Random Gaming Thoughts (Read OP Before Posting)

[Henry Spencer]

Ubi-Soft expected 5 million sales for Splinter Cell: Blacklist. They're "disappointed" that it only sold around 2 million (this is the second highest selling SC game of all time, by the way, only beaten out by Conviction).

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=746392

[Giorgio]

Played Fallout 1. Didn't like it. Didn't like it all. Too slow on progression. Gameplay is not of any variation. Two dimensional tactical real time strategy and little bit of point and click exploring, that didn't gamingly taste on me. As a gamer, every ten seconds I expect a surprise and that just didn't tick... Fortunately, I just got it for free on GOG, some days ago.

[Kenny]

Ubi-Soft expected 5 million sales for Splinter Cell: Blacklist. They're "disappointed" that it only sold around 2 million (this is the second highest selling SC game of all time, by the way, only beaten out by Conviction).

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=746392

Makes me wonder, are they TOO optimistic...or are they spending too much in development and the target is the point where they start actually making money?

[Who Really Cares?]

Surprised it sold that much to be honest. Seemed to be heavily reduced quickly and didn't have much hype. Also have any SC games sold 5M?


Over 3M XBox One's sold in just over a month.

[Henry Spencer]

@WRC: Not for a really long time, by the looks of things (not since the original game).

@Kenny: Well, Square-Enix had ridiculous expectations for Tomb Raider & Hitman too and they still made a profit on those, despite the "expectations" being almost double what they ended up with.
It's what is "profitable" vs "expectations". If you look at the Splinter Cell series, they always sold around 1m since the original (they've never been amazing sellers after the first game); so I have no idea how they made an expectation that it had to sell 5 million.

I mean, here's the figures for each entry, somebody posted in NeoGAF:

Splinter Cell Xbox - 2.9 million units
Splinter Cell PS2 - 2.4 million units

Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow Xbox - 1.5 million units
Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow Ps2 - 1 million units

Splinter Cell Chaos Theory Xbox - 1.1 million units
Splinter Cell Chaos Theory PS2 - 0.8 million units

Splinter Cell Double Agent Xbox 360 - 1.1 million units
Splinter Cell Double Agent PS3 - 0.2 million units

Splinter Cell Conviction Xbox 360 - 1.8 million units

Also, in other gaming news:

Video game cover artist Greg Martin – known for his work on such classic titles as Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Pac-Man, Landstalker and more – has passed away.

Writing on the NintendoAge forum, a friend informed readers of Martin’s passing, and posted a eulogy for his fans.

An excerpt reads, “Greg was the rare person who both worked in and was a fan of the work of others in his industry. I don’t think he ever lost that sense of wonder he had as a teenager for really great artwork, and he was a collector himself of artwork, movies, art books, and other things. He was a huge fan of Frank Frazetta, Gil Elvgren, Hal Foster, and dozens if not hundreds of other artists.”

Perhaps his most memorable work was the front cover of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, released in 1992.

He began as an artist at Hanna Barbera, before moving on to the work for companies like Nintendo and Sega, creating gorgeous airbrushed paintings by hand.

Martin created iconic box art for numerous high-profile games throughout his career, such as Sonic 2, 3, CD, Spinball and Chaos, Pac-Man, Landstalker, The Flintstones, and Duck Tales 2.

http://www.vg247.com/2014/01/06/sonic-2 ... rtin-dies/

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/2080 ... sutra+News)

EDIT: Holy SHIT, this guy is/was a LEGEND, didn't even realise so many VHS and game covers were all drawn by him [Batman: The Animated Series, Freakazoid, Scooby Doo] this guy's art personifies 90s artwork for me, as a child, such a nostalgia bomb right about now seeing it all again:







Best Sonic artist too, I think.

[*Kenshin Himura*]

Getting Nostalgia for the 16 bit era now.. Thanks to Mr. Spencer.

[Who Really Cares?]

Those bright and cheerful covers would sadly never be accepted now.

[Raithos]

So I ordered the Bravely Default CE on Amazon shortly after I got my 3DS on black Friday, just got an email saying it was canceled due to a technical error.

