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Games Entertainment

Mario's Revenge? 149

Posted by michael from the jumping-over-barrels,-saving-the-princess dept.
Cringely's column this week covers the console industry - he predicts that Mario will rise from the dead to pummel both the hedgehog and the bandicoot.
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Mario's Revenge? More

Mario's Revenge?

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  • The wonderful world of Marketing (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Personally I think the X-Box will crush the Cube, and the PS/2, and anything else. Why? Because Microsoft can sell ice to eskimos. If they are going to throw as much money as has been rumoured on marketing this box, it won't matter how technically good or bad it is. People will think they want it, and get it.

    Or has everyone forgotten already forgotten the Windows 95 launch?

  • Black Systems (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Sony will fail as will the X-Box because the consoles are black. Black consoles NEVER do well. Look at Sega Master System, Genesis, N64, Atari 5400,Atari 7200, Turbo Graphix 16, Neo-Geo, 3DO, Jagurar, and a slew of other old systems. Now, Atari 2600 was brown,Nintendo was grey, SNES was grey, PSX was grey....looks like the Game Cube is the only onw with a shot now.
  • He makes a great point. It doesn't really matter how good your hardware is, if you don't have a good set of well known games to run on your console people won't buy it.

    Atari figured this out in the early 80's, which is why despite the fact that their 2600 machine was terrible compared to its competition at the time, it was wildly successful. They had some of the best-known games on the market - Space Invaders, then Asteroids (easy since they owned that), then Pac Man, and even Donkey Kong (Mario again!). And even though Atari's Pac Man was horrible, they had an exclusive licence for it so if you wanted to play a Pac-Man-like game at home you pretty much had to buy a 2600. They enforced their licence really aggressively, I remember when they sued Magnavox and made them recall the KC Munchkin game for the Odyssey/VideoPac. KC was a far, far better game, and ran on a much better platform, but what Atari couldn't beat with better silicon it beat with better lawyers.

    If you ask me, the video game crash of 1983-1986 pretty much served them right.
  • Nobody cared about Final Fantasy 8 or 9.

    I think you're wrong there. FF8 wasn't all that great, but I thought that FF9 was quite fun and a worthy successor to FF6. Judging by what I've seen in various places on the 'net, a lot of people agree with me.

    Perhaps Final Fantasy X will be horrid, but, judging by Final Fantasy IX, there's still good game design coming out of Square.


    --Phil (Coincidentally, XMMS just decided to play something from the FF9 soundtrack.)
  • Might I be the first to note that you are an imbecile? In a console war, a developer is not a winner; their rewards are reaped in a manner completely different from those of the console makers. Granted, I agree that Sega will make a goodly profit from their developing, but it is now impossible for them to be a winner in the console war.

    I guess the original poster was redefining the terms, yes -- just as Sega have redefined their terms by opting out of the hardware market....

    Certainly, when I bought my Playstation, I wasn't opting into to a Sony world a gaming: I was seduced by the "Dream Ticket" of Namco and Sony together. My choice was Tekken 2 vs Virtua Fighter 2 -- Sega (the software developer) vs Namco (the software developer) not Sega (the hardware developer) vs Sony.

    So, while not helping to predict which console will win the forthcoming sales war, the original poster made a worthwhile point about how software companies are in a great position, as long as they don't go signing any exclusivity deals... With Dreamcast as their sole platform, Sega were onto a loser. Now, I don't see how they can lose.
    --
  • Um, Bullshit. :)

    "Square-EA" is owned, um, 70% by Square, 30% by EA. (There's a similar joint venture in Japan with the percentages reversed that EA uses to release their games in Japan.

    This is all public information from the Squaresoft Annual Report available on the web (much of it is even in English).

    Since you're claiming something that contradicts regulated financial reports, please cite a source for this.

  • ...because of licensing. They are 1/10th owner of the DVD FLLC. Anything that sells more DVD's increases their profits. Maybe not as much as selling games, but more none the less.

    Vermifax
  • Yes. Additionally, Xbox is or at least soon will be targeted at another enemy of the MS empire.

    With some relatively small changes it can incorporate WebTV functionality, and utilize .Net. This means that it would be able to give MS a huge amount of control in the ~$400 PC market, where their OS is already one of the most expensive components. For people who only want to do light web surfing, email and a bit of word processing here or there, v2 or 3 of the Xbox will probably try to provide it. It wouldn't be a great general purpose computer, but it wouldn't need to be.

    As for driving competitors like emachines into having to use Linux to keep costs down, I don't think that it'll endear them to users. And MS can both compete against them and be their suppliers, which is nice for them at least.
  • Bandai is a highly-respected entertainment name in that country.

    In video games? They are mostly renown for their conventional *toys*, not video games. They have failed every time they try to enter the video game market.

    Not that the X-Box won't be a success, I think it will; but it'll be one at Nintendo's expense and not Sony's.

    The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.

  • Nintendo makes more money than anyone else. Nobody is even close. You may think that as a grownup geek that has an interest in games, you're top of the heap. Not so. It's the kids that have parents that buy things for them that really make the money for these companies, and I don't think that'll change any time soon.

    Despite the kind of games that you like, Nintendo *has* the top spot. They have money in the bank, and no debt.

    BTW, people are finding out what a bad idea Sony's PSX2 DVD playback was. Apparently, it was implemented badly enough that not all DVDs work on it. Besides, buying a PSX2 for a DVD player only causes Sony to lose money. They're facing that as a very real problem in Japan right now. People aren't buying the games for it, and Sony is getting soaked on it.

    Here are the numbers for 2000:
    http://ign64.ign.com/news/30185.html [ign.com]

    The gamecube won't just find 'some' popularity. I'm sure that it'll once again blow everyone out of the water.
  • > Given that xbox is more powerful than a GF3

    Not particularly surprising, given that an NTSC television has a maximum pixel resolution of 720x480 (non-square pixels; this is the resolution of DVD). Even high-definition TV can't compete once you set your computer past 1024x768.

    I'm guessing that a GF3 set to 640x480 or 800x600 would provide similar gaming performance to the xbox.

    The catch is -- game developers will add extra levels of detail to the xbox to make up for the loss in resolution. Whether you'll be able to 'enable' this extra niceness in the PC releases is up to the developer, I guess. I can hardly see Carmack not offering comparable dosh to the PC crowd when its already programmed.

    On the more general issue:

    TV's might be bigger, but they're really low res, flickery and interlaced. No finely detailed health and weapon displays here!

    Games like Tribes 2 will demand steady, high resolutions for maps and prescision game control, it'll need a mouse for organizing your team games, it'll need a keyboard for communication. Xbox versions won't offer this.

    I can't imagine anyone seriously trying to snipe another player using a TV and analog joypad. Some things just DON'T happen.

    --
  • As I said...
    Even high-definition TV can't compete once you set your computer past 1024x768.

    --
  • I respectfully disagree. :-)

    The most important thing is that both Nintendo and Microsoft have low-cost development kits available for Gamecube and Xbox respectively. This will quickly speed product development, and already the demos we've seen of Gamecube and Xbox games are nothing short of breathtaking.

    Already, several game publishers have found out to their chagrin that programming for PlayStation 2 has proved to be just as tough going as programming for the old Sega Saturn.

    The real unknown factor is what platforms Sega's software teams will support in the long run. There are a few games already in development for PS2, but Sega also plans to write games for Nintendo's Gamecube and Game Boy Advance and Microsoft's Xbox, too. Given that Sega's internal programming teams are probably better than Nintendo's own internal programming teams, Sega could ironically have a hand in determining what will become the dominant next-generation console gaming platform.
  • Psst--there's a lot more to videogames than just Squaresoft. ^_^

    Remember, Microsoft has gotten companies like Namco, Konami, Koei, HudsonSoft, and other Japanese developers to write games for Xbox. And Microsoft smartly allied themselves with the Bandai organization to distribute Xbox in Japan; Bandai is a highly-respected entertainment name in that country.
  • Criterion's DVDs are *not* the best means of testing a DVD player.
    a) They're poorly manufactured
    b) It's usually not the player that's bad, it's the initial transfer.

