| naznatips said: This is where I always get into it with you stickball. 1) It's only the best lineup if you don't include old games, and in your 117+ games number, guess what you are including? That's right: Old games. When you do include these games the quality of the Virtual Console dwarfs the XBLA library. In fact, it makes XBLA's library laughable in comparison. Easy example? IGN has separte reviews for XBLA and Wii Ware. Ok. Lets take out old ports, even those with added features such as SOTN's leaderboards, Sonic's add-ons and such that no VC game dared to touch. You still have about 40-50 good quality XBLA games - more than twice of what PSN has. 2) This "better pricing" you are talking about is crap. Most of the games operate on an equal pricing structure. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time are both 5th generation games. Castlevania is 800 XBLA points and Zelda is 1000 Wii points. Guess how much both are in American dollars? $10. The same freaking price. Similarly: It would cost you $5 for Ms. Pac-Man, an NES title. The same cost as Virtual Console again. I was merely speaking from a gaming value perspective. Don't you get that? $10 for Rez HD, an awesome title, is a steal. If you compare titles that are on both VC and XBLA, your paying, typically, the same price for an HD remake with online co-op and leaderboards, versus a mere ROM dump with an emulator. Which one might be better, eh? Some games are priced better on Live Arcade, that much is true, but the high end content is no better priced than Wii Ware or PSN. Not to mention there were NO IMPROVEMENTS on Castlevania over its standard retail copy other than some simple graphical cleanup. The same things you find on Virtual Console. You're also ignoring the fact that PSN games are priced better than either XBLA or VC. Mario has online leaderboards for time attacks? Last time I checked, no VC game offered enhanced graphics, leaderboards, or on-line co-op whereas many Console remakes, or Arcade remakes do. PSN is the same way as XBLA in this respect, typically, so I'm not really 'downing' it. Get your facts straight before attacking me, ok? 3) The supposed space limitations you are complaining about exist on the 360 too. They are just higher because HD graphics take up a ridiculous amount of disc space. As far as it limiting the games developed on WiiWare: Bullshit. There are no games on Xbox Live Arcade with anymore complexity than those announced for WiiWare (look for Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles for more info there), and there are already more announced WiiWare titles than Xbox Live Arcade sees in 6 months. Among these are games from Konami, Square-Enix, Hudson, and Namco-Bandai... all before the platform has even launched! Really? Give me a list of the projected titles for WiiWare for the net 6 months. I'll do the same for XBLA, and we'll see which one has more titles. Also, the "HD Graphics take up more space so it's no different" argument is pure BS and you know it. N+, a HD game took up oh-so much space since it has leaderboards, HD graphics, online co-op and all the extras. Oh wait, it didn't. I am definately not arguing the quality of what WiiWare games will have available. I am excited for what many of the games are going to do. However, that doesn't take away my worry that these games are going to be rather large. How well is a game on WiiWare going to sell if it takes up 100MB of data on a 512mb flash card?
Xbox Live Arcade may have been the first major online console digital arcade system, but it's far from the best. PSN is quickly threatening to pass it in quality of titles available, Virtual Console already did, and with WiiWare it will easily surpass it in new development as well. The fact is Microsoft can't compete with Nintendo's and Sony's past libraries, and nothing makes that more apparent than the 3 digital arcade services. You can say anything you want, but again, show me the upcoming title list for PSN and post-launch WiiWare titles. I still bet you that XBLA has more new, non-remakes coming in the next 6 months than either service does. XBLA isn't perfect, I fully agree, but it's definately proven as the market leader for now, and you can get upset however you want, but XBLA still has more, better, new titles than PSN, and actually has new games while WiiWare isn't still out. We can speculate all we want about how WiiWare will do, but it's about the same thing as pining over the Wii's initial sales leading to a huge shift in 3rd party developments on the Wii: yeah, you thought it was going to happen, but hasn't a year later. Stop trying to put off your ideas about WiiWare when the freaking system isn't out! |
On another note, a quick reply to Legend11: As much as some will gladly attack MS's launch schedule for games (to which I do fully agree it could be improved), we have already seen that some titles get lost in the mix, easily. Chessmaster LIVE got outclassed by Rez HD, and I do believe, suffered some sales. Who really wants to put their WiiWare game up against a Final Fantasy game in the same week? Time will tell, but it's not like WiiWare is going to be any better than XBLA, once it comes out. Both will have their ups and downs, and developers will complain about WW too.
Also, for a quick question: does anyone know how programming for the WiiMote (which I assume is used in most all of WW games) is? I mean this in regards to memory required to program. I'd assume it's alot more than a simple key input ala a standard controller. I ask this because if it's alot more than controllers, don't you think that games could suffer due to high memory requirements?
Oh, and again, I still stand by the fact that WiiWare is 100% afterthought by Nintendo: they clearly built the Wii in mind for VC downloads, and not full title downloads. As soon as I heard that the Wii was going to have the Virtual Console, I was as excited as anyone could expect....I then heard the internal memory was going to be limited to 512mb, competing with save slot space as well, and realized that Nintendo was only going to focus then, on promoting pre-N64 games since, fact is, you aren't putting alot of N64 or newer games on that kind of card. How then could one think that Nintendo was planning for a fully intergrated, downloadable gaming service, while still putting such an incredibly small memory card onto the Wii? That, to me, alone points to the fact that Nintendo didn't plan for it. Microsoft knew from the get-go that a 64mb, 256mb, or 512mb card was not viable for Arcade games, so they never, ever promoted it, and pushed the 20gb models for Title downloads.
And again, I fully believe that since Nintendo is restricting the Wii to include a 512mb card, instead of anything larger, WiiWare developers might not get a good deal in terms of sales on WiiWare: Virtual Console sales have been very strong, but those titles take up 1/10th of the space that (I assume) many WiiWare titles will take. If this does happen (which I am merely projecting, I could be wrong), developers are going to have to compete for space in such a small card, and pray that many Wii owners love to upgrade SD cards, or get USB HDDs. But then, that alienates some users...And in that kind of marketplace, having an extra 10-20% in software sales is going to be HUGE.
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
