Bankai

@Luffy the shareholders and board would have something to say about that, actually.

As much as Nintendo's rhetoric is noble, it is not how publicaly-owned companies operate.

@Ernest_The_Crab tablets aren't "required" either. There's the real mobile competitor to the Wii U, and the iPad is dramatically outselling the Wii U right now.

I don't think anyone who has used a tablet could legitimately claim the Wii U has a hope in competing in terms of general entertainment.

Been playing this on iPad. Controls beautifully and benefits from that nice big touch screen.

@grimbldoo I know right? Those nice big wages and job security is such a stupid reason to work for a company like EA

It's much better to go to some random indie and not get paid for six months and watch your family slowly starve to death.

Kamiya isn't teasing anyone. It's not going to happen because virtually no one buys these games and Capcom isn't in the business to deliberately lose money.

He's telling people to pester Capcom because Capcom's the one that pays for it. Not Platinum.

@SkywardLink98 Coming up with silly reasons why a woman can't be the lead in an Assassin's Creed game is not treating everyone the same.

@BossBattles Everyone's entitled to their opinion, I guess.

It's just that anyone who thinks men are treated like third rate people has an opinion that is empirically incorrect.

And the games industry needs more women in the top jobs. Good on Holmes for making a point of it.

@17 "casual" as in implicit, rather than explicit, and conversational rather than a direct agenda.

Honestly. The clarifications you make me do. D:

Guys. Female assassins have existed as long as male assassins.

Look up "kunoichi" - female ninja.

There is nothing, whatsoever, in the skillset of an assassin that females are not capable of doing just as well as men.

Can we please stop with the casual sexism here or I'll start hitting that report button. I find this line of conversation offensive and ignorant.

@SkywardLink98 Your ancestors are both male and female...

It's not like there isn't precedent for this. AC3: Liberation on the Vita starred Aveline, who is a woman. And more interesting than that Connor dude.

Good stuff Ubisoft. Give us another strong female character, please.

Now if only they could produce a decent game themselves.

Still, at least they are publishing stuff. That should be good

I like Corecell. I interviewed them a while back, and they were really good guys. Good to see games coming from non-traditional development nations like Thailand. Diversity in the games industry can only be a good thing.

@Chrono_Cross I don't claim that games aren't an issue in some violent incidents. Not the underlying cause, but quite clearly a symptom.

I know this because I know games also have positive impacts on people. Can't have one without the other.

So is the argument here that games can only have positive impacts on people, or that the positive impact outweighs the bad?

Either way, if games can have a positive impact on people's lives, then it stands to reason that games can also have a negative impact on people.

This is a dangerous argument for anyone who believes that games don't influence violent behaviour.

I happen to agree with this article, but if you agree with this then you've really got no grounds to claim that games can't also create negative impacts on people's lives.

@kkslider5552000 @EveryoneElseThatRespondedToMe - Crytek's games could all benefit from this kind of online single player experience I was referring to when I mentioned the Souls games/ ZombiU (also Journey and Real Racing 3).

A CEO can only comment from the perspective of his company. Crysis Singleplayer with online features? Sign me up.

The majority of people making comments here haven't played Demon's Souls or Dark Souls, clearly.

Or ZombiU. Or any of those other singleplayer games that use online to enhance the experience.

@AlexSora89 EA announced no such plans.

@Burning_Spear at $60 they're not going to make enough money back even if they hit obscene attach rates with game releases.

I really don't think gamers appreciate how low-margin game development is. Just making enough to survive is considered a success. It's not going to be a healthy industry as long as gamers continue to assume that $60 is a fair price for games.

But what you're describing is simple. It's a bad game.

That's like pointing to the cynical mess of most shovel ware on the Wii and suggesting it means the end of the games industry. When games like Ninjabread Man sucker people into spending $40 on them then clearly every game is going to do that?

Of course no. Microtransactions are not the problem. Bad use of microtransactions is. Just like the industry has survived with bad games forever.

EA isn't the one doing the bad microtransactions. And that includes Real Racing 3. I'm 20 hours in, still making regular progress, and only spend $5.

@Neram

No. It's more like buying a board game that is complete and playable, and then having the option of buying more pieces that look a little different;

Have people even played EA's microtransaction-enabled games? They are all complete games. Every one of them. And then if you want some extras, or want to speed up certain elements of the game, you can hand EA a little extra money.

