not sure what they mean by bringing fun back....PGR4 was one of the best arcade racers ever..i doubt them or anyone will top it for a long time,including Bizarre creations
and no,Blur is shite name...lets cut to the chase shall we..'country house' was fucking crap :)
"The game also supports four-player split-screen play." "on a track"
To be honest, this is what want out of Burnout. No online multi only, no open world racing... Just tracks and local split screen.
Burnout has made their choice and gone open world, so I must now look elsewhere for my fun. Hoping this and splitsecond will be what I am looking for. We'll see.
@relik: I thought MSR was terrible beyond the music. It looked very pretty, but the actual racing was bogged down with all those restrictions. PGR may be better, but I've avoided the series specifically because of such poor experiences with MSR.
I disagree Luke, personally, I think Burnout Paradise is hands down the best racing game of this generation.
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I'm not surprised to hear this but I am surprised that some people actually believe that MS isn't as "bad" as Sony in situations like this. Do you people even realize who we're talking about? Microsoft...the same Microsoft that makes Windows. Microsoft isn't some "down to earth" company that's like your best pal down the street. they're one of the biggest if not the biggest firm on earth. Understand what the fuck that means and these stories come as no surprise.
No matter how much time you spend polishing a tird, it is still a tird; MS uses a buffer. (And no, I loved the PGR series...I'm talkin smack about MS)
Kudos to going to Activision. Though from one Corp to another Corp...we'll have to wait and see. (I did beta testing for Activision and they are not egregious like MS)
This whole process of "get it out the door before it's done" irks me. To rush quality is pure greed. Unrealistic time lines, unattainable goals, ignorant upper management, communication failure.
Is this a joke? A developer complains about their publisher demanding deadlines? News flash: You're not the only studio that has to plant their feet in the ground and say no. They had it a hell of a lot better than most studios out there without and leveraging to postpone releases while releasing the same rehash sequel over and over again.
@TheGreenMan: There's a difference between a demand and a request though. If MS merely requested that they do it sooner and then on talking let them have the 6 weeks then what's the problem? Nothing got forced on them so it's hardly a nightmare project.
@Vrank92: The dead line wasn't moved up without warning, it was requested they attempt to make the game to a new dead line and they refused so MS backed off. I agree MS should just leave them to the dead line they already set so the game can come out better but nothing was forced on them so MS wasn't in the wrong at all.
@xxXX_Insanities_Birth_XXxx: come on dude, that's not how I read it. Let's take the rosey "we luv us some MS" glasses off. Read that passage again and it sounds like MS DID request the deadline to be pushed up and Bizzare was against it and mentioned they had the current deadline at the time under contract. As you read it, considering MS "didn't realise how bad a situation it would have been - we needed that extra six weeks" shows that this wasn't a case of BC crying over a request. It sounds like MS leaned on them despite the contract and backed off when BC wouldn't budge.
"We were getting disillusioned with Microsoft and they were getting corporate and cocky as well because of the shift in power between them and Sony." That sure as hell doesn't read like MS just made a request.
They built a racing franchise with some of the most innovative, unique and perfected features that we've seen in the past decade. Kudos, realisitic weather simulation, very solid online play, superb graphics, balanced arcade/realism gameplay, photo and replay modes, ghosts, online leaderboards, ranked championships, fun and varied gameplay modes, online splitscreen.... Maybe not AAA, but very very solid indeed
Maybe their games didn't sell amazingly.... but now their making a game about cars with guns....... CARS WITH GUNS!?!?!
@MooglesInMyFace: They will. First Atari did it (to some extent). Then Nintnedo (No CD drive? And you want to charge 3rd part how much per game?) Then Sony and next it will be Microsoft. However if you look at the trend you seem to get 1 warm up, then 1 power selling console, then you fuck it up.
I'm kinda looking past the Wii at the moment because I don't really see it even in the same category as the PS3, 360, or Gamecube for that matter. Wii is focused on selling to people that don't play games. More importantly, Wii isn't focused on people that buy 1+ games a month. That is PS3 and 360 right now.
@MooglesInMyFace: Microsoft did this exact same thing when they first released the 360. That's why it shipped with so many bugs and the RRoD. They rushed it to beat sony, and they sent broken consoles, and are still selling them.
@Chris Walbrun: I find it interesting that you equate Nintendo as cocky for not putting in the CD drive when most people refer to Sony as been cocky for ""forcing"" bluray on people.
Personally I don't think either company got cocky. Nintendo tried to use the CD and Sony after building it with them decided to launch it themself. Nintendo sticking with cartridge gave them a significant advantage for some games. For example wrestling games which people to this day still refer to as the best ever - were N64 games. Any multiplatform wrestling game back then got a higher rating on the 64 because CD's took way too long to load and wrestling games in that period were more about creation.
Let's face it some of the best games ever released were on the N64, Wrestlemania 2000, No Mercy, Goldeneye, Zelda OoT, Mario Kart 64, Perfect Dark, etc. Sure Sony had an advantage in that you could chip the PS, the games were cheaper anyway and it played music often with more mature graphics but to say Nintendo were cocky for not including a CD, sort of rewrites a chunk of history.
Likewise people who say Sony got cocky for introducing an expensive machine. They put out the best console on the market with the 60GB PS3, helped evolve a whole generation of HDTV sales which meant faster adoption by TV stations and movie studio's. They paid big time to purchase developers so they would have more first party exclusives than Microsoft and they listened to the market and started pushing their digital delivery service - not to mention the amount of free content they have given us and the constant firmware updates that have seen the PS3 evolve into the masterpiece it is now.
I fail to see how either were cocky. Compare them with Microsoft who released a machine onto the public where 1 in 3 died, then charged people lots of money to fix it, charged for online even though it's free on every other platform, only secured a 6th of the development studio's that Sony signed, released the HDDVD addon just to try and confuse the market, used proprietry formats for hard drives and then charged through the roof for them, released the elite which is just the standard machine in a different colour with the expensive hdd. If anyone could be seen as cocky, it's Microsoft.
Charging for online and expecting people to be ok with that when it's free to play is exactly the kind of arrogance that has lead me to the PS3.
I think your rant at Microsoft is a little one sided.
Sure Microsoft messed up with the RROD, but did they have a choice? The PS2 whipped the floor with the xbox, even though technically the xbox was way superior.
We all knew Playstation, Xbox was the pretender to the throne. If the 360 had released at a similar time to the PS3 it would be a distant third, even though the functionality was far better.
You also forget Sony had a huge number of games studios already. They had many from the PS1/2 generations. Sure Microsoft had PC games divisions, but very few of them tried console games, because the successful game studios didnt have games that translated to console (like AoE, Flight Sim, etc).
And as for paying for Live. I still laugh at everyone who complains about it. Networking on a huge scale is difficult. Sure the PS3 has a few good games, but more of them are first party, and the online is contracted out to people who already know their stuff.
Having centrally managed online is soo much more intelligent. Take it all away from the developers, leave them to worry about making games, and leave Microsoft to handle all the networking stuff. That way, the quality of the online experience is all down to the network coding, rather than the budget of the developers.
Even your hard drive rant is flawed. Its great that PS3 allows you to put any drive in your PS3, but is that really the best way to go? Do you look at cache sizes, heat output stats, and data transfer rates when buying your PS3 HDD, or do you just see 500GB for $50? 99% of people will go with the latter.
