LOL

Super Mario Galaxy is an automatic. Ditto for Geometry Wars. Resident Evil is a no brainer as well.

Look, the Wii doesn't get a lot of love for me in the discussions because I think it's won this round. I think it'll sell more than the other two. On the other hand, I don't think a game like Bioshock is possible on the Wii. So it's a great system, one which I play a ton, but when it comes to this discussion, it's already won the war. They'll release enough first party titles to keep it going strong and eventually some third party titles will start to pop up.

Metroid looks pretty good so far.

Actually, I'd find that a huge plus. I'll have to check them out.

That is a nice list. I'm also really intrigued by Fire Emblem and I'm starting to drop hints to my wife that I want a Wii for Christmas. Since she wants one too, I think chances are pretty good that I'll be getting it for Christmas if she can find one when she goes shopping.

Well done. Make sure that the Wii is officially her present so you can get something else as your official present. :)

Latest PS3 update might be of interest to some of you making the buy/hold off/don't buy decision on the PS3. Looks like there was a pretty large update to the backwards compatibility on the PS3's without an Emotion Engine. You're still better off buying the 60 GB machine at this point, but the backwards compatibility is better on the non-EE machines after this latest update.

"Haze" has gone gold, 2 1/2 months before its release date. Speculation is that the game will either be released early or that they will spend the extra time working on a demo to come out well in advance of the planned November release date. My guess is that they come out with a demo in October to help build further hype for the game. I personally think that, given the lack of PS3 titles, more hype and customer satisfaction would be built by just bringing out the game, but maybe that's just me.

CheapyD reported on this week's podcast that Microsoft is now using 7 day shipping on its warranty returns instead of the 3 day shipping that they were using previously. Probably nothing more than a cost cutting move, but it will result in an extra 3-4 days of down time on each leg of shipping to get any warranty work done on a Xbox 360.

One of the 'leakers' of the retail prices has stated that he is being interviewed by Bloomberg News for a story. CheapyD reported on the 'CAGcast' podcast that the Bloomberg News story will highlight the stories of 3 different people who leaked the prices and were fired from their jobs. One person was fired over complaints by Microsoft and the other two lost their job over complaints by Sony. Quotes from one of the people that was fired......

Man, there are a ton of FPS coming out on both the 360 and PS3 in the next couple of months. Can the market handle this many games of the exact same genre? I'm interested to see if some of the franchises don't sell quite as well and get weeded out to some extent.

Interview of COD4 developer.......

http://n4g.com/News-65137.aspx

COD is a "must buy" for me.

He's got to be shitting me, right? This is a lot of what's wrong in the world today. He has to be warned to not leak advertisement information by the company he works for? Look asshole you leaked the info and got caught, now pay the price. Don't come out with some "nobody warned me not to do it" bullshit so I shouldn't lose my job.

That would get me killed ;)

QFT.

I was watching "The Feed" for a few minutes this morning and they said the Wii outsold the PS3 in Japan 3-1 last month. Also, by most websites estimates, the Wii has already passed the 360 for units sold worldwide. I didn't realize that happened until I just looked it up. The Wii's sales have been amazing.

Not bad for a gimmick.

And I STILL can't find one on the shelves at the local stores to buy... ;)

/tk

Totally agree. I posted it because it's drawing a lot of attention in the media lately and there are several lawyers making some money off it. The obvious flaw in his argument is that he made sure that his leak of the prices was done anonymously. If he didn't think it was a issue, he should have had no problem associating his name with the info.

They're trying to make Sony and MS look like the evil empire in this case. This is one of the situations where I don't really see any problem with them being ticked off. The fact that these companies give pricing info over a month in advance to these companies should result in some level of trust that they won't leak strategic pricing info in advance to give the competition a chance to counter the move. But that may even be an idealistic thought to some extent as companies are always trying to get the jump on others.

The Japanese numbers dropped by 35,000 two weeks ago and everyone began to point to it as the big drop. The next week, it went up 45,000 and everyone found out it was a momentary supply drop that caused the change the week before. The Wii has found a price/demand sweet spot for the current market. Somebody in their marketing/pricing department deserves a monster bonus.

Not to mention they are coming out with a large number of fun games. Systems don't sell if there is nothing fun to play on them. ;)

The Wii's main strength is showing just how important a pack-in game that shows the strength of the system can be to the sales of a console. The games for the Wii have been a mixed bag at best. Some really good and some just awful. I've got 6 friends with a Wii. All except one of them still uses Wii Sports as their primary game of choice on the system.

