Messages

1176

Nintendo Gaming / RE:Fun With Math ...

« on: September 11, 2006, 11:20:29 AM »

They don't have to launch absolutely immediately after the last box of their first shipment is finished.  And even if everyone could easily pack a Wii in under a minute, how likely can they maintain that rate all day?  More likely they gave themselves some breathing room.  I would estimate that they would give themselves an extra week or even two...heck, even three, considering the volume involved.

However, it would be nice if the launch date was "this particular date at the latest, but sooner if we finish packing before then".  Confusion would certainly arise, though.  

[Athrun Zala]

1177

Nintendo Gaming / RE:Wii is so not hardcore. And you know it!

« on: September 11, 2006, 09:12:13 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Athrun Zala

Quote
Originally posted by: KnowsNothing
So now this thread is a competition to see who has the worst taste in games?

Yeah okay.

lol, seems like it

F-Zero GX is the most hardcore and difficult as hell game EVAR!

and how can you not like Metroid? :S

I've finished hundreds of games.  Heck, for all I know, maybe over a thousand...or two?  I've certainly lost count.  Nearly every game I touch.  I can finish just about all games on a three day rental (back when they were only three days), except for some RPGs which rarely take over a week.

BUT IN F-ZERO GX I CAN'T PASS STORY MODE'S STAGE 7!  And I hear there are at least two more stages after that, one of which is on a track with no rails!

F-ZERO GX owns my butt, shamefully.  But considering that it's by Nintendo AND Sega, I couldn't ask for a better game to be defeated by.  (You know, like how some losers in a tournament (even in the early rounds) who lose along the way to the champ are like, "at least I lost to the champ"...etc.)

1178

Nintendo Gaming / RE:Nintendo Event September 14th

« on: September 11, 2006, 08:48:20 AM »

I've heard of European and Australian prices (of games, consoles, and related things) sometimes being higher than North American prices (after conversion).

Of course, my memory could be wrong, but aren't Japanese prices, after conversion, much closer to American/Canadian prices (at least closer than European and Australian prices are)?

So this may be stating the obvious, but the Japanese price, if revealed before the North American price, would lead us to some very close estimates.

I seem to remember the GameCube was cheaper here in Canada when it first came out (at least in some places), even including the 7% GST at the time.  Now our GST is 6%, and the dollar is something like 0.90 US, or at least closer than it was in 2001, so if it turns out to be $149.99 US, for example, they may make it $149.99 Canadian instead of $167.67.  Then again they may more likely make it $174.99 Canadian, which would be more...but not by much...but still...

1179

Nintendo Gaming / RE:WiiPointer Memory Idea.

« on: September 11, 2006, 07:47:55 AM »

Oh, yeah, I guess inverted aim in a pointing device would be weird.  >_<

(And my idea about an accomplishment to show off was really very simple - I meant a top accomplishment, or at most, a few, and I could see how each could be done in only 3 bytes - 2 bytes for a game's unique number, from 0 to 65535 (they won't have that many Wii games!) and another byte which would allow for 256 possible in-game accompishments.  You'd only need one byte as it would all be on some big online database as to what the possible up-to-256 accomplishments are per game.  If you want a specific score or precentage it's not going to add many more bytes.)

In any case, we need more ideas...though hopefully what Nintendo has in mind fulfills some of them.

I like the fact that the Wii OS can update...we may see new features over time, including the use of said memory.

1180

Nintendo Gaming / RE:Nintendo Event September 14th

« on: September 11, 2006, 06:46:25 AM »

You know, I haven't heard them officially say that they will announce the date and price....so maybe they won't.  

You'd think that with all this Wii hype and everyone expecting them to say the date and price now, they would call it "The Nintendo Wii Relase Date and Price Revelation Press Conference" to hype it up a bit more, if they're going to reveal such details.

Then again, maybe they could be revealing a lot more than just a release date and price...  o_0

1181

Nintendo Gaming / RE:Wii is so not hardcore. And you know it!

« on: September 10, 2006, 12:52:01 PM »

Me and Pro 666 agree on at least one thing: "HI I'M DAISY" adds so much to the Mario Kart experience.  You don't get that in any other Mario Kart game!

1182

Nintendo Gaming / RE:WiiPointer Memory Idea.

« on: September 10, 2006, 11:24:07 AM »

Well, accomplishments could be a very short code identifying the game and another one identifying the accomplishment.  If it's as simple as a score it could just be that.  That's certainly the same or similar to compressed text.

