Everyone who hasn’t checked this out, should. It’s “beta” in the conventional sense - not the Google sense where it’s kickass but will stay in beta for three years anyway - or the traditional microsoft sense where your mouse explodes or something. I signed up for the mail - but it looks like there’s at least a month wait - if they decide you’re eligible at all - on who knows what basis…
Just another example of what people are willing to spend for additional components and upgrades for their in game persona.
(In this case apparently 200 points (or $20) for a horse armor kit is a little too steep, but you get the idea.
If you were worried about Nintendo in this Sony/Microsoft dominated market, well you can relax… for awhile anyway, thanks to that gimmicky wonder that is Nintendo DS.
Slashdot | DS Design = Nintendo Profits
Personally, I don’t really care for the DS, but luckily for Nintendo, I’m in the minority it seems.
Slashdot also has a link to this, but I wanted to say a little more about Next Gen’s analysis:
They spend more time on their general theory of the evolution of games than they do on the death of any franchises. On the franchise predictions: sure movie franchises will sink once the movie’s have been on DVD for a year or so, and yes GTA and Tony Hawk are getting stale, this is obvious stuff…
On their general theory - I disagree with both of their premises - firstly that the evolution of gaming is a march towards realism - it has been since the “next generation” consoles - but wasn’t to start with (pac man and space invaders had nothing to do with realism) - and won’t be forever -
Graphics will progress to photo realism, surely, but then what? The market may snap up cinematic games with photo-realistic graphics just like they scarf blockbuster movies all summer - but surely developers can do more with this medium than choose-your-own-adventure movies.
On the progression to online - not all games are good online games. That doesn’t make them bad games. Gaming isn’t a sport (or shouldn’t only be) - it’s also an artform - and like a good novel, some forms of it will always be best enjoyed individually, or at least non-competitively.
