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So, Xbox is down to £159.99 withj two free games, Xbox Live is available soon, Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, Sega Gt2002, Elder Scrolls, Blinx and many more are scoring highly and sales are picking up.
On the PS2 front Sony is seeing GTA Vice City fly off the shelves as fast as it can be shipped out whilst console sales continue to go from strength to strength and Sony's Broadband network aims for a 1st quarter 2003 release. With more good games on the way like the Getaway, Kingdom Hearts, WWF 4 and so on, things couldn't be brighter.
Then we have Nintendo, who appear to have spent this years marketing budget on Super Mario Sunshine, and to whom online gaming seems something of a mystery. Starfox Adventures is the next BIG release, but I think from import reviews that it may not be all it's cracked up to be. Resident Evil provided a great, but dated gameplay wise, experience, and Eternal Darkness was good. Timesplitters 2 excelled, which was a good job when you consider the number of FPS games available. Coupl all this with the surrender of Rare to Bill, and I have to wonder what on earth Nintendo's strategy is right now, considering it's the Christmas run up.
If someone this Christmas is looking to buy a console then I honestly don't know how Nintendo expect the GC to do well. Advertsiing is appaling - or non existent in most cases - as are promotions - the Mario bundle was a step in the right direction but not far enough due to it's limited availability. There is the promise of some good stuff next year - Zelda and a few more I cannot remember.
As for online gaming, with Nintendo its like a "what strategy ? WE don't have a strategy !" attitude. Online Gaming will really take off in March 2003 with the official release of both Sony and Microsoft's online services. Imagine an online Mario Kart, or Mario Party 4 ? Nintendo should get Mario away from plumbing and into broadband pipes PDQ !
In short, the Gamecube is rapidly becoming a rerun of the N64 which should not be happening, but it is, and Nintendo as usual - despite promises to the contrary - doesn't care about the situation in Europe, where recent sales figures show the GC is doing a Custer's Last Stand.
Just over 5 months, and it's gone like this already. Pathetic, and Nintendo knows it. The Gamecube is a great machine with excellent ideas - the Wavebird in particular - but there are not enough games to back it up. I've got;
Luigi's Mansion
WaveRace
Tony Hawk's 3
Super Smash Bros
Eternal Darkness
Timespitters 2
NBA 2002
Burnout
Super Mario Sunshine
Pikmin
James Bond
Rogue Leader
And I traded in Resident Evil.
I can honestly say there are no games out right now that I want until Starfox. Even when I had a PS2 from it's launch there were always games coming out that I wanted. I've had an Xbox for a week, and there are loads of games I want for that.
Nintendo are being left behind, they need to get in gear and actually bother to fight for sales this Christmas, not sit back and lose.
~~Belldandy~~
On the PS2 front Sony is seeing GTA Vice City fly off the shelves as fast as it can be shipped out whilst console sales continue to go from strength to strength and Sony's Broadband network aims for a 1st quarter 2003 release. With more good games on the way like the Getaway, Kingdom Hearts, WWF 4 and so on, things couldn't be brighter.
Then we have Nintendo, who appear to have spent this years marketing budget on Super Mario Sunshine, and to whom online gaming seems something of a mystery. Starfox Adventures is the next BIG release, but I think from import reviews that it may not be all it's cracked up to be. Resident Evil provided a great, but dated gameplay wise, experience, and Eternal Darkness was good. Timesplitters 2 excelled, which was a good job when you consider the number of FPS games available. Coupl all this with the surrender of Rare to Bill, and I have to wonder what on earth Nintendo's strategy is right now, considering it's the Christmas run up.
If someone this Christmas is looking to buy a console then I honestly don't know how Nintendo expect the GC to do well. Advertsiing is appaling - or non existent in most cases - as are promotions - the Mario bundle was a step in the right direction but not far enough due to it's limited availability. There is the promise of some good stuff next year - Zelda and a few more I cannot remember.
As for online gaming, with Nintendo its like a "what strategy ? WE don't have a strategy !" attitude. Online Gaming will really take off in March 2003 with the official release of both Sony and Microsoft's online services. Imagine an online Mario Kart, or Mario Party 4 ? Nintendo should get Mario away from plumbing and into broadband pipes PDQ !
