It seems to me like the industry as a whole is collapsing under its own weight, with ballooning costs and development times.
It seems to me like the industry as a whole is collapsing under its own weight, with ballooning costs and development times.
I don’t think so.
The only generation where I felt hardware was too powerful was the PS3 generation where, for years, the console was priced out of the range of most PS2 consumers despite not being highly priced enough for Sony to turn a profit on the hardware.
On software, I’m finding the exact opposite trend. We’re seeing way more games than ever before. During the Gamecube and N64 years, we might only get 25-75 games in an entire year. These days 25-75 new games could come out in a single week. Additionally, the genre spread is significantly higher than before.
Regarding AAA games, as in the iterative annual/biennial branch release franchises by EA, Ubisoft, and Activision? People have been complaining about those since the beginning. I’m not the best to comment about that part of the industry as those games aren’t my thing.
I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.
Jumpin said: I don’t think so. |
People also forgetting that a lot of stuff has been affected or pushed back due to Covid. That wasn't so long ago. That and shortages which affected to uptake of current generation consoles.
I put Blue Stinger in my Dreamcast last night. I could have a conversation elsewhere where I know Dead Space ripped off the Necromorphs from BS but that's not what I came to talk about.
I realize I am a huge fan of the Dreamcast and I love it so a part of me sees the games through the eyes of my teenage self when I first experience that system every time. Blue Stinger a launch game for DC now looks so insanely dated. That said in 1999 this was blowing people's minds. It had a crisp look to it not blurry like N64 games. Textures were sharp and not warping like PS1 games. Our main character had individual fingers whereas at the time human models always had blocky clubs for hands. The main character has strands of hair sticking out not a texture or blocky whatever like a Goldeneye. Pretty good animation and his lips moved while talking. Again unheard of back then. Within a few months, Shenmue blew it out of the water and Shenmue become not just the best-looking and most technically impressive console game but anywhere even on PC. It all looks so old now. My brain was just over the moon and this is a time magazines were saying we swear Sonic Adventure and Shenmue are not pre-rendered cutscenes like FF, it looks this good! We were young. (btw ZOE2 still looks amazing)
Now I played Final Fantasy XVI. It looks nice. I wish it ran better but it looks...nice but I was more impressed with XII when it launched on PS2 (talking standard environments like towns and people). As cool as the Eikon fights are, I'm more impressed with what is happening than how it looks on the technical side. Consoles are so powerful now all those little things that blew me away in Shenmue or Blue Stinger, are the standard now. When 3D was still new achieving realism was a noble goal. Now I just feel like lighting and stuff is great but it should not be the selling point anymore of the visuals. Look at Hi-Fi Rush. ToTK. Path of the Goddess. Bloodborne. Beautiful art styles. Bloodborne is what Nightmare Creatures wished it could look like. Consoles now have the power to truly sell really imaginative-looking games with all sorts of cool mechanics not possible in years past. Yet it's kinda sad when a game showcase is filled with bland-looking "realistic" FPS games that are all looking the same. Not saying there isn't a place for those games but you have all these tools to make something amazing and at least a 3rd if not half of those showcases are half a dozen games that look exactly the same.
Jumpin said: I don’t think so. |
The PS3 wasn't too powerful.
Sony just burdened it with unnecessary junk. - Essentially including PS2 hardware with every console, Blu-Ray player, Card-Reader, Wifi, Hard Drive, Other-OS, tons of I/O and more.
Cell was an unnecessary chip in the grand scheme of things... And nVidia charged a premium for their GPU which didn't offer much of an advantage over the Xbox 360 and could be argued was an inferior chip to the 360.
The Ram was expensive.
Once they slimmed and refocused the hardware, they managed to reduce it's cost and thus price.
Sony was just trying to make a jack-of-all-trades console that could do everything, cost be damned.
--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--
Leynos said: I put Blue Stinger in my Dreamcast last night. I could have a conversation elsewhere where I know Dead Space ripped off the Necromorphs from BS but that's not what I came to talk about. I realize I am a huge fan of the Dreamcast and I love it so a part of me sees the games through the eyes of my teenage self when I first experience that system every time. Blue Stinger a launch game for DC now looks so insanely dated. That said in 1999 this was blowing people's minds. It had a crisp look to it not blurry like N64 games. Textures were sharp and not warping like PS1 games. Our main character had individual fingers whereas at the time human models always had blocky clubs for hands. The main character has strands of hair sticking out not a texture or blocky whatever like a Goldeneye. Pretty good animation and his lips moved while talking. Again unheard of back then. Within a few months, Shenmue blew it out of the water and Shenmue become not just the best-looking and most technically impressive console game but anywhere even on PC. It all looks so old now. My brain was just over the moon and this is a time magazines were saying we swear Sonic Adventure and Shenmue are not pre-rendered cutscenes like FF, it looks this good! We were young. (btw ZOE2 still looks amazing) Now I played Final Fantasy XVI. It looks nice. I wish it ran better but it looks...nice but I was more impressed with XII when it launched on PS2 (talking standard environments like towns and people). As cool as the Eikon fights are, I'm more impressed with what is happening than how it looks on the technical side. Consoles are so powerful now all those little things that blew me away in Shenmue or Blue Stinger, are the standard now. When 3D was still new achieving realism was a noble goal. Now I just feel like lighting and stuff is great but it should not be the selling point anymore of the visuals. Look at Hi-Fi Rush. ToTK. Path of the Goddess. Bloodborne. Beautiful art styles. Bloodborne is what Nightmare Creatures wished it could look like. Consoles now have the power to truly sell really imaginative-looking games with all sorts of cool mechanics not possible in years past. Yet it's kinda sad when a game showcase is filled with bland-looking "realistic" FPS games that are all looking the same. Not saying there isn't a place for those games but you have all these tools to make something amazing and at least a 3rd if not half of those showcases are half a dozen games that look exactly the same. |
Blue Stinger was such a terrible game. Best DC games was Skies of Arcadia.
i7-13700k |
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RTX 4090 Ventus 3x E OC |
Switch OLED
Chrkeller said:
Blue Stinger was such a terrible game. Best DC games was Skies of Arcadia. |
It wasn't a great game but it was a technical achievement on launch
Pemalite said:
The PS3 wasn't too powerful. |
OK, I'll change my previous answer to this: I don't think any home console has been too powerful.
But I've been getting to thinking about handhelds and battery life. The Game Gear comes to mind.
I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.
Jumpin said:
OK, I'll change my previous answer to this: I don't think any home console has been too powerful. But I've been getting to thinking about handhelds and battery life. The Game Gear comes to mind. |
Battery life only needs to last a single gaming session.
For most that is just a few hours, for others, that may be 6+ hours, all down to personal needs and usage.
I know when I was younger I wouldn't want anything less than 8+ hours of life because I could game that long, fast forward to today and 2-4 hours is fine, not ideal, but fine, I don't have the time that I used to.
--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--