Responding to Jack Lantern's critique, its good to keep other in people in check. I wrote my rant around 4 a.m, ready to sleep so some ideas may have been shortly executed. So I thank you for that. At least somebody read it!! I thought it was gonna be this big blob to some people who would just skip over it to the shorter ones.
By the time I got to the Online/Rare Arguments I was getting sleepy, and since I'm gonna make the assumption that PGC members can fill in the gaps because they're in the know, I can save my fingers. Lame excuse for sure, but that's my defense.
To go in some slight detail, the writer implies that Rare was this BIG studio they gave up when it was simply dead weight circa 2002. The Rare that made Goldeneye is not the same Rare that made later games. People looking for that "Goldeneye experience" cite TimeSplitters 2 as the next best thing. Retro Studios and Silicon Knights have stepped up to the plate in terms of quality (Sales, well...I guess people like Splinter Cell better. But there's room for improvement.)
The Online argument I stated was that if you read the recent interviews, Iwata-san and Miyamoto-san simply don't like the current format: Continually paying to play your games you've spent 50 dollars out of the box. Nintendo is trying to perfect a formula that will make customers and publishers happy. That may take some time.
My Colaborations (Am I spelling that right?) rant was going for a more intellecutual one, not the hard earned, making dollars and cents one. Obiviously Something else attracts these 3rd parties aside from cold hard cash. Hideo Kojima could've told Nintendo to go fly a kite when they went to him about Metal Gear. Sega could have snubbed their noses at their old rival when asking them to develop F-Zero. Namco could've just said no to Starfox. Granted, Nintendo is slow on the uptake at times but not on Quality and Innovation. (Who knows, these projects may make a profit too..)
Generally speaking, I put in some arguments that went on another angle, not nessecarily opposing them. The Nintendo/Sony story on PS1 I lifted from Gamespy.com and IGN.com (Lest they are completely unreliable sources though I doubt it.) and simply go on to say that the research they did with Nintendo (And the abrupt betrayal afterwards) went on to the birth of the PS1. Sony wasn't going in totally blind, they had some experience (behind the scenes at least.)
The writer mentioned the Mini-DVD as an Achilles Heel which is why I mentioned that it's actually to their favor. Granted 1.5 Gigs seem to be insufficient, It hasn't stopped Capcom from making jaw dropping visuals in the RE Evil series, Retro from making the vast world of Metriod Prime, and making a huge over world in Legend of Zelda:The Wind Waker. Those slick visuals in Star Fox Adventures weren't too bad either. Without getting too off topic the upcoming Ninja Gaiden on XBoX was originally concieved on a Naomi Arcade board.(EDIT: Interview is found at Gamespot.com) Here's a snippet of what Team Ninja director Tomonobu Itagaki said:
GS: Was it always scheduled to be an Xbox game?
TI: Are you serious? (smile) We began development of Ninja Gaiden in 1999. At that time, we were using the Naomi arcade board in order to develop fundamental algorithms. Please don't misunderstand me; this does not mean that we were developing Ninja Gaiden for Naomi. Naomi was an extremely able "computer" and was suited to the development of algorithms that are not dependent on the specific platform. Major examples of these algorithms are important elements in action games such as the camera engine and motion engine.
To software engineers like us, both the Naomi and the Xbox are simply two examples of a computer system. Of course, this applies to the PS2 as well. Hardware engineers often tout the novelty and uniqueness of their computer architecture; we are not interested in this, and frankly, we don't care.
Why? Because software engineers with a decent amount of expertise doing "ordinary work" can eliminate the differences between machines quite easily. (It goes on to say because of XboX's raw power was the reason it was selected.)
Case in Point? Max Payne on PC? Max Payne on GCN? Possible, you just need the right (and bright) people working on it. Though as far as getting the liscence, paying the piper, yada yada, is another story.
And I'll admit I'm not unbiased, but I'm not some die-hard fanboy neither. I also have too much on my hands
That was what I was going for. Its good to have people on your toes, otherwise heads will be filled with hot air instead of knowledge.
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kay, first up, Mario? is Mario here?
