Topic: My two cents: Revolution will have more third-party support than PS3. (No, I'm not crazy.)

[ShyGuy]

I think we all know what Nintendo needs to do. They need to make a mature vegetarian movie that's a cross between Troy and a Beautiful Mind. With Yoshi's Island style visuals.  

[Artimus]

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Ok, first of all you say Ninty DUMBS DOWN their games, in the sense that you want them to complicate controls to make them more fun...Irony?  I think so...

Hardly. They do dumb down their games. They make simplistic controls which are often less intuitive. Simplistic isn't as good as intuitive. There is not reason you can't design a control scheme that is both in-depth for older players yet simple enough to use for younger players. Most other baseball games have them. Mario Golf 64 is a good example of this. At the time the control scheme allowed for the very basic press-a-button use for younger players. But an older player could choice ball point, fade/draw characters, etc. By time Toadstool Tour (a game I own AND enjoy) came around a better system had been developed in the analog swing. It's simple for little kids but allows a more intuitive control. In fact it's easier to use well than the timed button press, but you can still master it.

Another good example is the SSBM Mario vs. the Mario Sunshine Mario. Why not use the same textures on his clothes? They're still cartoony, but they give the world a texture. Nintendo are bad at textures! Not all GCN games suffer from bad textures. Because SMS had HORRIBLE textures.

If Nintendo just change a bunch of little things, and upped the presentation, their games would play better, be loved just as much by current fans, and take less flak.  

[Bill Aurion]

"They make simplistic controls which are often less intuitive."

Wait, what?  No...And Mario Baseball wasn't devved by Nintendo, so this argument just fell into the toilet until you can find a Nintendo-devved game that has "unintuitive control"...

Another good example is the SSBM Mario vs. the Mario Sunshine Mario. Why not use the same textures on his clothes? They're still cartoony, but they give the world a texture. Nintendo are bad at textures! Not all GCN games suffer from bad textures. Because SMS had HORRIBLE textures.

I like how you completely ignored the perfectly rendered water and eye-dropping draw distance...Want to know how they got those?  By making some sacrifices in the texture area (where the system is already weak due to low RAM)...Comparing a fighting game to a resource-hungry platformer like Mario Sunshine isn't going to get you anywhere...

[ThePerm]

why do  people exagerate the ram as being bad..theres alot you can  do with it. Its broken  up into  smaller chunks  than  ps2...but there  is more of it.  Plus gcn actually had the processing power to  do twice as many  textures as xbox...but devlopers were extremely lazy....finally with re4..theres some good texture work

thats besides the point because your all stupid fucks and can all go to hell!!!!

good thing no one is reading this

[ThePerm]

specs are kiddie!!! Iwata and reggie are going to make gaming fun!!

[Artimus]

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Originally posted by: Bill Aurion
"They make simplistic controls which are often less intuitive."

Wait, what?  No...And Mario Baseball wasn't devved by Nintendo, so this argument just fell into the toilet until you can find a Nintendo-devved game that has "unintuitive control"...

So a game with Mario, published by Nintendo, essentially their flagship mascott, isn't open to criticism because they didn't actually develop it internally? Bull crap. It's a Nintendo game, regardless of who developed it, and it's their job to make sure it's good.

Another good example is the SSBM Mario vs. the Mario Sunshine Mario. Why not use the same textures on his clothes? They're still cartoony, but they give the world a texture. Nintendo are bad at textures! Not all GCN games suffer from bad textures. Because SMS had HORRIBLE textures.

I like how you completely ignored the perfectly rendered water and eye-dropping draw distance...Want to know how they got those?  By making some sacrifices in the texture area (where the system is already weak due to low RAM)...Comparing a fighting game to a resource-hungry platformer like Mario Sunshine isn't going to get you anywhere...

I love the draw distance, and I've never once criticized the water. But blaming RAM (which as pointed out isn't even that valid) is foolish and simply making excuses. And how is SSBM not resource-hungry when it's got a ton of characters on-screen like it does during some battles?

SMS doesn't have bad graphics, it has sloppy graphics. The water is so amazing so why can't the rest be decent? The game also forgoes details. Look at a film like, say, Spirited Away. Compare it to something like a Saturday morning cartoon. Both animated. But one is supremely more impressive. Why? Every detail is given effort. I'm not saying SMS is ugly or badly done graphically, I'm saying if Nintendo upped their presentation they could keep their exact same games with the same age-appeal but avoid a lot of the criticism and improve their image. Basically they could please almost everyone.

