Just a reminder to everyone, the new Ren & Stimpy show is gonna debut tonight at 10:00 EST on TNN. I know I'll be watching it. Just letting you all know...

---Barry

Quote:According to Michael Pachter, analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities, you could be paying an extra 10 dollars for top titles by the end of this year. An MSNBC report tells why it may be possible, even though most analysts agree that most game makers want to keep software prices where they are. In a case against the increase in game prices, studies of the 'life cycle' model of previous consoles and the current next-generation consoles show that new games stick at a higher price, but old games and relatively unknown games get slashed prices. GameCube, PS2, and Xbox are entering the second half of their life cycle, the period where price points in hardware and software trend downward. But what isn't happening is development costs declining as developers reach the technical limits of the platform. “Research and development costs continue to go up,” said Richard Ow, a game analyst for the NPD Group. A typical Playstation game in 1996 cost less than $1 million to make and sold for $49. Today the console games run around $5-7 million per title and sell for $49.99.

Development costs have risen because the 128-bit generation requires at least 40 times as many lines of codes to exploit the system capabilities as the previous console generation. “To keep pushing the limits, that not only takes more people, but better people,” Perry said. “Great development staff are therefore becoming more and more valuable, and as our industry moves to Playstation 3, Xbox 2, etc., then they will be at a new premium,” he said. Game creators are also adding costly exclusives video footage for Enter The Matrix to grab peoples attentions, and licensed material. Then there's marketing to handle. "With so many costs built into production," said Halpin of the game retailing group, "a triple-A game price change in favor of higher prices and higher margin or lower prices and higher sales would not be easy. Right now it’s too much a part of philosophy in way of conducting business. Especially for public companies. They would need to re-scale their economics.”

The other problem is there isn't much complaining of the game prices. “There just doesn’t seem to be negative reaction to game prices,” said Ow. “Even if one publisher took the chance to lower the price of a triple-A game, it could bias the consumer that it’s a lesser game." "Game publishers don’t understand consumers, they understand video games,” he added. “Prices never go down. People don’t have a problem with prices going up, the publishers do.” Over the next year, about 750 new titles will hit the market. "If past sales figures offer any clues," said Pachter, "the top 50 to 60 games will rake in 50 percent of the total sales. Once you see those numbers, it’s easy to see that half could command a $60 price point. The thing that may counteract all of this is the fact that game sales have risen tremendously. $10 billion was spent by Americans on hardware and software. The conclusion they come to is if one publisher sells a very popular title for $60 and thus makes a killing on sales, publishers with similar titles may follow.

Quote:People don’t have a problem with prices going up

Legendary comic book artist Todd McFarlane (er...at least I think he's legendary....I dont' really give a shit for comic books) bought Barry Bond's 73rd home run ball for $450,000 today...he also bought Mark McGuires 70th home run ball a few years back for nearly $3 million. How the hell does that work?? Bond's record is better, and he paid a whoooole lot less for it. Plus, there was a lot less demand for it too. (!)

Weird.

Faranoth claims that he's in love with Guenvillarfe, but to tell you the truth I think he's just covering up for his lack of faith in Teragnome.

What do you guys thing?

Faranoth claims that he's in love with Guenvillarfe, but to tell you the truth I think he's just covering up for his lack of faith in Teragnome.

What do you guys thing?

Its a This Modern World extravaganza!








That last one makes a good point that the so-called 'Liberal Media' just doesn't exist.

And to make Weltall happy...

Got mine yesterday,and it's better than I thought. I was afraid pixelization would be bad because of the screen size difference, but this simpy isn't the case. The screen looks great, LttP looks just like it did on the SNES!

Anyone else gotten one? Your thoughts?

New poll. Who would you pick for Rand? Let the cat fight begin.

I doubt any of you know what the subject means, so I'll explain. The great punk ska band Five Iron Frenzy is calling it quits this year, but before they break up they decided to release one cd of 34 joke songs, demos, and old b-sides, record a final full length album, and finish with a 60 city farewell tour. The joke cd was released in April as Cheeses of Nazareth and they finished the other cd, The End is Near, a couple weeks ago. The catch is that you can only buy The End is Near at a FIF show. It won't be released in stores until 2004. So while that's really cool, I was frustrated because FIF is from Denver and the only time they are going to play in Colorado is the end of November. It just happens to be their last show ever. So again, that is really cool. But it means that I can't buy the cd until everyone else already has it. Then today something amazing happened...

