This feature can also be found at the South West Londoner, here.
You
probably already know this, but electronics are designed to have a
lifespan. Apple tends to design their iPod so you'll own one for about a
year before buying another. Gaming consoles work the same way, but a
tad slower.
We're on to our 9th generation of home consoles: Nintendo's WiiU will
be soon met with Sony's Playstation 4 this year, and this week we've
had a conference from Microsoft, announcing their new console - the Xbox
One.
Even though its presence was long awaited (you could argue it was
guaranteed), the response was a great deal less positive than Microsoft
were hoping. In fact, the conferenced managed to cause a large spike in
stocks for Sony and Nintendo.
Now, I'm no business analyst, but my diagnosis is that there's been a
hefty misunderstanding between what Microsoft thinks they should sell,
and what their user base actually want.
The Xbox One (which I have seen amusingly referred to as Xbone, so I
shall do the same) kind of resembles a mid-90s VCR, with an iPod black
sheen.
To compare it to the Xbox 360, the Xbone has a 500GB hard drive and
8GB of RAM (compared to the 320GB storage and 512MB RAM of the 360), and
is designed to have motion sensors and connectivity with tablets right
from the word go.
So far, so sensible. The hardware's vital statistics bring it closer
to the brunt that (incredibly expensive) Gaming PCs are capable of, but
these are mere figures if they're not used for something important.
This is where I feel Microsoft slips up. When talking of the Xbone's
special features, spokespeople at the conference focused on trying to
pitch a 'multi-entertainment' product, with a lot of words dedicated to
video streaming, voice commands and recording footage of games you're
playing.
It's all rather superfluous. Most TV addicts already have access to
Netflix, voice commands are the territory of couch potatoes, and the
recording functions are suspiciously similar to what Sony announced for
the Playstation 4 a few months ago.
The amount of time dedicated to actual games for the console
was comparatively brief, and none of it was especially astounding. In
fact, everything they announced was a sequel - FIFA 2014, Forza Motorsport 5, Call of Duty: Ghost.
Only one new franchise was announced - Quantum Break. The brief trailer reveals precious little, though it's the prettiest destruction of a bridge I've ever seen.
According to Remedy, who are developing the game, Quantum Break
aims to meld TV shows and gaming experiences together, which honestly
could go in some interesting directions - though it's way too early to
get excited.
However, the things that concern me most weren't discussed in the
conference at all. As with the 360, the Xbone won't let games developers
self-publish.
Traditionally, games developers release their titles through a
publisher (companies like EA, Activision and Konami are publishers), but
in the present industry, there's a very popular trend of smaller
development studios that can't afford a publisher can still release
their games digitally.
With Microsoft forcing teams to use publishers to host their content,
a thriving part of the games development industry is suddenly
hamstrung.
Buying a new games console is actually a hefty investment - the basic
hardware isn't cheap, so most are hesitant to make the purchase unless
they know they are going to get enough hours of fun to make things
worthwhile.
And unfortunately for Microsoft, being able to watch television and play Yet Another Football Game 2014 doesn't inspire me or my wallet with confidence.
But it's not too late - in the months leading up to the Xbone's
release, they can still announce more interesting titles, lower the
barrier of entry to smaller development companies, and realise that the
main reason why people buy games consoles is to play games.
Showing posts with label Microsoft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Microsoft. Show all posts
Wednesday, 4 September 2013
Thursday, 18 April 2013
Imagine This: A Medium Divided
This article can also be found on One Hit Pixel, here.
I want you to imagine something
for a moment. Picture a film industry where each film company had their
own brand of DVD player, that would only play discs produced under their
own publishing label. To be able to watch, say, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World or The Dark Knight Rises at home, you would have to purchase separate Universal and Warner Bros. brand players.
This, of course, sounds abjectly ridiculous. Yet it’s more or less how the games console industry operates. To the consumer it’s an annoyance – to experience more of the medium, you’re expected to pay a lot of money in extra hardware. However, Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony absolutely crave brand loyalty; it’s what brings in the largest revenue. To ensure that customers pick their hardware over competitors, these guys will try all sorts of tactics.
Sony invests a whole lot of money in developers producing exclusive content just for their hardware. The occasional big titles that they have all to themselves are quite the customer draw. Because of Sony’s long and established connection with the Japanese game development scene, a lot of titles developed in the country end up being Sony exclusives. But in terms of hardware functions, there’s nothing, currently, that requires it to be exclusive to one kind of hardware. If those new IPs don’t gain traction with the consumers, all is lost.
These days, Microsoft is generally blasé about software exclusivity; realising that in terms of hardware, the Xbox 360 wasn’t really outstanding from the PS3, and definitely not from the ever-improving standards of the PC. Instead the draw is unique utility options, like the Kinect and Xbox SmartGlass technology – both of which can be considered underwhelming to date. I can respect the movement away from focusing on exclusives, but the push towards more peripheral hardware doesn’t help make gaming more affordable or accessible.
Sony, while they remain stony silent about the technical specs on their new games console (which everyone is calling the Playstation 4 for convenience’s sake) until February 20, we do know that many of Sony’s game development studios are also suspiciously quiet. What this most likely means is a line-up of Sony’s exclusive IPs – Uncharted, God of War, Killzone, LittleBigPlanet, Gran Turismo and some new from MotorStorm developers Evolution Studios all potentially in the pipeline. Studios are already making playful references to new titles on the horizon. It would be nice to take the presence of characters in Playstation All Stars as hints for releases, but I sadly doubt that game’s marketing ploys extend beyond DmC and Metal Gear Rising.