EA announces that Mercs 2 has been delayed on all platforms until 2008.........

http://www.totalvideogames.com/news/...073_6491_0.htm

Kids, this is what's called "leaving yourself wide open for the nutshot."

Don't do that. ;)

I've already posted what I found when looking through the review scores on Metacritic. I don't think I need to regurgitate that info every time I post an opinion based on that. I don't think there's any question that the Wii selection overall has left a lot to be desired outside of the few major first party titles that did well and the one third party title in RE 4 that did well.

I guess they don't like to play good games.

More pricing articles. Multiple analysts believe a price drop to $499 for 80 GB PS3 this year is likely with a further price drop to $399 early next year (probably timed with the MGS4 release in March). They also discuss that data suggests that the 360 will outsell the PS3 by a 2 to 1 margin this holiday if Sony doesn't move their price........

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/new...hp?story=15347

Even at $499, these things aren't flying off the shelves. I don't expect to see any significant change until the price drops to $399.

Agreed. Gamers and analysts have been saying for several months now that they have to get it down below $400 at a bare minimum. I understand that Sony doesn't want to lose more money per unit, but they're going to lose a whole lot more than that if they don't get it to the $399 price point in a hurry.

Here's the list of playable games for the PS3 at the Tokyo Game Show. Haven't seen a 360 or Wii list as of yet.........

Agarest Senki (Idea Factory)
Spiderman 3 (Activision)
Transformers (Activision)
Pirates of the Carribbean (Disney)
Fifa 2008 (EA)
NBA Live 08 (EA)
Need for Speed Pro Street (EA)
Harry Potter (EA)
Railfan [Taiwan Railway]
Devil May Cry 4 (Capcom)
PixelJunk RACERS (Q-games）
Unannounced Title (Q Entertainment)
Taiwan Jockey 4 2007 (Koei)
Dynasty Warriors 5 (Koei)
Oblivion (Spike)
Tony Hawk Project 8 (Spike)
SEGA RALLY (tentative title) (Sega)
Imabikisou (Sega)
BuuBuu Cocoreccho! (SCE)
Eye of Judgement (SCE)
echocrome (SCE)
Go! Sports Ski (SCE)
Heavenly Sword (SCE)
Little Big Planet (SCE)
Lair (SCE)
Warhawk (SCE)
Uncharted (SCE)
GT 5 Prologue (SCE)
Mainichi Issho (SCE)
Rachet & Clank (SCE)
Shirokishi Monogatari (SCE)
Ratatouille (THQ Japan)
Dark Sector
Time Crisis 4 (Bandai Namco)
Assasin's Creed (Ubisoft)
GRAW 2 (Ubisoft)

Yeah, I knew you were only putting out the information and weren't supporting his argument. There's just so much of this "it's not my fault" or "nobody told me" shit going on that I couldn't let it pass without comment;)

I almost posted in my original message that if it was so above board why didn't he give himself credit by using his real name? Why try to hide it?
IMO he's just some small timer trying to impress people on a message board, with his inside information, and got caught:D

As you like to say, most of those games are available on the 360 as well. I'm sure most of them will be playable as games have been appearing more on 360's at these events than the PS3.

Yeah, I was moreso looking for the exclusives. I just cut and paste the entire list because it was included in the press release. Also, I know that MS tends to not have a huge presence at this show for the simple fact that they don't see much of a return in Japan even if they do show a lot of things. They may not be showing that much similar to past shows in Japan.

It's amazing how little I had to change to reflect what I meant about leaving yourself wide open. ;)

Seriously. This isn't "Josh the Editor" talking. This is "Josh the Retail Wage Slave" who sees what gets bought on a regular basis for all the different systems. For PS3, the vast majority of the sales are Resistance, MotorStorm, Ninja Gaiden Sigma, and then it's a fairly steep dropoff to the second tier - the Clancy's and Godfather - and then a steeper dropoff to "everything else."

You might criticize the strength of the Wii library, but the PS3 is susceptible to the same criticism...and doesn't have the ridiculous sales momentum going for it.

