I agree with Ookaze. A game like, say, Gears of War actually wouldn't be as good games without the jaw-dropping graphics--you get drawn in more by the visceral intensity of your actions. Pop a guy in the head with a sniper? You get a nice, pulpy, satisfying mess. Ram yourself into cover? Little chunks of dirt or metal fall off of it, and your character physcialyl reacts, adding to the visceral feeling of the game. It wouldn't have worked on a last-gen system.

However, by the same token, Mega Man 9 should NOT get blasted for its' graphics like some have done--they were going for a good-looking retro feel, and they accomplished what they needed to, which was to bring Mega Man back to his basics (where he was best).

It really depends on the type of game.

Kantor said:   They should provide it free of charge. Then maybe they could find 1000 people who like it out of 15 million PS3 owners, 20 million 360 owners and 32 million Wii owners.

 

Today's news says hi

http://news.vgchartz.com/news.php?id=2096

 

So it sold 60x your lifetime prediction for all consoles if it were free, on the first day of of release on one platform only, for $10

@ ookaze

Windows blocks a lot from the end user, so there's not that much to know or personalize, custom repair if needed, etc. I am more of a power user. In that regard mainstream Windows PCs have become less flexible than past computers.

Of course PCs are upgradeable, just like you can upgrade an Amiga 3000 from 1990 with PPC cards, graphic cards, etc because of available slots to for example run the recently released AmigaOS4.0.

I was talking with regard to limited game controls.

ookaze said: This thread is yet another stupid one. Of course graphics are important, they are how you can get feedback from a game. The video part in "video game" itself involves graphics. Without graphics, no video, so no game. It's even better when you have good graphics. But then, what is good graphics? That's when you start to separate those with poor picture culture from the others. Most people won't even notice that the graphics are good, they will just be naturally drawn to them, and they have no need to understand why. That's also when you start separating the graphics whore from the rest. Of course, "graphics whore" has a bad connotation. That's because most of the time they're wrong. "Graphics whore" are people with very limited picture culture. It's extremely limited because what they consider good graphics can be easily described: the more pixels, the more polygons, the more colors, the more effects, ... there are in a picture, the best the graphics are for them. Notice that game reviews are based on "graphics whore" stats and thus are completely wrong most of the time (I noticed that more than 10 years ago). That's what leads to stupid reviews of Megaman 9 that gives it a 3 in graphics and yet says it makes the game better. That's so stupid it's unbelievable, and yet, those that put this nonsense are so entrenched in their nonsense they don't even see they look insane. Of course, good graphics are not stupid things like number of polygons or effects. No, good graphics are just the graphics that suit the job of a game. Of course, for this to be understood, the concept of "overshooting the customer" must be understood or at least fathomed. Most "graphics whore" are so limited they can't understand it. Tell them that Tetris or NSMB or Wii Sports have perfect graphics is impossible to even understand to them. That's where the problem is. I don't know if Megaman 9 have perfect graphics, but at least they look very good. The repeated failures of Sonic games should have told Sega that they were overshooting with the 3D aspect of it. 2D graphics were better for Sonic games than 3D. It seems like it was the same for Mario games, and nearly every other platformers. The same seems to be true for 2D fighters games. They had good enough graphics, and overshooting them just destroyed their gameplay. So yes, graphics are very important, as they go hand in hand with gameplay. But number of polygons, effects, resolution or others stupid stats like that are not important when taken alone. At least not for a game.

 

Exaclty my point...

Same goes to sound, if we take NSMB and listen to it, we notice that it has samples from past Mario games done in NES, Super NES, GBA and N64 along with the new ones, and it sounds just cool... If we hear Megaman 1-6 vs Megaman 7 and 8 we notice that the sound that suits Megaman is the one done in the NES games, that's why the MM9 soundtrack is really amazing, the same doesn't apply to Megaman X which sounds better with high-fidelity because of it's theme... A FPS needs to sound more like a war action movie, etc.

It's what suits better...

O-D-C said: No, graphics dont matter to me, Ill play Super Mario Bros. and still enjoy it, its the enjoyability (word?) of the game that counts.

But that's a pretty good game (if you aren't used to Super Mario World, then you may well miss the extra polish), but would you love playing Super Mario on a Blank & White telly?

Some type of games like Tetris don't need fancy graphics, but IMO improved graphics even for such games can add to the experience. (For example later clone, just like adding multi-player fun, IMO the added visual quality adds to Tetris clones as well).