PS3do

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bonefish
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PS3do

Post by bonefish » Wed Nov 21, 2007 8:41 pm

We've all heard the comparisons between the 3do and the PS3
-High Prices
-A do it all media machine
etc...

Since the PS3 has just turned a year old I wonder, how many games have been released for it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pl ... on_3_games

I went down this list and counted about 85 games and I think I actually counted some games that haven't been released by mistake.

At the one year mark, how many games had been released for the 3do. Maybe one of you more literate in the 3do lineup can help.

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Post by Vance » Thu Nov 22, 2007 12:45 am

I cannot figure the point of extending this metaphor. Then again, people who repeat that "Why do we park on driveways and drive on parkways" crap make me cringe.

Sony is in its junior year outing and making the mistake of hubris that's plagued most console companies when they've had a run of success. 3DO played nice, never had time to fall victim to its own marketing. Sony also has a lot more cash to toss around than 3DO ever did. Not to mention that the industry is quite notably bigger than it was back then.

Any similarities are pretty largely coincidental.

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Post by Trev » Thu Nov 22, 2007 1:26 am

how many games had been released for the 3do.
So I take it you don't know the release number either Vance? :wink:

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Post by 3DOKid » Fri Nov 23, 2007 11:27 pm

There was a Japanese website that had the release date for all games...

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Post by Trev » Fri Nov 23, 2007 11:33 pm

There was a Japanese website that had the release date for all games...
Is the link still active?

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Post by T2KFreeker » Sun Nov 25, 2007 12:59 am

I know that I can say one thing though, I liked the 3DO a hell of alot better than I like the PS3. I actually can say that I hate the PS3, so it really means nothing but insults to me when the PS3 and 3DO get compared as the 3DO was doing something that the PS3 isn't when it released; New Stuff.
This is a stick up! Put all of your 3DO games in the bag and nobody gets hurt!

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Post by Lemmi » Sun Nov 25, 2007 1:29 am

the difference so far is that sony didnt wait 2+ years to drop the price to half of what it was to start
1 year later and you can get a ps3 for $399 now


in the US only 175ish games were released in its lifetime so the PS3 probably has more now than the 3do did
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Post by 3DOKid » Sun Nov 25, 2007 4:22 pm

Here is the Japanese one I was talking about.

http://homepage2.nifty.com/gamedatabase ... O1994.html
http://homepage2.nifty.com/gamedatabase ... O1995.html
http://homepage2.nifty.com/gamedatabase ... O1996.html


(BTW: The console I have grown to hate the most is actually the Wii)

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Post by Trev » Mon Nov 26, 2007 11:42 pm

(BTW: The console I have grown to hate the most is actually the Wii)
:? Why???

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Post by bonefish » Tue Nov 27, 2007 1:39 am

Looking at 3dokid's 1994 spreadsheet it appears that the 3do had a much more productive 1st year than the PS3. So the PS3 had less released for it in its first year than the 3do... Apparently, even with all the mismanagement the 3do went through. So let the PS3 be donned PS32X. :lol:

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Post by 3DOKid » Tue Nov 27, 2007 5:46 pm

Trev wrote:
(BTW: The console I have grown to hate the most is actually the Wii)
:? Why???
Honestly? I think it's a combination of things.

#1) I resent it being heralded as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Because I'm a "new technology early adopter kind of guy". And i resent being sold old recycled technology. Which is what it is.

PS2/GC/Xbox were last gen. Fine -- all good. 360/PS3 are this next gen. The Wii, technologically, is between the two. So I don't find it exciting from a possibilities point of view. For the next five years it'll be a 'bit better' than the previous gen. Which to me is mediocre. I don't like that. I prefer the PS3, eveything in one big uber powerful box and it's mega powerful super thingies. That's cool. The 360? I don't like the add-on approach but HDDVD, media streaming, etc., etc.. all good.

Nintendo with their it's a bit better Game Cube - sh*te. No sorry. Rubbish. I'm a graphics whore. Really. I am. Super Amazing whirly graphics do it for me. See?

The wafty-wafty controller is OK as a gimmick but rubbish at anything else. Plus it's expensive. Plus it's only good for wafty-wafty games.

#2) Nintendo, given a map, access to Google, a room full of their top executives and a pack of hunting dogs, could not, under pain of death, correctly find anywhere in Europe. Or indeed outside of Japan.

We've (I don't know about the US) had a piss-poor conversion of games to PAL, with borders and slowdown with the VC, and a piss poor selection of main release Wii games. Brain Games and Zelda and Mario. More on this later but frankly it's crap.

3) Mario/Zelda games are (no offense to homosexuals) gay. Good old fashioned 1980s Gay. Faggy. You know what I mean? Playing Mario games, in front of woman, or anyone else, is like putting on pink leather and mincing my way into the Blue Oyster bar with a big bushy moustache. I just feel embarrassed playing them. They just look gay. I'm just not interested.

