Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this column are those of the participants and the moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive material afoot. Yes, the below introduction is immature and petty, but I'm a petty individual. Don't say we didn't warn you.

If I seem subdued today, it's because I've been arguing politics all day with an old friend from Austin, and I'm pretty well sick of point and counterpoint. So if you find today's column a bit bland, just remember - it's all Daniel's fault, not mine.

Hah! Take that, Mr. Borg Analogy!

Onward.

There are certainly those of us out there who can buy just about everything they might want to get - I used to be one of them. But let's take a look for a moment at what we're talking about in getting all of the next gen systems. In fact, I'll be conservative here, and assume price points on the low side of what's likely. Let's say we get a Dreamcast after it undergoes another $50 price drop (don't hold your breath, won't be happening anytime soon) so we pick that up for $100. Ditto the PS2: $250. Let's say the Game Cube debuts real cheap at another $100, and the X-Box comes out at a more or less standard $200. That's a grand total of $650. Now let's assume that we splurge and get three good games a piece for each system, on average, at a price of $40 a pop. This gets us about $480 for games, which we'll round up to $500. And while we're at it, let's throw in another $150 for extra controllers, memory cards, etc. That gives us a grand total of about $1300 to keep on top of all the forthcoming gaming systems.

Now, like I said, there are people out there who wouldn't blink at such a figure - heck, if you divide it out over the number of hours you'd spend playing through everything, it's probably a much cheaper investment than renting at Blockbuster. But I remember being a kid who had to pay for all his Nintendo games himself, and it took me nearly a month to scrape together $40 for a game, not counting any additional spending I might want to do. The fact is, your average broke teenager or college student who pays for this thing themselves (and before you say, "just ask for a console for Christmas", keep in mind that there are also parents who can't swing that money either) might be able to get a single console and a few choice games for the system, so it's definitely not a bad idea to sit down now and try to figure out what's worth getting.

I don't think companies get "bought", like you're suggesting - Square clearly still has a grudge against Nintendo, which is why they're not on the GBA, and as for Microsoft... Well, the conventional wisdom up until now seems to have been that the X-Box is gonna suck because the system can't just be built up from nothing. Sony did it, but that was only thanks to some bad mistakes by Nintendo and even so, the PSX didn't appear overnight. But the thing is, Microsoft really is that good. That is to say, they really are that good in jumping into markets they previously knew nothing about, that good at persuading partners to come work with them, and that good at getting in the trenches and fighting off better established competitors. It's not even that I'm attaching a value judgement to that version of "good", but if there is a company out there that can go from 0 to 60 in the gaming industry, it's Microsoft. That said, it really wouldn't surprise me if they'd made solid inroads with Square, but I won't believe anything until Square makes some sort of official announcement.

In my opinion, this was a bad, bad move on Square's part. None of the Final Fantasies have anything to do with each other, story wise, but that doesn't stop Square from chucking out FF 7, 8, 9... It's one thing to differentiate installments in the series with game fans who are familiar with the FF brand, but most movie fans, in contrast, will have only vaguely heard of Final Fantasy, if at all. The name "Final Fantasy" itself is rather cool and interesting, even if we undoubtedly would have to hear an army of movie critics making the highly original joke, "They call this Final Fantasy, but they really should have called it Final Sci-Fi!"

"The Spirit Within," on the other hand, just sounds incredibly lame. It probably translates better in Japanese, but now not only am I afraid that audiences are gonna stay away - "'Spirit'? Sounds wimpy and new age. Let's go see the new Jerry Bruckheimer instead, honey." - I'm also not all that confident about the movie itself anymore. I've learned to tolerate longwinded speeches at the end of games about the importance of life, love, friendship, and the unity of all things, but I guarantee that anything other than a hardboiled action flick will send audiences fleeing in terror to the lobby.

In other words, Mr. Sakaguchi, get this puppy a new name now. Please; you're our only hope.

Ian, Ian, Ian... you'll feel much better about a Dreamcast when you're experiencing the bliss of Soul Calibur, Chu Chu Rocket, and Eternal Arcadia, and your neighbors are still clutching their PS2 preorder slips come January. Trust me. You'd trust Drew, right? And I'm... taller than he was, I think...

