f13.net

EGM Rumor Mill is Some Sneaky Business

This month they revealed two pieces of information:

1. The sequel to Dead Rising and the next Resident Evil (number 5 for those not counting) may be PS3 exclusives.

Is Capcom that stupid?

2. There's a sequel to Rez in the works.

Wuh? Well, that's awesome.

That is all.

I have a mental image of Schild waking up tomorrow morning with a hangover and discovering that he frontpaged something from the EGM Rumor Mill the night before.

Nah. Rez 2 is big news for me. The 5th Stage of that game is still a shining example of music + level design + boss design + love.

I was more excited by the rumors on IGN that Bungie might finally be getting back to working on something other than Halo (http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/731/731885p1.html).  Word of them possibly working with another studio on a Halo MMO was less exciting.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/05/01

My guess is PS3 is receiving some type of Dead Rising Remake with some spiffied up graphics and some added content.  It's also not unreasonable to assume RE5 may remain PS3 exclusive for a short time, not unlike what they did with RE4.

Also, EGM sucks. 

Maybe Sony threw wads of cash at Capcom in a desperate attempt to have something to brag about when the PS3 launches.

Wasn't RE5 announced as a 360 game back before the launch of the 360?

Yeah, but wasn't RE4 announced for the PS2 before it launched, then the game went through a bunch of changes in development, the series became exclusive to Gamecube during that time, then it eventually came out for PS2 anyway?  Or something like that.

Other than leaving out the "totally started over" part, I think that's how it went down.

Just like Assassin's Creed, this shit will not be PS3 exclusive. The 360 has me locked in as the console of choice due to the quality of it's controller and achievements. I've put too much time into achievements. Not. Stopping. Now.

(http://card.mygamercard.net/gel/green/f13schild.png)

/sigh  If I could just figure out what to do with my Xbox, I'd get a 360.  I suspect there might be a holiday price drop, but as usual I'm not bothering to research before posting.

There won't be. The best you'll get is some places will have the system bundled with a game.

A bundle is coming out. A bundle that isn't worth it. But I have some pretty good ideas on what to do with the xbox.

I don't agree. I think Microsoft is gearing up to really stick it to Sony this holiday season. I can very easily see MS dropping prices $50 on each of the configurations, though they might wait till the new year when presumably the supply of PS3s will be better (no price drop is going to stop the Sony fanboys from buying the initial limited stock of PS3s). That's one of the reasons why I was disappointed at the Wii price point, even with a bundled game. $250 for a Wii or $250 for a Xbox 360? Decisions decisions. Yes the Xbox 360 is sans HD but parents aren't necessarily going to understand the ramifications at first.

Microsoft has already stated multiple times they are not going to drop the price this year. Why should they? They already beat Sony in price, and their marketing plan relies heavily on the "HD graphics are the shiznit" principle. Dropping their price would only, in a marketer's mind, imply a lack of confidence in the value of the product. Gamer's would love it, but these are suits we're talking about. They don't consider Wii competition, and Sony has handed them a gift of a system that at best is $100 more expensive than the most expensive 360.

I think Haem's logic holds.  They had been suggesting that people should buy both a 360 and Wii, meaning that they think buyers are OK with spending money, just not that much money.  If you spend $650 and get two consoles (with a game, even), that's probably better than $600 and one console.

The Wii better have a great launch.  Every time Nintendo releases a system I hear that they are taken back the market.  The door is open for a huge launch.  Let's see if they finally deliver.

XB360 has a ton more going for it at this point besides HD when compared to other next gen consoles.

Wii has the remote....

I don't put the Wii and 360 in the same mental bucket, but at this point I cannot justify buying both... so they are in the same financial bucket.  Argh.

The Xbox is nice and all, but I just don't see how it's got a "ton" more going for it. It's just another game console -- With more shiny. There isn't anything that puts it way over the top of the PS3, and as far as the Wii goes, you're writing off the remote too quickly.

Unique features like XNA might produce some neat diversions, but I doubt there will be anything really sophisticated for some time.