Do you know, I'm still struggling to identify a PS3 game that's out *right now* that I actually want to spend money on? There's some amazing stuff coming that I can't wait to play, but right now, the PS3 position vis à vis other consoles really ought to be "let your walkin' do the talkin'," because Microsoft's got both systems beaten stupid on library quality, and Nintendo's making both of them look silly on sales. Lay low until the major exclusives start hitting, and THEN stick the head back up aboveground.

Your entire post is built on the assumption that I criticized the Wii library to somehow make the PS3 library seem better. That wasn't my intent in any way. I'm a Wii owner of several months now who purchase the Wii because of the big hype surrounding the system, only to end up with the first $250 sports demo I've ever purchased. I'm not interested in any platform Mario games, Mario Party is very disappointing, Mario Strikers has had mediocre reviews, Zelda is a great game at first but gets old relatively quickly, and there's no 3rd party titles outside of a PS2 RE port that are much good.

I was looking forward to the new bowling game, but it's just bombing in early reviews. I'm hoping (and possibly praying) that the new MLB Japanese-style baseball game finally gives me something to be excited about on the Wii. I'm honestly really disappointed. I haven't even turned it on in 2 months now. I can certain feel buyer's remorse on the Wii independent of my praise/criticism of any other consoles. I'm getting the feeling that I bought a system that I may end up selling to one of my friends due to lack of interest in most of the games on the system. Also, as you well know, I may end up having to keep it just for my work on the side.

As far as games on the PS3, Warhawk has been running non-stop this week on my PS3. I'm really glad there's a good new game out because my copy of MLB '07 was likely wearing out. I've been playing that a ton for lack of other games on the PS3 that carry my interest. Thankfully the holiday season should cure that drought.

You're a funny guy.

You failed to mention the best game on the system, Metroid Prime 3. Surprising.

An 80 on gamerankings does not constitute mediocre reviews. Reviews aside, Mario Strikers Charged is a lot of fun especially if you are playing online or against a friend, it's not one of those games where you play tons of games against the AI which admittedly can be lousy/cheap or both.

Trauma Center and Excite Truck are both good games if you haven't tried those.

You should try and get over your aversion to Mario platformers in the next two months, you might miss the game of the year.

The key is that the Wii is targeted at FAMILIES and non-hardcore gamers. It doesn't surprise me that people here would go "eh" at the Wii's library. It's not targeted at you, but there are millions of buyers out there who it IS targeted at that seem quite happy with the game selection.

If Mario Strikers is getting mediocre reviews, ignore them. Better yet, mark down the sites that are giving it mediocre reviews as sites you can't trust. Mario Strikers is currently my favorite game. I'm playing it more than Metroid Prime 3, which is stunning.

Also, recommendation: if you don't like Mario games, Nintendo consoles may not be your best purchasing choice for the future. And, yes, there are many great Wii games. The fact that you and your friends can't find anything but Wii Sports to play on it is baffling. Well, maybe not, actually.

Monster Hunter Freedom 2 for the PSP rocks.

Mario Strikers received a Metacritic review score of 79 (a compilation score of all reviews). That's a really bad score for a Nintendo-developed title as most of them generally get the reviewing equivalent of a hall pass simply because they are first-party Nintendo games.

And these "many great Wii games" that you speak of? Where are they in this list? These are the major exclusives for the Wii with Metacritic scores listed on the right (I tossed out a few games that had brutal scores that no one bothered buying)........

1. I'll grant you Metroid. Not my cup of tea, but I've heard it's good.

2. I don't disagree with you that 80 is not a bad score, but others would likely disagree given the hype placed on Mario Strikers pre-release.

3. Trauma Center and Excite Truck are average games at best. I have Trauma Center for the DS and wouldn't even touch the Wii version with a 10 foot pole.

4. I'll fall over dead laughing if Mario Galaxy is the 'Game of the Year'. Fun addition for Nintendo fans, but not even close to a GOTY candidate.

Mario Strikers is a 'fun' game imho and its finally got my son playing a soccer game so I'm obliged to like it for that reason.

However as a 'game' for an adult its horrendously flawed gameplay mechanics don't make for a lasting experience imho (ie. the game consists of run around until you foul enough people to create an opportunity for a 'power strike' and scoring 4-5 goals at once).

That being said imho 35 year old men aren't its target audience and my son loves it (apart from when he's losing ;) ). The main problem with games review sites imho is that some of them review games as if every game was targetted at 'that' reviewer and this is one of the reasons why traditionally 'girl' games got bad reviews - give your average 28 year old reviewer a 'My little Pony' game to review and he's not going to particularly love it* ;)

I think the Wii is a great console and has some very good games on it, especially those which are enjoyed by all ages - I view those style of games as being on a par with 'Shrek' they bring families together with a shared experience they all enjoy.

