You can’t play Ouendan without the stylus. It’s integral to it being a new type of rhythm game.
Ben, you’re understating Nintendo’s goal. What they want to do is reinvent and refocus on videogames. They don’t want to go down the path to convergence like Microsoft and Sony. It’s not that they’re not interested in using technology to make better games. On the contrary, their unique use of relatively new and mature technology has allowed them to create the controller and the “virtual console” they’re talking about. The only place they’re not interested in pushing that is with HD, which they (rightfully IMO) feel is premature and not necessarily important to the gameplay experience that new technology should provide. They’re also providing a shell for the Revolution controller to make it as traditional as any that came before.
They waited for wireless before going online. They waited for disc technology to get fast enough and compact enough so they could reduce/eliminate load times. They’re waiting another generation for the everyday household to get HDTVs. I think that’s perfectly reasonable when you’re in business only to make videogames and to make money. As one GAF poster put it…
Sony & Microsoft’s objective is not really the gamer’s dream, but a pissing contest for where all your electricity goes.
This is going to be another interesting thing. With all the pressure on Sony and Microsoft to make games look super super good, there’s going to be a lot of geometry and big big textures that need to come off the disk into the console RAM. Load times are going to be pretty painful.
With the Nintendo console, on the other hand, they could be much lower. Much more of a “put the disc in and the game is ready to play” kind of experience. (Though this is of course something that developers still need to put work into, to make happen).
Load times are usually not horrible with the current generation, but I fear
for the next. The only thing I can complain about on my PS2 is that
saving a friggin’ game takes so long. I want a console that uses a simple
USB stick with a FAT32 filesystem so I can back up those savegames :)
Ben, you’re understating Nintendo’s goal. What they want to do is reinvent and refocus on videogames. They don’t want to go down the path to convergence like Microsoft and Sony.
How does pushing more polygons/pixels have anything to do with convergence? If anything, all the next gen’s graphics horsepower takes Sony and MS further from convergence by making their hardware more expensive.
The only place they’re not interested in pushing that is with HD, which they (rightfully IMO) feel is premature and not necessarily important to the gameplay experience that new technology should provide.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on that. In a largely visual media, I think that visual fidelity is HUGELY important to the gameplay experience. Understand that I’m not knocking any of the other stuff Nintendo is doing with the Rev–especially not the controller, which I think has tons of potential. And a lack of HD isn’t going to turn me off the system altogether, but it’s still a huge disappointment for me. It raises the bar that much higher for what they need to bring to the table in terms of gameplay innovation, system price, and most importantly, games.
The GC was an abject failure, in my opinion, in terms of the games available for the platform. Yeah, the best games were very, very good. But there needed to be more games–a lot more. I ended up selling my GC after an eight month dry stretch a year or two back, and I haven’t really regretted it since. They need to address that this generation.
I honestly don’t understand that viewpoint. If the best games are among the very best, then why do you need more games? Nintendo has supplied at least two to four of the best games of this generation each year. Sony and Microsoft don’t have as good a record by any stretch of the imagination.
There are good secondary titles on all the consoles, but Nintendo, even with Gamecube, has clearly put out some of the best games of this or any generation which makes owning a Gamecube very worthwhile.
Do you really think ‘Why do you want more than 2-4 games a year?’ is a valid question?
Why should I care if the manufacturer of the hardware makes the games? Dell hasn’t put out a good game in, well, ever. Civilization 4 is still a whole lot of fun.
I think you do understand it. Otherwise, why are you so vocally critical of the number of launch games that Microsoft has? If one or two of them turn out to be awesome games, will you concede that you don’t need more games and that the 360 had a great launch after all?
Nintendo has supplied at least two to four of the best games of this generation each year.
My eight month dry stretch disagrees. And since I sold my Cube, there have really only been a couple of games that I wish I could have played. Certainly not as many as two to four per year–I definitely would have kept it if it had been getting that much play time.
Um… yeah. the whole point of the Xbox 360 launch is that there really aren’t two absolutely awesome games there. It’s all the same stuff all over again. That’s my biggest problem with the lineup, same as Gary Whitta. Same as the thousands of other folks who have said this. I waited to buy the Xbox until it had enough games I wanted to play. When Halo 2 was coming out and I found a good deal, that time finally came. With Gamecube, I wanted Pikmin, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Rogue Leader, Luigi’s Mansion and Super Monkey Ball right after launch, so I got it near launch. I bought a PS2 once they shipped Gran Turismo 3. It took them that long to put out enough games to get me to buy. But I never bought it with the intention of getting more than two to four absolutely generation defining games in any one year on any of those machines. Nintendo delivered that. Sony delivered it and to a certain extent, even Microsoft delivered it.
My eight month dry stretch disagrees. And since I sold my Cube, there have really only been a couple of games that I wish I could have played. Certainly not as many as two to four per year–I definitely would have kept it if it had been getting that much play time.
Well, that’s you. I’ve got a large library of Gamecube games here that disagree with your assessment of the system. And it’s not like they were outsold by tens of millions by Microsoft either. Both companies lost huge to Sony. That would seem to indicate most people didn’t think the Xbox was worth keeping (or buying in the first place) either, right?
