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"8mm discs - what are nintendo doing?"

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Tue 16/01/01 at 23:33
Regular
Posts: 787
I was always taught you learn from your mistakes. You would think a major company and one of the only companies in japan to turn over a profit last year would have been taught that too. Guess not. After destroying their thrid party support with over-priced development costs given to developers caused by expensive cartridges for the N64 the big N have done it again. For those of you who don't know how the games developers aquire the cd's to put their carefully crafted games onto here is the process. basically each format (psx, psx2, dc, gc etc etc) have a certain cd/dvd to which developers publish games onto. When any games designer wish to create a game they must first aquire a license (bar Pc) from the company (sony, sega etc) and then they can purchase the cd's needed and create/publish the game. the thing is with the N64 using cartridges the costs for developers to buy a cartridge was higher than for buying a cd from sony hence the severe lack of support. Well now it appears Nintendo (this is confirmed) wish to use 8mm discs rather than Cd's. This means for each disc a publisher requires from Nintendo it will cost £10 compared to £7-8 for Sony and Sega and £6 for X-box. Not much you may think! Well when a publisher needs say 2,000,000 discs then that amounts to costs of £4,000,000 higher than developing the same game for Sony. A large amount. It eally appears Nintedo remain lost in arrogance. They still beleive that if the system is easy to develop for and is a slighty better system then devlopers and publishers will be falling over each other to sign for them. wrong boys. fact is say we took Squares FF8. 7 million sales worldwide. that would equal £14million extra costs for say a gamecube. What do you think would be more important? Wasting £14m or using slighty more difficult tools to create the game for Sony?? Nintendo Nintendo Nintendo...when will you learn?
Tue 16/01/01 at 23:33
Posts: 0
I was always taught you learn from your mistakes. You would think a major company and one of the only companies in japan to turn over a profit last year would have been taught that too. Guess not. After destroying their thrid party support with over-priced development costs given to developers caused by expensive cartridges for the N64 the big N have done it again. For those of you who don't know how the games developers aquire the cd's to put their carefully crafted games onto here is the process. basically each format (psx, psx2, dc, gc etc etc) have a certain cd/dvd to which developers publish games onto. When any games designer wish to create a game they must first aquire a license (bar Pc) from the company (sony, sega etc) and then they can purchase the cd's needed and create/publish the game. the thing is with the N64 using cartridges the costs for developers to buy a cartridge was higher than for buying a cd from sony hence the severe lack of support. Well now it appears Nintendo (this is confirmed) wish to use 8mm discs rather than Cd's. This means for each disc a publisher requires from Nintendo it will cost £10 compared to £7-8 for Sony and Sega and £6 for X-box. Not much you may think! Well when a publisher needs say 2,000,000 discs then that amounts to costs of £4,000,000 higher than developing the same game for Sony. A large amount. It eally appears Nintedo remain lost in arrogance. They still beleive that if the system is easy to develop for and is a slighty better system then devlopers and publishers will be falling over each other to sign for them. wrong boys. fact is say we took Squares FF8. 7 million sales worldwide. that would equal £14million extra costs for say a gamecube. What do you think would be more important? Wasting £14m or using slighty more difficult tools to create the game for Sony?? Nintendo Nintendo Nintendo...when will you learn?
Wed 17/01/01 at 13:40
Regular
Posts: 9,848
They'll make that money back due to the impossibility (so Nintendo say) of Piracy!
Wed 17/01/01 at 17:54
Regular
"Eric The Half A Bee"
Posts: 5,347
Will it really cost developers 10 pounds & Sony & Sega 6pound for the disk and royalties!?!? Even though they are purchasing in bulk, and selling upward of a million units per game? Wow... After sticking on the price of developers, disributors fees and shop markup... no wonder games are so overpriced..


But your not wrong, the overpriced royalties, and unusal medai do seem to strike European doom for Nintendo...

As for piracy... I have heard that after the GC release thee will bea standard DVD & GC machine on the market (with mini-DVD and satndard DVD using the same drive (since a lot of people are buying the PS2 for the PS2 (& backward compatibility PS1) & DVD drive combo.. which if true, will mean priacy for all! )
Wed 17/01/01 at 22:37
Regular
Posts: 15,579
the gamecube with dvd playback ting will only be released in japan. But who knows maybe if the gamecube does well here we might see it.
Wed 17/01/01 at 22:47
Regular
Posts: 23,216
Something *sounds* a bit fishy...

Ah... it's the post.

