesting. I would really enjoy more interactive combat in combination with more manipulation of environments... but I'm going to take this hype with a grain or two of salt for now.
I agree with you. It's always a 'fantasy' to have such 'real' combat. However, I distinguish the difference between a fantasy and a dream, by that we want dreams to come true. At least that's what I tell my girlfriend. =p I kid.. I kid..
but our philosophy is that handcrafted is always better than random stuff.
As they said, games that are often 'on rails' to some extent (meaning, have direction) are often more enjoyable to gamers than just 'open ended' games. Sure, you can toss tables over to shoot fireballs, or run through legs, or whatever. But, it's an option. Instead, most people will just run to a corner to shoot and not bother. However, if the games cut-screen showed your character tossing tables for defense, it gives the gamer more excitement of action. I imagine it's also not particularly easy to design AI to fight multiple people in open-ended environments.
Cheers, Fozzy
Re:So that's where all the classic controllers wen
on
The Wii Hits the UK
·
· Score: 1
And there's still 10x more classical controllers to nunchucks. Pff
lol, actually, I've not tried that one yet, but I'm looking forward to doing it. I just have to finish Zelda on the Wii first. =) But I'm told it's pretty awesome!
The game is not flawless, of course....I don't think the extreme visual style of Wind Waker would have been appropriate here, I wouldn't have objected to some slightly more stylized graphical elements. Titles like Okami and Final Fantasy XII have proven what you can get out of an aging console if you focus on style over realism; it might have been interesting to see what such a marriage could reap with a Zelda title.
Wow. You're not the first one to say that. It's funny how Nintendo were completely lambasted for making the Wind Maker cell shaded so they decided to take Twilight Princess in the art direction that the fans wanted. And now they're criticized to making the game too dark and gritty?
Actually, it's my personal opinion that the same people who severly criticized the Wind Waker's art direction, to the point they refused to even look at it, are the same ones gushing over the PS3. There's just a core group of gamers who feel that 'good' is simply more powerful texture and bump mapping. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I'm just not one who agrees as 'photo-realistic' doesn't mean the game fits stylistically.
Wind Waker, for me, had some of the best graphics. The animation of things just made the whole interaction feel 'real' even if it looked more cartoon-ish than photo-realistic. With that said, while I'm playing through Twilight Princess, I actually feel myself saying "boy, I wish this was more like the Wind Waker". The way bosses exploded out of lava, to the level of detail of far away objects, was just amazing. Water and grass movements felt much better too. Of course, The Twilight Princess is still a pretty graphically solid game! But, I don't agree that it deserves it's super star status.
I've been finding a lot wrong with the Zelda series for a while. Mainly, repetitiveness. I felt that the last several titles failed to change anything about the story. It's usually just another Link from another generation, fighting the same evil (or something similar) as before. You first do the forest dungeon, then the mountain/fire dungeon, then the water dungeon, then the desert dungeon, then the winter dungeon, etc., etc., etc. Not always in that order. Then you throw in the 'ok, it's time to get the Master Sword' mini-quest, and 'buy the Hylien shield' before doing the fire stage.
Twilight Princess feels almost too cut and paste from previous versions of Zelda (and it certainly takes good elements from them all). Oddly, I still find myself immensely enjoying it, but, not as much as I was expecting. The wolf form certainly helps a lot, though. Yet, I'm still looking forward to a Zelda that's not like all the others. I don't care if Gannon is the final boss, but I do care about having to run back and forth, collecting the same objects and fighting in the similarly same dungeons, where the puzzles work in similar ways. (use the lanter to light candles, use the fire arrow to light candles, etc.)
Also, the controls are a bit awkward. They work, don't get me wrong, but they're not as responsive as I'd like. Sometimes I swish the remote 4 times to get him to swing once. Also, it seems the pointer on my screen is badly calibrated. It points about 3 inches higher than it's aiming at. (I'll have to check the Zelda options menu, which I've not done yet, but other games and the Wii menu do not have this problem).
