Okay, after watching the most awkward Microsoft press conference, it was revealed that the much anticipated FF13 is also coming to the xbox360.

Damn, the fanboys are going to have the field day with this...

E3 isn't as exciting anymore, but I'll watch because I have nothing better to do at the moment. Some of the stuff that came from Microsoft today was cringe-worthy, especially the new "avatar" feature that the stage people tried to pass off as something we haven't seen before. Even if they weren't the first to do 3D avatars, I just can't help the words "NINTENDO MIIs, NINTENDO MIIs" from coming up from the back of my head...

Sony's gonna have to do something pretty huge to beat FFXIII on the 360.

Also, netflix streaming to the 360 is pretty awesome.

Kotaku is a good source for keeping up with these announcements. It's been running slow since all the E3 stuff, but yeah.

It's not E3 worthy, but what I want to see is voice chat for MSN on the 360. And netflix streaming would be so cool.

Damn, now I've gotta figure out which system I want FF13 on... Maybe they'll do something to make one version clearly superior so that my choice will be made easier...

The avatar thing is retarded. I was happy to hear about group chatting, though. I'm hoping you can keep a group together from the dash to a game, but who knows.

Netflix is cool, or would be if they offered service to Canada.

One thing they failed to touch on but was mentioned later...

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/07/14/install-your-xbox-360-games-to-the-hard-drive-access-xblm-on-th/

Glad I have an elite, heh.

I saw that today, Sony is going to take a huge hit with FF13 not being a PS3 exclusive.

The hard drive install thing is nice, but it'd be so much better if they didn't requite you to keep the disc in to play.

And yeah, considering my tiny 20 GB hard drive, sounds like I'll only be installing whatever is my most played game at a given time. Wish MS would just give up gouging on hard drive prices and let us use our own external drives for this kind of stuff.

16:10 support is awesome. I played on a 1680x1050 monitor for over a year and it really bothered me that there wasn't a setting for it. I play on an LCD TV now so I don't have that issue anymore, but I know this is going to make a lot of people happy.

That's basically impossible to do though and keep everyone happy. You let people just plain do that with no restrictions and bam, people are renting games, copying them, and then there's no reason for anyone to actually buy a game anymore. You throw some sort of activation key system in there and you're pissing off a lot of people too.

Ok, that's why I was holding out with my PS3. I'm 80% sure I'm selling my PS3 now.

What model is it? I might buy... PM me.

Oh, man. Fallout 3 looks amazing.

60GB.

I want to at least hear the sony press conference before I make a decision though. See if they might have somethign to persuade me. GOWIII footage perhaps?

With Square Enix branching out to the XBox 360 (especially Final Fantasy XIII!) and the price drop on the XBox 360 Premium 20gb (while it lasts) certainly tempts me towards getting one.

too bad it is banned in australia.

Also, SE for quite a while now has not been as fond as sony as they had in the past.

Dropping support for the harddrive (also, I think that their older games having more backwards compatibility issues on the PS3 than a number of niche titles could be another thing that has gotten on SE's nerves) for the ps2 was something that pissed of SE quite a bit, as it basicly meant that the sales of FFXI for the ps2 would be severly limited, as there would no longer be any new harddrives being made.

I don't know. It's not hate at first sight but its not love either.

Screenshots of the game overwhelm me with every shade of brown with more bumpmapping than Larry King's forehead. I mean, LOTS of brown. But on the other hand, it IS a post-apocalyptic so it is understandable. So I have mixed feelings there.

The "RPG" element to the fighting is weird. It might work out and make some really interesting experiences, but from what I've seen so far, it looks clunky, unnecessary and bothersome. I have to see how it turns out later on.

FFXIII going multiplatform is an outrage. Back at the 2007 Tokyo Game Show, a FFXIII trailer ends with "Only for PlayStation 3." Now they updated it say to say "Only for PlayStation 3....in Japan."

This is almost like the announcement of RE4 going to the PS2 back then why the creator directly stated that it would stay exclusive to the GameCube. Then again, at least with the GC version of RE4 the game was a timed exclusive. Here with FFXIII, the release date is now pushed back farther just so there can be a simutaneously release on both platforms (2010 from what I heard).

Wahh, wahh. You don't know that it wouldn't have been delayed anyway. Interestingly enough, it's being developed on the PC right now and then ported to both the PS3 and 360. PC release?

boo ***ing hoo.

people in the PAL regions have had longer waits for games for ages, and there are some major games that we dont even get. (the blu-ray regions A and B, are NTSC and PAL respectively, i dont care what the blu-ray people say, the countries that use those standards match up closely enough with thje regions that they are the same thing to me).

So realy, complaining about a delayed US release is just going to **** off people that have had to deal with having their releases delayed for almost every major game release, sometimes up to and over 6 months.

Well, the Nintendo press conference is over. That made me frown. Maybe I'm such a jaded gamer, but I don't care about Wii Music. Where are the games for gamers who aren't interested in minigames and tutorial software? I don't think I ever so hard before at an E3 conference.

