Rant Installation Complete

Wow this image is eerily familiar. give that kid some thicker glasses and I might pass it off for myself.

I wanted to do some quick video game rants. The first being a short complaint about Sony's Home. They sure are highly touting this thing, and for as many delays it has received, it better be worth it. In my mind, it's already failed. To me, it seems like a huge second life clone, with little else to do and the main point it to socialize. Is it just me, or when do video game nerds socialize? I feel those development dollars would be better spent better on other in house development or on advertising since Sony is failing faster than ever. I really hate seeing all this effort put into something wasteful and gimmicky like this. Maybe I'm just not seeing it. Once it arrives, I suppose I may give it a try, or even sooner. I have a beta invite in my mailbox, which I never asked for, so I suppose I could give it a try. I just don't like the direction it's heading and doesn't appeal to me at all.

Not having an Xbox, I suppose I'm highly biased, but I don't see the deal with the whole new Xbox Experience. Fine, it's a new GUI. Is that all? Did your last GUI suck that much that makes this the best thing ever? Or do you not have much of a holiday lineup that you need to tout your GUI as the best thing to get for the system? One feature that I hear people swooning over, is how you can now install games to the hard drive. First off, you continue to sell consoles that don't even have hard drives (a step backwards from the original) so a lot of people won't even be able to use the feature. Also, the whole idea of an installation was seen as such a horrible thing when done on the PS3. Now to have installs that are 3x larger or more seems good? I can get just a few games on the hard drive. It's only a matter of time before the method of needing the disk is hacked. If the load times are this horrid to begin with, why patronize the PS3 for installing to help alleviate those times in the first place? In addition, will this further shoddy game development? You have games like Last Remnant being released which are absolutely horrid with load times and only becomes bearable when you install it. Will this somehow become an acceptable norm? I certainly hope not.

And speaking of developers, I want to mention the sad state of affairs that I see current RPG development. I started thinking about the wonderful worlds of some of my favorite PS2 RPGs, particularly Dragon Quest 8. With (the sad state of affairs) the Japanese console market is in, Dragon Quest 9 is being moved from a home console to the portable DS. I find this ridiculous. I know almost the whole country has a DS, and to increase sales, it only makes sense, but this series in particular was born as a home console version. It is not made to be picked up and put down easily. It's a RPG. You should be immersed in the world and take the time to fully explore it. I feel that this is truly done on a home console. It is much easier to be immersed on a home theater setup than a 3.5 inch screen with 2 watt speakers. I hope great epic RPGs continue to be developed for the home consoles, even if that means the 360. Looking at Square Enix's current and future lineup, it seems very portable heavy which I feel is OK, but you also need to have strong home console sales. Considering their last 2 console RPGs were pretty much flops, I'm hoping Star Ocean 4 and FF13 hurry and at least give them some confidence in the home console market. We need more epic RPGs on home consoles and there is no excuse for more to not be in development at this point. ::sigh:: Oh well, I guess I still have Persona 4 to look forward to. hopefully more continue in the future.