nottheking
Distinguished
- Jan 5, 2006
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[citation][nom]rhino13[/nom]I don't like that this article jabs Sony.Nintendo has been successful in making casual gamres regret spending money on a console. Something that is going to hurt the gamer base in the long run.Sony has remained true to the core gammer. They haven't drawn in new players the way the Wii has, but I feel like more than Microsoft or Nintendo Sony has shown that it is concerned with making games that appeal to gamers![/citation]
Oh, you mean like Sony's multi-million push to market their PlayStation Move? With its great, core-gamer-targetted exclusive titles like Singstar Dance, TV Superstars, and the magnificient The Fight: Lights Out?
Best to face the facts: if one platform is "true to gamers," then it's the PC.
[citation][nom]dark_lord69[/nom]"which is stunning, given the fact that the Xbox is the older console."Not if you look at the hardware IN the console. Nintendo Wii's hardware is equalled to VERY old hardware. Back when everyone had low definition TV's.[/citation]
Aside from the fact that Apparently only around half of American households have an HDTV, I'd note that the 360's hardware itself is pretty darn ancient: A grand total of 288 gigaFLOPs of power and 22.4GB/sec of memory bandwidth in an era where even a cheap gaming PC could get you 1,072 gigaFLOPs & 88.0 GB/sec (a 3GHz Athlon II X3, DDR3-1600, and a 4850 as a cheap example) That's around four times the potency for a machine that would cost comparable to a 360.
[citation][nom]dark_lord69[/nom]Maybe Nokia has a dedicated gaming device and if they do then excuse my ignorance but gamers like myself should know about real gaming devices. If I don't know about it then it's NOT popular.[/citation]
They did make a gaming device: it was called the NGage, and was a horrible failure. Then they repurposed the name for a downloadable-games service.
[citation][nom]dark_lord69[/nom]Not when you have a PS3 and you can get the same game in high definition with real Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround instead of the simulated surround called "Dolby ProLogic" and "ProLogic 2".[/citation]
I'd note that you have it backwards: ProLogic REQUIRES actual physical surround support in hardware. It takes a lower-channel (potentially even stereo, but also 5.1) and "upconverts" it to 5.1, (if it was less than that) 6.1, or 7.1 audio, much like how a PS3 will upconvert all non-sports games to output 1080i/p. (top-shelf PS3 titles like Uncharted 2 and GTA IV all run natively at 720p)
[citation][nom]dark_lord69[/nom]The jagged edges of the low resolution picture is not very appealing on high definition TVs. [/citation]
The PS3 does have jaggies all of its own: as I mentioned above, not only do "top shelf" (anything that'd qualify as a "serious" game) games run at only 1280x720 maximum (and simply "stretch" to fill 1080i/p screens) but they also tend not to use anti-aliasing whatsoever: this is an unfortunate drawback due to the PS3's antiquidated and poorly-designed G71-based GPU, which (like its PC incarnation, the GeForce 7900 series) is incapable of doing both anti-aliasing and HDR at the same time: and developers almost always pick HDR over AA. (a notable exception I saw is Final Fantasy XIII, where they went with AA, and don't use HDR)
[citation][nom]dark_lord69[/nom]Too many have been gimmicky little kids games.[/citation]
Oh, you mean like Microsoft's Kinectimals or Sony's EyePet?
[citation][nom]dark_lord69[/nom]2. That system should have accepted CD based games, instead they stuck with cartridges that were more expensive to make and much less storage capability. Final Fantasy 7 was too big to bring to the N64 so it was sold on Playstation ONLY. That is the reason I bought a playstation. (it took 3 CD's which is a LOT more data than those cartridges can handle.)[/citation]
While the Nintendo64 certainly was drastically harmed by its selection of the cartridge over the CD-ROM, it's a rather popular misconception that the CAPACITY was actually an important factor. The vast majority of FF VII's space is taken up by its music, (as the PS1 primarily used very-high-bitrate audio with minimal compression) and more importantly, lots and lots and lots and lots of pre-rendered FMVs. (which have since become a staple of Japanese RPGs) Further, in taking more than one disc... Each disc winds up having to have a good deal of redundant data (such as all character, item, monster, and world map data) with the bulk of the non-repeated data being simply... Music and chiefly FMVs. If a company went with more audio compression (MP3s were far more efficient, and standard for the N64) and opted for entirely in-game cutscenes, the game likely would've fit on a N64 cartridge. As an example, Perfect Dark, a N64 exclusive, has an aggregate half-hour-plus of cutscenes, with full voice-overs for everything, (note the distinct lack of universal voice-overs in FF VII) and still fit on a 32MB cartridge, a mere 20th the size of a single CD-ROM.
