I know thats how it is for me. I used to game on both consoles and PC. But I've never been much of a FPS fan, and really aside from FPS, strategy and MMO games the experience is typically better on the console. Trying to play something like a Fighting game on a PC is just... lame. Even so I was always more of a PC gamer then a console gamer before college.
Once I got to college all I had room for was a laptop, as there wasn't nearly enough room for a tower and bulky CRT, etc. and the only laptop I could afford was an IBM T20 discounted through my school, it was a HORRIBLE gaming platform. I eventually got a Dreamcast and I've been straight console since. Really it's amazing how much graphically power they can squeeze out of the Xbox's P3, and even out of the more "inferior" hardware on the PS2. Heck I'm not about to spend a few grand upgrading my woefully out of date PC just so I can sit alone at my desk playing games when my $300 Xbox 360 can give me a very similar experience in my much more comfortable living room. Sure PCs will always have the edge on being able to eek out the best graphics with the latest hardware, and offer oodles of usermods and reconfigurability, but for me those are but a small pittance for the ease of use, comfort and lower cost of using a console.
Agreed... with boot camp out now I'm considering getting a Mac as my next machine.
I also dis-agree that this would make the mac game library smaller. Sure for a while you'll have Mac users booting into Windows for games and windows users running their OS on Mac hardware. But the reason we don't see games on Mac is because the OS's user base is so much smaller then windows. The only thing it would take to get more games onto OSX is more users... and stuff like this can only help to increase the user base. If the market has a choice of OSs and they lean towards OSX software when they have a choice of getting it for either. Games will follow because they just go to the lowest common denominator. Heck just look at the console market, PS2 gets EVERYTHING simply because it has the biggest userbase, it's certainly not the best in any other category.
the RIAA continues to prove their irrelevancy in the modern world. They need to just die already...
So very true, I propose we make a new group the "DMAA"; Digital Music Artists Association. Bylaws include that fact that the original artist are REQUIRED to own their own copywrites, if they have a problem with something someone is doing they can use the DMAA's force, but the DMAA is not allowed to act on anything without the artists consent.
Also any member of the DMAA can not also be a member of the RIAA
You want a group to help protect you and not rob you AND your customers blind... The RIAA wouldn't have a leg to stand on if the Musicians went and formed a new group altogether. Unfortunately I fear it would eventually fall into the same problems the RIAA has.
Let me make this clear: I COMPLETELY AGREE THAT THE GOVERNMENT HAS NO BUSINESS CONTROLLING THE SALE OF VIDEO GAMES OR ENFORCING ESRB RATINGS.
I've held this opinion since my FIRST POST, go back and read it.
The reason the Theater ratings are enforced is because back when they first started using them the MPAA would pull it's movies from any theater who refused to enforce it.
THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I'M PROPOSING FOR THE VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY.
I never said the Government should have any part in it. My position is that the VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY do something to make sure it's retailers enforce their rating standard, much like the Motion Picture Association does.
I supposed you'd also be ok if the Movie Theater let your kid into the R or NC17 film after you thought you were dropping them off there for a PG, or if the convinenece store at the mall sold them cigarettes while they were there with friends?
I'm not saying society needs to look after your kids, but there are certain rules that stores, theaters, whathave you need to follow to help enforce whatever parental decisions are being made.
I agree that no matter what the government has no business in trying to control the sale of games. Perhaps I should have rephrased it
"If the Video Game industry would actually do something about vendors who sold to minor there the Government would have no excuse to step in."
I completely agree that parents should keep a close eye on their children, but stuff like the ESRB ratings are there as a tool for parents to help them make more informed decisions by quickly and easily determining the type of content the game includes, and making the decisions there's. If vendors don't enforce the ESRB ratings then the system isn't working and it becomes a useless tool for parents.
If the ESRB isn't enforced it becomes the Gaming Industry's problem, not the governments, and it should be FIXED by the gaming industry. If the ESRB ratings arn't enforced then it undermines whatever parental decisions are being made because it gives the child the option of buying the game without the parent's consent.
If the Video Game industry would actually do something about vendors who sold to minor there would be no reason for the Government to step in.
