X-Box 360.

[Guest Mr Dragon]

a Edited December 17, 2006 by Mr Dragon

[Guest MrFill]

If specs aren't important then why would we need all new machines ?

For the new games that are coming out

 

If you're happy playing Space Invaders on an old Atari 2600, then play it

 

The newer games come out on the new consoles, and tend not to come out on the older ones, so if you want to play them you HAVE to buy the newer machines

 

Add to this the fact that the newer generation of games are going to use online gaming a LOT more, so if your console isn't capable of going online, you won't be playing those - then again, if you don't have a broadband connection, you won't be playing them anyway

[Guest Mr Dragon]

a Edited December 17, 2006 by Mr Dragon

[Guest MrFill]

Play any back catalogue game you want ?

As long as you download it

 

All electronics have forced obsolescence, look at anything, it'll eventually be replaced:

Dial phones replaced with tone phones

Cordless phones replaces with higher frequency ones (now at 5.8Ghz)

Mobile/Cell phones now at 3G, and still expected to get better

Betamax made obsolete by VHS

VHS slowly being made obsolete with Tivo and the like or DVD-RAM

Vinyl records replaced by CDs

Tape/CD walkman replaced by MP3 players

 

I could go on, but just about anything you buy now will eventually be obsolete, it's the way of technology - so you can't just point at consoles/PCs, because it it's the way it goes with technological advancements

 

Or would you rather still be using an 8 Track player in your car? :P

[Guest Mr Dragon]

a Edited December 17, 2006 by Mr Dragon

[Guest MrFill]

The point was that everything becomes obsolete, so buying a new console because the last one is obsolete is part of the business

 

Take the PS1 and PS2 - their life cycles were incredible for a console, especially considering that the PS2 will still be going strong for at least another 1-2 years after the PS3 is out

 

If you don't want to upgrade, you don't have to, you can stay playing your older games and be happy with it, but (as I said before) don't expect any of the newest games

[Guest voice of reason]

Yes well, there would be a lot less piracy if we were charged fair price for games. I point you to http://www.fairplay-campaign.co.uk/ (which ya'll have probably forgotten all about by now)

This simply isn't true. Piracy killed the floppy disc format, and had a huge hand in the destruction of the entire microcomputer market in the early 1990s. Games on average then cost 20 quid.

Piracy had a hand in the death of the tape formats, when games at over ten pounds were expensive.

In the days of cart based formats, you were lucky to see prices drop below forty, and sometimes things elevated (sixty quid for Street Fighter two, anyone? Sixty Five for Turok Dinosaur Hunter?) Prices have settled across the board to around thirty-35 pounds right now, less online.

It is true that the financial success of the games industry as a whole is in a large part due to unit prices over popularity, but prices are reasonable, and there's platinum and second hand games a plenty right now. If you can't afford something that's fine, but no excuse for theft.

Look at it this way. Viewtiful Joe, an absolutely fabulous game was released to critical acclaim on Gamecube in 2003 at the standard RRP- 40 quid. One year later, it was ported and even improved on PS2 for just 20. Copies sold ever? About twelve. Quack, quack oops- you blew it. The fact is that people complain about prices and originality affecting the market, and then when something appears cheap, and without an EA logo, they feel it has to be poor. That's why games won't get cheaper, and frankly the blame can be put as much on the doorstep of the consumer than the publishers. Rant over.

[Guest Feenix]

That's a very poor excuse for not lowering prices. If all games became cheaper, which is clearly what i'm saying should be the case, then there would be no hung-ups about quality. I guarentee you that if you surveyed gamers that they'd tell you they think games are overpriced, and would love to pay less.

 

As for Viewtiful Joe, i'll tell you why it sold badly... it's friggin terrible that's why. I'ts one of the dullest games i've had the misfortune of playing.

 

Oh and please don't quote me as saying "specs aren't important"... I didn't say that. what I said was that processing speed isn't that important at this moment in time.

