Messages

151

TalkBack / Game Boy Advance SP

« on: February 15, 2003, 03:20:51 PM »

But look at it this way: it was cheaper for them to toast one than one of us because they only lose the wholesale price (and the profit on that one model), and in return, they get free advertising via links like PGC's, "Look at them toast this GBA SP!" "Wow! That's cruel, I- hey, while I'm here, they say they have some in stock..."

152

TalkBack / Zelda Date Break?

« on: February 12, 2003, 08:45:29 AM »

I called EB yesterday, they said they knew some stores had broken the street date and were getting fined, they figured it would be soon when all of them got the OK to distribute early. Blast, I wonder if all EBs are doing it now, but I'd hate to call just after I called yesterday...

[thecubedcanuck]

153

NWR Feedback / Jesus, Rick!

« on: February 10, 2003, 02:31:28 PM »

Someone can still be equivalently inappropriate in text, though, are sigs going to go next? :/

Quote
Originally posted by: thecubedcanuck

Quote
The problem is, for the most part, these people are NO LONGER IN NINTENDO'S TARGET MARKET. And now they wonder why Nintendo is making all these bad decisions, and why Nintendo has "forsaken" them. Sorry, you grew up, and now Sony and Microsoft want your business. Honestly, all these angry teens can do is wait a few more years until they have families and are in Nintendo's target market again, or buy an Xbox/PS2. They're worrying because they feel this is something Nintendo has done to THEM, and your post was absolutely NOT going to change it.

Wow, you have, in one paragraph summed it all up.  
For a long time I have wondered what the hell happened to Nintendo. I now can see the light. Nintendo didnt change at all, I did.
Great post Rick.

The trouble is, the video game market grew up too. Nintendo didn't pursue their niche of business because of their feelings of "values" and their want to provide family entertainment, they did it because it was the most profitable at the time. Video game consoles being marketed as computers were not fairing well. Nintendo rethought the whole process, and marketed the Nintendo like a toy, the toy every kid had to have. Thus, back then they had to appeal to families to make it an acceptible toy for younger children. Sure, some of the company leads probably had it in their heads they were doing this service for family entertainment everywhere (including a certain someone who promised to retire a couple hundred times), but the fact of the matter is they pursued family entertainment because it was the most profitable area to pursue back then. Now, over 50% of people who actively purchase gaming products are adults. Not teens, not children, adults. It's not that there's not still a market for selling to children and family-safe products. But the greater market now is to appeal to older gamers as well. But Nintendo doesn't have to "grow up" (I certainly don't call some of the Microsoft-pushed efforts "grown up", anyway) all the way, just partially, to cater to both audiences. (And I personally think they already have started successfully.)

The bigger issue in my eyes is that they're still playing a less-active role in the console competition, often making slow or no statements or movements, sticking reserved with the basics, and so on. And even that's changing a little, with the Master Quest pack-in disc (including URA? That would've never happened a year or two ago) and the GBA SP ("Whoops, we messed up..."). They still have a ways to go, but I think they're off to a good start.

Edit: I apologize for replying in-depth, I didn't intend to at first, but it was in direct reply to canuck's comment and the "You're right!" reply after. I think the teens and the lot have a right to feel angsty when the company is losing a lot of potential profit they have no reason not to try to appeal to.

154

NWR Feedback / List of Suggestions

« on: February 10, 2003, 02:15:40 PM »

True, but people can be just an inappropriate with sigs or usersnames as they can with an avatar, even with a word censor in place. :/ (lewdity/cussing in a sig or username versus nudity/violence in an avatar) And due to PGC's previous rules on avatar sizes, bandwidth theft would probably not be that great of an issue, at least in the sense of the impact of the offenders. But I understand right now you have other concerns, it is merely suggestion for later on, avatars can go a long way into personalizing forum members, and frankly, making it easier to read threads. It feels like that left bar is wasted space, currently, there's barely a name and a generic title in it.

Was this forum something you guys significantly coded _yourselves_? Because most premade forum scripts offer and often default to allowing external avatars. I'm surprised FuseTalk totally lacks that functionality and would require it to be coded in...

155

Nintendo Gaming / Secret projects!!

« on: February 08, 2003, 04:58:50 PM »

I did hear the Donkey Kong Island name somewhere, I think it was a rumor post on the PGC ezBoard before it was closed, supposedly a kick-back to the DK Country games and style, instead of DK64, even up to the fact that it's 2.5D. Still a rumor, but sounds like a likely one. As for HAL doing it, though, I'm not sure. Then again, NCL could've been impessed by the "Adventure" 2.5D action stages in Melee...

HAL could be doing that, or it could be something quite different. I don't think their next game is a Smash Bros., although I can't wait for a new one.

Here's a weird one, somewhere along the line, on an official release list, Kirby's Air Ride showed up again. Yes, the game that's been in developmental hell since the EARLY N64 days showed up on one of the more recent "title lists" from Nintendo for Gamecube, it's possibly the one where Nintendo of Europe leaked the 2003 titles. Maybe IGN still considers that secret, if it's right...

156

Nintendo Gaming / multi-disc games?

« on: February 08, 2003, 04:08:03 PM »

Not to mention you've got to organize the game so that the data is correctly split across at least two discs. That often requires a lot of data duplication, which can make a game that might've fit in 2.8 Gig into a 3.7 Gig game, which would still require compression or a third disc. For RE, it's easy to split the games up since there's two character quests, each one with unique FMVs, but imagine FMV-heavy games that are fairly non-linear, it really creates some design issues when a gamer could, at any time on any disc, go here and do this, go there and do a sub-plot, or go over there and play a complex mini-game, these things not only probably requiring voice samples to be available, but often FMV.