I'm contemplating about selling my Wii.

You know what, the whole anticipation for using the new Motion Plus for truly responsive gameplay has left me all soured inside. But just WiiPlay 2.0? Come on Nintendo. When I heard of the add-on, I thought at E3 they would introduce a title that could seriously immerse the player into the game., but nooooo, MORE MINIGAMES.

Screw this, my day is ruined. Maybe Sony will come up with something good? Hopefully not following Microsoft's playbook of leaning toward being more casual. CASUAL.

Being a Nintendo fanboy, I'll say this:

Pros: yay for wii motion plus and possibly wii music/chat thing

Cons: I don't care about apealing to the "hardcore" demographic, but they need to stop making the SAME minigames. I want them to REALLY take advantage of their potential, "casual" or "hardcore" or otherwise. Also, I'd argue that Nintendo is stradling the line between casual games and applications, which worries me.

Not that it matters much for me, since I'm pretty broke.

I will say that I do like the ideas of Xbox's push for co-op and PS3's Massive Action Game. I'll have to resign myself to the fact that there's no such thing as a pure console anymore though -- just entertainment systems.

you do know that wii music has been known about since before the wii was released.

And that it also takes a while to make the large games that you are wanting, especialy if they are going to take full advantage of the wii controls (especialy with the new ad-on that can actualy track where it is in 3d space instead of just knowing how the wiimote has been moved.)

if you didn't fail at reading the article you still need the disc to prove you own the game... it just loads all the content from the hard drive

i'm just hoping for the sake of people who have actually bought gamerpics and themes (which is stupid.. plenty of decent free themes available) that the new dashboard crap is either optional or some form of compensation is given plus i'm hoping that the avatars feature allows for the creation of avatars that don't look so gay

quite interested in this as I have the same res on my monitor, about time tbh.

hard drive play is useful but I doubt I'll use it much.

I don't really see the point to game installation on the 360 unless they're releasing RAM upgrades to go with it. Load times on the 360 have always been quite short with few exceptions (Sonic 2006). It's only beneficial for the PS3 because Bluray isn't good for games.

The new 360 dashboard looks retarded.

Between my predictions for Final Fantasy 13, Devil May Cry 4 and the Iraq War I'm beginning to suspect that I have evil powers.

A Wii attachment to make the accelerometers stop sucking. Gee, I'm sure glad they fixed the problem now instead of in November 2006 when it might have mattered. The laggy, awful motion controls already ruined Twilight Princess. The Wii Remote is so atrocious that even Shigeru Miyamoto was barely able to shoehorn motion controls into a single super-secret minigame in Mario Galaxy. Can't we just skip the generation of emulation and incremental improvement and go right to an idea that isn't **** like haptic clothing?

Didn't like half the major game companies already say 'no thanks' to E3?

Not to mention that the push to produce demos for E3 has delayed or destroyed enumerable games?

I think they officially pulled out (LucasArts of course, and Activision I think, etc.) but are still represented somehow there.

I remember when you actually had to be a member of the press or the industry to get inside E3.

I like how Jon`C complains about the Wii remote's inaccuracy, and then when they fix that, it's now "too late" even though adding it from the beginning would have doubled the cost for an already costly controller on a system concept that was unproven before its launch. The ideas are good -- they just need to actually impliment them as I said before.

Also, I have no idea what Jon`C talking about with Mario Galaxy or haptic clothing.

Geb, the answer to why people always complain no matter what is to be found in here.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnpleasableFanbase

I don't know what ideas you think they need to impliment and as I saw no particular need to read it. Furthermore, according to Nintendo they were manufacturing the system package (including Wii Remote) for under $100 back in 2006. So... uh... twice as much to make a controller that is useful for its stated purpose? Worth it? Maybe?

The Wii Remote is trash. Game developers know it, I know it, and deep down you know it. That's why almost no games use the accelerometers for anything. That's why you see "POINT THE WII REMOTE AT THE SCREEN" every time you play a Wii game. Instead of - as I said - fixing the problem when it mattered (i.e. before Nintendo finished making all of their obligatory franchise titles for this generation which all either avoided motion controls entirely or suffered miserably for them), they are bundling the fix into a peripheral.

Peripherals do not sell. We've seen it time and time again throughout the game industry. The first and only optional add-on we've ever seen that resulted in significant market penetration was the original Playstation memory card, and even then only after Final Fantasy 7 was released. Unless the system comes with a peripheral and requires it, game developers will not touch it because they don't want to dilute their prospective market.

Nintendo will release one or two games that use their metaphorical thumb in a dike and we'll never hear of it again.

Mario Galaxy avoided almost all use of motion controls except for shake = button press.
Haptic clothing is the next generation of motion-sensitive input devices after this crop of junk finishes evolving into those $20,000 magnetically suspended haptic handles they use to train surgeons.

