PS3 : hope you weren't getting one

[Rowne]

This thread has certainly proved interesting.  I echo the sentiment of Seraline that the Wii is going to be about all I'm going to need of the next generation of consoles.  Aside from Nintendo's little bundle of joy, it seems like most of the games I'm drooling over currently will either be PC native or multiformat (with due PC consideration) anyway.  Then again, my game tastes are strange and I must play Secret Files: Tunguska, I must!

Mana brings up a very interesting point with the emulator though, I can't help but wonder how they're going about it.  It interests me, to be honest.  I've never been quite sure about the way Microsoft is handling things due to the high price point.  I would ask you to excuse me if my attitude is a little blunt here but $10 for a subpar Street Fighter II remake or an average arcade game seems a little much.  The price-point to quality seems off.

However, Nintendo have proved in the past that they're good at this kind of thing, redistributing old games, both in their original format and updated.  If they can achieve a very low price point for original games with a somewhat higher price point for revamped games (say, $2 to $5 for old console games and X-Box Live standard prices for revamped stuff) then they could achieve a position as the 'iTunes' of the legal emulation industry.

That said, I'm enjoying the innovation and even their emulation aspect seems to be backed up by it.  I'm loving the controllers, not only do we have the Wii-mote (which could be used with trackball and arcade shooting games, should Nintendo so desire) but we also have a redone SNES pad for the 'Virtual Console' service.  Has anyone seen that thing?  It just looks like they took a slightly bigger (Gravis original -- Jazz Jackrabbit era -- sized, I'd think) version of the SNES pad and slapped analogue sticks on it.

That could be the design for either one of the best or worst pads in existance and I'm truly eager to find out which it will be.

Anyway, whatever happens ... it'll be interesting times and I like interesting times.

[insanekaosx]

As I'm sure I've said, I'll be sticking with Wii both because Nintendo has consitently provided me with games I love, and the price >>

But, one specific game has now caught my eye. A game that, granted, not alot is out about yet.

Pokemon Stadium. For Wii. We haven't had a Pokemon Stadium since Nintendo 64!

[Supercheese]

Pokemon Stadium. For Wii. We haven't had a Pokemon Stadium since Nintendo 64!

Wait, Pokemon Coliseum didn't count?

[Manawolf]

Or Gale of Darkness?

[Castle Pokemetroid]

I think he means a game with the exact name in it.

To make a long story short on what I have heard about this: I believe they are saying that the wii will sell the most of any other gaming consul.

[insanekaosx]

Colleseum and Gale of Darkness weren't Pokemon Stadium, they were 3d Pokemon RPGs. The combat system was the same as in Stadium, but there was also the whole adventure portion you had to go through.

[Manawolf]

And what's wrong with that?  Damn, to actually get a full RPG out of Pokemon for a change was a breath of fresh air.  You're asking Nintendo to take a step back now?

[Kenji]

Maybe if some of em were wild instead of just being lame shadow pokemon. Oh, that and perhaps if they didn't use the ame old models, just slightly redone, from the N64 games. ^-^ Oh, and a better character designer couldn't hurt.

Not that they weren't fun. But I'd just be happy if any of the DS/GBA games had a mode to walk around with 3 other people ala Animal Crossing Wild World or Zelda: 4 Swords.

[Tapewolf]

Hehehehe... now if this happens to Vista as well, I shall be a happy man.  Not that I have a problem with the PS3, I don't really care.  But it's been amusing to watch it fall apart.

Yee-haa!   http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5325690.stm

[luiqui]

Hehehehe... now if this happens to Vista as well, I shall be a happy man.  Not that I have a problem with the PS3, I don't really care.  But it's been amusing to watch it fall apart.

Yee-haa!   http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5325690.stm

Hurrah  Vista is somewhere I've been directing my anti-DRM malice, so this makes me happy for that reason. Plus, it's nice seeing the EC hold fast.

