Who says they have to make the same game cover 3 consoles?
The realist in me. The Wii will either get a rubbish cut down version of the 'real' game, or all three will get a lowest-common denominator version.
Hell considering Sony are still selling 200,000 PS2s a month I'd probably have teams working on titles for 360/PS3, and other teams working on Wii/PS2.
If you are going to dedicate an entire team to doing a Wii specific game which, for instance, actually takes proper advantage of the controller, it would make more sense to aim for the Wii's primary demographic, than to aim for a small subset which is better covered by any other platform.
So in the future the lowest-common denominator for cross platform games, which for now is decided only by PS3/XBox360/PC for these games, will be dropped even further so the Wii can get in on the action.
Stunning also that the people who publish GTA of all things believe they "can't ignore" an installed base which was created by games diametrically opposed to the likes of GTA.
Internet access provides possibilities for a number of issues which personal computers were immune to up until it was added. Thus it is bad.
As you say yourself, PCs were not designed for gaming, so the fact that the Internet has some bad implications for gaming is largely irrelevant to them. Furthermore there is more benefit for games on PC to have Internet access, as it is where most multiplayer games belong. Finally, since PCs are so open compared to consoles, piracy can combat any DRM-based issues far, far easier than it can on consoles. Thus it is good, but brings potential issues.
Multi-player games do not automatically belong on a PC. I'd actually argue that they don't because the PC was not designed for gaming.
Most multiplayer games do belong on PC. I never said they all do. Regardless of the intention behind the design of the PC, it is the superior platform for the genres most commonly seen online.
The games I want to play online are not necessarily available on the PC.
The games I want to play offline aren't necessarily going to be available offline in a few years. Is adding online capability worth shortening the lifetime of all the offline games? Anyway, all genres which go online have been on PC up until now as consoles couldn't be used for the purpose, so the only reasons a game could be going online from a console are because it jumped platforms from the PC, or is an offline game with pointless online features tacked on. Both are fairly poor. I'm afraid I'm going to prioritise the offline single-player games which have been on consoles since they have existed over the bad ports and gimmickry foisted upon them by the availability of Internet access.
I may not have a suitable PC if the game(s) I wanted to play existed on the PC. Are you going to buy me one?
I'll trade you for consoles that don't need activation servers, when time comes.
How is it flawed reasoning? Internet access provides possibilities for a number of issues which consoles were immune to up until it was added. Thus it is bad. If you want online gaming, go play on a PC. Most multiplayer games belong on PC anyway.
I know this is not currently an issue, that is why I referred to the possibility of playing these games in years to come.
Also, DRM is not an issue for consoles with physical media, as it needs only the console and the disk, as I outlined in my post. Downloaded content must use activation servers or similar for its DRM scheme, at which point it becomes an issue, as it takes control away from the user.
Something I pre-emptively hated before they even existed. Additional unnecessary points of failure are bad.
With a PSX/PS2, I have a disk, I have a console, I have a working setup. And I can (and do) put my disk and console in a safe place when I no longer use them, so I can come back to them in years to come. I cannot keep someone else's activation server online.
When I buy a physical product, I know what I am getting, a game and the device which plays it. It is limited by the lifetime of the hardware and the media, but I can live with that. I will not accept paying for 1's and 0's which may one day be arbitrarily rendered useless, on consoles or otherwise.
Wouldn't be an issue on consoles if they hadn't gotten Internet access in the first place.
At some point early on in Resident Evil 4, you encountered a door. Leon promptly kicked it open with his boot and you ran into the next room. It was a statement. The entirety of Resident Evil 4 was a statement. That statement was, "Survival Horror has Evolved". The evolution could be seen early on in games like Resident Evil 3 and Dino Crisis 2. Games like Dead Space are continuing that evolution. The genre is changing, not dying.
Dinosaurs evolved into birds. Birds are still here. Dinosaurs are nonetheless extinct.
Umm...What about Left4Dead? I fail to see how the genre can be 'dying' if it includes a wildly popular new release? I mean, I guess you could argue that Left4Dead isn't similar enough to to qualify as a member of the genre -- but it seems like a perfectly valid (and, frankly, awesome) way to evolve the genre. Oh, two more words:
Blasting your way through an army of monsters is not the defining feature of a survival horror.
Dead Space.
Maybe you've just got a really, really narrow definition of what qualifies as 'survival horror'?
So I don't think the genre is dead so much as we have evolved away from the "cheap scares" of using the controls and camera angles to ramp up the spook factor.
Atmosphere, suspense, and being forced to fight desperately for your life against manifestations of your character's subconscious is cheap scares, while shootan' monsters with sci-fi weaponry is an 'evolution' because they are hard to kill and bump mapped?
....but they refused to allow an in game model of their be susceptible to any sort of damage. This has been documented in the past before not mostly with the GTA franchise, but with every racing franchise in history.
Colin McRae, and no doubt other rally franchises.
Take your RL car of choice and turn it into an unrecognisable wreck.
