This just in: Japan is slowly breaking free of it's long-standing addiction to JRPG crack. Square Enix is leading the way with their patented treatments, prescribing their notorious notables:
"Final Hallway 13",
"Broken Fantasy 14",
and "Dragon Flop 10".
More chortles expected in future forecasts, such as for the aptly named "Lightning Returns: The Box Art Is Not Lying to You This Time Around!"
@MarkyVigoroth You would be looking for IGN, or Destructoid, or one of those other troll-tastic media giant gaming sites. The Nintendo Life community is better than that!
Jeez, never realized his body was running the gamut of just about every possible deadly ailment feared in the modern Western world... No one should have to go through that intense suffering.
I don't think he ever came to terms with the fact that any media is just as viable as any other- each serves their own purpose... and each are just as mortal as their creators.
All that exists is temporary, and must eventually come to the end of it's cycle. So his end is met, yet so long as he is not forgotten, his memorial lifespan is no lesser than his critiques. So, too, will we one day know the truth, as he now does. See you on the other side... The cycle begins anew.
@LDXD Here's the reason: check out the interview George Lucas had with Bill Moyers, filmed for The Power of Myth. Turns out the core of Star Wars was based on various mythologies, religious texts, and cultures throughout human history, from Christianity to Buddhism to Japanese Bushido! Star Wars was not based on sci-fi, as episodes 1-3 suggest... the sci-fi elements are just a flavoring, a shell, even.
Vader tempting Luke? Similar to Satan tempting Jesus. Spiritual gurus seeking out a seemingly unremarkable child (Anakin), then somehow "knowing" that they are "the prophesied chosen one"? Similar tactics to finding the next reincarnation of the Buddha in Buddhism. Blindfolding yourself to "sense" your enemy's movements and thoughts? Ancient Japanese Bushido teaching.
Star Wars is essentially a modern retelling of mythological legends and religious scripture. George Lucas said so himself.
LOL that's what happens for selling Star Wars to Disney! Just about anyone could have seen this coming a mile away! At least this particular studio is high-profile in name, so the employees should have relatively little trouble finding work elsewhere...
It's fine to have chibi feet, but at least have the 3D model art style match. All of the games mentioned above, like the Final Fantasy DS games and Wind Waker, are matched well with the "chibified" art style, so the "simplified" feet makes sense for them. Even the abridged feet in FE: Shadow Dragon matched it's gritty, muddy, almost "hazy" art style- and the art director for that title is the same guy in this interview.
If the Fire Emblem: Awakening 3D art models were based on "soft" anime outlines, or caricatures, or metaphorical portrayals, then the simplified feet would make sense. FE:A, however, is based on a stylized sort of "hard", or rather, "detailed" anime outline, which favors pseudo-realistic outlines in the sketches/models; this can be seen in any Japanese animation production which uses this particular vein of stylized "detailed" anime outline. (A couple examples: Bokura No; and Baccano!) In the case of FE:A, abridging the feet as if they were attached to a "softer" character outline is Frankenstein-like.
If they really did not have either enough available data space, or enough production time, to render limb physics which accounts for the anatomy of the foot, that's fine. I wouldn't say that's lazy. They worked their butts off anyways, and made a great game. Maybe the Non-disclosure agreement is preventing them from elaborating further...
I wonder if they ran out of data storage space to cram into, so they simplified the feet to cut JUST enough spent data resources to fit such a huge game onto an itty bitty cartridge...
Or maybe the art director just had to have their one little "Moé" character feature in...
Kusakihara: "We thought we could make it something that would work well with the characters, but now I'm not so sure. (laughs) So it's hard to give a real reason for it, but...well, I think it's kind of cute, though! (laughs) Isn't it? They look like they're wearing high heels. Aren't high heels the big fashion these days?"
As for the 64DD, it was just another example of Nintendo ignoring Sega's mistakes- in this case, for the Sega CD. The Sega CD actually did have a few amazing games created for it, like The Snatcher, Popful Mail, and the Lunar series. The problems were accessibility and planning.
It's only been within the past few years that people are finding out some of these old classics even existed; the definitions of sleeper hits. If those attachments were ever to sell, they would have needed to be put into bundles without much extra cost to the consumer.
Sega would have needed to do more than just market Sonic CD- they would have needed to never create the 32X, delay the Saturn to be more developer friendly, and make sure the Saturn was backwards compatible with both Mega Drive and Sega CD titles, from it's cartridge port and disc drive. But that's not all- Sega of America's executives screwed the whole company over, then they left for greener pastures. So harmony within a company is also a necessity.
Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony all did a good job of finally learning how to integrate attachments into their core consoles during the past generation. By historical pattern, things like the Kinect and PS Move/Arc should have flopped. Yet, they didn't.... instead, they were nearly abandoned... so those two things are anomalies in the history of add-ons. Only Nintendo future-proofed their add-on, with the Motion Plus attachment/ controller.
That's the key lesson here: focus on integration, not addition.
If anything, Miyamoto did not make a strange comment at all for his prediction about the continuation of cartridges- in fact, his sentiment was ahead of it's time. It's only now that we see the fruition of this, through the now modern day cartridges- flash drives, solid state drives, and storage data cards like SD.
It is a huge boon to not need to search for data physically on a disc; solid state drives operate exponentially, even astronomically faster than disc drives, and the previous limitations of data storage have been overcome. If taken good care of, their physical lifespan is also longer.
The only limiting factor now is artificially inflated marketing prices... you can bet that those who hold the most interest in disk technology (Microsoft and Sony) are influencing the market to make sure the hard disk drive dies as slowly as possible. The Blu-ray disc, and it's contemporaries, will be the last iteration of their kind.
In short, people really overestimate the level of accountability corporate entities truly take upon themselves when it comes to "green jobs" and responsible recycling procedures. I wonder how many people here realize how many literal tons of WORKING stuff people just toss into the trash EVERY DAY; and also how many literal tons of broken junk gets sent overseas from the United States, into foreign nations without those nations' consent, IN UNFILTERED PILES, and certainly not being recycled properly.
The real can of worms here is the ugly side of what happens when the junk we Americans "recycle" doesn't necessarily get recycled... Here's a hint: It's more profitable to sell junk to dumping services, to have them dump the junk in an economically poor nation, than to actually recycle nonvaluable parts!
For all we know, the remains of that NES set would have just been dumped on a poor village in Africa... the employee is doing a good thing. It's unfortunate that a MUCH bigger issue lies behind the one he reported, and he's going to become a victim because of it.
No, this is definitely a fine example of horrid corporate policy. The argument that it would set a precedent for currently sold items being used by and given away to corporate employees, or is poor behavior by the employee, is total bullocks and a cop-out. It's not the same issue at all.
I've volunteered for a computer recycling and refurbishing outfit for a little over 3 years now, and our policy has always been that if a donation or something we scrounge from the local recycling center is not useful to us in our operations, as long as a volunteer who's been with us for a while asks the director if they can take it, and the director approves, you're in the clear. Which is usually the case, for items we cannot use in our operations.
We work with the local county government on this matter. Their own policy is that once someone else's property is given to them to be recycled, and is then subsequently recovered by us in our partnership, they no longer have a say in what particular electronic items we take, or what we do with the products we take, so long as we keep producing a good, sustainable service for our clients.
