Nintendo or PSP

[h4x.m4g3]

Originally Posted by Priest4hire

Perhaps no games were made because the items in question sucked, or were just too limited of use? If no one uses the special features of the DS what difference will it make? Innovative hardware has to be used in games to be any good. Why a piece of hardware wasn't used in many games is besides the point.

Hardware can be good without software to support it. The Virtual Boy was a good ideal, but didn't sell well no games were on it, and most people agree that playing mario golf on it was very cool. If I have 1 Gig of Ram in my comp but most games only need half of that does that mean, that a computer with 1 Gig of RAM sucks.... no it means no developer has seen the need to have 1 Gig of RAM yet or says "It wouldn't be profitable because hardly anyone has 1 Gig of RAM." The world is driven by how much money people can make off an ideal. The problem with those products were companies would say "Not enough people have a powerglove, light gun, etc.. so why make games that uses them?" Does that make the experience with them any less enjoyable. Everyone still loved playing Duck Hunt.

On a Semi-Related Side Note
Steel Battilion. 300 bucks for a controller that only two games use. The control itself is still awesome, playing games with it is intense, but no other company makes games for it because not enough people are going out and spending $300 on a freaking controller. So will history will remember it is a bad ideal? Are people unsatisfied with it's capabilities because only 2 games use it. No the people who have it say "Its freaking awesome there needs to be more games that use it."

Edit:Oops amazing what sleep deprevation can do to the mind, I knew it was Steel Battilion... really I did

[Priest4hire]

Hardware can be good without software to support it. The Virtual Boy was a good ideal, but didn't sell well no games were on it, and most people agree that playing mario golf on it was very cool. If I have 1 Gig of Ram in my comp but most games only need half of that does that mean, that a computer with 1 Gig of RAM sucks.... no it means no developer has seen the need to have 1 Gig of RAM yet or says "It wouldn't be profitable because hardly anyone has 1 Gig of RAM." The world is driven by how much money people can make off an ideal. The problem with those products were companies would say "Not enough people have a powerglove, light gun, etc.. so why make games that uses them?" Does that make the experience with them any less enjoyable. Everyone still loved playing Duck Hunt.

The Virtual Boy was an interesting idea and a terrible product. It's infamous for its ability to cause headaches, and will probably go down as one of the worst consoles ever to exist. Two low resoluction red monochrome screens in a poorly designed device that forces the player into an awkward position? How this thing ever cleared Nintendo QC is beyond me. That they then sacked the engineer who designed it was a case of typical management scapegoat mentality. Not really an area of Nintendo that any Nintendo fan should want to relive.

But yes, hardware can be good but overlooked or poorly supported. But this is Nintendo we are talking about. Nintendo the best game developer in the world. You can't have it both ways. If Nintendo couldn't create the killer app to move the Powerglove, than how can you expect some lesser dev to do so? If the greatest developer employing Shigeru Miyamoto couldn't create games of note for these hardware flops, perhaps they were beyond salvaging. For surely Nintendo could make great games on any hardware that was even slightly decent.

But this is really besides the point. I believe that the point of bringing up some of the older Nintendo hardware failures wasn't to say that Nintendo always makes crap, or that the DS will be just like them, but just to burst this idea that all that Nintendo makes is gold. Just because Nintendo is making this unit doesn't mean it will be good. Nintendo has been hit and miss throughout their history.

On a Semi-Related Side Note
Mech Assult. 300 bucks for a controller that only two games use. The control itself is still awesome, playing games with it is intense, but no other company makes games for it because not enough people are going out and spending $300 on a freaking controller. So will history will remember it is a bad ideal? Are people unsatisfied with it's capabilities because only 2 games use it. No the people who have it say "Its freaking awesome there needs to be more games that use it."

You're thinking of Steel Battalion. The controller was $150, or $225 Canadian, and the game $50, or $75 Can. Now this is a case of the controller being created for that game alone. It was a piece of hardware created not for all games, like a console or a peripheral, but created for one specific game. As such it could be more focused than any ordinary piece of hardware, but it also meant that it wouldn't see any use outside that game or its sequels. As a piece of hardware for gaming in general it would be a bad idea, for only a very few games could ever use it. But you can't really talk about the controller without the game. In a sense it was really a game that costs $200, with the additional plus of being able to play the sequel for $50.

But even if it had sold better, and it did sell better than Capcom expected, what would other developers use it for? It would only work for a mech game, and one that used mechs configured pretty much the same as Steel Battalion.

It is the predicted price. It's not official, but in my experience, it's going to be pretty close.