Why bother when you are already forced to "enjoy such realism" in real life?
Because, like real life, it's fun anyway.
I tend to be worried more about what's waiting behind the next gate than what CCP may or may not be doing to help an alliance I have never personally encountered in-game.
I'll take a new game with issues over a very polished rehash any time. The ars technica reviewer wanted more, but I don't think it's a bad idea for the first game with a new mechanic to keep it simple and try to get it right. They can add depth and breadth in the sequels, when they have the basics down and we are used to how it works.
Interesting that despite the repetitiveness they still found it too short, repetitive+short+fun=replayable.
While it would be good if the scenarios were more flexible, a linear series of fancy scenarios is exactly what CoD has always offered, and since it does it well, is what it should continue to offer.
It would indeed be nice though, if there were more games in general focused on gameplay over graphics.
If someone has an original idea, perhaps they'll do an original franchise? And if you want an original idea, perhaps the place to look for it is not in existing franchises?
When I play "[Game] N+1", I expect to be playing "[Game] N" with improved graphics and gameplay, not a whole new game. Which was why I avoided CoD4 for so long.
IW made good WWII games, and I hope they continue to do so, and modern ones too since it turns out they do that well too. I would not like to see the series chop and change its basis in a doomed attempt to keep the interest of those who aren't particularly interested in it in the first place.
When one has bought hardware upgrade after hardware upgrade year after year for nothing more than slightly nicer graphics, one has to justify the fact that console games/gamers get by without this by ingraining the idea in one's head that game quality can be equated with graphics quality.
PCs are better for some types of game, Consoles are for others. If you play on only one platform, you are missing out on some areas (areas which you may not have any interest in though). The primary reason is controls, however there are types of game which favour complete control by the developer over appearance, and others which benefit from actively turning over access to the game's innards to the end-user.
And, if all you want to do is play shootan' games, why would you bother to buy another platform when you can install one on your 'business tool'?
Slashdot Mirror
Because being crossplatform'd with consoles just isn't enough!
Who says they have to make the same game cover 3 consoles?
The realist in me. The Wii will either get a rubbish cut down version of the 'real' game, or all three will get a lowest-common denominator version.
Hell considering Sony are still selling 200,000 PS2s a month I'd probably have teams working on titles for 360/PS3, and other teams working on Wii/PS2.
If you are going to dedicate an entire team to doing a Wii specific game which, for instance, actually takes proper advantage of the controller, it would make more sense to aim for the Wii's primary demographic, than to aim for a small subset which is better covered by any other platform.
Get the big, grown-up names on Wii, please.
Yes, I do own a 360 and a PS3 as well.
I rest my case.
wasn't the same star trek formula rehashed a million fucking times, like DS9 and Voyager
Voyager yes, but DS9 is usually lambasted for not being a proper Star Trek at all.
As for Enterprise, as with Voyager, a good concept with a bad case of TNGcloneitis.
So in the future the lowest-common denominator for cross platform games, which for now is decided only by PS3/XBox360/PC for these games, will be dropped even further so the Wii can get in on the action.
Stunning also that the people who publish GTA of all things believe they "can't ignore" an installed base which was created by games diametrically opposed to the likes of GTA.
Internet access provides possibilities for a number of issues which personal computers were immune to up until it was added. Thus it is bad.
As you say yourself, PCs were not designed for gaming, so the fact that the Internet has some bad implications for gaming is largely irrelevant to them. Furthermore there is more benefit for games on PC to have Internet access, as it is where most multiplayer games belong. Finally, since PCs are so open compared to consoles, piracy can combat any DRM-based issues far, far easier than it can on consoles. Thus it is good, but brings potential issues.
Multi-player games do not automatically belong on a PC. I'd actually argue that they don't because the PC was not designed for gaming.
Most multiplayer games do belong on PC. I never said they all do. Regardless of the intention behind the design of the PC, it is the superior platform for the genres most commonly seen online.
The games I want to play online are not necessarily available on the PC.
The games I want to play offline aren't necessarily going to be available offline in a few years. Is adding online capability worth shortening the lifetime of all the offline games?
Anyway, all genres which go online have been on PC up until now as consoles couldn't be used for the purpose, so the only reasons a game could be going online from a console are because it jumped platforms from the PC, or is an offline game with pointless online features tacked on. Both are fairly poor. I'm afraid I'm going to prioritise the offline single-player games which have been on consoles since they have existed over the bad ports and gimmickry foisted upon them by the availability of Internet access.
I may not have a suitable PC if the game(s) I wanted to play existed on the PC. Are you going to buy me one?
I'll trade you for consoles that don't need activation servers, when time comes.
How is it flawed reasoning? Internet access provides possibilities for a number of issues which consoles were immune to up until it was added. Thus it is bad. If you want online gaming, go play on a PC. Most multiplayer games belong on PC anyway.
I know this is not currently an issue, that is why I referred to the possibility of playing these games in years to come.