And even if you're doing something online it still ought to be stored somewhere...I like the idea of having at least some of that in the WiiPointer because then no matter which Wii you're playing on (like at a friend's or elsewhere) you could be breaking online records.  You could then brag about all the action your Wii controller has seen.

1183

Nintendo Gaming / RE:WiiPointer Memory Idea.

« on: September 10, 2006, 10:54:11 AM »

Darn, I was going to make a very similar post but never got around to it.

An idea I had when the N64 came out with its multitude of colours of controllers was that I was thinking there should be some way for the controller to tell the game what colour it is.  Then when playing multiplayer games, by default, the characters could be clad in the colour of the controller (by default, of course, not limited to that).  With internal memory, you could do one better - and have the controller remember your personal favourite colour (you would set it by RGB values, and then you could have one of 16.7 million possibilities with using up only 6 bytes).

Depending on how the sensitivity works, you could have different settings for different genres.  A multi-genre game might have a code in the game saying that you're entering a racing stage, and then a shooting stage, etc., if you require different settings for each one.  If too complex (though not really) I'm sure there could be simple settings like whether or not you want the Y-axis inverted by default, etc.

Maybe a quote/comment/personal greeting (like the DS has).

6 kb (or is it 6kB?  Either way it) isn't a lot to work with, but depending on what online features are available, maybe your mini-profile could also show your favourite game(s), the game(s) you want people to challenge you to, or a score or percentage completion or accomplishment in a certain game that you want to show off.  For example, you may not believe me if I told you I made it to 999,999,999 Bells in Animal Crossing without using an external cheat device (which I did, BTW) but that would sure be an accomplishment I'd show off on my profile.  Of course, you'd have to be sure external cheat devices could somehow be detected by the system...*sigh*

There could maybe also be a personal code or some small snippet of personal information that might be used in a game somehow, either for laughs or as an actual key to a puzzle.  I know Mario Party Advance asks you some questions (like "what's you secret?" - creepy) but I don't know what it is for.  Or the system could ask you some moral questions (like in the Ultima games...do you value honesty or compassion more, ie. you're delivering an uncounted bag of money when you come across a beggar.  Do you give him some money (in compassion) knowing it won't be missed, or do you continue on your way with the full sum of money (because of upholding honesty)?) and maybe this will determine how good or evil your character will be prone to become in any game without having to do the same process in any game.  (Though maybe not, that's part of the fun.)

One thing that ISN'T part of the fun is recreating my face in a gazillion different games.  Perhaps it's too much to ask that all Tony Hawk games read the same "face/character creation" file and that EA games do the same, but one per company would be nice.  Then again, with only 6 kB perhaps that's better left to the internal flash memory or the SD cards.  Some kind of singular face/character thing.  That would save a lot of time.

Just some ideas of mine.

1184

Nintendo Gaming / RE:Iwata interviews Wii development team Part 3

« on: September 10, 2006, 06:03:07 AM »

I always thought that any disc-based drive, when vertical, was more prone to trouble than a horizontal one.

Or maybe the Xbox 360 with its reports of eating DVDs and having read errors when vertical has me paranoid.  On the other hand, I heard some did that while horizontal, so maybe it's just Microsoft.

I plan to put away the ugly coffe-table thing (which isn't really a coffee table) that sits in the middle of the room and has all the Nintendo consoles on it (Virtual Console FTW!).  I'll find a place for them, of course, but suddenly the room will be so much more pleasing without all of that junking up the middle - plus, now there's more space to play the more active Wii games in!  And the Wii itself will likely fit anywhere on the shelves next to the TV with all the other equipment.

The design team did great work!  I can't wait!

[jasonditz]

1185

General Gaming / RE:Sony getting hit Hard lately

« on: September 09, 2006, 02:21:57 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: jasonditz
I think it was more a glib commentary on Sony's claim that the tilt control wasn't a desperate last minute add-on but rather something they'd planned all along.

Ah.  Yes.  You're right.

Still, the point I added remains...the PS3 as a whole has been expected and supposedly a work in progress all along since about the PS2 launch, and it still seems quite shoddily put together.  It's almost as if the whole thing was a rush job - not just the motion sensor addition.

And I still think it's dumb for the PlayStation font to now be the same as the Spider-Man font.  It's like they couldn't even bother to get someone to design a new font, even.

