NBA Jam

[Zeus]

Anyone interested in this? Like practically everyone else, I loved the old arcade game and if they get this done right, it could be a phenomenally fun time waster that'll eat up 30 hours before you know it

http://wii.ign.com/articles/109/1090959p1.html

In case you didn't know, it's for the Wii. Further proof there's nothing but casual games on the system

[Eric]

I still don't know why it's Wii exclusive, just seems like a bad business decision.

[Zeus]

I still don't know why it's Wii exclusive, just seems like a bad business decision.

Smaller production budget, throwback to old arcade days without doing anything new. The Wii's the perfect system for it with the perfect audience. They may eventually port it but first see how it works on the Wii without a huge budget since you're not really sure if the sales warrant HD and, by extension, be far more expensive. It's a cheap experiment

[Don]

Why on earth do you need a big budget to develop NBA Jam on any system? It's probably not a graphics powerhouse even on the Wii. A PS3 and a XBox is just as capable of rendering ghetto graphics as a Wii.

My guess is that they're going to go super ghetto on this and only games on Wii look bad enough that people might not realize the graphics are ghetto. The article reads a lot like the Megaman 9/10 stuff, where they're bragging about purposely making everything look bad so they can concentrate on other stuff, because clearly the programmer would otherwise have to be rendering low end polygons if they didn't cheap out on the graphics. If the title was on PS3/XBox it'd look like something you could download from the XBox Arcade for $10, but they still want to sell it for $50 so the Wii is the only system where this make sense since it'd actually look okay compared to the very bad games on the system.

[Zeus]

Because whenever you make anything in HD, you need to up the polygon count, the textures, etc., otherwise it just looks real bad and even your grandma would complain about the look. And guess what, that shit costs time and as we all know, time=money. In the case of game development, you're talking millions.

Super-ghetto, seriously? It's that the type of game it is, it just doesn't need super high-end graphics. Those take a lot more time and money. Also, considering it's a franchise that's been dead for well over a decade, they also don't want to put too much of a risk into the development. The game isn't an FPS or survival horror game, graphics aren't a pre-requisite for enjoyment. It actually makes perfect sense not to put it on the 360 or PS3 initially, not until you've successful revived the franchise. It doesn't warrant that kind of budget from a business point of view. But if you read up on what's actually in this game, it's got far more depth and gameplay in it than an XBLA game. It's being developed as a 20+ hour game which NO downloadable game matches.

And I agree, if it's a $50 game, I ain't getting it. It's gotta be priced right. A budgeted price for a budgeted title. $30 would be purchased day 1, $40 would require a little more debating. That's why I initially balked at House of the Dead: Overkill, which was a revival of another long-dead franchise (7 or 8 years). If it was $30 US like it should have been, I would have been there day 1.

You and Sine may be the presidents and founding members of the Wii Sucks Club, but if you're a fan of NBA Jam or House of the Dead, you should be thankful that a cheaper development alternative exists. In the past, revivals like NBA Jam or House of the Dead would either be not made 'cause the budgets too high or left solely for handheld development, since that's the only place where the budgeting makes sense. You've got your XBLA, WiiWare, and PSN, sure, but they're only really good for a small segment of these revivals and remakes. Price them over $15 and no one buys them, period. The length and depth of those games shows it. That's why it's odd to get a game like Shadow Complex or Bionic Commando which requires more than 5 or 6 hours tops to complete 100%. There needs to be a middle ground and the Wii provides it. Sure, you get some on the Xbox 360 and PS3 like that (see Earth Defense Force 2017 for 360) but it's 'cause the Wii's cheaper development costs that we're seeing more of them now.

Don't worry, if it's popular enough, you won't miss out not having a Wii. They will certainly port it and you'll be able to play it. So you won't be the only kid at school being left out.

[SineSwiper]

What Don said. I don't play sports games, but there are already better basketball games on the market for $50. They are merely trying to get the nostalgia vote. What's sad is that they can probably make more money trying to make it a XBLA/PSN game.

[Don]

Err seriously, you believe that it's a 20 hours game? It's just going to be like 'play against this team', and then next time they'll shoot laser at your players and kill them, and on stage 35 the boss will shoot lasers and have access to the 10 point shot and you'll have no super meter. I mean seriously I assume everyone's played the original NBA Jam. There just isn't that much you can add to the game. The whole point is that it's a short game that's got a lot of replayability, but that's like saying the 30 minute Touhou shooters have hundreds of hours of gameplay because that's how long it'd take you to beat the final challenge boss.

Actually it's kind of like saying the extra mode in Soul Calibur is a whole game by itself so the game is a 50 hour RPG/simulation/wahtever game as opposed to a 1 hour fighter. That's true except not everyone likes the extra mode in Soul Calibur so it's not particularly relevent.

I'm assuming this game is going to packaged in a box like any other game. That means it has to sell for $50 because if you package a game at $30 people will figure this game must suck to price $20 below everyone else and avoid it. Now if you price a game for $50 on a PS3 or XBox that's going to look horribly bad compared to even the worst game for these systems. But it might look passable compared to other games on Wii due to both its inferior processing power and being the market leader (so it has the highest share of bad games). Still, I don't think even Wii games look this bad and it's not going to work. They should have just sell it in the downloadable content range since it's unlikely to be any more sophisticated than a game from the GC/PS2 era.

[Zeus]

I never said it was going to be a 20-hour game, but that it was being developed as one. As with all sports games, you have to look at the gameplay to see if it suits you and then look at the modes to see if the asking price is worth it. That's where the breadth of reviews on Gamerankings will come in. I take a look to see what the general consensus is then look at the "bad" reviews and see what they don't like about it, determine if that's enough for me to dismiss it, and compare it to the asking price of the game.

It has to sell for $50, you sure about that? $20 is the budget price for shovelware crap and there are few exceptions where the game is great (EDF, Katamari, etc.). But the $30-40 price range is a little different. Look at the Ubi licenced games: Price is Right, Hell's Kitchen, Family Feud. Those games were all $30-40 so people expected more than shovelware and didn't ignore them. Sales reflected that (pretty sure they all sold more than 1 million across all platforms). $50 is full price for the Wii and if EA thinks they can get that for it, they need to look no further than Madworld and House of the Dead. They were never perceived as full-priced titles and the sales reflected that. If they're smart (as opposed to being arrogant) they'll keep it at a budget price but not rock-bottom. And that's what I'm waiting for price-wise. I personally think it'll come out at $40.

[Don]

I'm assuming NBA Jam figure they're still big enough of a name that they wouldn't go for a very low price. The thing is most games have to cost around the normal because if you go below people automatically assumes you're a shovelware game, so even going to $40 could be dangerous (if $50 is norm). Now if NBA Jam came out at a $30 or $20 price then it'd be okay, though if it's going that cheap why not port it to all the other systems anyway since if you go that cheap you clearly want to make money by volume, and it's hard for me to imagine such a primitive looking game would have any technical limitations to be ported.

$40 still seems high for a game that appears to rely only on nostaglia. I guess we won't know for sure until the game comes out, but it is a reputable franchise so I don't see them going the ultra cheap method.