[Jawbone54]

Originally Posted by Dark Helmet 

And my problem is with Nintendo recently not any prior stuff.

I forget. Is it only the Wii that you hate or does that extend to the DS Lite as well?

Originally Posted by icruise

I beat both Gears and Resistance last week. They're both very good games, but I think I liked Resistance a bit more. In general you seem to only face a few enemies at once in Gears, while in Resistance you can be up against 8 or 10 enemies. And it seemed like the environments in Resistance were more destructible, which I like. The way glass shatters when you shoot it is pretty impressive. Still, there are some very nice graphics in Gears, too. I haven't played multiplayer much at all, so I can't really comment on that.

Graphically, Gears on an HDTV is probably the best game I've ever seen. I haven't played Resistance at all yet, so my curiosity is all I have. Basically all I've heard is that it's a great, really fast-paced game with little to no "real" story. Truth?

[icruise]

Originally Posted by Jawbone54 

Graphically, Gears on an HDTV is probably the best game I've ever seen. I haven't played Resistance at all yet, so my curiosity is all I have. Basically all I've heard is that it's a great, really fast-paced game with little to no "real" story. Truth?

I don't think either game has a whole lot when it comes to story. Both of them have enough to set up the action sequences and not much more, although it is true that Gears has more main characters and more interaction between them, so in that sense it might have the better story. Resistance is basically told in flashback as if it were historical document about the fictitious war against the Chimera. Graphically, Resistance isn't quite as flashy right off the bat, but as you play you realize just how many things are going on, or you notice how smooth everything is. It's really quite impressive. Of course, it's a first-person shooter, while Gears is a third-person shooter, so there are some differences there as well.

[ort888]

Gears has a horrible story, and horrible dialog.

[jokell82]

Originally Posted by Dark Helmet 

Yes. They also lie. Everything you just read is "exaggerated" or a lie.

Better?

Funny you should mention Sony lying:
Sony did NOT win an award for SIXAXIS :: DESTRUCTOID :: Hardcore gaming blog

[icruise]

It's sort of a gray area, since the SIXAXIS is a dual analog controller of the same design as the DUALSHOCK, which did win the award. But it's kind of lame to put out a press release implying that the new controller is what specifically got the award.

[Dark Helmet]

Originally Posted by Jawbone54 

I forget. Is it only the Wii that you hate or does that extend to the DS Lite as well?

I loved the gamecube at launch but 3 years later I realized they are too old fashined and cheap for their own good.

[Dark Helmet]

PS3 has background download coming:

Peter Dille talks about the PS3, generally - PS3 Fanboy

So if it does come out by than it is faster than it took MS with the 360.

[Weezer]

Report: Wii outsells PS3 in Japan - News at GameSpot

[Dakar²]

Not full of very useful numbers.

[goMac]

PS3 Likely Misses Sales Target, Sony stock takes a hit:

http://www.wrex.com/News/index.php?ID=14216

[Dark Helmet]

Originally Posted by goMac 

PS3 Likely Misses Sales Target, Sony stock takes a hit:

http://www.wrex.com/News/index.php?ID=14216

Um sales target in JAPAN. They hit them bang on in the west.
The shortage in japan is also because they had to ship the west units they had planned for Japan.

[pyrite]

Originally Posted by ort888 

Gears has a horrible story, and horrible dialog.

no, Gears has a fittingly simple story, and fittingly macho, over-the-top dialogue... it fits the game like a glove

[icruise]

The NPD numbers for December finally came out. The PS3 sold a little under 500,000 units in December in the US, bringing it to an installed base of just under 700,000 by the end of 2006. Since NPD does not include all retailers (especially Walmart) and only covers the US (while Sony's figure of 1 million shipped covered all of North America), I'd say Sony isn't doing too badly. Anyone know how many units Canada has gotten?

As for handhelds, the DS did very well (no surprise) selling 1.6 million units. But the PSP also sold 953,000, which is pretty darn good for a system that has "failed."