So, I've got PGR4, Uncharted, Assassins Creed, GT5, even Final Fantasy, MGS3, Splinter Cell, Onimusha, great, all good stuff.

Mario? Gay. Zelda? Gayer.

Let me make one thing clear: I want to kill things in 3D or drive very fast with unenvironmentally friendly cars in circles.

I don't want happy-clappy family friendly sandal wearing knitted jumper puffy girl friendly brain-aching hop about invite your granny Elvin plumber gayness. Which is precisely the market Nintendo are groping after. They've said openly, they don't want gamers like me. Well - f**k you nintendo - you know what? They can market and sell to my granny all they want - she will only ever buy one or two games. I buy dozens every year. We'll see who Nintendo comes grovelling back too :)

I want to kill things in 3D.

Kill. Things. Like a man. Grrr.

My Wii collects dust. That, in 12 months of ownership, is all it has done. I really hate it.

I bought a PS3, a HDTV and a TV stand when the PS3 hit europe. On the day of release. It was all expensive. But I feel I got my moneys worth out of it. The Wii? I paid £200 ($400) and I've used it twice. I was robbed.

...i could go on.

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Post by Trev » Wed Nov 28, 2007 10:44 pm

...i could go on.
No need to on my account ... your venom is quite clear!

I feel bad about your pal conversions, I do. From everything I've read & heard Europe gets the short end of the stick for gaming. I am glad to be in the States.

For all of your other points though, I couldn't disagree w/you more!!! :evil: But I do respect your opinion, and won't argue w/you like a crazed fanboy. (I save those arguments for Primal Rage & Cyberdillo) :wink:

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Post by JohnnyDude » Mon Dec 03, 2007 7:33 am

3DOKid wrote:I don't want happy-clappy family friendly sandal wearing knitted jumper puffy girl friendly brain-aching hop about invite your granny Elvin plumber gayness. Which is precisely the market Nintendo are groping after.
Bingo, baby! They've been doing this for way too long. I think it even started at SNES, with things like super mario world 2... with that irritating baby. It got pretty bad around N64, although I really love Mario64 and Zelda64. I guess I like my games to be completely agnostic to the marketing or political world. Nintendo seems like it's got a clear goal of attracting a specific demographic.

The Wii irritates me especially because of this unignorable marketing. I haven't owned a console for a while, but I was still eager to try out this new generation system when I went to Wal-mart with my friend to give it a go. To my dismay, they simply had the console encased in a clear box and a video playing with a twenty-something babe talking about it. The models playing the games were so overly dramatic and unrealistic that I found it insulting! Those bar-hopping boozies and floozies apparently stopped teasing my lack of tan long enough to sit down next to me to play the Wii as if they'd loved games all the time. Posers. Jerks! Let's compare thumb callouses, I dare you!

I think Wii spells good things for the video game market. The internet made computers less geeky and more of a necessity, and global warming has turned environmentalism into a mainstream mentality. I think the Wii will rake in a lot of interest to people that were blindly skeptical. Maybe the folks upset with the movie industry will hop over.

To tie in with the actual discussion, PS3 seems like an abysmal failure to me. So does XBOX 360 (I think Wii is undoubtedly winning). I'd agree the PS3 is like the 3DO with it's outrageous price tag. I also think those that produced the PS3 made the same assumption that bigger and better graphics and hardware would produce more profit. I think the PS3 will fail because it's attempting to do that too late... attention is shifting away from graphics. 3DO did it at the right time, and boy I loved it.

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Post by Vance » Mon Dec 03, 2007 8:09 am

"PS3 seems like an abysmal failure to me. So does XBOX 360 (I think Wii is undoubtedly winning)"

Hardware sales between Wii and 360 are 3% apart. Roughly neck-and-neck. Software sales favor the 360. In the top five, the top THREE are all 360 titles (this discounts the pack-ins like Wii Sports and Forza Motorsport 2) and four and five are a DS and a Wii. (EDIT: I'm a goof and I missed Mario Galaxy, which has the top spot, then three 360 titles, then Wii Play in fifth)

If that's a failure, I'm playing games the wrong way.

Let's put it another way. The PSP has sold almost as many units as the Wii and 360 combined. Not bad for a handheld that everybody dismisses as a bomb. The DS has more units in consumers' hands than all three consoles combined. Same with the PS2, which you can add in (Sony, despite all their mistakes, supports old hardware until it's the tech equivalent of a pocket calculator. Add the PSP, PS2, and the PS3 together and you can shut up about them dying, already.)
T2KFreeker wrote:the 3DO was doing something that the PS3 isn't when it released; New Stuff.
This is crazy moon language for something that I can't decipher. Let's cull the edutainment from the list and go with the first ten alphabetically.

