E3 2013

[Malenko]

What no love for the Sega Saturn? I really loved that console, except for the price (€500 back in 1995), and the fact almost no shops sold games for it.

I logged more hours on my Sega Saturn than my PS3, though I'm "The Last of Us" so I expect the numbers to change.

I find it ironic my first system was a nintendo system (NES) and odds are, my last system will have been a nintendo system (3DS)

[Howard_Casto]

I think there has been a misunderstanding here based upon some of the replies.  Winning the war has nothing to do with making the best console, it's an industry thing... it's whoever made the most money.  Seeing as how Nintendo made a modest profit on each wii console sold, even on launch day, they sold 22 million more consoles and all of their top selling games were first party games, which make them a lot more money than a simple license fee from a third party, it's clear that they won in terms of dollars... it isn't even up for debate.  I mean you can look at COD sales and say how much more they sold, but Microsoft barely sees any of that money.. Activision and the various developers do.   

Now was it the better console, you can certainly debate that (although please don't that wasn't the purpose of this thread) but it won. 

That's what I was getting at with my reply to SNAAAKE... the psx won it's generation there's no debating it (although I'm sure I tried to in my youth), even though the n64 was the better console. 

I took the time to take a look at the Nintendo stuff a little closer as well as the other two companies.  Mario Kart 8 looks frikkin amazing graphically... runs at 1080p, 60fps apparently.  Also they've added up-side down roads and new boost ramps/pads that makes it look more like a hybrid of F-zero and Mario Kart, which is awesome imho.  A lot of those games that people kept ragging weren't going to be released on the Wii U actually are, apparently.  Not the EA stuff, but I don't care about their games myself.

I think the PS4 looks the most impressive in terms of feature set and price but with both it and the XB1  the games don't look terribly "next gen."  They look like high-end ps3 games to be honest. 

I think they are starting to hit that mythical wall I sometimes talk about.  You can stuff the rigs full of processing power and ram and add more storage to the media all you want, but the developers have to actually make the games.  It takes a butt-load of cash and a huge staff to make the games we are getting currently so aside from better draw distances and rendering techniques, I'm wondering how much added detail we are actually going to get in real games.  Yeah the old man head was cool, but that was just a tech demo... you can spend a lot of time on those and use all of the consoles resources to render it.   Hopefully I'm wrong on that and they just look bad because they are launch titles. 

There isn't a lot to be excited about this E3, but there are certainly hidden gems.... like the pacman announcement.  So keep those coming as you find them, that's what I was hoping we could post here.

[hypernova]

I've never heard anyone dispute the Wii winning the last generation...weird.

I think the PS4 looks the most impressive in terms of feature set and price but with both it and the XB1  the games don't look terribly "next gen."  They look like high-end ps3 games to be honest.

Graphically, we're getting close to that wall.  We've already got FMVs that basically look like a reasonably budgeted movie.  The only thing they can really improve upon is the ability to handle better graphics through the rest of the game, and even that's already really good looking in some instances, though it can be subjective.

[SithMaster]

I just found out microsoft points are being converted into local currency and then expire after a year and that's bad.   And I guess N64 wins the console wars because it doesn't have points that expire.  Congrats microsoft you figured out a way to annoy people without them having to buy a Xboxone.

Ouya's stunt at one of the surrounding parking lots was pretty funny.

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah I'm actually starting to feel sorry for those guys at this point.  That console just doesn't have a chance now that I can get a quad core android on a stick with air mouse for 60-80 dollars.  They are going to have to really make up with it via interface if they want to be successful.  Their booth looked like a lemonade stand. 

That sucks about the points... I've got some, but not enough to buy anything, so somehow M$ is screwing me out of about $3.25  How about a refund there guys?

[Rigby]

Yeah I'm actually starting to feel sorry for those guys at this point.  That console just doesn't have a chance now that I can get a quad core android on a stick with air mouse for 60-80 dollars.  They are going to have to really make up with it via interface if they want to be successful.  Their booth looked like a lemonade stand. 

Ouya is an entirely different market; I'm not sure they're trying to compete with any other console, really. 

