I certaintly buy the big name games that get great ratings, but I've found over the years that it's the oddball games that stayed just under the radar that I've most enjoyed. The games that maybe got a 7.5 so most people brushed them aside to buy the next Call of Duty. It just sucks, because in today's game market, those good games not being huge sellers means they'll never become big name franchises, or even warrant a solid sequel. Sure theres companies like Atlus that help bring niche games with lower budgets to people that really appreciate them (like myself), but for the most part unless these games are made with strictly digital distribution and a low budget, they're going to inevitably fail. Even if they do sell a respectable amount. To be sure, 1.2 mil 90 days is impressive, it just isn't enough nowadays and that's sad.
Man that sucks about 38 Studios. I was really looking forward to seeing what they would do next with Amalur. Yes Reckoning wasn't a perfect game, but it's a lot more fun than a lot of the rpgs being released lately. I greatly believe if they would've made a 2nd game, it would have been something really special. Honestly, I think if Reckoning had come out before Skyrim, it would have fared better. Unfortunately Skyrim raised the bar quite a bit for open owrld rpgs. And Kingdoms of Amalur and Studio 38 appear to be the first studio to suffer from it. The good thing is developers will have to strive to compete with games this good. This means we can expect some truly great rpgs in the coming years. The bad thing is developers looking to try something new are taking a huge gamble and will end up like 38, even if they only make a good game, as opposed to a great one. It's not just rpgs that are now stuck in this trend, all genres are stuck with this prediciment. Pretty soon the only place to purchase innovative, unique games will be through download/indie marketplaces.
It would be foolish not to port it to consoles. Lord knows Activision needs the money. They might actually make some money from consoles aside from Call of Duty. I know all the PC fanboys would cry foul, but it would be a good move overall. I spend way more time on my consoles than pc and would much rather play this on my ps3 or 360. The first Diablo was still a blast on Playstation. Sure you needed an entire memory card to play it, but it was still fun. It just wouldn't make sense to ignore the huge market consoles would open up. Especially after all the years in development. You would think Blizzard would want to get this game to as many gamers as possible.
My 5th xbox is a slim and I agree, they have improved the hardware immensely. If it weren't for the slim model I'd have sold all my games and just stuck with my playstation. I still notice a huge difference between the two in heat issues. Although neither system has overheated yet, my PS3 after several hours of playtime gets a little warm, the 360 gets much hotter in half the time. Not so much that I worry about it, but it definitely runs hotter. I still love both systems, but as much as I once rooted for the 360, problems abound have turned me off from Microsoft. They still have a better overall online service, but since I can still play games online with PS3 without paying for the service, plus that I can use services I already pay for like Netflix without paying, Sony has won me back. Come the next console generation I'm going with Sony hands-down. Perhaps if the next xbox doesn't have such a ridiculous failure rate, I might buy their next system after a couple years.
Considering the fact that the PS3 menu layout and internet services are geared more towards finding what you want as opposed to the 360s movie advertisment layout, I believe the PS3 is clearly geared towards adults. With that said, I definitely feel the PS3 is the better suited console for artistic games. Sony has been providing artistic games for 3 consoles now (not counting portable consoles). Xbox has a few somewhat artsy games, but for the most part, those games are pc ports. Otherwise the only games Xbox offers are Fable, Halo and Gears of War. Everything else is multi-platform. Those three franchises are hardly what I'd consider artistic. Fable may have a bright color palette, but it is not artsy. Of course that's just my opinion. 4 rrod'ed consoles and a bunch of b.s. over my Xbox Live subscription have made me a bit jaded towards Micro$oft. I am once again a Sony guy. All my Playstation consoles still work. I've bought 2 Xboxes and am on my 5th 360 (4 from warranty. I only bought 2 total). That kinda ruined any trust I once had with Moneysoft. Learn how to make a working system idiots.
If they ever did block used sales, developers are gonna have to spend a LOT more money on demos, because otherwise the folks like me who rent first then buy won't be giving their game the time of day. I will never again pay $60 for a game that takes one night to beat! And a demo rarely gives you an idea of how long the game is.
One more thing, if developers want to cut back on used sales maybe they should focus on making gems people don't want to sell a month after purchase. Replay value and expansions. Not to mention games that take longer than a night to beat. I have to work half a night to make that $60 the game costs. 4 hours of work should not land me a game that takes 6 hours to beat. I've got over 110 hours in Skyrim and still have another 20-40 hours worth of stuff to do in it. I know I won't sell it because I'll want to play it again in a year or so when I am done with it. Yeah that's an extreme, but it is not unreasonable to expect at least 15 hours of gameplay for $60 and to have a game fun enough to want to play again later on. If you come out with crap that takes 4 hours to beat that I'll never want to play again and sell a week after buying you deserve to lose sails from people buying used. Make a better product and you won't have this problem.
A different approach, which is already starting to happen anyway, is to charge one-time fee to play a used game online. It costs money to maintain servers and keep online features functional. Don't lock-out the single player experience, but if you want to use the game's servers to play online, you have to pay for the experience. Not a lot of people agree with this aproach, but it makes sense from a business standpoint. The company's got to make money somewhere. So if you want to save money getting the game used and thus deprive the company of the profits from that game, you should have to pay a little for their continued efforts in keeping online features running. Blocking out used games altogether will only decrease sales in the long run. And limiting the games to one system means no borrowing or bringinggames to a friend's house to try it with them. All in all I really don't see the anti-used model working at all. It'll basically mean a new PS4/Orbis will be released 6 months after the initial launch so we can play used games.
There are so many problems with not allowing used games on a console. First off is the fact that you cannot try a game before buying it. I have rented many games before deciding to buy. It's just good sense. You don't buy a car without a test drive. Sure there's always demos, but demos don't always give you enough of a taste to warrant buying the entire game. 20 minutes of shooting guys doesn't remotely let me know if I want to blow $60 on something. Second is the fact that games only have a limited shelf life. I don't have unlimited funds to buy every good game the second it comes out. If I finally decide to buy a game a year after it comes out there's a good chance I won't be able to find it new. Or if I do find it new it's being sold online by someone who thinks it's worth twice the original price. That infaltion by the way, will only get worse if you can only play the game new. Developers might think this restriction a good idea, but in truth their only going to be cutting their fanbase from all those that might have purchased the game used or rented it. It might not seem like a bad thing to them since they wouldn't make anything off that used sale anyway, but that's many more people that won't even consider buying the sequel brand new.
It's about time we see a new GTA. I don't care what anyone says, 4 was an awesome game. It was nice to step away from SA's "gangsta" vibe. I grew up in that kinda area and don't find it very fun to play as the same thugs I had to watch out for as a kid. It should be nice to be able to enjoy San Andreas this time around. Looks like another hit from R*. I can't wait. Hopefully they bring back some of SA's roleplaying elements though.
roosteraxe1's comments