Comments

You hit on the head, SAB-CA. Many of my favorite male game characters have grown up so much and the biggest one who had the MOST impact in my life to the point where I am REALLY inlove with his personality, his character, his flaws, his strengths, his willpower, his spirit, is Terry Bogard from the Fatal Fury and King of fighters series. He has been my role model since I was 2 years old and here I am about to turn 22. He has paved the way for american heros such as Leon S. Kennedy, just to name a few.



Now, Storm has paved the way as being the first black female superhero and making it so that there are more people of color, not just black heros. But, she cant be the vouch for todays gaming since she didnt start out in games. But, everyone has their hero...I jus think its time that black women were given the chance to have a place, too. Its only fair, and in my eyes, that would REALLY make the gaming character variety a true melting pot. Now, you are right there are alot of HIDDEN black female characters in these fighting games. They either have barely a voice or screen time, or they dont speak at all.



Now, someone mentioned Fable 2 and how it was great that they can have different genders, I have and beaten the game. But, I would be lying if I said that it would have been nice to change races in there. I do hope that the next game will allow you to do that. Thats why I also loved the Saints Row games as you can do just that. Have different races in it. Maybe one day we will see more changes and hope that this blog will trigger someone to step out of the box and give black women a chance to make her mark in the gaming character community.



But, thank you, SAB-CA. You gave a wonderful input to my blog. I really appreciate it.

SAB-CA, I was dropping by to tell you that I've started up a thread through the Xbox Live Users group that you are a member of. The thread which can be found here: www.capcom-unity.com/xbox... is designed to allow fellow Live users to share their gamertags with one another. I'm hoping that if we get enough users to share their gamertags by the time SF4 hits store shelves we'll be able create group-wide tournaments and leader-boards. Please visit the link posted above and post your gamertag if you are up to it.



Thanks again!

Yeah i have been quite out for awhile due to new work

yeah definetly a great debate :)

It's all definitely a matter of perspective, eh? The windows situations I can't comment on, I still have XP, I rarely ever hear about Vista, and I haven't looked into it. So I'll avoid commenting on that part, due to not knowing well enough to have an opinion. -_-;



Microsoft made a promise to fix RRoDs on their systems, and that makes me trust them in games more than I ever trusted Sony. When my PS2 died, Sony didn't pony up with an extended warranty to help. I had to wait months till I could get a new PS2.



I got an Xbox upon release, and I didn't mind much when games where halted in production, probably because the same thing happened with dreamcast, to a degree, and that was much more painful. I didn't blame the companies in either of those cases, though, I blamed the lack of consumer backing.



As far as Square being bought out... no, I don't feel like that at all. I felt much more betrayed when the FFVI tech demo, made on CGI workstations, supposedly for the N64, turned out to be fluff.



I don't believe Microsoft paid for FFVIII because I believe Square was holding out for PS3 sales to prove themselves. Not to mention it's staying exclusive in Japan so far. But even if they did pay, I don't really care. Not with the cost of these new systems! I mean, when each system cost 200 dollars, it was easy enough to get each of them, and play all the games. But these things are 600 freakin dollars now! (Or started off as such. And I can't stand the Gimped PS3 SKUs, they leave a very bad taste in my mouth.) I don't wanna buy a PS3 for the 6 or so exclusive games I care about on the system (And I still have my PS2, alongside my 360 and brother's Nintendo Wii). Square held out on porting XIII for a LONG time. Did you see the report where Square's president stated that he was dissatisfied with PS3's stance as a game platform? He stated that he wished Sony would decide if they marketed their system more as a Game system, or a BlueRay Multimedia Machine.



Here's one link to the article: www.betanews.com/article/...



Given ideas like that, I think the BIGGEST one to blame for Squares Indecisiveness is Sony.



When it comes to paying for XBLGold... I made my piece with that years ago. Live's style of system-based hosting makes it so that a games online is always supported, as long as you have people willing to play it online. Since the systems act as a host, the games "onlinse services" can last as long as lives infrastructure is still active. This also has made it easier for smaller publishers to enable online on Xbox, because the infrastructure and upkeep is always there.



However, Sony (At least back on PS2, I'm not entirely sure on PS3) forced developers to foot the cost to get their own servers for each game published with online. This was fine for big publishers, but for smaller ones, this made online more of a hassle, and limited the amount of games with online. Also, if a company decides to close their servers, the games lose the possibility for online play forever, unless someone wants to take it upon themselves to figure out how to make a server. (See Capcom's own Monster Hunter as an example).



$50.00 is much cheaper than the cost needed to play any single MMORPG online for a year. And this 50.00 lets me play all my games online, with leaderboards, voicechat that has saved me from the need to use my phone anywhere near as much as I used to, free demo downloads, videos, and the best "bringing it home" service of any of these 3 new systems, when special events are being held.



