Time to bash MS.

[mass]

After long, long, long, last, MS dropped the official price of Halo. Down to ..... $29.99?! WTF?! Two years and they still refuse to drop it to $19.99. MS seems to be taking their cue from the penny pinching bastards over at Nintendo with their goofy multi-tier pricing structure on old games.

However, that's not what's going to cheese people off. NO, sports fans, what's going to cheese people off is the new xbox bundle for the ungrateful could care less about the xbox japanese gamers who still go nuts over super deformed characters in their sports titles.

For the same $180 as the US, in japan you'll be able to get an xbox with two controllers, the dvd remote, Halo and the newly released PGR2. Talk about throwing your pearls before swine. Is MS this desparate to appeal to an increasingly irrelevant japanese gaming market, or are they looking to prime the pump for the launches of titles like Ninja Gaiden and True Fantasy Online. Either way, I'm not impressed that MS seems to be taking NA gamers for granted while giving away freebies for a thoroughly unappreciative audience in japan.

MS needs to get out the sports lineup and leave it to the folks who know how or at least have an idea of how to go about it. Aside from Top Spin, the sports XSN lineup is a stiff. Fever blows chunks, lead and read passing is hopelessly complicated, Inside Pitch was two months late to the party, and redefined awful in a baseball title. Links is a pc franchise, NHL Rivals is late and apparent crap, Inside Drive is also late, and appararently just more of the same. Amped 2 is an SSX wannabe and a sales stiff so far. What further sport is MS going to annahilate in their futile attempt to contest EA in the sports arena. The sales numbers for fever were brutal compared to madden on the xbox. Totally and completely embaressing.
While I'd like to see the High Heat Baseball franchise exclusively on the xbox with a game engine designed from the ground up for the black and green box, I'm terrified at the potential travesty in the making.

MS needs to sit down and have a long talk with the guys at Rare and ask them what they're wasting their time on. GBTG from what I've read generated sales a little over 6500 units in October, which has to be an all-time low for a Rare title. Conker's BFD is a sentimental favorite for me, but seriously, is there any actual point to releasing an n64 title on the xbox? And Kameo is a title so heavily delayed the only answer must be that the game has serious design flaws Rare has been unable to overcome. Right now, the Rare purchase is looking like a huge white elephant sale. There's talent there but apparently no current direction. This is the xbox, this ain't the gc, and what might fly on the gc is going stall on nosedive on the box. If MS can't figure this out, then by the time anything decent comes from Rare we'll be well into xbox 2.

Lower the fricking price on the xbox already. $149 is absolutley mandatory with the cube at $99 along with the zelda disc. This apparent complacency, we're doing well enough without a price cut is a recipe for future disaster. A lot of third parties are not going to be pleased with their sales results this holiday season and some may decide to cut back on offerings for various consoles. If a publisher perceives a console maker as not putting their best foot forward, they may decide to cut offerings on that console. Sony already has established a massive lead, and doesn't really need to add to their sales numbers, but the same is not true for the xbox and cube. Right now, desparation induced or not, Nintendo is fighting to stay in the game, at least on the hardware front. If MS thinks their lead over the gc is secure in NA, they're making a big mistake. As Andy Grove of Intel was quoted, "Only the paranoid survive."

On a more postive note, from what I've read on another forum, PGR2 has won EGM's GOTM for the January issue. 9.5 across the board. An xbox game winning GOTM at EGM. Somebody catch me, I think I'm going to faint.

Here's the link, FWIW.

http://boards.ign.com/message.asp?topic=48565573&replies=52

[Tappy_Tibbons]

"For the same $180 as the US, in japan you'll be able to get an xbox with two controllers, the dvd remote, Halo and the newly released PGR2. Talk about throwing your pearls before swine. Is MS this desparate to appeal to an increasingly irrelevant japanese gaming market, or are they looking to prime the pump for the launches of titles like Ninja Gaiden and True Fantasy Online. Either way, I'm not impressed that MS seems to be taking NA gamers for granted while giving away freebies for a thoroughly unappreciative audience in japan. "

I couldn't have said it better myself Mass. MS is making some DUMB decisions right now. Unbelievably dumb. They are newbies to the market but it's demographic they are using to determine the consumers is downright pathetic.if they are gonna lose money, they COULD be smarter about it. The Japan package makes me frikkin ill. The pearls before swine quote sums it up in my eyes as well.

