***E3 speculation thread***

[Teasy]

Johnny. Why wouldn't a professional reviewer be able to show the quality of a game? One is flawed yes, but 140 are not. Honestly this is just excuse after excuse AFAICS.

Who are you to say what games will or won't be played in a years time? You have absolutely no idea how many people will be playing any game in a year. Your basing it on your own opinion of the game, which is totally flawed. Ask someone who loved the game and he could equally say that everyone will still be playing this game in a year. So who would be right?, neither of you.

If you didn't like the game or whatever then fine, that's up to you. Just stop trying to make excuses for why the massive majority of people loved the game. "MP only got good scores because of nostalgia". "MP won't be played in a years time.. I should know because I'm mystic meg". Don't you think its a little arrogant to try to excuse away everyone else's opinion of this game based on your own opinion of it?

BTW Shenmue didn't exactly get straight 9+/10's. It ended up with an overall score of 89.5%. Which is really good, but not comparable to MP's review scores.

 

[Blade]

Reviews are meant to reflect only the opinion of the reviewer.

For example, you wouldn't give MP a 9.6/10 just because that's what everybody else thinks.. you give it the 8.7/10 that you personally think it deserves. Of course, high review scores and loads of acclaim show that MP has a lot of user appeal.

While you're barely through the game, I was locked on.. playing 30 hours over the course of 2 weeks. IMO, it's the GOTY.

I also think that SFA was a clear disappointment considering how much development time Rare was given.. and especially considering that it's Rare. I'm in the crowd that thinks SMS is the best platformer of the year. Everybody's got their own opinion, Johnny, so why continue to argue as if yours is "right"? Reviewers and the general public adore MP, and you're just "okay" with it. That's it, enough said. Nobody, not you or I, has to change our opinion..

BTW.. I'd have to say that if MP forced dual-analog control you'd probably be even more indifferent.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

The thing you guys don't understand is that I'm not arguing that I'm right. I'm arguing that the mass market doesn't see things the way reviewers did as far as Metroid Prime is concerned. The sales figures bare this out. As far as all the positve reviews - sometimes a mob mentality takes over with these things. I realize that MP is a 9/10 game. I'm not arguing that. Just arguing that the masses consider it to be less than that.

 

[Blade]

Johnny: A good portion of the mass market has no idea what's out there.

Believe it or not.. a lot of GameCube owners probably don't even know about MP. Not everybody is a hardcore gamer..

 

[Sonic]

So the mass market sees Metroid Prime differently than reviewers do? How? The sales would say otherwise. Not every game achieves a million in sales and isn't considered to be a good mass market product. Let's take into consideration the low GCN's userbase, the nostalgia factor, and the GCN's demographic that should consist of more kids than adults. You've got the nostalgia factor down to a T, a lot of people probably rushed out to buy the game simply because it was Metroid and they haven't played one since SNES. The GCN's userbase is rather small so a million in sales is an impressive feat indeed, isn't it? And the demographic for the Gamecube isn't exactly what I would think would be into buying MP over a few other GCN titles. So let's look at the average review of MP and see that it got 9/10 and that at least warrants a look at the game. The game was hyped up a good deal, and to the reviewers it delivered on the hype, so it meets that goal.

If you weigh in all the factors I'd say the game did quite nicely and the mass market did buy it.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Well Metroid Prime has just passed the 758k mark on NPD, so it's just passed the 1 million mark. This means it sold well to Nintendo fans. The fact that it dipped down to 30k in January already means that it isn't moving much hardware to the masses. Splinter Cell sold 78k by comparison and it received worse reviews. Hmm...

It all reminds me of the Dreamcast - Shenmue will save the DC = Metroid Prime will save the GCN. The only difference is that Nintendo has the money to weather the storm and a solid source of revenue from GBA. The GCN will still be around in two years, but it'll mainly be because of Nintendo's deep pockets. Just like MS with Xbox.

 

[Teasy]

The thing you guys don't understand is that I'm not arguing that I'm right.

If your not arguing that your right then why are you making excuses for other people's opinions on the game. Someone says they love the game and you say "ah but you only love it for [enter excuse]". Why not just accept that these reviewers, and most people too, love the game because they just do, because its an excellent game and not because of some extenuating cirtumstance.

Well Metroid Prime has just passed the 758k mark on NPD, so it's just passed the 1 million mark. This means it sold well to Nintendo fans.

