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| DKW
182th Post
 
Regular Customer
   
|  "Re(1):Billy's at it again"
, posted Mon 4 Nov 10:29:
Sheesh, they must really be desperate. I knew that international appeal would be a problem for this company but this...
The strange thing is, I've seen the X-Box, and it really is a good system. Its power is without question, and the game selection is limited but definitely improving. But no matter how good the system is, you cannot waltz into a market and expect to instantly own the place...especially a market as polarizing as console gaming.
I suspect that a few years down the road, they're really, really going to regret not pushing hard for 3rd party development and getting as wide a variety of games as possible. There's a reason PS2 modchips are so popular, you know.
Oh, and "Xander" is simply an alternate form of Alexander (likewise, Topher = Christopher). My only hope is that it becomes common enough not to be subjected to endless teasing at school.
homepage - http://home.hawaii.rr.com/dkwff
[this message was edited by DKW on Mon 4 Nov 10:33] |
| crom
23th Post
New Customer
| "I'm really starting to HATE the x-box..." , posted Mon 4 Nov 10:36
The way Microsoft trys to sell the x-box is beyond reasoning:
1. The cheap way:a) DoA:Beach Volleyball- in allready four interviews, the main programmer (that awfully ugly guy) has mentioned that there "might be a topless-mode". Why bug with a topless mode I say! Do it all-nude you sick bastard.b) N.U.D.E.- yeah right.
2. The gestapo buy everybody out-trick- first Bungie, now Rare. They tried to buy nintendo, they will try to buy capcom, and maybie even sega. You can argue that talent can be bought, but I still think that talent should be descovered.
3. The awfull "life-style" shit- if you have seen the promo-DVD, I'm talking about that "hear, see &feel more promotion- why not send a hooker with every x-box you ship Billy-boy?
"you are so cool with an x-box crap" is a actually a boomerang, everybody who has seen the brute-force promo should agree.
All in all, having to deal with microsoft on my PC is enough, I don't need 'em plugged to my TV too...
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| Juan 2550th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
    
    
    
    
| "Re(3):I'm really starting to HATE the x-box.." , posted Mon 4 Nov 14:29:
I dont have anything against the Xbox (it just doesnt have enough things that i like at the moment.) But that move made me horribly angry, I even remember magazine ads advertising the dreamcast version. If they wanted to lure the DC user base by moving shenmue to the box, well, bad move, didnt move me.
On the bright side it wasnt a total loss since the European version has Japanese voices with english subtitles, the dialog seemed less cheesy than the one on the first US Shenmue.
On the not so bright side, i really doubt they will make another Shenmue chapter.
  