Developers will have a harder time, because they havn't got a guaranteed performance baseline they can expect for a HDD, and people will suffer in the long run, due to cheaper HDDs dying, because they are substandard, or put out more heat than the PS3 HDD would have.
Sure Microsoft have made lots of mistakes, and overcharge for accessories, but at least their one and only goal is to give the most stellar gaming expereince they can, where Sony are trying to sell you the new Bravia HDTV, their back catalogue of Bluray movies, and every now and then, they may remember to release a game!
@Mr_Ed: You made a good point until you made it sound like Sony don't put out any games.
On my PS3 this year I've played all those multiplatforms you might have played on XBOX (and no, they weren't inferior) and I've also played Killzone 2 with preorders in place for inFamous in a few weeks and Uncharted, Heavy Rain and others planned for later in the year.
Exactly what did Microsoft put out?
Please don't try the "no games" route - especially when the rest of your points are pretty fair.
@Mr_Ed: "I think your rant at Microsoft is a little one sided."
That's because they are the ones playing scummy buggers this gen. Think about it, one side is paying for exclusive DLC rather than games, one side is charging people to use their internet connection and not offering up a free alternative when everybody else is, one side released a console with a 1 in 3 failure rate when the rest didn't. If it sounds one sided that's because it is.
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"Sure Microsoft messed up with the RROD, but did they have a choice?"
Yes they did, it's called make a better product so that 10 million out of the 30 million sold will not have to be repaired/replaced. There is no excuse for releasing such a broken product.
"We all knew Playstation, Xbox was the pretender to the throne. If the 360 had released at a similar time to the PS3 it would be a distant third, even though the functionality was far better."
Sure that makes them less scummy, knowing they sold at least 10 million broken products to their fan base just to get a head of the competition.
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"You also forget Sony had a huge number of games studios already. They had many from the PS1/2 generations."
Microsoft are among the richest companies in the world. Have you seen how many major development studios have gone bust over the last 2 years - where was Microsoft's investment? It was in paying company's not to support their games after release. Rather than paying for GTA IV exclusive to the 360, they just paid for the extra content which meant anyone who bought the PS3 version got ripped off. I think we can all agree exclusive DLC is scummy, just like it was bad when Bioshock got exclusive DLC on the PS3 - the difference there is that Bioshock had been out a year on the 360 so the PS3 crew needed something to justify them paying more money out for it than a 360 guy would be able to get it for.
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"And as for paying for Live. I still laugh at everyone who complains about it."
Why would you laugh at people who know full well that they paid for their internet connection, paid for FIFA and paid for the device to play FIFA on but don't see why they should have to pay to use their equipment when nobody else does?
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"Having centrally managed online is soo much more intelligent. Take it all away from the developers, leave them to worry about making games, and leave Microsoft to handle all the networking stuff. That way, the quality of the online experience is all down to the network coding, rather than the budget of the developers."
So what you are saying is, we should have to pay so that the developers who make the games that we also pay for, don't have to work as hard. What a stupid argument. Why should we be twice? The cost of playing FIFA online is covered by the cost of purchasing FIFA - that is if you buy it on any other machine but the 360 they charge you for it. WAKE UP!
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"Even your hard drive rant is flawed. Its great that PS3 allows you to put any drive in your PS3, but is that really the best way to go? Do you look at cache sizes, heat output stats, and data transfer rates when buying your PS3 HDD, or do you just see 500GB for $50? 99% of people will go with the latter."
Alternatively people can buy an external hard drive plug it in via USB and download all their content to that, save files, trailers, games, etc. Not quite the same on the 360 is it. Also, RTFM!
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"Developers will have a harder time, because they havn't got a guaranteed performance baseline they can expect for a HDD"
You mean as opposed to not knowing if there will be a hard drive there at all? Can you see how stupid your argument is. Every PS3 has a hard drive the same can not be said about the 360 which has caused problems in the past for games like Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix.
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"Sure Microsoft have made lots of mistakes, and overcharge for accessories, but at least their one and only goal is to give the most stellar gaming expereince they can"
Yes there is nothing quite like waiting for a game for a year and a half and on the day you get it, your machine craps out. Stellar indeed.
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"where Sony are trying to sell you the new Bravia HDTV"
Show me an ad on the xmb, now go look at the ads on your NXE. Also last time I checked Sony have 30 games development studio's who as you pointed out seem to work rather harmoniously together, Microsoft had 5 and they keep losing them Bungie, Ensamble, Bizzarre Creations, etc -
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"every now and then, they may remember to release a game!"
When was the last AAA 360 exclusive title released and when is the next one due? Ask yourself the same question about the PS3. But this wasn't meant to be about who's machine is better than who's, who has better games or anything like that. It was meant to be a judgement on Sony's policy's of constantly giving away free games, online play, etc and Microsoft's cocky policy of charging you to play games that everyone else can play for free.
@Mike Newlad: " I find it interesting that you equate Nintendo as cocky for not putting in the CD drive when most people refer to Sony as been cocky for ""forcing"" bluray on people."
Well, for one thing, Sony developed Blu-ray and stands to make a crapload of money if Blu-ray becomes established as a high-def, disc-based medium on par with the DVD. There's a huge financial interest present with Blu-ray that makes the situation not at all analogous to what Nintendo did by refusing to go with CDs.
Not that I care very much. I'm just saying that's why people say Sony foisted Blu-ray on PS3 customers when they didn't necessarily want it.
@Dirk Dorkelson: Newsflahs, Sony also played a big part in the development of the CD and DVD and stood to gain from the success of both. The Blu-ray Disc Association of which Sony were a part, developed the format, meaning a lot of the big players in the industry stood to gain from it. Not just Sony where as with the CD it was basically Sony or Phillips
Sony used CD and you think Nintendo were cocky for not using CD, now Sony used Bluray and you see them as cocky rather than Microsoft - that sounds like a double standard if you ask me.
The difference with Microsoft not using Bluray and Nintendo not using CD is that Nintendo had were the ones that started work on the Playstation with Sony as an add-on to the SNES. So it wasn't that Nintendo didn't want to move to optical storage it's just that they had messed up when it came to the legal documentation and so decided to scrap the Playstation. Big mistake for sure, hardly a cocky move to try and retain the legal rights to your IP's though.
Microsoft on the other hand, released a new console without pushing the new technology that we have available and as such developers are now limited to what they can achieve. To make matters worse they charge a crazy amount of money for people to use more than one disc and they force people to stick all their xbox live code on the disc.
Sony made the right move to go with Bluray, games like Blue Dragon and Rage are really showing the need for a bigger storage format. Rockstar have agreed that their next game will be exclusive to Sony simply because they want to use the bigger disc format, Metal Gear Solid IV was exclusive to the PS3 because of the disc format and so many other games have passed the 9GB limitations of the DVD. I fail to see how Sony using bigger and better technology is cocky.
The bonus for us is they also got mass support for Bluray, which means we have better quality movies/tv shows to go with our better quality tv's to go with out better quality games. Isn't that what you have come to expect from your new console? My first CD player was the PS1, my first DVD player was the PS2, my first Bluray player was the PS3.
