Video game industry thread: done here, blathering continues in new thread

cloudeagle

Brainiac 8 wrote: »

They are putting Super Skrull in the game, and me being a huge nut for Cosmic Marvel, I'm already sold and it really doesn't matter to me whoever else they add....unless they decide to put Nova in the game, which would put it over the very top.

Not to turn this into a repeat of the MvC3 thread, but I'm really not shocked Super Skrull's in there considering Marvel's been "all Skrulls, all the time" for what seems like the last three years. At least he's a better "flavor of the month" than Marrow was. (And I also thought he was nifty as a kid.)

Brainiac 8

If you had read "Annihilation" (If you haven't you should) they turned Super Skrull into one of the most awesome anti-heroes you've ever seen.

Him and Ronan the Accusor took down the Kree high council by themselves...awesome stuff.

Kastanj

cloudeagle wrote: »

A Twitter follower pointed Platinum Games' Hideki Kamiya to a recent European interview in which Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto expressed interest in seeing a new Star Fox game made. Replied Kamiya: "I want Nintendo's staff to come to Platinum, stick guns at us and tell us 'You guys make a new Star Fox.'"

http://ds.ign.com/articles/108/1084496p1.html

God bless those wacky Platinum Games bastards.

Kamiya is a gentleman and a scholar.

Lunker

Henroid wrote: »

I keep seeing a lot of hate for FFXIII. I don't say that in defense (I haven't played it) but is it really that bad?

Totally OT, but: Not in the least. I'm loving the crap out of it, even the allegedly boring parts in the beginning. (Believe it or not, Internet message boards are prone to overblown dramatics and hyperbolic exaggeration!) I haven't found it any more or less linear and limiting than most other JRPGs; it just doesn't try to mask it from the player, I suppose, and it doesn't let players grind and overlevel themselves into oblivion. It's a total anathema if you're an OCD powergamer, which is probably why I'm loving it so much.

cloudeagle

Brainiac 8 wrote: »

If you had read "Annihilation" (If you haven't you should) they turned Super Skrull into one of the most awesome anti-heroes you've ever seen.

Him and Ronan the Accusor took down the Kree high council by themselves...awesome stuff.

I'll have to look it up. Actually I need to figure out which bits of the Skrull invasion are worth reading. I'm getting pickier about my comics in my dotage.

I actually just caught up with the last few She-Hulk series. Love the character and she got some awesome writers. Not to mention Super Skrull whaled on her and made some interesting antihero choices there too.

Brainiac 8

cloudeagle wrote: »

Brainiac 8 wrote: »

If you had read "Annihilation" (If you haven't you should) they turned Super Skrull into one of the most awesome anti-heroes you've ever seen.

Him and Ronan the Accusor took down the Kree high council by themselves...awesome stuff.

I'll have to look it up. Actually I need to figure out which bits of the Skrull invasion are worth reading. I'm getting pickier about my comics in my dotage.

I actually just caught up with the last few She-Hulk series. Love the character and she got some awesome writers. Not to mention Super Skrull whaled on her and made some interesting antihero choices there too.

Actually Secret Invasion I hated.

Annihilation was when Annihilus took an army from the negative zone and pretty much decimated the Skrull empire, and only a small rebellion fought him off including Nova, Starlord, Phyla-vel, Moondragon, Drax the destroyer, Ronan, and Super Skrull.

It was one of the most fun, epic, and generally awesome events in years from Marvel.

Zerokku

Xagarath wrote: »

Where are the high-profile releases in June, July or August?
There doesn't seem to be much after Galaxy 2.

Starcraft 2 is not unlikely for June-July and hell that'll be one of the most "high-profile" games of the year.

Brainiac 8

My brother is drooling over starcraft 2.

I never really enjoyed them.

cloudeagle

Brainiac 8 wrote: »

cloudeagle wrote: »

Brainiac 8 wrote: »

If you had read "Annihilation" (If you haven't you should) they turned Super Skrull into one of the most awesome anti-heroes you've ever seen.

Him and Ronan the Accusor took down the Kree high council by themselves...awesome stuff.

I'll have to look it up. Actually I need to figure out which bits of the Skrull invasion are worth reading. I'm getting pickier about my comics in my dotage.

