Messages

26

Nintendo Gaming / RE:REV the most anticipated next-gen system in Japan?!?

« on: May 30, 2005, 08:31:26 AM »

At first I was surprised about the 360 gaining so much appeal, but it makes sense when you think about it. Nintendo has only released a little information about the Rev, and Sony has outright lied about what their console can do. I've talked before about MS gaining ground in Japan the next generation. I don't really think it's going to happen, it's more like a horror senario which plays directly on my fears than anything else. Still, this is hardly reassuring. I feel that I've witnessed the enlarged shadow of a cockroach against the wall at night after watching Alien for the fourth time in a row.

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42.2 + 39.9 +18 > 100

This was quoted by Magic Box. The Magic Box. Who are awesome. It's not unreasonable to expect that they would round the numbers up from 42.15 and 39.85 to 42.2 and 39.9. Or just make them up.  

27

Nintendo Gaming / RE: George Harrison talks Revolution - Download games for free?

« on: May 28, 2005, 09:37:17 PM »

A lot of people I've talked to seem to be sold on downloading old games. Sure there are emulators, but they're not perfect: they have worse controls than the real thing, multi-player is hasslesome, and most of us want to repect Nintendo's copyright (so long as their conditions are reasonable). If the first-party downlaods are free then I swear I'll buy a Revolution at launch. No matter what. Playing Mario Party with controllers that aren't wrecked will once again satiate my gamimg palate (my hunger for Bumber Balls runs deep). I think a lot of units would be sold on that merit as well.

Pre-order bonuses wouldn't be a problem. You could maybe get a demo of an upcomming game or a slightly reworked version of an older one. Like Master Quest. Besides, there's other things they can do except just give out games. I mean, with Harvest Moon you got a giant inflatable cow. How awesome would a giant inflatable mushroom be?  

28

General Gaming / RE:Ubi Soft being bought out?

« on: May 27, 2005, 11:01:18 PM »

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but seriously if there are only a few third parties..they will compete with each other at least..and there will be a bigger rivalry

Why? What examples of this can you provide of this? Fewer competitors will make it easier to collaborate. Once again I'll cite the oil industry as a clear example.

I don't quite understand exactly what you're saying, but even if there is an over-arching rivalry between two big console manufacturers, there can still be lots of smaller third parties as well. And what's wrong with having so much competition? You don't have to buy the crap games, and if anything they should encourage publishers to assert standards of quality, or at least be pickier about what they publish. Then they won't be wasting their time.

29

General Gaming / RE:Ubi Soft being bought out?

« on: May 27, 2005, 10:10:57 PM »

No, having only a few publishers will screw things up. In theory all markets in a capitalist country are meant to support competition, but all too often the industry gets whittled down to a few large oligarchic corporations. A small group of companies who control a market will tend to act with anti-competitive tedancies. This is extreme in the oil industry; it is so pronounced because the market is very price in-elastic. With games people will just stop buying them, and hence there'll be a crash. There has already been inidcations that the price of next-gen gaming will rise, right?

I think eventually we'll see only a few big publishers running the industry, because you need quite a bit of capital to set one up, but until then I think as much diversity as possible is a good thing.

30

TalkBack / RE:Donkey Konga 2 PAL song list REVEALED!

« on: May 27, 2005, 09:37:43 PM »

Well it looks like I'm going to have to buy it. I was scared we were going to get the crappy pop version the US did. I still think they should have considered releasing versions with specific kinds of music, such as one dedicated to Kondo etc, but overall I'm happy with this song list. I don't enjoy 'pop' or 'rock' music (I mean the newer pop-rock stuff) much at all, but the rest of them sound good to me.

31

Nintendo Gaming / RE:Forwards compatibility in GameCube games and controllers with REV controllers, online, and graphics.

« on: May 26, 2005, 01:29:46 AM »

Nintendo has said they're working on a controller which can play games from all their previous systems. So the dpad will always be there anyway. Though I only have an idea in my head of how it would work, I think that haptic and gyro technology would be completely unneccessary for games designed to be played with digital input. I could see maybe a few late Cube games being made with implicit suitability to the new controller technology, but nothing much else.

32

Nintendo Gaming / RE: official SD card reader from nintendo

« on: May 26, 2005, 12:22:39 AM »

The Fist is Fuller at pgc.

33

Nintendo Gaming / RE: What needs to happen for the Revolution to take back the marketshare.

« on: May 25, 2005, 09:33:45 PM »

I agree, to an extent. When SE came about, I heard somebody say that no one in Japan knew who Square was and no one in America knew who Enix was. It was obviously a wild exaggeration, but you get the point. Now those two have merged, they have weight in both markets. That's something that none of the other big five really have on a consistent basis.  

34

General Gaming / RE:PS3: gaming takes a backseat

« on: May 25, 2005, 09:01:37 PM »

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This also furthers my own belief that a crash is coming, and I am very surprised that I am the only one seeing a crash comming.