[Hostile Creation]

Super Mario Sunshine has a much wider scope of environments, circumstances, and levels.  SSBM has a few levels as opposed to an entire 3D world to create.

[zakkiel]

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I feel like we're arguing over a lot of nothing, in any case.

You're probably right. Most of the attitudes you really object to I don't hold. I think there are couple points worth clearing up, though. First: you believe that Nintendo is doing kid games because that is where its artistic sensibilities lead it. Nintendo has tons of artists, and the odds are good that many of them would love to pursue a mature game and are held back by Nintendo corporate calculations of exactly the kind you don't want directing game content. The sort of calculations that have Nintendo putting Mario in some ridiculous percentage of all the games it releases, or churning out a Mario Party every year, or making 50% of WW filler. And Twilight Princess is not close to the maturity of LoTR - compare the enemies in the shots with the Uruk-Hai, for example.

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They can do this by making a more adult looking console (done), and building better relationships with 3rd parties (apparently being done), and working with second parties to create exclusive mature titles (hopefully being done)

They worked with second parties to create mature titles last generation. We lost the second parties. They promised better relationships with 3rd parties last generation. We lost still more third-party support. I'm pleased they've at least changed the appearance of the console itself, but I never believed this counted for nearly as much as commonly supposed.

[wandering]

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First: you believe that Nintendo is doing kid games because that is where its artistic sensibilities lead it. Nintendo has tons of artists, and the odds are good that many of them would love to pursue a mature game and are held back by Nintendo corporate calculations of exactly the kind you don't want directing game content.

Perhaps.

I do sometimes treat Nintendo like they're an artist instead of a company.... but I think that's how they tend to act. Sure, there are (stupid) corporate decisions: Nintendo's whored out mario like crazy, rushed Wind Waker, etc. But other decisions (like the decision to make Wind Waker cel-shaded, or the decision to set Sunshine on a tropical island), felt like they were motivated primarily by the artists, and they represented directions that they, from an artistic and creative standpoint, wanted to explore. I find it hard to beleive that Nintendo's top brass ordered Wind Waker to be more tiku tiku tiku!  because they felt it would make more money that way.

I also find it hard to fault Nintendo for not producing Halo-like games where you shoot at things with pistols and such. I'm sure there are some artists at Nintendo who would be interested in that sort of thing....but it's hard to take a 20-year corporate philosophy and separate that out and simply say Nintendo is suppressing various game types for profit-motivated reasons. What types of games Nintendo creates is undoubtedly engrained in everyone who works there...and to expect that Nintendo could simply shift their policy and start pumping out games like Halo or MGS is somewhat ludicrous.

With that said, I wouldn't at all mind seeing more games like Another Code coming from Nintendo. I haven't played it, but from what I gather there's a complex back story, an older protagonist, mature themes, etc. Nintendo should make more games like that (if they want to). I think we can both agree on that.

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And Twilight Princess is not close to the maturity of LoTR - compare the enemies in the shots with the Uruk-Hai, for example.

mmm- maybe. But I'm afraid you might be confusing maturity with photo-realism. One of the things I love about Nintendo is that they seem to be one of the few companies that intuitively understands that when you try to make a game photo-realistic, you wind up with something that lies in the uncanny valley. Miyamoto had a great quote about this, where he described a hypothetical game where a detailed photorealistic hand passes through a bottle, and thus counteracts all of the detail and realism.

Stylized graphics are good. I can't for the time when other companies follow Nintendo's lead and leave behind gee-whiz photorealism for more stylized, artistic (dare I say impressionist?) visuals.

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They worked with second parties to create mature titles last generation. We lost the second parties. They promised better relationships with 3rd parties last generation. We lost still more third-party support.

Maybe I'm fooling myself, but I think Nintendo will do things better next time round. The DS is proof that the philosophies they're espousing, about creating cheaper and more innovative systems, can work in the real world. And comments from developers lead me to believe that 3rd party support for the REV will be good.

As far as Nintendo's strategy of getting mature games through 2nd parties, sure it didn't work well this time around, but Nintendo just didn't have the userbase to support niche mature titles like Eternal Darkness. I'd like to think that will change this time around. I'm counting on Nintendo coming out with good launch games, an innovative console, and an affordable price.....if they do that, a larger and more diverse userbase should follow.

[zakkiel]

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One of the things I love about Nintendo is that they seem to be one of the few companies that intuitively understands that when you try to make a game photo-realistic, you wind up with something that lies in the uncanny valley.

