Topic: Next gen more about entertainment than gaming?

[boss3070]

I hear the new consoles coming out next year are going to be more about entertainment and less about gaming.  Do you think the gaming is gonna suffer?  Is this even a good thing?

[Draygaia]

Dude a computer is more on things non-gaming than gaming.  Heres the thing.  A computer's gaming part of it is big right now.

Oh yeah check this out.

www.apextreme.com  Yeah yeah I know somewhat of a spammer.  But think of it this way.  Its like something that shows that PC gaming is big.

[BigJim]

Well, when you have things like DVD playback, it's bound to be used for purposes other than gaming. However, people will buy it for the games first. Anything else is gravy. Otherwise they could just pick up a DVD player for $40 at Walmart.

[manunited4eva22]

DVD playback is becoming less and less important in reality.  Especially considering that most people who will be sony and microsoft's audience next generation will already have DVD playback from this generation's console, what is the point? The only real thing anymore is because I can.

[jasonditz]

DVD playback on a console is only slightly more useful than CD playback was.

I remember back in my senior year of college my computer broke and since I was too broke to fix it I used my Sega Dreamcast for email for about a month, now THAT was a miserable experience....

[Cube_King]

I think the PS3 will have a ton of non-gaming features. The PSX proves that Sony wants to merge games and other electronic appliances together.  

[BlackGriffen]

Killer feature for next gen: PVR abilities like TiVO.

Note: will require a hard drive.

BG

[nickmitch]

While it's good to have extra features in a console outside of playing games, I just pray that it won't go the extremes by having consoles that turn in to fighting robots.

[KDR_11k]

Fighting robots would be game related, right? Though I'd prefer android maids myself .

[Lamech]

Its already becoming apparent with PS2 and Xbox that entertainment is better than gaming... when more than 40% of the game disc is occupied by movies instead of game... thats just sad. Back in the day it was all about pure gaming. How many of you still play NES? Its still like the greatest system. Nintendo's going retro... I hope that means more gaming and less movies.

[KDR_11k]

Games are superior to other media, but they are harder to make. The more you incorporate older media into games the less gameplay there is to screw up. The problem with gaming is that it's inherently unpredictable, you either have to force the player along a path or make a completely open game world. The former is easier, as the often buggy or boring state of most open ended games suggests. Cutscenes are a good way to force certain actions upon the player character. Let's say, there's this girl being attacked by evil monsters. The plot says the player throws himself in harm's way and rescues her, but how many players would actually do that? Therefore you have to either add a cutscene in which the player engages the monsters or make him lose the game when the girl dies or something. Freedom of action does't go well with traditional plot writing. Hell, if they had freedom of action in Grandia 2 I'd have killed the pope on first sight and therefore prevented half the plot from ever happening. Molyneaux is trying to give us absolute freedom in Fable, but he managed to screw that up before (Black & White was boring).

[mouse_clicker]

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Hell, if they had freedom of action in Grandia 2 I'd have killed the pope on first sight and therefore prevented half the plot from ever happening.

Besides spoiling the game, you also wouldn't have been able to use more of the orgasmic battle system.

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Molyneaux is trying to give us absolute freedom in Fable, but he managed to screw that up before (Black & White was boring).

Molyneux's too ambitious- I might even go as far as to say he's ahead of his time. He comes up with some extraordinarily innovative ideas, but the execution of them is generally less than exciting. I returned Black and White a week after I bought it. The concept sounded amazing, but as you said the game was boring.

[Bill Aurion]

If Molyneux worked on a game under the supervision of Nintendo, I'm sure it would work out...

But to return back to topic, I also fear the multi-functionality of game consoles...I already have a DVD player, I don't care about online, I don't care for MP3 playback, and I don't care about internet access....I just want to play games, dammit... ;___;

[Ian Sane]

I actually am kind of glad that Sony appears to be heading in an all-in-one entertainment machine direction.  Why?  Because it increases the likelyhood of them f*cking up and sending all of the Japanese devs back to Nintendo (North America is not as cut and dry because of MS).  So far the PSX has bombed hard in Japan.  However instead of learning from this Sony has just tweaked the PSX for another try and seems to be sticking to an entertainment machine design for the PS3.  So it's entirely possible that their over ambitious entertainment philosophy may f*ck them over which is fine by me.  They've gotten too cocky lately anyways.

