- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Posted by: Mr_Clark
I think Konoka's just going through withdrawl. Ever since I put a restriction on what she can say about the plot she's been desperate to find out stuff to divulge. Next I'd imagine she'll expose my love of tapdancing or something weird like that.
A little off-topic, but I ran aground of this article when a friend gave me the link. After reading it and thinking it over I will now pass the link onto you guys.
I think overall this mirrors my own views on the gaming industry as a whole. A lot of people like to laugh when someone starts talking about the peril facing the industry as a whole, but what they don't realize is that its there, and it won't go away just by laughing at it.
Sometimes I consider myself a hardcore gamer, I own every piece of hardware no matter my personal views on the company behind it. I also spend a sizable chunk of change out of my own wallet to purchase titles for these consoles.
Lately however I've been wondering if I'm not just trying to cling to this perceived ideal of being a 'hardcore' gamer. When I first purchased Nintendogs, I also bought Darkwatch for the Xbox. Darkwatch certainly isn't a bad game, its fun, enjoyable, and overall a nice experience. Despite that I had way more fun playing Nintendogs, which is basically a glorified version of Tamagochi.
I remember being a snob in regards to the Nintendo DS when it first came out. Thinking that Nintendo was snubbing the hardcore gamer by putting a 'stylus' in the main play mechanics. Now that I've had the damn thing for more awhile I'm in love with it. I play it more than any other console in my house. I haven't played Halo 2 online in forever (if you check my stats it says otherwise, but that'd be my sister. She's become quite the addict lately) but I've clocked over 30 hours in Nintendogs.
I think I've said it before somewhere in this thread, but I was only two years old when I first picked up a game controller. Seventeen years later and I haven't put it down. I feel like an old man when I talk about Final Fantasy VI and how it changed the RPG industry, and all I get are blank looks from everyone. Sheesh some of you guys didn't know what Advent Children or Final Fantasy VII was (not an insult, just a depressing observation).
I'm not sure if I'm falling out of the 'hardcore' crowd, but right now I can stand up, raise my right hand and confidently state that as of right now I am more excited for the Revolution and the games I'll be playing on it than everything that's been put forth from both Microsoft and Sony in regards to the next-gen consoles.
I remember when I saw Super Mario 64 for the first time, and the sheer wonder that I felt watching Mario move around in 3D space. It was like a glimpse of the future. The transition from 2D to 3D was a momentous occassion, and one that made the shift from the Super Nintendo and Genesis that much more memorable. Going from the Nintendo 64, Playstation, and Sega Saturn to the GameCube, Xbox, PS2 was sort of a letdown. It didn't offer as big a change as the previous shift in consoles had, but it was still exciting nonetheless (I don't mention the Dreamcast because it was sort of like the console inbetween the console shift. I still wait for the day when Sega returns to the console business. They were finally onto something with the Dreamcast, and I was bitterly disappointed when they had to leave the hardware business).
When I look at the Xbox 360 and PS3, all that comes to mind is, graphics update. When I think that I get pretty depressed. Have we really reached a stage in the video game industry's lifecycle that all we can look forward to is multiple processors and maybe an extra bit of resolution?
If you read that article I linked to you'll understand why Nintendo will never become a third-party developer, and why we're all better off because of that.
Mr. Clark, you have put into words what i'm seeing, the inevitablity of consoles, and their features, plateauing out. There's little, if any, that we can do to games to make them better, other than putting more polygons of the screen or bigger areas at a time,or basically bigger fights and battles, and more intelligent A.I.(a plus, but we can't really create an A.I. yet that can analyze, and more importantly, synthesize solutions to challenges, so the best is to make them faster or give them random solutions, and i mean a lot of them.) And worrying about who will save the market is pretty out there, since few of us can say we have any control. So the only thing to do is to latch onto a system and pray for hope. I will go with Microsoft and 360 personally. But in no way should anyone give up on Nintendo or Sony, since each has something to shoot for still.
[Edited on 9/18/2005]