patjuan32 said:
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Are you actually claiming the PS2 wasn't technically in the same league as the GC and Xbox? It was mildly weaker than the GameCube--not a whole generation behind. If it was a whole generation behind, they wouldn't have even bothered porting RE4 to it at all. Altogether, the changes were minimal and largely unnoticable, and the PS2 version actually had more content and gameplay modes. The Wii RE4 is actually, largely, the PS2 version of the game with Wiimote controls. Look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qz0LbKpZtI The PS2 and GameCube versions are nearly identical with the exception of a few fancy effects. Had Capcom put some effort into it, I'm sure the effects could have remained more intact, but I would imagine Capcom simply removed some of them altogether just to get the development done sooner. You need to stop dismissing the power of the PS2. You're essentially saying this:
Where hardware is concerned, the Wii is to the Xbox360 what the PS2 is to the GameCube, and that's just plain wrong. It's not even remotely correct.
Essentially, on a technical level, it's more like this: The PS2 is to the GameCube what the Xbox360 is to the PS3. You're either grossly over-estimating the power of the GameCube, or vastly under-estimating the power of the PS2. Hardwar tech last gen went in this order from weakest to strongest: Dreamcast-PS2-GameCube-Xbox, with the Xbox way out in the lead. The GameCube is closer to the PS2 than the Xbox in overall hardware strength.
Now, going by hardware strength, the Wii is to the Xbox360 what the N64 is to the Playstation 2. Give the PS2 some credit. It was not "very far" behind the GameCube. It was only marginally behind the GameCube, and a bit further behind the Xbox.
What did Retro do to move Prime 1 and 2 to the Wii? Update a few textures and add bloom lighting? Because aside from better particle effects, slightly better textures, and bloom lighting--Metroid Prime 3 didn't really look any better than the GameCube games. http://www.gamespot.com/features/6178117/index.html Take a close look, the only things that are tuly different are that the lighting has been sharpened and that increased lighting adds a lot to the overall look of the game. In fact, lighting goes a long way when there's sufficient tech behind it. Some texture detail is improved, but overall, polycounts appear to be largely the same. It's not a very big leap, and judging by the fact that Retro pumped out the Trilogy compilation, what, only two years after Prime 3 hit, I'd say it probably wasn't too arduous a task. After all, Prime 1 and 2 are massive games, and to bump up the textures and lighting for two such massive games--along with changing the control scheme, would take quite a while. We also now know that Retro has been working on Donkey Kong for quite a while, probably as far back as late 2008 or early 2009, which means that updating MP 1 & 2 was a side project. Prime 3 sure looks prettier, but not like it's a generational leap forward like going from Call of Duty 3 to Modern Warfare. For that matter, have you even seen any of the God of War PS2 games? I mean look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goG14Lbl2_I
I'm not going to go into detail where you accuse me of "not knowing about technology" since you have shown quite clearly, that you dismiss the power of the PS2 as if it was as puny as the N64 compared to the GameCube. Either you're being deliberatly obtuse, or you actually understand next to nothing about hardware power. Just that the GameCube could probably run Red Steel 2 or Monster Hunter 3--all it would take is the kind of minor downgrade that they gave to RE4 to put it on the PS2 because, let's be frank, the GameCube falls pretty much right in the middle between the PS2 and Wii in terms of overall power--and the Wii is about a match to the original Xbox.
The original Dead Rising team did not make DR for the Wii for two reasons:
1--There's no way in hell the game, in it's original form, would run at all on the Wii.
2--Capcom listened to Wii owners who constantly cried for another game "like RE4." They got it, and they still weren't happy.
Going by the new engines running on the Wii--they are gimped versions with a lot of their vast tech removed. It's the only way an engine optimized for HD-standards (X360/PS3/PC) will run on the Wii.
I would like to see your evidence that old, popular games suddenly all appear on sales charts when consoles are adopted. Logically speaking, this means that if console sales are steady--as they typically are now--that game sales would remain steady throughout--which isn't generally true (except for a few Wii releases like Wii Play). Again, not every game remains in production for the run of a console--as a matter of fact, almost no games remain in production during the entire run of a console. Production of Bioshock, Burnout Revenge, Fable II, and several other titles had long ceased by the time that I got my Xbox360 in late 2008. At the time, all copies of Bioshock were first-run copies that had been discounted to clear them out of stock. In fact, my copy of Fable II is a Platinum re-release with two downloadable bits included. And that version is also no longer in production.
How then, can sales of these titles--most of which would no longer be in production--suddenly shoot back up into the charts at any time just because hardware sales suddenly see a spike? It's extremely rare to find any game, ever, that remained in steady production during the entire lifespan of a console. Even Tetris wasn't constantly made for the entire run of the original Game Boy--and it's the highest selling title on that system because it was originally a pack-in. By your logic, all "popular" titles would have suddenly jumped back into the charts just because the Game Boy Pocket was released. I'm reasonably certain that many of those games, such as Metroid II and Super Mario Land were long out of production by the time the Game Boy Pocket brought new life to the Game Boy line.
No games released during the first two or three years of the Xbox360, no matter how popular, are still in wide release or production now--as we near the fifth anniversary of the Xbox360's launch. The only exceptions will be massively popular titles like Halo 3, or rereleases in the Platinum Hits line. The simple fact is, the new Xbox360 is selling, and not just to previous owners. For instance, I didn't buy an X360 and upgrade later, the 60-gig Pro got me to adopt. Same with the DS. I didn't buy that original ugly thing--I wasn't sold until the Lite hit. A lot of consumers are like that. There will always be new adopters, but two things always create (sometimes brief) increases in sales--a new lower price point, and a new edition of the system.
Finally, we seem to talking about two completely different things concering the final parts of our last two posts. I have no idea what you're talking about. Initially you said something about about Nintendo following Sony's methods of console development, which I dismissed, and now you're talking about average life spans of Nintendo systems (5 years), and seem to be agreeing with my original statement that the Wii will not remain dominant and that a successor is coming around 2011/2012.