I'm a huge fan of impressionistic, highly-charged visuals, though more in landscapes than characters (in some ways, I'm really a Victorian romantic at heart). I love the WoW look, outside of the ridiculous gnome environments. But the emotional impact of a visual system can be achieved in subtle deviations or simply by using exotic or unusual formations (the skies in HL2 are good examples of this). I don't think there's anything superior in either approach, but one is clearly more suited to hard sci-fi and the other to very soft fantasy.

I tend to doubt the application of the uncanny valley to CG. Again, take HL2, with has highly sympathetic characters which are also as photorealistic as possible.

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Miyamoto had a great quote about this, where he described a hypothetical game where a detailed photorealistic hand passes through a bottle, and thus counteracts all of the detail and realism.

I'm an even bigger fan of realistic physics, which are just starting to come into their own. If a hand passes through a bottle, it's going to be jaring even if both are cell-shaded.  

[IceCold]

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Maybe I'm fooling myself, but I think Nintendo will do things better next time round. The DS is proof that the philosophies they're espousing, about creating cheaper and more innovative systems, can work in the real world. And comments from developers lead me to believe that 3rd party support for the REV will be good.

I have no doubt that the support will be better on the Rev, especially in the RPG & "mature" department. But I seriously doubt that it will be like the DS with tonnes of 3rd parties jumping on board. You have to remember that the GBA was the king of the portable market for a long, long time, and it sold millions of units. 3rd parties aren't just going to ditch its successor. However, the Rev isn't the marketshare leader. That honour goes to Sony, and however hard the PS3 is to develop for, the games will flow in its direction.

[wandering]

 

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I'm a huge fan of impressionistic, highly-charged visuals, though more in landscapes than characters (in some ways, I'm really a Victorian romantic at heart).

The thing I love about Nintendo is that they really are impressionists at heart. Take, for example, Hyrule Market town in OOT. If you look at the individual details, everything is rudimentary and simplistic…yet, when you go there, you feel like you’re in a bustling, vibrant town regardless.

Anyway, I find it interesting that you like stylised landscapes but prefer photo real characters…. I think I'm the opposite. I can enjoy photo-real fantasy landscapes, but, when it comes to humans, it's easier for me to sympathise with them when they're slightly stylised (compare, for example the impressive yet creepy people in Final Fantasy: TSW to the more likeable humans in the Incredibles).

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But the emotional impact of a visual system can be achieved in subtle deviations or simply by using exotic or unusual formations (the skies in HL2 are good examples of this). I don't think there's anything superior in either approach, but one is clearly more suited to hard sci-fi and the other to very soft fantasy.

Probably right... I'll concede to the virtue of visual variety. Good artists can achieve a lot with all kinds of different visuals.

The one thing I’ll add though, is that, while Nintendo always seems to have an eye on what’s important, other developers tend to focus on the wrong things. When developing a game, most devs these days seem to put priority on creating the most photorealistic and technically impressive graphics possible, without first asking themselves what they’re trying to communicate with their game’s visuals.  When creating a character, they might focus on getting all of the small visual details right without regard for what’s actually important: namely, what’s going on in the character’s head, and how their eyes should move, and what expressions should come over their face, etc.

While there are exceptions (and HL2 may well be one of them), for the most part it feels like we’re being shovelled the same generic crap in terms of visuals (and gameplay).

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I tend to doubt the application of the uncanny valley to CG. Again, take HL2, with has highly sympathetic characters which are also as photorealistic as possible.

hm - You might be right.

I haven't played HL2, but from what I've seen, the characters don't bug me as much as in other games (though they still look a little 'off').
And Leon from Re4 didn't bug me at all.
Then of course, in the world of movies, there's Gollum, who is incredible.

So, yeah, the uncanny valley may not apply to CG. The problem is, there are so many PS3 games bug the heck out of me. Take a look at Fight Night Round 3, for example. It's like a friggen wax museum.
...Actually, I think that's true of most games from this generation and next.

I miss the good old N64 days....

[wandering]

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Originally posted by: IceCold:
But I seriously doubt that it will be like the DS with tonnes of 3rd parties jumping on board. You have to remember that the GBA was the king of the portable market for a long, long time, and it sold millions of units. 3rd parties aren't just going to ditch its successor. However, the Rev isn't the marketshare leader.

The DS became popular, IMO, because of its affordability and innovative features. The fact is, as important as name recognition can be, overall product quality trumps everything. The PSP could've snagged first place easily if it was a better overall product.