I'll make it quick. There's nothing wrong with paying for exclusive DLC, that's just MS choosing to work with 3rd party devs you moron. They paid to even have it made so you'd never see it if it wasn't for MS anyway so that's a null point. Charging for a service isn't wrong, it's not free to make so why should we get it free? Arguably the reason Wii has it free is because it has barely any service and Sony has just had advertisements pay for it's service. Sony released a faulty PS2 last gen but your probably backing Sony this gen so is that not hypocritical?
I agree they should have avoided RROD cos there's no denying that.
If those companies went bust it's because they're not profitable, you honestly expect MS to have to buy every dying company? That's just stupid. How does paying rockstar to make extra content make Microsoft pay people to not support games? I'm sorry your butt hurt that you miss out on a games content but MS payed for it so why does Sony deserve it? No one on the PS3 got ripped off either cos the content wasn't free so admittedly they missed out but they didn't lose the value of the initial game at least. You'll cite exclusive DLC as scummy but when 360 games go on PS3 with extra content (one of Sony's policies being the reason that occurs) like Lost planet, Enchanted arms, eternal sonata, tales of vesperia, Bioshock etc. I bet you don't call that scummy. Why does it being released a year later mean they deserve extra content? Is it not a good game still a year down the line?
I kind of agree with the Xbox live still though considering it still does have ads and stuff.
The hard drive point is fair since it is pointless paying that much for a hard drive when they could just make any work like on PS3.
Having a hard drive or not isn't too much of a problem considering devs have to code for PC's which have tons and tons of different modifications and not just a matter of the hard drive being there or not.
It doesn't matter how many devs they have so long as they manage to get the games still. You'd complain if MS forced these companies to stay with them or bought them out. Hell you complain at them even buying exclusive DLC or paying to have an exclusive never mind buying a company.
That doesn't matter at all whether MS has had a dry spot right now and Sony hasn't cos Sony had one earlier and all I heard was 'wait till god of war 3' or 'wait till blah blah blah'. I'm personally waiting on Star ocean 4 (european) soon and then there's a few more coming out like Forza 3, more halo ODST, Magna carta 2 etc. I'll wait till E3 is done to comment on whether MS has been going too slow or not but at the moment I don't think there's too big a problem since each console has a good selection, each one has roughly the same amount of games and each one has there own exclusive roster.
"There's nothing wrong with paying for exclusive DLC, that's just MS choosing to work with 3rd party devs you moron"
No, getting Rockstar to make GTA IV exclusive to the 360 would have been "Just MS choosing to work with 3rd party devs" and I would have been 100% behind that because it would have meant nobody picked up a game that didn't receive the full experience with after market support, etc.
I will refer you to the comments section of the recent kotaku "Tell Us Dammit"
Note that 99% of the commenters are against console exclusive content in games because they see it as them not getting the full content of the game. Microsoft paying massive amounts of money to Rockstar and Bethesda has meant that anyone who picked up Fallout 3 and GTAIV on the PS3 have been robbed of the same experience. Likewise, all the 360 fanboys who sang the praises of Bioshock when it came out, claiming that it was the best game of this generation - you know the guys that made PS3 owners want the game in the first place. They got ripped off when it was released on PS3 with better graphics, extra game modes and exclusive DLC.
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"Why does it being released a year later mean they deserve extra content? Is it not a good game still a year down the line?"
When the PS3 version of Bioshock released it was priced at £40. However the 360 version had a year of depreciation and could be found for £20 new or cheaper if you went preowned. The extra content was Bethesda's way of sweetening the pot to offset the price difference.
I do think it's scummy that the 360 owners missed out on content for a game that they had made a big todo about. It punished their own fanbase completely. The extra content could have been on the PS3 disc to offset the price difference and the same extra content could have been made available to the 360 for a fee. That way everyone could get it. That way everyone would have been happy.
Why don't I call Sony scummy for this - They had nothing to do with the extra content. They didn't pay 50 million so that the 360 owners missed out unlike a certain rival company. Oh and if you check my comment history, while you will see I am more proPS3 than I am pro360, you will also note that I come out against exclusive DLC no matter which system it's for. It really is ruining the industry.
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Just think the money Microsoft spent on exclusive DLC could have meant new exclusive games on the 360 for us all to be excited about but instead MS pulled their dirty tricks and 360 owners ended up with the same content they would have done anyway.
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"How does paying rockstar to make extra content make Microsoft pay people to not support games?"
Do you think Rockstar wouldn't have made the Lost and Damned without Microsoft's money? Do they really strike you as the company that wouldn't make the most out of their GTA series with add-ons? Microsoft didn't need to pay them to make the Lost and Damned that would always have happened. They paid them to not make it on the PS3.
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"I'm sorry your butt hurt that you miss out on a games content but MS payed for it so why does Sony deserve it?"
It's not Sony who deserve it you butthead, it's the people that bought GTA IV and Fallout 3 on the PS3 who deserve it. You know the people that keep Rockstar in business by purchasing their games. Don't you see that exclusive content only punishes the gamer.
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"No one on the PS3 got ripped off either cos the content wasn't free so admittedly they missed out but they didn't lose the value of the initial game at least"
You can't honestly feel that way? When you buy a game these days, after market support is expected. I have a group of mates, some with just the PS3 some with both and some with just the 360. When we get together and start talking about games, Fallout 3 comes up and part of the group are sat saying, "Man I can't wait for this update" and the others are sat their gutted because they have no access to it, even though they paid the same price as we did.
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"You'll cite exclusive DLC as scummy but when 360 games go on PS3 with extra content (one of Sony's policies being the reason that occurs)"
What policy?
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"Having a hard drive or not isn't too much of a problem considering devs have to code for PC's which have tons and tons of different modifications and not just a matter of the hard drive being there or not."
It is a pretty big problem, [www.videogamer.com] . Granted that issue has since been relaxed but the fact that developers can't count on a hard drive been in the machine means they can't compress data and extract it to the hard drive which would lessen the blow of their old disc format. This was a major contributing factor as to why RAGE had to be reworked.
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"Hell you complain at them even buying exclusive DLC or paying to have an exclusive never mind buying a company."
No, exclusive games are all well and good. It means people who buy them are getting the best game that they can get. If GTA and Fallout 3 were both 360 exclusives that would have been great. Nobody that bought them would have felt ripped off. If Microsoft bought out EA (probably the smartest move in history) I would be more than fine with that.
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"That doesn't matter at all whether MS has had a dry spot right now and Sony hasn't cos Sony had one earlier"
If by earlier you mean, in their first year of launch - what console didn't?
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"I'm personally waiting on Star ocean 4 (european) soon and then there's a few more coming out like Forza 3, more halo ODST, Magna carta 2 etc. I'll wait till E3 is done to comment on whether MS has been going too slow or not but at the moment I don't think there's too big a problem since each console has a good selection"
While I agree that waiting until E3 is a good idea the point I made about Sony having 30 development studio's under their belt is that they will never have another dry spot because they can get into a 15 exclusives per year cycle not including the 3rd party devs that are making exclusives for it and all the amazing cross platform titles.
Microsoft don't have that kind of development power at the minute, they need to make some serious investments and what a perfect time to set up gaming studios. A crap load of talented people have been made unemployed lately - now is their chance to capitalize but even then it would take years for that to pay off. Sony set up the long term strategy where as Microsoft got cocky and didn't plan for the future. - It's been the story of this generation really.
