Topic: Revolution taking 1st place in sales/marketshare? And what would that mean to us?

[KDR_11k]

MS thinks they can turn in a profit even with competition, 2007 is much too early for them to establish a monopoly, I'd guess they're almost breaking even on the new system (stupid 126$ loss reports nonwithstanding) and will rake in some money from the license fees once the gen really starts rolling. SCE is one of Sony's few profitable divisions and they'd rather cut the home electronics division than SCE.

[Kairon]

Bill Gates has ALREADY gone on record that there will if the X360 falls off, they will "play again."

If you're expecting Microsoft to get cold feet... well, think again.

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[KDR_11k]

Last I checked Bill Gates wasn't the CEO of the Microsoft Corporation.

[Ian Sane]

"Ian, you seem to have contradicted yourself a little. The existence of the Eyetoy (and that X-wand thing by MS) are proof that 3-D motion as a gameplay feature was 'an existing concept'."

It's an existing concept yes but it's not one in demand like 3D was.  Being like three years old at the time I can't say for certain how things were when Super Mario Bros came out but in the mid 90s 3D was THE thing.  There was a lot of demand for it.  There isn't really demand for the Eyetoy.  No one takes it seriously.  When games like Star Fox and Virtual Racing came out those who played them were like "yeah, I want more of this".  I don't think anyone feels that way about the Eyetoy.

And I agree with anyone who said that DS games don't count when you're talking about the Cube.  They don't.  It should never be assumed that someone owns both systems.  Hell Nintendo doesn't even think the two crossover.  Numerous times they've released a really major game on both the Cube and the GBA at roughly the same time.  If they felt the two userbases were the same then they would probably space things out and not release Pokemon and Zelda a mere week from each other.

[couchmonkey]

I've been in arcades and played games that use 3D motion, and I can definitely say, "Yeah, I want more of this".  It's a cool concept, and if Revolution has a couple of games that use it well, I'll be first in line to buy one.  Those arcade games struck me as the most exciting thing I've seen since Super Mario 64.  The DS is the second most exciting thing, so, at least for me, that says a lot for the potential of the Revolution.

Whether or not Nintendo will take first place is very much up in the air, I think this is a big gamble, but I think it offers a much better chance of a big improvement in marketshare than releasing another traditional system.  I agree with Ian that must-have games will be key to the system's success.  Quality marketing will also matter, especially if Nintendo is to capture non-gamers.  My guess is that the company will see a good improvement in marketshare, but probably not to first place.  If Nintendo did come in first, even if it was heavily on the backs of non-gamers, I think we'd still see better traditional game support than the Cube.  I think there will be a big enough group of hardcore gamers on the system to support traditional games no matter what.  

[Ian Sane]

"I've been in arcades and played games that use 3D motion, and I can definitely say, 'Yeah, I want more of this'."

You're right.  I forgot about arcades because, well, there aren't any in my town anymore.  It hasn't been really tested out much on consoles yet, at least not like 3D was, but yeah there is some precedence I overlooked.

Though I really don't like the direction arcades have taken and really don't want consoles to do the same.  Considering how arcades have practically fallen off the face of the Earth in North America I'm probably not the only person who feels this way and this brings about a whole new Japan vs. North America discussion.  In Japan this stuff is huge but not so much here and imagine there's a reason for that.

Arcade vs. console plays a big part in it too.  In arcades you want a quick fun experience.  You want something longer with consoles.  Ever play a game you used to love in the arcade on a console and found it boring beyond belief after five minutes?  A whole console feature designed around the current arcade experience runs the risk of getting boring too soon.

Is there some demand?  Yeah there is and I see that now.  Is there some demand for it in consoles?  That depends.  Are you thinking "man I want to play this all the time" or are you really thinking "man I wish I could play this for free for a little while"?

[Spak-Spang]

Ian:  You forget that Arcade games are simple because they ARE meant to played for a short time.  It isn't a design flaw, but a design strength.

Now if you take the same arcade experience and flesh it out you will get a console game.  Think about it.  Racing games used to be played solely in the arcades, but now they are a staple for consoles.  So were fighting games, and still developers were able to flesh out the experience and make it worth playing at home.  

Arcades didn't die out because people didn't want to play arcade like games anymore.  They died out because home console systems caught up with the technology of arcade systems with graphics and such...then surpassed them with easier and simplier control.  

Arcades have slowly made a come back with more interactive experiences.  Dance, Dance Revolution, Guitar Hero, Police 911, The boxing game, The Sword Fight Game, 2 Player Time Crisis 3.  All these games can't be enjoyed at home, in the same manner you can play them in the arcade.  

