Rpruett said:
I'm very well aware that there isn't a completely quantifiable measure of quality when it comes to the quality of games. Although given that this argument (And therefore your argument and my argument could be wittled down to nothing more than opinions that will never agree) there should be something to this discussion
Come again? I think you got confused as to where you wanted to close off those brackets.
Anyway.
If you admit that there is no quantifiable measure of quality, then you already admit that your original supposition (that no one could claim the Wii's library was bettet), because "Only the blindest of blind would seriously believe that. You want to revise your horribly inaccurate statement yet?" is fallacious, and you have conceded to my argument. Quod erat demonstrandum.
Rpruett said:
That's fine that you like your Wii and the games for it. I see quite a few people informally and within the industry all talk about how the Wii doesn't get enough support. Doesn't have enough games, etc, etc. This was NEVER a complaint for the PS2.
When you fall back on nothing but "personal experiences" you've already lost the perspective necessary to mount an argument in this case, especially given the demographic problem of the Wii vs. developers. To quote myself:
Khuutra said:
More to the point, I was syaing that Nintendo have dominated the industry by not giving developers what they want. Why? Developers as a body don't have a focus that is capable of expanding the audience they already have. If it weren't for Nintendo leading the way, this would probably be the smallest generation in a long, long time. Unless, of course, you want to pretend tht Nintendo did not pull away from its competitors by casting aside the assumptions of iterative hardware, but I can't imagine that you would even pretend to this point.
Gee, I make a pretty solid argument. It's almost like the developers who balk at the console don't have an understanding of its audience, and they react with fear and rejection before coming aorund to the idea that they can sell games to these new people too (even Carmack, who is the Jesus Christ of technological advancement in this industry).
Moving on.
Rpruett said:
While you would never admit it, most common observers and a majority of people would probably give the nod to the PS2 in terms of software at this juncture in their respective lifecycles. So you can tell me how metacritic has no relevance, but I certainly say it does in some regards. Not in the precise scoring (91,95,96 who cares all three are good games), but certainly with overall trends of games. The PS2 had about 3x as many 'highly rated' games as the Wii in just about every category that DOES mean something and it means something with respect to their libraries.
WROOOONNGG! There is no "most common observer" whose perspective you can draw on, because the vast majority of people cannot participate in this. You are once again assuming that sample size = legitimacy, when it does not. More to the point, right now there are more people who prefer the Wii's current lineup to the entire back library of the PS2, which is why they (the new gamers) are buying the Wii and not the PS2.As to those point? Yes, it does mean something: it means that the PS2's library is more appelaing to the specific demographic that concerns itself with rating games in the media. It says absolutely nothing about an objective standard of quality, because you already admit that there isn't one. Again, your admission of this point has defeated your argument.Rpruett said:
Well since we are on the internet, there really is no other means and ways to explain yourself. Either via proof (of some sort) or a very clarified reasoning for your response (Which you had yet to provide).
The rason I said this, in case you did not catch it, is because there is no such thing as proof for this discussion. There is no objective standard, ergo there can be no proof. To continue...
Rpruett said:
Since you referred to the fact that you can only afford to buy 'cream of the crop' games and sometimes not even those you are more concerned with the quality of the best games on the system. Yet you leave nothing in regards to how you determine quality of the best games on the system.
That is because I do not
have to, as previously gone over. Isn't it beautiful?
Rpruett said:
This is where I am curious (What method to determine 'quality' do you employ most regularly?)
Do you rent or borrow games to determine their quality? Or would you say that generally you critically review (reviewers) and then decide after engaging in that process to purchase the game?
Another false dichotomy: these are not the only metrics by which one can determine what games look good, and I would go so far as to say that they are the ones least commonly in use, given the disparity between demographic sizes and how some HD gamers don't do this (and some of the gamers on this very site don't do this, myself included).
The primay metric by which I determine my compatibility with a game is by obtaining information on it, but that does not necessarily come in the form of a review: in fact, it almost never does. If it did, I would be up to my eyeballs in the same kind of thing that is drowning the upper echelons of metacritic, but plainly I am not. No, the way by which I obtain information is by looking at footage, looking at developer history, comparing it to my past experience and what my tastes are...
