The problem with proposals of this nature is that they are always slippery slopes. If you regulate one aspect of free speech, you invariably put yourself in a position to regulate all aspects of free speech. Video games are as much an expression as an activity. Smoking is an activity with clear detriments to public health. It is not so much an expression, that's why tobacco is heavily regulated and speech is not.
Face it, politicians are just using video games as a convenient scapegoat to disguise their unwillingness to challenge the powerful gun lobby. Regulating games will give them an illusory victory they can take credit for, while signifying nothing.
This makes no sense. Why wouldn't Polyphony just wait for the PS4 and devote all of their energies to a single platform? More importantly, if they're just adding content for the current generation engine, why not just release a final expansion for GT5?
I'm bearish on this game selling anywhere near expectations.
@naomha1 @HiImUPSMan In fairness to Square, they do have a history of pulling a rabbit out of their hat when everything seemed to be going against them. But the last time this happened was in 1987, and they thought Final Fantasy would be their last game. They were a very small company in those days. Who knows what will happen now?
For the record, I agree Final Fantasy XIII is panned a little too much. That is the least of Square-Enix's problems.
Newsflash: The economy is stagnant and only one crisis away from dipping back into recession. Unemployment dropped, but only because 500,000 people stopped looking for work and are not counted in the figure. Americans are rightly worried about their pocketbooks. Bhatia is being generous with his assertion that the US market will recover with the release of GTA5. I don't see that as a sure thing. Certainly it will outsell everything else, but where do you put the bar? I think Rockstar may panic at the initial sales figures, no matter how good the game is.
@bonander FYI The special effects on the Stargate shows were outstanding, and Battlestar Galactica has yet to be topped in that department. Caprica was also excellent. These were all Sy-Fy shows (or rather, Sci-Fi), so I know they can do better than what we saw in the Defiance pilot. The only shot that truly impressed me was the opening scene with the derelict ships in orbit. It was mostly downhill from there.
A TV show is only as good as its writers. This one won't last long.
The best ratings in seven years? That's only because Sy-Fy has hyped this production for months, and failed to support shows that were far more deserving of such numbers during that seven year period. Stargate Atlantis? -dead. Caprica? -dead. Stargate Universe? -dead. Blood and Chrome? -abandoned. Face it, the only reason Sy-Fy supports this show so strongly is because it's CHEAP. There are very few notable CGI sequences, and half of them (the driving bits) look worse than what you see on typical video games. Really, a post-apocalyptic world is among the easiest to create from a production standpoint. Everything is supposed to look like crap, so no one will mind if it actually looks like crap. I'm not impressed with the minimalist mindset. Mad Max was original in its day. Defiance is merely derivative, and transparently so for the sake of $$. Trust me, in two months the favorable ratings of the pilot will revert back to Sy-Fy norms, which is a couple of ticks up from non-existent.
Maybe the game will be better, but with far superior MMOs already on the market why should I care?
@Fernin-Ker @SilenceLasting You're pretty unlucky. My Genesis and Super Nintendo are in perfect working order, and I didn't have to replace my NES until the twilight of the 8-bit era. My disc-based systems haven't fared as well, but as far as I know my TurboDuo still works. I burned through two Playstations and one PS2. By some miracle my first-generation 360 never got a RRoD, and my PS3 has been flawless. Come to think of it, maybe I'm just uncommonly lucky...
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