Todd Vote has joined the game.
Sean Garmer has joined the game.
Rod Oracheski has joined the game.
Player Four has been reported Killed In Action.
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Question One: Microsoft's latest wave of bans on modded consoles has some 'gamers' up in arms - going so far as to call the director of policy and enforcement for Xbox Live at home and threaten his family. Obviously the ban process is hitting home with pirates, but do you think it will help stop piracy? If not, what could they do that would be more of a deterrent?
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 | | Todd Vote |
I've never gotten the point of modding a console. Can anyone tell me the benefit, minus the obvious cheating? If it is that important to mod something? Why not just buy a PC and go to town. I really don't know how better to deter this behavior other than what they are currently doing.
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 | | Sean Garmer |
First of all, anyone that calls someone and threatens their family over something as stupid as a "modded" 360 needs to get a life. You are doing something illegal and the main reason you do is to not have to buy any of those games. Those games you are enjoying took a lot of time to develop and bring to the public. Why should you not have to pay for them. I don't care what you do it for actually? Even if its to do some PC stuff with it. Yeah maybe Sony may not care about having modded crap, but its not like you haven't been warned. People go through the same risk when they torrent files and get banned from their ISP, or get sued for downloading too much music illegally.
To be honest, if I wasn't a game reviewer I may not have about 1/3 of the games I have, but I'm not going to pirate stuff in the industry I love to get them either. If you really call yourself gamers, why not help the industry by buying things.
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 | | Rod Oracheski |
Obviously someone that would track down a person and threaten them has some real issues they need to work out, right? That's got nothing to do with the piracy, that's just someone who can't deal with people and needs to give their head a shake.
As for the bans, I'm not sure it's really done much to curtail piracy at all. Seems like they just buy a new 360 and dump the old one on some sucker. If Microsoft wants to crack down, they'd have to start banning Gamertags - something I think they've done recently. A 360 is something easily replaced, but having their Gamertag taken away would seem much harder on them. Look at the guys who got nailed for cheating on Achievements and had their Gamertag branded as a cheater. I haven't seen a single one that hasn't been abandoned. |
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Question Two: Nintendo has begun to worry about the slumping sales of the Wii, recently citing poor software support as a key factor. What does Nintendo need to do in order to turn things around?
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| | Todd Vote |
Start working on games that will keep gamers interested. All Wii games lately seem to be interchangeable. You have party games, some more party games, then if you look really close, they have some party games to offer you. The games that will get people talking have been way to few, and way to long between each one.
Nintendo needs to remember what it was that has made them the enduring game company, fun exciting games that people want to play.
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| | Sean Garmer |
Vary the focus of your games and the people you appeal to. Do not just make party games and games aimed to kids. Also give developers the freedom to use the Wii-Remote and Wii in any form they want to. It almost seems like the developers get a kit and the first thing it says is "You have to use the Wii-Remote to wiggle or do something with, other than pressing buttons." Let people have freedom with the Wii and you will see a lot more different stuff made that will appeal to a variety of people.
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| | Rod Oracheski |
Less minigame collections and more actual games. There. Done.
Where are the big Nintendo games? Don't tell me their main teams were seriously tied up for more than a few days with stuff like WiiFit or WiiSports. Nintendo's faithful have always bought the system to play Nintendo's games, but this time around they've gotten a smattering of games for them and a flood of games for their little sister or their mother.
Games have to turn the tide for Nintendo, as I don't see price doing it. Their price drop didn't garner much retail enthusiasm at all. The $250 price tag doesn't appear to have been a deterrent for those who wanted a Wii, so it's possible they won't gain much by further price drops. |
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Question Three: A rumoured Wal-Mart deal will have the Xbox 360 Arcade selling for $199 with a $100 gift card. Do you think a surge of sales would cause Microsoft to consider a wholesale price drop for the Arcade, and - if so - how important is it for Microsoft to hit the sub-$100 price tag?
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| | Todd Vote |
$100 for an arcade unit? Sold. I don't think Microsoft will be paying as close attention to this as the question seems to indicate. I'd be willing to bet that the people who buy the 360 for the $100 gift card are doing so for that reason only. A $100 Wal-Mart gift card. Sure they will give away the Xbox, but I don't think this is the proper platform to decide if another price cut is a must. I don't think it is important for MS to hit the $100 mark at all.