[Saist]

This thread has certainly proved interesting.  I echo the sentiment of Seraline that the Wii is going to be about all I'm going to need of the next generation of consoles.  Aside from Nintendo's little bundle of joy, it seems like most of the games I'm drooling over currently will either be PC native or multiformat (with due PC consideration) anyway.  Then again, my game tastes are strange and I must play Secret Files: Tunguska, I must!

Mana brings up a very interesting point with the emulator though, I can't help but wonder how they're going about it.  It interests me, to be honest.  I've never been quite sure about the way Microsoft is handling things due to the high price point.  I would ask you to excuse me if my attitude is a little blunt here but $10 for a subpar Street Fighter II remake or an average arcade game seems a little much.  The price-point to quality seems off.

However, Nintendo have proved in the past that they're good at this kind of thing, redistributing old games, both in their original format and updated.  If they can achieve a very low price point for original games with a somewhat higher price point for revamped games (say, $2 to $5 for old console games and X-Box Live standard prices for revamped stuff) then they could achieve a position as the 'iTunes' of the legal emulation industry.

lesse...

unless another blog post hits the front page soon, this link will probably take you to a reprint of what Gamesindustry.biz had to say about Zanthus's Marketing report from 2005

http://www.gamenikki.com/g3/blogs/Jason.php?page=2&firstIndexItem=32&lastIndexItem=40

Back in June Famitsu reported Satoru Iwata talking about Virtual Console pricing here: http://www.famitsu.com/game/news/2006/06/07/103,1149672727,54492,0,0.html

Kotaku gave a translation here : http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/top/wii-ship-date-coming-this-sept-178969.php

The speech indicated that pricing would be set at about 500 yen - 1000yen, or about $4-$8 (US).  Right now it is believed that NES games will sell for a flat $4, SNES for a flat $6, and N64 for a flat $8, in reference to the Zanthus model.

The reason for this is that Nintendo has historically tried to match Japan and US prices. Europeans though will probably get charged about a Euro Dollar or more per title.

As far as I have seen, Nintendo has not commented specifically on pricing new and revamped content available through Virtual Console. All Wii really know at this point is that it will have aspects similar to Steam. It is quiet possible that Nintendo may merely link to purchasable content that is hosted elsewhere, which saves on their cost and helps keep development prices down. Or, Nintendo could go the Microsoft way and simply host everything, though that really doesn't sound like Nintendo's style. It might be wise to keep in mind that Nintendo is being much more developer-centric this go around than they were with the Gamecube, and they see the Virtual Console as a way to get more gamers developing games.

However, Nintendo has talked about WiiMakes, or rather, turning Gamecube games into Wii games in a recent issue of Nintendo Dream magazine. The Wiire reports on that here : http://www.thewiire.com/news/410/1/Nintendo_Considering_Wiimakes

Miyamoto specifically mentioned that he saw Wiimakes retailing at default lower prices than their Gamecube originals, mainly because the bulk of development work had already been accomplished. For some of the more popular Gamecube games, this has brought to mind the idea of $20 and $30 Wii versions, and hey, lets be honest. Most of us would probably drop down $20 for a copy of Mario Sunshine, and most of us would drop down $30 for a Wii version of Resident Evil 4.

[Rowne]

Definitely sounds like Nintendo's onto a marketing winner and even if they don't win as much as they expect to on the innovation front, I think that the draw of casual gaming, especially with virtual console and the possibility of returning to armchair computing and archaic home computer prices (something I hadn't considered ... and such a golden age it was too) would pull in a number of people.

If the SDK is easy to use, it might mean that Nintendo could seize up a sizable chunk of the Indie and more liberal in distribution Asian developers.  I notice they already have Ntreev under their wing, remaking Pangya for the Wii.  If Pangya also plays online then I'll be a very happy man.

