The 360 - Online, Japan, HD-DVD 66
Lots of tidbits about Microsoft's next-gen console floating around this week. On Monday, the company revealed that almost 60% of 360 owners are now using Xbox Live. GameDaily discusses what is making their setup so dang popular. Major Nelson's Sunday podcast included a lot of details on the 360's approach to HD-DVD. HD Beat has the rundown on what was said, including the inevitable Sony smack-talk. Finally, Gamasutra has a feature on the 360's position in Japan. A group of analysts debate whether or not the system even needs Japan in order to be a success. From this last article: "I don't think that American gamers are enamored [with] Japanese product because it comes from Japan; rather, I think Americans like good games, regardless of the country of origin. Microsoft doesn't need Japanese development to succeed in the U.S.; it needs good games, period."
MS Needs Japanese Developers for Japan not the US (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:MS Needs Japanese Developers for Japan not the (Score:2)
And we often love them here too.
Re:MS Needs Japanese Developers for Japan not the (Score:2)
Re:MS Needs Japanese Developers for Japan not the (Score:1)
What the other game companies do right is have localized divi
Good games. Hell yeah! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Good games. Hell yeah! (Score:2)
Did the GPX2 guys finally come into GPL compliance? If not, please don't buy one. It may not be their fault, but it is their responsibility.
Personally, I play old school games on my Xbox - my excuse was that buying it cost Microsoft money. But anyway... :)
Japan-love (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Japan-love (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Japan-love (Score:1)
Re:Japan-love (Score:2)
Not that I disagree with you about how rabid the US otaku-Japanese-fetish crowd can be, but consider the number of them against the number of people buying the yearly installments of Madden. I'd imagine it's miniscule in comparison.
Re:Japan-love (Score:2)
Re:Japan-love (Score:2)
In what way do you think anime fans represent American gamers? Even for the larger set of 'Yeah, Japanese gadgets are pretty cool' people, from Japan does not equate to good. What kind of numbnut goes out and buys a video game just because it came from a Japanese company? Peop
Re:Japan-love (Score:1)
- In North America, anything animated = kids stuff (people still havn't figured out that you can have a mature story made in animation).
- In North America, anything animated needs stand-alone episodes, not an ongoing series.
Like TFA says... people in North America are attracted to fun stuff regardless of it's origin. Anime is more diverse and engaging than anything produced in North America. Hence you can attract more people to it.
Games are completely diff
Re:Japan-love (Score:2)
Definitely! From "schoolgirl fights robots" to "awkward kid fights robots" to "awkward has a pathetic crush on a schoolgirl but can't get the nerve to do or say anything about it," anime definitely has a huge range of scenarios. No way North America or Canada could compete with that creative output. The fact that it's all aimed at older teenagers show it's much more sophisticated than American cartoons, which are aimed at younger
Re:Japan-love (Score:1)
You'd never have anything remotely close to drama, horror, psychological, love, heck even XXX sex movies...
Perfect Blue, Tokyo GodFathers, Serial Experiments Lain, Grave of the Fireflies, Ghost in the Shell, Wings of Honneamise, BoogiePop Phantom are all example of different genres that you'd never see produced in North America.
Re:Just wow. (Score:1)
He could have only had time to see the title, see it was something good about Sony and hit reject... wellcome to MSFUDot.org the #1 domain for all of you Micr
mmmk (Score:2)
Mere seconds. I'm not a grammar nazi but since you said you took the time to spell check and all...
Re:mmmk (Score:1)
Re:Just wow. (Score:2)
Re:Just wow. (Score:2)
Re:Just wow. (Score:2, Insightful)
On an unrelated note, what in (deity of choice)'s name is a FUD?
Re:Just wow. (Score:1)
It is used to desribe situations where people will write things that technically are true but blown way out of proportion in order to scare other people into going along with their latest and greatest idea. (ZOMG XBOX SUX! IT EETS BABIES!!! WE MUST BOYCOTZORS TEH MICRO$UCK!!!)
(disclaimer: i don't like the 360 or microsoft. they are both ugly, overrated giants that blow way too much hot air for my preferences)
Re:Just wow. (Score:2)
Yeah because the DS Lite I have in my hands sure isn't in my hands. That, or I'm not a consumer.
If you agree use "zonked" tag (Score:5, Interesting)
On this story, my main beef would be the HD-DVD link doesn't really talk about the 360 HD-DVD support at all, it's just general information about the HD-DVD format.
How to apply tags (Score:2, Funny)
Where to go to apply a tag to a story - other people seem to have figured it out OK.
Breakdown, please (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree... doesn't *everyone* have Silver by default? This just means that 60% of 360 owners have it hooked up to the internet, right? I wouldn't mind knowing how many are putting down money for it. Either way, Gold is a good bargain if you want to play online. MS just needs more Co-op / MP games worth the $5/month.
