Topic: Why is the console so small?

[Ian Sane]

"They ARE charging more.

PD0 retails for $59.99 and some games are even more than that."

I didn't notice that.  Here in Canada the prices are what they've always been.

Still for some games it won't make a difference.  EA already has to spend the money for HD for Madden so they don't save any money with the Rev version.  They might still overcharge.

[Artimus]

Quote
Originally posted by: Ian Sane
"They ARE charging more.

PD0 retails for $59.99 and some games are even more than that."

I didn't notice that.  Here in Canada the prices are what they've always been.

Still for some games it won't make a difference.  EA already has to spend the money for HD for Madden so they don't save any money with the Rev version.  They might still overcharge.

Some XBOX360 games here at 69.99. GCN games are 49 or 59...

[Ian Sane]

I know.  $69.99 is what I paid for Cube games at launch.  I don't see that as abnormal.  A lot of new games cost that much or did.  I haven't bought a new console game in over a year so maybe the prices changed.  All I know is that Rogue Leader cost me $69.99.

Doesn't matter I guess because the American prices are the big issue.

[Strell]

You know, I can't think of a better way for Nintendo tell everyone to shove it on graphics than to drop HD, can you?  Shows they are serious.  

It might also be a penny pinching move, but it's completely in line with their current philosophy.

Hence why I brought it up.

[BigJim]

"First of all, a lot of those are based on the same article put out by Panasonic. Second, unless HDTVs see a MASSIVE price drop in the next 4 years, then I still say that these articles are exercising something the business world calls "optimism"."

I doubt someone is going to try to re-sell a Panasonic survey for $800 and call it a report. We simply disagree. The discussion has gone far off point. I believe Nintendo is cheap and overly conservative. Nobody here has to like HDTV, be able to afford it, agree with it, or believe it. It's there. It's being adopted. People that know far better than either of us are saying it. Our opinions about HD don't matter.


"A cable doesn't magically give you HD. Hundreds of hours of development time, skyrocketing costs, a nice television, lots of hours working for all that equipment, a huge (and dangerously inept in some cases) power supply, and a dozens of other things do."

I'm sorry if you think MS's standard equates to some kind of requirement for HD. But the good news is, it doesn't.


"I can't think of a better way for Nintendo tell everyone to shove it on graphics than to drop HD, can you? Shows they are serious."

Luckily that's not Nintendo's attitude. It'd be frightening if it were. "We're Nintendo, damnit! What you want is Pong in 2011!"

[Strell]

Quote
Originally posted by: BigJim
I'm sorry if you think MS's standard equates to some kind of requirement for HD. But the good news is, it doesn't.

Right, I forgot.  They aren't forcing developers to broadcast the game in HD format and keep comparable framerates.  I mean, none of that adds to development time.  They throw that in on the final day before going gold.  Surely they haven't said that over and over and it hasn't been documented from developers.

I guess I just made that all up.
 

[trip1eX]

So I guess all those that want hdtv aren't buying a Rev, right?  

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

I'm getting a DLP project (or whatever the new guy on the block is) to enjoy my Rev on and watch HD content from my COMPUTER thanks to INTERWEB DOWNLOADS.

[BigJim]

Quote
Originally posted by: Strell

Quote
Originally posted by: BigJim
I'm sorry if you think MS's standard equates to some kind of requirement for HD. But the good news is, it doesn't.

Right, I forgot.  They aren't forcing developers to broadcast the game in HD format and keep comparable framerates.  I mean, none of that adds to development time.  They throw that in on the final day before going gold.  Surely they haven't said that over and over and it hasn't been documented from developers.

I guess I just made that all up.

My carpet, TV, or the addition I built onto the house to contain the radiation of large power supplies haven't caught on fire yet, so I guess someone lied to me when they said I was getting HD.

[IceCold]

Quote
Originally posted by: Ian Sane
I know.  $69.99 is what I paid for Cube games at launch.  I don't see that as abnormal.  A lot of new games cost that much or did.  I haven't bought a new console game in over a year so maybe the prices changed.  All I know is that Rogue Leader cost me $69.99.

