sockpuppettherapy

Or you can go to a public library and pick it up to read it again.

The thing is, how many of those people pirating this material were going to buy it to begin with? And how many people actually want a feel for it before they go about spending $15 to $20 a pop on a book or graphic novel?

Is that Krampus Scorpion in the background?

The DS has fun games. Period. That's what's selling the system and getting it into people's hands in Japan.

Really, in general Nintendo has made great quality and fun games, but many people, especially in the West, don't play them because of some kind of stigma against playing "cutesy games." Look at Pikmin.

The games that have come out for the 360 don't exactly go the same way. They're immersive, realistic, grungy... but with the exception of a specific demographic, they're not exactly "fun."

FPSes, realistic sports games, and RPGs all refer to a large videogame market, but a small overall market. They don't address to the larger population of people. And seriously, when have many of these games even changed? With the exception of a few choice titles, each of these genres are so generic and oversaturating that it gets boring. FPSes haven't evolved since Half Life (what happened to games like Descent?); sports games haven't changed much (another Madden to suck the $50-$60 out of the wallets of the gullible); RPGs have the same sucky generic stories that end the same damn ways.

But look at the DS games. A math game that provides a simple reward system. Incredibly well-made sidescrollers. Simple but addicting puzzle games. Drawing, cooking, animal games. By definition, some of these things are either old or "not fun" anymore, but that's definitely not true. Flash games are probably far more popular than even console games in the US. People just don't believe this or don't understand this.

What's difficult is trying to get people to try something new, but look at the DS. With the right marketing, some really fun ideas, and some time, new ideas can fly off the handle.

Putting a blu-ray drive on something that's supposed to play videogames and saying that it's "cheap" is a gimmick.

Forcing people to play a game in a way they're not used to is called taking a risk and introducing something new.

@soma

Then what does it mean? Something that looks a lot better? A little better? Much better? There's no context at all here except that something is better, no degree of "betterness" that is able to be calculated. It's your own perception, and a statement by someone who didn't think it out.

What's clear is that the SPECS are twice or three times faster than previous systems. Calculable numbers, for all intensive purposes (let's assume that this is true), show this statement to be a clear fact.

You said yourself that the XBox doesn't even look 2x better than the XBox's graphics, even with the hardware being something like 20x more powerful than previously. There's a reason for it, and it might actually help to know why 2x more power doesn't translate to graphics that are going to make things look photorealistic. It's not my fault you have a hard time reading a lot of words and can't get past the first two sentences.

Stupidity reigns when you hear something to the extent of "So-and-so system doesn't look 2x as powerful as the previous system." It merely shows the ignorance of the people debating, and the lack of thought on their own part.

Graphical improvement is NOT linear. Twice as much power does not translate to "twice as better picture quality," and to even assume such a thing is ridiculous.

Rather, it's more of an exponential curve. At lower levels, such as from 8-bit to 16-bit, the improvement of power easily translates to better graphical output. A crappy SNES game with horrid graphics are most likely still better than that of a decent, even a good NES game.

At this point, the addition of power must be tremendous in order to create MUCH better graphics. And as we've so far seen with most 360 games, that just isn't noticeable.

Compare it this way. If you're looking at triangles on a computer screen, it's easy to discern 1 from 2, or 2 from 4, or 4 from 8 triangles. But when you've got 1 billion triangles and go onto 2 billion? Or a trillion triangles to 2 trillion? To our eyes, to perception, that difference is hardly noticeable, if at all.

Even worse, most games, if not all, could have been put onto the XBox or the PS2 with graphical downgrades without actually changing any of the gameplay at all.

That's the problem. You're paying for something that just looks a little better with newer systems at this point, while the content hasn't changed. Microsoft and Sony have been selling people "specs," numbers that mean nothing. 20 to 30 times the power doesn't mean anything when there's little or nothing to base it by. It's a matter of mindlessness and stupidity rolled into one.

The contrast is that the Wii is selling a new experience. It's NOT a Gamecube with 2x or 3x better graphical ability and with an attachment. It's a system whose entire game interface has changed. The focus is on playing the game, not on how the game looks.

I think people are also not realizing what the hell they just did. This isn't a simple peripheral; the amount of research and development to create a system like this (i.e. a device capable of detecting accurate and real-time motion wirelessly) doesn't come cheap, even if the hardware itself is cheaper than, say, creating the PS3.

Those media, the CD and the DVD, came at the right times. The technology was beginning to become cheaper, the efficiency of the devices were rising. Even then, it took at least a few years before the systems could begin to proliferate.

