Video Games

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 2:58 am

votm wrote:Hey, I'm sure the people who loved Firefly would have preferred it if more people loved that show than if Joss Whedon made a run-of-the-mill reality show.

But now they're getting into a territory where they're saying that people should change their tastes to fit into their group rather than changing [the group's] tastes to include people into it. Then you're blaming others for not liking what you're selling. This is absolute poison to any industry, but especially the entertainment industry.

Right now, science fiction/animation/video games are looked down upon by the 'mainstream'. I think that for science fiction and animation the scorn is undeserved because those genres are trying (and with greater success) to earn fans. I'm not so sure what video games' problems are--aren't you guys happy that at least there are people picking up video games? Why does it have to be specific ones?

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 2:59 am

Yeah, but you'd think that game publishers would think that since a game sold for a family system like the Wii they should sell it for the PS3. And yet they don't.

But the demographic that owned first gen 360s and PS3s were only half core gamers. And so the publishers left the remainder out in the cold.

Pisses me off. My mom bought a PS3 to watch movies. And she does. But do they bother selling her games? No!

-Crissa

PS, Sony doesn't really make 'PS3 games'. They have a couple games divisions - several. But only one is really focused on making PS3 games, and they mostly end up with technological demos. They don't make that many games compared to Nintendo or Microsoft, and they don't have the licensing requirements of multiplayer or LIVE content required like Wii and Xbox.

NativeJovian · Post by **NativeJovian** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 3:20 am

Crissa wrote:My mom bought a PS3 to watch movies. And she does. But do they bother selling her games? No!

This is part of the reason why the PS3 did so poorly. It was the cheapest blu-ray player on the market for quite some time (though I'm not sure if it still is anymore, with the recent price drop). The standard tactic is to sell your console at a loss and then make your money back on games -- but a lot of people buying PS3s weren't buying games, and never had any intention of doing so! That combined with the fact that the PS3 was the most expensive of the next-gen consoles to produce by far, and was correspondingly sold at the greatest loss, meant that for a very long time Sony was hemorrhaging money on PS3 sales.

violence in the media · Fri Sep 25, 2009 3:26 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:
votm wrote:Hey, I'm sure the people who loved Firefly would have preferred it if more people loved that show than if Joss Whedon made a run-of-the-mill reality show.
But now they're getting into a territory where they're saying that people should change their tastes to fit into their group rather than changing [the group's] tastes to include people into it. Then you're blaming others for not liking what you're selling. This is absolute poison to any industry, but especially the entertainment industry.

Right now, science fiction/animation/video games are looked down upon by the 'mainstream'. I think that for science fiction and animation the scorn is undeserved because those genres are trying (and with greater success) to earn fans. I'm not so sure what video games' problems are--aren't you guys happy that at least there are people picking up video games? Why does it have to be specific ones?

Dude, we're discussing preferences here, and it is naturally my preference that more people would come to like the things that I do rather than me discovering a previously unknown love of whatever. I know that my view irrational, selfish, and in the minority, but that's okay. I'm not meaning to convey that I'm boiling over with nerdrage about this. It's more of a wishful thinking sort of thing. If I had an extra wish lying around from my magic efreeti factory, I'd rather have the next Silent Hill game be peerlessly awesome and wildly, cross-demographically popular.

Why is this so hard to understand? Why do you have such beef with this position?

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 5:10 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:
votm wrote:That thing where everyone was astonished that old folks were playing Wii Sports? That would have been way more awesome if they were playing GTA, DoA, or Gears of War.
l
And while we're at it, wouldn't it just be awesome if Star Trek had a resurgence in popularity among pre-teen girls and the 18-25 year old black male demographic really started grokking Twilight?!

I don't know about you, but seeing a gangsta looking black dude squeeing over Bella/Nissa/whoever would be glorious to me.

"My bling be sparklin' like Edward in the sunlight [EDITED]!"

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 7:13 am

NativeJovian wrote:The standard tactic is to sell your console at a loss and then make your money back on games

Only recently. In the past, this was very much not the case, but Sony* forced Sega** to do it with the Saturn (because they saw the PSX in action, and went "Fuck, we have sprites, they have polygons... and they're not Nazis to game producers so more people will work with them"). Then Sony*** went and did the same thing just to be dicks/to ensure victory.

*Japanese word meaning "Satan", according to Sega and Nintendo
**Japanese word meaning "Compulsive liar"
***who had actual factories producing all their own parts, whereas Sega and Nintendo were buying their hardware from a third party... often the same one, much like an arms dealer selling to both Israel and Palestine.

NativeJovian · Post by **NativeJovian** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 3:42 pm

For a certain definition of "recently", I guess. That was three console generations and 15 years ago, man. It's been the status quo for a while.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 4:12 pm

Shit, it really has been that long, hasn't it?

