Vanguard confirmed for Xbox360

[James]

when someone says over half the mario games made are terrible, what is there to argue?

Nothing, because they are. Simplicity, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. Take Dance Dance Revolution, for example. Probably, save Pong, THE most simplistic game ever created...yet legions of people of all shapes and sizes are flocking to their nearest arcade just to get in a few steps.

So what makes a bad game? Any number of things, really. I think a 'bad game' is one that is the same rehashed bullshit that we've seen in other games, except stale and badly implemented. Games that I just CANNOT stand playing long enough to beat are 'bad games.' You can come up with your own definition of a 'bad game', but judging from your thoughts on what a good game is, I could probably wrap up my morning shit and sell it to you if it had a Mario or a Kirby logo on the front of it.

[Bralkan]

Originally posted by Luthair
Why have one market when you can have four.

Again, efficency. ATI, Nvidia, intel, amd, etc will still have avenues to sell their products. Programming a game for a specific hardware architecture is much easier then programming for ungodly numbers of hardware configurations.

But like I said, if there is a profit to be made someone will be there providing something. Thats really what it comes down to.

Also, once again. I'm talking out of my ass while trying to make some semi-intelligent guesses at possiblities.

I do think the game market will be different then it is now. How much that affects hardware - I really don't have the expertise.

[Luthair]

Originally posted by Bralkan
Again, efficency. ATI, Nvidia, intel, amd, etc will still have avenues to sell their products. Programming a game for a specific hardware architecture is much easier then programming for ungodly numbers of hardware configurations.

But like I said, if there is a profit to be made someone will be there providing something. Thats really what it comes down to.

Also, once again. I'm talking out of my ass while trying to make some semi-intelligent guesses at possiblities.

I do think the game market will be different then it is now. How much that affects hardware - I really don't have the expertise.

Most games are already written with cross-platform in mind. Its only going to get easier, XBox's developement platform XNA was designed to support it.

[Dumar]

Originally posted by James
Nothing, because they are. Simplicity, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. Take Dance Dance Revolution, for example. Probably, save Pong, THE most simplistic game ever created...yet legions of people of all shapes and sizes are flocking to their nearest arcade just to get in a few steps.

So what makes a bad game? Any number of things, really. I think a 'bad game' is one that is the same rehashed bullshit that we've seen in other games, except stale and badly implemented. Games that I just CANNOT stand playing long enough to beat are 'bad games.' You can come up with your own definition of a 'bad game', but judging from your thoughts on what a good game is, I could probably wrap up my morning shit and sell it to you if it had a Mario or a Kirby logo on the front of it.

that's a great reason, for sure!

you're using the same argument I've heard approximately 600 billion times before (not lying). so, instead of the teen game journalist's problem of nintendo games being simplistic bullshit, james's issue is the fact that every nintendo game is the same rehashed bullshit!

every mario game should be completely new and fresh, right? every mario game should revolutionize the entire gaming industry (nevermind doing it twice before), right? or, maybe to be new and fresh to James, mario should cross into other genres (which has already happened). or, maybe stay in the same genre, but make the game markedly different than its predecessors (which they did with mario sunshine).

what else did you say in your post? stale and badly implemented? yeah, nintendo is known for their stale gameplay and bad implementations in code.

yes, you are most certainly correct.. i'm tired of the same rehashed bullshit, too. please never post again.

[James]

I'd respond, but I have no idea how much of that you're trying to be sarcastic with.

[The Bog]

I'm the same. It's like he just argued with himself mid-paragraph.

How old are you, Dumar. Out with it. Make with the age. You're ignoring select parts - if not most - of what I said. Oh well.

[Aulirophile]

Originally posted by Bralkan
Console hardware *is* sold at a loss - but it is by the publisher.

Sony makes money on the PS and PS2 hardware, each sale. You can check out their site and download recordings of their annual stock holders meeting where this is gone over in detail. Being a hardware company they had to sink two billion dollars into the chip factories, but they made that up and now it's all gravy. Nintendo, until the Gamecube, sold it's consoles at cost or at a profit. They initially sold the Gamecube at cost but then cut it down and they lose money each sale now.

The first console to be sold at a loss was the Saturn by Sega, and they did so to pricematch the PS which was, as mentioned, being sold at a cheerful profit. That little conflict is what started this whole myth of selling at a loss, as the president of Sega accused Sony of "dumping" by selling their consoles at a loss when the announced the price they would be selling the PS for, $299.00. This wasn't, and never has been, true. Sony has always made money on console sales.

[Algol Devilstar]

Originally posted by Dumar
please never post again.

What? I hope you don't actually expect someone to do what you tell them over the internet.

[Ham n Cheese]

Dumar you are wrong. Plain and simple!

[Smithiy]

We're working on Vanguard for the PC right now.

We don't know if it will be on the next Xbox, but have for quite a while architected things such that if such a decision was made, it wouldn't be too huge of a development process or 'state change' (using XNA and planning ahead in general).

If I knew anything sekret about the next Xbox, I couldn't talk about it and wouldn't. That said, what Microsoft has officially announced as well as speculations/leaks/etc. sound pretty impressive and that their vision for a console is not just for your typical, geared perhaps for those with shorter attention span, games (though I'm sure it will run those great too). From what's been revealed publicly and hinted at (also publicly) it sounds like quite a machine, and also one with an emphasis on online.

It sounds exciting. It certainly needs and deserves MMOGs.

I would personally like to see Vanguard and other potential future Sigil titles on this machine because I beleve there are a lot of potential 'core' MMOG players out there who won't be exposed to the genre until a great game hits a console... To us, as long as game design and quality is never sacrificed, we are pretty platform agnostic -- we'd like to get Vanguard and other potential future games out there to as many people as possible, really. And, since we're partners with MSFT, that certainly influences which future platform would be chosen

But that's honestly where we're at. The next platform is on my radar, but is not nearly as important as getting, say, through E3 with a great showing and then marching onward towards our next big milestone (beta 1). This is our focus now.

I'm also pretty sure that when and if we do make such a decision, if that happens, it will be made public first by a press release and/or something else pretty official.

Lastly, to reiterate, one thing I can be very prescie on: Vanguard is NOT going to be a launch title.

Anyway, I'm excited to see whats up and what's shown at E3 and as I mentioned, very excited by what I've heard publicly announced. The machine doesn't sound very different from what I'd have spec'd out, were that my job. There's a definite vision there, and it appears larger, more thought out, and bigger thinking than what the console world is used to, and that's very cool.

posted by Aradune, please discuss. This thread has gotten enough off track already.