mikeszekely

I always thought Papyrus' NASCAR games were horrible (not that EA are the greatest). I didn't even bother with EA's NASCAR 2005 for the PS2 this year. Most of EAs games don't appeal to me anyway including Madden even though I'm an NFL fan. SNK forever!!! lol On one hand this deal with EA/NFL is a good business and on the other it sucks for consumers and kills healthy competition. Some might say Sega/ESPN are to blame for this. When they released their game for 19.99 that caused EA eventually to drop Madden down to 29.99(from 49.99). The NFL doesn't want to see a product with their name/logos/players/sponsors etc getting discounted and sold for cheap. Like all professional sports(except the NHL lol) they are image conscious. Yes, they're so image conscious that they don't like the thought of NFL games being sold for less than $50, but not so image conscious that they aren't afraid to screw their fans and effectively kill the ESPN NFL series and give EA free reign to make the Madden games as crappy as they want to.

Whooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaa no. The Japanese market is severely in the decline, and by large percentages. For mobile phone games, the Japanse market still dominates, but in terms of the individual markets, the Japanese market is smaller than both the US market and the European market today. The US market is the single largest market for videogames today, although I'm not sure about Graham's question. I think the European market might be big enough though that, combined with the Japanese market, it might be larger, but I don't know. And as for Asia, I don't know if they're even a factor. While they do get some low-quality reprints of the Japanese software, the Asian market seems to be comprised mostly of bootlegs.

The problem is that we all remember the unlicensed games and with the exception of Cyberball, they were nothing compared to Tecmo Bowl and the earlier Maddens (with real players). It is a lot more fun playing as Favre or Owens, seeing their faces and hearing the commentators discuss them than playing as 'generic' #4 or 'generic' #81. The thing that really sucks is that Visual Concepts was just getting the ball rolling with the casual gamers. Oh well, here's for another 5 years of mediocrity. Didn't Tecmo Bowl only have team names, not player names? Yes, they did... but as I understand, according to the licensing deal that EA made with the NFL, only EA gets players, stadiums, and TEAMS. So not even the Tecmo Bowl formula would fly now. Well, if Sega and Take Two's deal is still good, maybe they can make a football game with all the teams named after their other franchises. And instead of an NFC and an AFC, you can have a Take Two conference and a Sega conference.

I could never watch anything marathon. It's too much inactivity for me. At least if I'm playing a game, I feel I have some kind of interaction with it. When I watch anime, if it's during the day (like if I'm home by myself at lunch time), I watch 1 or two episodes. If I'm watching anime before I go to bed for the night, maybe 2 or 3 at a time. Never more than three in one day, though.

I have. But there are simply too many NFL fans who care nothing for videogames. One can bitch and whine at whomever they like for this mess, but I'd hope to get something done, and realistically a boycott of the NFL seems unlikely. A boycott of EA, or more specifically, a boycott of the Madden franchise, is more plausible and more likely to get the message across to both sides.

You can make the best, most fun football game ever, and you can have every major gaming magazine and internet site agree that it is so, and it will only sell a tiny fraction compared to the one with the license. This is because gamers might enjoy the flexability and creativity in a non-licensed game, but the majority of the football games seem to be bought buy people who's idea of channel surfing is going back and forth between ESPN and ESPN2 and who only buy sports games or even just football games. Even though I desperately hope Sega comes up with SOMETHING in place of their NFL games, lower sales will likely discourage them from doing that, and instead they'll most likely focus on what sports they do have licenses for (for now). Besides, what's the best non-licensed sports series you can think of? Am I wrong to suggest Mutant League? I might as well point out now that Mutant League is one of EA's properties.

I've had some gripes about EA, but this just takes the cake. I'm not really into football, but even I enjoyed ESPN NFL 2K5. Now it's like you will play Madden or you won't play football. And the thing that sucks the most is that the deal is for FIVE YEARS... just enough time that Madden will be the only NFL games on the next-gen consoles. Well, here's boycotting Madden until EA, the NFL, and the NFLPA learn that you don't make money by screwing over your customers. And in the meantime, here's looking forward to ESPN Arena Football 2K6 or ESPN EFL 2K6.

Yeah, I'd say my one real gripe about Halo 2 was that it was less the amazing sequel we were all waiting for, and more of a teaser to get us all to buy Halo 3 (which better damn well be the amazing sequel we're all waiting for!).

All I have to say to that is: House of the Dead. OMG....was this supposed to be the video game conversion? The trailer looked like a teeny slasher film.... Oh, the blame for that one falls squarely at the feet of Uwe Boll... and no offense to the guy, but EVERYTHING he does sucks. It's like he's from Bizzaro world or something, and everything we think so cool, he thinks is lame, and everything he thinks is cool, we think is lame. Uh, they didn't tap Uwe for Doom, did they?

