General gaming news

[thestalkmore]

I'd like to chime in on Mysterio's defense with the bit about casual games, though I think "insult" is the wrong word. It's the reason I was so into my N64 when I was young; the availability of games that didn't require any sort of dexterous finesse was so abundant and infantile themes were so omnipresent, that I was a kid perpetually waking up on Christmas morning. As I aged, and began to consider myself more of a "serious gamer" and looked to the PC realm to satisfy my desire for games that were grounded in more serious thematic elements, and/or called for more technical "skill."

I own a Wii today, but my enjoyment of it is very shallow. The only game I enjoy playing is Strikers, and it is a fantastic game for what it is, but it took me all of a few days playing it to be able to beat almost anyone I played online. A superlative proficiency in even the most demanding of these "kind" of games is achieved through the memorization of button presses and menial techniques. For games like the oh so lauded and lusted Mario Galaxy (and to a large extent Zelda, Metroid, etc), there just isn't a plateau of expertise that is relevant. Things labeled as "challenging" are tedious. This is just for the games which I think could possibly be deemed worthy of purchasing. I bought Cooking Mama and Warioware with the sort of presupposed notion that I had a Wii and so I had to have some of those "Wii-esque" games (and the assurance that they'd be worth it). I've never been (ohshi) "insulted" in my life by a gaming purchase. The haha factor died away after less than a day, and I was left with a DVD of nothing but appeals to some imaginary childish facet of my personality. Seriously, you can rant and rave about how a good game appeals to a broad audience, but when an eight year old can glean the same ammount of enjoyment and master a game to the same extent that I can, I'll pass, not out of any sort of egoism, but because the game is obviously and simply just too fucking childish.

There's just something to be said for PC FPS's (specifically competitively based ones like RTCW: ET, CS, UT). It's the electronic adaptation or manifestation of sports that require actual skill in real life. CS is to basketball or archery as Mario Galaxy/Kart is to hop scotch. Shit, much more I had to say, but time for class. Maybe I'll continue after I get back.

[aurik]

Conclusion: Halo and the 360 wouldn't be the the success it is now without the year head start that they had.

Rebuttal: Halo as a franchise is done without Bungie, so lets cast that off into a nice little island in the tropics for a bit. To the 360: How do you define a success when you gain a 1.2billion loss?

Success = marketshare, duh.

Releasing a year early was crucial to X360's success, which is why it is disingenuous to time-shift when you compare with the PS3.

[Mysterio]

Shovelware definition is hilarious,

and to Falconblade,

It's very discerning to play Halo online unless you're good at it, or have a friend awaiting to play co-op online.

Halo has it's matchmaking system which helps considerably, but doesn't totally alleviate the problem. And it's a problem faced with almost all FPS online games.

[Falconblade]

Conclusion: Halo and the 360 wouldn't be the the success it is now without the year head start that they had.

Rebuttal: Halo as a franchise is done without Bungie, so lets cast that off into a nice little island in the tropics for a bit. To the 360: How do you define a success when you gain a 1.2billion loss?

Success = marketshare, duh.

Releasing a year early was crucial to X360's success, which is why it is disingenuous to time-shift when you compare with the PS3.

However, you also need to consider your audience. If you audience is afraid to purchase your machine in fear of shoddy workmanship, then your marketshare means shit.

Especially now that Bad Hype can be spread anywhere and everywhere at the blink of an eye.

[Xavier]

Conclusion: Halo and the 360 wouldn't be the the success it is now without the year head start that they had.

Rebuttal: Halo as a franchise is done without Bungie, so lets cast that off into a nice little island in the tropics for a bit. To the 360: How do you define a success when you gain a 1.2billion loss?

Success = marketshare, duh.

Releasing a year early was crucial to X360's success, which is why it is disingenuous to time-shift when you compare with the PS3.

However, you also need to consider your audience. If you audience is afraid to purchase your machine in fear of shoddy workmanship, then your marketshare means shit.

Especially now that Bad Hype can be spread anywhere and everywhere at the blink of an eye.

I don't really think people are afraid to buy a 360, it hasn't generated any sort of mass hysteria. They extended the warrenty and fully cover the costs, so its extremely effective at downplaying the hardware issues.

Now, if my 360 had cost me $150 to repair and taken 10 weeks, I'd be pissed.

[GraveRobberX]

I'd like to chime in on Mysterio's defense with the bit about casual games, though I think "insult" is the wrong word. It's the reason I was so into my N64 when I was young; the availability of games that didn't require any sort of dexterous finesse was so abundant and infantile themes were so omnipresent, that I was a kid perpetually waking up on Christmas morning. As I aged, and began to consider myself more of a "serious gamer" and looked to the PC realm to satisfy my desire for games that were grounded in more serious thematic elements, and/or called for more technical "skill."

