Posts by Izuno

  • Source SDK Beta

    Quote from Pericolos0

    the stretch but only when you are actually scaling them. The flip back to how they were once you release it

    Yeah it wasn't snapping back...but I just restarted Steam/Hammer and it works fine now.

  • Sony makes a bold move to push it's console..

    well....

    the thing is...what it ultimately comes down to is having enough accessible storage space and ways to efficiently move data on and off of it, or from the disk to memory for playing. so there is this blu-ray reader that is expensive, and maybe adding burning cabability drives that up. I can see that pushing up the cost for sure.

    As for giving it TiVo capabilities, first issue is the storage. How many gigs of space do we need? 40? 80? 120? By the time the PS3 ships, how expensive will that be? Would it even need to be a hard drive or is there another kind of permanent storage alternative that could be cheaper? Then you need to figure out the TV input/output...meaning...would the PS3 need a co-ax input like a cable box or Satellite receiver? Then you need the software, but building that isn't that expensive...not trivial, but not that expensive (and besides that's part of the fixed cost of development and then goes into expense overhead to support and occassionally upgrade the software)...

    Bottom line on per unit costs... It's too hard to speculate on actual per unit costs without a Bill of Materials (BOM) Merril Lynch got ahold of both the proposed PS3 and 'actual' X360 BOM's and first surfased the story about the huge cost advantage for X360.

    What's the key lever to platform success? Content! In the business world, cashflow is king. In video game platform launches, content is king. The money flows where the good games are. If both platforms have enough compelling content, both will kick ass.

    Nuff said...

  • The HD Era Begins - 360 Fnazzle

    Quote from Gaz

    I'm bored of rehashes and the done to death.Big whoop they look better on PS3 or Xbox 360, they are at the end of the day the same games.

    The revolution however, yes the graphics are better, but the way you interact with it is new and interesting, with the new controller interface it uses games might not be 100% fresh, but the way you play them will be.

    The video I saw in Edge magazine a while back had people using the controller as a sword, a flash light and gun, and other interesting uses.

    Got to hand it to Nintendo for trying new was of thinking. While not a massive re-invention of handheld gaming, certainly the DS tried something different with dual screens...now just gotta see what interesting games will evolve to use it.

    The Revolution is bigger gamble. Nintendo has blown it before with some "revolutionary" ideas for sure: Virtual Boy and the Power Glove. One could argue the Revolution controller is just another gimmick. But if it breaks through it could really be a revolution. I have not seen it up close so obviously I can't say yet. They have their work cut out for them to make it a winner, for sure.

    Back to the X360 and PS3....

    Yes they will have greater graphics and capacity than Xbox and PS2, but besides that the strategies behind them are fairly clear: extend the reach of the gaming console to be an entertainment/media center for the home. The 360 has all those features for displaying media content from your PC etc and to be a DVD player (like the Xbox) and I'm sure the PS3 will have all the same crap. These seem like evolutionary changes of what a platform can do. Even the online marketplace Microsoft is trying to launch with the 360 isn't all that hard to believe. We all saw it coming. It's basically a way to sell more crap and draw more revenue from the gaming audience, all the while hoping to expand the audience.

    One thing is important to note with the expansion of graphics and presentation capabilities: the more "cool" something looks (meaning better graphics and presentation) the more non-gamers might be tempted to cross over and start playing. Sure, they need something they can understand that's easy to play (using a controller) so that means stuff they can relate to: sports games, racing games, fighting games, etc that look pretty. So is it any wonder that at consol launches the typical lineup is mostly sports, racing and fighting? Sure, the Xbox had Halo and that worked well for the "core gamer" who bought the Xbox. This time at launch we have a few shooters like CoD2, Quake4, Perfect Dark...maybe one of them will take off like Halo. The point is that Microsoft's strategy isn't all that different in terms of game content compared to the Xbox launch.

    Is this bad? Too early to tell. If you get a 360 and hate the games or are otherwise dissapointed, yeah it's bad. In the end, the only measure of the success for Microsoft will be how it does financially in the long haul, but that will probably correlate to the average gamer's acceptance and fun with the platform.

