New Consoles

[Figarou]

Seriously, the market can really only support 2.5 consoles at once in my opinion. Yes there are many occasions in which 3 consoles are on the market but if history repeats itself useually that's when one manufacturer is on its way out and another is on the way in.

I mean, Atari vs Nintendo, then Nintendo vs Sega, Nintendo and Sega vs Sony, then just Nintendo vs Sony, now Nintendo vs Sony vs Microsoft.

Consoles simply don't do well unless they own a significant portion of the market, they thrive on standards and the more standards there are the more all consoles suffer. Eventually somebody is going to be pushed out of this market, though I'm torn about whom really deserves to be pushed out.

Actually, its the games for the consoles. If all the great games was on Nintendo, then the other consoles may dwindle no matter how great that console may be.

As you all know..games are getting better and better. The current console may not have the power to support that game. So improvements are needed.

[WolvenOne]

What I meant is that, the more consoles there are, the more segmentation there is in the market, meaning that there will be a few really good exclusive games for each system and the rest will be clones or ports.

However when there's only 2 major players, it's easier to create a large number of original titles for both consoles.

I mean, the PS2 has a lot of original titles yet Nintendo and Microsoft are kinda lacking on that front.... however if you took the original Microsoft titles and the Original Nintendo titles and threw them together onto one console they number of titles would easily be a match the PS2's library.

Similerly you could go back to the 16bit era and look at each console and it'd become readily appearent that each side had thier own library of exclusive A-list titles to draw from. Thus there was less room for things like, ports. I credit this to thier only being two major consoles on the market at the time, rather then 1 major console and 2 half-supported ones.

[Terastas]

If SquareEnix made another "Tactics" game, based on the same game mechanics, but with a longer, deeper storyline, beautiful graphics, more characters, and more kinds of side quests, attack options and modifiable character traits, would you have no interest at all in playing that game because you, "have that one allready...minus the new bits"?

If all I wanted was a good plotline, I could just pick up a book, and FF-Tactic's graphics were actually a step back from their debut title, FF7, and, as anyone that's played Chrono Cross will tell you, more characters does not necessarilly make a game better (great game, but lets face it: you might have gone through the trouble of recruiting 45 of the 50 possible characters, but how many did you actually use?). That said, the only thing that matters is the gameplay, and while it wouldn't bother me if they used the same base job system, it would trouble me if they used the same jobs with the same abilities with only a few extra summon spells and a different pain-in-the-a**-to-get profession than 'Mime.'

Would it be a total waste of your hard earned money to own a superior version of your favorite game? ...one with twice as much to do, all more fantastic to watch and with all of the annoying little problems from the last game refined and eliminated...

Not until they release a third version. Then it will have have become a waste of money the same way the second one made the original a waste.

If you can enjoy battling the same monters over and over again, in the same continent, in the same arena, using the same weapons...why then is it unatractive to you to be given the opportunity to do all of that in a new continent, with new monsters, in a larger arena, with a bunch of new weapons and items that you had only wished were in the previous game...all with prettier graphics, improved music, smoother play controll, and an entirely new quest to follow?

Fancy maybe, but again, while it is an intruiging proposition, it would still cost me fifty bucks per sequel. Sure, maybe I'd buy Majora's Mask, Windwaker, and all the other all-too-similar Zelda copies for five bucks on e-bay, but if I'm not bored with the original, I see no reason to dip into my college fund just so I can watch the same kid save the same princess from the same tall orange-haired sunburnt jerk by putting on a mask instead of whistling a tune on an ocarina. New features aren't worth crap if you're just doing the exact same thing as before with them. It doesn't matter to me if Link is going from past to future or Summer to Winter -- it's still just the exact same concept with a different presentation.

As for Morrowind... You know, I've heard so many good things about it, but for the life of me, every time I find myself thinking to myself: 'I've heard so much about it, maybe I should see what all the hype is about,' that's ususually when I get a huge bill or find out that my brother/roommate won't be paying one of his. I just named Oblivion because everyone else before me did.

[Figarou]

Similerly you could go back to the 16bit era and look at each console and it'd become readily appearent that each side had thier own library of exclusive A-list titles to draw from. Thus there was less room for things like, ports. I credit this to thier only being two major consoles on the market at the time, rather then 1 major console and 2 half-supported ones.

If it wasn't for "exclusives," the console wouldn't have a chance.


Also, there are those who has preferences in console design. Some may like the button layout in the PS2 controller compared to the other 2 consoles. Others may like functions the console has.

The only thing I hate about the Gamecube is that it doesn't play full size DVDs. I know some will say its not necessary when a stand alone DVD player can do the job. But everything will be less cluttered if you had one console that can play more than one type of media instead of having several. Especially if your HDTV has only one HD input.

[WolvenOne]

Well, currently it's not a HUGE deal, it's nice, especially if you're running short on space or inputs as you've said. However it's not a deal-breaker with DVD players being so cheap right now.