Uh, or - and not to contradict your link to a humor website or anything - I'm pointing out the fact that the Wii Remote does have serious problems which game developers have complained about and that Nintendo is only now trying to fix it?

Here's a game for you: find the TVtropes article that explains why anybody who complains about the Wii is met with derision.

So? It would still be cheaper than the PS3 and 360.


Are you kidding? People were ecstatic with the thought of motion sensitive controls before release. Nintendo fanboys formed lines half miles long to buy the thing. But they were all expecting actual motion control. I know I certainly thought the Wiimote was capable of 1:1 motion sensing. I can find you half a dozen 6DOF accelerometer/gyroscope chips on various semiconductor manufacturer sites that would have done the job nicely. The rest was just up to the software. These chips probably cost anywhere between $20 and $50, but when you're buying millions it would be a lot cheaper.

I think it's completely understandable and I really appreciate the effort. I will be copying Halo3 as soon as the update is released and I will be free of endless JET ENGINE DRIVE NOISE. Finally I can put the thing under my monitor.

I hate agreeing with Jon'C. I really do. It's like drinking scotch with thumbtacks in it. But that whole shake-is-a-button-press **** sucks. Hell. Most of the motion control stuff sucks, especially the ones that require sharp, quick movements for no apparent reason. I can't play the damn game if it makes my arms hurt.

But a couple games got it right. Xcite Truck sucks all over, but the controls are slick. And wii-sports does a good job; but there, especially in the boxing, the tiring jabbing motions make sense, and actually add to the experience.

I don't think I ever experienced such a strong mixture of sadness and horror when I watched this.

I tried watching the Sony press conference but got bored. On and on they drone about the same damn things. I get it, the PS2 was great. Yes, I know the PSP has those features. ZZZZZZzzzz

rock band only with video game music and uncontrollably imprecise controls.

I never actually listed any specifics before, but I could if you like. As for under $100...uh, what? The least I remember ever hearing was MAYBE under $200...more likely just $200, when it ended up being $250.

Uh, I guess "deep down" I really don't know it, because I find it fun. I think it's fine as it is (nevermind with apparently improved response), but I'll be the first to admit I still like the crappy graphics and controls of a LOT of games (I have to if I'd get any enjoyment out of my current part-time job as a game tester). I'm fairly certain your loud cynicism would not arise when Resident Evil 4 tells you to press the A button rapidly, or for that matter, any number of newer games that seem to assume people don't read the instruction manuals or refuse to have a seperate tutorial mode. Also, are first-party games now the "only ones that matter?"

Quote:

Peripherals do not sell

. We've seen it time and time again throughout the game industry. The first and only optional add-on we've ever seen that resulted in significant market penetration was the original Playstation memory card, and even then only after Final Fantasy 7 was released. Unless the system comes with a peripheral and requires it, game developers will not touch it because they don't want to dilute their prospective market. Nintendo will release one or two games that use their metaphorical thumb in a dike and we'll never hear of it again.[/quote]
There isn't much I can say about this because I don't have my hands on the actual Motion Plus. Also, just because something doesn't sell well doesn't make it a poor idea.

I was confused because you initially referred to it as a "super-secret minigame" which apparently means doing a spin. I agree that Mario Galaxy is not the best use of motion control as it was tacked on. Metroid Prime 3, however, I feel uses it rather well. Then again, I thought Zelda was neat too and that's apparently "atrocious" so...*shrug*

It'd also be less expensive than a high-end computer. They're all freakin' expensive. I don't think that it'd be worth it.

I guess I'm still not seeing how it's really different from any "actual" motion control, but I guess I'd never know unless I actually tried them out.

Again with the persecution complex. I've been a Nintendo fanboy because their competition has usually focused on being "cool" with bigger e-penises with 20 minute cutscenes and a bunch of crap that turns your console into a home theater system complete with kitchen sink, and as I said before, it worries me that Nintendo seems to be moving towards making applications over actual games. I still hope to get a PS2 (not PS3) one day and probably an Xbox 360 as well, because there's a lot of good stuff on those systems.

It's been bothering me so I have to ask, do we even NEED an E3 anymore? Do the game developers need to worry about E3 much anymore? Or better yet, should people just stop caring so much about this event? There are other game conferences throughout the year, such as the GDC, and it seems game companies just showcases their products anytime throughout the year anyway. Suddenly, I just feel that E3 is valueless as a gamer consumer and a waste of time for developers. I couldn't help think this was nothing more than ways for companies to effectively hand viewers mountains upon mountains of pretentious and egotistical bull****...which wasn't essentially different in previous E3's, but atleast it was given in a much more of an entertaining and exciting fashion.

When E3 stop becoming the quintessential "holiday for gamers," it boils down to over-glorified infomercial sessions. I guess it's good that companies don't have to waste piles of cash to dress up their booth, prepare for parties and hire boothbabes, but this seems the last E3 I would be remotely excited looking forward to.