GDC 06: Beth Llewelyn On the Record
Quote:IGN: Is Revolution the final name of your new system?
Beth: No, it's not.
IGN: So it's definitely a codename?
Beth: It's a codename.
IGN: And it's going to change?
Beth: It is going to change.
IGN: Great. When are you going to reveal the final name?
Beth: Well, you're going to have to wait and see.
IGN: E3?
Beth: Not quite sure yet.
IGN: Somehow we think that's a lie.
[Laughter]
Quote:IGN: The Virtual Console is going to be home to hundreds of classic games, from the sound of it. But can we expect original games for it, too?
Beth: Yeah, and actually Mr. Iwata touched upon that briefly today - the system being a platform for developers to try out new content. So, certainly. We've been focused pretty heavily on the classic content and now bringing SEGA Genesis and TurboGrafx games, but it certainly will be a forum for bringing some new content.
*donk* and Nintendo gets Live Arcade just like that.
THANK YOU NINTENDO, you attractive bunch of ....Japanese males..... oh who am i kidding, i'd do Miyamoto in a heartbeat, right in the old Like-Like hole
I'd do a threeway with Miyamoto and Iwata for a peek inside Miyamoto's workshop.
you too? you know he has princess hentai
oh, name of the console.
does this mean that 'Nintendo Go' could be back in the air as a possible console name? the name has not grown on me yet, i will not call the revolution 'Go', i would call it Nintendo, or revolution, but definitely not Go, that sounds retarded to me. if that's the name of Nintendo's wifi service, then it fits perfectly. MS has Live! and Nintendo has Go; perfect. but for a console name, no way.
There's no way to know if "Nintendo Go" is real or not. I guess we'll have to wait till E3, like usual.
i want answers smoke, use your uncomfortable avatar to un-hetero those who would keep these secrets from us.
Great news. I hope that Nintendo Wi-Fi shapes up to be as good as Live is though.
I take there will be a HDD accessory to store all these games?
No HDD, that was confirmed a long time ago... 512mb flash memory and SD card support...
And I'd love it if Nintendo WiFi was as good as Live, but I sadly expect it to be a paranoid, and thus not very good, system... like the DS has.
As for the name, who knows... the DS name was supposedly going to change too. :)
I LIKE the Revolution name though!
as far as comparable to Live goes, i dunno if Nintendo will jump on the in-game voice chat immeadiately but it will be there just because of demand. Everything else should be on par with Live! with it's exclusive 'network only' Arcade structure for indies and then the virtual console on top of that, and of course completely free chat, online gaming, etc. It remains to be seen if Nintendo will opt for the Friend Code (IP) setup, i'm thinking they will but with pre and post game chat, in-game chat, etc, giving out a friend code to a trusted person who wont mess up your hard work or be a troll during an online session wont be much of an issue. As with the browser planned, there will be email programs and instant messaging, probably even built in from Nintendo out of the gate. Television recording is a possibility (record to SD card, watch on DS, etc), but I that will probably be a third party endevor.
this and Sony's plans for a free experiennce I think will force MS in to a free 'copper' service, but we'll see.
I'm basically just suggesting they forget this friend code security thing. I would like to basically just send an invite to anyone I've recently played against. Chat makes that possible to an extent, if you can privatly chat with single individuals, but it's not nearly as smooth as a simple invite system. Someone sends you a friend invite, you accept, you are both added to each other's friend lists. Simple, and secure. The worst that could happen is a "spam wave" of friend invites from some annoying chap, but that's what the third option is for. "Ignore future requests."
But further along, I believe that the number assigned to people should be used across games, not for individual games. It would really help not to have to add the same people over and over again to each game, and it would be nice to see if someone is currently playing some other game so I can send an invite to them. For security, you could even set an option to "hide me from my friends when I'm playing another game".
The fact of the matter is, Nintendo has done a great job making a stable and fast global network. However, the user friendly features need to be worked on, and companies like Blizzard and, yes, MS, are ahead of the game on that as of yet.
As I've said many times before, the friend code system is idiotic and the restrictions they've imposed utterly without any defence... "to protect the children"? There are ways that do not make it impossible for adults to use the service. "to make it less scary for people who don't like online"? Same answer. Have the random mode with no contact allowed with the other players and all that silliness AND have a real online service, and let people choose which one they want... add parental controls, whatever... but do NOT do what you are doing now. It is utterly indefensible and makes me not care all that much about the prospect of playing these games online... what's the point without an online service worth the phrase?
... okay, that's a bit harsh, it adds a little bit to be able to do stuff with less predictable opponents, but that doesn't change the point that it is unforgivably crippled and that it would be impossible to form any kind of online community in this online service. And an online game without an online community is an online game probably not worth playing most of the time. Sometimes just doing a random fight is fine... but is such a service going to hook people, make them come back day after day and week after week and month after month to play this game online? Of course not!
