baberg

"I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of wallets suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly emptied."

No, this list isn't jump-out-of-your-chair fantastic, but the simple fact is that Ubisoft is very gung-ho about supporting Wii, which means at the very least it will be included in all multi-platform releases. That is huge news for Nintendo as well as all us Nintendo fanboys.

But when are we gonna get a launch date and price?!

[-Z-] "Yes it might be appealing at first to swing the Wiimote. But once you get used to it, it gets old pretty fast. For some games like onimusha, I prefer to use my thumbs instead of using my arms because I am not going to swing my arms for 5 freaking hours."

Dude! Where do you live? I'm gonna get on a jet right now and fly out to where you live, since you have a Wii and have played Onimusha on it! I can't wait to play on your Wii!

Oh no, somebody with 10 stars has copied-and-pasted a dictionary entry and told me to go away, whatever shall I do?

Speaking as a Nintendo fanboy, this "article" is horrible. It's a study of brand name value and has absolutely nothing to do with gaming. Furthermore, "Xbox" and "Playstation" are not brands, they are products within a brand. Hence "Microsoft Xbox" and "Sony Playstation" along with "Nintendo Wii".

I come here for gaming news and commentary. If you're concerned about which brand name is more marketable, you're not a gamer.

KawF: "You are nothing but sad, pathetic fanboys, with no technical knowledge, grasping for straws."

And you're nothing but a sad, pathetic Sony fanboy who will have a nice shiny new PS3 this winter and no good games to play on it (seriously, give me the name of ONE PS3 launch title which measures up to a game from the Wii lineup)

But hey, at least it cost you $600!

Risse, I doubt that it's a lack of creativity but more of an attempt at getting their title more impulse buys.

Somebody who doesn't know about the game or who doesn't follow the Internet closely might think that this game was somehow related to SimCity or Civilization (or even Rome: Total War) and buy it on impulse without checking.

From what Gamerankings says (http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/932339.asp butwhy doesn't Joystiq just link to this?) IGN is the only review site which is even giving this a second glance. Given IGN's track record, I'm betting that CivCity's publishers have bought a lot of advertising on IGN recently. It certainly wouldn't be the first time IGN bowed to the almighty dollar.

@dsub:

"If you ask me, this trend will only force better games, as developers will have to actually put some fucking thought into a title to make it sell well"

Strange, the exact behavior that you champion is the behavior that I abhor. To me, "making games that sell well" means "making games that are exactly like previous games in the genre". Madden sells extremely well and is one of EA's cash cows. So do the GTA games. The original GTA3 was an incredible game, but since then there's been no significant improvements to the base gameplay.

High barriers to entry means less risk taking and less "quirky" titles coming out as publishers and developers become more and more hesitant to spend millions on a concept which might be snubbed by the consumer.

When you have to spend $5 million in development costs, are you really willing to risk smaller niche games like ICO, Rez, or Guitar Hero? Of course not, you're going to bet on your sure-fire sellers like World War II Shooter #78, Madden '08-pre-and-post-season, and Final Fantasy MCMXVII?

I hereby renew my suggestion that everybody, before being allowed to post on Joystiq, be enrolled in a class to train them to spot obvious trolls. The number of responses which were garnered from the two "Xbox 360 is dead" comments are ridiculous for a small userbase like this.

On-topic, it does seem slightly out of balance for two medium-profile games to be suddenly cancelled for the next-gen consoles, especially this close to their potential release. It seems to me that at this point in the development cycle the engine and a vast majority of the coding should be done, with only polish and storylines to be done. But it seems to me that it would be more beneficial to a publisher to put the game out on as many consoles as they could, unless there exists the potential to have games rotting in warehouses.

I'm sure we're not getting the full story.

Viral marketing actually backfires for me. Once I become aware that it's viral marketing (which is usually pretty fast, very few are well done) it completely turns me off to the product they're trying to sell. It just seems so dishonest, and especially when it comes to video games - the game should be the focus, not the marketing.

I was turned off to Halo for the longest time because of the "I Love Bees" website.

The Wiki for it has a list of 37 games which are "thought" to be the complete list. Here they are:

Old Maid
Spit
I Doubt It
Sevens
Memory
Pig
Blackjack
Hearts
Rummy
Last Card
Last Card Plus
President
Five Card Draw
Texas Hold 'Em
Nap
Spades
Contract Bridge
Hasami Shogi
Turncoat
Chinese Checkers
Checkers
Dots & Boxes
Backgammon
Chess
Connect Five (Gomoku)
Grid Attack
Koi-Koi (Hanafuda)
Soda Shake
Dominoes
Bowling
Darts
Billiards
Balance
Take Over
Solitaire
Escape
Mahjong Solitaire