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"each one has roughly the same amount of games and each one has there own exclusive roster"
The difference is, Sony's exclusive roster is a lot more recent and often times ground breaking than Microsoft's. Look at the metacritic top 20 for both consoles PS3 has 7 exclusives, 360 has 3 exclusives in the top 20 - 2 of which are from 2007.
Look at the break down by date of the top 20
360
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2009 = 1
2008 = 7
2007 = 8
2006 = 3
2005 = 1
PS3
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2009 = 4
2008 = 9
2007 = 7
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The majority of the top titles on the 360 are from 2005 - 2007 where as the majority on the PS3 are from 2008-2009 onwards and from the announcements we know about, the games fest from Sony won't be drying up any time soon. That is because they were smart enough to think about the future - be it with Bluray, hard drives in every machine, first party devs, pub fund, etc. Where as Microsoft put out their broken machine, with outdated technology and figured they would be able to charge people to play FIFA/Madden/COD/Smackdown/Street Fighter/UFC/Tony Hawks/R6V2/GRAW/GTA/Burnout/NFS/Tekken/Poker/Fight Night/NHL/etc online, when they are free everywhere else - All because they were first to market. That my friend is cockyness.
(the things you can write when you are procrastinating eh lol)
@Mike Newlad: You do know that Take Two was fiscally insolvent and on the verge of bankruptcy or being snapped up by EA when Microsoft stepped in with that $50 million advance, right? If Microsoft hadn't fronted the money for Take Two to stay afloat while Rockstar was working on getting GTA out the door, who knows what would have ended up happening with GTA IV. It's not as simple as "exclusive games/DLC are bad." Yeah, they kind of suck from a consumer standpoint, but if it means a publisher gets to keep its independence, well, that's not so bad.
What's with the hard-on for Sony? Your little list by year is pathetic. Why include 2005 for Microsoft but not 2006 for Sony? Why talk about 2009 like it's already over and done with when we're sitting at the beginning of May? Why not pick up a 360 on the cheap and enjoy games on both systems, rather than sitting in the corner with your arms folded sad that all these people are having a good time?
@Dirk Dorkelson: "Why not pick up a 360 on the cheap and enjoy games on both systems" Because I already own a 360. Got mine 3 years ago and it's only had to be sent back to Microsoft twice. Guess I am one of the lucky ones.
"Your little list by year is pathetic. Why include 2005 for Microsoft but not 2006 for Sony? "
The list was taken from Metacritic's top 20 games for both systems. The list shows that Sony have been more dominant with games since 2007 (the year it launched in all but 2 countries) while the 360 had a really good run at the beginning of it's life cycle when people had nothing to compare it with.
If you just look at this year alone, there have been 4 games released on the PS3 that made the top 20, while only 1 of the best 360 games of all time have been released this year and it was a cross platform game. Which means games are improving on the PS3 but not on the 360.
The point you made about Killzone's load issues - They fucked up big time by not using the install but you can't blame that on Bluray when no other game suffers from it.
As for you not liking bluray. Sony can't help it if you don't like the finer things in life. With each console they have pushed the disc capacity to a new level. Why wouldn't they do that with the PS3. I for one am glad I don't have to buy a seperate bluray player just to watch movies. Now I have one in my gaming system which means games can make use of the storage capacity.
I personally can't wait to see how Rockstar's next big game looks. Nor can I wait to see how crazy games will get over the next 5 years. Without a company like Sony offering these advancements for those that want it - consoles would still be 8bit.
For all the critisism Microsoft got about the hardware needed to run Vista - without them releasing it, Ram would never have had the price cut it got and processors/graphics cards of this power wouldn't be as cheap as they are today. You have to look past your "I don't like bluray, I prefer the shitter DVD's" type of thinking.
Oh and as for Rockstar and them going bust. Do you really think that if they had approached a bank for a loan and told them that the game they were about to sell was guarenteed the money - the bank would have turned them down? GTA IV gave them a license to print money. As for them keeping independant. Making the game under the EA belt would have meant more fans could enjoy the content made for it. They are hardly independant with Microsoft - that money meant they were contractually obligated to work for MS.
@Mike Newlad: Quit putting words in my mouth. I never said I didn't like Blu-ray, or that I prefer DVDs. I'm just not the type of person to buy movies, period. I watch them in the theater, for the most part, or download them. I own enough video games, CDs and records. I don't need to add movies to the mix, too.
Talking about 2009 when it's still four months in is also silly. As is looking at Metacritic's top 20. Microsoft's pre-2009 releases scored better than Sony's, so of course it's easier for Sony to put out new games that crack the top 20. The bar is set lower. For example, Peggle got an 89 on the Xbox 360 and GTA: The Lost and the Damned (which you might not count as a game) got a 90, but neither cracked the top 20 on the 360 because the top 20 cuts off partway through 90. Both games, if released on PS3, would have cracked the top 20 for that system as the top 20 there cuts off at 88. It makes more sense to pick some arbitary number, say 85, and look at how many titles beat that score this year on each system.
It wouldn't surprise me if Sony came out in front, though. They've released more titles so far this year. I don't necessarily disagree with your contention that this is shaping up to be a better year for the PS3, just that the metrics and logic you were using don't fly.
@Dirk Dorkelson: You made some good points about the list being silly but I don't think that changes the point I was making that Sony's best games are more recent than Microsofts and therefore more relivant.
As for your comment about not buying a bluray disc for your PS3, do you own any games?
@Mike Newlad: I have LBP, The Show and Killzone 2. I really dig the first two, and Killzone 2 looks great, but it's not up my alley so far. Yes, I know those are Blu-ray discs, but I'm pretty sure LBP, at least, could be done on a DVD. Probably KZ2, as well, but I haven't done everything it has to offer, so I can't speak to that. I'm sure both the PS3 and 360 will have excellent games this year, which is why I have both.
I do think too much emphasis gets put on Metacritic as far as what's good and what's not. It's largely a matter of preference. One of my favorite games on the 360 is Culdcept Saga, and that thing's Metacritic score is in the high 70s.
@Dirk Dorkelson: "I'm pretty sure LBP, at least, could be done on a DVD. Probably KZ2"
I don't really know about either but there was a lot of reports that Killzone 2 had 2GB levels. Lair (shudder) & MGS4 certainly couldn't have been done on 1 DVD and clearly Blue Dragon couldn't be either.
Blue Dragon was released less than a month after the PS3 and was on 3 DVD's. Lair pushed 25GB and Lost Odyssey was a 4 disc beast of a game, MGS on a 50GB disc. All these titles were released in the first 2 years of the PS3's 10 year cycle. Games like Rage have been redesigned because of Microsoft's storage issue. - Why would it have been a bad thing for Sony to give their developers more creative freedom?
Can you imagine how big MGS:V will be, what about other ambitious developers. I would love to see the next big sandbox/RPG game be mixed with sports rather than shooting. Ideally coming from EA, where the main character wants to be a fighting superstar and ideally break out as a fighting superstar but to get there he has to train in the different sports and make a name for himself in the different areas.
So they would need a full game engine dedicated the BJJ/wrestling/boxing/karate/judo/Kickboxing/Muay Thia/MMA - with championships for them all and training routines/camps along with some kind of story and sub plots like maybe underground fighting/building your reputation up, getting hype, etc. Mix that with public reactions to the characters actions and TV appearances/charity projects/etc. For a game like this swapping disc's wouldn't be an option and while it might never get created - at least they have the option now where as back on the DVD format it just wouldn't have been possible (or at least not to the same quality).