Best Buy obviously has no appreciable use for the product in question. Their rigid adherence to unbending corporate behavior is what is deplorable here. If there were a significant amount of gold pins and whatnot in the goods, that might be another matter, but that's simply not the case here. If you consider the components, that is the determining factor for usefulness and value. This NES and ROB set does not have that, even compared to a common PC these days.
Recycling processes and identification between various electronic devices are not created equally. Best Buy would most likely just send the thing out into the garbage, to either be sent to the dump, or to a local recycling center. They wouldn't necessarily send this NES set to their own refurbishing and recycling centers, because it would not be of appreciable value to their operations. Even if they did, it would just be stripped for almost no useful parts, and most of it would just be trashed, not recycled properly.
So yeah. Also, the hot water thing is also a cop-out. Recycling facilities don't have the inspection rates of other types of technology facilities; at least not in the United States. Our worker safety standards are on par with third world countries in some places.
@hendie001 Equivalent to 400 American dollars? It would have definitely been worth up to $150, since many SNES high-quality RPG's were rare boutique items back then, but $400 is a hawker price...
I still have the Earthbound cartridge, but I gave away the strategy guide long ago... it was definitely one of the most interesting strategy guides of all gaming time.
This is no different from the $10,000s paid for one-of-a-kind pieces of art elsewhere, especially portraits and historical artifacts. We put a price on them, but it's a bit of a fallacy, because they are priceless at this point- there is no longer any way to produce them in their original form.
Personally, I hope Mr. Phillips is able to use the money to fund his flopped educational game Kickstarter project, Know-It-All. I have communicated with him briefly in the comments section of his Kickstarter page, since I backed it. The amount he needed was about $50,000, though, so hopefully this will bring him closer to that goal. He's mentioned that he would revive the project in the future, if he can.
@Zombie_Barioth It's a statement with a sort of duality, I think. On one hand, iteration upon core concepts is crucial, but at the same time, the Mario series is often a perfect example of being very dead-set on keeping a rigid set of ideas. It works, but it seems to be a fragile process... Not many project teams are able to nail down working design plans like the Nintendo veterans.
This article highlights a good point, which I feel is still demonstrated today by the differences in Eastern and Western mentalities on game design. This was an example of an Eastern mentality decision bringing innovation unto a console game, at a time when dabbling in 3D was starting to become popular in the PC space. Yet, this 3D modeling company wanted to work with consoles, which had less potential in the matter... so, it's interesting that they took on such a challenge in the first place.
The conflict encountered in the article dealt with a clash of values on which form of presentation feels best. This was an important point, for one of the most important aspects of a user interface is spatial recognition. Whether at eye level or overhead viewpoint, 2D or 3D playing field, first or third person perspective, etc; Eastern developers in the early ninties seemed more likely to favor an interface with overhead view, 2D play field, and third person perspective. Western developers, on the other hand, were more likely to favor an interface with eye level view, 3D play field, and first person perspective. This becomes more apparent when considering PC titles.
That's not to say everyone stuck to popular conventions, nor to the old mentalities, but there seems to be a cultural proclivity at work here. The developers of their respective titles might say, "This is how I would want to observe and interact with this experience", and their implementations seem culturally distinct to me in any case.
A Western developer never would have made a series like Suikoden, and a Japanese developer never would have made a series like Baldur's Gate. Westerners could only dream of replicating the Mario series finesse and success, and the Japanese might likewise be curious about how the Might and Magic series could have it's own brand of deceptively incredible depth within a seemingly cliched world.
A series like Star Fox was only possible through mixing and mingling different mentalities. That's why it stands out so much from other titles- it was developed in a situation which could not be easily replicated.
A headline such as "Star Fox as we know it almost did not exist" would have been equally effective, while inciting a sense of historical mystery. This headline is kind of... tabloid-ey. It is technically true, but emotionally, it incites social monitoring- which, of course, does not accurately describe the article contents.
Then again, there have been previous times in the past where Nintendo Life has reported on life-changing events, so they probably didn't want to create a redundant headline. Unless... an "almost never happened" sort of series is formally begun! There's already been a good string of articles on this subject, including this one.
AWESOME! Kate Covington is one of my favorite musical artists! She does more than sing, she also self-produces her own compositions and lyrics, and plays a wide variety of both complex and simple instruments. All of those instruments playing alongside the singing? That's all HER work. So it's inaccurate for Capcom to suggest that she only sang the lyrics. The song is PERFORMED by Erutan, NOT just sang by Erutan.
She tends to produce her own videos to match her work as well, so I would be remiss to not link her own channel's version of The Hunter's Mark: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOaCvz_kLFU&hd=1
Her video is also about 100 MB smaller than the Capcom video, so it's faster to download, convert to mp3, then put onto an SD card. It becomes about 6.41 MB in size after conversion. (Strangely enough, the Capcom video becomes 0.05 MB smaller than her video after both are converted... I don't notice a significant difference in aural quality, using headphones. Her audio is better for looping, since it doesn't have the silly bounce and roar at the end. She will eventually post an easy mp3 link on her channel.)
I think she does way better than all of the rubbish average singers who are on American TV these days. She proved to me that watching TV to find talent is pointless- one must look in lesser nooks and crannies of existence.
Her rendition of "Bonds of Sea and Fire", from Xenogears, was what hooked me! She also tug on my nostalgia heartstring with her Ronfaure Final Fantasy 11 Longfall remix!
Let's just say I wouldn't be surprised if some people lowered the score for this Castlevania title because one of the sequences blatantly rips off Shadow of the Collossus for the PS2. If that game never existed, I bet you all the scores for this Castlevania title would be higher across the board within the general gaming press.
Rating scores are a finicky sort of subcultural thing. Back when Monster Hunter 1 came out for the PS2 in the western world, it was consistently getting 5s and 6s from the general gaming press, yet the user base was mostly giving it 7s and 8s.
It wasn't until Monster Hunter Freedom Unite for the PSP, and Monster Hunter Tri for the Wii, that the general gaming press suddenly flip-flopped and starting giving the games 7s, 8s, and 9s, alongside the usual 7s, 8s, and 9s of the user base. The games have certainly had their content refined over time, but they're basically the same concept and type of game as the first PS2 title... So why give a significantly higher score?
I suspect that emotions play a bigger role than pure logic in most review processes... and not everyone will experience the same emotions over the same game. I think many review sites just make up numbers to cater to certain audiences, rather than genuinely attempting to be logical...
There was a huge debacle over on Gamasutra last year or so, about when EXACTLY the original Super Mario Bros. was released for the NES. The conclusion: no one knows. There's possible time frames, but no absolutely certain dates.
Isn't that astounding? We don't even have 100% certainty of when one of the most important games of all time was released! Perhaps this is something that Miyamoto is not concerned with, but we are going to run into some MAJOR historical problems fifty or one hundred years from now, if we don't get our record-keeping acts together.
That's the whole point of museums such as this one- to get people talking about real preservation of games in their original state. Otherwise, it will only be a matter of time until today's titles are naught but grains of sand, swept away in a vast digital desert. That would be true death. Keeping records of the past is how things live on, even if they do not physically exist in the present time.
As for digital only and online only games, Miyamoto is right- only recorded videos give us an idea of how they proceeded at certain points in their lifetime. There is no way to experience those games in their previous states again. That's one of the main draws of backing up data on physical copies- even if the original copy fails, another can be created, if there is limited copy protection. Someday, none of the remaining NES systems or game cartridges will work...
