The Infamous pack is tempting, but I hope the extra additions are worthwhile. Extra costumes and such are usually featured in other action games natively, or as early DLC.
The Ratchet & Clank seems a bit lackluster by comparison now that God of War Saga is revealed. I know it was revealed first, but it still looks sparse when they don't even include all of the PS2 games while God of War Saga is set to include all of the console and handheld titles to date.
I wish more companies would bundle up their older franchises with their respective DLC. Then again, HD 'remakes' are like the gaming equivalent of Hollywood's push to re-release movies (The Lion King, Titanic, etc.) in 3D.
I wouldn't be surprised if "Versus XIII" is indeed dead, and they just convert the assets for a PS4/Xbox 720 debut.
I know I'm not the only one who has suspected this for some time. It was announced along with XIII, and yet XIII-2 releases before Versus even gets a release date?
Honestly, I wouldn't mind at all if they handed the whole project to someone else. Let Nomura focus on Kingdom Hearts III, and make sure that FFXV doesn't repeat the mistakes of FFXIII (I'll admit it...it's essentially just the prettiest FF to date, and not much else).
@Cypress131 @destroyeur You have a point, but when talking about the SNES era, there were nowhere near as many people buying games.
I don't have an numbers offhand, but the industry has exploded in size since those halcyon days. Gaming is as big as Hollywood now. Dev costs have skyrocketed, but so have the number of products sold. Selling 500K on any release during the cartridge days was probably unheard of. Now, if a game doesn't hit the million mark, many would consider it a failure.
Games cost more to develop now vs. then, but the returns are still likely greater. I'd like cheaper games, but it's not feasible given the current business model. If we want lower prices, then I suppose we gamers are going to have to stop sending the message that bigger is better. If dev costs come down, then they there would be no excuse for the high prices any longer.
@jayjay444 I think it will be even worse in a digital-only environment. With that much control, they could easily sell us each and every game in episodic fashion, and there would be no alternative.
Publishers didn't start whining about used games en masse until they starting blowing millions upon millions of dollars on development. Chasing the beast that is Call of Duty has exasperated this problem. Everyone wants those kinds of returns, and try to spend huge amounts to achieve such. It's part of the reason so many studios are closing up shop
Online multiplayer can't save a crappy game, and once the servers go down, you're left with a crappy game with even less value.
@moviequest14 I too want to reserve judgment until we get all the information, but judging from what we know so far...the Wii-U doesn't look to do anything different than the Wii as far as strategy goes.
@TheBlackEclipse True, but in the 16-bit era, video games were still considered something that only geeks and nerds owned. The industry was nowhere near the behemoth it is today. Back then, the overall market was probably about the size of a 'niche' market today and we didn't have these multi-million dollar budget releases coming annually.
Other kids used to deride me for playing video games past the age of 8. Now the industry rivals Hollywood.
@TheCyborgNinja I'm inclined to agree with a lot of what you said. Nintendo set out to capture a new audience with the Wii, and it succeeded. However, that audience has likely moved on to whatever mobile/social game is hot at the moment. 'Flighty' seems apt in this instance. Unfortunately, from the system was unveiled, the Wii U seems to be repeating the marketing strategy of the Wii. It's essentially a new way to play and involve the whole family (aimed at casual gamers) and stuff for the core crowd.
In my opinion, this isn't going to work. I don't believe lightning will strike twice. Nintendo seems to be banking on the casual crowd embracing a new console, which hardly seems likely. The Nintendo faithful will buy it, but you will have even less than when the Wii launched due to (once again) weak third party support. Sure, the Wii had a ton of games...only a minute amount of which made good use of motion controls.
So here we are again. Will the Wii U be more of the same? The console is going to live or die by its library, I think. Mario and Zelda alone aren't enough anymore. I simply hope that this tablet control will see more diverse use than a simple map function like so many DS games used.
I don't doubt it will fly off the shelves come launch, since that is the nature of new tech. But how about the years that follow?
@HAMMERCLAW That makes sense, but I suppose it is the nature of the beast when you're a third party developer. It would be interest to see what they could accomplish if they got their wish of shorter hardware cycles.
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