Curmudgeon Gamer
30 December 2006
Blockheads
During breakfast, I was trying to read back up on video cards in case I ever discover a three-hundred dollar bill laying on the ground and have nothing better to do with the cash. (Though I think we all know I'm happy with what I've got, for now.)
Looking at the first image on this page from an Anandtech review of video card performance in Rainbow Six: Vegas, I caught myself wondering when we'll ever get to the point that buildings aren't arranged in perfect grids in our virtual worlds. Look at the corner the guy's looking around. A perfect edge, down to the molecule. What's more, it appears the architects of the buildings on the street he's considering charging built their shanties (is this really Vegas? I'm guessing not) perfectly to code, four feet -- to at least eight significant digits (4.00000000') -- from the street. Add to this that not a single building seems to have a significant dent in the wall and, well, it's simply horribly unrealistic. Characterless boxes set up according to a inferior spin on the Jeffersonian city plan.
Compare this to the fellow in the same picture or the gun model from the pages previous and I believe you'll see the cityscape's attention to realism is sorely lagging.
This reminds me of the perfect cubits of Tomb Raider, where every tomb, even the city of Venice, regardless of time period or continent, has somehow built itself to the same exacting specifications of the ones prior. Luckily Lara is well-versed in the eyeball measurement of cubits, as each of her jumps, the distance she can push cubit-cubed, um, cubes around floors before tiring, the height she can swing herself up from one pole to the next -- all cubits. I'll give the original a free pass, but the continued use of cubits in later games (seems even Angel of Darkness still had some cubit-ism) seems downright lazy.
I understand now, knowing a bit about the innards of an Atari 2600, why every ladder, from Pitfall to Donkey Kong to, well, I don't recall more ladder games at the moment, but why each was the same width, and why that same width was also the horizontal width of the smallest barrier in Combat. It had to do with limitations of the console; the playfield graphics had a minimum width of very limited granularity. There is no such technical limitation forcing a similar convergence of any sort in today's PC games.
I want buildings slightly further from the slightly winding street than one another. A few buildings not precisely built parallel to one another. Some buildings that have stories that are 10' high, others with 8.342'. Real balconies that vary from building to building, even floor from floor. Uneven sides of buildings, for heaven's sake. Potholes and small grades in streets. Furry lobsters. I want it all. Need I remind anyone what a little strategic use of a random number generator did for a game like Elite?
People are lamenting their inability to tax their quad SLI setups. Hit 'em with some reality, please.
Looking at the first image on this page from an Anandtech review of video card performance in Rainbow Six: Vegas, I caught myself wondering when we'll ever get to the point that buildings aren't arranged in perfect grids in our virtual worlds. Look at the corner the guy's looking around. A perfect edge, down to the molecule. What's more, it appears the architects of the buildings on the street he's considering charging built their shanties (is this really Vegas? I'm guessing not) perfectly to code, four feet -- to at least eight significant digits (4.00000000') -- from the street. Add to this that not a single building seems to have a significant dent in the wall and, well, it's simply horribly unrealistic. Characterless boxes set up according to a inferior spin on the Jeffersonian city plan.
Compare this to the fellow in the same picture or the gun model from the pages previous and I believe you'll see the cityscape's attention to realism is sorely lagging.
This reminds me of the perfect cubits of Tomb Raider, where every tomb, even the city of Venice, regardless of time period or continent, has somehow built itself to the same exacting specifications of the ones prior. Luckily Lara is well-versed in the eyeball measurement of cubits, as each of her jumps, the distance she can push cubit-cubed, um, cubes around floors before tiring, the height she can swing herself up from one pole to the next -- all cubits. I'll give the original a free pass, but the continued use of cubits in later games (seems even Angel of Darkness still had some cubit-ism) seems downright lazy.
I understand now, knowing a bit about the innards of an Atari 2600, why every ladder, from Pitfall to Donkey Kong to, well, I don't recall more ladder games at the moment, but why each was the same width, and why that same width was also the horizontal width of the smallest barrier in Combat. It had to do with limitations of the console; the playfield graphics had a minimum width of very limited granularity. There is no such technical limitation forcing a similar convergence of any sort in today's PC games.
I want buildings slightly further from the slightly winding street than one another. A few buildings not precisely built parallel to one another. Some buildings that have stories that are 10' high, others with 8.342'. Real balconies that vary from building to building, even floor from floor. Uneven sides of buildings, for heaven's sake. Potholes and small grades in streets. Furry lobsters. I want it all. Need I remind anyone what a little strategic use of a random number generator did for a game like Elite?
People are lamenting their inability to tax their quad SLI setups. Hit 'em with some reality, please.
Labels: blocks, cubits, legos, Rainbow Six, video cards
--rufbo at 10:47
Comment
[ 6 ]
26 December 2006
A Gaming Father's Xmas Day
Here's how I spent my quality time with Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops on Christmas day.
- Wake up.
- Open presents.
- Cheer at receiving Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops for my PSP
- Assemble toys for the kids
- Play with toys
- Cook pancakes for brunch
- Eat pancakes
- Clean while kids and wife sleep
- Play with more toys when everyone wakes up
- Steal 10 minutes with Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops -- 2 minutes to get started, 5 minutes of cut scene, 2 minutes of moving around, 1 more minute of cut scene
- Cook turkey for big supper
- Make chocolate pie
- Eat big supper
- Bathtime for kids
- Take kids around neighborhood to see lights and decorations
- Pie time
- Bedtime for kids
- Clean kitchen
- Pack for travel next day
- Sleep
Labels: psp
--jvm at 20:59
Comment
[ 8 ]
25 December 2006
Sony fails the Napster test, PSOne emulator in the wild
Today some PSP owners can play many PSOne games on their PSPs -- reportedly with perfect speed, sound, and graphics -- without Sony's blessing. A hacked firmware on certain models allows the use of Sony's own emulator to play rips of original PSOne games. And, so, Sony caps off an awful year by failing to understand that when a market for your product appears you must seize it immediately or the world will leave you behind with empty pockets.
This is a lesson the RIAA and its members had to learn the hard way via Napster, Limewire, and all the other file-sharing networks that thrived on the public's desire for digital music downloads. While they looked in vain for a perfect solution to protecting their copyrights, they forgot that people are willing to pay for music, but those same people have limited patience.
