s}{ammer

It's not GTA though, according to the article they are dropping Grand Theft Auto from the title and porting over "Vice City" not GTA Vice City. It also stated that GTA4 will be PS2 only.

Groucho

Come on...do you really think that would hold up in court if it was the same game? Rockstar isn't stupid.

s}{ammer

I agree with what you said, which is why I found this article interesting. They do not say "could, "possibly", "may be", or even "if". They said exactly what was in my earlier post.

El-Kabong

I've got the console Hat Trick plus a PC, so I'm outfitted for the best of all worlds. My thinking is - what is the game, and what platform is it best suited to?

For example: All first person shooters on a console (ANY console) suck. Straight up, nothing beats the Mouse/Keyboard combo for precision of control and flexibility. So, when Halflife 2 comes out, the clear choice for me is the PC version. Network capable, flexible control and unlimited after-market support as folks make new skins, weapons and levels.

Now - lets take Knights of the Republic. Clearly a final fantasy RPG like game is best suited for the console market. Add in the fact that the X-Box version is not a port of the PC title, but that the PC version is a port of the X-Box title - that the X-Box version will be optimized for the console - and I'm all over that.

Fighting games (like Soul Caliber), driving combat games (Twisted Metal) and Horror Survival games (Resident Evil and it's countless knockoffs) are all clearly superior to the PC. RTS and FPS are all superior on the PC.

It all depends on the game.

jekbrown

if u ever play a fps online you'll change ur mind about the keyboard/mouse combo.... no control pad even comes close. aquiring targets is just soooo much faster with a quick jerk of a mouse than it is using any kind of analog stick or whatever. Go ahead and hook up a gamepad to ur PC and try being a sniper in a game like TFC or DoD. yikes.. you'd be a bullet sponge. lol!

j

Kellehair

That was my point. I agree that MS is trying to appeal to mainstream gamers. I think they're trying the wrong strategy though. I don't think "cute" games are gonna win them any new fans or excite their current fans. "Cute" games aren't exactly mainstream right now either (just ask Nintendo).

I didn't. Think about it though...
1. MS paid a fortune for Rare just to get this game. Unless it's a truly terrific game it will have disappointed.
2. PD wasn't really better than Goldeneye. Some things were better, some worse. All in all PD should have been better. You could really tell that Rare focused less on making a fun game and more on other aspects.
3. MS already has an FPS with great graphics, boring levels and a lame futuristic story. PD0 will have to be fantastic just for anyone to notice it.

Don't forget the GBA. You're really missing out on some classic gaming.

jekbrown

the alternative question is: why would anyone buy inferior versions of a game on ps2 when a better version is on xbox? Its not always the case, but most multiplatform games are better in atleast one respect on the xbox. I see what you're saying about exclusives... i own a gc so I can play RE0 and RE4... but for anything NOT exclusive the xbox is the way to go.

j

jekbrown

clearly... i was speaking from my own perspective as the end user. Frankly, I wish ALL games were multiplatform... then I could pick out the best version of the 3 or 4 and go with it. When a game is exclusive, who knows what kind of hidden potential it may have had that is squashed by system limitations, licensing agreements, and who knows what else.

j

El-Kabong

Ah - not so! I've got a GBA and a Gameboy player for my cube, so I'm good to go. Of course, I'm covered for classic gaming anyway - my 2600, Intellivision and NES see to that.

Still dont have one of those way old school pong games tho - you know, the 6-in-1 models from '75 with the lightgun and paddles.

gcribbs

I bet they do not see a port even after 2005 since Sony will sign another exclusive deal and lock them up for the PS3.

Sony will have 75 million consoles in the PS2 to dangle in front of Rockstar plus a great deal and Rockstar will not walk away from that for the way smaller market offered by MS.

jrutz

Also consider this: when a company ties up exclusivity rights, part of the deal is they subsidize what the publisher would be losing for not releasing a title on other platforms. If MS did this, they would have to pay a boatload to cover lost PS2 sales. If Sony did this, it's really a drop in the bucket for them because of the considerably smaller consumer base for the Xbox. In addition, a developer could spare the expense of developing for other platforms, keeping staff low, not having to maintain two or three independent project teams for the same title, etc.