The main issue that hurt the 64 with the cartridges was that of cost: even without including any EEPROM/Flash for saving games and going with a low amount of ROM, the cost of producing the casing, circuit board, assembling, and testing them made prices high: on order of anywhere from $10-30 apiece. This hurt in three ways: most obviously, this resulted in a mixture of higher-priced games and lower profit margins for developers. (which also drove away small-time developers) Secondly, higher costs and more complicated production meant it could take weeks from ordering a batch of carts to getting them in, which meant a simple glitch or an underestimation of demand couldn't be fixed well. Lastly, if someone OVER-estimated demand, you wind up like what happened to E.T. in 1983: millions of pricey cartridges and nothing to do with them: that's millions of dollars down the drain.
By contrast, a CD-ROM, even with its jewel case, cost mere pennies to produce in bulk, and could have a turnaround time in days: so developers didn't HAVE to produce the bulk of their copies up-front before release and try and predict how many they'd sell. Instead, it was fully possible to only produce a decent number, and if they sold out too quickly, correct for your mistake within a week. And of course, if you produced too many discs, it wasn't a bit loss: profit from those that sold would easily cover the losses on producing the others. (and much of the cost was in the cases, which could be re-used for other games anyway)
[citation][nom]dark_lord69[/nom]5. For FAR too long they focused gaming tward kids. Perhaps it was kids that picked up the controller to play nintendo but what they didn't realize until the making of the Zelda: The Twilight Princess is that most gamers are adults.[/citation]
Nintendo has known this for years. They've stated this from even the outset of the Wii. It's well known that the [url=http
/www.theesa.com/facts/index.asp]average gamer is 34 years old. (though BTW, the vast majority of games sold are NOT M-rated titles that the "hardcore crowd" favors, as that link shows) Nintendo also states the average Wii gamer is 29 years old; that does make them slightly younger than the overall average, but mostly that's because it's PC gamers (and especially "browser-only casual") gamers that bring the overall age way up. Although only relevant to Japan, apparently there Wii owners are older than PS3 owners by about 6 years. A different study mentioned on Joystiq gave not an average but a graph, which had all three consoles relatively similar.
The days of when Nintendo enforced a "kids-friendly-only" games policy are long gone: they became a quick casualty when Nintendo scrambled to defend itself against the Sega Genesis. Even in spite of its effective failure, the N64 saw a number of highly-popular, adult-oriented games, such as Perfect Dark (known for its high realism for the era, as well as similarly-realistically foul language) and GoldenEye 007, the latter of which is widely held as popularizing FPSs on consoles. (and indeed, it wasn't until Halo 3 debuted on the better-selling Xbox 360 that ANY console FPS out-sold it; that means it sold better than Halo, Halo 2, and ALL COD games on any console)
Oh, you mean like Sony's multi-million push to market their PlayStation Move? With its great, core-gamer-targetted exclusive titles like Singstar Dance, TV Superstars, and the magnificient The Fight: Lights Out?
Best to face the facts: if one platform is "true to gamers," then it's the PC.
[citation][nom]dark_lord69[/nom]"which is stunning, given the fact that the Xbox is the older console."Not if you look at the hardware IN the console. Nintendo Wii's hardware is equalled to VERY old hardware. Back when everyone had low definition TV's.[/citation]
Aside from the fact that Apparently only around half of American households have an HDTV, I'd note that the 360's hardware itself is pretty darn ancient: A grand total of 288 gigaFLOPs of power and 22.4GB/sec of memory bandwidth in an era where even a cheap gaming PC could get you 1,072 gigaFLOPs & 88.0 GB/sec (a 3GHz Athlon II X3, DDR3-1600, and a 4850 as a cheap example) That's around four times the potency for a machine that would cost comparable to a 360.
[citation][nom]dark_lord69[/nom]Maybe Nokia has a dedicated gaming device and if they do then excuse my ignorance but gamers like myself should know about real gaming devices. If I don't know about it then it's NOT popular.[/citation]
They did make a gaming device: it was called the NGage, and was a horrible failure. Then they repurposed the name for a downloadable-games service.
[citation][nom]dark_lord69[/nom]Not when you have a PS3 and you can get the same game in high definition with real Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround instead of the simulated surround called "Dolby ProLogic" and "ProLogic 2".[/citation]
I'd note that you have it backwards: ProLogic REQUIRES actual physical surround support in hardware. It takes a lower-channel (potentially even stereo, but also 5.1) and "upconverts" it to 5.1, (if it was less than that) 6.1, or 7.1 audio, much like how a PS3 will upconvert all non-sports games to output 1080i/p. (top-shelf PS3 titles like Uncharted 2 and GTA IV all run natively at 720p)
[citation][nom]dark_lord69[/nom]The jagged edges of the low resolution picture is not very appealing on high definition TVs. [/citation]
The PS3 does have jaggies all of its own: as I mentioned above, not only do "top shelf" (anything that'd qualify as a "serious" game) games run at only 1280x720 maximum (and simply "stretch" to fill 1080i/p screens) but they also tend not to use anti-aliasing whatsoever: this is an unfortunate drawback due to the PS3's antiquidated and poorly-designed G71-based GPU, which (like its PC incarnation, the GeForce 7900 series) is incapable of doing both anti-aliasing and HDR at the same time: and developers almost always pick HDR over AA. (a notable exception I saw is Final Fantasy XIII, where they went with AA, and don't use HDR)
[citation][nom]dark_lord69[/nom]Too many have been gimmicky little kids games.[/citation]
Oh, you mean like Microsoft's Kinectimals or Sony's EyePet?