I recently read an article in Games™ about how the Wii might not be embraced due to the niche nature of it.  I can't help but feel that that article was a tad short sighted and whilst it did cite one or two niche titles that weren't overly popular, it blatantly ignored titles like Katamari Damacy which were.  I think that Nintendo is going to take up the niche market that Sega held with the Dreamcast as their first strike on the market, which is something they started doing with the Gamecube but with all the support they're getting, it can go so far beyond that.

I can honestly see that fans of Indie gaming (such as myself) would buy a Wii simply for the Indie support, if that's going to be a big thing.  As you said, the system they're employing sounds to be Steam-like, in which case that makes it easy for a developer to digitally distribute their wares and mark the kind of price that they would find acceptable.  With all the evidence, the Wii could see the birth of a new market for Indie games and a new launch platform for them to gain a new audience.  Live Arcade has done this to an extent but again, the price point has made it not as successful as it could've been.  The Wii might do right what MS has done wrong in all counts and we might see a platform that isn't the PC/Mac experiencing an Indie software boom.  And I salivate at that thought, I really do.

Of course, I realize that not all of these little hopes of mine might be realized but Nintendo are closer to achieving them than any other company has been thus far.  And considering the intermix of the Wii-mote and the underground point'n click movement, we might finally see a true rebirth of the adventure gaming genré.

Flights of fancy, sure.  But I can hope.

[insanekaosx]

And what's wrong with that?  Damn, to actually get a full RPG out of Pokemon for a change was a breath of fresh air.  You're asking Nintendo to take a step back now?

No, see, I love the RPG, its great. But sometimes, I just want to battle. Why have to go through all the rpg bits of the game, find a trainer, etc etc, when I can just pull out STadium and just start kicking ass?

[Jack McSlay]

I can honestly see that fans of Indie gaming (such as myself) would buy a Wii simply for the Indie support, if that's going to be a big thing.  As you said, the system they're employing sounds to be Steam-like, in which case that makes it easy for a developer to digitally distribute their wares and mark the kind of price that they would find acceptable.  With all the evidence, the Wii could see the birth of a new market for Indie games and a new launch platform for them to gain a new audience.  Live Arcade has done this to an extent but again, the price point has made it not as successful as it could've been.  The Wii might do right what MS has done wrong in all counts and we might see a platform that isn't the PC/Mac experiencing an Indie software boom.  And I salivate at that thought, I really do.

I hope so too. I really look forward to Wii's software development features, as well.
As far as I know all the independent developers will get is SDKs for creating only games based on the Virtual Console consoles, but I hope they will also add Wiimote functionality, it will be a big loss if we're still stuck to the SNES-like controller.

My guess is that mos people will use the N64 sdk, simply Z80 sounds evil. I think only people who want to show their programming skills will develop for older consoles.

And if the rumors that the Wii will run Dreamcast games come true then I don't think we'll need anything else. Nintendo should do so, it's a wise choice since DC is currently the most popular console among independent developers.

[Rowne]

Indeed, couldn't have said it better myself.

The current attitude really seems to be to map the PC's distribution hierarchy that's working so well for startup developers these days to a console.  Personally I'm looking forward to seeing the likes of Head Over Heels with N64 level graphics for $8 and all.  I already said that this could pull on board a good chunk of the Indie scene but it hadn't occurred to me that the freeware scene might find this intriguing too ... and being a deployer across countries, this could even pull on board a number of Japanese freeware developers.

We could see a true rebirth of the humble shmup and the 2D beat 'em up.  Gareeku should be doing backflips about now.  Well he should, I know I am.

We all know what the flat, fixed rate is for the consumer (and those are pretty prices) but I hope that Nintendo will be good to the seller aswell, not taking most of the money in the transaction, as that would really put off developers.  In every attempt to do this in the past, it's always been royalties and hefty fees that has turned off the indie developer.  I realize of course that Nintendo isn't the same company as it was when it was operating under the vision of Yamauchi so this might just be a pointless worry.

Anyway, just tossing in my current, random thoughts on this again.

Yay, Head Over Heels 3D.  I want Sabre Wulf 3D too!