That sucks about the points... I've got some, but not enough to buy anything, so somehow M$ is screwing me out of about $3.25  How about a refund there guys?

Hah, you know the answer to that.  How many millions of people are going to leave behind unspendable amounts of money to expire?  Enough to impact their budget numbers, I'm sure, and I'm sure that's no accident.

[Howard_Casto]

Well people wonder why I get so grouchy in regards to the Ouya and that's the main reason why.  Everybody and their brother knows it's just one of those cute little throw-away devices (a slightly over-priced one, imho, but I won't start up again) but the Ouya makers they seem to think they are going to be the next Wii or something. 

Don't get me wrong, they could end up selling a ton of units, but it isn't really a console, it's a android on a stick, which at this point are as generic as a usb thumb drive. 

As much as I love their products, sometimes I forget how massive of a dick Microsoft can be.  They screwed me out of a $350 student refund for Visual Studio 6 when I was in college.  I would complain, but seeing as how I'm still writing software for the community with it, I'd say I got my money's worth. 

[Malenko]

driving on walls and ceilings is neat, are they going to continue to punish the player for being in first place?

[Howard_Casto]

I've never heard anyone dispute the Wii winning the last generation...weird.

I think the PS4 looks the most impressive in terms of feature set and price but with both it and the XB1  the games don't look terribly "next gen."  They look like high-end ps3 games to be honest.

Graphically, we're getting close to that wall.  We've already got FMVs that basically look like a reasonably budgeted movie.  The only thing they can really improve upon is the ability to handle better graphics through the rest of the game, and even that's already really good looking in some instances, though it can be subjective.

Well this is BYOAC. 

Yeah I guess what I was getting at was, just for example, the inevitable Assassin's Creed Sequel or something like that.  The current engine has some crappy shadow rendering, but other than that, how much better could they possibly make it look in terms of the actual game?  I mean the streets are crowded, the levels are detailed ect...  Sometimes non-player models are a little blocky.. I guess they could smooth them out?  But I doubt that the levels are going to get any bigger or the AI is going to improve or anything like that because they would have to pay extra guys to code all of that, and game companies don't like to spend money if they can help it. 

Malenko:  I dunno, but the damn blue shell came up too much in the Wii Mario Kart so I hope not.  The n64 version had the perfect balance.... I wonder why they keep changing it.

[Rigby]

driving on walls and ceilings is neat, are they going to continue to punish the player for being in first place?

Of course they are, that's the whole Mario Kart mechanic summed up.  No matter how good or bad you're doing, you're given ample opportunity to join the middle of the herd.  It's like video game welfare.

[Malenko]

Malenko:  I dunno, but the damn blue shell came up too much in the Wii Mario Kart so I hope not.  The n64 version had the perfect balance.... I wonder why they keep changing it.

Its really killing the fun of 7 on the 3DS. you can hold and earn up to 10 coins per race, collecting coins unlocks cart customization. So Im zippin along in first place with 10 coins, then right before the finish I get lighting zapped then blue shelled twice. The result? first place and 1 coin. The only thing more frustrating is the AI in Mini Motor Racing EVO, when lapped traffic will nitro boost into your ass end in a hairpin turn for no reason.

[ark_ader]

Yes my definition of who won the war is different from yours, it's who actually won via a quantifiable measurment as opposed to which console I preferred, which is just an opinion. 

No all you are doing is taking one, somewhat arbitrary, statistic and slapping everybody else in the face with it.

Gee and I thought I was the only one thinking that.    It's a Howard thread so obviously Howard will get the last word.  Wii was good at it's time in the console arena, but it has waned, and poor Nintendoh hasn't come out with anything better, which smells of what Sega decided to do and go back to making software instead of consoles.  Again I do not count the handheld market ( I am sure it is keeping Nintendoh afloat) as the PS Vita has such a dire offering and well.. Zune...

[Howard_Casto]

Ark what you aren't getting and I'm trying to be nice here is this is NOT one of those "which one is better" threads.  It's a "what is going to happen to the industry and what kind of cool things were announced at E3" thread.

