I know this for a fact because people are now accusing me of being a Microsoft shill. Of course this comes as a direct result of having expressed misgivings about PlayStation 3 combined with the fact that videogamers on the Internet are incapable of not seeing the world in terms of stark fanboyism and mindless advocacy.
In point of fact, I’m disinterested in all console systems equally. PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, even Revolution — I’m pretty sure I can’t play any of them on the bus, so what’s the point? Give me a built-in screen or give me death. Speaking of which, it’s finally safe to own a PSP; the good games have finally arrived. It only took, what, a year? Smashing.
Sony really does push a special kind of innovation with its hardware. The PlayStation and PS2 have conditioned us to accept that the first year of a console’s life offers very little in the way of actual reasons to own that machine; now the PSP has forced the same low initial expectations upon us in the handheld space. I think this is why the column linked above will ultimately amount to pointless musings rather than, say, prophecy. Sony constantly does everything wrong (or at least counter-intuitively) and invariably succeeds, and PS3 is shaping up to be the company’s biggest boneheaded blunder of all. Based on previous patterns, that means it’s going to conquer the gaming market and probably squeeze its competition out of business altogether.
That’s neither here nor there. The important thing to take away from all of this is that I am have nothing but blind loyalty to Microsoft. And don’t you forget it.
P.S., Anyone want a used PowerBook? I don’t need it anymore.
41 thoughts on “The apocalypse is upon us”
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You’d be surprised how few people accuse you of being a fanboy when you make sweeping statements like “Nintendo is going to own your soul one year from right now!” It’s only when you try to write fair and balanced articles that the fur starts flying.
I’ve gotta say that this recent decision by Sony to move the JP launch back to November has made me worry a bit, seeing as how the PS2 is the one that I get the most play out of my 3 systems right now. How likely do you think that this is just Sony calling out Microsoft and they’re going to attempt the worldwide launch thing too?
I doubt the delay has anything to do with posturing or proving a point. And personally, I’m glad for the rescheduling. I’ve never had a piece of Sony hardware that didn’t experience some sort of catastrophic failure, so I’m really hoping that the delay means they’ll subject the PS3 to something like quality assurance.
I dunno, I see what you mean about Sony springboarding from blunder, but still… even the biggest rubber band is going to have its breaking point. Time will tell if they’ve worn this one out.
I personally have a feeling they can probably dig deeper before they actually manage to FUBAR themselves.
My question is, will Sony’s delay affect Revolution? I sort of wonder if maybe Nintendo won’t deliberately position themselves so that, should PS3 supplies prove inadequate, they can reap the rewards of gamers scorned…
To put it another way, say Rev came out after XBox 360 hit, still in time for the holiday season. Would MS’s limited quantities have pushed irate gamers into Nintendo’s waiting hands?
LBD “Nytetrayn”
I can’t honestly say how I feel about the PS3 and Revolution because there are still far too many details left unsaid. How much are they? When are they coming out? And there’s also the fact that I have yet to get my hands on any games running on either of them…
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I like the Revolution in theory. It seems like an interesting concept that could make for some fantastic gameplay experiences, but without actually seeing the system in action, and getting an idea what its lineup looks like, it’s hard for me to say just how enthusiastic I should be about this. Yeah, it’ll be good for shooters and sports games, I can see that. But just what does it do for RPGs? Puzzle games? Platformers? Fighting games? I know Nintendo wants to create new genres and I’m down with that, but if the system is going to reproduce the success of the DS, I would think that it’ll support standard genres as well, and I just don’t see it doing that without the “shell”, and with the shell, well, what’s the point? Still, if it’s as cheap as they say it is, sign me up. If it’s actually under the $200 mark, I’d be more than happy to buy it just for the niche stuff. Hell, that’s pretty much what the GameCube was.