Zelda is still fun and there are great new elements in this version. Wolf form and 'animal sense' is a great idea. The horse/boar chase and riding is nicely done and fun. The story is still great. But I would only give this title an 8 of 10 due to it still fitting to closely the the same formula as other Zelda games. I'm still looking for a new story arch and a 2-player mode with Link and Zelda teaming up to master dungeon puzzles or battle the bad guys.
Wait... she found out her kids a an xbox. Damn, that pretty hard to hide one of those. I mean they stick out like a sore thumb and its hard to move them around..
From what I hear, it's in another room she never goes. Maybe some kind of 1970's main frame computer like room. =P
A few stores have had very prominent displays for the Xbox with the Wii and PS3 off to the side somewhere.
I've sort of noticed this. At Wal-Mart, I see a big PS3 display in front, a normal 360 displaly in their case, and the Wii was just a disaster. If I was Nintendo, I'd be a little unhappy with how their using shelf space. Heck, a new SuperCenter (less than 3 weeks open) only made shelf space for the controllers a few days ago. Yesterday, I looked at the games, and the Wii games where finally moved from being stuffed at the very bottom all packed together like my DVD shelf, to insertered between GameCube and DS games. Oddest thing as I'm looking at games, I'll see 4 Wii games, a row of DS games, then a row of GameCube games with a Wii game stuck inbetween, etc. Just a mess. Still, all the people I see are teenagers looking for the Nunchuck controller and a few gamers stopping to marvel at the shiney PS3 display and HDTV demo.
While looking for a Wii, I overheard some Best Buy employees saying that they were selling a lot of Xbox360s simply because parents looking for a console for their kids can't get their hands on anything else.
Add my co-worker to this list. She was talking about getting her kids a new system, during all the PS3 launch frenzy, and then I informed her of the differences and the choices. She was going to get a Wii, but could not find any and has no patience or care to stand in line and fight for one. She also found out her kids own an Xbox, so she's getting them a 360 instead, which I said would be a good choice if they already own the Xbox.
The worst thing Sony could have done is kill their holiday sales by not having enough units. Unfortunately, this happened and Sony's going to get stung by it. Once the holiday is over, that $600 price tag will be for those who really want one. Everyone else will be pinching pennies after feeling like they just spent a lot over the last couple months. Of course, there's always next year! =)
I want my email client to read/write messages, not the "web". It's bad that HTML emails exist...
No joke. HTML in email is a lesson in frustration when trying to design an E-Newsletter or some such marketing thing. Though, once you get your feet dirty, you start to know what you can and cannot do easily.
However, I do appreciate HTML emails and they have good uses. It's cost-effective and a great way to deliver attractive marketing messages to customers. Of course, that's when I (or one of my companies customers) ask for that email. Spam sucks. But we don't want to screw over all the people who use it for good purposes. As it is, my Gmail account seems to be handling spam pretty well.
Ha-ha-ha... you're either naive or optimistic about the games industry.
Nah, I think he knows that the games industry still requires people to buy their game, ads or no ads (if no one buys the game, no ad agency would spend money putting ads in their game). Putting ads in a game that "don't belong" would break the immersion of a game and would be an obviously poor design choice. Though, I wouldn't doubt seeing an Nvidia logo and game related slogan "frag more with Nvidia" on a loading screen, I'd also put my money on fantasy games being fairly immune to in-game ads. After all, companies like Blizzard can generate enough ad revenue through their website and licensed promotions.
I actually support the idea of in game ads. I see it as a win/win situation. Game companies can compensate some of their development costs, while be encouraged to put more polish on a game (to attract ad revenue), and gamers get more realism by being able to drink a "Pepsi" or eat a Pizza Hut Pizza instead of a "Kool Cola" or "Joe's Pizza" (though, I'm sure there's plenty of good Joe's Pizza joints out there! hehe)
The average blockbuster (meaning one that is intended to sell lots of tickets vs a niche market) movie budget is $100-$200 million. Game development cost are in the $10-$20 million dollar range. Game profits sometimes dwarf movie profits.
