It looks like GTAIV but without the irritations, and a few extra fun things to do. It's not generally the kind of game I play, but it looks like it could be fun. I'll probably pick it up. May well be the last game I buy for this gen's consoles.
You can't put all the blame on the WiiU--the few minutes I played of ZombieU (admittedly, not enough to offer more than a passing opinion) was that it wasn't all that great. On the other hand, ZombieU got relatively decent reviews for a launch title. It's just not the sort of game that people buying a WiiU want to play--and that's a problem with the console, not EA. There's definitely enough blame to pass around.
On the other hand, I think it's perfectly rational for EA to give up on the franchise and, frankly, the console. Launch titles should sell well despite quality (unfortunately) and the WiiU couldn't deliver the sell-through because the console sales have also been sluggish. Third parties are now afraid to invest in the WiiU. It's perfectly understandable.
The WiiU's path is clear--Nintendo has to produce good first-party games to help sell consoles, and then partner with third-party developers to create the games the WiiU base wants to play. Because it's not altogether clear they want the same games PS4 and Xbox One players will want. It's a tough road, but Nintendo is capable of doing it. Whether they actually will or not is a different story.
I suppose they needed to wait for the storm to pass before doing this sort of survey, but they're going to get mostly the same answers: everyone wants an offline mode, larger cities, and other basic features. Will they deliver? Somehow I doubt it. Maybe in the next release of the game. In five years.
Region locking sucks, but it also means that games won't have to meet the highest legal standard everywhere. If every game had to meet the most restrictive content standards, that means gamers in more permissive regions (like North America) may well end up getting screwed when it comes to content. Maybe that won't happen. It's hard to say. But look at the hoops that Undead Labs is going through to get State of Decay available in Australia.
I'm a little concerned that with both the PS4 and Xbox One unlocked, that games are going to be more heavily content-edited than they would be otherwise. And honestly, region unlocking isn't a significant feature for me. I'd rather not have my games censored here in NA just because some other country is more restrictive.
If it works out differently, that's fine. But I'm not sure that's how it's going to go.
Every console generation is the same with this. There's no particular reason for a console war. We'll end up playing most of the same games anyway. Some of us prioritize some features over others, or chose a console because our friends mostly have one console over another. I can understand Microsoft and Sony battling back and forth, but gamers? Either console is going to be far ahead of what we have now. Whichever one you choose, you're likely to be satisfied with it. And some other gamer making a different choice than you isn't the end of the world. The competition makes the consoles better, but there's no reason it should divide gamers like it does. It's a waste of time and energy.
I think it's stating the obvious to say that Nintendo is in trouble, and that third party support is its primary weakness. However, the strongest selling games on the Wii were first-party games. it's too early to tell whether the Wii U will start selling. A few stellar first party titles may well rescue it. However, without the initial boost the Wii got from word of mouth, the best Nintendo can hope for is to match the Playstation and Xbox. Pachter is right about it being an uphill battle, but I don't think his analysis of third-party support is right at all.
"Sony Computer Entertainment president and group CEO Andrew House has said that the company never had any intention of introducing DRM policies to block used games with the upcoming PlayStation 4."
No one in their right mind believes a word of this, and it just undermines their credibility. They would have if they could have, which is why they stayed vague until after Microsoft made their announcement.
I was surprised when Microsoft did a complete turnaround on used game policies--companies that size rarely are capable of that sort of thing. But it did take the wind out of Sony's sales. This is an attempt to bring up the policy issue again, now that it's basically history. Sony had a good run of press for a few months, but now things are on an even keel. I don't think they are prepared for this, and are struggling to find something to differentiate themselves again.
Maybe they'll figure something out, but it looks like whatever momentum they had coming out of E3 is gone. Not that Microsoft has a lot going for it right now. Both companies now seem to be struggling on messaging.
This isn't a surprising result, since nearly every other study has said the same thing. More importantly, though, are real-world statistics--violent crime has been in decline here in the US for 30 years, just at the time when violent games have become more and more commonly played by just about everyone. If violent games caused real-world violence, crime statistics would say so. But they don't.
Some just can't be convinced, though--which is why we'll continue to see studies about this. Some people just seem to "know" that violent games cause violence, and no amount of actual data will convince them otherwise.
We'll see if these Kickstarters worked out when we see Double Fine's games. I like the idea of crowdsourcing funding for games, because it taps into markets that larger developers are unlikely to want to risk entering. So far, Double Fine has managed to source two games that I'll definitely pick up, and that almost certainly wouldn't have been made otherwise. There's room for funding games a number of different ways, and if Double Fine's gamble works out, the model will become more trustworthy. That's the problem right now--Kickstarter hasn't produced any games that have been high quality. Double Fine has as good a chance as any to make this work.
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