RolStoppable said: Sony's plan was that the PS3 will gain massmarket penetration, it's not meant to be a product for the highend market. Their business model of the PS3 is based on dominating the market or else they won't make money on the PS3.

A highend console would never work solely because you need a games library and to get games you need the userbase. In theory if they made a PS3+ and PS3regular and one supported features like enhanced textures on games that could be played in either or would be the only way it would work.

 

Sony doesn't care about going back on their word(rumble anyone) they may be interested in using the pack in with the PS2 to gauge interest in who would buy them and as a way of low cost experimentation for developing games in the future for thsi type of control set up.

 

The PS2 has already sold bucket loads and it turns them a profit. They can afford to do a little experiment at the end which could capitilize on the sold out sales of the Wii this holiday and help kee the PS brand name alive. So when it comes time to do the PS4 Sony would already have had some experience with the type of set up that the Wii has without having to go through the pains most developers are going through on the Wii on their next brand new game system.

@ redspear

History of the D-pad:

"A precursor to the standard D-pad was used by the Intellivision console, which was released by Mattel Electronics in 1980. The Intellivision's unique controller featured the first alternative to a joystick on a home console, a circular pad that allowed for 16 directions of movement by pressing it with the thumb. A precursor to the D-pad also appeared on Entex's short lived "Select A Game" cartridge based handheld system; it featured non-connected raised left, right, up and down buttons aligned to the left of a row of action buttons.

The first "connected" (pad) style D-pad appeared appropriately enough in 1981 on a handheld game system: "Cosmic Hunter" on Milton Bradley's Microvision. The pad was operated the same way today's D-pads do, using the thumb to manipulate the onscreen "hero" character in any of four directions."

DonWii said: @MikeB I know about Guitar Hero, hence, rarely. Rumble was the addition to the controller. Sony is adding a whole new controller wand. Not the same as a hardware update to the controller. As for a bundled game, well, that is just speculation. Lets wait for an official anouncement.

Actually I've always felt that Guitar Hero is a fantastic example of the limitations of an added peripheral, not a glorious example of its success.

Yes, the game "Guitar Hero" did well. But the Peripheral? No other games use it. People don't buy it for any other reason. In short, less than 1 percent of all games on the PS2 used the Guitar, and less than 3 percent of all PS2 owners bought Guitar Hero.

You can't make a ton of games with a 3 percent install base, especially on a console that is being systematically killed by its producers. Could they make a few games with some fun effects? Sure. But that's about all we'd see, I suspect.

MikeB said: @ redspear The layout of the buttons come from the SNES and not the genesis(diaond pattern) the game and watch had the first D-pad which was used for the NES. History of the D-pad: "A precursor to the standard D-pad was used by the Intellivision console, which was released by Mattel Electronics in 1980. The Intellivision's unique controller featured the first alternative to a joystick on a home console, a circular pad that allowed for 16 directions of movement by pressing it with the thumb. A precursor to the D-pad also appeared on Entex's short lived "Select A Game" cartridge based handheld system; it featured non-connected raised left, right, up and down buttons aligned to the left of a row of action buttons. The first "connected" (pad) style D-pad appeared appropriately enough in 1981 on a handheld game system: "Cosmic Hunter" on Milton Bradley's Microvision. The pad was operated the same way today's D-pads do, using the thumb to manipulate the onscreen "hero" character in any of four directions."

Funny you should stop quoting right there. I wonder why you would do that? Oh yes, because the next paragraph is this:

In 1982, Nintendo's Gunpei Yokoi updated this idea, shrinking it and altering the points into the familiar modern "cross" design for their Donkey Kong handheld game. The design proved to be popular for subsequent Game & Watch titles, although the previously introduced non-connected D-pad style was still utilized on various later Game & Watch titles, including the Super Mario Brothers handheld game. This particular design was patented.

No, Nintendo did not invent the idea of a directional pad; they did significantly upgrade it, however. They produced the modern version, which they patented.  

@ RolStoppable

But the Wii-mote is a gimmick aka "novel device". I wouldn't be surprised if Wii-mote style controllers are here to stay (IMO not the best controller for everything though!), but if Sony just meant the Nintendo Wii as a whole probably won't last as long as the PS3 will I would share such an opinion.

MikeB said: @ redspear The layout of the buttons come from the SNES and not the genesis(diaond pattern) the game and watch had the first D-pad which was used for the NES. History of the D-pad: "A precursor to the standard D-pad was used by the Intellivision console, which was released by Mattel Electronics in 1980. The Intellivision's unique controller featured the first alternative to a joystick on a home console, a circular pad that allowed for 16 directions of movement by pressing it with the thumb. A precursor to the D-pad also appeared on Entex's short lived "Select A Game" cartridge based handheld system; it featured non-connected raised left, right, up and down buttons aligned to the left of a row of action buttons. The first "connected" (pad) style D-pad appeared appropriately enough in 1981 on a handheld game system: "Cosmic Hunter" on Milton Bradley's Microvision. The pad was operated the same way today's D-pads do, using the thumb to manipulate the onscreen "hero" character in any of four directions."

