wanna put this here so I never lose it:

credit to TJsimulation for this awesome tag! :wink: and if you haven't checked us out yet, do it! we're awesome!

Microsoft and Sony are insane. They're insane because they expect us to pay $250 for handheld, and then turn around and pay $400 for a console! I'm already having a really hard time getting all my 360 money together, I have no idea how I'm supposed to pay for a PS3, much less a Revoloution! My DS is broken, it's gonna take $60 to fix, I need a wireless router for my PSP. And I do occasionally like to actually buy new games! There are a ton of great games that are already out for current-consoles that I can't afford as it is, and now you wanna turn around and tell me that next-gen games are gonna cost $60? $60!!! How are we supposed to pay for this stuff? Sure, they tell "oh, development costs are going up, that's why". Bull! They want more money, so they're lying to us, telling us stuff is gonna be more expensive. Oh, and now Microsoft is gonna have their own handheld? How on Earth am I supposed to pay for that! And did I mention I still have to BUY GAMES for all this stuff? DO THEY THINK I HAVE AN UNLIMITED AMOUNT OF MONEY LYING AROUND SOMEHWHERE!  So how am supposed to pay for all this? I'll tell you how. The money tree. The big-3 money tree that is.

the new black and white basic emblem is hideous. I want my old one back

From the moment we picked up our first controller/joystick, we knew the industry and entertainment medium we loved would grow, evolve, and change for better or worse, but lately I've noticed some of the biggest names in developing starting to slip, or move away from the gaming scene.

The thing that prompted me to write this was when I was thinking about Rare. Rare used to be one of the powerhouse game developers in the industry during their Nintendo days, but ever since Microsoft's acquirement of them they seem to have simply lost their touch.  They only put out two Xbox games, Grabbed by the Ghoulies and Conker: Live and Reloaded. Grabbed by the Ghoulies wasn't well perceived critically, and it did even worse at retail.  Conker: Live and Reloaded also wasn't well perceived by critics, being panned for being a copy of the original with better graphics and none of the original's problems solved, and no new add-ons save a clunky online mode, nor was it anything close to a retail powerhouse either. Then there are their 360 games.  Perfect Dark Zero has thus far been a success at retail, but it didn't reinvent the FPS wheel like it was supposed to. Then there's Kameo, which according to most reports is a good platformer with great graphics, nothing more.  Looks like Microsoft's investment isn't exactly panning out so far.  I  personally blame this on a major development-team shake-up when Rare changed at hands and went to Microsoft.

And two big names in developing have been slipping also in my opinion : Hideo Kojima and Shigeeru Miyamoto.  Yeah, you read that correctly.  Let's start with Kojima.  He invented the stealth genre with MGS, a true classic and countinued the legacy with MGS 2, despite what the nay-sayers say about it.  however, while Snake Eater was excellent in its own right, it just wasn't the absolutly mind-blowing experience I thought it would be, and while I'm sure MGS4 will be great, I'm skeptical.  And in addition to this, he says right after that, he's leaving the MGS series, which says to me that he no longer has the same interest in gaming he once did. 

Now for Miamoto, who has been slipping recently in my opinion also.  He says he doesn't game nearly as much as he once did and when he dose only for very short periods and never on Nintendo's own consoles. Plus, his most recent works just haven't had the same spark.  I mean sure Nintendogs and Super Mario Sunshine were good, but they were no Super Mario Brothers or Super Mario 64.  This does not make me optimistic.

However, I can't say I'm worried because all these legends are being replaced by new geniuses.  My best example is Dave Jaffey, the genius behind God of War, who I think will also one day become a gaming legend So, the industry is just in a transition period, not just from one generation of consoles to next, but also from one generation of developers to the next, renewing the gaming industry and revitalizing it with band new ideas and concepts.