[Guest Anime Otaku]

Meteora i LOVED Viewtiful Joe and got them both on my GC. Personally i tend to go online or to rental stores and get them ex rental

[Guest Feenix]

Well that's fine but I found it very, very boring. Mind you, I don't like platformers that much... and don't even get me started on side-scrolling platformers.... grr.

[Guest voice of reason]

But my point is games have been cheaper across the board and it hasn't made a damned bit of difference. In 1999 Virgin lead a price cut of all full price games from forty pounds to thirty- difference made to piracy- none, in fact it probably increased thanks to the release of Bleem! at around the same time.

The fact is some people have the philosophy of whatever the price of something is "I can't afford it, so I'll steal it, as opposed to just not get it yet", except piracy is often not considered stealing by pirates- you're not walking into a shop and taking it from the shelves, are you? Theft via a middle man is still theft.

[Guest Feenix]

I don't consider theft to be theft from a huge company like Sony which has millions and millions, probably billions of pounds... sitting in a bank. Doing nothing... absolutely nothing. They put some of it back into the business and just store the rest. It makes me sick, they don't do anything with all that money. It sits in a bank when there are starving kids in the world, and people dying from disease. Large companies like Sony, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Panasonic, McDonalds... if they gave even small percentages of their money to third world countries, we could virtually eradicate hunger and poverty... but they wont. Industry fatcats are determined to milk the consumer out of every penny possible... and to what end? to say that their annual turnover is £500 million.... what good is that money doing??? The company is only using some of it. Hundreds of millions more will just sit in a bank somewhere doing no good for anyone... I don't support that. I feel companies shouldn't be able to grow past a certain amount...

 

I'll just quote all this for the rest...

 

Nintendo were convicted by the European Court during the fairplay campaign, and recieved a huge £100m fine, for illegally fixing prices at an artificially high level.

 

The big sales blip during the fairplay campaign week which saw Game, Europe's biggest videogame retailer, lose a massive 80% of its share value overnight in response to disappointing sales. When the campaign was over, sales shot up again.

 

There was a long line of disastrous financial results, redundancies and studio closures among publishers and developers continues to demonstrate the economic unsoundness of the industry's current business model.

 

There were huge reductions in the pricing of, particularly, the Xbox and Gamecube, leading to massive sales increases of up to a staggering 5000%.

 

Dixons Group and Game, two of Europe's biggest game retailers, slashed the price of all Gamecube software to between £15 and £25, resulting in enormous sales boosts.

[Guest voice of reason]

I'm not arguing that games aren't expensive, but that we've seen worse, and that pricing is no excuse for illegal piracy- and that there's no precedent for reduced pricing affecting levels of piracy. Software sales of GC games by Dixons would have increased when slashed to £15-25, (more to clear stock than any other reason- would Dixons acheive better financial performance overall if they cut prices on software for consoles more people own? That's debatable) but that doesn't mean piracy would have reduced. Lower prices being the norm won't/ don't affect piracy, because whatever someone's paying for a game, or a dvd, or a cd or whatever, there'll be someone at a market stall or on the internet offering a knocked off and illegal copy for cheaper or free. Piracy will never solve a situation like this, it's just selfish and illegal. And it is theft. Wal Mart have huge profit margins too, but that's not a real valid argument to justify shoplifting from there, is it?

EDIT- I feel we've gone very far off topic here.

XBox 360, eh? Ain't it great? Coo, etc.

[Guest Mr Dragon]

a Edited December 17, 2006 by Mr Dragon

[Guest voice of reason]

I've been playing XBox Halo on my Gamecube for over a year now. I just needed to buy a simple hardware attachment... called an XBox, funnily enough.

Note that PS2 wasn't entirely backward compatible either- I would suspect that the majority will run fine on 360, although not being able to play Halo may be a bummer for some.

Backwards compatibility isn't a huge deal anyway and generally fizzles out as an issue once software catalogues are built up. That PS3 has compatibility with PS1 and 2 and Revolution (theoretically) with everything Nintendo bodes better for them though.