1186

Nintendo Gaming / RE:Wii is so not hardcore. And you know it!

« on: September 09, 2006, 02:09:12 PM »

I think anything that anyone says on the Internet is going to be criticized endlessly.  Popularity and controversy go together.  Matt Cass-etc. is a popular/controversial editor for a likely popular/controversial console's section on a popular/controversial site.

Love him or hate him, agree with him or not, whatever.  I see little point to argue about what he thinks and says - or what anyone thinks and says, really.  We all have our own opinions.

I seriously doubt he has any say about the fate of the Wii or any Nintendo console or anything major so I'd just move on.

Well, you can do what you want, it just seems like he has too much attention already, and unfortunately I may be contributing to that.  So that's it from me about this.

1187

Nintendo Gaming / RE:eIwata interviews Wii development team Part 2

« on: September 09, 2006, 07:19:52 AM »

Thank goodness for that.  And thank goodness it's nothing like a sad man's dinner around the computer, either.

I'm guessing the "like a mad woman’s breakfast around the TV" is a translation error (I had one in French class when I translated Pope Pious to be "Pope Meat Pie").  I wonder what it's supposed to be, and why it's such a concern.  I could understand if they maybe meant "kid's lunchbox", but that's some goofed/up translation to become an insane/angry woman's...TV...breakfast...thing?

1188

General Chat / RE:Has anyone gone to the Video Games Live concert?

« on: September 09, 2006, 07:16:02 AM »

According to Music 4 Games, the playlist is as follows:

"Classic Arcade Medley"
Metal Gear Solid
CastleVania
God Of War
"Interactive Symphony" starring Space Invaders
Beyond Good & Evil
Medal Of Honor
EverQuest II
The Legend Of Zelda
Tron v2.0
"Interactive Symphony" starring Frogger
Kingdom Hearts
Myst
Sonic The Hedgehog
WarCraft
Final Fantasy
Advent Rising
Super Mario
Halo

Encore 1:  Guitar Hero medley played by Marcus Henderson (guitarist from Guitar Hero)
Encore 2:  Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario World played by Martin Leung (the blindfolded video game pianist)  

1189

Nintendo Gaming / RE:Wii is so not hardcore. And you know it!

« on: September 08, 2006, 07:24:05 PM »

(This is in response to Mario's post three posts up.)

I would guess is that the Xbox 360 came sooner than it should, but more importantly that a lot of people were/are holding out for Sony's and Nintendo's next consoles.  You can't truly say it has no competitors when consumers are aware of future competitors and are willing to wait for them to show up.

And it's not like when we hit a new generation of consoles that the "previous" one instantly and totally dies.

But you're right, I'm sure Microsoft would want to do better, and yet they haven't truly capitalized much on Sony's blunders.  

1190

Nintendo Gaming / RE:Wii is so not hardcore. And you know it!

« on: September 08, 2006, 06:35:55 PM »

How about:

Those who have given up on the PS3 now...
And those who will give up on the PS3 later when they see the price for real in a store?  



Okay, that was a fanboysih moment.  I'll admit to that.  There will be PS3 owners.  And, hey, some will even be happy about it.  Good for them.

But enjoy the PS2 in its dying days, Sony.  It's pretty clear that you passed the high point of your success in the games business.  It's only going to go downhill from here.  How quickly or how far depends on how often you alienate or frustrate your potential buyers, and you've done a lot of that already, sorry to say.

1191

General Gaming / RE:Sony getting hit Hard lately

« on: September 08, 2006, 06:30:15 PM »

Oh, sure, we've heard about the PS3 for years...people were talking about it since the PS2 came out.  Essentially they think Sony won the future - and it's easy enough to talk about something where all you do is add the next number on.  Heck, if the PS3 isn't a total disaster...I predict a PlayStation 4, which everyone will refer to as the "PS4"!  Ooooh.  Big whoop.

But when it comes down to the actual designing of it, man, it's like they sat on their laurels, spent their PS2 dollars on who-knows-what, and then threw what they weren't going to spend at their hardware developers when they heard the Xbox 360 was about to launch.  Well, just about.  I mean, sheesh.  As of now, there's not even final PS3 development kits, and not many of them, and supposedly Wiis are next to finalization if not already produced, perhaps?

