If you're going to come to market late against an established competitor, you've got to beat them on features/selection or beat them on price. Origin apparently does neither of these. As a result, it's not even on my gaming radar right now, and I'm a gamer who makes gets most of his PC games online.
That's a pretty candid assessment from a high-ranking official about his competitor. Sony typically makes good hardware and then mucks it up with the software that runs on it. The Vita is no exception.
I guess I'll save a list of the various flaws as I see them for a blog post, but suffice it to say that more games wouldn't hurt, even if they were games [i]from other PlayStation systems[/i].
@Reuwsaat I'm not a fan of DRM, but the Assassin's Creed games and storyline have kept me interested, so I'm not upset that they've been coming with new installments every year.
I think it would be more surprising if there [u]wasn't[/u] a videogame tie in with a blockbuster action movie these days. It's mildly surprising that it wasn't ready to go on the date of the movie launch (and that delay may be why they revoked the license anyway).
I also wish that new games could go back to $50, but now that we have clearly accepted games at $60, what are the odds that anybody is going to take a shave to get us back to $50? Exactly.
I think a more likely scenario is that we'll see "rentable" games where you can get a disc for cheap, but your code will allow you to play a fully unlocked game or allow you to play for a week or a month or so. That would be a concession to the rising cost of games (which some people are suspecting will be $70 in the next generation) and it seems more likely to me than console-makers disallowing used games. Remember, you read it from me first.
I don't see any price cuts on consoles coming before September.
It looks like Nintendo isn't going to make the same mistake with the Wii U that they made with the 3DS. They're going to have a Mario platformer out there from day one. Mario can still sell games and consoles.
These practices are largely a result of the crushing flood of games that have appeared in the iTunes App Store. The massive competition for any particular app to get noticed created a rush to the bottom in terms of price, and it wasn't long before games that were worth $4.99 to $9.99 were slashing prices to reach the magical $0.99 price point.
Then in-app purchases allowed developers to offer an app for free with the possibility of getting paid on the back end of the transaction. Now many free games are demos that have to be unlocked with a purchase. Or they're grinds to collect coins, unless, as McMillen says, you just want to pony up for your coins.
That may be a good way to get exposure, but it's probably not the best way to make a game. It works especially poorly for core gamers like us who aren't just playing whatever game the web is buzzing about this week, but are looking for high-quality product that makes the best use of our devices...and we're willing to pay a bit more for that experience.
I'm not exactly thrilled that Square Enix prices their App Store games at the same level as PSOne Classics, but I do hope that we don't lose the talented developers who are willing to put a little more sweat into making their games great even if it does mean that it costs a bit more.
I'm not going to comment on whether or not the assertion of the developer is true (since frankly I don't know and am not really concerned about who appreciates art more) but I would think that this statement would have more validity if the games cited had been released on more than one system.
Then you could compare the sales numbers and attribute the greater PS3 sales to more artistic appreciation and blah blah blah. As it stands, this developer sounds like he just limited himself to one console, a strategy which may have some advantages, but making him an expert in demographics across platforms probably ain't one of them.
I was only mildly surprised that Sony didn't use the same Memory Stick Pro Duo cards for the Vita as are used in the PSP, but I'm sure that anti-piracy was a much bigger factor than price-gouging. As of now, those cards don't fit in anything but the Vita which will at least slow down efforts to get homebrew on the system. Frankly, this was the chief advantage of using Blu-ray on the PS3. It was harder to bootleg, at least for a while. But I do agree that it's going to be harder to sell downloadable games, movies and music to people once they get to the point of having to manage which content goes on their PS Vita when they're away from home. One of the compelling arguments for large-memory iPods is how much of your apps, music, and video you can have with you at any time. A person with a 4 GB memory card that stuffed with games, saves, and additional levels is going to be hard pressed to fully use his PS Vita as a memory player.
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