Three steps I'll suggest are often necessary for winning your market:
I have no idea what Sony does now. I guess if the games that people download on the PlayStation Network are really just rips of PSOne games running in a universal emulator, then Sony needs to get that emulator out quick or lose any chance of cashing in on this situation. If it were available for purchase right now, I'd pony up for it. I'd even pay for a nice application that would take care of ripping my existing games to a handy format so I could play them with a minimum of hassle.
If Sony is selling enhanced, improved versions of PSOne games for use in their emulator, then they still need to get that stuff out and soon. They need to explain how their versions are superior to the versions we can all buy used in our local stores. They need to justify the cost somehow. (Networked Twisted Metal 2 would be nice, while I'm wishing.)
The current state is unacceptable. They've built a user base of PSP owners, simultaneously teased and neglected them, and now the market has moved past them to provide what Sony won't. Do something Sony. Anything.
This is a lesson the RIAA and its members had to learn the hard way via Napster, Limewire, and all the other file-sharing networks that thrived on the public's desire for digital music downloads. While they looked in vain for a perfect solution to protecting their copyrights, they forgot that people are willing to pay for music, but those same people have limited patience.
Three steps I'll suggest are often necessary for winning your market:
- Get your own product out there early.
- Make it accessible.
- Price it attractively.
- It has had the PSP out for over 18 months (in the U.S.) and still hasn't addressed the demand for emulated PSOne games on the handheld -- a demand that Sony itself drove when it announced that it had such plans.
- It has yet to make the few emulated games it has released accessible to the majority existing PSP users, myself included. Instead, users have to first own a PlayStation 3, through which they can purchase the games and then transfer them to a PSP.
- It has only succeeded in making its own product reasonably priced, with games costing around $6 each.
I have no idea what Sony does now. I guess if the games that people download on the PlayStation Network are really just rips of PSOne games running in a universal emulator, then Sony needs to get that emulator out quick or lose any chance of cashing in on this situation. If it were available for purchase right now, I'd pony up for it. I'd even pay for a nice application that would take care of ripping my existing games to a handy format so I could play them with a minimum of hassle.
If Sony is selling enhanced, improved versions of PSOne games for use in their emulator, then they still need to get that stuff out and soon. They need to explain how their versions are superior to the versions we can all buy used in our local stores. They need to justify the cost somehow. (Networked Twisted Metal 2 would be nice, while I'm wishing.)
The current state is unacceptable. They've built a user base of PSP owners, simultaneously teased and neglected them, and now the market has moved past them to provide what Sony won't. Do something Sony. Anything.
--jvm at 22:28
Comment
[ 1 ]
22 December 2006
Games of 2006 - Year of the Handheld
In the past year I've spent much more time on my handheld systems than traditional TV-based consoles. Only three of the twelve games I played to completion were not on a handheld.
The finished games, no particular order:
And here are all the other games I've played but not finished, spanning ten platforms (Commodore 64, Game Boy, DOS, Lynx, SNES, PSOne, Dreamcast, Game Boy Advance, PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS):
The finished games, no particular order:
- Tomb Raider: Legend (PSP) - review
- Shadow of the Colossus (PS2) - comments
- Katamari Damacy (PS2) - comments
- Dragon's Lair (Game Boy Color) - review
- Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee (PSP) - comments
- Wario Ware Inc. Mega Microgames (GBA) - comments
- Orbital (GBA) - comments
- Akumajo Dracula XX (Super Famicom)
- Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception (PSP) - review
- Elite Beat Agents (NDS) - JohnH's comments
- Resident Evil: Deadly Silence (NDS) - comments
- Super Mario Land (GB) - comments
And here are all the other games I've played but not finished, spanning ten platforms (Commodore 64, Game Boy, DOS, Lynx, SNES, PSOne, Dreamcast, Game Boy Advance, PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS):
- Racing Gears Advance (GBA)
- Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (GB)
- Pool of Radiance (DOS)
- Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2 (PS2)
- GameBoy Tetris (GB)
- The Island of Dr. Destructo (C64)
- Prince of Persia: Arabian Nights (DC)
- Tron 2.0: Killer App (GBA)
- Mario vs. Donkey Kong (GBA)
- Resident Evil 4 (PS2)
- Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones (PS2)
- Black (PS2)
- Prince of Persia: Revelations (PSP)
- WipeOut Pure (PSP)
- Pinball Hall of Fame: The Gottlieb Collection (PSP)
- Toy Story (SNES)
- SSX On Tour (PS2)
- Area 51 (PSOne)
- I.Q. Mania (PSP)
- Coloris (GBA)
- DigiDrive (GBA)
- Soundvoyager (GBA)
- Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel (PSP)
- Midway's Arcade's Greatest Hits (GBA)
- Dark Arena (GBA)
- Rampage (Lynx)
- Bust-A-Move Deluxe (PSP)
- Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness/Pac-Man World (GBA)
- Ace Combat Advance (GBA)
- Every Extend Extra (PSP)
- Castlevania: Curse of Darkness (PS2)
- Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (NDS)
- Zoo Keeper (NDS)
--jvm at 23:27
Comment
[ 2 ]
21 December 2006
Temptation
Target had a PlayStation 3 (60GB) model in stock today when I was there. I have about 85% of the money saved already to purchase one. My wife, standing there with me, even said "go ahead, get it."
But after Every Extend Extra I vowed to make no more purchases until the new year. So I turned my back and walked away.
But after Every Extend Extra I vowed to make no more purchases until the new year. So I turned my back and walked away.
--jvm at 15:20
Comment
[ 8 ]
High-resolution glimpse of a dystopian future
The PlayStation 3 Go! Sudoku page has something interesting...and evil. It has a click-through agreement to download screenshots. Apparently I can't republish the screenshots once I download them. Well, I can put them on my own PSP and you guys could probably look at the screen while I had one of them displayed without running afoul of this agreement. Seriously, it mentions that I can only keep them on my PSP.
That alone is outrageous, but as you'll see below the actual conditions are the result of a bad double paste (or something) making them a bit more unintelligible than the usual dubious legal agreements.
Not only a click-through agreement for a screenshot, but one that doesn't even form a coherent set of conditions. Brilliant!
But wait, there's more! For the sake of research, I went ahead and agreed to Sony's terms. The pop-up window I get is basically a 404 error, a page which doesn't exist. (It doesn't work at all on Safari, at least when I tested it.) So not only did I agree to some crazy contract, but Sony didn't even live up to their half of the bargain and give me my 1920 x 1080 screenshot of Go! Sudoku for the PlayStation 3. There oughtta be a law...
For your entertainment, here's the click-through agreement in all its glory. Yes, the first paragraph is repeated. All typos, except the crazy double-paste are probably mine (since I can't copy and paste from a Flash applet). I've marked the place where things go bad with a boldfaced [sic].