It's not a problem.

Thomas, just a quick question here: did you actually play Real Racing 3? Because I haven't spent much real money on it at all ($5 or something for one car when I started playing) and I'm progressing and a perfectly acceptable rate.

The microtransactions are somewhat irritating, but not even close enough to deserve the review that Eurogamer gave it. If this is a "talking point" article, why didn't you balance that review out with someone who didn't mind the microtransaction model as much. Like, for instance, mine (3.5/5)?

Of course most consumers don't like microtransactions. Most consumers don't like spending money on anything in the games industry. But I long ago decided that I like to have interesting games to play. And the only way that's going to happen is if the people that make the games make some money.

I have less sympathy for consumers who complain about being asked to optionally pay $5 for a game that they can download and play for free.

@Zombie_Barioth That would be illegal in most capitalist countries too There are laws against collusion to drive markets in certain directions.

@Zombie_Barioth unfortunately, this is a textbook case of escalation. While, logically speaking, it would be smart for the likes of EA or Activision to budget $50 million for the next FIFA or Call of Duty rather than $100 million, the problem is that the mass consumers really don't care about the budgets. They want each year's game to be bigger and better than the last.

So for established franchises budging less is not a good idea. Especially when your competition is spending more.

And because this escalation is meaning that these companies are not making adequate, safe margins, these companies are becoming increasingly risk-adverse, making them unwilling to spend money on new IP development.

It's a nasty cycle that is not doing anyone any favours, but all EA and Activision can do is try and find ways of making more money from these games. That one or two per cent of people who spend money on microtransactions still results in millions of vital dollars for these companies.

@ueI Games can't be made cheaper. Not the kind of games EA makes.

EA is a publisher of big blockbuster games. These are getting more expensive to make, not cheaper.

@AlexSora89 The point is that there are only three options here: the price of the actual box on the shelves goes up, the game supports microtransactions to keep the retail price down, or the publisher goes out of business.

The cost to make games is escalating, so publishers need to find ways to make that money back.

So which of those three would you prefer? If it's number 3) then perhaps gaming is no longer for you, and you need to find yourself a cheaper hobby?

@Pixelroy The alternative being the game publishers go out of business.

How is that a good thing?

@LDXD there is, actually. No one has done mandatory microtransactions in a commercially-successful manner yet.

There's surely been attempts on the iPhone and iPad and the like, but none have worked. That indicates that the bigger businesses are not even going to try.

There is no indication that microtransactions will become a required element in retail games. None whatsoever.

The basic reality that a lot of people are losing sight of here is that $50 is not enough for a retail game. Consumers don't want to pay more than that up front though, so publishers are looking for other ways to earn a decent margin from their investments.

So everyone should be glad of microtransactions and DLC. Because they exist, you're still only paying $50 upfront for a game, even as budgets get bigger and margins get squeezed. Without microtransactions and DLC games would cost $70 or thereabouts.

There has been some big releases this year already: Ni No Kuni, Crysis 3.

Quality has nothing to do with this discussion. EA put microtransactions in Dead Space 3 and sales were not adversely affected. Therefore it's not the kiss of death to sales volume that you suggested earlier.

@LDXD Dead Space 3 launched at the top of the charts and is the year's biggest selling game to-date.

So evidently the microtransactions did not lose EA a lot of customers.

@Pixelroy I have yet to see an EA-published game where it is necessary to buy micro transactions to enjoy yourself.

That includes all of its mobile games

@LDXD For corporations to remain liquid and be able to invest in projects, they need money, yes. The more money a company makes, the more it can invest into innovation, creativity, making its staff happy and so on.

These things benefit the consumer who gets more products and more interesting products to spend money on.

@LDXD EA is not losing money by implementing features into its games that make it more money. I can promise you that.

It's sad that the CEO of Ubisoft is reduced to stating the obvious.

Surely he has better things to do.

This is good news. Give players optional micro transactions, make a little extra money, produce better games.

I don't see how players lose out in any way here.

Nice piece, Thomas.

Must admit I'm rather jealous that you got to play the only Wii U game that's due out any time soon that I badly, badly want. Can't wait.

@rayword45 Based purely on MiiVerse numbers, Mass Effect 3 isn't doing so bad as a port. Not massive numbers, but it's up there.

