Have you tried Zack and Wiki, Mummelmann?

@ Happy Squirrel

Where did I state that? It almost seems you make things up...

I have always advocated against those who dissed the PS2 as not being a current gen system, I have bought many PS2 gems for my PS3, so what makes you say this? (I told you before!)

However how much I love God of War 1 & 2, just watch the included interviews. They state they had to make sacrifices for these games for technical reasons, they had additional good ideas they weren't able to implement in the gameplay which will find their way into God of War 3.

Even playing games like Super Stardust HD, Motorstorm, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction or Unreal Tournament on a humble 480 (NTSC) or 576 line (PAL) TV you will notice many things the Wii simply cannot handle in 480p. Like the amount of things going on at once at a solid framerate or water physics, smooth diverse animations, frentic 12 car online multiplay with great physics, etc, etc (and yes, also graphics even in such a low resolution).

No, good games are not dependent solely based on processing power, Pacman and Tetris are absolutely fine games, Super Mario World like stated on many occassions is one of my all-time favourites. Okami, God of War, Mario64, etc, etc, all great games.

I think Christmas, or just plain Fall '08, won't be as good as this year. I think Nintendo will have better sales the first half of the year in '08. I'm not really sure about the games that are being released for the second-half, so I really can't be for sure.

Seeing a lot of childishness in this thread, so I will say something which may put some salt into open wounds. The Wii is much MUCH closer specced to the PS2 than to the PS3. Yes, IMO this will hurt the platform eventually for lovers of Epic games. Yes the Wii is more like a cheap toy you give your kids for christmas.

The Wii is easier to develop for to some extend (especially if you are familiar with the GameCube dev tools), but to push the system as far as Mario Galaxy does will cost developers more, lots of tweaking, finding ways around trade-offs and optimising, IMO devs can yield better and quicker results with fewer trade-offs on the 360 or PS3, especially if you use existing middleware like the Unreal engine.

Mummelmann said: Avinash_Tyagi said: Mummelmann, if you give something that actually shows why Wii sales will slow down then maybe you won't have people disagreeing with you, so far your arguments are its too casual, people won't keep playing it, but like I said in another thread, this doesn't stop gamers from buying it, just because there is Wii fit doesn't get rid of Mario Galaxy, just because the controls are more pick up and play doesn't stop it from having the best FPS controls outside of Keyboard and Mouse.   Nintedo is targeting indifference to gaming as their enemy, but that doesn't mean those who like gaming can't play, there are still games aimed at them, like Metroid, defintely not aimed at causal  But if machines like the Wii really ARE the future, we'll see more casual games and less hardcore, which is my prime concern. I want Gran Turismo, Zelda, Final Fantasy, Half-Life and my other favourite franchises to live on! I'm just afraid that the chase after profits will deflate the industry's will to cater to "real" gamers, it's already happening to the music and the movie industry! Diversity is good imo, I say let it live!

I really don't understand this idea that devs will get lazy if the industry goes in Nintendo's direction and makes it a mix of games for the hardcore and the people who just want to play the odd game.

 You reference the movie industry:

It's true that we get tossed-together crap like "Are We Done Yet?" and studios still make a profit, but does that stop them from making fantastic stuff like PotC, I Am Legend, or LotR?  There is plenty of room for both.  Do you realy think Square Enix or Bungie will just suddenly forget what made them awesome and only make throwaway garbage?

 In fact, SE is an interesting dev to discuss here--like Nintendo, they know how to cater to both sides of the crowd.  They make lighthearted, casual, 'fun' games like FFCC or Dragon Quest Swords, but that doesn't stop them from pouring tons of effort and skill into the main series Final Fantasy or Kingdom Hearts.

 Of course, this is just my opinion, feel free to rebuke it.

MikeB said: Seeing a lot of childishness in this thread, so I will act childish as well.

Fixed that for you.  :)

Entroper said: MikeB said: Seeing a lot of childishness in this thread, so I will act childish as well. Fixed that for you.  :)

So, do you disagree with what I wrote above? Seriously?

@ RolStoppable

Epic as in very extensive and high production value games, not the company.



I bought the Snes mainly for Super Mario World and the Nintendo 64 solely for Mario 64. I know others for whom Mario or Zelda was the primary reason why they bought Nintendo systems.

For the Wii so far Wii Sports seems to be the primary driving force.

MikeB said: Seeing a lot of childishness in this thread, so I will say something which may put some salt into open wounds. The Wii is much MUCH closer specced to the PS2 than to the PS3. Yes, IMO this will hurt the platform eventually for lovers of Epic games. Yes the Wii is more like a cheap toy you give your kids for christmas. The Wii is easier to develop for to some extend (especially if you are familiar with the GameCube dev tools), but to push the system as far as Mario Galaxy does will cost developers more, lots of tweaking, finding ways around trade-offs and optimising, IMO devs can yield better and quicker results with fewer trade-offs on the 360 or PS3, especially if you use existing middleware like the Unreal engine.

 The same thing was said about the NES when it was first launched, how it was a toy, how gaming PCs could do stuff better and bigger

MikeB said: Seeing a lot of childishness in this thread, so I will say something which may put some salt into open wounds. The Wii is much MUCH closer specced to the PS2 than to the PS3. Yes, IMO this will hurt the platform eventually for lovers of Epic games. Yes the Wii is more like a cheap toy you give your kids for christmas. The Wii is easier to develop for to some extend (especially if you are familiar with the GameCube dev tools), but to push the system as far as Mario Galaxy does will cost developers more, lots of tweaking, finding ways around trade-offs and optimising, IMO devs can yield better and quicker results with fewer trade-offs on the 360 or PS3, especially if you use existing middleware like the Unreal engine.

Developers have been saying for quite a while now that it cost 2 to 4 times as much to develop a similar PS3 or XBox 360 game as it does to produce a Wii game; this means that a PS3 or XBox 360 game needs 2 to 4 times the sales on the PS3 or XBox 360 to have a similar return on investment and justify the games development. The Unreal 3 engine does reduce the cost to develop PS3 or XBox 360 games but the Unreal 2 engine reduces the cost of producing a Wii game on the same level.

Now, I've seen these arguments from you (and people just like you) since the Nintendo DS was released in 2004; the argument that "eventually more people will care about graphics" or that third party developers will ignore the system because "it lacks the processing power to produce Next-Gen games" is flawed and we both know it. People play games because they have fun doing it, if they really want to look at pretty graphics they throw a DVD movie in; once graphics got to the level where anyone could really identify what was occuring onscreen without any imagination (approximately the Dreamcast) it became unimportant how much more powerful your system is.