We all know by now that casuals are vital to our industry, without them there wouldn't be enough hard-core gamers to keep the industry afloat. However, unless the casuals have a drastic change of heart, the hard-core gamers will leave, and there won't be enough casuals to keep the industry afloat. You see, there's not enough hard-core gamers to make a game successful. If no casuals buy a game, it can't be successful, simply put.  Meaning, if a game is only acceptable by the hard-core market, it will crash and burn no matter what.  Take Psychonauts.  A critically acclaimed game with an excellent concept, but the casuals were to busy buying the Star Wars Episode III game, which sold 1.7 million copies, so Psychonauts sold less than 90,000 copies, a ridiculously low number. This all but guarantees that it won't get a sequel and no publisher will even touch a similar game.  And this is just one example, this exact things happens countless times every year. So, my thoughts are that eventually publishers may just stop taking original concepts, and then all the hard-core gamers will leave the gaming fold, and then industry will just go all to pieces. Like it or not, the future of the industry is in the hands of casuals, and unless they have a big change of heart, I'm almost scared to see where the industry will be in 20 years.

here's the stuff I got for christmas:

a PSP! yeah! 

 
I got PoP: revelations, it's awesome and I don't care what GS said, I give it an 8

 
awesome puzzler, successer to tetris if you ask me

 
decent single player, awesome online play! my favorite PSP game thus far. I've spent the majority of my PSP play time with this game

 
awesome racer with a great sense of speed

 
i didn't ask for this game, and am scared to play it due to the things i've heard about it, so I haven't actually played it yet. maybe this is the first sign I'm starting to rely on GS's reviews to much when I'm afraid to play a game because of it's score

 
GS was way to hard on it. it should have gotten somewhere from an 8-8.5. it doesn't reinvent the FPS wheel, but it doesn't try to. very solid FPS with lots of cinematic moments. big improvment over finest hour

overall a good haul and i'm really happy with it :D

A recent freeplay got me thinking about advertising in games.  You always hear people complaining, "I don't want to see advertisments for Toyota in my Gran Turismo!" But what if putting that advertisment in there made Toyota more willing to put their cars in the game? Imagine Gran Turismo with no licensed cars! If advertisments can contribute to making games better, why not! You watch TV don't you? Well every ten minutes you have to watch advertisments! Actually, when you think about it, this could very well be part of the next evoloution of gaming.  Every form of entertainment that has ever caught on mainstream has included advertisments. Think about it: radio, movies, TV, sports, you name it! Plus, if it helps us get more Psychonauts's and less Dynasty Warriors, how can you have a problem with it? Would you rather be playing Dynasty Warriors 26 with no advertisments, or a brand-new, never been seen before concept where you occasionally have to see a poster on the wall that has no bearing on gameplay? Even if they just took Dynasty Warriors and completely reinvented it, but had to put in one occassional advertisement, wouldn't you be happier with that? When it gets down to it, even if it doesn't save us as gamers any money at all, but it allows us to have new concepts in our games, which could bring new gamers into the fold, which could actually reduce the price of games eventually! Advertisements in games take pressure off publishers, which takes pressure off developers, allowing them to better do their job and bring us the best games possible! So while I definitly don't like staring at advertisments, I say in the end, if it's good for the industry, it's good for us!

I have great respect for sam walton.  he created what is probably the most successful business of the 21st centuary from scratch by himself.  however, after his life was claimed by cancer, wal-mart has been going down the chute ever since.  sam would have never condoned farming work out the india and china and paying workers $7 a month.  sam built his business on several principals:

1. customer satisfaction.  he believed that if people were satisfied by the products they bought they would come back and it would let him keep prices low. customer satisfaction now exists in no form at wal-mart except in the form of meaningless signs hanging on the wall(no pun intended)

2.  buying in bulk.  he didn't come up with the idea of discounting in retailing, but he was the first to execute it perfectly.  he know that if he could get a reduced price from manufacturers for buying in  bulk and pass that on to customers

3. make wal-mart's employee base feel like one big family from the lowliest clerk to the highest executive.  he knew from the start that he couldn't pay his clerks and basic "grunts" very much and be successful, so he decided to do it a different way. he called them "assocciates" and not employees, so they would feel like they were part of the company, not just working for it.  this inturn,  caused customer stisfaction to go up for no additional cost.  and in the executive offices there are no rules and procedures, allowing thoughts and brainstorms to flow freely and be more helpful to the company. now, the executives that replaced sam believe in no part of this principal.  that is why I think, eventually wal-mart will fall. it'll be a long time though, because sam made them so strong. probably 20 or 30 years. but it'll happen