[Tapewolf]

Yay, Head Over Heels 3D.  I want Sabre Wulf 3D too!

Have you ever seen the Linux version of HoH?

[The Lurking Dragon]

I dunno about the next gen console stuff, but I must be defective in some way because I've never managed to get the hang of the Gamecube controller.    It's the only system I've run into to give me so many problems. Am I alone in this? Also, on a related note, will the Wii let you use other controllers than that odd looking one that comes with it?
Pardon my derailment.

[Jack McSlay]

dunno about 3d on indy games, with the current situation of graphics, N64-esque graphics may not be hot for most people. 2d on the other hand, the N64 SDK has enough horsepower to do so, anyone who's witnesses the beauty of games such as paper mario, Wonder Project j2 or Neon Genesis Evangelion should be able to confirm that.

obviously there will be good 3d games as well, but I have a feeling 2d ones will end up being most popular

I dunno about the next gen console stuff, but I must be defective in some way because I've never managed to get the hang of the Gamecube controller.    It's the only system I've run into to give me so many problems. Am I alone in this? Also, on a related note, will the Wii let you use other controllers than that odd looking one that comes with it?
Pardon my derailment.

don't worry, the Wii controller comes on 3 flavors: the most widely known remote, the classic controller which looks like a SNES controller with 2 extra analogs and the option to use gamecube controllers

[KarlOmega1]

well, I know I'm not getting one...I mean 600 (Censored) dollars? I could buy a 360 or Wii and have money left to buy games with that amount of cash! and another thing...Ol' Kenny saying that the price is too cheap?! What the Heck?!!

[Rowne]

Jack: It was more shameless promotion of old Spectrum games (I did love them dearly) as opposed to really wanting to see them in 3D.  Though 3D with a fixed perspective would be nice for the Spectrum isometric titles.  But no, I was more thinking of just graphical spitshines for those old wonders, enough so that the kids of today might get into them.  Then everything will finally come full circle.

Tape: Of course I have!  At least, if you're refering to this.  It's very pretty.

[Tapewolf]

Jack: It was more shameless promotion of old Spectrum games (I did love them dearly) as opposed to really wanting to see them in 3D.  Though 3D with a fixed perspective would be nice for the Spectrum isometric titles.

Tape: Of course I have!  At least, if you're refering to this.  It's very pretty.

Yep, that's the one.  I was pondering that for the 'what game' thread, but I said I wouldn't use anything I'd done myself.  (Although technically I didn't write it - it was mostly a recompile with a few tweaks)

I'm not really sure there's much you could do to improve on HoH - a 3D view would kind of kill it.  Sabrewulf might work, although it would perhaps make it feel even more dated than it does already.

[Rowne]

Yeah, that's why I mentioned a locked 3D view though.  3D environment and models with real-time lighting and shadows but a locked camera position.  Think Klonoa.

----

But I do have to give props once again to that remake, it was really wonderful.  It'd be grand to see more like that.

[Slayer...]

I'm going to end up getting Wii on launch, and then Xbox360 for Christmas.  I already save up a good sum of money from my pay, and my birthday comes around in October, so I'm pretty much set.  All that remains now is getting the reservations.

[Saist]

I'm going to comment a bit on the development side of it.

The first is that the Wii Development kit is only $2000. That's it. The requirement to get a development kit is also pretty light. All you need is a licensed business with at least 3 employee's.

Now, there are some caveats to actually being the lowest class indie developer, such as you have to produce a certain amount of content by a certain amount of time, and that you may not retain full rights to the game. E.g., you create something that takes off like wildfire, Nintendo could reserve full rights to make a sequel or use your content how they want to.

Anyways, it's cheap to develop for the Wii, and Nintendo is aggressively courting independant developers to come to their developer relations with ideas.

