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Are the 360 Launch Titles Actually Next-Gen?
An anonymous reader writes "1UP has a feature up entitled 'Is This Really The HD Era?' The article begs the question: How many of the games ported to the Xbox 360 (12 of the 18 launch titles were ports) are truly next gen, and how many are just trying to cash in on the hype of the new console? There are some interesting conclusions, but best are the quotes from Peter Moore explaining the HD Era throughout the whole thing: 'Next generation games will combine unprecedented audio and visual experiences to create worlds that are beyond real and they'll deliver storylines and game play so compelling that it will feel like living a lucid dream.' Right."
Come on now. Are the X-Box 360 titles truly "next gen?" Depends on what your definition of "next gen" is.
Improved graphics? Sure as hell.
Improved gameplay? Wellll... no. Consider that, of what are widely considered to be the two best non-sports games, one is a sequel to an N64 game, and the other was shown at previous E3s in an N64 incarnation. One could thus say, indeed, that the best X-Box 360 games are last gen.
But by the definition of improved gameplay, just how many games are next gen from their era? Not a whole lot. Indeed, the games with the most engaging gameplay (I'm thinking most especially of Katamari) seem to be those that purposely recall previous generations.
Withholding critical information about their debugging hardware and APIs for their multiplayer hardware. Nintendo has standards but they don't tell you what the standards are (unlike Microsoft and Sony who provide too much information). If you do a pre-lot check, they won't tell you everything that they find that should be fixed for the final submission and your title will get rejected if you don't figure it out on your own. Trying to get a title through Nintendo was like getting a football through a minefield that's being bombed by friendly fire.
Before I left the game industry a few years ago, Nintendo starting being more helpful when it became painfully obvious that publishers strongly preferred PS2 and XBox over the GameCube. Hopefully, they learned their lesson from the GameCube and developer support for the Revolution will be similiar to Microsoft and Sony. If not, only Nintendo's titles will be popular on that console.