| d21lewis said: And that's what bothers me about the state of gaming, today. The integration of online (which isn't a new thing but really caught on, during the last gen and this gen) and motion controls (loved by some, and hated by others) are about the only features that seem to have made a permanent impact on gaming. Well, since the Wii became a massive success based on the promise of a new experience, it seems like nobody wants to launch a console without a "Gimmick". But look at the Wii. I own/enjoyed the system but how many gamers and customers bought the console, grew tired of the gimmick, and then asked, "Now what?" Was the Wii the right way to go? Yeah, Sony and Microsoft went after their market with the Move and Kinect (respectively) but was it time? Which leads me to the whole point of this rant: Technology for the sake of technology. Are things like the Dreamcast VMU, Kinect, Move, the Wii Remote, the 3DS's 3D screen, the Wii U's controller, the SIXAXIS motion control, the PS Vita's touch pad, etc.. just there to hook us? Do the gaming companies actually know what the hell they're doing when they push these things on us or are they just pushing the technology out of the door in the hopes that someone will figure out what to do with it? Are we just gunea pigs for new technology? Forgive me, but sometimes, I have a hard time figuring out exactly what all of this new stuff brings to the table when it comes to improving my gaming experience. |
The thing is, gaming is a very creative industry, and it can be hard to know what will work and what won't, what can have a good use and what can't. Gaming companies do all these things to make money of course, but they try to do so through innovation, most of the time anyway.
And even if it's something that will only hook us in a few games, they still tried. Sony did Sixaxis, it wasn't a big success and now we know that. But there were still games where I enjoyed using it.
Kinect may not be the future of gaming, but if I can play games that I enjoy with it, then that's really all I want. Maybe there will only be good dance games for it with everything else being mediocre at best, but I still enjoyed those dance games, and the 3D camera aspect was tried in the industry. Lesson learned, move on.
A lot of the time, your best bet is to throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks. You can sort the rough stuff out with R&D, but the creative community needs to get its hands on it before we know if it's the next big thing, or just a bit of fun.
