Are Wii having fun yet?
I am a long-term technophile and gamer, stretching way back to the days when the Commodore 64 was state-of-the-art (and a little while before then, but I feel old enough already) and I have owned many games consoles and computers in my time, so I was keeping an eye on which next-gen console looked like it would best suit my needs and complement my PSP.
So far, the XBox 360 has failed to dazzle me, despite the fact I had one on pre-order - Amazon failed to deliver it and I got the PSP instead; a decision that I have not regretted at all. My best friend got one and tried to convince me that it was awesome, but Blazing Angels looked poor and many other efforts looked prety much as they would on the Xbox I had already. Another two friends have either sold their 360 or put it in a cupboard and gone back to the old XBox, as there are so few decent 360 games and the backwards-compatibility is evidently rather hit-and-miss.
The Playstation 3, then, looked to have things stitched up - after all the Gamecube got hammered by the XBox and PS2, so surely the powerhouse from Sony needed only to make its release date to romp home to victory? Well, it's true that the demos look far more convincing than those for the 360. A couple of those games look amazing, not least of which is Metal Gear Solid 5. The power of the machine appears to be truly a step-up from the XBox/PS2/Gamecube, although developers are quite often criticising the machine and preferring the 360. That could be down to the 360 essentially being an Apple Mac G5 in a different box and, thus, easier to code for, however. Still, the release of the PS3 has been delayed in the UK until March(ish) and those countries that have had it at Christmas are reporting faults and backwards-compatibility issues. Hopefully it will only need a firmware update.
The rank outsider for the next-gen race is Nintendos' Wii. Yes, it's a funny name, but it probably means "console of much happiness making" in Japanese. The brains at Nintendo have looked at the market and realised that games are getting more and more expensive to make. The average top-flight title now has a credit list longer than a Hollywood blockbuster and can cost millions of pounds to make. This means there is little risk taken with new ideas, as a single flop could break a company. Compare this to the days of the Commodore 64 when a game was written by three or four guys in a room and you can see why we have more and more sequels and less and less new ideas. Nintendo have seen fit to try to change this by not chasing after ever more powerful (read:"expensive to code for") graphics, but have instead created a console that tries to break through the dogma that only a "gamer" can enjoy a games console. As with the DS, Nintendo are trying especially hard to get the so-called "silver surfer" generation (those who are recently retired, or approaching that age, with large amounts of disposable income and lots of free time) to use its products. Hence, we have brainteaser games on the DS and a new console that doesn't require you to learn how to use a joypad (not easy if the old fingers have a touch of arthritis, you see) - no, if you want to sword-fight, you wave the wand about, etc. So far, it seems to be working.
I am not going to say that all the Wiis sold are to older people, far from it. I do, however, think that when little Timmy opened his Wii on Christmas Day and insisted on playing Wii Sports, or Golf, then rather than fall asleep, or get bored (as was the case previously), then it might be the case that mum and dad, as well as grandma and grandpa, had a go. They probably had fun, too. That is what Nintendo have gotten right - the idea that a games console and its games should be, first and formost, fun. Yes, it's nice to have fancy graphics, but so many games now have great looks, but poor gameplay (an argument I can remember going back to the days of the Amiga and ST...), but honestly, if you have a racing game where the cars look like cars, the important thing is that racing is easy and fun, not whether you can read the stickers on the tyres. The boom in games like DanceDance Revolution or Donkey Conga show that more people are interested in playing games than are interested in learning how to use a gamepad. If you make the fun accessible, then people will play, it's that simple. It would seem, judging by the sales figures, that Nintendo have hit the nail right on the head. Let's hope the strategy works long-term and that we don't lose their consoles the way we lost Segas'. On current form, however, it looks like Wii and 360 have taken a huge headstart on the PS3 and Sony is struggling to make up ground. Don't count them out, just yet, though.
So far, the XBox 360 has failed to dazzle me, despite the fact I had one on pre-order - Amazon failed to deliver it and I got the PSP instead; a decision that I have not regretted at all. My best friend got one and tried to convince me that it was awesome, but Blazing Angels looked poor and many other efforts looked prety much as they would on the Xbox I had already. Another two friends have either sold their 360 or put it in a cupboard and gone back to the old XBox, as there are so few decent 360 games and the backwards-compatibility is evidently rather hit-and-miss.
The Playstation 3, then, looked to have things stitched up - after all the Gamecube got hammered by the XBox and PS2, so surely the powerhouse from Sony needed only to make its release date to romp home to victory? Well, it's true that the demos look far more convincing than those for the 360. A couple of those games look amazing, not least of which is Metal Gear Solid 5. The power of the machine appears to be truly a step-up from the XBox/PS2/Gamecube, although developers are quite often criticising the machine and preferring the 360. That could be down to the 360 essentially being an Apple Mac G5 in a different box and, thus, easier to code for, however. Still, the release of the PS3 has been delayed in the UK until March(ish) and those countries that have had it at Christmas are reporting faults and backwards-compatibility issues. Hopefully it will only need a firmware update.