I agree with you. However, one thing to note, these types of movies also have a different life cycle.
Theaters
'Direct TV' rentals
DVD sales/Rentals
'Exclusive first time network showing'
I'm sure there are other parts of this cycle they make money off a movie's production, but unlike a game, it's pretty much just the sale/rental of that game. There's not a whole lot they can milk from it. There's also merchandising, which is much more main-stream for movies than games. There's plenty of game merchandise (more now than ever) but it still pals in comparison to movies.
This is a bit of a catch 22. It's been a big push since the Atari/NES days to keep improving graphics, which comes at developing more sophisticated machines, which increases development time, which increases the cost of games. Also, as games continue to morph into an interactive story/movie, more time will need to be spent in much the same way it takes time to create film or write a book.
Of course, I'm putting my money on the Wii for one of these reasons. Given that the actual technological specs aren't as advanced as say the 360 or PS3, I'm hopping that this attracts more developers as development will be easier due to not having to deviate far from the 'norm' and couple that with the new potential to interact with games with the Wii Remote and nunchuk.
As games continue to expand into story telling, compared to the days of Pac-Man and Space Invaders, the amount of time needed to invest will continue to increase, along with the budget. This will continue to force game investors to 'play it safe' and only invest in sequels or licensed content (Disney Movies, etc). And as a gamer, I'll continue to feel like gaming is chocking on it's own success and be turned off by most content and invest less into it. Perhaps, this is why MMO's are becoming successful and games like Half-Life are moving to episodic content. You're not playing one game, beating it, and then playing the exact same thing 2 years later with better graphics. Instead, you're playing the same game, never loosing the progress you started 2 years ago, and the game just continues to build from where it started.
I don't think our fighting system's as good as Devil May Cry!
Hmm... I bought the DMC 5th anni. edition (4 disc set). I played though #1, part of #2 and #3. I personally found God of War much more enjoyable as far as combat goes. It was a bit more repetitive, but it felt more fluid. Or maybe that's due to the crappy camera angles of DMC #1 that frustrated me to no end? =) I think someone's just being modest. hehe
Nintendo could easily do it if they charged the right price for their VC games. $5 for a NES game is too much. $1 would do it. I would imagine that iTunes has helped slow down pirated music to some extent by offering music singles for $1 and making it so easy to obtain (legally). I'm more than happy to grab a $1 song when I feel like it, than spend time and energy going through spoofs and ghosts until I find a good copy of a song.
The conjugal visit expansion would confuse most online gamers anyways.
Nah, they'll just complain that the expansion 'ruined' the original game by forcing people grind even more than they where doing before without adding any real content. They'll also say it's unbalanced as not everyone will be able to experience the new content unless your hardcore!
There's one thing I can think of when it comes to the virtual console (this was sometime around when I dumped $20 on my account to purchase The Legend of Zelda), that allowing these games for download have to be one of the closest things to having the proverbial 'money tree'.
Take Zelda alone. It's 500 points or $5.00. If there will be 4 million Wii's sold by 2007 (the estimate that Nintendo will have shipped 4 million units to North America, and that the likely hood that these will sell out is great). If 1-in-4 consoles download Zelda, or another VC game, that's $5 million that Nintendo just made. Sure, maybe it was a Sega game, but for simplicity, lets just say it all goes to Nintendo (because they're downloading Zelda, Mario, or whatever).
Now, that's a good amount of dough. But what's more impressive, is the fact that these games did not cost them significant amounts of money to produce! The code is already there. Emulation is far from a 'new' technology, it's fairly mature. I hardly doubt it takes a significant resources to 'flip' a game to the VC. Not that it takes none, but what, maybe $100,000 in labour? Maybe less? Eventually, I wouldn't doubt that the process of converting games becomes fairly automated.
