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And no they can't be trusted.
MS will cause the next game crash, if anyone does. Sony's in too weak a position to be relevant right now. I'll get to Nintendo in a second. Microsoft doesn't give a flying poo about consumers: look at what they did to the Zune. Its 'best' (read: most-hyped) feature was a Wi-Fi connection allowing you to send a crappy DRM-crippled song to another person. You could listen to it three times in three days, and the file would then die,
without exception- even if it were a song that you composed yourself. Vista has built-in locks, scheduled to be activated in a few years, that won't let certain HD content be played on any device that doesn't fully implement copy protection. What about Windows Media Player? I recently dug up some old backup CDs that had some WMV files I ripped from one of my music CDs a long time ago. When I tried to play them in Windows Media Player, the freaking program went online and made me validate a license for the file that would only allow it to be played on two computers or something. I've never had to do that before on an XP machine- this feature is apparently exclusive to Vista.
What does that have to do with games? Look at what they're doing on Live. They released a map pack for Gears of War with four maps...that cost US$10 worth of Microsoft Points. Ultimately, that's bullcrap. FPS and RTS games have had free maps for years...it wasn't until the XBox came out that publishers started retailing map packs with any regularity. This isn't just confined to XBox shooters, though. More and more games (especially those done by EA and the other big studios) are making subsidiary content that costs money to download. This stuff used to be
free. I remember a long time ago Blizzard used to release really nice Starcraft and Warcraft 3 maps on their website every week or month or so, and a lot of other companies did the same. What happens if the XBox's market share grows large enough so that publishers feel like they can shake their customers around? Are we going to have to pay extra in the future for multiplayer? High definition? The ability to customize controller layouts? Being able to play the game for more than 10 minutes before the screen blanks out and is covered with ads?
Microsoft cares more about sucking up to its corporate partners than creating usable technology for consumers. It's been like that for a long time, and their XBox division is not going to change that pattern. It's entrenched within their corporate culture.
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The original crash occured because of a glut of sh!t product. Nintendo didn't address that. In fact that Wii is FULL of sh!tty product.
Sh!tty product
and very few really good games. PS2 had all sorts of sh!tty games, and we didn't see the industry crash- like with every console, there were also a few very good titles. We didn't have that problem with the GCN, because the install base was too low to justify developing lots of crappy games for the system. I agree that the Wii's line-up
right now is quite underwhelming, but if SSBB, Galaxy, and the other games Nintendo is developing right now turn out to be half as good as we expect, coupled with increasing third-party resources invested in the console, we'll have very little to worry about. MP3 is already an encouraging sign.
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Topic: Official Sales Thread (Read 3859389 times)