The rank outsider for the next-gen race is Nintendos' Wii. Yes, it's a funny name, but it probably means "console of much happiness making" in Japanese. The brains at Nintendo have looked at the market and realised that games are getting more and more expensive to make. The average top-flight title now has a credit list longer than a Hollywood blockbuster and can cost millions of pounds to make. This means there is little risk taken with new ideas, as a single flop could break a company. Compare this to the days of the Commodore 64 when a game was written by three or four guys in a room and you can see why we have more and more sequels and less and less new ideas. Nintendo have seen fit to try to change this by not chasing after ever more powerful (read:"expensive to code for") graphics, but have instead created a console that tries to break through the dogma that only a "gamer" can enjoy a games console. As with the DS, Nintendo are trying especially hard to get the so-called "silver surfer" generation (those who are recently retired, or approaching that age, with large amounts of disposable income and lots of free time) to use its products. Hence, we have brainteaser games on the DS and a new console that doesn't require you to learn how to use a joypad (not easy if the old fingers have a touch of arthritis, you see) - no, if you want to sword-fight, you wave the wand about, etc. So far, it seems to be working.
I am not going to say that all the Wiis sold are to older people, far from it. I do, however, think that when little Timmy opened his Wii on Christmas Day and insisted on playing Wii Sports, or Golf, then rather than fall asleep, or get bored (as was the case previously), then it might be the case that mum and dad, as well as grandma and grandpa, had a go. They probably had fun, too. That is what Nintendo have gotten right - the idea that a games console and its games should be, first and formost, fun. Yes, it's nice to have fancy graphics, but so many games now have great looks, but poor gameplay (an argument I can remember going back to the days of the Amiga and ST...), but honestly, if you have a racing game where the cars look like cars, the important thing is that racing is easy and fun, not whether you can read the stickers on the tyres. The boom in games like DanceDance Revolution or Donkey Conga show that more people are interested in playing games than are interested in learning how to use a gamepad. If you make the fun accessible, then people will play, it's that simple. It would seem, judging by the sales figures, that Nintendo have hit the nail right on the head. Let's hope the strategy works long-term and that we don't lose their consoles the way we lost Segas'. On current form, however, it looks like Wii and 360 have taken a huge headstart on the PS3 and Sony is struggling to make up ground. Don't count them out, just yet, though.
Comments
Blazing Angels is notoriously shite. Only fans of the genre would ever go near it - do you read the gaming press Mr Technophile? - and what are the 'many other efforts'? Have you seen Gears of War? Tony Hawks: Project 8? Lost Planet? Do you even know what these games are Mr Gamer?
Your statement about putting 360s in cupboards and going back to old xboxes is fundamentally flawed - the 360 is backwards compatible ... why would anyone choose the uncomfortable, clunky and wired controller of the new, comfortable wireless one?
'The power of the machine appears to be truly a step-up from the XBox/PS2/Gamecube' - no shit. Thats why it's "Next Gen".
"The average top-flight title now has a credit list longer than a Hollywood blockbuster and can cost millions of pounds to make" ... so? Games like Gears of War, or the impending Halo 3 have just as much, if not more work put into them than some Hollywood blockbusters - which are inherently more expensive to make than games - they have A list celebs as voice actors, Hollywood directors and lighting technicians to consult on the lighting and storyline and everything about them is more immersive.
"after ever more powerful (read:"expensive to code for") graphics," what on earth does this line mean? How can one set of graphics hardware be "more expensive" to code for than another? You are out of your depth sir.
"if you have a racing game where the cars look like cars, the important thing is that racing is easy and fun, not whether you can read the stickers on the tyres" ... in your opinion. Some camps believe the more real it looks and sounds, the more immersive it is and the better experience you get. If your statement were correct, why are arcades full of hardware that costs thousands, just so you can see the reflection of the birds in the bonnet of your car as you grip the steering wheel and pummel the pedals.
Theres a boom in games like Donkey Conga? What is Donkey Conga?
Ok, so you didn't delete them and it isn't posting things properly - my apologies.
The Wii is the only one of the "next-gen" consoles that actually offers something new - a different way of playing games, as opposed to just flashier graphics. I stand by my comments regarding the graphics vs gameplay argument - too often is much made of the detail on a characters' clothes, or the fact the trees are 3d, not 2d, when the fact is the game is nigh on unplayable. No, I am not bitter Amazon failed to deliver my 360, as it made me by a PSP which I find much more useful. I have spent enough time playing games on the 360 to know what they are like and, frankly, a half-decent PC knocks the piss out of it, as will the PS3. The point is that, aside from more polygons on screen, the 360 doesn't represent a significant step forwards from the original XBox. The PS3 is effectively what the old PSX was supposed to be - a multimedia sony console. The pricing is ridiculous, though - I think it is something like £550 for just the console. That is about £200 too much for a console. Sony makes a big deal about Bluray, but a lot of film studios refuse to pay to use Sonys' technology, so are going with HD-DVD, which negates the "use it to play high-def DVDs" argument. Or you could just by a bluray drive for your PC that costs about £150. Frankly, I'll be building a Quad-core PC with dual-SLI 768mb Geforce 8800s, 1000GB of drive space, two DVD-rewriters, 7.1 soundcard and 4GB of RAM. That will set me back maybe £1000-£1100. It will do ten times what a PS3 can do, not to mention I can upgrade it cheaply, whereas I can foresee extra drive space for a PS3 costing rather a lot.