Alone in the Dark: Port
Alone in the Dark 2: Port
Ballz: The Director's Cut: Port
Battle Chess: Port from a creaky, ancient game
Battlesport: An original, and a damn fine one. Was later ported to the PS1, Saturn... maybe a PC version.
BC Racing: Port
Blade Force: Original. Sucked.
Blonde Justice: Ditto.
Brain Dead 13: This was a multi-platform release.
Burning Soldier: Original. Fun for a bit, but ultimately mediocre.

Four originals out of ten, one of which was actually worth the price of admission. Feel free to do the overall math if you like, the 3DO had a few brilliant originals but it was basically a PC board that made ports EXTREMELY easy, and devs took advantage of that by flooding it with content that was not, as you say, new. In fact, somebody catch me if I'm wrong, but some of these ports may claim the oldest original-to-port time for stuff that wasn't significantly altered (Battle Chess, Soccer Kid).

Okay, I admit, I'm in Sony's pocket here. They've done a lot of stupid crap and they managed to knock themselves into third place when it was still their market, that takes some doing. But if the Wii and 360 were on even price points, the Wii would be trailing bad. Will is right, it's pretty much 1.3 tech instead of 2.0. But that's all it needs to be, Nintendo has always been more about pushing innovation than power... of course, by innovation, I mean gimmickry. The DS has paid off, and the remotes for the Wii have. The SNES bazooka didn't, the Virtual Boy CERTAINLY didn't... the robot and Power Glove are beloved icons that were horribly stupid failures in their day.

I want to play Uncharted, that's what this comes down to. That opening jungle panorama sold me. I've been saving princesses from Candyland for over twenty years and I have to say the novelty has worn off.

I won't even get started on why Nintendo being in the lead was a bad thing ten years ago.

No no, Will, I could go on.

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Post by Trev » Fri Dec 07, 2007 9:29 pm

Now this is more like it ... I don't think we've had a good debate like this since discussing the merits of Primal Rage, or comparing Wolfenstein 3DO to the Jag version. Good stuff! :P

To play devils advocate, I'll play a fanboy for each system ...

360 hater - Wii & PS3 destroy the 360 when it comes to backwards compatibility! I also like consoles that don't have "red rings of death". Where is the Xbox motion sensing controller? And could I plase play something else besides 1st person shooters and M rated games?

Wii hater - Nintendo is letting a lot of 3rd party garbage crowd up the shelves. What happened to quality over quanity? Reggie, your on-line gaming is improving, but it is no Xbox live. 3rd party support is likewise improving, but has got a ways to go. When can we expect more games for the non-casual (hardcore) player?

PS3 hater - Too much $$$! I don't care about Blu Ray, and half the other crap you stuff into your box. The sixaxis was an attempt to cash in on Wii momentum, no matter what you say and launching w/out rumble sucked. Your cocky attitude does you damage, especially when your library is small, and full of games that look no better (and often worse) than 360's. And for someone who wants the PS3 and psp to go hand in hand ... I'm sick of playing PS2 ports on the psp w/sucky control.




Of course If I had it my way I'd have all 3! 8)

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Post by mattyg » Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:51 pm

sorry 3do Kid , i've watched and loved your work but you're missing the point on the wii. Gaming has become stagnet full of fps and driving games and not much else. In their quest for better and better graphics true gaming has been lost , at least with the wii some of the fun factor has returned , but most importantly for the gaming industry it , along with the NDS , has brought more women into the gaming community whilst sony and microsoft continue to go after teenage boys and men in middle age crisis. My wife hates gaming , my 3do was sold back in 1997 because of it but now I have trouble getting her to stop playing the wii and NDS.Women are 50% of the population - win them and you win the gaming sales war - 3do knew this in part hence the game show titles ,educational titles and potential titles like mckenzie & co. - it was just not marketed as well as NIntendo did.Graphicswise the wii is shite but it proves the point that gameplay and accessability are the winners, plus some of the wii shop downloads are nice nostalgia

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Post by Vance » Mon Mar 17, 2008 5:43 pm

U SPELLIN': BAD
mattyg wrote:sorry 3do Kid , i've watched and loved your work but you're missing the point on the wii. Gaming has become stagnet full of fps and driving games and not much else.
I am staring at the wall of my evil devil vidjamagame store and observing the PS3 and Wii walls. The ratio of FPS and driving games is about the same; Actually low when you consider it. But they are similar.
In their quest for better and better graphics true gaming has been lost , at least with the wii some of the fun factor has returned ,
I am glad you managed to find it, then. I was somehow fooled into thinking that massively enjoying Uncharted and Dead Rising was gaming in the sense that I was playing a game, but like in Christmas dramas all it took was a spunky kid with a ballistic approach to punctuation to point out the error of my ways.
but most importantly for the gaming industry it , along with the NDS , has brought more women into the gaming community
How the sam flippin' hell is this important?
whilst sony and microsoft continue to go after teenage boys and men in middle age crisis.
Ah, well there's the problem. I don't fall within Nintendo's demographic of eight-year-olds, women, or sweaty nostalgiasts, so I am automatically having a mid-life crisis. You burn that straw man, kid!

