[Spoiler]

Finally got around to watching the finale.  Wow, that was good.

I kind of agree with Turtle, though, there's a fear that they've shot their wad and can't really go up from here.

OTOH, they've continued to impress me and have surprised me just when I think they're being predictable.

As to your question, Turtle:

Spoiler for Hiden:

The only character with even close to the impact that Moriarty has is Irene herself, and she was only in one story.

They could bring Lestrade across the pond, but he's not a villain.

They might start echoing the stories more (like Hound of the Baskervilles) but that hasn't been their MO and too similar to Sherlock.

Spoiler for Hiden:

since they already turned Irene into a villain it wouldn't be a stretch to do the same with Lestrade, but that'd be predictable now.  I forget, has Mycroft shown up yet?

still, here's an idea of what to expect in season 2.

Spoiler for Hiden:

Irene was already a villain in the original story.

I'd bet that 95% of people who have an xbox or a ps4 has it connected online...  The other 5%?  Well, times are changing, time to adapt.  I really don't see the issue.  This type of thing happens all the time as technology/features change. 

You realize the last guy who told people to get with the times over this "always connected" thing caused such an uproar that he got fired, right?

Not super happy with these recent revelations about no BC and the disc trade thing.

The second one doesn't actually affect me that much, as I don't go in for the used game thing too often anyway.  But I see that as a really boneheaded move, and it makes me concerned for what else they're screwing up.

No BC is not surprising, of course, but it is an issue for me and will have an effect.

I'm holding out final judgment until E3, as this was clearly a presentation for non-gamers (I don't know what folks were expecting, frankly) and investors.  Of course, Engine's NASDAQ chart showed that last part didn't go so well.

It's not going so well for me, either.

You know, for all the griping about pre-rendered graphics, I feel like we're getting some insight into what's possible for gen 4.

More of a general thing, than Xbox-specific, though.

I feel like I should be excited about the Halo show, but I'm really not.

They did warn us this wouldn't be about the games.

8 new franchises?  Zoinks.

It's not just the frat vote, though. I don't give a crap either, but there's a reason they can release a new version every year.

Finally, graphics. Though it seems these are sizzle graphics of what's "possible".

That controller is sexy as hell without changing the good stuff.

Dude needs to tuck in his shirt.

They need to integrate that guide with Netflix and Amazon Prime queues.

Finally, kinect is minority report

First game console name that Ihaven't hated immediately then grown used to.

[Spoiler]

Total Lifetime Grosses
Domestic:    $83,701,981      51.0%
+ Foreign:    $80,500,000      49.0%
= Worldwide:    $164,201,981   

In Release:    4 days / 0.6 weeks(Domestic)

Watched it tonight, and thought it was mostly well-done, except for the last 5 minutes. I didn't like the resolution much. I felt like the film ended by just falling off a cliff.

Spoiler for Hiden:

John Harrison being revealed as Khan didn't bother me. I thought it was neat--Benedict Cumberbatch is a very good actor. The death switcheroos between Kirk and Spock were a welcome twist here. What I didn't like is how the movie just ends with Spock and Khan fighting out on a flying barge over San Francisco.. Kirk being expediently resurrected with Khan's blood.. and Khan shown being stashed away in cryosleep. The whole ending felt rushed. And I know that the Star Trek universe is all about right moralities and such, but I really wanted to see Kahn die. I didn't get a sense that he was defeated at all. Just subdued. You don't make a two hour film as adrelanine-driven and threatening as this one just to have your main villain subdued and stashed away in cryosleep.

Meh. The ending sucked.

about the end

Spoiler for Hiden:

I think we still have to have this timelines 'Wrath' from Khan,i am guessing they will all be dumped on some deserted planet now

why did Kirk not look all scabby like Spock Prime did in WoK?