As for the X-Box, don't worry, you will be turned sooner or later, although I doubt they'll ever get Square exclusively. And in time, you will come to love Lord Gates, creator of all that is good and wonderful in RPGs, as I have. Join us, Ian... Assimilation can be fun!

Some interesting points... I think that Square sees Sega as more beneath their notice than any kind of rival, and I wouldn't rule out Game Cube if Square does go multiplatform. However, I suspect you might be right with regards to Square limiting their original development to Sony. Even the Wonderswan's only getting an FF remake, rather than a new SaGa title. And going multiplatform would tie in well with the apparent ideas behind Play Online, where a single game is playable from a variety of platforms, both console and PC.

Near as I can tell, Enix is something of a reawakening giant, now that it's successfully launched DQ7. But I'd be hesitant to guess wherever else it might head, although I suspect whatever it decides to do with DQ8 will tell us a lot about it's strategy.

Regardless of what happens, a universal constant will certainly be that every console and game developer out there will attempt to milk the gaming community out of every dollar we can get our hands on. They probably won't assume that everyone can or will buy every system released, but the days of not releasing a title like Grandia or FFV because the US market's "just not big enough" are long gone. Start saving now, folks.

You know, the standard answer to that question about the DA title is that "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you." The problem is, I really don't know what I'm supposed to be doing myself - they just threw me in here without any instructions as to how I should run things. But traditionally a double agent is supposed to work both sides of a conflict, and since I obviously already work for the GIA I suppose I should be trying to sell them out as well... Ok, so here's the deal. I will sell the site's logins and passwords to whichever competitor of ours can bid the highest. The initial auction price is $50,000, a PS2, Game Cube, X-Box, and an advance copy of the FF Movie on DVD. (Hey, I don't like the title but I still want to see it.) Come on, people, let's get those bids in, time's wasting!

Wow, that is interesting! You mean that someone out there actually feels that games should be more about fighting battles and gaining experience rather than telling stories and long FMV clips? I've certainly never ever heard of anybody even remotely like that - he must be some sort of lone iconoclastic genius to take such a bold and original stand... and yet he's rather classically oriented too, isn't he? He prefers things that are old, and he seems to be from a different school... you might even say he's "old school", wouldn't you? Except that sounds kinda dorky, so let's make it a bit more interesting - let's call him "Old Skool" instead!

Ok, that was probably uncalled for. Sorry about that. Yes, I'm aware of Mr. Kelley's review, which is not the only English DQ7 review out there - this one over at videogames.com seems to disagree with most of his points, as far as interpretation of the game's concerned. All I was saying is that all the people who were writing into me about how wonderful the game would be seem to have mysteriously disappeared now that the game's actually out - but it is pretty damn long, so it's possible that they're all still playing it.

Also, there can be no doubt that the game did well in Japan, but I think it's a mistake to label the whole country as having attitudes that anyone could "be in common with" - after all, Famitsu gave the exact same 38 score to FF9 as it did to DQ7.

That's an understandably skeptical attitude, but Microsoft's been giving these little X-Box demos all over the country, including one here recently at UIUC. I didn't go myself, but a friend who did mentioned that, for one thing, they're NOT planning to have game patches to fix bugs in released software. Hopefully this means X-Box software will be held to the same quality standards as current console software is.

Also, it seems pretty clear that the X-Box architecture is not gonna be the same as a modern x86 box, it'll be a unique and legit console of its own design. This isn't to say that it might not be a really horrible design in its own right - anyone who's ever burned their hand on a palmtop running Windows CE knows what I'm talking about. Also, that's not to say that the X-Box won't be closely tied with the PC - like the Dreamcast, it could have its software structured so that ports are easy to do. But whatever happens, I think it's a safe bet that the X-Box will be somewhat more (and less) than a PC dressed up as a console.

