I love how all the basement dwellers crawl out of their makeshift beds in moments like this to act sanctimonious and pretend all this DLC stuff is not consumed by millions, including THEMSELVES in many cases.
EA does need to learn not all games will sell 5 millions and then adjust accordingly - spend less in meaningless marketing, for example, something this series has been plagued with since 2. But that does not preclude the fact that the alternative to DLC and online passes is to raise the game's price, which gamers ALSO don't want. And finally, in this particular case, sorry, but Dead Space should've never gone past 2 games at most. No one would ever recapture the feeling of the first game because most of it derived from its novelty. Not everything has to become a franchise and even if it does, it doesn't need to be sequential following the exact same formular.
@fatee @AdamK47 The idea that having controller support is anti-PC baffles me, and ultimately exposes who really understands the PC platform or not. The MAIN advantage of the PC is OFFERING OPTIONS. The main advantage of console is stripping options off to make it cheaper and more directly accessible. It only follows that good PC games should get the best support possible for **as many input methods the developer can come up with**, while the console is stuck to only one preset method.
Also, it seems someone failed to understand that the suggestion to play with a controller was made because ***mouse/keyboard support is lacking***, and it was considered a BAD THING (again, not because all PC games should support mouse/keyboard only, but because not offering PROPER input options is anti-PC). No one said controller is always best for a PC game.
@JJames3dCG Also, Vita sales have been on the rise for the last 3-4 months, both in Japan and the West, while the 3DS did worse on the holidays than the year prior. But that probably will change as there's plenty of high-profile releases (either here or in Japan) to come in the next few months on the 3DS, up to new Pokemon titles in September.
Truth is, none of the portable consoles will come even closer to the numbers the last generation was pulling off (even the PSP has sold as much as the Xbox 360 and the PS3, crossing the 70 million line). They'll both sell about 20-25 million each over time, that's the potential market for dedicated handhelds these days and not much more. The 3DS is slowing down because it's getting there already with about 14 million copies sold. The Vita has more room to grow and with PSN+ already making a difference and the integration with the PS4 to come, it will meet total 3DS sales in 2 years or so.
Also, anyone who's interested in indie titles but not willing to play on the PC should get a Vita. Games like Runner 2, Hotline Miami, Binding of Isaac and Thomas Was Alone are going there. It's a great platform for these kinds of games and Sony is easier to deal with than Microsoft and Nintendo now. It's a trend I'm sure we'll be seeing more of in the next 2 years, indie games made for Steam and released on Vita shortly thereafter.
@jcnba28 Not in a million years. Sony has more internal studios and more first-party games being released. Nintendo has bigger franchises, but they're way slower to release new stuff for them.
Microsoft, of course, is the last on the line as they ruin studios like there's no tomorrow and are more focused on timed third-party DLC exclusivity, such as Call of Duty maps, instead of releasing actual games.
@demondogx I was already considering it could be better just for the local co-op alone - I can buy just one copy and play with my wife on the couch. Now with the offline mode confirmed, it's worth, say, US$ 30. No more than that :P
@Suikogaiden I suspect there's plenty of these people, yeah. I know at least one guy who doesn't game primarily on the PC and was unaware of the DRM stuff. He saw something about an online requirement on the box and thought it was just for activation purposes, something that's pretty common and usually not problematic.
@pesh_fury @RealFabioSooner @DevilArK1993 I see your point. But then again, we all pay more for games at launch and don't complain when another version of it with all the DLCs is released months later for a cheaper price. They never say the GOTY edition or whatever will come, it's a wild guess. We buy at launch because we find the game worth it. If you bought it at launch with always-online DRM, you thought it was worth it.
Of course, many people didn't expect the stuff to be so bad, I can see it. But then again, it's a lesson learned. Always-online DRM can NEVER be good or tolerable. Even if it works flawlessly on the company's end (and I suspect EA will do way a better job of it with SimCity after launch day), it's ridiculous to not be able to play a single-player game if your ISP goes down or something like that.
@Suikogaiden It was the fast-selling PC game of all time: http://www.1up.com/news/diablo-iii-sales-record-bodes-well-pc-games
It has sold more than TEN million copies, and that's only until Q3 last year: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/377434/diablo-3-tops-10-million-sales/
Of course we still don't have SimCity 5 numbers, but judging how most gamers didn't bother about the always online stuff on Diablo, I doubt it will be an issue on SimCity's sales.
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