[Eug]

A Girl In A Bikini Plays With A Wii

[Hawkeye_a]

"Let me put it this way: If Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata was a character in one of his own games, right now he'd be flashing colors, shooting fireballs from his fingers and flying around on magical wings. The dude is temporarily invincible. According to independent U.S. sales figures released by the NPD Group, Nintendo may have recorded 'the most successful across-the-board holiday performance in U.S. videogame history."
-Forbes

Oh yeah, reports are coming in from fanboys all over the interweb that Nintendo is pulling a SEGA, and getting out of the hardware business to write games for the PS and Xbox, since they just cant compete with Sony or M$.

PS>> Girl in Bikini + Wii = giggedy-giggedy

[starman]

Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a 

"Let me put it this way: If Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata was a character in one of his own games, right now he'd be flashing colors, shooting fireballs from his fingers and flying around on magical wings. The dude is temporarily invincible. According to independent U.S. sales figures released by the NPD Group, Nintendo may have recorded 'the most successful across-the-board holiday performance in U.S. videogame history."
-Forbes

Oh yeah, reports are coming in from fanboys all over the interweb that Nintendo is pulling a SEGA, and getting out of the hardware business to write games for the PS and Xbox, since they just cant compete with Sony or M$.

PS>> Girl in Bikini + Wii = giggedy-giggedy

You can't accept the numbers, can you?

[icruise]

Which numbers are those?

[Eug]

MarketWatch: Sony to miss FY PlayStation 3 sales goal by 25%, Nomura report says

Sony Corp. (6758.TO) will reach only 75% of its global target for PlayStation 3 sales this fiscal year through March, according to a Nomura report released Monday.
Nomura cut its target for PS3 game units shipped during the period to 4.5 million from 6 million, citing poor sales over the holiday season in North America.

In its report Monday, Nomura also cut its PS3 sales forecast for next fiscal year to 10 million from 16 million next fiscal year and to 11 million from 18 million for the following year.


IDC: 300000 PS3s sitting on store shelves

The PlayStation brand doesn't appear to be helping the PS3. If NPD's numbers are correct, there are over 300K PS3s on retail shelves. That is not good for a console launch of only a million and it's not good for publishers with PS3 software.

[Dakar²]

If you're gonna charge $600, you better have a game everyone wants.

[ort888]

Originally Posted by pyrite 

no, Gears has a fittingly simple story, and fittingly macho, over-the-top dialogue... it fits the game like a glove

I disagree. I found the story to be broken and disjointed. It doesn't even make sense. Who is Marcus Fenix? Why was he in jail? Who was his dad? What does anything have to do with anything? How did that bomb get on the train? What's the deal with the locust? What's the deal with anything?

It wasn't simple. It was poorly executed.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by ort888 

It wasn't simple. It was poorly executed.

Most people who bought Gears of War would disagree, but everyone is entitled to an opinion.

[ort888]

Hey, I love Gears of War. I play it everyday while my pile of unopened games sits there unloved. It's my favorite game in a long time.

...and the story just sucks. But whatever, it's still a great game. The multiplayer more then the single though.

And there are a lot of people who agree with me. Most people thought the story was complete garbage.

[Hawkeye_a]

Are we arguing about whos opinion of the story is the right one ? GoW is in the top 3 for 2006. nuff said

[Dark Helmet]

The GOW story didn't make much sense and was rather stupid... but for some reason I didn't seem to mind.

Oh wait, thats cuz I was too busy blowing the hell out of the nasty monsters coming after me.

Heck the story could have been about things going wrong at Disney World and i wouldn't have cared. It is a 3rd person shooter, not Shakespeare.

[the_glassman]

There's a rumor floating around the Microsoft is buying Capcom.
Evil Avatar - [RUMOR] - Microsoft Completes Purchase of Capcom?
No more Resident Evil for PS3 if that's the case!

[Eug]

Originally Posted by the_glassman 

There's a rumor floating around the Microsoft is buying Capcom.
Evil Avatar - [RUMOR] - Microsoft Completes Purchase of Capcom?
No more Resident Evil for PS3 if that's the case!

Very interesting.

I'd bet if this turned out to be true, they'd still develop for Nintendo, at least for the DS. Kiss any PS3 support goodbye though obviously.

Still rumour though.