I've believed that the next gen will have a bit of a crash for a while now. But because it's nothng much more than a hunch I can't really argue my case very well.

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How is Nintendo's method any different? Both methods alienate hardcore gamers for another group.

Well so far all evidence completely contradicts your theory. If Nintendogs was a half-assed tamagotchi clone it wouldn't have got 40/40 from Famitsu. Seriously, if a game is good, its good, and it doesn't matter who the target audience is. If Nintendo didn't cite Electroplankton as a 'non-game' you'd never complain about it. It would just be niche instead. And finally Nintendo is making some sort of multimedia dictionary apps which will cost them almost nothing, just like Electroplankton did. Honestly, the people who know what Herzog Zwei is probably don't care how the games are labelled/marketed as long as they're good. So far they have been.

35

Nintendo Gaming / RE:Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

« on: May 25, 2005, 04:41:29 PM »

I love MM more than any other game ever. It's hard to describe exactly what I love about it, but I guess the best way would be its 'theme'. To me, it has what good books and movies do but what most games don't.

36

Nintendo Gaming / RE:Exclusive Content you already own (Idea)

« on: May 24, 2005, 07:48:27 PM »

Well, if the games just allow for superior input using the Revolution's new controller, I won't mind. But if it's much more than that, and has elements which could be done just fine with a Cube, then that wouldn't please anyone. I think part of what Microsoft is trying to do in launching early is target Nintendo fans, and so Nintendo really needs to give the Cube its best until the last moment unless they want to lose more market share.

37

Nintendo Gaming / RE:Factor 5 jumps ship. Swims over to Sony camp.

« on: May 22, 2005, 10:05:31 PM »

"Money talks, and loser developers that only go where said "money" is walks.

...towards the money."

What a load of crap. "Loyalty" to a company doesn't mean anything if you have employees to pay who have people to feed. We should be happy they worked for Nintendo at all instead of its more popular competitors in the first place. I'm not implying that this was the situation, but if Factor 5 wasn't making enough money working for Nintendo then it was Nintendo's problem: they should either have helped them or knowingly let them slip away. Because we don't really know what's been happening, surely we could spare the dev-hate this time?

So, NST or N-Space next? To be honest, those are the two that I care about the least.  

38

Nintendo Gaming / RE:Miyamoto interview on IGN

« on: May 21, 2005, 12:38:29 AM »

Edited out stupidity.

39

General Gaming / RE:What Next Gen Console will you get?

« on: May 20, 2005, 10:33:57 PM »

Wow, haven't seen you round here for a while. I still haven't decided which console(s) I'll get because I still don't really think we have enough information on any of them. The XBox 360 has demos, but so far I haven't been too impressed and I hope they'll improve later. I'm not a fan of the Xbox, so if Microsoft continues its trends I probably won't get a 360. The PS3 is still just specs, so until we get some details about a launch line-up and some gameplay footage I'll reserve my judgement. Most likey for me is the Revolution. I think I'll eventually end up buying almsot any console EAD makes games for. There are only three things that could happen to make me not buy it: it's too expensive, it's too underpowered, or they really screw up the old games thing.  

40

Nintendo Gaming / RE:So, list of Games you'd download?

« on: May 20, 2005, 05:15:19 PM »

Well I hope Nintendo makes an agreement with most of the larger third parties to make their games available. I mean, the first party games are great -- I'd buy it for those alone -- but I'd love to play Chrono Trigger and some of the Final Fantsy games as well. Because the third parties won't lose anything, I could see Nintendo making an agreement with the rest of the Big 5. They're close to Namco already, SE has been hinting that they'll work with them, Capcom is open to deals, and Konami might not do it but that doesn't really matter. Unless they really overprice the games or something, I'm sold on the revolution already.

41

General Chat / RE:The Reggination! (It's Reggie Month, k?)

« on: May 20, 2005, 04:54:25 PM »

It's nice to know he keeps up with what the fans are saying. So does Dyack.

I don't know if it's a common marketing phrase in America, but I swear I remember Ian complaining that Nintendo needed to be an 'and', not an 'or' company. Quoth Reggie: "Nintendo is not an 'or' company. Nintendo is an 'and' company."

42

Nintendo Gaming / RE:"Revolution" / Nintendo's different tact / technolust vs. innovation

« on: May 19, 2005, 09:47:25 PM »

Well Ian, I think a crash could actually come from gamers themselves. There has been a lot of talk about design stagnating/evolving, depending on your point of view, and lots of people are unhappy with the status of the industry as a whole. I know I sure am. I believe that design has restricted itself as games have tried to become closer to reality. It used to be that a game was radically changed if you could jump just a wee bit higher or fire one more shot at a time, because everything had to be designed around the very basic mechanics. Games were tight, and it's not like that anymore. It's not gamers that've changed, it's the games.