After thinking about this, just from a Zelda perspective (and that there will be many downloads of this game, I wouldn't doubt reaching a 1 million mark fairly quickly), that the VC will probably be one of Nintendo's biggest cash cows with this new system. Sure, people and magazines can talk all day long about why system has the best 'launch titles', but the fact that the Wii has this emulation and plays GameCube, it works well (with the exception of the update fireware bug), and is easy to use, makes the Wii far more attractive it might be give credit for.
Though, with that said, I find $5 for a NES game to still be far to expensive. I'm willing to pay it for Zelda, but I cannot see paying that for anything else, except maybe Super Mario Word (SNES), which will probably cost around $8. I'd prefer to see $1 NES games, $3 SNES/Genesis, $5 N64. I think that would be more reasonable for these old games. They would get me to spend more money on VC games if they dropped the prices to that above, than they'll get from me with high prices. Other games I would spend money on would be, Dr Mario (NES), Baseball Stars (NES), Techmo Super Bowl (NES), and Golden Eye (N64). Maybe some RPG games, but not likely. If the prices where as inexpensive as above, I'd be buying racing games, Sonic games, nostalgic games like Conta, Blades of Steel, Double Dribble, Super Mario 2/3, Castlevania series, etc., etc.
We know with absolute certainty that the Bush administration *planned* to invade Iraq prior to the 2000 election.
I don't even have to try. You defeated yourself with your own intelligence. Bush's administration wanted to invade Iraq before there WAS a Bush administration. I skimmed through your 'proof' and I don't see any evidence for Bush to invade Iraq. In fact, it doesn't mention (George W.) Bush... because he wasn't even elected yet when this report came out! In fact, all this report appears to state is that the U.S. built up armed forces in the Middle East during/after the Gulf War, which is pretty obvious. It also has some foreign policy theories and military spending numbers for the Middle East as well as other areas of the world. (this isn't an Iraq specific piece)
I'd be happy to have you prove me wrong. Feel free to point out the page number and paragraph that claims Bush wanted to invade Iraq and was signed by George W. Bush (which would be 'absolute certainty') and also claims that Bush knew (by a staggering 100%) that the American people would not go along with it. Oh, wait.... you CANNOT because this document was published before he was president! I'm sorry, but your 'proof' has no support for your claims of 'fact'. Unless, you linked me the wrong article? Of course, with all due respect, I only skimmed it myself. You do have the opportunity to prove me wrong as I admit I'm not an expert on this topic.
America, represented by the Bush government, has invaded Iraq against the will of most of the world...
If by 'most' you mean half, then yes. Don't forget that most was pretty split 50/50. Those who didn't want an invasion did so due to their financial involvement with the country.
lied to the U.N. in order to justify the invasion (fake WMD proof)
I should have stopped after reading this and tossed your remarks in the 'brainwashed' basket. To lie, one has to have the intent to deceive. While I know no one will ever convince you of this clear fact, but the Bush administration did not have this intent. Their intelligence was wrong, and they believed it. They where fooled. So was 'most of the world' as you put it. Of course, it's not hard to understand how it could happen when the history of the country proved that they had weapons of mass destruction... the US gave it to them!
Note that this was different after 9/11, when the USA went after the Taliban regime in Afghanistan for supporting the terrorists. At that time, there was considerable support for the USA. But with the Iraq war, the USA have pissed it all away.
There was considerable support of the Iraq war, but there was also much more resistance. Great Britain, Italy, Spain, Japan, and lots of other countries where involved and many still are. Though, a lot of support has faded since that time. Of course, the biggest difference is that Afghanistan has no significant importance to other countries business dealings, so there was little reason for other countries to complain.
I voted for Gore, Kerry, and protested against the Iraq invasion. Yet, I still hate when people claim Iraq was some innocent bystandard to an over zealous American government. Everyone forgets the facts that the previous Iraq government was anything but innocent. Though, I'm not surprised, there's plenty of that thinking going around in America.
