UK game industry types talk Revolution

Gavin, True.. it can seem an excuse to say that they are not in direct competition with Sony etc. But if your concept is mostly different, that statement is justified.

The increase in console/handheld sales during the holiday periods leads me to believe that most of it would be under a Christmas tree awaiting the happy little boy or teenager. Of course there are alot of "adult" gamers but not nearly as much as kids and teenagers.

Yep Pretty Obvious, it is sad actually.

True story: last week, my g/f and I went to EB Games to buy her a Harvest Moon game. She is a huge Sims fan (ugh...) and so I told her all about the HM series and it piqued her interest.

So she is trying to figure out which one to get I told her to get the one for Gamecube because sometimes I see it there next to the others collecting dust and I kinda feel bad for it.

Look at what Nintendo put out last year....that Advance Wars game, Geist, some Mario sports titles, and maybe something else that escapes my mind at the moment.

If Nintendo can't regularly put out amazingly awesome games for the Gamecube, why should I buy into the hype that they are going to do so for a marginally better newer system. I don't care what the interface is like.

Bottom line...Nintendo's loss of shelf space and retail presence is going to be the biggest thing going against it. They have such a small footprint in stores now and I don't see it doing anything but getting smaller.

Don't get consoles and portables confused. They are absolutely two different markets.

I'm not talking about what I like or don't like as a gamer here. I for one love a lot of Nintendo games and the SNES will still be my favorite gaming system of all time (and then the 2600 because it was my first), but I am talking here about what is really possible for Nintendo in the future.

Jay:

Because I've played/supported the game industry in one way or another since 1980, I'm 30 now. No old at all but considering the depth of the industry, that's a lot of gaming over the years. I've played through so many launches, so many sequels, so many updates and owned so many consoles, that I'm getting a burnt out. I'm just not quite as interested like I used to be. I still love my DS and my PC, immensely. But my consoles have been collecting dust for the last 8 months. I've played a few games for a little while, VF 4 Evolution, Devil May Cry, the metroids, the zeldas etc, there just isn't enough innovation or originality for me to support the industry like I used to. So I will support the Revolution because it will be a Nintendo all-star console with games spanning the 8bit golden era to the present with a twist (the revMote). Nintendo is still trying different concepts to keep us interested and they are trying to give it to us for a reasonable price. I will also appreciate and respect that because Nintendo is the only companty that is willing to do it. Look at the DS, that little device is so much fun to play with that it's extraordinary yet it's so inferior to the PSP spec wise. It's the perfect example.

Even though the 360 is an impressive piece of kit, the most important thing are the games. I haven't been all that impressed with the titles available so far. XBLA is all well and good but I can't justifiy a 400 + dollar purchase to play retro games. I can't justify paying another 400+ dollars to support a PS3 that may burn out within the first month out of the box, not to mention the possible expense and the 59.99 price tag for all next gen titles. It's too much. The selling points for these new consoles are the power, the graphics and the HD support. But what about the gameplay, the funfactor and the replay value?

That's why I'll support the Revolution. Nintendo has proven time and again that they can take a concept that makes you say "They're crazy! Who's going to play that?" Yet, more often than not, the final game will be something that is totally mindblowing and totally unexpected.

Are you serious? You actually think the Cube has more quality titles then PS2? Sure the PS2 or the Xbox for that matter have their fair share of crap, but they both whoop the Cube in terms of quality titles. Of which I can count on my hand.

Im not a Ps2 gamer but I can tell you God of War is already better then anything the Cube has exclusive. Resident Evil 4 is the best Cube game to date, doesnt it bother you thats not even an exclusive title? Microsoft has its Halos, Ninja Gaidens and Jade Empire's all of which are extremely well made games. Nobody tells me what to play, I am not led into spending my hard earned cash on crap, thats why I sold my Cube last year. If you compare quality titles on both systems im sorry but things arent looking good in your favor.

You my friend, need to wake up.

I am in much the same situation as striderhayasa, I have lost ALL interest in console games. The industry has been stagnent for far too long.

New ideas if implemented correctly will always shine, the DS is a solid example of this.

I disagree. Microsoft has the worst first party support of the three Pretty Obvious. You talk about Halo and I WILL point to RE 4 because it's the greatest RE ever made, built from the ground up for the Cube AND Capcom showed what the Cube is capable of with a beautiful RE1 remake. You talk about Ninja Gaiden and I point to Metroid Prime. Another example of a 2D classic fully realized in 3D. Jade Empire? Zelda...nuff said. The Cube may not have had the support that the PS2 and Microsoft enjoyed but there are great games for the console. Why hate on the fans that want to show support for their console?

Re-read what I said.