CHIN
GA
DO
KEN!
quote:
I think the difference here is that Microsoft, rather than buy up a smaller third party, bought up a company with the sole objective of stopping it from being released on Mac or PC formats, or when Sega mysteriously cancelled the Dreamcast release of Shenmue 4 weeks before the day it was supposed to come out.
http://www.buttermonster.com*updated!*
[this message was edited by Juan on Mon 4 Nov 14:31] |
| Genjuro 267th Post
Copper Customer
| "Re(2):I'm really starting to HATE the x-box.." , posted Mon 4 Nov 14:30
quote:
2. The gestapo buy everybody out-trick- first Bungie, now Rare. They tried to buy nintendo, they will try to buy capcom, and maybie even sega. You can argue that talent can be bought, but I still think that talent should be descovered.
I'm sick of hearing this one.
Every game console company buys out other companies. It's a strategy to make sure there are some good exclusive games, because you can't trust 3rd party companies to stay loyal due to the cutthroat nature of business.
Sure but with Microsoft it's different.Everyone seems to hate the "bullish" attitude that microsoft has,even on the console market that they just entered-they're beginners.And it's not like Bill Gates needs to expand his buiseness-how much more money does he want!?
That said,Xbox is the best console in specs,no arguying that,and they were really smart in implementing some things(HD,60Hz compatibility for all regions-DAMN you SONY! ).hey also gathered some exclusives and support from many companies(though not from the top 3)What is really surprising is seeing Bill Gates himself trying to promote his console..sure,a lot of money are thrown into it,but it's not like he will go out of buiseness if the xbox fails(which it propably will)
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| Radish 496th Post
Gold Customer
| "Re(4):I'm really starting to HATE the x-box.." , posted Mon 4 Nov 19:24
quote:
Maybe I'm playing Devils Advocate here, but what are Microsoft exactly doing that Sony haven't already done?
A generation or two ago Sony was a hardware maker with the audacity to enter the video game industry in a cynical profit driven move for market dominance backed with bundles of cash, and changed the face of video gaming. Unlike Sega and Nintendo they didn't make games, they just bought existing studios to make niche titles and marketed the hell out of their system with bizarre promotions and publicity stunts.
How many Dreamcast games never saw the light of day because of Sony? At least Shenmue 2 in America was a decision on Sega's part to give it a better chance at success. (being in Australia I've got the Euro version so maybe it's not such a sore point for me)
Call me crazy, but I like my XBox and looking forwards to the lineup, and am simply confused that while Sony is regarded as the plucky all round good guy, if Microsoft performs a publicity stunt it's reported as "desperate failing console attempts lame grasp at sales" and when Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo team up to sue a modchip distributor it's reported as "M$ kills Lik Sang".
Well, the Playstation along with the Saturn, ushered in the CD format (the 3DO and SegaCD hardly count) which dramatically changed gaming. The XBox is just a bunch of cheap PC parts stuck in a box. Sony was lucky and lured away (much different from buying successful RPG companies since cartridges couldn't hold large games full of text and FMV. This lead to a large shift in overall company support away from Nintendo and to Sony.
Microsoft entered the console market with the PC gamer attitude of "Our box has the best specs so therefore it's the most fun." They tried to buy out larger successful companies (Sega, Capcom) that I can only imagine felt somewhat insulted. While Sony certainly plays hardball and I can't say that their treatment of mod chipers and Bleem! makes me happy, they at least don't seem to have the intention of buying out companies to make them stop producing games, something that Microsoft has tried to do on several occasions (and succeeded with Halo and Shenmue.)
My biggest annoyance is that Microsoft entered the fray with the attitude that since they were Microsoft and could throw a bunch of money around, they could control the industry with half finished software and hostile takeovers.
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| kaepora
45th Post
Rare Customer
|  "Of Hate and Hatred"
, posted Mon 4 Nov 20:34
quote:
Call me crazy, but I like my XBox and looking forwards to the lineup, and am simply confused that while Sony is regarded as the plucky all round good guy, if Microsoft performs a publicity stunt it's reported as "desperate failing console attempts lame grasp at sales" and when Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo team up to sue a modchip distributor it's reported as "M$ kills Lik Sang".
Sony is the "plucky all around good guy" because they became successfull during the Sega/Nintendo rivalry when no one else was. 3DO failed, Atari failed (again), NEC/TurboGrafx failed. Neo*Geo was successfull, but was more of a niche position; it wasn't in the same market as the big two. Sony succeeded in Sega and Nintendo's home turf. More importantly, they succeeded when very few people thought that they could. They were the underdog David to Sega and Nintendo's veteran Golliath.
Microsoft is in the same boat as Sony was, except that they are primarily known as a software/computer-related company as opposed to a general electronics company (like Sony was and still is). It's less of a leap to associate Microsoft with video games, especially when their console is pieced together from not-quite-off-the-shelf PC equipment.
Plus, people can actually imagine Microsoft being successfull in this market, which I don't think they could do when Sony jumped in. The fact that it's rather easy to see Microsoft as a major player takes away the "innocent underdog" status that Sony got to enjoy.