Slashdot Mirror
This deserves some 'funny' mod points for a 2 fold joke! And as a Detroit Lions fan (in Packer country)... it's true, the Lions have sucked for as long as I have been a fan... even in the 90's when they had Barry Sanders and made some good playoff runs, they sucked because they 1) still proved they can overestimate other teams and loose 'easy' games. 2) Have yet to reach or win a Super Bowl! (though, they have won 4 NFL championships... before there was a Super Bowl)
Summed up
WoW is popular in China, just like in the US, Europe, and S.Korea. In the WoW website released the Coke sponsered TV ad some time ago for people to see. It was a good ad, but I had no idea who the 'famous' people where. Cheers, Fozzy
That makes this statement completely different!
This has always been one of my pondering points of Star Trek. Where, in the development of the Earth, did they find the time to 'educate' students on the likes of Calculus and 'general education requirements' while also being able to teach them the intricacies of Quantum Mechanics, deflector dish re-alignment, and power coupling re-direction, all by the age of like 18 and flying around on a star ship!
Calculus was pretty difficult enough, let alone the difficulties of studying as a teen-age when the temptations of a holo-suit are sitting in your own 'dorm'. There's enough addiction in games like WoW, I cannot imagine what it would be like on the Enterprise. =D
Cheers,
Fozzy
I agree with you. It's always a 'fantasy' to have such 'real' combat. However, I distinguish the difference between a fantasy and a dream, by that we want dreams to come true. At least that's what I tell my girlfriend. =p I kid.. I kid..
As they said, games that are often 'on rails' to some extent (meaning, have direction) are often more enjoyable to gamers than just 'open ended' games. Sure, you can toss tables over to shoot fireballs, or run through legs, or whatever. But, it's an option. Instead, most people will just run to a corner to shoot and not bother. However, if the games cut-screen showed your character tossing tables for defense, it gives the gamer more excitement of action. I imagine it's also not particularly easy to design AI to fight multiple people in open-ended environments.
Cheers,
Fozzy
And there's still 10x more classical controllers to nunchucks. Pff
lol, actually, I've not tried that one yet, but I'm looking forward to doing it. I just have to finish Zelda on the Wii first. =) But I'm told it's pretty awesome!
Actually, it's my personal opinion that the same people who severly criticized the Wind Waker's art direction, to the point they refused to even look at it, are the same ones gushing over the PS3. There's just a core group of gamers who feel that 'good' is simply more powerful texture and bump mapping. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I'm just not one who agrees as 'photo-realistic' doesn't mean the game fits stylistically.
Wind Waker, for me, had some of the best graphics. The animation of things just made the whole interaction feel 'real' even if it looked more cartoon-ish than photo-realistic. With that said, while I'm playing through Twilight Princess, I actually feel myself saying "boy, I wish this was more like the Wind Waker". The way bosses exploded out of lava, to the level of detail of far away objects, was just amazing. Water and grass movements felt much better too. Of course, The Twilight Princess is still a pretty graphically solid game! But, I don't agree that it deserves it's super star status.
I've been finding a lot wrong with the Zelda series for a while. Mainly, repetitiveness. I felt that the last several titles failed to change anything about the story. It's usually just another Link from another generation, fighting the same evil (or something similar) as before. You first do the forest dungeon, then the mountain/fire dungeon, then the water dungeon, then the desert dungeon, then the winter dungeon, etc., etc., etc. Not always in that order. Then you throw in the 'ok, it's time to get the Master Sword' mini-quest, and 'buy the Hylien shield' before doing the fire stage.
Twilight Princess feels almost too cut and paste from previous versions of Zelda (and it certainly takes good elements from them all). Oddly, I still find myself immensely enjoying it, but, not as much as I was expecting. The wolf form certainly helps a lot, though. Yet, I'm still looking forward to a Zelda that's not like all the others. I don't care if Gannon is the final boss, but I do care about having to run back and forth, collecting the same objects and fighting in the similarly same dungeons, where the puzzles work in similar ways. (use the lanter to light candles, use the fire arrow to light candles, etc.)