Until now.  The Revolution can simulate many of those same experiences with a simple wand controller (or two.)

The company doesn't have to make them simple games either, just borrow the mechanics of the arcade game and include them into an epic console game.

[couchmonkey]

Personally, I stopped supporting arcades because I like ownership.  I could spend $70 at the arcade and have nothing to show for it at the end of the day, or I could spend $70 on a new Super NES game and play it as much as I want.  Add in that the home console experience caught up to the arcade experience in most ways and that the games at home kept getting cheaper while arcade games kept getting more expensive, and the arcade was at a big disadvantage to me.  I only found out about the recent motion-sensing arcade games when I was at a sports bar (I don't really like bars, but it was someone's birthday).

Can they find a way to translate these experiences to home consoles and keep them interesting?  Well, if any company can do it, it's Nintendo.
I also think it's a question of personal taste.  I really enjoy a lot of arcade-like games.  I don't have the time I used to for videogames, so something I can pick up and play for 20 minutes actually appeals to me as much a huge epic nowdays.  I still want the huge epics, though, and I'm willing to bet Nintendo can produce a good one.  I have my fingers crossed for Super Mario 128 to turn out to be something really special.

[Ian Sane]

"You forget that Arcade games are simple because they ARE meant to played for a short time. It isn't a design flaw, but a design strength."

It's a strength for a game that is only meant to be played for a few minutes but it's a huge flaw for a console game.  Console games need length.  If you can beat a game an hour after buying it you feel ripped off.  Length can come from replay value but that only works if the game is difficult enough that you can't beat it in one try.  Arcade design is fine if the game is built like an NES/SNES game: challenging and with no save points.  Modern game design tends to give games like that unlimited lives and save capabilities and as a result the game is ridiculously short.  It can be done but considering that Nintendo keeps making their games easier I don't really trust them to do it right.  Judging by a lot of games these days I hardly trust any developer to do arcade-style games right.

And while these games can be very fun you need more than that.  The console can't just be designed for games like that.  You also need epics.  You need games designed in such a way that you stay up all night the day you get it.

Personally I stopped going to arcades because everything started costing a dollar to play.  Screw that.  I could buy a chocolate bar for that and know that I'll like it.  If I don't like this game or I suck at it I waste a whole dollar.  One advantage about quarter games is that as a kid I couldn't really buy much else for a quarter so an arcade felt like a good deal.  Plus the prices have quadrupled!  When I was a kid chocolate bars cost $0.75 Canadian.  Using arcade game inflation it would cost $3 now!

[animecyberrat]

not always true, some peopel liek to just sit down and play a game for a few minutes at a  time, sure its good to have long games but to force peopel to have to play a game for a long time isnt always good either. Some people like to play mario APrty on 10 rounds and have a quick fling, others liek to set it for 50 rounds and stay up all night. SOme people like a Fighting game to be short and easy to beat, others want them to be long and have astory and challenging. Games liek Mk are usualy hard and havea  good story, Soul Caliber is short and easy to beat. Smash Bros offers extras because the game is not good as a 1 player game, where as MK  and some other fighting   games are.


its the saem with sports games peopel like to sit down and playa  15 min match for fun others like to play for teh full length and simulate a real game. the only Genere that SHOULD take forever to play is RPGS and even sometimes you want a quick rpg to fly threw just for a good story or whatever.

Just cuz a game is a home console game doesnt mean it should take hours to play or have extreme difficlulty. I like some games to be long and otehres to be short. I like how I can sit down and BEAT sonic the hedgehog start to finish in about an hour or so. Cant do that with Zelda but who would want to? Also I recently retried Mario 64 on my N64 and quess what, its short enough to play in a single day too, once you figure out how to use the controls and get confortable. Yet thast hailded as oen of teh reatest games of all time. Some games are just better off short fast and fun esperiences while others need deptha nd challenge and such, but to say EVERY game should be long and hard and ahve a deep story is missing alot of the point, after all we are talking about GAMES not lifelong quests. Sorry for the rant but I hate when peopel say video games should be long and need substance cuz thats BS.  

I want teh rev to get some good games taht yo can pick up and playf or a few minutes and have fun, but I also want games that will have deptha nd story and such, there needs to be a balance and yu need to balance your time playingi games as well, noone needs to make playing a video game his or her life.

[JonLeung]

Games should be long.  I don't know who would pick up an RPG expecting something short.  But fighting games like you mentioned could have short "arcade"/story playthroughs, while those wanting more could play all the characters or some of the other, more deep modes, like Soul Calibur II's Weapon Master mode.  It's too bad the console versions of that game didn't have the arcade version's Conquest mode - I racked up 10000 wins with my Nightmare character.  Yeah, you read right.  Ten thousand.  If I didn't work for Playdium that would've been expensive, but one regular who didn't get free TimePlay cards really did spend a lot of money trying to keep up to my record.  I think he gave up when I reached 10000 before he did.  I also had a level 99 character in Gauntlet Legends, so arcade games sometimes do have long gameplay.