I actually just caught up with the last few She-Hulk series. Love the character and she got some awesome writers. Not to mention Super Skrull whaled on her and made some interesting antihero choices there too.

Actually Secret Invasion I hated.

Annihilation was when Annihilus took an army from the negative zone and pretty much decimated the Skrull empire, and only a small rebellion fought him off including Nova, Starlord, Phyla-vel, Moondragon, Drax the destroyer, Ronan, and Super Skrull.

It was one of the most fun, epic, and generally awesome events in years from Marvel.

Secret Invasion wasn't all that great? Well dang. Then again the whole Civil War and House of M thing kind of alienated me away.

Ah well, just reminds me how odd it is that the characters and their various merch are violently popular while the comics themselves keep selling less and less.

Zerokku

Brainiac 8 wrote: »

My brother is drooling over starcraft 2.

I never really enjoyed them.

Not everyone has a soul :P

Brainiac 8

I pretty much hate anything Brian Michael Bendis...biggest hack writer of our generation.

Couscous

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=243512?cid=OTC-RSS&attr=CVG-General-RSS

UK retailer GAME has said that the ongoing chaos cased by the ash cloud from an erupting Icelandic volcano could result in delivery delays.

"Please be aware the closure of UK airspace and airspace in parts of Europe unfortunately continues to affect the transport of mail by air and could cause delays with delivery of orders," it said on its website.

"This is impacting upon some UK domestic mail and mail due to either leave or enter the country via UK airports," it added.

Fingers crossed your pre-ordered copy of Monster Hunter Tri, Dead to Rights: Retribution or Nier turns up on time this week.

CURSE YOU, GOD!

http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/36826/Jobs-You-want-porn-get-an-Android

Now a new email exchange between him and a disgruntled customer, as reported by Techcrunch, reveals a 'hardening' of his stance. He said: "We do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone. Folks who want porn can buy and (sic) Android phone."

Earlier in the year, Apple removed a huge number of apps it deemed to contain adult content, upsetting a huge number of developers.

It continues to sidestep the question of how many users view hot throbbing action via its Safari browser.

Jobs is now advertising the Android. This "moral responsibility" crap reeks of paternalistic bullshit.

Nintendo's 3DS will be released a full two months in advance of Christmas this year, CVG can reveal.

UK industry sources have today informed us that the platform holder is readying an October launch for the system - which it will announce at E3.

That means it will go head-to-head with Microsoft's own great hardware hope this winter, Project Natal.

News of an October launch was a surprise for the execs we spoke to - as Nintendo had only previously announced that the handheld would hit shelves before March, 2011.

An October launch pre-dates that expiry date by a full six months - and gives Nintendo a three-month run-up to Christmas.

One very senior publishing source told CVG: "It's a surprise - we were expecting it much closer to Christmas. But I suppose it gives Nintendo the opportunity to get it front and centre in people's minds nice and early.

"In my experience, you don't launch a product that early to Christmas unless you're confident in it - and going to spend a lot of money on it. We're reassured that Nintendo is going to give it some decent backing in Q4."

cloudeagle

Eh, that's Jobs for you. He gets weird vendettas against things such as boobies, Flash, normal and functional two-button mice, etc.

That said, I just read a blog post by David Pogue that said Google is actively soliciting iPhone developers to make versions of their apps for Android.

Fiaryn

Zerokku wrote: »

Brainiac 8 wrote: »

My brother is drooling over starcraft 2.

I never really enjoyed them.

Not everyone has a soul :P

Has the beta involved testing the custom map creation tools yet?

Because that's about all I (and I imagine a good few people) care about.

Couscous

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/38598/Piracy-accounts-for-dropping-DS-sales

Measuring the true scale of the impact of software piracy is a tough task, but Nintendo has said that illicit copying of DS titles is to blame for a near 50 per cent drop in DS games sales in Europe over recent months.

Asahi.com quotes the platform holder as stating that “trillions of Yen” is “lost to pirates each year”, with the controversial R4 device named as the chief offender.

Nintendo’s numbers apparently come from a study in 2009 that tracked websites offering pirated games. Throughout the study Nintendo counted around 238m illegal downloads.