EA, I am sure, did not expect it to light the charts up, but I am sure that if sales had gone over a certain number the DLC would be Wii U-bound as well.

So let's say 0.5% of Wii U owners bought Mass Effect 3. That's just a hypothetical number, but for the sake of the discussion, it's easy to visualise. 0.5% of 3 million is 15,000.

0.5% of 4 million is 20,000. The extra five thousand may just have put the game over the threshold for DLC support.

Then again it might not have. It's hardly worth developing DLC (which is about 3-4% attach rate for game sales) when that would mean 800 or so sales in a best-case scenario. 800 sales x $10 for the DLC = $8,000. Barely worth a single day's work at a development studio.

So I'm changing my opinion now that I've played with the numbers. Even if Nintendo had have sold as many consoles as it had expected, there would still not be enough customers of an port of an old game to justify porting DLC to it.

This isn't a problem with Nintendo, it's a simple problem with a console launch. Still not EA's fault though. They can't go wasting resources on 800 customers.

@DePapier I'm not making it out to be fact. It's not fact. As I said in my first comment it's an expert opinion.

But it's an expert opinion. The vast majority of reader comments are merely opinion, and typically backed by absolutely nothing. My point is that perhaps people who don't work in the games industry should have a touch more respect for expert opinions, because whether you like it or not, they know more about this stuff than you.

@SCAR392 He knows and understands licensing models from EPIC's experience with the Unreal Engine.

Licensing to third parties is main reason for building hardware.

@DePapier Stay optimistic all you like. Just don't pretend that you know more about the games industry than Cliff Bleszinski.

I get tired of the incredibly rude and insulting comments that Nintendo fans hurl at every single company or individual that so much as utters a single word that they don't like.

No. Cliff Bleszinski is not an idiot. Yes, his insights into the games industry are legitimate and should be taken seriously. Same goes for Nolan Bushnell, Michael Pachter and the guys at EA and Ubisoft.

The only time that you get to be a game developer/ publisher/ analyst and not have your intelligence insulted on this website is if you're praising the ground Iwata walks on. And that is wrong.

@Zellybeanie I don't think you quite understand what a "young company" means. It's not a comparison. It's a literal time and scale frame. Once a company has been around for 20 years and is worth a couple of hundred million, it's not a young company.

If we were to use comparisons, then Nintendo's existed as a media entertainment company for a shorter time than Disney. So clearly Nintendo's a young upstart and should learn its place.

@DePapier Do you know how I know that you don't have a marketing book handy? Because when I mentioned marketing you immediately thought "T.V advertising."

TV advertising is literally the tip of the iceberg. The tip that modern marketers care least about, to boot.

@SCAR392 Um. If you're going to try and talk about marketing theory, as Piper dude decided to do, it would help to understand the marketing theory first.

@SCAR392 Well. You think wrong.

@DePapier Go an learn the difference between marketing and advertising, and do a spot of research on the side regarding the psychological theories behind both, and come back to me.

Here's some light reading for you: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Marketing+theory

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Marketing+Psychology&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3AMarketing+Psychology

Then you'll be ready to understand my comment.

@Zellybeanie Epic's been around since 1991 and has some of the most valuable franchises in the industry, as well as an engine that just about every large developer uses in some form.

It's hardly a start up, and really doesn't need to establish an identity.

@DePapier Vote with your wallet.... to do what, exactly? Boycott a guy who isn't actually making games right now? That's going to keep him awake at night, I'm sure.

And no. The consumers are the sheep that buy the shiny stuff that companies like Nintendo condition them to have an emotional reaction to. Being a consumer doesn't make you an expert in the business of making games.

Building a hundred-million dollar development studio, on the other hand, does. It's not luck that gets you to that point. It's having a deep insight into the industry and consumer behaviour.

@Pixelroy No but compare a man who has set up one of the world's most successful development studios to a bunch of guys whose greatest achievement in gaming is speed running a Mario game.

Who, really, truly, understands the business side of the games industry, and who really, truly, has lived and worked in the games industry to have enough experience to have some insight into how it works?

Hint - it's not the guy who likes Mario.

@Pixelroy The only people who can counter an expert opinion and be taken seriously are other expert opinions. How many hundred million dollar studios have you made.

I'm not saying he is right. Just that most of these comments are like level 1 pokemon taking on level 100 Pokemon.