I own a Wii today, but my enjoyment of it is very shallow. The only game I enjoy playing is Strikers, and it is a fantastic game for what it is, but it took me all of a few days playing it to be able to beat almost anyone I played online. A superlative proficiency in even the most demanding of these "kind" of games is achieved through the memorization of button presses and menial techniques. For games like the oh so lauded and lusted Mario Galaxy (and to a large extent Zelda, Metroid, etc), there just isn't a plateau of expertise that is relevant. Things labeled as "challenging" are tedious. This is just for the games which I think could possibly be deemed worthy of purchasing. I bought Cooking Mama and Warioware with the sort of presupposed notion that I had a Wii and so I had to have some of those "Wii-esque" games (and the assurance that they'd be worth it). I've never been (ohshi) "insulted" in my life by a gaming purchase. The haha factor died away after less than a day, and I was left with a DVD of nothing but appeals to some imaginary childish facet of my personality. Seriously, you can rant and rave about how a good game appeals to a broad audience, but when an eight year old can glean the same ammount of enjoyment and master a game to the same extent that I can, I'll pass, not out of any sort of egoism, but because the game is obviously and simply just too fucking childish.

There's just something to be said for PC FPS's (specifically competitively based ones like RTCW: ET, CS, UT). It's the electronic adaptation or manifestation of sports that require actual skill in real life. CS is to basketball or archery as Mario Galaxy/Kart is to hop scotch. Shit, much more I had to say, but time for class. Maybe I'll continue after I get back.

You Sir, have been cordially invited to my house, so I can have your babies

I dont know why I switched over to G4Tv, but "The Feed" minute was playing, they stated 360 to get another SKU, MS + Toshiba will have it ready by CES 2008-2009, HD-DVD built in, high HDD space, + other specs

[CaptainN]

Especially now that Bad Hype can be spread anywhere and everywhere at the blink of an eye.
I don't really think people are afraid to buy a 360, it hasn't generated any sort of mass hysteria. They extended the warrenty and fully cover the costs, so its extremely effective at downplaying the hardware issues.

Now, if my 360 had cost me $150 to repair and taken 10 weeks, I'd be pissed.

Interesting point you got here, so are you saying its ok for the 360 to have that really high failure percentage as long as it cost you nothing to get it fixed? Thats my only problem with 360, is that if I get a RROD i'm be pissed, hell I was pissed when I had to send my 1st generation PS2 to sony to fix the DVD laser.

[Falconblade]

I'd like to chime in on Mysterio's defense with the bit about casual games, though I think "insult" is the wrong word. It's the reason I was so into my N64 when I was young; the availability of games that didn't require any sort of dexterous finesse was so abundant and infantile themes were so omnipresent, that I was a kid perpetually waking up on Christmas morning. As I aged, and began to consider myself more of a "serious gamer" and looked to the PC realm to satisfy my desire for games that were grounded in more serious thematic elements, and/or called for more technical "skill."

I own a Wii today, but my enjoyment of it is very shallow. The only game I enjoy playing is Strikers, and it is a fantastic game for what it is, but it took me all of a few days playing it to be able to beat almost anyone I played online. A superlative proficiency in even the most demanding of these "kind" of games is achieved through the memorization of button presses and menial techniques. For games like the oh so lauded and lusted Mario Galaxy (and to a large extent Zelda, Metroid, etc), there just isn't a plateau of expertise that is relevant. Things labeled as "challenging" are tedious. This is just for the games which I think could possibly be deemed worthy of purchasing. I bought Cooking Mama and Warioware with the sort of presupposed notion that I had a Wii and so I had to have some of those "Wii-esque" games (and the assurance that they'd be worth it). I've never been (ohshi) "insulted" in my life by a gaming purchase. The haha factor died away after less than a day, and I was left with a DVD of nothing but appeals to some imaginary childish facet of my personality. Seriously, you can rant and rave about how a good game appeals to a broad audience, but when an eight year old can glean the same ammount of enjoyment and master a game to the same extent that I can, I'll pass, not out of any sort of egoism, but because the game is obviously and simply just too fucking childish.

There's just something to be said for PC FPS's (specifically competitively based ones like RTCW: ET, CS, UT). It's the electronic adaptation or manifestation of sports that require actual skill in real life. CS is to basketball or archery as Mario Galaxy/Kart is to hop scotch. Shit, much more I had to say, but time for class. Maybe I'll continue after I get back.

You Sir, have been cordially invited to my house, so I can have your babies

I dont know why I switched over to G4Tv, but "The Feed" minute was playing, they stated 360 to get another SKU, MS + Toshiba will have it ready by CES 2008-2009, HD-DVD built in, high HDD space, + other specs

Is that the 5th SKU now?

