jammy2211

Looks like they spent half their budget on a flashy CGI trailer :P. Oh wait.

I wouldn't say SEGA understand it yet, they know that Sonic will sell by the bucketload no matter how terrible the game is, thats about it. They're the only major publisher to really be trying gamer games on the console, they are getting strong-ish sales but I still find them somewhat lack-lustre considering the pretty much have the whole market to themselves. Western publishers try to hard to make everything a demographic, and applying that philosphy to the Wii just doesn't seem to work, which is why Nintendo are striking such a goldmine on the console with their everyone-is-included approach. Which again makes me think the easter devs will be the best to approach the Wii. I don't think WiiWare is really viable for anything like that, you can't market a product on that scale to give it a fair 'testrun' and it will only reach the people who use WiiWare. I think PSN and XBLA are leaps and bounds ahead for that sort of approach, mainly due to the nature of their userbase though (And being less technologically restrictive).

It depends on which side of developement you go to I guess, teams like Epic, Bethesda, Infinity Ward, Obsidian etc don't want to develope for the Wii. They've always been tech-lead, so they'll develope for the console with the best tech (Graphically speaking, of course). Tech-lead studio's tend to make the best of the games we want though, I guess, hence why the Wii is starved of any real support from western third parties. It's a brighter pictre in Japan though, albeit eastern developement is suffering (?) from westernification. Still, I think the Wii's best third party games will come from all the random studio's over there.

Got mine Janaury 2007, not played it since er, July? Albeit I don't bring it to uni... still, don't touch it over holidays or whatevers.

Killzone 2 doesn't need to sell anywhere near that much to break even . But er, why don't they make them? Cause they tried doing that, for about a decade, and Sony kicked their arses.

I think it's hard to criticize third parties alot for their efforts on the Wii, in nearly all cases (As far as western devs go anyway) the majority of their games are on the Wii, and most of them are clearly aimed at established markets with proven sales and plenty of room for success. It does still surprise me that less games 'we' would like to see are being made for the console, but I guess third parties just don't think the audience is there, or don't want to think it's their. I think a big problem is the core people behind the best games in the world, the developers, look down on the Wii more then any EA executive or Capcom CEO. I'd like to see companies just make games that take advantage of the Wii... rather then something which I can get the same experience, but better, on my PS3. I'd rather see games that we don't get anywhere else, stuff like Mad World and...er... That Masarume (sp?) game. That'll come from the east though me thinks.

So the survey data is based on the responses of 20000 from a console userbase of 50 million + PC users? Can < 0.05% really be counted as statistically relevent? :/.

Red Steel 2 has been in developement hell, to say the least. I'm not really allowed to say alot but basically, after about a year of developement Ubisoft did a quality test and thoguht Red steel 2 was absolute balls, so threw all the work on the game out and gave it to a different developer. Hence why its taken them longer to make a sequel to this then something like Rainbow Six or Assassin's Creed lol. It should be for the best when it finally comes out though.

I remember EA saying in a press release it sold over 3 million copies in the end I think 0_o.

Retailers must hate Activision at the moment lol.

Beyond Good and Evil.

I never got how a single console would be a monopoly - the only iffy part is the manufacturers could charge a higher retail price, but the fact is they'd still be competiting with what the public are willing to pay. After that, you'd still have competition on software from the fact that all the different publishers want the most sales. However there may be a problem with the console manufacturer charging over-the-odds royalties to third parties, thats the only issue I could potentially see. It's too hard for us to estimate where costs of these games come from, would having some sort of multi-engine to license really reduce costs that much? Are the highest costs from making the game engine or producing the art, graphics, programming the final game etc? I dunno, I don't follow this stuff enough. It just seems an odd idea that Ubisoft, EA, Capcom etc would want to license an engine like this when they have tons of their own that are already used for multiple projects. From what I've read Unreal 3 was used short-term to get games out as quickly and easily as possible, but less and less games are using it from now because all the major publishers have their own engines - ultimately that would happen with this idea of an engine too?

It depends on the intergrity of the company doing this - if they know there engine is the one and only then they'll charge higher prices - potentially even charge a royalties rate per copy manufactured of any game using the engine. Competition could potentially drive costs down but we're way off being in a position for competition at the moment. I'm pretty sure Square Enix are using it (Albeit The Last Remnant failed hard for whatever reason). It's been used well outside just FPS's to success though :/. I very much doubt that is why costs are rising. Art assets are the main reason, along with the 'type' of games dominating the industry at the moment, huge, epic experiences. With reference to the Goldeneye thing - I think part of that is due to online. Half of the game nowaday is treated as online, and when the games cost nearly the same price at retail obviously offline is going to be subsidised, as people arn't just paying for an offline experience. The question I raise is the feasibility of an all-purpose super engine. Would making an engine so 'open ended' drive costs down, or require any developer to 'adjust' it and recode it to do what they want, ultimately raising costs. Would it's apparently complexity make developement more difficult and lead to greater problems for the developers? I dunno, I don't understand much of this stuff. If it was technically possible I'd assume someone would have already done it though. I'm iffy on the economics too, I'd imagine a much better solution would be a 1 console type market, at least for the HD side of things.