If you like your 360, great, it's a good console. It is not, however, great. None of them are, but the Wii is the only one to try something new with the way we think about games and to actively try to encourage non-gamers to give it a go. For me, that counts way more than how many cars there are in Gran Turismo 4, or whatever.
Couple of facts:
1) software developers work for a lot less than holywood actors. Games cost nowhere near what a major holywood film costs to make. However, the large cost of games production (say £1-£10Million, as compared to anywhere up to £200Million for the holywood film) does mean that one bad game can drag a games company under. There is, however, a lot of reusable technology involved, so you can use the Halflife graphics and physics engines for other games, etc. This helps offset development costs.
2) More powerful graphics chipsets are harder to code properly for, especially if it is using custom processors, parallel processors, etc. The 360 is basically a reboxed Macintosh G5, so it is a known quantity to code for - the graphics chipset is essentially the same as the commercially available graphics cards, etc. Thus, minimal time (and therefore money) is required to port physics engines from Mac/PC to the 360. The PS3 has much more exotic chipsets and is therefore a machine that makes it hard to port standard code cross-platform. This pushes up development time/costs.
3) You said "Some camps believe the more real it looks and sounds, the more immersive it is and the better experience you get. If your statement were correct, why are arcades full of hardware that costs thousands, just so you can see the reflection of the birds in the bonnet of your car as you grip the steering wheel and pummel the pedals." - Well, Sega has ceased hardware production, which tends to show that arcades don't cover the returns on developing such games. The games that tend to have crowds around them are things like DanceDance Revolution - the fun games. Donkey Conga is a Nintendo Gamecube game along the lines of DDR, where you bang bongo drums (a special controller was packaged in with the gama) and clap in time to music. These so-called "party games" are what is keeping the arcades open and are also the first step in bringing non-gamers into the fold of gaming. The Wii follows the same principle of concentrating on fun and also using controls that are intuitive to non-gamers. That is why I (and many others) believe that the Wii is likely to be the big sales success and that the PS3 will probably cause a lot of losses on Sonys' part.
Just what is your definition of "Next-Gen"?
"...a half-decent PC knocks the piss out of it..." - quite right, but a "half decent" PC will always cost at least twice as much, more if you include operating systems, extra hardware you need (they don't come with joypads for example). Even then, unless you have the top of the range graphics cards, some games won't work - Tom Clancys Rainbox Six Vegas is an example, it simply won't run on a PC without having a graphics cards that has only been out for about a month. However, the 360 version runs just fine - this is the benefit of consoles, developers can concentrate on squeezing every last ounce of power (and no one has come anywhere near the limit of the 360 yet) out of a machine, safe in teh knowledge that their game will work on everyones console.
I don't even get your point about the PS3 being a media machine - the any Xbox has and always will knock any effort Sony makes to create a multimedia maching into a cocked hat - have you SEEN xbox media centre? It's amazing - it's everything a home media centre should be, sans DRM.
Your facts:
1. Whats your point? It obviously wasn't to counter my point was it? Software developers do work for less than Hollywood actors, yes, but you can't compare apples and lemons - software developers are probably closer to the cameraman, or sound man, or gaffer. Hollywood has these too you know. Hollywood actors will probably get paid the same whether they are voice talent or screen talent. Costing the games production companies the same per-hour as a movie studio.
2. So, what you're saying is, that from this point on, no comapny can ever change the hardware in their machines as people won't know, or can't afford to develop for them? Guess we're always going to be stuck with "this-gen" consoles then.
3."Sega has ceased hardware production, which tends to show that arcades don't cover the returns on developing such games." - tends to show? Your whole point 3 is based on that? Sheesh. When was the last time you actually visited an arcade, you should go and take a look - people crowd around ALL the machines.
Yes, the Cell and the G5 in the Xbox 360 are both PowerPC architecture, vaguely. They are totally different beasts. The way the consoles utilise the chips are totally different, too. The Xbox 360 development kits are just Mac G5s, as the code written to run on them will work fine on the 360s hardware once compiled. The PS3 does not work the same way (Sony has a history of having to send out high-cost hardware-based dev kits to preferred developers). This difficulty/price of development on the PS3, especially, means that less developers can afford to make games that might actually sell on the high street. Not to mention the fact that the big companies (like EA) will stick to safe-bet licences to maximise revenue instead of take some risks with new game ideas.
If you think that better graphics are the only thing to chase, then fine. If you think that £600 for a PS3 is good value, then fine. But don't make points to back up your views and then throw a fit when people can pick holes in them or just simply disagree. Cameramen on a Hollywood crew are still paid more than the average game developer, by the way - it's not just the big talent that gets money in the big-budget films. This is because you need a great cameraman to make a good film, whereas you can make an ok game with a bunch of mediocre programmers. Or even bad ones. Microsoft are testament to that fact. Compilers and testing will allow you to patch bugs and fix crashes, but bad camera work cannot be fixed in the edit - hence they get more money...