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 7:59 pm

One of these days, I'm going to remember to save often in the Omega Dungeon in FFX.

Seriously, I'd captured a few new critters, got some sweet items,/ racked up a quarter-million Gil, found the last Al Bhed Primer, and got taken out by enemies that spammed confusion effects./

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Sun Sep 27, 2009 10:39 pm

Actually, game consoles haven't been sold at a loss since, excepting Xbox's original release.

-Crissa

Parthenon · Post by **Parthenon** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 1:28 am

Errr.... can we have some evidence for that statement Crissa? Its a commonly held assumption that they do sell at a loss, with figures such as the PS3 losing $240 per console being thrown about.

[url=http://www.mydigitallife.info/2008/12/25/sony-ps3-lost-50-per-console-unit-sold-in-market/ wrote:first google result stating numbers[/url]]During that time, a new console was sold at $599 but with the cost of $840, Sony needs to bear $241 loss per console pushed to consumer market. The research company further disclosed that with the PS3 selling price of $399 and a cost price of $448 now, it still makes a significant loss of $50 per unit.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 1:33 am

More FFX stuff:

I have four of the seven Celestial Weapons fully unlocked.

The butterflies were a bitch, but the Chocobo races were insane. For about forty minutes I tried to beat a time of 0.7 seconds, and finally succeeded when every bird that appeared decided it hated the other racer more than me. 16 balloons, 36 seconds, and didn't get hit once.

I'm not relishing the rest of them. I tried lightning dodging and made it to 79 (I checked the book) before I blinked at the wrong moment.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 3:44 am

Well, 'evidence'?

You'll have lots of 'evidence' to the contrary, but none of it is authoritative. We don't know the contracts Sony has to make their systems. However, you do have their legal statements that they do not sell below the cost. Which are far fewer in number.

The only way to 'prove' it would be to bring lawsuit against them and then through discovery.

-Crissa

Murtak · Post by **Murtak** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 9:22 am

Maxus wrote:More FFX stuff:

I have four of the seven Celestial Weapons fully unlocked.

The butterflies were a bitch, but the Chocobo races were insane. For about forty minutes I tried to beat a time of 0.7 seconds, and finally succeeded when every bird that appeared decided it hated the other racer more than me. 16 balloons, 36 seconds, and didn't get hit once.

I'm not relishing the rest of them. I tried lightning dodging and made it to 79 (I checked the book) before I blinked at the wrong moment.

Gods I hated some of these. I liked the game overall, but parts of it were apparently designed to make you hate it. I still can't fathom why those parts were ever designed, much less how they made it into the final game. The Dark Aeons or insanely difficult optional bosses, sure. Difficult parts in general, fine. But that damn chocobo race basically amounts to winning a war against your controller while winning a dozen toin cosses in a row. Lightning is just mind-numbingly boring and requires your full attention at the same time. The butterflies are just as bad. Memory is not all that fun by itself, but couple it with a time limit and again a small war again your controller and it just stinks. While I'm ranting who the fuck decides to put vital treasure chests in off-screen areas? Heck, who the fuck puts treasure chests in obscure locations in sequences where according to the story you are supposed to be in a hurry?

Don't get me wrong, it's still a good game, but some parts are just frustrating. Dodging stuff in an otherwise non-realtime game is already bad design, but doing it with some of the worst controls since early 386 games just stinks. I would have preferred to have a more difficult challenge, but one where I can see what is coming and where I can actually precisely control my movement.

In short: give me difficult any time of the day but don't give me frustrating, ever.

Parthenon · Post by **Parthenon** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 9:54 am

I've just spent 15-20 minutes trying to find any of these legal statements and I've found nothing. The only things are commentators saying that consoles don't sell at losses, and that if you break it down by costs they don't lose money.

However, since I haven't seen any actual breakdowns of cost - the only one I've seen linked is no longer available - you just end up with people saying the exact opposite as well.

In fact, I just found this:

[url=http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6808050.ece wrote:Times Online interview with Sony Chairman and Group CEO Kazuo Hirai[/url]]It’s well known that Sony loses money on every PS3 it sells. Will that still be the case with the new machine?
If you're just talking about the hardware alone, the quick answer is yes. That makes good headlines, but I don't actually know that that's the true nature of the business that we're all in, whether it's PlayStation, Xbox or the Wii.

This is from Sony's CEO, so its pretty much from the horse's mouth, although it may just be the PS3 Slim he's talking about.

I would love for consoles not to be sold at a loss, but so far I can't find it.

Count Arioch the 28th · Mon Sep 28, 2009 2:47 pm

Parthenon wrote:Errr.... can we have some evidence for that statement Crissa? Its a commonly held assumption that they do sell at a loss, with figures such as the PS3 losing $240 per console being thrown about.

She doesn't technically need to this time, any more than she needs to cite sources that fighters are underpowered or that the easter bunny actually doesn't exist. The idea of consoles being sold as a loss is a faerie tale. they're sold very close to production costs, but they don't lose anything.

