Innovation is such a loose word and the meaning will be different from person to person and it'd be hard to simply define what exactly is being innovative.

I think the thing we can agree on is that higher costs of games hurt the smaller developers. Everything else however, is up in the air.

@Happy, I actually agree with you. I agree if you have the budget to toss, go for the gold and go epic. But if a game like Disgaie (sp?) can sell so well in Japan, and have THOSE graphics. Then it's proof that you don't NEED graphics to sell.

I'm personally really happy with the PS3 because the experience is unlike I've ever had before in terms of involvement with the world. I was watching the intro to Ratchet and clank (which is pretty damn nice animation quality) and then the camera pans down on the city and shows my character standing there, and I bullshit you not, I was so curious as to why this cutscene was taking forever to do something untill I realized that I had entered the actual game itself. It was one of the most breath taking moments for me in videogame history lol. So I do think the enhanced power can really bring out the immersion, but for god's sake if you can't do it well don't do it xD Focus on core gameplay mechanics, and just let the hardware offer what it can. Increased resolution, more things on screen, better lighting, physics's etc etc. 

Hahah, that game got me at the same point. R&C is really a beautiful game, just wish the gameplay was a little more interesting. I love the platforming portions of the game but I can't say I'm terribly impressed by the heavy shooter elements.

I'm guessing they are trying to do exactly the same as what now exisits in the movie and TV world; the same movies and TV series with the same stories and the same ideas but with different actors and locations.


Shrek 1,2,3 - Pirates of the Carribean 1,2,3 - Die hard 1,2,3,4 - Rambo 1,2,3,4 - Rocky 1,2,3,4 - Spiderman 1,2,3 and endless CGI movies recycled again and again.

Same old crap sold to us time and time again.

 I think the shooting was fine, just the difficulty was way off -_-; they really did make that game too easy. They had the shooting down soooo well in Ratchet and Clank Deadlocked. I guess they just tweaked it a bit too much for difficulty sake :(

I agree with Happy here, and I think his point wasn't that if you can't do it, you shouldn't try, but that if there's no reason to spend the extra 10 million on graphical upgrades, you shouldn't.

Here's my reasoning. The PS3 and 360 are both fighting the graphics war. The big studio's seem hell bent on proving which console can produce the prettier graphics. As someone pointed out earlier, they are attempting to ride the cutting edge. But just like anything else in technology, the cutting edge is MUCH more expensive.

Who here actually buys the newest and greatest tech tidbit to come to market? I certainly don't, because I can get the second best for half the cost. Why spend rediculous amounts of money gaining marginal returns on that investment, when they could make games at that "second best" level for much cheaper and they'd STILL look amazing?

The problem with companies riding the cutting edge is that it promotes an environment where people start comparing games more on graphics than on content as a whole. In that environment, studio's need to continue riding the cutting edge to compete which drives up development costs for everyone and turns it into a situation like we have now.

5-10 years ago, a small percentage of games had huge budgets, which is perfectly fine. Now, most games have huge budgets and everyone suffers. Games are more expensive to buy, take longer to make and if they bomb (aka Lair), the studio and publishers lose massive amounts of money.

It's not that the shooting parts in R&C are bad, it's just that they're not very inspired. It's slow, methodical, and I feel like I've played those segments 10,000 times before.

On the other hand, the platforming segments are fast, somewhat interesting, and offer vastly different experiences.

 But at the same time your forgetting a universal quote, "If it isn't broken, don't fix it". Franchises offer you an experience of "more of the same" (which could be a universal 10 in your book), while offering smaller tweaks in gameplay. I wouldn't consider franchises bad in any regards. If you feel the gameplay gets stale, theres nothing forcing you to continue to support it.

For perspective I want to state that the comment in the OP talking innovation is software (aka gameplay). On that note Sony has, without a doubt in my mind, made attempts to innovate. Eye of Judgement is a great example. That's a game I've never seen before anywhere. Unfortunately, the sales of EoJ were horrible and money was lost.

And I think that is the point of the OP. Microsoft and Sony have made a machine that has really good graphics, they marketed their machines based off of how good their graphics are, and they created an audience that demands great graphics. Great graphics make for large budget games. The larger the budget the more risk adverse a company (any company large or small) becomes because of the potential losses.

The wii has certain advantages over the 360 and ps3 for innovative software. Part because of the unique controller, part because the wii audience doesn't demand lush graphics (meaning a B team game (like RE:UC) won't be immediately dismissed), part because the budgets are smaller so if a game flops it's not quite as big a deal to the companies bottom line.

summary..

To say the 360 and ps3 are innovation killers is definitely not true. What is true is companies will be somewhat more risk adverse when developing for them compared to when they developing games for the wii.

Among all the opinions given on this thread, i just have to agree with the squirrel guy  :D. This graphics war sometimes gets boring,while no one fights over who makes the more "fun" games or  fun and innovative ways of playing them.