That alone is outrageous, but as you'll see below the actual conditions are the result of a bad double paste (or something) making them a bit more unintelligible than the usual dubious legal agreements.
Not only a click-through agreement for a screenshot, but one that doesn't even form a coherent set of conditions. Brilliant!
But wait, there's more! For the sake of research, I went ahead and agreed to Sony's terms. The pop-up window I get is basically a 404 error, a page which doesn't exist. (It doesn't work at all on Safari, at least when I tested it.) So not only did I agree to some crazy contract, but Sony didn't even live up to their half of the bargain and give me my 1920 x 1080 screenshot of Go! Sudoku for the PlayStation 3. There oughtta be a law...
For your entertainment, here's the click-through agreement in all its glory. Yes, the first paragraph is repeated. All typos, except the crazy double-paste are probably mine (since I can't copy and paste from a Flash applet). I've marked the place where things go bad with a boldfaced [sic].
Please read the below Terms & Conditions
When finished reading and you agree to the terms therein, Click Agree and Download to start downloading this great PlayStation content. If you do not agree click Cancel to return to the previous window.
When finished reading and you agree to the terms therein, Click Agree and Download to start downloading this great PlayStation content. If you do not agree click Cancel to return to the previous window.
The following terms apply if you download content from this website. Content may include game-based graphics, images, film, music, sounds and software. You must follow the directions that appear on the site about how to download. Sony Computer Entertainment America ("SCEA") is not responsible for any loss of data or damage to your software or hardware or other loss or damage caused by failure to follow our directions. SCEA may retrieve information about a user's hardware or software for authentication and to identify the correct directories for deposit of the download. All intellectual property rights in the content available on this site belong to SCEA or its licensors. The content may be copied only for your personal use via your PSP system. The content may not be modified, published, performed or transferred to anyone else (unless otherwise stated on the site) nor used for any commercial purpose. Except to the extent permitted by applicable law, you must not disassemble, de-compile, reverse engineer or otherwise break or attempt to break [sic] the following terms apply if you download content from this website. Content may include game-based graphics, images, film, music, sounds and software. You must follow the directions that appear on the site about how to download. Sony Computer Entertainment America ("SCEA") is not responsible for any loss of data or damage to your software or hardware or other loss or damage caused by failure to follow our directions. SCEA may retrieve information about a user's hardware or software for authentication and to identify the correct directories for deposit of the download. All intellectual property rights in the content available on this site belong to SCEA or its licensors. The content may be copied only for your personal use via your PSP system. The content may not be modified, published, performed or transferred to anyone else (unless otherwise stated on the site) nor used for any commercial purpose. Except to the extent permitted by applicable law, you must not disassemble, de-compile, reverse engineer or otherwise break or attempt to break the law.
--jvm at 06:44
Comment
[ 3 ]
20 December 2006
Videogame gaffes and blunders of the year, director's cut
Next-gen.biz kindly asked me to reprise my curmudgeon role for an end-of-year post, and I obliged. The result has now been posted here.
To all who offered editorial comments on various topics this year -- Ruffin, John H., Michael, Dustin, and Kyle -- thanks for the help! Hopefully I remembered everyone.
Some bits ended up on the cutting room floor and I thought they'd be worth sharing. I should emphasize, perhaps, that everything past this point is mine, not Next-Gen.biz's, so if you want to yell at someone (or sue someone, if that's your thing), I'm your guy. In fact, if you just want to yell at someone, the comments are always open.
To all who offered editorial comments on various topics this year -- Ruffin, John H., Michael, Dustin, and Kyle -- thanks for the help! Hopefully I remembered everyone.
Some bits ended up on the cutting room floor and I thought they'd be worth sharing. I should emphasize, perhaps, that everything past this point is mine, not Next-Gen.biz's, so if you want to yell at someone (or sue someone, if that's your thing), I'm your guy. In fact, if you just want to yell at someone, the comments are always open.
- The name - Originally I called the list "The 2006 Nelsons" after Nelson Muntz and his immortal "ha-ha" laugh. That got nixed (as I half-expected, but I held out hope until the end). My second choice was to award #1 the prestigious 2006 Foo Cup (say it out loud) and the others could be the 9 runners up. Apparently that didn't make it either. Gaffes and blunders it is!
- Linkification - The original version had well over fifty links (all internal to next-gen.biz, incidentally) which were changed to just standard text. I'd rather hoped they'd make it, because they provide the documentation for everything I wrote, and for the sake of business didn't go off-site. Ah well.
- The text went through several revisions. This bit about Nintendo never made it into any final drafts, but is pretty high on my list of flubs this year.
Wii was region-free before it wasn't - What's worse than a region-locked console? Announcing a console is region-free and then correcting yourself to make it to region-locked. That's what Perrin Kaplan and Nintendo did to us with the Wii this year. I'm still angry about that one.
- The following was one of the entries, but got edited out. Along with this, I also considered putting in the big brouhaha over the Neverwinter Nights 2 review on 1UP and this bit by Simon Carless on how Xbox 360 sales were reported (poorly). Anyway, here's what got cut:
Blogger Ethics Panel to Convene Soon - In September the popular videogame blog, Joystiq, posted about "a scoop for some important news with one of the next-generation consoles." Leaving details to the overactive imaginations of an army of commenters and forum fanboys, post author Robert Summa assured everyone that "this announcement is something worth waiting for." Was it a secret, unannounced feature of the Nintendo Wii? Was Microsoft going to announce that Halo 3 would be on shelves this holiday season? Maybe Sony would relent, drop the price, and put the PlayStation 3 within reach of upper middle class Americans with spotless credit ratings. Not to be left out, rival blog Kotaku's Brian Crecente posted about the upcoming announcement, saying "expect to hear some kinda interesting news about a very interesting upcoming console", but similarly gave away no details.
What was that burning scoop? Here it is: "IBM announced that their Broadway chip custom-designed for Nintendo's Wii console has been shipping to Nintendo's since July."
Oh, the humanity!
Predictably, the firestorm sparked by this little stunt was ferocious. Robert Summa was summarily fired (yes, bloggers sometimes get paid) and Joystiq editor Chris Grant posted an apology. Summa shortly appeared on another site, Destructoid, and penned what amounted to a "f--k you" farewell to Joystiq, tastefully incorporating Martin Luther King Jr's famous "Free at last" speech and a picture of Mel Gibson in a battle skirt.