I love that Sony included blu-ray and I wish they hadn't have backed down on the BC to save some cash. That is there main error this time round. Thankfully I got a 60GB so now I have access to 3 consoles worth of games and I could probably install some kind of emulator on linux for other consoles.
@Luke Plunkett: I am detecting sarcasm, but I'm not sure at what exactly it was directed. The "Oh" and the "OWN" has thrown me off quite a bit. Just in case...
I think Bizare, wanting a little bonus from MS got "the hand" so they said "Fine you want to play that game then we're not going to play with you anymore". That's when Activison walked by with PS3 under their arm and said "Hey Bizare want to play some Little Big Planet, oh and bring your games if you want to play them to"
@HighSpeedIndeed: No, they better be in there making my damn cookies, or they will feel the full force of this economy! I cant protect them from the trolls across the lake(and under the bridge) forever y'know!
You know that the cut-back of the deadline created tons of problems. It's understandable these days why deadlines are being pushed like this, still many companies are looking for the easy way out even if they know of the consequences. Sounds bad.
"How can the publisher that makes exploitation of a franchise a core business aim be any better?"
Damned good question. But it's amazing how when they're signing the paychecks, people in this situation tend to selectively not comprehend that (or at least acknowledge it).
Hey Bizarre...you know what the "frying pan" was like. Now get ready for the "fire."
@jollydwarf: Activision might exploit the work, but they rarely exploit the worker. For example Call of Duty is an exploited franchise, but that doesn't mean the workers have to pump out a game every year. Instead the franchise is pushed to another studio for in-between years.
@Scrudy: There's no way of knowing that they're not exploiting the workers. Just because they're not making the same game back to back doesn't mean they're not being run into the ground...
@Cloral: I'm sure activision does that, but usually for not as high profile game@xxXX_Insanities_Birth_XXxx: PGR4 is a relatively high profile game, i assume it's meant to compete with GT5 when/if it comes out. With games like that, I'd hope the producer has the kind of foresight to want a perferct release, or we'll hear a lot of "aww, this shit ass game is broken! I'm getting GT5" or "fuck this, I'm gonna play some more GRID and Burnout Paradise." so in conclusion, yes, a lot if not all developers are told to do this sometimes, and yes, it is indeed exploitation.
You could call me alarmist, but i think you're doing a bit of card stacking, as they were indeed working within their time frame in which to make their game. You however seemed to have missed the part where they said they cut six weeks off of their time frame at the last minute. exploitation is needed sometimes, but when they change it up THIS close to it's finishing, it could truly fuck up the sales.
05/19/09
I was obviously wrong.
Allow me to suggest: Crash, Burn, Boost, Rage, Ride, Spin, Ice, Free, Rush, Dry, Push, Thrust, Dust, ..........
05/19/09
and no,Blur is shite name...lets cut to the chase shall we..'country house' was fucking crap :)
05/19/09
To be honest, this is what want out of Burnout. No online multi only, no open world racing... Just tracks and local split screen.
Burnout has made their choice and gone open world, so I must now look elsewhere for my fun. Hoping this and splitsecond will be what I am looking for. We'll see.
05/19/09
05/19/09
05/07/09
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I'm not surprised to hear this but I am surprised that some people actually believe that MS isn't as "bad" as Sony in situations like this. Do you people even realize who we're talking about? Microsoft...the same Microsoft that makes Windows. Microsoft isn't some "down to earth" company that's like your best pal down the street. they're one of the biggest if not the biggest firm on earth. Understand what the fuck that means and these stories come as no surprise.
05/07/09
Kudos to going to Activision. Though from one Corp to another Corp...we'll have to wait and see. (I did beta testing for Activision and they are not egregious like MS)
This whole process of "get it out the door before it's done" irks me. To rush quality is pure greed. Unrealistic time lines, unattainable goals, ignorant upper management, communication failure.
Rant=off
05/06/09
05/06/09
There are deadlines and there are stupid requests regardless of the project.
I worked on a game in which the publisher wanted us to ship a month earlier than what was on the contract to "make the quarter".
We did it, and it was a damn fine game, but not without crunching insane hours.
And you know what we got? Nada. Nothing. The publisher eventually went under, bastards deserved it.
Our CEO was a great guy in that he gave us some bonuses out of his own pocket but if it wasn't for him..
05/07/09
@Vrank92: The dead line wasn't moved up without warning, it was requested they attempt to make the game to a new dead line and they refused so MS backed off. I agree MS should just leave them to the dead line they already set so the game can come out better but nothing was forced on them so MS wasn't in the wrong at all.
05/07/09
"We were getting disillusioned with Microsoft and they were getting corporate and cocky as well because of the shift in power between them and Sony." That sure as hell doesn't read like MS just made a request.
05/06/09
05/06/09
Working Hardware?
lol.
05/07/09
05/06/09
Wait, what are you referring to with this quote? The fact that they named themselves Activision Blizzard after the merger?
05/06/09
05/06/09
Maybe their games didn't sell amazingly.... but now their making a game about cars with guns....... CARS WITH GUNS!?!?!
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I'm kinda looking past the Wii at the moment because I don't really see it even in the same category as the PS3, 360, or Gamecube for that matter. Wii is focused on selling to people that don't play games. More importantly, Wii isn't focused on people that buy 1+ games a month. That is PS3 and 360 right now.
05/06/09
05/06/09
Personally I don't think either company got cocky. Nintendo tried to use the CD and Sony after building it with them decided to launch it themself. Nintendo sticking with cartridge gave them a significant advantage for some games. For example wrestling games which people to this day still refer to as the best ever - were N64 games. Any multiplatform wrestling game back then got a higher rating on the 64 because CD's took way too long to load and wrestling games in that period were more about creation.
Let's face it some of the best games ever released were on the N64, Wrestlemania 2000, No Mercy, Goldeneye, Zelda OoT, Mario Kart 64, Perfect Dark, etc. Sure Sony had an advantage in that you could chip the PS, the games were cheaper anyway and it played music often with more mature graphics but to say Nintendo were cocky for not including a CD, sort of rewrites a chunk of history.
Likewise people who say Sony got cocky for introducing an expensive machine. They put out the best console on the market with the 60GB PS3, helped evolve a whole generation of HDTV sales which meant faster adoption by TV stations and movie studio's. They paid big time to purchase developers so they would have more first party exclusives than Microsoft and they listened to the market and started pushing their digital delivery service - not to mention the amount of free content they have given us and the constant firmware updates that have seen the PS3 evolve into the masterpiece it is now.
I fail to see how either were cocky. Compare them with Microsoft who released a machine onto the public where 1 in 3 died, then charged people lots of money to fix it, charged for online even though it's free on every other platform, only secured a 6th of the development studio's that Sony signed, released the HDDVD addon just to try and confuse the market, used proprietry formats for hard drives and then charged through the roof for them, released the elite which is just the standard machine in a different colour with the expensive hdd. If anyone could be seen as cocky, it's Microsoft.
Charging for online and expecting people to be ok with that when it's free to play is exactly the kind of arrogance that has lead me to the PS3.
05/07/09
I think your rant at Microsoft is a little one sided.
