| mrstickball said: Johnny, I'm afraid your speaking out of your butt.
As much as you dislike Microsoft: let me ask you. Would you prefer the gaming industry to have JUST 2 companies, in Sony and Nintendo? I sure don't.
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Mrstickball must see himself as my nemesis I guess.
I don't mind them being IN the industry. As they are now their threat is limited. But I NEVER want them to RULE this industry. And let me tell you something. There will ALWAYS be a competitor of some kind as long as there is money to be made in this field. SOMEONE will take up the mantle if someone else drops.
Responding to your points one by one:
•The four year console cycle:
"Since when is Microsoft planning this? They've stated many, many times that they are going for a 6-7 year generation, like the PS2 - they've planned the next one in 2011-2012. The Wii has far more going against it being a 4yr system than the X360."For your first point here's a few links with people discussing Microsoft's possible plans to jumpstart generations prematurely:
http://www.news.com/Commentary-Microsofts-Xbox-360-spin/2030-1069_3-5706144.htmlhttp://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=26215
I have a very strong feeling that Microsoft IF they decide to continue in this business will try to jumpstart another generation to win attention from the competition. I was talking on the phone with a friend of mine and we were talking about all the consoles and he pointed out to me that the XBox 360 sold near 10 million in its first year yet has moved just over 2 million THIS year. Halo 3, the great success it was, only moved hardware up about 25,000 over Wii in this current ebbing period for Nintendo. I asked him if he thinks XBox 360 has peaked and he actually said he thought it already peaked last year with Gears of War. I don't quite agree with that but that's his opinion. Microsoft is strong here in USA no doubt but worldwide they are either modest or nonexistent in success. It's improving, yes, but what basically gives them strength is the USA where all the people are. This is what offsets Sony's PS3 who can't get in anywhere. 360 usurped their role and is gaining their audience.
With all this in mind I think they will try to steal the thunder once again because Nintendo has totally changed the game and will do so more broadly in the coming months and years. That old NES controller standard that has been refined time and time again over the past 25 years that XBox 360's using is gonna be a dinosaur and show its age very soon. I think Microsoft may incorporate some kind of motion sensing with a twist to their next machine. Perhaps even tech from that tabletop computer thing they've played around with. Businesswise I don't know how wise this is but then again I'm not blowing billions making videogames and ain't got it like MS to bling like that. If you'll lose 4 billion and keep going there's no limit to what you will do.
•The reliability argument:
"That's why they've undertaken adding so much within the past ~6mos to fix it all."
I'm sorry but this is simply inexcusable at the price they're setting. I would be F'n pissed OFF if I put in that much investment behind something so unreliable. Like say a new car I spend 6 digits on and everytime I look around there's a new repair. This shoulda been worked out from the GET-GO. BEFORE the launch. You have to allow human error of course. There will always be some manufacturing flukes. Man is in the ointment. But to have this be such a common occurence shows that shoddy craftsmanship is at hand and NOTHING bothers me more than that. Even the price doesn't bother me like stuff like that does. One Great Point about the PS3 is I haven't heard any common accounts of malfunctions and breakdowns. It's costly. TOO costly but you are getting your money's worth craftsmanship-wise. At least it works!
Here's an skit from G4 showcasing last generation's console endurance with the predictable hierarchy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXvTz65o3SQ
PS2 was last gen's flawed device and XBox 1 was pretty sturdy while launching at $300 in USA. Gamecube of course was the champ. Now on a company's first try I don't hold defects against them as much. Which is why I don't come down too hard on Sony with the PSP, their first handheld. And wouldn't have come down so hard if XBox 1 had flaws like that. But this is Microsoft 2nd try at this. They KNOW what to look for and how to put things together. So why is this system the most shoddy hardware of all time? European Union's Consumer Commissioner is getting on their case for God's sake! I don't want MS's practices in the OS world to infiltrate videogaming. I don't want endless patches and non-beta tested material coming out and being seen as normal. That is not how business is done nor should be done. I talked to an 84 year old man at work about craftsmanship and he told me his brother had a washing machine from 1958 that still works as good as new today. Nearly 50 years old and still WORKS. That's how things used to be done and that is what people at one time DEMANDED and expected. But people have lowered the bar and accepted cut cornered products without question. Consumers not customers. I have no sympathy for 360's hardware manufacturing issues especially after their 1st console was better made.
•The pricing argument:
"Blame Sega for this in 1996. And if $200 was the best, Why doesn't Nintendo sell at that?"