In 1982, Nintendo's Gunpei Yokoi updated this idea, shrinking it and altering the points into the familiar modern "cross" design for their Donkey Kong handheld game. 

 why don't you keep on quoting. oh and Gunpei Yokoi had released a game in 1980 with 4 seperate buttons in a diamond shape menat to move the character.

 

K further on down

 

and Nintendo made the D-pad the standard directional control for the hugely successful Famicom/Nintendo Entertainment System under the name "+Control Pad".

 

Standard is the Key and the most important thing about market penetration.

Sullla said: It's an idea, and possibly worth it for Sony to take a shot at this idea. However, as DonWii mentioned mentioned above, peripherals simply don't capture enough of the market for this ever to be more than a niche phenomenon. The reason why the PS2 continues to do well today is largely due to its gigantic installed base of more than 100 million. If new games are released that will only work with a motion-sensing controller, that install base drops down to 0, killing the biggest edge of the PS2. Here are the groups Sony would need to convince for this to be a success: * Convince developers to make games using the motion-sensing controls. * Convince consumers to purchase the motion-sending controller. * Convince consumers to continue supporting the PS2 even longer into the future with game purchases. It looks like an attractive idea on paper: hey, why not get all those PS2 owners to upgrade with our new controller, undercutting the Wii's market! Unfortunately, the precedents for this in the gaming industry are not good. Developers rarely support peripherals; why spent a lot of money developing a game only a small portion of your install base can use? That's not a winning proposition. Getting consumers to buy an "upgrade" for their existing systems has also historically been a losing venture. Does anyone else remember Sega's disasters with Sega CD and 32X? How about Nintendo's 64DD? Consumers aren't as stupid as companies like to think they are. In the mid 90s, they could see that it was better to wait for a new Saturn/Playstation/N64 rather than wasting money on junk like the 32X. I think most consumers today are intelligent enough to do the same, investing in a brand-new Wii rather than a slowly dying PS2 with tacked-on motion controls. Copycats almost never do as well as the original. Every succcessful game spawns imitators, but the sales rarely match that of the innovator. Think of how many copiers there have been of Pokemon, The Sims, and Doom (to name a few off the top of my head). Consumers would know who was imitating who, and I believe that the sales would reflect that.

As always, I agree comlpetely with Sullla.

 

RolStoppable said: MikeB said: @ RolStoppable Sony can't afford to add a Wiimote like controller to the PS2. Because of reputation. They called the Wiimote a gimmick that won't last long. But the Wii-mote is a gimmick aka "novel device". I wouldn't be surprised if Wii-mote style controllers are here to stay (IMO not the best controller for everything though!), but if Sony just meant the Nintendo Wii as a whole probably won't last as long as the PS3 will I would share such an opinion. Consoles last as long as software is going to be made for them. The way things look like at the moment, the Wii will probably outlast the PS3.

Woah, woah, woah... Hold on a sec, Rol. Dont get ahead of yourself. Remember, whatever is made on the 360 can be ported to the PS3.

 

@ Bodhesia

I just wanted to point out where Nintendo got their inspiration from and for that the quote IMO was more than sufficient.

I really don't understand what is so special about the Snes Gamepad, I rather played most my A500 and A1200 games using an arcade stick rather than using Amiga gamepads.

Amiga Gamepads:





But currently most favourite controlller to best play Amiga 2D classics (or NES, Snes, c64, Lynx, etc games through emulation on Amigas) amongst Amiga users, this 4 button arcade stick:

RolStoppable said: DonWii said: RolStoppable said: MikeB said: @ RolStoppable Sony can't afford to add a Wiimote like controller to the PS2. Because of reputation. They called the Wiimote a gimmick that won't last long. But the Wii-mote is a gimmick aka "novel device". I wouldn't be surprised if Wii-mote style controllers are here to stay (IMO not the best controller for everything though!), but if Sony just meant the Nintendo Wii as a whole probably won't last as long as the PS3 will I would share such an opinion. Consoles last as long as software is going to be made for them. The way things look like at the moment, the Wii will probably outlast the PS3. Woah, woah, woah... Hold on a sec, Rol. Dont get ahead of yourself. Remember, whatever is made on the 360 can be ported to the PS3.   That's true. But what if developers don't see a reason to port their game over to the PS3 because they don't expect it to sell well enough? Last generation, whatever was made on the PS2 could have been ported to the GC.

Touche.