Blue Dragon sets Japan ablaze

"Don't forget my favourite co - Capcom!. Resident Evil 5 EXCLUSIVE for Xbox360 in 2007!!! You read it here first people! ;)"

Lost Planet is going to be hot in Japan, and let's not forget Dead Rising 2.

Squeenix won't support 360 unless they get an install base.

Charlie, I was with you until you said that Oblivious is the new Zelda, and insulted it for "low res and scrolling text." That's ridiculous.

Only time will say if the space issues majorly come into play. I will not argue more space is better especially for open games like Oblivian and GTA. But not sure it is needed 100% either. I will wait to see what the game developers are able to do with it.

There is probably more to this than meets the eye as this still comes down to how efficiently these systems can stream textures. As The PS3 only has 256 worth of video memory to store textures and the 360 has a theoretical potential of 512 though it will never really be that high due to the system and other code needing some. So Im really curious can say a new Oblivian or GTA world be the same size and have 20 to 40 more gigs of texture data without slowing down the pace of the game. Maybe it will look about the same but help reduce duplicated textures. Maybe im wrong but I view this like a funnel and Im curious how many textures we can pour in it before we are no longer seeing a benefit in flow or volume.

There are also other answers to large media such as compression and drive caching, on the 360 games have to run without a HD but that doesn't mean they cannot be enhanced by it and the PS3 im sure will benifit from caching as well. The lack of space does add some additional burden on developers though they have to make it fit were the PS3 seems a bottomless pit of storage. At least space will not be the difficult part for coding on the PS3.

My only real problem with the Blu Ray is Sony's insistance that all developers will us it even if the game doesn't need it.

The 360 has a installed base, just not in Japan. SquareEnix has already commented on support for the 360, Wii and Ps3.

As for which current generation console rules in Japan, everyone knows it is the Wii or was it the DS, either way the PS3/PSP are struggling themselves.

Per disc space, game development companies really know one thing.. installed base. Sure the disc size sucks on the 360, but the PS3 has a pitiful installed base. Who are you going to make a game for? a market of near 10mil, or ~600thousand.

im not the biggest fan of rpgs.. but i like to see an equal battle in console wars. i havent really been a true fan boy since the death of sega in the console biz.. but i would prefer to see msft gain more ground in this gen than the last. but anyways.. ive heard all kinds of rumors.. like konami wanting kojima to port metal gear 4 to 360, and the guys at squaresoft def did say that they werent going to be catering to sony only this time around. i believe an example was given to say that the ff series would be exclusive to playstation, but kingdom hearts on the other hand would be on 360. they didnt say that was official... but an idea of their plans. so yeah.. i think that will also help out in japan.. here too.

STUPIDEST POST EVER BY SONY FANBOY
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"If one disc is defected or messed up, it'll be a problem. Thanks, but I don't feel like constantly inserting discs to go through a game every time I play it (and want to replay it). And taking the risk of being screwed out of the game if one disc is broken or messed up. This is why Blu-Ray is better then the DVD format."

Sorry but seriously what a dumb, dumb prick. It's all ass-backwards, you actually have MORE chance of not being able to play the game if it's on a single disc. Either way it's a completely bogus "argument" and doesn't even deserve to be added to the "List of dumbest sony fanboy comments" because it is truely that dumb.

How old are you... 9 or something? (rolls eyes and cracks up).

The gen is different in where compression schemes are running amuck. Look at video, mpeg4, VC-1 and h.264. all are pretty new compression algorithms. Plus MS ( based on the fact that their unified architecture would be ideal for it, already have several patents pertaining to according to the FCC, and a certain game by the name of oblivion, which barely uses up 1 side of the dvd it uses) has intent to follow through with procedural synthesis. This will make the games with the exception of audio and video take up a tremendously smaller amount of space while creating a more dynamic and life like world. This, with the fact of the extra texture memory and more advanced shader and texture methods, is why I am stoked about the 360's future more so than Sony's. I seriously urge you all to look up procedural synthesis in wikipedia than take a look up Spore by Will Wright and .kkrieger to see what it is all about. Truly exciting stuff and should definitely keep disk space down as development of it becomes easier and less expensive.

