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Forums - Sales Discussion - The evolution of the console market over time

Ok  but what exactly make Switch games so different from, PS3 or PS4 games besides production value? Some of best selling Swtich are nothing but Wii U ports 

Or are you basing your list only on hardware aspects? 



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EDIT:  I am modifying my original post here to provide a more logical version of the first post.

Generation Arcade Games Arcade Evolution Balance PC Evolution PC Games
1

Magnavox Odyssey

Atari Pong

2

Atari 2600 

Intellivision

3

Atari 5200 

Colecovision

C64
4

Atari 7800                 

Master System

NES/Famicom
5

Genesis/Mega Drive

Neo Geo           

TG16/PCE

SNES/Super Famicom 

Gameboy

6

Saturn N64 PS1
7

Dreamcast                       

GBA

Gamecube

PS2                

Xbox

8 Wii DS

PS3          

XBox360      

PSP

9

Wii U       

3DS

PS4          

XB1        

PSVita

10 Switch

PS5             

X|S

For reference, I'll use the following terms.
1. Arcade Games: Consoles to play arcade games at home.
2. Arcade Evolution: Consoles to play games that have evolved from arcade gameplay.
3. Balance: Consoles that try to strike a balance between 2 and 4.
4. PC Evolution: Consoles that prioritize playing games which evolved from PC gameplay.
5. PC Games: Consoles to play PC games.

Also I define "Arcade" and "PC" based on what they primarily meant in the 20th century.
Arcade: Short, intense, easy to die, mainly challenges the body (e.g. coordination), uses a variety of controls especially joystick (or d-pad by extension), local multiplayer
PC: Long, slower paced, content heavy, focus on cutting edge graphics (including 3D graphics), challenges the mind (i.e. strategy, puzzle solving, etc...), uses primarily keyboard and/or mouse controls (or touchscreen and analogue stick by extension), online multiplayer

Generation 1-3: The focus of these consoles is to port arcade games onto a home system.

Generation 4:  Nintendo actually changes the nature of a home console, because of the Famicom Disk System (FDS).  If you look at the Japanese release dates of every game that came before The Legend of Zelda, you will actually see a bunch of pure arcade games (essentially the black box games).  The FDS introduces the ability to save data while still using the elementary Famicom controller which introduces a new type of game which has arcade controls, but is made for the home like The Legend of Zelda and Metroid.  Sega and Atari are still making systems primarily for arcade games.

Generation 5: Nintendo doubles down on combining arcade controls with content heavy games (e.g. Super Mario World, A Link to the Past, etc...).  In spite of this there are popular games that are both purely arcade games (e.g. Street Fighter 2) as well as PC Evolution games (e.g. Final Fantasy 6).  The Gameboy largely plays games like the NES and SNES.  The Neo Geo is quite obviously an arcade machine.  Sega is also still focused mostly on making arcade style games.  Some of these are pure arcade ports (e.g. Altered Beast, Golden Axe, etc...) while other games could have easily been put straight into the arcade (e.g. Sonic, Streets of Rage).

Generation 6:  All of the console makers move toward the PC side by moving heavily toward 3D graphics.  The PC was making 3D games for several years before this generation came along (e.g. Myst, Doom, Wing Commander, etc...).  Therefore PC game developers have a head start on first party developers when it comes to making 3D games.  Going forward game design ends up borrowing more and more from PC games out of necessity.  Nintendo and Sega only move somewhat toward the PC side, but still try to provide experiences that are somewhat arcade-like and Nintendo even sticks with cartridges.  Sony goes very strongly toward the PC side by adopting both a CD ROM and heavily encouraging 3D graphics from third party developers.  A lot of notable Playstation titles are either PC ports (e.g. Tomb Raider) or heavily inspired by PC style gameplay (e.g. Final Fantasy 7/8/9).  

Generation 7:  More of the same from the previous generation.  PC developers still have the advantage, so now games like GTA (a PC series) fully come into their own.  Nintendo is the sole maker of any significant handheld in this generation mostly because of their approach to hardware.  They go for cheaper/weaker hardware that does not drain batteries.  This philosophy paves the way for the GBA SP, which has a rechargeable battery.