[Dark Helmet]

Originally Posted by the_glassman 

There's a rumor floating around the Microsoft is buying Capcom.
Evil Avatar - [RUMOR] - Microsoft Completes Purchase of Capcom?
No more Resident Evil for PS3 if that's the case!

I read last night that they were definitely NOT buying them.

[ort888]

Doesn't seem likely to me.

I can see M$ shelling out some megabucks to get something like Resident Evil 5 exclusive.

[Eug]

GameSpot: MS (not) buying Capcom

[ort888]

After 14 months of xbox - 11,059,500 games sold
After 14 months of xbox 360 - 22,211,500 games sold
After 14 months of PS2 - 14,129,500 games sold

Here's some interesting numbers about the 360's huge attach rate. These are NPD sales numbers from the first 14 months of the PS2, Xbox and Xbox 360.

[ink]

Wow, Sony must be sweating bullets.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by ort888 

After 14 months of xbox - 11,059,500 games sold
After 14 months of xbox 360 - 22,211,500 games sold
After 14 months of PS2 - 14,129,500 games sold

Here's some interesting numbers about the 360's huge attach rate. These are NPD sales numbers from the first 14 months of the PS2, Xbox and Xbox 360.

What are the corresponding unit sales?

[ort888]

This is just North America...


(14 months in)
PS2 = 8.5 million (1.29 games sold per console)
360 = 5 million (4.4 games sold per console)
xbox = 5 million (2.8 games sold per console)

[ort888]

Here's an interesting bit of math. Total sales in $$$ (consoles + games) for 14 months in...

PS2 ($300 per console, $50 per game) $3,098,250,000

Xbox 360 ($350 per console, $60 per game) $3,070,000,000

Xbox ($300 per console, $50 per game) $2,200,000,000

[Eug]

Originally Posted by ort888 

Here's an interesting bit of math. Total sales in $$$ (consoles + games) for 14 months in...

PS2 ($300 per console, $50 per game) $3,098,250,000

Xbox 360 ($350 per console, $60 per game) $3,070,000,000

Xbox ($300 per console, $50 per game) $2,200,000,000

What about worldwide sales?

[ort888]

I don't have it, but it would put the PS2 waaaaay in the lead, since the xbox didn't sell at all in Japan and did worse in Europe.

[icruise]

Originally Posted by Eug 

IDC: 300000 PS3s sitting on store shelves

The PlayStation brand doesn't appear to be helping the PS3. If NPD's numbers are correct, there are over 300K PS3s on retail shelves. That is not good for a console launch of only a million and it's not good for publishers with PS3 software.

I don't understand how this "analyst" can say that there are 300,000 units sitting on store shelves when, as I've already said, NPD numbers don't account for a large chunk of US retail sales and Sony's number of 1,000,000 units shipped applied to all of North America and not just the US. It's still not good news for Sony, but not that bad.

Originally Posted by ort888 

And there are a lot of people who agree with me. Most people thought the story was complete garbage.

I am inclined to agree. At first I thought I just wasn't paying enough attention, but all of those things you mentioned were not explained well if at all.

[Dark Helmet]

I dunno about you guys but once I got my PS3/Wii/XBOX I could care less how many more they sell.

All I want to see is the game release schedules as more XBOX sales in Europe doesn't make my current games any more fun.

[ort888]

Originally Posted by Dark Helmet 

I dunno about you guys but once I got my PS3/Wii/XBOX I could care less how many more they sell.

All I want to see is the game release schedules as more XBOX sales in Europe doesn't make my current games any more fun.

The only reason I care is because I like to see a lot of games come to the console I own. More hardware sales = more game sales = more developers working on games for the system I own.

Since you always own every system, I'm sure you really don't care, which is understandable.

[Dark Helmet]

Originally Posted by ort888 

More hardware sales = more game sales = more developers working on games for the system I own.

Since you always own every system, I'm sure you really don't care, which is understandable.

I dunno even though the Xbox 1 sold 25 mil they had plenty of amazing games next to the PS2 that sold trillions (estimate of course).

In the same regard N64 sold lots of hardware and very few games came out in the end.