"You sold an M rated game to our secret shopper/minor. Guess what we're pulling all our M and T rated games from your shelves. No GTA and Halo for you, good luck selling the latest My little ponies game while the store across the street sells twice as much on AAA title release days."
I guarantee you'd see it getting enforced right quick.
Because moving all sites of that type to a specific domain would validate it as an internet entity. Most of these places hate it so much they'd rather not even recognize that it exists, let alone say it's as important as a...
commerce site network site organization site government site educational site or bizness site
that would be giving the porn industry TOO MUCH CREDIT.
Don't be surprised if Goldeneye and Killer instinct show up as downloads in the Xbox Live Marketplace. I wouldn't compare Nintendo's BC service to Sony's BC feature. While sony claims to be able to deliver their classic titles through their network. CD sized PS1 games and DVD sized PS2 games would take a while to actually deliver, and waste otherwise valuable storage space. MS doesn't have much of a back catalog in comparison but they do seem to be gaining a lot of 3rd party support for the Live Arcade (particularly new indy devs). Acquired companies like Rare offer a lot in terms of what they could potentially provide in that department. I think Nintendo's biggest competition in that arena isn't Sony but the XBL Arcade.
As for price point, if Nintendo keeps in tune with their past console pricing it will launch at $199USD.AFAIK every console they've ever had has launched at $199 in the US....and that's definitely cheap enough for me to consider picking one up...
I'm currently running XP MCE on my desktop and it's currently displaying an uptime of 32 days, and I know that the last time I shut it down was because I was installing a new capture card. It's not uncommon for me to go a whole month without shutting down.
I've been very pleased with more recent releases of XP (SP2 and MCE 2005). My Win98 machine was NEVER this stable. I keep my software down to a bare minimum, the only apps on the machine are the ones I actually need an use. Keep your Antivirus, mal/spyware, and windows updates on an automatic update and sweep schedule. Don't open any emails from people you don't know and don't browse around websites that could potentially mess up your stuff.
It's pretty simple, the key in all of this is keeping the GF off my desktop less she'll go clicking links from her friend's live journals and downloading every flash game in sight. I keep a T20 Thinkpad around with WinXP SP2 I've got a hard drive image taken directly after a clean install every 6 months I format it and re-image it... she can use that.
If you pick up the slightly more expensive "Atari Flashback 2" console you can actually modify it to accept the old cartridges. It looks like a pretty easy job even for someone with no soldering experience.
Since when has the FF series ever been about gameplay?
Isn't it's major selling point the whole story line and cinematic visuals. Having played a few of the more recent ones I think this feature would be really beneficial when you get about 3/4 of the way through and spend hours tediously looking for fights to level up before the final battle.
If I have my roms on my Media Center PC in my Office, and an Xbox 360 in my living room, Why would I want to buy another PC to play the NES games in my living room when I can just stream them over with the addition of a small and simple MCE app?
Chances are if you're looking forward to a NES emulator on your 360 then you already have some roms and another machine somewhere where you can play them. there's no point in duplicating your rom set if you can use a single emulator and play it in two places.
meh... I do some outdoorsy stuff like the occasional camping trip, or visits to the beach. I have non gaming interests like working on my car, and participating in auto-cross, I also lift weights, I used to ski quite often too. I'm not particularly fond of flying or hiking or stuff that involves dogs and cold weather...
...anyway, my point is I don't look back at any of my non-gaming activities in any better or worse light then my gaming activities. I do those things because I ENJOY DOING THOSE THINGS. I feel just as good about winning that auto-cross race as I did about finishing COD2 on the veteran difficulty level. That is to say they're just things I do for fun. Really in the grand scheme of things none of it matters.
The only argument you might have is based on accomplishments, but as far as I'm concerned climbing going on a hiking trip and winning a video game have about the same weight when you look back over "your accomplishments" that is to say neither are worth much of anything.
IMO you haven't accomplished something valuable unless you effected someone other then yourself in some way that wouldn't have happened had you not done what you did. For example: If you invent a new widget and 100s of lives are effected, you accomplished something valuable. Flying a plane with no one other then you trainer pilot.. you haven't accomplished anything valuable.
