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curl-6 on 20 October 2017
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freebs2 said:
curl-6 said:

(1) PS4 has a much more diverse library than Switch though; missing MMOs and MOBAs (genres that aren't really popular in the console space) isn't such a big deal compared to missing pretty much any content at all rated higher than PG, which as the sales charts attest, accounts for a huge proportion of what is popular in gaming today. Nobody benefits from Switch lacking these games; not Nintendo, not third parties, not gamers.

(2) TLOU was never state of the art, when it came out in 2013 PS3 was ancient hardware, and its PS4 port wasn't technically high end even by the standards of the platform's early days. You don't need high end tech to create adult experiences. Even the Wii had a number of successful titles aimed at adults.

(3) And Vita's failure has nothing to do with offering M-rated experiences. It has to do with a lot of things, from a lack of killer apps to overpriced memory cards, but not that.

(1) MMOs and MOBAs are really popular generas, they aren't very much played them on consoles becuase no one tried to push them on console. Guiltlessly I would say, they had different priorities. Also I'm not saying the fact the Switch is lacking in certain genras is benefitting anyone, it's just that since you suggested Nintendo 1st party should spend their resources to "cover the holes" and my argument is that they should take a different approach. Instead of looking at what's popular on other consoles and copy it, they should use an incremental strategy.

 

  • See what kind of game experiences are already popular on the platform
  • Expore adjacent game experiences, focus on genras and playstyles that are different but close in some aspects to what customers already like on the platform.
  • Focus on making adjacent game experiences popular and once those are established move to the next adjacency.
  • Repeat the process for some and you'll have a diverse library that at same time refects yout initial strenghts and identity.

 

(2) I'm not even a fan of TLOU, in fact I believe it's vastly overrated as a game, but on the technical side it's not state of art I can't really tell what state of the art is. It's probably the best looking game of 2013 despite the fact it run on a 7 years old hardware (although at the time there weren't techically superior consoles on the market). 

And Yes, you need high-tech hardware to make a game like TLOU, you'll need a machine capable of rendering realistic faces, characters and enviroments, use a less powerfull hardware and the game will look old form the beginning. It's interesting you mention m-rated Wii games since, as far as I remember every M-rated game on Wii bombed or had lackluster results at best, even the DS had a couple of high-quality m-rated games, most notably GTA: CW and despite very good reviews, the immense popularity of the series and the vast user base it bombed.

(3) You're confusing M-rated for a genre or a playstyle. Mortal Kombat is an M-rated game but imo it can work well on a handheld. TLOU is a linear action game with an high enphasis on narrative and presentation, these are the kind of experiences that Sony wanted to push on the system but couldn't work because they don't play accordingly to the system's strenghts. You mention lack of killer apss, but Vita had games like Killzone and Uncharted, those games were killer apps on the Ps3.

(1) That sounds like a needlessly slow and laborious process when you could just skip the red tape and go straight to building up the kind of games you lack. Gamers don't need to be warmed up to M-rated content, it's already mainstream and popular.

(2) TLOU launched on hardware weaker than Switch and which was 7 years out of date at the time. And M-rated Wii games like COD and Resident Evil had solid and profitable sales.

(3) The idea that gamers don't want console-like experiences on the go has already been disproven by such games doing great on Switch.