Also, the controls are a bit awkward. They work, don't get me wrong, but they're not as responsive as I'd like. Sometimes I swish the remote 4 times to get him to swing once. Also, it seems the pointer on my screen is badly calibrated. It points about 3 inches higher than it's aiming at. (I'll have to check the Zelda options menu, which I've not done yet, but other games and the Wii menu do not have this problem).
Zelda is still fun and there are great new elements in this version. Wolf form and 'animal sense' is a great idea. The horse/boar chase and riding is nicely done and fun. The story is still great. But I would only give this title an 8 of 10 due to it still fitting to closely the the same formula as other Zelda games. I'm still looking for a new story arch and a 2-player mode with Link and Zelda teaming up to master dungeon puzzles or battle the bad guys.
Cheers,
Fozzy
lol, all I can think of is...
If you haven't seen this film, and you're a gamer, I recommend you see it (if you like screw ball comedies of the flavor of National Lampoons).
Cheers,
Fozzy
Guitar Hero I/II and God of War should be your other 2 reasons to buy a PS2. =)
Cheers,
Fozzy
From what I hear, it's in another room she never goes. Maybe some kind of 1970's main frame computer like room. =P
I've sort of noticed this. At Wal-Mart, I see a big PS3 display in front, a normal 360 displaly in their case, and the Wii was just a disaster. If I was Nintendo, I'd be a little unhappy with how their using shelf space. Heck, a new SuperCenter (less than 3 weeks open) only made shelf space for the controllers a few days ago. Yesterday, I looked at the games, and the Wii games where finally moved from being stuffed at the very bottom all packed together like my DVD shelf, to insertered between GameCube and DS games. Oddest thing as I'm looking at games, I'll see 4 Wii games, a row of DS games, then a row of GameCube games with a Wii game stuck inbetween, etc. Just a mess. Still, all the people I see are teenagers looking for the Nunchuck controller and a few gamers stopping to marvel at the shiney PS3 display and HDTV demo.
Cheers,
Fozzy
Add my co-worker to this list. She was talking about getting her kids a new system, during all the PS3 launch frenzy, and then I informed her of the differences and the choices. She was going to get a Wii, but could not find any and has no patience or care to stand in line and fight for one. She also found out her kids own an Xbox, so she's getting them a 360 instead, which I said would be a good choice if they already own the Xbox.
The worst thing Sony could have done is kill their holiday sales by not having enough units. Unfortunately, this happened and Sony's going to get stung by it. Once the holiday is over, that $600 price tag will be for those who really want one. Everyone else will be pinching pennies after feeling like they just spent a lot over the last couple months. Of course, there's always next year! =)
Cheers,
Fozzy
No joke. HTML in email is a lesson in frustration when trying to design an E-Newsletter or some such marketing thing. Though, once you get your feet dirty, you start to know what you can and cannot do easily.
However, I do appreciate HTML emails and they have good uses. It's cost-effective and a great way to deliver attractive marketing messages to customers. Of course, that's when I (or one of my companies customers) ask for that email. Spam sucks. But we don't want to screw over all the people who use it for good purposes. As it is, my Gmail account seems to be handling spam pretty well.
Cheers,
Fozzy
Nah, I think he knows that the games industry still requires people to buy their game, ads or no ads (if no one buys the game, no ad agency would spend money putting ads in their game). Putting ads in a game that "don't belong" would break the immersion of a game and would be an obviously poor design choice. Though, I wouldn't doubt seeing an Nvidia logo and game related slogan "frag more with Nvidia" on a loading screen, I'd also put my money on fantasy games being fairly immune to in-game ads. After all, companies like Blizzard can generate enough ad revenue through their website and licensed promotions.