    That said, I tested the Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz DVD on a Sony 530D (early model), and a 560D (last year's model), as well as the PS2. Component output versus composite notwithstanding, the video just looked choppy on the PS2. I wouldn't say it was unwatchable, but anime is not the PS2's strong suit with the DVD software. The higher contrast (of a white Gundam in the blackness of space, for example) makes these flaws more obvious than, say, The Matrix or other action movies.

    That said, if I needed a DVD player I can take to a friend's house, the PS2 is it. It's simple enough to hook up, and offers gaming capabilities to boot. Not to mention, it's also capable of playing all the PSX games, which damn near everyone has. I wouldn't consider it the greatest console out there (I still use my Dreamcast more often), but there are certainly some good games for it, and once FFX is out, then my investment will finally prove its worthiness :-)


    Raptor
  • Because Nintendo doesn't care about its old standby, Mario anymore. Nintendo's biggest problem is that it has become a company which will seemingly only cater to the execessively young, and when the GameCube comes out, I'll bet 10-1 the game it ships with won't be any Mario game, but a Pokemon game.

    The crucial mistake here is that Nintendo doesn't understand that while it can lead the pack with the Gameboy, its because the Gameboy costs $50-70 and parents won't have a problem buying it and the 10,000 Pokemon games that float around for it. Consoles, especially these days, need to be aimed a little higher towards teenagers & young adults, because they cost so much. A parent isn't going to buy a $300 game system and pay another $300 on all the Pokemon games, especially when they can't enjoy it at all themselves.

    Nintendo is going to die a horrible death when it discovers its biggest franchise go out of style in about 9 months, and then all the money spent on special edition Gameboys, games, and addonpacks that do nothing but feature Pokemon colors and characters. And I will look forward to it.

    The ball is in Microsoft's court, unfortunately. If MS can pull off a system that is better looking and most importantly better playing than the Playstation2, then the X-box has a chance. Perhaps Sony will pull something nice from under its hat with some really good must-have games...but for now, the console market languishes. The rest of us will just wait patiently for Doom3. :-)

    -Julius X
  • Sony, market leader with new product that has had supply problems and setbacks on initial shipments of consoles, games, and perpherials. The reason Sony did so well was they promoted and they made it easy and cheap (realatively) to produce games for the PSX. The marketplace has in-turn responded to this competitive advantage by producing in kind. Enter now a company with a rich history of gaming and a focus on its fanatical core market 6-12 year olds. Enter the second company, an absolute giant who thinks this is a pretty good industry to get into with the cash reserves and wherewithall to make it happen and you spell trouble N-I-N-T-E-N-D-O-M-I-C-R-O-S-O-F-T. Both companies will enter the market with the same competitive advantage Sony has, but with newer systems and the same developers. (Side note: have a some friends who work in Austin and Dallas for vidgame companies and while they say it won't be easy to port there games from PC to X-Box it will be worth there trouble to do so.) Personally, I think Sony's gonna get creamed by two companies eating both ends of their market. Nintendo, Mom and Daddy may not like Pinkachu but damn if there gonna buy there 8 year old a copy of Metal Gear Solid. Microsoft, I get to play kick ass games, Microsoft selling below costs, and coming with $500 million ad campaign behind it. Sorry to me I do think the whoopass cometh.

  • I know it's bait, but I have to jump.

    You're wrong, and you don't know what you're talking about. Sure, maybe sony will have the best "real" rpgs... Sqauresoft sells games in Japan, and to geeks...

    Want to make money? you release a new zelda. Tens of millions of people will buy the nintendo simply because there will be a new zelda. Also, 007 may have had a fun but short-lived single player game, but years later, we still put down smash brothers (an underrated and vrey reccommended party game) and turok for a bit of ol' bondage, the only thing i'd rather be deathmatching is doom, but that's too much hassle.

    And you may be too old for pokemon, but that's ok. Little johnny six pack (of fruitboxes) isn't, and mummy and daddy are more tha happy to buy it for him for his 8th birthday.

    No, sony won't be toppled by nintendo, the company itself is too big. They'd never just pull out like sega, they'd lose too much face. But don't discount the little plumber, the boy in the green hat, the girl in the armour, or the electric mouse. Or they'll bite you in the ass when you're not looking.

    Disclaimer: I will buy a sony 2 cause i need something now, and i need a dvd player, and I need a sony 1 to play alpha 3. I will buy a gamecube because it will have zelda.


    --Gfunk
  • > Mario will rise from the dead to pummel both the hedgehog and the bandicoot.

    I look forward to this Mario/Altered Beast combination game.
  • I'd agree with you about the N64 not having a lot of good material besides Nintendo themselves and one or two other 1st party companies (like Rare).

    But though the PS2 is hard to develop for, I don't think you'll see quite the same level of problems. ALready there are a number of really good games out by various companies - SSx from EA, Starfighter from LucasArts, ATV Offroad from someone who I can't remmeber now. You also have upcoming games like GT3 and Z.O.E. that look to be totally amazing, again by different companies. To some extent this is because a lot of companies were willling to invest a lot of money to develop skills in PS2 programming, but also because I imagine Sony is scrambling as fast as it can to improve the libraries for the system and general knowledge of how to program the thing. As proof, witness the lack of anti-aliasing problems in recent games vs. games from last year.

    I think it's Sony's market to loose, and while the XBox has a chance it's hard to evaluate how it will do without seeing what it's shortcomings are. The PS2 is actually out in the market, while the XBox lies behind a fluffy cloud of mystery.

    The Gamecube is in a different market as far as I;m concerned, I play to buy one for sure no matter what. After all, it is Ninetendo.
  • I'm going to have to disagree with you. I've owned a PS2 since launch, and for a year or two before that I had a number of difefrent DVD players (mostly Toshiba). After I bought the PS2 I gave away my standalone DVD player to a family member so I could really evaluate how well the PS2 worked as a DVD player.

    I'll admit that the PS2 DVD player software is annoying to use, and lacks features that other DVD players might have (like zoom or 30x FF that I used to have). However, I've not had a problem with it playing any DVD's yet, and I'm pretty sure I've used a number of dual layer discs. I have the Criterion Collection 7th Samuri DVD that you mention in another post, I'll have to try the later half of the movie and see if I have similar problems.

    I have to say though is that the PS2's curse could also be it's salvation - the PS2 DVD software has the POTENTIAL to be quite amazing, mostly because it's all in software and the controls could be mapped to anything. You could have smooth variable zooming while playing in slow motion. You could have bookmarks in DVD's saved to the memory card or future HD. You could do things that no other DVD player on the market could do. On the other hand, I've seen no promises that anything that innovative is even in the pipeline (personally I think the Sony DVD player division is holding them down) so the point is probably a bit silly.

    One thing I reccomend people try when watching DVD's is to reset the PS2 after you insert the DVD. For me that seems to help, since I started that simple procedure I've never had a problem with a DVD in the PS2. It makes sense when you think about it from a software perspective, that at that point the DVD player software pretty much always initializes successfully whereas just popping in a DVD after playing a game or using the browser might not leave the PS2 in the "perfect" state for the player software.

    I'll also say for the record, that the PS2 is still the only DVD player I have and I've not thought much about getting a standalone model again. I think for most people, it's a decent enough player that it can server as the only DVD player in the house. I'm pretty finicky myself when it comes to video stuff, and even though the software is not that great the quality of playback and audio is quite good. It supports just about anything you'd ever want in an AV standard from a DVD player, and if they'd ever build a VGA adaptor you'd have a DVD player that could do what almost no other DVD player could do.

