Console Lineup: The Year Ahead

[HaemishM]

Prince of Persia (Wii) 4/4
Bust-A-Move Bash (Wii) 4/18

Those are the Wii games this month.

Also, Super Mario Strikers (Mario Soccer) is going to have Wi-Fi multiplayer, up to 4 players.

[schild]

Choo choo, all aboard the Sega Saturn Train.

Wii, I'd like to introduce you to Dreamcast and Jaguar. I'm sure you've met Gamecube.

[stray]

I think the Saturn single-handedly turned me from Sega to Sony fanboi.


Though I did want to like the Dreamcast (hey there's an idea....I should buy another DC this month!).

[schild]

I...

LOVE the dreamcast. Best Awesome to Crap Ratio in the history of gaming.

[stray]

There's still a few big games I've never played through.


I never actually owned one either (and I call myself a Sega fan...).

The Dreamcast I had was a whore. It just kept getting tossed around between me and several friends over a few years. I don't know who had it last. I should snag one of those bundles off of eBay.

[schild]

Eventually I'll buy one of these.

[Strazos]

Plate-shmate, I must aggregate everything into my collection.

Seriously, I keep buying games, but I'm not finishing any of them. I STILL have not finished LPT. Haven't played it in at least a week, and I just got Disgaea in late last week.

The pile on the floor next to my desk is growing far too quickly. I reckon I have at a good year's worth of content sitting on the floor.

And someone fucking stab me. I started playing Pokemon Emerald again, and have Pearl reserved.

Fuck. But at least I have enough stuff to chew on that I'm not really missing a 360 or something.

[Azazel]

Ok, wait. That actually makes what I said more impressive than it is (which I didn't want to do). I thought it was interesting that it hit a sales milestone like that faster than DVD did. What the future holds is none of my business though.

.. But when you admit that it did it with stronger competition than DVD had, then I'm not sure how that helps your argument.

Anyhow, sales are sales. It could mean nothing in the longterm, but there's no point in downplaying it.

I wasn't making an argument against it, I was also stating facts.

Positive: People are well trained and well into buying films these days. There's your milestone explained in another manner. Along with the people who buy PS3s being in mostly our Bond-liking demographic (though Bond reaches much older audiences than just us.)

Negative: People are used to buying shit on DVD. There are three competing formats. The large upgrade investment costs. DVD still looks pretty damn good to most people and is typically jam-packed with all the extras. To see the difference, people would need HD-TVs first. Most don't have HD-TVs, or see a need for the latest shiney till it drops in price. Especially all the Mums and Dads, and a large chunk of de wimmenz. Not to mention luddites like Haemish and myself.

And yeah, the DC was a damn nice machine. Big shame what happened to it.

[schild]

I have Pearl AND Diamond preordered. There's no shame. They're good games.

[Strazos]

One thing that getting back into these games has taught me is that battling other people kind of sucks. I mean, there are very few ways to stop someone from continually swapping out pokemon. Sure, you might get a few hits in, but the battle will be horribly disjointed and dull.

[stray]

I wasn't making an argument against it, I was also stating facts.

Positive: People are well trained and well into buying films these days. There's your milestone explained in another manner. Along with the people who buy PS3s being in mostly our Bond-liking demographic (though Bond reaches much older audiences than just us.)

Negative: People are used to buying shit on DVD. There are three competing formats. The large upgrade investment costs. DVD still looks pretty damn good to most people and is typically jam-packed with all the extras. To see the difference, people would need HD-TVs first. Most don't have HD-TVs, or see a need for the latest shiney till it drops in price. Especially all the Mums and Dads, and a large chunk of de wimmenz. Not to mention luddites like Haemish and myself.

And yeah, the DC was a damn nice machine. Big shame what happened to it.

Why can't good sales just be good sales anymore? I understand what you're saying and all, but it's just needlessly dismissive (and a bit longwinded at that).

Besides (to get a little longwinded myself), you act like this about whether everyone needs hi-def experiences now or something. It isn't. I'm merely saying that the technologies that people are going to adopt sooner or later are being decided now. This isn't about mom and dad buying blu-ray players -- It's about the film industry and early consumers making the choices that will give mom and dad little choice besides blu-ray in the future. Just as it was with dvd, vhs, or any general trend in technology (mom and dad had zero say in whether their computers would have usb ports and no floppy drives either). Mom and dad do not dictate the popularity of things -- they're so far late into the game that the only thing they're using by the time they get there is the popular thing.

This little line of conversation we had here started with Haemish still taking a wait and see approach with hd-dvd and brd. I basically told him that it's over. Blu-Ray has made just about every step possible to guarantee it will be the standard hi-def disc format. Industry wide support (biggest holdout is still Universal though), more hardware sold, and more discs being sold (not just Casino Royale. It's across the board. Casino is just the first one to get DVD numbers. Which isn't a small feat, no matter what you think). It'll take a miracle now for it to compete at the same level. At this point, what Blu-Ray is really competing with is IPTV, stuff like the iTunes store, Cable/FiberOptic OnDemand, etc., etc..

[Azazel]

Doesn't every Blu-Ray disc need to have a licence fee paid to Sony though?

[stray]

It goes to a BR disc association (Sony, Matushita, Phillips, Hitachi, Dell, Sharp, among others). I don't what the exact fees are, but for all types of content delievery, there are licenses involved. Various codecs have them (MPEG, VC-1), encryption routines have them (CSS, AACS), as do other disc formats (HD-DVD, DVD), etc..

[Riggswolfe]

As a HD-TV owner and a guy who thinks Haemish is just stubborn on that front and will be kicking himself in four or five years when he finally gets one:

I won't be getting a blu-ray or an hd-dvd player for a good long time. If I do it'll probably be if and when I get a PS3 and even then I don't see myself buying any Blu-ray discs until I'm 100% positive they've bought the format wars. Like most people have said, DvD is pretty much good enough.