Doesn't matter I guess because the American prices are the big issue.

Really? I never bought a new game for over $60.. and as Artimus said, nowdays some are down to $50..

[KDR_11k]

If it were only that simple - giving a cable to give HD, or providing an HD-out capable port - then I might tend to agree.

It is that simple. You don't need to do anything else except allocate more RAM to the framebuffer. On the PC changing resolution is exactly one line of code. That's it. High Definition. What it does to performance or the looks is somebody else's problem. And if it's optional to use it then it can be completely ignored if it causes too much trouble.

Or useless hundreds of enemies when I can only interact with 3-4 of them at a time, or drawing the same tree over and over with slight variations.

Yeah, useless hordes of hundreds of enemies even though you can only interact with 3-4 of them in Smash TV. Wait... But hell, who wants 100 Pikmin, anyway? Aren't 10 sufficient? Do they really need better pathfinding?

Trees can have a wide variety because of Speedtree. And since a forest consists of many trees and you can't use fakery if you want to allow the player to roam freely in the forest it's important that you can draw many trees. Or would you prefer games to keep very narrow pathes through forests so the fakery works?

And what kind of innovative game needs hundreds of objects lying around? Except for the highly popular Katamari Damacy, that is?

Power allows new ideas and while the next leap in power won't allow as many new ideas you're still restricting your games if you opt for less power.

Right, I forgot. They aren't forcing developers to broadcast the game in HD format and keep comparable framerates. I mean, none of that adds to development time. They throw that in on the final day before going gold. Surely they haven't said that over and over and it hasn't been documented from developers.

I guess I just made that all up.

If a game can't run at a decent framerate it can't run at a decent framerate. No matter what causes that it has to be fixed. Increased resolution doesn't suddently add a whole new set of power sinks, it just scales up an existing power sink and thus changes one variable for that process. Framerate optimization still has to happen except now it's happening while the system outputs a HD signal.

[Smash_Brother]

Quote
Originally posted by: BigJim
I doubt someone is going to try to re-sell a Panasonic survey for $800 and call it a report. We simply disagree. The discussion has gone far off point. I believe Nintendo is cheap and overly conservative. Nobody here has to like HDTV, be able to afford it, agree with it, or believe it. It's there. It's being adopted. People that know far better than either of us are saying it. Our opinions about HD don't matter.

My thoughts on HD stem from a broader view of the current US economy and the way it's heading. I just can't see 25% of US households buying something which the current early adopters admit they don't even have a use for when unemployment is getting worse and people are losing jobs daily.

But we'll wait and see. It's silly to be arguing about it now before we've even seen what the Rev does.  

[Strell]

What it does to performance or the looks is somebody else's problem.

Because I haven't said this exact thing about 4-5 times in this thread?  Somebody else's problem = the developers, the same people who are working overtime to get HD working.  Nintendo is eliminating that, and I'm sure if we see cross-platform games this generation, Nintendo's could be released earlier simply because no one would be using dev time on HD versions of their game.

Yeah, useless hordes of hundreds of enemies even though you can only interact with 3-4 of them in Smash TV. Wait... But hell, who wants 100 Pikmin, anyway? Aren't 10 sufficient? Do they really need better pathfinding?

Obvious I am not talking about games that actually utilize a multitude of characters effectively, I am talking about games like Dynasty Warriors where you see hundreds of enemies on the screen, but none of them do anything worthwhile until you are directly attacking them.  At the best it gives me an idea of scale, but even that is one of the worst ways to utilize power.  

Also, when was Smash TV put into 3D?  Oh, right.  It hasn't.  

Trees can have a wide variety because of Speedtree. And since a forest consists of many trees and you can't use fakery if you want to allow the player to roam freely in the forest it's important that you can draw many trees. Or would you prefer games to keep very narrow pathes through forests so the fakery works?