[ort888]

That's because the Xbox had high software sales compared to the PS2. There may have been twice as many PS2s in North America, but the software sales were split more like 60/40.

Most of the hardcore gamers had Xboxes and bought the majority of their games for the system because multi-console games were usually better on the Xbox. For some reason, Xbox owners just bought more new games. Slightly different demographic I suppose.

Plus, there are a lot of Playstation users that don't buy anything besides Madden and $20 budget titles.

[Hawkeye_a]

For the record.... i think the attach rate for the GameCube was something like 8 games per console sold or something.... dont have a source, but i remember it from E3 last year, when Nintendo released the total sales figures for all its hardware and software.

[Dark Helmet]

Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a 

For the record.... i think the attach rate for the GameCube was something like 8 games per console sold or something.... dont have a source, but i remember it from E3 last year, when Nintendo released the total sales figures for all its hardware and software.

I think that is because Nintendo fans have a one system mentality in general and since the GC games were few and far between people snatched up what they could.

[Hawkeye_a]

Not every person who baught a GCN was a Nintendo fan tho, and if the attach rate for games on a particular system is higher..... what does that say about the system as a gaming platform ? Also not every person who baught a GCN was a one-system-type-person..... example: You.

[Dark Helmet]

Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a 

Also not every person who baught a GCN was a one-system-type-person..... example: You.

When did I say 100% of all GC owners?

Common.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by icruise 

I don't understand how this "analyst" can say that there are 300,000 units sitting on store shelves when, as I've already said, NPD numbers don't account for a large chunk of US retail sales and Sony's number of 1,000,000 units shipped applied to all of North America and not just the US. It's still not good news for Sony, but not that bad.


I am inclined to agree. At first I thought I just wasn't paying enough attention, but all of those things you mentioned were not explained well if at all.

I've been seeing PS3's everywhere. Literally everywhere I go that carries there are PS3's sitting on shelves, not to mention the countless stories online. 300,000 is high, but I think it's definitely starting to get up there.

Just for kicks, I asked the guy at the store I bought Elebits from about PS3 sales (they were out of Wii's and controllers). He said after Christmas the PS3 just stopped selling. People come in, look at the $600/$500 price tag, and leave.

They had about the same number of PS3's in stock as XBox 360's, and they had quite a few XBox 360's.

[Hawkeye_a]

Originally Posted by Dark Helmet 

When did I say 100% of all GC owners?

Common.

NO, you said it !!

I guess my point is, the point of a "platform" is to sell games. i think the PS2 succeeded in attracting a lot of people to gaming with diversity, and the GCN appealed to the people who primarily like Nintendo games.

[icruise]

The Gamecube apparently had an attach rate of more than 9 throughout its history, but that's actually not such a good thing, at least according to the people who did this study. Basically they're saying that very high attach rates (in this case, of the Xbox 360) don't indicate that a console is doing well, but rather than its selling mostly to hardcore gamers -- not the group you need to woo if your console is going to be a mainstream success. The example of the Gamecube seeems to prove that point.

Interestingly, this study (which was done before the PS3 launch) predicted high attach rates for the PS3, but they apparently failed to take into account all the people buying the system to auction or mostly to play Blu-ray discs.

(As an aside, despite all the talk of PS3s stacked to the ceiling at major retailers, I still have yet to see many in stores. I just got back from Best Buy and Target earlier and they each had exactly one PS3 in stock, 3 360s and no Wiis.)

[Hawkeye_a]

Originally Posted by icruise 

The Gamecube apparently had an attach rate of more than 9 throughout its history, but that's actually not such a good thing, at least according to the people who did this study. Basically they're saying that very high attach rates (in this case, of the Xbox 360) don't indicate that a console is doing well, but rather than its selling mostly to hardcore gamers -- not the group you need to woo if your console is going to be a mainstream success. The example of the Gamecube seeems to prove that point.

Agreed, with the GCN, they were too focused on their core audience. hence the high attach rates.

[Eug]

Carmack sez:

GI: At QuakeCon two years ago, you were very adamant during your keynote about not being too thrilled about developing for multi-core systems. Not just specifically with PCs, but also the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Now that you’ve been working with both of them since then, have your thoughts changed at all?