[quot] My wife hates gaming , my 3do was sold back in 1997 because of it but now I have trouble getting her to stop playing the wii and NDS.Women are 50% of the population - win them and you win the gaming sales war -[/quote]

And winning wars is the other half of the battle. Except Nintendo doesn't have some crazy, Jason Hall-like grip on women. They don't have the entire female population playing the Wii or DS games that have "Must have basic reading skills to enjoy this game" printed on the box for a reason. They have a small percentage of women who like their gimmick. A good percentage of women also veg out on WoW or are still shopping for PS2 games.

Seriously, what the hell? Win the women and you win the war? This isn't the rape of Nanking.
3do knew this in part hence the game show titles ,educational titles and potential titles like mckenzie & co. - it was just not marketed as well as NIntendo did.
3DO was trying to appeal to a larger audience and lost the core demographic for failing to do so in a way that attracted said audience. The core gamer was still growing out of his teenage years and the perception of the game console was that it was still a toy. Hell, they are toys, no matter how advanced they get.

Nintendo attempts to innovate and comes out swinging with gimmicks. Here it has managed to score two that worked, and worked a lot better then they expected, likely. Between the Zapper and the Wii, though, there were a lot of really bad flops. The Power Glove, the ROB unit, that stupid bazooka on the SNES, the Virtual Boy, the GB camera, just a whole hell of a lot of stuff. Yes, I know the glove and ROB are beloved nostalgia icons now, I don't care. They were barely functional pieces of crap when released.
Graphicswise the wii is shite but it proves the point that gameplay and accessability are the winners, plus some of the wii shop downloads are nice nostalgia
Right, let's talk about the Wii's gameplay. This is the part I love, where most of the top shelf games like Brawl and Mario Galaxy either have support for the Gamecube controller that you should use rather than the remote, or in the later case make users wish they could use the Gamecube controller.

It's a console made for kids, nostalgiasts, and casual gamers. It doesn't WANT excellent games like Stranglehold, Uncharted, or GTA. It doesn't want the generation that grew up on the NES, except those people who want to come back and buy the twelfth repackaged iteration of the games they've been making all these years. Hint: most of us don't but they're safe enough to get for our kids, free from most dangers of them managing to get M-rated games. Yes, Nintendo has always sold to parents on the strength that it is a kiddie system. That is most of the requests at my shop for the Wii, not "real" gamers or these war-winning female gamers, but parents looking for a system for their kid.

Not to say there's a dearth of M-rated games, because I do see at least three on my wall. No wait, four. Far Cry Instincts which will never sell, because it leads into my next point, the gimmick. I've concentrated on Nintendo's first-party titles because that's all that bloody well sells. While Wii hardware sales top the charts, the software is lagging brutally behind other systems due to the fact that developers are rushing out crappy games that try to catch the Mario Party/mini-game thunder and fail. Often miserably. But what the hell. You can get real games on it. Real bad games.

Your argument, your very need to lionize Nintendo above all else, and your blanket attacks upon people who choose differently than you are offensively stupid, sir. You've offered nothing but emotional attacks and nonsensical arguments and generally given the impression that there's only one correct choice. There is not.

But I guess there is a war going on. At least, that's what I've heard.

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Post by mattyg » Mon Mar 17, 2008 9:45 pm

:? dont get me wrong , you,ve made some very valid points but to infer that i am pro nintendo and anti sony or microsoft is incorrect . It is gaming in general that is the true winner here.We are seeing penetration of hardware in numbers never thought possible and you're right - most of the only decent titles for the wii are the first party ones.Dont diss the casual gamer though because they are becoming a more powerful force - fewer people have the time now to spend reaching level whatever on quest whatever.Some like to just pick up a controller and get their 1/2 hour fix and move on with their life.At its heart wii tennis is just pong , uncharted is pretty much pitfall and so on . I am a games retailer too and your point on software is true - very little 3rd party wii titles sell its been hardware and pretty much thats it - maybe a sign though that more is being purchased directly on wii shopping- but what i do know is that most of them are guilty of gimmicks at one time or another - Guitar Hero , Buzz ,Singstar all fit into this category as did the 32x and mega cd- but only sony turned their machine into a pink karaoke machine . I think that says it all. :roll:

Ps - the most gaming fun I've had for a while - finishing metal slug anthology in 2 player mode.

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Post by 3DOKid » Wed Mar 19, 2008 6:41 pm

I personally think the Wii has been over-hyped. I like old fashioned games, but not the old fashioned games Nintendo think I like.. I like games that involve spaceships, cars and killing. Nintendo doesn't serve my demographic very well. In fact it has gone so far as to insult it.