Saying this, it will NEVER be feasible for a third-party publisher to develop outside of the PS2 market.

Jeremy

sniper308

And yet it happens...

gcribbs

because many games are not worth it for Sony to make deals to make it exclusive.

Also some types of games will sell well on a different console in spite of the numbers difference. I suspect that FPS games would almost always get released on an XBox due to it selling well on it versus the PS2 even though the PS2 has a much higher installed base.

If a game needs to be released and the developer has limited funds which will force a one console release it will almost always go to the PS2 for the higher possibility of sales.

Josh H

I agree. There's not been much coming out since last fall that has appealed to me, and less games this generation than in previous generations.

Though I'm sure moving and doing grad school in the DC area didn't help any as I have very little free time and very little expendable income anymore.

The last 2 games I bought were Aria of Sorrow for the GBA (along with the GB player) and Mark of Kri for $9.99.

I don't plan on buying anything until Soul Calibur 2, and I'm actually thinking of passing on that since it doesn't have that Soul Master or whatever RPGish mode the first game had. Without that the single player mode will get old fast like most fighting games I'm afraid, and I hardly ever play multiplayer anymore.

After that, Rogue Squadron 3 is the next game on my Radar (unless Mario Kart makes it out first).

kvrdave

And I somewhat agree. Not having oodles of time, I don't bother buying new games because I have no time for them, especially knowing I can buy the older ones and still enjoy them. As a result, I buy $20 games that were great when they first came out and most people have forgotten about them. Tony Hawk 3 is a great example. Most are already done with TH4 and waiting for THUG, while I am thinking about going and getting TH2 for cheap.

There is plenty to play.

Gallant Pig

Yeah for me it's working 40+ hours a week with a 30+ minute commute, looking for something to grab my attention. Nothing's out there.

Maybe the next generation of consoles will be more interesting.

porieux

I don't agree with Microsoft's business practices, and the only recourse I have is not to do business with them. So I don't.

If everyone who complained about MS would simply stop subsidizing them, perhaps they would be forced to change their destructive tactics.

If you don't have a problem with MS in the first place then obviously this wouldn't apply to you

Groucho

Nintendo and Sony are just as guilty of questionable business practices as Microsoft. I don't have any great love for any of these companies, but I do find it laughable that Microsoft is always criticized for this sort of thing, while the big N and S are given free passes.

Trigger

like what?

Kellehair

For starters... http://www.****microsoft.com/content/whatsbad.shtml (I'm sure you can guess what the censored word is)

Note: I don't vouch for any of the info on that page. I only skimmed through the article myself. I actually just grabbed it off the first page that came up after my search for "microsoft sucks."

GatorDeb

hmm what should go instead of the stars? uuuuumicrosoft.com?

Josh H

Yeah, it sucks. I was pulling 60+ hours a week there for a while, but I've got it cut down to 45-50 now between my two jobs. Factor in the commute (20-30 to the one job, 10-15 to the other one way), going to the gym 3 or 4 times a week, running errands etc. and I just haven't had much interest in playing/buying games lately, which is complicated by the releases lately not being my cup of tea.

al_bundy

That site is a bunch of BS.

1. An installation of Red Hat with a similar feature set of Windows will take just as much HD space as Windows. In my experience a basic installation of Red Hat takes around 1.5GB. If you install all the features including developer tools it's over 3GB.

2. Windows comes out with less updates than Linux. It seems as if Linux updates it's kernel twice a year and Red Hat along with the other vendors ship out a new version at least once or twice a year.

3. MS Windows has bugs just as much a Linux. If Linux didn't have bugs and was as perfect as it's zealots claim then there wouldn't be a need for it's constant patching and updating.