And they wonder why we think the videogame press is less than professional sometimes... - Hurricane Jack - When I wrote about Jack Thompson, I used the term Hurricane Jack to refer to him, since he hit the Gulf states of Louisiana and Florida. That term got nixed in the editing.
- Core Design and the Tomb Raider trailer - I wanted to include the mess surrounding the Tomb Raider PSP trailer that showed up this summer. I wrote a two long posts about: original post and the update. Unfortunately, one of the ground rules for the article was that I had to stick to facts, and unfortunately neither Core nor SCi/Eidos have provided a definitive version of just what did happen. We will probably never know exactly what it was, but you can at least read my take on it.
- Other ideas that didn't make the cut - Capcom's ongoing struggle to use larger fonts (in Dead Rising and Lost Planet), Nintendo DS absolutely destroying the PSP month after month, the coming rush of ridiculous MMOGs (Romero, Cartoon Network, James Cameron, and Dave Perry).
--jvm at 06:00
Comment
[ 8 ]
19 December 2006
Who won when Ritual lost? Valve.
Scott Miller made an interesting point in Next-Gen.biz Podcast #6: Why would anyone in the business of making first-person shooters want to partner with Valve and sell their game over Steam? Valve gets access to all your sales data, access to your player stats, and knows your business plans months ahead of anyone else.
So I think it's worth pointing out the big winner in the failure of Ritual's SiN Episodes: Valve and its own episodic shooter, Half-Life 2. They know more now about what works and what doesn't, and you can bet they'll be using it.
Not only does Valve now know how many sales Ritual got for the price they asked, but they probably also have access to the raw numbers behind this page of public statistics collected by Ritual's game after the 1.4 patch. (For more on the stats, read the 22 June 2006 entry on the SiN Episodes blog.) They know which maps were played most inonline matches Arena Mode. It's at least possible that they even have access to information about how players actually play the game, if the data used to tune difficulty is also being sent back:
No wonder Scott Miller was wary of Valve and Steam.
So I think it's worth pointing out the big winner in the failure of Ritual's SiN Episodes: Valve and its own episodic shooter, Half-Life 2. They know more now about what works and what doesn't, and you can bet they'll be using it.
Not only does Valve now know how many sales Ritual got for the price they asked, but they probably also have access to the raw numbers behind this page of public statistics collected by Ritual's game after the 1.4 patch. (For more on the stats, read the 22 June 2006 entry on the SiN Episodes blog.) They know which maps were played most in
[W]e have a number of so-called Advisors tracking a ton of parameters, including obvious things like your health and your accuracy, but also seemingly outlandish stuff, like how much you jump during combat.Ritual paid for the Source engine, paid for the Steam distribution, developed their game, failed, and now they probably won't be able to make real use of everything they learned. Valve, on the other hand, has all their money, no risk, and a pile of opposition research.
No wonder Scott Miller was wary of Valve and Steam.
--jvm at 16:08
Comment
[ 4 ]
15 December 2006
Episodic SiN: failure
Almost a year ago I wrote:
Let's just remember what was being said about SiN and episodic gaming back in January:
Look, maybe just maybe this new SiN will set the world afire, but odds are against it. [...] Someone remind me after SiN launches to see whether it measured up to this hype.A few days ago, I heard that Ritual (developer of SiN) was undergoing upheaval and would be focusing on games far different from SiN. This seems to confirm that information:
Jeff: Sin Episode 2...The transcript appears to have been made by Kotaku from the Games for Windows podcast at 1UP.com.Shawn: ...is likely not happening now. A lot of the people from the dev team have left.
Jeff: At Ritual?
Shawn: Yeah, they've gone elsewhere. They now work for other people. Some of the key people. One of the lead programmers. That's not a good sign.
Jeff: That seems like a real world thing that's going to be constantly a problem with any episodic game. How can you possibly ensure to fans or gamers that there are going to be future episodes? At any given point the team might dissolve.
Shawn: And the jury's out on why that's happening, I've personally been trying to contact the head there, Tom Mustaine, and haven't been able to get too much information. What it seems to imply, obviously, is that Sin Episode 1 didn't do well.
Let's just remember what was being said about SiN and episodic gaming back in January:
Everyone wants episodic games.Uh. Yeah.
Labels: windows
--jvm at 20:22
Comment
[ 7 ]
Comments: Every Extend Extra (PSP)
The abstract synesthesia shooter Every Extend Extra, available on the PSP, is a beautiful piece of work with some practical failings. I don't think it's possible to review this kind of game in the traditional sense, so I'll simply offer some comments on my experience.
Writing out how the game works in detail is complicated, even though the game itself is simple. It's easiest to just watch it being played. Suffice to say you earn points by detonating yourself near enemies, are rewarded by causing chain reactions as enemies ignite each other, and if you don't earn points quickly enough then either you run out of ammunition or a timer runs out. In either case, your game ends. Each level takes a fixed amount of time before the boss appears. Further, the graphic design varies from level to level though the gameplay doesn't.
The music reacts in time to your actions. If you've seen Rez, then you've got the gist of it.
I cannot stop playing this game, and I've even found myself playing in my head as I sleep. Like many other addictive games, it presents a power to bring order to a randomly generated situation, and rewards satisfyingly when you find that sweet spot which clears the screen. With short, intense games it is precisely the kind of game that Sony needs on the PSP.
The instructions, on the other hand, are a bit of a mess. The tutorials, for those of you who don't read the manual, are buried at the bottom of the Options menu. They don't tell you everything, though, and I'm just now learning to use the R+L method of detonation. It also suffers from load times that go on too long, especially for the relatively spare graphics used in each level.
I grabbed it for $20 and that's just the right price for me. Any more and I'd've felt a bit ripped off.
If you'd like to try something similar the original game, Every Extend, is available for Windows here.
Writing out how the game works in detail is complicated, even though the game itself is simple. It's easiest to just watch it being played. Suffice to say you earn points by detonating yourself near enemies, are rewarded by causing chain reactions as enemies ignite each other, and if you don't earn points quickly enough then either you run out of ammunition or a timer runs out. In either case, your game ends. Each level takes a fixed amount of time before the boss appears. Further, the graphic design varies from level to level though the gameplay doesn't.
The music reacts in time to your actions. If you've seen Rez, then you've got the gist of it.
I cannot stop playing this game, and I've even found myself playing in my head as I sleep. Like many other addictive games, it presents a power to bring order to a randomly generated situation, and rewards satisfyingly when you find that sweet spot which clears the screen. With short, intense games it is precisely the kind of game that Sony needs on the PSP.