I wouldn't even hazard a guess. Granted, it will probably be more expensive in the European territories. Still, Sony did make their intro into the North American gaming world by undercutting Sega be a hundred dollars. Sony has said they will lose money on the PSP initially, and I wouldn't be surprised if Sony decides to aim for a lower price in order to get their foot in the door. They could use the PS2 profits to float the PSP for a couple years.

Anyway, thinking about the PSP I don't think it's so much a shrunk down console as a beefed up GBA. It even looks like a beefed up GBA. Take the GBA, make the screen bigger, more colorful and higher resolution, crank up the power, and add an analog pad and a couple face buttons and you have the PSP. Whether that's good or bad is really up to the gamer. I think it's the 'meat and potatoes' handheld. It takes what works and goes with it.

[Kenryoku_Maxis]

Originally Posted by Priest4Hire

If the greatest developer employing Shigeru Miyamoto couldn't create games of note for these hardware flops, perhaps they were beyond salvaging.

But whp said Miyamoto did a game the focused on using either the power Glove or Virtual Boy? I don't recall hearing that he did. He also didn't make any games specifically for the e-card reader or Powerpad. And I know that none of these were his idea anyway....

Yet he is working on the DS as a supervisor and helped make the demos for it. I think he probably had a key role in its development. And let's see.....he also worked on the development of the GC, GBA, N64 and SNES. Albeit he never works directly with the hardware (except for the GC controller he designed himself), he always is bringing to them idea when its in development for games he could make at a future time.

My point is, for all the 'failures' in question, I haven't seen Miyamoto actually have any direct or even indirect involvement with those games. But I know he's definitly involved with the DS and even worked on some of the software Demos. Which leads me to believe he is going to be working on more software for the DS later....and that again, while I definitly do say that not everything Nintendo makes is 100% great, almost all the ones which have failed have had no interaction with Miyamoto and hardly any of them that have have been worked on by him. And the DS is on his high priority list (probably because they want to push it out by Christmas).

Originally Posted by Priest4Hire

Anyway, thinking about the PSP I don't think it's so much a shrunk down console as a beefed up GBA. It even looks like a beefed up GBA. Take the GBA, make the screen bigger, more colorful and higher resolution, crank up the power, and add an analog pad and a couple face buttons and you have the PSP. Whether that's good or bad is really up to the gamer. I think it's the 'meat and potatoes' handheld. It takes what works and goes with it.

Well, from everything I see, it really is 'trying' to be a powerful almost next-gen console in a pocket, but I get what you mean. I always view Sony as taking other companies things and turning around, adding a couple buttons (with slight variation in either look or functionality) and then there you go, 'new' PSX product. But that said, the PSP is actually looking to be, even with all its seemingly copied ideas from just the PS2 and other companies consoles, to be the most unique system Sony has come to build yet.

Originally Posted by Priest4Hire

They could use the PS2 profits to float the PSP for a couple years.

Or a decade...-_-

[Jagos]

Drooling Iguana = As far as hardware goes, I can't think of a single thing, except maybe for adding an analog stick to a console crontoller, although that was implemented horribly on the N64 and it fell to Sony to try it again and get it right.

Well, they had to innovate something or else we'd still be playing with only two buttons a la Nintendo.

Kenryoku Maxis =
Same with the Power Pad (I only know of 3 games made for it).

Well, now Konami uses the Power pad with great success in their Dancemania games.

In terms of actual game systems, I gotta say that neither really appeals to me just yet. I don't like having power I can't use (sony and batteries) and the Dual Screen just seems... well... I'll just stick with Advance Wars on my SP for now.

Honestly, why do I have to upgrade everytime there's a new console?

[h4x.m4g3]

Originally Posted by JC123

Well, now Konami uses the Power pad with great success in their Dancemania games.

We're not refering to the Dance Pad used with DDR which runs on the same technology as the original power pad. The original powerpad was out for Nintendo (I had one) and one of the only game it could play was Track and Feild (and maybe a few others but not many.) Either way they aren't the exact same device only similar.

[Kenryoku_Maxis]

Originally Posted by JC123

Honestly, why do I have to upgrade everytime there's a new console?

Actually, Nintendo is hoping, at least main Console wise, you continue to feel this way for a while. They are releasing the DS/GB3 whatever its gonna become but they are pushing that they want to continue emphasis on GC for another year, maybe 2. It sounds rather iffy with the way things are set up today, but if you actually hear what they are thinking (a la Nintendo E3 Conference and a few interviews), it actually sounds like they might have a solid strategy by going with it.

But it all depends on a combonation 1) if the new games they are coming out with can generate enough appeal 2) the other systems lack in innovation what they gain in technical 'newness' and 3) if their next system in 2005/2006 is more powerful and attractive to the public than the other two which look like they're gonna come out before them now. Nintendo's doing its risky stuff again.....let's see if Price, anticipation and a well made library can beat the 20 year tradition of 'I have better graphics than you :P'. Which will the public go for in 2005/2006? Even the DS and PSP are doing this somewhat.