And the only statements we have heard from Nintendo people about online play have been in defense of this terrible, terrible policy. It is completely clear that they still don't get it. You can't beat a strong opponent with a half-effort... ("they aren't trying to win"? Perhaps true, but still...)
That's harsher than my opinion, but only because I see they only really need to do a few things to fix it. I'll say this, most XBox Live games, these days, don't have a "select from current games" menu any more. This was to prevent the infamous issues with entering a room only to be instantly kicked by the person owning it. However, they DO do the rest of the things Nintendo doesn't do and so an online community can easily still exist. Since Halo 2, online games have only used random matchmaking rather than room select, but there's also the easy ability to make a custom room and invite people, who themselves will invite people, and so on. It's pretty easy to make an online community that way so so long as people can invite everyone they fight to their friends list.
Warcraft III's system is just about perfect, to give an idea of what I want... Battle.net in general too, but WCIII is the finest evolution of it. Simple, but effective...
Yep, it's pretty nice. Voice support would be the only thing needed there.
I'll have to go find the article but voice chat on DS and Revolution is going to be a main-stay says Nintendo
it's also important to realize that Nintendo will have similar multiplayer on rev games that are done with DS, such as single-disk multiplayer where one person has the game and can invite people in to its multiplayer by letting them d/l the content (also letting the other players demo the game). of course, it will be limited but should be 'enough' for the players who dont have the game to decide on a purchase or not and atleast play a simplified version of the game.
then we have Miyamoto's and Iwata's recent comments of 'games shouldn't cost 40, 50 dollars" and all the big buzz around the 'I-Tunes-like' setup of Nintendo's virtual console. if you're not familir with i-tunes, it's basically winamp that has links next to each song to find the CD of where it's from and purchase it; usually for cheap, sometimes even used and hovering around the 10 dollar mark. If we're going to buy games online and d/l them, who's to say we wont be buying Revolution games as well off the network and either d/l it or have it sent to you in the mail.
This generation just might be the first signs of the death of the game store. PS3, Xbox 360 and Revolution have the capability to connect to the net and purchase whatever, including games. nintendo has had problems with distribution lately, some people cant find battalion Wars anywhere, or Chibi Robo, and alot of games simply get excluded from stores completely. Try to find King Kong for GC at a Blockbuster, it aint happnin. Nintendo has to get companies to bid on what they will put on the shelf, and the first ting they go for is PS2, then 360, then XBox, then gamecube, at the end of the list and we get screwed out of games. buying them over the network completely elliminates that entire struggle and allows developers to sell the games at a cheaper price AND reach a larger audience - especially if you're d/l the game, they wont even have to press it on disks or manufacture anything.
you turn on the rev, enter the network, see a banner ad for Metroid Prime 3, click it, put the 25 dollar game on your tab, hit the d/l button and you download the game while you go chat and play. In an hour or so, you now have MP3 along with cool artwork for your rev's background and a flash presentation of the manual with movies instead of screen shots with a voice over. I KNOW Nintendo wants this in the near future, and they've said again just recently you can d/l Game Cube games on Rev's network, so a hard drive is definitely coming. or atleast some kind of larger storage device - there's a rumor about Nintendo upping the internal 512 MB.
this coming gen is going to change alot of things for the better.
Yeah, Nintendo's support for voice chat in Metroid Hunters is an interesting sign.
However, as both ABF and myself mention, there are a few usability features they need to include with future games.
Oh yeah, I've been thinking instruction manuals are outdated for some time. That can easily be done via tutorials, and has been in a number of the games I have.
I too have noticed a major problem finding games in stores recently. There seem to be more than ever before available, and as such, I can't find things like Warrior Within any more, even though it's not more than a couple years old. It's getting bad enough that if you don't get a game within a few months of it's launch, it's hard to say if you will be able to get it later.
Downloading games would be great, but the storage space they currently have isn't really enough for more than a few decently sized games on the PS3 or XBox 360 (especially XBox 360). I'm not really up to buying a new hard disk just to pay even more for some more games, and I don't think companies are willing to start releasing a lot of game+hard disk packages in stores (which would put a dent at least in the consumer end cost). So, I can see all three companies doing that, but I'm afraid we might be put in a situation of constantly deleting games we aren't playing to download ones we want to play. I'm sure they could set up a simple market memory so we wouldnt' have to pay multiple times of course, I'm just saying it would be inconvenient, and if any of those companies fall or just cancel the service, there's no chance to download them again.