I will say though that with he PS3 and Blu-Ray, that'll be a MAJOR selling point. Early Blu-Ray players are expected to run as much as 1000 dollars, yet the PS3 will include that ability and will only cost around 400 dollars. If you do the math, the savings is quite huge.

I mean, you can go and get a seperate game console for 300-400 dollars plus 800-1000 dollars for the Blu-Ray player and spend upto 1400 dollars, or you can just get the game console that can play Blu-Ray for a mere 400. Doesn't take a genious to figure out what's more affordable.

[Figarou]

I don't think the Blu-ray players will be that expensive. If you want the public to "accept" a new format, then you need to put out several models that'll fit into ones budget.


You know....I have a very cheap DVD player in my set up. (Under $100) Thing is, it has no scanning forward or reverse!! Darn!! I have to put the DVD in another player if I want to use that function!!

[WolvenOne]

Oh the price I pulled off an article concerning early HD-DVD players. I was assuming HD-DVD players and Blu-Ray players would start out around the same price.

[Terastas]

Okay that wasn't clear enough for my tastes.

What I meant is that the market can fully support two consoles, and can hold a 3rd console on by a thread. Right now the markets in a peculior position in that one console is more then fully supported and the remaining two are holding on by 2 or 3 threads. It's a precarious position that I do not believe can last forever, so I believe things will change during the next generation here.

Actually, in the end all participants take a loss on the production of their systems, but make up for those losses and thensome with the distribution of their games.

One thing can be certain: it won't be Nintendo that craps out because, though their constant repitition of mascot titles causes others to shy away towards their competitors (like me), their big hits with long-time gamers and fans of the previous titles. Nintendo is no longer the #1 gaming company, but they have a steady market that they can depend on to carry them into the next console war. That and the fact that cartridge games are frowned upon due to their greater expense and non-backwards compatability, so while Nintendo is no longer the video game giant, they have no competition.

In the past, that left Sega and a third-party candidate to compete for the alternative market, which is now the CD gaming console battle. Sega used to always win on this alternative market (back when all games were consoles) because the competition was crap (Atari Jaguar, for example), but this all changed when Sony entered the console wars with a great strategy, and Sega did something really stupid.

As I said, in the end, they always lose on the systems but if they play their cards right, they make up for it with the games. Sony's simple strategy was therefore to allow as many 3rd party distributors to format for their system as possible, giving Sony's PS the most extensive list of gaming options available, a natural turn-on for avid gamers, almost turning the PS into the experimental release machine for risky titles like Grand Theft Auto and Carnage Heart.

Sega, on the other hand, seemed to think it's best bet was to release it's Saturn as soon as possible, and crapped out a bunch of games with graphics that made them look like sophomore highschool Poser projects. They repeated this mistake of early-release sucker sales when they released the Dreamcast, which in all fairness only had graphics that matched the quality of N64 and PS1, so when GameCube and PS2 hit the market, Dreamcast fell off of it. Now Sega is just a 3rd party distributor on the PS2.

That left a gap for Microsoft to make way for it's X-Box, which they almost screwed up on before it had even hit the shelves. Bill Gates's big marketing plan, it appears, was to format the X-Box to play PS2 games so that his system could play all PS2 releases and the few original titles he dreamed up that wouldn't be available on PS2. Naturally, Sony put an end to this, although if you browse the gaming section at your local movie rentals, you'll notice that Microsoft's marketing strategy hasn't changed much. As I said before, a lot of Microsoft's best titles, the GTA games, the Sims games, etc., had already been available for the PS2 beforehand.

Plus, Bill Gates and Microsoft are universally resented due to their bully marketing towards companies like Corel and Netscape, his failed bully tactics against Sony, and most of all, the conspiracy theory that Bill Gates intentionally infects his software with viruses so his consumers will be forced to buy upgrades. A lot of people I know said they didn't buy the X-Box simply because they thought Bill Gates was rich enough as is.

There will still be a small market for X-Box because some people (for some reason) would rather have a system that can only play good titles (most of which were proven to be good titles by the PS2), but once again, the PS2 library dwarfs the opposition. Hands down: Sony is now the console gaming giant.

Though I doubt this is the last we'll be seeing of Nintendo or Microsoft either. Nintendo, as I said before, has a smaller market than Sony's, but doesn't have any actual competitors and can therefore rest assured that their smaller portion of the market won't be moved in on. And if Microsoft continues to rely on PS2's best titles for the major portion of its profits, they won't profit either. However, X-Box fans can rest assured that the console won't be dying any time soon simply because Bill Gates is the richest asshole on the planet; he'll continue to run the X-Box the way he does for the same reason Donald Trump still sells bottled water; their too full of themselves to admit that the business venture is a total failure, and as long as their other companies are booming, they can afford to maintain the charade.

