"Console Quality" In Relation to Handheld Games

[F0X]

Zekkyou said:

F0X said:

Ah, this is much closer to what I'm looking for. There are compromises to be made when developing certain kinds of games for handhelds, sure. It's essentally like developing games on older hardware, I'd say. Although, the gain is portability and the conievence of being able to stop and continue a game at virtually any time. From my perspective, these factors enchance the game and help make up for the defecit in other areas. So I do find it unfair to view one means of gaming as objectively superior to the other, because the trade-offs have a ton of potential subjective value tied to them, especially from a cultural standpoint (see: Japan's love for handhelds).

But, my problem is mainly with the term itself and how it's used, not the purported definition. As it stands, I see "console quality" being used as some sort of standard that handheld games should be striving for, and that drives me nuts. Quality is not dependant on hardware (or at least not hardware alone). You will get advantages and disadvantages on each platform, but creativity (and good game design) is born from placing restrictions on one's own capabilities. I'd much rather see terms like Killzone, Uncharted, or AssCreed being "handheldized" rather than imply that the overall quality will, by nature, take a hit.

I pretty much agree with you. At a face value console games are obviously superiors to handheld games, but that's balanced out in a way by the portability. I'm not sure portability can be considered an actual advantage of quality, instead convenience, but non the less i get your point.

Yeah the context people use the term in rarely makes sense, since there is no unified "console quality" to measure from. To be honest i think a more appropriate statement would be "console style of quality". The PSP and Vita for example fall into that statement quite well, but their games are no better than those of the DS/3DS, the consoles themselves was just designed to give a more console like experiences.

I believe that convenience can be a factor of quality, albiet a subjective one. It's reasonable to say that the superior gaming experience (for me) is the one that better fits in with my lifestyle and ingrained preferences, but not so reasonable to treat it as universially superior. But that kind of thinking doesn't jive well with the console war mentality. :P

I think you're right in that "console style of quality" is more of a hardware design focus than a software-based reality.