An off the record conversation with a developer from Geist (N-space) also revealed another interesting tidbit. Licensing fees to produce a Nintendo published game, and get Nintendo to manufacture a WiiMote attachment are so low, that you could develop a full length game (10-12 hours of content), advertise it, box it, have it in retail (WalMart, Gamestop), sell for $40 (US), and generate a profit... with under 300,000 units... total.

If developers choose to limit themselves and just pursue Virtual Console distrobution only, another source reckoned that a 3 person team could probably generate a profit with a price tag of $15 and probably 50,000 units.

Now, keep in mind for a second here, exactly how high the budgets run from the likes of EA, Activision, Take2, and other developers. They are budgeting several million dollars per game, and need to sell several million units to make a profit. 

With the Wii, Nintendo is making Garage development a reality again.

Now, I do need to clarify Profit. When I saw Profit, I mean enough money left over for your own team to completely develop another game with no other outside funding.

[Paavo]

Damned. 

Well, but I kinda bought X0 for the meanwhile anyways. 

I would ask you to excuse me if my attitude is a little blunt here but $10 for a subpar Street Fighter II remake or an average arcade game seems a little much.

Subpar? Hyper SFII with online multiplayer, subpar?

I doubt any of the Wii ROMs will even be redesigned for multiplayer.

The first is that the Wii Development kit is only $2000. That's it.

Dude, the PS3 dev kit is free and the X0 dev kit is 99USD per year.

And the X0 has the marketplace to distribute games whilst the majority of their customers own a HD. Wii has 500Mb inner memory.

-_-

[Saist]

Dude, the PS3 dev kit is free and the X0 dev kit is 99USD per year.

And the X0 has the marketplace to distribute games whilst the majority of their customers own a HD. Wii has 500Mb inner memory.

-_-

um.

No.

The PS3 dev kit is not free. The PS3 used Operating System, Linux, is free, but the development kit itself is far from free. Rather, the Playstation3 development kit costs over $30,000, with some reports placing the Development Kit alone at $50,000

http://digitalbattle.com/2006/06/21/wii-development-kit-to-cost-1700/


And, really, what's with this X0 thing? Sorry, using AOL speak is not appreciated, and again, you are wrong.

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2006/03/22/microsoft-to-offer-xbox-360-dev-kit-for-100/

Now, have you actually bothered going to Microsoft's site? Say, here : http://www.xbox.com/en-us/dev/default.htm

And, maybe the forums? say, this thread : http://forums.xbox.com/2320902/ShowPost.aspx

And maybe, this thread: http://forums.xbox.com/6271057/ShowPost.aspx  I'm going to quote the relevant part since by this time, I'm fairly certain that you wish to remain ignorant

A bit further info.. 30th August they release the XNA assemblies - which are to be used inside Visual C# Express.
So yes you will have to know how to code in C#.

The inital release is just for PC/Windows development - but after holidays '06 they are releasing a version which will allow you to develop games on your 360.

If you then pay a fee of $99 you can share your games with other people who HAVE ALSO paid this $99.

This particular point is clarified in this page : http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/xna/faq/

To make sure that you can't remain ignorant, I am going to again, quote the relevant part:

Q: How much will XNA Game Studio Express/XNA Framework cost?
A: The XNA Game Studio Express tools and runtime environment for Windows is completely free. To develop, debug and/or play games on the Xbox 360 you will be required to purchase a XNA "Creator's Club" subscription on the Xbox 360 through Xbox Live Marketplace. The subscription is available in 2 options, $99 a year or $49 for 4 months.

The thing is, the Official Microsoft Xbox 360 development kit costs over $10,000 dollars. That's the kit that major developers use, and those who want to optimize their games for the platform.

The problem with software development kits like XNA ( http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/XNA/default.aspx ), is that you don't get hands on with the hardware.  When you purchase the Official Development Kit, you get the Actual console, and the libraries and toolkits that were designed for the console.

So, $30,000 to $50,000 for Playstation3.

$10,000+ For Xbox 360

-$2000 for Nintendo Wii.

Which is cheaper?

Now, to address your next blunder, after correcting your abbreviation.