The largest areas of activity were centred in Italy, Spain and France.

DarkWarrior

Couscous wrote: »

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/38598/Piracy-accounts-for-dropping-DS-sales

Measuring the true scale of the impact of software piracy is a tough task, but Nintendo has said that illicit copying of DS titles is to blame for a near 50 per cent drop in DS games sales in Europe over recent months.

Asahi.com quotes the platform holder as stating that “trillions of Yen” is “lost to pirates each year”, with the controversial R4 device named as the chief offender.

Nintendo’s numbers apparently come from a study in 2009 that tracked websites offering pirated games. Throughout the study Nintendo counted around 238m illegal downloads.

The largest areas of activity were centred in Italy, Spain and France.

Could also be a recession or the huge increase in shovelware. Is there any actual evidence here?

Couscous

DarkWarrior wrote: »

Couscous wrote: »

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/38598/Piracy-accounts-for-dropping-DS-sales

Measuring the true scale of the impact of software piracy is a tough task, but Nintendo has said that illicit copying of DS titles is to blame for a near 50 per cent drop in DS games sales in Europe over recent months.

Asahi.com quotes the platform holder as stating that “trillions of Yen” is “lost to pirates each year”, with the controversial R4 device named as the chief offender.

Nintendo’s numbers apparently come from a study in 2009 that tracked websites offering pirated games. Throughout the study Nintendo counted around 238m illegal downloads.

The largest areas of activity were centred in Italy, Spain and France.

Could also be a recession or the huge increase in shovelware. Is there any actual evidence here?

http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201004190412.html

Nintendo said it saw sales of its DS software plummet in Europe and some other markets by 45 percent in April-December 2009, compared to the previous year.

The drop was significantly steeper than an 11 percent fall in the United States and a 7 percent drop in Japan during the same period.

While the markets are different, you wouldn't expect such a huge difference normally.

JoJoHoraHora

Couscous wrote: »

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/38598/Piracy-accounts-for-dropping-DS-sales

Measuring the true scale of the impact of software piracy is a tough task, but Nintendo has said that illicit copying of DS titles is to blame for a near 50 per cent drop in DS games sales in Europe over recent months.

Asahi.com quotes the platform holder as stating that “trillions of Yen” is “lost to pirates each year”, with the controversial R4 device named as the chief offender.

Nintendo’s numbers apparently come from a study in 2009 that tracked websites offering pirated games. Throughout the study Nintendo counted around 238m illegal downloads.

The largest areas of activity were centred in Italy, Spain and France.

Yo Italy represent!

:?

But I can see it easily being true. There's this general way of thinking over here for many people that if you aren't pirating your doing it wrong.

Stuff like R4s you can usually find in stores, (well those that aren't part of big chains like gamestop or mediaworld). Down south you can easily buy consoles already chipped.

Peewi

It's very unlikely, but if that made Nintendo stop localising their games to Italian, Spanish and French (and why not German while we're at it) and it meant less delays in European release dates I would be very happy.

JoJoHoraHora

Me too!

Then again I have double copies of Metal Gear Solid and Mass Effect because the italian dubbing was really good.

Italian Wrex > American Wrex.

And female Shepard voice is the Major from Ghost in the Shell <3<3

Brainiac 8

Finally put my preorder in for Super Mario Galaxy 2 on Amazon.

I got the 20.00 promotional credit, as well as 30.00 off for getting an Amazon credit card.

So I'm paying like 20.00 bucks for the game. Yay me.

Leitner

How is apple on violent content and such on the i-phone? All the stuff I've heard of 'think of the children' is stripping away sexual content.

DarkPrimus

Leitner wrote: »

How is apple on violent content and such on the i-phone? All the stuff I've heard of 'think of the children' is stripping away sexual content.

Yeah, that's pretty much par for the course for American morals.

GnomeTank

The problem with any piracy numbers, is that (to make their position look better) publishers and developers always assume that every pirated copy is a lost sale. This is completely false logic.