I actually support the idea of in game ads. I see it as a win/win situation. Game companies can compensate some of their development costs, while be encouraged to put more polish on a game (to attract ad revenue), and gamers get more realism by being able to drink a "Pepsi" or eat a Pizza Hut Pizza instead of a "Kool Cola" or "Joe's Pizza" (though, I'm sure there's plenty of good Joe's Pizza joints out there! hehe)
Cheers,
Fozzy
I agree with you. However, one thing to note, these types of movies also have a different life cycle.
- Theaters
- 'Direct TV' rentals
- DVD sales/Rentals
- 'Exclusive first time network showing'
I'm sure there are other parts of this cycle they make money off a movie's production, but unlike a game, it's pretty much just the sale/rental of that game. There's not a whole lot they can milk from it. There's also merchandising, which is much more main-stream for movies than games. There's plenty of game merchandise (more now than ever) but it still pals in comparison to movies.Cheers,
Fozzy
This is a bit of a catch 22. It's been a big push since the Atari/NES days to keep improving graphics, which comes at developing more sophisticated machines, which increases development time, which increases the cost of games. Also, as games continue to morph into an interactive story/movie, more time will need to be spent in much the same way it takes time to create film or write a book.
Of course, I'm putting my money on the Wii for one of these reasons. Given that the actual technological specs aren't as advanced as say the 360 or PS3, I'm hopping that this attracts more developers as development will be easier due to not having to deviate far from the 'norm' and couple that with the new potential to interact with games with the Wii Remote and nunchuk.
As games continue to expand into story telling, compared to the days of Pac-Man and Space Invaders, the amount of time needed to invest will continue to increase, along with the budget. This will continue to force game investors to 'play it safe' and only invest in sequels or licensed content (Disney Movies, etc). And as a gamer, I'll continue to feel like gaming is chocking on it's own success and be turned off by most content and invest less into it. Perhaps, this is why MMO's are becoming successful and games like Half-Life are moving to episodic content. You're not playing one game, beating it, and then playing the exact same thing 2 years later with better graphics. Instead, you're playing the same game, never loosing the progress you started 2 years ago, and the game just continues to build from where it started.
Cheers,
Fozzy
Hmm... I bought the DMC 5th anni. edition (4 disc set). I played though #1, part of #2 and #3. I personally found God of War much more enjoyable as far as combat goes. It was a bit more repetitive, but it felt more fluid. Or maybe that's due to the crappy camera angles of DMC #1 that frustrated me to no end? =) I think someone's just being modest. hehe
Cheers,
Fozzy
Nintendo could easily do it if they charged the right price for their VC games. $5 for a NES game is too much. $1 would do it. I would imagine that iTunes has helped slow down pirated music to some extent by offering music singles for $1 and making it so easy to obtain (legally). I'm more than happy to grab a $1 song when I feel like it, than spend time and energy going through spoofs and ghosts until I find a good copy of a song.
Cheers,
Fozzy
Nah, they'll just complain that the expansion 'ruined' the original game by forcing people grind even more than they where doing before without adding any real content. They'll also say it's unbalanced as not everyone will be able to experience the new content unless your hardcore!
God, and I thought playing was like a 2nd job before! Now, I'll have to farm gold to actually pay for my game! hehe
So, can my character have some fast food hats and aprons for when I'm working to pay my virtual tax?
Cheers,
Fozzy
There's one thing I can think of when it comes to the virtual console (this was sometime around when I dumped $20 on my account to purchase The Legend of Zelda), that allowing these games for download have to be one of the closest things to having the proverbial 'money tree'.
Take Zelda alone. It's 500 points or $5.00. If there will be 4 million Wii's sold by 2007 (the estimate that Nintendo will have shipped 4 million units to North America, and that the likely hood that these will sell out is great). If 1-in-4 consoles download Zelda, or another VC game, that's $5 million that Nintendo just made. Sure, maybe it was a Sega game, but for simplicity, lets just say it all goes to Nintendo (because they're downloading Zelda, Mario, or whatever).