Remember a year ago or so when people thought they knew everything about the PS3 and we were all griping that we hadn't even seen a thing of the "Revolution"?  Now we know that it's called the Wii and the crazy controller and a bunch of games and a lot of what it could offer - and realize that developers still don't even truly know what's going on with the PS3 - other than that it's an overpriced, beefed-up, bulkier PlayStation.

If Sony themselves are doubting the PS3, what hope is there for anyone who wants a PS3?

1192

Nintendo Gaming / RE:IGN reveals new Wii launch title and first pics of the Wii steering wheel attachment

« on: September 08, 2006, 06:12:09 PM »

I don't like racing games - I don't even currently drive a car.  So you may slap me if what I say next doesn't make sense.

But from what I've seen people doing in real-life cars (even in non-racing driving) and in arcade racing cabinets, I don't see how the steering wheel would work other than for basic steering - since it's not actually attached to anything.

It'd be hard if not impossible to perform hand-over-hand motions, one-handed palm spins, or simply letting the wheel slide through your hands.  Without a central pivot or whatever it's like you're just going to be doing tilts.

Maybe I have no idea what I'm talking about - I've done that from time to time.  I guess it could be better than just holding the remote.  But like the whole uncanny valley discussion, I feel it makes it closer to a steering wheel all right...but the fact that one has to hold the whole thing up and that it lacks a pivot of its own will probably make me drive worse than I already do - or at least not any better.  Good thing it's probably cheap enough to not increase the price of the game it comes with - and optional for gameplay.

Now did I sound as stupid as I think I do?  (Regardless, I should probably get a car.)

[Deguello]

1193

Nintendo Gaming / RE:Wii is so not hardcore. And you know it!

« on: September 08, 2006, 06:04:06 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: DeguelloBut seriously, the price is the biggest screwup ever.  They basically are throwing away the Walmart crowd, which is one of their strongest supporters, to grab technical enthusiasts who are dwarfed in comparison.  And considering tha launch shortages admitted to by Sony and the ebay madness which will surely accompany it, it might be 2 years before the PS3 is available enough and affordable enough for your average consumer.  And the average consumer is, like Ian said, Sony's biggest user bloc.

Add the two years of waiting for a decent price drop to the facts that Sony's depency on the PS2 has gone longer than they should've, especially since the PS2 was a year before its competitors, and that the PS3 is now the last to the next-gen race, that the Xbox 360 started this next generation about at least a year earlier, that if you haven't already pre-ordered one you're unlikely to get one this year even if you're going to try to be a PS3 early adopter simply because of shortages, and if you live in Europe, it's another few months more, which is about a year after the originally expected Spring 2006 date...  (And if you count the really "hardcore gamers"' hyping up of the PS3 shortly after even the PS2 came out, well, it's been a long wait.)

With alternatives like the similar-and-cheaper-and-already-available Xbox 360 and the crazily-new-and-different-and-nobody-can-stop-talking-about Wii, can anyone afford the time (waiting for the PS3 to be relatively affordable), or the money (betting on the PS3 to be worth its crazy price tag no matter what)?

Unless you're a game-playing android, it doesn't matter a bit if you're a "hardcore" gamer, casual gamer, rich gamer, poor gamer, non-gamer, Joe Schmoe, Jane Smith, Aunt May or whoever.  You'll have other priorities in life besides games, so when you do get into the games, or anything for that matter, your time and money and effort and faith is going to go into what you think is best.  Even if you can't consider the Wii "hardcore", the price and pick-up-and-play simplicity is going to make it popular.

Does spending more time and money waiting for the PS3 make one "hardcore"?  If so, I don't see a need to be "hardcore" anymore, if I ever was.

1194

Nintendo Gaming / RE:Wii is so not hardcore. And you know it!

« on: September 08, 2006, 12:36:30 PM »

^Technically, the Wii means the death (or at least eventual death) of the GameCube, so to say the Wii is the GameCube's coffin is almost not inaccurate.  Or something.

1195

Nintendo Gaming / RE:Wii is so not hardcore. And you know it!

« on: September 08, 2006, 10:27:33 AM »

Perhaps.  (That was in response to the post before the previous one.)  That and Nintendo makes many of its own big games...there's more to identify with and enjoy with Nintendo.  Like Mario games, Zelda games, Metroid games, etc.  We enjoy their games and so we love Nintendo.

People who enjoy the PlayStation for Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy, and Grand Theft Auto aren't playing Sony games.  They're PlayStation games, whose franchises can and do appear on other platforms.  Yet they cling to their Sony because they somehow think they can bring everything together under one roof, so to speak.