I mean this in the nicest possible way, but your responses are peppered with hatred and the fact that you type little sound effects and stuff like "Nintendoh" makes you come off as a 8 year old fanboy having a temper tantrum.  You might have something to add to the conversation but until you learn to respond like an adult I'm just going to ignore anything you say. 

You might take a lesson from me actually.  (I know, weird right?)  Have I been critical of, let's say... Sony in the past?  Your damn right I have been. Do I resort to such child-like antics as calling the company "Phony" or Hi-jacking a thread about Sony stuff just to annoy people.  No, I do not.  If it's something I adamantly disagree with I'll make a comment, sometimes two, maybe three and then I move on.  To be fair you've only responded three times, but it's annoying rants directed towards me personally, not towards the question at hand.  Also I keep an open mind in regards to the industry.  I'm sure you are just filled with rage and have ignored the entire thread by now, but if you'll go back and read it you'll notice that when I started it only Microsoft had done their conference.  Since then Sony did their part and I've admitted and embraced the fact that a company I don't care for at all has a really good shot of winning this thing.  Your utter hate for Nintendo, literally the most un-offensive company ever, is just unhealthy.   

Calm down and take a breath, nobody is your enemy here but you are typing like you want to fight. 

I honestly don't understand how some of you guys can be utterly devoid of logic.  I said this was in terms of dollars.  Do you honestly think that Microsoft or Sony made a larger profit on consoles/games last gen when all is said and done?  Like I said, it's not really up for debate the sales figures don't lie. (Yes, I only mentioned one nit-pick army, but that's merely because it was the most important one.... the others such as first-party game sales also support this.)   

I know for whatever inexplicable reason you guys don't believe me, but check these out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Wii_video_games
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Xbox_360_video_games
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games#PlayStation_3

Even ignoring the Wii Sports figures (which I actually do myself... some sites include the bundled version which is a bit sketchy... I think the real number is around 15-25 million) it's astounding how many copies of some of the titles the Wii sold with a lot of them non-casual games and the bulk of them first party games. 

They sold more games, they sold more first party games, they sold more consoles and the first party games that they sold typically got better reivews.  I'm not sure what you guys want... blood?

Get it now?


Anyway, I wasn't trying to start a fight I just wanted to explain why I treated your responses the way I did.  If I offended you I'm sorry.   And I'm sincere about this, I just wanted to start a fun little thread.


Since you are trying to behave this time I'll respond. 

It's not exactly the same as when Sega went software only... at the time Sega was bleeding money.  Nintendo is still ok financially and the games they announced, while decidedly safe, will undoubtedly sell and make a huge profit.  Mario Kart always sells, Zelda always sells, Mario really sells and Smash Bros. for whatever inexplicable reason, is always a smash (pun intended) hit.  Don't believe me?  Again, go back and look at those figures I posted.... you can check back as far as the n64 and beyond and it holds true.  I mean even Mario Sunshine, which was kind of a turd, sold around 5 million.  If you go back and look at Sega's sales, in their entire hardware history the only games they ever had that were mega hits were the genesis Sonic games and in the Saturn era, even those didn't sell like they should have and it hurt them bad.   By the time the DC came out, they just didn't have any money left to bother.

Now are the new Wii U titles enough?  It's certainly enough to keep the console afloat, the gamecube had maybe 5 or 6 "killer" first party titles and those pretty much single-handedly kept that console alive.  Will it be enough to place second or first?  Probably too soon to tell.

[Drnick]

I would say Microsoft won,  all those millions of customers paying microsoft for the pleasure of playing games online.  46Million People on live with at least 18Million paying $5 a month or so.

I don't care how many 1st party games Nintendo sold,  and I love my nintendo. But I gotta say that Microsoft won the most in cash stakes.

[Rigby]

I would say Microsoft won,  all those millions of customers paying microsoft for the pleasure of playing games online.  46Million People on live with at least 18Million paying $5 a month or so.

I don't care how many 1st party games Nintendo sold,  and I love my nintendo. But I gotta say that Microsoft won the most in cash stakes.

that's a huge win for them on the money grubber front, surely, but how many consoles have they replaced for free or under warranty?  MS loses money on every console it sells, and it loses BIG on replacements.  income is not as simple as XBL gold sub numbers.

one's opinion on who wins is determined entirely by what they consider an important statistic and the sample size for that statistic.