Downloading games won't be feasable on a big scale for a long time. I know people keep saying 'the age of buying games is doomed", but I don't see it. Hard drives? That won't work! Games are big... have a few games and it fills up. Like I've got 110GB of HDD space on my PC and that's not enough for all of my PC games to all be installed at the same time unless I strip it of most everything else, which I can't do... games these days are BIG, multi-gigabyte, and it's just absurd to expect them all to fit on a harddrive. You'd need several, and unless they were external or easily switchable (and external HDDs are slower, and HDDs aren't easily switchable), that would get messy fast and you'd run out of space inside your box... and stuff like flash cards and stuff won't work for real full console games. Nowhere near big enough in a reasonable price range. No, I don't see disc (or something like it)-based media going away anytime soon... oh, many games will be downloadable as an option, but not as the default. Space and other issues demand the ability to have the game on something other than just your harddrive...
And also, people like actually owning their game, and not just having it on the harddrive... it's just not the same...
Now, PC games have been gradually becoming more and more focused on downloading games as a central part of the system, and retail sales are flat at best while total PC sales are going up nicely because of pay download games, but much of that is because of online games (MMORPGs, etc) and stuff... but yes, digital distribution is here. But for many reasons it will not replace physical distribution, at least not for a long time.
Downloading works great when you aren't downloading many games (like MMORPGs, where most people don't want to pay many subscriptions, so they'll only have one or two), or for small games (virtual console of cartridge games, the stuff on Live Arcade, etc), but it doesn't work as well for larger stuff (full-size CD games on live arcade/virtual console/etc, full PC game downloads (yes, they're here, and people use them, but how many can you get before your HDD is full? And it's not as easy to just delete the game and reinstall it later when you've got more space when you don't actually have the discs!)...
Quote:However, as both ABF and myself mention, there are a few usability features they need to include with future games.
To state it mildly.
The voice chat is a nice addition, but it's limited to friends only, and not ingame, so it's badly crippled... but at least now you can TALK INGAME in some form (Mariokart!)... not a sign of change of the main problems, though.
Quote:Oh yeah, I've been thinking instruction manuals are outdated for some time. That can easily be done via tutorials, and has been in a number of the games I have.
This is the fault of how small game boxes are, not of the uselessness of manuals... console manuals have always been useless, for the most part, but PC manuals used to be great... now they stink and are as useless as console ones because of cost saving and these lame miniboxes that now all PC games sell in.
Of course, PC games shipping without manuals (or manuals just on CD) to save money goes way back, 1996 at least, but even so, at least back then those games were the exception, not the rule... sadly that has not been true for some time now. And even the games which COULD have good manuals are sabotaged by the requirement to make them about the size of a postage stamp to fit in those tiny boxes... (Warcraft III's quite underwhelming manual, for instance, when compared to WCI/II/SC)
Right, it's not possible at all and yet it's being done. Gotcha. :D
1.) SD cards can hold a few gigs of info, this is great for retro gaming and even last gen gaming, but not really curent gen. When you think of next gen, it becomes rediculous. However, Revolution uses DVD's, that's about 7, 8 gigs of info. a 50 gig HDD would allow you to download around 10 games depending on their total size. if you run out of room, you delete it, but because the Nintendo network knows that you purchased it, you can d/l again when ever you want 9i-tunes does the same thing). after all, I play games alot, probably more than anyone else on this board and i cant devote myself to more than 5 games at a time anyway until i beat one/get bored of it, so this should be more than enough for most people. By the time you want to d/l a 11th game, one of those 10 are going to be played to death or boring and will need the boot.
2.) using one of the USB ports in the back for an external HDD means that HDD is going to be used ONLY for storing games; Not operating systems and various computer programs. The internal 512 can probably hold every NES game ever made, but if you took all your favorites out of that mix, then add your SNES favorites and even your N64 favorites, i think you'll find 512 to be comfortable. the external HDD would be for people who want d/l the Revolution games or have huge libraries of games and if 50 gigs + 512 MB isn't enough for you - there's 2 USB ports which means you could have two HDD's and of course Nintendo and other third parties can make HDD's up to whatever it is now, like 100 gigs or so - keep in mind the largest game we're talking about is around 8 gigs, that's th largest Revolution game (unless it's a two disk game). The internal 512 for retro gaming and an external for current gen. Makes perfect sense. I'm giving you an example that shows more room than most people would ever want and most of it would go to waste for the majority of gameplayers, but i just want to make it clear that storage is not an issue.
3.) By d/l the games, the developer does not need a publisher, does not need to market commercials or work through an ad agency, does not need to worry about manufacturing, release dates, shortages or anything that goes along with getting a product in to a store. All they would do is upload a game and put some banner ads on Nintendo's network service or have an updated list of released games with games marked as new and whoosh, you've just told ALL your potentiol market about your product; You could never even hope for that in magazine, print ads TV commercials, radio etc. And that entire business can now be handled by one guy and cost millions upon millions of dollars less and be thousands of times more fruitful.