I guess my point is encouraging people to put down the controller and enjoy the outdoors might work for your enjoyment of life but it's not for everyone. Do what you enjoy, but if you want to grow old and have some REAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS to look back on: do something that makes a difference, be it in front of a screen or in the outdoors doesn't matter... anything else is just masturbation.
Exactly... going by your parent's comment Apple has been accumulating a user base for the past few decades with their macs. While I think TFA is BS I'd hardly consider Xbox 1 owners a user base for a service they CANT USE.
The console knows what region it belongs to, it has to know this so it knows what type of video signal to output and what language options should be available to the user (and other things like how the date/time should be formatted etc.).
Region free doesn't mean the console doesn't know what region it belongs in, it simply means it can play content from any region
I don't know what "MS BS" I've been swallowing but AFAIK MS never claimed their consoles were region free... BUT the console are not actually region locked. Don't believe me? Here's a list You can see some games can play on any console, other's can't, its completely up to the developer/publisher but there are no securities built into the console nor MS regulations that would prevent them from making region free games.
You'll note that the site I linked to does not feature a Playstation 2 region compatibility chart... WHY? because the PS2 console itself IS region locked. In that if it detects a region mis-match between itself and the game disc it wont allow it to play REGARDLESS of how the game is programed.
That's the difference between a region locked console and a not-region locked console.
Just because Sony decides to start doing something that others in the industry have been doing for year doesn't make it new.
While I agree that for the most part sequel hysteria is a bit blown out of proportion, there are still new and fresh franchises that pop up and only get one offs. Some are worse offenders then others.
The only ones I would actually excuse from that are sports games like madden. The sport rarely changes in real live save for the rosters and stats, which is really the reason they DO release a new one every year. Sports games that don't require roster updates annually (like NFL Blitz) release new titles far less frequently... The REAL atrocity there is that EA charges a full $60USD every year. I like 2K's price scheme of $30. That's fair for a roster update, minor graphics tweaks, and some new novelty features and modes.
The only games I would complain about having an over abundance of sequels are stuff like the Tony Hawk series, DDR, or Need For Speed. more then 1 or 2 releases per 5 year "generation" for games that don't need annual roster updates and it breaks the point of being a tasteful sequel into cashing in on a franchise by repackaging the same game.
Sequels aren't all bad though. Some games don't need or shouldn't have sequels but others could have an indefinite amount and be fine. There are lots of games that never got sequels that I wish would: Killer Instinct, Rez, Space Channel 5, Deathrow, etc. I can honestly say that whenever I finish a really good game the first thing I think is "Man I can't WAIT for the sequel". If the game's got a story then it depends on what the developers have to say with that story. If the game is NOT based on a story then the franchise become the gameplay mechanic and the name is nothing more then a label on the style of the game (racing games like GT, PGR, and Burnout, or other genres like GTA or Final Fantasy where the story is different but the machanic stays the same).
If anything it's the re-hash of OLD games that are worse then new games. Like the remake of Spy Hunter, or Final Fight. These games could have done ok, if not BETTER if they used fresh and new themes instead of cashing in on classic trademarks to sell them.
Both the Xbox 1 and the Xbox 360 are "region free consoles" it's the games that are region locked, not the console. So even if sony makes the PS3 region free, there will still probably be region locked games, and the modchip argument will still hold for region based reasons.
The whole region locking thing is just dumb IMO, but who am I?
Some games need stories, others do not... some music needs to speak to you, other music just needs a catchy beat. ITS CALLED VARIETY. My point was that on a whole those games with stories today typically have better stories then those games with stories way back when.
Some of my favorite games today are games like Burnout, and Call of Duty 2. Neither of those have stories and they're both fantastic games. Burnout flat out doesn't have any rime or reason for the things you do, you're in a car and you crash into stuff, thats it. COD2, while based on WWII doesn't really have a story, you're in some town and you need to kill all the enemy troops in the buildings in front of you, again THATS IT.
And while Tetris Worlds might have a story, most puzzle games today don't. Hexic, Bejeweled, Zuma, etc.. none of them have stories, or need them.
