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

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.