The reason is probably because they didn't, and for the most part, still don't care. Like I've said, Japanese companies do not distribute their material directly, but rather license it to other companies for distribution in territories outside of Japan. Fansubs have been a way for some companies to judge what's popular, and to decide which series to license. As long as American companies keep licensing anime, the Japanese studios are happy. And as long as the fansubbers stop distributing once a series has been licensed, the American studios have been "no harm, no foul." We've been speculating about what this incident means for fansubbing, but realistically, I don't think means much at all. This isn't a case of American companies cracking down on bootlegs, or Japanese studios worrying that fansubs will cut into a potential American market. This is ONE company upset because they felt that fansubs for ONE particular series might have cut into their own region 2 market. I think this is an isolated incident, and that it's bascially going to blow over, reguardless of whether or not WF finishes School Rumble or not.

I've never cared much for j-rock. Mostly when I hear j-rock, it just sounds like a cheesy immitation of 80's hair bands, or worse, 90's grunge. In my opinion, the best two CD's to come out of Japan this year was M-Flo's "Astromantic" and Ryohei Yamamoto's "Take Over." I think you can sample both of those albums at Asian Music Network.

It doesn't really matter in this case.. Yes, the license still need to be purchased/ issued, but in this case Bandai US and Bandai JP will just have a nominal transaction to satisfy the legal requirements. For all practical purposes, it's Bandai all the way, so they have a vested interest from the start to go for the fan subbers -- every fan sub copy out there will cut into their profit margin. The point is, American (any independent really) companies wishing to sub and distribute anime are not likely to take any serious actions against fan subbers, because the fan subbers are providing a FOC service. So long the Japanese animation houses have no interest in distributing their works in the US markets, there is no vested interest for them to take action against the fan subbers, and the current status will remain. But when the Japanese animation houses have intention to distribute in the US, they will start protecting their IP rights from day 1. That is expected and is really the worrisome thing for the "free" anime community. If the trend is for Japanese firms to start producing direct-to-America content, then fan subbing is likely to be hit. How badly depends on how aggressive the Japanese firms push. But that's EXACTLY my point. A Japanese animation house doesn't intend to market their product directly in America... they intend for another company to license it from them. And in this case, it's not actually a group of studios who are involved in this... it's one specific studio, Media Factory, that's sending out the cease and desist letters, and it's apparently because Akane Maniax was realeased on fansubs before the R2's. Even if fansubs are intended for Westerners, Japanese fans would still have access to them. And if Japanese are downloading fansubs instead of buying the R2 DVDs, then one could argue that the fansubs are cutting into the Japanese market.

Napster killed nothing. The recording industry killed themselves by oversaturating the market with me too's and then charging damn near $20 for a CD that cost them next to nothing to make. CD sales were on the way down, file sharing or not. Actually, it WAS Napster. Sort of. When the RIAA attacked Napster, it started a boycott of CDs. Most of the Napster users were using it as a preview system, and actually buying CDs. So the users felt that it was an attack on legitimate purchasers. And legitimate studies up to that point had connected INCREASED CD sales to file-sharing. After that firstl lawsuit, it was all downhill. Boycott starts, CD sales fall, RIAA cites hard #s as evidence of file-sharing damage instead of just preaching their pet theory, RIAA is unable to shut down modern sharing programs due to their decentralized nature, so they commit PR suicide and directly attack the consumer, causing further reduced sales as they alienate their purchasers even more, reduced sales cause more lawsuits, lather, rinse, repeat. Which further emphasizes that it WAS the recording industry, not Napster/file sharing. Blaming Napster in that case is like blaming the knife for killing a stabbing victim instead of the knife-wielder.

So if they re-made Terminator without Ah-nold but there was far more gore and violence, it would rule? BLASPHEMY May CROM tear out your eyes! You cannot compare the two... Terminator is already a movie, Doom is a game. You still haven't answered the question... Though if you need for me to clarify, the point of that question is that Doom without Hell is like Terminator without Ah-nold. It's just wrong no matter what. Yeah, Agent... we're not trying to compare Terminator and Doom. What we're saying is that if you take Mars, Hell, demons, and Space Marines out of Doom, then you're stripping it of everything that defines Doom. Just like if you took Arnold out of Terminator, it strip the movie of everything that made it Terminator. Action-packed gorefest entertainment it might be, but Doom it is NOT.

But as far as I know, even when a company has international branches, the products created by one still have to be licsenced for distrubition in other territories by the other branches. I mean, take Gundam Seed Destiny, for example. Seed's been reletively successful both in Japan and in America, do it's innevitable that Bandai America will release it here. But, until Bandai America has to liscense it from Bandai Japan. Until they do, it's considered unlicsensed.

Napster killed nothing. The recording industry killed themselves by oversaturating the market with me too's and then charging damn near $20 for a CD that cost them next to nothing to make. CD sales were on the way down, file sharing or not.

Sony's saying March... but remember, this is the same Sony that said that Gran Turismo 4 would be out like a year ago...