The only way Sony or Microsoft could squeeze out the other would be if they secured the copyrights to their top titles the same way Nintendo has secured all of their mascot titles. I doubt that either will succeed at this because Sony's strategy (apparently) is to let their countless 3rd party distributors manage themselves, and Microsoft certainly would love to acquire said rights, but none of the top developers (Maxis, Rockstar, etc.) would ever in their right minds sell their distribution rights exclusively to Microsoft because they know that, thanks to Bill's lousy marketing and the natural resentment towards him (among consumers and 3rd party distributors alike), the X-Box market is, by comparrison, dead.

That said, Sony will remain the giant so long as no other companies challenge their position, but gamers will always be able to recognize the hottest titles by sight of the phrase "available for Playstation and X-Box."

[WolvenOne]

A: I'm fully aware that the manufacturers initially take a loss on hardware. I should note though that historically this is only during the early portions of the console war. Even the PS2 which was supposedly one of the most expensive consoles of all time became an item that was earned a profit with each unit sold during a year.

The Saturn was not rushed, infact if Sega hadn't redesigned the system they could have had it out on the market a LOT sooner. The problem was that while the Saturn had more computing power then the PSX *There is no real doubt about this,* the PSX was much easier to program for, making it easier to program 3D titles that could take full advantage of the hardware.

I should also note that the Saturn was initially designed to make seamless ports of 2D arcade games and is still one of the better platforms available for doing this. For 3D though, programers must utilize a second CPU or sacrifice quality. Due to the difficulty of utilizing the second CPU, most programers simply sacrificed quality, if you directly compare games the used both CPU's however, Saturn games clearly had superior graphics to PSX games that came out around the same time.

As for the Dreamcast, no I'm sorry but the N64 didn't get anywhere close to the capabilities of that machine. Infact the Dreamcast and the PS2 arn't that far away from eachother in terms of power. The Dreamcast is about the equivelent of a Pentium 3 running at around 650mhz with 32MB's of video RAM, where-as the PS2 is about as powerful as a 800mhz Pentium 3 with 32MB's or Ram. Yes the PS2 is capable of more and has been on the market long enough to allow programers to fully utilize it's graphics capabilities, but the Dreamcast is certainly not that far below it.

A lot of people won't go with the X-Box or XB360 due to it being a Microsoft product. I actually do agree with you on this, however there are a lot of people who bought it specifically because it WAS a microsoft product. I'm talking of course about PC gamers. The X-Box did steal some market share from Sony and Nintendo, but by in large it's gotten most of it's support from PC gamers and it's played a large part in the PC gaming markets decline these past couple of years.

I do fully suspect that this is where the X-Box 360 will get the bulk of it's support.

[Terastas]

I understand that the Saturn and Dreamcast systems were highly capable machines, but the sad fact is thatall the games released for the two systems failed to demonstrate this. What's the point of having a system with a similar capacity to the PS2 if the only games that can be played on it look like they could have been released on the PS1?

And you'd think that was a lesson Sega would have learned after they and Nintendo (back when they were both cartridge gaming companies) trounced the Atari Jaguar even before the Saturn and N64 releases. They had the same problem; Atari was the first company to boast a system with 64 bits, but all the games they released for the console were crap.

[WolvenOne]

Well first off, very few Dreamcast games looked "PS1ish," second, the Dreamcast had a pretty darn short life-span and it really takes about 2 years for video-game makers to learn how to fully utilize a consoles power, yet the Dreamcast really only stuck around for about 1 year before game developers started shifting resources to PS2 development in mass. So really, few few developers had the time to learn how to fully use the hard-ware.

Yes, the early games often looked, clumsy in comparison to PS2 games now.... however PS2 games made within the same one year window didn't look that much better by in large. I should also note that developers that stuck it out were able to crank out some games with pretty darn good graphics. Heck, there are brand new PS2 games that don't look as good as ShenMue did.

Oh, I should also note that game development for consoles tend to fall into 5 generations.

1st Generation, games that were built for the machines before the developers were even sure what the consoles would look like. These tend to be the games that pop up within the 1st 1.5 years of a consoles life-span. To put it simply, the developers low-ball the specs when building the engines and such and ultimatly make games that don't look all that impresive.

2nd Generation, this a short lived generation in which developers now know what the machines look like and build games based on this knowledge. These titles don't yet push things but they use far more of the resources available to them.

3rd Generation, the game developers are now pushing the machines as far as thier API's can carry them. They tend to reach this point around sometime late in the 2nd year to midway through the third-year, and can last upto the 4th year of the console lifespan.

4th Generation, the game developers at this point completly discard the API and programing directly to the iron, so to speak. In short they begin using every hack, every short-cut, and every absolutly insane piece of programing they can think of the squeeze extra power out of the machine. Tends to start late in the 4th year and lasts until the 5th generation begins.

5th Generation, a new console has come out and the now aged machines no longer get any top tier titles. When this happens, you see a lot of games of very low quality coming out, that were put together with as little money as possible. This'll go on until the console finally dies a quiet obscure death, and is moved off to the bargain bin in some thrift store.

So really, it does take quite a while to see the full extent of what a console is capable of. The fact that many consoles never lived to see this point doesn't mean they were underpowered or poorly designed It simply means that they died too soon for people to see what they were capable of.