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[Industry Thread] is getting better, unlike the Vita's outlook. Read the OP.
Sterica
YesRegistered User, Moderator mod
YesRegistered User, Moderator mod
Welcome to the Video Game Industry. This is for discussing the business side of the games market. This includes sales figures, changes in publishers/developers, goings-on with important people in the business, and similar things.
Behavior has been on the rise, but still not perfect, so consider yourselves on watch. Keep it up, and maybe we can relax things a bit.
Here's how it'll break down:
1. All infractions will be serious. We're past the point where minor infractions alone aren't enough, so maybe bumping things up will be a bit more effective.
2. The following shit will get infracted. This is not comprehensive, but it is most of the posts that we won't bother warning you about. Go directly to jail. Do not collect $200. Responding to any of the following is just as bad: it propagates bad behavior. Do not reply, even to yell at them to knock it off: you have a report button for a reason.
-Content-less posts: posts that are just a stupid image macro, YouTube clip, or other irrelevant meme will be treated in hostile manner. This stuff tends to get the thread derailed a bit and it isn't funny to begin with. Playful banter is fine, but here's a concept: joke around using the power of your own wit.
-Chatty Posts: Posts that are basically the digital equivalent of shooting the breeze. Telling people about your personal life, gossiping, and other shit that isn't even remotely on-topic. Even tangentially on-topic things like "Oh, I bought game X from this company we're discussing, and it is so cool!" is still a chat post. Do not reply to chat posts. Report it, and move on.
-Posting VGChartz: it's an unreliable source of data, and we don't need discussion based on bullshit figures. Read more here.
-Posting Lists: Holy crackers, IGN is doing their Top 15 games featuring Charles Barkley! Nobody fucking cares. This is brutally off-topic, a catalyst for shitty behavior, and breathtakingly irrelevant. Just to be absolutely clear: sales figures are not lists.
-Fluff articles from other sites: Yes, sometimes Kotaku or Destructoid will do a painfully stupid article about gaming snacks or something. This isn't really a thread for commenting on games journalism. If Kotaku went out of business or was caught selling reviews to publishers, then yeah it's a fair topic. Whining about how an inane article Kotaku pushed out, however, doesn't really add much to the thread.
-Backseat modding: Dictating what should and shouldn't be discussed based on your personal preferences. If someone is veering off-topic, then it's fine to give them a nudge so long as you're not a dick about it. If someone is blatantly breaking a rule, then report it. Yelling at them will just cause a fight which further derails the thread. It's an action wholly counterproductive to your aims. Don't do it.
-Console war crap: being a cheerleader for a company, piece of hardware, or whatever is a no-go. Shit like "lol sony" is an example of this.
Having said all that: do enjoy the thread. That is, ultimately, the goal of all this.
Behavior has been on the rise, but still not perfect, so consider yourselves on watch. Keep it up, and maybe we can relax things a bit.
Here's how it'll break down:
1. All infractions will be serious. We're past the point where minor infractions alone aren't enough, so maybe bumping things up will be a bit more effective.
2. The following shit will get infracted. This is not comprehensive, but it is most of the posts that we won't bother warning you about. Go directly to jail. Do not collect $200. Responding to any of the following is just as bad: it propagates bad behavior. Do not reply, even to yell at them to knock it off: you have a report button for a reason.
-Content-less posts: posts that are just a stupid image macro, YouTube clip, or other irrelevant meme will be treated in hostile manner. This stuff tends to get the thread derailed a bit and it isn't funny to begin with. Playful banter is fine, but here's a concept: joke around using the power of your own wit.
-Chatty Posts: Posts that are basically the digital equivalent of shooting the breeze. Telling people about your personal life, gossiping, and other shit that isn't even remotely on-topic. Even tangentially on-topic things like "Oh, I bought game X from this company we're discussing, and it is so cool!" is still a chat post. Do not reply to chat posts. Report it, and move on.
-Posting VGChartz: it's an unreliable source of data, and we don't need discussion based on bullshit figures. Read more here.
-Posting Lists: Holy crackers, IGN is doing their Top 15 games featuring Charles Barkley! Nobody fucking cares. This is brutally off-topic, a catalyst for shitty behavior, and breathtakingly irrelevant. Just to be absolutely clear: sales figures are not lists.
-Fluff articles from other sites: Yes, sometimes Kotaku or Destructoid will do a painfully stupid article about gaming snacks or something. This isn't really a thread for commenting on games journalism. If Kotaku went out of business or was caught selling reviews to publishers, then yeah it's a fair topic. Whining about how an inane article Kotaku pushed out, however, doesn't really add much to the thread.
-Backseat modding: Dictating what should and shouldn't be discussed based on your personal preferences. If someone is veering off-topic, then it's fine to give them a nudge so long as you're not a dick about it. If someone is blatantly breaking a rule, then report it. Yelling at them will just cause a fight which further derails the thread. It's an action wholly counterproductive to your aims. Don't do it.
-Console war crap: being a cheerleader for a company, piece of hardware, or whatever is a no-go. Shit like "lol sony" is an example of this.
Having said all that: do enjoy the thread. That is, ultimately, the goal of all this.