And, oh yeah, looking at a concept that I just think is absurdly cool because the very idea of it is fun. That's why I bought Harvest Moon 64, which in terms of dollars to hours is the best gaming decision I've ever made. That's why I wanted an N64 instead of a Playstation more than ten years ago: because
Mario could climb trees. Holy shit!
You get the point. The dynamic of reviews vs. ignorance is a false one and one that I cannot take seriously.
Rpruett said:
It's really not that ridiculous. This is why the 'fad' label still sticks with the Wii, because despite what many people would consider a poor lineup overall of games (After 27 months), the Wii still flies off the shelves left and right. We've seen things of this nature before. Furby? Tickle Me Elmo? It happens from time to time.
Actually, the Wii isn't largely regarded as a fad; trying to say that it is is actually considered trolling, and the only reason I haven't reported you is because I want to prove a point to you rather than claim victory via absentia.
In the first place, "FAD" comes from "For A Day", which means that it refers to a trend which is extremely popular but cannot sustain that popularity due to a lack of substance, which means that it fails to follow through on the normal expected life cycle of a product.
In insisting that the Wii is a fad, you are therefore saying that there will com a time when it will prematurely die and then largely be remembered only as a fad. This, however, is one of the things that is
easily quantifiable, and all it takes is an observation of trends: people have been predicting that the Wii fad would die out since the console launched, and it has yet to happen. The Wii is on course to sell more than any other console in history except for the DS.
No, it's not a fad. If you want to pretend otherwise, you are certainly allowed to, but pattern recognition prdicts you're incorrect and you will be proven conclusively wrong with the passage of time.
Rpruett said:
I don't consider Nintendo totally a fad (Obviously, it has to have positive qualities about it that appeal to people beyond that to have the staying power that it does), but the lack of software with crazy console sales does directly point to fad like purchasing.
Circular logic hinging on the idea that the Wii doesn't have any good games, which you have already admitted is an indefensible position. Again, an argument you defeated yourself.
Rpruett said:
Is it? It's in my opinion that most average buyers especially (Parent for Child buyers) are absolutely clueless on what to purchase. It's also in my opinion that the younger/more casual your userbase is, the more bad games get gobbled up. (For example, I can think of plenty of terribe games that I purchased as a young child. Now I don't waste my money on such products because I make smarter purchasing decisions).
Your opinion is not something that can shelter you from making such blatantly untrue assumptions. In this context, "opinion" implies that you have some basis on which to build these assumptions, and that it is similarly backd up by evidence.
The idea that people inform themselves about their buying decisions before they spend their money is
the most fundamental theory in Microeconomics: this is serious Econ 111 stuff, here. A person will educate themselves about a buying decision as best they can before they make a purchase because htat is capital that they cannot get back. Nobody wastes money.
That does not mean that people do not take risks with their purchases, because obviously they do (everyone does, though it is not always with video games), but it means that these risks are carefully calculated. And no, those risks being calculated does not mean that they will turn out well. There is always the possibility of buyer's remorse, but that a person may
regret their decision to purchase a product is by no means indicative of the idea that they made this purchase blindly. Yes, even in the case of a parent buying a game for a child, the research is still being done: if their child wants it, then the risk of disappointment in said child is low.
It's that easy.
Rpruett said:
Very few games as a young child was I 'completely aware' of what they want. Other than EVERY videogame I could possibly get. You obviously don't have children if you don't understand this simple child-dynamic. They want everything and anything you can possibly get them.
Oh, right, because I was never six years old and clamoring for more stuff myself either, right?
Wrong.
Even a child partakes in a certain amount of research before the acquisition of goods because any fully functional child is aware that limited resources means that they necessarily can have fewer goods, which means that they hav to get the
best games for them. Does that mean that these are decisions we would agree with? No, obviously not. If I saw a child in 1995 buying the Power Rangers fighting game for the Genesis, I might actually cringe a little, but something is plainly clear to me when that purchase is being made, and
that is that this kid likes Power Rangers, and he has made a value judgement that this Power Rangers game will serve him better than whatever else was within his power to buy.