Of course, analysts now point to Nintendo's handheld name recognition as carrying them through.... but remember, back before the DS was released,  they were saying that the PSP was a sure thing and the DS wasn't. They said that PlayStation had better name recognition than Nintendo (without the Gameboy branding); they pointed to the PSP's better graphics and sexiness; they noted that, since both PlayStation and Nintendo were going 'high-end', the gameboy's younger fanbase would be a non-issue and further gaurantee the PSP's success; etc.

The DS, in fact, beat the odds...mainly because it's, you know, more fun to play with.

I'm fairly sure that even developers weren't sure which system would come out on top, and support for the 2 systems seemed like it would be equal early on. AFAIK, the DS didn't snag first place becasue of third party support, third party support came because the DS snagged first place.  

[IceCold]

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AFAIK, the DS didn't snag first place becasue of third party support, third party support came because the DS snagged first place.

Not really... From the getgo you could tell that the DS would have overwhelming 3rd party support like the GBA before it. Countless titles were stated to be in development when it was revealed, and 3rd parties didn't just jump on board because of how well it's doing in Japan.

And the DS didn't really "beat the odds". The obvious bias towards the PSP on the parts of the analysts from the beginning made it look that way, but really, it was expected to sell.

Finally, the DS didn't beat the PSP, as you say. It is beating it now and will in the future with all the mouth-watering games for it, but during the DS drought, the PSP beat itself.

Of course, the "usuals" bought one at launch, but a ridiculous PRICE, a mainly s/port title launch, a myopic emphasis on multimedia abilities, and more UMDs on the shelves than games did not help it to carry on selling after launch. That along with the excellent DS advertising really killed it. And then there was (is) the drought where in 3 months or something only Coded Arms was released.

So up until now, the DS didn't cause the PSP to fail. The DS, of course, had a few great titles, but there were long droughts and not much variety. If Sony capitalized on this and did not make so many mistakes, it would be a different story. But now, and in the future, the DS is really beating the PSP with its upcoming software.

[The Omen]

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The DS became popular, IMO, because of its affordability and innovative features. The fact is, as important as name recognition can be, overall product quality trumps everything. The PSP could've snagged first place easily if it was a better overall product.

Name recognition is a lot more meaningful than you think.  People equate portable gaming with Nintendo.  End of story.  Since the DS is a natural extension of the GB line, it automatically has a built in user base.   Add in the backward compatibility with the GBA, and you have millions of built in users.   It's hard to release a new product to compete with one that has been successful for 18 years.  The DS being a high quality , technically advanced product doesn't hurt, but the name is this initial surge in sales.

[Ian Sane]

The DS did better because the PSP SUCKED.  The DS had a lousy launch and a huge drought of nothing that followed it.  The PSP had more launch games than the DS had at that point period.  There was a huge opportunity for Sony to steal Nintendo's portable market.  But the PSP was ridiculously overpriced and it's turned into a glorified movie player.  I can't think of any significant PSP games that have come out since launch.  You go to the store and all you see in the PSP section are movies.  The buzz is GONE.  Now the DS has a fuller release schedule and some killer games have been released so the odds of Sony catching up are pretty slim.  Nintendo made some questionable moves with the DS but fortunately Sony screwed up even more so it has all worked out fine.

I view the DS' success a lot like the Playstation's success.  One guy screwed up, the other didn't as much so he won out.

[wandering]

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The DS being a high quality , technically advanced product doesn't hurt, but the name is this initial surge in sales.

Well... I agree that if, say, Cingular created/released the DS instead of Nintendo, the system probably wouldn't have sold as well.

But, if Sony had created the DS, and Nintendo had created the PSP, I think the DS still would've sold better.  

[NotSoStu]

Haha.... After seeing the controller, I think we'll be able to scratch this idea. Oh well. ;_;

[couchmonkey]

*Agrees with Stu*.  Unless Nintendo's Revolution grabs a lot of people and helps them build a large new user base quickly, third party support will be worse than ever.  Well, that also depends on how Nintendo handles third party relations...if the right third parties were persuaded to give extra support to Revolution, then it could turn out really well too, but that seems unlikely.

Edit: Hey Bill, I read your post on Iwataton about the new, traditional controller add-on that they're making.  Now I believe third party support could easily be equal to or greater than the previous system, especially if the remote controller catches on.  I'm much more optimistic now.

[Bill Aurion]

Why?  The Revolution can play traditional games, so why wouldn't we even get ports at the worst?  Come on, people...