Too short for me. Not that I was ever intending on buying this at full price anyway. Too many games as it is, barely made a start on Dead Space . Think I'll get RE5 in september when I can play through it in Co-op with my mate.

@darkjak, I'm no expect but surely by making companies 'buy' an all purpose engine, it'd turn out more expensive then the current model? Because well, whoever made this all purpose engine is going to sell it at a profit, no? Not to mention being potentially very inefficient to certain game developement, and leading to all sort of potential monopolies. Also I'm not sure how different it'd be to what Epic are doing with the Unreal 3 already? It makes more sense to me what companies are currently doing - creating their own engines which are used over a range of games. I think EA used their Godfather engine to make over 5 games, one being The Simpsons game they released a few years back? I'd guess the problem arises in that most companies don't have a team as quality as Epic do...which shouldn't be a problem for companies the size of EA or Activision though.

Okies, I'll probs go for Dead Space. Really been meaning to play it for a while now.

So after the disaster-purchase that was Tom Clancy's EndWar, tommorow I shall be going into GameStation receipt in hand ready to claim back my £25 to get another game. I'm split on purchasing this or Prince of Persia, the biggest factor is I'm a bit of a pussy. Dead Space looks great but I'm not sure how much of the scary-alien stuff I can take, so I ask, will I need to grow a pair to play this? Should I just go for the safe Prince of Persia option or take the risk? I know the game is hyped as brilliant mind you. I think I'll risk the scariness and go for it, I've become more atoned to this sort of game lately. The odd thing is I used to play the original Silent Hill's and Resident Evil's no problem as a kid 0_o.

Sora don't have anything to do with Kingdom Hearts. The companies head lead guy made Kirby and Smash Bros.

RE:UC was a story driven on-rails shooter and didn't really offer that much more. I can't see this offering a great deal better, except better graphics and more refined gameplay. It's good but I've no real interest in an on-rails shooter personally. Seems like a step back from Dead Space, which I think i'll be buying tommorow 0_o.

The game is on-rails.

Nintendo 64 Games launched with a £70 price tag 0_o. Even late games like Donkey Kong 64 and Conkers were £60.

The article has alot of sensationism, and misses out alot of facts. The general theme rings true but it should be taken with a pinch of salt. Anywho, what is causing publishers to lose money more then most is just trying to use last-gen sales trends and practises this generation. The market has changed, consumers buy products in different ways now, EA and Activision need to understand that. They're in the process of adjusting to the new model, then figures will pick up. The articles skips around companies like Capcom, Konami and Ubisoft, who despite the strong Yen, Global Recession, no behemoth HD hits for the year and heavily supporting HD developement are reporting fiscal year profits thus far. Revenue is at an all time high, just profits arn't. Costs of making games are higher, true, but when revenue is highest then profits are potentially highest, it's just a matter of time until EA and Activision's finances reflect this.

The problem for me is that music is completely subjective, musical complexity (Or how big a drum kit the band has) doesn't make the music and better or worse, because everyone has different tastes and whatever. Whereas, how realistic a game looks is objective. How much it pulls off technically is just numbers and figures. I understand you can get subjectivity with art styles and whatnot but even then, the programmers and artists would probably rather make the best looking cel-shaded game then a good looking cel-shaded game. Companies should be going for a less realistic look with their games though (Albeit they best not go in the direction of that majestic march game lol). It really comes down to the studio in hand on what they want to (And what they financially can do). The reason most people go into games developement is because they enjoy games, and so for most of them (And the ones I've spoken to) they want to go down the PS360 route of developement, as that's what they grew up with.

I was trying to avoid giving this away in the IGN podcast thread lol. But yeah, definitely a good announcement, very interesting when you consider the sort of market it's aimed at too. Good to see EA branching out further, albeit there is still a bit of cheek to it with Dead Space 2 heading to PS360 (Albeit maybe that'll have a Wii version?) Either way, hard to get too excited before screenshots. Dead Rising Wii sounded promising too...

Seeing more Mega Man 9 style developement would be awesome, there was something like that on the DS but I think it turned to vaporware. Some minnow developed who probably went bust. But yeah, RPG's need to sort themselves out. I think Square are trying to 'revolutionize' their games but the problem is at the same time they're trying to not alienate their hardcore fanbase, and we're then left with a mish-mash of new innovative ideas which arn't fully realized because they dare not change enough to make it work. For me though I don' think FFXIII is the game they should be changing much. It's Final Fantasy, it's an epic incredible gaming experience and the pretty much represents Square-Enix on the global scale. I'm happy for essentially 'more of the same' provided it's up to the high standards set by all their previous final fantasies. Maybe use Versus to mix things up? I'm not sure.