People know that Microsoft can be quite saavy when it comes to getting control of a market because they've already shown that they can. Windows is the de facto OS for most desktop PC's and almost any hardware will support Windows. Microsoft Office is the de facto standard for buisness software; everyone else needs to have Office compatibility or they won't have a chance at success.
I have my reasons to hate each comapny (including the ones without consoles of their own). None of them are more "evil" than the others, especially if you keep in mind that the primary goal of each company is success. I hear too many arguments that try to portray one side as "the people's company" that cares more about the happiness of it's customers than it does about it's success.
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| DKW
183th Post
Regular Customer
| "more" , posted Wed 6 Nov 12:40
My main beefs with Microsoft is that 1) it's a computer company 2) which has benefitted from a crushing monopoly which our federal government is too wimpy/apathetic/bought and paid for to challenge. Very few of us are rooting for a company that gets everything it damn wants. Furthermore, computer games (and this comes from many years of painful experience) are not like video games; it's a much smaller, more fanatical, and more forgiving market. (Can you imagine a group of console gamers laughing off a bug-stuffed "initial release" as something you just gotta live with?)
The PS2 has "mindless" arcade shooters like Silent Scope, easy-to-learn racing games like CART Fury, and at least one intuitive yet deep golf game, Swing Away Golf. Not to mention Unison, probably the most unusual game for any console in years. Believe it or not, there are lots of players who don't like stealing cars, working out 20-hit comobs, or managing a 12-person commando team during a raging battle. There are a lot of us who go for gameplay where every second isn't hell on earth, not to metion more than a few parents shopping for their kids. A console manufacturer with any sense will get as wide a variety of titles as possible and not focus obsessively on a few megahyped games that get a ton of press.
I'm not the least bit surprised the X-Box failed in Japan...I mean, for crying out loud, go to www.magicbox.com sometime and take a look at what these people actually play. It isn't all Grand Theft Auto and Tekken and Final Fantasy. Even the visionary Bemani games (which get nearly every stateside reviewer all wakcy) are straight-arrow mainstream compared to some of the offbeat titles I've seen.
The sad fact is that most of the rest of the world isn't as forgiving of corporate hegemony and dictating what the customer should like as America, and I'm not surprised that the X-Box has become a tough sell.
(P.S.: Count me in as someone who doens't understand why MS gets any blame for the modchip manufacturer shutdown...they're the ones with the least to gain from this. It's Sony who implemented the Byzantime dual-system system in the first place.)
homepage - http://home.hawaii.rr.com/dkwff
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| crom
27th Post
Rare Customer
| "Re(5):Of Hate and Hatred" , posted Fri 8 Nov 07:03
quote:
Although I recognise that a lot of the things you may say in defence of Microsoft sound convincing, I still find it a crying shame that Sega had to leave the hardware market, while MS was perniciously ^-^ entering it. It's as if your favourite soda/cigarettes/string brand had to stop production and was replaced by the MicrosoftTM "X-drink" or whatever . That's ironic, to say the least.
BTW, Nintendo sells many more consoles than Billou (as we call him in France) if you cumulate the sales of the cube and the GBA.
Exactly. Nintendo has build up the market, creating fantastic franchises, Sega brought us the arcade-feeling (and SNK too to some degree) and Sony expanded the industies userbase beyond the child/freak base and thats where Microsoft enters, throwing arround with their money- what is the x-box doing for the market right now? Yeah they came in with a bang (by buying Halo when it was allready famous-it's not like MS developed it from scratch) and since then they have only spent money by bying out companies and paying for exclusives.
I dunno, the whole attitude is as "bully" as it gets and for the sake of diversity that the gaming market is, I hope it wont work.
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| Omar
120th Post
Regular Customer
|  "Re(6):Of Hate and Hatred"
, posted Fri 8 Nov 15:11
quote:
Exactly. Nintendo has build up the market, creating fantastic franchises, Sega brought us the arcade-feeling (and SNK too to some degree) and Sony expanded the industies userbase beyond the child/freak base and thats where Microsoft enters, throwing arround with their money- what is the x-box doing for the market right now?
Games and giving gamers the posibility of even more games. Xbox live: Not right now, but soon.
I'm all for diversity. And more consoles in the market mean more diferent games (that is, not counting multiplataform games like Tony Hawk series or similar) to choose from.
quote:
I dunno, the whole attitude is as "bully" as it gets and for the sake of diversity that the gaming market is, I hope it wont work.
Let's not forget that Nintendo and Sony both have bought game companies as well.
For a sale to take place both sides must agree. So, when MS buys Rare, or Sony buys Psygnosis, or Nintendo buys, I dont know, Retro? it's because both side agree.
That's not acting like a bully in my book.
Purchase offers CAN be rejected. And Actually, in the case of Sega, Nintendo, and Square, the answer was "no". No harm done.
It occurs to me that an awful lot of trouble in Gotham City could have been averted a long time ago if Batman had just ripped the Joker's nipples off.
A man with the nipples ripped off him does not make the same mistakes twice.
I mean crime in Gotham City doesn't exactly seem to be affected by a man dressed as a bat flapping around the place. But no-one disobeys a man wearing a necklace of human nipples.
"I'm Batman" isn't cutting it in the striking-fear-into-their-hearts stakes. But "I'm Batman -- and I'm here for your nipples" is an entirely different proposition.
-- Warren Ellis
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"Re(1):Billy's at it again" 
