GamerYamen

If we are to assume the linear x axis (the "Age of gamer") is increasing from a low number (0 ish) to a higher number (in terms of human age, 50 ish), then yes, the graph is backwards.

The graph IS backwards. I take this as yet another demonstration of VC's intellectual capacity.

Also, again, low level psuedo-philosophy being put out by VC. Since your posts of this sort have started, I feel the quality of Joystiq has been decreasing, directly as a result of said posts. Not saying you can't continue to tarnish Joystiq's image, just saying you shouldn't.

@daver

I've seen trolls, but you certainly take the cake. No one here is going to change anything about themselves based on what you write, and you know it. In fact, I'd be willing to wager that you write these posts simply to get a reaction. I hope you remember that no one cares about you here, and any attention you garner by your useless posts is temporary, and negative. If you crave attention so badly that you must seek it out from total strangers who don't actually care about you, you have some problems, and you'd be doing everyone a favor by leaving your sedentary screen based entertainment and finding real life people to interact with.
================================

So, I personally think that these features are pretty cool. I'm not worried about the limited tracking described, and I think it could be used in a positive way. I mean, I'm submitting this through a Google mail account, and they watch every email and web search I do.

I long time ago, my online persona was ripped from the Star Wars (Young Jedi Knights) Books, Zekk (to which, when needed, I added the last name Knight, as in Jedi). But I dropped that when my new name came about.

In my first programming class in high school, we had to make a graphic logo (with ASCII art) using our name. My first name is 8 letters long, which was too long for what I wanted to achieve, so I shortened it to "Jaman" (actually, the a's were deltas, but "Jdmdn" doesn't sound very good). I pronounced in with a hard J sound, closer to the name Jamal. However, my friends all (jokingly, at first) pronounced it with a Y sound ("Yamen", rhymes with Ramen). After a while that name kinda stuck (along with the derivative spelling). By kinda stuck, I mean I had friend's parents calling me Yamen.

When I moved up to Washington for college, I began introducing myself as Yamen, partially because although my real first name is quite unique, it's very similar to another more common name that people always confuse it with (then ask where I got the name, which isn't much of a story), and because no one forgets the name Yamen (or mispronounces it). Now, after two years at two colleges, I can safely say that everyone in the state who knows me (including professors, employers, and my girlfriend) calls me Yamen, even to the point that a large portion of them don't know it's not really my name. The name is unique enough that I can usually use it in games, which makes it easy for people who know me to find me.

There are three obsticles to using Yamen online. The first is that it's only 5 letters long, and many games /sites require names at least 6 letters long. The second is the Young Anabaptist Mennonite Exchange Network, which, despite being an organization primarly focused on Amish student exchange, holds the website Yamen.org. The last is the Chinese, who's word "yamen" refers to the building in which a government officer resides, and to the Battle of Yamen, one of many battles in Chinese history. In all three cases, I can usually get away with the alternative "GamerYamen" (which, without proper capitalization usually gets misiterpreted "Gamery Amen").

Lastly, despite its (I believe) apparent obviousness, I have never been ridiculed with the misinterpretation "Ya men!" as a claim against my heterosexuality.

VC, I want to congratulate you. This is a decent article. Nothing special, but way better than the last few of yours. Good job.

As for the lack of advertising, I'm quite suprised to hear about this. I went to E3 two years ago, and I was surrounded by advertising, which is expected considering the event. I'm very suprised that not one company got a banner ad up to greet attendants as they enter. I'd bet that there was some bigger reason that kept the companies from dropping thier dollars, I can't imagine it being from a lack of interest.

DS - WiFi Connectivity was confirmed months ago. Specifically, it was mentioned that you could use your Wii as an access point for your DS, or download game demos to your DS.

It was also confirmed that there is an ethernet port, so you can have a wired connection if you prefer.

Lastly COMPONENT IS CONFIRMED!! http://wii.nintendo.com/hardware.html says "
Output: an AV Multi-output port for component, composite or S-video"

You know, vc, when we got in our little debate about the worth of your "Brains in vats" post, I figured it was a one-time thing. Two people with quite different views who disagreed, no harm done (except that the email address I used to use has been blocked, which I suspect might be connected, considering the timing).