And the Xbox 360 has the marketplace to distribute games whilst the majority of their customers own a HD. Wii has 500Mb inner memory.

Sadly, neither point is true. The first is that the majority of Xbox customers do have a harddrive, because it came in the system. The Xbox 360 though, according to Microsoft at Leipizig, is under probably 40% on the harddrive, the reason being that the Core Bundle, the bundle without the harddrive, sold more units than the Premium bundle. The sale of add-on harddrives after that hasn't been enough to make up the difference between the sales of the Core bundles and the Premium bundles.

You can get the harddrive here though : http://www.gamestop.com/product.asp?product%5Fid=802117

The other point where you are wrong is that the Wii is stuck at 512 memory. Keep in mind, the Wii will have an SD card drive built into the unit, so unlike the Gamecube memory card adapter, this time around that functionality will be useful. In the case of WiiConnect24, many of the discussed offtime loading plans count on users having SD memory cards to save to. Then you have to consider the USB 2.0 ports, which according to a SquareEnix developer (talking about the next "Crystal Chronicles" can accept USB memory sticks and probably USB hard-drives.

So, passing Nintendo off as though they haven't thought about the external, or internal storage, or how you can use that storage... Like your abbreviation for Xbox 360, it doesn't work.

Now, the final point I'm going to make is over this particullar line:

I doubt any of the Wii ROMs will even be redesigned for multiplayer.

You seem to have missed the point here. Nintendo, Sega, NEC, Atari, Midway, Tecmo, and all the other publishers and developers behind NES, SNES, N64, Dreamcast, Saturn, SegaCD, Genesis, Sega32X, TurboGraphix 16, and other consoles are not promising to remix or remake their games. They are simply making those games available, un-modified, for the general public.

I am very confused as to how you would confuse the aim of the Virtual Console with the remix games available on Xbox Live.

As to using Multiplayer on there, it's not exactly very hard. ZSNES has offered NetPlay for SNES games for several years now ( http://www.zsnes.com/index.php?page=features ).

Accomplishing Netplay isn't very hard. All you do is map the second player controls to another console over a TCP/IP connection. That was already being done with the Sega Genesis and the Super Nintendo back in 1992 by a 3rd party who offered a phone modem connection for both consoles. Back then they were able to get netplay working on 4baud phone modems. Nintendo's Wii is a broadband device.

When you actually stop and take a look at the history of taking Cart games multiplayer, yes, Hyper SFII is subpar, whether or not you like to admit that.

[Paavo]

No. Unreliable sources & quotage.

Try again, but next time write a longer post. 

[Saist]

No. Unreliable sources & quotage.

Try again, but next time write a longer post. 

wow. You just called Microsoft's own site unreliable?

You are an idiot. Reporting your post to the mods.

*alright, I just dropped a line that Paavo is trolling. Going to make the advisement from this point that we don't feed this troll*

[Paavo]

No. Unreliable sources & quotage.

Try again, but next time write a longer post. 

wow. You just called Microsoft's own site unreliable?

You are an idiot. Reporting your post to the mods.

Official forums are as reliable as any nonoffial forum out there, aka bullshittery.

And please don't go tell the teacher on me! I REPRT U! REPORTING; REPORTING!

What a fag, lolz. 

Edit: FEED ME! FEED THE TROLL NOW!  It's funny, everytime some random idiot like isn't hearing what he want's to hear, they use the troll card. 

[Jack McSlay]

Now, there are some caveats to actually being the lowest class indie developer, such as you have to produce a certain amount of content by a certain amount of time, and that you may not retain full rights to the game. E.g., you create something that takes off like wildfire, Nintendo could reserve full rights to make a sequel or use your content how they want to.

dunno... http://www.warioworld.com/ still doesn't show up any word about what is the license for the independent developer, so this concept, even if it has been said by an inportant nintendo imployee, may not be final or official.

depending on the details, something on these roots might scare independent developers instead of attracting them