  • The fact that Nintendo markets to a younger group of people is possibly why it could take the game market.. You think places like Mc Donalds would exist if it wasn't for kids? Nope. Sure adults have the money, but kids control the adults. Shit when I was a kid I could get my parents to buy me a new game or two every time we went out. I had hundreds of old NES games. You also gotta remember. Sony and MS are fighting for the same group of users while nintendo has pretty much no competition.. Also, Nintendo doesn't ONLY shoot for the younger market.. Some of their better games are made for adults or older kids.. And you think DVD playback is such a big deal? Why? It's not like it's GOOD on the Sony or anything.. Most people want a REAL dvd player.. The ones that come with a remote and stuff? Plus as most linux biggots would say they like having a system that is good at doing ONE thing which is playing games.. You can have a game console that plays DVDs or a DVD player that plays games, but neither of them will do their secondary functions well :-\
    -----------------------
    Jeremy 'PeelBoy' Amberg
  • would this be the same big jim slate from the kentucky fried movie?

    use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
  • Actually, in terms of profit from games last year or so, Nintendo has DOUBLED what Square/EA has made. DOUBLED.

    And plus, Square WANTS to develop for Nintendo, but Yamauchi doesn't want them (damn son that guy holds a grudge). He's still pissed over Square abandoning them for PSX a few years back.

    You can say what you will about Square being crucial to a console, but somehow Nintendo has remained the most profitable game publisher out there without them.
  • *applause*

    The man is crazy, the man is old, but the man is a wizard in the best way!

    What other man in the industry would tell the entire industry to (figuratively) suck it? He refused to let Namco develop for N64 until the president got down on his knees and BEGGED! How can you not love this guy? Granted I don't agree with all his choices, but the guy is just the man!
  • NeoGeo Pocket Color is more or less dead (RIP SNK :( ) and Square would NEVER (I pray) make games for a PDA. Plus, they've stated specifically Gameboy Advance.
  • Each generation of consoles have seen a different dominant company. Atari -> Nintendo -> Sega -> Sony -> ? (possibly Microsoft). But this doesn't mean that the other platforms have been a failure. At the end of the 16bit days, the Megadrive/Genesis and SNES sold about the same. The Playstation may have been the dominant platform in the 32/64bit days, but the N64 has not been a failure, and the Saturn managed some excellent games.

    As we enter the 128bit era, there are three major players. Unfortunately the Dreamcast has died in it's prime, and Indrema probably won't happen. The Nuon is interesting, but won't be a major gaming platform. The main contenders are Nintendo Gamecube, Microsoft X-Box and Sony Playstation2. Sony are learning that success in one generation doesn't automatically equal success in the next. Microsoft are the big unknown - massive third party support, little in-house experience. Nintendo are established, have probably the strongest library of titles on any platform, and know what they're doing. If they've learnt from the mistakes with the N64 (too difficult to program, limited memory etc), then Gamecube could be a success.

    My prediction? Microsoft will gain the mainstream with X-Box. PS2 and GC will get about equal. The real winner? Possibly Sega - a company with the second strongest software library after Nintendo. Once they've made some money as a software developer, I wouldn't be surprised to see a new console from them for the >128bit generation.
  • CD32... I mean Dangerous Streets [pipex.com]? What the fuck were Commodore thinking?

  • Are you the same AC as... oh, never mind. Yes, Holloway is holloway is holloway.

  • First off, Mario never died.

    That's not too hard to do, considering that Sonic the Hedgehog died along with Sega's plan to stop making consoles.

    Last I heard, Sonic was a piece of software, not hardware. 10 bucks says that we'll see a Sonic vs. Mario or some deravation thereof for NGC.

    Also, Sony has pretty much dropped the Crash Bandicoot franchise

    Sony never had the Crash Bandicoot franshise. Its owned by Universal who is taking it to at least PS2 and x-box .

    replacing it with yet more Tekken ... spinoffs

    See above comment, replace Universal with Namco.

    not to mention the many EA sports games

    EA makes games for every system, DC, PS2, N64, PC, and I believe they've commited to X-box as well.
    Just thought I'd point this stuff out
  • Isn't this topic getting old already? Every time there's a new console on the horizon, all we see are these articles about which one will succeed in the end. In response to that, many people just think "Oh, I'm going to wait around and see what happens before spending my money", effectively killing whatever's currently out.

    Last year, tons of great games were coming out for Dreamcast and no one paid much attention. The focus was primarily on the up-and-coming PS2 and its elusive "emotion engine". Now the PS2 is out and everyone realises what we knew all along: the games are fucking awful. Yeah, some are finally coming out that are alright, but you have to wonder-- why did we wait all this time to spend way too much money for a console that only has mediocre games, when for a third of the price we could've bought a console that has an entire library of great games?

    Even now, when the Dreamcast isn't entirely dead, game publishers are canceling production on their DC titles. Why? Did the user-base suddenly cease to exist? How soon before this happens to the PS2?

    Yeah, we've got the X-Box and Gamecube coming out. Of course they're going to have improved technology. But if you like gaming, and you want to support the companies that are producing the games, try taking a look at what's currently out there.

  • This is small stuff, but big business, and the only sure thing right now is that Sony, the industry leader, is in trouble.

    The article doesn't really explain why this guy thinks the new Gamecube will do so well.

    If it's purely those breath-taking graphics he speaks of, that's hardly a factor anymore.

    In the end, the visiual differences between a Gamecube, a Playstation 2, and an X-Box will almost certainly be hard to determine by most poeple (yeah, die-hard gamers may know what to look for ... but even they might have trouble).

    I agree that the Playstation 2 IS in trouble; but Sony is very foolishly pissing off their third parties...

    However, until the Game Cube and X-Box make a real showing it's hard to tell if there will even be a clear winner.

    Some people say the video game market is setting it's self up for a serious crash. How can we be sure that they won't all do poorly?

    As I've mentioned many times in the past, my guess is that the Gamecube will dominate followed by the X-Box, but it's still too early to write any of these three systems off as "doomed" yet. Not even Sony's monster. Sony has money, they aren't going anywhere.

    "Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
  • ...the impact that piracy had on the consoles?

    One of the reasons I think the original Playstation 'appeared' to have continued to do so well is the fact that the games could be pirated a lot more easily than the other consoles. (ie. access to a CD burner). I'm sure a lot of people bought them because they were cheap, and readily had access to a lot of 'free' games, and if a new game came out, you'd just hire it from the local video store for the night, copy it, and own it for a grand total of about AUS $6.

    Given the fact that Sony were selling their consoles at a loss means that in a lot of cases they didn't recoup as much as they should have on the games...

    Personally I own a rarely used N64... (I normally play PC games, because its a better platform for the games I prefer (ie. RTS, FPS's, RPG's etc.). The N64 is mainly used for social gaming - having a bunch of friends come over and play Mario-Kart or Tetris for a while.

    On a completely different note, I remember seeing a segment on some show a while ago, which had this baby ( 2 years old - couldn't speak yet). This baby was addicted to the point the parents had to buy a portable TV (+ accessories) so the toddling could play it in the car on long journeys and holidays, and unless it was allowed to play Doom64 whilst its nappy was being changes it would scream and carry on a ridiculous amount!!!

    Now, if Nintendo can have this effect on a larger scale, they will clearly beat the other consoles hands down - One has to wonder what the kid will be like once it grows to be a bit older...?

    (In the meantime, I will be conducting my own experiment with Black & White starting very soon....)
  • The issue there is that pressing another CD costs remarkably less than a dollar. A second cartridge would put the price of a game over $100.

    -----------------------

  • Microsoft may have gotten those companies on paper, but what games have they committed to be developed as X-Box only titles? I haven't heard of any. All those companies are developing PS2 games, then possiably porting them to the X-Box.
  • Sonic was made up by Sega just to combat Mario and lost. I think the Sonic games suck. I havent played Crash Banicoot so I dont know now the PS versions are doing (is it PS, i dont know)

    Everyone speaks of Crash being the cutesy mascot for the PSX, but i've never really understood why. The Spyro series is technically much better as a platformer (IMHO) and there are other hallmark title such as Croc or Medieval which compare to (even surpass) Sonic & Crash. So why the attention to crash?