The GC has a much smaller ratio of crap to good games.

not

The GC has more quality games (probably does though)

Also, everyone has different opinions. Im really glad that you follow yours. And if Nintendo isn't your cup of tea then fair enough. But don't try and sh*t on those whose cup of tea it is.

Here, lets try this approach - you but what you want and I'll do the same :)

PS Im not a blind fanboy, if Ninty messes up, I'll be the first to say they f-ed up. But they still manage to stay in business and make a profit so they must be doing soemthing right.

"The Revolution must be both niche and mainstream."

The guy speaks true. For Nintendo to win, they must not alienate the consumers and provide an experience not found anywhere else.
I believe that the Revo will be the coolest thing ever and everybody will want to try it out but for that impression to last it must be accompanied with content.

And i mean great games that people will want to play not 'cause of the ease and fun factor of the controller, but of the "wow" factor the game delivers.
Let me give you an example:

-Hey, check out this Wario Ware Revolution game!
-Its really fun with this remote!!
-Yeah, it even has a lightsaber minigame!
-Cool!!........ Wanna go play some GTA?
-Yes, lets go!

And now this:

-Look at those awesome graphics! What game is that?
-Hmm.....Zelda Revolution? Lets give it a try.
-Whoaa!! That remote is like a sword!
-Watch out, an enemy comes!
-Left swing, right swing! See, i am like Aragorn!This is great!
-Damn, that thing is better than sex!

My point is that the games will make all the difference. In japan, Revo would sell even it has only "non-games", but in the West it needs all the hype the "big" franchises deliver.
And this time lets hope Nintendo releases games on a steady pace. In the cube era, we've seen amazing games accompanied with long periods of drought. A hardware cannot sell by itself, it needs quality software around the clock if it wants to stay on the "shelf".

Pls, let that Mario game be at launch...

Gavin your dead wrong... So many ways...

I've been doing 3d graphics, playing around with mods, and studying the video games industry for a while now. I've been through my bizniz and marketing classes classes. I've also study the creative side to marketing which is design. I've watched countless studios make bad choices. I'm in my late 20's also. I'm simply tired of the uninspired industry types and gamers like Gavin. They all treat gaming companies like athletes... Nintendo is not phyiscaly impared people...LOL They are one of the few companies that are awake to the dream that is video games. The only company that truely is about fun universaly.
It may seem kiddy at times but games are for the children in us. The adults in us are here to pay bills, fight real wars, and have families... Yes their are games like those around but thats the same reason why people arn't buying them... They are growing up and would rather have fun.

Gavin and others like him need to tell me what is so inspiring about sony and MS? Don't tell me about the past or a bunch of numbers. Really this is big business now we all know what money can buy... but it isn't talent if the machine gets in the way. It isn't fun if you have to spend more than a car payment of a luxury car.

Nintendo could easily copy those specs. You know how money works. It only takes money to copy those specs. About 400 dollars per system to copy those specs. They have plenty of money also, because business wise they always made a profit. I mean how does it sound for a media company to sell at a lost? If that's true then you are just a hardware maker and we know hardware people don't have a clue about games or whats fun. Hell from what I'm reading and seeing the only spec the rev needs to copy are the xbox'x. They are using the same companies to produce this thing. I feel the other companies are spinning their wheels to make it seem like they paid for a godly chip. When in reality it's just a different kind of chip to do the same things. So why not let nintendo test their chips and tweak them for gaming the way it use to be back in the day when the snes had no a name chip designed for gaming that blew your pentium 3 out of the water gaming wise. As long as nintendo keep playing the innovation/ good game maker game card then they will always be around. In truth the other developers choose who will be top dog or who is worth developing for. The last I heard Tomcat work does revolution code also.

Marketing doesn't matter how much you spend it matters how smart you market it. Like viral marketing or this drip feed laced with acid thing nintendo is doing...LOL Every thing they've leaked so far really did matter to gamers and producers. Every one must admit the PSP looked cooler and had cooler games when it came out. But they wheren't funner than the ds games that came out. Nintendo could easily do two psp size screens in a clam shell set up with a touch pad on the bottom, then add a disk which is slower than the carts and make you eat the cost at 500 dollars all wrapped in a pearl black casing. But nintendo isn't about milking it's consumer with out giving you some value.

To cap that point after last generation why would any one be excited about a revolution after the GC's almost 3rd place sales. I would have to say nintendo knows their market better than you gavin ,ms or sony. Their is only hype about playing new cool games... imagine that? Meatl gear with prettier graphics cool... pretty does not make a better game.

Video games started as a fade. Sony and ms are into using the same fade of the 32 bit era. Thus the lack of or fall off of sales. There are a 100 million ps2 out there and no one can get a 50 mil sale? Whats up with that? You have to ask sony if they even know who their true market or markets are? Do you blame the developers for this?

