xenikos

Wow...let's hear it for AOL! Still going strong with attracting the bright users, I can tell.

"I think your missing the point. This time around sony made a really powerful system because they aim for the PS3 to last at least 8 years in the mainstream. The "option" is all about timing. So you cant afford hd now, thats ok, because two years from now we will see a dramatic decrease in price ( because of technology and standards push) and in 4 years it wont even be an issue."

Static makes a very important point here that most people are ignoring. When you're doing the price number crunching that so many people are repeating ad nauseum, you absolutely *have* to take into consideration the life-cycle of the console, and that's what makes me weary about the Wii - it isn't even pretending like they're going to try to make it last for a long time. Sony and Microsoft are concerned with how their hardwear will be faring in 2011....Nintendo is concerned with marketing their remote gimmick so as to make a big splash now.

How will it feel to be a Wii-only user who was once so proud of all that money they saved, when High Def TVs are vastly more commonplace (people are throwing around ridiclous figures on this blog; I am hardly an early adoptor of anything and I got a fabulous 35 inch HD tv for $600 months ago just to watch sports and TV on...be resonable, those of you wailing and gnashing your teeth about expenses. The difference between a Wii and a PS3 is like...cooking instead of going out to a restaurant 10 or so times. hardly tragic)...at the point where Nintendo has released a few iterations of their handful of franchises, and the technology barrier is precluding graphics, sound, and many other types of innovations in Wii games (it requires large hard drives and massive storage space on disks to do things like, say, GTA-style persistent worlds)...and Nintendo will be releasing a new console for yet another $250 while the PS3 and 360 are still in their prime. If you contemplate the number of quality games that you will get to play, for the lifespan of the console, and then consider cost along those lines...then Wii users are getting relatively shafted by this neat marketing trick. But hey, free country.

One last comment - in reading Octorok's glowing, relevatory message, I couldn't help but love the fact that these two sentences were unabashedly so close to one another:

"and the fact that the system’s architecture is already well hashed out (being that it is an extension of Gamecube)"

"I guess in this respect, Wii truly does represent a revolution!"

So...the Big Idea that you talked about is that the Wii isn't much of an advance? How exciting, the revolution of what has been hashed out. Have fun with that.

#24, MrPolarBare (kind of a dirty name!):

Is E3 hype that great of an indicator of quality? Everyone stood in huge lines to watch Doom 3 trailers...we all know how well that game turned out. The Wii may well be big...but I think the staying power of the waving-your-arms-around thing is very much an open question.

#26 -

"don't forget, wii was also designed to be:

-smaller
-quieter
-cheaper"

Oh man, I totally agree. What are you planning to do with all of that extra room? Put a small book right next to your console? Stack some dirty plates there? Me, I'm going to get 86 lbs fatter, but I won't notice, since the space in the room will be the same! (Steal my idea if you'd like!)

The sky's the limit, baby.

#25 -

Games for the uber-casual gamer should exist and be promoted and whatnot. But should they be ranked highly by game critics?

Movie, music and book critics consider the "best" works in each respective medium to be those that are engaging, aesthetically powerful, and have a depth that casual reading/listening/watching does not fully capture. Greatness is always defined by how a work of art acts as an invitation to the participant...an opening to be drawn into a greater world than what presents itself on the surface. One way of looking at it...it is nearly impossible to tell a great movie by a movie trailer, since all of the aspects that make it great escape those kinds of mini-presentations. Great games are the same way..if you didn't know much about a game, looking at a short trailer of gameplay from it will tell you about its graphics, but often little else. NSMB, however, seems like it was MADE for its trailer - an invitation to nothing.

I just don't see why it couldn't be more like SMB3 or Super Mario World in that aspect. Being appealing to casual gamers is fine, but I don't think that can make a game a masterpiece.

New. Super Mario Bros. is fun for a few hours of entertainment, but I am surprised at the high scores it is recieving.

The levels feature a large mix of recycled and new features...but their addition to game play is questionable. There are a few very neat gimmicks (the lava rocks in 8.5 or whatever), but things like the Mega Mushroom and the Koopa Shell are much neater conceptually than they are in gameplay at all. I can't really think of a way that either make the experience more fun.

Also, the difficulty is ridiclously low. Without replaying levels, and without using almost any of my star coins (I thought there was something useful one could do with them later...) I had something like 87 lives after playing through the levels naturally the first time. Its just all mostly forgettable.

I compare this to SMB3 - which had some killer tough levels, and some that instilled a much more frantic feeling...or Super Mario World, which made good use of the secret exits of worlds to get you to the star world and special world.

It just seems like NewSMB spent all of its energy trying to combine all sorts of classic features, throw in enough eye-catching ones, that it sacrified level design or depth or replayability in a big way. Oh well, back to playing Final Fantasy IV Advance...glad that my DS is good for something.....

"Of course, the first Platinum Hits should be hitting shelves at about the same time that Sony wants you to spend $600 + $60 for a PS3 + a game."

Yawn. Don't buy it if you don't want it/can't afford it. Whining about price is really boring, though.

One argument people keep making - that games won't utilize PS3's power. Well that is somewhat true for multi-platform games. But for PS3 exclusives....Metal Gear 4 is already doing things with audio and whatnot that couldn't be done on any other system, and that's right at the start of the platform's (long) life cycle. That same long staying power, by the way, makes the PS3 effectively cheap over time.