Sure Microsoft messed up with the RROD, but did they have a choice? The PS2 whipped the floor with the xbox, even though technically the xbox was way superior.
We all knew Playstation, Xbox was the pretender to the throne. If the 360 had released at a similar time to the PS3 it would be a distant third, even though the functionality was far better.
You also forget Sony had a huge number of games studios already. They had many from the PS1/2 generations. Sure Microsoft had PC games divisions, but very few of them tried console games, because the successful game studios didnt have games that translated to console (like AoE, Flight Sim, etc).
And as for paying for Live. I still laugh at everyone who complains about it. Networking on a huge scale is difficult. Sure the PS3 has a few good games, but more of them are first party, and the online is contracted out to people who already know their stuff.
Having centrally managed online is soo much more intelligent. Take it all away from the developers, leave them to worry about making games, and leave Microsoft to handle all the networking stuff. That way, the quality of the online experience is all down to the network coding, rather than the budget of the developers.
Even your hard drive rant is flawed. Its great that PS3 allows you to put any drive in your PS3, but is that really the best way to go? Do you look at cache sizes, heat output stats, and data transfer rates when buying your PS3 HDD, or do you just see 500GB for $50? 99% of people will go with the latter.
Developers will have a harder time, because they havn't got a guaranteed performance baseline they can expect for a HDD, and people will suffer in the long run, due to cheaper HDDs dying, because they are substandard, or put out more heat than the PS3 HDD would have.
Sure Microsoft have made lots of mistakes, and overcharge for accessories, but at least their one and only goal is to give the most stellar gaming expereince they can, where Sony are trying to sell you the new Bravia HDTV, their back catalogue of Bluray movies, and every now and then, they may remember to release a game!
05/07/09
On my PS3 this year I've played all those multiplatforms you might have played on XBOX (and no, they weren't inferior) and I've also played Killzone 2 with preorders in place for inFamous in a few weeks and Uncharted, Heavy Rain and others planned for later in the year.
Exactly what did Microsoft put out?
Please don't try the "no games" route - especially when the rest of your points are pretty fair.
05/07/09
That's because they are the ones playing scummy buggers this gen. Think about it, one side is paying for exclusive DLC rather than games, one side is charging people to use their internet connection and not offering up a free alternative when everybody else is, one side released a console with a 1 in 3 failure rate when the rest didn't. If it sounds one sided that's because it is.
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"Sure Microsoft messed up with the RROD, but did they have a choice?"
Yes they did, it's called make a better product so that 10 million out of the 30 million sold will not have to be repaired/replaced. There is no excuse for releasing such a broken product.
"We all knew Playstation, Xbox was the pretender to the throne. If the 360 had released at a similar time to the PS3 it would be a distant third, even though the functionality was far better."
Sure that makes them less scummy, knowing they sold at least 10 million broken products to their fan base just to get a head of the competition.
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"You also forget Sony had a huge number of games studios already. They had many from the PS1/2 generations."
Microsoft are among the richest companies in the world. Have you seen how many major development studios have gone bust over the last 2 years - where was Microsoft's investment? It was in paying company's not to support their games after release. Rather than paying for GTA IV exclusive to the 360, they just paid for the extra content which meant anyone who bought the PS3 version got ripped off. I think we can all agree exclusive DLC is scummy, just like it was bad when Bioshock got exclusive DLC on the PS3 - the difference there is that Bioshock had been out a year on the 360 so the PS3 crew needed something to justify them paying more money out for it than a 360 guy would be able to get it for.
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"And as for paying for Live. I still laugh at everyone who complains about it."
Why would you laugh at people who know full well that they paid for their internet connection, paid for FIFA and paid for the device to play FIFA on but don't see why they should have to pay to use their equipment when nobody else does?
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"Having centrally managed online is soo much more intelligent. Take it all away from the developers, leave them to worry about making games, and leave Microsoft to handle all the networking stuff. That way, the quality of the online experience is all down to the network coding, rather than the budget of the developers."
So what you are saying is, we should have to pay so that the developers who make the games that we also pay for, don't have to work as hard. What a stupid argument. Why should we be twice? The cost of playing FIFA online is covered by the cost of purchasing FIFA - that is if you buy it on any other machine but the 360 they charge you for it. WAKE UP!
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"Even your hard drive rant is flawed. Its great that PS3 allows you to put any drive in your PS3, but is that really the best way to go? Do you look at cache sizes, heat output stats, and data transfer rates when buying your PS3 HDD, or do you just see 500GB for $50? 99% of people will go with the latter."
Alternatively people can buy an external hard drive plug it in via USB and download all their content to that, save files, trailers, games, etc. Not quite the same on the 360 is it. Also, RTFM!
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"Developers will have a harder time, because they havn't got a guaranteed performance baseline they can expect for a HDD"
You mean as opposed to not knowing if there will be a hard drive there at all? Can you see how stupid your argument is. Every PS3 has a hard drive the same can not be said about the 360 which has caused problems in the past for games like Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix.
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"Sure Microsoft have made lots of mistakes, and overcharge for accessories, but at least their one and only goal is to give the most stellar gaming expereince they can"
Yes there is nothing quite like waiting for a game for a year and a half and on the day you get it, your machine craps out. Stellar indeed.
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"where Sony are trying to sell you the new Bravia HDTV"
Show me an ad on the xmb, now go look at the ads on your NXE. Also last time I checked Sony have 30 games development studio's who as you pointed out seem to work rather harmoniously together, Microsoft had 5 and they keep losing them Bungie, Ensamble, Bizzarre Creations, etc -
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"every now and then, they may remember to release a game!"
When was the last AAA 360 exclusive title released and when is the next one due? Ask yourself the same question about the PS3. But this wasn't meant to be about who's machine is better than who's, who has better games or anything like that. It was meant to be a judgement on Sony's policy's of constantly giving away free games, online play, etc and Microsoft's cocky policy of charging you to play games that everyone else can play for free.
05/07/09
Well, for one thing, Sony developed Blu-ray and stands to make a crapload of money if Blu-ray becomes established as a high-def, disc-based medium on par with the DVD. There's a huge financial interest present with Blu-ray that makes the situation not at all analogous to what Nintendo did by refusing to go with CDs.
Not that I care very much. I'm just saying that's why people say Sony foisted Blu-ray on PS3 customers when they didn't necessarily want it.
05/07/09
Sony used CD and you think Nintendo were cocky for not using CD, now Sony used Bluray and you see them as cocky rather than Microsoft - that sounds like a double standard if you ask me.
The difference with Microsoft not using Bluray and Nintendo not using CD is that Nintendo had were the ones that started work on the Playstation with Sony as an add-on to the SNES. So it wasn't that Nintendo didn't want to move to optical storage it's just that they had messed up when it came to the legal documentation and so decided to scrap the Playstation. Big mistake for sure, hardly a cocky move to try and retain the legal rights to your IP's though.
Microsoft on the other hand, released a new console without pushing the new technology that we have available and as such developers are now limited to what they can achieve. To make matters worse they charge a crazy amount of money for people to use more than one disc and they force people to stick all their xbox live code on the disc.
Sony made the right move to go with Bluray, games like Blue Dragon and Rage are really showing the need for a bigger storage format. Rockstar have agreed that their next game will be exclusive to Sony simply because they want to use the bigger disc format, Metal Gear Solid IV was exclusive to the PS3 because of the disc format and so many other games have passed the 9GB limitations of the DVD. I fail to see how Sony using bigger and better technology is cocky.