Nintendo and their consoles tend to have more of these games than any other console currently which is one of the reasons I'm a wii fan :D

*Sorry I'll get down from my soap box now .... drifted off target a little there ;)

Odd, isn't it? Everyone harps on the "games make the system", yet the Wii is kicking the 360s and the PS3s butt with a dubious library of games.

Either the theory is wrong, or Nintendo, in their brilliance, just changed the paradigm.

I take issue with these reviewers based on the bold portion alone. I'd venture that Wii Sports would be the favorite game of Wii owners.

Forget the reviews. Especially Marc Vaughn's. It is a great game. I think we've gone over this great Wii games before and you basically poo-pooed my list. You basically just don't like Nintendo games as evidenced by your crapping on Galaxy as Game of the Year, which I think it has a very good chance of being. We get it. You don't like the Wii games. Lots of people do.

Some of the major reasons:

1) They hit the sweet spot on price.
2) They brought something "new" to the table. Innovative and fun. The Wii remote is something that can be used by 6 year olds and 92 year olds. No other system comes close to those types of demographic numbers. That increases their sales potential instantly.
3) While they don't have a ton of games, the good games they have are very, very good. Paper Mario, Zelda, Resident Evil, Metroid, Wii Sports. All are incredibly fun titles that aren't "over" in 2 days.

The innovation itself is good enough to get people excited about buying the system. The price point is perfect and the buzz has been there from day one. Keep in mind both MS and Sony helped this too. They were yapping about how the Wii would be a great "second" system for people. Well, they found out a lot of people bought it and decided that would be their only system.

They do need games out. No question about it. And EA has been very dissapointing with their titles on the system after a great start. (last year's Madden was incredible on the Wii) But in the meantime, they bring things to the table the other two don't. So they win. And will keep winning.

In my opinion the Wii has lots of positives which have helped its success:

* Its cheap (always helps ;)) .
* It was in limited supply initially (so had a 'prestige' factor for owning one, which is still there to a lesser extent).
* It is seen as more 'positive' by parents than other consoles because the adverts show active kids almost getting 'excercise' from their console.
* A fair few of the titles can be enjoyed by kids of any age (ie. Wii Play, Wii Sports etc. - I love the tank game on Wii Play incidentally).
* There are a few 'stand out' titles which show of its unique controllers (ie. Wii Play, Wii Sports) and give a real differential between the Wii and other consoles.
* Nintendo's advertising has been very clever and actually drawn a lot of people who were previously non-gamers into purchasing systems.
* the Wii HAS a great library of games for its target audience. As I mentioned in an earlier post a lot of reviews are aimed at 28 year old men (ie. the opinions of those people doing the reviews themselves) rather than the target audience for the games. A good example of this is 'Mario Party' - its a game which is huge fun when played in a 'casual' manner ... not at all something for a hardcore gamer.

He does the same thing with 360 titles Matt. Don't worry about it.

I do have to agree with him on Galaxy as game of the year. Bioshock has set a very, very high watermark. I have zero doubt Galaxy will be a spectacular hit. I'll be playing it day one. I do have doubts as to it being as good as Bioshock. That's strictly an opinion and not a slam on Galaxy.

Of course, B-ball hasn't played Bioshock so I'm not sure what he'd be saying is game of the year. You thinking Lair B-ball? :)

He'll be playing it before Christmas on the PS3. At least, that's what he said.

EXACTLY


I don't understand why you think it is flawed unless you are trying to compare it to the actual sport, which it is clearly not trying to represent at all. Your summary is a pretty strong oversimplification. Like saying Smash Bros is just running around beating up on people until they fall off the ledge.



Its target audience is people that like fun. Don't try comparing it to an actual sport.

So whaddayaknow, the Wii has 3 90+ AAA+ titles, the PS3 still only has 1...

And that 1 can be played on the 360 or that PC. Nothing special about the PS3.

I don't get why people are looking at game scores to completely judge a game? I've always read through reviews to see what exactly a game is all about rather than just look at the score, since everyone has a different opinion of what makes a good game for them. I guess the games that score high 90s are kind of guaranteed to appeal to most people, but other than that... it really is subjective I think, isn't it?