Count Arioch the 28th · Mon Sep 28, 2009 2:52 pm

Maxus wrote:More FFX stuff:

I have four of the seven Celestial Weapons fully unlocked.

The butterflies were a bitch, but the Chocobo races were insane. For about forty minutes I tried to beat a time of 0.7 seconds, and finally succeeded when every bird that appeared decided it hated the other racer more than me. 16 balloons, 36 seconds, and didn't get hit once.

I'm not relishing the rest of them. I tried lightning dodging and made it to 79 (I checked the book) before I blinked at the wrong moment.

Lightning dodging is easier when you analyze the challenge.

Dodging itself is easy, but there are two factors that are impacting the challenge:

1. The sound will throw you off by having lightning effects which are hard to tune out, also random encounters will flash the screen. Pushing the X button during either will ping the anti-mash effects and make you unable to dodge the next bolt.

2. Pure fatigue.

The trick is first turning the sound down and having an item that gives the No Encounters ability equipped. The second is to dodge 10-20 bolts, then pause the screen and do something else, even if you're not tired yet. Go outside, play with your cat, do anything that doesn't involve looking at the screen or reading. Let your eyes rest up.

I did mine while cleaning the house, I dodged 10 bolts then spent 10-20 minutes doing housework. By the end, I had gotten 220 bolts (error in my accounting system, I thought I had 200) and the item.

I'm replaying the game, and what I'm not looking forward to is getting Wakka's crap. I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE blitzball. I hate playing it, and the computer is a cheating bastard.

Murtak · Post by **Murtak** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 3:44 pm

Count_Arioch_the_28th wrote:I'm replaying the game, and what I'm not looking forward to is getting Wakka's crap. I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE blitzball. I hate playing it, and the computer is a cheating bastard.

Blitzball is easy if you play a certain way. When you get to that point and can't quickly find a guide for yourself PM me and I will see if I can find the guide that helped me.

Count Arioch the 28th · Mon Sep 28, 2009 3:53 pm

Murtak wrote:
Count_Arioch_the_28th wrote:I'm replaying the game, and what I'm not looking forward to is getting Wakka's crap. I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE blitzball. I hate playing it, and the computer is a cheating bastard.
Blitzball is easy if you play a certain way. When you get to that point and can't quickly find a guide for yourself PM me and I will see if I can find the guide that helped me.

Alright, how can I get all the crap for Wakka without playing 27 blitz games? Winning the games is trivial, I just think the game sucks.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 4:13 pm

I hated that dumb minigame, and just decided the solution was to not put Wakka in my team whenever I could help it, as he was stupid and annoying anyway.

Murtak · Post by **Murtak** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 4:19 pm

Count_Arioch_the_28th wrote:Alright, how can I get all the crap for Wakka without playing 27 blitz games? Winning the games is trivial, I just think the game sucks.

27? You are willing to take an afternoon to get that dumb lightning thing but don't want to play 27 games? I think my guide hat a 21 game limit minimum, so I am afraid it's not going to get much better.

Well, at least Wakka's weapon is good, if I remember correctly.

Count Arioch the 28th · Mon Sep 28, 2009 4:24 pm

Yes. I find hitting the X button to a flash of light 200 times in a row to be less tiring than playing even one game of blitzball.

A Hammer · Post by **A Hammer** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 5:35 pm

So apparently they've actually gone and released a restoration mod for Knights of the Old Republic II.

http://www.deadlystream.com/showthread.php?t=339

Naturally, I can't actually manage to install the game, for some reason. Joy.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 5:45 pm

Count_Arioch_the_28th wrote:Yes. I find hitting the X button to a flash of light 200 times in a row to be less tiring than playing even one game of blitzball.

I tried Blitzball and I'm wondering how the hell you can win without extensive recruiting. I mean, the other teams have numbers so big it isn't funny. I can understand that the Al Bhed have large technical stats, but when the goalie has 18 in his catching stat at, like, level 3 or 4? That's ridiculous.

I tolerated the Chocobo Races a little better when I realized that it's a rail race--you will always keep moving forward, and all you can do is angle left or right as you go along.

The butterfly games were just trial and error. Once I figured out that the red butterfly hit detection is narrow as long as you're on the correct side of the path, it turned into trying to take the most efficient route. And figuring out how to get past that bunch of red butterflies at the end of the southern route (Don't try to cut the corner, go the outside of the bend). Now that I think about it, I have a knack for that sort of trial and error stuff--to this day, I can get all the chaos emeralds in Sonic 3 and Sonic and Knuckles, due to extensive effort when I was a lot younger. After a bit of reminding, muscle memory starts kicking in....

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 5:57 pm

In the Chocobo races you can also cheat by holding the shoulder buttons to regain stamina really quickly.