E3 2011

[The NZA]

it's nintendo; they've fucked up worse and still put out quality. i stand by my favorite quote of yours from like 10 years ago that miyamoto can shit into a cart and still make magic that i'll pay for...and deep down? so will you

 

you might even be right here, honestly. but i wanna believe that the only company that focused on local MP these last 2 gens will at least honor that, so...if you're sure, let's make this interesting! $20 says it's a non-issue within 6 months of launch (typical window of relevance per games anyone gives a fuck about past my weird ass)...interested in taking it?

 

i wanna point out to mal & others who think im on some ol' bullshit here: nintendo has yet to burn through my goodwill like even sony has tried. i'm quality/quantity; ill still say 3-4 games on sega-cd made it a worthshile system, cause those titles were that good. that's the only reason the Wu gets the benefit of the doubt from me. if this new shit is garbage at the end...fuck it, i'm PC/handheld only.

 

ps people will forget @ focusing on the controller and being mad vague in the coming months, but ill never disagree with you that it's a silly fucking route to take, even this early in the game. goddamn, you have a unified online system with buddies & shit on 3DS? LETS HEAR ABOUT THAT HERE, NINTENDO. KINDA IMPORTANT.

[gunsmithx]

The 3ds online is still crap compared to live or psn so I hope it's better but I doubt it. The perfect time to launch a nice new online system was the 3ds so it would with the wiiU but that hope is now gone.

 

2. The only reason nintendo works is due to it's first party games(and lets be honest miyamoto!) I'll proabbly buy it at some point after a price drop to play zelda and metroid but day one? not gonna happen and not being region free pisses me off(even more so now that I'm gonna have to import Xenoblade.)

 

3. If it's not fixed for launch your never getting it fixed. I really don't think it's a software or idea issues(and seriously if it honestly didn't come to them till E3 that people would want that then they deserve to fucking fail) it's on the hardware said and the amount of bandwith you'll need to stream to more then one tablet, it's still pretty new tech and this is the downside to new tech. If it's a hardware issues and it's not fixed for launch they are fucked for the whole cycle.

 

4. again fucking having no mulit touch... but give me zelda!

[The NZA]

...yeah. you make this hard to disagree with.

 

1) GAF tells me they have a buddy list (no friend codes!) with online alerts and such, unified, on 3DS! only...no way to communicate with them. imagine PSN 1.0 (OH GOD). also, imagine like you said that it's nintendo and it's entirely possible that this is as good as it gets on that format.

 

dot dot dot

 

so yeah. they swear purchases now tie to your nintendo fan whatever accounts for points, but they've no idea if that'll become a user account later. honestly, like you, i'd not hold my breath. love to be wrong here.

 

2) yeah, no one shouldve bought this day 1 (boo logans! haha) without a reason to justify that price, but..yeah, again, a few more titles and a shot at a < $200 3DS XL and im sold, personally.

and cmon man, if NOA localization was a factor in my purchases....holy shit, i cant even point to a period of time that they were nice.

 

3) inclined to agree based on nintendo's clear record of denying the internet's existence buuuuut if its still outsoucred, crazy shit can be patched.

example: i thought netcode was done @ shipping. Los taught me that Tekken 6 shipped with laughable netcode and patched later. let's just say i dont trust nintendo here as much as i trust whoever they're paying to make them appear competent in this arena...and even that only holds until they announce their online details.

anything resembling friend codes and im gonna assume this is another offline system, real talk

 

4) that's the bitch of it, right? "bubut irish, they had nothing to show"

[Keth]

the 6 most ominous trends in gaming. thought it fits better here than in VG blargh

[The NZA]

eh, they're focusing on AAA titles. budgets are so high right now (and ya'll keep buying shootahs) so that's what we mostly got. if you want creativity, come on down to PSN, XBLA, Steam, handhelds etc, its all over the place. of course, right after that, they bitch about casual and mini-games, as if we should only do mid-tier or AAA titles, despite how many studios have/are still closing as a result.

 

it's also too early to say much about the WU i think, but the shots on Kinect felt fair, we've had 2 shows and ive not seen much interesting - then again, it sold like hotcakes/doesnt need to be aimed at me. dont get me wrong, id like to have seen more from E3 for sure (hopefully more interesting/eastern dev stuff at TGS this year), but this was kinda whiny for just focusing on the specifics it choose. i hope they're not expecting huge events at the next E3...we'll get GTA V, RE 6, early stuff of a PS4/Xbox720 that id bet a dollar aren't going to be the huge leaps people like this wanna see either.

 

i could be wrong, but neither MS nor sony can afford to sell bleeding-edge tech at a big loss, nor do 3rd parties want to see higher production costs. it might be time to explore more platforms.

