Number 1: This isn't a myth. This is fact. As a consumer, competition is great. As a business, competition is bad. When someone goes to a store and buys a game, they are buying that one game instead of every other game on the shelf for any number of reasons. Every reason they buy someone else's game instead of yours is a problem for you as it's money you just lost.

If you're independent developer #52, how do you go up against Nintendo?* Sure you can make a terrific game, but when Mario, a brand icon recognized by millions of people across the world, is plastered on the game next to it, what do you do? To top it off, Nintendo is already a recognized brand name just by someone owning a Nintendo Wii. Studio #52 is not. So you have Nintendo's Mario versus... who are you again? This is a David versus Goliath-esqe fight. Sure there are times where David beats Goliath and everyone cheers, but people quickly forget all the other people Goliath squished along the way.

By comparison, when your game is on the shelf next to game #51 and game #53, your odds of having it bought just went up. The consumer has no bias towards any of these studios nor icons. Your game has just as much chance of being bought as any other on the shelf leaving only the game itself and its box art to show the difference.

*Nintendo is just an example. It could easily be Square Enix or any other highly visible developer or brand name.

I do have some practical experience with AI, and while what you said is true I think you're overstating the importance of processing power for AI in the vast majority of games. In most games the majority of CPU processing power goes towards preparing data for the GPU (including managing the scenegraph, performing animation, and so on), and AI tends to be a much smaller consideration (with a large portion of the processing power going towards interpreting a scripting language which the AI scripts are written in).

Very few games actually have as many objects being manipulated through AI as you suggest (in most cases any objects far enough away from the player are static), and most of the intelligent interaction provided by the AI in PS3/XBox 360/PC games is produced from more complicated scripts and not through increased processing power; this means that they are entirely possible on the Wii.

I have to agree with ookaze that AI was a bad choice for a shortcomming of the Wii not having the additional processing power of the PS3/XBox 360 ...

Physics would have been a much better choice but, being that the two of the most interesting physics games are for the Wii and most gamers probably can't tell the difference between a poor simulation using ODE and a much better simulation using a more advanced physics engine, I'm not sure there is a big issue with this.

+2

:)

I agree with your first bolded statement regarding current console games.  I brought this particular issue up because the poster kept using PC game examples, many of which are RTS.  AI is one example, but the more general example is object management, which includes spending a lot of time preparing work for the GPU.  AI tends to become a CPU resource issue primarily in RTS games where hundreds of independently controlled objects are moving onscreen.  It can also become an issue in an RPG like Oblivion where the actions of many remote NPCs has to be tracked over a period of "game time".  I have been playing Oblivion in one city, went to "sleep", only to awake and have a dialog proclaim that a critical NPC had "died" in another city and that I would not be able to complete a certain question.  That sort of playing-out of remote activities can eat a good amount of CPU time if enough of them have to managed.

Your second bolded statement has nothing to do with RTS games, which tend to use an isometric view of the playing field, but I understand what you're driving at.

The point of my response was to give an example where having more CPU power could potentially make a difference in what was possible in some games.  This is obviously a generalized argument and can only be applied in specific instances.  As you probably noticed in my original post, I stated this to be true.

In support of Crumas2 - The game Supreme commander could make a Core2Quad 3.6ghz processor cry if you wanted to. The number of the objects on screen each with their own AI script in terrifying. The AI isn't even that complex either, its pretty basic when compared to the AI scripts in Assassins creed or GTAIV.