A lot of my friends have stopped playing games. When one of them saw the new Zelda trailer, he said something to the effect that it was the first time he'd been excited about console gaming in a while. I know two people who are already planning to buy a Cube to get Zelda: that's great but the problem is they don't already have one. They are gamers, and they should, in theory, have been excited by what any of the current consoles have to offer. Considering they aren't, there's definately a fairly large niche that can be filled by something.

That was an extended and roundabout rant, but my point is that Nintendo shouldn't be too afraid to try new things. They might fail, but that's okay: it doesn't mean anything. On the other hand, they could come across something which is both different and very, very good. Judging by Nintendogs and the Famitsu review, they may have done so.  

43

Nintendo Gaming / RE:Miyamoto interview on IGN

« on: May 19, 2005, 06:56:20 PM »

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You do realize that the era when Nintendo had more influence was when Hiroshi Yamauchi was illegally opressing the other game companies right?

He specifically mentioned the SNES era, when Nintendo had influence because they were big, but they couldn't coerce developers because they'd go to Sega.

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. . . the evoltuion of technology to a point where Nintendo can no longer stay on top. . .

Nintendo can keep up with technology. The Cube has pushed more polygons than the XBox ever has, and the DS is still powerful, even if it's overshadowed by the PSP in that respect.

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I wouldn't know what to make of it if Nintendo was in the top dog position again. I bet it would be good overall, but I doubt that Nintendo has anywhere NEAR the energy, resources, to last long in such a position.

Being the market leader gives you energy. The PS2 would have crumbled at launch if Sony wasn't the market leader in the first place. An expensive console with a terrible launch line-up backed up by mainstream media penetration won this generation.

44

Nintendo Gaming / RE: Silicon Knights still working on games for GC

« on: May 18, 2005, 11:56:45 PM »

I can't believe Nintendo made that happen.

45

Nintendo Gaming / RE: Thursday-aton!

« on: May 18, 2005, 09:35:48 PM »

Hedorah, try copying the link location and pasting it into the URL bar. I think they disallowed direct linking. It would work for Mario because his browser will have cached them.

46

Nintendo Gaming / RE: Thursday-aton!

« on: May 18, 2005, 09:08:14 PM »

I'd be suspicious of that, BlackNMild2k1, because it's exactly the sort of thing you'd expect a fanboy to come up with. It's just too damn good. Still, Nintendo pulled that sort of thing with Donkey Kong Country way back. I've never played Nights (I refuse to use stupid capitalisation), but it sounded really cool.

47

Nintendo Gaming / RE:press conference letdown

« on: May 18, 2005, 09:02:06 PM »

I honestly don't think any of the 'major players' revealed much. We knew about the XBox 360 specs already and the PS3's archetecture is so alien that nobody really knows what it can do. Nintendo aren't going to pull the numbers bullshit their competitors are.

Nintendo just didn't really have much to show this year. The GameBoy micro is cool but nothing major. The Zelda tailer was neat, but unlike last year it wasn't a massive surprise to everyone, and we didn't get many details about the Revolution. The DS is having a good show, but because most of the games are already out in Japan, we're not so surprised by them. To me, the announcement of the Revolution's ability to download old games was the highlight of the conference. Though I was hoping Odama would steal the show.

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Especially about the GBA micro, c'mon nintendo!

All the micro-hate is just like this comic. When Apple released the iPod mini nobody bitched about it. What's your problem? They didn't tout it as a big thing, and they're not forcing you to buy it.

You really are trolling here. You contradict yourself in the online statements, and talk about stuff nobody knows about. We got pre-rendered screens just like Sony's conference did. Too bad all the mods are away at E3.  

48

Nintendo Gaming / RE: Revolution a lost battle?

« on: May 18, 2005, 05:28:11 PM »

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The real question is can Nintendo still make money making a third place console?

I'd point out that the Cube is more profitable than the PS2 and the XBox combined, but because the XBox has actually lost money I guess it wold be better to say it's made more money than the PS2 and PS1/PSX/PSOne combined. Nintendo can make a profit and Nintendo can fight its way back to number one or number two is the states again. Just we don't have enough information to even guess if they will yet.  

49

Nintendo Gaming / RE: Revolution vs XBOX360 vs PS3

« on: May 18, 2005, 05:05:27 PM »

Yeah, we can't judge the PS3 either until we start seeing gameplay shots/movies. The XBox 360 was pretty underwhelming, but since they're launching so soon, those demos were probably rushed. We'll see in a few months.

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Nintendo Gaming / RE: So, list of Games you'd download?

« on: May 17, 2005, 10:14:27 PM »

I'd get too many, presuming they're cheap, for me to count. I've sold four people on the Revolution today by this alone. Nintendo just need to make sure they don't screw it up.