I hate sports games, I think they should get out of sports and get Sega online exclusivity like PS2 has with EA. Amped is still good as is Top Spin but they are not conventional sports. Oh well, Fever, Inside Drive, and Inside Pitch are all ahead of 989 offerings though. I think they are both losing out.

Rare pretty much sucks and disappoints...as P. Diddy would say "370 million $ for <I>WhAT?</I>

[Glockstar]

<div class=\"smallfont\">For the same $180 as the US, in japan you'll be able to get an xbox with two controllers, the dvd remote, Halo and the newly released PGR2.</div>

Yeah, I saw that too.
But here's what upsets me about this...
... that second controller that the Japs are getting is a cool looking platinum colored controller!

http://xboxmedia.ign.com/xbox/image/pack_1.jpg

Maaan, that's a color that we should be getting!
It's also the color that I wrote to M$ about, when they did their "vote for a color" dealio a few months back. Now they're getting it?!? (While we get blue? Blue?!?) Well, this really ticks me off!!!

:p

[Gadfly2317]

That's in an INCREDIBLE bundle they are giving the Japanese market. . . DVD remote, 2 A+ games, and a second platinum controller. This would absolutely move systems in the US. I wonder why MS doesn't do this? I bet even Gamer would pick up an xbox bundle like that :)

[no.1gamer]

"For the same $180 as the US, in japan you'll be able to get an xbox with two controllers, the dvd remote, Halo and the newly released PGR2."

From what I understand Japanese people aren't very keen on combat style games (Halo). I think Japan should get all that stuff for only $150 or less. And instead of Halo include a Sega game or something. At this point I think it's the only way to not be embarrassed themselves in Japan. Plus the Xbox has lots of other great games for gamers to choose from.

"MS needs to sit down and have a long talk with the guys at Rare and ask them what they're wasting their time on. GBTG from what I've read generated sales a little over 6500 units in October, which has to be an all-time low for a Rare title. Conker's BFD is a sentimental favorite for me, but seriously, is there any actual point to releasing an n64 title on the xbox? And Kameo is a title so heavily delayed the only answer must be that the game has serious design flaws Rare has been unable to overcome. Right now, the Rare purchase is looking like a huge white elephant sale. There's talent there but apparently no current direction. This is the xbox, this ain't the gc, and what might fly on the gc is going stall on nosedive on the box. If MS can't figure this out, then by the time anything decent comes from Rare we'll be well into xbox 2."

Rare hasn't released a decent game this entire generation of consoles. Keep in mind the GCN got a half @$$ed game as well. But at least Rare's Gamecube game had pretty graphics and looked flashy. Like I said before I think Nintendo gave up on Rare, which in turn put a nail in their coffin. I will now compare Rare to having the best basketball franchise in the NBA, but without a coach. Shaq and Kobe may be the best duo in the league but without a coach they'll just run around the court mindlessly loosing games in the process. And unfortunately for Rare M$ can't replace Nintendo as the coach.

[thug]

<div class=\"smallfont\">For the same $180 as the US, in japan you'll be able to get an xbox with two controllers, the dvd remote, Halo and the newly released PGR2. Talk about throwing your pearls before swine. Is MS this desparate to appeal to an increasingly irrelevant japanese gaming market, or are they looking to prime the pump for the launches of titles like Ninja Gaiden and True Fantasy Online. Either way, I'm not impressed that MS seems to be taking NA gamers for granted while giving away freebies for a thoroughly unappreciative audience in japan. </div>