I would say that the 360 lost hands down because of all the people i know who have them, not one 360 owner i've spoken with bought the console of their own volition, they all bought the 360 because a friend already had a 360 and they wanted to play online with that person.  That may not be true for anyone else on the planet, so my own perspective weighs heavily on who i feel one.

None of us can say with any certainty at all that our own perspective is representative, or that our own valuation of a particular console is even a normal one.

All three of them suck bigtime in their own ways, and all three of them are incredibly awesome in their own ways. 

I'll tell ya who won, the gaming community as a whole won.

[ark_ader]

I would say Microsoft won,  all those millions of customers paying microsoft for the pleasure of playing games online.  46Million People on live with at least 18Million paying $5 a month or so.

I don't care how many 1st party games Nintendo sold,  and I love my nintendo. But I gotta say that Microsoft won the most in cash stakes.

Microsoft can afford to make mistakes, but what it will not do again is keep getting smacked over the head with regards to piracy.  It is a big bugbear since the days of Altair and it runs deep to closed environments like the console.  PCs are a different strategy but can be resembled to a console of sorts.  That is why Microsoft is enforcing all these requirements on the users, and maybe this time it will work until somebody jail breaks it.  PS4 well they still stick on the same strategy as does Nintendoh and concentrate on game revenue, availability, with some hidden agenda thrown in for good measure.

There is too many consoles in operation for any one company to go belly up, especially with the Android competition.  I can only hope that existing consoles (PS3/360/wii) keep in operation for another three more years, and by then Nintendoh will come out with a new game changer.  I agree the win is for the gamer, for now.

I mean this in the nicest possible way, but your responses are peppered with hatred and the fact that you type little sound effects and stuff like "Nintendoh" makes you come off as a 8 year old fanboy having a temper tantrum.  You might have something to add to the conversation but until you learn to respond like an adult I'm just going to ignore anything you say. 

Oh Howard, sometimes you really go too far.   You need to spend some time away from the boards and revise your VP wrapper (its broke) or something else helpful like going outside and becoming part of the human race. 

[Rigby]

Oh Howard, sometimes you really go too far.   You need to spend some time away from the boards and revise your VP wrapper (its broke) or something else helpful like going outside and becoming part of the human race. 

Don't chastise someone for taking the low road in a discussion, then take the low road yourself.

[knave]

I would say Microsoft won,  all those millions of customers paying microsoft for the pleasure of playing games online.  46Million People on live with at least 18Million paying $5 a month or so.

I don't care how many 1st party games Nintendo sold,  and I love my nintendo. But I gotta say that Microsoft won the most in cash stakes.

I agree, even if you account for money MS lost due to warrantee claims...the Live payments make up for that and then some. And it's still going, That is huge.

I'm trying to come to terms with why I like Steam, where I buy a title once and can't share it or resell it yet I really don't like the idea that the XB1 cant either. What's the difference?

Howard - The Ouya is awesome...so there!  (No really I have one in my living room and it is shaping up to be all I wanted it to be and more. And it's not even released yet.)

[Rigby]

I'm trying to come to terms with why I like Steam, where I buy a title once and can't share it or resell it yet I really don't like the idea that the XB1 cant either. What's the difference?

The games are often very cheap on Steam, that's part of it, for me.  Who cares if I can't resell a $9.99 game?

[Vigo]

I'm trying to come to terms with why I like Steam, where I buy a title once and can't share it or resell it yet I really don't like the idea that the XB1 cant either. What's the difference?

I can list a few reasons why they I hate XB1 but like steam.

1) At least with Steam, it is a gaming option. Nothing is preventing you from getting physical disc games for your computer. It sounds like the disc games for the Xbox one act as more of a validation key. It gets tied to your account, all of the data is downloaded to your system anyway, and the disc is worthless in other systems.

2) Steam allows you to use your games on multiple computers. Not at the same time, but at least it doesn't do anything from keeping you from moving your stuff to another machine. It sound like there is going to be some sort of sharing to other systems, but there is gonna be some wacky limitations, you most likely can't just have your games on two systems and use either.