However, now I'm honestly beggining to question your intelligence. Seriously everything about your recent posts has reeked of sophmoric simplicity. I understand that you are "just a blogger" and you can post "whatever you deem interesting", but the quality of what you post is terrible, and I'm glad that there's enough people letting you know this, so hopefully you can either learn from your mistakes or stop writing. Eventually, the hundereds of comments from people who dilike the quality of your offerings will start to weigh on the opinion of whoever has the power to fire you.

Now that I'm done expressing my personal opinions about you, let's take a look at this newest post.

First of all, you need to learn to take criticism. It seems both Tycho and I (and many others) were expressing our opinions, and in both cases, you felt you needed to defend yourself, and instead of going about any rational way of doing so, you tend to redefine your argument claiming you were misunderstood. You also assume that no one is comprehending what you're trying to say. To that, I pose three posibilities: A) You're being an asshole, B) You are so bad at expressing what you mean to say that you should not be writing publicly, and/or C) We understood you just fine, and still think your point is stupid.

Now, about this whole "multi-part series of editorials" plan you claim to have had (which, by the way, was not even hinted at until now, which seems quite a bit like you're just trying to COVER YOUR ASS). It's still a bucket of crap. Yes, it's painstakingly obvious that given a situation where two products are exactly the same product other than price, it's rational to purchas ethe lower priced product. THIS WAS NOT WORTH TWO POSTS TO SAY. Nonetheless, where are you going to go from here? A discussion of why people want one system over another? First of all, you're breaking away from your starting point, jumping from one theoretical situation that does not resemble reality straight to reality. Truth and wisdom do not take that jump with you. Secondly, you are (pretending to be) doing the same thing you (claimed to have) tried to do in your "Brains in vats" post, which is spark an intellectual debate about concepts that have been debated to the death time and time again. For goodness sake, Greek philosophers were debating the concept of "value" thousands of years ago! This isn't interesting, it's generic thought straight out of a Philospohy 101 class, only (poorly) stretched to apply to the gaming market. And seeing as it is that you only appear capable of that same trick, perhaps your employer should catch on and realize that YOU ARE WASTING HIS TIME AND MONEY.

I'm not sorry this time if my criticism offends your or hurts your feelings, because IT'S TIME FOR YOU TO LEARN TO DO BETTER THAN THIS ABYSMAL CRAP.

And lastly, again, stop complaining that people are against you, AND START TRYING TO CHANGE THAT, you stupid dick.

@14 The hardware is not outdated. If it were made 3 years ago, it'd be outdated. The hardware is new.

On topic, this logic is a bit contridictory. If "The ultimate profitability of a game manufacturer is no concern of ours, as gamers" then what does it matter weather or not the cost of the system is subsidized? As purely gamers, with no forward thinking, it would make the most sense to buy the best gaming machine. "Best" is of course a matter of opinion, and does not inherently imply "most 'free' hardware".

That being said, as people who play games and want to continue to play games, we SHOULD think about a consoles ultimate profitability. If any company X tends to satisfy our gaming desires better than other companies, it is rational to devote more money to company X to a) obtain more satisfaction, and b) enable the company to create more satisfaction in the future.

Lastly, in the specific case of Nintendo, thier strategy is different because it has to be. Microsoft doesn't make money off thier game devisions (at least, not yet), but they make up for it with thier other market offers (OS, Software etc). Sony, similarly, can absorb the subsidized costs of thier gaming division with thier massive Home Electronics division. Nintendo only has a gaming devision. Everything they do is directly connected to gaming. Therefore, as a business, they chose to make sure everything they do results in a profit. Surely they have quite a bit of money to work with (Nintendo brought in more then all of Sony last year), but they don't have a backup plan. If they were to subsidize the Wii, and it failed terribly, then the would have spent money to lose money, which no business wants to do. You may call that a lack of confidence, but many people (especially economics analysts) call that good business sense.