Turns out that FIF's record label just started selling the cd online for a limited time, and it's shipping now! WOOOO! I can't wait to hear it, not only because it's their final recording ever and I know it will be very special, but because they feel it's their best yet. I hope it's a little more punk and a little less rawk than Electric Boogaloo, but I'm freaking excited none the less.

And on a sad note, to me this officially signifies the death of ska. Yes, I know it's been one life support for a couple years now, but FIF is one of the best. Ska was really just a subgenre of punk or rock or whatever else, and I'm sure there will still be horns popping up every once in a while in the future, but it won't be the same. The End is Near.

Well someone mentioned it so I thought "why not make a list of all the stuff I've got on my harddrive?"

So here it is. :)

Currently Downloading
---
Vampire Princess Miyu -- ep 12
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex -- ep 14
3x3 Eyes -- ep 7

Shows I'm keeping.
---
The Vision of Escaflowne (1-26 of 26, 1 movie) -- watched all eps, not movie
Neon Genesis Evangelion (1-26 of 26, 3 movies) -- watched 14 eps so far
Serial Experiments Lain (1-13 of 13)
Kanon (1-13 of 13) -- completed
To Heart (1-13 of 13) -- watched 11 eps, will finish.
Tenchi Muyo OVA series (1-14 of 14) -- completed
Love Hina (1-25 of 25, 2 specials of 2, all of the 3 part Love Hina Again) -- completed
Vampire Princess Miyu OVA (1-4 of 4) -- haven't watched
Abenobashi Mahou Shoutengai (2-5, 8, 10-13 of 13) -- completed, deleted some eps I didn't like as much.
Vampire Princess Miyu (1-11, 13 of 26?) -- watched 1-6. Trying to DL more eps.

Not keeping -- have watched all eps before first ep listed (ie have deleted all eps I've seen).
---
FLCL (1-6 of 6) -- Watched episode 1. Not sure if I will keep.
Crest of the Stars (2-5 of ?)
Macross Plus (2-4 of 4)
Hand Maid May (5-11 of 11)
Dark Stalkers Revenge (2-4 of 4)
All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku (1-2 of ?) -- haven't watched
DNA^2 (6-15 of 15)
.Hack//Sign (13-26 of 26)
.Hack//Sign Liminality (1-3 of 4) -- haven't watched
Ayashi no Ceres (1-2 of ?) -- haven't watched
Final Fantasy Unlimited (10-11 of 26)
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (12-13 of 26)
Haibane Renmei (3-13 of 13)
You're Under Arrest (4-10 of ?)
Mahoromatic: Something More Beautiful (7-14 of 14)

I deleted all episodes before the first one listed from all the shows in the 'incomplete' category... marking the ones I've watched. :)

Almost all in that second category are ones that I have but have not watched yet... most I will delete after watching to make room for other stuff. Of all the ones in the incomplete group, the only one I'll almost certainly keep (and try to get the rest of) is Vampire Princess Miyu. Some others are quite good, but just not worth the HD space...

I really wish I could keep .Hack//Sign... but its just too big so I had to delete the 12 eps I've seen. Same with Ghost in the Shell: SAC... its very good and I wish I could keep it, but I just can't.

Some shows I've watched and deleted, at least in part.
---

Cowboy Bebop -- saw the first 4 or 5 eps. Maybe 6 or more, not sure really. Couldn't keep them and didn't get any more downloaded yet... I will eventually. But I do want to watch the rest... its just too big to keep. Therea re 26 eps and a movie now.

Mahoromatic -- 13 eps, couldn't justify keeping. It was good though.

Berserk -- Watched the first 9 episodes. Its okay but got a bit dull... never got around to watching any more. There are 26 eps.

3x3 Eyes -- Watched the first 6 episodes of 7. Have been trying to download ep.7 on Kazaa but haven't yet. I'll probably delete that one after watching as well.

Gunsmith Cats -- 3 episodes. Watched and deleted.

Oh! My Goddess! -- 5 eps and a movie. Watched and deleted all of them.

There might be a few more, I don't exactly remember.