[zakkiel]

There's also a huge possible port market: PC games. Most will play much better on the Rev than anywhere else, provided you can finesse the lack of a keyboard. Most FPSs and RTSs can, with some creativity - provided there's one more button. Putting a trigger on the analog attachment would be an excellent idea.

edit: Once again, Nintendo is a step or two ahead of me. Is that two triggers I spy on the analog extension?  

[wandering]

The Revolution is doing what the Ds did: it provides new functionality that developers can get excited about, simpler and more intuitve control that non-gamers can get excited about, and all of the functionality of older systems to make quick-n-dirty ports and classic-style games possible.

3rd party support will be through the roof. hopefully

Is that two triggers I spy on the analog extension?"
Yes indeedy

[Gamebasher]

IanSane, your post above rocked the PGC world, and the rest of the gaming world! I really think it did!

Loved to hear THE TRUTH about PSP being told, after hearing all the commercial bs about the "untold wonders of the PSP". Annoying, but something which I started to ignore after the first wave. I don´t care how much money the spend on advertising it everywhere. It´s just empty barrels to me. To me, what matters is the games, and their gameplay. If there is no great gameplay, there is no fun, and so there is no value! And then the visuals mean nothing! You simply can´t get anything out great visuals, apart from admiring them, but then you might as well sit and glare at a tv-screen, rather than a small 4:3 screen. On the bigger screen you would surely enjoy that a lot more. So what is now the true value of the little black beast they have unleashed?

One of my friends, who is a Ps2 owner, complained that there isn´t any great games available for the PSP, and I told him to go and get a DS instead, since there is some quite fun and innovative titles on offer. But he scoffed at my proposal, and instead started to talk about the Perfect Dark game coming out on XBOX360, and told me how much he was going to love to play it and all that. I said he could do that, but to never buy a PSP, as he would simply tire of it. Yesterday, he started to agree with me, and haven´t bought a PSP yet. I think he will find the XBOX360 far more interesting. Maybe one day I will even get him to buy a DS!

But, it is interesting to see how slowly, still steadily, Nintendo´s strategy of innovative and genrebusting games is starting to pay off, and how efforts by the competition pales in comparison. They are really correct, over at Nintendo, when saying that the market will die, if people do not find games interesting anymore. Really no wonder people have started to tire of the samey type of games that have flooded the markets for years. For, when something keeps being the same, it becomes more and more boring so that in this way the perceived value of it drops significantly and people´s willingness to pay for it fades too. More and more people therefore will see that Nintendo´s approach is the right one. Nomatter how much they think Nintendo is only for children.

I am just gratefull that we still have Nintendo around. They will never stop to surprise us, never stop to renew games, and therefore they will never stop experiencing successes in terms of videogame sales. With Revolution, or whatever it will be called, I think they could, like Jim Merrick said, become the market leader (- again!). Simply because they will get so many new people to play their new games, and on top of that keep most of their existing fans, if not all, and that should weigh in substantially in the salescharts and positions of every Nintendo game listed in it!

I want Nintendo to be the market leader. Do you know why?

Because with them as market leader, we would see THEM calling the shots on HOW games should be made, not SONY and their way of doing it, and this would likely do us all a giant favour by saving the day for all of the developers who simply can´t stay afloat anymore amidst huge multi-million dollar gaming projects for PS3 or XBOX 360 ( it´s much much cheaper on the Revolution, and they should give it a chance as I think it would pay off!) and STOP! the ongoing implosion of the market alltogether! No more ominious mergers that tell of grave troubles for developers, even the big ones, who can´t stand on their own feet. No more trouble. But a reversal of direction for the whole industry, because that is where it is going to have to go, if we are to have any games to play in 10 years time!

Go for it Nintendo!

 

   

[Don'tHate742]

Did you not hear the part where he said "The DS did better because the PSP SUCKED. The DS had a lousy launch and a huge drought of nothing that followed it." Meaning the DS sucked, but the PSP was even worse.

[NotSoStu]

Don't Hate's correct. Frankly, both handhelds have had an extremely bad start.

And Gamebasher, if you want your friend to get a DS, tell him that there's a good possibility of Rare developing Perfect Dark DS. "What?," he'll say. "Rareware belongs to Microsoft now... They don't develop for Nintendo anymore," he'll say. Well, just point him in the direction of the Rare website's Join Us section. They're looking for programmers for DS, as well as 3D artists for DS. Also, it was rumored that at E3 2k4, Rare already had a very basic version of Perfect Dark up and running on the DS hardware.