Carmack: Microsoft has made some pretty nice tools that show you what you can make on the Xbox 360. I get a nice multi-frame graph, and I can label everything across six threads and three cores. They are nice tools for doing all of that, but the fundamental problem is that it’s still hard to do. If you want to utilize all of that unused performance, it’s going to become more of a risk to you and bring pain and suffering to the programming side. It already tends to be a long pole in the tent for getting a game out of the door. It’s no help to developers to be adding all of this extra stuff where we can spend more effort on this. We’re going to be incentivized, obviously, to take advantage of the system, because everybody’s going to be doing that. It’s not like anyone’s going to say that it’s impossible to do. People tend to look at it from the up side. It gives you this many more flops and it gives you this much more power to do that. But you have to recognize that there is another edge to that sword, and you will suffer in some ways for dealing with this. I don’t have any expectation that anytime soon, a massive breakthrough will occur that will make parallel programming much easier. It’s been an active research project for many years. Better tools will help and somewhat better programming methodologies will help. One of the big problems with modern game development with C/C++ languages is that your junior programmer who’s supposed to be over there working on how the pistol works can’t have one tiny little race condition that interacts with the background thread doing something. I do sweat about the fragility of what we do with the large-scale software stuff with multiple programmers developing on things, and adding multi-core development makes it much scarier and much worse in that regard.

So we’re dealing with it, but it’s an aspect of the landscape that obviously would have been better if we would have been able to get more gigahertz in a processor core. But life didn’t turn out like that, and we have to just take the best advantage with it.

GI: You talked a lot about the Xbox 360. What are your thoughts on the PlayStation 3 now that you’ve had more time on it?

Carmack: We’ve got our PlayStation 3 dev kits, and we’ve got our code compiling on it. I do intend to do a simultaneous release on it. But the honest truth is that Microsoft dev tools are so much better than Sony’s. We expect to keep in mind the issues of bringing this up on the PlayStation 3. But we’re not going to do much until we’re at the point where we need to bring it up to spec on the PlayStation 3. We’ll probably do that two or three times during the major development schedule. It’s not something we’re going to try and keep in-step with us. None of my opinions have really changed on that. I think the decision to use an asymmetric CPU by Sony was a wrong one. There are aspects that could make it a winning decision, but they’re not helpful to the developers. If they make the developers say that Sony is going to own the main marketplace, let’s make them develop toward this and build it this way, it would somewhat downplay the benefits of the Xbox 360 and play to the PlayStation 3’s strengths. I suspect they’re not going to overwhelmingly crush the marketplace this time, which wasn’t clear a year ago. A lot of people were thinking it’s going to be a rerun of the last generation, and it’s now looking like it might not be. I’ve been pulling for Microsoft, because I think they’ve done a better job for development support, and I think they have made somewhat smarter decisions on the platform. It’s not like the PlayStation 3 is a piece of junk or anything. I was not a fan of the PlayStation 2 and the way its architecture was set up. With the PlayStation 3, it’s not even that it’s ugly--they just took a design decision that wasn’t the best from a development standpoint.

GI: We’re talking about the high end. Going to the other side, you’ve gone back and programmed for simpler systems, like cell phones. On the console side, the Wii is the most underpowered, as they say. What do you think about developing for the Wii?

Carmack: You know, we’ve never had a good relationship with Nintendo, from really early products we did a long time ago. And for the most part, we just said, “Fine.” We’re busy with other stuff, and we just haven’t been that tight with Nintendo. On the up side, I really do respect what they’re doing, where for years, I’ve been saying—you probably heard me at QuakeCon—I will go on about how IO devices are where the really big differences are going to be made in gaming. You can get ten times the graphics power, and you can make a prettier picture, but when somebody makes a new IO device that really changes the way that people interact with the game, that’s going to have a larger benefit there. So I’m really pleased with what they’re doing with the Wii and with the DS—and they’re doing innovative things. But our current generation of game technology is not targeted at the Wii. Maybe that was a mistake on our part originally, but we have been looking strictly at the 360, PS3 and PC as what we want to simultaneously develop on. We probably aren’t going to be able to hit the Wii with the same technology platform.