4.) people say "d/l isn't the same, people want to OWN the actual DISK!" and to those people, i laugh very hard and point to MP3's, emulators, ROMS. etc. People love their MP3 collections and organize them, baby them, make sure their bitrates are high and their title is correct, putting them in folders arranged by artist, band, composer, or even mood or based on the day of the week. And all MP3's are is a line of text telling you what it is and an icon that tells you what program plays it. People will not 'want' the actual disk more than d/l them. Unless of course there are benefits to owning the disk; with mp3's you get better quality sample rates and art work, lyrics and the like. With owning the actual games and systems as opposed to ROMs you get a smoother experience and the specialized controller made for that system, both of these ideas are non-issues with d/l games to a console which can even include special art, wallpapers, avatars, sound bytes - whatever you want and the quality will be the same as if you are playing the real disk.
like it or not, believe or not, this is the shape of things to come. While PS3 and 360 have an obvious disadvantage with having 50 gig games if they release a 50 gig HDD with their system they can participate in the new market. Logic tells me that if the market is viable, they will cater to its demands and release larger storage devices, allowing users to d/l two or three PS3/360 games (though i dont see Sony going this route, they are after all trying very hard to push Blu-Ray).
Right now, at this very second, you can buy games online that you cant buy in stores - games that will never be in stores, yet recieve critical acclaim and are deemed as must-plays. At this very moment, developers are planning future titles to release in the next 6 months, larger games with more graphical prowess or deeper gameplay in a myriad of genres that again, will only be available for download over a network and nowhere else. It's only a matter of time before all video games go this route. The same ccan be said about films, where DVD players have the same type of i-tunes setup. But the real test is going to be if the companies who make the actual disks will want this evolution to happen, or will they get bitter and demand that we stay with their ideals.
It is still up in the air as to whether or not Nintendo is going to use standard hard disks via some USB enclosure kit for the problem. They might want something a bit more secure, especially with people like us downloading games.
Further, hard drives are expensive. It's just something to keep in mind. As much as I want Nintendo to create a hard disk solution, I have to acknowledge the way Nintendo does things. I am almost certain if they did it, it would be Nintendo's own hard disk or bust.
Quote:1.) SD cards can hold a few gigs of info, this is great for retro gaming and even last gen gaming, but not really curent gen. When you think of next gen, it becomes rediculous. However, Revolution uses DVD's, that's about 7, 8 gigs of info. a 50 gig HDD would allow you to download around 10 games depending on their total size. if you run out of room, you delete it, but because the Nintendo network knows that you purchased it, you can d/l again when ever you want 9i-tunes does the same thing). after all, I play games alot, probably more than anyone else on this board and i cant devote myself to more than 5 games at a time anyway until i beat one/get bored of it, so this should be more than enough for most people. By the time you want to d/l a 11th game, one of those 10 are going to be played to death or boring and will need the boot.
But my point is, this is a bad idea, not a good one. Games that big take a long time to download... it's not play-on-demand like a disc. And with only being able to have a few games, it's a serious problem that only physical media can solve. Downloading as an option for some titles? Yeah. But as the norm? Nope. The ease of use factor is countered out by the limited space factor, and quickly enough the limited space one will win.
Quote:4.) people say "d/l isn't the same, people want to OWN the actual DISK!" and to those people, i laugh very hard and point to MP3's, emulators, ROMS. etc.
It means more to own the actual media than any ROM or MP3. Yes, because of ease-of-use you might well use the MP3/ROM more, but still, actually owning it means something more...
Quote:3.) By d/l the games, the developer does not need a publisher, does not need to market commercials or work through an ad agency, does not need to worry about manufacturing, release dates, shortages or anything that goes along with getting a product in to a store.
You're right on this one though... the publisher system isn't that good for small develpers, and downloading frees them... and smaller, 'indie' titles are the perfect ones to have as downloadable titles; see Darwinia on Steam... but as the primary distriution system for major releases? It's just not going to happen that way. The limited-space thing will win over the downloading-means-faster-access thing (that is, you don't need to find the disc/cart, etc, to be able to play the game, just turn on the system and launch it) for a long time to come -- for as HDDs get bigger so do game media formats and the games themselves... just look at BD-ROM on the PS3!
Oh, i'm not saying that this coming gen is going to be medium-less, i'm saying it's the begining of it. Once you connect millions of people together, stuff happens quickly. All that has to happen is someone, any third party (Datel) or Nintendo, releases an HDD for Revolution. Once that happens, you wont be able to stop small deveopers, indies, etc from releasing d/l Rev games. And if they sell, you can bet your ass that major developers will follow suit.