4. Windows doesn't crash as often as the Linux zealots claim. I work in an IT shop and our Windows NT/2000 servers go without reboots for months at a time. I think the record was a year or so for an NT server we had. In fact I spend my time at work doing my University of Phoenix work to get a degree. Exchange 2000 is so stable once you get it properly set up that it's a lot of free time for me.

5. As far as I remember it was only Office 97 that broke the backward compatibility tradition. And MS fixed it. But the same people who complain about bloat want backward compatibility back to the stone age. Well that requires code. And Linux and Unix aren't as backward compatible as people claim. There are plenty of drivers and other software out there that won't run on later versions.

People still complain about Netscape, but at version 4 both were equal. At version 5 MS IE was the better browser and I made the switch. Netscape like MS took someone else's product and repackaged it. Netscape charged just for the browser, while MS rolled it into the OS and charged more for the OS. Look under Help >About and you will see that both Netscape and IE are licensed from a lot of the same organizations. One prominent one being NCSA which ended up suing the great and heroic Netscape for stealing their software.

duy37

tho completely off-topic Al, i would have to agree with you on the Netscape thing. they blow, i have a client using Netscape 7.0 mail and it looks like they can't switch to Eudora because Eudora can't import Netscape messenger beyond v4.5, which is LAME, I called Netscape themselves and the tech rep even said so (they also wanted to charge 40 bucks for tech support, but i gave em a fake cc, so i got a human person and he said it wasnt possible). Netscape 7.0 lets you import other party's email but won't let you export. shame on Netscape.

Oh and on the topic of the Xbox, I would agree that the software selection is pretty tame, but I still perfer it over the PS2. can't beat the graphics and Dolby Digital 5.1 as well as the built-in hard drive, i never have to worry about having enough space for my saves. the only Xbox exclusive games I really like tho are Halo, DOA XBV, Shenmue II. PS2 - i got Gran Turismo 3, Jak and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank and the list goes on and on. Gamecube I also have and you can't beat Super Monkey ball 2, metroid prime, and Zelda. so its good to have all 3 systems. but if a game comes out on multiple platforms i usually choose Xbox.

Trigger

I agree with al - that article is a bunch of BS...

Bloat - hard drives get bigger - who cares? All operating systems get bigger with newer versions because they have more features
Backward incompatibility - Right - I can play my DOS games on my XP machine - as a Mac user if he had to rebuy all his software when OS-10 came out.
Perpetual upgrading - I don't see it - I still install Windows 98 on machines. Upgrading is a good thing and not microsoft's fault
Vaporware - what? they came out with what the article said wasn't gonna come out
Hostile treatment of customers - They've always been nice to me.
Predatory practices - Business is a dog eat dog world.
Bundling of inferior products - inferior to what? That's the beauty of choice... you like another product better, then buy it.
Bugs, bugs, and more bugs - everything has bugs... they've gotten much better about bugs in the last 3 years.
Insecurity - Windows 2000 is pretty secure and they are good about releasing security updates. Their next OS promises to be the ultimate in secure OSes.

From a Technical Perspective
Closed "standards" - conspiracy theories... secret apis? Even if this was true, there's nothing wrong with making all their products work together well. They cite Word as an example - IMO - MS Office is the best office software available and it has nothing to do with other software running slower or being buggy.
Mutilation of existing standards - I wouldn't call it mutilation... something is offered as open source, MS uses it and incorporates it into their software and copyrights their changes. That's life.
Lack of innovation - First of all, I don't see how this makes them bad, but I also don't see this as being true anymore. They had a rocky start and stumbled a few times (windows ME, BOB), but Win2K and XP are great... their next OS (not 2k3) will be innovative as hell, plus their tablet PC thing is really cool... and the xbox is sweet. Hell, the Xbox alone debunks most of what that article had to say.

From the Perspective of Everybody Else
Attempts at taking over appliance markets - bleh - Windows CE ran my Dreamcast quite well - it works quite well in palm devices too.
Attempts at buying the public's trust - Oh no, they want good press. They should burn in hell. More conspiracy theory crap.
Outright deception - whatever...