Slashdot Mirror
The Next Gen Consoles - The Bigger Picture
Next Generation Magazine is running a series of articles on the next generation consoles, and what they mean in a larger perspective. The Xbox 360, PS3, and Revolution have a lot riding on them as the start of the next round of console wars gets underway. All three companies have their own goals and histories to consider when it comes to the business of games. From the 360 article: "Someone, somewhere, probably still believes Microsoft got into console games for the kudos of putting out Halo. Good for them. The world needs believers, and every time you say 'Xbox is a Trojan Horse', a fairy dies."
You know, if Nintendo comes out of the gate with games that are significantly cheaper (at least 10 dollars) than the Xbox's 60 price tag... I can't see many parents justifying the additional cost. Hell, I can't see myself logically justifying the additional cost.
Revolution will be fun, have a handful of really good games which everyone will adore.
Xbox 360 will have 1-2 extremely good games, have drool worthy graphics, but little more.
Playstation 3 will be the work horse, most note worthy titles will be on it, but it'll have the worst ports.
This is how everything works in the console market right now.
Sony - We can do everything look how flashy we are even if poor quality.
Revolution - Graphics can wait, lets have some fun. Who cares if you only own 10 games, you still play all of them.
Xbox 3 - We have Halo... erm.. and Halo!
I like muppets.
Seriously, think about it. The better the grahpics, the more expensive it becomes to produce a game. If the trend of increasing grahpics so rapidly continues, I can honestly see all the "smaller" game devellopers dying off IMO.
It already costs millions to make a decent, good selling, cross-platform game. Can the little guy realy keep up with Ubi-Soft, Vivendi and EA Games when that price doubles? Triples?
The smaller companies will either die off or have to surrender to larger publishers (like the ones listed above). It could be a good thing, but it could also bring an even greater shortage of origionality and risk-taking in the game market, not to mention fewer releases all together. Remember, big production companies don't take risks.
Nasa spent billions making a pen capable of writing in space. The Russians just use a pencil.
I'm no zealot, but you my friend are way off base. The Nintendo controller is not going to be based around a gimmick. It has been said many times that it is going to be soemthing totally unique in design that will allow everyone to enjoy gaming. I have a feeling it will be either a super-streamlined design with few buttons... if there are buttons at all. It is going to be intuitive, so that even a non-gamer can easily pick it up and play. This has all been stated so far.
At first I thought of a few possibilities: A NES controller with new styling, a touch-pad, a gyro/tilt sensor... but the more I thought about it I don't think any of these will be it. It has been said by Nintendo that the controller is "The Big Gun" so it is most certainly NOT a cheap gimmmick.
Now to take you to task on your statement that access to old games is for the "hardcore"... what, you smokin crack? This move is FOR the casual gamer, and also happens to appeal to all types of gamers. My sister (30-ish non-gamer with kids/family) is already planning on buying one simply so she can play old favorites and her kids can play the newer games and GC titles. She was excited to be able to play Bubble Bobble again, and a number of other old favorites.
You also seemed to miss the fact that Nintendo has already stated they will allow even single person game developers the ability to create content. This is the ace in the hole and most people already forget about this little "feature" While the PS3 and 360 will take major budgets and teams to produce for (which leads to less games over the lifespan and only "safe" games get made - like licensed games, sports, FPS, and some RPG's) the Revolution will get all the indie developers, homebrew crowd, and even new entries... remember shareware and ID? Well Nintendo could potentially be opening the doors to a hundred exclusive "ID's" on top of top-notch first-party titles and some solid third-party offerings.
This race is far from started, let alone in the home stretch.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
First of all, I think Nintendo is using the extra time to make the cost of existing technology go down. Moore's law suggests that in 18 months transistor count will roughly double resulting in more powerful hardware. On the flip-side, the same technology that we have today will cost less to in the future. I think that Nintendo is looking at something on par with today's technology (or that at the release of the Xbox 360) that will be somewhat cheaper to produce in the future. Nintendo has never really cared about how many raw polygons that their console can push or how many Tflops it's capable of producing. That's why I don't think they're aiming any higher than technologically on par with the power of the Xbox 360.
I won't dispute that the GameCube is capable of pretty games. I think that Metroid Prime looked better than Halo and most other Xbox games from a artistic design. I don't know about how many polies each was pushing, but I really don't care. The fact that the GC and Xbox are superior to the PS2 rings pretty true, but that didn't stop anyone from making GT4. The key concept is how easy it is for designers to reach the full potential of a console. I've heard stories about how messed up and complicated the PS2's emotion engine could be, and how some people aren't happy with the difficulty of developing for the Xbox 360. I've never heard that Nintendo was either wonderful or horrendous to develop for so I can't comment on the ease of making a game on their platforms. No matter what though, it does seem like some developers (like those for Metroid and RE4) did find out how to get the most out of the Cube.
The spring '06 date you're thinking of is the widely expected release date of the PS3. Although some have speculated at later date, March of next year is what Sony has generally been saying. Most sources also point to Nintendo releasing their console 3Q '06, so about 6 months after the PS3 and a year after the Xbox 360. To your credit though, early reports from Nintendo suggested that they were aiming for a release date of that right around the PS3. At E3, however, they changed their tune and decided to release it on their own sweet time. At this point things are really up in the air. The only for sure date (time frame really) is for the 360. Nintendo has been pretty vauge, and I read an article on GameSpot that said the PS3 might not be released until 2007.
In the next generation...
1 - this is the first time two billion-dollar corporations are launching 1st and 2nd
2 - this is the first time two companies have an arsenal of successful products to backup a flagship console. M$ in windows, Sony in electronics.
3 - this is the first time where internet gaming is already established
4 - This is the first time US vs Japan instead of Japan vs Japan at the start of the gate.