Anyway, my “Ben” comments were more directed at the other Ben and not you.
Most people don’t buy more than 2-4 games per year. So it’s certainly a valid question. Most people probably don’t buy more than Madden and Grand Theft Auto for the PlayStations. Have you ever looked at the sales of PS2 games?
When the hardware maker is one of the greatest game software makers in the world, then I care.
This is an odd statement, primarily because the N64 was nearly ten years ago. Companies aren’t allowed to change marketing tactics? It was also the beginning of Nintendo’s decline, so I’d imagine they want to distance themselves from the “name yourself after the tech” thing as much as possible. Something doesn’t work, you change direction. I don’t see Sony touting the PS3’s processor as the Emotion Engine 2, either.
The Revolution may or may not be the mind-blowing “OMG gaming will never be the same!!!” A-bomb that Nintendo would like, but I’m certainly willing to give it a shot. I’d prefer Nintendo go this route and try something new rather than play Sony and Microsoft’s game and trail in third place pathetically for a few years. The lack of HD really isn’t a big deal, despite what Sony and Microsoft would like us to believe. The latest figures on HD penetration in the US market is what? Something like 1/10 of 1% of households? Regardless of what the Xbox 360 marketing machine would have us believe, that’s not exactly something to make the lynchpin of the generation, folks.
If they can find compelling ways to make their franchises work with the Revmote, Nintendo will carve out a nice little niche for themselves while Microsoft and Sony continue to slug it out over who has the better-looking and identically-playing sequels.
Dave- But this forum isn’t populated by most people. Your question was actually directed specifically at Ben Sones, but I know I play >5 games a year. I’ve played >5 games a year for the past, oh, 10 years or so. I suspect that’s true for most of this forum.
To answer your question: Because I like video games. I play them often. 4 video games in a year will not provide enough hours of video gaming to satisfy my desire to play video games.
When the hardware maker is one of the greatest game software makers in the world, then I care.
Why? Nintendo makes better games than Sony but the PS2’s library destroys the Gamecube’s. Peak, depth, niche genres, whatever measure you want. So why do you care? I won’t be buying a PS3 for the next Crash Bandicoot.
Matt- It’s not some sort of scarlet letter of hypocrisy, but it’s a bit silly to pretend that Nintendo is switching to this new tack because they became enlightened about the nature of gaming. They realized they couldn’t compete with Microsoft and Sony. That’s it. Their product was inferior so they switched to the budget market. It’d be a bit, well, silly if Lexus started making $12K cars and Lexus advocates began harping on how cars only take you from point A to point B and how nobody needs all the luxury crap. It might be true, but it wasn’t what you believed last year.
Also, I don’t like the decidedly negative slant Nintendo has taken towards the rest of the industry. Their talking points are big on bashing “better-looking and identically-playing sequels” while they themselves have a number of high profile franchises. And more importantly, other video games are fun. Nintendo wishes Grand Theft Auto wasn’t fun, but it is.
This is an odd statement, primarily because the N64 was nearly ten years ago. Companies aren’t allowed to change marketing tactics? It was also the beginning of Nintendo’s decline, so I’d imagine they want to distance themselves from the “name yourself after the tech” thing as much as possible. Something doesn’t work, you change direction. I don’t see Sony touting the PS3’s processor as the Emotion Engine 2, either.[/quote]
I wasn’t specifically referencing the N64, though that’s definitely part of their “Our tech is better than your tech” past. I’m talking more about the current gen, which did try to show tech superiority (or, at least, equality) with the competitors.
Yes, it’s Nintendo’s perogative to change their marketing. That doesn’t mean I have to buy into it.
Guess we’ll see. As for me, it’s one of the main reasons I finally picked up an HDTV. Fortunately, it’s a CRT, so it should handle the Revolution’s 480p feed just fine.
I don’t know where I got the impression that you thought they used to push the envelope. Coulda been when you said:
And “pushing the envelope when it was important” probably would have meant owning up to putting in an optical drive. Pushing a few more polygons didn’t come close to making up for sticking with cartridges. IIRC, the PS2 is actually better at doing particle effects than the Xbox but it doesn’t mean the PS2 has the technological edge.
Kevin- Dude, read for context. That was an attempt to paraphrase what shang was saying.
And you’re pretty seriously understating the power difference between the PS1 and N64. The N64’s clockspeed was nearly three time the PS1’s! From a graphical quality and processing power standpoint the N64 was the vastly superior console.
N64 hit a year and a half after the Playstation so I would expect it to be superior in most areas but there is hardly the same difference in graphical quality hat there is between Xbox and PS2 which also launched a year and a half between each other.
So? Clock speed doesn’t automatically mean its superior. You’ll have to point out all the N64 games that were so much better than the PS1 cause I never saw them. They were both basically on par with eachother when it got to seeing the stuff on a TV.
I’ve got to say I get a laugh at the fanboys who go to the point of even defending the cart system for the N64. If there was one thing in Nintendo’s history were you can point to them just plain screwing up it was that. It severly limited some the games they could do vs the PS1 CDROM(many devs left them because of it), and made their games more expensive. Everybody forget the $65-70 games?