Again, see above comment.  I'm talking about pushing a system to draw things that make absolutely no bearing on gameplay.  I'm not talking about deleting immersion or forcing linearity.  You are putting words in my mouth and you know it.

And what kind of innovative game needs hundreds of objects lying around? Except for the highly popular Katamari Damacy, that is?

For the third time, this isn't what I'm saying.  I'm saying what if Katamari drew EVERYTHING 100% of the time, but you can only see/interact with the closest 20 objects?  Namco used a bunch of tricks to forcing the game into hiding polygons that weren't needed, and none of the objects were complex to begin with.  Now had they drawn footballs with full bumpmaps and fish with individual scales, THEN we'd be on the same page.  You know as well as I do that the objects in Katamari were super low polygon models.  Plus this was being done on the PS2, arguably the weakest of the current generation, which only reinforces my comments earlier that we've essentially got all the power we need.  So thank you for agreeing with me, whether you know it or not.

Power allows new ideas and while the next leap in power won't allow as many new ideas you're still restricting your games if you opt for less power.

I agree with this, but I'm saying at this point power is becoming rapidly useless.  It's like how you could run Windows 95 on 1/4th the resources Windows XP requires, but both of them look and act largely the same.  What is all that increased power providing?  Hardly anything.  And that is the way consoles are headed if you just continually pump more juice into them.  There's been so little in the way of innovation lately, but for some reason people think more power is going to magically grant them new genres?  It might lead the way to them, but they won't start popping out of people's asses like you seem to be inferring.  

If a game can't run at a decent framerate it can't run at a decent framerate. No matter what causes that it has to be fixed. Increased resolution doesn't suddently add a whole new set of power sinks, it just scales up an existing power sink and thus changes one variable for that process. Framerate optimization still has to happen except now it's happening while the system outputs a HD signal.

And this negates my argument that it requires more power/development time....how?  If you suddenly need more power, you have to draw that from somewhere, and it's going to come in the form of optimizing the code and added juice where needed.  That is development, I'm not sure what else it could be.

Now KDR I know you are smarter than that, so you can drop the devil's advocate position now.  

[Smash_Brother]

Power doesn't equate new gaming experiences, but it can help.

RE4 was great because the graphics were good enough to fool people just walking into the room into thinking you were watching a movie. It was hard not to take the gameplay seriously because it all looked so real (the gameplay itself was also good, though). However, for every good game with excellent graphics, I can name five with excellent graphics and the games sucked.

The Rev controller will do for console gaming what the DS's touchscreen did for handheld gaming: it'll be more intuitive for certain games (Stylus is to RPG, RTS what Revmote is to FPS, melee combat, sports) and it'll allow new genres to exist (Stulys is to Surgery Games what Revmote is to ??).

[KDR_11k]

Because I haven't said this exact thing about 4-5 times in this thread? Somebody else's problem = the developers, the same people who are working overtime to get HD working. Nintendo is eliminating that, and I'm sure if we see cross-platform games this generation, Nintendo's could be released earlier simply because no one would be using dev time on HD versions of their game.

Did online turn out to be anyone's problem on the Gamecube? So why is offering the OPTION bad?
If you want your game to support HD then you should optimize it for HD instead of SD, simple as that. You'll have to optimize it at some point anyway because games don't just magically run at 60FPS if you run them in SD.

Obvious I am not talking about games that actually utilize a multitude of characters effectively, I am talking about games like Dynasty Warriors where you see hundreds of enemies on the screen, but none of them do anything worthwhile until you are directly attacking them.

Yes, I mean, what kind of game needs more than two buttons? I'm not talking about games that use a multitude of buttons effectively, I'm talking about games where you have dozens of buttons but only use two of them! In other words: One game that doesn't make good use of a feature absolutely doesn't mean that there's no use for the feature at all, especially when there are games that use it well.

Again, see above comment. I'm talking about pushing a system to draw things that make absolutely no bearing on gameplay. I'm not talking about deleting immersion or forcing linearity. You are putting words in my mouth and you know it.