  • Where's the punch? (Score:3)

    by jrennie ( 79374 ) on Sunday March 25, 2001 @04:52AM (#341773) Homepage
    That article was a cool mini-history of the past 15 years of the gaming world, but it didn't much live up to its title. Sony won its seat as top dog by making game development easy and by promoting PS1 games. With PS2, "the emphasis was on the platform, not the titles." Also, according to Robert, game companies are losing money. My questions:

    - Is emphasizing the platform really such a terrible thing when the platform is the best thing out there?
    - What game companies are losing money? Could this have anything to do with the supply of PS2s being not totally smooth? Such problems usually plague a new system. The game companies will be making money soon enough.

    And finally...

    - How are MS and Nintendo going to "open a can of whoop-ass on Sony's empire?"

    Nintendo has been promoting games and developers like it. That doesn't mean that it will instantly become a success. Being as good as the PS2 won't convince millions of gamers to switch. Also, Nintendo did a good job of beating a half-dead opponent (Atari), but their performance against other contenders (Sega, Sony) has been less than stellar. Nintendo can attract the younger crowd with Mario and Pokemon, but they don't have the bait to attract the elders.

    And then there's MS, which has great experience with PC games, but none with console/video games. Will the XBox venture work for MS? Not likely.

    When was the last time MS did something right on their first try? Anyone remember actually Word 1 or IE 1? MS learns quickly and improves upon their past mistakes, but it usually takes a while for them to catch on. First impressions mean a lot in the gaming industry. Also, MS relies on its dominance, and intimate knowledge of the OS for its success. If the XBox successfully makes it out of the gate w/o major hiccups, we're likely to see some cool games from MS. However, the XBox won't get far without help from 3rd party developers. What would Nintendo have been without Capcom and SquareSoft? MS is notoriously bad at working well with others; MS loves having total control. MS will probably put together a nice game development platform, but I can see them ticking off a lot of developers through licensing agreements and payment arrangements. If they don't make it easy and simple like Sony did for the PS1, they'll end up being the only supporters of the XBox game library. Even if you do hate Sony, don't put your bets on MS "revolutionizing" the video game industry.

    Sony may not have a strangle-hold on the video gaming world, but they have solid footing which isn't likely to crumble soon. And, with the current field of contenders as it is, they'll have to make some serious mistakes before falling from their perch.

    Jason
  • That should be 650 thousand. 650 million is 5 times the entire population of Japan.
  • Why you might ask, well the laser seems to have a problem with reading the 2nd layer on DVD's.

    Hi there. I just got a PS2 and have been quite pleased with the DVD functionality so far. But I am new to DVDs and I don't know what the significance of reading the second layer is. When would I encounter a problem due to this?

    --

  • Let us consider a moment.

    X-Box, monopolizing company. 26 titles when first released. Will more than likely just get ports of PC games, and not much more.

    End result, a snoozer. This approach should be profitable, but why buy an X-Box when you've already got a PC?

    Playstation 2, PITA to develop for, not many titles, all of the cools ones are still in development, it's getting some cool games tho.

    End result, a small but solid group of fans. It's not going to die off anytime soon.

    Game Cube, looks like a breeze to develop for, uses a Mac for the dev platform. Frankly, low-cost to develop for over the PSX2 (I will never call it a PS2, the PS2 is an IBM name IMHO) will give Nintendo an edge here. Also a lower-costing game machine from all accounts means easier to bring to profitability.

    End result, strong market presence. Nintendo has a winner here.

    Indrema, same situation as Microsoft yet not at the same time. Really an underdog machine. No name recognition, no must-have titles announced...

    End result, look at the turkey here unless Indrema changes market strategy and quick.

    There is still another possibility, that somewhere is another game console that might take over. Nintendo did that after the crash of '83. I see a new crash coming, thanks to Microsoft and Indrema. But a smart visionary could capitalize on it.
  • Sony made a big mistake by having botch a low quanity of shipping units available when introducing the Playstation 2 in the US and not delivering what anyone would consider 'Next-Generation'. Those who did not get one during the Christmas season have now had a chance to see what the system offers, and the lack of quality in the current batch of Games. If I did not get a PS2 during christmas, I would not buy one now. Many people I know feel the same. Why? The games which are delivered for the system do not meet our expectations. I'm sorry but..., I've seen it all before... on my PC.

    Nintendo has wowed the game industry with each console release. Compare the NES vs the Atari? Super NES had a few more notches above the genesis.

    Nintendo 64? This system was awesome. Both the usability and presentation of this product was unlike anything ever seen. But like this article said, it required that game developers buy expensive hardware (and costs of training, maintenace etc with it).. Not to mention the limitations of the system (Storage capacity, memory).Strike one down for Nintendo... Hopefully they've asked the development community what they want when creating the development platform for the GameCube

    Microsoft on the otherhand seems to be doing it right. Game Developers on the PC Platform are a dime a dozen, PC Hardware is freely available and quite cheap. Microsoft has its own API Which developers already know and are comfortable with. Provide a platform that includes next-generation components (Go read up on the Xbox hardware) which similar to the same environment developers are comfortable with, Mass-Market it to the masses so everyone and their brother will own one and people will come develop for you.

  • Also keep in mind that Nintendo has had a better working relationship with LucasArts than any other console maker has had. The N64 has gotten all of the cool Star Wars games, and the Playstation has gotten all the crappy ones.

    Nintendo has a few strong alliances, too....
  • Apparently, Nintendo was in talks to buy Sega for $2 billion. This article is from late December, but I assume that it's still relevant given that Sega's troubles seem to be deepening.

    http://www.ebgames.com/ebx/news/content_item.asp?c ont_id=18773 [ebgames.com]

  • Yes, and Sony loses money on every consumer who does this. They sell the console below cost as a loss leader and recoup the losses on licensing fees.

    Actually, they don't loose money, since Sony Pictures makes movies. Welcome to the new world of OMNICORP.

  • Okay now you got your story wrong its the best thing out there now but if you look at the stats the gamecube and the MS X-box kill it when you look at it.

    Actually, not by that much. Here's [ign.com] an article where XBox suddenly doesn't look *that* impressive anymore.

    The dreamcast operating system was developed by microsoft.

    Wrong. The Dreamcast operating system was developed by Sega. WinCE is an option for developers to ease the porting of PC games. In such cases, WinCE is booted from the GD Rom. Practically nobody uses CE on the Dreamcast. On a side note, the only times my DC crashed was when I was playing one of those games.

  • I would expect a console which comes out 2 years (probably more) after the PS2 to outperform it. I think that's not a great accomplishment for XBox.

    I just feel that the incredible initial XBox-specs now miraculously drop, the more we come closer to the real thing. Nobody should be interested in how many plain triangles/second that thing can draw... but that's exactly the numbers you seem to be so fascinated with.

    okay now for the really funky stuff. You know that whole thing were Microsoft has game developers who make games just for dream cast.

    Im not aware of any Microsoft game developer who makes (or made) games for Dreamcast.

  • Because crash was the idiot in front of Nintendo with the megaphone. Acting like he was a cross between god and Tom Green. Remember?


  • Nintendo can attract the younger crowd with Mario and Pokemon, but they don't have the bait to attract the elders

    This is a common misconception based on Nintendo's current platform...the game boy. Which is a) targeted at that age group b) incapable of really doing anything that complex anyway. But we already have proof that Nintendo is going to grab mainstream games now, and do so well: take a look at pocket.ign.com, where there's a screenshot of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2...on the game boy advance!

    That one screenshot speaks volumes to me. It demonstrates that 1) nintendo's new stuff can handle "the" games 2) nintendo is willing to actually produce "the" games again.

    And it shows. They sold 650 million GBAs on its first day for sale in Japan. Yes, this is no guarantee it will catch on in the US, but it pretty much assures that Nintendo isn't going to curl up and die either.


