Sorry to necro this but I just saw this TED talk speech after having been introduced to Jane McGonigal through the Colbert Report. I just ordered her book because I am really interested in what she has to say about this subject. I agree with a lot of her talking points but I feel that there will be many people who misconstrue what she says as well - completely miss the message. I am both skeptical and undoubting about her ideas. At the 9 minute mark in her speech she gives some pretty good points that games really do seem to hit on. Really, I just think more people should check this out and see what they think - whether they agree or disagree - because it is just an interesting perspective either way.
This sounds awesome - but so did the psp - the problem is that the 3DS will have a bigger market share. Nintendo has done a great job in ingraining themselves into the market's collective consciousness. When it comes to games, especially handehelds, Nintendo is the go-to name and anyone else who tries to get into the market comes off as "riding the coattails" unfortunately. The PSP has some amazing games on it; nearly every one of the high-tier games from major developers have felt great on that system and offered a lot of "game" as far as handheld games are concerned.
Nintendo seems to be sticking with their approach of moderately upgrading the hardware in their next system whereas Sony is still going balls-to-the-walls style and making what is basically a portable PS3. Nintendo keeps their overhead down AND they already have a name that makes the handheld market salivate at the mere mention of new hardware - meanwhile Sony is still focused on pushing the envelope - but to what end? Sony didn't fare as well this generation as times before. The lead they got during the PS2 era went out the window due to the PS3 releasing at a higher price point and later in the game than the two competing consoles. The point of mentioning all of this is that consumer confidence has trailed off with Sony and they have become stagnant in terms of innovation - Sony just isn't delivering on what people expect.
I am excited to see how things pan out for Sony and I think this handheld will have the potential to be the most amazing portable device released (at that point in time) but all that potential might be for naught if Sony can't establish a realistic reason for consumers to choose their handheld over Nintendo's. With the adjustable, glasses-free 3D gimmick and an impressionable market all working towards Nintendo's gain, Sony is going to be hard-pressed to convince the market to choose them over Nintendo IMO. Sure, they got tons of processing power, but we've all seen how benchmarking plays out - just look how things panned out on PCs. Sometimes tacking on more processors just isn't the answer unfortunately.
Nintendo reels in the player base with gimmicks that have a huge amount of appeal at their onset but whose charm quickly peters off. They get people to adopt their "latest and greatest" and by the time the charm has worn off the adopters have already bought 4-5 games and are well invested in the system. It really seems like Sony is about to repeat history by releasing after Nintendo and with no real "hook" to bring in the players other than more processing power.
Game set in future with warp speed; loads slower than a dead turtle. I like the psuedo-irony of it all.
Also, it is great to see people so willing to compromise their own experiences. "Eh its not that bad..." and my favorite "You get used to it!" in regards to the egregious load times that stand in a class all their own.
Fog doesn't equal luck. You are either using the wrong term or have a fundamental misunderstanding of what luck is and isn't. The fog is a strategic instrument and players know this. They intentionally guard your ability to see through the fog. If you knew what your opponent was doing at any moment of your choosing without any effort then you would always know exactly how to counter your opponent. This does not make it luck - it makes it strategy. Defend your territory as much as possible - deny your opponent access to that valuable information. Construct buildings out of your opponents' view. This doesn't make it luck if an enemy does this to you - it was a calculated move - luck on the other hand is completely random. While to you it might be perceived as "random" they intentionally did the action, i.e. strategically did something, not place it on luck. If anything, War3 was based far more on luck than SC2. SC2 removed heroes and creeps because of the luck factor. The biggest luck factor was item drops off of the creeps.
The two times I can really think of luck rearing its face in a match would be spawning locations on maps with more spawn locations than there are players (like 1v1 on Lost Temple as an example, you will both be placed randomly), and if a player chooses random as their "race." Other than that, everything is in the players' hands at that point.
Games would NOT play out based solely on skill if there was 100% transparency because there would be no hopes of surprise attacks - numerous strategies would be completely undone by such a change and the game itself would largely be boring at best.
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