| saicho said: Since they entered the gaming industry with the NES in 1985, Nintendo has been on top with their game development. They redefined video games with revolutionary classic titles like Mario, Metroid, Kirby and Zelda. No other video game developer (aside from Sega in the past) even came close to Nintendo's greatness. Nintendo - Mario, Zelda, Kirby, Metroid, Pikimin, Animal Crossing, Pokemon, etc. Not to mention one-off franchises like Pilotwings and Kid Icarus. Nintendo has so many chracters and intelectual properties at thier disposal that even if they only use each every 4 years they will still be able to release several games every year. We get one Mario platform game per console these days. Mario 64/Sunshine/Galaxy/New Super Mario Bros, all on thier own platform. How many Ratchet games were there, or Jak and Dexter, or Sly Copper? Sony's formula seems to be, creat good IP, then shovel out another one until they stop selling. I would rather play through Mario Galaxy four times than play every Ratchet game successively. Microsoft - Microsoft has a robust 1st party collection of devellopers including Turn 10, they released several games with Bungie, I wold like to see more out of Rare in terms of new franchises instead of bringing back thier old ones. As much as I actually enjoyed Banjo Nuts & Bolts, it could have been a new character in place of Banjo. Sony debuted in video game industry a decade later with the Playstation. They quietly built the largest first-party development core in the industry, even bigger than Nintendo. As a result, Sony and their games are quickly rising to the top. Can they dethrone Nintendo and become the top video game developer? Here are a couple of reasons why Sony can overtake Nintendo in game development. New Franchises Resistance, LBP and Uncharted combined barely dent most Nintendo franchise games. If LBP were made for the Wii and had Mario, Toad, Luigi, etc instead of a Sackboy it might have gone on to become the best selling game in existence. I don't even know who the main character in Uncharted is, I usually refer to him as Larry Croft. Ask a stranger on the street who Mario is, he will probably know. Sackboy is cute but again, he is generic. I am pretty sure there are people who have played Resistance that have forgotten the main character's name. Coming up with ideas is great, but coming up with mediocre ones isn't all that swell. Partnership with Smaller Studios Nintendo partnered up with a small develloper called Rare. Rare went on to release several games people might remember. Bankjo-Kazooie, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Donkey Kong Country, StarFox Adventures, Blast Corps, etc. When Rare and Nintendo all of a sudden those games stopped being made. They also partnered up with a small studio called Factor 5, who released several very good Star Wars games, and helped make the Gamecube contributing to the systems audio processor. After that they went to work with Sony and released Lair which, thanks to the sucktacular sixaxis controls, was as much fun to play as hitting your nuts with a hammer. Factor 5 is back working with Nintendo on the Wii. They worked with a small studio called Retro Studios, who have brought us the Metroid Prime series, which are some of the best games released on the Gamecube and one of the best on the Wii. Hal Laboratories, a third party who made Kirby and makes games exclusively for Nintendo, Suda 51 who created No More Heroes, etc. Many of these small studios did some impressive work, leading Nintendo to do the smart thing. They invest in them, making them 2nd party devellopers, or at least fund them enough to make them loyal exclusive 3rd parties.
Nintendo's online is attrocious. Seriously needs some major work. Better yet throw the whole works out and call Microsoft for tips on how to do it right. Compared to Live, PSN is not all that great. Even if it is free.
Nintendo took no chance with the Wii in terms of HD vs SD. Most Nintendo customers did not own HDTVs. Many still do not. Nintendo took a huge chance by releasing a control mechanism that was untested and not seen before in the console arena. This gamble payed off quite well as it introduced gaming to an entirely new market. Something alot of Sony fanboys seem to not want to notice is that a large percentage of Wii owners are previous PS2 owners. When the PS3 launched at $600 Sony wrote themselves out of thier own fanbase's budgets. Having a game running at 1080P is not a concern for most Wii owners. Having a game that is enjoyable and fun to play is more important. That said, anyone that has played Metroid Prime 3 (and is not just looking at fuzzy screenshots) know that a game's polugon count don't make the difference between beautiful and garbage. Microsoft made the XBOX out of cardboard and matchsticks. From an engineering and system design standpoint it is a pile of shit. From a software standpoiunt and from a programmer's standpoint it is just great. Many devellopers have said making a game for the X360 is as easy as taking the PC version and setting it for the X360's specs. It's an easily accesible system that anyone can figure out leading to reduced devellopment costs and less time wasted just trying to get things to work. Sony having the claimed "most powerful" system on the market meant nothing for sales of it's franchises. Killzone 2, one of the best looking games this gen, will sell about as many copies as Wii Music, which can't even be described as really even having "graphics" What is the point of having such a great processor if it's hampered by the memory and GPU? Even worse, it's hard to figure out and work with for most devellopers. So while Nintendo supposedly "took a chance" by making a system that fit most of it's fanbase's entertainment solution (SDTVs running though a 2 channel stereo) Sony took an even bigger chance by releasing a $600 system that forced you to buy a then-unproven Blueray player and requires an HDTV to work optimally. They took a chance by replacing the affordable and least powerful of it's gen PS2 with the exact opposite, which sent PS2 owners looking at the Wii. Being spread all over the globe does not mark any particular advantage. Having a single building with diverse groups inside working on seperate projects can acheive the same outcome. In fact separating your studios into small part all over the globe can lead to problems in the long run, when the seperate studios begin competing with each other. Anyone remember the good times had with Sega of Japan and Sega of America back in the 90s. The two studios couldn't get anything working together and the end result was the Saturn, a system which should have been great but while one studio wanted a 2D system, the other wanted a 3D system. What we got was a great 2D system that sucked at 3D and failed. Nintendo is much more centralised in Japan than Sony, but they also have a larger creatinve base within thier own company. Just because all thier creative minds work in the same building does not mean they all work on every game. The range of Nintendo's franchises covers every game type, Hell Nintendo invented half of the gaming types that exist today, and they continue to do so thanks to the release of the Wii, which has opened up countless new gameplay possibilities. You couldn't play Wii Fit, Wii sports, or the like on the PS3. Playing a game like Killzone 2 may not be graphically feasible, but the core gameplay can be transferred. Microsoft now works much more closely with Rare, who developped the NXE and is starting to show up more often in press releases and industry talk. Microsoft is starting to break some ground into Japan but they have a long way to go. Hopefully now that they are working more with Square/Enix and Japanese devellopers they will have a better showing in that area, even if it is by far the smallest area in terms of sales and profit.
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I've been a gamer since well before the NES came out, starting when I was a kid. I've owned almost every system released to date including oddballs like the Virtual Boy and have always found a reason to enjoy every one of them. I took no side in the Genesis vs SNES fanboy wars, instead i played the games I had and enjoyed them. That said, I do not own a PS3 and have no plans on owning one. Between my Xbox 360, my Wii, my PC and my DS I have no reason to buy a PS3 other than a few titles like LBP and someday GT5. LBP is no system seller though and by the time GT5 hits, I'll be playing something better on my PC or Forza 3 on my X360.
To say Sony is surpassing Nintendo in devellopment is laughable. As it stands Nintendo has become untouchable. Sony still hasn't come up with a franchise to contend with Halo other than the Gran Turismo series. But comparing those two is like comparing a Honda Civic to a bicycle.
What it comes down to, is in the industry Sony is making the least money of the three companies. This is despite the horrific costs of Microseft's RROD blunder. All the money Sony made with the extremely successful PS2 has been flushed down the toilet since the release of the PS3. Sony is supassing nobody.
/\/\/\ IMHO, I'm not going to argue with anyone, so don't waste your time. I already wasted enough of my own reading that article.
