Author Topic: Next Gen Console Wars  (Read 21423 times)

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Offline erictheblue

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Re: Next Gen Console Wars
« Reply #30 on: January 26, 2012, 09:22:50 am »
The issue is, you can't blame Nintendo for 3rd parties avoiding their system. Nintendo gave them a platform, they couldn't force them to work from it.
That may be, but it's still Nintendo who has to suffer the consequence of not having notable titles for their console.

^This.

I have a 360. I bought it for Mass Effect since I love BioWare, but since then, I have built up a nice collection of games for it.

My fiancee and I discussed getting a Wii at Christmas. Then we researched games available and realized there weren't enough games that we were interested in. Neither of us play Call of Halo: Modern Battlefield; we both play mostly RPGs. But even excluding the lack of big-name FPS on the Wii (though they do have Modern Warfare), there just weren't enough games that appealed to us.

Regardless of the opinion or desires of the company, Nintendo has a reputation for being the console for people who don't play a lot of games. They also have a reputation for being for "kiddie games." Yes, the Wii has brought a lot of people into gaming, but the viewpoint of many people is that those people are (to steal a comment from about) the same people who play Facebook games. Which leads developers not making games for the Wii because there is a fear they won't sell. Which feeds back to the belief that Wii is for Facebook players...
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Offline VirtualStranger

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Re: Next Gen Console Wars
« Reply #31 on: January 26, 2012, 11:10:45 am »
I remember testing out a motion-control device for video games, very similar to the Kinect in function. This was years before the Wii was even announced.

I was disappoint.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AacoxHFYvZw" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AacoxHFYvZw</a>

2. There won't be any noticeable difference in graphics quality between a 360 and a 720, though.  The current HD 360 graphics quality is indistinguishable from reality, on most TV screens.  If I walk in on my brother playing a 360 game, the only way I know he's not watching a live-action TV show is the health/map/ammo meters in the corner.  What's the point in souping up the graphics if the human retina can't even tell the difference?  It's not like Microsoft is releasing a version for eagles.  Graphics improvements are not the way to go anymore.

Now this is definitely not true. People have been saying "Graphics can't get any better than they are right now" for decades. When the first Gran Turismo came out, it's graphics were called "photo-realistic" but go back and look at it today. There will probably always be room for improvement, at least until someone with 20/20 vision legitimately cannot tell the difference between the visuals of 2 consoles made 5 years apart. (And right now, most people absolutely can)

Compare the graphical capabilities of Call of Duty 2, which was one of the first games released for the 360, and compare it to the newest console version CoD or Battlefield game. I can definitely see a major difference, and those games were all released on the same console.

Until consoles can render Hollywood movie-quality CGI in real time, there will always be room for improvement. (and quite likely for long after that, as well.)
« Last Edit: January 26, 2012, 11:18:48 am by VirtualStranger »

Offline Shane for Wax

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Re: Next Gen Console Wars
« Reply #32 on: January 26, 2012, 11:11:38 am »
It's very true that each console has its positives and negatives. But you're overlooking something: Who are those people that are saying their Wii doesn't get much use? Those would be the hardcore gamers, and I won't deny the Wii has supplied very little outside of first-person flagship titles that have the appeal to draw those types in. But again, that's not really Nintendo's fault. Companies would rather make Call of Halo: Band of Mercenary Brothers With Honor 50, with the exact same controls and bullshit as the last 49, because they know it will sell. It's safe. And it's depressing.

Nintendo is the one major game company that actually still takes risks, and they take those risks because their absolute domination of the handheld gaming market allows their consoles to fail without risking the company. The GameCube was a monumental financial failure, but Nintendo itself stayed strong thanks to the GBA. The DS allowed them to take risks with the Wii, and the PSP proved no one is a threat to Nintendo's handheld market.

But seriously... graphics improvement can go no further. We're talking pixil counts and frame rates beyond human ability to distinguish that existed in this generation. There might can be a few small improvements to processing power to make those frame rates more stable, but graphics are going no where until we get full-immersion virtual reality. But that's all Microsoft seems to care about. More power. More power. More, more, more! Even though all that added power will contribute jack shit to the gaming experience itself.
It has nothing to do with hardcore. And if you think FPS are the only games being played on a PS3 or a 360 then I don't know what to tell you. It also doesn't matter if the game itself is good on the Wii but if nobody is playing? Yeah... Even people I know who really legitimately like the Wii aren't playing it as much as they say they could be.

We all saw what happened when Nintendo took risks. They were in the red for most of 2011.

Graphics can definitely go further. Because as was mentioned it doesn't always have to do with pretty pictures. And as I said before, you can have pretty pictures but if the framerate is bogged down so badly I might as well be trying to watch a powerpoint.