Perception is often different from reality but perception in video games is altered by marketing:

Big games from the Sony/Ea/MS: Killzone, Halo, GT5, PGR, Forza. I know there is other stuff - but the perception is there isn't. I would like a Wing COmmander. I would like a Road Rash. I would like a NFS that was more like the NFS on 3DO rather than Carbon and Pro Street. I'd like more arcade style games - now they are out there, but the focus isn't. The reason? Well they aren't flavour of the month right now. I do know for a fact that Nintendo won't deliver it to me. I hope, one day, EA/Sony/MS will. After all, unlike Nintendo, they love me and my money. (Bless 'em)

Gaming lost to graphics? Naah. I'm a self confessed graphics whore anyway. Uncharted, as Vance said, was damn good fun. PGR 4 is beautiful and damn good fun. But when one games is released, Halo for example, which was damn good fun, you get half a dozen halo clones that aren't damn good fun. What bugs me is the money spent making another half-arsed Halo clone could have been spent making a Wing Commander CLone. Which would make me happy.

I don't want women in gaming. Sorry. For years the gaming industry has pandered to me, and I much rather it continued. The games aimed at me are pretty damn good. I have no interest in the games aimed at Women, lepers, my gran - they can f**k-off. Gaming is my hobby. Money spent developing stuff for women is money they could have spent making Wing Commander VI. (or Space Hulk, or 2D Gex come back) God Bless Sony and Microsoft in that case.

If Sony can make a few quid/dollars spraying the the PS2 pink good for them, just as long as GTA4, MGS and GT5 is not effected - I'm Ok with it.

Nintendo, a bit like Sega and bit like Matsushita with the M2, figured, I guess, that they could not compete with Sony or MS on a level footing. So fair play to them, the didn't bail and the didn't fight a war they couldn't win, they tried a third way. Make it cheap, sell it cheap and target people who don't play games. That isn't me.

I want big flash amazing amazingness with cutting edge stuff and all the trimmings - after all, that is why I bought my 3DO all those years ago.

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Post by Trev » Wed Mar 19, 2008 7:07 pm

I want big flash amazing amazingness with cutting edge stuff and all the trimmings - after all, that is why I bought my 3DO all those years ago.
I hear you 3dokid, but I'm sure you'd admit that gamers like you are quickly becoming the exception rather than the rule. This hobby has been constnatly evolving over the past many years, and gamers along with it. With the difference in graphics between generations becoming less extreme, gameplay has returned to the fore front, and I for one am grateful for this.

Like it or loathe it, the Wii is attracting more enthsiasm, more cash, and more players than either of it's rivals. Nintendo is shooting for a broad audience, unlike Sony or Microsoft who is focussed primarily on the "hardcore" (and we are a smaller percentage of gamplayer's) As a result, Wii haters are in a very tiny (and rather curious minority)

I agree with mattyg, and I say this not as a Nintendo fanboy, but as a videogame fanboy who loves all the systems.

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Post by 3DOKid » Wed Mar 19, 2008 11:10 pm

You say that, but the difference between the PS2 and the PS3 is pretty marked. Mrs 3DOkid was playing Final Fantasy XII on the PS2 (she was playing it on the PS3 but that's beside the point) and it looks brilliant for a PS2 game - for a PS3 game it's quite lacking. very lacking to be honest. I would go so far as to say the difference between the 8bit and the 16bit systems was probably less than the difference between PS2 and PS3.

The gap between the GC and Wii is quite narrow but Nintendo, as a company, is odd. It's an engineering driven company, but old style Japanese mind set, not Western style mind set or modern Japanese mindset.

Back in the 70s/80s the Japanese stole the home consumer market by taking existing technology and making it cheaper and in some ways better or making it more efficient or making it more efficiently.

Not so western companies at the time. Their approach remained the same: bigger, faster, louder, better. Western companies got trounced, or became more Japanese. (Ford is a good example of company that turned it around, Rover/British Leyland a good example of one that didn't.)

The Japanese used there approach with cars, TVs, sewing machines, calculators, lots of things, but never before Video Games.

Video Games traditionally are very close to the bleeding edge of technology and it sort of suited Western thinking. Atari, Sinclair, Commodore, IBM...

The Japanese fitted into video games because culturally their foundations are very different. There cultural foundation around Gods, life and death, women, violence, chivalry is sufficient different to make games interesting. And plus their artistic style is very pretty. They paint a pretty video game.

Nintendo have wrestled with the games market for years, look at the way Nintendo tries to control it's supply chain - cartridges, custom CDs, licensing - classic Japanese business model. Their big difference is Miyamoto, he is their lucky charm.