Yes.

And several others that should be 90+, in my opinion, but it is a subjective area. Super Paper Mario and Mario Strikers should absolutely by 90+ for me.

Thats definitely part of it it - adult british people are indoctronated into soccer games well feeling just slightly like a game of soccer ....

Thats why I did try and emphasise it is a 'fun' game and my eldest son loves it, just I can't get into it partially because I prefer Pro Evo and similar games when it comes to soccer because they feel more like the 'real' sport.

(I'm sure some adults would have similar sport "snobbery" if they do/did an American Football Mario game)

NFL Blitz?

Mario Golf and Tennis are games made in the same light.

The mistake you're making is expecting a real soccer game out of it.

Anyone who says that anything other than Bioshock is GOTY needs to schedule an appointment with EF27 to have their head examined.

Nintendo consoles have always had a few great titles in their lineups. Nintendo understand that if you want a great game, it's got to be tested thoroughly and have no major bugs. I'd even argue that most of Nintendo's major license games don't have hardly any minor bugs. They deserve high ratings for the simple fact that they don't cut corners with their major titles and they deserve big kudos for that. It's the rest of the library that has often left a lot to be desired.

Anyone can have an opinion that a game is GOTY right now. I predicted Bioshock would be it a couple of months before it was released. Someone could have easily called me an idiot and said that an already released game was GOTY.

Until Galaxy gets released, we don't know, so no examinations are required.

Wish you'd have been here earlier in the thread. . .

Totally agree and I'm not sure many would disagree with you. As I mentioned way back when I first listed the scores on the various systems, I mentioned that the only reason to use these scores is to get a general feel for a game being good or bad. I used the measure of anything being rated as 70 or higher as being a good game. I went down that low for the exact reason that there is a wide variance in what is a good game. As you said, games rated 90 are the obvious 'must-buys', but games in the 70's and 80's are still good titles and can appeal to various demographics or niches or even be games that should be in the 90's but just happened to stumble into a reviewer that didn't like the game for personal reasons.

To change the subject a little, did you get a chance to try UEFA Champions League for Xbox 360? It's the most fun I've had with a console soccer game in a while. I would compare it to the 2K sports american football game which hits my main interest in console sports gaming. I don't want to play a huge career mode on the console (I have a certain soccer game for the PC for that ;) ). Instead, I like the "cards" idea and trying to build a team to play online (or vs AI) with. There's replayability without the need to play numerous seasons. I think UEFA has shot under the radar but it was (is) a ton of fun if you enjoy what it's designed for (no career mode, but trying to create a solid team with cards and tactics you earn in each game).

Some big news out of Sony. Dave Karraker, Senior Director of Corporate Communications, has left SCEA. Given the multiple number of PR snafus that Sony and the PS3 console have had thus far, most people are probably saying, "Why the hell did it take this long?".............

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/817/817936p1.html

Tho this has already been addressed a couple of times, I think this bears repeating. Just because *you* (not necessarily you, but the literary "you") don't think there are good games, doesn't mean there aren't games that other people like. There is a lot of stuff targeted at a lot of different people out there. For instance, I suspect Pokemon will own 2 of the top 5 spots this year for "top selling game" but a lot of people will have just dismissed it in the realm of "oh, that's just a game for kids", never mind that if you get a game that a ton of kids (and some adults) like, you can rack up sales in excess of 3M.

Similarly, I would give most iterations of Madden a 7 or lower for a complete lack of innovation each iteration. That wouldn't keep me from being bludgeoned to death within 30 seconds of proclaiming that at any Wal Mart on the day it came out, for instance. But for NFL fans, it's the gold standard for football games. Pick your targets and hit them well and you can sell a lot of games.

SI

(kindof continued from above post)


Well, here's the thing about grading video games, it's like movie reviews. You're getting ratings from people who play games, practically for a living but at least for a large amount of time so they have, proverbially, seen it all. Everything's filtered through a reviewer's lens.

There are, of course, plusses and minuses to that as we often see. Arthouse movies that have little going for them except for a new conept and decent acting but mediocre in other aspects such as cinematography and plot or pacing will get a better rating than say a flashy action movie or drama or comedy that lacks a revolutionary edge but does most things well. Why? Because there are lots of action movies or dramas or comedies but new things are going to impress someone who gets bored of the "same old thing" even if it's better done.

