Greater than Ourselves

In response to “Fei Long and Justin Wong” from The Escapist Forum: The crowd cheered Daigo in that match because he whacked, with verve and panache, a player notorious for being a gutless ultra-turtle. It is *that* simple. Asian-vs.-non-Asian, American style vs. robotic Asian style, “yellow peril,” – none of that stuff was an issue. Take any two guys of any race, national affiliation, cultural background, whatever; the one that plays like Wong will be booed, the one that plays like Daigo will be a hero.

You saw the same thing during Daigo’s first visit to America, back in the Alpha 3 tournament. His Gen barely lost to Graham Wolfe’s turtle Dhalsim. Realizing what he was up against (i.e. the hardcore turtling that was the weapon of choice of most of Sunnyvale’s top players), he switched to Guy – and the rest was history. The crowd went nuts as Daigo laid absolute waste to his next five opponents, of whom only the venerable Alex Valle didn’t fall back on turtle tactics. (Incidentally, Valle had more success against Daigo than any of the Northern California players, save Wolfe.)

You saw it *again* when Daigo took on John Choi in the Sagat/Ryu/Balrog SSF2T match. John Choi played turtle Old Sagat the entire match. Tiger, tiger, tiger, tiger, tiger, tiger, all damned day. No balls at all, play to win, no style, no class. Boring. So, when Daigo had had enough, he switched to Balrog and mowed Choi down like a weed garden. The crowd went wild with glee.

No one likes a coward. That’s all you need to know.

– M. Cooper

In response to “The PS3 Deadpool” from The Escapist Forum: The article chooses to compare PS3 sales with XBox360 and Wii sales across the same month. An alternative might be to compare the PS3’s sales with its competitors during an equivalent window after launch. I would do this comparison, but 1UP have done it for me. Interestingly (though not necessarily significantly) the PS3 comes out ahead.

Why might we prefer this comparison? Well, as Allen Varney points out, the PS3 is short of great titles right now. One year after launch, presumably there will be more. As for Europe, even with the console being worse and the price being higher, the launch here in the UK was the most successful in history according to Joystiq.

As for Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD, it would be a brave man who still thought HD-DVD likely to win at this point. Certainly the sales figures are favoring Blu-Ray as much as two to one according to IGN.

If Blu-Ray doesn’t win, the other two smart bets are “both” (via dual-format players) or “neither.” Not trying to say the article is outright wrong here, but it presents what I see as a rather skewed picture.

– Dom Camus

In response to “The PS3 Deadpool” from The Escapist Forum: This comparison is not really too meaningful. Rather than that, it doesn’t show a good future for Sony. The Xbox360 already has a large lead NOW. The PS3 needs to outsell the 360 NOW in order to catch up. If it doesn’t, the gap in userbase between the two consoles will simply grow bigger. If Sony simply follows or only slightly beats the 360 sales pattern in the equivalent windows, it will simply mean that in the same time next year, the 360 will still have a significant lead. Of course, with the 360’s larger userbase, it’ll only get more support while the PS3 receives less(overall speaking). Less support -> Less sales -> Less support -> Less sales. Time isn’t on Sony’s side here.

– Meophist

In response to “Frostbitten in Florida” from The Escapist Forum: The more I read accounts like this, the more I realize just how lucky I was. I headed out an hour before the stores opened on Sunday, saw the lines going all the way around the Best Buy and, remembering the phone call the previous week that Fry’s would only be getting ten of them, headed back home. Along the way, passed a K-Mart, already open half an hour. Went inside. Three people ahead of me in line. Four Wiix left. And they sold out of all the games (had a preorder for Zelda elsewhere), so I didn’t even have to walk out of there with Happy Feet.

– Bongo Bill