BombermanBoard

DragonBomber · #10 Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2009 1:00 pm

I think there are a lot of variables at work here, including some that Nintendo has no power over whatsoever. Let's look at the past console wars a bit. You had the Atari VS Mattel VS Coleco VS others battle, with an overlapping war against the emerging home PCs. Then you had Atari VS Nintendo VS Sega. You had the big Sega VS Nintendo VS odd other company consoles that people might never have known about (we'll put Tg16, 3DO, and others here). Then you had Sega VS Nintendo VS Sony VS others. More recently you have had Sega jump out of hardware sales, aligning with Nintendo much of the time (of all people), with Nintendo going after Sony and suddenly this monster Microsoft. The big thing here is to note the never ending state of competition, and the obvious tide of software that cycles over and over and over.

While you think of those names and they roll through your head (yes, the battles were mentioned mostly to send you back to those simpler times) is that development in general since the days of the Atari 2600 and NES has become a strange beast. Sony really owned development deals on the PS1 and PS2, and you could find just about anything you could imagine wanting to play for their consoles. This on a console family based upon work that had at one point been intended as a CD addon to the Nintendo's SNES itself of all things. The developer scene has tightened up and a lot of the places you might have otherwise seen quality choices from, eventually hitting Nintendo's plate, are gone. They have sucked up into one another, like big jello monsters, or gone out of business. Other firms have popped up, and others will continue to go out of business but have they truly matched the software of the past as of yet? Hard to say, but I am not sure they have.

Sure, the quality of the graphics and sound effects has changed, but have the games really gotten better in any way, let alone the overall percentage of them been innovative enough to match the needs and wants of all gamers? First party development on the Nintendo, and in-house content has really been a letdown but the question becomes, why? You have way more people playing videogames now too, as a lot of those who grew up playing them have had kids or grandkids since. Not just casual grandmas throwing out their arm from tennis, but dedicated consumers. Despite this crowd, we still get less than what we want, and this is whose fault? Developers putting out titles for Nintendo is part of it, Nintendo playing it safe and trying to maximize sales in a very murky pool is part of it, and a burnout is probably part of it too. Some of the great game designers have done so much, and from their interviews they seem to have slowed down. They are leisurely working on their next apps, but not on any fevered pitch, or with any intense drive that comes across. Excitement maybe, but they have full lives and duties, so how much of their day gets spent working on the next great title in this series or that series? You have people other than them having creative license, and perhaps the torch getting passed on to people with entirely different visions.

Maybe the fan base has been taken for granted in their mind, something like "they'll be there when we have something" and maybe not. The content available comes back to licensing deals and development concerns, guys in suits deciding what will work and what won't, and generally people who are not gamers pushing a vast amount of the water around the electrified kitchen. When those stresses ruled the lead designer's bottom line, and they actually had to worry about having a job perhaps instead of just being creative, things changed. You see more "safe" titles than ones going out on the limb, and much of the innovation now comes from small new upstarts or elaborate and well-planned (long development cycle) software.

As far as the hardware issue, I'm torn. On one hand Nintendo went the safe route and kept prices down on their new console since it was so much like a GameCube. It also meant old developers could mostly use the same tools and development gear, without having to completely reinvest. This ease gave us more software, but much of it being PS2 ports, sadly. That is a fault of the developer, not Nintendo 100%. Those developers could have created new apps, but fiscally they wanted a fast turn around to recoup what were probably past losses on software for the GameCube and the PS2. All our old games worked on the Wii, and old controllers, and fewer people felt completely ripped off until some void struck them. Maybe it was a title they wanted but never got. Maybe it was not being down with the control scheme. Maybe it was the graphical quality of the games versus the Xbox 360 and the PS3.

I have not bought any of these consoles for misc reasons. PS3 does not have enough software for my tastes, and is too expensive for me to swallow. Plus, I cannot play my PS2 software on the console now. Old PS3 models sure, but I am not going to track one of those down. Xbox 360 is finally cheap enough for me, but a monthly bill for online gaming and the dent it might make in our home network speed is not something I can take on until we move out on our own. The software array is wide enough that I can see myself enjoying it. The Wii has not grabbed me due to the price for what is not much newer quality games, the lack of any games I really have to play that I cannot try at friends, and a lack of true HD video output. My TV would rather have an HD model Wii, thanks.

So, in my eyes it's outside developers as much as Nintendo dropping the ball, dying developer icons burning out like weak stars instead of with a fury, and market conditions hosing the minds and budgets of would-be awesome game development cycles. Just my opinions though. The core gamers have spoken with their wallets part of the time, and ramble like this on forums, but others step-in and give the companies false positives on what we want. Many of us would buy our favorite series even when it sucked, so they win anyways, and regardless of how a title does their methods become even more cryptic and safe. It's the game, and they play it just as much as we play their offerings.