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Xbox 360 Has Nothing On Atari 2600
MBCook writes "Forbes has posted their thoughts on the launch of the Xbox 360. They start out with 'Has there ever been as confused a launch as the Xbox 360?' and it continues from there. Citing multiple confusing variations, unoriginal games, expensive bundles, and complexity of controls (among other things) it concludes: 'If anything, the Xbox 360 is aptly named: Microsoft is trying to give gamers the spin.'" Next Generation's not-so-next-gen impressions are similar. From the article: "The games you can buy today for Xbox 360 at your local retailer are not the future. As evidenced by the litany of solid but not outstanding reviews, and, my own hands-on experiences, they are but a whisper of what this machine (or the next generation of hardware as a whole) will ultimately be capable of."
To me, old systems were a lot more fun than any of the new systems. Back when they couldn't rely on good graphics to sell a game, they actually had to have good gameplay. Atari was great, as was the NES. When the Genesis & SNES came out, is when gameplay started going downhill.
I have no desire for a PS3 or XBox 360. The Revolution might be interesting, it looks like they are actually trying to innovate, and come up with something new, besides fancier graphics. We'll see though. For now, I'm sticking with my NES.
What, exactly, is this potential? Sharper graphics? More movie cutscenes? Yet another FPS, this time with accurate gibs?
What matters in a game system is how much fun it is, not the graphics.
I wonder why these articles don't shut up the "Slashdot is shilling for Microsoft" whiners.
"Derp de derp."
We can't rely on game technology to push gaming forward anymore. Quake 4 was greeted with a collective ho-hum. Now that everything has 3D and 5.1 sound, now we only care about how good the gameplay is. And that's not any particular console's fault, is it?
Uh, have you heard of a little thing called the internet? Yes, the 360 will have graphics that are way better than the original or PS2, but that isn't the point. You need the graphics for a game to look good on HDTV, anyway. The real point is that you can model larger worlds, use the net, have dozens or hundreds of moving objects on the screen at the same time without the game getting choppy... processing power isn't just about gibs.
What matters in a game system is how much fun it is, not the graphics.
Thanks, I think MS knows that.
like usual. The second article actually seemed positive towards the Xbox 360. It highlighted ease of use and setup and touted the Xbox Live feature of the system. The bias in the summaries and article selection are disappointing if for no other reason than they are commonly misleading.
Does anyone else find it odd that only half of the Forbe's article is actually about the Xbox 360, and the other half is a wistful trip down memory lane, longing for the Atari 2600? I agree with their points about the 360 bundles and lack of games, but most of the `criticisms', which the author claims the Atari and "Dragonstomper" performed much better on, are not particular to the Xbox 360 at all, but rather modern gaming systems and games in general. Further, while I'm all for carefully crafted games which offer good gameplay over superfluous graphical glitz, there are many gameplay elements which depend on having a more complex controller available. There's only so much you can do with one button and a joystick without relying on a GUI and deeply nested menus. Even the NES realized the extra latitude provided by a "B" button. Controller design may well have passed the point of extra latitude some years ago and devolved into "Must cram on more buttons than our competitors", but the old Atari joystick is not the answer.
Wow. I wonder a lot about the xbox 360 stuff, and I see the "Core System" model as a mistake-by-committee, but dang, that Forbes article was a rant. Yearning for the lost youth, when the whole idea of games was new? Who isn't? Want something fresh and exciting from an era when there was nothing to make a sequel to? Sure. of course.
Ending the article by declaring the greatest game of all time to be DragonStomper? Okay, this guy is nuts. I mean hell, for few years of my life I'd run into Steve, and while certainly he was held in high esteemed, and was known for his good works in the game field, nobody ever introduced him as "The genius behind DragonStomper" -- and these were his friends!
What's that guy smoking?
The other article is much more sensible and balanced, even if not in a huge national business publication.
It's sad to realize that I'm not employed by Forbes to write, even though the writer of this piece (reference intended), Ed Lin, is cashing Forbes paychecks even though his writing is absolutely terrible.
Let's begin with the gaming controller statements the author makes. The author states that it is a fact that games with more buttons are not as fun as the simple games of yesteryear. While this is true sometimes, it certainly isn't always true.
The author then exhumes the tired, dead horse, Macintosh one-button mouse example, and states that it "was always easier to use" than the PC two-button mouse. Apparently this is a fact as well.
The author then states that "The best title ever made in the history of U.S. videogaming was DragonStomper." Was this determined through numerous studies?
What a joke.
"The television is the retina of the mind's eye" - Videodrome
The first article could have been written with xbox 360 replaced with any console from the last 3 generations. Old gamers will generally think the games of their time are the best. In reality, the 2600 had a myriad of horrible games. Out of that there were a few good games. The bad games are fogotten and the good ones embraced.
Same goes for the NES. I still play NES games on emulators to this day. However, going to vimm.net and playing some of those games makes me shudder. There were some horrible ones.