Sega? This goes back way beyond Sega. 1990's Neo-Geo $650, 1993's 3DO $700, 1991's CD-i $700, Atari 5200 even launched at $330 back in 1982. And you see what happened to them, don't you? Sega paid the price too which is why after all the 5th gen dropouts fell out of the market Sega became 3rd and last in that generation worldwide. $200 IS best. Some people won't buy a Wii right now because it's $250. Nintendo launched at $250 before with the deluxe edition of the NES. A game is included with Wii along with a lot of good free-to-use stuff. Essentially it's CHEAPER than the Gamecube OR the N64 was. You had to BUY Super Mario 64 or Pilotwings 64 for $60 in ADDITION to the $200 gamesystem making it REALLY $260. Not counting the controller pak which ran you another $20 for a total of $280. You can't save a game on Gamecube without memory card so after buying the $50 game you STILL have to buy the $20 card unless you like playing games from the beginning over and over again. That's $270. In actuality Wii is a better package deal that both of those. If counting like this Wii is ESSENTIALLY STILL $200.
Even AT $250 it's a much better purchase than $400 and $600 for a gamesystem. Always will be. Partially why it's selling so strongly and how it caught 360 so fast even after a massive year-long headstart. MS gets away with this partially because buyers have become more consumer than customer, they have a strong lineup of games and they are American U.S.-ran. But I STILL don't like that trend. Gaming is supposed to be an affordable luxury. I don't need VIP velvet ropes creating greater haves and have nots for what is supposed to be a mass market medium. Nintendo paid that price with those expensive cartridges on the N64 and thanks to Sony of PS1 era and some others now $50 is seen as cap for what a game should cost.
Videogaming = Cheap luxury. Nothing else. The medium that allowed you to get a full playing experience on a quarter. Cheap luxury. Nothing else.
•Microtransactions and in-game advertising:
"Or like the intenet, we get lots of FREE games with the ads, and such. It's a blessing and a curse. What if you could download extra characters for Super Smash Brothers?"
People hate ads. You would hate ads popping up on this site when you wanna post. I see some of that right now as a matter of fact. We succumbed on the TV front but damned if we're gonna have it everywhere. I DEFINITELY don't want that shit in my videogames. Outside of real world emulating racing games where billboards are used for environmental immersion I don't wanna SEE people trying to influence me to buy a buncha crap when I'm trying to escape through videogaming. The internet is the internet and even there we have some control over what we see. Pop-up blockers and spam guards. Sites with their ad-free memberships. They don't belong in videogaming.
I'm Link and I'm about to open the chest that gives me the Hookshot I need to get to the other ledge. The music hits: Dun-da-da-da Dun-da-da-da Dun-da-da-da Dun-da-da-da "Buy the new liquid clear Fresca available at Wal-Mart and select Target stores. Fresh the Fresca! (Do the Dew!)" TURN-OFF. That will not fly, brother. That plane's got no wings. That dog ain't gon' hunt, bruh.
Oh and download extra characters. Yeah no biggie as long as I ain't got ta buy 'em. Download? No prob. Pay for it? Kiss my ass. Your skill (or your cheat device) should unlock the hidden content available in a game. This should never change. I don't wanna encourage people making partial games where they nickel and dime us for every bit of armor, every powerup, every bonus stage, every secret character, every bit of extra text. That'll kill the industry dead if that took place. No blessing. All curse. 'F' the money.
•Game development costs:
Atleast they're working with other companies like Epic to make middleware more prominent in the industry to cope with costs. That and the add-on content can equal the playingfield.
See this is one department I blame both Microsoft AND Sony for. This one-upsmanship power race they're having can only make things worse long term. More and more and more tech and power and time and staff for the same, lesser or at best slightly better returns. That'll eventually run developers, publishers, and console makers out of business. EA's revenues and profits have been in decline for the past 2 years despite owning all sports licenses exclusively. Activision, EA's inspiration for forming in 1982, has passed them as #1 3rd party. All these mega publishers absorbing smaller companies squeezing all the art out of them and spitting them out like overchewed gum when it's all over ready to pounce on the next company to suck dry for the profit margins. Look at how it used to be Square and Enix and now it's Square-Enix. Look at how it used to be Namco and now it's Namco-Bandai. Look at how it used to be Sega and now it's Sega-Sammy. Merging because gamemaking is getting harder to turn a profit from because of how the industry is setting itself up.
Yeah that tiff between Silicon Knights and Epic Games over that Unreal Engine middleware surely won't spark a negative trend if you believe Silicon Knights complaints of Epic holding them back in order to make Gears of War a better received game. Making a bomb bigger than the atomic lost its purpose. Time to build a BETTER bomb instead. Don't get caught up in Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor's AWK AWK AWK power flexes. Make the money count. Still don't like incomplete games either. Add-on before you ship I say. Leave that mess for the PC world where it belongs.