Going back to the 1970s, westerners clung on to some markets. Super Cars. Weapons. Fashion. Anything where you needed innovation, and that innovation was more important than price or build quality. It could be flamboyant, pricey, cranky, difficult and a big gamble - stuff the Japanese weren't good at. Video games belongs in that group. Video Games are a super luxury item.

Of cause, in the 1990s (late 80s) that all changed. The Japanese got under-cut by their neighbours (the Chinese and the Koreans) who could produce things using, to varying degrees of success, Japanese work processes but cheaper than the now middle-class Japanese could muster or afford.

So they became like us. Innovative designers, rather than manufacturers. Sony and it's PS1 is an example of the successful progression, Panasonic M2 is an example of it's failure and old business culture.

So - where was I going? It's all very interesting but the Wii future, in my opinion, even with the casual gamers, will need to justify their next console purchase. And how do they plan oon doing that? Nintendo have built a market that says "WE don't need flashy graphics and the-wow-factor - we just want games"... well great...

You see, Nintendo can't rest on the Wii forever but will the masses of casual gamers/grannies/lepers buy a new one? Probably not. Why should they? There is nothing wrong with the Wii?

Nintendo can't use the fashion accessory tactic again, it barely worked for the iPod, and the masses can justify another iPod to themselves, (20gb, 40Gb, 80Gb?) I can't see another Wii (Wii too?) being sold in the same amounts as the Wii One. The consumer market is fickle.

I'm a gamer, born and bred, and always will be, the casual market are just that - and they are easily bored. Nintendo have been kept afloat, through all their arrogance and stupidity by it's loyal Miyamoto fans.

Bottom-line: Nintendo need me, and they won't get me with third rate technology.

If the gaps between the PS3 and the PS4 is not much then maybe my era is truly over but I think the jump to the next-next gen will no doubt be as huge. Games are still far away from photo-realistic, something they tried to promise me for the 3DO generation, and here we are 15 years later and not a step closer really but the jumps have been huge.

I don't think I'm a minority at all. (or I hope I'm not) The games like Gears of War (not really my bag) Halo 3, Uncharted, CoD4, Assassins Creed, etc., kind of suggest that I'm still representative of the majority.

Sure Nintendogs sold a few, Wii Fit will sell a few more and Brain Games too -- but it's just a fad. Christmas 2008 the casual gamer will be but a memory and Nintendo will begin wishing they had fitted an extra CPU and had spent their time worrying about voxels, bit-rates, and polygon draw rates than farting about with flappy-wappy controller.

Mark 3DOkids words. ;)

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Post by Trev » Thu Mar 20, 2008 12:21 am

I don't think I'm a minority at all. (or I hope I'm not) The games like Gears of War (not really my bag) Halo 3, Uncharted, CoD4, Assassins Creed, etc., kind of suggest that I'm still representative of the majority.
Even if this was true, our kind (I consider myself hardcore too) is shrinking, while the casual market is growing. I think the trend in new releases supports this (more family fare, more mini game compilations, games that are shorter and have more of a balanced challenge, etc...) Just because hardcore gamers are far and away the most vocal, doesn't neccessarily mean they represent the masses.

Nintendo will begin wishing they had fitted an extra CPU and had spent their time worrying about voxels, bit-rates, and polygon draw rates than farting about with flappy-wappy controller.
I really do doubt that, but we shall see. One thing about Nintendo is that they have always been a profitable company. Even when Sega lept ahead of them during the Genesis heyday, Nintendo continued to rake in the dough while Sega kept seeing red. How much money is Sony losing on its Blu Ray equipped PS3? How much money is Xbox pouring in to fix the "red-rings of death? Nintendo is foccused purely on games, and this has made them a very healthy company profit wise.

Good dialouge as always 8)


P.S.
Games are still far away from photo-realistic
Getting pretty close though. I admit to wathcing in awe the PS3 Gran Turismo demo in a local Gamestop. I kept crashing cause I couldn't take my eyes off the backgrounds ... those mountains looked pretty stinkin sweet!

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Post by 3DOKid » Thu Mar 20, 2008 9:03 am

Cars are easy to look photo realistic. People, now that's something else.

You can't pull a stunt like the Wii twice. They, Nintendo, sold a lot, with no games. When your gran, or your leper, or aged brother get told about about the Wii 2 they will say "...but I never really used the Wii"

Then they are going to wish they had bought a Blu-ray player. (we're talking 4 years from now.) (of cause a Blu-ray player will be $50 by then!)

If Miyamoto gets hit by bus, retires or is bribed away by Microsoft, then Nintendo will just be cantankerous old fashioned Japanese manufacturer nobody will want to know.

My doubts, are the game making industry doubts.

That's why the Wii's 3rd party support is stinky, and mostly all it's getting is choppy old ports.

The industry doesn't want to waste too much money on casual gamers, because firstly - who are they? Secondly, how long are they going to stick around? The smell of Atari and the 1982 crash must be thick in the air.