Agreed, this is one of the first huge mistakes that I've seen MS make. Not that they're releasing a great bundle in Japan, but the fact that the UK and Japan now have significantly better bundles than the US (the place the Xbox is doing the best). I'm sure MS is very happy that it can sell 176,000 units in October in the US with that crappy bundle it has out, but it's like they're blind and don't see that the GC sold 256,000. Where's the cut-throat decisions that made MS the enormous company it is today? Did they make some sort of deal that they'll sell a certain amount of this Clone Wars/Tetris Worlds bundle before they could release a new bundle? Well...what ever the case is, they're doing Nintendo a favor by not crushing them. MS has Nintendo on the ropes in the UK where they released a bundle with Halo and Midtown Madness 3. This made Nintendo create a bundle with the Zelda disc and Mario Kart DD and I haven't heard any news if this is even helping the GC in the UK.

<div class=\"smallfont\">Lower the fricking price on the xbox already. $149 is absolutley mandatory with the cube at $99 along with the zelda disc. This apparent complacency, we're doing well enough without a price cut is a recipe for future disaster. </div>

They don't even need to cut the price $180 is fine if you bundle two decent games in with the system. I don't see a new bundle for the Xbox happening until after the holidays though since I've seen the Clone Wars/Tetris Worlds bundle being called the Holiday bundle at several places.

[Gadfly2317]

<div class=\"smallfont\"><div class=\"smallfont\"></div>

Agreed, this is one of the first huge mistakes that I've seen MS make. Not that they're releasing a great bundle in Japan, but the fact that the UK and Japan now have significantly better bundles than the US (the place the Xbox is doing the best). I'm sure MS is very happy that it can sell 176,000 units in October in the US with that crappy bundle it has out, but it's like they're blind and don't see that the GC sold 256,000. Where's the cut-throat decisions that made MS the enormous company it is today? Did they make some sort of deal that they'll sell a certain amount of this Clone Wars/Tetris Worlds bundle before they could release a new bundle? Well...what ever the case is, they're doing Nintendo a favor by not crushing them. MS has Nintendo on the ropes in the UK where they released a bundle with Halo and Midtown Madness 3. This made Nintendo create a bundle with the Zelda disc and Mario Kart DD and I haven't heard any news if this is even helping the GC in the UK.

<div class=\"smallfont\"></div>



They don't even need to cut the price $180 is fine if you bundle two decent games in with the system. I don't see a new bundle for the Xbox happening until after the holidays though since I've seen the Clone Wars/Tetris Worlds bundle being called the Holiday bundle at several places.</div>

I mean, we're all pretty picky gamers here. But maybe MS has done market research and found that Joe Public in America actually thinks Clone Wars and Tetris Worlds is a really good bundle. Who knows?

[Tappy_Tibbons]

I think Xbox is waiting for a better PS2 bundle before they get better because in America the GC is still getting it's butt kicked, and you get rich penny pincher man from there.

I think it would help Xbox tremendously if they even threw in the DVD remote.

[geoff2]

<div class=\"smallfont\">MS needs to get out the sports lineup and leave it to the folks who know how or at least have an idea of how to go about it. Aside from Top Spin, the sports XSN lineup is a stiff. Fever blows chunks, lead and read passing is hopelessly complicated, Inside Pitch was two months late to the party, and redefined awful in a baseball title. Links is a pc franchise, NHL Rivals is late and apparent crap, Inside Drive is also late, and appararently just more of the same. Amped 2 is an SSX wannabe and a sales stiff so far. What further sport is MS going to annahilate in their futile attempt to contest EA in the sports arena. The sales numbers for fever were brutal compared to madden on the xbox. Totally and completely embaressing.
While I'd like to see the High Heat Baseball franchise exclusively on the xbox with a game engine designed from the ground up for the black and green box, I'm terrified at the potential travesty in the making.