For instance, if you remember it, think back to FF7. On Disc 3 the Golden Saucer is unaccessible. Was that necessary for the plot? I don't think so. It's so they didn't have to keep the extra FMVs and data on that third disc and would have space for what they needed for the ending (and what non-linear action that was still possible even then). Splitting up the data over multiple discs can physically affect gameplay anyway. That's part of the reason why the GC gets the shaft on complex games being ported over, some games would need some physical restructing in order to work right for a multi-disc format, and that's expensive to a developer.

If the discs were dual-layered (like many DVDs), this wouldn't be an issue, cost would still be there, but the data would always physically be accessible by the game, even if it needed extra time to tell the laser to switch layers back and forth. But sadly, the GC doesn't seem to have any ability to read dual-layered discs, from what I remember of the interviews. It's a shame, but it's a fact of life. Unless someone (Factor 5, I'm looking at you ) works out a compression technique that can kick GC discs up to at least 3 Gig losslessly (This would probably have to be in addition to the DivX functionality they've already worked out, as well), unless a game is specifically designed for the Gamecube like RE or RE0,  developers are either going to compress it down to one disc, or not port it at all. But I agree, some games like SSX Tricky and Tony Hawk could have the extras on a second disc that gamers just pop in when they want to watch them. You don't need the game data on the disc as well when you're just watching skater videos or developmental videos.

157

Nintendo Gaming / Give me Mario Kart or give me death

« on: February 08, 2003, 03:51:37 PM »

Super Circuit was created far too early for there to be any links into a Mario Kart game still in development, unless Nintendo left in vague hooks like they did in some N64 games for later 64DD enhancements. But I don't think any current GBA Mario Kart would be able to link with it. A future GBA Mario Kart, maybe...

And yes, online, leaning a little more toward the SNES and GBA's style than the N64 style, and just... kick-arse. Got to love the Bowser's Castle stages. I like the idea of the frog suit powerup, water was always a hinderance in previous Mario Kart games...

Oh, one question, IGN's "Games of 2003" article mentioned offhand that the Mario Kart promo video (which I just think they mocked up, like the Zelda video, not a true representation of the game) was shown off first at E3 2002, wasn't it shown off far earlier than that, at E3 2001 before the console was even released?

[Frozen-Solid]

158

NWR Feedback / List of Suggestions

« on: February 08, 2003, 02:46:56 PM »

Interesting, I'm not begging or griping, but I bought both the E3 DVD and the PGC shirt (tucked in an extra donation too, check David Eggleton), but never received a title. All well, I suppose I didn't tell them my username, but it was never asked for.

And I do like the new forums, but I admit it's quite a bummer that I lose my ezSupporter ad-blocking functionality on these new ones.

Quote
Originally posted by: Frozen-Solid
The stupidity here comes from people not being able to read.  I said "avatars would be nice but are not needed" - I'll take bannerless, popupless forums that are hosted on a site's own over some pointless avatars any day.

These are easily some of the fastest and best looking forums I've ever used.  Let's keep it that way.

Yes, we don't want overtly-wasteful BMPs and badly-dithered GIFs scattered about, but come on, griping about tiny avatars (and I know PGC would keep them tiny, they wouldn't even allow graphics in a sig back on ezBoard (where the sigs are universal for all the boards someone posts on, as well as your sig preferences), and went after anyone with an avatar over... 7k, was it? There's a point when it just seems to get too picky, and I know it's not my place to dictate, which I'm not, but my opinion is that it was already getting enforced a little too much, now totally removing avatars? Avatars let people ID others at a glance. A simple graphic mnemonic so you can see, "Oh, there's Windy, there's Rick, there's Kulock", and so on. Yes, people can read, but, especially with the de-emphasized names on the left (they're just hard to see at a glance for some reason), it takes two to four times longer to find it, read it, and click who it is. Avatars can be seen out of the corner of the eye and you know who it is. But the text looks the same at a quick glance no matter who it is, and yes, sometimes it matters who is saying what (especially on the PGC forums, where saying the wrong thing to a moderator can result in an instant ban :/ ). Allowing small avatars would allow people to immediate click who's saying what as they scan down a topic, it's just far easier. It's not just a luxury.

Most forums allow you to restrict the avatar, not only the size, but the file size, so if that's an issue, like it was before, that could hopefully be prevented. Bandwidth for avatars is obviously external, and as for speed of the forums for the users, I don't think it'd make any real impact. The current layout is incredibly graphics-light as it is (to the point of sparse), anyone complaining about their download speeds would be splitting hairs and trying to squeeze life out of a 2,400 baud. I have a 26k dial-up connection (not 56k like most, 26k thanks to the lines out here), I handle far worse during the day, and the old ezBoard threads never gave me much hassle even with the avatars, I'd often open up multiple windows at once, and they'd load pretty swiftly (avatars last, but most browsers don't wait for every image to totally finish downloading before the page is properly rendered).

That's pretty much all I have issues with. I just think avatars are a necessary addition, just restrict the size and file size.

If I had one other qualm, I'd say move the "Planet GameCube" group of forums up to the top so Talkback is frequented more again (I like the news article links that now tell you how many people have replied since), but it looks the forum categories are in alphabetical order, that might be a default you'd have to fight with.

159

TalkBack / Zelda Bonus Shipping Already

« on: February 07, 2003, 12:08:22 PM »

My question exactly, I preordered from a new local EBGames (who've so far been pleasently on-top of the Zelda info, most EB's I've been in before are always behind the news and info and even new offers by their own store, even on the bigger game releases), I was wondering if I should try swinging by there on my way home today to check, or if the effort would be moot. I live only a state away from Kentucky, if that's EB's main distribution hub...