One Matt Casamassina has posted an editorial over at IGN discussing some of his opinions on the state of the industry, but more importantly, the Revolution. The first point I'd like to touch on is his claim that developing costs for the Revolution aren't naturally lower than that of the Xbox 360 and upcoming PS3, consoles both largely driven by their graphical capabilities. Matt goes on to say:
"I don't believe for a second some of Nintendo's reasons for this decision, though. The house that Mario built claims that Revolution will be cheaper both for developers and consumers because it doesn't support high-definition games. The upfront development hardware is certain to be more cost effective and developers familiar with GameCube will be able to pick up where they left off, yes, but that's really about it. Just because Revolution is less powerful doesn't automatically mean that software houses working on it will make cheaper games. Shenmue was made for Dreamcast, a system significantly less powerful than GameCube, but that didn't stop SEGA from sinking millions upon millions into the project. Geometry Wars was by comparison made for relative pennies and it runs in high-definition on Xbox 360. Point is, studios can just as easily make an inexpensive game for 360 or PlayStation 3 as they can on Revolution. And therefore, Nintendo cannot hold to that."
A point I think Matt misses in his observation is that the reason why the development costs for the upcoming console will be so low is because there will be less staff dedicated to just the graphics of whichever game they're currently working on. Think about a game like Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter on the Xbox 360. Those graphics that the game produces are spectacular due to more employees clocking in the long hours of mapping and texturing each environment, player model, and vehicle in the game to be compatible with the standard 480p, 720p, and 1080i of the console. If that game were to be attempted on the Revolution, then there wouldn't need to be so many dedicated to the graphical aspect of the game, freeing up manpower to tweak the AI or any other such area of the game, cutting down the development time and ultimately putting out the same product, albeit visually inferior, in less time.
"One thing I've learned about some of my Xbox 360 games is that while the graphics are initially impressive, you eventually take them for granted, at which point gameplay returns to its rightful place as the most important factor. I'm finding that many of my 360 games look good, but play exactly like their predecessors. Fight Night. Need for Speed. Perfect Dark Zero. Project Gotham Racing 3. Cut away the prettier visuals and you're left with games that could have been made for Xbox. The gameplay is exactly the same. And this is partly why Revolution holds so much promise. The system's unique new controller may help both reinvent old genres and create brand new ones. "
Matt brings up a very valid point here. For as much as the visuals pre-release of a title "wow" us and cause our jaws to drop to the floor once we get the final product and play it a bit, sooner or later the game is going to take those visuals for granted. This is one area both Matt and myself hope the Revolution will fulfill its promise.