Generation 8: Nintendo regained the top spot in the home market by bringing in a bunch of new customers instead of competing for Sony's customer base.  They also return more to their arcade roots with the Wii.  However, they get even further away from their arcade roots on the handheld side by including a touchscreen which simulates mouse controls.  Their approach to the DS also brings in a bunch of new customers.  They key to Nintendo's success in this generation was neither becoming more arcade-like or less arcade-like, but in offering experiences that would bring in new customers.  

Generation 9:  The Wii U and 3DS were both more complex and more expensive systems compared to their predecessors.  Consequently they both alienate a good chunk of their former fanbase. The Vita fairs even worse, and ends up killing Sony's handheld line.  PS4 gains a price advantage over XB1 early on and then later has a notable advantage in exclusives which guarantees it's commanding lead for the whole generation.

Generation 10: Sony and Microsoft continue to make consoles that are following the same philosophy of their predecessors.  Nintendo merges it's home and handheld lines into the Switch.  Every notable first party game on the Switch has a corresponding title on either the Wii U or 3DS (except RFA).  This shows that the main draw of the Switch is in it's hardware value.  In combining their home and handheld systems they took two low systems that many customers considered low value and made one very high value system.  In buying a Switch, a person essentially gets 2 systems (a home and a handheld) for the price of one.

In summary, the history of the console market shows that customers tend to buy the system that offers new experiences.  With the Famicom, Nintendo actually moved away from pure arcade gaming with the Famicom Disk System, and this move changed console gaming forever.  When 3D came along, success went to Playstation because it was the most PC-like system, and the best new experiences for most console gamers came from the PC or PC-like games.  When Nintendo made the DS and Wii, they were offering new experiences that gamers had never encountered before, and they greatly expanded the market (temporarily).  

However, since the DS and Wii, there has not been a system which came along to offer radically new software experiences.  Sony and Microsoft are following the same path they always have.  Nintendo, likewise, is largely making the same type of software that they have been making for decades.  The new experience with the Switch is on the hardware side.  Home console gamers can play their big budget games on the go if they like (e.g. BotW, Mario Odyssey, etc...).  At the same time handheld gamers are able to play games that are actually a new experience to them, since the Switch can play games much more sophisticated than the 3DS was capable of.  And of course, gamers who were already playing both home and handheld systems, get a very good value by buying one system instead of two.

The Switch is a different type of console than what has come before, because the innovation is purely on the hardware side and not really on the software side at all.  The Famicom, PS1, DS and Wii all innovated on the hardware side to offer different types of games.  The Switch is not offering different types of games.  It is offering better iterations of previous entries, much like the SNES did.  The lack of compelling new kinds of software indicates it will not appeal to non-gamers.  The value is entirely in the hardware, and therefore it is going to appeal to established gamers who understand that it is a better way to play the games they already enjoy.

Last edited by The_Liquid_Laser - on 08 April 2021

The_Liquid_Laser said:

This is an interesting categorization.  Probably the main thing that isn't quite so clear is what gets categorized as a "PC game" and what is "arcade evolution"?  I would probably call Animal Crossing a PC game, since it is a life sim.  However, it has never been available on PC.  On the other hand I'm not sure how I would categorize games like 3D Mario and 3D Zelda.  They don't feel like arcade evolved games or PC games to me.  I guess they are arcade evolved, but they are just a further iteration away from pure arcade games?


The other thing that isn't quite so clear is why Dreamcast and Gamecube are considered "Balance", while the N64 and Saturn are considered arcade evolution.  I do admit that I've never owned either a N64 or Saturn though.  From what I can tell N64 and Gamecube had very similar games, especially for the major releases.  Does this classification have more to do with third party games?  (But then again the Wii's third party library was not really strongly in the arcade evolution category.)  Dreamcast actually had a whole lot of arcade games: Marvel vs. Capcom, Powerstone, Guantlet: Dark Legacy, plenty of shmups, etc....