Also, DRM is not an issue for consoles with physical media, as it needs only the console and the disk, as I outlined in my post. Downloaded content must use activation servers or similar for its DRM scheme, at which point it becomes an issue, as it takes control away from the user.
Something I pre-emptively hated before they even existed. Additional unnecessary points of failure are bad.
With a PSX/PS2, I have a disk, I have a console, I have a working setup. And I can (and do) put my disk and console in a safe place when I no longer use them, so I can come back to them in years to come. I cannot keep someone else's activation server online.
When I buy a physical product, I know what I am getting, a game and the device which plays it. It is limited by the lifetime of the hardware and the media, but I can live with that. I will not accept paying for 1's and 0's which may one day be arbitrarily rendered useless, on consoles or otherwise.
Wouldn't be an issue on consoles if they hadn't gotten Internet access in the first place.
Everyone complains
This is your mistake. Not everyone complains; it is merely that when one group is complaining, the other group is satisfied and silent.
At some point early on in Resident Evil 4, you encountered a door. Leon promptly kicked it open with his boot and you ran into the next room. It was a statement. The entirety of Resident Evil 4 was a statement. That statement was, "Survival Horror has Evolved". The evolution could be seen early on in games like Resident Evil 3 and Dino Crisis 2. Games like Dead Space are continuing that evolution. The genre is changing, not dying.
Dinosaurs evolved into birds. Birds are still here. Dinosaurs are nonetheless extinct.
Umm...What about Left4Dead? I fail to see how the genre can be 'dying' if it includes a wildly popular new release? I mean, I guess you could argue that Left4Dead isn't similar enough to to qualify as a member of the genre -- but it seems like a perfectly valid (and, frankly, awesome) way to evolve the genre. Oh, two more words:
Blasting your way through an army of monsters is not the defining feature of a survival horror.
Dead Space.
Maybe you've just got a really, really narrow definition of what qualifies as 'survival horror'?
RTFA
So I don't think the genre is dead so much as we have evolved away from the "cheap scares" of using the controls and camera angles to ramp up the spook factor.
Atmosphere, suspense, and being forced to fight desperately for your life against manifestations of your character's subconscious is cheap scares, while shootan' monsters with sci-fi weaponry is an 'evolution' because they are hard to kill and bump mapped?
....but they refused to allow an in game model of their be susceptible to any sort of damage. This has been documented in the past before not mostly with the GTA franchise, but with every racing franchise in history.
Colin McRae, and no doubt other rally franchises.
Take your RL car of choice and turn it into an unrecognisable wreck.
Why bother when you are already forced to "enjoy such realism" in real life?
Because, like real life, it's fun anyway.
I tend to be worried more about what's waiting behind the next gate than what CCP may or may not be doing to help an alliance I have never personally encountered in-game.
I'll take a new game with issues over a very polished rehash any time. The ars technica reviewer wanted more, but I don't think it's a bad idea for the first game with a new mechanic to keep it simple and try to get it right. They can add depth and breadth in the sequels, when they have the basics down and we are used to how it works.
Interesting that despite the repetitiveness they still found it too short, repetitive+short+fun=replayable.
While it would be good if the scenarios were more flexible, a linear series of fancy scenarios is exactly what CoD has always offered, and since it does it well, is what it should continue to offer.
It would indeed be nice though, if there were more games in general focused on gameplay over graphics.
If someone has an original idea, perhaps they'll do an original franchise? And if you want an original idea, perhaps the place to look for it is not in existing franchises?
When I play "[Game] N+1", I expect to be playing "[Game] N" with improved graphics and gameplay, not a whole new game. Which was why I avoided CoD4 for so long.
IW made good WWII games, and I hope they continue to do so, and modern ones too since it turns out they do that well too. I would not like to see the series chop and change its basis in a doomed attempt to keep the interest of those who aren't particularly interested in it in the first place.
On the upside, they'll learn that they don't actually need a cannon to kill a mosquito.
I will keep paying for the better graphics, because *gasp* I like better graphics.
As will I, but minus the aforementioned rationalisation.
Why does that make it better for the person who matter - the gamer?
Because any issues related to compatibility or meeting required specs or even just having a random system crash are almost completely mitigated.
I'd be interested to know how games which have no use for such a control interface were 'dumbed down' due to the lack of it?
When one has bought hardware upgrade after hardware upgrade year after year for nothing more than slightly nicer graphics, one has to justify the fact that console games/gamers get by without this by ingraining the idea in one's head that game quality can be equated with graphics quality.
PCs are better for some types of game, Consoles are for others. If you play on only one platform, you are missing out on some areas (areas which you may not have any interest in though). The primary reason is controls, however there are types of game which favour complete control by the developer over appearance, and others which benefit from actively turning over access to the game's innards to the end-user.
And, if all you want to do is play shootan' games, why would you bother to buy another platform when you can install one on your 'business tool'?
...is not a problem if you pirate it first. Buy only after you are sure the game isn't crippled.
As for consoles, this is just another reason that they should never have had Internet access added.