[OL]

Popped in the PC version of the old 2005 Punisher game a little while ago. Specifically bought that version back in the day because the black and white "censoring" (i.e. "pussifying") could be patched away, reverting the game back to it's originally-intended gory-as-fuck form. Still don't know why the devs had to censor it to begin with. I've seen much worse violence in other games, not the least of which is Marvel's own Wolverine PS3/360 game (so being part of an established brand couldn't have been a part of it)...

Unfortunately, I can't seem to find the patch for it anymore. All links I can find are dead, and the only de-censor patch I came up with is for an iso of the Xbox version.

I knew I should have put that patch on a blank cd and kept it with the game. I remember telling myself that all those years ago. Now if I want to play the game, it has to be censored... and that just robs all the fun away. I want to see it when I send a guy through a wood chipper, or when I force an enemy's head into a tank full of piranhas. Without it... it's just not the same game.

[Kenny]

Eliza is finally released as a character today on TR. But the requirements to get her are fucking ridiculous.

You need to collect 20,000...thingies in order to get her. You can't buy her at all. And you get ONE per Arcade and 5 per Online match unless you use a premium ticket, which in case you get 10. So basically you need to play 200 matches using tickets in order to unlock her fast.

Fuuuuuuuuuuck.

[Giorgio]

Future of gaming is when you'll not get games in physical releases nor in digital released (that is to actually download and save them on a device's memory "permanently"), neither you will buy a system to play them on, but you would be able to play them on every possible devise, through cloud technology, with such a devise that is capable to just play streaming video and of course having network capabilities. Really, my thought is influenced by the latest "PlayStation Now". Many things we may not like about it, but some things may be positive (regardless for whom).

For game companies it will reduce the costs of manufacturing (consoles, games in physical release etc), the base of gamers will expand potentially unmeasurable (when we talk about owners of devices like Smart TVs, Tablets, Smartphones etc), every available game you would be able to play it on the go (if you have the appropriate devise).

Furthermore, game developers will have more resources in processor power etc, thus the graphics capabilities could move beyond the current capabilities of the current next gen consoles, and continually progressively move with a more higher schedule in better achievements. In other words, it will not depend on your console's power, but, for example, it will depend on a super-computer's power to do the processing and such, delivering to the client (through streaming by network) unmatched graphics, gameplay technology etc; in a word, an unmatched *output* towards the client (an output that can't come from the current consoles compared to a ...quantum computer, relatively speaking).

I'll leave the negative aspects of this for you to comment... ;)

[MiTT3NZ]

If I can play them on a Nokia 3310 it has my full backing.

[Henry Spencer]

Too much reliance on servers is never a good thing.
Not a fan of PSNow, at all. If you've played games over Remote Play, you'll know all about that lag. It's fine for RPGs or adventure games and the like, but try playing an action game or platformer, you have no chance. Can't play such games being streamed on a journey somewhere, like on a train journey, plane journey or in a car journey, so I hope that they don't change it for Vita too to that service... I'm just going to keep my PS3, which will play all of my PS1 games and keep my PS2.

I would much rather Sony opted for backward compatibility, would have meant, I wouldn't have had to keep that heavy, clunky weight under my TV called the PS3. Ah well...Sony, you disappointed me there.

[Axm]

Actually if you've ever played remote play of PS4 games on Vita, theirs hardly any noticeable lag at all. Now, I realize that is with a different network conditions and how it's being essentially streamed from the PS4 strait to the Vita and so thus you'll have less lag, but still thats a start.
And with everyone's internet connections being at different speeds, some much slower than others, yes theirs going to be a lot of growing pains. However our connections will only get faster over time. So I don't see it being a hurdle that won't be overcome in the next couple years or anything, especially if dedicated servers are involved and they will be.

On the subject of Streaming games vs. owning physical media, Id pick physical any day. However we can't deny the huge potential in more classic games being available to us due to cost savings in development time, distribution and storage savings. Playstation Now could help actually make a Shenmue port and other Dreamcast games a much easier proposition if it's simply being emulated on a Sony PC server and streamed to us without having the PS3/4/Vita doing any of the actual work.
Well thats atleast with my limited knowledge of how Playstation Now works.
I see negatives with this all swell of course though, such as it eventually killing off the physical format all together but I can't see that happening for the next 5-7 years.
See this is the kind of thing I've been saying next gen systems would do for years before they were announced. Game streaming, 4K support etc. A lot of people here scoffed at me about it but now here we are.

[Axm]

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