Can indie developers make blockbuster games that sell like gangbusters? It will happen, one in a million. Right curcumstances have to happen.

The much larger role indie developers could possibly play is in the creation of smaller scope games that have a vastly reduced price. Serious Sam, and the like. That seems relatively rare now, but I think that might change in the future. I see gaming eventually moving in the direction of massive persistent worlds, through which smaller games can be accessed. Most will likely be closed out to indie developers, but some situations might be open to them. Rockstar's table tennis game seems like the type of game that might fit in this scenario (much as GTA:SA had lots of minigames, I see persistent worlds having minigames of their own that could be well developed by indie producers. Pure speculation.

The conversations on this and a few other tech-y forums have played out vastly differently from all of my conversations with friends - mainly because those are focused more on gaming potential, while this discussion has much more been about weighing the consoles as if they existed in a vacuum. The problem about talking about the consoles in such a fashion is that there are two main unknowns that make comparing consoles difficult:
A. How much Wii's controller scheme adds or subtracts to the gaming experience.
B. PS3's long-term potential as a multimedia machine.
Neither of these questions can be answered to a high degree of certainty at this point. A is in doubt because something new and different is bound to make people want to try it (and hence E3 headlines), but is the controller going to add to most titles in a significant way, or just the hand-picked few showcased at E3...and is hand-waving going to be enjoyable for hours on end? As for B., the PS3's upside (I've been playing too many NBA rough drafts) is to be determined by a still-ongoing format war.

But forgetting both of those issues for the time being, a console is really just a ticket to be able to play games for a certain period of time at a certain technological level. That "period of time" - or the console's lifespan - is a crucial issue that isn't discussed nearly as much. I think that if you are making these monetary calculations not just for forum-arguing but to actually make the decision, then you have to divide the price of the console over what you can expect its active lifespan to be. And this is a major problem for Wii - when talking about the inevitably of HD penetration, the graphics ceiling, lack of HD/BR movie playback...it seems obvious to conclude that the time during which the Wii will have peak games produced for it is much shorter than the 360/PS3.

Another issue is, not talking about subjective judgments about quality of games, simple facts regarding genre specialization. The Wii looks to have some fantastic games, but most of its strengths lie in action adventure, platform, and so-called "party games." Its price and uniqueness are big draws, but I know that damn near 100% of dedicated gamers (as dumb as that phrase sounds) are going to want the genre-versitility, high-def resolutions, cutting edge graphics, and Grand Theft Autoness that one of the other two consoles will have. I think the Wii might be a fun interim device for people waiting on an important game to come out before they drop the cash on one of the big boys, but are there really a huge number of folks for whom it will be a sustaining alternative to the 360/PS3? I don't know...I just know that for me and my friends - all non-rich yet dedicated gamers - the latter comparison is the only real debate, and the Wii is a seperate market entirely. For me the decision comes down to Oblivion and Bioware games being available on the PC while most Squaresoft titles are not...but that's just me.

"I love how Sony fanboys always try to pull out the graphics on Wii and compare it with a console that's only about graphics (and taking funtionalities from other systems, Live and Wiimote, kthx). This isn't what you should compare between the PS3 and the Wii. Nintendo has gone a totally different route."

This reminds me of the Seinfeld episode when Kramer had the idea to build levels in his apartment, and Jerry bet him that it would never be done, and Kramer's like "no way, you're on, I'm building these levels." Then a few days later he announces that he isn't building the levels, and Jerry asks for his forfiet - and Kramer says "no, bet's off, I decided not to do them." Jerry: "....but that was the bet! That you wouldn't do it!" Kramer: "I *COULD*, I just decided not to."

How can you say we shouldn't use graphics as a comparison point between any two consoles? Nintendo said they aren't pushing graphics, so thus everyone doesn't care anymore? It is pretty naive to think that in a few years when HD TVs are more prevalent, Wiiusers aren't going to feel the pang of jealousy at how bad their games look in comparison. Graphics are a huge part of video games, which has developed hand-in-hand with gameplay innovations. What would the reaction be if a company said "screw gameplay, our games will now just be gorgeous videos where you barely interact with all (insert Square-Enix joke here, except I love those games). Just halting forward effort on one of those two pillars of gaming seems outrageous to me.

"Let's compare how easy it is to develop games on the Wii vs the PS3 (This means more games will come out on the Wii)."

Oh yeah, Nintendo has the best third party support around! (.....)

"And let's not forget where the PS2 stood in the current gen. Both the GameCube and XBox were more powerful. Yet the PS2 was more popular? Why is that, I dunno, could it be that it had more games? This should tell you Sony fanboys that graphics isn't the path to victory."

No, it had better games, and the best diversity of genres around. It was really the only console for RPG fans, it has Gran Turismo, GTA, the best rhythm games (Guitar Hero, Amplitude), the best fighting games (Tekken, Virtua Fighter), etc. Plus huge presence in FPSs, action-adventures, platformers, sports, and so on. Nintendo's slow and constant shooting of itself in the foot has been its lack of specialty in anything that isn't kiddie action-adventure or party games. The only interesting debate is 360 vs. PS3 (and that only really became an interesting question with the non-exclusivity of GTA). I'm shocked - SHOCKED - that the Wii is getting as much talk as it is.