Square/Enix was on Playstation 2 because of market share. If they don't make money or feel they will make more on the 360, they will do so.

And about the 360's loudness, I still own a dreamcast. That sucker had a fan! But yeah, you tune it out when you are playing games.

as some have already said, depending on the design of the game, having so much space on one disk is beneficial.

the other comments about having to swap disks over like its an incredible burden on you to do so are absolutely ridiculous. having multiple discs isn't anything new. i don't recall anyone being bothered before. swapping the discs over happens so infrequently that it's not really an issue. i mean it takes you all over a few seconds to take one disc out and replace it with another. it's not like you'll have to do it again for a while.

is there anyone out there who has played a multi disc game who can honestly say that it has actually ruined their experience of it?

The 360/Blue Dragon bundle, with a core system, special faceplate, the game and some collectibles (figurines I think) is priced at about $260...

Gee, Microsoft, you think we could get a price cut on the system over here right about now?

I mean, I know they're giving 360s away in Japan to establish a foothold (and they should) but think how much Sony would be sweating right now if the high-end 360 suddenly went to $300 with a bigger hard drive...

Heard of Project Sylpheed? Thats a Square-Enix game announced for the 360. Thats it, as far as I've heard (officially). The 360 fanboy crowd seems to think that Square-Enix support for the 360 means that Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Kingdom Hearts will all be on the 360, and that they will port to PS3 sometime later, and that really doesn't look like the case.

um.. Oblivion sucks balls compared to Zelda TP. complaint number one, The horse back riding is horrible, feels like the same animation being played over and over again. Not only that, its hard to control the thing. Zelda's horse back riding wins hands down. Oblivion is the definition of boredom. I cant even believe u had the nerve to compare it to that. Oh who that it takes more disks to play, RE4 had 2 GC discs and thats one of the greatest games ever. And, it still surpasses the ps2 version which only used one dvd.

"If one disc is defected or messed up, it'll be a problem. Thanks, but I don't feel like constantly inserting discs to go through a game every time I play it (and want to replay it). And taking the risk of being screwed out of the game if one disc is broken or messed up. This is why Blu-Ray is better then the DVD format."

I have never read such a half-assed, bullshit excuse in my life. Give me a break. Afraid of one of the discs breaking? This is only a statement that would be made by someone who does not take care of their discs. So how is blu-ray going to change that? It's simple, put the damn disc back in the case when you are finished. It amazes me that after 20 years of digital discs being on the market, people STILL to the this day do not understand that discs will get scratched if you do not take care of them.

Nice try, perhaps if you put your mind to it you can come up with a better, more logical excuse. One that isn't influenced by your blind fanboyism. A three disc DVD game runs a higher risk of being scratched over a one disc blu-ray game? I'm still laughing.

"Don't forget my favourite co - Capcom!. Resident Evil 5 EXCLUSIVE for Xbox360 in 2007!!! You read it here first people! ;)"

Because Capcom are so great about maintaining exclusivity deals... *cough, Resident Evil 4 on GameCube*

I can't believe you people are suggesting that Microsoft needs to go out and monopolize another industry by throwing their big stupid bags of cash with dollar signs on them around. Maybe you're all forgetting that MS has yet to actually make a profit off their gaming division. Just because they're sitting on billions of dollars as a company doesn't mean it's worthwhile to push their game division red line even further into the abyss by buying up developers left and right.

Holy crap this is FUNNY!
Blue Dragon flopped in Japan because of Gundam on PS2!
Joystiq is the *ONLY* place on earth that can spin Sh***y news for Microsoft into something good, and any news for Sony into something awful.

The game won't let 360 crack Japan! It's one game! It's not even a good game! And it has serious competition from Dragon Quest and FF - you know, games that the Japanese actually like?
No one who made BD, they're only working for M$ because they were subject to A$$kissing and heavy payments.

You can say what you like about the Japanese gamer; blinkered, surreal (and sometimes poor taste) - but those guys lead the world in forming an orderly queue.

