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Forums - Gaming Discussion - What company would hurt the gaming industry the most...

Munkeh111 on 03 August 2008
Sky Render said:
Munkeh111 said:
Sky Render said:
I see a lot of declarations of "Sony", yet the industry did just fine without them before. There's little to no reason to believe that gaming would not survive on other consoles if there were no PlayStation systems made. Sony did not do anything of note for the industry beyond take it over.

No, it's the loss of Nintendo that would hurt the industry the most. Nintendo resurrected the industry after American companies destroyed it in the early 1980s. They introduced every single sustaining innovation that made it so games could be better (not to be confused with sustaining innovations like the CD or DVD, which ultimately just made it so games could be bigger). Without Nintendo, the industry would have remained dead after 1984. Were Nintendo to leave and no company rise to fill the void of inventiveness that departure created, the industry would collapse within two generations of consoles due to sheer lack of innovation and due to the rehashing of old ideas with only minor updates. Just like it did in 1984.

 

Sony took it to a much greater level, the PS1 & 2 are the best selling consoles of all time

 Expanding the market by brute force is not the same as expanding the market by actually including new demographics.  Sony's expansion of the market was largely due to its production capabilities allowing distribution of the PlayStation line in countries that never got video game systems before.  They did not change the industry in any meaningful way, they just made what already existed reach out to new regions.  There's a definite difference there.

Sony started the social gaming revolution with things like the eye toy, singstar and now buzz

 



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Sky Render on 03 August 2008

Actually, Munkeh, that's not true at all. Nintendo has the claim to fame for that revolution too, with this darling little game we call Super Smash Bros. The N64 was very much the pioneer of the social gaming cycle, though not technically the first to attempt it (that credit goes to the Atari 5200, which included 4 controller ports back at a time when game systems rarely had 2). The point remains that Nintendo, once again, set the precedent.



Sky Render - Sanity is for the weak.

Incandescence on 03 August 2008

Nintendo. Answer's kind of obvious...



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DOATS1 on 03 August 2008
Sky Render said:
DOATS1, do you understand how markets work? I'm guessing not, or you wouldn't claim that the loss of the sole innovator in the industry would result in "business as usual".

Unstable markets (ie. ones that sell goods which are not necessities) require innovation to survive, there's no two ways about it. If you do not innovate, the industry stagnates into a cycle of simply improving what's already there, inevitably leading to either overshooting the market or experiencing severe market drift to the point that the market crashes thanks to a complete lack of any improvement (innovative or sustaining). The video game industry experienced the latter in 1984: game developers stopped innovating, all of the new titles were identical in practice, and the market crashed. An innovative intervention, however, revitalizes the market and gives it a new trajectory (which of course also has an eventual overshooting point).

So I ask you, how would it remain "business as usual" indefinitely if the market relies on innovation to keep from stagnation or overshooting? Without the sole innovator in the industry, how do you expect it would do anything besides shrink, crash, and be reduced to niche status?

are you honestly trying to say that nintendo is the only company that can innovate? that's a bit ignorant in my opinion. yes, nintendo are THE legends in gaming, and it would cause a load of madness in the vg industry, but in this current day and age, i just don't see the departure of nintendo condeming gaming. maybe it would have back in good 'ol '84, but we're in a different age altogether now.

like i said, i think that if nintendo left it would be business as usual. it would also be a great opprtunity for the remaining companies to appeal to a broader market. as long as the other companies have the drive to stand out and innovate themselves, then i think it would be all gravy in the navy for vg. the reason why nintendo innovate, is because like you said, they need to, in order to survive. but so do the other competers, which they will do and have done. you're acting like nintendo are the only ones that bring ideas onto the table, and the rest of them copy, which i highly disagree with.




Munkeh111 on 03 August 2008
Sky Render said:
Actually, Munkeh, that's not true at all. Nintendo has the claim to fame for that revolution too, with this darling little game we call Super Smash Bros. The N64 was very much the pioneer of the social gaming cycle, though not technically the first to attempt it (that credit goes to the Atari 5200, which included 4 controller ports back at a time when game systems rarely had 2). The point remains that Nintendo, once again, set the precedent.

Sony took it to another level. Nintendo started it, but Sony made it better, and truly succeeded with it

 



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tehsage on 03 August 2008

Public Reminder - Better Graphics != Innovation



Sky Render on 03 August 2008

I have yet to see any company besides Nintendo come up with an innovation which has actually remained in use for more than 2 generations. So far, the only development made that they did not pioneer is the "Eye Toy" style camera. Which hasn't caught on nearly as well as things like, say, analog or rumble.

Why would Sony or Microsoft innovate? They have no incentive to take that kind of risk when they can just incrementally upgrade. Sony and MS stand to lose a great deal if they opt to take authentic risks instead of just improve on what's already there. Simply improving on what's already there is a very safe move, and guaranteed to work as long as the market doesn't get overshot or stagnant, which is why neither has branched out in any meaningful way.

Big companies are noted for this, and for getting knocked off their high horse by the little companies as a result. Even when the entire industry is sinking, big companies will still opt to take the safe route that no longer works.



Sky Render - Sanity is for the weak.

Sky Render on 03 August 2008

I think you've missed the point, Munkeh. Improving on something is only a viable option when there's something to improve on. Without Nintendo, there would be nothing new made to improve on. It doesn't matter how much Sony has done to improve social gaming, because they never would've done a damn thing about it without Nintendo sparking the revolution anyway.



Sky Render - Sanity is for the weak.

Munkeh111 on 03 August 2008

@ sky render, what about online gaming? Acheivements... those are all great additions to gaming, did nintendo come up with them?



Sky Render on 03 August 2008

And what do Achievements actually add to the gameplay experience, besides a Pavlov-like drive to accomplish tasks that the sort of player who values Achievements would still be likely to try to accomplish anyway? Achievements are just giving a name and score to something that gamers have already been doing for years anyway. That's not innovation. That's quantifying a qualitative attribute of core gamers.



Sky Render - Sanity is for the weak.