I disagree that owning the disk is more valuable to people. MP3's, ROMs, programs, etc are just as valued by consumers as their actual CDs, games, etc. Even though it's illegal in most cases, look at the popularity of d/l movies, the only reason people burn them to disk is so they can watch them on TV. For the people who donnt want to break the law, you have paid services to d/l movies which right now, makes almost as much money (as a segment of the industry) as Blockbuster. But then look at Netflix, or other services like it (including BB's online service), and they make as much or more money than the physical Blockbusters, many consumers have completely abondoned the 'walk in the store' method and completely adopted the online method; That's a consumer who will not be going to Blockbuster, if that trend reaches larger numbers (and it is steadily increasing) eventually Blockbuster will close its physical locations and work just as Netflix does. This is an eventual thing and it will take years, but it will happen.
the same thing can be applied to video game stores.
storage is not an issue, there will always be larger capacity drives, cheaper drives, whatever. if the consumer wants to d/l games on to Rev, he can get the cheapest 10 gig HDD or the more expensive 80 gig drive or the much cheaper, korean company made hello kitty '"1000" gig' HDD
Quote:storage is not an issue, there will always be larger capacity drives, cheaper drives, whatever. if the consumer wants to d/l games on to Rev, he can get the cheapest 10 gig HDD or the more expensive 80 gig drive or the much cheaper, korean company made hello kitty '"1000" gig' HDD
No, storage is a major issue. There will always be larger drives? Sure, but as I said, that ignores the fact that the size of games will go up at at least the same rate! As we get bigger hard drives, we get bigger games and media formats. The size of harddrives has not increased vastly above the size of games, and it won't in the future either, so your theory here is flawed.
Quote:Oh, i'm not saying that this coming gen is going to be medium-less, i'm saying it's the begining of it. Once you connect millions of people together, stuff happens quickly. All that has to happen is someone, any third party (Datel) or Nintendo, releases an HDD for Revolution. Once that happens, you wont be able to stop small deveopers, indies, etc from releasing d/l Rev games. And if they sell, you can bet your ass that major developers will follow suit.
Developers won't release games based on a third party addon. It just won't happen. In the console world I don't think it ever has before, and it won't now... the manufacturers conrol these things. Also, who knows if it's technically possible? Just because the Rev supports CD cards and has USB ports doesn't mean it could support a third party addon harddrive, that's for sure... Now, will there be downloadable full Rev games? Maybe. Will there be add-on hard drives? Hmm... I don't know. Nintendo has repeatedly said that they don't like that idea and like flash memory more, so I'm doubtful. I expect them to focus on small games as the download titles -- like what Microsoft is doing now. (though MS might have some aspirations of digital distribution, it won't happen with a 20GB HDD, that's for sure... Sony's plans will be equally limited by space...)
Now, if you can burn the games to DVDs like you can downloaded movies, that'd be a different story... but I somehow doubt that any sane console gaming company would allow such a thing. Too many piracy concerns there.
Quote:This is the fault of how small game boxes are, not of the uselessness of manuals... console manuals have always been useless, for the most part, but PC manuals used to be great... now they stink and are as useless as console ones because of cost saving and these lame miniboxes that now all PC games sell in.
Of course, PC games shipping without manuals (or manuals just on CD) to save money goes way back, 1996 at least, but even so, at least back then those games were the exception, not the rule... sadly that has not been true for some time now. And even the games which COULD have good manuals are sabotaged by the requirement to make them about the size of a postage stamp to fit in those tiny boxes... (Warcraft III's quite underwhelming manual, for instance, when compared to WCI/II/SC)
I think you have it backwards, really. I think the reason manuals are disappearing is because they are less necessary than ever. With the age of PDF files and informative websites, not to mention a gaming population that is older and more experienced than in years past, it's just not as feasable to spend money writing and publishing a gigantic novella for a game. I know you like them for the novelty, but the fact is, an instruction manual is primarily intended to serve as a guide to initiate the gamer into the various basic functions of gameplay. As I stated before, there are so many websites now devoted to the more superfluous aspects of what used to reside in manuals that now it's just not worth the effort involved in making a large manual, or the added cost of shipping a box that is larger and heavier for it. If they were really that necessary, it's likely they would remain. That they don't is proof that they are not.
I agree, in fact the fans usually paint a more interesting picture than the so-called writers of the game anyways, sometimes even causing the game's sequels to far out-shine their previous efforts in story, presentation, etc (Resident Evil). Does anyone remember some of the N64 'cards' that came in the box? It was a fold out 'hot sheet' explaining gameplay, I thought they were pretty snazzy.