Arcade
Core
Pro
Elite
This one

Do you include Halo one in SKU? If so, 6th.

[aurik]

Especially now that Bad Hype can be spread anywhere and everywhere at the blink of an eye.
I don't really think people are afraid to buy a 360, it hasn't generated any sort of mass hysteria. They extended the warrenty and fully cover the costs, so its extremely effective at downplaying the hardware issues.

Now, if my 360 had cost me $150 to repair and taken 10 weeks, I'd be pissed.

Interesting point you got here, so are you saying its ok for the 360 to have that really high failure percentage as long as it cost you nothing to get it fixed? Thats my only problem with 360, is that if I get a RROD i'm be pissed, hell I was pissed when I had to send my 1st generation PS2 to sony to fix the DVD laser.

No, he said nothing of the sort. He said that people are not afraid to buy the 360 despite reports of high failure rates because of the extended warranty.

The bottom line for Microsoft is marketshare.

[GraveRobberX]

I think the Halo sku was a limited edition spray on of a pro

Just like The Simpsons 360 sku

The new beefier version MS + Toshiba are working on will be the 5th (i think)

I think both Sony + MS are losing there base and new customers by bringing out new SKU's every 3-5 months

Sony PS3:

20 GB (no more made, BC ready, no wifi, emotion chip) $499
60 GB (stock finishes-no more made, BC ready, wifi, emotion chip) $599
80 GB (BC ready (firmware upgrade able), wifi, no emotion chip, motorstorm included) $499
40 GB (No BC for PS2 games (can play PS1 games), no emotion chip, wifi(?), different color) $399

[Stee]

I don't know the main reason I didn't buy a xbox360 is because if you did buy one you HAD to buy a bestbuy warranty or some sort of store warranty or else you would have to send it back to Microsoft and wait 3 weeks for it to come back. Then what happens when your warranty is gone? the problem isn't something you could just open the console and clean out it involves replacing a huge part of the console.

Then there was the other problem that Microsoft is making the new xbox for 2009.....buying a new console every 4 years?

EDIT: As for casual gaming, I think it's pretty obvious the majority of gamers are casual gamers. Since casual gamers are the majority more and more developers will turn to making casual games, not only because more people are casual players but because they are much cheaper to make as well. So what happens to gamers who can appreciate awesome graphics, complex gameplay etc. I don't know as much as I can see why people are attracted to the Wii I kind of hope it does die out because there are a lot of people who are hardcore-ish gamers and it will suck to see less and less games being made for those gamers.

[aurik]

I don't know the main reason I didn't buy a xbox360 is because if you did buy one you HAD to buy a bestbuy warranty or some sort of store warranty or else you would have to send it back to Microsoft and wait 3 weeks for it to come back. Then what happens when your warranty is gone? the problem isn't something you could just open the console and clean out it involves replacing a huge part of the console.

Then there was the other problem that Microsoft is making the new xbox for 2009.....buying a new console every 4 years?

Not sure about the turnaround time, but the MS warranty is now really, really long. 3 years for RRoD, and a full year for any other failure, I think? Compared to the industry standard of 90 days, very generous.

And personally I'd rather console generations be short. I'd rather buy a console every 4 years for $250 than 6 years for $500, even if the latter is cheaper in the long term.

[Falconblade]

I don't know the main reason I didn't buy a xbox360 is because if you did buy one you HAD to buy a bestbuy warranty or some sort of store warranty or else you would have to send it back to Microsoft and wait 3 weeks for it to come back. Then what happens when your warranty is gone? the problem isn't something you could just open the console and clean out it involves replacing a huge part of the console.

Then there was the other problem that Microsoft is making the new xbox for 2009.....buying a new console every 4 years?

Not sure about the turnaround time, but the MS warranty is now really, really long. 3 years for RRoD, and a full year for any other failure, I think? Compared to the industry standard of 90 days, very generous.

And personally I'd rather console generations be short. I'd rather buy a console every 4 years for $250 than 6 years for $500, even if the latter is cheaper in the long term.

I'd rather consoles last a long time.
4 years just is too short to make a good machine

[Stee]

4 years might be too short for developers to bring out the most for a console (I.E. God of War). From what I can tell new consoles require time for the developers to even understand it enough to produce awesome games.

[aurik]

I don't know the main reason I didn't buy a xbox360 is because if you did buy one you HAD to buy a bestbuy warranty or some sort of store warranty or else you would have to send it back to Microsoft and wait 3 weeks for it to come back. Then what happens when your warranty is gone? the problem isn't something you could just open the console and clean out it involves replacing a huge part of the console.