Backgrounds have absolutely no bearing on gameplay. But that doesn't mean we should abolish them. Immersion is not a part of the gameplay, many of the features you want removed DO impact immersion. E.g. in Dynasty Warriors you're in a war and without hundreds of soldiers it wouldn't feel like war.

For the third time, this isn't what I'm saying. I'm saying what if Katamari drew EVERYTHING 100% of the time, but you can only see/interact with the closest 20 objects? Namco used a bunch of tricks to forcing the game into hiding polygons that weren't needed, and none of the objects were complex to begin with. Now had they drawn footballs with full bumpmaps and fish with individual scales, THEN we'd be on the same page. You know as well as I do that half the objects in Katamari were super low polygon models.

And? Where do you draw the line? Are full bumpmaps too much? Is anything more than ASCII graphics too much? Why does everything have to be ugly? Are you afraid that you can no longer claim superiority since you play games with bad graphics? Would Super Mario Bros have been better if everything was colored blobs? Did it suffer from getting better graphics in the SNES port?

And this negates my argument that it requires more power/development time....how? If you suddenly need more power, you have to draw that from somewhere, and it's going to come in the form of optimizing the code and added juice where needed. That is development, I'm not sure what else it could be.

It negates it by saying the same optimization already happens and aiming for (slightly, it's not that big of a difference) different numbers won't add more costs. Reducing a particle spawner's output by 54% instead of 50% won't make much of a difference.

[Strell]

Ian already asked my why options can be bad.  I don't know what thread it was in but it was within the last two days.  Simply summarized it is that more options = higher cost.  Period.

Optimizing in SD and HD both take time.  It is only shortened if you have to do one OR the other, not both.

"One game uses a feature effectively...."

How is this different from what I said?  Which is that simply doing something doesn't mean it is good unless it has reason to be done?

DW example.  Ok, DW PS3 will be different from DW PS2...how?  All those soldiers on the screen will be more detailed.    But so what?  That does nothing to enhance the gameplay and chances are good it will play EXACTLY the same.  And furthermore the same thing can be accomplished with less soldiers, less power.  THAT is the definition of having more power in a system being uselessly used.  

Where do you draw the line?  Simple - you draw it when everything becomes extraneous and causes a bunch of overhead, but does nothing for the player.  Full bumpmaps won't do crap in Madden, Katamari, or several other games.  Obviously they are nice to have but why waste processing power on that?  And why tell people they need more power for things like that, when it doesn't change the gameplay experience?  At that point you are paying your hard earned cash for a game that you could have played last year, but the helmets weren't shiny.  

In fact, maybe you'd like to explain to me why increasing power, but giving the same game, is a good thing?  You're arguing that all that extra juice can lead to innovative new gameplay experiences and increase the immersion for the player, but at the same time you are telling me better graphics are enough.  Those things don't make sense.  You can't condone better graphics but sterile gameplay and then sit back and tell me increased power will lead to innovative gameplay.  THat's the difference between effective usage of power and meaningless upgrades.

You can stop your slippery slope arguments about ASCII characters and other nonsense.  That's the whole words in my mouth thing again acting up.  I didn't say things couldn't be detailed, couldn't be beautiful.  I'm saying there is a line when it's entirely superfluous.  If it isn't obvious right now, with the 360 offering inferior ports of games with prettier graphics, then there's no other way to convince anyone.

Reducing output from 54% to 50%?  I'd like you to please explain those numbers to me, especially because HD draws a lot more on the screen than SD does.  I don't know the numbers, but there's more lines, hence more pixels, hence a lot more strain being pushed onto the system.  Perhaps you'd like to tell me why that only consumes another 4% of available power.

 

[Ian Sane]

"Optimizing in SD and HD both take time. It is only shortened if you have to do one OR the other, not both."