You see, the reason the things are so high, are LICENSING COSTS! And believe it or not, has nothing to do with the size of the disc.

Nintendo have already promised that the costs WILL be lower than those of the PS2, and will match the X-Box.

So happiness all round.

Hope this clears a few things up. Any more questions?
Thu 18/01/01 at 00:33
Regular
"Eric The Half A Bee"
Posts: 5,347
Somehow I suspect that games will stay the same price though huh?
Thu 18/01/01 at 21:09
Regular
Posts: 18,185
This is why Nintendo are using the didi discs.

1. NO pirecy no loss of money there

2. are you sure it's more expensive i heard it was cheaper

3. Midi DVD's which the nintendo optimum discs are is set to be the next thing movies will be put on so are nintendo thinking ahead?

4. They are easier to work on remmember one of the main reason the N64 not getting 3rd party developers early on was the fact carts are harder to work on.

5. Developers are stupidly rich they arn't gonna complain if it does cost a little more and did you know it costs even more on the gameboy? we are still getting Tekken Advanced so it hasn't put of Namco.

6. Do you know the size of the discs reflects the size of the Gamecube it's tiny i think the optimum discs are fine well done ninty
Fri 19/01/01 at 01:47
Posts: 0

You need to get your facts straight. Unless nowone told you, Playstation 2 games do not cost a "little", more to develop. The average Playstation 2 game costs twice as much and takes months longer to program. And those numbers are in comparison to DREAMCAST. Imagine how much faster and cheaper it will be to make games for systems that are designed with developers in mind, such as Gamecube and Xbox.
Fri 19/01/01 at 11:32
Regular
"Eric The Half A Bee"
Posts: 5,347
Dringo Wrote :
"1. NO pirecy no loss of money there"
If mini-DVD's are to be used for other products... mini-DVD writers ar'nt going to be too far behind? Besides... Isnt there already a doobige that allows normal DVD's to be played on MiniDVD players?

Dringo Wrote :
"2. are you sure it's more expensive i heard it was cheaper"
Dunno... I'm guessing that due to the number of DVD's manufatured Vs the number of MiniDVDs manufactured that it would be cheaper to buy a DVD than a mini-DVD?

Dringo Wrote :
"3. Midi DVD's which the nintendo optimum discs are is set to be the next thing movies will be put on so are nintendo thinking ahead?"
Doubt that will happen for a while... A lot of money has been spent advertising and gettgin DVD machines into peoples homes... The markets not really ripe for another shake up... besides... how much film time could you fit onto a mini-DVD... I know theres a fair drop in max-data storage?

Dringo Wrote :
"4. They are easier to work on remmember one of the main reason the N64 not getting 3rd party developers early on was the fact carts are harder to work on."
Wouldnt that be a reason to get the third party support in earlier... remeber copying onto a cart is just as easy as copying onto as DVD... just more expensive. The longer it takes to develop a game... the sooner developers need kit.

Dringo Wrote :
"5. Developers are stupidly rich they arn't gonna complain if it does cost a little more and did you know it costs even more on the gameboy? we are still getting Tekken Advanced so it hasn't put of Namco."
Deelopers are usualy smaler companies... distributers are richer... and as Eidos prooved last year, a couple of no-profit titles is enough to knock them over...


Dringo Wrote :
"6. Do you know the size of the discs reflects the size of the Gamecube it's tiny i think the optimum discs are fine well done ninty"
I like the mini-discs... but then again I prefered the use of carts of CDROMs... however I doubt my buying power will sway the success or failure of the machine...


Siebert wrote :

"You need to get your facts straight. Unless nowone told you, Playstation 2 games do not cost a "little", more to develop. The average Playstation 2 game costs twice as much and takes months longer to program. And those numbers are in comparison to DREAMCAST. Imagine how much faster and cheaper it will be to make games for systems that are designed with developers in mind, such as Gamecube and Xbox."

I'd heard the PS2 was hard to code on (as was if I remember correctly) the Saturn) but if thats were the cash is thats were developers will go. Its one of the X-Boxs seling points that its architecture, being so similar to a PC's will provide the easiest development path.


-- YOU! OUT OF THE GENE POOL!
Fri 19/01/01 at 16:58
Regular
Posts: 23,216
It's not the size that makes it good agaisnt piracy, it's the actual encoding of the disc.

FUN WITH YOUR COMPUTER!

In order to see how big the discs will be, open your CD drive. There should be an inner ridge in the holder. The Gamecube disc will fit perfectly in there, I believe.

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