Other Games need a good story backbone. Games like Final Fantasy, or Condemned would be total garbage if it wasn't for their fantastic story. They don't offer any compelling gameplay but they encourage you to explore and experience their worlds, and they challenge your mind to figure out what's going to happen next and discover and peace together all the parts of the story.
Saying that all games should be one way and that's the only way is just ridiculous.
They do still include stuff like that, though you often have to either pre-order or buy the Limited Edition for it.. it's still there
Most recently I've got:
-A 1 of 20something Collectors "Koin" from Mortal Kombat Deception, Also came with a bonus disc with a making of and an arcade perfect version of the original Mortal Kombat (Xbox)
-A 1 of 9 Collectors card from Perfect Dark Zero, Also came with a bonus disc with a making of, dashboard themes and "gamer pictures" that I can use on my console (Xbox 360)
-A Kasumi figurine and trading cards from Dead or Alive Ultimate (Xbox)
-A 2006 Dead or Alive Calendar (Xbox 360)
-A Full Auto themed Faceplate for my console (Xbox 360)
-A Collectors coin, map and book with Oblivion, also came with a bonus disc, again with more extra stuff. (Xbox 360)
Obviously I have a preference towards MS's consoles but I know of other recently (with in the last year) released games on other platforms that come with other things like medallions, t-shirts, etc. Maybe you're just buying the wrong games, or at least the wrong versions.
A lot of times the LE version will come with a nicer case and a bonus disc with some behind the scenes, developer interview, pre-release type stuff, or other things like dashboard themes and pictures, classic versions of the game, or extra weapons, cars, maps etc. you can use. To me those those things are FAR more valuable then some trinket coin, card, or figurine, or some ugly t-shirt that built for either the fattest of Americans or the skinniest of the Japanese.
Slashdot Mirror
At least in the military you get a gun to shoot back. Something tells me Micky-Ds in the ghetto doesn't issue rifles.
I know thats how it is for me. I used to game on both consoles and PC. But I've never been much of a FPS fan, and really aside from FPS, strategy and MMO games the experience is typically better on the console. Trying to play something like a Fighting game on a PC is just... lame. Even so I was always more of a PC gamer then a console gamer before college.
Once I got to college all I had room for was a laptop, as there wasn't nearly enough room for a tower and bulky CRT, etc. and the only laptop I could afford was an IBM T20 discounted through my school, it was a HORRIBLE gaming platform. I eventually got a Dreamcast and I've been straight console since. Really it's amazing how much graphically power they can squeeze out of the Xbox's P3, and even out of the more "inferior" hardware on the PS2. Heck I'm not about to spend a few grand upgrading my woefully out of date PC just so I can sit alone at my desk playing games when my $300 Xbox 360 can give me a very similar experience in my much more comfortable living room. Sure PCs will always have the edge on being able to eek out the best graphics with the latest hardware, and offer oodles of usermods and reconfigurability, but for me those are but a small pittance for the ease of use, comfort and lower cost of using a console.
Agreed... with boot camp out now I'm considering getting a Mac as my next machine.
I also dis-agree that this would make the mac game library smaller. Sure for a while you'll have Mac users booting into Windows for games and windows users running their OS on Mac hardware. But the reason we don't see games on Mac is because the OS's user base is so much smaller then windows. The only thing it would take to get more games onto OSX is more users... and stuff like this can only help to increase the user base. If the market has a choice of OSs and they lean towards OSX software when they have a choice of getting it for either. Games will follow because they just go to the lowest common denominator. Heck just look at the console market, PS2 gets EVERYTHING simply because it has the biggest userbase, it's certainly not the best in any other category.
You mean something like this?
So very true, I propose we make a new group the "DMAA"; Digital Music Artists Association. Bylaws include that fact that the original artist are REQUIRED to own their own copywrites, if they have a problem with something someone is doing they can use the DMAA's force, but the DMAA is not allowed to act on anything without the artists consent.