MS needs to sit down and have a long talk with the guys at Rare and ask them what they're wasting their time on. GBTG from what I've read generated sales a little over 6500 units in October, which has to be an all-time low for a Rare title. Conker's BFD is a sentimental favorite for me, but seriously, is there any actual point to releasing an n64 title on the xbox? And Kameo is a title so heavily delayed the only answer must be that the game has serious design flaws Rare has been unable to overcome. Right now, the Rare purchase is looking like a huge white elephant sale. There's talent there but apparently no current direction. This is the xbox, this ain't the gc, and what might fly on the gc is going stall on nosedive on the box. If MS can't figure this out, then by the time anything decent comes from Rare we'll be well into xbox 2.
[/url]</div>


Sorry for the change of direction but i wanted to address this opinion. Microsoft might have a bad sports lineup but i agree with ed fries when he said "we need to build our own franchises". I think MS needs to keep it's sports franchise not because it's competing with EA, which it's not since EA is on the xbox also, but because it needs to become it's own respected development house.

To earn any respect as a sytem you must be able to provide exclusive content and there are no games more profitable than in-house developed exclusives. MS has had a lot of misses from it's in-house team but it is young and a lot of those efforts were still great achievements for beginners.

It's wrong to get into this mindset of MS needs to buy all the best stuff so it'll be exclusive. Not only is that not profitable but it opens the doors for more RARE purchases which have proven to be faulty. Just because a house peaks at a certain time doesn't mean it'll stay there. Can you image if MS bought MIDWAY when they were big with Mortal Kombat. How much money would they have lost then?

To be profitable you need to see the teams from their begining to their peak and keep them in-house. Sony started out with a lot of crap from their in-house teams and still offer crap from 989 but they stuck with them until they became profitable. MS should do the same with their teams who have shown early signs of talent.

[Richard Hobbes]

Everyone,

Okay. Here is my unusually short two bits on this subject. I think Microsoft knows exactly what they are doing by offering a seemingly unbeatable Xbox bundle to the Japanese market. For reasons that we are all not privy too, Microsoft views the Japanese market as a key victory. When you think about it, it may seem that Microsoft has added a lot of extra stuff, but at Microsoft's cost an extra controller, DVD remote, and two games probably doesn't amount to much. Sure, to you and I the extras are valued at over a hundred bucks, but not at cost. Bill Gates was very clear when he said Microsoft entered the console space to dominate. I'd say this is just another example of Microsoft's commitment to their cause.

RH.

[mass]

&lt;div class=\&quot;smallfont\&quot;&gt;&lt;/div&gt;


Sorry for the change of direction but i wanted to address this opinion. Microsoft might have a bad sports lineup but i agree with ed fries when he said &quot;we need to build our own franchises&quot;. I think MS needs to keep it's sports franchise not because it's competing with EA, which it's not since EA is on the xbox also, but because it needs to become it's own respected development house.

To earn any respect as a sytem you must be able to provide exclusive content and there are no games more profitable than in-house developed exclusives. MS has had a lot of misses from it's in-house team but it is young and a lot of those efforts were still great achievements for beginners.

It's wrong to get into this mindset of MS needs to buy all the best stuff so it'll be exclusive. Not only is that not profitable but it opens the doors for more RARE purchases which have proven to be faulty. Just because a house peaks at a certain time doesn't mean it'll stay there. Can you image if MS bought MIDWAY when they were big with Mortal Kombat. How much money would they have lost then?

To be profitable you need to see the teams from their begining to their peak and keep them in-house. Sony started out with a lot of crap from their in-house teams and still offer crap from 989 but they stuck with them until they became profitable. MS should do the same with their teams who have shown early signs of talent.

High Voltage software which does the Inside Drive series is not an in-house development team. MS is farming stuff out to various parties and getting sold a bum bill of goods. Just because a title is released by MS does not mean it's developed in-house. A lot of these guys are just guns for hire. MS goes make me a hockey game, and poop, out it comes. And basically, what you wind up with, is just that, poop.

GBTG is in-house, Voodoo Vince isn't. MS right now, is damaging their credibility as a sports publisher big time, by being late to the party and delivering an inferior product despite only having to develop that title just for the xbox. Inside Pitch was two months late, played like crap, and with mediocre visuals and audio. Absolutely no justification in coming into the market with a late product that is decidely inferior and short of the online component sporting no redeeming features.

Sony should dump 989, and give those guys all their walking papers. Their sports titles are a continuing joke. Just awful.