ABF/ Why is it when i read your posts that you seem to be making excuses of how it cant be done? :D
Quote:I think you have it backwards, really. I think the reason manuals are disappearing is because they are less necessary than ever. With the age of PDF files and informative websites, not to mention a gaming population that is older and more experienced than in years past, it's just not as feasable to spend money writing and publishing a gigantic novella for a game. I know you like them for the novelty, but the fact is, an instruction manual is primarily intended to serve as a guide to initiate the gamer into the various basic functions of gameplay. As I stated before, there are so many websites now devoted to the more superfluous aspects of what used to reside in manuals that now it's just not worth the effort involved in making a large manual, or the added cost of shipping a box that is larger and heavier for it. If they were really that necessary, it's likely they would remain. That they don't is proof that they are not.
I cannot possibly disagree more in every conceivable way...
-PDFs are horrible, horrible things... even worse than text documents... Adobe Reader is an awful program, it scrolls so slowly and has the most broken "search" function I have ever seen... and you can't have the PDF and the game on the screen at the same time, and you often need to refer to the manual while playing a game; what do you do, print out a 500 page document? That'll be expensive!
-Information websites/FAQs serve a purpose too, but a properly done game should have the information in the box to teach you how to actually play the game. (I know that lots of oldschool games, particularly console ones, (and even many newer console games, especially in the RPG genre) do not ascribe by this concept, but it would be nice...)
-"like them for the novelty"? ... huh? What in the world does that mean? "Novelty"? What does novelty have to do with good manuals? Decent design and care is what it's about! Manuals aren't just acoutrements where you stick the "how to install" card, they are an integral part of the game... they can showcase game art, backstory, presentation... so many games had great manuals... and not just for "novelty". For interest, for making you laugh (Space Quest V's manual is priceless! It's like a Star Trek-ish tabloid... :D (it's also got the copy protection hidden in it too, in one of the cleverest forms of copy protection I ever saw)), for story the designers think would be just boring or unnecessary in the actual game (Warcraft I, Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, Starcraft -- the backstories are told in the manuals, not in the games. They also include art, good writing that goes beyond the normal boring stuff, complete spell/unit lists (RPGs also often have (had? :() complete spell tables with images and descriptions, charts for level-up stats, weapon lists, etc, in their manuals)...
Console manuals are, in contrast, usually much less interesting and useful, but even there they often served as a place for extra backstory and character/enemy information... yes, you could put that all into the game, but it's simpler, and just as effective, to put it in the manual...
Really, the purpose of a manual is to serve as a manual that teaches you about the game and what it is, and then a guide for how to play it. The first task is one that is meant to be done before you ever play the game, and the second one as one you do while simultaneously playing the game -- and both NECESSITATE a format of manual that is NOT JUST ELECTRONIC! That Wizardry VII CD comes with a great full text document manual, but using it while playing is a major pain unless you print out several hundred pages, and it's meant to be used exactly then...
Quote:As I stated before, there are so many websites now devoted to the more superfluous aspects of what used to reside in manuals that now it's just not worth the effort involved in making a large manual, or the added cost of shipping a box that is larger and heavier for it. If they were really that necessary, it's likely they would remain. That they don't is proof that they are not.
Manuals have not, actually, ever been about being complete strategy guides. They teach you how to play, but not every detail and not specific strategies for beating levels or whatever. That's a different product's task...
As for the second point, not quite true. Game stores forced these smaller boxes on the industry; it was not really their choice. I'm sure Blizzard would have preferred to make a real manual for Warcraft III and not this stupid thing, and the same for other developers, but they're stuck... Yes, before that manuals gradually thinned and shrank for many titles, but major ones would have more substantial manuals. Even if games weren't making big 250-page manuals like the old Maxis games had in the later years of the large boxes, they still often had manuals truly worth reading...
Falcon 4.0's binder case, Baldur's Gate II's spiral-bound manual full of information, Warcraft I's double-sided manual with stories for each side inside, SimEarth's voluminous tome that explained every single option and feature in the game in great detail (that was the thickest of all of the SimGame manuals that we had, I think, though most of the others weren't far behind... Unnatural Selection, A-Train, Klik & Play, SimCity, SimCity 2000... Civilization II... Civilization I... Space Quest V... the manual sets found in the Quest for Glory games (the generic Sierra Adventure Game Information Manual (found in all sierra adventures of the day), the main game manual (funny though...), the Famous Adventurer's Coorespondence School manual (a guide to the Spielburg Valley, for people right out of the Famous Adventurer's Coorespondence School for Heroes! (QFGI; later games are of course different)... so many great manuals... how many of those games would have manuals worth such mention if they were somehow released now? Maybe a few, but not many...
