Nadal has lost at Roland Garros.

This is a sign of the apocalypse people!

Dvader said:

robio said:

I saw those Edge scores too.  Pretty rough.  Then again in a way I kind of appreciate how Edge reviews their games.  They still go by the concept of "5 is an average game, and anything higher is a good game."  At some point both the reviews and gamers both got it in their head that 7 is an average score, and anything less than a 7 is bad.  Edge actually uses the whole 1 - 10 spectrum and it is appreciated.  That Excitebots score is a little lower than I'd like to see though.

And if that really is the PSP Go it's abosolutely doomed.  It needs to have some kind of UMD slot.  It's not just a matter of playing older PSP games either.  If there isn't some kind of hard media it won't allow for a secondary market.  How long will a system really last these days if you can't get used games for it?

I think the 7 thing is valid, the reason being most of us only play the top 10-20% of games that comes out. How many of us play Barbie Horse Adventure, Big Rigs, Imagine games, etc. None of us, we never get to see the bottom of the scale. In relation to all those games the "average" games WE play is probably in the 7 range, if its not you really need to learn to choose your games better.

What's the difference between a game that scores a 10 verses a game that scores an 8?  Feel free not to answer.  The point is, you can probably can provide an answer of some sort.  Now, what's the difference between a game that scores 1 verses one that scores a 4?  I don't think most reviewers can answer that question.  The bottom half of the 10 to 1 scale is pretty much just an undefined pool of crap.

And that's kind of my point.  We can all probably give rough ideas of what kind of quality a game has anywhere if it scores from 10 to 5, but below that it's all equally crap that we'll never touch.  So if the world insists on a 10 point scale why not actually use it like Edge does?  To me, when you use a full scale like that, a game that scores a 9 is pretty damned special

I don't know why I bother harping on it though.  It'll never change so long as gaming sites and magazines require ad revenue.  That's ultimately it's like that these days.  Most publishers would prefer to advertise their bland average game to a site that scores them a 6 or 7 rather than the 3 or a 4.

Ravenprose said:

robio said:

And if that really is the PSP Go it's abosolutely doomed.  It needs to have some kind of UMD slot.  It's not just a matter of playing older PSP games either.  If there isn't some kind of hard media it won't allow for a secondary market.  How long will a system really last these days if you can't get used games for it?

I believe it's an experiment. Sony is testing the market to see if people will buy downloadable-only games instead of cart/disk media. This experiment may impact what Sony does in the future with their other consoles too.

Personally, I like the idea a lot. A portable console isn't nearly as portable when you have to carry a bunch of carts/disks around with you, even if they are small. However, with the PSP Go, you can carry your entire PSP library with you without the extra bulk of physical media. Sure the used market would be hurt, but I don't think consoles live or die based on how many used games there are. Some people won't buy one because of that, but Sony doesn't make money off of used games anyway, so why should they care about losing those consumers?

used games were once bought new, so even if sony doesn't care about the gamers who only buy used games, they will still be affected if the people who buy new games, cannot then go on to offload them as used games in order to better afford more new games.

another question i have is what happens when people exhaust their hard-drive.  (if i remember well it's 16GB isn't it?).  with games being as big as 1.5 GB (or more once the UMD limit is lifted) it won't fit so many games.  having them on one's computer at home (if that is how it would happen), or having the option to re-download a game ala virtual console/wii ware is not most people's idea of a collection.

another problem is, a lot of customers wouldn't even know how to buy games for it in the first place.  assuming every one is tech savvy enough for this sort of thing is wrong.  i see a lot of kids at the school i work with their psps, a lot of them don't even have access to the internet at home (or even a computer) and even then most of those wouldn't know the first thing about downloading a game on the psp.  i also find it a little bit ironic that the people who are most experienced with the sort of thing sony is now asking of their customers are those who will soon find ways around buying the games to play them.

personally, i think it looks good and i'd be sort of interested if sony made it easy to buy and keep games for it.  and i agree with raven that it is largely an experiment and it's not as risky as releasing the psp2 without some kind of hard media device.

travo said:

I'm looking for Bionic Commando:Rearmed on XBL but I can't seem to find it.  Did I miss my chance to download it?

Nope. I just looked it up, and it's still listed on XBLA. It's in the "Arcade" section of the Game Marketplace.