Also any member of the DMAA can not also be a member of the RIAA
You want a group to help protect you and not rob you AND your customers blind... The RIAA wouldn't have a leg to stand on if the Musicians went and formed a new group altogether. Unfortunately I fear it would eventually fall into the same problems the RIAA has.
You still don't get what I'm saying do you?
Let me make this clear:
I COMPLETELY AGREE THAT THE GOVERNMENT HAS NO BUSINESS CONTROLLING THE SALE OF VIDEO GAMES OR ENFORCING ESRB RATINGS.
I've held this opinion since my FIRST POST, go back and read it.
The reason the Theater ratings are enforced is because back when they first started using them the MPAA would pull it's movies from any theater who refused to enforce it.
THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I'M PROPOSING FOR THE VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY.
I never said the Government should have any part in it. My position is that the VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY do something to make sure it's retailers enforce their rating standard, much like the Motion Picture Association does.
I supposed you'd also be ok if the Movie Theater let your kid into the R or NC17 film after you thought you were dropping them off there for a PG, or if the convinenece store at the mall sold them cigarettes while they were there with friends?
I'm not saying society needs to look after your kids, but there are certain rules that stores, theaters, whathave you need to follow to help enforce whatever parental decisions are being made.
I agree that no matter what the government has no business in trying to control the sale of games. Perhaps I should have rephrased it
"If the Video Game industry would actually do something about vendors who sold to minor there the Government would have no excuse to step in."
I completely agree that parents should keep a close eye on their children, but stuff like the ESRB ratings are there as a tool for parents to help them make more informed decisions by quickly and easily determining the type of content the game includes, and making the decisions there's. If vendors don't enforce the ESRB ratings then the system isn't working and it becomes a useless tool for parents.
If the ESRB isn't enforced it becomes the Gaming Industry's problem, not the governments, and it should be FIXED by the gaming industry. If the ESRB ratings arn't enforced then it undermines whatever parental decisions are being made because it gives the child the option of buying the game without the parent's consent.
If the Video Game industry would actually do something about vendors who sold to minor there would be no reason for the Government to step in.
"You sold an M rated game to our secret shopper/minor. Guess what we're pulling all our M and T rated games from your shelves. No GTA and Halo for you, good luck selling the latest My little ponies game while the store across the street sells twice as much on AAA title release days."
I guarantee you'd see it getting enforced right quick.
...I stopped buying Ubisoft titles because of it.
Now isn't that something... quick someone do a study on losses due to DRM vs losses due to piracy.
Because moving all sites of that type to a specific domain would validate it as an internet entity. Most of these places hate it so much they'd rather not even recognize that it exists, let alone say it's as important as a...
commerce site
network site
organization site
government site
educational site
or
bizness site
that would be giving the porn industry TOO MUCH CREDIT.
Don't be surprised if Goldeneye and Killer instinct show up as downloads in the Xbox Live Marketplace. I wouldn't compare Nintendo's BC service to Sony's BC feature. While sony claims to be able to deliver their classic titles through their network. CD sized PS1 games and DVD sized PS2 games would take a while to actually deliver, and waste otherwise valuable storage space. MS doesn't have much of a back catalog in comparison but they do seem to be gaining a lot of 3rd party support for the Live Arcade (particularly new indy devs). Acquired companies like Rare offer a lot in terms of what they could potentially provide in that department. I think Nintendo's biggest competition in that arena isn't Sony but the XBL Arcade.
...and that's definitely cheap enough for me to consider picking one up...
As for price point, if Nintendo keeps in tune with their past console pricing it will launch at $199USD.AFAIK every console they've ever had has launched at $199 in the US.
I agree completely...
I'm currently running XP MCE on my desktop and it's currently displaying an uptime of 32 days, and I know that the last time I shut it down was because I was installing a new capture card. It's not uncommon for me to go a whole month without shutting down.
I've been very pleased with more recent releases of XP (SP2 and MCE 2005). My Win98 machine was NEVER this stable. I keep my software down to a bare minimum, the only apps on the machine are the ones I actually need an use. Keep your Antivirus, mal/spyware, and windows updates on an automatic update and sweep schedule. Don't open any emails from people you don't know and don't browse around websites that could potentially mess up your stuff.