[gunsmithx]

Nick, you do know you can build a much advanced box without breaking the bank? Again I'll point to the Vita, all off the shelf parts, nothing exotic(in before but but but OLED, cheap ass cell phons use it) and may or may not be losing money(or losing on one sku and making it on the other) The ps4 will follow the same mold, lots of asking devs what they want(RAM) and then putting together off the shelf stuff to avoid huge costs.

 

I honestly have no idea wtf ms will do, my one worry would be a kind of mini wii situation, where it does really well for a bit followed by a big drop off once all the people that want one get one, it's following alot of the same trends that nintendo but may hit a new console before the drop off hits.

 

WiiU... fuck if I know, it's won't be as big as the wii but it may end up with longer legs. needs to see the games for it and it'll need more then year old ports.

 

Software... I've heard it said a few times but it seems like the death of mid teir continues on console... or does it? the fact is that alot of things that should be mid tier shit is either called AAA cause thats what everything is fing called or droped down to DD. I dont' see that cycle breaking for a couple more years and I think the rise of DD and hopefully finally breaking fixed pricing will do it.

[The NZA]

i still think you're short-sighted on this. you're crazy if you think the Vita's not sold at a loss. no, i dont care what some cellphones offer - neither of us knows the specifics but a) its some impressive hardware for a handheld (specs, custom OLED, touch screens etc) and b) sony dont mind selling at a loss, is the thing.

 

and no, you're not going to see a super beefy PS4, we should prolly make peace with this. it'll be better than 2006 tech, no doubt, but we both know console RAM/etc isnt as cheap as PC is. ill honestly be happy if they dont just keep the same cell, slightly up the RAM & toss in a new GPU, for one...the big 2 are both working to delay the jumps, so i can only say with some certainty that the next xbox will integrate kinect, past that, no idea.

 

and again, your last paragraph was key: no one's trying to see production rates skyrocket, with all the studios we've seen close. we'll see an advance box from tech that wasn't top of the line (at the presumed point of release) 7+ years ago, sure, but i don't think it's unfair to point to something like the Witcher 2 at high settings and say "dont expect to see much past that, if even on tier."

theyve both hemorrhaged too much money, and saw what nintendo did by basically recycling parts (and the loss sony ate by pushing too much hardware at too high a price). diminishing returns tell me this isnt going to be the massive jump whoever wrote that cracked article is hoping to see.

[Maldron]

Nick, sony has said on the record that they set a price point for the vita, and then designed a system to match it.

[The NZA]

hey, gun could somehow be right here. stranger things have happened.

 

but sony also says lots of things.

[gunsmithx]

dude, you could see a huge leap without spending very much, but a big part of that will be when they plan to launch. also the OLED isn't really custome as far as I understand it and I do think think the point of the duel sku is party to offset the loss on the 250 model(though fuck who really knows.)

 

a couple of points here too.

 

1. Sony losing money on the hw doesn't really mean much, it in no way means they would be losing money overall depending on software sales(thats a big one here) and the fact that the price will drop very fast on parts for the system due to it's off the shelf. for the ps4 I'm guessing you'll see a better ver. of cell, around 2gigs of ram(not just a little bit, rumors peg the wii at about a gig)

 

2. I need to dig up the bombcast but they had a dev on who was talking how higher power box's could in fact lower dev costs, art isn't going up(everything is already downsampled for ps3/360) so whats left? coding costs pretty much, more power would make it easier to do bigger worlds and more advancded AI but it does come down to the tools offered. I think vita is good cause I've heard good things of the tools sony has offered and of course middle ware has jumped on. The biggest costs would be making new engines but your seeing more and more modluar ones come out so they can be upgraded piece meal instead of the whole thing. The biggest thing to drop prices I think will be the indursty coming to terms with not everything has to be AAA to make money, which happens when you get different tiers of pricing which will happen as we move away from retail and it gets less power. Once you do that, you can make great games with smaller teams that need to sell less and make less to break even. I think a golden age is coming when we reach that point but we have a bit to go yet.

[The NZA]

agree with more than i disagree with there...do you have a sort've bar, though? like, i used Witcher 2 on high (supersampling is kinda the new crysis), do you see our next gen surpassing that, much less early on?

 

1) hope you're right on the RAM, 2 GB = way more serious, and id love an XMB without loading (especially in-game).

 

2) yeah, i think one thing sony did that impressed me this gen was send out teams when others were having a bitch of a time coding for the PS3 early on, it looks to've paid off as well. god, i fucking hope we see more engines and move away from UE3 soon too.

 

i think a big part of my concern for this sort've financial cold war thing is the hesitancy to move away from AAA model; i dont know what its going to take, either the bottom falling out after one year too many of COD revisions or EA taking a huge hit on KOTOR, but something's gotta give. you're spot-on with the need for more tiers of pricing, im happy seeing upcoming stuff like EDF next month staring at $40.

