Food for Thought: 4th Gen Parallels in American Market

[Final-Fan]

HappySqurriel said:

Final-Fan said:

Sullla said:
* The N64 used a controversial catridge format. The PS3 uses a controversial Blu-Ray disc format.

* The N64 was the most powerful and expensive console on the market. The PS3 is the most powerful and expensive console on the market.

The comparison is interesting, but there are two critical flaws.

1. Cartridges were MUCH, MUCH more damaging to the N64 than Blu-ray has been to the PS3 -- and the problem only got worse over time for the N64, while the opposite is true for the PS3.

2. The N64 was not a more expensive console than the others (launch price $199), and I think it may have been the LEAST expensive. The games were more expensive, though. (See point 1.)

I really think that #1 is debateable ...

Cartridges are the ultimate example in a tradeoff of value, the amazingly fast read times (as compared to CD) are what made the 'seemless' enviroments that the best N64 games had possible; many N64 games were so revolutionary because of the cartridge format that Nintendo choose, and many of the games have aged so well due to cartridges. The big downside to cartridges wasn't the capacity (which was a problem) but was the price; N64 games often launched at a higher price and never could be as inexpensive as the budget Playstation games.

Blu-Ray on the other hand is insanely slow which will become more obvious as developers try to produce more content and ... Loading ... larger areas. On top of that Blu-Ray doesn't offer much value because few games will ever use more than 1 DVD worth of content, and few will ever require so many that swapping discs would be a chore.

In both cases the format they choose will cost the platform a massive ammount of third party support, the difference is that Nintendo's option was made based on technical merits and brought better gameplay and Sony's decision was made for business reasons and offers little in terms of gameplay.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of cartridges, but $60-80 dollar games (not too sure of the number) with unimpressive-looking graphics (despite better hardware) and almost no cinematics were a HUGE turn-off for developers.

Keep in mind that cinematics were the New Big Thing that you absolutely Had to Have -- much like online multiplayer is today. People slap it on in today's games even if it makes no sense and Metroid Prime 3 gets badmouthed for resisting the urge. Square-Enix left Nintendo according to many reports because of lack of storage, i.e. because of cartridges. And we all know how addicted Square is to teh cinematics.

Ironically I wouldn't be too surprised to see cartridges ready to make a comeback due to burgeoning flash card capacity. Probably not though.