If they're going to try anything, it will be to create the iCasualBox, the set-top box that lets you tweet while you Facebook, and iTunes shop for new background music in Peggle!
Sony and Microsoft aren't going anywhere, they'll both change their gameplans accordingly to adapt to market changes, because that's what they've been known to do in the past.
Nintendo, however, is entirely up in the air. Granted the Wii/DS are smash hits, but as we've seen in the past, business wise, they're a bit of a wild card. Can lightning strike again with the Wii's follow-up, or will it cease to catch on with the casual crowd they are so heavily relying on? They haven't exactly shown themselves to be a company that listens to consumer and market trends and makes design changes accordingly, so it's really hard to tell if there is really any method to their madness. It seems like they have a "dude trust us, it'll be awesome" mentality, which results in hit-or-miss products. Right now, the hits outweigh the misses financially, but that can't stay true forever.
Only time will tell, but it would take more than one flop console for them to quit the hardware business, especially since handhelds seem to be their bread and butter.
Finished Shadow Complex, best game with a shitty storyline I've played in a long time. The ending is blatant "hurfdurf to be continued". A total blast to play regardless.
I'm guessing it's to ensure they have new content to release over a long period of time, and development of pspminis isn't going to cut it when they run out of PsClassics.
Still sucks though, I want my entire PSone catalog on my PSP damnit.
FFVIII's storyline is a jumbled mess, and the characters don't really grow beyond their architypes. The plot felt like it was being made up as it went along, and the romantic plot thread was pretty much the only memorable thing about it in the long run. Outside of whether or not you like the junction system (which seems pretty arbitrary if you ask me), there's not a whole lot to make this game stand out, outside of the "hurfdurf time compression" story and the romance novel lovethread.
FFVII, while by todays standards seems far less special, influenced pretty much every jRPG after it. What it does, it does well. It's dated looking, and the combat was pretty simple, but to say that it sucks just because it's old or overrated is pretty innaccurate. You gotta respect it as a piece of history, if nothing else. You don't go back and watch The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and say "ugh this sucks, Tombstone was way better looking".
There are many known factors why games might not be released/re-released in Europe, least of which being ratings/censorship issues. The same cannot be said about North America, which is why this is so bizarre. The only thing I can think of is that they don't think it will sell well and deems it not worth releasing over here (seeing as it performed well in Europe).
I just wish we'd get confirmation either way as to if we're ever going to get it here.
Well, the rights holders to a lot of these games might be tying up their release in certain regions (Universal now owning the Crash and Spyro characters I'm sure makes things a bit complicated, for instance). I'm not sure how much of this kind of thing is legal red tape and how much of it is incompetence. That still doesn't cover VS since Square has the rights to it, and I'm pretty sure didn't let that copyright slide in the states. I could be wrong, however.
Well, the American PSClassics selection has gotten a lot better, but I just don't get why the EU and US stores can't get simultaneous releases. Must be some sorta legal hurdle or something.
Either way, I just hope they eventually release VS, because if it stays a EU exclusive forever I'm going to be extremely upset. It deserves to be available to the many who never played the thing when it came out, and I am dying to have a portable copy of it since I have a lot of down time on campus and at work.
Log in to comment