All of the doom and gloom about this being nintendos last console is all wishful thinking by a long lost jaded nintendo fan. You see you need to be a fan of video games to love nintendo... not a fan of nintendo... yeah they made some ballsy stunts and had every ones kid on pokecrack... Yeah they forgot about us but you have to ask your self this was all of those kiddy games good? If not then why did they sell. You are a bizniz man?
You have to be a blue ray fan / dvr fan/ sequels from the last gen fan to love sony's next system.
So if sales are falling off then how many fans of sony are their really out there. I mean I've played more dvds in my ps2 and I think thats the case with most people. Thats why there is no 50 mill sold game out there. Why do you think sony is banking on blue ray? Is it too soon for a change from dvds? With dvd burners out there does any one care about blue ray?
Gavin we are fans because we like new games and we already know the old games where fun.

To compare nintendo to sega is a bad move. Why becuse nintendo was never like sega. If you remember it was sega the saturn( that was a 2d graphics beast), the dreamcast(the first true 3d beast) that scream look how much power i have. Sega has been doing that since the 16 bit age and nintendo beat them then. People stopped believeing the lies and dreamcast game where way to easy to copy.... And the os was a MS version.... so you have to wonder if Ms had a hand in that. but really sony has to be the next one to fall to the hey look our machine is just like reality...LOL. Plus do people really need a blue ray? Do people really believe that Nvidia is really going to out do an ati card by a huge margin?
Really come on?

Now we flash back to now... people are unimpressed by xbox's unbelieveable hd graphics and superb shaders processing. That is the same game that killed sega. Out of all of your retail and buisness knowledge you failed to see that trying to be cool and the tech race is what killed sega, neogeo, 3D0, and others.

Nintendo has survived off one thing. It's ablity to carve out markets and completely satisfy them. Yeah the graphics pr0n market hasn't really been nintendo's strongest market but games aren't about that.

Xavix is not nintendo... In a essence they are doing what ms and sony are doing... Not as cool but they have nothing unusally different on that system thats fun. The Xavix banks on being a more realistic experience due to life like interactions. The graphics arn't great but that is not their selling point. Nintendo makes games. Xavix copys sports games. Half of the industry is truely about a new type of game. Thats where the money is.

Just like modernism in real art people got tired or realism and need more abstraction to get back to what was great about the whole thing and that was the imagination. Old 8 bit games where the first abstraction visually , interaction wise and game play wise. Thats why people still love them.

A true company worth paying attention to is a campany that makes the public realise what they want in unique ways. Ipod, DS, I mean where is sony's next walk man? A company that paves the way for other companies. The industry needs that right now.
Video games is not like the pc industry. You need creativity to stay afloat unltimidely.

And what ever happened to fan boys that dream up new games?

Pretty Obvious

nintendo has games you should give these a try.


Ikaruga you'll love this game man... it's graphic pr0n also...
Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction
Resident Evil 4
Metroid Prime
Battalion Wars great squad game
Killer 7 only came to ps2 because every one miss understood it..LOL
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, The
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem
Super Smash Bros. Melee
Metroid Prime 2 Echoes
Viewtiful Joe
NBA Street V3
Madden NFL 2005
Madden NFL 2004
Super Mario Sunshine
Pikmin 2
SSX 3 Sports
F-Zero GX
MVP Baseball 2005
Tony Hawk's Underground
Soulcalibur II Fighting
Wave Race: Blue Storm
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door One of the best rpg out... Has elements of the old mario brps in it also. If the rev can do this in 3d in this graphic style then they could put one more title up there with mario 3

NFL Street
NBA Street Vol. 2
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4
TimeSplitters 2 the real goldeneye team made this one and it shows

Animal Crossing hillarious... could replace IM in gaming...lol
Aggressive Inline
Pikmin Strategy
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3
Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader
NBA Live 06
Viewtiful Joe 2
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005
NASCAR 2005: Chase for the Cup
Beyond Good & Evil
True Crime: Streets of L.A.
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004
NCAA Football 2004
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time / Master Quest,
Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II
Star Fox Adventures
Super Monkey Ball 2
NFL 2K3
Resident Evil

Games I love on the ps2.
All of the shinobis(nightshade)
Soul cal 3
metal slug 4 or 5
the SF alpha, 3, etc
Shadow of the C just for the relaxation..LOL
God of chaos... sort of the.. un fun puzzels extended the game out for no reason. They should borrow from shadow to get my purchase on the next gen system.

I play all of my online gaming on a pc, you know quake 2, 3, and4, ut2004, doom3,etc. So any console shooter thats not offering some thing new gets no money from me and alot of people like me.

The only game worth getting a xbox for is geometry wars.. and that can run on any system.

