Sold on all but Shadow Planet and Fruit Ninja Kinect.
I don't own a Kinect, but If I like Shadow Planet enough to buy it I'll probably buy Fruit Ninja Kinect, as 'Im already sold on Crimson Alliance, and hey, $5 off.
I heard plans for this some time ago and I could only shake my head. We are on the verge of another tech bubble bursting. This is ridiculous. I'm in finance and this is absolute insanity. Hold onto your money because the number of single-purpose, flavor of the week, flimsy-business-model IPOs have increased dramatically in the last couple of months. Things are going to get rough. If you can afford the assets to short; short.
You know, I'd agree with this if you were talking about Groupon, which, from a functional standpoint, I can't really differentiate from a pyramid scheme. While I laugh at Wall Street's predilection to predict the death of console games at the hands of social gaming, I don't think social gaming is going away. It scratches the same kind of itches for causal gamers that core games do for people like you and I.
Jesus Christ! They might as well have waited until they actually know what the hell it is their making, make it, then announce what they've made. Mark Franklin just comes off looking like a fool... Then again... He might get hired as the White House press secretary...
I've been thinking about this since the show. I guess they put themselves behind the 8 ball, by not having enough software to really sustain the Wii through another year, which forced this announce this year.
What's particularly galling, however, are quotes like this one
what consumers have continued to look at, especially with Nintendo products, is they want to see what the experience is like.
That the questions are being asked is proof that, in fact, consumers DO care about technical specifications. I really wish someone would phrase a question to Reggie that highlights this, because every time they use the "People don't care about technical specs' as a way to dodge a question about technical specs, it's a slap in the face to the very people they claim to be trying to win back.
@Ahmad_Metallic: Dude, it's cool. If I had balls, I'd fondle them nonstop.
You got boobs, Get Fondling
Agreed, and Tits or GTFO.
But frankly, I'm just impressed you kept it on for 20 minutes and were able to compose something intelligible afterwords. I'd be more offended by the stereotyping if I had any sort of expectations that G4 was going to be something more than unadulterated dogshit, but alas...
I like think any person who has actually had contact with a female who actually plays games is going to have a healthy, or at least healthier-than-portrayed-by-G4, view of female gamers, the ones that haven't probably aren't going to have the healthiest outlook towards women to begin with. It sucks that G4 contributes to this, but again, refer to the previous paragraph.
Everyone here, including Brad, is slightly mistaken when it comes to the facts of this case.
While EA Sports lobbied heavily for exclusivity, they did not initiate the talks that eventually lead to that exclusivity. When the final decision came down, it was the NFL who put the license up for bid, and EA was the highest bidder.
As much as I like whipping EA for making a product that I felt was inferior to NFL2k, they're not the ones at fault here. The NFL is doing what the NFL always does, asserting its powers to the fullest to control the marketplace as tighly as it can. That EA won out on the bid was almost certainly fait accompli once the NFL made the decision to hold a bid, but they're not the ones enabling the monopoly, the NFL is.
The NFL likes to control its brand. A lot. The NFL believes it is in their best interest to limit who can display the shield, and where they can display it.
By doing so, not only do they get to charge money for the exclusivity, (Which, for reasons that should be obvious, companies like EA are happy to pay for) they also get to charge whatever they want for the merchandise. There was ONE company that made official NFL apparel : Reebok.
The good news is that the operative word there is was. The NFL was sued by a company known as American Needle, and the US Supreme Court handed the NFL its ass on a platter
The bad news (for us, good news for EA and the NFL) is that the NFL operating as 32 separate entities probably doesn't give much wiggle room when it comes to to video games. The NFL TV deal, while spread across 4 networks (5 if you count NFL network) is still a contract negotiated with all 32 teams as a single entity, and I don't see that changing. Video games would seem to fall under that umbrella. Right now the NFL has so much product that it needs to spread itself out over five separate networks and to maximize its profits. (Don't shit yourself though, if they can prove it viable, in 20 or 30 years every game will be on NFL network and you will pay an exhortation subscription fee to view them)
I realize I've taken a very circuitous route to my point here, so I'll wrap this up: A decision on whether or not the American Needle ruling applies to the Madden franchise is what will ultimately decide whether or not EA loses their exclusivity, not either of these other suits. Furthermore if EA lost exclusivity through means other than a decision relating to the American Needle case, in all likelihood another company would become the exclusive developer of licensed NFL video games, and the Madden franchise would go away.
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