&
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Offline TheL

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Re: Next Gen Console Wars
« Reply #33 on: January 26, 2012, 07:18:56 pm »
Now this is definitely not true. People have been saying "Graphics can't get any better than they are right now" for decades. When the first Gran Turismo came out, it's graphics were called "photo-realistic" but go back and look at it today.

I was never one of those people.  In fact, when the N64 came out, I thought the graphics were worse than the sprite-based Genesis graphics (which looked pretty good on a low-res TV screen because they blur just enough to get rid of the jaggies).  I felt that going to 3D polygons before you had enough processing power to make them look like something other than Legos was a stupid idea.  (Heavily pixellated Legos, no less!  I remember the pixels being painfully obvious in Rogue Squadron, again, on an old-school, non-digital TV from 1993.)  I was equally disappointed by 6th-gen consoles, because graphics still looked way too "blocky" to me.  If anything, I tend to underestimate the realism of graphics.  So when I say that I can't tell the difference between 360/PS3 graphics and live-action TV, that actually means something.  If there's a cinema scene going, I will not be able to tell it's a game at all unless I see the controller in my brother's hand.
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Offline Mantorok

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Re: Next Gen Console Wars
« Reply #34 on: January 26, 2012, 08:18:33 pm »
We all saw what happened when Nintendo took risks. They were in the red for most of 2011.
That actually has more to do with foreign exchange rates. Slow sales played a part, but the Japanese Yen being stronger against the Euro and US dollar means Nintendo made less money from each game sold in the US and Europe. Nintendo also has significant foreign assets, so the strong Yen means they saw less income from dividends.
« Last Edit: January 26, 2012, 08:51:42 pm by Mantorok »

Offline RavynousHunter

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Re: Next Gen Console Wars
« Reply #35 on: January 26, 2012, 11:15:05 pm »
Umm...Yaezakura, about graphics, I'm gonna have to stop ya there.
(Big images, sorry.)



This is a screenshot from Skyrim, one of, if not THE most graphically-intensive game in the current iteration of games.  Now, it looks good.  It looks DAMN good.  BUT, that's using a rendering method known as ray casting, a method that's been in use...pretty much since 3D graphics came on the gaming scene.  It can produce some absolutely stunning visuals, and do so somewhat efficiently.  This game also makes use of such things as anisotropic filtering, bump mapping, normal mapping...the list goes on.



Is that a picture of glasses, dice, and shit?  No.  Its straight from this Wikipedia article on ray tracing.  This is no bullshit image.  Go look in the talk section for that image, the uploader mentioned it took him 560 hours.  Well over 23 days for one image that looks so realistic, I honestly thought it was taken in real life.  That is the kind of graphics we're working toward.

Look at the two images, compare the levels of realism.  We've got a long god damned way to go between the two...and that way will not be paved by software, but by hardware.  The day will come when the latter picture will become the norm for video game graphics...but that day will be long-coming.

[ETA]

And, before you discount this as some blowhard putting together disparate buzzwords and bullshit, remember this: I'm a motherfucker who has spent the past 8-9 years of his life learning how to design and code games.  I've done the research, I've done the legwork.  I may not know it all, but, god damn it, I know my shit.

Also, appropriate video is appropriate:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUiC1_l8I2w" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUiC1_l8I2w</a>
« Last Edit: January 26, 2012, 11:36:53 pm by RavynousHunter »
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Offline Shane for Wax

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Re: Next Gen Console Wars
« Reply #36 on: January 27, 2012, 07:03:37 am »
We all saw what happened when Nintendo took risks. They were in the red for most of 2011.
That actually has more to do with foreign exchange rates. Slow sales played a part, but the Japanese Yen being stronger against the Euro and US dollar means Nintendo made less money from each game sold in the US and Europe. Nintendo also has significant foreign assets, so the strong Yen means they saw less income from dividends.

Does that explain the 3DS's high cost at release then the drop later? Which they were already selling at a loss at the original price? They took a risk that people would buy the 3DS at the higher price, then they made everyone doubt their product when they sliced it. Hence, risks and more risks.

&
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"Ke barjurir gar'ade, jagyc'ade kot'la a dalyc'ade kotla'shya."
Fucking Dalek twats I’m going to twat you over the head with my fucking TARDIS you fucking fucks!

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Re: Next Gen Console Wars
« Reply #37 on: January 27, 2012, 07:49:59 am »
I'd also just like to say that the Wii is horrible. Not for the rather aging hardware, but the absolutely atrocious and gimmicky motion controls. The few games on it that are any good (namely Super Mario Galaxy and Zelda) are good in spite of being on the Wii.