It's pretty simple, the key in all of this is keeping the GF off my desktop less she'll go clicking links from her friend's live journals and downloading every flash game in sight. I keep a T20 Thinkpad around with WinXP SP2 I've got a hard drive image taken directly after a clean install every 6 months I format it and re-image it... she can use that.
If you pick up the slightly more expensive "Atari Flashback 2" console you can actually modify it to accept the old cartridges. It looks like a pretty easy job even for someone with no soldering experience.
Since when has the FF series ever been about gameplay?
Isn't it's major selling point the whole story line and cinematic visuals. Having played a few of the more recent ones I think this feature would be really beneficial when you get about 3/4 of the way through and spend hours tediously looking for fights to level up before the final battle.
Lets put it this way:
If I have my roms on my Media Center PC in my Office, and an Xbox 360 in my living room, Why would I want to buy another PC to play the NES games in my living room when I can just stream them over with the addition of a small and simple MCE app?
Chances are if you're looking forward to a NES emulator on your 360 then you already have some roms and another machine somewhere where you can play them. there's no point in duplicating your rom set if you can use a single emulator and play it in two places.
How about replacing the wheels of your skateboard with a few of these things. It would be 1985 all over again!
I would but I can't shop photos or model solids in DOS...
meh... I do some outdoorsy stuff like the occasional camping trip, or visits to the beach. I have non gaming interests like working on my car, and participating in auto-cross, I also lift weights, I used to ski quite often too. I'm not particularly fond of flying or hiking or stuff that involves dogs and cold weather...
...anyway, my point is I don't look back at any of my non-gaming activities in any better or worse light then my gaming activities. I do those things because I ENJOY DOING THOSE THINGS. I feel just as good about winning that auto-cross race as I did about finishing COD2 on the veteran difficulty level. That is to say they're just things I do for fun. Really in the grand scheme of things none of it matters.
The only argument you might have is based on accomplishments, but as far as I'm concerned climbing going on a hiking trip and winning a video game have about the same weight when you look back over "your accomplishments" that is to say neither are worth much of anything.
IMO you haven't accomplished something valuable unless you effected someone other then yourself in some way that wouldn't have happened had you not done what you did. For example: If you invent a new widget and 100s of lives are effected, you accomplished something valuable. Flying a plane with no one other then you trainer pilot.. you haven't accomplished anything valuable.
I guess my point is encouraging people to put down the controller and enjoy the outdoors might work for your enjoyment of life but it's not for everyone. Do what you enjoy, but if you want to grow old and have some REAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS to look back on: do something that makes a difference, be it in front of a screen or in the outdoors doesn't matter... anything else is just masturbation.
Exactly... going by your parent's comment Apple has been accumulating a user base for the past few decades with their macs. While I think TFA is BS I'd hardly consider Xbox 1 owners a user base for a service they CANT USE.
The console knows what region it belongs to, it has to know this so it knows what type of video signal to output and what language options should be available to the user (and other things like how the date/time should be formatted etc.).
Region free doesn't mean the console doesn't know what region it belongs in, it simply means it can play content from any region
I don't know what "MS BS" I've been swallowing but AFAIK MS never claimed their consoles were region free... BUT the console are not actually region locked. Don't believe me? Here's a list You can see some games can play on any console, other's can't, its completely up to the developer/publisher but there are no securities built into the console nor MS regulations that would prevent them from making region free games.
You'll note that the site I linked to does not feature a Playstation 2 region compatibility chart... WHY? because the PS2 console itself IS region locked. In that if it detects a region mis-match between itself and the game disc it wont allow it to play REGARDLESS of how the game is programed.
That's the difference between a region locked console and a not-region locked console.
Just because Sony decides to start doing something that others in the industry have been doing for year doesn't make it new.
While I agree that for the most part sequel hysteria is a bit blown out of proportion, there are still new and fresh franchises that pop up and only get one offs. Some are worse offenders then others.