The instructions, on the other hand, are a bit of a mess. The tutorials, for those of you who don't read the manual, are buried at the bottom of the Options menu. They don't tell you everything, though, and I'm just now learning to use the R+L method of detonation. It also suffers from load times that go on too long, especially for the relatively spare graphics used in each level.
I grabbed it for $20 and that's just the right price for me. Any more and I'd've felt a bit ripped off.
If you'd like to try something similar the original game, Every Extend, is available for Windows here.
--jvm at 11:09
Comment
[ 0 ]
Sony stupid about PSP demos (revisited)
I've written before about my frustration with PSP demos, but the appearance this week of yet another Loco Roco demo just brought home how braindead Sony appears to be. As a North American PSP owner, I have access to five demos* directly from Sony** and three of them are variations on Loco Roco. I realize I've got a bias, because I just don't enjoy the little yellow blobs like some people apparently do, but I don't think most PSP owners are wetting themselves with glee over holiday-themed demos.
Let's compare with the other major system that's designed to grab data, like demos and movies, off the internets, the Xbox 360. You know how many games have demos on Xbox Live? FIFTY FIVE. That's right, 50 and then 5 more. There are even multiple demos for some games, for the demo-downloading completist.
I realize Sony's been a little busy screwing up its PlayStation 3 launch, but surely they can put some dedicated people on the PSP side of things and leave them there with resources to help the system live up to its potential. Right?
I will give Sony this, however: the ability to connect to your PlayStation 3 via your PSP from anywhere you have a network connection is pretty awesome. I haven't seen it in practice yet, but the idea is really quite intriguing. It is precisely the kind of feature Sony needs to one-up Xbox Live. Since Sony has the dedicated handheld platform to built upon, it is playing to a strength that Microsoft doesn't have (yet).
* I should note that I think there are five demos. I can't get my PSP online in my current location to double check. Corrections in the comments, por favor.
** Yes, I can download some unofficially and install them. Most are in Japanese.
Let's compare with the other major system that's designed to grab data, like demos and movies, off the internets, the Xbox 360. You know how many games have demos on Xbox Live? FIFTY FIVE. That's right, 50 and then 5 more. There are even multiple demos for some games, for the demo-downloading completist.
I realize Sony's been a little busy screwing up its PlayStation 3 launch, but surely they can put some dedicated people on the PSP side of things and leave them there with resources to help the system live up to its potential. Right?
I will give Sony this, however: the ability to connect to your PlayStation 3 via your PSP from anywhere you have a network connection is pretty awesome. I haven't seen it in practice yet, but the idea is really quite intriguing. It is precisely the kind of feature Sony needs to one-up Xbox Live. Since Sony has the dedicated handheld platform to built upon, it is playing to a strength that Microsoft doesn't have (yet).
* I should note that I think there are five demos. I can't get my PSP online in my current location to double check. Corrections in the comments, por favor.
** Yes, I can download some unofficially and install them. Most are in Japanese.
--jvm at 10:04
Comment
[ 2 ]
14 December 2006
The real hidden cost of the Wii
Chatting with my brother this evening, he was griping that the Wii's remote strap is not the problem, as has been reported elsewhere, but rather the battery life. He's been using normal Duracell alkaline batteries and getting 15 hours of play out of them. For reference, Nintendo says you can get as much as 35 hours.
So let's do some calculation. Let's assume you play 10 to 25 hours a week, every week, for a year. You buy 20-packs of AA batteries from Wal-mart for $9.76 plus some tax, which we'll just call $10 for the sake of round numbers. You run your single Wii remote down until it's dead each time before replacing the batteries. The following table tells you how much you can expect to spend per year for batteries based on your usage (per week) and the lifespan of your batteries.
So if you're only getting 15 hours of use before you change the batteries, as apparently is happening with my brother, then you could spend $35 per year just on batteries by playing as little as 10 hours per week. If you play 20 hours a week, you're up near $70. And if you have two Wii remotes, the cost will go even higher.
Apparently the manual discourages the use of rechargeables, although the page linked above says use Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) if you insist on doing so. I don't know how long those will last, but my experience has been that regular batteries will last longer than rechargeables will between charges.
These are not huge costs, but they are costs you won't see with a PlayStation 3 or an Xbox 360 controller. Naturally, Nintendo will no doubt offer a new rechargeable Wii remote very soon, giving you the chance to upgrade. I bet it won't be cheap either.
Update: Brother sent me this scan from his manual, just to point out the bit that says you should use alkaline batteries...to avoid BATTERY LEAKAGE. Of course, who reads the manual (besides my brother)?
So let's do some calculation. Let's assume you play 10 to 25 hours a week, every week, for a year. You buy 20-packs of AA batteries from Wal-mart for $9.76 plus some tax, which we'll just call $10 for the sake of round numbers. You run your single Wii remote down until it's dead each time before replacing the batteries. The following table tells you how much you can expect to spend per year for batteries based on your usage (per week) and the lifespan of your batteries.
So if you're only getting 15 hours of use before you change the batteries, as apparently is happening with my brother, then you could spend $35 per year just on batteries by playing as little as 10 hours per week. If you play 20 hours a week, you're up near $70. And if you have two Wii remotes, the cost will go even higher.Apparently the manual discourages the use of rechargeables, although the page linked above says use Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) if you insist on doing so. I don't know how long those will last, but my experience has been that regular batteries will last longer than rechargeables will between charges.
These are not huge costs, but they are costs you won't see with a PlayStation 3 or an Xbox 360 controller. Naturally, Nintendo will no doubt offer a new rechargeable Wii remote very soon, giving you the chance to upgrade. I bet it won't be cheap either.
Update: Brother sent me this scan from his manual, just to point out the bit that says you should use alkaline batteries...to avoid BATTERY LEAKAGE. Of course, who reads the manual (besides my brother)?
--jvm at 21:03
Comment
[ 5 ]
13 December 2006
Nintendo DS: sold out
A post on NeoGAF reminded me that I'd expected the Nintendo DS to sell out this holiday season. I just did a quick check and Amazon, EB Games/GameStop, Wal-Mart, and Target all list every version of the Nintendo DS as out of stock or, in the case of Target, available in stores only. (I might be in a local Target soon to have a look at their stock.)
Nintendo sold almost a million Nintendo DS systems in the U.S. during the month of November alone. If they can keep the stores stocked, they'll be able to hit that or more in December. It now appears that's could be a fairly significant "if".
