Lots of great letters this week, including a few we didn't get to. Keep them coming. We can never have enough! Ask us anything! [email protected]: You know what to do. This week we talk a little Pokémon, some gaming over/unders, one-console futures, and Citizen Kane.
Hello! I have a question regarding one of your more recent topics, Pokémon. I'm still waiting for an MMO. Doing a Google search results in Pokémon World Online (plus several articles about how the creators don't want it to become impersonal), as well as an April Fool's joke on the subject (Blizzard's making a Pokémon MMO!). How can someone make a Pokémon MMO, even if it's crappy freeware (I have yet to play it since it's only for PCs), while Nintendo could easily rack in the dough and win the hearts of many? Now that the Wii can utilize SD cards, all they need to do is get rid of Friend Codes and the world would be a better place. What you guys think?
-Tom M.
Bitmob:
Hey Bitmob,
I hope things are going well with the soft launch of Bitmob. For some reason Greg Ford reminds me of Bill Simmons, who gets a lot of these over/under type questions. So my questions for you, Greg Ford. Assuming there is one more cycle of physical hardware:
BioShock (including 1 and 2): Over/Under four different titles over the next five years. Halo: Over/Under five new titles over the next five years. Guitar Hero: Over/Under 20 new titles over the next five years. Wii Fit: Over/Under 50 million copies sold over its lifespan. Plastic Instruments: Over/Under five new peripherals not a guitar or drum over the next five years. Call of Duty: Over/Under five numbered Call of Duty titles in the next 5 years. Keep up the good work,
-Thomas L.
Bitmob:
- BioShock: This is a tough one. With the first two games already counted, that means we need three more over the next five years for the over (what happened to the .5 on all your numnbers? This makes things tricky!). It's tight, but we'll go with the risky route and say over.
- Halo: Had Ensemble not been canned and killed the liklihood of future Halo Wars, we'd have had something. That said, under!
- Guitar Hero: Over! Over, over, over! They may not all be boxed copies, but yeah, we see sequels and band-specific packages moving along at a click of four-plus games over the next five years no prob. Remember, they'll likely get this ship chugging on DSi somehow, and probably PSP as well, following in Rock Band's footsteps.
- Wii Fit: The over is almost tempting, but that's just too ridiculous a number, Wii connection or no. Even pack-in games haven't reached that number (Super Mario Bros. barely cracks 40 million). Imagine if 50 million Power Pads (from the original NES) had been sold -- there'd be an island nation formed on their discarded plastic corpses somewhere in the South Pacific by now.
- Plastic Instruments: Given that the backlash over plastic instruments has already started, the idea of five new ones...nah. Under. That's not to say some developers aren't considering this in board rooms across the country...just that it won't happen.
- Call of Duty: See, here's where lack of the .5 hurts, Thomas. Had you done 4.5, we'd be tempted to say over, but the idea of six in five years, with Modern Warfare not counting toward this total, is too much. Even for Activision. Under.
I have a logic problem for you guys: Kratos leaves
at 10:36 a.m. atop Pegasus, flying at an average of 43 miles per hour. Master Chief leaves Des Moines at 11:24 a.m. in a Warthog, careful to drive at the posted speed limit of 65 miles per hour. Who will be the first to arrive at Princess Toadstool's castle for high tea and cucumber sandwiches with Mario, and how long will it take each mascot to make the trip? Indianapolis To put it another way: When will the one-console future becomes reality?
-Brett B.
Bitmob: Man...and we were all ready to bust out our distance/rate/time equations and solve the hell out of this. So, contest winner
That future won't be anytime soon. As in, the big three will do all in their power to keep the setup the way it is because of 1) the amount of money involved, and 2) pride. Do you think Microsoft sunk so much money into the Xbox so it could then give up what footholds it earned? Does Nintendo have any incentive to not keep doing what they're doing? And it's not like Sony to give up one of its most powerful brands.
While OnLive's one-box idea definitely has merit, it's more a case of "we won't believe it until it's released, established, then a success." Which, near as we can predict, will be long after Salvation's Judgment Day.
Stop me if you've heard this one before.
Where are all the hardcore games? When will games be art? Why doesn't anyone give due recognition to Shadow of the Colossus/Beyond Good & Evil/Psychonauts? Can some games just be fun? And while we're on the topic, what are your thoughts on publishers pushing endless sequels and not making good games anymore?
Obviously, my tongue's getting all up in my cheek here. The point is simple: It really seems to me like we, as a community, have one of these discussions on a podcast, a message board, a reader letter, or an editorial column every week (or day). Does this really engage us?
My real question: When are we, as gamers, going to move beyond these discussions? And don't you guys get tired of talking about it? Wouldn't it be more interesting to, for example, discuss the theme of guilt and separation and its relation to gameplay and setting in Silent Hill 2? Or how the idea of free will is challenged by games like BioShock? For example, how would you like a reader question like, "What does our fascination with Fallout 3's postapocalyptic setting say about our culture? And do these games hit the same nerve in the global market?"
Gamers do an awful lot of bellyaching about how young the games industry is compared to movies and books and how we still need our Citizen Kane but here's news: Citizen Kane came out on the SNES in 1994, and we've just been too busy navel-gazing to notice. Perhaps I am being silly, but I feel like those "mature" industries have moved beyond the patness in my first set of questions and instead talk about things like how good or bad or effective or ineffective certain products are rather than why their industry is so backward or misunderstood or what have you. The truth is, publishers, developers, and the media are not neutering game discussions. We, as readers and players, are.
I'm not accusing you guys of encouraging this type of stuff -- no more than I have participated in it myself, of course. Who isn't guilty? But how do you guys feel about this bottomless pit of faux-debate?
-Michael
Bitmob: Do we ever get tired of taking about these discussion? Oh, Michael, you make us laugh. What could be more fun than rehashing tired topics on podcasts and website posts ad nauseum?
Of course those discussions get old, but a few factors keep bringing us back to them. First, sometimes someone will have a new take on an argument worth hearing. Other times it's too topical to ignore; when Tony Hawk skipped a year, how could we not talk about sequelitis and franchise fatigue? Time is another factor. Yeah, we'd love to discuss the theme of guilt and separation in Silent Hill 2, but we'd also want to do it right and give the proper amount of time to research it. We're not against it, and it makes for great features, but we have a lot of other tasks taking our time as well. And finally, readers and listeners continually bring these questions up! We're just giving them what you want!
Seriously, though, great point. And if you want to hear us talk aobut different things, ask us different questions, both here and for the Mobcast. We'd love to start tackling these deeper issues and thinking about games this way because, yeah, we think this medium does have a lot of depth we just don't talk about.
Oh, we don't remember any Citizen Kane movie tie-in ;)
Whew...we're beat. Keep the great questions coming (or Michael will have your head). Hit us up at [email protected]. Till next week.
