[geeks] End of the line for CompUSA

[Micah R Ledbetter]

On Dec 9, 2007, at 04:00, Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:

> To answer Micha's point alone, consoles are not limited to a joystick
> and/or a mouse. Although the original Playstation had proprietary
> "controler" ports, there were all sorts of thrid party devices.
> The PS/2 and now I assume the PS/3 have USB ports. The /2 had both.

Sure, but no one (well, no one I know, anyway) plays Halo or any other  
console FPS with those. They use the regular controller. That's what I  
mean... I didn't mean the platform that people play Halo on, since  
(particularly because of the USB ports) that doesn't matter to the end  
user. I'm talking about the interface. Trying to play Halo with a game  
controller is like trying to sew wearing a spacesuit.

> Bear in mind that the console game market is different than the PC
> market. People buy games for themselves and many are bought as gifts.
> What sells a game is not flash, spectular sound, graphics, etc. What
> sells a game is "fun". If people enjoy playing the game, it will sell.
> If gameplay sucks, no one will buy it, no matter how good it sounds
> or looks.

That's what I'm saying. I don't understand how Halo was fun for  
*anyone*. Maybe I just got used to mouse/keyboard first and I think  
everything else sucks, I don't know. I just know that every time I try  
to play Halo on Xbox I want to kill someone (err, out of game, that is).

When Quake 1 came out, you could use the mouse as well as PgUp/PgDn to  
look up and down. Some people didn't figure that out as fast as  
others, so they used the keyboard instead of the mouse. These people  
got creamed because keyboarding an analog 2D function is shit compared  
to mousing it.

When I try to use a thumbstick to play an FPS, I feel like I might as  
well be using PgUp/PgDn, it's just so... inefficient. For the same  
reason, I never even bothered trying to play StarCraft on the N64. No  
keyboard *and* I have to use a thumbstick instead of a mouse? Sorry  
Blizzard, I love StarCraft, but fuck that.

Also, I note that Halo on the PC is so much slower than Quake or  
Unreal. I like to think this is because of the console - no one could  
play Quake at regular Quake speed on the Xbox because they can't  
control it with an analog stick. Perhaps the game was simply designed  
at a slower pace, though, I don't really know :).

> The console game market is different than the PC game market. There  
> is some
> crossover, but not as much as you would think. Different people buy  
> console
> games for different reasons than PC games.

Yeah. I'd definitely buy console games. Some of my favorite games of  
all time are platformers that work much better, IMO, with the console  
controllers - Megaman, Super Metroid. Just not Halo or any other FPS,  
at least. It just doesn't make sense to me.

  - Micah