Miyamoto says "Use the innovation Luke":
"Hard Drives? The whole online avatar tags (gamertags) that have seemingly gone to Wii (Miis) and PS3 (home)? Age of Empires isn;t innovative? Nintendo bought the rights for the Wiimote, btw, they didn't make the technology themselves."
Hard drives are INDEED Microsoft's contribution to the console world. Their PC in a console body mindset made that a natural progression. You think I don't give MS credit for nothing. That was a good thing they added. It's one reason why the only wrestling game I really liked in the 6th gen was Raw 2 on original XBox because its hard drive can hold so much data where I add the real theme songs of the wrestlers and so much more. Nintendo's Miis have been around since the 80's, bruh. They've been kicking that around for decades. They wanted it for the original Famicom. Can't speak for PS3's unique hybrid of Second Life and network play. Not enough info on that. Age of Empires came from PC, mrstickball. I'm talking consoles. Besides Ensemble made it and they're Microsoft owned. Still not really Microsoft. They buy up their developers. Microsoft Flight Simulator is homegrown. Halo is Bungie's and now with its success they're breaking apart from MS. MS knows who to buy, yes, but they have no real home team. It's not like Sega's AM-2 which was a spun off team of the larger Sega but more incorporated developers from the outside. Microsoft has no creative input on the design of these games like Nintendo does with its incorporated bodies like Retro Studios. It just writes the checks and presses the discs letting the devs make the games. Which is fine but it doesn't speak to a real home creative team like SNK, Sega, and Nintendo.
"Invented." Hmhmhmhmhm. I knew this would come into play soon when it came to the Wii. INNOVATE is NOT INVENT. It's to make NEW not to fabricate from nothing. NOBODY. NOBODY would EVER have come close to making a controller like that but them. No one had the wherewithal to even fathom that direction. A remote control like a TV remote used as a primary controller. And if you say they do, then why didn't they? I see the XBox 360 controller. I see the PS3 controller. They didn't do this. The Sidewinder didn't work right. There were NO viable motion sensing controllers before Wiimote. They took existing technology and shaped it into a whole new design. Existing concepts and recombined them into a new unique form. It's what they've always done. Even Sega couldn't match this hardware wise. They always followed Nintendo's lead. That's why Dreamcast has a controller pak slot known as VMU like N64 had that controller pak bay. Who finally made wireless control WORK reliably? Nintendo. Wavebird. If it was so easy why wasn't the XBox 1 equipped with this tech? Why wasn't the PS2?
The funny thing is that the Wii might just change computer gaming control. Now that's innovation. Undeniable. Nobody has the track record on innovation, a vital lifeblood for the videogame industry, like Nintendo. And that's just a straight up FACT. Thank God for that.
•The O'Jays say, "Money money money mooon-ey......Mooon-ey!"
You take this as if I'm raining on the XBox fans' parade. I'm happy that they're enjoying themselves and competition is necessary. I know why they're here but they're bringing some joy to people in the process. Nothing wrong with that. In their current place in the industry it's perfectly fine. MY contention of this whole post is that Microsoft RULING the industry would be a bad omen. Both Sony and Microsoft are offset by Nintendo's existence. As long as Nintendo survives this industry survives with it. Without them this thing goes down the tubes because the other companies don't have the proper knowledge and behavior to maintain this fragile garden. As long as Nintendo is here they can run free and the thing still lives on. I said time and time again that Halo 3 is an excellent game and questioned the negative attitude towards it on graphics and all the rest. I'm proud Microsoft made a big event with Halo 3's launch. It's record-breaking and very impressive. All that is well and fine by me but they should NEVER run this industry...just exist in it.
Super Mario Galaxy is magic and that game is gonna have the effect that Super Mario 64 and Super Bros. 3 and Super Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong and Pac-Man had on the public consciousness. Multiplayer online makes for long lasting gameplay but so does inspirational game design which is why Super Mario Bros. STILL sells out on the VC despite its many rereleases over the decades. Which is why an old 22 year old game is still playable today. Which is why a movie (King of Kong) was made using Donkey Kong as the plot point. Mario's not the only game in town and there's room for everybody but this is Mario's town when it's all said and done. Nintendo's town and convergence you haven't SEEN until they start breaking the current definitions of what a game is with stuff like Wii Fit which is about to shock the entire world. Thanks go to the competitors for bringing the best out of the best. Sony's PSP made the DS. Sony's PS3 & Microsoft's XBox 360 made the Wii. This is what I like to see but the greater rewards must stay with the caretaker of the garden. Or else paradise is lost.
John Lucas
Words from the Official VGChartz Idiot
WE ARE THE NATION...OF DOMINATION!