How do you do just HD?  MS and Sony may force all games to be HD compatible but they have to be able to be played on a regular TV as well.  I'd assume it's either SD or SD and HD.

[Strell]

There are probably instances, but I wouldn't know of any.

Doesn't change what I originally said - the only way it would shorten dev time would be to have to do one.  If there was something beyond HD - Ultra Definition or some nonsense - then you'd have three.  Doing one, two, or three of the defs would alter dev time.

[Smash_Brother]

Developing textures in HD will lengthen dev time. Because not everyone (read: barely anyone) has HD, textures will also need to be done in standard def as well.

This will require additional resources and time, otherwise the game will look like crap in HD.

[vudu]

Quote
Originally posted by: Ian Sane
How do you do just HD?  MS and Sony may force all games to be HD compatible but they have to be able to be played on a regular TV as well.  I'd assume it's either SD or SD and HD.

Tell that to the Ubisoft team who did King Kong for Xbox 360.

[Ian Sane]

"Developing textures in HD will lengthen dev time. Because not everyone (read: barely anyone) has HD, textures will also need to be done in standard def as well."

This is just pure speculation since I don't really know how it works but I would assume that when one makes a texture they initially would make it at a pretty high resolution to get all the details they want.  Then they would shrink it down to fit the game.  That's just the common way to make picture art.  You start off big because it's easy to shrink a picture down but pretty much impossible to make one bigger.  So if you already make a big texture how much work would it be to make the same texture at two different resolutions?  I can take a 1024x768 pic and easily make it 800x600 and 640x480.  It takes like a minute to do that.

[Smash_Brother]

Just having the texture on hand isn't going to cut it.

The reality is, you'll need to write the code which will tell the game which texture to load based on the output. The textures will need to be stored separately, both will have to be adjusted to make sure they scale properly without any "jagging", and they'll need to be tested separately for graphical glitches.

Not to mention that, even if what you said is true, the company would need to start with larger textures to begin with, making it more work overall in even the BEST scenario.

[Ian Sane]

"Not to mention that, even if what you said is true, the company would need to start with larger textures to begin with, making it more work overall in even the BEST scenario."

I guess that brings up an important question.  How big are the initial "big textures" to begin with?  If they're already big enough then it doesn't matter.

"The reality is, you'll need to write the code which will tell the game which texture to load based on the output."

If you're a smart coder that wouldn't be too hard.  I don't code games but if I was making a program for windows my logic would be to have two folders, one with the HD textures and the other with the SD textures.  The directory is stored in a variable.  At the beginning of the game is a check to see which "mode" you're in and the variable is set appropriately.  The corresponding textures for each "mode" have the same name so it just looks in one place or the other.  It wouldn't be that hard at all.  Testing is another issue obviously.

I'm not saying HD isn't going to take more work.  That's a fact.  The issue is how much more work it is.  And that still isn't a good explanation to me on why including the option is a bad thing.  Increasing the price of the system isn't a bad reason to exclude HD but with optional use no one is forced to spend more money making an HD game so it makes no sense to use that as an excuse.  They can always choose to not spend the money.

[nemo_83]

Dual development of SD and HD also requires you to burn both versions of the game on the same disk taking up space.  In that respect Nintendo is right; I mean, I want widescreen, but I am more worried about being forced to expose my connection to play Nintendo's console online.

Nintendo is not likely to surprise us with a large disk format, but they also don't need it to store HD textures; Sony and MS are so wrong for dragging the game industry into that ugly format war between BlueRay and HDDVD.

[MaryJane]

I just hope Nintendo uses dual layer high density dvd's as they originally said. I really want to play a 200hr rpg. Imagine playing a character who grows over time, (actual gameplay time not, the events you do in the game) you guide him through his fuedal town to become a knight, anyway this is way off topic, just give me good, expansive, long, difficult, and memorable games and i'm happy, what will it matter if they're in HD, SD, UD or in poopovision, good games, big console small console, games are what matters.


(P.S damn there are some long posts in this thread, ease up, you're not nintendo)