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.

Reaction to TP delay

[antizeus]

ust recently when Nintendo announced that Twilight Princess was pushed back, the general reaction was "OMG, Nintendo is teh suck. We want it now!!"

That's interesting. It seemed to me that the reaction (among fans) was more like "That's unfortunate, but I'd rather wait for a good and complete game than have a bad or incomplete game earlier." Similarly, quite a lot of people would rather have waited a few more months and gotten two more dungeons in Wind Waker.

This may be a difference in perception, as I may have payed more attention to such an opinion because I share it, and that I would tend to disregard an opposing view. It also may have been a matter of the choice of communities that I monitored.

Of course, I did see plenty of "Nintendo is teh suck" type opinions, but those seemed to be from people with a prior bias against Nintendo, and didn't really care about a Zelda release other than as an opportunity to engage in a flame war.

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.

SMB was not bug free

[j0nb0y]

Super Mario Bros was not a bug free game. I know of three bugs...

1. Lil Spits. While big and fighting Bowser, land on the hammer and be touched by Bowser at the same time. You will complete the level and go down to small size, but the game will be confused and still think you're big. On the next level, hit a mushroom block. It will put out a fire flower (since the game thinks you're big). Grab the fire flower. Now you're still little, but when you hit b, you throw a fireball.

2. The Fabled Minus World. At the pipe at the end of level 2 - 2, stand on the edge of the pipe facing left. Duck, jump up, and move back towards the wall. If you do it exactly right, you will go through the wall, and come out the other side in the warp zone. Immediately go through the first pipe (before the numbers appear). You will be warped to world - 1, which is a copy of world 2 - 3, except that it never ends. The end pipe for the level will take you back to the beginning of the level.

3. Get Stuck. At the end of level 2 - 3, there is a space above the exit pipe. Duck and swim into it. Then let go of the down button. You will get stuck in the wall. There's no way to get out.

All that being said, these bugs didn't interfere with normal gameplay, as usually the only way they showed up was if you were trying to show them to somebody. And even then, they weren't easy to trigger. The third one is the easiest. The other two are a little tricky to pull off.