There's no advantage to a shorter game.  If you don't want to play it for long, then don't play all the modes; no one's making you play it all.

It's not BS to say you want games to be longer, since games can be resumed a later time.  I would personally want more gameplay for my money.  My film studies teacher was complaining that other people were complaining that some movies were too long these days.  When we're paying $15 (Canadian) for a movie in a theatre, why would we complain about an extra hour of movie?  At least unlike movies you can save your game and come back later if it's a matter of scheduling.  I don't know how I'd feel about a 300-hour RPG but since very few games are even a tenth that and still feel short I don't think I need to worry about them getting too long anytime soon.  I don't think anyone would program a game that long if it was story-based...a good chunk of my 200+ hours in Pokémon Ruby was watering berries so that I'd have a hundred of each.  Oh yeah, and also catching them all.  

[Caterkiller]

I played my Pokemon Yellow version over 500 hours and by then I believe time could no longer be recorded. And today I know its over 250 with my Leaf Green. Mostly because I want to train more and more pokemon so I can have a big variety of battles with other players. When I played through Tales of Symphonia and was at around 56 hours, I just wanted it to end. My brother and sister went through the entire adventure with me to, but I just wanted the game to be over. Though im not sure if I would rather want it shorter or not, I just remember having it so long seemed like a chore.  If I can work at something to compete with other people in, then it doesn't matter how long the game is for me.  

[animecyberrat]

notice id dint say ALL games should be short I just said complaing about a game being short isnt fair when some games are ment to me short and other long, I did say that RPGs shoudl be long of crouse how would playa rpg thatw as too chort. But some games dont need to be too long because once your done you should be done.
Not every game should have hours of reply sometimes yu just want to sit down and playa fast game. It depends on the type of game though. I like RPGs to be long and emmersive as with adventure games, but I like some games to be just pick up and play and not have to worry about saving cuz I knwo I can sit down and finish it in one sitting if I chose to.

But I understand different peopel have different tatstes but to say a game is bad just cuz its too short is not a good point in my opinion, sometimes agame should be short. take TMNT for example, I beat that game first day I played it and it was still fun to reply with friends. It wasnt about unlocking extras or getting threw teh story it was just about beating peopel up and aving fun, there is a demand for those types of games and tehrea s demand for games like Zelda and Pokemon where you spend hours a day trying to get everything there is. Thats fine too I never said its not I just said that some gamers like quick games and therefore teh gaming industry needs to keep making games for those people instead of say making every game long and deep and force peopel to sit threw a long boring game.

Soul Cxaliber was a game I chose as an example to make tehs ame point to did, if you want teh extras they  are there but if you just want to fight to get to teh end you have that mode also, tahst fine for some gamers. But if  a game is justa straight fighting game that pits you against difficult foes whast worng with that I ask? My favorite fighting game of all time is MK 2 and theres no extras to unlcok its just 12 fighters in like 7 different backgrounds and tahst about it but Its fun to sit down and have tournaments with friends and to go back and redo all the finsih moves, but it takes fifteen minutes to beat the game if you want to get to teh end. Sometimes I like short games but liek them to have enough content to justify teh purchase, but me i dont mind waiting for a game to go down in price to buy it because very few games are ever worth 50.00 to me cuz I know that its hard to satisfy every body.  

[KDR_11k]

1. Do you even read what you write? There's so many stray letters in there it's very hard to read.
2. Of course games can be shorter. Short games are nice. As long as I didn't pay 60 Euros for them.

[animecyberrat]

ok sorry fo rstartng an agument I kinda came in on this thread at the end and well anyways I was just rambling fo rno reason. As for my typing oh well I type to fast and well I dont care I guess I just never do proof read my posts maybe I should try sometimes. I agree though about payojg too much thats why I always wait for a game price to go down or get it used. Sometimes I cant wait for a game and have to get it day 1 and pay full price but tahst pretty rare.  

[couchmonkey]

Game length has become a tricky topic for me because lately I've played too many long games that were less fun because they tried to stretch them out with boring extras.  I played through the new Mario & Luigi in 25 hours.  I was a little disappointed by the length, but less disappointed than I am by the hours I wasted retracing my steps over and over in Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door.  Both are great games, but Mario & Luigi had a higher percentage of quality gameplay, which matters a lot to me nowdays.

