New Technology vs. Old Gamer Classics

RealDSmooth writes "Codemonkey over at 2old2play.com just posted an article on the evolution of gaming, and how new technology like the XBox 360 and the PS3 stack up against the classics that got us where we are today. It's a nice look at what has changed over the years, and what has (thankfully) stayed the same." From the article: "It is expected with any new game that hits the market that a patch may exist for that game before you ever put it into your PC or console. Why? Has the market degraded to such buggy software that we have to download a few megabytes of game fixes before it's even usable? How many patches did we have to get with Super Mario Brothers or Zelda? How many crashes did these games have besides your typical game lock up due to dust on your cartridge? Were games more solid 'back in the day'?"

Comments

To play devil's advocate...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's reasonable to say that new games take more resources to develop than older games. Unless we want to see higher and higher prices, cost savings must be made. Given that downloading a multi-megabyte patch is much more reasonable now than it was, it seems like an efficient trade-off. Not that I agree the trade-off should be made, but it's an obvious choice if you are going to cut corners.

Re:Loss of monopoly to blame?

[cgenman]

I believe it was Miyamoto that said a slipped release date is temporary, but a bad release is permanent.

Nintendo seems to understand this.

As a side note, the article seems to be comparing modern PC games to old console games. My memory of old PC games was that statistical likelyhood of any game you bought actually working was slim, and it would take almost days to find this out. Wrong sound card manufacturer? Game dies. Wrong video card manufacturer? Game dies. 486 Sx instead of Dx? Game dies.

Compared to PC games of yester year, modern PC games are a bastion of compatibility.

Re:Causes for stability...

[Nasarius]

Also, the more complex the platform is, the harder it is to be certain that your program takes into account all the idiosyncracies it may encounter.

Back in the days of DOS, this was extremely important. Now it's almost irrelevant. Everyone writes their games using DirectX and/or OpenGL, and it's overwhelmingly the responsibility of the libraries and drivers to ensure compatibility, not the game.