  • sorry...650 thousand. oops.
  • Which platform(s) ha{s,ve} the game(s) you want most.

    You will buy th{at,ose} platform(s)

    Personally, i've got a Dreamcast, but only because I won it at a programming contest. I like the DC, and im sad to see it go, but it hardly matters since i've got a ton of fantastic games for it (Sega GT, F355 chall, Tony hawk 1 and 2, etc..)

    So when im trying to decide what i'll get next, i have to look at what games i like...

    Currently, i dont have a PS2, because not a single damn game out of 29 launch titles looked worth a damn. Too bad. However, im looking forward to GT3, MGS2, and ZOE. When those 3 are out, I'll probably buy a PS2.

    On the X-box.. on paper, and in demos, its fantastic. Its got ethernet built right in (i dont ever want another console with a modem stuck in it.. ridiculous!) But, i need to see a sim-racing game, i need to see something _like_ MGS2...show me something i want to play, and i'll buy it. So far, the Metropolis Street Racer "update" looks pretty good, but im speculating that i'll want something a bit more focused on realistic driving physics. Also, carmack has said Doom3 is coming to xbox. Given that xbox is more powerful than a GF3, and probably wont cost $600, xbox may be the cheapest (best?) way to play the next id title :)

    Finally, theres Nintendo. I liked the sniper rifle out of golden eye. That was about it for N64. Zelda was visually pleasing and all, and so was the mario game, but i never got into either of them. If nintendo is smart they'll try and bring back some of their best 8-bit franchises... i'd love to see a game cube castlevania game.. and of course there will be at least 2 zelda games on game cube.. there will of course also be a mario game.. and it looks pretty certain that there will be a new metroid game!... so i'll probably need a game cube as well :)

    If i can afford all 3 machines, i'll get em all. If not, i'll have to figure out which games i can live without.
  • Xbox has HDTV output. (1920x1xxx something).

    For games that chose to use it, they'll look pretty nice, even compared to a computer :)

    in many ways, xbox is _the_ console for home theater geeks... HDTV output.. built in ethernet, ac-3 digital audio output..
  • When did mario die? Nintendo games are selling extremely well [ign.com], and the Game Boy is unchallenged in the portable gaming market.
  • I'm sorry, but Nintendo will NOT be taking Sony's top spot, whether we like it or not (M$ does have a chance though).

    Why? Because the majority of Nintendo's games are still marketed at the 6-12 age group. For every Goldeneye and Conker, there's 50 Pokemon and Hot Wheels games.

    The inability of people to see the advantages of Nintendo's target demographic is part of the genius that is Nintendo. What is particularly amusing is that you fail to realize that Nintendo makes more money than Sony from console games sales. In fact last year Nintendo made over $700 million [ign.com] more than Sony from games sales (in fact it made more than Sony and Sega combined). This is besides the fact that Nintendo licensing deals give them a bigger chunk of change than Sony's do.

    Think about it for a second. Who has more money to buy games? Baby boomers and soccer moms who want to give their spoilt little angels whatever they want including every considerable flavor of Pokeman merhcandise or teenagers who can't even afford to buy $17 CDs (let alone $35 - $55 games) and get most of their music from Napster?

    Think about it.

  • Squaresoft has said that they wanted to port 4-6 to a handheld system THAT IS NOT THE WONDER SWAN. There is only one handheld system that isn't a wonderswan and it's called the game boy advance.
    ----
  • Also, dvd playback will NOT be an option on the Game Cube, and Nintendo has said that they'll market this as a gaming-only machine. Well, that rules out the CASUAL gamers, who would rather buy a gaming unit WITH dvd playback instead of two seperate machines. Not a good move on Nintendo's part, especially since I know people who were sold on the PS2 simply because of the dvd playback.

    You know i hate it when people say this, do any of you all actually own a PS2 with the DVD, cause if you do you'd know it sucks ass. Yeah thats right it sucks. My roomate bought a PS2 for pretty much the sole purpose of the DVD and needless to say he was pretty pissed. Why you might ask, well the laser seems to have a problem with reading the 2nd layer on DVD's. This is such a big problem in fact there were quite a few movies we could not watch. So he went out and bought a pioneer 5 disc DVD changer and it kicks ass. It has none of the problems the PS2 had. So what i am saying is if you buy a PS2 just for the DVD drive, just shoot yourself, you'll be doing your wallet a favor. Because you're better of just going out and getting a seperate DVD system.

    A Bugg

  • Baby Wolverine, Baby Storm ... they'd be soooo cute :)
  • I would assume that it's the same reason for DVD regions: market/pricing control.

    If the game manufacturers sell a game/DVD for price A in region alpha and price B in region Beta and A>B (as is often the case) then someone can buy in region aeta take the product to region Beta and sell at a price C such that A>C>B making a profit and undercutting the retailers in region Alpha.

    If, however, you can't use region beta games in region alpha then the whole scheme doesn't work.
  • BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I can see it now. *rumble rumble rumble* (deep voice): Wise fwom your gwaavvvvve....(cheezey mario music kicks in) ba da da da da dum! (plink) Doo doo doo doododoodo.....
  • Right on, I'm 19, and Super Metroid was the grewatest game ver made I think. Once I play metroid in 3D I will able to cross of one of my life's todo items.
  • I forgot pokemon but that isn't one of quite as legendary yet.
  • Alot of people are making valid points against your argument but I think there are a few fundamental ones. Sony is not making enough headway. I only know one person that even lives with someone who has one. Sony has to dominate before the gamecube and x-box come out. It is expensive and the gamecube will be $200 when it comes out and of course the prices of both will probably decrease unless of course sony doesn't get their supply chain in check in which case price won't matter because the few that get out will be sold anyway. Think about this though, when the gamecube does hit ( I know its a long time away) who the hell is going to buy a PS2 still? The prices for the PS2 and gamecube will probably be about the same by then, and the gamecube will be the hot new things. If Sony does try to compete pricewise, they are really going to leak money. I can't wait until the gamcube and x-box and I don't even care one bit about the PS2. It doesn't have any games at all that I want to buy.

    I think that Sony will get wiped out in the gaming market in a few months. I don't think even Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid can save them, they will be a few killer games after the console has been out for 10 months, which is not good enough. People seem to think nintendo will have the young market and sony and x-box will have the older market. I think that nintendo will completely sweep the young market, nintendo and x-box will duke it out for the older market, and sony will get crushed.

    As for a dvd player, think about how many people have them now, and then think in 6 months who won't have them. Anyone who wants one will have one by then, DVD playback won't be a big factor anymore.
  • There is a saying that you are only as good as your last movie/game/album. If people didn't like final fantasy 8 and 9 they aren't going to spend $350 to get final fantasy 10. Sony is going to be obliviated by nintendo and the x-box. Even if the gamecube was equal in every other way (which it isn't) final fantasy and metal gear aren't going to hold up to marios/zelda/metroid/sonic the four greatest selling most well know series of games of all time. No way in hell.

  • But I am new to DVDs and I don't know what the significance of reading the second layer is. When would I encounter a problem due to this?

    When 4.7 GB isn't enough space to hold MPEG-2 and AC3 data at the quality the studio wants to put its name on (for example, on longer or fast-action titles), there's an additional 3.something GB available in a second focus layer. It's almost like a side 2, except you don't have to get up and flip it (as you did with tapes).

  • There is only one handheld system that isn't a wonderswan and it's called the game boy advance.

    What about the Neo-Geo Pocket Color [gamefaqs.com]? Or Palm devices?

  • Well, for the most part (thought by no means all) I consider slashdot's readership computer oriented, rather than seriously video game oriented, so I will post my opinion.

    It seems to me Mario, Pokemon, Link, the first party titles have carried the Nintendo 64 as far as it has gone.

    Having said that, Nintendo has an oppurtunity in the current market. Until Final Fantasy X comes out, I don't see any game driving the people to a PS2 as anything other than a DVD player. The current crop of PS2 games sucks. The Xbox also has a shot, but I don't see it having enough Japanese devolopers and without them it won't be able to stand on PC ports.