That's not to say piracy is right (it's not), or that they don't have a complaint (they do), but they work they numbers pretty heavily to strengthen their position and use that as their reasoning for draconian DRM and regioning schemes. It's not abnormal, all businesses do it, but it does frustrate those of us who know better. Especially since the measures they use these numbers to promote generally don't do a lick to stop the problem.

RainbowDespair

That might be true, but I daresay that most video game pirates, if deprived of their ability to pirate games, would start buying games. Not necessarily the same games that they would have pirated, but they would start putting money into the video game industry in some form.

cloudeagle

GnomeTank wrote: »

The problem with any piracy numbers, is that (to make their position look better) publishers and developers always assume that every pirated copy is a lost sale. This is completely false logic.

That's not to say piracy is right (it's not), or that they don't have a complaint (they do), but they work they numbers pretty heavily to strengthen their position and use that as their reasoning for draconian DRM and regioning schemes. It's not abnormal, all businesses do it, but it does frustrate those of us who know better. Especially since the measures they use these numbers to promote generally don't do a lick to stop the problem.

While the number of pirated games isn't 1:1 with lost sales, it's equally foolish to say that piracy doesn't cause ANY lost sales. There are people who obsessively pirate every single game and don't play them, and there are people who just pirate the few games they play, like the friend of mine who thinks I'm foolish for paying money for any vidja game.

GnomeTank

cloudeagle wrote: »

GnomeTank wrote: »

The problem with any piracy numbers, is that (to make their position look better) publishers and developers always assume that every pirated copy is a lost sale. This is completely false logic.

That's not to say piracy is right (it's not), or that they don't have a complaint (they do), but they work they numbers pretty heavily to strengthen their position and use that as their reasoning for draconian DRM and regioning schemes. It's not abnormal, all businesses do it, but it does frustrate those of us who know better. Especially since the measures they use these numbers to promote generally don't do a lick to stop the problem.

While the number of pirated games isn't 1:1 with lost sales, it's equally foolish to say that piracy doesn't cause ANY lost sales. There are people who obsessively pirate every single game and don't play them, and there are people who just pirate the few games they play, like the friend of mine who thinks I'm foolish for paying money for any vidja game.

I think I pretty clearly stated there is a problem, but still, the 1:1 ratio of pirate = lost sale is patently false, and does nothing to advance discussion of the issue to a place where paying gamers and game companies can live in some sort of harmony, without the game makers punishing paying customers for the transgressions of people that were unlikely to buy the game anyway.

cloudeagle

GnomeTank wrote: »

cloudeagle wrote: »

GnomeTank wrote: »

The problem with any piracy numbers, is that (to make their position look better) publishers and developers always assume that every pirated copy is a lost sale. This is completely false logic.

That's not to say piracy is right (it's not), or that they don't have a complaint (they do), but they work they numbers pretty heavily to strengthen their position and use that as their reasoning for draconian DRM and regioning schemes. It's not abnormal, all businesses do it, but it does frustrate those of us who know better. Especially since the measures they use these numbers to promote generally don't do a lick to stop the problem.

While the number of pirated games isn't 1:1 with lost sales, it's equally foolish to say that piracy doesn't cause ANY lost sales. There are people who obsessively pirate every single game and don't play them, and there are people who just pirate the few games they play, like the friend of mine who thinks I'm foolish for paying money for any vidja game.

I think I pretty clearly stated there is a problem, but still, the 1:1 ratio of pirate = lost sale is patently false, and does nothing to advance discussion of the issue to a place where paying gamers and game companies can live in some sort of harmony, without the game makers punishing paying customers for the transgressions of people that were unlikely to buy the game anyway.

While the number of pirated games isn't the ironclad number, it's a metric that can still be used to get an overall impression of the problem, even if it's not 1:1. For instance, a company that has 5 million pirated downloads has lost more sales than a company that has 50,000 pirated downloads, even if the first company hasn't necessarily lost 5 million sales. It's a number that needs to be put into context, yes, but it shouldn't be thrown out entirely.

And asinine DRM schemes only really come up with PC games; the consoles and handhelds' current DRM methods don't affect customers one whit.

Santa Claustrophobia

cloudeagle wrote: »

And asinine DRM schemes only really come up with PC games; the consoles and handhelds' current DRM methods don't affect customers one whit.

