Fellow gamers, distinguished colleagues, friends,
I write here to raise awareness of a grave injustice befalling the gamers of an unfortunate society. Numbering in the thousands, these gamers are crying out for a saviour to rescue them from their oppressive government and sanctioned international trade laws.
I am of course, speaking of the good people from the People’s Republic of Australia
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The march of technology is supposed to make things better for consumers, but these days it seems videogame makers strive to find new ways to take more of our money and give us less in return.
We are not communists here at Game|Life. We want publishers to make financially prudent decisions so they can continue to deliver games that fuel our addictions. But some bone-headed business moves benefit everyone except us.
Here are the 10 worst offenders:
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A number of people raised comments about my previous article (Console Sales - The Report Card) by saying that the Wii was skewing the results. There was also some doubt as to my final conclusion that growth in the industry was being driven primarily by Wii sales. This article is a short follow-up. I will attempt to reproduce a few of the graphs, but removing the Wii from the analysis so we can get a clearer picture of the “hardcore” consoles. The results were quite surprising…
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Now that we are relatively deep into the current console generation, we thought it would be a good idea to take a look at the NPD sales data till now to see how they all stack up. We will go through a brief analysis of all the quarterly data and provide a report card for each console. Just to emphasize, this is NOT a report card on the relative merits of each console. This analysis is of pure, hard data. Sales of 100,000 are more than sales of 80,000 regardless of how you feel about each product. Basic mathematics. Now lets get down to business…
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The following list is a compilation of my favourite gaming theme songs. It was difficult to narrow down such a list so I put together the following guidelines:
- Only one song per franchise:
Many of the games mentioned in this list (especially further down) have incredibly powerful soundtracks throughout their respective series. This restriction ensures there is some variety, rather than 10 songs from the same place.
- Must be a theme song:
Odd as this item might sound given the title of the list, a number of game soundtracks have phenomenal songs which would not be classified as a theme song. I am not restricting myself to say a theme song is only the title theme, but there must at least be a strong association between the music and the game for a majority of listeners. If a song sounds fantastic, but does not remind the listener of the game it is associated with, then it is not a theme song.
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From HipHopGamerShow:
The console war is brewing up to be one of the worst in terms of the raw fight itself. It’s no secret that Sony likes to win, but then again who doesn’t? There are currently three consoles in the market as of now, each with their own uniqueness which makes the consoles what they are. The profit a console makes isn’t really what matters, but the ones who are leading the sales chart since it’s each others ego the competitors are trying to hurt, that and the winner gets bragging rights. Sony is the least fit to win this generation in my opinion. There are currently only two consoles I can think of that are best competitors to the number one spot, but one more than the other and I will explain in a bit.
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In the last few years, much digital ink has been devoted to the endless debate over whether the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 is the superior console. The debate has centered around areas such as graphics, price, online gaming, attach rates and game libraries. However, one of the least discussed areas is also (in my opinion), one of the most exciting. It is an area that serves as a testing ground for publishers trying out new and inventive business models. It is a microcosm of the industry where blockbuster AAA titles with multi-million dollar budgets live alongside independent developers. This area is the digital marketplace. Both the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3 have served up Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) and Playstation Network (PSN) respectively as contenders for the king of online game distribution. But which one deserves the crown?
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