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New Genres For The Revolution
Last week's Gamasutra question of the week dealt with the possibility of new genres for Nintendo's Revolution system. Some interesting answers from the industry, as always. From the article: "I would say the interesting part is not what new genres will come about, but how most existing genres will be transformed by this. For example, fighting games will no longer have to be about special moves and combos when you can simply put one controller in each hand and start punching and blocking like in real life (maybe strap one on a leg to kick). "
I absolutely hate fighting games that rely on memorizing combos to determine who is the better fighter. Even on the Gamecube, fighting games like Smash Brothers break this horrible standard and let everybody smash buttons and do every move with ease.
This page specifically says "[The controller] interacts with a sensor bar placed above, below, or near televisions. The bar contains two sensors that communicate with the controller using Bluetooth technology."
Yeah, isn't that terrible? Games that reward skill and experience! Heaven forbid! I mean, what's the point of a game where a newbie can't defeat a seasoned player by smashing the buttons really fast?
Circumcision is child abuse.
Think of controlling...let's just say for common reference point, controlling a Macross style Veritech fighter in robot mode. You can make the robot go in any direction in any time by moving the controller in that direction. This ALONE would actually provide much more control than any other single controller that I've ever seen. Full 3-d axis control. Put on top of that the ability to change the angle of reference by pointing the controller in a different direction. It would probably be foreign for about..10 minutes? Then it would become comfortable. After a few hours, then it would become natural. After a few days of play, assuming a top-notch level of responsiveness, you'll be amazing yourself with the feats that you can perform.
This first part is from memory, but I'm certian you're incorrect when you say Nintendo has "always had inferior hardware".
NES was second to the Sega Master System, this is true.
The SNES was the most powerful system durring the 16 bit era. Excluding exotic choices like the Neo-Geo. It's rivals were the Genesis which has a higher clock speed, but was nowhere near as capable, and the Turbo Grafix 16, which IIRC was an 8 Bit system with a 16 bit graphics coprocessor (or some such trickery).
The 32 Bit era, Nintendo skipped over. Unless you want to count the Virtual Boy which did indeed use a 32 Bit RISC processor. For mainstream home consoles of the say where was the 32X, which was just an add-on to the Genesis. The Saturn, which I believe was the least powerful of the "True" 32 bit, mainstream entries durring that generation. The PS1, and two odd-balls. The Jaguar, which was billed as 64 bit. This is often disputed, and I don't have background to prove or disprove the internals of Atari's last offering. The N64 was of course also 64 bit. Technically superior in most ways, save for game media. Cartridges, while much, much faster than optical media (especially back then) could not hold a candle to the sheer volume that discs can hold. But in terms of raw horsepower, I beieve that it's generally accepted that N64 lead that generation, not that it mattered.
Come around to the current (or is it now previous?) generation. The 128 Bit era. We have four contenders. The Dreamcast, which is dead and burried roughly equivelent to the PS2 from what I understand. The PS2, which is regarded as not only underpowered for this era, but a bitch to code for, the gamecube which seems to surpass the PS2 in all technical respects, save for DVD playback, and disc capacity. And the X-Box, which is generally accepted as leading this generation in technical specs. Visuals alone prove that the pecking order goes PS2GCNXBox Look at ports like Splinter Cell, or Resident Evil 4. The polygons they needed to cut from RE4 to run it on the PS2, were just... just wow.
Come to my second point. DVD playback. Are you aware that Microsoft already does (did?) this with the origional X-Box? X-Box "can not" play DVDs out of the box. You "have to" buy the remote control / DVD playback dongle pack in order to unlock this feature. The reason for this is simple. All DVD (legal, compliant) devices must be licensed by the DVD consortium. This licensing is not free. Microsoft's way of dealing with this was to rather than pass the cost of licensing each x-box and having to raise the sticker price to compensate, they took out the license fee, and took out the ability, unless you specificly went out and purchased the kit, and directly paid for it yourself. Saved money for the folks that didn't care to have their x-box play DVDs. Nintendo is probably going the same rout here. They are, after all known for keeping costs down.
Sony on the other hand had DVD playback out of the box with every PS2 they sell. I'm not sure if they're passing the costs along, simply eating the cost, or if they're exempt from the cost (Sony sits on the board of the DVD consortium, so perhaps it's possible that they don't have to pay like other companies do to license DVD rights).
The bits about Nintendo bullying it's licensees and censoring game content is correct, but ancient history. Those practices died out durring the SNES era. Nintendo was influential in founding the ESRB, and once that was done, they took the reigns off so to speak. Titles like Mortal Kombat 2, Conker's Bad Fur Day, and Geist would not be possible if they maintained censorship.
I tend to disagree with your views as to what Nintendo "should" do. Best technology? Nintendo has had the best and they've had the worst. The industry has shown multiple times that it doesn't matter. Both in terms of gameplay (how *fun* is it?) and sales (PS2 anyone?). Should they listen to their customer base? To an extent absolutly. But remember, listening t
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
* 1/5th the size (maybe actually wearable on the head, or even just sunglasses
* Full color (not that red crap)
* Revolution controller compatible (now THAT'D be connectivity! better than the "meh" Gamecube/GBA connectivity)
I have been playing Quake II this way years ago. However, I did so in a VR Cave, so turning around quickly was easily accomplished by just physically turning around. Let me tell you, wearing those 3D shutter glasses and seeing those badass weapons precisely attached to your hand, swiftly following its every move, is absofuckinglutely brilliant. The cost of the hardware is prohibitive though, not least because in order to set it up, you need to devote a large (and I mean large, even if you use mirrors you need plenty space behind the screens to set up the projectors) room to it. However, I hear affordable VR goggles of decent quality are just around the corner. Interesting times lie ahead!
but what do i know, i'm just a model.