I know its their own universe and timeline now,but the Kirk Death was not as powerful as Spock Prime's death because Kirk was back on his feet in no time,while Spock Prime had a whole movie getting him back

and has someone mentioned why they needed Khan's blood in the end(needed to keep him alive),when they had 72 other 'supermen'?

my hope for Star trek 3,4 and 5

Spoiler for Hiden:

Star Trek 3-Exploration movie-have whatever story

Star Trek 4-Klingon War movie-get called back or get distress signal on way home from movie 3 events

Star Trek 5-Khan's Wrath-after war embark on another 5 year exploration mission,but discover deserted planet where Botany Bay is


As much as i enjoyed Cumberbatch i don't want him to return too soon,make it really feel as though he has been abandoned for a long time

I wondered the same thing about the solution, mo.

Spoiler for Hiden:

I imagine you'd have to dethaw them to get the blood, and I'm sure they didn't want another one of those dudes running around. 

Should have been mentioned, though, as it seemed fairly obvious.

That may be the reason that Spike Lee is actually a good choice for this.  His blatant disregard for bending to studios or kowtowing to audiences might let the core of the film remain.

I figured I had seen most of these (AICN runs a Behind the Scenes Pic of the Day nearly every day), but I hadn't seen a lot of them.

Loved this one:

[Spoiler]

How many of those people are working on piecing the still images together to get a look at the whole console?

well, someone did.  saw this shared on Facebook, it said a guy from Reddit (Taggart451) did it but there was no further link:

Spoiler for Hiden:

The PS4: Bringing modern art into every home in America!

you should see the media that you put in it:

Spoiler for Hiden:

Well, of course, then somebody really did:



source

Not getting the funny... why did he stab her in the face with a knife using the force and with a grapefruit?
Is there a reason she's wearing a big-ass-scarf at breakfast? Is that a Star Wars version of a bathrobe?

You now must watch a montage of all the Episode 2 love scenes.  You brought it on yourself.

I own Revelations for 3DS, so not sure I would want to double dip on it, though if I did it would be Wii U.

Definitely getting Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D, though.

Both of those titles would be double dip for me, so I'm out.

[Spoiler]

Finally got around to watching the finale.  Wow, that was good.

I kind of agree with Turtle, though, there's a fear that they've shot their wad and can't really go up from here.

OTOH, they've continued to impress me and have surprised me just when I think they're being predictable.

As to your question, Turtle:

Spoiler for Hiden:

The only character with even close to the impact that Moriarty has is Irene herself, and she was only in one story.

They could bring Lestrade across the pond, but he's not a villain.

They might start echoing the stories more (like Hound of the Baskervilles) but that hasn't been their MO and too similar to Sherlock.

I wish there was a way to know what causes the problem or if you can go from fine to borked.  My last session went just fine, but I'm worried to jump back in.

[Spoiler]

For me it wasn't jaw-dropping, but still incredibly enjoyable.

Spoiler for Hiden:

The evidence kept mounting, and when they finally had him in the brig, and he went on and on about his origin, my grin and grin got bigger and bigger.  In fact, right before that scene is when Scotty goes into the space dock.  I didn't know it was a scace dock at first and I was frantically scanning the ship, looking for the words "Botany Bay."

But during Cumberbatch's reveal speech, I actually started muttering, "Say it...say it..."  Thankfully there was only one other guy in the theater, and he wasn't close to me.

As far as word of mouth on this thing, a group of friends were recently emailing around trying to get a dinner out happening.  It didn't.  However, one of them said that if the one couple who is going is looking for something to do after dinner, she heard that Star Trek was really good.  This group is about as non-geeky as you can get.  The recommendation was basically from a soccer mom (although she does have a good knowledge of film).

[Spoiler]

I wasn’t saying that they are always right, just that they develop hardware in anticipation of a game type they want to make, thus they are unlikely to want to be stuck with another companies hardware.

There's nothing "ahead of the curve" with the WiiU tablet controller. Its a blatant attempt to get in on the tablet/smartphone popularity of the last few years. IMO its another gimmick by Nintendo.

Divergent gameplay is a thing though; as far as I know it has never been done before on a console (PC yes).  

Some of the games in Nintendoland do this very well (others very poorly) but give the player with the tablet a unique gameplay experience to what controller users have.  

Rayman Legends also uses this in an interesting way, allowing one player to manipulate the environment with the touchpad while the other player(s) run the course as a normal 2D platformer.  I highly recommend this one; by the way, we’ve been playing it extensively since they release new courses every day.