    Add to that mix Nintendo's Gameboy Advance. This will be the hottest product this year, without a doubt. We're still half a year from it's release and it's all I can hear about. Nintendo will promote the compatability between the GBA and Gamecube.

    You all may bemoan Pokemon games, but they sell machines (I'll keep any comments about the actual quality of games to myself, as opposed to simply the "childish look" they have). The more machines sold the more popular machines become. A big new Pokemon game will be key for both the GBA and Gamecube.

    As mentioned before in the replies, Nintendo's biggest worry is thirdparty support - in hindsight I think they could have done much better with the N64 with more third party support (they did about as well as I thought they would when the machine came out, by themselves). However, Yamaguchi-san, Nintendo's head honcho is about as unpredictable as anyone - him letting Square back into the fold is not as unreasonable as it seems. Plus Sega is now working closely with them (reportedly on an RPG and a Smashbrothers game featuring Nintendo and Sega characters).

    Let's not forget Miyamoto-san, the Steven Spielberg of videogames, the reason many of us got into console gaming, and simply the greatest producer on the face of this earth.

    Another thing that has not been mentioned is that Nintendo may not have done to well with the Nintendo 64, they've been MS-DOS'ing off the Gameboy. They're fat and rich off of it and ready for a showdown.

    Nintendo has a very good shot, thanks to its licences, two machines, and normal market domianance. Don't be blinded by colored plastic and Pikachu - as computer people you might be blinded by it, but Nintendo know what it's doing.

  • I agree. If Nintendo came out with new versions of Zelda, Kart & Mario (Which I'm sure they will), I'd have my wallet whipped out and ready to buy the GameCube on opening day, no doubt.
  • What about my poor white Dreamcast under the TV?

    Oh well, at least the games I got are good.
  • Did you even read the article linked in the original story? Most of your arguments are solved right there.

    1) Nintendo *is* going to a different market segment, mostly, one which it practically owns all by itself. While Sony and Microsoft battle it out for the older age group, Nintendo will sit pretty with their 6-12 year olds (and a few of us older gamers).

    2) Nintendo has the *only* handheld gaming system worth owning. They own every age group with handhelds.

    3) The GameCube is rumored to be pretty inexpensive. Nintendo may actually make money on the hardware (gasp!). Since the XBox will cost $400, probably, and the PS2 is $300, there's incentive right there to buy a GC.

    4) Nintendo has Shigeru Miyamoto, undeniably the greatest game desinger alive today. Ask anyone. He has never made a game that wasn't fun to play.

    5) Yes, Square is great...I've been playing all their games since they started. But, they're stumbling a lot on the PS2. The Bouncer and Driving Emotion Type-S, their first two games, have been critically panned. If they don't hurry up and pull out their FF trump card, they may start to lose fanbase.

    6) No one has said that Square *won't* be coming to Nintendo again. It's a long shot, but maybe they will now that there are no cartridges. Sony does not own Square, so I would not be surprised if Square developed for GC or XBox.

    7) DVD playback is the absolute *last* reason on Earth that I would ever buy a GAMING CONSOLE. By the time the GC comes out, it will probably be more feasible to buy a GC and a separate DVD player instead of PS2 or XBox and having to get extra remote controls and stuff. This is the worst reason I continually hear about not getting a GC. Nintendo has it right in this regard...the GC will be about games, and only games, which is all that I, and too many others I know, care about. And those people you know that got a PS2 solely for DVD? Sony hates those people. They make Sony lose money unless they decide to buy some games (or a *lot* of Sony Picture Studios DVDs).
  • Not content with buying up or locking out competitors in software, MS now is taking on Sony in the video game arena? X-Box Vs PS2. Gee does this sound familiar for those of us who lived through OS2, MAC, MS all competing and the first two having better, more stable products?

    I just hope people realize what this means and what MS is actually up to. Diversification is a good thing within a company, as long as that company is not using it's size to freeze out everyone else. Threats of 'you will be last in the distibution chain' and 'we will change the hooks so your product doesn't work with ours' come to mind.

    I wonder if that will work with Sega, Sony, et al.

    Stay tuned, coming to a playstation and N64 near you, the furthering of 'embrace, extend, kill, crush, destroy'

    DanH
    Cav Pilot's Reference Page [cavalrypilot.com]
  • Don't forget that Matsuhita will make a special GC that can play normal DVD's as well.

    Oh.. and for a comparision of GC's and PSX2's performance, be sure to read this IGNCube article, its sort of a must read:

    http://cube.ign.com/news/26984.html


    __
    Greets, Øyvind Berg ~ ËlaC|n

  • Who cares if you wouldn't buy a game console for DVD playback? Is everyone posting to this thread really so dense that they think that their preferences are everyone else's? A lot of people have LIMITED financial means, and buying a hybrid game console/DVD player makes sense to them. More people buying DVD players care about getting a cheap one than getting the one with the best 5.1 support, remote, advanced features, etc. Did high-end VCRs outsell cheap ones? No.

    And for the Sqaresoft whore... the NES was the dominant North American home system before Final Fantasy ever debuted on it. Final Fantasy is not that big a deal - there are THOUSANDS of games released for successful consoles, and it really doesn't matter if a single console has the most successful RPG franchise. Just because YOU buy consoles just for Final Fantasy doesn't mean everyone else does or will.

  • To be technically correct you should have written "since Donkey Kong". Back in those days Mario was a carpenter, before he inexplicably because a plumber. His ass-crack never USED to be visible.

    He was also a rotten little bastard in Donkey Kong Jr. Holding DK prisoner and sending evil minions to kill Dk's son? Good thing PETA didn't get wind of it...

  • Did you even play the game? Or did you read about it and assume things that aren't true?

    I played it, it is very fun in gameplay (true to form with Rare), but above that it has some of the most subtle (read: mature) humor I've ever seen in a video game. Yes, some of it is gross-out humor, but there is more to it than that. Play through the damn game and tell me it isn't hilarious in a way that 6-12 year old could not get.

  • "The most important thing is that both Nintendo and Microsoft have low-cost development kits available for Gamecube and Xbox respectively. This will quickly speed product development, and already the demos we've seen of Gamecube and Xbox games are nothing short of breathtaking."

    With this same application of logic, all new computer games should be released on Linux, BeOS, and BSD first and then last on Windows and the Mac.
  • Mario hops shrooms,
    jumping over the barrels,
    to save the princess
  • Is emphasizing the platform really such a terrible thing when the platform is the best thing out there?

    If you had a market strategy that worked well for you, would you change it to one similar to the one an opponent is (was) using?

    The N64 was a far better platform than the PS1 as far as ability went, but there were 2 problems.

    1) It used cartridges, greatly limiting what you could put in a game. Doesn't matter what the console can do if you can't fit it in the game. Cartridges were also more expensive. This isn't really relevant to the PS2, but I suspect if I hadn't mentioned it, somebody would have jumped down my throat.

    2) It was a pain to program for. Their development kit was apparantly quite bad for the N64, and pretty much the only people that really knew how to program for it well were Nintendo's in-house programmers. The PS1 didn't really have that problem, but the PS2 has it in spades. Frankly, it doesn't matter how good the system is when you have to jump through a few hundred hoops to use the advanced features.

    As for MS, odds are that the XBox will be made in such a way to allow for easy ports direct from PC. This makes it MUCH cheaper for developers to release their PC games for it. But frankly, the XBox specs (while quite impressive at first glace) aren't nearly as impressive compared to the PS2 or Gamecube when you know something about console architecture. Though I suspect there will be a whole lot of wanna-be's that are taken in by the clockspeed.

    Dark Nexus
  • Oh, I remember that most of the big games came on more than one CD. FF7 would have been around 40-50 cartridges on the N64 though.

    Imagine the boxes for those games, and the price of all of those cartridges.