@decolley25 Have you seen translations of the Japanese script? It's probably more unadulterated than the English scripts of the time period, due to data limitations imposed by the increased byte cost of English characters over Japanese characters.
@Gamesake Langrisser ended after #5 on the Saturn. It actually did go out with a nice bang, but yeah, #3 was not quite so good. #4 was praised for having multiple paths.
@1080ike Even with Shining Force 3, the western world only got 1/3 of the entire Shining Force 3 saga, due to Sega of America's epic bungling of the Saturn. Translation and Japanese copies have been the only way to experience it... Yet another rare piece of history, lost in time...
YES! This would be great! However, the Growlanser series has been about the closest thing to anything like this possibly making it over to the western world. The last game in the series to do that was a long-overdue enhanced port to the PSP, released last year. The best bet for anything like this making an appearance on a Nintendo system would be the 3DS. With Fire Emblem and Etrian Oddysey 4 recently released, it's shaping up to be a great handheld for JRPG's!
So yeah, if JRPG's are getting good sales, maybe... otherwise, future renditions of Langrisser will certainly remain a pipe dream.
There was an interesting point in the Direct: Monster Hunter 3U will be able to play in local wireless with 3DS owners of the title. Might be good to remember for a gaming cafe! This could also be a sign of other products which use the 3DS to cooperate with a Upad user. Perhaps, the Upad could store a session on the go, to play with 3DS users elsewhere?
Also, I am rueing region locks right now. Europe got the exclusive Fire Emblem 3DS XL. I know it's possible to do some hardware modding to replace the blue or red plates with the snazzy Japanese white ones, or etch your own designs, but I don't think these ones will be so easily available...
The Wii U is already barely selling at cost. If they lower the price, they would be selling at a loss. These retailers should ask themselves: would THEY want to sell their primary products only AT A LOSS???
@Dreamcaster-X The PS2 came at a "perfect storm" timing. Sony was healthy, the market was expanding rapidly, and hundreds of studios couldn't wait to start working with Sony's dev kits.
The PS4 won't have that massive advantage. Sony's going to be the ones fighting for their lives this time, especially if the same thing happens to the PS4 as has happened to the Vita. (Cannibalism)
The Wii U won't need to worry about 32X and Game Gear woes. Nintendo was in more trouble during the Gamecube era.
I've never owned a 360. Their engineering designs are too wasteful to compel me to buy one.
A few Youtube videos dealing with removing a certain "X bar" inside the earlier models of the system, and some handy tools (like some actually non-junky heat transfer compound...) go further than any amount of customer service in preventing the RROD, for those earlier models.
Microsoft knew good and well what would happen by releasing the 360 as it was, and it took a modding community to reveal the callous engineering ploy. They were built to fail on purpose. Their gaming division deserves no praise. The only reason no one's stepped up to sue them or call them out on it is because Microsoft would win, either by attrition or bogus counterarguments.
The key here is moreso exclusives than creativity. Most of the local heavy-hitters in Japan are system exclusives, or are not available on a wide variety of platforms. In the West, most of the local heavy hitters are available on 3 or more platforms.
The 360 has VERY little in the way of excellent exclusives, so I guess the greater UK market doesn't care much for exclusives...
@Haxonberik There are plenty of people around the globe who would be willing to spend $100 on a PC-type console which plays indie games and new PC games. Especially in low income markets, of whom would have great trouble affording $1000+ PCs. Indie games are among the bread and butter of PC titles and online services, such as Steam and Good Old Games.
Jeez, I guess the people who think the Wii U is struggling, considering the circumstances, don't remember (or aren't able to remember) the Sega Saturn... You wanna talk about consecutive blunder after blunder inside an expanding market...
We need to remember that there's LITERALLY thousands of game choices now. The age of monopolies in this industry is over. If anything, this just shows that the Sony and Microsoft executives are the ones who should REALLY be worried about their gaming division's future. We're not going to see PS2 blowout numbers anymore.
I would also argue that existing markets have hit a point of saturation. Other places around the globe, outside of the typical heavily industrialized triumvirate of USA, Europe, and Japan need to be given far greater consideration in the future.
@Bankai There's a lot more money being thrown around through titles like Skyrim than through titles like Ni no Kuni, sadly... The Elder Scrolls was not "mainstream" until Oblivion, though. Many JRPG's are referred to as "niche" because they just do not hold the same consistent, gripping appeal upon the masses as stomping on goombas, tossing birds at pigs, and lining up gems.
@Neram I dunno about you, but there's no way I would ever lump Baldur's Gate and the Tales Of series into the exact same category...
On the other hand, I WOULD place two titles such as Anachronox and Final Fantasy into the same category. Anachronox might have been developed by a western team, but it's design philosophies are distinctly resonant with those classified as "JRPG". There's a good reason for those classifications.
@Nico87 The only Shin Megami Tensei titles that are not niche are the Persona titles; even then, it's really only been Personas 3 and 4 which "went mainstream". They still give plenty of opportunities for menu sifting, but they definitely have nowhere near the hardcore menu sifting of Devil Survivor.
"Some of these notable examples suggest that we may need to gradually stop referring to some series as being "niche" or "JPRGs", but just as new RPGs and so on coming to Nintendo's systems."
I disagree with the article's statement on this issue. JRPG is a classification of game design, which differs notably from WRPG's. We refer to certain RPG's as "Japanese" or "Western" because of their design philosophies, not because of where they exist, where they are made, or who designed them. The core differences between two titles such as, for instance, Ultima 7 and Ys Books 1 & 2 , (these titles released about 20 years ago) are important things which are not going away. Sure, they're both considered RPG's, but saying they are all simply "RPG" does not do justice to the myriad designs throughout the spectrum of RPG's. Ultima 7 is a WRPG, and Ys is a JRPG. There's no getting around their core design differences. It's a bit clumsy to classify things that way, but RPG's cannot be lumped together into a sum group of equal parts, like FPS's or shooters usually can; so the labeling of "JRPG" or "WRPG" is going to stick around.
Also, "niche" is not necessarily a statement on popularity or sales so much as it is a statement on who the product appeals towards. Most people would much sooner gravitate towards Mario or Pinball than Breath of Fire or Final Fantasy, for instance. Even in Final Fantasy's case, where it "went mainstream", it still retained a considerable amount of menu sifting and organizing... not things that most people think of as "fun". These particular design decisions can be described as "niche", because they are conducted so differently from the "mainstream" titles (especially AAA action titles).
If anything, the only reason why Fire Emblem would not be considered "niche" at this point is because of Smash Bros, a decidedly "mainstream" series. It took a "mainstream" game to alert many people of something which was "niche". So long as the design philosophies of the series remain as they have, it will continue to be decidedly "niche". Can you honestly think of any baby boomers who would be interested in such titles? My baby boomer parents enjoy Bubble Bobble and puzzle games, but I doubt Fire Emblem would even remotely pique their interest due to the heavy investment required.
@ArkOne77 Yes, RPG titles, especially the classics, have often commanded a higher price than their contemporaries throughout gaming history. It was common to pay $70-90 for a game like Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy 4, or Chrono Trigger, back in the SNES days.