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The PS3, on the other hand… well, at the moment it’s hard to peer through the smoke and mirrors to see the substance of the thing, but if there’s truth to the rumors… a $500 system in 2007 that’s not much more powerful than an Xbox 360? Aside from the fact that I’ll HAVE to buy it to play games like Metal Gear Solid 4, why on Earth would I spend my dollars on that? Unless Sony turns around and surprises everyone, that’s all they’ll have going for them – third-party support. But even there, the 360 is no slouch (heck, Microsoft is actually getting decent support from Capcom and Konami this time around), and I honestly wonder how much I’d be willing to pay for this thing. $400? Well, no, I already have one $400 behemoth. $300? Well, if I have it to spare… when I was writing the massive PS3 article for 1UP, I was surprised and impressed by the sheer number of titles that had been announced for it, but now that that’s subsided, I find myself realizing that most of those games were either announced for both the PS3 and the 360, or were Japanese oddities that won’t even be released here.
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The Xbox 360 has the advantage of being the only machine that’s actually tangible at the moment, but I’m not sure I would own one right now if it weren’t a gift. $400 is really pricey, and most of the games have failed to impress me as an actual leap over the previous generation. After games like Metal Gear Solid 3, the Splinter Cell titles, Forza, Gran Turismo 4, Burnout 3 & 4… well, the next-generation doesn’t feel quite so next-y. I suppose I’ll soon have my 360 system-seller in the form of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, but at the same time I kinda’ feel it’s a bit weak to call a game a system-seller when you can also get it on the PC. If nothing else, I’m quite pleased with what Microsoft did with Xbox Live, although given that they’re making me pay $50/yr. for the service, it’s about time they do something incredible with it.
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Overall, I’m enthusiastic about parts of the “next-generation”, but as a whole I don’t see the point of spending $1000 for a new generation of hardware just yet.
“But just what does it do for RPGs? Puzzle games?”
That part was a joke, right Jake?
And, ” the next-generation doesn’t feel quite so next-y” Isn’t that what Nintendo’s been saying?
As for release–Nintendo’s said before Thanksgiving in the US. I know that isn’t a firm date, but until this morning everyone totally thought PS3 was coming here this Spring (see ga-forums if you don’t believe me). We DO know when Rev is coming out.
Which isn’t to say I’m discounting Microsoft. I actually want them to do well this time. I’m just really tired of Sony’s “Unsinkable Ship!” dogma–because Nintendo’s similar arrogance is the only reason Sony toppled them in the first place.
Well call me a cheapskate, but I am gonna say “yep” to wanting a used powerbook.
Of course I very much doubt you are being serious!
Tomm: No, I really don’t see what it does for RPGs and puzzle games, aside from freeing one of your hands to eat a taco while you play. As for the Rev’s release date, fair enough, but I was trying to say that the launch is still hazy (what’s the launch lineup? What will the price be?), so my general sentiment remains.
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Also, to claim that everyone totally thought the PS3 was coming out in Spring is a joke. Everyone BUT Sony thought they were going to delay the thing, including the head of Namco Bandai, Merill Lynch, Forbes, Friedman Billings Ramsey, and PC Magazine, as well as the majority of the world that doesn’t simply take Sony at their word (and I think I don’t need to say what group I’m discluding there).
Ooh! ooh! Typo. “that *I am have* nothing but blind loyalty to Microsoft” busted! Meh.
Anyways, I still think the PSP is about $100 short of being safe to own. Lumines pretty much filled the games bit up for me, but I just can’t get over that price point. Hell, right now, I’m wishing I could afford one of the smashing DS games around the bend.
Word to the uninformed gamer: Do not take up legitimate motorsport as a 2nd hobby, it will own your wallet.
You didn’t check ga-forum like I suggested. They are some of the most hateful, jaded gamers I’ve ever seen–and I’d say 60% + were shocked they wouldn’t be walking home with a PS3 in two months.
As far as the Rev, you’re forgetting the nunchaku attachment. It eliminates any need for that “shell” of yours.
I wouldn’t mind the used powerbook if it’s cheap.