Notice the even distribution as they respect each other's personal space. Skill like that isn't picked up overnight.

I salute you sirs & madams.

Fandango

You sir, are a new definition of stupid. Quite a feat for a sony fanboy, as so many greats have come before you.

This game alone won't crack japan, but the fact that so many people are willing to buy the 360 just for this game indicates that there is a future for the 360 in japan, as long as ms can pump out the rpgs. And guess what game type MS has 7 of next year?

And BTW retard, it IS a good game. Famitsu gave it a 37/40. That is excellent.

"And it has serious competition from Dragon Quest and FF - you know, games that the Japanese actually like"

You do know who made BD right? He's the guy who created final fantasy. The guy who was in charge of the series BEFORE it turned into a bunch of faggy, nipple vest wearing bishonen trying to find their ghost monster dad who may also be a dream.

Dude. Pedro. Sakaguchi produced the Kuja game. THE KUJA GAME.

That is all.

"it would be money well spent, shall we say a $100M advance for MGS Solid 360 exclusive?"

In order to be profitable, EVERY single dollar of MGS would have to go directly to Microsoft and none of it to the stores or Konami.

The MGS series sells only 2-3 million copies total, which I know is a shock to fans of the series (the same shock and low sales number can apply to Final Fantasy as well).

"Squeenix won't support 360 unless they get an install base."

Because having THIRTY TIMES more units sold with the Xbox is a good reason to support the PS3? If anything S-E is supporting the wrong console. They're ignoring the much, much much bigger market. And if the Wii keeps selling the way it does, they'll be ignoring 80% of the entire install base.

Hopefully this gives a bit of a light to some of the other developers to start catering to the market. Without competition the market stagnates and each release become no more then an extension and rarely shows any innovation.

Ive had a disc fail on me out of the box, Xenosaga disc 2. It sucked, whats worse is that the time it took me to get through the first disc i could no longer get it exchanged. But that is an anomaly and the only case ive run into that where it has not been user induced. If something fails right of you are more able to get it replaced.

Swapping discs isnt a big deal, but if you MS allowed you to purchase 1 disc on HDDVD vs 3 on DVD i'm sure the preference would be to 1. Storage space is an advantage. Ive loved games that offer more than one audio track, as most voice acting in those games tends to be 100x better than anything in English this also enables the game designers to include more speech to immerse the player more vs reading text boxes as well as other points people mentioned.

As a stray thought it would be interesting to see if wii will eventualy get to the point of multi discs. GC definetly hit that wall as did pretty much every prev gen console pc included.

For those of you who commented on the loudness of the Xbox 360:

1. Either you haven't purchased a recent 360 or you have a launch unit. Mine is not loud at all. Granted its bad that it took M$ so long to get a quite model out.

2. You obviously dont own a PS3. Mine sounds like a f***ing jet air plane in my living room. Its not only my unit either, just walk into a Gamestop or EB games with a real PS3 display and tell me which unit is loud. There are obviously heat issues with the PS3. Its not the blue ray diode!! Sony has there stand alone players in Best Buy right now, along with Samsung. Plenty of them in stock. Its the heat issues of including all those chips (PS2 chipset, PS1 chipset, wifi, bluetooth, cell, RSX, sound chip, gigabit network, video encoding chipset) and a power supply in one unit. Any one have any data on the power usage of their PS3's??

Pedro, I'll remember your childish ignorance to the subject and the fact that you'd be too chickens**t to actually repeat yourself in person. But I hope you remember this:
PS3 and PS2 both have RPGs that are much more popular than BD and they'll continue to dwarf MS's pathetic attempts.

Apparently this game isn't better than Yakuza 2, or that 'faggy, bishonen' infested 40/40 game that is FFXII. Tough s**t, the Japanese, and the rest of the world still like FF. There wouldn't even be an argument if FF didn't have competition.

Wise up jackass, of course I knew who made this craptastic debacle of a game that is Blue Dragon.

Based on your extensive playtesting of the game, Fandango, please can you explain to us what you consider to be the "craptastic" elements of Blue Dragon?