What "modes" do you ignore in an RPG?  With that genre it's an all-or-nothing proposition, and while RPGs used to be my favourite, right now I've got both Tales of Symphonia and Skies of Arcadia collecting dust in a cupboard because I don't have 60 hours to invest in them.  You can shorten an RPG by skipping some mini-games and side-quests, but usually you can expect at least 30 hours of play time.

In the end the answer is to offer a mixture of long and short games.  And yeah, give people a better price on the shorter games.

[KDR_11k]

Oh, content stretching in RPGs is easy, just add more enemies and reduce experience gains. Even better in MMORPGs, you can make a small area with some enemies that'll last a few hours before the player has a high enough level to proceed to the next area.

[Kairon]

I've really lost interest in a lot of RPGs because as much as I like grinding, I just can't handle the amount of content stretching going on. I need a tighter more focused experience please.

Basically, quality over quantity.

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[KDR_11k]

Well, duh, except for SOE's customers everybody would prefer less stretched content.

[jasonditz]

I think if the Revolution takes first and does so with the bulk of it's sales being as a "second console" you're going to see a lot of experimental type games being made for it.

[Spak-Spang]

See I hear things like 100 hours game play or more and I just cringe.

I want to play a game that is great and the length is worth the purchase, but too long and I am going to get frustrated and possibly never finish the game.  My time is valuable.  

I think a great length for an RPG is between 25 and 50 hours.  Depending on how deep you want the story.  I hate RPGs that force me to spend tons of extra time leveling up to beat a boss.  If I fight all the monsters in the area then I should be ready to fight the Boss.  And I don't want regular monsters that force you to use too much magic or items to beat them which forces you to waste more time and money.

The same applies for other types of games.  Show us your cool concepts and slowly expand upon them, but don't waste my time giving me 5 levels of the exact same level design just to expand the game's length.  

[animecyberrat]

Im with Spak here, but I dont want an RPG that can give  true D&D experience, one with full customization and where you get multiplayer supports via internet or something and you get to desgin your own campaigns and stuff like that, so you can level up your character as much as youw ant with no limits and make up yuorown story and such. A game like that could keep me interested for a while.

You know regarding the ps2/GC and Rev/PS3 market I was thinking abut what i have noticed with my friends and a lot of people I know. See every single person I know has two or three PS2 consoles, especialy after the price went down they bought more, some cuz its like a dvd player and cuz yo can play your games no matter what room your in, some just cuz they wanted the slime line and teh regular and others because their first broke down. Basicaly I was thinking if every one who bought a PS2 actualy got two of them than SOnys actual userbase is HALF what the sales would indicate. so Why didnt GC owners buy multiple consoles sicne tehya re so much cheaper and it woudl have been nice to get systems for freinds to get them to play. anywyas maybe we shoulddo that for REV. Buy our own and then when christmas rolls around get one for your best friend and then encourage him/her to do teh same and then out sell Sony using thier own tactic.

justa  random observation but not every body has money to burn I guess. Damnit though cuz I did want to buy more GC for my nephews and such but NO thier parents thought PS2 was better. Ok sorry if this dont make sense just ramblingon .

[JonLeung]

I don't think the userbase would reduced by as much as half, but yes, I have heard of people getting multiple PS2s because they broke, or as DVD players, etc.

They should count controller sales, not console sales...

[odifiend]

Counting controllers wouldn't be any more accurate...

[Ceric]

Heres a little light math for everyone to put things in prospective.  Lets say there is a ten dollar price jump in games.  So the Premo title that doesn't require a peripheral will cost $60 bucks.  Ok Thats great.

If it takes us an hour to beat we just paid a dollar a minute to play a game.  Wow that stinks

So how long would it actually take to get are "money worth."  If we go by the mantra that time is money,  .... therefore girls are evil ,  then we can simplify this.  Lets assume we all make minimum wage.  For simplicity sake then I'll say we make $5.00/hour American, after taxes and everything this is what it about works out to.  So we paid $60 dollars for the game and at are current rate of $5 an hour we have sunk 12 hours into that game alread by just buying it.  To make up for this "lost" time we therefore need to get 12 hours worth of gameplay out of this game.

So there you go.  For me at least if I don't get 12 hours out of the game then the purchase was fiscally unsound.  That is unless I am willing to pay a premium for it but that's opinion.  Now if we also take into account food in the time period and electricity I'm fairly sure that would bump the game up by at least an hour so the true magic number is probably somewhere around 13 hours.  So if you don't hit your 13th hour, spooky hay, then you've been gipped, fiscally wise, by the power that be.

(Ironically enough this could become even more complicated if we used oppurtunity cost.)