Since RPG's have historically had very limited print runs, and were rarely part of the "mainstream", it is still common for certain rare titles which have STILL not gotten digital rereleases, such as Suikoden 2, to retain price points of $100 or more. As you may know, involved RPG's often require more dedication and time than your average shooter or action title. This gave them "Boutique" status over the years, which has only recently been subsided, with the digital age.
Journey and The Walking Dead are perfect choices for BAFTA awards, because they both have distinct movie-like qualities to them. BAFTA should stick to nominating these kinds of titles, rather than choosing more "gamey" titles. I could understand why a 2D Mario title would never be nominated in this context, (a 3D Mario title like Galaxy would) but they shouldn't be nominating anything else without movie-like aspects either. I wouldn't say Little Big Planet is movie-like...
No Xenoblade nomination, though? I don't know if they've been "paid off", but they definitely only focus on mainstream titles from publishers who have money to spare. They won't go out of their way to recognize deserving niche titles... How boring.
Watching the people who convene at a lot of these high-falutin' richie rich shows is like watching a modern-day gathering of obedient vassals convening for a theater. This stuff doesn't mean too much for the commons...
Depending on if the Wii U GPU is closer to a Radeon 4650 or 4670 DDR3 version, it's a significant difference to the 6670. The 4650 doesn't even come close to the 6670, while the 4670 DDR2 version is still significantly weaker than the 6670. Only the DDR3 version comes close. This does not factor in "green" parts, which consume less energy and generate less heat, in exchange for lower speed and horsepower, which Wii U does.
The Radeon 7670 is roughly equivalent to 5 year old GPU tech in capability. If the PS4 really does use this device, then it looks like Nintendo is back in the "arms race". xD
@black-kyurem Yeah, and PC will make PS4 and Xbox720 look like sick jokes. Nintendo knows that times have changed, they're not pretending to claim that they hold avatars of technical abundance anymore, like Sony and Microsoft still claim. Nintendo is more into technical mastery, a more admirable trait than raw power.
"The final GPU is indeed a close match to the 4650/4670, albeit with a deficit in the number of texture-mapping units and a lower clock speed - 550MHz."
ARE YOU SERIOUS??? That's even weaker than the Geforce 9800 GT, which is based on the Geforce 8800 GT, a FIVE year old card!!! It was midrange at the time, but still... This means Nintendo is making serious bank on every console sold, regardless of software sales... That's the big deal here- the technical overhead and business equations, not the price-performance ratio by itself. This knowledge will affect their stocks.
Funny thing is, it's STILL stronger than the Xbox360 and PS3 GPU's... Even though the power equivalent is based on 2006 tech... I had one of these Radeon 4650 cards pre-installed in this computer, back from 2010... but it was a budget deal. That card was bare-bones at best... It couldn't even run many new PC titles at minimum settings. I was instantly forced to upgrade to something better...
@Qwikman_N_Bass One of the main reasons why FF XIV version 1 turned out so abysmally poorly was because they tried to adapt the "Crystal Engine", which was used in FF XIII, onto an MMO. Which, of course, was an astoundingly poorly planned idea. The management should have known better than to try and cheap out on toolsets like that; they used a different engine for FF XI in the past, and that turned out very well for the time of early MMO's, so it's not like they don't have past experience.
The worst offense from SE recently is that the tester feedback incorporation of the FF XIV version 1 beta testing period was, perhaps, one of THE WORST handled beta tests ever, for a major AAA company developing an enormous MMO with a planned lifespan of 10+ years. The management needs to completely reorganize how they operate, not fall back on the same tactics that made them great in the past. Times have changed, what worked in the past won't work anymore.
Of course, they should return to being more developer centric, as in the past, but doing so in the exact same way as the 90s will only repeat their recent mistakes. Hopefully, the management will take the experiences gained through developing FF XIV version 2 to heart; I know the developers have been doing so!
Good localizations take time and planning. Bravely Default is not a crap game, so we should expect a good translation for an obscure title to take some time.
What's NOT excusable is Square-Enix sitting on their Chrono Break trademark, which has been in limbo for the past 10 years! What's the point of threatening freely distributed fan projects if you're not going to do anything with your own IP, anyways?
FF Versus XIII has been in development for so long now, that it's probably going to become FF XV. FF XIV version 1 pretty much sums up what is wrong with Square-Enix; they create steaming turds and need to scramble to compost them into something significantly better, yet come up short, despite all of their hard work.
At this point, FF XIV version 2 is now shaping up to look very awesome, courtesy of the current team who has been working on it for the past 2 years. However, they have been working almost non-stop for all of that time. That's how terrible the management of SE is now.
Therein lies the problem- the management is not what it used to be. The talent and resources are still there, though. That's the key- if they change their business plan to allow the developers a greater amount of flexibility, following in the development pattern of FF XIV version 2, I think SE might just resurge back into another Golden Age. Allowing the developers to hold the reins, instead of the publishers and marketers, was how Square and Enix became world-renowned in the first place.
Comments 469
Re: Dragon Quest X Posts Poor Sales Figures In Japan
This just in: Japan is slowly breaking free of it's long-standing addiction to JRPG crack. Square Enix is leading the way with their patented treatments, prescribing their notorious notables:
"Final Hallway 13",
"Broken Fantasy 14",
and "Dragon Flop 10".
More chortles expected in future forecasts, such as for the aptly named "Lightning Returns: The Box Art Is Not Lying to You This Time Around!"
Re: Rumour: Bravely Default: Flying Fairy Is Taking Flight To The West
@Rocko52 I second that.
PleasePleasePleasePleasePleasePlease.
Re: Video Gaming's Unexpected Critic Passes Away After Battle With Cancer
@MarkyVigoroth You would be looking for IGN, or Destructoid, or one of those other troll-tastic media giant gaming sites. The Nintendo Life community is better than that!
Re: Video Gaming's Unexpected Critic Passes Away After Battle With Cancer
Jeez, never realized his body was running the gamut of just about every possible deadly ailment feared in the modern Western world... No one should have to go through that intense suffering.
I don't think he ever came to terms with the fact that any media is just as viable as any other- each serves their own purpose... and each are just as mortal as their creators.
All that exists is temporary, and must eventually come to the end of it's cycle. So his end is met, yet so long as he is not forgotten, his memorial lifespan is no lesser than his critiques. So, too, will we one day know the truth, as he now does. See you on the other side... The cycle begins anew.
Re: LucasArts Shut Down By Disney
@LDXD Here's the reason: check out the interview George Lucas had with Bill Moyers, filmed for The Power of Myth. Turns out the core of Star Wars was based on various mythologies, religious texts, and cultures throughout human history, from Christianity to Buddhism to Japanese Bushido! Star Wars was not based on sci-fi, as episodes 1-3 suggest... the sci-fi elements are just a flavoring, a shell, even.
Vader tempting Luke? Similar to Satan tempting Jesus. Spiritual gurus seeking out a seemingly unremarkable child (Anakin), then somehow "knowing" that they are "the prophesied chosen one"? Similar tactics to finding the next reincarnation of the Buddha in Buddhism. Blindfolding yourself to "sense" your enemy's movements and thoughts? Ancient Japanese Bushido teaching.
Star Wars is essentially a modern retelling of mythological legends and religious scripture. George Lucas said so himself.
Re: LucasArts Shut Down By Disney
LOL that's what happens for selling Star Wars to Disney! Just about anyone could have seen this coming a mile away! At least this particular studio is high-profile in name, so the employees should have relatively little trouble finding work elsewhere...