    And actually, there is ONE multi-cart game for the N64 that I know of, that Donkey Kong game. Can't remember the name, but it was on 2 cartridges. It was also noticably more expensive than other games.

    Dark Nexus
  • Sega is now a key developer that produces some incredible games. They will attract a HUGE audience from Sega gamers worldwide to whatever platform(s) they choose. Personnaly, I would like to see Sonic running on the Gamecube. I also can't wait for that and the Xbox to be released. Why? Well, my Dreamcast is going down in the next year and I'll need a new system, but I really don't like PS2. Maybe Metal Gear Solid 2 will save PS2. That is the only game that I'm interested in on PS2. Halo is going to pretty sweet, but I hope I can buy it for my computer instead of buying an Xbox.

    Amigori

  • Also, dvd playback will NOT be an option on the Game Cube, and Nintendo has said that they'll market this as a gaming-only machine. Well, that rules out the CASUAL gamers, who would rather buy a gaming unit WITH dvd playback instead of two seperate machines. Not a good move on Nintendo's part, especially since I know people who were sold on the PS2 simply because of the dvd playback.

    Yes, and Sony loses money on every consumer who does this. They sell the console below cost as a loss leader and recoup the losses on licensing fees. All things being equal it would have been better for Sony if these people had waited until they found a game they wanted before buying the console; that way Sony would at least make up for their loss more quickly.

    Plus, I've had the luxery of playing the Metal Gear Solid 2 demo since its Japanese release.

    Please tell us how you got to be so lucky!

    --

  • [snip]... Sonic the Hedgehog died along with Sega's plan to stop making consoles.
    Actually, new sonic games are in the works right now. Sega has been working on sonic for the GBA, probably since late last summer. (btw, there is a sonic game for the pocket neo-geo [ign.com]) Most likely Sonic will also someday appear on the non-portable consoles as well.

    --
  • Of course, to call a victory to Nintendo's return is probably premature, as we have no idea what kind of games they will offer. For all we know, the games offered with Nitendo's cube (as well as MS's X-box) may be just as uninspiring as the games on the PS2.

    The strange thing is, we will have little idea what the games will be like for a couple of months still. Nintendo is purposely keeping quiet about the games in development and they have bound all licensees with NDAs. Developers are allowed to announce what they're working on, but no playable demos (other than Miyamoto's surreal Mario demo [ign.com]) have been shown - the video reel shown at spaceworld was made up of non-interactive cut scenes and FMV. Supposedly the secrecy will allow Nintendo to keep a lid on the hype so they can blow us all away at E3.

    In short I think if there are some good playable games showing at E3, Nintendo's future is virtually guaranteed. If it looks like the games won't be ready, they could languish in Sony's (or Microsoft's) shadow for a few more years still. Actually, if key games aren't ready in time for the console's launch, Nintendo will almost certainly delay the release.

    --

  • A lot of these games weren't actually made by Nintendo, they were producded by Nintendo. It's getting more like that with the Cube where licenses like Metroid (and of course Pokemon) are being worked on by developers outside Nintendo's hub.

  • Please explain to me how a game about potty humor is aimed above the 6-12 age range. And don't mention the ESRB rating.

    Conker is like Joe Camel- he's made to atract younger people but they get behind some stupid excuse.

  • Even if 1.0 is a dog, M$ can afford to lose a horribly high amount of money in 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, 7.0 and 8.0, and come up with a really good product in 9.0. They'll brush it off with Windows/Office extortion racket^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H licensing revenues.

    Oh, and you say "antitrust", I say "Dubya"!

  • Tradition has it, never buy version 1.0 of a product. Tradition has it that this is also very true of MS products (windows, for example).

    The switching of who was the top dog in the industry depends an awful lot on having a product that doesn't suck, and in fact is prety damn good.

    MS has made it's money in the PC market by the method of incremental improvement. each version sucked less, as far as the consumer was concerned. In fact to a certain degree, that has been part of the microsoft marketing (New! Improved! Sucks Less!) campaigns.

    This contrasts with the Game market, which really depends on getting it mostly right, right out of the box in version 1.0 - News reports include lines like "It is my job to make sure it doesn't suck" from certain senior execs of the project.

    While we know the power of MS marketing to push a product that is not better than the competition, it will be interesting to see if they have the temperment to change the company pattern of version 1.0 being hohum at best.

    As the old sig line goes:

    "I picked up a Magic 8-Ball the other day and it said 'Outlook not so good.'
    I said, 'Sure, but Microsoft still ships it.'"

  • I was (and still am to some extent) sold on the N64 for 4 player games like Kart, 007, and bomberman. Smooth graphics and nice 4 player capabilities kept my friends and I awake for hours with these games on the N64.
  • Nintendo is going to die a horrible death when it discovers its biggest franchise go out of style in about 9 months, and then all the money spent on special edition Gameboys, games, and addonpacks that do nothing but feature Pokemon colors and characters. And I will look forward to it.

    Don't be an idiot. Have any of Nintendo's big video game franchises ever gone out of style? (or any other major game makers franchise, for that matter.) Zelda's still going strong, and Mario's still around. Some twenty years after the original, Donkey Kong 64 made more money than any other video game in 1999 and was the fifth best selling game in 2000. The four best selling video games were all Pokemon, as was the seventh. According to Nintendo, Pokemon game sales accounted for a sixth of all video game sales in 2000.

    Video game franchises almost never "go out of style" in nine months, and no other video game franchise has ever come close to the popularity of Pokemon. It is more likely that Microsoft will go out of style in nine months than Pokemon doing so.
  • Mario will rise from the dead to pummel both the hedgehog and the bandicoot.

    is he describing the new super mario game for the dolphin system? it sounds really cool!

    ---
    p.s. its 6:42am and im just getting to sleep...
  • Top 5 reasons why Gamecube won't beat PS2 :

    5. Nintendo's CEO is way too cocky and overconfident; he's just begging for a beatdown from the competition
    4. Nintendo doesn't market enough "advanced" games, they're mostly too easy except for a handful.
    3. PS2 looks like it belongs on top of your TV set with a sleek, black box. No clunky bulky controllers, no fat cartridges that resemble fisher price toys.
    2. PS2 is backwards compatible with the PS1's huge library of games, so you can give your ditzy little PS1 to your nephew along with the Crap Bandicoot series and have a family orgasm.
    1. You can watch La Blue Girl DVD on PS2. Try to put that on a 64mb cart. Ha!
  • That's because Mario started as a character, not a marketing creation. Miyamoto still treated him as a character for Mario64. That's why most recent Mario games suck and '64 doesn't.

    http://www.blitzbasic.com/

  • Yuck, I truly hope he doesn't get the go ahead to make a television show about videogames, going by the obviously poorly researched article, it'd be a terrible diservice.

    Nintendo were stuck with no games after SGI jumped ship?? WTF? Nintendo are world famous for their IP, SGI are the hardware, just as ARM, Rambus, Sony, Bandai and other partners have been over the years, nothing more.

    And SEGA backing just one console? hardly, it'd take a monumentous effort, for such a thing to happen now. Remember, it isn't just SEGA anymore, the former AM R&D departments have all split, Sonic Team, Hitmaker, Wow Entertainment, and the others, they all control their own destiny's, as an example it looks increasingly like Sonic Team are snuggling up with Nintendo exclusively (on the dedicated games systems that is, ignoring the likes of DoCoMo for the moment).

    And finally, back to Nintendo, to be pushing the whole "N64 was a failure" line just stinks. Oh sure, it was a failure, because, yeah, it is the second best selling system between the PlayStation and the poorly Saturn, it's lived as long a life as the PlayStation, and whilst not having the massive catalogue of games that PS has, has still had some of the most sought after games. Sure it was a failure, why don't they just give up eh!