Now, that's a good amount of dough. But what's more impressive, is the fact that these games did not cost them significant amounts of money to produce! The code is already there. Emulation is far from a 'new' technology, it's fairly mature. I hardly doubt it takes a significant resources to 'flip' a game to the VC. Not that it takes none, but what, maybe $100,000 in labour? Maybe less? Eventually, I wouldn't doubt that the process of converting games becomes fairly automated.
After thinking about this, just from a Zelda perspective (and that there will be many downloads of this game, I wouldn't doubt reaching a 1 million mark fairly quickly), that the VC will probably be one of Nintendo's biggest cash cows with this new system. Sure, people and magazines can talk all day long about why system has the best 'launch titles', but the fact that the Wii has this emulation and plays GameCube, it works well (with the exception of the update fireware bug), and is easy to use, makes the Wii far more attractive it might be give credit for.
Though, with that said, I find $5 for a NES game to still be far to expensive. I'm willing to pay it for Zelda, but I cannot see paying that for anything else, except maybe Super Mario Word (SNES), which will probably cost around $8. I'd prefer to see $1 NES games, $3 SNES/Genesis, $5 N64. I think that would be more reasonable for these old games. They would get me to spend more money on VC games if they dropped the prices to that above, than they'll get from me with high prices. Other games I would spend money on would be, Dr Mario (NES), Baseball Stars (NES), Techmo Super Bowl (NES), and Golden Eye (N64). Maybe some RPG games, but not likely. If the prices where as inexpensive as above, I'd be buying racing games, Sonic games, nostalgic games like Conta, Blades of Steel, Double Dribble, Super Mario 2/3, Castlevania series, etc., etc.
Cheers,
Fozzy
I don't even have to try. You defeated yourself with your own intelligence. Bush's administration wanted to invade Iraq before there WAS a Bush administration. I skimmed through your 'proof' and I don't see any evidence for Bush to invade Iraq. In fact, it doesn't mention (George W.) Bush... because he wasn't even elected yet when this report came out! In fact, all this report appears to state is that the U.S. built up armed forces in the Middle East during/after the Gulf War, which is pretty obvious. It also has some foreign policy theories and military spending numbers for the Middle East as well as other areas of the world. (this isn't an Iraq specific piece)
I'd be happy to have you prove me wrong. Feel free to point out the page number and paragraph that claims Bush wanted to invade Iraq and was signed by George W. Bush (which would be 'absolute certainty') and also claims that Bush knew (by a staggering 100%) that the American people would not go along with it. Oh, wait.... you CANNOT because this document was published before he was president! I'm sorry, but your 'proof' has no support for your claims of 'fact'. Unless, you linked me the wrong article? Of course, with all due respect, I only skimmed it myself. You do have the opportunity to prove me wrong as I admit I'm not an expert on this topic.
Of course, the next thing you're going to tell me is that the WTC was hit by a cruise missile and blow up the by government just so we could invade Iraq.
Cheers,
Fozzy
If by 'most' you mean half, then yes. Don't forget that most was pretty split 50/50. Those who didn't want an invasion did so due to their financial involvement with the country.
I should have stopped after reading this and tossed your remarks in the 'brainwashed' basket. To lie, one has to have the intent to deceive. While I know no one will ever convince you of this clear fact, but the Bush administration did not have this intent. Their intelligence was wrong, and they believed it. They where fooled. So was 'most of the world' as you put it. Of course, it's not hard to understand how it could happen when the history of the country proved that they had weapons of mass destruction... the US gave it to them!
There was considerable support of the Iraq war, but there was also much more resistance. Great Britain, Italy, Spain, Japan, and lots of other countries where involved and many still are. Though, a lot of support has faded since that time. Of course, the biggest difference is that Afghanistan has no significant importance to other countries business dealings, so there was little reason for other countries to complain.
I voted for Gore, Kerry, and protested against the Iraq invasion. Yet, I still hate when people claim Iraq was some innocent bystandard to an over zealous American government. Everyone forgets the facts that the previous Iraq government was anything but innocent. Though, I'm not surprised, there's plenty of that thinking going around in America.
Cheers,
Fozzy