Free in the short run is very nice, and PS3 is catching up, surely, to Live's service. But in the Long run, I have been happy with live, and see it's full value.



I'll always have a chip on my shoulder for sony, anywho, for how poorly they treated 2D games on their platform. THEY KILLED WORKING DESIGNS! They've held a lot of games I would have loved to play in the USA back because they don't believe in 2D games. So far, the only time I've heard of Xbox360/Microsoft doing that was with the DoDonPachi + Related games.



And lastly, I view a lot of what's happeneing with Sony as simply "karma" for the way they got into the business. They took series ENTIRELY off of their previous home systems, for YEARS, when they first showed up. They helped lead to the early death of the Dreamcast, and they seriously hurt the Saturn as well. They dominated almost all Japanese developed games worth note last generation, and they went into the PS3 time with a very cocky, harsh attitude that treated the customers rather poorly. (Look at the backlash to what Ken Kutaragi said here: www.joystiq.com/2005/07/0... )



So, just remember, Sony would do all the "injustices" of Microsoft, if they had to, because, well, that's big business in the USA. (I wish it wasn't that way!) Matter of fact, they HAVE done much the same thing, a few years back! I personally think Microsoft is doing things A LOT nicer and with more character and class than Sony when it comes to games, but that is, once again, a matter of personal perspective!



Thanks for the Convo, Joel! ^_^

I agree with you about companies needing to make their cut, that's not my what my problem is with. My problem is with when a company lies to it's fanbase, by saying " its exclusively on this system" and then drop an H bomb.



That's where im upset with Square-Enix. If they had announced initially that FF13 was multi-plat, then all would be good. Also, yes the 360 HAS to pay off companies for their exclusives, they don't really have much of a lineup compared to the PS3 this year or next, and they are losing hardware sales every month since January, to say otherwise is to be ignorant. Yet, they can't pay for permanent exclusives, only timed exclusives, which is what you are referring to about S-E's upcoming titles, which i really don't understand why they are choosing the 360 as their lead platform, those games are huge in Japan, stir up a sudden increase in 360 hardware sales at this point is not gonna happen...



Anywhoo, as you can tell, i love the PS3 and the Wii, i like the 360, i don't like that it is Microsoft behind it. Why? Well, simply, i'm very afraid of what Microsoft will do to the games industry. I really believe that Microsoft will do to the games industry what they do in their OS industry. Make you pay for everything that you get free now. Even right now, all those Gold subscribers are suckered into thinking they are getting value for what PC gamers, and PSN gamers are getting for free. Whats funny to me is that paying $50 extra bucks doesn't get you any better servers than the PC or PS3 games of the same title.



It's also funny to me that now Gold members are trying to say "$50 bucks isn't that much", yeah but what they don't realize is that $50 bucks is still more than free. Look at how MS is handling its bread and butter OS situation. Vista is a flop, businesses don't want to upgrade to it, they extended their xp license till 2012 ( it was supposed to end next january i think ) and Windows 7 is already rumored to be rolling out next year? What about all those people that dropped $300-$400 bucks on their OS? Out of luck.



The same can and i believe will be filtered to their games division. Xbox did not do too good, they dropped out of it early (barely 4 years ) and cut ALL support from it. Their excuse? they werent making money off it. What they did to their fanbase? Nothing, no new games coming for it, heck they even stopped making controllers for it. Instead MS said " if you want to roll with me, buy the new 360". Rumors are already saying the next xbox is due next year?!



Anywhoo, like i said im not upset about the multi-platform thing, as long as it's more upfront. What saddens me this generation, is the outright knowledge that these companies are just out here to make money, no matter what. Assuming it is one thing, but Knowing it, just makes it all to clear.



It's funny that Sony seems to be the only one trying to keep their " we are not buying out exclusives" veil intact. That's the key reason im ok with them. We all know Sony wants to make money, just as bad as any other corp. but at least they are keeping their financial deals in the background,where it belongs. Think about it, we now KNOW that Legendary Square-Enix can be bought out, doesn't that make you lose some respect for them? It's like if your pops was a police officer, of course you think him a role model, maybe some people insinuated that he took bribes, but you never seen it, or believed it, so you wrote it off, until the day you SAW your pops take a bribe, wouldn't you lose a bit of respect for him? I hope that analogy made sense as thats the best i can put into words what i think of companies when i KNOW they can be bought out, rather than it be just hinted at....

Hey I started a new group for Xbox Live users. I hope that it is a fun and interactive group designed for those who use Xbox Live. The group serves as a meeting place for Capcom-Unity users to exchange ideas, opinions and maybe gamertags if they feel comfortable. The link is www.capcom-unity.com/xbox... This message serves as an open ivitation to you and all others who might be interested in joining the group. Thank you and if this is something that doesn't interest you I assure you this is the first and last message of its kind. Have a great day!