The only ones I would actually excuse from that are sports games like madden. The sport rarely changes in real live save for the rosters and stats, which is really the reason they DO release a new one every year. Sports games that don't require roster updates annually (like NFL Blitz) release new titles far less frequently... The REAL atrocity there is that EA charges a full $60USD every year. I like 2K's price scheme of $30. That's fair for a roster update, minor graphics tweaks, and some new novelty features and modes.
The only games I would complain about having an over abundance of sequels are stuff like the Tony Hawk series, DDR, or Need For Speed. more then 1 or 2 releases per 5 year "generation" for games that don't need annual roster updates and it breaks the point of being a tasteful sequel into cashing in on a franchise by repackaging the same game.
Sequels aren't all bad though. Some games don't need or shouldn't have sequels but others could have an indefinite amount and be fine. There are lots of games that never got sequels that I wish would: Killer Instinct, Rez, Space Channel 5, Deathrow, etc. I can honestly say that whenever I finish a really good game the first thing I think is "Man I can't WAIT for the sequel". If the game's got a story then it depends on what the developers have to say with that story. If the game is NOT based on a story then the franchise become the gameplay mechanic and the name is nothing more then a label on the style of the game (racing games like GT, PGR, and Burnout, or other genres like GTA or Final Fantasy where the story is different but the machanic stays the same).
If anything it's the re-hash of OLD games that are worse then new games. Like the remake of Spy Hunter, or Final Fight. These games could have done ok, if not BETTER if they used fresh and new themes instead of cashing in on classic trademarks to sell them.
Both the Xbox 1 and the Xbox 360 are "region free consoles" it's the games that are region locked, not the console. So even if sony makes the PS3 region free, there will still probably be region locked games, and the modchip argument will still hold for region based reasons.
The whole region locking thing is just dumb IMO, but who am I?
Some games need stories, others do not... some music needs to speak to you, other music just needs a catchy beat. ITS CALLED VARIETY. My point was that on a whole those games with stories today typically have better stories then those games with stories way back when.
Some of my favorite games today are games like Burnout, and Call of Duty 2. Neither of those have stories and they're both fantastic games. Burnout flat out doesn't have any rime or reason for the things you do, you're in a car and you crash into stuff, thats it. COD2, while based on WWII doesn't really have a story, you're in some town and you need to kill all the enemy troops in the buildings in front of you, again THATS IT.
And while Tetris Worlds might have a story, most puzzle games today don't. Hexic, Bejeweled, Zuma, etc.. none of them have stories, or need them.
Other Games need a good story backbone. Games like Final Fantasy, or Condemned would be total garbage if it wasn't for their fantastic story. They don't offer any compelling gameplay but they encourage you to explore and experience their worlds, and they challenge your mind to figure out what's going to happen next and discover and peace together all the parts of the story.
Saying that all games should be one way and that's the only way is just ridiculous.
They do still include stuff like that, though you often have to either pre-order or buy the Limited Edition for it.. it's still there
Most recently I've got:
-A 1 of 20something Collectors "Koin" from Mortal Kombat Deception, Also came with a bonus disc with a making of and an arcade perfect version of the original Mortal Kombat (Xbox)
-A 1 of 9 Collectors card from Perfect Dark Zero, Also came with a bonus disc with a making of, dashboard themes and "gamer pictures" that I can use on my console (Xbox 360)
-A Kasumi figurine and trading cards from Dead or Alive Ultimate (Xbox)
-A 2006 Dead or Alive Calendar (Xbox 360)
-A Full Auto themed Faceplate for my console (Xbox 360)
-A Collectors coin, map and book with Oblivion, also came with a bonus disc, again with more extra stuff. (Xbox 360)
Obviously I have a preference towards MS's consoles but I know of other recently (with in the last year) released games on other platforms that come with other things like medallions, t-shirts, etc.
Maybe you're just buying the wrong games, or at least the wrong versions.
A lot of times the LE version will come with a nicer case and a bonus disc with some behind the scenes, developer interview, pre-release type stuff, or other things like dashboard themes and pictures, classic versions of the game, or extra weapons, cars, maps etc. you can use. To me those those things are FAR more valuable then some trinket coin, card, or figurine, or some ugly t-shirt that built for either the fattest of Americans or the skinniest of the Japanese.