Re: Weirdness: Fire Emblem Devs Answer That Burning Question: What Happened To Everyone's Feet?
It's fine to have chibi feet, but at least have the 3D model art style match. All of the games mentioned above, like the Final Fantasy DS games and Wind Waker, are matched well with the "chibified" art style, so the "simplified" feet makes sense for them. Even the abridged feet in FE: Shadow Dragon matched it's gritty, muddy, almost "hazy" art style- and the art director for that title is the same guy in this interview.
If the Fire Emblem: Awakening 3D art models were based on "soft" anime outlines, or caricatures, or metaphorical portrayals, then the simplified feet would make sense. FE:A, however, is based on a stylized sort of "hard", or rather, "detailed" anime outline, which favors pseudo-realistic outlines in the sketches/models; this can be seen in any Japanese animation production which uses this particular vein of stylized "detailed" anime outline. (A couple examples: Bokura No; and Baccano!) In the case of FE:A, abridging the feet as if they were attached to a "softer" character outline is Frankenstein-like.
If they really did not have either enough available data space, or enough production time, to render limb physics which accounts for the anatomy of the foot, that's fine. I wouldn't say that's lazy. They worked their butts off anyways, and made a great game. Maybe the Non-disclosure agreement is preventing them from elaborating further...
Re: Weirdness: Fire Emblem Devs Answer That Burning Question: What Happened To Everyone's Feet?
I wonder if they ran out of data storage space to cram into, so they simplified the feet to cut JUST enough spent data resources to fit such a huge game onto an itty bitty cartridge...
Or maybe the art director just had to have their one little "Moé" character feature in...
Kusakihara: "We thought we could make it something that would work well with the characters, but now I'm not so sure. (laughs) So it's hard to give a real reason for it, but...well, I think it's kind of cute, though! (laughs) Isn't it? They look like they're wearing high heels. Aren't high heels the big fashion these days?"
I smell a Chibi fanboy...
Re: Translated 1997 Interview with Miyamoto and Itoi Reveals Nintendo 64 Insights
As for the 64DD, it was just another example of Nintendo ignoring Sega's mistakes- in this case, for the Sega CD. The Sega CD actually did have a few amazing games created for it, like The Snatcher, Popful Mail, and the Lunar series. The problems were accessibility and planning.
It's only been within the past few years that people are finding out some of these old classics even existed; the definitions of sleeper hits. If those attachments were ever to sell, they would have needed to be put into bundles without much extra cost to the consumer.
Sega would have needed to do more than just market Sonic CD- they would have needed to never create the 32X, delay the Saturn to be more developer friendly, and make sure the Saturn was backwards compatible with both Mega Drive and Sega CD titles, from it's cartridge port and disc drive. But that's not all- Sega of America's executives screwed the whole company over, then they left for greener pastures. So harmony within a company is also a necessity.
Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony all did a good job of finally learning how to integrate attachments into their core consoles during the past generation. By historical pattern, things like the Kinect and PS Move/Arc should have flopped. Yet, they didn't.... instead, they were nearly abandoned... so those two things are anomalies in the history of add-ons. Only Nintendo future-proofed their add-on, with the Motion Plus attachment/ controller.
That's the key lesson here: focus on integration, not addition.
Re: Translated 1997 Interview with Miyamoto and Itoi Reveals Nintendo 64 Insights
If anything, Miyamoto did not make a strange comment at all for his prediction about the continuation of cartridges- in fact, his sentiment was ahead of it's time. It's only now that we see the fruition of this, through the now modern day cartridges- flash drives, solid state drives, and storage data cards like SD.
It is a huge boon to not need to search for data physically on a disc; solid state drives operate exponentially, even astronomically faster than disc drives, and the previous limitations of data storage have been overcome. If taken good care of, their physical lifespan is also longer.
The only limiting factor now is artificially inflated marketing prices... you can bet that those who hold the most interest in disk technology (Microsoft and Sony) are influencing the market to make sure the hard disk drive dies as slowly as possible. The Blu-ray disc, and it's contemporaries, will be the last iteration of their kind.
Re: Best Buy Employee On A Mission To Save R.O.B.
@MadAdam81 Unfortunately, this issue isn't even close to being that simple.
Re: Best Buy Employee On A Mission To Save R.O.B.
In short, people really overestimate the level of accountability corporate entities truly take upon themselves when it comes to "green jobs" and responsible recycling procedures. I wonder how many people here realize how many literal tons of WORKING stuff people just toss into the trash EVERY DAY; and also how many literal tons of broken junk gets sent overseas from the United States, into foreign nations without those nations' consent, IN UNFILTERED PILES, and certainly not being recycled properly.
The real can of worms here is the ugly side of what happens when the junk we Americans "recycle" doesn't necessarily get recycled... Here's a hint: It's more profitable to sell junk to dumping services, to have them dump the junk in an economically poor nation, than to actually recycle nonvaluable parts!
http://www.electronicstakeback.com/global-e-waste-dumping/
For all we know, the remains of that NES set would have just been dumped on a poor village in Africa... the employee is doing a good thing. It's unfortunate that a MUCH bigger issue lies behind the one he reported, and he's going to become a victim because of it.
Re: Best Buy Employee On A Mission To Save R.O.B.
No, this is definitely a fine example of horrid corporate policy. The argument that it would set a precedent for currently sold items being used by and given away to corporate employees, or is poor behavior by the employee, is total bullocks and a cop-out. It's not the same issue at all.
I've volunteered for a computer recycling and refurbishing outfit for a little over 3 years now, and our policy has always been that if a donation or something we scrounge from the local recycling center is not useful to us in our operations, as long as a volunteer who's been with us for a while asks the director if they can take it, and the director approves, you're in the clear. Which is usually the case, for items we cannot use in our operations.
We work with the local county government on this matter. Their own policy is that once someone else's property is given to them to be recycled, and is then subsequently recovered by us in our partnership, they no longer have a say in what particular electronic items we take, or what we do with the products we take, so long as we keep producing a good, sustainable service for our clients.
Best Buy obviously has no appreciable use for the product in question. Their rigid adherence to unbending corporate behavior is what is deplorable here. If there were a significant amount of gold pins and whatnot in the goods, that might be another matter, but that's simply not the case here. If you consider the components, that is the determining factor for usefulness and value. This NES and ROB set does not have that, even compared to a common PC these days.
Recycling processes and identification between various electronic devices are not created equally. Best Buy would most likely just send the thing out into the garbage, to either be sent to the dump, or to a local recycling center. They wouldn't necessarily send this NES set to their own refurbishing and recycling centers, because it would not be of appreciable value to their operations. Even if they did, it would just be stripped for almost no useful parts, and most of it would just be trashed, not recycled properly.
So yeah. Also, the hot water thing is also a cop-out. Recycling facilities don't have the inspection rates of other types of technology facilities; at least not in the United States. Our worker safety standards are on par with third world countries in some places.
Re: Howard Phillips' "Ultimate" Nintendo World Championships 1990 Package Sells For A Whopping $17,367
@hendie001 Equivalent to 400 American dollars? It would have definitely been worth up to $150, since many SNES high-quality RPG's were rare boutique items back then, but $400 is a hawker price...
I still have the Earthbound cartridge, but I gave away the strategy guide long ago... it was definitely one of the most interesting strategy guides of all gaming time.