The lower price of the Cube didn't make too much of a difference pre-price drop and I think it was because it appeared to be a bit cheaper only because it didn't have DVD playback.  In other words people thought it was cheaper because it was inferior.  However if Sony adds a lot of junk to the PS3 there's the potential for a huge difference in price which would give Nintendo an advantage.  A $100 difference isn't too much but a $200 difference would sway people.

The only variable is that Sony might release two difference PS3s.  One with extra stuff and one that's just for games.  That might not cause any problems unless it confused consumers who don't know that both are the same thing.

[KDR_11k]

There are people who don't know the GBA and SP play the same games, so confusion is practically guranteed.

No manufacturer ever managed to have three top consoles in a row, usually they only get one or two tries at it. People say MS got a good start for a newcomer but they forget the Odyssey, the 2600, the NES and the PS1 were done by newcomers...  think the Xenon can be likened to either the Genesis or the Dreamcast, depending how successful it ends up...
Even the analysts predict Sony won't be the leader next time 'round, they've alienated too many devs with their hardware and draconian practice (SCEA: "Hm, no. That game doesn't fit in with our desired image for the PS2. REJECTED!") and most of their support they're getting just because they're market leader. Many third parties already admitted to hating Sony and chances are they'll try to stop Sony from reaching the top spot again. If Sony were to rule a third time they'd feel too secure and withoput competitio, thereby falling back to monopolist practices. That would effectivelty hurt the gamer.

I wonder if MS learned from XBox 1 or if they'll release the Xenon at USD500 or something. Sony might fumble on that, too. Nintendo seems willing to keep their prices at kid-friendly levels (come on, I paid DEM300 for my SNES, that's maybe EUR150).
I hope they return to their "batteries included" approach of their monopolistic times. The gameboy came with a game (Tetris, the best killer-app ever), a link cable and batteries, my SNES had Super Mario World and a Super Gameboy included.The Cube? "Uh, sorry, you'll need a memory card and a game first".

[Ian Sane]

"The Cube? 'Uh, sorry, you'll need a memory card and a game first'."

I'll give them slack on not including a game since that hasn't been done for a while now (though if the Rev is backwards compatible why not make it come with a Cube game?) but having to buy a memory card sucks.  Consoles really should come with one since you can't do sh!t without it.  The fact that Nintendo really overpriced their puny memory card makes it worse.

[KDR_11k]

Okay, okay, I got my cube bundeled with Sunshine (alternatives were Resident Evil or Time Splitters 2, both games I don't even want to play) and got a cheap-ass memcard for a tenner, but still, they should include the necessary stuff again! Bundle Mario 128 with the Rev if that's what you're releasing it for. I know Nintendo doesn't like bundled games since people won't buy as many games if they can play the game that came with their console, but if you're trying to sell to the kids, for F#S SAKE, include the stuff they need so they don't need to tell their parents "well, I need a game and a card in addition to the expensive console" or realize that too late and get pissed off at you! Also, the GC sees almost NO price reductions on games. Kids CANNOT buy games at 60 euros a pop, I bouht almost ALL of my SNES games from the bargain bin or flea markets, I just couldn't afford full price games more than maybe once a year, especially since there were other toys I wanted, too.

[Bill Aurion]

I wouldn't be surprised at all if Ninty included a memory card with the Revolution because of their recent talks about the DS...Miyamoto was talking about how one of the reasons the DS will be great is that you will be able to access everything the DS can do right out of the box, without buying extra accessories...If Ninty does indeed follow that same path with their next console, I'm sure you will be very happy...

[Uncle Rich AiAi]

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Originally posted by: Bill
Miyamoto was talking about how one of the reasons the DS will be great is that you will be able to access everything the DS can do right out of the box, without buying extra accessories

I'm hoping it'll include pictochat too.  If so, I'll be one happy boy!