[Sky]

As another member of the hdtv kool kids klub, I'm not getting either format, either. I disagree about DVD being 'good enough', I just don't think it's worth the dough for a player yet (even the 360 add-on). I'll be waiting for the formats to be more widely available (I borrow most of my movies from the library and we have zero HD movies in the 43-library system) and the players to get cheaper. I'll probably get a combo player when they hit $50 or so (for my pc).

[HaemishM]

I'm not saying HDTV isn't something I'll get in the future. I'm not saying HD-DVD or Blu-Ray isn't something I'll get in the future. I'm saying RIGHT NOW, and for at least a year, it holds no interest for me because it's value does not outweigh its costs. ESPECIALLY for gaming.

[Big Gulp]

To see the difference, people would need HD-TVs first. Most don't have HD-TVs, or see a need for the latest shiney till it drops in price. Especially all the Mums and Dads, and a large chunk of de wimmenz. Not to mention luddites like Haemish and myself.

Even with an HDTV if you buy an upscaling DVD player (usually around $100, so they're a drop in the bucket compared to the alternative formats) you get a huge boost in visual quality.  Definitely not as good as either BluRay or HD-DVD, but good enough for me, especially considering that those are prohibitively expensive still, I have a huge library of ripped DVDs, and burnable media for those formats are practically non-existent/incredibly expensive.

[Murgos]

360 upscales.  It's not teh AMAZING but it does look better.

[Big Gulp]

360 upscales.  It's not teh AMAZING but it does look better.

The 360 only upscales VGA connections, it doesn't upscale DVD's if you're just using component cables.  Neither does my DVD player, though, I had to use my one and only HDMI connection to hook up the DVD player.

[naum]

HDTV owner here has no plans to buy into BluRay or HDDVD schemes… …might consider a HD DVR or better, stream it all from connected computer… …a big FU to those encrypted formats, I not buying anything that I can't have the bits… …and while I've not ripped all my DVDs, all my favorites I have backed up in digital format…

XBOX 360 sweet, but overpriced and isn't a team player (won't play with my Macs, unless I am incorrect on that notion) when it comes to multimedia needs… …and there isn't enough compelling gaming to sway me (haven't even finished the half-dozen Wii games that are sitting on top of my TV stand shelf)…

[squirrel]

XBOX 360 sweet, but overpriced and isn't a team player (won't play with my Macs, unless I am incorrect on that notion) when it comes to multimedia needs…

Depends on what you're looking for. It won't play nice with your mac for video but for music/photos it'll sorta play nice with Connect 360. Usual BS applies, Apple DRM files won't stream etc. But for a basic setup it's fine. I use it a lot for my extensive iTunes library. That said, I also have a dedicated multi-media pc so I don't need any video capabilities.

Note: I experimented with XP/Vista as a media server to my 360 - the restrictions on format rendered that exercise useless as well. I just connected my PC to the tv directly and run Ubuntu now.

[Velorath]

IGN has a 5 page preview of Too Human, with some hands-on impressions.  So... Action RPG with four player online co-op, a complex skill tree system for customizing whichever of the 5 classes you pick, and a fairly distinct control system for combat (left and right triggers fire your left and right guns, one of the analog sticks controls melee combat rather than using a stick for camera movement).  This game is either going to be a lot of fun, or it's going to end up being fucked largely due to camera issues.

[schild]

Odin Sphere just got a release date of May 22nd. Just 5 days after the JPY release date. On that note, it has both Japanese and English Voices.



^_^

[stray]

Speaking of Japanese and English voices, Blue Dragon gets an early release date (sort of): May 22nd for Singapore.

It's a westernized disc, so NA will be able to run it. You just won't have English dubs. Will still be Japanese audio -- but with English subs (probably for the better anyways).


Too Human... Hmm.

Bald Space Marines + Norse Gods. Winning combo there  :-D


Just kidding. Maybe it'll be good. Eternal Darkness wasn't a bad game at least.

[Yegolev]

I will give it a whack just because of Silicon Knights, but Norse space-marines... yeah.

So it's Atelier Iris 3 on May 15 and Odin Sphere on May 22, then.  I need a Culdcept date for the financial plan.

[schild]

Culdcept is Junulyish.

[Yegolev]

Which makes me suspicious that it will really be Augustish.

[Strazos]

Or possibly even Septoberish.

I still need to give the original Culdcept a shot.

[tazelbain]

I was really unhappy with Culdsept on PS2.  The starter deck was completely ineffective to play through the campaign.  Even after grinding 20 games in custom battles my deck hardly any better because the number of different cards was so big and most did fit with my deck.

[Yegolev]

I still need to give the original Culdcept a shot.

Jesus Christ, have you played anything, ever?  If you like MTG then you will probably like Culdcept.  Your opponents are anime toons rather than sweaty beardos and pre-teen whiners.

EDIT: As for the deck-building, there is a grind but it can be done with some effort.  I don't want to say that you are doing it wrong, but it's a lot like deck-building in MTG to me and that mean practice, trial and error, and luck.  I almost beat a djinn deck using sea sprites and The Abyss, so you might say I like to get creative in the deck-building.

[stray]

Capcom JP has some new screens of DMC4. Me like (though to be fair, the shadowing sucks. Hopefully that comes later).

Supposedly (only going by GAF), it's the LP engine, capable of running @ 1080p/60fps.

[schild]

That game is going to be positively gorgeous in motion.

[stray]

I want to see this in action.

[schild]

Yea, when I saw them at Gaf I was like - that looks serious.

And then I thought about S.cry.ed.

[Yegolev]

Har har!