Re: Howard Phillips' "Ultimate" Nintendo World Championships 1990 Package Sells For A Whopping $17,367
This is no different from the $10,000s paid for one-of-a-kind pieces of art elsewhere, especially portraits and historical artifacts. We put a price on them, but it's a bit of a fallacy, because they are priceless at this point- there is no longer any way to produce them in their original form.
Personally, I hope Mr. Phillips is able to use the money to fund his flopped educational game Kickstarter project, Know-It-All. I have communicated with him briefly in the comments section of his Kickstarter page, since I backed it. The amount he needed was about $50,000, though, so hopefully this will bring him closer to that goal. He's mentioned that he would revive the project in the future, if he can.
Re: Star Fox Developer: I Wanted To Say "Screw That" To Shigeru Miyamoto
@Zombie_Barioth It's a statement with a sort of duality, I think. On one hand, iteration upon core concepts is crucial, but at the same time, the Mario series is often a perfect example of being very dead-set on keeping a rigid set of ideas. It works, but it seems to be a fragile process... Not many project teams are able to nail down working design plans like the Nintendo veterans.
Re: Star Fox Developer: I Wanted To Say "Screw That" To Shigeru Miyamoto
This article highlights a good point, which I feel is still demonstrated today by the differences in Eastern and Western mentalities on game design. This was an example of an Eastern mentality decision bringing innovation unto a console game, at a time when dabbling in 3D was starting to become popular in the PC space. Yet, this 3D modeling company wanted to work with consoles, which had less potential in the matter... so, it's interesting that they took on such a challenge in the first place.
The conflict encountered in the article dealt with a clash of values on which form of presentation feels best. This was an important point, for one of the most important aspects of a user interface is spatial recognition. Whether at eye level or overhead viewpoint, 2D or 3D playing field, first or third person perspective, etc; Eastern developers in the early ninties seemed more likely to favor an interface with overhead view, 2D play field, and third person perspective. Western developers, on the other hand, were more likely to favor an interface with eye level view, 3D play field, and first person perspective. This becomes more apparent when considering PC titles.
That's not to say everyone stuck to popular conventions, nor to the old mentalities, but there seems to be a cultural proclivity at work here. The developers of their respective titles might say, "This is how I would want to observe and interact with this experience", and their implementations seem culturally distinct to me in any case.
A Western developer never would have made a series like Suikoden, and a Japanese developer never would have made a series like Baldur's Gate. Westerners could only dream of replicating the Mario series finesse and success, and the Japanese might likewise be curious about how the Might and Magic series could have it's own brand of deceptively incredible depth within a seemingly cliched world.
A series like Star Fox was only possible through mixing and mingling different mentalities. That's why it stands out so much from other titles- it was developed in a situation which could not be easily replicated.
Re: Star Fox Developer: I Wanted To Say "Screw That" To Shigeru Miyamoto
A headline such as "Star Fox as we know it almost did not exist" would have been equally effective, while inciting a sense of historical mystery. This headline is kind of... tabloid-ey. It is technically true, but emotionally, it incites social monitoring- which, of course, does not accurately describe the article contents.
Then again, there have been previous times in the past where Nintendo Life has reported on life-changing events, so they probably didn't want to create a redundant headline. Unless... an "almost never happened" sort of series is formally begun! There's already been a good string of articles on this subject, including this one.
Re: Erutan Beautifully Sings 'The Hunter's Mark' in Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate Trailer
AWESOME! Kate Covington is one of my favorite musical artists! She does more than sing, she also self-produces her own compositions and lyrics, and plays a wide variety of both complex and simple instruments. All of those instruments playing alongside the singing? That's all HER work. So it's inaccurate for Capcom to suggest that she only sang the lyrics. The song is PERFORMED by Erutan, NOT just sang by Erutan.
She tends to produce her own videos to match her work as well, so I would be remiss to not link her own channel's version of The Hunter's Mark: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOaCvz_kLFU&hd=1
Her video is also about 100 MB smaller than the Capcom video, so it's faster to download, convert to mp3, then put onto an SD card. It becomes about 6.41 MB in size after conversion. (Strangely enough, the Capcom video becomes 0.05 MB smaller than her video after both are converted... I don't notice a significant difference in aural quality, using headphones. Her audio is better for looping, since it doesn't have the silly bounce and roar at the end. She will eventually post an easy mp3 link on her channel.)
I think she does way better than all of the rubbish average singers who are on American TV these days. She proved to me that watching TV to find talent is pointless- one must look in lesser nooks and crannies of existence.
Her rendition of "Bonds of Sea and Fire", from Xenogears, was what hooked me! She also tug on my nostalgia heartstring with her Ronfaure Final Fantasy 11 Longfall remix!
Re: Talking Point: Review Scores and Unwinnable Arguments
Let's just say I wouldn't be surprised if some people lowered the score for this Castlevania title because one of the sequences blatantly rips off Shadow of the Collossus for the PS2. If that game never existed, I bet you all the scores for this Castlevania title would be higher across the board within the general gaming press.
Re: Talking Point: Review Scores and Unwinnable Arguments
Rating scores are a finicky sort of subcultural thing. Back when Monster Hunter 1 came out for the PS2 in the western world, it was consistently getting 5s and 6s from the general gaming press, yet the user base was mostly giving it 7s and 8s.
It wasn't until Monster Hunter Freedom Unite for the PSP, and Monster Hunter Tri for the Wii, that the general gaming press suddenly flip-flopped and starting giving the games 7s, 8s, and 9s, alongside the usual 7s, 8s, and 9s of the user base. The games have certainly had their content refined over time, but they're basically the same concept and type of game as the first PS2 title... So why give a significantly higher score?
I suspect that emotions play a bigger role than pure logic in most review processes... and not everyone will experience the same emotions over the same game. I think many review sites just make up numbers to cater to certain audiences, rather than genuinely attempting to be logical...
Re: Miyamoto: "Entertainment is an Unpredictable Industry"
There was a huge debacle over on Gamasutra last year or so, about when EXACTLY the original Super Mario Bros. was released for the NES. The conclusion: no one knows. There's possible time frames, but no absolutely certain dates.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/167392/sad_but_true_we_cant_prove_when_.php
Isn't that astounding? We don't even have 100% certainty of when one of the most important games of all time was released! Perhaps this is something that Miyamoto is not concerned with, but we are going to run into some MAJOR historical problems fifty or one hundred years from now, if we don't get our record-keeping acts together.
That's the whole point of museums such as this one- to get people talking about real preservation of games in their original state. Otherwise, it will only be a matter of time until today's titles are naught but grains of sand, swept away in a vast digital desert. That would be true death. Keeping records of the past is how things live on, even if they do not physically exist in the present time.
As for digital only and online only games, Miyamoto is right- only recorded videos give us an idea of how they proceeded at certain points in their lifetime. There is no way to experience those games in their previous states again. That's one of the main draws of backing up data on physical copies- even if the original copy fails, another can be created, if there is limited copy protection. Someday, none of the remaining NES systems or game cartridges will work...
Re: Remake Request: Langrisser
@decolley25 Have you seen translations of the Japanese script? It's probably more unadulterated than the English scripts of the time period, due to data limitations imposed by the increased byte cost of English characters over Japanese characters.