Reading the QFGI-IV manuals on the CD (Quest for Glory Collection)... versus reading the real paper manuals from our copy of Quest for Glory I... there is absolutely no comparison... one is great, the other merely ... makes do... ... provides the information, without the detail, the feel...
I used to read manuals, always... now I often don't... and part of that is because games more often have decent tutorials now, so it is often less necessary, but it's certainly also because the manuals do not have the same kind of attention put into them.
I can give no better example than Civilization II with its thick manual and full-size wall poster of the tech tree, units (all) and terrain types (also all), versus Civilization III with its ... eh, thin, average manual... and that's about it.. but if you pay $10 extra you can get it in a metal tin with a few extras that make it seem cooler again! Joy!
Quote:ABF/ Why is it when i read your posts that you seem to be making excuses of how it cant be done?
Not excuses, good reasons. I've been reading about the oncoming ascendancy of digital distribution for some time now (some Microsoft people, etc), and I just don't see it...
Well ABF, the thing is, I really don't care if I'm reading from a screen or from paper. That's really a preference thing that I don't have. The feel of paper and the joy of turning the page... don't exist to me. Paper is dry, and dries out my hands.
There is the issue of those larger hard disks. WILL they be releasing bigger capacity disks? And, more importantly, will the systems even be able to support it if we decide to buy our own high capacity disks? What are the limitations of the file system the companies will be using?
I have no qualms about having my data on the medium of a hard disk as opposed to a snazzy disk specifically for the game, with custom artwork even :D. The issue is space. I want to have ALL my games available at all times. If I don't have an online connection, I lose access to the games. I'm not going to be in a situation where I delete a few games to make room for more. That's too unstable. I like knowing my game is right there, waiting for me to play it. As I said, they can easily store that I have "bought it already", but the issue is, well, will I always have access to it, even unto the unmaking of the world? If MS decides the XBox was a waste of cash and just closes down their servers, I can't ever download those games again. Suddenly, whether or not I can play a game depends on the future viability of a company. 3rd party companies will be storing their games on their own servers, for example, and they are much more likely to fail than a behemoth like Nintendo. If I manage to get that one gem they make before they fail, but delete it later to make room for something else, then they shut down the server, BOOM, that's $50 down the drain and I'll never get that game again, or at least not until I manage to find some ancient chinese talisman shop, online, that has that available for download as "warez".
Further, while my online connection is fine, what of others? It's all well and good for them to visit a friend and borrow their connection for a game download, but a redownload? That spring break when they decide to play about 10 or so games? Do they have to "plan out" their entertainment? I'm a horder, a miser, when it comes to my stuff. I want it always there. As such, we need the storage space to let us always have it.
Basically, what I'm saying is this Star Trek vision of having all our holodeck programs accessible from a master list in the ship network is great, but our storage capacity needs to make a few giant leaps. That's a ways off. It's approaching, I think in the form of nanotubules, but capacity isn't yet as so very high as I DEMAND it to be. That's why these systems aren't the self enclosed "Phantom" yet. I'm pretty sure, for this generation, and likely the one after it, we'll still be buying the majority of our games on good old fasioned hard to stock and nearly outdated media.
By the way, PC games are already being sold in the form of pure downloads, some of them. It hasn't yet taken over though.
When you're dealing with 8 gig games, having 50 of them on a HDD really isn't all that Startrekian. In 5 years i've accumulated about 50 for GC and they could easily fit on my 80 gig HDD with enough room for the OS and all my programs and most of my porn, so again... there is no storage issue, you just get a larger HDD to hold all your games, or multiple HDD's. It would be up to the consumer as to how many games they want to store.
With blu-Ray we'll be at 25 gig games, but honestly I have yet to see a game that is over 10 gigs. A single layer DVD is 4 to 5 gigs, a duel layer is 7 to 8; Both Revolution and Xbox360 (and PS2) use this format, which means the largest game is EIGHT GIGS, plenty of room to store atleast a few games even on the premium's included HDD though you can upgrade that to whatever you want, with any third party HDD on the market. There are no multiple DVD games that i'm aware of (unless it's a bonus disk) which would mean that no one has gone beyond the 8 gig mark for home consoles (and PCC as well i'm assuming), and i'm willing to bet that there are probably very few games that even reach 8 gigs.
blue ray is 25 gigs single layer, around 50 for duel, and its rumored that the PS3 will allow for double sided reading, meaning a total of 100 gigs per disk. A side from having a shit ton of movies in your game, there really is no point. MS proved that large scale HD games can be done on 8 gigs... so I see no reason for this generation to go beyond 8 gigs. If i'm not mistaken, i believe even oblivion is a single disk game.