[ChaosMage]

let's see if Price, anticipation and a well made library can beat the 20 year tradition of 'I have better graphics than you :P'.

Its actually not a 20 year tradition. It started about the time Sony entered the market with the Playstation. Up until Sony started hyping graphics, no one really gave a damn. Sure, it was great if the sprites looked good but otherwise it wasn't really an issue. Similarly, back when sprites were the thing after a while people just stopped caring how much more detail you plugged into that little sprite, it looked about the same.

I think 3D gaming is reaching this point as well, where no amount of technical update will really change anything, but Sony and Microsoft are continuing to push graphics possibly because they know their first party games (that don't exist on Playstation and shouldn't exist on XBox) can't compete with Nintendo's.

[Priest4hire]

Its actually not a 20 year tradition. It started about the time Sony entered the market with the Playstation. Up until Sony started hyping graphics, no one really gave a damn. Sure, it was great if the sprites looked good but otherwise it wasn't really an issue. Similarly, back when sprites were the thing after a while people just stopped caring how much more detail you plugged into that little sprite, it looked about the same.

That's pure bunk. The Coleco's largest selling point was improved graphics over the Atari. The 5200 was in direct response to that. The NES partly made a splash due to the much improved graphics it had, and Nintendo spent a fair bit of effort to engineer special chips for the NES cartridges, which they then used to make their own games look better than the competition. Of course, Nintendo would only release the chips for third party use after they had exploited them for their latest game. Obviously because Nintendo knew better graphics sold.

The Genesis stomped the NES because of the huge leap up in graphics. Nintendo then rushed the SNES and once it was out do you know what they most advertised? That's right, it was graphics. Mode 7 is famous from the 16bit era because Nintendo pounded it into gamer's minds. Mode 7 was just a graphics mode that supported scaling and rotation. That along with the improved color palate and transparency effects were well touted.

Not only that, but a number of special chips were created for the SNES as well, and even the Genesis. And they all were about improved graphics. Chrono Trigger just so happened to be both very popular and one of the best looking SNES games. Do you suppose that was entirely a coincidence? Donkey Kong Country made a huge splash, not for gameplay but graphics.

Meanwhile the arcade's claim to fame was graphics, and the decline of the arcades just happened to coincide with the shrinking gap between arcade and home console visuals. Of course, graphics have never been everything. A console with better graphics but no support never does well, and never has. Often it takes a fairly significant gap in graphics to really shake things up. As in NES to Genesis. PS2 to Xbox or GCN just isn't as significant.

I think 3D gaming is reaching this point as well, where no amount of technical update will really change anything, but Sony and Microsoft are continuing to push graphics possibly because they know their first party games (that don't exist on Playstation and shouldn't exist on XBox) can't compete with Nintendo's.

Considering the reaction to the next Unreal engine I'd say graphics have a ways to go yet. People are still drooling over the next generation graphics. Perhaps when all games look like Final Fantasy Advent Children, The Incredibles, or The Polar Express we will be there. Oh, and Sony has a pretty decent 1st party lineup. Grand Turisimo 3 and Ico ring any bells? As for MS, theirs has been spotty for sure, which is why there's been such a big shakeup. Still, they've a few gems in the pile.

But I'm sure Sony or MS would claim they are trying to produce the best tools for the game developers. Especially with MS and their XNA initiative. They might say that hardware is just a tool, and the better the tool the better the results. Why shouldn't developers get the best tools that they can? In the end it's about the games after all. The hardware should be as transparent to the artists as possible, and that's only possible with more power.

[Kenryoku_Maxis]

Originally Posted by Priest4hire

Donkey Kong Country made a huge splash, not for gameplay but graphics.

I've always thought that. I never liked that game because of the gameplay....

[Jagos]

We're not refering to the Dance Pad used with DDR which runs on the same technology as the original power pad. The original powerpad was out for Nintendo (I had one) and one of the only game it could play was Track and Feild (and maybe a few others but not many.) Either way they aren't the exact same device only similar.

I know... I was mainly talking about Nintendo making it first but someone using it quite differently for their own purposes. In that respect, Nintendo helped to innovate a whole genre of games.

A console with better graphics but no support never does well, and never has. Often it takes a fairly significant gap in graphics to really shake things up. As in NES to Genesis. PS2 to Xbox or GCN just isn't as significant.

Example - The Turbografx 16 was prolly just as good if not better (in my opinion) than the Sega Genesis. But few if any main streamers (Capcom, Konami...) threw any of their characters onto the poor system. *sniff*