Alright, here we go:

First off, it's been pointed out several times, but the Wii games are NOT $60 ($59.99), they are $50 ($49.99). Just needs to keep being said.

Next, TRUTH, I really can't help but feel that you have no idea what a physics engine actually is. I used to be a game developer, and all of my roomates still are, so I have a good background to try to explain this to you (and anyone curious). An "engine" in game design (or other applications) is very simply the part of the code that handles a certain part of the game's calculations/rendering/data management etc. A "physics engine" simply simulates physics for specified objects ACCORDING TO THE RULES THE PROGRAMMER IMPLEMENTS. Let me give you a few examples of physics engines to show the diversity of what a physics engine can be.

Physics Engine #1: Half-Life 2 (Havok Engine): This is a very high-end physics engine that strives to simulate real-world physics at quite impressive detail. It takes into account everything from gravity to tourque, momentum to bone-structure, and much more. In HL2, this was used to create a fun game set in a world that at least seemed to act similarly to our own.

Physics Engine #2: Pong: This is a very very basic physics engine that simulates the physics of a world quite different from ours. In the Pong world, there is only linear motion, and simple colision/reflection. When the ball hits a wall or a paddle, it changes its direction accordingly. This was used in Pong to create a very simple environment, with simplified physical laws, to present a fun game that was easy to understand and play.

Physics Engine Example #3: Sonic the Hedgehog: This physics engine slightly exaggerated version of real world physics, including gravity, acceleration, momentum and collision detection. This was used to create a fun game that acted moderately like our own world while allowing certain feats to be acomplished that couldn't actually be done in the real world.

Now, what you need to understand is that in each case, the physics engine calculated what the developers decided would be sufficient for their game to preform the way they wanted it to. The developer of Pong certainly didn't feel that he needed high-level real world physics to make a fun game, and he was right. The developers of HL2 decided to make their game take advantage of high-leve physics both to make the game feel a bit more like it were set in a potential future of this world and to implement fun, physics based gameplay elements.

What I'm trying to say is that the physics in any game should not be judged on how they compare to the real world, but how they compare to the world the developer created (which sometimes happens to be the real world, but not always). In the case of Wii Sports, I guaruntee there is a physics engine in place, that much is apparent from the videos available. I don't expect Wii Sports to have physics at the level of HL2, but there is no need for it to. The game will certainly be fun enough when all they need to calculate is how hard you hit/throw the ball, how it bounces or reflects off of the ground/court, and how other objects react to being hit. There's probably a little bit more to it than that (wind or something, maybe), but that's enough to provide a simple, fun version of the sports they are presenting. The bigger focus of the Wii Sports title is allowing people to play these games with a new control style that feels much more like the real-world game they are based on.

Lastly, as it has also been said, the graphics of Wii Sports are a CHOSEN STYLE, not a representation of the full graphical capability of the Wii. The style was chosen (I imagine) to emphasise on relateability to the avatars (a more abstract avatar is easier to identify as "me" than a higly detailed one, art design 101). Personally, I love the art style they chose, it's cute, it's fun, and it fits it's goal very well.

@14, Bill

Although I agree with you that the Wii isn't likely to be more powerful than the 360 or the PS3, I'm curious exactly what "souped up Gamecube" means to you? As it was stated above, and hundereds of times here at Joystiq, that analogy really only refers to the fact that the developer tools are similar to the Gamecube's. It really has little bearing on the power of the Wii. But I really want to know, where do you define the difference between "just souped up" and "good enough"?

Also, don't try to relate computer specs (like the X1600XT) to console specs, especially for Nintendo systems. Consoles in general have quite different architechture compared to PCs, and 128MB of Video Card RAM on a card made for the PC doesn't produce the same results for a console as it does for my gaming rig.

Case in point: Last Generation, the Xbox proc was only ~800Mhz, and the Gamecube one (which preformed almost as well) was only 405Mhz. Modern PC's couldn't run Halo or Smash Bros Melee with those specs.

BEST MEGATON ANNOUNCMENT:

Wii name changed to "Revolution".

HAHAHAHA.