Xbox One

[Brushfire]

Harmonix announced a new title for the Xbox One.

A shame that it took 10 years for Frequency/Amplitude to get an HD remake.

[Garrett Williamson]

Harmonix announced a new title for the Xbox One.

A shame that it took 10 years for Frequency/Amplitude to get an HD remake.

Someone explain to me how the **** this is Fantasia?

Disney, I swear, you are completely killing yourself. You are slowly deepening the knife into your chest every single year.

[Brushfire]

Someone explain to me how the **** this is Fantasia?

Disney, I swear, you are completely killing yourself. You are slowly deepening the knife into your chest every single year.

It is inspired by Fantasia, in that both the film and this game have color and music?

[Gollgagh]

that's a pretty broad definition there

[Ramaniscence]

It is inspired by Fantasia, in that both the film and this game have color and music?

I would assume it's because the motions you do control the music itself, which is feels a lot like every Fantasia scene ever....

...however Fantasia didn't use Bruno Mars, and they do a pretty terrible job of being as "epic" as fantasy is with colored orbs.

Also:

Edit: Ok

.

[Brushfire]

That is exactly what I thought too Doug.

[Garrett Williamson]

Disney. Listen. No seriously, Disney. Hahaha no listen, hey Disney. Hey what if, no seriously listen, Disney what if you actually made something great again and you don't, like, ruin my childhood or destroy an epic classic of yours? That would be great.

I think they are trying to gain a teen audience when honestly the (this is going to sound biased but I believe it to be the truth) smarter teens are the ones who enjoy Disney for its classics and its... magic. If they could continue that, then they are on a roll. But they seem to be trying too hard to make their stuff attractive to the "cool" teens out there.

And I believe the coolest teenagers are the ones who don't turn down Disney just because they think it's so childish. So many teens I think just wanna see cooler things, like violence and whatever else seems to cool to teenagers (lots of things which I would hate to list because it's so depressing... since when was drinking before 21 cool?). Of course, this game just doesn't look "cool", period. I think this statement sorta goes toward Disney Channel as well, which is more directed toward "tweens", from what I've seen. Dog with a Blog (or is it Vlog? Idk). That show was one of those moments where I literally got so depressed I wanted to jump out a window. You ever get that feeling? Where something is so bad, that it's not even funny and you just want to either kill the people that created it or just kill yourself? No? Ok, sorry about that.

I think this all sorta goes towards all the game systems of the 8th gen as well. They are trying too hard to direct these game systems toward adults and 50 year olds and stuff. You know what? Forget about that. A game system is for the gamer. Not for the hairy 50 year old guy who wants to watch ESPN. That guy can go to his actual TV and DVR and watch that. I want an Xbox for the games. Not for ESPN. I already have that.

Ugh.

Edited June 4, 2013 by Garrett Williamson

[Brushfire]

I think this all sorta goes towards all the game systems of the 8th gen as well. They are trying too hard to direct these game systems toward adults and 50 year olds and stuff. You know what? Forget about that. A game system is for the gamer. Not for the hairy 50 year old guy who wants to watch ESPN. That guy can go to his actual TV and DVR and watch that. I want an Xbox for the games. Not for ESPN. I already have that.

Ugh.

There are far more hairy 50 year old guys wanting to watch ESPN than there are traditional gamers.

[Clefairy]

snip

The goal of a corporation is to maximize profit margins, generally through selling products or providing services. That's all this is really about. Disney has, presumably, looked at the numbers and decided there are more 'cool teens' (or at least ones that want to be seen that way) than 'smart teens', and designed their product/marketing accordingly.

Microsoft isn't much different. They saw what happened with the Wii, what's been happening with Netflix et al, and decided they could make more money going after the "Everybody" market. As long as there are games on the system and most of them aren't terrible, they know the "Gamer" market will buy in.

Here's an interesting article on the whole mess. I didn't see it posted previously, but I haven't read the entire thread so it may have been. Those lifetime numbers are pretty dire.

[Hyperion5182]

Would it kill you to source like...I don't know, any of this? Telling people to go look up information themselves doesn't prove anything to anyone.

Bill Gates on Common Core.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/27/indoctrination-and-data-mining-in-common-core-heres-why-americas-schools-may-be-in-more-trouble-than-you-think/

The entire data mining situation that has been developed for common core.

http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/nsa-build-2-billion-data-center-utah

Sorry that was NSA not DHS for that center in Utah.

