Coming to a country near you. Get ready for it.  Actually in the US I think Google/ Netflix/ Amazon/ Apple et. al will spend more on lobbyists than COX/ ATT etc... so the caps may not come.  Though, the US has a libertarian (small "L") bias right now also, so maybe the "user-pays" mentality will win out resulting in caps.

My current cap is 15GB, which I must admit is a factor of where I live in Australia (a fairly remote area). In the state capitals it is apparently not much of an issue. It is a nice place to live, so all these convenience charges are a part of my choice.

aspro said:

Coming to a country near you. Get ready for it.  Actually in the US I think Google/ Netflix/ Amazon/ Apple et. al will spend more on lobbyists than COX/ ATT etc... so the caps may not come.  Though, the US has a libertarian (small "L") bias right now also, so maybe the "user-pays" mentality will win out resulting in caps.

My current cap is 15GB, which I must admit is a factor of where I live in Australia (a fairly remote area). In the state capitals it is apparently not much of an issue. It is a nice place to live, so all these convenience charges are a part of my choice.

It's very reminiscent of the early AOL days where people were paying by the hour to be online. Data plans on phones are already way more than they should be. I hope Google makes big strides in this war.

aspro said:

GCN = Jaggy as all fuck. mario Sunshine comes to mind.

XB = Actually. No complaints.

PS2 = Smudged.

PS3 = Actually. No complaints. Except for games that were native on 360, which = screen tearing.

360 = Screen tearing.

Wii = No problem really, so long as you use a CRT.

Not as poetic, but just as descriptive. Thank ye kindly.

I wonder if the same type of potted analysis is possible with PC, even beyond a generational basis. Certainly since 3D graphics there seems to be a consistency in how the malleability of PC graphics affects the look of games in general. "Clarity" might just do the trick.

Aspro's wish has finally come true, and the Media Create sales for last week have been posted. Dragon Quest X sales. . .  367,148.  That's about a half to a third of what a DQ game would normally do on it's launch. Ouch. Famitsu has it about 50K higher though. Got to wonder what S-E's expectations for the game are. Here's the rest of the Japanese sales:

robio said:

Dragon Quest X sales. . .  367,148.  That's about a half to a third of what a DQ game would normally do on it's launch. Ouch. Famitsu has it about 50K higher though. Got to wonder what S-E's expectations for the game are.

It's also not a normal DQ game, it's an MMORPG DQ and already about 300k or so ahead of the original FFXI release which while being in a similar situation as far as unit sales to IP ratio go went on to become SE's most profitable (FF?) game yet thanks to the subscription fees. Granted, that had the benefit of the various platform releases, notably on PC too (although we don't even know if that won't happen for this game after the WiiU version), while the FF brand has more worldwide appeal than DQ, but DQX is off to a great start, though we need to wait for conclusions. If SE has to worry about an MMO hurting them it's still FFXIV.

Anyone expecting higher sales for this game's launch was being a bit delusional to say the least (and I just read the peak player base of FFXI was only like 500k, though that doesn't mean it didn't sell many more copies overall, but it shows you don't need that many dedicated players to make a killing). I just hope they bring it here since going by GAF impressions it's not actually half bad and it looks refreshing for someone like me who is tired of all the WoW clones and Korean grind fests in the genre, which is why I haven't stuck with one since WoW.

Yeah, people can make all the points about the subscription fees and long-term goals, I didn't see sales of around 400K being up to expectations. This is freaking Dragon Quest. It's a Japanese instituation that nationwide laws were passed for regarding the days it could be released.  Still maybe it'll see a gradual drop and maintain high sales for a while. I hope so anyway. If this ultimately ends up being a failed experiment there goes hope for my Pokemon MMO.

Thoughts?:

Steam Now Going Into Non-Game Applications As rumored last month.

robio said:

Yeah, people can make all the points about the subscription fees and long-term goals, I didn't see sales of around 400K being up to expectations. This is freaking Dragon Quest. It's a Japanese instituation that nationwide laws were passed for regarding the days it could be released.  Still maybe it'll see a gradual drop and maintain high sales for a while. I hope so anyway. If this ultimately ends up being a failed experiment there goes hope for my Pokemon MMO.

For as long as this was in development to get 400K in their first week? Yeah. I doubt that was the plan.

I don't want to turn this into a fanboy thing incidentally, and I don't see why it should. I personally was expecting this to sell over 2 million in the first week and my shock is just what it is -- complete shock.

aspro said:

I don't want to turn this into a fanboy thing incidentally, and I don't see why it should. I personally was expecting this to sell over 2 million in the first week and my shock is just what it is -- complete shock.

So you weren't looking at FFXI's precedent with its <100k launch (it also followed FFX which set the record for the fastest selling RPG with over 1.4m in pre-orders alone so it's not like Japan at the time favored DQ so much more heavily than FF) and expected it to reach the levels of the previous top selling entry despite other factors like Japan's obvious shift to portable gaming in recent times? That's fine and all but that doesn't mean your expectation was theirs also (afaik they shipped like 1m units). Even considering the easier access to this game than the PS2 version of FFXI which required more obscure hardware to work it's done well since the main issues are the fact they're completely different games to their predecessors (especially in DQ's case where it dropped the fully turn based mechanics it kept until now unlike FF and being an MMORPG it's the opposite of the traditional old school JRPG experience) and require fees for full enjoyment.

As for DQXI, it's bound to be single player focused as MMORPGs do have long term goals and aren't replaced every few years as shown by FFXIV, though it will probably resemble IX more than older entries and include online features, unless they think those can threaten DQX. It's also likely to return to the portable space, of course on 3DS. I doubt DQX can be ported to it, but there are other platforms.

As for how long it will take, who knows? A 3DS game would be cheaper and quicker than the alternative of a HD game at least (on WIiU or elsewhere, current or next gen) and it's also possible it's already in development with an external studio like Level-5 since DQX is the first internally developed DQ in a while.

Also, there weren't any laws about the DQ release date, just a recommendation by the government, which SE followed because it didn't really affect them. DQX didn't actually follow that recommendation, for example.

And SE the other day announced they had to double the server capacity for DQX, that doesn't strike me as being below expectations, although at least part of it has to be unforeseen technical issues, not just overwhelming player demand.