I think it's a little more "populist" on the gaming review side as it's a fairly new genre and you're not relying on "old media" and their inherent biases. The entry barriers are significantly less as the most trusted places to get gaming reviews are magazines or, even moreso, online as opposed to newspapers and tv.

There is definitely some snobbery in terms of what's good and what's not. If you want to try and weed that out, just cross the best seller and best rated lists and see what overlaps. But you'll also miss out on some fun games that people just completely missed on the shelves (Beyond Good and Evil, anyone?)

So what does it all mean? Play what you think is fun, of course. But don't expect to be taken too seriously if you can't see your own biases. Not only that, but try something new and you might just find that there is something else out there that's fun besides the sports games you only play or the FPSs you only enjoy or the RPGs you limit yourself to.

SI

Interesting interview with Peter Moore. He admits that EA made some mistakes in regards to the release of their football titles on the PS3 at 30 FPS. He's focusing on this interview on being dismissive of their past mistakes and pointing out the positives of future PS3 titles all being up to snuff. It's a good first step for him, but he's got a lot of EA baggage that he's going to have to shed in the coming months to improve the company's image.

http://www.maxconsole.net/?mode=news&newsid=20506

For the 'footie' fans. Pretty good preview summary from an Aussie comparing the preview builds of PES 2008 and FIFA '08. Basic summary is that the gameplay is better on PES, but the prettier graphics are on FIFA.

http://www.gameplayer.com.au/Home/FE...0-c3f0e2bf03ab

Mizzou B-Ball Fan missed an article. Xbox360 sales up 260% in the UK in the week following price cut, and only take a 20% dip from that the following week:

http://www.pro-g.co.uk/news/07-09-2007-6390.html

Probably because it's a blocked site here. :)

Would you mind pasting the info? Thanks.

Somebody needs to tell this idiot to stop doing interviews. Evidently the Lair development process was 'haunted'. Guess it couldn't be that the game just wasn't all that good........

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3162563

Here's the relevant part, although it's only a short blurb and sure to appear elsewhere soon:

Pachter comments on Karraker leaving Sony; also says 360 will have a good holiday season with Sony having the better spring.........

http://www.gamepro.com/news.cfm?article_id=133128

Thanks.

You've got to love this console war as a consumer. Both sides are throwing blows back and forth in the form of price cuts, bundles, and better versions of the consoles. Top it off with both Sony and MS having the Wii pass them both while they're fighting for the same pie pieces, and you've got an ideal situation for gamers in the form of great values and pricing.

Totally agree with Square Enix exec in this case. Give me a commercial with good music and gameplay video over any of this crap marketing that Sony has put out thus far that had little to do with the games.......

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/09/07/sq...raightened-up/

Extensive analysis of the July sales numbers and the upcoming holiday season........

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/level...july-2007.aspx

Sony sent out a "Lair Reviewer's Guide" to try to convince reviewers that they just didn't understand the game and that they should redo their scores:

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/09/07/so...ust-not-laugh/

For what it's worth, it's not the first time Sony (or any other company) has done that. I routinely receive "Reviewer's Guides" or "Walkthrough Guides" when I receive review copies.

Hell, Sony sent me a "Reviewer's Guide" with Rogue Galaxy, which basically amounted to a bite-size version of the full strategy guide.

What's odd here (from my perspective) isn't that they sent the guide...it's that they've apparently sent it after the fact to outlets which have already reviewed the game. *That,* I've never seen happen before.

But the existence of such things? Meh. I've never /used/ 'em, but I've been receiving them for years.

A lot of times it comes with the games as you mentioned. The only reason it's getting mentioned this time is because they're doing it after the fact when a game got bad reviews.

Well, that's kind of the point. I'm sure someone will argue with me on this, but this is how I perceive the events went with Lair:

1) The controls were disasterous and it got delayed a couple of months so they could try and tweak them.

2) They "fixed" the controls to the point the game was slightly playable.

3) They knew they would get shredded but had no idea it would be this bad. My guess is they figured the graphics alone would net it a 7 on most major sites.

4) When one of the games they've been advertising on the back of the box of the system started getting 4.7's and the like, they knew they had to do something and created the guide.

At the end of the day, what they did is release a horrific game that virtually nobody likes. This game is contending for the title of "Most dissapointing hyped game of all time" Look guys, the answer to this is to either:

A) Make an option for an analog control scheme in a patch.
B) Keep your mouths shut and act like this never happened. Start airing commercials for Warhawk and Heavenly Sword (althought Sword is getting mixed reviews early) and walk away.