Quick review of the facts before I get into the Unsigned Developer Program. To develop on any console, you need to get your hands on a developer's kit, which is basically a souped up version of the target system with copy protection disabled, plus a way to move code from a PC to the development machine. The development machine often also has expanded RAM so that developers can experiment with new engines in an expanded playground, then whittle their code down until it fits into a standard machine. Lastly, the kit includes specs on how the machine actually works at the hardware level, a compiler to build code for the console processors, and often libraries of useful functions so developers don't have to code their own.

The punchline is that to get one of these kits, you've got to jump through a whole host of licensing agreements involving any finished products produced with the development kit, and put down a hefty cash sum to purchase the kit. I believe the PSX developer's kit runs about $5,000, and the PS2 dev kit runs about $20,000. Of course, to build anything decent you'll need to work in teams and need more than one kit, probably more like two or three. Keeping all this in mind, I think you'll begin to see why most companies have been giving you the cold shoulder - it's one of those "If you have to ask..." situations.

That said, I'll hazard a few guesses about the Unsigned Developer Program. Microsoft comes from the PC world, and to say they're familiar with promoting system development would be the understatement of the year. One of the huge advantages of PC game development vs. console development is that it is something that you can dive right into: learn the system, experiment with the API, and you can put out your own game of whatever type you want without having to get clearance from anybody. Of course, in practice becoming a legit game designer's a little more complex than that, but the basic ease of entry is still there. I have more than one friend of a friend who started out playing with level design tools for FPS games in their spare time and ended up as a full fledged PC developer. In contrast, there really hasn't been any easy way to jump into console development, expensive halfway programs like the Net Yaroze aside.

However, Microsoft may be attempting to ease entry difficulty with this program of theirs. Note that they won't be giving dev kits out to anyone who asks - you've got to prove that you've not only got a good idea, but the skills needed to develop it and the professionalism to meet milestones and commitment. In other words, if you're still in high school, you're probably still out of luck. However, it's quite possible that sufficiently devoted college students could break into the business - if they could code like nobody's business, had excellent art and design skills, some prior experience putting together professional projects and were willing to drop out of school and make this game their lives for a year or so.

Still, the Nintendo generation has grown up, and providing starry eyed kids with the chance to really make the games they know they're capable of making, that would be a Very Good Thing. I should put forth the caveat that a lot of what I'm saying here is just educated guesswork, but if this thing did go together like I'm thinking, the X-Box could smoke every other console in existence, and usher in a freaking renaissance for console gaming. End of rant.

On the one hand, I'd like to say that I also think it's interesting that we're back to the land of real console competition... except it just occurs to me that the two greatest periods of gaming have arguably occurred during virtual monopolies of the market: in the late '80s with the NES, and in the late '90s with the PSX. Don't get me wrong, I'd like to see multiple platforms with multiple great games on each... but I'm getting unpleasant flashbacks to the 3D0 and Trip Hawkins promising that anyone could build a good console. Let's just hope companies have learned better.

There's just so much common sense truth contained in here that I can't pick just one point to settle on - as the saying goes, it's all good, baby! However, there is one thing I have to wonder about. In the past I've definitely agreed with the idea that the best games are designed around specific hardware: I once had a letter published in Wired magazine saying so, in fact. And there's no doubt that the statement holds true for the current generation of hardware, because there's no way a game like Vagrant Story that pushes the PSX to the very edge could have been implemented on the N64 or Saturn.

The next generation of consoles, however, are so powerful that they may never be fully exploited in the lifetime of the hardware. Most games will likely be based on highly detailed 3D models, and I'm under the impression that a well-designed 3D game engine can be moved easily from API to API, and thus from console to console. We may finally be at the stage where games can be ported without being made generic and featureless, but I guess we'll have to see the first such attempts before we pass judgement on that.

And after all that ranting and raving, it's probably good to close on a calm and reserved letter. Despite all my bitching, I think the PS2 will eventually be a good system, so you're probably not gonna go wrong in getting one. As for the rest, just sit back and we'll see what happens.

Closing Comments:

Somewhere down the line that subdued column turned into something that could have been cut three ways to cover this coming weekend, but whatever. Free topic tomorrow, see you then.

-Chris Jones, amazed he had that much to say