In short, the Gamecube is rapidly becoming a rerun of the N64 which should not be happening, but it is, and Nintendo as usual - despite promises to the contrary - doesn't care about the situation in Europe, where recent sales figures show the GC is doing a Custer's Last Stand.
Just over 5 months, and it's gone like this already. Pathetic, and Nintendo knows it. The Gamecube is a great machine with excellent ideas - the Wavebird in particular - but there are not enough games to back it up. I've got;
Luigi's Mansion
WaveRace
Tony Hawk's 3
Super Smash Bros
Eternal Darkness
Timespitters 2
NBA 2002
Burnout
Super Mario Sunshine
Pikmin
James Bond
Rogue Leader
And I traded in Resident Evil.
I can honestly say there are no games out right now that I want until Starfox. Even when I had a PS2 from it's launch there were always games coming out that I wanted. I've had an Xbox for a week, and there are loads of games I want for that.
Nintendo are being left behind, they need to get in gear and actually bother to fight for sales this Christmas, not sit back and lose.
~~Belldandy~~
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Because Nintendo don't wait to release the game.
Bleeders wrote:
> My point? If Sony can get the big releases out in the public domain in
> a timely fashion shortly after it's US release. Why can't Nintendo?
Cos their still to cocky and arrogant for their own good!
:)
> My point? If Sony can get the big releases out in the public domain in
> a timely fashion shortly after it's US release. Why can't Nintendo?
Cos their still to cocky and arrogant for their own good!
:)
Bleeders wrote:
> Dringo wrote:
>
> Nintendo needs to learn Europe matters
>
> Huh? Where have you been Europe has been vital to Nintendo latley.
>
> Really? So how comes it's taken them the best part of 8 months to
> bring Eternal Darkness out over here.
So it can coincide with the Halloween.
Why is Metroid Fusion due for a
> UK release in the next week or so, but Metroid Prime isn't?
Because they haven't been able to change it to PAL yet and when they do and get enough copies we will have it.
Why didn't
> they release the Spice GameCube in the PAL territory? Why has it taken
> them so long to bring the Wavebird over here too?
1: Spice Gamecube didn't sell very well. 2: Wavebird hasn't taken Nintendo long.
> To be fair. It hasn't taken Nintendo long to bring Starfox Adventures
> over. But that still doesn't explain why it's taken them so long to
> translate other titles for Europe and Starfox contains a fair amount
> of text.
Starfox is made by Rare a British team. You forget to mention how the games have been evenly spread throughout the year, remember we have had the cube over half a year and America have had it a year and the only reason it took so long is because Nintendo wanted to cash in on all the publicity of early summer and get the launch right.
Compare all this to the N64 and this is one hell of a lot better.
> Dringo wrote:
>
> Nintendo needs to learn Europe matters
>
> Huh? Where have you been Europe has been vital to Nintendo latley.
>
> Really? So how comes it's taken them the best part of 8 months to
> bring Eternal Darkness out over here.
So it can coincide with the Halloween.
Why is Metroid Fusion due for a
> UK release in the next week or so, but Metroid Prime isn't?
Because they haven't been able to change it to PAL yet and when they do and get enough copies we will have it.
Why didn't
> they release the Spice GameCube in the PAL territory? Why has it taken
> them so long to bring the Wavebird over here too?
1: Spice Gamecube didn't sell very well. 2: Wavebird hasn't taken Nintendo long.
> To be fair. It hasn't taken Nintendo long to bring Starfox Adventures
> over. But that still doesn't explain why it's taken them so long to
> translate other titles for Europe and Starfox contains a fair amount
> of text.
Starfox is made by Rare a British team. You forget to mention how the games have been evenly spread throughout the year, remember we have had the cube over half a year and America have had it a year and the only reason it took so long is because Nintendo wanted to cash in on all the publicity of early summer and get the launch right.
Compare all this to the N64 and this is one hell of a lot better.
But nearly all games with in-game speach only have English voices, with other European languages catered for via subtitles. So WS, your reason for PAL releases being delayed is only partly right.