5 years from now, i'm very curious as to how the whole blue ray and HDDVD thing turns out, and if companies will want to use such a format, if it will be even needed or used. So far, i haven't seen a single developer complain about DVD storage size. of course with sony, their main drive is for blue ray movies, but developers will have TWENTY FIVE GIGS to fill for every game..... cut scene, after cut scene, after cut scene, blah. Or just leave it empty, and since they'll be porting to Revolution or 360, they'lll probably be around 8 gigs as well. So again.... storage....... not an issue.................. *slowly unsheathes a broadsword*
DJ/ If you're going to your friend's house and you want to bring your games (virtual console) bring the rev, or the SD cards you put the games on. In my scenario of a mediumless future, you would bring the HDD or like-storage medium with the games on it.
i also completely forgot about something, flash drives, jump drives, etc, could also be a choice... though expensive. An 8 gig flash drive will run you atleast 300 bucks and usually more, while an 8 gig SD card will run you slightly cheaper at around 200. ultimately though, for the storage, you cant beat the price of HDDs.
The issue is if I have the game on there at the time, or even think to do it, but yeah, it may just be enough space.
I'm still pretty sure you're at least one generation too optimistic :D.
Quote:There are no multiple DVD games that i'm aware of
There are rumors that some X360 games might need multiple discs, because of how much bigger games are when they support high resolutions...
Anyway, sorry Lazy, this just is not feasable right now. "Maybe most people won't have space problems" isn't even close to good enough, and you should know that... for one thing, 75GB for 50 (1.5GB) GC games and 400GB for 50 (8GB) DVD games are vastly different numbers... you simply cannot fit anywhere near "enough" next-gen games on any hard drive that's in anything resembling a reasonable price range (remember, big HDDs are fairly expensive...).
Actually lazy, I have one. Xenosaga Episode 2. I'm not saying it's a good game, and most of the space is taken up by voice acting and FMVs, but it certainly isn't light on the space it takes up.
I thought i heard Xenosaga is two DVD's but I wasn't sure. I wonder if they did it like FF7 and each disk actually contains the full game with different cut scenes. But i'm willing to bet that the actual game, sans cut scenes, is less than 8 gigs. :D
ABF/ You're assuming that every GC or DVD game uses the full capacity of the disk which is not true, you're also assuming that most people will buy 50 current gen titles and i can count the number of people who have 50 games for any current gen console on 3 fingers. :D But again, i'm not saying this coming gen is going to be mediumless, i'm saying it's the begining of it. Somewhere in the lifespan of revolution, 360 and PS3 we will buy full games and download them right from the console and if it makes money, indies and giants will follow it. People will complain that they can only d/l one or two full games and someone will capatalize on that and release larger HDDs, and so on. And i also expect to see people ordering games off the network and having it sent to them in the mail which will only fuel the consumers desire to have d/l games and futher the extinction of video game stores or atleast cause them to evolve in to something different (more retro games, more PC and peripherals, etc)
That's right, except that the cut scenes are all done using the in-game graphics engine. They aren't FMVs. All that's needed is basic animation instructions, which would take up so very much less space it's retarded. The voice acting seems to be what's taking it all up.
Also, it's Xenosaga Episode 2. Episode 1 is safely contained on a single disk.
Weird... is the music MIDI or actual recordings?
even high quality recordings of voice should fit hours upon hours upon .....hours.... of informaion on a DVD. Just like any other WAV or MP3 and i kinda doubt that xenosaga ep. 2 has 'hours and hours' of voice recordings... but combine high quality recordings for voice, music and even special sound effects (foley, etc), then you might need two disks... there's no prerendered cut scenes on the disk? not even like, a really big opening/ending movie?
Oblivion has tons of voice acting, and it's a huge game. I think it has some areas with recorded music, plus HD textures and all that fun stuff... it's weird to think that a last-gen system would need two disks for something like Xenosaga.
I don't know about the end, I have yet to beat the game. There seems to be a lot more music than in the first game, but I'm as confused as you are as to what's taking up all that space. I figure eventually I'll start running into those epic 30 hour long FMVs soon enough though.
Ya know, MGS3 had some long cinema to wade through every... 10 minutes or so. Yeah, that was fun. "Am I playing the game yet? Oh hey! I can press the R button to get a Snake's eye view! At least in Shenmu there was some reflex testing!"
hahaha, i'm worried about the game Vs. prerendered cut scene ratio of PS3 games, it's going to be interesting to see if people want to have giant movies in their games.
Even if you made the game entirely with full recorded music in high quality, voice acting, 2 hours of prerendered cut scenes in 720p and made the game the largest game to date, there's no way you would take up 25 gigs, that's 3 DVD's worth of game. let alone 50 or 100. I bet developers will get creative and release games with 'behind the scenes' footage where we watch an overweight nerd plug code for 9 hours and eat through 17 bags of doritos