3) Steam is PC games, which means you are 99% likely to only be playing single player or online. If you wanted to meet up with a friend and play a game at his place, it sounds like it will be a PITA. You will most likely need to download the entire game to his system and go through a number of authentications.

4) You wont be able to buy used games for a cheap price. Selling a digital game sounds like a scam. I'm sure it is just there to line Microsoft's pockets with the money that gamestop or whatever was making. In reality, you probably won't be able to make as much money selling the game, and buying the game "used" probably just means you can take $5 off the list price 6 months after the game is released.

5) Microsoft will assume pirate, Steam at least tries to not do so. If you can get the offline mode working in steam, you don't need to log in for a month. the xb1 will require you log in daily or else it will shut down all your games. Yeah, you could argue offline mode blows in steam, but at least they made an attempt.

6) Steam will not "big-brother" you with the forced kinect functions. The notion that Microsoft will detect your age from the kinect2 to see if you are old enough to play a game, or see if there are too many people in the room and charge you more for that movie you rented based on viewers is just unnerving to me. No thanks to my console recording my biometrics at all times. Who knows what will be sent to MS. They will probably have every users age, race, family structure, estimate of income based on room size, etc. No thanks.

[Howard_Casto]

Exactly... while I'm not fond of steam myself, at least it's restrictions are reasonable. 

I was rooting for Microsoft.... It would have been nice to have an American company again to tailor to uniquely American tastes.  It's why when the first xbox came out I bought it instead of a gamecube (at least at first). I wanted them to do well and for a time I thought they were on the right track as the 360 is an excellent system, hardware problems not withstanding.  I've gotta be honest though, their last few E3's seemed to be more about television and sports than games and gaming.  We should have seen the writing on the wall I suppose.  They want to somehow trick you into paying a monthly fee for a cable box on top of the fee you already pay on your real cable/sat box.   

It's why I didn't mention them in the Wii comparison btw, or any online sales.  Do you really want to include people watching Netflix or Hulu into the equations?  Don't get me wrong Netflix is great, but it's free on the PS3 and Wii... you have to use a gold subscription to play it on the 360, or do anything useful online so you've got to wonder how much of that xbl money goes to actual gaming. 

But hey I'll do the math we can at least try to estimate. 

http://www.statisticbrain.com/xbox-statistics/

This is the most current data I could find in regards to online stuff.  They say there are roughly 30 million xbl accounts.   A 12 month subscription is 60 dollars aka one game.  30x7 years (from what I've read before the 360 stays at around 30 million, some people leave, some people join ect) = 210 million.  So we'll add that to their games total.  353.8+210 = 563.8
The Wii still sold 869.6 million games and 22 million more consoles.  I mean we could add another 100 million to assume that some people bought the 1 month cards and paid more ect... the Wii sales would still be higher.  I can only go by the data we have and even taking into account micro-transactions and dlc and what-not the best the other two could hope to do is tie the Wii.  Even then, we'd have to add in the Wii's online sales which are over 10 million, just for vc. And the problem with that is digital stuff has different pricing models... physical games we can compare, they cost roughly the same, but online content varies.   

That's why I kept the online stuff out of the equation... it gets a little murky. 

(sorry about the edits... auto-correct is wearing me out today)

[SithMaster]

I feel like the 360 started out strong then it hits you with the hardware issues and a dashboard update that forces ads on you.  I'm paying for live and now to have ads on a gaming console.  Sure there are ways to block them but I'm not going to leave my pc on just to do that.  I'll be waiting for microsoft to triple dip (charge for live, collect ads revenue, charge people to block ads) since they seem intent on dicking people over.

I'd forgive all steam restrictions if they didn't have the ability to lock people out of their own game library.

[Howard_Casto]

I wasn't aware that steam could do that.  Then again I don't really buy that many pc games and when I do, I try to find a physical copy.  I like being able to revisit stuff which is why I am leery of the XB1.

You would think that would be the sentiment of nearly everyone around here for that reason alone.  Imagine if there was a chip in all your snes/genesis carts that made them unplayable after the companies stopped selling the consoles.  Afaict that's essentially what's going to happen after the XB1 goes out of production. 