...oh yeah, and Nintendo make gayz games ;)

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Post by Trev » Thu Mar 20, 2008 8:07 pm

...oh yeah, and Nintendo make gayz games
gayz = 1.) Best reviewd 2.) Best selling 3.) Most iconic

8)

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Post by 3DOKid » Thu Mar 20, 2008 10:27 pm

mumble... mumble... chunter... chunter... don't like Nintendo games... mumble mumble mumble... stupid casual gamers... mumble mumble...


:wink:

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Post by Vance » Fri Mar 21, 2008 9:32 pm

mattyg wrote:to infer that i am pro nintendo and anti sony or microsoft is incorrect .
The language in your post seems to indicate otherwise, but it's not an important point. We'll go with that, and I don't mean that in a sarcastic way.

What I took issue with was mostly the clear statement that Nintendo was "true gaming", which was extremely derivative of the style that Nintendo formerly espoused. Anyway, like I said, not terribly important right now.
We are seeing penetration of hardware in numbers never thought possible
The numbers for the current generation are nothing special just yet. The Wii is selling well enough, but it has not had the initial sales numbers of certain other systems. Hell, it was being outsold by the PS2 upon release, which is a position familiar to the Dreamcast... about 20,000 units to the PS1's 60,000 or 80,000, if I remember correctly.

There are still twice as many PSPs in homes as Wiis. Four times as many DS units, and at least eight times as many PS2s.

This generation has not produced amazing numbers as of yet.
Dont diss the casual gamer though because they are becoming a more powerful force - fewer people have the time now to spend reaching level whatever on quest whatever.Some like to just pick up a controller and get their 1/2 hour fix and move on with their life.
This is a two parter. Let's examine. First, the casual gamer is still a small subset. To further diminish the importance... as of yet... they buy much, much less. When I have a Sony customer, they buy a lot more. When I sell a Wii, I might see that customer once a month. I only have one person who has shown up on a regular basis from that stable.

My neighborhood is made up of condo complexes that run in the minimum 600k price range to well in the millions. That's a potential gold mine, but only when they're regulars. Which is another problem with the Wii, it's a seek item. People will come from another county to get it... but then they'll go to a local game store to get their games. Does me no good.

The second part about the length of play time, and I don't mean to be condescending or anything, is irrelevant. I can complete one race in Gran Turismo or play for fifteen minutes in Metal Gear Solid before saving and walking away. Well, in Metal Gear Solid you have to account for the ludicrous, five hour cutscenes that were in part two, but you get my point. A game is only as intensive as you allow it to be, for the most part.
but what i do know is that most of them are guilty of gimmicks at one time or another - Guitar Hero , Buzz ,Singstar all fit into this category as did the 32x and mega cd- but only sony turned their machine into a pink karaoke machine . I think that says it all. :roll:
The difference between Nintendo's gimmick and the ones listed is that Sony responds to market demand. They have the Japanese crowd, and the white kids who want to be Japanese crowd. Guitar Hero is irrelevant here as all systems have it, and it's not a first party "innovation", but it's a huge hit so of course it was ported to the consoles. Buzz and Singstar ARE Sony, but they respond to a niche market demand. Especially Singstar, since karaoke is frankly gigantic.

Meanwhile, I don't think anybody had ever said "I want a bulky unit I can't use as a handheld that uses crappy stereoscopic images and gives me a recurring migraine and also causes Yokoi to get fired and subsequently killed by a taxi." But Nintendo thought it would be a hit because it was DIFFERENT! That's the reason they flopped so much, and it's the reason they're succeeding this time. It's chance, luck, whatever you want to call it.

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Post by Vance » Fri Mar 21, 2008 9:48 pm

Trev wrote:Just because hardcore gamers are far and away the most vocal, doesn't neccessarily mean they represent the masses.
This is actually quite the opposite of reality. Well, halfway. Microsoft fans were pretty loud, but if you believed everything you heard then the Gamecube was the leading system in the last generation.

Nintendo fans scream the loudest, period. And often the least rationally. Though again, they tie with the Xbox crew for sheer nuttiness.

This is still true.
I really do doubt that, but we shall see. One thing about Nintendo is that they have always been a profitable company. Even when Sega lept ahead of them during the Genesis heyday
This lasted one week, by the way. The Genesis never maintained a clear lead before the SNES.
, Nintendo continued to rake in the dough while Sega kept seeing red. How much money is Sony losing on its Blu Ray equipped PS3? How much money is Xbox pouring in to fix the "red-rings of death? Nintendo is foccused purely on games, and this has made them a very healthy company profit wise.
It's making NINTENDO a lot of money, but as previously discussed their third parties are losing it. Good for Nintendo; they are making money. Bad for Nintendo; If third party developers decide to go to a system where people DO buy their games, consumer support for the system will wane.