[citation][nom]dark_lord69[/nom]2. That system should have accepted CD based games, instead they stuck with cartridges that were more expensive to make and much less storage capability. Final Fantasy 7 was too big to bring to the N64 so it was sold on Playstation ONLY. That is the reason I bought a playstation. (it took 3 CD's which is a LOT more data than those cartridges can handle.)[/citation]
While the Nintendo64 certainly was drastically harmed by its selection of the cartridge over the CD-ROM, it's a rather popular misconception that the CAPACITY was actually an important factor. The vast majority of FF VII's space is taken up by its music, (as the PS1 primarily used very-high-bitrate audio with minimal compression) and more importantly, lots and lots and lots and lots of pre-rendered FMVs. (which have since become a staple of Japanese RPGs) Further, in taking more than one disc... Each disc winds up having to have a good deal of redundant data (such as all character, item, monster, and world map data) with the bulk of the non-repeated data being simply... Music and chiefly FMVs. If a company went with more audio compression (MP3s were far more efficient, and standard for the N64) and opted for entirely in-game cutscenes, the game likely would've fit on a N64 cartridge. As an example, Perfect Dark, a N64 exclusive, has an aggregate half-hour-plus of cutscenes, with full voice-overs for everything, (note the distinct lack of universal voice-overs in FF VII) and still fit on a 32MB cartridge, a mere 20th the size of a single CD-ROM.
The main issue that hurt the 64 with the cartridges was that of cost: even without including any EEPROM/Flash for saving games and going with a low amount of ROM, the cost of producing the casing, circuit board, assembling, and testing them made prices high: on order of anywhere from $10-30 apiece. This hurt in three ways: most obviously, this resulted in a mixture of higher-priced games and lower profit margins for developers. (which also drove away small-time developers) Secondly, higher costs and more complicated production meant it could take weeks from ordering a batch of carts to getting them in, which meant a simple glitch or an underestimation of demand couldn't be fixed well. Lastly, if someone OVER-estimated demand, you wind up like what happened to E.T. in 1983: millions of pricey cartridges and nothing to do with them: that's millions of dollars down the drain.
By contrast, a CD-ROM, even with its jewel case, cost mere pennies to produce in bulk, and could have a turnaround time in days: so developers didn't HAVE to produce the bulk of their copies up-front before release and try and predict how many they'd sell. Instead, it was fully possible to only produce a decent number, and if they sold out too quickly, correct for your mistake within a week. And of course, if you produced too many discs, it wasn't a bit loss: profit from those that sold would easily cover the losses on producing the others. (and much of the cost was in the cases, which could be re-used for other games anyway)
[citation][nom]dark_lord69[/nom]5. For FAR too long they focused gaming tward kids. Perhaps it was kids that picked up the controller to play nintendo but what they didn't realize until the making of the Zelda: The Twilight Princess is that most gamers are adults.[/citation]
Nintendo has known this for years. They've stated this from even the outset of the Wii. It's well known that the [url=http
/www.theesa.com/facts/index.asp]average gamer is 34 years old. (though BTW, the vast majority of games sold are NOT M-rated titles that the "hardcore crowd" favors, as that link shows) Nintendo also states the average Wii gamer is 29 years old; that does make them slightly younger than the overall average, but mostly that's because it's PC gamers (and especially "browser-only casual") gamers that bring the overall age way up. Although only relevant to Japan, apparently there Wii owners are older than PS3 owners by about 6 years. A different study mentioned on Joystiq gave not an average but a graph, which had all three consoles relatively similar.The days of when Nintendo enforced a "kids-friendly-only" games policy are long gone: they became a quick casualty when Nintendo scrambled to defend itself against the Sega Genesis. Even in spite of its effective failure, the N64 saw a number of highly-popular, adult-oriented games, such as Perfect Dark (known for its high realism for the era, as well as similarly-realistically foul language) and GoldenEye 007, the latter of which is widely held as popularizing FPSs on consoles. (and indeed, it wasn't until Halo 3 debuted on the better-selling Xbox 360 that ANY console FPS out-sold it; that means it sold better than Halo, Halo 2, and ALL COD games on any console)
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