I am saying the PS3 is more than capable of producing a Suikoden-like game without HD graphics.

i'll be pretty happy if it does come to wii, i liked the other games well 3-5. if motion controls are done well it could be a great game

 You do realize that I, personally, do not care, correct? I may be the most emphatically anti-graphics-whore person in this forum. My most played games, to this day, are Counter Strike 1.6, Starcraft, Chess, and World of Warcraft. You do not have to convince me that lower-level graphics are okay, and again, I certainly udnerstood that the PS3 would be capable of a game with lower-end graphics; for the nth time, that's why I used the phrase "PS3-level graphics." That phrase was repeated multiple times in my first post (the one that spawned our current conversation) and it was chosen precisely because I'm aware that the PS3 doesn't technically require graphics of that calibur.

However, since we're now on an off-off-topic, there are lots of other people who disagree, and Sony certainly hasn't helped. Their entire marketing strategy is based around convincing people the PS3 is big, new, with better graphics and lots of amazing new features; Kuturagi has made preposterous claims about the system's power and significance; Jack Trenton has specifically stated that he believes their job is to provide gamers with "epic, expensive" games (or something very similar to that; I can't find the quotation right now. But he said it). Furthermore, Sony has specifically used the technical power of their system to attract people; they've lampooned the Wii for its low end graphics, and even tried consistently to use the slight advantage they have over the 360 in terms of power to convince people that their system is, in fact, the best.

Sony has worked tirelessly to convince people that they should expect flashy, expensive, epics like Heavenly Sword, Uncharted and upcoming games like Killzone 2. It is not surprising, then, that the owners of their system are, by and large, particularly concerned with receiving games of that graphical quality.  There are people who do not care so much about graphics and production values -- and guess what systems they're buying? The PS2 and Wii. 

Yeah, I agree with that, but its still not his point.

Bod: Did you see the edit I made to my last post?

Edit; I'll just copy it:

"Bodhesatva: Isn't it a bit early to start your 'doom and gloom' run for the RPG industry just yet? I agree the traditional JRPG is a dying breed, but games will change, and Japanese-made RPGs will survive. The movie industry is getting more popularized by the day, yet individual directors still make non-popcorn flicks. The same thing is already starting to happen in the videogame industry with people like Suda 51."

Also, don't forget technology and development gets cheaper all the time, so maybe there'll be some HD budget games in the future.

suikoden 2 was the best game by far (possibly my favorite game ever), i see that many people here haven't played 2 and 1. Those games were the best.

If you do not care then why did you start this "discussion?" Why are you replying at all?

I don't believe you're a troll so don't say this and begin acting like one. I have more respect for you than that.

Your phrase is wrong. You can repeat it as much and as often as you like and it will still be such.

1) I don't care about graphics. I should have made that more clear. However, I do care about the discussion of the industry, which is precisely what we're doing here.

2) The phrase is precisely correct. Please learn to comprehend -- I don't say that to be cruel, I say that because you seem to still not get it despite repeated attempts to explain it to you. Given the response of other posters such as NJ5 and Helios (Above, who specifically states that he understand my point), the problem is yours. Even if you didn't understand it immeaditely -- understand it now. Do you understand my point now? 

3)  Your discussion of generalities is logically invalid. We're talking about generalities, and then you say something like this: "So everyone in this forum or who owns a Wii automatically ONLY cares about "casual" games then because Nintendo has been pushing them?" That isn't a generality, it's a universality or an absolute, and that is enormously different. Do all Wii fans care only about casual fare? Clearly not. That is not absolutely true. Is it reasonable to say that in general there are more casual-oriented players with Wiis than 360s or PS3s? Yes, that is an entirely reasonable generality, and as such, one can reasonably conclude that casually-oriented games woudl sell much better on the Wii.  Similarly, games with low end graphics and technology are not aimed at the PS3 crowd. If Sony hadn't advertised the way they have, perhaps this wouldn't be the case -- but Sony has actively advertised the graphical power of their system. Yes, the people who own PS3 generally have certain expectations. If those expectations are not met, they will, generally speaking, not be interested.

Did you see many PS2 games with PS1 graphics? I didn't. It certainly would have saved the companies money if they had, though. Why didn't they do that? Because PS2 owners had certain graphical expectations, and games with PS1 graphics would generally speaking not have been accepted. 

 No, I didn't see that edit! Thanks.

Please note that I'm absolutely not saying that jRPGs are dying, just that they may be reaching a technical ceiling, where increased graphics, physics, AI, and other ambitious gameplay mechanics like "immersive worlds" are not going to increase much, simply because the revenue flow isn't there to warrant inreasing costs much beyond what we see now. I'm sure these processes WILL be streamlined to a degree, as you say, but it seems unlikely to create some fundamental shift. I could see middleware/etc. reducing costs by, say, 25 percent over time, and that would certainly raise the ceiling a bit; but does that really change anything fundamentally? It would just mean the ceiling is slightly higher, but the ceiling is still there, and it won't be going away unless more people start playing jRPG games -- which again, in the last 10 years, hasn't been happening. If anything, it's been the reverse.

That definitely doesn't mean that the jRPG genre will die out or become irrelevant, just that it wouldn't be the genre to be on the cutting edge graphically and technologically. 

1) Good.


2) Once upon a time, many people thought the world was flat. Someone said it was round and was mocked for it. Those people believing holding the former position, as numerous as they were, and their belief were wrong. The expectation that of what you deem "PS3-level graphics" is also wrong and so are the people that believe in it.


3) If you wish to believe that one company's marketing push is indicative about its userbase and not so of another, that would be an error. If you wish to believe that the userbase is dominant by those targetted in the company's marketing push and that a game not appealing to that userbase will not be successful, I will not disagree however I would not be so arrogant as to assume it true.

Also, do you really think that the cost difference of highend games of the PS1 versus PS2 is on the same level as that of the PS2 versus the PS3's? I would guess otherwise myself.

 2) You're welcome to believe we're all crazy and that you alone have a firm grasp of grammar and contextual implications, but that doesn't explain why we're still having problems. If you didn't understand me the first time, why hasn't any of my myriad, lengthy attempts to explain what I'm saying to you worked? Surely, if that initial phrase didn't stick for you for whatever reason, my later, more extensive explanations made my point crystal clear, yes? If so, why are we still discussing this?

3)  I am saying BOTH generalizations are true. The Wii does, generally speaking, have more casual gamers; the PS3 does, generally speaking, have a lot more people who expect Heavenly Sword level graphics from their games.


And I agree that there is no way the cost jump was as steep, but the fact that the PS1 -> PS2 jump in costs isn't as large doesn't change the point, does it? We agree that there is a significant jump in development cost in either case. If so, why didn't they develop games with PS1 level graphics? This is barely even a generality -- past perhaps the first year when developers were still grasping the new hardware, can you think of any games for the PS2 with PS1 level graphics? I can't, but I'm definitely not an expert on the PS2 library. Even smaller, A/AA games with low expectations still surpassed this threshold. 

Why did practically no one  decide to make a game with graphical power that low? Answer: because PS2 owners had certain expectations of what a game should look like, and games with graphics lower than that would see their sales profoundly impaired.