As the rise of the Wii proved, fortunes in this industry can change in an instant. Nintendo has crashed out of the lead on multiple occasions for the crime of hubris and abuse of the companies that support them. Give them a clear lead and they'd likely do it again.
1.) Best reviewd 2.) Best selling 3.) Most iconic
1) The gaming media is a joke. That's an entirely different discussion, but it also happens to be the truth. I could crap in a box and call it Super Metroid 2 and they'd give the little peanut bits in it an 11/10.

The fact is, we rate for nostalgia. That's not a valid part of a game. Rated on its own merits, the first Metroid Prime game would have scored points lower.

2) If you count pack-ins, yes. If you don't count pack-ins, sort of. Nintendo IPs like Mario and Pokemon share the top slots with games such as GTA: San Andreas and Halo 2.

Let's talk about Pokemon. Well, briefly, because I can't stand the little bitches. And Halo 2 and 3. People are purchasing the same thing over and over and over. Is this a sign of quality or an indemnification of the consumer? A bit of both, I think. While the originals were quality products for the niches they addressed, the sequels have been more of the same and people have only been too happy to hit the bar for another feeder pellet.

3) Iconic. Okay then. Like I said the other day, saving princesses from Candy Land = old. I tried out Phantom Hourglass (ugh) and it didn't waste much time getting to the big reveal... ZELDA WAS KIDNAPPED BY GANON!

*tap* *click* SKIP? Y

Didn't give two shits about what happened in the dialogue after that. Just wanted to see if the game was worthwhile. And it wasn't.

The fact is, people want more of the same. This isn't so much iconic as it is regurge of the golden age of gaming. Most people want to rehash old stuff, okay, well done. I will confess to being a minority in that I'd like to see new gaming paradigms explored and -here's something truly better than icons- new stories told.

A shift in approach is necessary because I can't play either Drakan game. The first one made flying around on a dragon somehow boring and the second one doesn't go an hour before announcing that, to accomplish a completely unrelated task, you'll have to retrieve item A from sewer B while fighting giant spiders C through ZZZZ.

Understand that when a game proudly announces ahead of time that I'm going to be heading to a sewer, I imagine the end credits along with a lot of nice messages proclaiming me to be the greatest lover ever and then it's over. I've won. By turning off the game before I enter a sewer, I have beaten the game in a way more satisfying than anybody who played through to the "actual" end.

My roundabout point is that we largely know what to expect from Nintendo games. Sure, they make a breakthrough once in a while like leading the 3D platformer charge with Mario 64. The sad thing is that Banjo-Kazooie is ten times better, a theme Rare continued throughout the N64's life.

Or else we're going to get a Zelda game that keeps all the essential gameplay and gadgets of the last one, but adds one new item. And a gimmick nobody likes but everybody tolerates as a "minor inconvenience" on the road to giving the game yet another ten.

Going back to the "best reviewed" point, though, this is true of any sequel-intensive series. Look at the scores for Halo 1 part 2, aka Halo 3. Final Fantasy games. Any series.

Besides, reviewers are kiss-asses. I read a review that called a game "unplayable" and went on to give it a 67%.

What I'm saying is, while I can argue point 2 and 3, despite there being some validity to your side, point 1 is just crap.
Last edited by Vance on Fri Mar 21, 2008 10:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by Lemmi » Fri Mar 21, 2008 9:59 pm

what about the hardcore gamers turned into casual ones?

like me :)

out of the 3 systems out now i would only want the Wii even tho i have a gamecube and i probably wouldnt use the shop area or whatever its called

i like games made for the system not games made for the system but you need to go online for other things, that and the systems now are just stripped down computers for the most part and i already have a computer i dont use for gaming :D
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Post by Vance » Fri Mar 21, 2008 10:15 pm

They are ALL computers. Even Nintendo consoles. They don't design their parts or OS from the ground up, that hasn't been done in forever. Every system takes a core component and builds their own game development tools from that.

Lest we forget:

Image

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Post by 3DOKid » Fri Mar 21, 2008 10:26 pm

Reviewers in the US are different to here in the UK. We pay a lot for our magazines, but there is no advertising. And so, no advertisers pulling the strings. Although there have been some instances: Driv3r-gate being the biggest. Still, it's not uncommon for a game to get proper slagging.

The big problem is that readership levels are pretty low. Say there are about 1,000,000 PS3s in the UK. and of that about 50,000 read the magazines. I don't believe they use the Internet either. I think it's largely word of mouth.

The problem with the casual gamer label, is that I don't want it. Sure - I'll play the games, I guess we all played casual games before they were called casual games. Pacman, Pong, Asteroids, Tetris, Pang are hardly the hardcore - but the big stack of ex-bleeding edge technology around me suggests I'm not a casual gamer.

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