Well, not quite to the same degree, anyway.

Couscous

Santa Claustrophobia wrote: »

cloudeagle wrote: »

And asinine DRM schemes only really come up with PC games; the consoles and handhelds' current DRM methods don't affect customers one whit.

Well, not quite to the same degree, anyway.

Fuck region locking. Fuck Nintendo for actually introducing it to their handhelds.

Opty

You mean region locking the DSiWare store? As far as I know the carts are still region free.

Brainiac 8

They are.

DSi specific games are not region free however.

DS games still are.

Santa Claustrophobia

Couscous wrote: »

Santa Claustrophobia wrote: »

cloudeagle wrote: »

And asinine DRM schemes only really come up with PC games; the consoles and handhelds' current DRM methods don't affect customers one whit.

Well, not quite to the same degree, anyway.

Fuck region locking. Fuck Nintendo for actually introducing it to their handhelds.

I was talking about DLC, mainly. Region locking is just something I expect, no matter how silly it might be. I think of it the same way as a video/DVD that is for the PAL region instead of NTSC. I can't really watch it, so I don't bother thinking about it.

cloudeagle

Santa Claustrophobia wrote: »

Couscous wrote: »

Santa Claustrophobia wrote: »

cloudeagle wrote: »

And asinine DRM schemes only really come up with PC games; the consoles and handhelds' current DRM methods don't affect customers one whit.

Well, not quite to the same degree, anyway.

Fuck region locking. Fuck Nintendo for actually introducing it to their handhelds.

I was talking about DLC, mainly. Region locking is just something I expect, no matter how silly it might be. I think of it the same way as a video/DVD that is for the PAL region instead of NTSC. I can't really watch it, so I don't bother thinking about it.

Not to mention it's not really a response to piracy, it's a mechanism to ensure that royalties, internal ads, release dates, etc. are controlled for each region. That's its reason for being. It's just that people resort to piracy to get around it.

Undead Scottsman

Ugh, I'm really not looking forward to this E3. I have a feeling Move, Natal and 3DS are going to dominate and leave the regular stuff a little thin.

Then again, Portal 2 and Gears of War 3 will be enough to keep me watching.

Darlan

Undead Scottsman wrote: »

Ugh, I'm really not looking forward to this E3. I have a feeling Move, Natal and 3DS are going to dominate and leave the regular stuff a little thin.

Then again, Portal 2 and Gears of War 3 will be enough to keep me watching.

Plus, Beyond Good and Evil 2, The Last Guardian, Zelda Wii, Deus Ex 3, Fallout: New Vegas, more information on The Old Republic and FFXIV, hopefully a HL2:III trailer and some information on the Resident Evil and Tomb Raider reboots...there's a lot that could pop up. I wouldn't be too worried.

Brainiac 8

As far as I know MS is having two conferences, one for Natal and one regular, so that should be good.

Sony will be Move central, plus I'm hoping they talk more about FFXIV out of morbid curiosity.

Nintendo will be very 3DS centric, which I'm ok with. As far as software, who knows as their load is all being blown before E3, so it'll probably be Zelda and hopefully Pikmin.

Brainiac 8

Darlan, Beyond Good and Evil 2 has been scrapped by Ubisoft...sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Darlan

Brainiac 8 wrote: »

Darlan, Beyond Good and Evil 2 has been scrapped by Ubisoft...sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

That sounds believable, but do you have a source? I remember rumors to that effect, but nothing more.

cloudeagle

Darlan wrote: »

Brainiac 8 wrote: »

Darlan, Beyond Good and Evil 2 has been scrapped by Ubisoft...sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

That sounds believable, but do you have a source? I remember rumors to that effect, but nothing more.

I think there were like five different quotes from Ubi execs saying contradictory things like "oh yeah, we're doing it. Oh wait, it's been delayed. Delayed? I meant put on hiatus. It's probably canceled now. Yeah, we're never making another game in that vein again. In fact we've changed Michel Ancel's contract to where he can make nothing but Rabbids games until the end of time."

I'm playing Rabbids go Home right now and loving it. Making the bunnies go BWAAAH to blast off people's clothes never gets old.

And don't forget we get loads of surprises each E3.