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Originally posted by: Finnegan
hold on, hold on.....
you cant determine anything about the Revolution yet. We don't even know what it IS.
Ironically, that's the problem. Sony and Microsoft are actively farming out early PS3 and Xbox 2 development kits and showing off the capabilities to 3rd parties. Nintendo's playing secretive again and thus most third parties have only the vaguest idea of what it might potentially be able to do. Logically, they're going to start (in some cases, already have) developing games for the consoles with the clearest frameworks already present, even if Nintendo shows them the dev kits _later_, they'll already be headlong into PS3 and Xbox 2 dev, and the most Rev fans can hope for is quick and potentially shoddy ports.
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Originally posted by: Finnegan
After hearing this news, GC has not lost a game, so it still has what it had before that announcement so this should not make you more or less happy or content with GC's lineup than before.
They lost the console selling power an exclusive title can provide. Imagine if Halo had received a GCN release in addition to being on the Xbox, with all the same capabilities, and maybe more (built-in online play, let's say, since that's a possibility for RE4 PS2). Halo wasn't an instant console seller, it was a word-of-mouth title that generated fans more and more as they got their friends to play it. Now, eight months after the Xbox release (this was back when the console wars this gen were still somewhat of a tossup between GCN and Xbox), this great game they've been hearing about has a brand new GCN release with these extra added features and a few new levels. Well, let your friend have the old Xbox release, but you're going to get the brand new one. This saves you from getting your own Xbox anyway to play the title regularly, because you already owned a GCN.
Oops. While Halo as game might still be a huge hit, Halo 2 suddenly isn't something Microsoft can rely on to exclusively sell consoles for their side. In fact, if the GCN version had sold well, we'd see a simultaneous release for both consoles. Suddenly there's not as much of a clear-cut advantage unless Bungie illogically built in some major flaws to one version or the other. (They don't want to bother with Microsoft's proprietary online service, so only the GCN version has online play, or the GCN version's audio is heavily compressed from the smaller disc format.)
What's funny is this anecdote reminds me of something Capcom tried, the Viewtiful Joe PS2 port, with the added Dante playability, and now VJ2 coming to PS2 and GCN simultaneously. The only part that doesn't work is that I heard the PS2 VJ port's sales weren't that fantastic.
Anyway, RE4 wouldn't have generated THIS much buzz, but it was a heavily-wanted game in Japan, and had Nintendo and Capcom advertised it well and it still remained exclusive, it might've really pushed some GCNs off the shelves. But now the news will get around that the PS2 is getting a port, possibly with more features (and gamers love their extra features), so for PS2-only owners, why bother buying a new console for the game when you can just wait and get it a little later with more added?