The answer is NOT to keep getting one of the lowest reviewed games of all time on the front pages. If Sony spent as much time making and releasing good games for the PS3 as they do on damage control, they'd be in great shape. :)

Could be another big price move on the horizon. This 'insider' over at arstechnica.com has an excellent track record. He's saying that a 40 GB PS3 for $399 will be out before the holidays along with a PS2 price drop to $99. 80 GB PS3 will drop to $499 as previously mentioned. Both systems will likely have Spiderman 3 BR bundled in. Given the recent IPO move by Sony to acquire additional funds, it makes perfect sense that the new model and price drops are coming sooner rather than later.

http://arstechnica.com/journals/thum...s-future-plans

Is anyone else longing for the days when there was one version of a console and that was it? Sheesh.

Part of me wants to agree that the 40 for $400 is a great deal - and I guess, as Obi-Wan said, it is from a certain point of view. The only thing I can really look at here is, okay, the 80 would be dropping to $499 - the price point currently occupied by the 60 GB model.

The 40 would enter the market at $399, which is presumably the price point the 60 would fall to if it weren't being phased out.

So, smaller hard drive and lack of Emotion Engine at what would otherwise be the same price. Hmm. Viewed that way, it's kind of the shaft for anybody who's been actively eyeing one and waiting for the right time to buy.

For the segment of the market whose only knowledge about the platform is "Wasn't that $600 last year," a SKU at $400 is great news.

I mean, don't get me wrong, it will absolutely impact Sony's sales. and the segment that will probably care about the difference between a 40 and a 60 is likely minimal in the first place. Just musing on whether or not those lower-end consumers are getting rooked.

I think the difference is minimal at this point. With the 40 GB model, you're losing some of the backwards compatibility and a bit of HDD space. So you have......

60 GB model with Emotion engine = $499
40 GB model ($399) with new PS2 ($99) = $499

It's all the same thing basically between those two options if you truly want to be able to play your PS2 games. On the other side, if you still have your old PS2 or want the cheaper price and aren't interested in backwards compatibility, you can save yourself $100.

As far as people being 'rooked', I think that's going to be the norm for awhile until there's a major backlash by consumers. 360 and PS3 have both already had similar drops or newly added SKU's that have made early adopters feel somewhat duped. You also saw it in regards to the price drop on the iPhone, though Apple saw the uproar and at least gave the early adopters $100 back in credit for their early support. If only Sony or MS would do something that proactive........

Office Depot has a deal on Premium 360's for the next week or so. Caveats include that it has to be ordered online and picked up at their store, but the price is down 50 dollars to 299:

http://www.totally360.com/gameinfo.p...id&newsid=1935

... hmmm....

Honestly, this might as well have been an affirmation that a $399 PS3 is in the works.....

http://www.n4g.com/NewsCom-66600.aspx


If you remember, when the MS strategist suggested a few months back that Sony would have a PS3 for $399 by November, Sony went out of their way to deny it to make sure that people didn't put their purchase decisions on hold. Their 'no comment' in the above article makes me thing that it's a done deal.

With virtually everyone hoping for a new Duck Hunt game, Nintendo will bring us this. :confused:

edit - source is gamasutra.com

It's funny, with all this confusion surrounding the different HDMI vs. component/hard drive sizes/EE vs. non-EE, it makes a purchase harder for me to justify at the $399 price point.

They really (and I'm talking about both Sony and MS) need to settle on an HD size once and for all for this platform. I'd hate to think I purchased a product that will be obsoleted by the next must-have game that requires XX GB on the hard drive, something I wouldn't have.

Sony and MS, in their infinite wisdom, are bringing to the console market exactly what's killing the PC game market.

Stuff gets "no commented" all the time.

I mean, it's obvious that they aren't just going to sit at $499 forever, but $399 by the holidays...I've been saying that they needed to get to at least that price point to get taken seriously by consumers, but that's an awful steep drop, awful fast.

How would you like to have been a PS3 purchaser in June, and now hear that by October or November, we could be seeing $399? It's a tight rope to walk.

Not saying it isn't gonna happen, only that "no comment" isn't necessarily the nail that seals it.