Re: Remake Request: Langrisser
@Gamesake Langrisser ended after #5 on the Saturn. It actually did go out with a nice bang, but yeah, #3 was not quite so good. #4 was praised for having multiple paths.
Re: Remake Request: Langrisser
@1080ike Even with Shining Force 3, the western world only got 1/3 of the entire Shining Force 3 saga, due to Sega of America's epic bungling of the Saturn. Translation and Japanese copies have been the only way to experience it... Yet another rare piece of history, lost in time...
Re: Launch of Professor Layton's Final Adventure Falls Below Series Heights
@Dpishere The composer for Professor Layton series and Dark Cloud 2 is probably the same person. Would have to double check...
Re: Nintendo Announces Mint White 3DS XL For Japan
@aaronsullivan I don't blame you, I feel the same way. I prefer having neutral color schemes on all of my electronics.
Re: Remake Request: Langrisser
YES! This would be great! However, the Growlanser series has been about the closest thing to anything like this possibly making it over to the western world. The last game in the series to do that was a long-overdue enhanced port to the PSP, released last year. The best bet for anything like this making an appearance on a Nintendo system would be the 3DS. With Fire Emblem and Etrian Oddysey 4 recently released, it's shaping up to be a great handheld for JRPG's!
So yeah, if JRPG's are getting good sales, maybe... otherwise, future renditions of Langrisser will certainly remain a pipe dream.
Re: Feature: The Big Valentines Nintendo Direct Summary
There was an interesting point in the Direct: Monster Hunter 3U will be able to play in local wireless with 3DS owners of the title. Might be good to remember for a gaming cafe! This could also be a sign of other products which use the 3DS to cooperate with a Upad user. Perhaps, the Upad could store a session on the go, to play with 3DS users elsewhere?
Also, I am rueing region locks right now. Europe got the exclusive Fire Emblem 3DS XL. I know it's possible to do some hardware modding to replace the blue or red plates with the snazzy Japanese white ones, or etch your own designs, but I don't think these ones will be so easily available...
Re: UK Retailers Call For Wii U Price Cut And Fresh Approach From Nintendo
The Wii U is already barely selling at cost. If they lower the price, they would be selling at a loss. These retailers should ask themselves: would THEY want to sell their primary products only AT A LOSS???
Re: Latest U.S. Sales Show Decline in Video Game Market, Slow Wii U Momentum
@Dreamcaster-X The PS2 came at a "perfect storm" timing. Sony was healthy, the market was expanding rapidly, and hundreds of studios couldn't wait to start working with Sony's dev kits.
The PS4 won't have that massive advantage. Sony's going to be the ones fighting for their lives this time, especially if the same thing happens to the PS4 as has happened to the Vita. (Cannibalism)
The Wii U won't need to worry about 32X and Game Gear woes. Nintendo was in more trouble during the Gamecube era.
Re: Xbox 360 On Track To Surpass The Wii's UK Sales Record
I've never owned a 360. Their engineering designs are too wasteful to compel me to buy one.
A few Youtube videos dealing with removing a certain "X bar" inside the earlier models of the system, and some handy tools (like some actually non-junky heat transfer compound...) go further than any amount of customer service in preventing the RROD, for those earlier models.
Microsoft knew good and well what would happen by releasing the 360 as it was, and it took a modding community to reveal the callous engineering ploy. They were built to fail on purpose. Their gaming division deserves no praise. The only reason no one's stepped up to sue them or call them out on it is because Microsoft would win, either by attrition or bogus counterarguments.
Re: Xbox 360 On Track To Surpass The Wii's UK Sales Record
@K1LLEGAL That's true; though it calls into question how often the warranty would provide that level of service for free.
Re: Xbox 360 On Track To Surpass The Wii's UK Sales Record
The key here is moreso exclusives than creativity. Most of the local heavy-hitters in Japan are system exclusives, or are not available on a wide variety of platforms. In the West, most of the local heavy hitters are available on 3 or more platforms.
The 360 has VERY little in the way of excellent exclusives, so I guess the greater UK market doesn't care much for exclusives...
Re: Latest U.S. Sales Show Decline in Video Game Market, Slow Wii U Momentum
@Haxonberik There are plenty of people around the globe who would be willing to spend $100 on a PC-type console which plays indie games and new PC games. Especially in low income markets, of whom would have great trouble affording $1000+ PCs. Indie games are among the bread and butter of PC titles and online services, such as Steam and Good Old Games.
Re: Latest U.S. Sales Show Decline in Video Game Market, Slow Wii U Momentum
Jeez, I guess the people who think the Wii U is struggling, considering the circumstances, don't remember (or aren't able to remember) the Sega Saturn... You wanna talk about consecutive blunder after blunder inside an expanding market...
We need to remember that there's LITERALLY thousands of game choices now. The age of monopolies in this industry is over. If anything, this just shows that the Sony and Microsoft executives are the ones who should REALLY be worried about their gaming division's future. We're not going to see PS2 blowout numbers anymore.
I would also argue that existing markets have hit a point of saturation. Other places around the globe, outside of the typical heavily industrialized triumvirate of USA, Europe, and Japan need to be given far greater consideration in the future.
Re: 3DS Circle Pad Pro XL Coming To The UK March 22nd
@Nintenzo LOL yeah you gotta wrap your arms around this behemoth!
Once again... thumb stylus...
Re: New Pokémon Revealed for X & Y, Say Hello To Ninfia
Looks like the new Pokemon type is...
Shemale! What if that's a MALE eevee? Turning into a girl? Or if it's still a guy, then it's the girliest Pokemon gigalo ever... Ahem...
[Nin]
noun:
1. responsibility
2. charge
3. obligation
4. Professor
It could mean different things, depending on the kana used... but the article says the name in katakana... perplexing...
Re: Talking Point: The Emergence of "Niche" Japanese Titles Into The Nintendo Mainstream
@Bankai There's a lot more money being thrown around through titles like Skyrim than through titles like Ni no Kuni, sadly... The Elder Scrolls was not "mainstream" until Oblivion, though. Many JRPG's are referred to as "niche" because they just do not hold the same consistent, gripping appeal upon the masses as stomping on goombas, tossing birds at pigs, and lining up gems.
Re: Talking Point: The Emergence of "Niche" Japanese Titles Into The Nintendo Mainstream
@Neram I dunno about you, but there's no way I would ever lump Baldur's Gate and the Tales Of series into the exact same category...
On the other hand, I WOULD place two titles such as Anachronox and Final Fantasy into the same category. Anachronox might have been developed by a western team, but it's design philosophies are distinctly resonant with those classified as "JRPG". There's a good reason for those classifications.
Re: Talking Point: The Emergence of "Niche" Japanese Titles Into The Nintendo Mainstream
@Nico87 The only Shin Megami Tensei titles that are not niche are the Persona titles; even then, it's really only been Personas 3 and 4 which "went mainstream". They still give plenty of opportunities for menu sifting, but they definitely have nowhere near the hardcore menu sifting of Devil Survivor.
Re: Talking Point: The Emergence of "Niche" Japanese Titles Into The Nintendo Mainstream
"Some of these notable examples suggest that we may need to gradually stop referring to some series as being "niche" or "JPRGs", but just as new RPGs and so on coming to Nintendo's systems."