Do you think they should remove the word "portable" then? Sure there are many place that have power outlet, but carrying that thing and a power plug everywhere you go? Battery life and size are both important in portables. Sure, many places have outlets, but in most cases they can be difficult or even impossible to get to. Also, the PSP is already larger than the DS by itself, and people complain the DS is too large, having to carry around an external battery and a bunch of plugs can make it a hassle to take anywhere with you. I had that problem with my Game Gear. The PSP is really almost useless as a movie player, considering the battery life in movie mode. As a portable... I think 4-6 hours is alright. I mean, if you're flying out of the US, the battery life is probably too short for the plane ride. But for the most part, I've never played a videogame for more than an hour or two oustide of my home. Even if you find yourself playing for four hours in one day, you go home and charge it, and you're good to go for the next day.

Now just a cotton-picking minute here! I'm a Republican, and I use a PC. But I wouldn't be caught dead driving a Ford. I'm talking, I'd rather walk than drive a Ford (of couse, if I was driving a Ford, I'd end up walking most of the time anyway, but at least if I'd planned to just walk instead, I wouldn't have to worry about having to have the damn Ford towed...). Not a big fan of Chevy, either. In my eyes, almost as unreliable as Ford. I only drive Japanese cars.

Well-spoken, Mr. March.

I've been bitten by Sony, but not too bad. I didn't get a PS1 until about a year after it released, and that one had overheating issues, but the one I got after it lived up until modern times. As for my PS2, I had one at launch day, and it was fine until recently. This past summer, it was playing MOST things fine, but it'd occasionaly have problems with CD-ROM PS2 games (it was still fine with PS1 games). I wasn't taking any chances, though. I dumped that thing and bought a pre-modded one. Maybe I'm being too optimistic, but I'd like to believe that Sony's had enough headaches over QC issues in their computer entertainment division, and that they're working harder to insure that newer PS2 (the slim one comes with a one year warranty instead of the old 90 days), PSP, and PS3 will all be less... fragile. Anyway, before the DS came out, I had no interest in the PSP. It's a slick-looking handheld that mostly plays games I already have for PS2 and movies I don't feel like buying again on UMD, all on a ridiculously short batterly life. But now that I have a DS, and while I'm still far more interested in the DS than the PSP, I am a little more curious about Sony's handheld. I think that, for the most part, the DS will have better and more innovative games... but there are some games (like racing games, for example) that the PSP will just do better. The difference is in my picks for launch games... Feel the Magic for DS, and (I know it's going to miss launch in Japan, but I think it'll make launch here) Need for Speed Underground Rivals for PSP.

Is there anything... radio dramas, manga, novels, anything at all... that gives any details about what happened to Char? I mean, Amuro was starting to get his fighting spirit back, and it's not suprising that he, Astionage, and Bright wound up in Londo Bell (since Londo Bell looks like it was probably comprised mostly of former members of Karaba and the AEUG). But Char... Char vanished mysteriously at the close of Z Gundam, and was probably presumed dead. And Neo Zeon was defeated at the end of ZZ Gundam. So, where was Char during the years between his dissapearance and the events of Char's Counterattack? How'd he go from fighting a corrupt government to head of a military dictatorship? Where/when did he get Sazabi? How'd he wind up with Axis?

I actually didn't care for Stardust Memory. Sure, the animation was great, the mecha were slick, and the battle scenes were fantastic. But it's schizophrenic in terms of story, and it creates more plot holes than it fills. IMHO, a much better Gundam OVA was War in the Pocket. Sure, Alex is the most boringly generic Gundam, the Kaempfer looks like it belongs in another series, and the animation is slightly above TV quality. But it's got one of the most human stories to be found in Gundam. As far as Gundam goes, Z Gundam is by far my favorite, but if you're going to watch it, at least check out the Gundam movie trilogy (although I think the pacing in the TV series is a lot better). I'll second any votes for Escaflowne. And again, as for Evangelion... I'm probably being a little to hard on it. Fact is, I really enjoyed the first 3/4th of the show. The ending(s) are just horrible, though, and even if someone came and did a really spectacular ending, it's still only a decent series. It definately doesn't live up to its own advertising as "the greatest anime of all time." I don't watch a whole lot of anime anymore, though, so I can't really come out and reccomend any other mecha/sci-fi shows. When I do watch anime, it's usually fansubbed comedies.

What? Switch Evangelion to RahXephon and RahXephon to Evangelion in that entire paragraph, and then it would be a true statement I concur. I dissent. Evangelion was a mildy interesting anime about characters that were all mental (but only Shinji in a way that makes you care about him), mecha so lame they had to physically plugged in, and a confusing plot that to this very day lacks any kind of ending that even approaches something that makes sense. Not a bad series, but by far the most over-rated work in the history of the entire universe.

Seriously? Anyone got a screengrab of that?