The bonus for us is they also got mass support for Bluray, which means we have better quality movies/tv shows to go with our better quality tv's to go with out better quality games. Isn't that what you have come to expect from your new console? My first CD player was the PS1, my first DVD player was the PS2, my first Bluray player was the PS3.
05/07/09
I'll make it quick. There's nothing wrong with paying for exclusive DLC, that's just MS choosing to work with 3rd party devs you moron. They paid to even have it made so you'd never see it if it wasn't for MS anyway so that's a null point. Charging for a service isn't wrong, it's not free to make so why should we get it free? Arguably the reason Wii has it free is because it has barely any service and Sony has just had advertisements pay for it's service. Sony released a faulty PS2 last gen but your probably backing Sony this gen so is that not hypocritical?
I agree they should have avoided RROD cos there's no denying that.
If those companies went bust it's because they're not profitable, you honestly expect MS to have to buy every dying company? That's just stupid. How does paying rockstar to make extra content make Microsoft pay people to not support games? I'm sorry your butt hurt that you miss out on a games content but MS payed for it so why does Sony deserve it? No one on the PS3 got ripped off either cos the content wasn't free so admittedly they missed out but they didn't lose the value of the initial game at least. You'll cite exclusive DLC as scummy but when 360 games go on PS3 with extra content (one of Sony's policies being the reason that occurs) like Lost planet, Enchanted arms, eternal sonata, tales of vesperia, Bioshock etc. I bet you don't call that scummy. Why does it being released a year later mean they deserve extra content? Is it not a good game still a year down the line?
I kind of agree with the Xbox live still though considering it still does have ads and stuff.
The hard drive point is fair since it is pointless paying that much for a hard drive when they could just make any work like on PS3.
Having a hard drive or not isn't too much of a problem considering devs have to code for PC's which have tons and tons of different modifications and not just a matter of the hard drive being there or not.
It doesn't matter how many devs they have so long as they manage to get the games still. You'd complain if MS forced these companies to stay with them or bought them out. Hell you complain at them even buying exclusive DLC or paying to have an exclusive never mind buying a company.
That doesn't matter at all whether MS has had a dry spot right now and Sony hasn't cos Sony had one earlier and all I heard was 'wait till god of war 3' or 'wait till blah blah blah'. I'm personally waiting on Star ocean 4 (european) soon and then there's a few more coming out like Forza 3, more halo ODST, Magna carta 2 etc. I'll wait till E3 is done to comment on whether MS has been going too slow or not but at the moment I don't think there's too big a problem since each console has a good selection, each one has roughly the same amount of games and each one has there own exclusive roster.
05/07/09
"There's nothing wrong with paying for exclusive DLC, that's just MS choosing to work with 3rd party devs you moron"
No, getting Rockstar to make GTA IV exclusive to the 360 would have been "Just MS choosing to work with 3rd party devs" and I would have been 100% behind that because it would have meant nobody picked up a game that didn't receive the full experience with after market support, etc.
I will refer you to the comments section of the recent kotaku "Tell Us Dammit"
[kotaku.com]
Note that 99% of the commenters are against console exclusive content in games because they see it as them not getting the full content of the game. Microsoft paying massive amounts of money to Rockstar and Bethesda has meant that anyone who picked up Fallout 3 and GTAIV on the PS3 have been robbed of the same experience. Likewise, all the 360 fanboys who sang the praises of Bioshock when it came out, claiming that it was the best game of this generation - you know the guys that made PS3 owners want the game in the first place. They got ripped off when it was released on PS3 with better graphics, extra game modes and exclusive DLC.
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"Why does it being released a year later mean they deserve extra content? Is it not a good game still a year down the line?"
When the PS3 version of Bioshock released it was priced at £40. However the 360 version had a year of depreciation and could be found for £20 new or cheaper if you went preowned. The extra content was Bethesda's way of sweetening the pot to offset the price difference.
I do think it's scummy that the 360 owners missed out on content for a game that they had made a big todo about. It punished their own fanbase completely. The extra content could have been on the PS3 disc to offset the price difference and the same extra content could have been made available to the 360 for a fee. That way everyone could get it. That way everyone would have been happy.
Why don't I call Sony scummy for this - They had nothing to do with the extra content. They didn't pay 50 million so that the 360 owners missed out unlike a certain rival company. Oh and if you check my comment history, while you will see I am more proPS3 than I am pro360, you will also note that I come out against exclusive DLC no matter which system it's for. It really is ruining the industry.
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Just think the money Microsoft spent on exclusive DLC could have meant new exclusive games on the 360 for us all to be excited about but instead MS pulled their dirty tricks and 360 owners ended up with the same content they would have done anyway.
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"How does paying rockstar to make extra content make Microsoft pay people to not support games?"
Do you think Rockstar wouldn't have made the Lost and Damned without Microsoft's money? Do they really strike you as the company that wouldn't make the most out of their GTA series with add-ons? Microsoft didn't need to pay them to make the Lost and Damned that would always have happened. They paid them to not make it on the PS3.
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"I'm sorry your butt hurt that you miss out on a games content but MS payed for it so why does Sony deserve it?"
It's not Sony who deserve it you butthead, it's the people that bought GTA IV and Fallout 3 on the PS3 who deserve it. You know the people that keep Rockstar in business by purchasing their games. Don't you see that exclusive content only punishes the gamer.
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"No one on the PS3 got ripped off either cos the content wasn't free so admittedly they missed out but they didn't lose the value of the initial game at least"
You can't honestly feel that way? When you buy a game these days, after market support is expected. I have a group of mates, some with just the PS3 some with both and some with just the 360. When we get together and start talking about games, Fallout 3 comes up and part of the group are sat saying, "Man I can't wait for this update" and the others are sat their gutted because they have no access to it, even though they paid the same price as we did.
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"You'll cite exclusive DLC as scummy but when 360 games go on PS3 with extra content (one of Sony's policies being the reason that occurs)"
What policy?
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"Having a hard drive or not isn't too much of a problem considering devs have to code for PC's which have tons and tons of different modifications and not just a matter of the hard drive being there or not."
It is a pretty big problem, [www.videogamer.com] . Granted that issue has since been relaxed but the fact that developers can't count on a hard drive been in the machine means they can't compress data and extract it to the hard drive which would lessen the blow of their old disc format. This was a major contributing factor as to why RAGE had to be reworked.
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"Hell you complain at them even buying exclusive DLC or paying to have an exclusive never mind buying a company."
No, exclusive games are all well and good. It means people who buy them are getting the best game that they can get. If GTA and Fallout 3 were both 360 exclusives that would have been great. Nobody that bought them would have felt ripped off. If Microsoft bought out EA (probably the smartest move in history) I would be more than fine with that.
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"That doesn't matter at all whether MS has had a dry spot right now and Sony hasn't cos Sony had one earlier"
If by earlier you mean, in their first year of launch - what console didn't?
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"I'm personally waiting on Star ocean 4 (european) soon and then there's a few more coming out like Forza 3, more halo ODST, Magna carta 2 etc. I'll wait till E3 is done to comment on whether MS has been going too slow or not but at the moment I don't think there's too big a problem since each console has a good selection"
While I agree that waiting until E3 is a good idea the point I made about Sony having 30 development studio's under their belt is that they will never have another dry spot because they can get into a 15 exclusives per year cycle not including the 3rd party devs that are making exclusives for it and all the amazing cross platform titles.