I disagree with the article's statement on this issue. JRPG is a classification of game design, which differs notably from WRPG's. We refer to certain RPG's as "Japanese" or "Western" because of their design philosophies, not because of where they exist, where they are made, or who designed them. The core differences between two titles such as, for instance, Ultima 7 and Ys Books 1 & 2 , (these titles released about 20 years ago) are important things which are not going away. Sure, they're both considered RPG's, but saying they are all simply "RPG" does not do justice to the myriad designs throughout the spectrum of RPG's. Ultima 7 is a WRPG, and Ys is a JRPG. There's no getting around their core design differences. It's a bit clumsy to classify things that way, but RPG's cannot be lumped together into a sum group of equal parts, like FPS's or shooters usually can; so the labeling of "JRPG" or "WRPG" is going to stick around.
Also, "niche" is not necessarily a statement on popularity or sales so much as it is a statement on who the product appeals towards. Most people would much sooner gravitate towards Mario or Pinball than Breath of Fire or Final Fantasy, for instance. Even in Final Fantasy's case, where it "went mainstream", it still retained a considerable amount of menu sifting and organizing... not things that most people think of as "fun". These particular design decisions can be described as "niche", because they are conducted so differently from the "mainstream" titles (especially AAA action titles).
If anything, the only reason why Fire Emblem would not be considered "niche" at this point is because of Smash Bros, a decidedly "mainstream" series. It took a "mainstream" game to alert many people of something which was "niche". So long as the design philosophies of the series remain as they have, it will continue to be decidedly "niche". Can you honestly think of any baby boomers who would be interested in such titles? My baby boomer parents enjoy Bubble Bobble and puzzle games, but I doubt Fire Emblem would even remotely pique their interest due to the heavy investment required.
Re: Talking Point: The Emergence of "Niche" Japanese Titles Into The Nintendo Mainstream
@ArkOne77 Yes, RPG titles, especially the classics, have often commanded a higher price than their contemporaries throughout gaming history. It was common to pay $70-90 for a game like Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy 4, or Chrono Trigger, back in the SNES days.
Since RPG's have historically had very limited print runs, and were rarely part of the "mainstream", it is still common for certain rare titles which have STILL not gotten digital rereleases, such as Suikoden 2, to retain price points of $100 or more. As you may know, involved RPG's often require more dedication and time than your average shooter or action title. This gave them "Boutique" status over the years, which has only recently been subsided, with the digital age.
Re: Nintendo Receives Zero BAFTA Game Awards Nominations
Journey and The Walking Dead are perfect choices for BAFTA awards, because they both have distinct movie-like qualities to them. BAFTA should stick to nominating these kinds of titles, rather than choosing more "gamey" titles. I could understand why a 2D Mario title would never be nominated in this context, (a 3D Mario title like Galaxy would) but they shouldn't be nominating anything else without movie-like aspects either. I wouldn't say Little Big Planet is movie-like...
No Xenoblade nomination, though? I don't know if they've been "paid off", but they definitely only focus on mainstream titles from publishers who have money to spare. They won't go out of their way to recognize deserving niche titles... How boring.
Watching the people who convene at a lot of these high-falutin' richie rich shows is like watching a modern-day gathering of obedient vassals convening for a theater. This stuff doesn't mean too much for the commons...
Re: GPU Images Reveal Wii U Graphical Power
@krunchykhaos http://www.graphicscardbenchmarks.com/index.cfm?page=compare
Depending on if the Wii U GPU is closer to a Radeon 4650 or 4670 DDR3 version, it's a significant difference to the 6670. The 4650 doesn't even come close to the 6670, while the 4670 DDR2 version is still significantly weaker than the 6670. Only the DDR3 version comes close. This does not factor in "green" parts, which consume less energy and generate less heat, in exchange for lower speed and horsepower, which Wii U does.
The Radeon 7670 is roughly equivalent to 5 year old GPU tech in capability. If the PS4 really does use this device, then it looks like Nintendo is back in the "arms race". xD
Re: GPU Images Reveal Wii U Graphical Power
@black-kyurem Yeah, and PC will make PS4 and Xbox720 look like sick jokes. Nintendo knows that times have changed, they're not pretending to claim that they hold avatars of technical abundance anymore, like Sony and Microsoft still claim. Nintendo is more into technical mastery, a more admirable trait than raw power.
Re: GPU Images Reveal Wii U Graphical Power
"The final GPU is indeed a close match to the 4650/4670, albeit with a deficit in the number of texture-mapping units and a lower clock speed - 550MHz."
ARE YOU SERIOUS??? That's even weaker than the Geforce 9800 GT, which is based on the Geforce 8800 GT, a FIVE year old card!!! It was midrange at the time, but still... This means Nintendo is making serious bank on every console sold, regardless of software sales... That's the big deal here- the technical overhead and business equations, not the price-performance ratio by itself. This knowledge will affect their stocks.
Funny thing is, it's STILL stronger than the Xbox360 and PS3 GPU's... Even though the power equivalent is based on 2006 tech... I had one of these Radeon 4650 cards pre-installed in this computer, back from 2010... but it was a budget deal. That card was bare-bones at best... It couldn't even run many new PC titles at minimum settings. I was instantly forced to upgrade to something better...
Re: Square Enix Laments "Increasingly Difficult" Console Market
@Qwikman_N_Bass One of the main reasons why FF XIV version 1 turned out so abysmally poorly was because they tried to adapt the "Crystal Engine", which was used in FF XIII, onto an MMO. Which, of course, was an astoundingly poorly planned idea. The management should have known better than to try and cheap out on toolsets like that; they used a different engine for FF XI in the past, and that turned out very well for the time of early MMO's, so it's not like they don't have past experience.
The worst offense from SE recently is that the tester feedback incorporation of the FF XIV version 1 beta testing period was, perhaps, one of THE WORST handled beta tests ever, for a major AAA company developing an enormous MMO with a planned lifespan of 10+ years. The management needs to completely reorganize how they operate, not fall back on the same tactics that made them great in the past. Times have changed, what worked in the past won't work anymore.
Of course, they should return to being more developer centric, as in the past, but doing so in the exact same way as the 90s will only repeat their recent mistakes. Hopefully, the management will take the experiences gained through developing FF XIV version 2 to heart; I know the developers have been doing so!
Re: Square Enix Laments "Increasingly Difficult" Console Market
Good localizations take time and planning. Bravely Default is not a crap game, so we should expect a good translation for an obscure title to take some time.
What's NOT excusable is Square-Enix sitting on their Chrono Break trademark, which has been in limbo for the past 10 years! What's the point of threatening freely distributed fan projects if you're not going to do anything with your own IP, anyways?
Re: Square Enix Laments "Increasingly Difficult" Console Market
FF Versus XIII has been in development for so long now, that it's probably going to become FF XV. FF XIV version 1 pretty much sums up what is wrong with Square-Enix; they create steaming turds and need to scramble to compost them into something significantly better, yet come up short, despite all of their hard work.
At this point, FF XIV version 2 is now shaping up to look very awesome, courtesy of the current team who has been working on it for the past 2 years. However, they have been working almost non-stop for all of that time. That's how terrible the management of SE is now.
Therein lies the problem- the management is not what it used to be. The talent and resources are still there, though. That's the key- if they change their business plan to allow the developers a greater amount of flexibility, following in the development pattern of FF XIV version 2, I think SE might just resurge back into another Golden Age. Allowing the developers to hold the reins, instead of the publishers and marketers, was how Square and Enix became world-renowned in the first place.