Rpruett said:
People buy games that they find interesting by looking at the back of the box. This is why video game stores display games. If people KNEW what they want, video game stores could save a shitload of space and just sell games by Name only.
Oh no you don't.
Making an informed decision does not imply that a person decides what they want to buy before they enter a store: a valu judgment can be made at any time before purchase, and yes, that does include looking at the back of the box. Remember, there is an entire process that goes on behind the person looking at the back of the box: a person is not going to be wowed by pretty pictures (though they may be wowed by the idea of getting twelve games in one, natch).
The last sentence is so ridiculous that I am literally stunned. This implies that there is no market for certain games, which plainly is not true.
Rpruett said:
I agree with this mostly. Although usually, that 'graphics mattering' to a point is like PS2/XBOX or 360/PS3 or SNES/Genesis. Sure they only matter to a point but only when you are clearly inferior it usually doesn't bode well (Unless other factors come into play).
Yet the Wii is outselling both of its considerably more powrful opponents, combined, every week. Why it has sold more than both of them combined since launch, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable lifetimes of the consoles.
Do you know why?
If you said "Because the graphics are not a determining purchasing factor at this level", then you are correct sir.
Rpruett said:
HD Graphics this generation have attributed to more console sales and more software sales than anything the Wii has done. Just because it's distributed across two companies means very little.
Buh?
So... The Wii
isn't outselling the HD consoles, combined, every week, and it hasn't outsold them since launch, and it isn't clawing its way toward passing up the total sales of both of them.
Tell me more about this magical world in which you live.
Rpruett said:
Certainly. Although we aren't there yet. There still is a large faction of people interested in seeing games become essentially similar to that (Final Fantasy movie) released a few years back.
And they are in the minority: the public has plainly crowned the Wii king.
Of course, this is irrelevant, I just like saying it over and over.
Rpruett said:
Innovation of anything is driven by a need. A need to move forward. A need for a sense of purpose. Joysticks weren't primarily 'needed' until the rise of playing within a 3-d environment. Playstation 1 proved that. So while you can say what you want, innovation has been driven primarily by graphics.
Joysticks have nothing to do with it, analog movement is just as useful in two dimensions as it is in three, except in cases where digital movement is the primary focus of the design of a gametype.
Let me see if i'm following your logic here.
"Innovation comes as a result of needs to change the way we interact (because that is what a 3-D environment is). Therefore, innovation is driven primarily by graphics."
Do you realize how disconnected those two ideas are? You have it
ass backwards. Technology is driven forward by
interaction, and graphics are just one consequence of this. Actually, you know what? I'm going to go quote myself again, specifically the part you ignored, excuse me.
Khuutra said:
two axes! This fundamentally changed the way games were designed, not because they looked prettier (Mario Kart 64 showed that 3-D games with sprite based graphics are completely possible in 1997) but because one's interaction with the environment was radically changed by this new freedom!
Every single innovation in the industry has been about interaction, and graphics are just a side effect of this shift. When we forget that, we forget the entire point of it!
Mario 64? The polygonal graphics came as a result of Mario being able to run around in three dimensions, so that objects wouldn't lose fidelity as you drew closer to them! That's why all the textures are so solidly colored in the game wherever possible: so that you can get however close you want and not notice how crappy the spritework looks when it's shoved to tthe forefront of the camera!
Ocarina of Time? The shit to three dimensions necessited polygonal graphics, but the more lasting effect was in how it exemplified the change in design philosophy necessary to work in three dimensional space, so that people were able to logically progress in a game in a more compelx way than just move on two axes and going to the lastl ocked door or pushing on every oddly colored block in a room!
Dead Rising? Do you think that those tons and tons of zombies are there just to look pretty? No, of course they aren't, that would be immensely silly. Up-close they aren't pretty at all! The reason that the game could only be done on the 360 at the time of its released was that an entire core was devoted to controlling the AI of all the hundreds of zombies - that push in technological advancement was for gameplay purposes.
Gears of War 2's dozens of enemies? Same thing! They aren't there to look prettier, they are there to change the experience that you have in interacting with your environment! Yes, they look pretty, but this is a secondary effect of the advancement undergone in order to reach this point.