Nintendo sold almost a million Nintendo DS systems in the U.S. during the month of November alone. If they can keep the stores stocked, they'll be able to hit that or more in December. It now appears that's could be a fairly significant "if".
--jvm at 20:49
Comment
[ 3 ]
11 December 2006
Installable PSP games
The UMD drive in the Sony PSP was a huge mistake. The format is essentially dead for movies. Having a mechanical drive in the PSP eats up the battery and probably makes the whole system more prone to failure. Memory Stick PRO Duos can now be had in 4 gigabyte sizes, over twice the capacity of a UMD, for reasonable prices. And today we find out that Sony has cards in development that have eight times that capacity, or almost 18 times the size of dual-layer UMD.
I've been told that shipping games on Memory Stick would be cost prohibitive. So perhaps Sony could continue to ship games on UMD but offer an option to have the game install itself on a large enough Memory Stick. I'd gladly plunk down for the largest Memory Stick I could find if I could install several of my games on the card, get increased battery life, and faster load times.
This weekend I bought Every Extend Extra (it was on sale for $20, a deal I couldn't pass up) and the disc access is painful. The game doesn't involve tremendous amounts of data like, say, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories might but it does slow down a bit when the UMD has stopped spinning while playing a level and then has to be spun back up to speed. EEE would probably fit on a smaller Memory Stick and thereby avoid the grinding disc access that currently breaks up what is an otherwise slick presentation.
No doubt unscrupulous people would find some way to exploit the system and play games they don't legally own. I can't help that. But with a system to install games on Memory Stick, Sony might be able to pave the way to a revision of the hardware that eliminates the UMD drive and moves to fixed media altogether.
I've been told that shipping games on Memory Stick would be cost prohibitive. So perhaps Sony could continue to ship games on UMD but offer an option to have the game install itself on a large enough Memory Stick. I'd gladly plunk down for the largest Memory Stick I could find if I could install several of my games on the card, get increased battery life, and faster load times.
This weekend I bought Every Extend Extra (it was on sale for $20, a deal I couldn't pass up) and the disc access is painful. The game doesn't involve tremendous amounts of data like, say, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories might but it does slow down a bit when the UMD has stopped spinning while playing a level and then has to be spun back up to speed. EEE would probably fit on a smaller Memory Stick and thereby avoid the grinding disc access that currently breaks up what is an otherwise slick presentation.
No doubt unscrupulous people would find some way to exploit the system and play games they don't legally own. I can't help that. But with a system to install games on Memory Stick, Sony might be able to pave the way to a revision of the hardware that eliminates the UMD drive and moves to fixed media altogether.
--jvm at 19:29
Comment
[ 8 ]
10 December 2006
Happy to be sad
I just finished Resident Evil: Deadly Silence for the Nintendo DS and had an experience I haven't had in a while: a wave of sadness at finishing a good game. I recall vividly the same feeling when I finished Tomb Raider for the first time, and again when I finished Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. It means I really enjoyed the game.
It also requires that a game not have dragged on so long that the very thought of more is exhausting rather than exhilarating. Games like this pull me back in for a second play, to recapture some of the thrill of the first run but also to do more skillfully those parts I originally mucked up. For Resident Evil: Deadly Silence there is also the fact that I got Jill's bad ending -- which means I didn't get the real final boss battle (i.e. didn't get to hear "You're an amazon, Jill!"). I'd sure like to make a better showing than that.
If I have time, I'll try to put together a brief review this week with my list of complaints.
Ten word version: Complete classic game handsomely remade with fitting albeit unimaginative improvements.
It also requires that a game not have dragged on so long that the very thought of more is exhausting rather than exhilarating. Games like this pull me back in for a second play, to recapture some of the thrill of the first run but also to do more skillfully those parts I originally mucked up. For Resident Evil: Deadly Silence there is also the fact that I got Jill's bad ending -- which means I didn't get the real final boss battle (i.e. didn't get to hear "You're an amazon, Jill!"). I'd sure like to make a better showing than that.
If I have time, I'll try to put together a brief review this week with my list of complaints.
Ten word version: Complete classic game handsomely remade with fitting albeit unimaginative improvements.
Labels: nintendo
--jvm at 20:55
Comment
[ 2 ]
07 December 2006
More Wild Speculation: Apple and Console Gaming
Okay, even macrumors.com isn't putting much weight into this latest rumor about Apple and console gaming, but I found the following paragraph an interesting slant:
According to Smarthouse, Apple has faced initial setbacks with IBM and Sony on getting their hands on the latest game-console CPU technology, which they may want to use in order to allow developers to seamlessly transition their games over to Apple's new platform. Instead of a dedicated gaming console, Apple may instead integrate gaming as an extension of a more general media center.
If true, it means Apple would be going out of its way to ensure porting from consoles to the [Mac Mini/iTv/whatever] is, if not particularly easy, at least receives first-party support. More importantly, it would do a better job explaining the games development related job ads on Apple's site a while back, as they apparently outsourced the majority of the iPod titles.
We can dream, right?
According to Smarthouse, Apple has faced initial setbacks with IBM and Sony on getting their hands on the latest game-console CPU technology, which they may want to use in order to allow developers to seamlessly transition their games over to Apple's new platform. Instead of a dedicated gaming console, Apple may instead integrate gaming as an extension of a more general media center.
If true, it means Apple would be going out of its way to ensure porting from consoles to the [Mac Mini/iTv/whatever] is, if not particularly easy, at least receives first-party support. More importantly, it would do a better job explaining the games development related job ads on Apple's site a while back, as they apparently outsourced the majority of the iPod titles.
We can dream, right?
Labels: apple
--rufbo at 19:14
Comment
[ 2 ]
05 December 2006
Well, thanks a lot, Mr. Jvm.
Sure, I'm about a month and a half late to this party, but today I learned that "Lik-Sang.com [is] Out of Business due to Multiple Sony Lawsuits".
Me, I blame this, regardless of any potential anachronistic-ness, on Matt's revelation that many pirated Game Boy carts were coming from the Asian market, on the number of pirated carts he himself has ordered and linked to said market, and his past affinity for ordering from lik-sang. We all know that these strange, fringe folk pirating Game Boy carts tend to congregate around grey market dealers like lik-sang, and one might also notice jvm's recent pimps of play-asia.com as a sign that he's continuing his ways. He may have moved on, but those of us who loved and rejoiced in the magic cyberspace that was lik-sang have not.
