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Harrison On Nintendo's Shortcomings, Hopes
Thanks to EGM for their interview with Nintendo vice-president George Harrison, discussing the current state of the GameCube, as well as plans for the future. Harrison is surprisingly honest, commenting: "I think we've had individual successes with things like Zelda: The Wind Waker and Smash Bros. and others. If there's a shortcoming for us on GameCube, it's not delivering enough consistent breadth and variety of software. That really is the key." He also explains the exact reasoning behind the GameCube's recent price drop: "We see people buying it for $99 as a second system; potentially someone who has owned a PlayStation 2 for three years already and know that they have another two or so years to wait [for the next console hardware generation]."
George Harrison: If there's a shortcoming for us on GameCube, it's not delivering enough consistent breadth and variety of software. That really is the key.
It's going to take time. A whole lot of precious time. It's going to take patience and time. To do it, to do it, to do it, to do it, to do it, to do it right.
There are still an awfull lot of limitations. If you don't believe me fire up a FPS editor and try to create a truly nice level.
Sure for now the graphics look great. But then they also looked great a couple of years ago. Then new hardware came along and you went wow and promply forgot about how you thought the old games looked great.
Sure sadly an awfull lot of games seem to just use the extra power of the hardware for bigger textures and more rounded boobs. Doesn't mean you can't use it for different purposes. Like say populating a city with cars and pedesastrians for you to drive through? Notice how older games of this style didn't have civi cars? Why do think this was?
Yes I agree, it is going to be more about what you are going to do with the extra power of future hardware. No need to increase framerates above the refresh of the display or resolutions bigger then the number of pixels. But you can also use the extra power to create a more believable world. A world in wich when you chance the equipment on your character this is reflected in the graphics. A world in wich charactes properly walk on the floor even if it is a staircase not just hover above it. A world in wich cars propely move on their suspension so you can see if the car in front of you is about to loose control or is increasing his turn to close of the inside for you. Where on closing in on an enemy flight you can spot wether they already dropped their bombs so you can save your bullets for the other flight that has yet to reach their target. A fps where the enemy is carrying an m60 and you can see how many bullets there are left on his belt.
Sure I may be dreaming but I think their is still an awfull long way to go. I have seen the shift from where you needed to consult the manual to see what the hell that red thing on the screen was supposed to be to where it is obvious that you have come across a med pack. Now I want to play a game where I can no longer see that the designer had to restrict himself to an X number of polygons.
Oh and yes I do own a gba. So no I am not totally blinded by pretty graphics. But there is a reason people are excited about the PSP. Can you guess what it is?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.