Do I need to go on? Do I need to point out how Doom's awesome graphics hid the fact that you were actually playing on a flat field, and you could shoot an enemy a hudnred feet above your head if they spawned on there? Or, more realistically, you could shoot one ten feet above your line off fire if he was standing in an alcove? It happened constantly because Doom was a 2-D game with a first person camera. Its sprite graphics? Incidental!
It's almost like I already pounded this argument into the dirt once already.
It is not graphics. It is interaction.
It is not graphics. It is interaction.
It is not graphics. It is interaction.
I could go on.
Rpruett said:
Sure.
Then again, the Wii came into a situation where the previous generations far and away winner. Jumped the shark and released a 600 dollar console (A historically bad way to begin) trying to force consumers into something. The console that was 'already out' was more of an unknown quantity. Sure it had good graphics and potential for power but Microsoft from the previous generation was nothing more than a minor player. Oh and the 360 had that 400$ albatross hanging over it's head.
The Wii was a downright bargain with the uncertainty hanging over Xbox 360 (Unfamiliar brand name) and the 600$ albatross over the PS3's head. Additionally, the HD generation hadn't arrived yet. Which made gaming on these machines (PS3/360) inferior in someways because playing on an SD setup was more difficult.
What.
Wait, wait, hold up.
This generation has proven rather conclusively that brand loyalty has almost nothing to do with console sales, at least not corporate loyalty.
Playing HD games on an SD setup is not in any way more difficult. It's how I play my 360.
The price of the rival consoles have come down, in one case to be lower than that of the Wii. But the Wii is still kicking the living crap out of both of them combined. Price is obviously not the only factor here.
I think the worst (or most erroneous) part of this argument is that it hinges on the idea that the Wii's victory over the HD consoles is solely due to the fumbles that Sony and Microsoft made. I won't deny that to a certain degree this is true, but it's a matter of design philosophy and not just price, and the Wii's success is more thanks to the fact that Nintendo went for the jugular when it came down to addressing the people that the 360 and the PS3 were incapable of catering to: people who previously plaayed video games but no longer do, people who play games very rarely, and people who have never played video games.
Nintendo's success is a result of being able to expand the audience which normally plays games: they would have had roughly the same measure of success they're having now even if Sony and Microsoft had done everything else right, becuase Sony and Microsoft's business strategy is appealing to a shrinking market and Nintendo's strategy is appealing to a much larger one.
Of course, this part of the conversation is essentially irrelevant, isn't it? This isn't about the Wii versus the HD consoles; that's for another discussion altogether.
Rpruett said:
The point that I originally commented on was the fact that with the money that Sony and Microsoft lost this generation they simply will not make the same mistakes next generation. They will already have suffered their greatest losses in terms of the 'transition' to HD and will already have a wide array of (Now at this point) 'cheap' resources available to them.
Your original point was that graphics is the primary driver of innovation and do more for sales and appeal than anything the Wii has done, which is completely and verifiably false, as previously outlined.
Rpruett said:
Assuming certain companies keep in a similar thought process, the architectures will be cheap and relatively hassle-free and the development tools shouldn't even have too much upheavel. Plop in an upper echelon GPU and at the most you have a nice HD console with the best graphics on the market (With a robust online network) for under 400$.
Which will have nothing to do with why, if they go down this path again, Sony is going to lose to Nintendo. Again.
No, wait, that other thing, it will have everything to do with "similar thought process"es.
Rpruett said:
Nintendo is in the exact opposite position. Their delay will result in more money being spent (Next generation) than they had spent this generation and a great emphasis on hardware (To move to HD). It's good the Wii succeeded because this should give Nintendo the revenue needed to make that move but will it be enough? Time will tell.
All right, now you get to educate me. Please, do explain exactly why Nintendo will be forced to spend more money on R&D and have a greater focus on hardware than its competitors. This is a point to which I will gladly return if you willingly address it.
Rpruett said:
Did they? Last time I checked, Sony was on the verge of profitting per every console sold and Microsoft is already making money on every console. (Setting aside the whole RROD issue). Microsoft and Sony will still be pushing out a profit when this is all said and done. Which quite honestly is all that matters.