HD-DVD and Bluray have that working against both companies. There's only so much extra content that people can even dream of wanting. Add to that the decreasing prices of DVDs (you can buy movies at an average of $13.50 at Target), and you're asking people to move onto a new medium just because it looks slightly clearer, all for 10 to 20 times the price of a regular DVD player.

It really does look like Sony's trying to make its investors happy about something. They've encountered a major backlash against their system, and the majority of people still excited about the PS3 still don't know the $600 price tag.

It's not arrogance, so much as it is just being blind to the demands of the public.

The thing about the iPod, especially the video iPod, is that it's still PRIMARILY a music player. Apple understands this and makes this very clear. The extra video capability are an extra "umph" to convince people who absolutely want an iPod but are sort of still questioning the purchase to buy their product. I guess it's sort of like putting cupholders in cars: it's not the main showcase of the device, but a little extra to please the public. Still, as a music player, it's still good.

With the PSP, the "jack of all trades" just makes everything a hassel. Loading video onto your player by not only having to compress large files, but also finding/purchasing a memory stick? Putting music onto a memory stick? And then, on top of it all, not exactly making it all that portable-friendly as compared to basically every other MP3 player on the market? I mean, for the Swiss-Army knife of multimedia players, this one just isn't very efficient.

People equate the PSP to a videogame device. Everything else comes secondary. When the primary reason just isn't there or worth it (i.e. when you games just blow and cost too much money), then people will most likely not buy your product or just will not be interested.

The DS is just that. It's a portable videogame player. Nintendo recognizes this. Putting in things like a Pictochat and a web browser are the extras, not the reason to purchase the product. This not only prevents costs of the system from being outrageously priced, it also gives the company an opportunity to tweak out these extras as well as lets them focus on things that truly matter for their product.

It's pretty obvious that most people aren't buying the PSP for games. That in itself should be a huge problem.

I really don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the PSPs game library is pretty damn disappointing. As other people have stated, many of the most popular and interesting games had come out at the launch, and VERY few games have since been of much interest with the exception of Loco Roco.

The Sony rep here I think was wrong on many counts about the DS's success also, or about what makes people actually want to play games. A small population of people, between the ages of probably 15-24, really are willing to give up hours of their time to play a videogame. These people are more interested in seeing nice looking things and flashing lights than playing something that's actually FUN.

The overwhelming consensus about the DS is that the games are incredibly enjoyable for ALL ages. There's a reason why New Super Mario Brothers, Castlevania, and Brain Age have sold so well, and it has less to do with popularity and more to do with making stuff that's actually fun, something that goes a long way when you're trying to sell something that PLAYS VIDEOGAMES.

Realistically, you don't need something that is worth hours upon hours to play when concerning portable gaming. Most DS games are either short or make it so that you can easily pick it up and put it down. The same cannot be said with many PSP games, with loading times hurting that even more. It's portable, you're not going to sit around for a long time playing the game on that system (that's what consoles are for), it's used to pass the time.

But even more, the DS is a unique system with mechanics that cannot be copied on any other system. The PSP... well, let's just say there's a reason why people call it a port machine.

People buy the PSP because it's cool, because you can watch TV shows and movies, and probably because of its huge library of sports games. But the majority of people don't end up watching movies while they're on the move; rather, they end up listening to music, which they end up doing on their iPod anyway and not on a cumbersome device that's likely to scratch the screen.

The PSP is selling well, but everything FOR it just doesn't seem to be doing that well at all, and that includes the games.

The DS isn't exactly sporting the greatest graphics known to man either, but it's games, both traditional and non-traditional, have ended being able to more than compete against the PSP and even current gen systems.

The Wii probably isn't going to have the lifespan of a PS3 or a 360. Four years, maybe five years? It probably will depend on the advancement in technology by that time, the cost to be able to produce upper echelon graphics, the proliferation of HDTVs and HD-DVD/BluRay formats, and the success of the system itself and its games.

What's clear is that it seems that consumers are tired of the current generation of games. PS2 games are still the most popular on a per monthly basis, and Microsoft hasn't been able to really release any real reason to go out and purchase a $400 system. I don't really suspect that Sony's going to be able to break this mentality either, and it might even be tougher for them to have the large library of games that they normally had with the PS2.

That's why the Wii might actually succeed. The graphical enhancement you see in the 360's games aren't so much better that people are jumping at the chance to get the system, especially for the price. With the Wii, you definitely get a new product, one unlike any other before it and without so much the sacrifice of graphical output to the eyes of the masses.