oboreruhito

Assuming a very conservative $1 profit on each Wii and a conservative $200 loss on each PS3, and more importantly not counting software sales, there's an $81,000,000 difference in profits between Nintendo and Sony at launch.

A few assumptions:
Wii: 1,000,000 * $250 = $250,000,000 gross
Sony: 400,000 * $600 = $240,000,000 gross

Assuming a 50/50 split of 20GB and 60GB PS3s:
400,000 * $550 = $220,000,000 gross

PS - I'm also a fan of automatically granting small amounts of experience daily to players under level 20, regardless of play time, to prevent freezing characters in the lowest BGs. That tier should be for people learning to play so they don't get yelled out of higher BGs for not knowing how to play - instead, they just get beaten to death and never bother to L2P.

Add a stock-gear battleground. Every class has a standard set of gear and a supply of pots and bandages, and poisons and shards as needed. Make the stock gear a purchasable reward so hardcore PvPers and preset groups can practice with it, and give higher-ranked players enchantments on their stock gear as a reward.

Skilled players get tangible rewards that improve their performance, and money is taken out of the equation. "B-b-b-but what about all my hard work raiding? All the epics I farmed? All the blues I bought in the AH?" Well, go to the regular BGs., they're still there.

I'd start playing WoW again if this was implemented, because it simply cannot get old. I'd hoped the arena system would work this way.

Okay - now that I've played the game about five hours, the review is spot on in most of its complaints.

The controls are wonky and tacked on, the graphics look fine on 480p (the best my TV can manage) but would probably disappoint on HD.

The sound really is surprisingly lacking; I like the sound in the remote, but I can see that being a love-hate issue. The puzzles are just as Jeff mentions in the review - familiar, but fun.

It's a great Gamecube game enhanced for the Wii, but it's no instant classic. It's better than an 8.8, but if you're a gamer who's played through the Zelda series, ignore the score and read the review. Jeff got it right.

But again, if someone hasn't played a previous Zelda, I don't see how the nostalgia wrinkles would bother you, and this game ends up about even with Wind Waker - a 9-9.3. It's more fun than Okami, and is some sort of multiplayer component away from being a 9.5-9.8. Can't wait to see Nintendo build a Zelda game for the Wii from the ground up.

"because their only complaints were with the graphics, yet they gave it an 8.8."

The reviewer, Jeff Gertsmann of GameSpot (Vlad, learn to credit), complimented the game's look. From the review (Vlad, learn to link):
http://www.gamespot.com/wii/action/thelegendofzelda/review.html

"So if you spend a lot of time trying to pick apart the visuals of Twilight Princess, you'd notice plenty of low-res textures and jagged edges. But that would be missing the point. Twilight Princess is an excellent-looking game due to some terrific art design."

He goes on to rave about the environments, especially the twilight world segments.

No, his complaints - also reflected in the scores - were more on the sound effects (he wishes the music was orchestral rather than synthesized, and didn't like the remote effects), the imprecision of combat ("The combat controls using the Wii Remote may feel somewhat different from past games, but it doesn't draw you into the experience any more than using a standard controller would, and at worst, it's imprecise"), and the general weight of nostalgia on the series that holds the rest of the game down.

Again, from the review:
"You'll almost certainly enjoy the game for its terrific puzzles, colorful characters, and compelling story, but at some point the feeling of nostalgia crosses the line and holds this game back from being as unbelievably good as some of its predecessors. So as impressive of a game as it is, Twilight Princess seems like it could have been so much more with a few presentational updates and more effective and interesting uses of the Wii's unique control scheme."

In this context, the score is fair. But by not scoring the game on its own merits and not those of its predecessors, I think Jeff didn't completely fulfill his job as a reviewer. From the tone of his review, it sounds like Jeff might have at least given Twilight Princess a 9 if he excluded the lack of innovation within the series.

Vlad can go off on the detractors all he wants - yes, most of them are irrational, but so are most people who complain about everything they disagree with. That doesn't mean that all people who disagree with the review have "confirmation bias," and it's improper for Vlad to stereotype all detractors as being flawed.

...

Oh, I'm sorry. VLAD OMG U SUK STOP POSTNG THIS ANTI NINTNDO CRAP!!1!! IM NOT BIASED, UR BIASED

Lids FTW. Impossible for a disc to get stuck.

"and it would be cool to play it on my PC with the high resolution"

VGA adapter:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/906202
http://www.shop.com/op/~7_Foot_Xbox_360_VGA_Cables-prod-31794488-41453045?sourceid=3

"Nintendo still managed to sell more DS Lites than PS3, PSP, and PS2 combined"

They sold more DS Lites than _every_ other console combined – by 24,000 units.

I love it when hype backlashes.

Even at $250, it's not worth it if there's no online play for a year, the VC has a poor launch selection and no online play, and even basic online functionality is missing. (How hard is it to set up a glorified RSS feed reader pulling Associated Press content?)

Microsoft can steal a lot of market share if its only competition is a couple of consoles that are feature-crippled at launch. The DS WiFi delay was forgivable because it was the best portable on the market; the Wii online delay won't be because it's not the best console on the market.

Girl gaming trifecta!