Three things.
The first is that you missed what I was talking about: I am not referring to the cost of hardwae, here, I am referring to the cost of software. That is why the current method of "bigger, beter, faster, stronger" isn't economically tenable: because the software companies can't support it. That's why they're dropping like flies, and only those who blatantly ignore this strategy are profiting to any reasonable degree.
Secondly: trying to say that the two HD manufacturers profiting is all that matters is ridiculous. Without the ability to push software to degrees that will help third parties keep themselves afloat, they will lose that support because they are too expensive to develop for.
Thirdly, Sony is never going to make back the money that it lost this generation, at least not within the scope of the Playstation 3. This generation they have already lost more than they ever made during the entire lifetime of the Playstation 2, and begun eating into the profits of the original Playstation. There's every reason to believe that they're going to end up posting an even more monolithic loss in the coming fiscal year report. If you think that Sony beginning to make a profit on individual PS3 units (which is not happening yet, by the by) is suddenly goign to make this generation profitable for them, I don't know what to tell you.
Financially speaking, this generation was a disaster for Sony, and there's almost no realistic way for it to ever be anything other than that. If profit is all that matters, Sony is indeed in a very bad way.
Rpruett said:
Maybe so, yet the most expensive parts of development will drop in expense.
This would be true if it weren't for the fact that, once you standardize an engine, art asset creation is probably the most expensive facet of development. That's not referring just to storyboarding, and character design, though it's that too: it refers to texture creation, and model creation, and the fact that every single object you see in a game costs a certain amount of money to make. That price is not going to go down. It's going to continue to increase, and it's going to increase in a big, scary way.
Rpruett said:
I figured you would rebutt with something of this nature. Yet I ask you this? Do you think that most people realize what's going on in the switch from 2d to 3d? Do you think most people treat the transition from 2d to 3d as an interaction change?
This forum providing example to the contrary due to the limited perspectives of the people necessarily involved notwithstanding, yes, actually.
Rpruett said:
Certainly not. Most people go 'WOW Look AT THOSE GRAPHICs!!". You are arguing in the view point of someone who is educated on the subject. Which is a logical fallacy when we are talking in the way that we are.
You've moved the goalposts, which means you have abandoned the point that "innovation is driven by graphics". I've effectively won this argument, but I'm going to beat your new position to death, too.
One needs not be educated to see what gameplay did, and I have said this in the massive, terrible part of my post which you ignored. I will repeat myself (only for you!) below.
Rpruett said:
Consumers believed that they are getting better graphics with Mario 64 / SNES. The change to 3d was radical enough that textures didn't need to improve. The move to 3d made it feel more realistic and therefore people felt that the graphics were better.
The only matter in which "education" matters in this regard is that you can't make a decent argument unless you have a certain functional knowledge of the subject, which you do not seem to have.
Ask ayone what they remember about Mario 64. Ask me, ask Louie, ask Rol, ask Miyamoto himself. We're getting into the murky depths of anecdotal evidence, here, but I'm going to put down my reputation on the idea that people do not remember Mario 64 for its graphics, because their initial reaction to it was not in reply to its graphics.
What do most people remember about playing Mario 64 for the first time?
That you could climb trees.
Crazy, isn't it? But it's true.
It's only recently that games have stopped being about what you can do (and Wii Sports has actually brought that school of innovation back, praise be). The point of the interactive advancements we've had is in changing the way we affect the worlds in which we play, and it is the ability to do new things that the average player (core or new) cares about.
"I can fight hundreds of zombies at the same time!"
"I can swing this remote like a bat and the bat on the screen swings just like it!"
"I can go anywhere I can see."
"I can sneak up on this guy and break his neck!"
"I can cut out this guy's brain tumor!"
"I can, I can, I can, I can".
That is the mantra of innovation in game design and game appeal. Certainly, "I can see" is part of that. But it's only a fraction.
Rpruett said:
It's all about perception to most consumers. Which is why you could ask that question on the streets or to a majority of console users and they would fall right into the trap. By moving to 3d graphics the average gamer felt like the graphics were improved (Even if they werent).
This is actually something that can be measured. You are free to try to prove your point.