And as for the hacking into cameras?

No i wont source that. The articles are technical and describe a process from which someone can extrapolate the technique to do that themselves. If someone wants it, they can find the information themselves.

[Meteo Xavier]

Slightly offtopic and admittingly condescending, but does anyone else get as weirded out as I do watching grown men and women go into great length about how largely-cartoon kid-based companies are SERIOUS BUSINESS and should be catering more to them (or their nostalgia, rather)?

It's DISNEY. They've been doing stuff like that for decades, probably before your childhood even started. They make their money catering to broad audiences of kids, tweens, and their parents. They don't make their money off grown adults who digest their classics every year unless they re-release those old movies on new media.

I gotta admit, that video actually looked kinda cool. I don't really see what the big fuss was about.

[Dexie]

http://kotaku.com/how-the-fantasia-game-plans-to-live-up-disney-s-animate-511284531

I dunno...I think it looks kind of neat, personally.

[Native Jovian]

I work at Disney World. I have no illusions left.

Not that I had many in the first place. I was never really a Disney kid. The most recent animated Disney film I've seen is Lion King.

[Garrett Williamson]

Meteo, the thing is that the older people are wanting the real Disney back. Everything recently has just been crap. Tangled was decent, and even stuff like Wreck-It Ralph was good, but when you go and look at Disney Channel or Disney Interactive, they are just getting it all completely wrong.

Native, I'm sorry about that. ;P

I mean, if Disney could continue going strong with stuff like Tangled and stuff, then great.

Honestly, my biggest issue is that I think they are getting so obsessed with trying to do what everyone else is doing, when Disney was the first to do some of the best things. I worded that horribly, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's just like music nowadays. So many talented artists are doing crappy stuff just because they are trying to do what seems to be the cool thing. And the new "cool" sound is utter crap. Maroon 5 is a very accurate example. Their latest record was just them trying to sound like the new cool stuff. And no, it was an awful album. They were best when they were doing music their way, not everyone else's way.

That's what I'm trying to get to with Disney. Yes, Disney works with PIXAR and PIXAR is CGI animation and PIXAR is fabulous (not recently, but they've been great in the past), but I think Disney is thinking that CGI is the only way to go anymore, and hand-drawn, traditional animation is dead and should no longer be done for films. Recently they let go of a lot of amazing animators just because they didn't have the ability to do full CGI animation. Those animators probably should've learned, but hand-drawn animation honestly takes more talent than CGI and it's what started the whole animation business in the first place. So to fire a lot of really talented people from Disney just because they can't do CGI animation is just depressing.

One of the greatest animators of Disney in current times is Glen Keane, and about a year ago he left Disney because he did not like the direction they were going. They have been begging him with a lot of money to come back, but he won't, because he doesn't like what they are doing.

Yeah. There's all the Disney for now. I'm pretty sure I recall the title of this thread being "Xbox One". ;P

[KyleJCrb]

A shame that it took 10 years for Frequency/Amplitude to get an HD remake.

This doesn't really look like Frequency or Amplitude to me. It looks more like a dancing game that uses Kinect, only instead of making you follow a predetermined set of dance moves, you use your body to "remix" songs.

Besides, didn't Frequency/Amplitude actually get an HD remake? Or did I hallucinate the entirety of Rock Band Blitz? Sure, it's watered down, but the overall idea behind the gameplay is intact.

Edited June 4, 2013 by KyleJCrb

[Anorax]

Here's an interesting article on the whole mess. I didn't see it posted previously, but I haven't read the entire thread so it may have been. Those lifetime numbers are pretty dire.

...damn. When you look at it that way, it looks like PSN is going to burn out soon. Who knows what the hell Nintendo will do in the future, but if catering to the hardcore gamer is a dying business, then maybe Microsoft has got a [somewhat] good idea (and I say "good" cautiously).

[The Derrit]

what that article doesn't really cover is that the issue is actually creating and selling consoles at loss and inducing consumers into thinking overpowered, unprofitable systems are the norm. everyone except nintendo has been doing this for multiple generations.

i mean who ever thought that was a good idea? if you're charging people a third the price of a capable computer, not outperforming it, and not making a profit you might want to readjust your angle on how you make money. also, that graph doesn't even say 'xbox is doing it right' because as it says it's lumped in with pretty much all multimedia work microsoft does. so what they're comparing is actually apples and oranges with a couple apples mixed in.

if they're really pointing this at everyone then they really shouldn't have called it an xbox. just like the wii and wii u confusion everyone that isn't that into gaming will say 'i don't want a videogame console' and not buy one.