 

i also feel like the big 2 aren't doing that future any huge favors though. you saw me come around to DD, but only on PC - XBL on demand adds interesting titles each week, but continues to miss the point @ pricing (id be curious to see how they're selling, no idea if they share the #s but i doubt it). hell i wish youd've seen the GB post E3 cast just to watch Jonathan Blow (braid) blast the shit out of some MS shills for making XBLA certification process so obtuse. i kinda get the narrative that these guys arent hurrying to somewhat burn their retail partners by more smoothly transitioning to digital services, but its another example of something they're doing that i think is hurting the industry as a whole - to use Nier for instance, can you image DD as a 2nd revenue stream for when word-of-mouth got around that it was a quality niche title? i dont know if $20 or so copies wouldve saved Cavia at the time, but it sure woulndt've hurt.

[gunsmithx]

I did hear the blow podcast, good stuff(yes george defended MS ;) he'll probably kill me for that lol)

 

and yes I do think we'll get past witcher 2 in terms of visuals(many many devs say that consoles are holding pc back atm and thats just about everyone)

 

Remember it's easier on pc simply because PC has pretty much ceased to have any retail presence outside of a few titles, it's either compeat on price or go home atm. But the retails presence on console is still huge and the majority, remember it's not just places like gamestop forcing prices it's the fact that it costs a hell of a lot more to put boxes in stores, trust me I did this research with george when we were looking into that translating gig(oh talk about missed opportunity) Hell Xseed basically just came out and said any of the psp titles they have left will most likely not see retail release due to cost.

[The NZA]

I did hear the blow podcast, good stuff(yes george defended MS ;) he'll probably kill me for that lol)

 

...that's a +1

[Jables]

Have you seen Children of Eden? That's a kind of Rez sequel that implements kinect. Christ knows on that matter, when I lost my xbox in the flood and replaced it with a shiny new 250GB w/Kinect, I've barely used the fucker. That's partially due to the layout of my room not allowing for jumping around like a fucking idiot. If we had voice support in AU it'd probably replace my PS3 as the main media device I use.

[The NZA]

yeah, child of eden (and some of the quirky japanese titles they showed last year - suda51, one by parappa guy, and the sega nightmares one) are about all im keeping an eye on, still not nearly enough to jump in, though if this 360 dies and i can swap it for one that brings it, that'd be great. im curious to see eden reviews, as well as when the ps3 one comes out to see if its worth trying with move.

[Maldron]

Joystiq, that place you hate, is saying that Eden is pretty fucking awesome and caps out at around 90 minutes of game.

[gunsmithx]

some more stuff on the vita selling for a loss and being profitable.

 

http://www.videogamer.com/news/ps_vita_business_profitable_from_day_one_claims_sony.html

[The NZA]

i'm amazed you're comfortable with sony talking about this. i mean, i love the PS brand, but they sold more bullshit this gen than even last.

i am absolutely willing to accept this when said from someone other than a PR mouthpiece.

[gunsmithx]

Um you do know who andrew house is right? president of Sony Europe, I mean if he is a pr mouthpiece then so is anyone connected to any video game company and you can't believe anything anyone says... that said, explain to me how it benefits sony to lie about this?

[The NZA]

...uhm are you serious

 

do you not recall all the shit tretton, kutaragi, phil harrison, and co have said this gen, yeah? it's possible you've forgotten. i mean david reeves held that spot, and he single-handedly spewed more bullshit & damaged the brand (up to '09) more than even MS could've, i'd argue.

 

i mean, shit, you could somehow be right here, but again, you're pointing at the wrong people to take at face value, especially when talking about things public shareholders want to hear.

[gunsmithx]

again, I don't see how they gain by lieing here, they aren't in anyway saying they will lose money, simply that while they might lose money on hw they will still be profitable day one, it's something thats worked for sony in all but one case and lets be honest, the PS3 is a huge outlier and they have learned from that mistake it seems.

[Thelogan]

again, I don't see how they gain by lieing here...

 

...especially when talking about things public shareholders want to hear.

[gunsmithx]

again, I don't think they are lying simply because it makes perfect sense, it's not cutting edge hardware by anymeans, and I have yet to see an estimate that shows them losing ps3 style money on this thing. People forget that taking a small loss but making it up with software and other things works and works very well, ps2 and ps1 and hell even the psp made money for them, The ps3 does now years out but the launch was fubard from the get go. Anyway, lying doesn't work so well simply because investor meetings are open and so are financials so it would be a short lived lie but I'll be happy to revisit this issues over the next 2-3 years and if they are still losing money at that point then fuck I lose.

[The NZA]

dont know what you're after, i simply said they're likely taking a loss at day 1. every article that says "profitable by year 3" is a huge "duh", even for sony: if you're not selling at a profit by then - hardware revision, cheaper to produce parts, etc - you should prolly pack it up and go home.

never said they're losing PS3 money here (thank christ), just that i imagine an initial loss per unit to be competitive with the 3DS.