I'd imagine that anyone owning a GC is a Nintendo fan actually

Splinter Cell has sold the same, or slightly more, then MP with a bigger userbase, so is that only selling well to "MS fans".

The fact that it dipped down to 30k in January already means that it isn't moving much hardware to the masses. Splinter Cell sold 78k by comparison and it received worse reviews.

GC sells half what XBox sells in a month and in the same month MP sells half what SC sells. I'd bet that if GC sells equal to XBox this month (which it might with some offers going now) MP will sell equally with SC that same month.

BTW I said recently that I didn't get the impression that MP was selling as well as it could be to less hardcore gamers. So I'm not arguing with that now. But I think the reason its not selling excellently to less hardcore gamers is clearly an advertising problem. MP is the right sort of game to sell excellently to casuals, it has everything, its a FPS style game, it has a dark moody atmosphere, great visuals and all the incredible review scores to screem about, casual gamers eat that sort of thing up. But it needs to right ads to exploit that.

 

[Sonic]

Could it be possible that the online functionality is something that gamers like in Splinter Cell? Could it remotely be possible that that is part of the reason for sales to be so good on the Xbox? It's just a question I'm asking because that seems to be a huge plus for Splinter Cell. The game is a good game, which seems to have sold to the mass market quite well, so what's up with that. Maybe the reason Splinter Cell has sold so well is that it has content that is downloadable via the net, that sounds about right doesn't it? It really doesn't, but the point I'm trying to make is that you can't base the sales of a game just off of one factor and that there are many factors involving it. It would be like saying that Final Fantasy VII sold well only because of the nostalgia it would bring to fans of the series, not with the hype surrounding it and it apparently living up to the hype in most reviewer's eyes.

 

[CeiserSöze]

Maybe Metroid Prime asks too much of casual gamers. I know it sounds ridiculous but after watching quite a few users trying the MP-demo in the stores I'm inclined to believe that there's some truth to it: Despite the on-screen hints most of the users never even got past the second forcefield and after 10 minutes they gave up on this "sh*tty game" just because they were too lazy to read and/or use their head).

On the other hand Splinter Cell can be quite demanding too (at least to the casual gamer - I've seen what they're not capable of). Still you can't compare sales of these two games. Splinter Cell was sold as a part of the popular XBox-bundle with 4 "free" games (the Metroid Prime/GCN-bundle, which was sold only during a short period of time afaik, was far less attractive) which definitely boosted sales. And the Sega / Nintendo-comparison is pointless anyway (how many times do we still have to hear this... *sigh*): One of these companies is making sh*tloads of money (and has been doing so for over 20 years) and is in a very healthy financial state (most companies would kill for $6-7 billion in the bank) while the other one isn't quite doing so well. So why should MP "save" the GCN when it isn't even in danger?

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Splinter Cell was not bundled in the US. The reason why casuals have a difficult time with Metroid Prime? - Poor controls, for starters.

Nintendo fans THINK it's the ad campaign, lack of hype, or gamer ignorance that is the reason why MP is doing less than expected sales, but it should be obvious that casual gamers just see something lacking in the game itself.

 

[Mark Cicero]

Two slight apologies,

First, my comments on MP were a bit more skewed than normal since I had just had both in-house photocopiers perform a rather impressive jamming session that left them inoperable during a rather heavy photocopying time of day. The second is to say sorry for the delay in justifying my comments. I cut my left middle finger doing the dishes sat. night and ended taking 7 stiches to close it. Suffice it to say I'm typing a lot slower at the moment.

Now for MP. I consider it a great game but one that has no appeal to gamers outside of the hardcore ranks. That's what I meant when I said it was crap. I personally played the first level, fought with the "auto"-targeting, beat the "go around in a circle boss" and thought, <sarcasm>gee, this is impressive </sarcasm>. My continued play has left me feeling the same. This game is Gun Valkyrie for Dummies and we all know how well the original did with the non-hardcore. Mario Sunshine actually angered me with its disapointing offering. I was looking forward to an investment of at least 20 hours in that game. Hell I still replay Yoshi's island with an emulator. But between that and GV for D, I am really thinking this is the beginning of the end of Nintendo

I have nothing wrong with games that look great and destroy the stylistic ineptitude that surrounds most games put forward by Sony. After all, I love Sega. But I can't help but notice the similarities between the two. Both had a failed console that drove a number of gamers away from it. My girlfriend won't even look at the cube because she is still annoyed at the 64. Its not like she's a casual either, she played Diablo II battlenet for years and is better at Mech games than I am. It just seems that N is more concerned with having their games go in "amazing new artistic directions" then actually producing something people, aka casual gamers, will play.