And besides that, frankly, most gamers still won't give a shit. Ninety-nine percent of us are not developers. Thinking it's going to be some big thing reminds of all of those Linux guys who keep predicting their OS is going to skyrocket into the desktop mainstream.

Umm...What else?

XBox Live? We'll have to wait and see what Sony does, but really, it'd be foolish to think they're going to be tons worse.

More titles and a year head start? Sony's title list will probably double the Xbox's three years from now.

I do personally feel the end market will be firmly placing the Wii as the "low cost alternative to next generation consoles", not "an equal but alternative platform that happens to be cheaper".

I can't say much more at this point due to NDA's, but the price differences are for a bunch of reasons.

The Xbox 360 needs more than the good will of developers to see it through. It hasn't even sold as many units as the original sold in a similar time, and the original Xbox was a first generation product from a new entrant to the console market at a time when the PS2 was mighty indeed. I don't have an Xbox 360, and I don't see the point of buying better hardware if it offers fewer original interesting games than the number still being released on the PS2. Frankly my Xbox hasn't lived up to its hype - there were a handful of great games that the PS2 never had, and they looked pretty and all, but there wasn't a time when there weren't interesting PS2 games around. And while there's still a mass of new PS2 releases, the Xbox releases have all but dried up in favour of Xbox 360 titles that will probably be obsolete in a handful of months when the third largely worthless MS console is released.

Righ, I don't really understand what you were trying to say in that post. May have just been the last sentence.

I think his first sentence sums it up.

A system doesn't need more than the good will of developers. Gaming is a "if you build it, they will come." Sure, at least one developer will read this and say "but but but, we built xxx." Well, you know what, it was shit. Deal with it. They get enough hard hitting developers to build up an unavoidable system, they're good to go. Nintendo has Mario, Zelda, and Samus. Sony has Squaresoft. Microsoft has what? Master Chief and a bunch of unreleased, vague, and unlikely promises?

I think the 360 has more goin' for it than the Master Chief, but I'm with Righ in thinking it'll be eclipsed by the PS3 just as the first XBox was eclipsed by the PS2.

It might even be easier to develop for than the PS3, but I don't think that will make a huge difference.

I'll eventually get one though (just like the first XBox). Something's bound to lure me that way.

Essentially what I'm saying is that the 360 has failed and will continue to fail. MS decided that what we needed were not more games, but better consoles, and more often. That didn't work for Nintendo in the past either. The original Xbox was all but deleted before it had anywhere near the size of market that PS2 developed. Their new console doesn't play most of the old games, costs more, and has no great titles. By the time it gets the number of good games that even the old Xbox had, I suppose it'll be time for a $500 replacement. Fewer people want to buy into that shit. Last month the ancient PS2 was still outselling the one year old 360, primarily because last month there were more decent games launched for the PS2 than there were for the 360.

The 360 failed already?

News to me.

Microsoft traditionally takes the long view when they invade new markets. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

With the Xbox 360 I'd say that they have a decent shot at dominating the console market, but only because of three factors:

1) Sony's floundering and inability to deliver a real alternative on time and/or under budget. This effectively ceded the next-generation console market to Xbox 360 for a year, allowing developers time to get up to speed on the machine and Xbox Live to develop traction as a platform.

2) The Wii, while having some innovation, is still basically a tarted up Gamecube, and the games for it won't be as impressive technically as X360/PS3. Which is fine, Nintendo is targeting a younger market and has it to itself, basically. Many X360/PS3 buyers are adults with children who will buy the Wii for their kids. It's not competition for the X360/PS3 market.

3) The PS3's development tools are.... really bad. It'll be a while before you see good PS3 games. By contrast, the Xbox 360 dev tools are not only good, the architecture of the Xbox 360 is basically that of a PC, so it's easy to get up to speed with.

Apparently the most recent issue of EGM is reporting a rumor that MS is looking to buy Capcom.  Can't really say I believe it of course, but the rumor is making its rounds on the Internet now.