[Garrett Williamson]

I'm not entirely sure any of the consoles of the 8th gen are going to do all that great. The only reason they will probably be a success is because of the games for it.

Honestly, even though they are directing the consoles toward other people that don't even play video games as well, those people aren't seriously going to buy one. I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of a middle aged guy wanting to watch TV and listen to music and then decides to go get an Xbox One. I just can't see that happening.

You know what would be seriously cool? If someone did a game made for the Xbox, GameCube, PS2, and Dreamcast again. Like a new game for the old systems. Only gamers of the 6th gen would buy it, but I think it would seriously be awesome.

It will never happen, though.

[KyleJCrb]

If someone did a game made for the Xbox, GameCube, PS2, and Dreamcast again.

Dreamcast indie games are alive and well.

[Thalzon]

Consoles of yesteryear promised things like better graphics and larger game scope. There was something to shoot for. Nowadays, thanks to digital downloads and independent game development, that kind of thing doesn't really apply anymore. Games can have ANY graphics, ANY scope, regardless of their platform. Honestly, at this point nothing short of photorealism would get a reaction out of people, and that's still a good ways off.

Gaming as a medium is also reaching a sort of financial breaking point. You can't simply make things better, bigger, and faster anymore without breaking the bank. It's too expensive and risky. When you can sell over a million copies of a game and still not break even, that tells me that it might be time to dial back the glitz and glamour and great swaths of environment some games receive.

But I think we'll sooner see the big players (ie, Sony, Microsoft, EA, Activision) burn themselves out entirely before they would ever scale back anything.

[zircon]

Consoles of yesteryear promised things like better graphics and larger game scope. There was something to shoot for. Nowadays, thanks to digital downloads and independent game development, that kind of thing doesn't really apply anymore. Games can have ANY graphics, ANY scope, regardless of their platform. Honestly, at this point nothing short of photorealism would get a reaction out of people, and that's still a good ways off.

Gaming as a medium is also reaching a sort of financial breaking point. You can't simply make things better, bigger, and faster anymore without breaking the bank. It's too expensive and risky. When you can sell over a million copies of a game and still not break even, that tells me that it might be time to dial back the glitz and glamour and great swaths of environment some games receive.

But I think we'll sooner see the big players (ie, Sony, Microsoft, EA, Activision) burn themselves out entirely before they would ever scale back anything.

Right, and isn't that a good reason for modern consoles to incorporate MORE than just games? Since modern AAA games are getting so ridiculously expensive to make, it's not reasonable to base your whole console around them. The idea of having lots of extra features is a great selling point. I think that's a major reason for the continued shift we've been seeing.

[The Coop]

Right, and isn't that a good reason for modern consoles to incorporate MORE than just games? Since modern AAA games are getting so ridiculously expensive to make, it's not reasonable to base your whole console around them. The idea of having lots of extra features is a great selling point. I think that's a major reason for the continued shift we've been seeing.

A shift that, if it continues, will lead to "XBox Three: No games, just TV"

[Triad Orion]

Right, and isn't that a good reason for modern consoles to incorporate MORE than just games? Since modern AAA games are getting so ridiculously expensive to make, it's not reasonable to base your whole console around them. The idea of having lots of extra features is a great selling point. I think that's a major reason for the continued shift we've been seeing.

I'd say the point is really more to go back to the drawing board with how your games, not your hardware, is produced. There's nothing really wrong with the hardware. That's not the issue. The hardware sells, even if it is at a loss, and it sold before those features were even conceived.

The issue is games, and verily the industry itself, are suffering from bloat and excess, and adding more bloat to the console itself isn't going to solve the issue. It may just make it worse as developers might be forced into shoehorning in things for these extra features as a "selling point."

[The Derrit]

Right, and isn't that a good reason for modern consoles to incorporate MORE than just games? Since modern AAA games are getting so ridiculously expensive to make, it's not reasonable to base your whole console around them. The idea of having lots of extra features is a great selling point. I think that's a major reason for the continued shift we've been seeing.

to my point: it's pretty irrelevant if they're still losing money selling them... especially if people are buying them and not using them for games. then the only feasible source of revenue, licensing costs and royalties, are gone.

Edited June 5, 2013 by The Derrit

[Garrett Williamson]

Dreamcast indie games are alive and well.

Oh wow that's awesome