Teppo Holmqvist

Namco's head honcho said to break even on PS3, you must sell around 500 000 copies. This isn't really easy feat, especially if you aren't backed by big company that can spent idiotic sums to advertisement and hyping your product. It is even worse that most companies can't even survive one or two flops. It's no big wonder that developers who are most excited about next generation are those who have strong financial backing and lots of time to develop their product. Like Maxis who is supported by EA.

You mean like this?

But it is also product that was meant for christmas market, and pushed four months just to convert it for Wii.

Well, Blender is our own, dear mascot. He is maybe dumb as shoe, but he has heart of gold. Or something...

Well, no harm intended then. : peace:

Well, let's just politely say that some of comments that you have written could be considered flamebaits. This is especially as you don't never seem to have anything positive to say. I don't know if its intentional, but it feels sometimes like it.

The one that suits your own agenda*, of course. Just remember to ignore fact that many far more experienced (and respected) developers don't have problem with Wii's horsepower so we can have another and pointless fight. * Which is quite anti-Wii.

Yeah, Ice Climbers has special place in my heart also, because it was game that I got along with my NES. Small trivia... did you know that Ice Climber's FDS version featured seperate selection screen / music for mountains?

Ironically, HF2 was doable on Xbox.

There is nothing wrong with it, but he is always so extreme with his opinions and views. He bitches about everything, and tells how much better everything would be if we would listen him and his ideas. I really respect his other works, but he has one of the worst egos in the business.

Costikyan... I know this guy from my other hobby, and though he is talented dude, he is also complete ass. He has been trying to push indie games for quite long time now, and is pretty pissed because nobody takes him seriously. If he would be less pretentious and actually have, y'know, good products, maybe then someone would take him seriously.

Yeah, but Nintendo has, unlike most comapnies, many guaranteed million sellers coming out this year. If they would release all their games on holiday season, they would just cannibalize each others sales. That's why you are going to see only 1-2 heavy hitters during christmas.

Believe me, it is never going to be out here. :p

Release date is written on fact sheet that is on the bottom of page: 発売日 ２００７年５月２４日

Dumdi dum, Sega has announced Pachinko collection for Wii, and it has support for both Wi-Fi and Miis. Coming out 24th of May, 2007. Two stupid rumours squashed with single stone. SOURCE

Exactly. Sony itself is pretty bad when it comes to milking their own key-franchises: * Five Jak & Dakter games during five year period. * Five Ratchet & Clank games during five year period. * Three God of Wars (2 x PS2 + 1 PSP) during four year period. * Three Sly Raccoons during four year period. etc. And if we look Cube's output there is only five Nintendo franchises that had more than one more game in this generation. And even from those, only Mario Party had more than one sequel.

2 hours a day*. I don't find that surprising at all, because energy consumption for component's has steadily grown since early 90's, and X360's components are bleeding edge (except for GPU). And no matter how bad X360's energy consumption may look, it is still very low if compared against modern and fully equiped PC-gaming rig. I mean, newest ATI GPUs will require their own power outlet, which is (IMO) little too much. * In reality, only few of us play 2 hours each day.

Wasting electricity is little excessive word to use, as Wii's standby mode still requires less power than Cube. I don't remember what site did the calculations, but they calculated that having Wiiconnect24 on for 365 days does 6 dollar big dent on your wallet. Using PS3 for 2 hours a day puts over 60 dollars big dent on your wallet, and X360 fell of somewhere in the middle (but below 30 dollars). That Wii warms isn't problem so long as it doesn't damage any components (but I understand that it can worry someone who doesn't deal with computers on daily basis).

No, but I don't see either how it is going to doom any console. Having online gaming is nice perk and really important for certain group, but if Wii is going to fail, it is going to happen due other reasons.

They are also announcing Sony Home. It's fairly clear after Kotaku debacle, and after someone noticed that Sony Home was trademarked about month ago.

It could be easily pushed to same day with Pokemon, a'la Sk8land.

Online play isn't so important feature as certain Internet using geeks always try to make it to be. And before you people start telling me about Xbox Live, let's take few statistics (oh boy..). First, Xbox Live, world's preminium online service roughly about 12 percent of all users during lifespan of first Xbox. This number came directly from Microsoft, and there is no reason whatsoever to doubt its validity. Last June Microsoft told how extremely popular new Xbox Live had been. 5.3 million owners, 2.6 million accounts. Big number eh? But let's put that number into perspective.... 1) 5.3 million isn't really that many consoles, and during this phase, console was bought mostly by previous console's core fans. Same core fans who were already active users of original Live service. It also shows only half of early adopters were interested enough to use Live in some form. 2) Microsoft didn't (naturally) tell division between type of accounts, probably because it was heavily tilting towards silver accounts. People register silver accounts, grab firmware updates, maybe few demos and that is. Furthermore if you had bought preminium package on march, you still had your 3 month limited Gold subscription. There is no info whatsoever how many people did actually renew these subscriptions. 3) After June, Microsoft hasn't been eager to tell Xbox Live numbers anymore. Probably because they are steadily going down percentage wise, as more casual players start to buy X360. 4) And before you guys start to explain you and your mates play actively on the Live, remember that you are currently posting on relatively minor and specialized gaming forum, have broadband connection and are very active net user. Not really what could be called "normal" gamer by any means.

GDC isn't never been about big annoucements, because it is meant exclusively for game developers. It has never been same kind of freak circus as E3, and never will be. Sony is going to have relatively big announcement this year, but it is made at GDC only because currently Sony is quite desperate for positive hype.

Well, kits are there but how its going to help projects that are nearly finished? Online code isn't something that you hastily slap to your product under month. That Reggie said this at DICE means that online kits haven't been out for long, and also hints that there is limited amount* of them, distributed to only amongst most important key players. Furthermore, SNK Playmore USA isn't even game company in most strictest sense. It has only ten employees, and it only localizes stuff that SNK Playmore Japan sends to it. In fact, SNK Playmore USA didn't even know what SNK Playmore Japan had planned with Nintendo's VC. And what comes to 3rd party games, let's also remember that Nintendo Wi-Fi service started with both 1st- and 3rd party game. Pokemon Battle Revolution isn't also going to be very far, as Diamond / Pearl are Q2 games, and it is obvious that PBR comes out at same time. * Some indie developers have clearly stated that they haven't got their Wii devkits because Nintendo can't produce them so fast as they want, and current kits go to more "important" developers. This means online kits must have similar shortage.

Reggie said during Mercury News DICE interview, that online devkits have been seeded to 3rd parties. Somehow I tend do believe him more than SNK, company that isn't by any means first on Nintendo's priority list. EDIT: Link below has podcast of the interview http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2007/02/audio_podcast_of_interview_reggie_fils-aime_posted.html EDIT 2: The interview in text form. http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2007/02/dice_interview_with_nintendo_of_america_president_reggie_fils-aime_.html EDIT 3: So, once again. Lots of noise and stupid speculation for nothing. I would really like that people would do little bit research before posting everything they see at net.