    In a way, that puts part of the onus on the game development community to come up with compelling new content. If that means a pretty shooter with a better story and better level design (meaning an evolutionary change as opposed to revolutionary) is what gets my attention and give me fun, so be it.

    Ok i can ramble on but I'll stop now...

  • Share yourself with your mapcorian friends

    been an up and down year for me. obviously being a bit older than most of you and a recent MBA grad from a top school you'd think professionally I'd be doing great.

    On the contrary, work is hard and the gaming industry has been tough. Won't go into details, but obviously STALKER has not shipped yet and how long has that been in development? yeah...a rollercoaster. I'm starting to think that gaming may just not be for me...at least not directly. I should probably be analyzing the industry from an outsider's point of view. Dunno.

    Recently I met a great woman I was not expecting to meet, and wow things are going great with her despite my career frustrations at the moment. If anything, I do not want to mess that up for anything because she is just so right for me.

    So the next few months could be a little crazy for me. Not sure what's going to happen next...maybe I'm at E3 next year, maybe i'm out of the industry...I really don't know.

    ....pray for a breakthrough for me, people...pray for a breakthrough.

  • The HD Era Begins - 360 Fnazzle

    well...the games certainly look better than xbox games. the levels can be a bit larger in shooters (for example)...

    Fro the 360 launch, as with most console launches, it's all about eye candy and whizbang features. As for gameplay, well, more graphics horsepower and the like can yield a more immersive gameplay experience which you can argue means better games. But how much better are the new games? This is the age old question we ask ourselves with any new console.

    Any Madden players here try Madden 06 on 360 yet? The game should still sell a ton just because of the marketing muscle and the fact that it's the only licensed NFL game franchise (gg, EA). But how much new gameplay innovation is made possible by having a more powerful console? I'm guessing not much. But sure, if it looks like a lot prettier, than may be wha the mass Football gamer market really latches on to whether they admit it or not...and hence by the game.

    .....so the question we really need to know is: how much do graphics matter to the various segments of the core<-->casual gamer spectrum?

  • What is your console game of the year for 2005?

    Yes RE4 was amazing. I bought for my cousin and he played on my Cube...i didn't play it but i watched him play a lot and i can see why it is a top contender for a console GOTY. Certainaly a shoe-in for the Cube.

    Anyway, knowing all the guys at Pandemic, I am sort of biased towards Mercenaries. Still...I think it is my top Xbox game of all time, in that I had more fun playing that than Halo, Halo2, Brothers in Arms, GTA:SA etc...and those are three awesome games.

    Why so much fun?

    - Music (best ever for a video game imho)

    - Open ended military action and easy to control (easier than GTA imho)

    - Very good/funny writing dialogue. Sure the story wasn't that deep, but the voice acting was excellent and it drew you in

    - blowing the shit out of just about everything via airstrikes or whatever

    - totally open ended mission structure that allowed for creativity

    - some actual non-linearity in mission order (ok, pseudo non linear, even though it really was a linear story)

    - buying airstrikes, vehicles etc and having them delivered on the fly

    - Mercs just made me feel like i was "somewhere" when playing, similar to how GTA makes you feel like you are in a larger, colorful world.

    - the attitude.

  • What is your console game of the year for 2005?

    I have the soundtrack in my car .... man...makes me want to play that game over and over...sequel can't come fast enough. I heard his Medal of Honor music, and htat is good, but if you listen to the whole Mercs soundtrack you realize how much he has evolved as a composer. Just blows me away.

    Yeah I haven't played God of War though. I should really just go get it.

  • What is your console game of the year for 2005?

    Yeah, I know we have a PC game slant here, but a lot us play and work on console titles, too.

    What is your favorite console game that came out in 2005, any system?

    My personal vote has to go to Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction. Just listen to the soundtrack, for one thing. Michael Gianchino made the game even better than it is. Best soundtrack to a game, or movie, ever.