Anyways, I was driving home, and normally, I thought about games. Xbox being the most disappointing system I've ever bought, in my opinion, of course, I started thinking about ways to improve it's issues. One of the main reasons I didn't find the Xbox as good as say, the Dreamcast, or Saturn, was because of the many, many casual gamer's games out there, like Need For Speed, or other certain games of the EA brand that need some originality. With the few original, unique games not selling well, due to the amount of casual gamers that own the Box, I tried to think of a way to get unique, original games to sell on the Xbox, and came up with an odd guide to "trick" casual gamers into actually buying it.First, the concept. I decided to take my concept of a traditional RPG with shooting, fighting, and turn-based gameplay being in the battle system, with a lot of other normal RPG conventions. Now, Japanese RPG's are almost a no-go with Xbox, and that's why I chose it. What casual gamer will buy a traditional RPG for Xbox, no matter how good it is? So, I came up with ways to trick the player into thinking it's not.
Next, sell the concept to a big Japanese company. In this case, I picked Konami, and convince them to allow this to come out for Xbox, and allow you to actually advertise it, and produce the game. Of course, you have to come up with a name for the game. That's why you picked a big-name company.
Make your game's name a mix of the biggest franchise of the company that will publish your game, copyrighting the name "Solid Gear" or "Solid Acid" to try to cause the hardcore Metal Gear fans to believe that a new Metal Gear spinoff could be being made, even if your game has no relation to the franchise, giving it already some anticipation.
Start development of the title, and when announcement comes around for the game, tell the gamers that the game is coming out for Xbox and supposedly Xbox 360, although you have no intention of producing it for the 360.
Sometime in beginning of development, but far off from release, send out some mock screenshots of the game "running" on 360, all being screenshots of the First-person shooting gameplay of the battle system, not disclosing any information about it actually being a Role-playing title. Make some interviews with some big magazines, and give them some "exclusive" screenshots for each one, telling them about how Konami is actually making a "FPS" game for Xbox, and start spreading some rumors about Hideo Kojima, or some other major directors or producers having a hand in the game.
Now, have a few months of total silence, giving magazines thoughts that the project could be canned, only to come back with a trailer (that looks almost identical to some of the best movie trailers for Sci-Fi films) of some of the cutscenes, showing an involved story, and of course, more fast paced First-person shooting action, but with some other things going on, like showing the fighting engine and magic user characters in the shots, to spread rumors on what else is in the game, only adding to the anticipation, but not saying that it is more then just a FPS. Also, finally change your game's name to a name that will be more true to your game's story. (in this case, I'll just call it Expiration Date, because it's supposed to be related to time.)
With a few months before release, get a big magazine, like GameInformer or Gamepro, to make a cover story of your game, finally with some hints at a role-playing type gameplay, but nothing definite, and some more supposedly Xbox 360 screenshots that are really the Xbox version, with some enhanced textures.
About 2 months before release, finally annouce that the Xbox 360 game was "cancelled" due to budget cuts on the game, releasing some new, improved Xbox screenshots, saying that the code for the 360 game was moved to the Xbox version of the game, giving it the supposed extras that the 360 version was supposed to have. Add then that the game will run on the 360, even without solid proof, to make 360 owners feel better.
Finally, around release time, you delay the game an extra 2 months, with some mock reason being that the "360 code" still has some bugs to iron out over the conversion to the Xbox version. At that same time, annouce that the game WILL have an Xbox live multiplayer mode, that involves almost as many gameplay modes as Halo 2, but faster paced, and a great fighting engine. Rumors will then spread about that the fighting engine will be a part of a melee attack, when in fact, it's an entirely different gameplay altogether.
Examine the amount of pre-orders that are for the game from stores like Gamestop and EBGames, and only make enough copies to supply those customers, and a few thousand more at the most, in order to get the press to hear of a "shortage" of your supposed "Expiration Date" game. It's not great press, but it will get more gamers to hear about it, thinking it's uber-popular, and they have to try it out as well.
At the real release date, give out advanced copies to all major critical game publishers to have the game reviewed, only to have each review done a day after the game is actually released. Finally at this time, the true gameplay is given out, surprising just about everybody out there, and giving more press time to your game.
Within about, say, a year or 2, your game shouldv'e sold about a million copies, and hey, it's not just a simple shooter! Yay! Granted, it may not work, but then again, I DID come up with the idea in my car. :P It's certainly a better plan then what Sega's been doing with their games.
Anyways, I wrote a review for my 399th game, being OutRun2 last night. Damn, it's easily one of the most fun games I've played in a long time. If you have an Xbox, buy it. If you still don't know about it, read my review. It was written during a writers block, so it doesn't flow as well as some of my other reviews, but it's good anyways.OutRun2 (Xbox): (8.9/10) Outrun 2's simple, but incredibly fun gameplay make it one of the top racers on Xbox.
Hm. Tailman Team. Well, it's still down, obviously. I asked Ozy what he was going to do about Sonic United, and he said he plans on paying the lurker who bought out the domain as much as they ask to get the .org name back, to save the few hits he actually gets. Well, I have no idea if it's actually possible, but I hope he does it soon. If he waits too much longer, I'll end up actually getting a job and paying $20 a month first. Trust me, that probably won't happen as soon as I wish.~ Dalton Zeal http://www.tailmanteam.net
Alrighty. Wasn't that educational? Well, my new review for today is Knuckles Chaotix, for the absolutely awesome Sega 32X. It's a good game, but not really a "system seller" like it was supposed to be. Star Wars Arcade was better for the 32X. Note: I played this on an emulator. While this should make no difference, I just thought it would be good to note that I still don't have a 32X, but am looking for one. 
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