From Switch top 10 best sellers:

BOTW differs nothing from Sony/MS games,  I'd say it's closer to a PC game

Mario Kart is Arcade Evolved, no contest

Odyssey seems more like a balanced maybe? 

Smash is also more like an Arcade game

Sword and Shield is a classic console RPG but with very few focus in story and plotline, I don't know exactly how to classify it 

Let's Go is a mixed smartphone game and a classic Pokemon game 

Animal Crossing... I'm not sure. I don't get the same feelings playing AC as I do playing other simulators, I guess the fact the game meet major success playing in handhelds where people could play in small little sessions is their best selling point. I might consider it another thing altogether, maybe closer to mobile games than either PC or Console games 

Mario Party is... no idea. How do you see party games? 

Splatoon 2 is a PC game played on console. Anybody who disagrees with the single player campaign in mind don't really understand the popularity of the game lies on its multiplayer 

New Super Mario Bros U is also an arcade game

Bonus (future top 10): Monster Hunter Rise, also a balance between arcade games and PC games

Overall Switch strikes me more in the Balanced category than arcade evolved. Switch library being diverse is one of its selling point 



RolStoppable said:

Another example would be the JRPG genre which is an adaptation of PC RPGs; while in a PC RPG the player had a lot of options for the character build, the stat and talent growth with level ups was significantly streamlined for JRPGs like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. In all examples in this paragraph I am refering to the very first game in each series.

There is a nice video about it I watched while a go explaining this 

https://youtube.com/watch?v=fJiwn8iXqOI&feature=youtu.be

Basically Dragon Quest became popular because it brings a more accessible approach for the very complex PC RPGs (that were mostly based on the rules of board RPGs in mind)



im not sure why you put the switch as gen 10 since i called it in 2014 gen 8.5 because its exactly what the wii u should have been all along in my generation 8 prediction thread



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The_Liquid_Laser said:

This is an interesting categorization.  Probably the main thing that isn't quite so clear is what gets categorized as a "PC game" and what is "arcade evolution"?  I would probably call Animal Crossing a PC game, since it is a life sim.  However, it has never been available on PC.  On the other hand I'm not sure how I would categorize games like 3D Mario and 3D Zelda.  They don't feel like arcade evolved games or PC games to me.  I guess they are arcade evolved, but they are just a further iteration away from pure arcade games?


The other thing that isn't quite so clear is why Dreamcast and Gamecube are considered "Balance", while the N64 and Saturn are considered arcade evolution.  I do admit that I've never owned either a N64 or Saturn though.  From what I can tell N64 and Gamecube had very similar games, especially for the major releases.  Does this classification have more to do with third party games?  (But then again the Wii's third party library was not really strongly in the arcade evolution category.)  Dreamcast actually had a whole lot of arcade games: Marvel vs. Capcom, Powerstone, Guantlet: Dark Legacy, plenty of shmups, etc....

the arcade branch with Atari, Sega, Nintendo have one contender now: Nintendo. In Generation 3 and 4, Nintendo has a great conteder, pumped arcade game style, Sega. Now, Sega embraced the cinematograph games. Cinematograph games have pc roots.

The Pc branch with Sony, Microsoft, and Activision and EA pumped the games have a crowd competition. The Action Gun/Sword game with narrative direction it's a saturation point now. And the arcades base styles, have Nintendo with the leader of the segment. Race, Fighter, Platform, Zelda( besides Adveture or Rpg), Strategy, Sim, etc.

Animal Crosssing is arcade sim, because of short of times of play. the more simplification of rules. 



IcaroRibeiro said:
RolStoppable said:

Another example would be the JRPG genre which is an adaptation of PC RPGs; while in a PC RPG the player had a lot of options for the character build, the stat and talent growth with level ups was significantly streamlined for JRPGs like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. In all examples in this paragraph I am refering to the very first game in each series.