I can also see this used to great effect for future games that emulate table top roleplaying.  Basically, dungeon master on tablet.

GameCube – Duel Joysticks for better FPS.

The original PlayStation had a Dual Analog Controller released 4 years before the GameCube.  

I thought the PS1 had this thing?  

Spoiler for Hiden:

I don’t know personally, I never owned one.  Just going by what I remember from the article.

Nintendo themselves did divergent gameplay back on the Gamecube with a GBA extension which let you play 4 Swords and a Pac-Man game that is extremely similar to a lot of the games in Nintendoland (the GBA player was Pac-Man and everyone else played the ghosts).

It wasn't built into the console, which I think was your point, but it was a gimmick.

I see the Wii U not so much as a blatant attempt to ride the mobile wave (the Wii U isn't super mobile, though you can buy a car adapter), as much as a way to continue what they've been doing on the DS into the living room.

[Spoiler]

Spoiler for Hiden:

I think there was a thread on this,no doubt started by CK

I hope they keep the Pieces of Eden storyline,in Assassins Creed 2 i loved that story at that point...and then the story all but evaporated in the sequels after number 2

but price of admission is for Fassbender in the Animus and then as a distant relative in the past,it may even come across better than in the video games with Desmond

I thought there was a thread, too, but I couldn't find it.

Anyway, the new news is the release date.

I agree that the main draw is Fassbender, and then hoping that they focus on the right things in the story.

for the PC?  yep, this is VIII, not VII.  seems like an odd choice for a graphical update, and an even odder choice to make it for the PC version.

Unfortunately, we're still four years away from the FF VII 20 year anniversary, which to them means we're only four years away from a rerelease.

I agree that Nintendo should have pulled out of the hardware market years ago, and focused on software for the next generation of consoles.  Nintendo's handheld market is very strong currently; but I can see that losing ground to smartphones in the coming years since there are far more smartphone users than Nintendo DS users.

This month hasn't been good for Nintendo news, and the only good thing right now is that Nintendo is still very much a strong company that has options. I do not believe Nintendo will go bankrupt, but they will have to change their business model if they want to survive into the next 2 generations of the gaming market.

They're already losing ground to smart phones.  



Note that this is the app store vs all handhelds combined.

Source

May 22, 2015

That's going to change, for sure, as that is likely to be the Star Wars Ep VII release date.

In case you weren't aware, Michael Fassbender is set to play the lead.

I don't how bad this actually is for the system. Seems to me the core of Nintendo's systems have always been their own franchises lie Mario, Zelda, Metroid etc. That seems to me to be what most fans talk about anyways so if they can deliver on them I still see fans buying the system. Now getting to the huge more casual masses the first Wii got too I'd say that doesn't look likely with the WiiU. I see this generation being more like the Gamecube.

Which would be a very bad thing for Nintendo.  The Gamecube was not a success and the only thing that kept Nintendo afloat was the overwhelming success of the GBA at the time.  I'm not sure what the sales stats are on the 3DS at this point, but it's not at the GBA level for sure.  They may still be doing well with the DS, but I still doubt they could afford another Gamecube.

But you're okay though, right MO?

 


Yeah i would of gave those lameass Dr Who fans what for

You say that now, but let's see how well you form words with a sonic screwdriver up the ass.

As disgusting as that is, my eyes are just drawn to "peice".

Yep.

This will definitely be hard for Nintendo to recover from.  The best way, I think, is for them to get busy on exclusives that make the uniqueness of the system dazzle.  If they get even one or two Must-Have games that are specifically unique to the Wii U, then the system will start selling and EA will come aboard and others will follow.

For most people, the Wii was the only system, not the other one they paired with their 360 or PS3.  The thing is that Wii was selling for more than just gamers.  That's the reason it dominated.

But they made this new one difficult for those same people to get their brain around.  Is it an upgrade?  What is the pad for, exactly?  TBH, I'm not sure Nintendo knows what to do with the thing yet.

Designing for the Wii U isn't an issue, though.  It doesn't take a lot to put whatever's in the pause menu onto the pad screen.  Why even use the screen at all, if you don't want?  Just slap a logo up there or something.