*falls over*
Your missing my point.
The gibberish they speak isn't Japanese either, it is not a real language. Every version has the subtitles in the appropriate language.
And Shigsy said it, so it's true.
Your missing my point.
The gibberish they speak isn't Japanese either, it is not a real language. Every version has the subtitles in the appropriate language.
And Shigsy said it, so it's true.
Whitestripes wrote:
> No, the people you talk to in the levels and the hub, not in the
> cutscenes.
>
> They just mutter some funny sounding gibberish and their speech
> appears in those blue lines.
>
> They would have actually spoken their lines but they wanted to reduce
> the gap between releases.
Just out of curiosity; Where did you hear/see this?
Reason I ask is because I really don't remember the local Delfino dialect being any different in the Japanese or English versions. It all sounded the same to me.
Could be me though I guess :)
> No, the people you talk to in the levels and the hub, not in the
> cutscenes.
>
> They just mutter some funny sounding gibberish and their speech
> appears in those blue lines.
>
> They would have actually spoken their lines but they wanted to reduce
> the gap between releases.
Just out of curiosity; Where did you hear/see this?
Reason I ask is because I really don't remember the local Delfino dialect being any different in the Japanese or English versions. It all sounded the same to me.
Could be me though I guess :)
No, the people you talk to in the levels and the hub, not in the cutscenes.
They just mutter some funny sounding gibberish and their speech appears in those blue lines.
They would have actually spoken their lines but they wanted to reduce the gap between releases.
They just mutter some funny sounding gibberish and their speech appears in those blue lines.
They would have actually spoken their lines but they wanted to reduce the gap between releases.
Whitestripes wrote:
> Because Nintendo translate it for the whole of Europe, so it can be
> released across it at the same time.
>
> Now imagine, thats not only a conversion to PAL, but also in to
> French, German, Spainish, Italien etc.
>
> And it doesn't stop there, what about the speech?
>
> Lets say there are 20 voice actors for Eternal Darkness, you need 20
> to do the French voices, 20 for the German etc
>
> And of course it takes time to get the perfect recordings.
>
>
> The reason Mario Sunshine did not have full speech (having text boxes
> instead) was to cut down the time it would take to release it in
> Europe.
As far as I can remember; my old Japanese version of Sunshine had English speech for the best part and plenty of Japanese subtitles. When I picked up the US release, it was still much the same except for the subtitles being in English.
> Because Nintendo translate it for the whole of Europe, so it can be
> released across it at the same time.
>
> Now imagine, thats not only a conversion to PAL, but also in to
> French, German, Spainish, Italien etc.
>
> And it doesn't stop there, what about the speech?
>
> Lets say there are 20 voice actors for Eternal Darkness, you need 20
> to do the French voices, 20 for the German etc
>
> And of course it takes time to get the perfect recordings.
>
>
> The reason Mario Sunshine did not have full speech (having text boxes
> instead) was to cut down the time it would take to release it in
> Europe.
As far as I can remember; my old Japanese version of Sunshine had English speech for the best part and plenty of Japanese subtitles. When I picked up the US release, it was still much the same except for the subtitles being in English.
For most European releases, the voices are in English, with multi-lingual subtitles. It is very rare for a game to have voice acting in more than one European language.
Because Nintendo translate it for the whole of Europe, so it can be released across it at the same time.
Now imagine, thats not only a conversion to PAL, but also in to French, German, Spainish, Italien etc.
And it doesn't stop there, what about the speech?
Lets say there are 20 voice actors for Eternal Darkness, you need 20 to do the French voices, 20 for the German etc
And of course it takes time to get the perfect recordings.
The reason Mario Sunshine did not have full speech (having text boxes instead) was to cut down the time it would take to release it in Europe.
Now imagine, thats not only a conversion to PAL, but also in to French, German, Spainish, Italien etc.
And it doesn't stop there, what about the speech?
Lets say there are 20 voice actors for Eternal Darkness, you need 20 to do the French voices, 20 for the German etc
And of course it takes time to get the perfect recordings.
The reason Mario Sunshine did not have full speech (having text boxes instead) was to cut down the time it would take to release it in Europe.
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