Er, the PowerBook thing wasn’t serious. You know, I’m an MS fanboy, don’t need a Mac anymore, ha ha ha.
Oh, I didn’t realize “everyone” was supposed to mean “everyone that hangs out in crappy messageboards and just believes what Sony says instead of listening to every source of information that isn’t fueled by an obviously biased PR machine”, as opposed to “everyone that isn’t Sony, an unquestioning Sony devotee, or someone gullible to take Sony’s statements at face value”.
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And as for puzzles and RPGs on the Rev, I wasn’t trying to say that those genres wouldn’t be doable on the Rev. There’s just nothing noteworthy I can think of about them that the Rev will be able to do better than any other game system. It’s games like fighting games and other traditional titles that won’t work as well with it (and I’m sorry, but your argument for how Tony Hawk would work on the Rev was unconvincing).
Am I a bad person if I have never, ever, seen any kind of real-life Mac appliances -save for a fleeting glimpse of an iPod- in my entire life?
PowerBook thing a joke, eh? I just figured you had gotten a new MacBook.
I don’t care about home consoles either. I do like Microsoft, given the fact that all of my home gaming is done using a PC. But the only games I’ve been playing lately are Chessmaster 10th Edition and Battle for Wesnoth. My GBA still gets a fair ammount of use mostly due to Gradius Galaxies which is still awesome and Cima: The Enemy which is the best puzzle game ever conceived. I really don’t care about PSP or DS though. Everytime I play 3D I feel just like listening to rap music in the early nineties: Stupidly falling for trends I don’t really enjoy (again, story on how I bought a GameCube and then gave it away along with 17 games, blah blah blah, yes, I played PS2 and I still think Rygar for NES is much better than Rygar for PS2, blah blah blah, I also got to play Ninja Gaiden on XBOX and WHERE THE FUCK IS IRENE LEW FOR FUCKING CRYING OUT LOUD FUCK!).
You mean Irene wasn’t on that game? Then, what’s the point? And even though I enjoy some 3D games, I agree on its stupidish trendiness and the taste for 2D.
“In point of fact, I’m disinterested in all console systems equally. PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, even Revolution –”
You should be, or there won’t be another crash. ( http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/games/crash.html )
“Speaking of which, it’s finally safe to own a PSP; the good games have finally arrived. It only took, what, a year? Smashing”
If those are the good games, I’d hate to see the bad ones. Not that the ones you mentioned don’t have any appeal, but they don’t scream “must-have”, either.
“Sony constantly does everything wrong (or at least counter-intuitively) and invariably succeeds, and PS3 is shaping up to be the company’s biggest boneheaded blunder of all. Based on previous patterns, that means it’s going to conquer the gaming market and probably squeeze its competition out of business altogether”
Doubt it. The PS had the advantage of having better graphics and more exclusive games than N64 and Saturn, while the PS2 had the dvd player. The PS3 just has Snake in a walker. Plus Wired thinks Blu Ray is vaporware, anyway. ( http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70143-1.html?tw=wn_story_page_next1 )
LBD: “I dunno, I see what you mean about Sony springboarding from blunder, but still… even the biggest rubber band is going to have its breaking point.”
Like the people who bootlegged the hell out of Advent Children, cus Sony went against a simultaneous world release of the dvd.
“I sort of wonder if maybe Nintendo won’t deliberately position themselves so that, should PS3 supplies prove inadequate, they can reap the rewards of gamers scorned…”
I think there’ll be plenty of PS3s in stock, as long as they cost $900. Even the Japanese aren’t gonna pay that kind of money for one; and they bought the Neo Geo console!
“To put it another way, say Rev came out after XBox 360 hit, still in time for the holiday season. Would MS’s limited quantities have pushed irate gamers into Nintendo’s waiting hands?”
I think their overheated system might push gamers to buy a Rev.