Microsoft don't have that kind of development power at the minute, they need to make some serious investments and what a perfect time to set up gaming studios. A crap load of talented people have been made unemployed lately - now is their chance to capitalize but even then it would take years for that to pay off. Sony set up the long term strategy where as Microsoft got cocky and didn't plan for the future. - It's been the story of this generation really.
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"each one has roughly the same amount of games and each one has there own exclusive roster"
The difference is, Sony's exclusive roster is a lot more recent and often times ground breaking than Microsoft's. Look at the metacritic top 20 for both consoles PS3 has 7 exclusives, 360 has 3 exclusives in the top 20 - 2 of which are from 2007.
Look at the break down by date of the top 20
360
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2009 = 1
2008 = 7
2007 = 8
2006 = 3
2005 = 1
PS3
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2009 = 4
2008 = 9
2007 = 7
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The majority of the top titles on the 360 are from 2005 - 2007 where as the majority on the PS3 are from 2008-2009 onwards and from the announcements we know about, the games fest from Sony won't be drying up any time soon. That is because they were smart enough to think about the future - be it with Bluray, hard drives in every machine, first party devs, pub fund, etc. Where as Microsoft put out their broken machine, with outdated technology and figured they would be able to charge people to play FIFA/Madden/COD/Smackdown/Street Fighter/UFC/Tony Hawks/R6V2/GRAW/GTA/Burnout/NFS/Tekken/Poker/Fight Night/NHL/etc online, when they are free everywhere else - All because they were first to market. That my friend is cockyness.
(the things you can write when you are procrastinating eh lol)
05/08/09
What's with the hard-on for Sony? Your little list by year is pathetic. Why include 2005 for Microsoft but not 2006 for Sony? Why talk about 2009 like it's already over and done with when we're sitting at the beginning of May? Why not pick up a 360 on the cheap and enjoy games on both systems, rather than sitting in the corner with your arms folded sad that all these people are having a good time?
05/08/09
"Your little list by year is pathetic. Why include 2005 for Microsoft but not 2006 for Sony? "
The list was taken from Metacritic's top 20 games for both systems. The list shows that Sony have been more dominant with games since 2007 (the year it launched in all but 2 countries) while the 360 had a really good run at the beginning of it's life cycle when people had nothing to compare it with.
If you just look at this year alone, there have been 4 games released on the PS3 that made the top 20, while only 1 of the best 360 games of all time have been released this year and it was a cross platform game. Which means games are improving on the PS3 but not on the 360.
The point you made about Killzone's load issues - They fucked up big time by not using the install but you can't blame that on Bluray when no other game suffers from it.
As for you not liking bluray. Sony can't help it if you don't like the finer things in life. With each console they have pushed the disc capacity to a new level. Why wouldn't they do that with the PS3. I for one am glad I don't have to buy a seperate bluray player just to watch movies. Now I have one in my gaming system which means games can make use of the storage capacity.
I personally can't wait to see how Rockstar's next big game looks. Nor can I wait to see how crazy games will get over the next 5 years. Without a company like Sony offering these advancements for those that want it - consoles would still be 8bit.
For all the critisism Microsoft got about the hardware needed to run Vista - without them releasing it, Ram would never have had the price cut it got and processors/graphics cards of this power wouldn't be as cheap as they are today. You have to look past your "I don't like bluray, I prefer the shitter DVD's" type of thinking.
Oh and as for Rockstar and them going bust. Do you really think that if they had approached a bank for a loan and told them that the game they were about to sell was guarenteed the money - the bank would have turned them down? GTA IV gave them a license to print money. As for them keeping independant. Making the game under the EA belt would have meant more fans could enjoy the content made for it. They are hardly independant with Microsoft - that money meant they were contractually obligated to work for MS.
05/09/09
Talking about 2009 when it's still four months in is also silly. As is looking at Metacritic's top 20. Microsoft's pre-2009 releases scored better than Sony's, so of course it's easier for Sony to put out new games that crack the top 20. The bar is set lower. For example, Peggle got an 89 on the Xbox 360 and GTA: The Lost and the Damned (which you might not count as a game) got a 90, but neither cracked the top 20 on the 360 because the top 20 cuts off partway through 90. Both games, if released on PS3, would have cracked the top 20 for that system as the top 20 there cuts off at 88. It makes more sense to pick some arbitary number, say 85, and look at how many titles beat that score this year on each system.
It wouldn't surprise me if Sony came out in front, though. They've released more titles so far this year. I don't necessarily disagree with your contention that this is shaping up to be a better year for the PS3, just that the metrics and logic you were using don't fly.
05/09/09
As for your comment about not buying a bluray disc for your PS3, do you own any games?
05/10/09
I do think too much emphasis gets put on Metacritic as far as what's good and what's not. It's largely a matter of preference. One of my favorite games on the 360 is Culdcept Saga, and that thing's Metacritic score is in the high 70s.
05/10/09
I don't really know about either but there was a lot of reports that Killzone 2 had 2GB levels. Lair (shudder) & MGS4 certainly couldn't have been done on 1 DVD and clearly Blue Dragon couldn't be either.
Blue Dragon was released less than a month after the PS3 and was on 3 DVD's. Lair pushed 25GB and Lost Odyssey was a 4 disc beast of a game, MGS on a 50GB disc. All these titles were released in the first 2 years of the PS3's 10 year cycle. Games like Rage have been redesigned because of Microsoft's storage issue. - Why would it have been a bad thing for Sony to give their developers more creative freedom?
Can you imagine how big MGS:V will be, what about other ambitious developers. I would love to see the next big sandbox/RPG game be mixed with sports rather than shooting. Ideally coming from EA, where the main character wants to be a fighting superstar and ideally break out as a fighting superstar but to get there he has to train in the different sports and make a name for himself in the different areas.
So they would need a full game engine dedicated the BJJ/wrestling/boxing/karate/judo/Kickboxing/Muay Thia/MMA - with championships for them all and training routines/camps along with some kind of story and sub plots like maybe underground fighting/building your reputation up, getting hype, etc. Mix that with public reactions to the characters actions and TV appearances/charity projects/etc. For a game like this swapping disc's wouldn't be an option and while it might never get created - at least they have the option now where as back on the DVD format it just wouldn't have been possible (or at least not to the same quality).
I love that Sony included blu-ray and I wish they hadn't have backed down on the BC to save some cash. That is there main error this time round. Thankfully I got a 60GB so now I have access to 3 consoles worth of games and I could probably install some kind of emulator on linux for other consoles.
05/06/09
Remember, too, that they did The Club for Sega. So it's not like it was a single transition.
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[kotaku.com]
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Damned good question. But it's amazing how when they're signing the paychecks, people in this situation tend to selectively not comprehend that (or at least acknowledge it).
Hey Bizarre...you know what the "frying pan" was like. Now get ready for the "fire."
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05/07/09
You could call me alarmist, but i think you're doing a bit of card stacking, as they were indeed working within their time frame in which to make their game. You however seemed to have missed the part where they said they cut six weeks off of their time frame at the last minute. exploitation is needed sometimes, but when they change it up THIS close to it's finishing, it could truly fuck up the sales.