My point is the last generation improved the graphics but really didn't offer that many games that had reply value...The cube had alot of those games meaning the difficulty was just right, the graphics where just right, and you actually wanted to play it as soon as you saw it becuase it was fun.

What every one is hopping is nintendo delievers some next gen fun instead of sequels and realism. Some other pluses are the first console controller that could rival a pcs mouse keyboard setup for fps. Retro is full of really good quake level designers so i'm not worried their. Free online games... Just waiting for WoW to mogve in on this. Old school games to play while your waiting on the industry to wake up. Plus there are over a hundred games that never came out over here in the states that they could put up on the virtual console server. Plus EA is big... If they can offer a more manly ways for wanna be athletes, armchair coachs and pro athletes to pull off their plays rather than just pushing buttons then I think sony's eye toy may have a problem. Don't forget EA catters to people who will still go out side and run... for time to time...LOL
So the idea of moving to control a play is not a problem to them. I hope EA also realizes that if they don't pull it off right some one else will.

Oyeah hold up nintendo owns a part of the company that made their controller... thats makes it alot harder to copy.. I don't see any one copying my gyro mouse in the pc industry ethier.

The ratio of good games don't even matter right now in regards to this next gen of games. All excusses aside these consoles should come out piping hot. All of the tech will be there even for the rev.

This next gen is a new game... for some and the same old thing for others... You wouldn't want to be in the other catagory.

Cool is for my ride and my clothes. Theres not a system out there or coming that can match the cool i make or play on my PC. So what does that leave me with... fun games... period thats all any one every wanted from video games...

Other than Nintendo, no company has ever impressed me with their video game consoles. Microsoft is venturing into a business in which they simply are out of place; the X-Box is the most bland, boring console I have ever played, and the 360 is almost offensively unoriginal and subpar. How anyone can call it a "next-generation" console is beyond my comprehension.

But hey, that is just my opinion. I also happen to think, as do millions and millions of people around the world, that Nintendo is the Mercedes-Benz of video games.

Then there is Sony. In all fairness, people seem to buy Playstation right off the assembly lines, so Sony must be doing something right. But personally, having both played and seen the console in action, I find the PS2 to be an incredibly over-hyped consumer trend. It dominated the last generation for one main reason: marketing.

An example of this assertion? My roomate, a casual gamer, owned a PS2 for years. He would rarely use the console, but when he did play a game - most of which looked/played exactly the same; how many identical military games do you really need? - I would usually go into my room and play my GameCube.

But one day, he finally followed me to see what my system had to offer. Of course, he had reservations. He often accused the GameCube of being a "kiddie console," even though he had never played it. But he walked into my room and asked me if he could play some games with me. We blasted through some great exclusive titles and ended up spending three hours playing the GameCube. A few days later, to my surprise, he went to a local gaming store to trade in his PS2 for credit toward a new GameCube. A week later, he said something that I have kept in the back of my mind ever since...

"Dude, I have had more fun on this GameCube in the past week than I had on my PS2 in four years."

While this is only one example, I believe that it paints an abstract picture of the entire industry. More than games and fun, it was marketing and the power of advertising that pushed the PS2 to the top of the console race in the last generation.

Whatever it was, it certainly wasn't the hideous design of the console. Ugh.

Nintendo is in a different league than both Microsoft and Sony. Nintendo is not only a superior hardware company with an unparalleled history in the industry, but they are simply on a whole new level in terms of software development. Unlike their competitors, Nintendo is a gaming company. Video games are their business, and no one makes them like Nintendo.

Another thing that confuses me...why do people insist on touting the Revolution as Nintendo's "final stand" in the home console market? The GameCube may have achieved disappointing sales figures, but people exaggerate those figures until the GameCube is viewed as a company-killing failure. That couldn't be farther from the truth. Nintendo has made more money from GameCube sales than Microsoft has made with either of their consoles. Not to mention the fact that it has sold well over 20 million units worldwide. Nintendo is a company with vast resources and a strong financial standing. They created this business. They have been a leader in it for almost 30 years. They aren't going anywhere any time soon.

People underestimate Nintendo and their presence. Nintendo fans are devoted and passionate in a way that Sony and Microsoft can only wish for in their fans. And with the DS, you are seeing the crossover appeal that Nintendo could very well bring to the Revolution. The PSP lost to the DS not only because of innovation, but because of that crossover appeal to more people.

The Revolution will not only be my primary console, but it will be the only new one that I purchase and support. Maybe it is just me, but I would much rather get lost in the immersive worlds of Zelda, Metroid, Mario, Donkey Kong, and Starfox than beat-up blacks and hispanics while perpetuating racial stereotypes in Grand Theft Auto.

Nintendo > You.