Caspian: “The PS3, on the other hand… well, at the moment it’s hard to peer through the smoke and mirrors to see the substance of the thing, but if there’s truth to the rumors… a $500 system in 2007 that’s not much more powerful than an Xbox 360?”
$500 times 2.
“Aside from the fact that I’ll HAVE to buy it to play games like Metal Gear Solid 4,”
Why? So you can be disappointed for a third time?
Alltomorrow: “Stupidly falling for trends I don’t really enjoy (again, story on how I bought a GameCube and then gave it away along with 17 games,”
I sold most of my GC games at EB for credit, including the Zelda collection.
“I also got to play Ninja Gaiden on XBOX and WHERE THE FUCK IS IRENE LEW FOR FUCKING CRYING OUT LOUD FUCK!).”
Seriously. It’s like playing the arcade game: better graphics, but no plot.
Anyway, on to the article:
“The PlayStation was a surprise success,”
No it wasn’t, when you looked at the competition. I’d say the original NES was a bigger surprise, considering the market it was given.
“Once upon a time it was Nintendo who was reviled by publishers for its draconian third-party policies,”
To be fair, the policies did filter out the crap which was rampant on the Atari.
“who was criticized by its customers for over-promising and under-delivering on its hardware,”
I think software was the real issue.
“Atari more or less created the industry in the mid-70s, only to see its marketshare erode and give way to Nintendo in the mid-80s, who in turn fell behind Sony in the mid-90s. It’s been a decade since then, and Microsoft seems a lot hungrier for victory than Sony these days.”
If MS was hungrier for victory than Sony, it’d actually learn from its mistakes the first time around instead of repeat them. But then we’re talking about the company which gave us Windows. Methinks it’ll be Nintendo which makes a comeback, unless they cop out and dumb their content down for little boys again. I’m hoping their success with the DS has taught them they can win over adult and female gamers if they apply themselves.
Dude, how much are they paying you to recommend the Sony PSP? The thing is a piece of shit! I’m sorry, but massive loading times+ massive prices+ games that don’t make you wanna come back for more= a failed console. Everyone: sell your PSPs and buy every DS game your heart desires. I did, and I’ve never looked back.
uh, you know that Parish is the god high king of all DS supporters, right? and that he championed the system before anyone else, and well after folks had written it off stateside, and that he lives and dies by the dual screen?
He’s also a rockman whore, so the psp gets love.
honestly, Parish is the most platform agnostic person i know, as long as it’s portable.
incidendally, jeremy, i just got korokoro post nin.
Holy crap I called it in my earlier post, now backed up by 1up:
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3148775
You?
A Microsoft shill?
Does the daily grind of your job threaten to build up toxic levels of irony?
Gatsu: “Seriously. It’s like playing the arcade game: better graphics, but no plot.”
Exactly. Even though I liked the Ninja Gaiden arcade game, it’s the love story between Ryu and Irene what made Ninja Gaiden such an awesome game in the NES. I played through each hard as hell level to keep watching the story. And then, after level 6, after that hell, a kiss. That was awesome.
And the GC is in the hands of my 12 year old cousin as opposed to a greasy horrible nerd. I may not like 3D, but I still have a heart.
“Everytime I play 3D I feel just like listening to rap music in the early nineties: Stupidly falling for trends I don’t really enjoy”
Yeah, I feel the same way everytime I go to the movies and watch a talkie. I can’t wait till that stupid trend blows over.
Gatsu, if the PS3 releases at $900, I’ll eat my hat. That’s the projected COST of the system, not the projected PRICE. And aside from MGS2, that series has never disappointed me (and I’ve since come to better appreciate MGS2 for what it is).
Voices in games are awesome so talkies not quite the same as 3D. 3D is an overused and overabused way to do graphics in games, its a trend in videogames. Not the next step.
Animated movies are still awesome too. Those have never stop being made, so why stop making 2D games. I still think A Bugs Life is not as awesome as Howl’s Moving Castle.