In that sense I think a Nintendo fan(boy)'s love for Nintendo is more "real" than a PlayStation fan's love for Sony, in which case a PlayStation fanboy's ranting sounds more ridiculous since it's not quite as grounded.  Or is it the more definite "love" (or, as some might say, more blinding) that alienates the more casual gamers?  (Again, I find it pointless to own a game system if you don't expect to want to enjoy it and love its games - and somewhere about there is where the line between being a fan and a fanboy ought to be made.)

I'm gonna cut this short since I'm at work...  >_>  

1196

Nintendo Gaming / RE:Wii is so not hardcore. And you know it!

« on: September 08, 2006, 10:05:15 AM »

No, no, I think Ceric's getting closer to it.

If you have a PS2, you're keeping up with the Joneses.  If you have an Xbox 360, you're a generation above the rest.  It's status.

If you like GameCube games, you probably don't care that other people think it's a kid's purple lunchbox or that it's in third place.  And that shows that status is less important to you; that's more hardcore.

The Wii may be the same...in a world that's obsessed with power, perhaps now more than ever before with the transition to HD, a Wii player can still have fun with his standard-def games.

[guess]

1197

General Gaming / RE:Sony getting hit Hard lately

« on: September 08, 2006, 09:57:34 AM »

"If you asked me if Sony's strength in hardware was in decline, right now I guess I would have to say that might be true," game unit head Ken Kutaragi said after Sony pushed back the PS3's European launch by four months to March.

He's only guessing?

I think everyone strongly believes Sony's strength in hardware is declining.  I guess it's hard for him to admit that but it's not like saying what he did is much better.  See, if he did the opposite and denied it absolutely outright, some of us could at least think that he knows something that we don't.  But by saying that he "guesses" that it "might" be true, that doesn't sound very confident and makes it seem more likely that he knows it actually is in decline (and in trouble).

Ah, or is this too much "between-the-lines" reading?  

1198

Nintendo Gaming / RE:Major Wii News Coming TONIGHT?

« on: September 08, 2006, 09:53:33 AM »

Assuming this topic is relevant anymore, I think the topic title should be edited to include the date so that people don't think there's "major" Wii news EVERY night.

That would be nice, though, wouldn't it?  

1199

Nintendo Gaming / RE:Am I screwed? Should I already have pre-ordered?

« on: September 08, 2006, 09:50:24 AM »

I rent the majority of the games that I play, so I'm rarely disappointed - a game has to be REALLY bad for it to not even be worth the rental price.  And I finish the majority of games that I rent in a short enough time that I rarely extend it or rerent it.  (What's the point of renting a game if you don't devote the weekend to playing it?)

The majority of the games that I DO buy are Nintendo's own first- or second-party games, and the majority of THOSE games I haven't even rented or played beforehand since I likely read about them to death on the Internet already.  And I'm more likely to replay a Nintendo game so it matters less if it could've been finishable even on a rental.

As you can see, I have faith in Nintendo.  Maybe too much.  But I think Pokémon Snap was really the only game in recent times where I questioned the purchase.

1200

Nintendo Gaming / RE:Wii is so not hardcore. And you know it!

« on: September 08, 2006, 09:35:12 AM »

Perhaps I've had some bad experiences with Sony fanboys, BigJim.  I can see how a lot of people would buy a PlayStation-branded product (or in your example, Game Boy) but I think my problem comes with people who buy these products and then try and defend them when they don't know what they're talking about.  Perhaps, then, what annoys me is ignorance, which comes in any form.

Like the people who proclaim the PS2 is best, etc., then you ask them what games on other consoles they might like and they say something like "none, because they aren't any" or some other vague answer that makes it sound as if they never even considered the competition.  At all.  It's like they buy a product, and simply don't want even the slightest doubt that they bought something less than the best, and/or that they might be happier with another.  Ignorance!

At which point, even if you considered me a fanboy, you can at least see the logic (whether that's right or wrong in a moral sense) that makes me think there are people more fanboyish and ignorant than I am.

(And forgive me if I sound like I'm getting irritated.  I'm not really.)

I'll admit that as a Nintendo fan I do have bias.  I'm more likely to be hyped up by the mere mention of a new Zelda game before even seeing anything about it.  But I don't think I'd write off a whole console no matter who makes it just because everyone else I know doesn't have one.