 I was re-organizing my game collection yesterday and found a trunk full of win 3.1 to win 98 era pc games.  I might have to pull out the Star Trek Episode guide just for kicks considering it is so old that TNG wasn't off the air yet.  I couldn't do that with steam... or at least I doubt all games will be supported 10+ years from now. 

At least we've got one big developer on our side:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-06-13-miyamoto-nintendos-game-ownership-policy-should-operate-like-a-toy-company

[ark_ader]

I have been locked out of my game library on steam many times when the internet has been flakey. I would hate to think that the xbox one is capable of doing something like that.  Besides I decided yesterday that the ps4 will grace the living room.

I wonder how many gamers microsoft have alienated this week.  It doesn't take much in this economy.

[Rigby]

I have been locked out of my game library on steam many times when the internet has been flakey. I would hate to think that the xbox one is capable of doing something like that.  Besides I decided yesterday that the ps4 will grace the living room.

I wonder how many gamers microsoft have alienated this week.  It doesn't take much in this economy.

Reddit's words are very much against the XB1.  We'll see what their actions are later this year.

[wp34]

My Xbox-loving son decided this week to switch to PS4 next round.  He buys almost all his games used.  He also mentioned being tired of paying for Xbox Live. 

I have been locked out of my game library on steam many times when the internet has been flakey. I would hate to think that the xbox one is capable of doing something like that.  Besides I decided yesterday that the ps4 will grace the living room.

I wonder how many gamers microsoft have alienated this week.  It doesn't take much in this economy.

[Howard_Casto]

I stopped XBL on the original xbox.  It's 60 bucks a month... not a lot BUT that's one extra game a year and I started thinking back and I hardly used the thing.  I'm not one of these Halo/COD guys so I hardly ever played multiplayer with those sorts of games.  Fast forward to the 360 and I never really signed up.  I figured that I would just sign up if I ever bought a game that had good multiplayer and that time never came around.  The whole thing about having to pay for stuff I already pay for (hbogo, Netflix,ect) kind of turned me sour to the whole thing. 

Like I said assuming some third party games come out that I want bad enough, I'll be buying a ps4 and somewhere in hell a snowstorm is brewing. 

[Rigby]

My Xbox-loving son decided this week to switch to PS4 next round.  He buys almost all his games used.  He also mentioned being tired of paying for Xbox Live. 

Well, the same pay-to-online-multiplay system will exist for the PS4, since clearly so many are willing to pay for it, but PlayStation Plus gives you a heck of a lot more than just the ability to play multiplayer games online.  Subscription gives you lots of free games and lots more discounted games:

This is a value-add service, not just a reaming, as it is on the 360.

http://us.playstation.com/psn/playstation-plus/

[shmokes]

Winning the war has nothing to do with making the best console, it's an industry thing... it's whoever made the most money.  Seeing as how Nintendo made a modest profit on each wii console sold, even on launch day, they sold 22 million more consoles and all of their top selling games were first party games, which make them a lot more money than a simple license fee from a third party, it's clear that they won in terms of dollars... it isn't even up for debate.  I mean you can look at COD sales and say how much more they sold, but Microsoft barely sees any of that money.. Activision and the various developers do.   

I think you're missing some of the picture. Nintendo is a publicly traded company. The Wii made money hand over fist early on. But when hardware and software sales dried up, followed by the disastrous unveiling of the Wii U, and their stock price plummeted, the company lost a great deal of value. At the very least they lost perceived value, but this has real-world impacts, not the least of which making cash more difficult and expensive to borrow. And third party developers have been driven from the platform. I suspect the Wii U will be their least successful console ever (unless you consider the Virtual Boy a console rather than a portable--which is probably a not an entirely unreasonable position). So if you look at the Wii as a company direction, rather than just a product, its success is possibly a bit more questionable.

Also, Activision may take the bulk of every COD unit sold, but those royalties aren't peanuts. The royalties paid are between $3-$10 per unit. That's huge. HUGE. Microsoft had $0 in development costs for that title. In most cases it had $0 in marketing costs. And while Activision gets the bulk of COD games, they get nothing for Assassin's Creed or Madden or GTA or Uncharted or Metal Gear or Final Fantasy. Microsoft, on the other hand, gets its royalty for every single unit sold by every single publisher. That adds up to an enormous pile of money.