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| | Sean Garmer |
That is a great idea for Wal-Mart. The main thing that separates the Arcade from the 360 Elite, is that the Arcade doesn't have an HDD, which is really a must in this day and age. You can basically get a 60GB for free, and get a 20GB one and save some money to buy you a game. Or you can even buy two games to have for your new 360. If it sells, why not make the Arcade 100 bucks? This serves two purposes. It will sell alot because it will be the cheapest system on the market, and also for all those people that get the RROD, they can easily replace their system and just put their old HDD on it.
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| | Rod Oracheski |
I think Microsoft would be stupid not to consider dropping the price if these Arcade units fly off the shelves. Price differentiation helped give them a huge lead over the PS3, a differentiator that's not entirely gone but has been reduced by Sony's price cuts. A $99 360 Arcade would really go a long way towards positive retail momentum.
I don't think it's as crucial to hit $99 as it was for the PS2, as spending patterns have changed. I think that 'break' pricepoint for gamers on the fence is probably closer to $150 now, so we'll see a flood of sales once a console hits that point. Microsoft is the closest, but do they want to be the first there? |
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Question Four: Halo Waypoint debuted on the dashboard of Xbox users recently. Thoughts?
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| | Todd Vote |
I actually just downloaded this last night. The first thing I noticed is that Waypoint actually uses Avatar Awards. You know, the things that were included with the last update that everyone seemed to have forgetten. There is apparently a new Halo animated series that will debut on Waypoint, so it could be good. I'll have to fiddle with it some more to be sure. Ultimately, my first impression is that Waypoint is like the PS3's Home. A neat try, but not enough substance to make an impact.
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| | Sean Garmer |
Looks like a pretty cool thing for HALO fans. I'm excited about the animated deal that may show up pretty soon on it, more than that though.
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| | Rod Oracheski |
Todd must not have played Splosion Man, which has Avatar Awards available for a while now. Good game, Todd - check it out.
As for Waypoint, I wasn't blown away when I first fired it up. It was nice to earn some free Avatar stuff from my accumulated Achievements, but I didn't find a whole lot of content. Since then they've added to it dramatically and now it's a pretty decent source of info about all things Halo. I think all the promotional trailers can be found there now, and Saturday there was a full video from the upcoming Halo anime projects. The content keeps changing, which is attractive to fans. I'd love to see this kind of thing for some other long-running series. Call of Duty would seem a natural, but there's also sports franchises like Madden or NHL. Great idea that needs more people jumping on the bandwagon. |
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Question Five: PC gamers who managed to land an early copy of Borderlands found they couldn't play it. Should publishers find a solution that will allow legitimate buyers to enjoy their purchase, or does the current system work well enough to leave as it is?
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| | Todd Vote |
Well it would really depend on how they came about said early copy. When it is a goof on the store, no devs shouldn't feel obligated to open things up early. The release dates are set for a reason. Why should the developers rush things because a store doesn't care to honor street dates?
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| | Sean Garmer |
It does really depend on how they got the game, but honestly even a legitimate early copy they can just wait until when everybody gets the game to play it. Most of the time they get something early is because either a place like Amazon sent it early, or a mom and pop shop sold it early. Both ways, that don't warrant a game company giving out the ability to play it before everyone else. So no, I don't think they need to change their policies, there is a reason release dates exist and these places need to just pay more attention to when they sell things.
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| | Rod Oracheski |
If I buy it, it should work. Period. I don't really care if it's a day or two early and the only reason I could buy it is that the store screwed up, I still bought it. Restrict people to playing offline? Fine. But for the game to be completely non-functional is ridiculous. |
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Bonus Question: It's Modern Warfare 2 day! How excited are you?
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| | Todd Vote |
Excited enough that I will not be on the computer or at work all day tomorrow. Yeah, I have PTO time left to use up so I am take Modern Warfare 2 day off of work.
I hope to make it through the first prestige level today, wish me luck.
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| | Sean Garmer |
I don't have MW2 yet, if I even get it, it will be later when the price goes down. I don't have much cash to go spend on anything, let alone games. If Harmonix can ever find a week where I don't like one of the songs that come out as DLC. I can maybe save me 8-20 bucks lol. I know a lot of people that are excited about this and I'm glad there is another game out there that will sell bucket loads and help the industry.
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| | Rod Oracheski |
I finished it just before sending out the questions today, and I'm blown away. They topped Modern Warfare's ending, which I didn't think they could do. The multiplayer is admittedly still a little confusing, but the perks (and ability to level them into perk pro mode) and killstreaks/deathstreaks - once learned - will give this a ton of life.
And the multiplayer maps? Amazing. Confusing as hell, but amazing. |
That's it for this week, one-man short due to scheduling issues. If you have some questions you want answered, drop it in the comments. |
