| greenmedic88 said: No, what he's referring to is the video game crash of 1983 when the common acceptance of video games among general consumers (not gamers) led to an influx of systems and more damaging, a flood of poor quality titles that were cranked out in minimal time in an attempt to jump on board a popular trend and cash in. We all know how that turned out. I see it happening with the Wii already. New budget titles, likely only to be bought by unassuming consumers who don't know how to judge quality titles and don't read reviews or video game press. Also a lot of shoddy peripherals that no one really needs and generally don't enhance the basic playing experience (read: waste of money). The difference is that there are still quality titles on the platform that are selling more than well enough to guarantee future sequels to franchises, some of which have been running for almost two decades. Most general consumers who don't know next to nothing about games are still safe buying just about any game published by Nintendo. The trick is getting them to buy a $50 quality game instead of a $20-30 game that probably shouldn't have been published in the first place. General consumers often look at price first if they don't know the difference in quality or aren't buying based upon good word of mouth advice. |
Greenmedic,
It is easier to focus onthe crappy shovelware games of different systems you do not own. Last gen the PS2 was the shovelware king and then gen before that it was the PS1. Nintendos hardcore strategy is eventually one that ruined them with the third parties. It was neccesary for the NES because it came after the crash. So let's take a look at that.
In 1983 if you bought a game it may have been fun and you might of enjoyed it but then you went to buy another game from the countless and confusing lists of games being released by anybody only to find that it was the exact same game you woned before but sucked more. There was no control or quality assurances. ANy number of games had game ending bugs that would make it impossible to continue on in that game. It happens much less now and when it does it is all over the press.
With the NES Nintendo said developers could only release 5 games a year per studio so many companies created other studios like Ultra to produce more titles but that took time and investment so they had to think harder about wanting to produce those extra games. Games had to get a certifiaction and meet certain requirements with regards to techincal(Title safe areas and such not graphics), bugs, and so forth. This meant that while crappy games were still being made they were less in percentage than in 83. This is still the case today with the exception of the studio limit and not being able to produce games on competing systems.
When Sony released the Playstation Sony offered a relaxation on these rules that dragged in 3rd parties and increased shovelware but it also increased the number of good to great games on their system. The thing is if you owned a PS1 and PS2 you went right by the shovelware and got the games you wanted leaving that stuff to misguided parents to buy. The DS also has a ton of shovelware as well. In contrast the N64/GC/XBOX had comparatively less shovelware they still had it but it was less in the number of games because the market size was unable to support it.
Today with the Wii we have a rocketing market share and base. We have a bunch of developers who do not know how to target the demographics or thin in terms of how a Wii game is to be made. So they do what any person would do before swimming dangle their foot in the water to see what the temperture is. They make crappy PS2 ports and rip offs of Nintendos own games. Some succeed most fail and hence the Wii is all shovelware. Already this is being pulled back and HD ports are coming in as well as orginal third party exclusives are on their way. But even at its worse it was never 1983. If you are old enough to play games back then than you would know that.
I am sure grampy could I know I can. I can also say that even during the crash their were many great games that were being made and were fun. You just didn't have to stare at a wall of 800 games with crappy descriptions that had nothing to do with the game to sort through them to find them.