[Howard_Casto]

All valid points, but again, I just made an innocent and irrefutable comment about the Wii winning last generation, which it did.  The Wii U is this generation so that's a different discussion. 

They've already sold more than the gamecube afaik which was their least successful console by a huge margin even though for some reason everybody thinks it did well.  You are right about the stock value hurting the worth of the company, but the Wii U sales aren't nearly as bad as it looks... they just sold them all at once, during the launch, and no games have come out since so there haven't been many new sales.   Things seem to be turning around.  Microsoft's screw up certainly hasn't hurt them.. their sales went up a rumored 800% after the M$ press conference.   And for whatever reason people seem super excited about Mario Kart 8.  Granted it looks amazing, but I would have thought people would have been more interested in the first multiplayer 3d Mario. 

[Vigo]

And for whatever reason people seem super excited about Mario Kart 8.  Granted it looks amazing, but I would have thought people would have been more interested in the first multiplayer 3d Mario.

My guess would be simply because there has been a steady stream of awesome Mario games with only a few weak links. Most of us have been waiting for a Mario Kart to top the level that the N64 one achieved. Mario Kart Wii came pretty close....

[SNAAKE]

It's 60 bucks a month...

whatever you are smoking I want some

you can get 12 month xbox live subscription codes/card from ebay for like  $37. it was never 60/month. pretty sure it was like $50/year.

[Rigby]

It's 60 bucks a month...

whatever you are smoking I want some

you can get 12 month xbox live subscription codes/card from ebay for like  $37. it was never 60/month. pretty sure it was like $50/year.

I think it was a typo and I think he was talking retail pricing.  If you're thinking a sentence ahead it is easy to put a word from that sentence into the one you're typing now.

[Howard_Casto]

It was indeed a typo.  I think some people around here need to switch to decaf. 

You know something that I didn't pay much attention to during the press conferences was the release dates.  To anyone worried about Nintendo they have a major first party release every month until Christmas, with some major third party stuff as well mixed in like Splinter cell, Batman, Assasin's Creed ect....  I guess for some reason I was thinking most of this stuff doesn't come out until winter but a lot of it is on it's way.  I need to go ahead and pick up RE: Revelations before the flood starts.

On the Microsoft front they appear to be even more confused then before.  They can't even tell reporters if the new console is region free or not.  Of course it won't be, that'd be less money for M$ but the fact that they can't even decide on an answer to give the press is a little disturbing.   

Sony seems to be keeping quiet and that seems to be working for them.  Let poor old Microsoft sell their console for them.   

[ark_ader]

Actually in the UK the cost for Xbox Live in the UK in US dollars is $53.00, and if you are not careful M$ will take it on your card if it is registered without your permission.

I get the annual cards off Amazon for £28, but it was sure a shock to see that Xbox Hack last year take £90 out of my card account for those family packs.  That incident alone will stop my on-line purchases with a credit card, and again lean me over to the PS4.  The thought of an always on Xbox recording my movements freaks me out too much.  I hear you cannot disconnect the Kinect from the unit either.  Hmmm....

[ChadTower]

Guaranteed Kinect will be the very first hack.  The ability to fake the camera.

[SNAAKE]

I will  be offering my services.............

[Bender]

All valid points, but again, I just made an innocent and irrefutable comment about the Wii winning last generation, which it did.  The Wii U is this generation so that's a different discussion. 

Fool me once shame on you. Fool Me twice shame on me.
I don't know of a single person who's wii isn't collecting dust or has any plans to buy a wii U.

They may have one the last generation sales, but man they burnt the bridge the came across for this generation

[Rigby]

I don't know of a single person who's wii isn't collecting dust or has any plans to buy a wii U.

I have a Wii U, and it sees playtime daily, but not from me.  My kids play the ever-lovin' out of that thing, apparently.  I've just been working and not witnessing it.

[wp34]

Our Wii goes through stretches of neglect but is on an uptick currently.  The kids easily have 20 hours of Smash Brothers this past week.   

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