Then there was the other problem that Microsoft is making the new xbox for 2009.....buying a new console every 4 years?

Not sure about the turnaround time, but the MS warranty is now really, really long. 3 years for RRoD, and a full year for any other failure, I think? Compared to the industry standard of 90 days, very generous.

And personally I'd rather console generations be short. I'd rather buy a console every 4 years for $250 than 6 years for $500, even if the latter is cheaper in the long term.

I'd rather consoles last a long time.
4 years just is too short to make a good machine

The big problem is that regardless of how good you make a machine, by 3-4 years it is a shitbox. PS2 was revolutionary when it came out but by 2004 cheap PCs outperformed it, and games were struggling really hard to push the limits of the hardware.

Same with the PS3: it's expensive because it's futureproofed, but that won't save it from being a mediocre computing device in 2011. If they had instead saved us $150 by spending less on futureproofing and instead put out a PS4 in 2011, then the games could again take advantage of cutting edge hardware to deliver a better gaming experience.

People derisively dismiss the Wii saying it won't stack up in a few years. It's true, it won't, but if they release a Wii2 in 2010 that beats the pants off of PS3/X360 while costing less, while having delivered a superior experience in 2006-2008 and beginning to fall behind in 2009, they have won the war.

[aurik]

4 years might be too short for developers to bring out the most for a console (I.E. God of War). From what I can tell new consoles require time for the developers to even understand it enough to produce awesome games.

Most of the time spent on God of War was spent figuring out how the fuck to make it run on such a wimpy piece of hardware. If they had released a 2005-era console in 2005 instead of forcing developers to work with a 2000-era piece of shit, we could have seen 3 or 4 games of God of War quality.

[BRP]

Wait, did someone compare FPSers to Mario Strikers?

[Stee]

4 years might be too short for developers to bring out the most for a console (I.E. God of War). From what I can tell new consoles require time for the developers to even understand it enough to produce awesome games.

Most of the time spent on God of War was spent figuring out how the fuck to make it run on such a wimpy piece of hardware. If they had released a 2005-era console in 2005 instead of forcing developers to work with a 2000-era piece of shit, we could have seen 3 or 4 games of God of War quality.

You know if they keep making consoles every couple of years they might as well just make consoles completely customizable it'll be exactly like a PC attached to a controller which is probably Microsoft's plan to make us all buy Windows Vistas.........

But then again it kind of defeats the point of having a console since I believe most people do buy them so everyone will have equal playing fields.

[Xavier]

The big problem is that regardless of how good you make a machine, by 3-4 years it is a shitbox. PS2 was revolutionary when it came out but by 2004 cheap PCs outperformed it, and games were struggling really hard to push the limits of the hardware.

Same with the PS3: it's expensive because it's futureproofed, but that won't save it from being a mediocre computing device in 2011. If they had instead saved us $150 by spending less on futureproofing and instead put out a PS4 in 2011, then the games could again take advantage of cutting edge hardware to deliver a better gaming experience.

People derisively dismiss the Wii saying it won't stack up in a few years. It's true, it won't, but if they release a Wii2 in 2010 that beats the pants off of PS3/X360 while costing less, while having delivered a superior experience in 2006-2008 and beginning to fall behind in 2009, they have won the war.

Yeah, agreed. The biggest problem with consoles is that unless the life cycle is short, the technology is absolutely horrible a few years out of the gate. Your personal computer becomes outdated every 6 months, so what makes anyone think a console can actually compete 5-6 years? Consoles are just more practical, economically.

[Falconblade]

The big problem is that regardless of how good you make a machine, by 3-4 years it is a shitbox. PS2 was revolutionary when it came out but by 2004 cheap PCs outperformed it, and games were struggling really hard to push the limits of the hardware.

Same with the PS3: it's expensive because it's futureproofed, but that won't save it from being a mediocre computing device in 2011. If they had instead saved us $150 by spending less on futureproofing and instead put out a PS4 in 2011, then the games could again take advantage of cutting edge hardware to deliver a better gaming experience.

People derisively dismiss the Wii saying it won't stack up in a few years. It's true, it won't, but if they release a Wii2 in 2010 that beats the pants off of PS3/X360 while costing less, while having delivered a superior experience in 2006-2008 and beginning to fall behind in 2009, they have won the war.

Yeah, agreed. The biggest problem with consoles is that unless the life cycle is short, the technology is absolutely horrible a few years out of the gate. Your personal computer becomes outdated every 6 months, so what makes anyone think a console can actually compete 5-6 years? Consoles are just more practical, economically.

Then they need to make consoles cheaper.
Buying a 300-500 console every 4 years with 50 dollars per game is fucking expensive.