Re:Breakdown, please (Score:1)
Re:Breakdown, please (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm on the other side of the spectrum. I have a Gold account, and my significant other has a Gold account too. I also have 2 Silver accounts registered as Europe and Japan so I can access the marketplace content from those countries AND I have 4 or so other Silver accounts that were made by some of my friends who frequently come over to play the console despite not owning one themselves. So on my console alone I have 8 Xbox Live accounts... I know quite a few other people who've made multiple Silver accounts for accessing other marketplace content or for friends to use etc.
So the real question is: does that 60% represent the percent of consoles that have one or more accounts on it, or does that 60% represent the total number of accounts over the total number of consoles?
Re:Breakdown, please (Score:2)
Re:The US != The World (Score:1)
That was the whole point of the article dipshit.
Re:The US != The World (Score:1)
Re:The US != The World (Score:1)
Re:The US != The World (Score:1)
Then that AC was probably pulling things out of his butt because EA Sports games regularly top the sales charts here while japanese games rarely even enter them (except for the Gamecube sales charts but I don't know when the last time was that system got a new game).
Re:The US != The World (Score:1)
Re:The US != The World (Score:1)
If you're going to quote sales, make sure you use the UK charts, as that's where more than 1/2 the games in Europe are sold.
The problem is that the territories aren't homogenous, what sells in the UK may be a total flop in the rest of Europe or some game sells everywhere except the UK. The UK charts aren't representative of the entire market.
BTW, UKers buy Sonic like mad.
No, we don't need Ico or Katmari Damacy... (Score:2)
I as a game buyer certainly do, as without games like Ico or Katmari Damacy I'd hardly want to own a console.
So while at the same time as the 360 is proclaiming it only needs American ports of PC WWII games to survive, I am hoping the previous news I have read about PS3 region coding for games is true and America and the US are in the same region, so we can import some japanese games directly without modding the console.
In fact, is not Team Ninja from Japan? Who cou
Re:No, we don't need Ico or Katmari Damacy... (Score:2)
I would hope they make US and America the same region, otherwise a lot of people are going to be awfully confused.
Indeed - Japan and US (Score:2)
The analyst article is worthless (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The analyst article is worthless (Score:1)
say no to specialized markets (Score:1)
Re:say no to specialized markets (Score:2)
the 3 x360 japanese owners are scared shitless already...
Cheaper still, $500 (Score:2)
The question is more along the lines of, is $500 too much for most japanese gamers? For that's how much the base unit is. And despite the japanese prediliction for technology there is not much about the $600 PS3 model that is $100 more compelling, especially so since $500 is still rather expensive and I'd rather have that $100 go towards games than a
My Bad Experience with XBox Live (Score:2, Interesting)
I picked up a xbox360 shortly after launch, of which I was excited about the aspects of XBox Live. I signed up for the free 30 day trial, which converted into a full account after the 30 days if it's not canceled.
I plugged in my credit card and my xbox live gold account was activated. About 2 months later I started getting errors on my login when I would turn on my xbox360. I remembered my wife having lost her debit card, the bank re-issued new cards to us and that the information on the card was change
Re:My Bad Experience with XBox Live (Score:2)
my bank was bought out and i needed to update my card number for all of my accounts. of course i forgot to update my xbox live account, so i had to go through the same arduous task of reassigning a new card to my live account. i tried to do it via the live interface on the xbox, but eventually had to call in.
Re:My Bad Experience with XBox Live (Score:2)
Precluded Success? (Score:3, Insightful)
"I don't think that this is [Microsoft's] fault. They have tried as hard as they can to succeed, but cultural bias has precluded success."
Now, I'm not saying that it's easy to make a name for yourself in the Japanese market. However, it's hardly impossible. One need only look at the success of Disney and the iPod in Japan to see that foreign companies can do well. It takes more than "trying hard", it takes trying right. If a brick wall only 3 feet across were laid in Microsoft's path, they'd bang their head into it until it crumbled rather than walk around it like sanity dictates. Microsoft may have touched on things they need to do to capture the hearts of Japanese gamers, but they certainly haven't shown they understand well what they should be doing.
The unfortunate truth these analysts dance around is the long term problems Microsoft faces if they can't make inroads into Japan. If Nintendo and Sony are allowed to repeatedly capture the Japanese market with no contest but each other, they will both have an unchallenged supply of resources to combat Microsoft with on American and European soil. If Microsoft can only fight on the defensive their only hope is for the Japanese market to dry up, leaving Nintendo and Sony without their reserves. Unfortunately for Microsoft, Nintendo has done a decent job of revitalizing the Japanese market. With both Sony and Nintendo having records of previous US market dominance, Microsoft NEEDS to be able to take a significant portion of Japanese marketshare or they will eventually lose by attrition.