There is a nice video about it I watched while a go explaining this 

https://youtube.com/watch?v=fJiwn8iXqOI&feature=youtu.be

Basically Dragon Quest became popular because it brings a more accessible approach for the very complex PC RPGs (that were mostly based on the rules of board RPGs in mind)

yeah DQ and FF are child of Wizardly and Ultima, the arcade version and streamlined of these games.



RolStoppable said:
The_Liquid_Laser said:

This is an interesting categorization.  Probably the main thing that isn't quite so clear is what gets categorized as a "PC game" and what is "arcade evolution"?  I would probably call Animal Crossing a PC game, since it is a life sim.  However, it has never been available on PC.  On the other hand I'm not sure how I would categorize games like 3D Mario and 3D Zelda.  They don't feel like arcade evolved games or PC games to me.  I guess they are arcade evolved, but they are just a further iteration away from pure arcade games?


The other thing that isn't quite so clear is why Dreamcast and Gamecube are considered "Balance", while the N64 and Saturn are considered arcade evolution.  I do admit that I've never owned either a N64 or Saturn though.  From what I can tell N64 and Gamecube had very similar games, especially for the major releases.  Does this classification have more to do with third party games?  (But then again the Wii's third party library was not really strongly in the arcade evolution category.)  Dreamcast actually had a whole lot of arcade games: Marvel vs. Capcom, Powerstone, Guantlet: Dark Legacy, plenty of shmups, etc....

Arcade games and PC games used to have very strong differences, but much like the definitions and borders of video game genres, it begins to blend into each other over time. That's why younger people are probably unable to tell a difference for the most part.

An arcade game had to be instantly understood to get players hooked, because otherwise people would just walk over to the next cabinet. This created a very different setting for software competition than on the PC where games could afford to have steep learning curves. A logical result of this is that arcade games needed very few buttons for their controls whereas games on a PC worked with the keyboard and had virtually no limit on the keys being used in games.

The example of Animal Crossing has similarities to Fire Emblem where you may feel inclined to assign it to the PC side because you associate the genre itself with the PC, but in both cases the games have a distinct feel to them because their approach was not to get a PC game to work on a console, but rather to adapt a PC genre by working from the premise of console game design, which means that only a few buttons cover all important functions while at the same time there's a focus on only the key ingredients instead of offering dozens of options. Another example would be the JRPG genre which is an adaptation of PC RPGs; while in a PC RPG the player had a lot of options for the character build, the stat and talent growth with level ups was significantly streamlined for JRPGs like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. In all examples in this paragraph I am refering to the very first game in each series.

3D games on console like Mario and Zelda can be called a further step away from pure arcade games. There's certainly some bloatiness and timewasting involved that isn't present in their 2D counterparts, so they aren't quite the same. I'd say that comes with the added dimension for gameplay that necessitates a bit more complexity in both controls and level design.

The classification is based on what console manufacturers went for. The Saturn and N64 should probably be a half-step between Arcade Evolution and Balance for the above mentioned reason that 3D games don't have the same purity as older arcade games in quite a few genres. Both the Dreamcast and GameCube had their manufacturers adjust to be more like PlayStation, so it would be correct to say that both major first and third party software efforts determine where a console is placed. I say "major" because you can find something of almost everything on modern consoles, but the key is where the emphasis is.

Ok, you are using a very different classification then I would use.  I do not associate PC games with having a steep learning curve, per se.  The principle of "easy to learn, difficult to master" is simply a principle of good game design, whether it is on the PC or console or arcade or a board game or whatever.  The average PC game in the 80's and 90's did, in fact, have a steeper learning curve compared to the average arcade or console game, but that is because of another more important reason, which I'll state in a bit.  I remember playing Warcraft 1 and 2, though.  These games are extremely easy to learn.  In reality the main campaign for these games is actually a huge tutorial, but it doesn't feel that way, because the games are so well designed including being very easy to learn and yet difficult to master.

There are plenty of pure PC games that I like and there are plenty of pure arcade games that I like, and here are the main differences I see between the two platforms.  (This especially is referring to 20th century games).