  • square soft is a big player and have a good following with RPG's like final fantasy but the big factor is where sega decideds to take its devolopment. Thats because they have better RPG's like shemue that make final fantasy looked kinda old because its been around for so long.. I love final fantasy don't get me wrong, but if nintendo gets some of the development from sony that it had before because sony is now haveing problems with development that nintendo does.(psx games not working as good as they do for dreamcast http://www.dcemulation.com/dcemu-bleemcast.htm) And nintendo was into making up for the lose of developers by making games like pokemon snap( my cousin had it and I finished it in a day cause I was bored and that was the only game I had at the time) but it also had games like Zelda that arn't like the RGP's such as final fantasy. For the most part besides the Final Fantasy tital what does PS2 got... Nothing it seems except games that are on other cosoles like the dream casts DOA2 and UT, and UT is still better on computer because of more maps and better grafix cards.

    The Nintendo has a chance to take the market from sony and if Nintendo doesn't do it Microsoft probably will because they didn't rip off the buyers buy putting in a dvd player and not putting in extra controllers like 64, dreamcast, Microsft did. The games might suck but Oh they put in a USB port and had a DVD player.

    This whole artical was just flame bait to start with.
  • - Is emphasizing the platform really such a terrible thing when the platform is the best thing out there?

    Okay now you got your story wrong its the best thing out there now but if you look at the stats the gamecube and the MS X-box kill it when you look at it. thats why it would kill them to market the platform because the X-Box kills it. so if PS2 doesn't have the good games from the developers then they ARE going to be in trouble.

    The video cards ram in the PS2 was too low so they can't have that good of frame rates on it now if the X-Box and the NCube do something we will see developers going to them(like Sega who just got cloberd by sony and had some sweet games like NFL2k1 and shemu and DOA2 and resident evil) then Sony will get its clock cleaned from a 2 front war just like the germans in WWI

    -When was the last time MS did something right on their first try? Anyone remember actually Word 1 or IE 1? MS learns quickly and improves upon their past mistakes, but it usually takes a while for them to catch on. First impressions mean a lot in the gaming industry. Also, MS relies on its dominance, and intimate knowledge of the OS for its success.

    The dreamcast operating system was developed by microsoft. So you say wooped de dooo right?? well the point is that they had a hand in developing the dreamcast witch was a really good system by any standards including the PS2(not as smooth some times but cames really close) so now you have company that is making there own system who has had experiance in developing a system

    -the XBox won't get far without help from 3rd party developers. What would Nintendo have been without Capcom and SquareSoft?

    That brings us back to sega they have already had a partnership with them and sega has a great many of good games like crazy taxi and jet grind radio...
  • okay about the CE thing I'm not too sure if your right so I'll let that go.

    Now if you look at the stats PS2 claims to have a high rate of polys something like 50 million without lights textures and other jazzy stuff when you add thouse it goes down. Then you have to factor in that the ram in the PS2 isn't verry good and it goes down to about 5 million on full game play I originaly read this on /. and the only artical I can find is here http://www.dreamcast.ca/hardware/dcvsps2.shtml this still kicks the dream cast in the ass(not by much but it does) but will it do the same to the X-Box and NCube?? I don't think so. check out these more hard core stats http://www.gameraptor.8k.com/consolewar.html

    Now if you think those are wrong you can also check out these stats http://www.maximumgaminglimits.homestead.com/PS2vs XBOX.html(Note: not only did PS2 lie about the amount of polys it can produce in real game play but so did Microsft so don't take those stats for granted but they are still better than the PS2)

    okay now for the really funky stuff. You know that whole thing were Microsoft has game developers who make games just for dream cast. Now whos going to stop them from using those developers for there games(Note: I don't like most of there games but their there)
  • opps I kind of worded that wrong I think.

    What I ment was the other way around. If sega goes out and decideds that it wants to develop games for the x-box then the x-box is going to have tons of great games like shemue and such.

    and about the thing wher eyou said that you would expect a console system that comes out two years later to be better than the PS2... What about sega??? I know 5 people that have PS2's that are now buying a dreamcast even though its going down because the graphics are almost par with the PS2 except that the PS2 is a faster mechine and allows some games to be run smother but not verry noticably except in unreal. Now Sony had how long to come up with something that would be undesputed champ again, and they were on the hard ware side for the most part(the dvd?? not really a good gaming console if there focasing in on the dvd capabilaty). But there games have not been exactly the greatest thing.

    So far I have seen games that arn't specificaly for the PS2 and if they are they arn't that good the only one that I have ever heard of so far is Final Fantasy and that game is nothing really new.

    Hope i didn't screw up anything this time sept the spelling.
  • Rather surprisingly...

    Sega.

    Think about it, both Sega and Nintendo have always been known for great games and we know that isn't going to change. PS1 and PC have been charecterised as quantity over quality, and that trend looks to continue with PS2 and X-Box. But with Sega publishing on PS2, X-Box, Gameboy Advance and possibly Gamecube, it's hard to see how they can loose.

    --
  • Different TV standards and different languages are two technical reasons for territorial lockouts.

    I dissagree with your lumping Europe in with the US market. European gamers are much more into football (soccer) games and Driving sims than their US counterparts and the relative lack of importance placed on FPS titles and complex RPGs.

  • nobody can beat Nintendo on their own system

    Sounds familiar [microsoft.com].
    ---

  • Probably not going to happen (Score:4)

    by BIGJIMSLATE ( 314762 ) on Sunday March 25, 2001 @03:49AM (#341873)
    I'm sorry, but Nintendo will NOT be taking Sony's top spot, whether we like it or not (M$ does have a chance though).

    Why? Because the majority of Nintendo's games are still marketed at the 6-12 age group. For every Goldeneye and Conker, there's 50 Pokemon and Hot Wheels games.

    And Microsoft? Well, they still have to win over the Japanese market, which will be about as touch as trying to win back the people pissed off about their "conceptual artwork" (read: photoshopped screenshots).

    Plus, there's one company neither Nintendo or Microsoft has, and has determined the top console three times in a row. Squaresoft. Now, look at past history; Squaresoft was with Nintendo on the NES and the NES sold well, Squaresoft was with Nintendo on the SNES and the SNES sold well, Squaresoft was with Sony on the PSX and the PSX sold VERY well. Now, Squaresoft is already making at LEAST three games at this point for the PS2 (Final Fantasy X, XI, and XII are all in development, not to mention REMAKES of Final Fantasy VII, VIII, and IX for the PS2), and it looks like the Sony will come out on top. Plus, Nintendo's president bashing Square a month ago pretty much secured Nintendo a plot in the graveyard populated by 3DO, CD-I, and Atari.

    And its not just Squaresoft. Nintendo pretty much ignored the RPG market with the N64, with only one REAL RPG being released (Zelda is NOT an RPG). Paper Mario, the "sequel" to Squaresoft's Mario RPG is not only original and fun, but it reminded me how much Nintendo ignored the RPG crowd.

    Also, dvd playback will NOT be an option on the Game Cube, and Nintendo has said that they'll market this as a gaming-only machine. Well, that rules out the CASUAL gamers, who would rather buy a gaming unit WITH dvd playback instead of two seperate machines. Not a good move on Nintendo's part, especially since I know people who were sold on the PS2 simply because of the dvd playback.

    Plus, I've had the luxery of playing the Metal Gear Solid 2 demo since its Japanese release. And I can honestly say that this is one game that could sell PS2s by itsself (and this is a DEMO!). What's Nintendo going to fire back with, Pokemon Snap 3?! *Ooh...I'd rather be taking virtual pictures of a wild Pikachu than guiding Solid Snake through kick ass top secret missions in one of the most immersive console games ever* Ugh.

    The Game Cube WILL find some popularity, even if for no reason other than the option of hooking up our Game Boy Advances to. But, as far as Nintendo reclaiming the console throne? Not going to happen. So, aside from some games like Luigi's Mansion, Nintendo is going to have to work DAMN hard to win back the hardcore gamers who were left with only about seven good games for the N64.
  • On the X-box.. on paper, and in demos, its fantastic

    Yeah, those Photoshop demos were kick-ass!!

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