The last generation of systems had some terrible games too. But there were some gems. Maybe the idea is that the gems are becoming fewer and far between? I can agree with that. The only company still making a console that I find puts out really enjoyable games is Nintendo. I was playing the new Mario Party the other day and someone brought up a point. On what other system can you spend a whole day enjoying a game designed for 8 year olds? Nintendo still produces games today that I would put head to head in enjoyablity with the 2600.
As for the second article... Have we missed the whole point of the gaming console? Gaming consoles have one purpose. It isn't the GUI (dvorak). It isn't for the graphics. It isn't for the startup music. It isn't for the cool factor. It's definately not for the weight. It's about games. I bought a PC for my PC needs. I bought a home theater for my multimedia needs. Why is my console going to be judged on the same criteria as the previous two?
And in reality you can't judge a system in it's first months out of the gate. In ten years, no one's going to care about the initial launch. If the games are still lame in a year, then write the system off. It's really too soon to say.
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It sounds like Microsoft has already nailed down the most effective use for online distribution: low-budget titles and demos. For big releases they offer physical media purchased from a store, something your typical user will demand. I see no flaw with this approach. Considering today's bandwidth, doesn't this already beat what's being offered by Steam or the proposed Phantom?
Earlier this year I got into eBay and bought an Atari 2600 game lot, more than doubling my collection. I pulled my Atari 2600 - the very one I've had since childhood - out of the closet, dusted it off, hooked it up, and started testing all the cartridges to see which ones still worked... ...And I noticed something: The games weren't nearly as fun any more. As I wandered around the maze in Adventure I realized that my tastes had changed over the years, and the simple gameplay - while still charming and laced with nostalgia - just wasn't as captivating any more as it was 20 years ago. I know that a lot of people will disagree, as evidenced by the popularity of remakes of these games on modern systems and cell phones. In my case however, I gradually gave up my Atari 2600 in favor of more sophisticated PC and Gameboy games. I'm now extremely picky about which games I like - shunning most console titles and playing only a few new PC games each year, along with a growing stash of older titles that still call out to me. I also increased my NES collection via eBay, and it seems to have fared much better in the enjoyment department (so far).
I still plan to keep my Atari 2600 around, but it will probably not get played very often except perhaps by curious house guests. I imagine that's a better fate than most XBox 360's will see 25 years from now though...
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
I'm one of the freaks who was bidding $800 or so for an Xbox 360. I lost about 6-7 auctions and decided to take a rest.
Guess what? 3 of those auctions were halted by eBay as fraudulent - how did they know?? - and the other 4 have all come to me because the top bidder - we'll call them the collective "King Crazy" - bailed on paying the $1200-1400 that they bid.
So - if you want an Xbox 360 before Christmas, just have patience. You'll pay a $100-150 premium but considering this is roughly a 20-30% markup over retail, this is not out of line for wanted goods like this.
Microsoft has never been about innovation. It's always about the package.
There was absolutely nothing innovative about the original XBox. All of the basic concepts used by MS in it were either heavily derived from earlier systems or grabbed from the PC world.
The fact is that the success of the XBox can be attributed to the fact that Microsoft bundled all of these ideas into a package in a manner that had never been done before in the console world. Microsoft has always focused on the sum of the parts rather than the parts themselves.
Windows 95 was the first consumer OS to successfully combine multitasking with a decent GUI. Unix was without a doubt better at multitasking, and most would argue that the Mac OS GUI was a lot more mature than the Win9x GUI... Of course, this is an over-simplification of the facts, but the point stands.
Halo was far from an innovative FPS. It's incredibly fun because it took the best aspects of all the successful FPS games from the past few years and combined them into one package. If you pick the XBox apart point by point, you can find another console that outdoes the XBox hin that particular category, but once you compare them as a whole, the XBox comes out on top.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
The technology can assist developers to create new, innovative, games - see the Revolution. But I agree that just adding 10 gazillion gigaflops of 3D processing to a unit won't necessarily make the games better.
I'm currently finding the games on my Nintendo DS much more interesting and innovative than those produced on XBox/PS2/PC/Cube.
So I hit Google and found ZSNES, a really nice Super Nintendo Emulator. Onward, I went looking for ROMs of my favorite games, as well as games that I never owned or rented at the time. To my mild surprise, most of the games I scrolled past were pretty terrible. I downloaded about a dozen, and mostly play Metroid, Megaman games, and Super Mario Allstars. (I don't have time for the two SNES Final Fantasy games.)
For all the years that the SNES was out, only a handful (or two!) of games were really excellent. The rest, mostly so-so, sometimes really really bad.
Though that may sound somewhat optimistic for the 360, I think these new consoles suffer the NeoGeo problem -- Lots of hype, lots of tech, but way too expensive for what you get back, in my opinion. The games sure look shiny, but that only gets you so much.