I'm upset that this likely means I'll never get my long coveted Game Boy Advance [audioless!] player/adapter for the N64, which means one less console for me to play those wonderfully unlicensed, perfect blackmarket copies of gba games we all know, have purchased from EB thinking they are the real thing, and love.
Thanks, Mr. Jvm. Might as well kiss play-asia goodbye too, I suppose.
Me, I blame this, regardless of any potential anachronistic-ness, on Matt's revelation that many pirated Game Boy carts were coming from the Asian market, on the number of pirated carts he himself has ordered and linked to said market, and his past affinity for ordering from lik-sang. We all know that these strange, fringe folk pirating Game Boy carts tend to congregate around grey market dealers like lik-sang, and one might also notice jvm's recent pimps of play-asia.com as a sign that he's continuing his ways. He may have moved on, but those of us who loved and rejoiced in the magic cyberspace that was lik-sang have not.
I'm upset that this likely means I'll never get my long coveted Game Boy Advance [audioless!] player/adapter for the N64, which means one less console for me to play those wonderfully unlicensed, perfect blackmarket copies of gba games we all know, have purchased from EB thinking they are the real thing, and love.
Thanks, Mr. Jvm. Might as well kiss play-asia goodbye too, I suppose.
Labels: legal
--rufbo at 12:39
Comment
[ 4 ]
03 December 2006
How Nintendo is solving its piracy problem
Given the rampant online piracy of Nintendo's games, should be no surprise that they have constructed significant roadblocks to prevent emulation of their last three systems: the GameCube, the Nintendo DS, and the Wii. While the GameCube used a proprietary medium, the Nintendo DS and Wii have much more effective deterrents: their unique interfaces.
The transition from the Atari 2600 joystick to the PlayStation analog pad (two sticks, D-pad, left and right shoulder triggers) not only focused the industry on a fairly standard interface but ensured that the previous generation's controls were mostly a subset of the next generation's. That progression also permitted emulation of earlier systems on newer systems with a minimum of fuss. If you want to emulate a SNES on an Xbox, the button mapping is natural. The Game Boy Advance could emulate NES games and the Nintendo DS can emulate the SNES, no mucking with buttons required. For years those same PlayStation-style pads have been available for home computers as well.
That process makes emulation both possible and attractive.
While emulation of games with nonstandard interfaces has been done before -- we have commercial emulations of the arcade games Paperboy and Star Wars: The Arcade Game and Marble Madness and 720 degrees -- the compromise made to fit a different controller is always unsatisfying.
And so, with the introduction of the Nintendo DS touchscreen and the Wii's spatial controller we see that Nintendo has made emulation piracy far less attractive, albeit still possible. Will we see people trading Wii games over the internet in 10 years as they do now with SNES ROMs? Perhaps, but it will probably mean that you will have to have a Wii controller -- or a knock off controller. Anything less will be unsatisfying. And in 10 years you can probably bet that Nintendo will offer a relatively cheap and easy alternative on their next system -- which will work with the Wii controller out-of-the-box and offer Wii games for download for a few dollars. With appropriately priced hardware and downloads, Nintendo will keep people in the Nintendo store and off the ROM sites.
The same could easily be true for the Nintendo DS. If the DS were the beginning of another cycle of incremental improvements roughly paralleling the progression from Game Boy to Game Boy Color to Game Boy Advance then we may not see another radical evolution of the Nintendo handheld line for another 15 years. Despite Nintendo's claims to the contrary, the DS appears to be its future for the handheld, not the Game Boy.
There will always be the hardcore folks who refuse to pay. They're a sad fact of life. Someone will hack drivers to make the Wii controller work on an emulator running under Windows or even on a GNU/Linux-enabled console. And certainly you can emulate a Nintendo DS with a mouse. I bet it isn't nearly as entertaining to play Elite Beat Agents by clicking a mouse, but that won't stop some people from doing it anyway.
However as appears to be happening with music, most people will choose to buy their games instead of pirate them if there are enough blocks to casual emulation piracy and a reasonably priced legitimate alternative. That's Nintendo's goal, and I think they've made the right moves to attain it.
The transition from the Atari 2600 joystick to the PlayStation analog pad (two sticks, D-pad, left and right shoulder triggers) not only focused the industry on a fairly standard interface but ensured that the previous generation's controls were mostly a subset of the next generation's. That progression also permitted emulation of earlier systems on newer systems with a minimum of fuss. If you want to emulate a SNES on an Xbox, the button mapping is natural. The Game Boy Advance could emulate NES games and the Nintendo DS can emulate the SNES, no mucking with buttons required. For years those same PlayStation-style pads have been available for home computers as well.
That process makes emulation both possible and attractive.
While emulation of games with nonstandard interfaces has been done before -- we have commercial emulations of the arcade games Paperboy and Star Wars: The Arcade Game and Marble Madness and 720 degrees -- the compromise made to fit a different controller is always unsatisfying.
And so, with the introduction of the Nintendo DS touchscreen and the Wii's spatial controller we see that Nintendo has made emulation piracy far less attractive, albeit still possible. Will we see people trading Wii games over the internet in 10 years as they do now with SNES ROMs? Perhaps, but it will probably mean that you will have to have a Wii controller -- or a knock off controller. Anything less will be unsatisfying. And in 10 years you can probably bet that Nintendo will offer a relatively cheap and easy alternative on their next system -- which will work with the Wii controller out-of-the-box and offer Wii games for download for a few dollars. With appropriately priced hardware and downloads, Nintendo will keep people in the Nintendo store and off the ROM sites.
The same could easily be true for the Nintendo DS. If the DS were the beginning of another cycle of incremental improvements roughly paralleling the progression from Game Boy to Game Boy Color to Game Boy Advance then we may not see another radical evolution of the Nintendo handheld line for another 15 years. Despite Nintendo's claims to the contrary, the DS appears to be its future for the handheld, not the Game Boy.
There will always be the hardcore folks who refuse to pay. They're a sad fact of life. Someone will hack drivers to make the Wii controller work on an emulator running under Windows or even on a GNU/Linux-enabled console. And certainly you can emulate a Nintendo DS with a mouse. I bet it isn't nearly as entertaining to play Elite Beat Agents by clicking a mouse, but that won't stop some people from doing it anyway.
However as appears to be happening with music, most people will choose to buy their games instead of pirate them if there are enough blocks to casual emulation piracy and a reasonably priced legitimate alternative. That's Nintendo's goal, and I think they've made the right moves to attain it.