I do not expect you to fare well.
Rpruett said:
The flaw in this little sample is the fact that peoples opinions change on political candidates as much as the wind blows. It doesn't relate to games in anyway. Games don't have the same pitfalls as politics let alone deciding presidential candidates. Games are more of a black and white thing. (Either you like it or you don't).
I wish I was the kind of person who use the facepalm.jpg in internet debates, because this calls for it. This is the equivalent to shoving your fingers in your ears and screaming "LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU LA LA LA" while I'm trying to explain how the perspective from which you are speaking is too limited to be representative of the general population.
This is freshman year uni material, man! This has notthing to do with the specifics of the survey and everything to do with the concept of it, which you have to keep in mind if you hope to apply the scientific method in pursuit of objectvity.
The point here (which you have proved me wrong in wake of the Godzilla thing, as you missed this even more spectacularly) is that you speak from a perspective which is not representative of the general population, and it doesn't matter how large your sample size is within the context of that population, it's still going to be skewed and factually incorrect. There is no way around this.
Gonna break this next on into segments.
Rpruett said:
It's not the same assumption. It's just a pretty ignorant take in general to claim that the software is better on the Wii in it's first 27 months than the software on the PS2 was.
No, no. The only ignorant assumption is that one can definitely say either way, or that one can get a clear view on the majority by looking at metacritic. Plainly there are many people who hold the Wii's library to be better, because more people are buying it!
(While at the same time making a HUGE argument that basically is stating that the innovation of the Wii mote is driving success).
The Wii's remote is only a portion of that, an example of Nintendo's drive to innovate in how people are interacting with software and to make them more approachable. The Wiimote is a part of that, yes, but to claim that it's all of it would be wrong. It is, however, the lynchpin of the system.
You're equating innovation of the Wii Mote's success to software success. Which is just as incorrect and wrong.
It would be if that were the totality of it, but it isn't. Remember: "I can."
Rpruett said:
The Wii certainly isn't the greatest system ever made. It's only sold 40 some million consoles at this juncture. Quite a lot can happen and until it becomes the best selling console of all-time. Only then can it take that claim to greatness.
Ah-ah-ah. Firstly, let's not mince words here. At this point in time the Wii has sold in excess of 47 million consoles.
Secondly, at this point in time, with aligned launches, the PS2 was consideably behind the Wii. Given that this discussion is concerning the first 27 months of a console's life, it is therefore clear that within the scope of this timeframe, the Wii's library appeals to far, far more people than the PS2's did.
We can conclude, from this, that more people like the Wii's library than the PS2's.
If the majority ruled, that would be the end of this discussion. Good thing it doesn't, huh!?
Rpruett said:
Fair enough, but I certainly can hold the belief that the Wii sells nothing but shovelware without being bombarded for it then.
This is why you've lost the argument. Allow me to remind you (again) of your original position:
Khuutra said:
Do I think the Wii's first twenty-seven months have been better than the PS2's were?
Yes. Absolutely.
Rpruett said:
Only the blindest of blind would seriously believe that. You want to revise your horribly inaccurate statement yet?
Khuutra Said:
Nope. Not even a little.
Rpruett said:
Objectivity isn't your strong suit is it?
I don't care to debate with someone who is completely blind to the facts and general consensus.
You can see where this is going. When you originally phrase the PS2's library as being factually and objectively better than the Wii's, a matter of
fact of all things, that means that you are saying that there is in fact a higher authority to which one may appeal: either Metacritic or the majority!
But what have we here!?
Khuutra said:
That's right! There is no higher authority to which one can appeal for quality!
Rpruett said:
Fair enough, but I certainly can hold the belief that the Wii sells nothing but shovelware without being bombarded for it then.
When you conceded to that point, you conceded to my entire argument! You see, I was never arguing that the Wii's software library was better than the PS2's, merely that it was a tenable position using different metrics, with my primary argument being that there is no objective standard for quality!
You agree to this point, and say so where I have quoted you.
This post brought to you by the letters Q, E, and D.
Sonic & Knuckles' Lock-On Technology was definitely the coolest thing a Sonic fan could ever ask for. 