Sterica on
0
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
It's a BAD comparison, I know, but I wonder how long it was before Nintendo admitted that the Virtual Boy was a flop. The Vita's selling better than that (though I'd love to see the sales data on both devices side by side), but I think that was the last high-profile major hardware developer handheld to flop. N-Gage notwithstanding, of course.
Don't get me wrong: I'd love to see them be honest, especially considering they've already done their harikiri by getting rid of Stringer. I just don't see it happening. Which is a shame, because I got to hold a Vita demo unit for the first time yesterday (lack of a car = don't getting out to stores much), and it was a very sexy, if large, machine.
Sorry, 3DO usually doesn't register with me for some reason - just not part of my experience growing up, I guess. No offense intended. But yeah, let's throw that on there too. I mean, the Vita has sold millions, so it's not like it doesn't have an install base... Everything about the product just seems to be mishandled in some way. (In my opinion, of course.)
The 3DO had a worldwide sales of around 2 million although there are claims of 6 million sales from wikipedia but I wouldn't trust that.
The Virtual Boy had a total sales of about 700,000 in 12 months
The Vita has a total worldwide sales of about 2.2 million at the last Sony press release from 7 months release. Even though Sony claims the PSP didn't achieve that total in the same period, Sony failed to mention that the PSP wasn't released in europe until 6 months after the US release and 9/10 months after the Japanese launch.
Edit: The Vita right now is probably on the same sales targets of the Turbo-16 and the Dreamcast of both had just over 10 million unit sales in 3 years.
I just wonder what's going on in the execs' heads. I mean, you can only put so much spin on something before it just breaks apart.
Nintendo with the 3DS.
Iwata came out and said it wasn't doing as good as it should, apologized to the company, apologized to the people who bought the system and basically admitted they had to fix the situation they found themselves in. That lead to the announcement of the price drop by fifty bucks and Nintendo giving the original buyers of the 3DS the ambassador games which was a pretty big thing I thought. You never see companies do such things and the fact the guy was so honest about it and up front was quite frankly, refreshing.
It's why I respect the guy, he has a mind for business but he comes off so damn humble and nice too.
And yeah, Iwata took a pay cut.
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
All of the higher ups in Nintendo took a very public paycut due to the 3DS, Iwata took a larger paycut than the rest of them did.
Nintendo Network ID - Brainiac_8
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I got a little excited when I saw your ship.
Goes to show he's a smart guy.
Nintendo Network ID - Brainiac_8
PSN - Brainiac_8
Steam - http://steamcommunity.com/id/BRAINIAC8/
Add me!
Not to be all conspiracy theorist I would say that stuff like Iwata Asks is actually pretty clever.
You get to control what information is and isn't leaked out, while getting brownies points for being so "open".
They really oughta put up and translate more of those, they're good shit. I don't think they're spoonfeeding you doctored information specifically, but they do tend to make you think a bit better of the developers because you can start to understand some of their design decisions when they explain themselves.
I got a little excited when I saw your ship.
Also the first president of NoA married into the family. Iwata was a programmer who rose through the ranks to become president of HAL and even as president of the company did in fact program from time to time.
3DS Friend Code: 0404-6826-4588 PM if you add.
It's got to be some sort of insane/stupid internal bullshit since all hints I've found are that the game was profitable, which begs the question of why you'd bother shutting it down.
"Moving away from Western Games" just ... doesn't make any sense given they just launched probably the most anticipated MMO of the year and it's most definitely Western. There's some piece missing here to cause this to make any damn sense.
And I can't see them shutting down GW1 just cause afaik the game takes ridiculously little server backend to support by design. Of course, they shut down CoH, so who the fuck knows.
My best guess? Whether or not they were profitable didn't really matter much in the end if management "Decided" that whatever money they were making wasn't enough. I'd figure they just about broke even, but then they probably also wanted to expand and get even more profits. The money coming off of their existing MMO, CoH, may have been sufficient to keep the game and the dev team going, but it might not have been enough to hire more people to start on a "Newer, Better, Bigger" game that would presumably give them more money. They don't want to hire any more than is necessary - So what I think they did was scuttle the ship they've been sailing on for the last few years, and then cannibalize what's left of the team to form the basis of a new development team to make the new game.
I'm just speculating here, but that's the only way it'd make sense to me.
I got a little excited when I saw your ship.
Now 1? I think most people get why they didn't do that. 2? Well, it was working as far as anyone could tell, but it's also certainly not unheard of for companies to dislike that option, and with CoX as old as it was (by mmo standards) some of the execs might have been getting tired of putting funding towards it, period.
It's the skipping of 3 and going right to 4 that is leaving everyone scratching their heads.
You have a critically poor understanding of the man's history with the company. Make no mistake: he was a cold, eccentric motherfucker (and we loved him for it), but he's easily within the top ten of the most influential figures in video games.
He also picked Iwata, a guy who's been behind some fairly innovative products in a ridiculously stagnant market. Pimpauchi may have been cold blooded, but ask yourself if whether or not a majority RPG players fit the stereotype he mocked.
