Nintendo thought they were gonna be the big dogs, but Microsoft showed them what a REAL multibillion dollar corporation can do. 
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/06/02/e3.n … pstoryview
Sony is trying to sell that PSP again… I’m gonna pass on the Go. However God of War 3 is awesome looking.
I wish there was a way we could see Kratos from GoW take on Dante from DMC… truly that would be an epic battle that would destroy the world! :twisted:
I would only buy a Go if you can get import titles off of the domestic download store. That would be something I would find useful. Otherwise, I’m sorry, but electronic-only = no sale. It’s that simple. When the store stops being supported, all the software is gone forever.
Discs aren’t the most sturdy of media anyway, but they’re not guaranteed to be consigned to oblivion the same way this kind of thing is.
Snake got into Brawl because (so I hear) Kojima got down and begged to get him included. I think Brawl has got that sort of sprawling-megamix thing going. It’s not very likely we’ll ever see Kratos join the brawl, but he might.
In other Nintendo news, New Super Mario Bros. Wii! An honest to goodness 2D Mario platforming title, for a home system! I have been seriously nonplussed by the lack of good 2D games on home consoles for awhile now. Just because 3D games are awesome does not mean 2D games in the old style needed to die. They just needed to evolve.
Nothing to say about FFXIV? That was a news I really wasn’t expecting. I guess Square-Enix made a choice, preferring to have this as an exclusive insted of FFXIII. Oh well, time will tell.
Too bad that, at least as far as I know, nothing new was showed about Heavy Rain.
WEll, FF XIV is another online game … so as far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t exist. Which annoys me, because it means I’ll have another long wait.
I’m curious, how well did their first foray in to the MMO market go that they decided it would be a good idea to do it again?
There are still a few hundred thousand subscribers, last I checked. Apparently they thought that was good enough 
It IS good enough. Actually, it’s an excellent goal for a company coming for the first time in the MMO market (well, obviously the name helped a lot, but the game had to be good, too).
World of Warcraft makes millions of subscriptions, but that’s an exception. Most games lives well enough without going over the one hundred thousand mark (just watch EVE Online). So yeah, Final Fantasy XI was definitely a big hit.
Also FFXI was able to create multiple expansions. The fact that 1 expansion sold well enough to sink money in a second is telling.
all trailers for those that don’t have g4 or would like to see them again can be found here
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=G4TV&view=videos
MMO tend to inflate “population” to suit their needs. Just because a game has 1 million “characters” doesn’t mean 1 million people are playing it (or paying). I know WoW has the largest MMO population - no question - but the exact number of people playing a paying account (and not counting a person who owns 3 accounts as 3 different people) is probably less than they reveal.
However throwing that aside… Assuming you have 100K paying customers at $15 a month: that’s 1.8 million dollars a year. Which doesn’t count the price of the game itself, nor expansions, nor optional stuff you can buy in the game. I believe a successful MMO makes about 5 to 10 million dollars in it’s first year (obviously some make many times that), which then plummets to a fraction of that in the years following. However it’s a steady income, unlike your typical console/PC game, that makes 90% of it’s profit in the first two or three months. That’s what makes an MMO so attractive to Square-Enix and the like.
Not all MMO’s will make a company rich… but if they play their cards right, it let’s them stay in business and keep their jobs. 
Eve Online does/did have about 250000 subscribers actually.
But more companies have been moving, to a free play system where you optionally buy-in for special enhancements. While Korea is still the best known for this, a lot more are moving in that direction and it does have one major advantage - its easier to get people to join if they don’t have to pay. Furthermore, as more console games have free online game-playing modes, it makes those you have to pay for less attractive. Very few companies can charge money and get good results - WoW is the exception. More and more its easier to make something free, get a large group to join and make money off of players buying items, especially if those items are limited use/time items as well as going the route of advertising in game.
Well it depends on the model. WoW is the largest MMO, and an exception to many rules, but other successful Pay-to-Play titles abound: City of Heroes, EVE, Lineage, Warhammer Online, etc.
I find the whole notion of “free play MMO” to be an oxymoron, as something has to generate income for it to be a commercial success and self sufficient. While they don’t demand a month to month payment, a steady flow of cash is generated from the sale of in game items. If not: the obvious “Out of Business” occurs. The reason why more Korean MMO are free to play, is because it feeds on social consumerism. Rather than paying a mandatory fee of $15 per month, such people would spend $15 a week… thus $60 a month. That whole “free” thing is really a deception to get you hooked. In America, there’s some growing scrutiny on the whole thing (i.e. digital addiction); especially when a title in question, targets children as the primary consumer. It’s called Virtual Asset Sales. Nexon is one of the biggest profit makers - somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 to 300 million dollars a year.
As more “free” MMO begin to gain larger market shares, it will also get more heat from observers, given how easy human addiction is to manipulate. Not to mention companies like Nexon have a rather skewered ratio of Human Resource personnel (their social behavior experts).
There’s also the whole unanswered legal nightmare if virtual assets should be taxable - which suddenly involves the government if they feel it does. Sounds retarded, but do a Google search. Not a big deal at the moment, but all it takes is one ambitious politician with too much free time. It’s not the ownership of something virtual: but the exchange of cash.
It is the aspect of a growing market share that is important to note here. While it doesn’t take much (relative) investment to create an MMO, to create a pay-for-play MMO to compete with WoW would likely be on the order of magnitude of tens of billions of dollars due to the time and investment made by Blizzard to maintain and grow their audience and adapt to ideas seen elsewhere (remember even as you launch the MMO, you have to continue to invest and innovate in it to update it to keep and attract players).
When someone is paying for a service, they are far more likely to leave or never come than if it is free. Even short periods of time, such as the 10-day trial WoW offers, generally aren’t enough without dedicated social networking. WoW is the exception because it is an exception in its social networking mechanism. It has reached critical mass whereupon you are likely to know at least a few people who play WoW no matter who you are (barring some third-world countries).
At the time of WoWs creation it had to compete and invest against and Everquest 2 which required a substantial initial and ongoing investment to increase content, game stability, balance and innovation to differentiate it from the pack. This includes ways to get people to join and stay (joining for a few days and leaving doesn’t help much). In addition during the early days new additions were not subject to expansion packs - everyone had access to it. This ties into the idea of expansion packs - if someone has to buy an expansion pack to be able to fully experience your content, the number of people willing to do so decreases. This is cumulative for each expansion pack. It was only when they had their “critical mass” that Blizzard began to issue expansion packs. Finally, since the number of players for Everquest was lower, the threshold was lower as well. You didn’t have to convince nearly as many people to shell out money as you do now to become top dog.
This makes “free-to-play” games more viable in the sense they can attract more people to start playing and build up the social network because there is no need to buy a box or pay a subscription. The idea of free is also a powerful weapon as well.
I am surprised no major free-to-play company has sought in-game product placement advertising yet as way to make money.
This is true. I think the big issue comes with redistribution capabilities or direct money-making capabilities. Digital items of value won’t last forever tax-free if politicians see people making money off of sale of uber weapons/accounts.