 

[Magnum PI]

reasons why a casual player could prefer SC to MP:

it's possible casual gamers would rather play a very special very secret agent like sam fisher (or james bond) than to the female galactic bounty hunter samus aran. (simply because they can more easily identify themselves as..)

tom clancy's universe is rather popular (movies, novels, several videogames), metroid is unknown outside of a fraction of gamers (gamers who played it on snes)

the current trend is to create pseudo-realistic games.
splinter cell suits this trend very well.
metroid prime is way off this trend.

just my 2 eurocents.

 

[mkillio]

Personally I thought the MP advertising was pretty weak. It was on quite a bit for awhile but faded away and the commercial it self I thought sucked. As far as playing GTA and Halo a year from now and not MP is somewhat true but look at the style of games. First of all Halo is multi player. Second of GTA is a pick it up any time kind of game, go kill somebody and steal a car. MP is a single player somewhat story driven and slightly linear game with nothing to do besides the objectives that the game gives you.

As far as SC selling more, X-Box has a larger base and a much older/mature audience, of course it will sell more.

Also a casual gamer should not have any trouble with the controls, they were somewhat similar to Golden Eyes and sold amazingly well.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

That's the problem. It has Goldeneye's 1998 controls. I'm at 40% complete and I'm still fighting with the controls.

 

[Ty]

Totally agree with Magnum above. The character of MP is still too geeky for the mainstream audience.

 

[BoddoZerg]

How can Metroid Prime be too difficult for the average gamer, but Splinter Cell isn't? Splinter Cell is wicked difficult. (Granted, I haven't played MP so I don't know about its difficulty)

On the other hand, I really think that every FPS, and preferably 3PS as well, should adopt the "Halo" control scheme. It's a helluva lot more comfortable than the old style "Goldeneye" controls.

 

[Magnum PI]

That's the problem. It has Goldeneye's 1998 controls. I'm at 40% complete and I'm still fighting with the controls.

you really seem to be the only person who finds MP controls problematic...

you persist in stating it is a problem of the game itself but eventually it is only a problem of you have playing w/ this specific game.

why do you intent to make your personal problems general ones ?

 

[CeiserSöze]

How can Metroid Prime be too difficult for the average gamer, but Splinter Cell isn't? Splinter Cell is wicked difficult. (Granted, I haven't played MP so I don't know about its difficulty)

Metroid Prime can be quite difficult (especially some boss-fights) but it hasn't got the frustrating passages that plague Splinter Cell (provided that you don't have any problems with the controls, of course ). I still wonder how many of those casual gamers who bought Splinter Cell actually made it past that damned CIA-level

Magnum PI probably has got it right: Metroid isn't "kiddy" (god, I hate that word ) but it's still geeky. It's sci-fi but not a run-of-the-mill kind of sci-fi so it's not that appealing to casual gamers. Just as Eternal Darkness was horror but not run-of-the-mill horror (aka "Resident Evil horror") so it didn't sell well.

 

[Tahir2]

I didn't vote. What I want to see from each console though is this:
PS2 - Gran Tourismo 4 and a price drop
Nintendo - Mario Kart (in some advanced form and not just a streaming video)
Microsoft - Free version of Windows XP with every console.. seriously though I would like to see some RARE games on XBOX.

I don't think any of the above will happen though - but I may be pleasantly suprised. If anyone goes from here please take lots of pics of the booth babes

 

[CeiserSöze]

I didn't vote. What I want to see from each console though is this:
PS2 - Gran Tourismo 4 and a price drop
Nintendo - Mario Kart (in some advanced form and not just a streaming video)
Microsoft - Free version of Windows XP with every console.. seriously though I would like to see some RARE games on XBOX.

I don't think any of the above will happen though - but I may be pleasantly suprised. If anyone goes from here please take lots of pics of the booth babes

Mario Kart could be there in playable form. IIRC Miyamoto already brought a video of Mario Kart to E3 2002 but decided not to show it to the press at the last minute. So it's quite likely that there's a playable version of Mario Kart at this year's E3 imo.