Arcade:  Short, intense, focus on intuitive controls, easy to die, mainly challenges the body (i.e. coordination, timing, reflexes, etc...).
PC:  Long, slower paced, content heavy, focus on cutting edge graphics, mainly challenges the mind (i.e. strategy, puzzle solving, etc...).

Just going by these qualities I've stated, neither arcade nor PC gaming is inherently better than the other.  However, since PC games challenged the mind, they tended to have a steeper learning curve just to make that challenge interesting.  Arcade games, on the other hand, did tend to be simple, because a person needed to feel they had a meaningful experience in about 3 minutes.  So, arcade game designers did tend to be better at executing the "easy to learn, difficult to master" principle.

I think that there needs to be a "PC evolved" category, just for the sake of making discussion easier.  I would call NES games like The Legend of Zelda, Mega Man, Metroid, Castlevania, and Mike Tyson's Punch Out, "arcade evolved".  Their basic gameplay comes from the arcade, but they are also longer, with more content, than a pure arcade game.  They are mostly on the arcade side, but borrow somewhat from PC design.  I would call games like Dragon Quest and Fire Emblem "PC evolved".  They borrow from a PC genre, but they are also made simpler and more intuitive for the console.  I would also call a game like DOOM "PC evolved".  This was the first time an action game became really popular on the PC.  That was a big part of it's appeal.  To me it felt like a "casual action game" in the same way that Dragon Quest feels like a "casual RPG".  The controls on consoles were better than keyboard and mouse.  In reality though, they borrowed a few elements from arcade game design to make DOOM.  However, it came to PC first, because PC could handle 3D graphics better than consoles could.  The graphics focus makes it a PC game, but the action part is why I would call it "PC evolved".

Last edited by The_Liquid_Laser - on 27 March 2021

IcaroRibeiro said:
RolStoppable said:

Another example would be the JRPG genre which is an adaptation of PC RPGs; while in a PC RPG the player had a lot of options for the character build, the stat and talent growth with level ups was significantly streamlined for JRPGs like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. In all examples in this paragraph I am refering to the very first game in each series.

There is a nice video about it I watched while a go explaining this 

https://youtube.com/watch?v=fJiwn8iXqOI&feature=youtu.be

Basically Dragon Quest became popular because it brings a more accessible approach for the very complex PC RPGs (that were mostly based on the rules of board RPGs in mind)

Accessibility is a big factor.  The video kind of hints at the other factor though, but doesn't quite come out and say it. 

To a Japanese person, playing Dragon Quest feels like a manga turned into a video game.  There isn't much story in DQ1, so it might not be obvious.  However, if you look at how JRPGs evolved, with a huge story focus, then it becomes more obvious.  The Japanese play RPGs to feel like they are playing a manga.  The main way DQ1 accomplished this is to get a professional manga artist to do the art design of the game.



The_Liquid_Laser said:
IcaroRibeiro said:

There is a nice video about it I watched while a go explaining this 

https://youtube.com/watch?v=fJiwn8iXqOI&feature=youtu.be

Basically Dragon Quest became popular because it brings a more accessible approach for the very complex PC RPGs (that were mostly based on the rules of board RPGs in mind)

Accessibility is a big factor.  The video kind of hints at the other factor though, but doesn't quite come out and say it. 

To a Japanese person, playing Dragon Quest feels like a manga turned into a video game.  There isn't much story in DQ1, so it might not be obvious.  However, if you look at how JRPGs evolved, with a huge story focus, then it becomes more obvious.  The Japanese play RPGs to feel like they are playing a manga.  The main way DQ1 accomplished this is to get a professional manga artist to do the art design of the game.

This also remember another key difference from JRPGs compared to western RPGs. Western RPGs follows the premise of board RPGs where you create and customize a character, the focus is in the role-play. I can't tell much about how was gaming during the 80's, but the PC RPGs I used to play such as Dota, Lineage, Ultima, WoW, etc were always very focused in "Let the player be whatever the player wants"

While JRPGs are overall an anime/manga story that you can play. The characters have a well defined story and set of abilities and you rarely can so much more than what are designed to them before hand