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The article in Forbes is obviously both human interest and nostalgic. I'm not sure why a discrete number of buttons is ever considered in rating a game as "fun" or not. Let's face it, if Pac Man had a button and didn't use it, it'd be less fun. If Galaga didn't have the button, but required you tap the joystick down, it'd be less fun. When the buttons match the required utility of a game, the game interface can then be rendered as "natural." Bank Panic and Missile command had Three that were intuitive and felt right. Defender had tons of buttons, including "Reverse," but it was fun to those who played because they learned how to use the complex setup effectively. Since there's the Atari 2600 comparison, Raiders of the Lost Ark required two joysticks for one player because the controller was inadequate.
I think the real point to walk away with is that a fun game with a bad control scheme is diminished.
They're right, I doubt the 360 is going to have ET: The Video Game...
I agree about the vapid game reviews. Taking the best from open submissions from readers would be a great idea - but Zonk writes like a highly uncreative 4th grader.
So has microsoft decided to take the Xbox down a different path by turning it around 360 degrees?
I read the Forbes article and it was terrible! The author complains about how the Xbox 360 was much worse than the Atari 2600. He even mentions that the 2600 was the best console ever - well.. that's probably the NES, given that the progeny of the NES are still being played today, and people are all talking about the Revolution. Can't see anyone mentioning a brand new Atari console coming any time soon.
The author mentions that the Atari joystick was better because it had one axis and one button, and the Apple mouse is much easier to use because it only has one button. While technically you could say he was speaking the truth, you can't do a lot with only one mouse button (take away a Mac users funky bonus keys on his keyboard then ask him to do something useful with his mouse!) and you can't have intellectually satisfying games with only one joystick button.
He goes on about how much fun the Atari games were and how he doesn't get any of the same joy from playing 360 games. Well frankly, the article is just misguided. You can't bag the Xbox 360 on the premise it didn't make you 12 years old again, so you can experience all the wonder of discovering computer games once more. But that's just what the author is really doing.
The Xbox 360 is a great console (despite heat issues, something the PS3 will suffer from as well). It won't make me a kid again. But the games will still be fun to play, and on a face value, I would always choose an Xbox 360 game over Atari. As the consoles have become more sophisticated, people's tastes have followed. Ask anybody you know who's into retro gaming if they've spent an all nighter playing space invaders. Ask any contemporary gamer if, lately, he's stayed up all night playing, say, Civ 4 or any other very addictive new game. I think I know who'll be saying yes.
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These new "talkie" motion-pictures are horrible! I remember when you had to imagine what people were saying on the screen, or watch ornate subtitle screens with delightful piano music, to follow the plot. And these new plots these "talkies" have: how awful! Whatever happened to tying a damsel to a train track? That little device has a lot of legs on it still, and these "stories" told by "talkies" are just making things more complicated. They take away from why I watch my motion-pictures in the first place!
Components of digital restriction technology get added to MS' applications (MS Office 2003, Windows Media Player, MSIE, etc) and operating system with most every upgrade or patch. However, messing with the peripherals, BIOS and CPU or other big changes would be too disruptive especially for a company that doesn't get things working until v 3 or so. That's what the Xbox is for. If it worries Nintendo and Sony or someday even hurts their bottom line, then so much the better.
It's not about games.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
This phenomenon is true of just about anything. It explains almost all of the "things used to be built better" arguments. They didn't, but the bad ones are all broken now and only the durable and well-built items remain. Bad games? Forgotten. Good games? Remembered.
I'm sure we can debate on this, wheter you like to play for fun or just be entertained (u can be entertained while having fun, or while not having as much fun).
The thing is, the cutscenes, grafx, etc, they all apply to the entertainment aspect of gaming, and in our time, that seems to be the key factor in game manufacturers lately.
Look at WWE, it's "sports entertainment" and rightly so, it just so happens to be focused on people "wrestling" each other. And Vince McMahon (the genius) managed to accomodate his hollywood passion into his wrestling business.
So we play games for "fun" but more often than not we play to be entertained, and casual gamers play basically for that alone. Perhaps this is more noticeable as we grow older, we grow more inclined to be entertained than to have fun playing.
Just my 2 cents.
No one takes games or music seriously, they're just entertainment, so it makes an ideal playground to test out digital restrictions technologies without getting the consumer backlash that happened with Palladium. Since that, it's something that MS would like people to not pay attention to.
Components of digital restriction technology get added to MS' applications (MS Office 2003, Windows Media Player, MSIE, etc) and operating system with most every upgrade or patch. However, messing with the peripherals, BIOS and CPU or other big changes would be too disruptive especially for a company that doesn't get things working until v 3 or so. That's what the Xbox is for. If it worries Nintendo and Sony or someday even hurts their bottom line, then so much the better.
It's not so much about games as it is about working the bugs out of a closed architecture on commodity hardware.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.