--jvm at 23:37
Comment
[ 8 ]
02 December 2006
Virtual Console Stupidity
Go Nintendo reports on the games that will be made available at launch over Wii Virtual Console in different markets:
France, Denmark, Finland, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Greece, Portugal, and Spain - Donkey Kong, Mario Bros., Wario's Woods, Bomberman 93, Super Star Soldier
Norway, Belgium, Austria, Ireland, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Norway, and Sweden - Donkey Kong, Mario Bros., Wario's Woods, Bomberman 93, Super Star Soldier, The Legend of Zelda, Dungeon Explorer, Victory Run
That's right, France and Britain will be getting five games on launch, while Luxemborg and Ireland will be getting eight -- including two, Dungeon Explorer and Victory Run, that are not yet available in the US, Nintendo's largest non-Japanese market. But that's nothing compared to the final sentence in the post:
Australia and New Zealand will not see TurboGrafx games, seeing that that platform never made it to those countries.
Nintendo has basically proven here that, to their mind, Virtual Console exists for nostalgia purposes only. Why would they not want to release TurboGrafx games in markets that never saw the system? Because, despite the fact that it costs almost nothing other than rights fees (which cannot be very high) and bandwidth to offer them, they will not, simply because they didn't get it the first time around. Each Virtual Console sale, especially at those prices, is almost pure profit for the licensor and Nintendo, to not chase it is ludicrous. Yeah, they gotta ESRB 'em, sure, so get it done and get them released!
Even worse, indeed incredibly bad, is that this also implies that the many Japanese-only games released over Virtual Console will remain Japanese-only.
To say that Nintendo is dropping the ball here seems like an understatement. If Nintendo were the only download gaming place in town then this kind of arrogance, which is fairly typical for the company it must be said (and this is coming from a long-time Nintendo supporter, the only console I got last generation was a Gamecube), might restrict their sales a bit it would not directly harm them.
But they are certainly not the only download console gaming guys around. X-box Live Arcade has been at it for months now, and has some very nice, original, games for it, and will only be getting more. And they have some of the greatest classic arcade games ever seen; whoever has been picking the out for Microsoft seems to know his stuff. Nintendo has some games that are equal, maybe even a little better, in quality (do not overestimate that "better" thing: objectively measured, Zelda may be awesome, but so is Robotron, just in a different way), but their greatest ally is volume, and so far that's fallen woefully short.
They may claim that the Wii is not trying to compete with the other new-gen consoles, and there is some truth to that, but they are competing directly in the downloadable games space, and so far Nintendo's only real advantages there are simplicity of use and the games themselves. We've heard murmurings about original Virtual Console games but for all we know those could go the way of the 64DD, discarded on a whim at any time in the future. We hear about all these games they COULD release, but COULD != WILL, and their statement that they're going to release a "greatest hits" selection is, frankly, idiotic when two of their US VC launch games are Pinball and Soccer. PINBALL AND F--KING SOCCER! If they're determined to launch early NES classics as well as later ones then where the hell is Ice Hockey?!
Meanwhile in Japan they already have Super Mario Bros! Even though the system launched a couple of weeks later in Japan than the US, at launch they have more games available, and knowing Nintendo, will probably continue to have more throughout the Wii's lifespan.
Nintendo! You cannot afford to do things like this any more! You've left your lunch right there on the table, and Microsoft is heading over with a hungry look in its eye!
And their appetite is boundless.
France, Denmark, Finland, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Greece, Portugal, and Spain - Donkey Kong, Mario Bros., Wario's Woods, Bomberman 93, Super Star Soldier
Norway, Belgium, Austria, Ireland, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Norway, and Sweden - Donkey Kong, Mario Bros., Wario's Woods, Bomberman 93, Super Star Soldier, The Legend of Zelda, Dungeon Explorer, Victory Run
That's right, France and Britain will be getting five games on launch, while Luxemborg and Ireland will be getting eight -- including two, Dungeon Explorer and Victory Run, that are not yet available in the US, Nintendo's largest non-Japanese market. But that's nothing compared to the final sentence in the post:
Australia and New Zealand will not see TurboGrafx games, seeing that that platform never made it to those countries.
Nintendo has basically proven here that, to their mind, Virtual Console exists for nostalgia purposes only. Why would they not want to release TurboGrafx games in markets that never saw the system? Because, despite the fact that it costs almost nothing other than rights fees (which cannot be very high) and bandwidth to offer them, they will not, simply because they didn't get it the first time around. Each Virtual Console sale, especially at those prices, is almost pure profit for the licensor and Nintendo, to not chase it is ludicrous. Yeah, they gotta ESRB 'em, sure, so get it done and get them released!
Even worse, indeed incredibly bad, is that this also implies that the many Japanese-only games released over Virtual Console will remain Japanese-only.
To say that Nintendo is dropping the ball here seems like an understatement. If Nintendo were the only download gaming place in town then this kind of arrogance, which is fairly typical for the company it must be said (and this is coming from a long-time Nintendo supporter, the only console I got last generation was a Gamecube), might restrict their sales a bit it would not directly harm them.
But they are certainly not the only download console gaming guys around. X-box Live Arcade has been at it for months now, and has some very nice, original, games for it, and will only be getting more. And they have some of the greatest classic arcade games ever seen; whoever has been picking the out for Microsoft seems to know his stuff. Nintendo has some games that are equal, maybe even a little better, in quality (do not overestimate that "better" thing: objectively measured, Zelda may be awesome, but so is Robotron, just in a different way), but their greatest ally is volume, and so far that's fallen woefully short.
They may claim that the Wii is not trying to compete with the other new-gen consoles, and there is some truth to that, but they are competing directly in the downloadable games space, and so far Nintendo's only real advantages there are simplicity of use and the games themselves. We've heard murmurings about original Virtual Console games but for all we know those could go the way of the 64DD, discarded on a whim at any time in the future. We hear about all these games they COULD release, but COULD != WILL, and their statement that they're going to release a "greatest hits" selection is, frankly, idiotic when two of their US VC launch games are Pinball and Soccer. PINBALL AND F--KING SOCCER! If they're determined to launch early NES classics as well as later ones then where the hell is Ice Hockey?!
Meanwhile in Japan they already have Super Mario Bros! Even though the system launched a couple of weeks later in Japan than the US, at launch they have more games available, and knowing Nintendo, will probably continue to have more throughout the Wii's lifespan.
Nintendo! You cannot afford to do things like this any more! You've left your lunch right there on the table, and Microsoft is heading over with a hungry look in its eye!
And their appetite is boundless.
--JohnH at 18:53
Comment
[ 16 ]
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