I may seriously dislike Nintendo, but I respect what they're doing. Someone's gotta be the first to introduce the shoddy yet ambitious technology that other people eventually improve on.
This. He is the dude that brought video games back to life after the Atari Crash. He also, as was said, gave Miyamoto the opportunity to be creative and thus was in a sense behind probably one of the most recognizable figures in entertainment. Like Raz said, he was eccentric and kind of crazy when it came to moving forward with technology at times, but between what he did during the golden years of Nintendo, and making Iwata his successor, he definitely deserves to be considered one of the most influential in video game history....as does Iwata and Miyamoto.
Nintendo Network ID - Brainiac_8
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Add me!
Apparently MMO's that are shut down can be used as tax write-offs. NCSoft wanted to write off an MMO for tax purposes. Okay, so how did they choose CoH? Well the game wasn't popular to the Korean market. It had a stillbirth of a launch, and they never bothered with it locally. The game has only been a thing in NA and EU. NCSoft, being Korean native, probably axed it out of favoritism to their local market. Aion is shit in general but popular with Koreans. So they can't close that down.
Now the abruptness of it, the lack of telling the dev teams themselves beforehand it seems, and the general way they've handled it has been awful. But if that's really how the finances were, it's not exactly a shocker they'd want out.
The other kick in the pants is that since the product would 'compete' with them, however small, if they just sold it off, it's going to get thrown in the garbage instead. Again, from a business standpoint that makes sense, it just kinda sucks.
But no, I guess not every F2P transition makes your profits double overnight like some games. There was an article right below it about how one of the TOR devs isn't sure that going F2P will increase overall revenues by that much. Seemed topical.
It didn't detract either.
Oh, I completely agree with all of this, actually. I guess I really meant the best thing that he could have done to secure the future of the company was to choose someone that thought differently than him (in some ways, though not all).
3DS Friend Code: 0404-6826-4588 PM if you add.
Top 40 Entertainment Software (All Prices), Week Ending 01 September 2012
GUILD WARS 2 - NCSOFT EUROPE
SLEEPING DOGS - SQUARE ENIX EUROPE
NEW SUPER MARIO BROS. 2 - NINTENDO
LONDON 2012: THE OFFICIAL VIDEO GAME - SEGA
LEGO BATMAN 2: DC SUPER HEROES - WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE
DARKSIDERS II - THQ
MADDEN NFL 13 - ELECTRONIC ARTS
TRANSFORMERS: FALL OF CYBERTRON - ACTIVISION BLIZZARD
TOM CLANCY'S GHOST RECON: FUTURE SOLDIER - UBISOFT
CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 3 - ACTIVISION BLIZZARD
MARIO & SONIC LONDON 2012 OLYMPIC GAMES - SEGA
DEAD ISLAND GOTY EDITION - KOCH MEDIA
BATMAN: ARKHAM CITY - WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE
TALES OF GRACES F - NAMCO BANDAI GAMES
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN - ACTIVISION BLIZZARD
LEGO HARRY POTTER: YEARS 5-7 - WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE
FIFA 12 - ELECTRONIC ARTS
BATTLEFIELD 3 - ELECTRONIC ARTS
CALL OF DUTY: BLACK OPS - ACTIVISION BLIZZARD
ASSASSIN'S CREED: REVELATIONS - UBISOFT
SKYLANDERS: SPYRO'S ADVENTURE - ACTIVISION BLIZZARD
SAINTS ROW: THE THIRD - THQ
THE SIMS 3 - ELECTRONIC ARTS
[PROTOTYPE 2] - ACTIVISION BLIZZARD
GRAND THEFT AUTO EPISODES - LIBERTY CITY - TAKE 2
THE ELDER SCROLLS V: SKYRIM - BETHESDA SOFTWORKS
FORZA MOTORSPORT 4 - MICROSOFT
MASS EFFECT 3 - ELECTRONIC ARTS
SONIC GENERATIONS - SEGA
MARIO KART 7 - NINTENDO
SNIPER ELITE V2 - 505 GAMES / MASTERTRONIC
LEGO HARRY POTTER: YEARS 1-4 - WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE
WWE '12 - THQ
NEED FOR SPEED: THE RUN - ELECTRONIC ARTS
FOOTBALL MANAGER 2012 - SEGA
FIFA STREET - ELECTRONIC ARTS
GRAND THEFT AUTO IV - TAKE 2
SNIPER: GHOST WARRIOR - CITY INTERACTIVE
MOSHI MONSTERS: MOSHLING ZOO - MIND CANDY
RAYMAN ORIGINS – UBISOFT
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=488863
..next time i'll think it through before posting
It really sounds like it.
Well basic inputs for PCs haven't changed in decades because there's been no pressing need for them to change, and I'm not sure how Valve would even go about evolving the input medium the way they seem to want to. Better PC-integrated touch devices? Dipping into the Nostromo market segment? I dunno.
I think anything would just feel kind of forced.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
What it sounds like is the stuff that Valve's been talking about (and constantly working with others on (Novint Falcon, Razer Hydra)) for years now. Which is alternative input devices and means of interaction, and means of interacting with and monitoring the player.
I do not believe this is about "Steam box".
I got a little excited when I saw your ship.