Don’t forget the cost of a rehab clinic. :-)
Micropayments = greed, at least where games are concerned. It’s all about adding extra cost to a product that already costs $59. Sheesh.
Hey, I can see Madden shipping at some point where you have to pay extra to unlock Michael Vick and Reggie Bush. It will come with the scrubs. If you want the stars, have your credit card ready.
What gets me is that computer games have long had a history of free content in the form of patches after release. The console world finally gets online and it’s an excuse to get us to open our wallets.
Isn’t this just a rumor at this stage?
I won’t weep for the loss of consoles if I have to switch to PC gaming for the rest of existence. Not at this rate.
It’s supposed to be based on an interview in Famitsu, though we haven’t seen a translation or specific quotes yet. There’s certainly some room for misinterpretation and missing information; maybe you can still win most of the cars in events and paying just lets you get one without having to win it, for example.
Edit: Or not, as Jazar points out below.
They’ll release the new Gran Turismo called “Gran Turismo HD” (they use the same name as the E3 demo for the product name) for the PS3 soon. It’s composed of 2 parts, Premium and Classic.
The proper GT5 is going to hit in 2008. GT HD is meant to grow the rich network service before GT5. The online modes in Classic are based on the 4 modes in GT4:Online beta (Quick Race/Tuned Race/Private Race/Time Attack) and several other modes are added. The online will be launched worldwide at the same time.
Gran Turismo HD: Premium is essentially a GT5 prologue that uses the full graphics power of the PS3. (Pictures show a 3D spectator crowd, very detailed car models with interiors.) The weather changes while racing. It comes with 2 courses (both original and new, city and nature) and 30 cars including new ones. You can buy additional 30 cars and 2 courses (real circuits) later online. This part is played in a casual arcade mode. It’s a pure driving simulator and almost a tool as you don’t get cars in in-game events, you just do whatever you want with cars and courses or buy new ones via online.
Gran Turismo HD: Classic is what adopts the GT:HD playable demo at E3 and meant to showcase the online aspect. A race is done with about 20 cars. Apparently this part starts with no cars or courses. You download a car for 50 - 100 yen (0.43 - 0.85$) and a course for 200 - 500 yen (1.71 - 4.26$). Over 750 cars and 50 tracks are available for purchase. Users can define race events freely and can hold online race events by themselves.
What is not known is the initial prices. I would hope it’s something like $20 or less for the Premium and $0 for the Classic.
C’mon. I really want to see them charge for the version that comes with nothing. That would be classic. It’ll be something physical that we can’t point to in 10 years and say, “this is where it all went wrong.”
So, lets Jake Plane this:
For the price of a complete GT:HD you could buy
-An xbox 360
-Forza 2
-chips
-pop
-Another xbox 360.
Awesome!
Let’s keep in mind that we have no idea what MS will do to destroy Forza. They could be looking at doing similar things (as opposed to say the PGR model, which was quite reasonable). Hell, with all their talk of consumables, they could ask you to pay for gas.
Well… just to solidify the Jake “pocket calculator” Plane stereotype, based on the clip that was just posted, you really can’t say that unless you know what the initial cost for either game will be.
I think it’s possible that the classic game will be free.
What I think would be a more interesting comparison is assuming the best scenario (i.e. that classic will cost $0), how much it will cost to have the GT4 experience on the PS3… meaning totaling up the cost for 750 cars and 50 tracks (roughly what you got with GT4 according to Joystiq).
Either way, this is a bad deal for consumers.
I think MS would love to woo people from the GT franchise. So, I think they probably wouldn’t play monkey see monkey do. They’d probably be more along the lines of “Hey everyone! We’re not monkeys!”
All I can say is LOL. Both and at this news and K0nY’s attempt to rationalize it. Boy, they must be paying him GOOD. But then, it looks like they’re going to be able to afford it…
So to be able to finally get to play the online mode which was supposed to be included in GT 4 players will now get to drop even more cash. Wow what a great value…
Wow. And I thought the 1200 point download for GRAW was a rip off.
Hooooooooleeeeeee shit.
Let’s say you had some sweet ass military sim game. For the sake of argument, let’s call it GRAW. Or hell, BLACK Online. Let’s say you loved FPSes.
If they offered all kinds of guns and maps for $1 each, would you buy them? I mean, if they had everything from the G36C to the Dragunov to the MP44 to the M14?
I dunno, I might.
And of course that’s how they fuck you. You don’t think anything of individual 50c or $1 transactions, it’s just pocket change. But if you’re forced to buy almost entire games in increments like this, before you know it you’ve spent hundreds of dollars on a game that should have cost $60.
Hopefully this idea crashes and burns like it should. That is the only way companies are going to learn. I think there can be games with a lot of content and expansions/addons that are fair to the consumer. Oblivion (aside from the horse armor) and PGR3 both are pretty good about it. Chromehounds and GR:AW not so much. This GT thing is a complete joke.
I think most people are really going to like this micropayment thing. People love buying shit. It’s what Westerners do. The ability to buy lots of shit and in small increments is going to be inherently satisfying for many, even if it isn’t “real”. I understand micropayments have been a big hit in the cell phone market. Ringtone commercials clog the TV airways. With GT HD leading the pack, the PS3 threatens to take it to the next level.
I hope this idea burns, too. Anyone who takes a moment to think about what’s going on will hate it. Therein lies the problem.
Hey, I can see Madden shipping at some point where you have to pay extra to unlock Michael Vick and Reggie Bush. It will come with the scrubs. If you want the stars, have your credit card ready.
Yeah, that’s the first thing that popped into my head as well. If this rumoured GT model was taken to Madden, you’d get the Lions and the Chiefs for teams and Giants Staduim for your arena. If you wanted to use other teams or arenas, you have to buy them for $0.50 or $1.00 each.
Nobody would stand for that. And I hope nobody stands for this GT silliness.
I don’t know. GT-HD is such a stop-gag product to begin with. If you’re the kind of player obsessed with racers and unlocking every car, you’ve probably already done so in GT4. While you wait for the true sequel you can play with a few of your favorite cars on your favorite courses for a lot less than a full game. What’s wrong with that? Personally, I suck so bad I can never unlock very much to begin with so all I care about is a few good tracks and access to some decent cars for arcade races.
If GT5 comes out with this model, that would be pretty lame. But I can’t get mad about this.
Well, ringtones are a fringe benefit – you’re already holding a complete phone in your hands. It’s accessorizing. This GT HD business, however, sounds more like grocery shopping, except you have to pay for the cart, too, and you have no recourse if you don’t like the stuff you end up with. At least a game disk can be returned or eventually exchanged for cash/store credit.
This way, Sony doesn’t have to pay for end caps or allocate distribution inventory. The game doesn’t eventually have to be sold at a cheaper price point, and second-hand sales will no longer escape their bottom line, because they don’t exist. The physical disk, if there is one, will have so little value that no GameStop or EB would bother offering exchange credit, let alone cash. There is no market for the game beyond that which will be funneled directly to Sony, via a Sony service only available on a Sony product.
It’s brilliant on corporate terms, but it’s not so customer-friendly.