That’s not fair, Shivam… I’m pretty sure I supported the DS at least a DAY before Parish. However, he wins points for admitting when Megaman games are crap.
ugh. howl’s moving castle is like the worst ghibli film ever.
But that doesn’t change his point, which is that it’s more awesome than A Bug’s Life.
Saying something is the worst Ghibli film ever is like saying “The worst Zelda” (not counting CD-i) or “The worst Super Mario Brothers.”
That said, Spirited Away is worst, imo.
Bull. Spirited Away is by far my favorite Ghibli film, as well as my favorite anime, peroid. Without having seen a few Ghibli films (the cat ones and Howl’s in particular), Id say the worst Ghibli film is Porco Rosso. To say the ending is anticlimatic is an understatement.
Yeah, my girlfriend gave Spirited Away for Valentine’s when it came out on DVD. So, knock it off, she cannot be wrong. That would undo the fabric of time and all matter in this particular universe.
Uh, she gave it to me, I mean.
Tomm: The worst Zelda games would be the Oracle of Seasons and Time for GBC with Windwaker a close second. Don’t have a worst Mario, game though. I agree that Spirited Away wasn’t all it was hyped up to be, but at least it didn’t peter out at the end, because Miyazaki let his producer rush it out the door so he could beat Harry Potter at the Japanese box office.
Caspian: I loved Porco Rosso when I was younger, but it definitely has not aged well, even though it’s technically a period piece, anyway. It’s kind of tough to feel sorry for a middle-aged man-pig who has nothing to lose, anyway. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas did a much better job of covering the same ground with Dr. Gonzo. But the worst Miyazaki anything is Future Boy Conan.
Juan: Your girlfriend likes anime? Cherish the ground she walks on and don’t let her get away. My last gf made me sit through the Borefest Club and gave me a, “I hate Asian cinema”, comment when I wanted her to watch my bootleg of Nausicaa.
Well I hate movies about whiny teens who smoke pot together and suddenly get along, which is also why I hate Trainspotting.
Yeah, she even gets the bootlegs before I do. I know, she’s a keeper.
Gatsu: Haven’t seen that film, so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. And I have to say, as Zeldas go, I’d place Zelda II under the Oracle games (but I unfortunately haven’t played Majora’s Mask or Four Swords, so I can’t speak conclusively here). Yeah, I know it’s the one that’s apparently trendy to love right now, and I don’t by any means HATE it, but I do think that the learning curve is much sharper than most Zeldas, and introducing level-grinding to the series was a mixed blessing.
Zelda 2 isn’t one of the best in the series, but I liked the fact that it was more linear than the first game. I was probably going to mention the CD-I Zelda, but I don’t consider it canon.
i liked zelda 2. the idea of an older, darker, hardened link just really appealed to me. he was a guy who looked like he’d seen hell and highwater, and just roughed it out. and this,just from the manual.
The Oracle games and Zelda II (not to mention Link’s Awakening) were my favorites in the series. I liked the experience system in Zelda II. You could make the same case about level grinding with any of the Metroidvania games. Anyways, all of my said favorites have something in common: greater challenge.
My least favorite had to be Ocarina of Time. The Shadow and Light temples were great, but before that it was mostly a bore to me.
My favorites also let Link actually jump, something rather underappreciated.
One other thing, Zelda II mught have had a sharp learning curve, but it was more balanced than other games of its day, like Metroid and especially Castlevania.
Anyways, regarding the topic, I’ve already posted my thoughts in response to one of Jeremy’s relevant 1up blog entries.
Gawd, I hated most of the pre-Symphony Castlevania games, because of how slow it was to jump and because of how the monsters were always faster than you. The one exception was Simon’s Quest, partly because of that secret crap ending they inserted in which Simon dies anyway. And I’m surprised the original Metroid was a success, considering Samus can’t duck! I’m going to have to say Bionic Commando was one of my favorite side-scrolling action games back then, along with Ninja Gaiden.