thecactusman17

This is already being done in several major Korean MMOs, with one *major* difference: after advertising, player-purchased items are the game's primary source of revenue.

American companies aren't going to be wiling to do this, they'll just continue to charge exorbitant monthly fees on top of full-price store (online or off) sales.

So don't expect to see this until the entire business model of American MMOs is ready to change, which will be never as long as CEOs get dollar signs in their eyes looking at WoW sles data.

You al keep saying "Buy it on steam." But you forget that unlike retail stores, steam doesn't do discounts. Half Life 2 Ep1 was cut in price by half in under a month last time, I was hoping I'd get a deal this time (bought it on steam day 1 last time, won't do that again.)

The pic is from Being Jon Malkovic, but who can accurately identify the source of the quote in the headline (starting with "phenomenally")?

Hint: Thy made at least two games off of it for 16 bit consoles.

I too would love to see a "sequel" to this. Good job taking such a tired concept and making it fun again.

You know, the way this game plays, it feels less like a "king of the hill" shooter and more like a side-scrolling shmup, but just set in place.

Now, if only they would remove the ultra-long opening credits at the beginning...

BTW: Anybody else encounter bugs that caused the game to slow down? On my Macbook Pro, I had to restart at least four times after level 10 or so because the game inexplicably slowed to a crawl...

Baby Sea Tuna, that's like saying you can buy generic medicines at local pharmacy's and big hospitals and trying to say that they are aimed at different markets because more people go to hospitals.

Literally, exact same games. This means that no matter what market they're being aimed at, I can still get them on my PC. So why should I spend ANOTHER $400 on a 360 instead of getting most major 360 releases as well as most major PC releases on the same box?

Now, not every PS3 owner or 360 owner also has a gaming rig. But if they do, why would you need two consoles to get the same games on? People who have a 360 and a Wii are going to get most of their games on one specific console or the other becaue they prefer how it plays on that system. I prefer games that are released on both consoles and PC to be on PC where the users will keep the game fresh with new content far past the point where the console release gets stale.

--
Does anyone here not have a 360, but does have a PS3, AND can admit that Sony made many mistakes when they designed the PS3? I kind of doubt that many of these people exist.--

Hi. I qualify. I have a PS3, and a gaming PC, and the latter means that I will be playing roughly 80% of the "exclusive" releases for the 360 due out over the next year. With better graphics and sound. And mod support.

Regarding the PS3...

Mistakes is a matter of opinion, for one thing. I use nearly all of my PS3s features, including Blu-Ray movies. I have no significant arguments on the hardware design front. Perhaps I would have appreciated the ability to charge my controllers from the system while it was turned off, but with two (I have siblings who also play) I can just swap them out between games and be guaranteed that the batteries will be full whenever I play.

If I had some complaints, it would be regarding the quality control of games coming from Japan. Because many of those development studios are focused on the smaller Japanese market where they already dominate instead of the larger Western markets where they could actually make some serious cash, it results in frustrating cutbacks in features like voice and text chat in Armored Core 4 or lacking online options in Motorstorm (though what's there certainly kicks ass).

I would say that the vast majority of PS3 "failures" come not from the system or the game, but the public relations disaster instigated by head honchos Phil Harrison and Kutaragi. Week after week of hyperbole and sweeping basic questions under the rug instead of addressing real concerns over the console. I was focused purely on games when I bought mine at launch, and I have no particular regrets. But I can see how the arrogance of the Sony upper management trying to do the job of the Sony PR machine hurt their image and by relation, the image of the PS3.

I'm glad to se this come to PS3. Eternal Sonata was the only true 360 exclusive (not a PC port) that could have seriously tempted me pre-launch to get an Xbox.

With almost every major 360 game coming to PCs, often with improved graphics and a thriving mod community alreaddy eying each release, I see zero reason to buy one. Owning a PS3 has nothing to do with it, but it does allow me the occasional multiplatformer that loks good (though those seem rarer and rarer these days).

Sounds like a lot of overseas people find this practice rather common. I don't know what sort of consumer protection laws may be in your country, but in the US most stores won't accept returns of opened games, and it becomes extra hard to exchange opened games.

So if a store tries to sell me a "new" opened game, what they're actually doing is trying to insure that I can never come back and return it at full price. The best I could possibly do is trade it in for half of the used price. I've never had to deal with this practice before for new games, but rest asured that if it hapened that would be the last time I shopped at that location.

Just an important note--there is no "region coding" of PSP games, and never has been. I own two Japanese import games (Gitaroo Man and Super Robot Wars) for the system and they work 100%.

Having said all this, I'll be DLing DA's firmware because I think the current batch of homebrew titles beats much of what Sony has released so far hands down, not even counting illegally emulated games.

I could only see an Oblivion PSP game making it if it were essentially a Diablo clone that sacrificed all the3 pretty graphics and significantly changed the control scheme. Stripping content out of a game that's all about free-form exploration isn't a smart idea.

And to the guy who said that "you can't explore a dungeon?" I'd have to say that you're either being sarrcastic or haven't played Oblivion or Morrowind. The dungeons are rarely as good as the open world they're located in.

As for skills, definately speechcraft, mercantile, and security, exchanging the last for the lockpicking minigame (or a simplified version of it) from Oblivion.