That's not going to happen, at least any more than your PlayStation 2 purchase would have been obsoleted by a game requiring space when your memory card was full.

None of the 360 games do installation to the hard drive, which means the space requirements are largely for downloads. A couple games, moving forward, may require the HDD, but that's different from filling them up.

I mean, even with the PS3, where stuff gets installed to the hard drive for caching (and Oblivion, I'm looking at you and your 5 gigs), that's still relatively unusual. I'm looking at the two games I have right now, and Resistance requires 120 MB. Out of 60 GB, that's a relative pittance...plus the PS3 will let you swap in a new hard drive if you're a serious enough user to fill up the drive in the first place.

Having 2-3 SKUs each is definitely confusing to the market...but so long as the product includes a hard drive to begin with, I don't see having a variety of sizes as being damaging to the product. Hell, I wish the Core would've had even just an 8 or a 10 gig hard drive, just for development streamlining.

Take Two is still losing money but less than last year. Of note, these figures are before Bioshock came out. Also of note, in the article Take Two says that there will be sequels to Bioshock (not a surprise at all with the big sales) and that there will be a sequel to All-Pro Football. That is a bit of surprise as sales have been tepid. They mention that they may release it in a different time window and at a different price point to maximize sales:

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6178493...stnews;title;1

The news about APF really makes me happy!!!!

Yes, this is half facetious but I think there's a grain of truth to the statement I'm about to make as well: they're not exactly flying off the shelves so it's not like there are a lot of people to offend. Who do you care more about at this point? The couple million who have them now or the tens of millions you're hoping to attract?

It's not like it's a brand new item where it just dropped $200 (paging Mr Jobs). It will have been out a year and then dropped $200. Yes, a little drastic, but at this point Sony's precarious position is more than a little in need of some drastic action.

SI

Me too. If they add any sort of franchise mode or multi-season mode, I'll be picking it up next year. From a quote in one of the articles this year, I think they will add a franchise mode of some variety.

Dola -

Here are excerpts from the comments they made about Bioshock:

"I'm particularly pleased with the tremendous market response to 2K's BioShock," said Zelnick. "It is reported we are the top-selling title at GameStop, less than a month since launch. We have already shipped more than 1.5 million units. Clearly we have a new hit franchise on our hands. And this one was developed internally and we own the IP. We're proving our ability to diversify Take-Two's product portfolio."


While he did not reveal actual sales numbers for the game, Zelnick also made much of the fact that BioShock has the best aggregate review score on GameSpot sister site Metacritic. He also said the company is considering sequel-izing the action-adventure along the same lines as Grand Theft Auto.


While opining on the GTA development cycle, Zelnick said, "I would say probably roughly an every three year [release] schedule would be optimal. ... I expect we would apply roughly the same strategy to BioShock, because BioShock is shaping up to be a very important franchise. I don't was to say more than that about BioShock because I certainly don't want to jinx it, but I feel awfully good about where that is going."

I love how it seems like Nintendo is the only one these days who actually wants to put sold numbers instead of shipped numbers

SI

Heavenly Sword got a good review from Gamespot with a 8.0 score. The biggest complaint is that the game will only last 6 hours for a skilled player and 8 hours for most others. It should be interesting to see what bump if any this causes in PS3 sales:

http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/action/h...om_clk=topslot

In the same right, they are the company that's charging 50 bucks for a 40 dollar controller bundled with a craptacular game and daring to label it as "software."

I certainly hope they do. I rented it twice, it was really fun but I could never see spending 60 bucks on it, with the limited features.

I played a rented copy and thought the gameplay was great, but I really need a franchise to justify the purchase. If they have that next year, I'm in.

New game information coming out of Namco-Bandai. Two titles that were previously Xbox 360 exclusives will now also be released on the PS3 as well. Beautiful Katamari and Eternal Sonata are now multiplatform releases.

I wouldn't be surprised to see more of this in the coming months. The 360 and PS3 have a big problem right now. Neither console is selling well enough to justify exclusives by third-party publishers without some sort of financial boost. The third-party developers cannot make enough money on just one of the consoles. The 360 and PS3 are quickly going to become somewhat of an unholy alliance until one of them decides to make that big step in the form of price cuts or major exclusives to take the lead in their battle. Right now, neither of them are putting up very impressive numbers.

Another news announcement about a game going multiplatform. Ace Combat 6 is no longer a 360 exclusive. It will be released on the PS3 as well.