Offline Mantorok

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Re: Next Gen Console Wars
« Reply #38 on: January 27, 2012, 10:38:22 am »
Does that explain the 3DS's high cost at release then the drop later?
The initial price on any video game hardware is inflated to recoup R&D costs. Nintendo weren't taking special risks here, they were using the same tactics as the rest of the industry. And while the price drop was due to slow sales, it would've happened at some point in the first 12-18 months anyway (another industry-wide practice). If any risk is to blame for the poor initial sales, it was launching with a poor software line-up.
Which they were already selling at a loss at the original price?
Care to provide a source? Hardware costs are almost never revealed to the public, and a teardown puts the 3DS production cost well below the current price.

Offline Shane for Wax

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Re: Next Gen Console Wars
« Reply #39 on: January 27, 2012, 10:55:03 am »
In the case of the 3DS they were. Especially since a good portion of people buying were the people who had tried their 3D stuff before in the guise of the Virtual Boy. The Virtual Boy failed splendidly, and many older gamers who are the ones who were making the most noise about the 3DS remember the VB. It was also a bit odd to do it in the first few months. The 360 waited quite a bit to drop. As did the PS3. It may be something common but doing it so soon after release is not.

Also, the cost is only hardware. There's nothing else brought in to the cost of getting the 3DS into a consumer's hands (at least not where various sources giving 'production cost' are concerned). When you consider that the price is now $150 (cheaper in some places depending on various factors), and the hardware cost is around $103.25 but you don't bring in the cost of operating everything in putting it together as well as shipping, then I think one can assume there's either a loss or barely much of a profit. Or, of course, it evens out. Which if it evens out you might as well not even bother. If you make x amount of something and not even a quarter of that is sold, it's a loss.

Don't get me wrong. I have a 3DS. I adore it even if it takes a bit for me to find the appropriate position to see the 3D at all. But I also know it isn't the powerhouse that was talked about before release. I know that it isn't the amazing handheld that was trumpeted about.

&
"The human race. Greatest monsters of them all."
"Ke barjurir gar'ade, jagyc'ade kot'la a dalyc'ade kotla'shya."
Fucking Dalek twats I’m going to twat you over the head with my fucking TARDIS you fucking fucks!

Offline Yaezakura

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Re: Next Gen Console Wars
« Reply #40 on: January 27, 2012, 11:41:52 am »
Anyone who even thought to compare the 15-year-old, monochrome, tri-pod mounted Virtual Boy that you basically have to strap to your face to use to what basically amounts to a suped-up DS with glasses-less 3D is smoking some rather hefty shit, and should be punished for not sharing that with sane people.

Offline Shane for Wax

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Re: Next Gen Console Wars
« Reply #41 on: January 27, 2012, 11:43:21 am »
They were comparing the attempts. Which, you know, 3DS had the same fucking problems at release. So maybe it wasn't so bad to think of the last attempt.

I often have to turn mine off after about 15 minutes or I start to feel woozy. How can I play a 3D game for 15 minutes on a device that was made for 3D and enjoy it?
« Last Edit: January 27, 2012, 11:47:56 am by Shane for Wax »

&
"The human race. Greatest monsters of them all."
"Ke barjurir gar'ade, jagyc'ade kot'la a dalyc'ade kotla'shya."
Fucking Dalek twats I’m going to twat you over the head with my fucking TARDIS you fucking fucks!

Offline Yaezakura

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Re: Next Gen Console Wars
« Reply #42 on: January 27, 2012, 11:52:12 am »
You could adjust the 3D to levels that make you more comfortable. Including turning off the 3D effect entirely and playing in 2D, since the 3D effects are never essential to gameplay.

Offline Shane for Wax

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Re: Next Gen Console Wars
« Reply #43 on: January 27, 2012, 01:00:53 pm »
You could adjust the 3D to levels that make you more comfortable. Including turning off the 3D effect entirely and playing in 2D, since the 3D effects are never essential to gameplay.

I already do that and I said as much.

I just don't think human eyes are altogether ready for 3D without the side effects of long term exposure. If they weren't ready more than a decade ago I don't see how they would be now. Some people are lucky, they can play for ages with 3D on.

It's an expensive novelty at the end of the day. I love when I'm actually playing a game in 3D on my 3DS, what I don't love is I am only getting 15 minutes of enjoyment out of it. Whereas I play 2D games for more than 12 hours with no issues.

&
"The human race. Greatest monsters of them all."
"Ke barjurir gar'ade, jagyc'ade kot'la a dalyc'ade kotla'shya."
Fucking Dalek twats I’m going to twat you over the head with my fucking TARDIS you fucking fucks!

Offline Yaezakura

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Re: Next Gen Console Wars
« Reply #44 on: January 27, 2012, 01:05:35 pm »
I just see the 3D as an optional feature. At the end of the day, if you remove the 3D, it's still a way more powerful DS that's going to comfortable handling our handheld gaming needs for the next several years.