I fail to see how bad usability equals "hardcore game".

Well PS2 could be defined disruptive as it widened the functions offered by a consoles.

About understanding Malstrom, wouldn't it help if he avoided using doom and gloom tones? And if he avoided implicitly implying destruction after disruption? Or pretending that each move of Wii's competitors is wrong? Disruption happened, it's undeniable, but what Malstrom writes can maybe describe the initial mind-boggling Wii success and the reactions to it, not how things evolved. Sony and MS were initially caught by surprise, but they both reacted, and about motion detection itself, it has already been experimented both on PS2 and PC, it's just that Wii was the first to have the right formula to make it really usable, enjoyable and appealing for the masses, but Sony and MS don't have to start from scratch to react to it too, it's more correct to say that they have to work on ergonomics of motion control, instead.

That isnt what "disruptive" means, either. Disruptive means that it undercuts traditional values in favor of new ones and thereby gains control of the market through channels that its competitors never considered. The PS2 was not disruptive. It was a logical progression of the PS1.

^that

Here is my post (an exchange of posts actually) from another thread which relates to this http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/post.php?id=2527298:

mike_intellivision said:
Cammie is a marketing person. Nintendo has chosen to market its systems based upon fun (rather than over-hyping specs or belittling the competition). So it is her job to convey fun.

Fun appeals to those who think of video games as play. It does appeal to those who think of video games as a challenge. Hence lies the rub.

Mike from Morgantown

PS -- Cammie is no dummy. Her degrees from U of Richmond and Harvard say that.

MontanaHatchet said:
What a pretentious post. Last I checked, the PS3 and 360 offer plenty of fun. They're also marketed as such. When Cammie threw a disc for a dog to catch it, that didn't really look fun. Nor did a lot of other things she showed off.

mike_intellivision said:
Why thank you for the complement!

Seriously though, it is how I think of the difference between the "hard core" and the "casual" gamer. If you are trying to complete a game and rack up all the achievements, you are in it for the challenge rather than to just have "fun." Meanwhile, others play just to have a good time.

I will admit that it does come off sounding a bit harsh and certainly the two states are not mutually exclusive.



Looking at other comments, the problem with Cammie is that she appears to be "fake" -- and there are just some people who are that way no matter how sincere they are about something.

Since I doubt that virtually no one here (participating in this particular forum discussion) has met her or talked with her, making presumptions about what is in her heart is really being pretentious.



Mike from Morgantown

Of course they were fun! In the sense that they were enjoyable. Were you laughing at any point during SoTC? Smiling widely? Swaying from side to side? Of course you weren't! That's exactly what I mean.

That's what I think of when I hear the word "fun". Something that would have a six year old singing and laughing and beaming.

That may well be what the blogger was saying, though he said it in an offensive way.

I was in a ranting mood when I wrote that post. I assume you are objecting to the Nintendo comment. Well, you don't get the feeling that some of Nintendo's games are created with the clear purpose of selling millions and raking in pots of money? And have you ever seen Nintendo do that before this gen?

The Dark Knight was certainly not a fun movie. Big Momma's House 2 was a fun movie. Up was a fun movie. Monty Python and the Holy Grail was a fun movie. All of them are awesome, in my opinion (even if I am the one person in the world who liked Big Momma's House).

The Godfather was not fun in the slightest. It was awesome, because it was gripping, told an excellent story, and had fantastic acting. But it wasn't light hearted. It wasn't funny. And that's how I think of the word "fun". Not that a fun game can't be good. I would consider LBP fun. I would not consider Killzone 2 fun- it was a game about invading a planet and killing people who only wanted freedom in violent ways. The opposite of "fun" in this case isn't "boring", it's "serious".

Another thing which makes a game fun for me would be the ability to do wacky things, like kung fu kicking a helicopter, or picking up somebody and chucking them into the ocean. This way, I would consider Prototype and Black and White to be fun. There's no real opposite here, because a lack of this kind of fun isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Certainly, if you use "fun" as "enjoyable", every game I have ever liked has been "fun". No game I have ever disliked has been "fun".

This wasn't addressed to me specifically, but I'll take it anyway since I'm bored.

I do get what you're saying, but making money is (one of) the biggest reason(s) to get into the videogame business. If you intend to make video games for a living, you HAVE to care about the money at least to an extent - that's a fact. Especially now when a single big flop can put you and your company out of business - unless you somehow manage to find a patron or something to finance your projects, or are a small-time indy developer.

And I don't personally think that Nintendo has really sacrificed its "vision" for money at any point. Way I see it, Nintendos goal has always been to make games that as many people as possible can enjoy (and make a fortune out of them) - not solely children, adults, hardcore gamers, softcore gamers, other gamers, non-gamers - but all of them, and it's damn good at what it does.

Nintendo may not be catering to you spesifically, but that doesn't mean they're completely ignoring you.

OT: Oh yeah, and people enjoy different things about videogames. Just because you don't like thing A, doesn't mean nobody else likes it either.

Then Wii isn't disruptive, as it put again in the forefront the traditional value of consoles, i.e. gaming, instead of added functions.