But it's not worth the effort to port it over if no one is buying the system.

Nintendo was in a similar situation with the 3DS and they deftly pulled themselves out of that hole.  But I'm not as sure they believe in the Wii U as much as they did the 3DS.  E3 will tell, I guess, but not having a press conference is sure as hell not a good indicator.

[Spoiler]

Saw it this morning.

Overall, I liked it a lot.  Fan service is the name of the game, as mo said.  To the point where I can see a lot of people complaining about it, frankly.  To me, it was nice to see that they embraced it full-on.  Like why dip your toe in the water?  If you're going to go for it, go whole hog.

Spoiler for Hiden:

There were so many parallels, too, that it actually makes sense in this new spin-off universe.  Kahn explained that the explosion of Vulcan is what caused him to be found early, so it's like fate was rewiring everything to get the pieces in line, as it were.

But it's not just the massive fan-servicing, there were lots of little things, too. 

Spoiler for Hiden:

Can't think of them all, but certain lines are directly from Wrath of Kahn, of course, but also working in the 5 year mission, "I'm a doctor not a torpedo engineer", etc.

My favorite bit, though (and I can't believe there was no indication of it at all in trailers and such):

Spoiler for Hiden:

Going to Kronos.  Major geek splooge going on there.  For a second, I was worried they weren't going to let the Klingons out of the ships, then that they weren't going to take off the helmets.  Nicely milked.

And that gave Uhura her big moment.  It's nice that everyone gets their chance to shine, but it's going to get a bit formulaic over more movies.  Also, it's already causing some logic leaps.

Spoiler for Hiden:

Like is Chekhov really the second best person to be in charge of Engineering on the whole ship?  Why the hell isn't he second in command down there, then.

Spoiler for Hiden:

Spock talking to Spock was totally unnecessary and should have been cut.  We learned nothing from that, and Spock learned nothing that was directly useful.

I also agree with the comments about the dragged on bit and the cheapness of the save for one character.

Spoiler for Hiden:

Kirk's death.

But even that part wasn't spoil-the-movie lame, just a little convenient.

Oh, and maybe I'm crazy, but in at this moment toward the end of the film:

Spoiler for Hiden:

When Kirk, Carol and Scotty get beamed back into the brig.

I swear there was a Mon Calamari manning the station.

[Spoiler]

Don't miss the $.30 sale this week: Super Metroid, Plus 50% off Super Mario Bros 2 with Super Mario World and the fantastic Runner 2 is 25% off through the end of the month.

Also a 3D Swords & Soldiers and Starship Damrey from Level 5.

Spoiler for Nintendo Weekly Downloads:

Wii U sales
50% off Super Mario Bros. 2 when you buy Super Mario World – ends May 23 at 9 PM PT
Runner2 – 25% off until May 30

Wii U VC
Super Metroid – 30 cents
Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts
Super Mario Bros. 2

Wii U retail
LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes – available May 21
Resident Evil: Revelations HD – available May 21

3DS download
Swords & Soldiers 3D
The Starship Damrey
Bowling Bonanza 3D
Dress To Play: Magic Bubbles!

3DS VC
Mega Man 5
Harvest Moon

DSiWare
California Super Sports

Wii VC
The King of Fighters ’99

Goodbye online passes, hello IAP/online session!

Updates on all consoles require approval by the user.

Doesn't mean it won't download the update so it's ready to install when you approve, but, frankly, the download is only part of the hurdle.

There's no way any of these consoles will update your system automatically.

just make it like it is with the xbox- you start up the console, if there is an update it ops up with a simple yes/no question as whether or not to do it.

Right, and when you agree it downloads then installs the update.

PS3 is almost the same, but it makes you look at a(n) EULA first.  It's more than just a click of yes or no, though.

Careful you don't get sued (a decade ago): http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002/05/09/toy-yoda.htm?AID=4992781&PID=4003003&SID=q82gjeu31qlp

I can't believe it's not Stonehenge!

or

Nigel gave me a drawing that said 18 inches.

Butter stop while you're ahead.