As for Microsoft, a little bit more of the Xbox 360 successor’s (referred to as the Xbox 720 in a few circles but we’re just calling in the next Xbox for now) technical specs available. There are a lot of words regarding the types of processors that may be used, but I struggle to find that especially interesting. That the use of a Kinect might be mandatory falls in line with Microsoft’s focus on peripherals, at the least. What raised my eyebrows was a mention of a patent by Microsoft being filed regarding ’3D projection’ back in September 2012, turning the entire room into a game screen – which was then demoed as IllumiRoom last month. It feels ridiculous, but that step towards virtual reality is a tantalising prospect for a new direction of game development, moreso than graphical fidelity.
For both of these, there’s a personal concern of backwards compatibility. Neither the PS3 or the 360 made much of playing old works; but allowing previous software to be played will let the companies wring the last few dollars out of the previous generation, and allow the consumers to keep their collection without having two consoles hooked up.
As such, development for a single platform allows maximum running optimisation. An industry with only the one home console would seriously cut down on development times, since development tools like physics or particle effect engines would be useful to everyone.
In a way you could say that the Ouya is trying to be this Uber Console, as the barrier to entry for developing it is intentionally very low. But it will never have the kind of major software development support our resident Big Three do – nor does it help that, on Android, there’s already a fractured install base. There would have to be a near collapse of the games industry as we know it before such a unified movement could be feasible…
So who wants to cause an industry collapse with me?
This, of course, sounds abjectly ridiculous. Yet it’s more or less how the games console industry operates. To the consumer it’s an annoyance – to experience more of the medium, you’re expected to pay a lot of money in extra hardware. However, Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony absolutely crave brand loyalty; it’s what brings in the largest revenue. To ensure that customers pick their hardware over competitors, these guys will try all sorts of tactics.
Means for the Market Share
Nintendo is very committed to selling hardware designed exclusively for gaming, and little else. This gives them a lot of creative freedom with hardware designs that can’t be easily transplanted to other hardware (we’re used to it now, but the design of the DS was really out there back in 2004). Of all possible tactics to fight for exclusivity, I don’t mind this one. A prompt for developers to design games of worth with new and interesting hardware encourages interesting results. They also have an illustrious history of iconic franchises on their side, requiring very little maintenance. The Pokémon franchise alone will have me putting money into their wallets for a long time to come.Sony invests a whole lot of money in developers producing exclusive content just for their hardware. The occasional big titles that they have all to themselves are quite the customer draw. Because of Sony’s long and established connection with the Japanese game development scene, a lot of titles developed in the country end up being Sony exclusives. But in terms of hardware functions, there’s nothing, currently, that requires it to be exclusive to one kind of hardware. If those new IPs don’t gain traction with the consumers, all is lost.
These days, Microsoft is generally blasé about software exclusivity; realising that in terms of hardware, the Xbox 360 wasn’t really outstanding from the PS3, and definitely not from the ever-improving standards of the PC. Instead the draw is unique utility options, like the Kinect and Xbox SmartGlass technology – both of which can be considered underwhelming to date. I can respect the movement away from focusing on exclusives, but the push towards more peripheral hardware doesn’t help make gaming more affordable or accessible.
It’s The Same, But Different
So bearing in mind the present standards for how our three console giants handle themselves, how will this impact the new generation of consoles? We already have the Wii U following Nintendo’s Modus Operandi to the letter, but it’s the approach of the new Sony and Microsoft machines that have people speculating. Though honestly, it’s hard to think that their business practices will significantly change.Sony, while they remain stony silent about the technical specs on their new games console (which everyone is calling the Playstation 4 for convenience’s sake) until February 20, we do know that many of Sony’s game development studios are also suspiciously quiet. What this most likely means is a line-up of Sony’s exclusive IPs – Uncharted, God of War, Killzone, LittleBigPlanet, Gran Turismo and some new from MotorStorm developers Evolution Studios all potentially in the pipeline. Studios are already making playful references to new titles on the horizon. It would be nice to take the presence of characters in Playstation All Stars as hints for releases, but I sadly doubt that game’s marketing ploys extend beyond DmC and Metal Gear Rising.
As for Microsoft, a little bit more of the Xbox 360 successor’s (referred to as the Xbox 720 in a few circles but we’re just calling in the next Xbox for now) technical specs available. There are a lot of words regarding the types of processors that may be used, but I struggle to find that especially interesting. That the use of a Kinect might be mandatory falls in line with Microsoft’s focus on peripherals, at the least. What raised my eyebrows was a mention of a patent by Microsoft being filed regarding ’3D projection’ back in September 2012, turning the entire room into a game screen – which was then demoed as IllumiRoom last month. It feels ridiculous, but that step towards virtual reality is a tantalising prospect for a new direction of game development, moreso than graphical fidelity.
For both of these, there’s a personal concern of backwards compatibility. Neither the PS3 or the 360 made much of playing old works; but allowing previous software to be played will let the companies wring the last few dollars out of the previous generation, and allow the consumers to keep their collection without having two consoles hooked up.
The Coming of the Uber Console?
If you’ll allow me one more thought experiment, could you actually imagine an industry where there’s only a single brand of household console? From a development perspective, it would be a godsend. While at present it’s generally desirable to have a game released on multiple platforms, it requires a lot of work for developers to create such ports, generally due to differences in hardware specifications, but sometimes it’s just a matter of politics.As such, development for a single platform allows maximum running optimisation. An industry with only the one home console would seriously cut down on development times, since development tools like physics or particle effect engines would be useful to everyone.
In a way you could say that the Ouya is trying to be this Uber Console, as the barrier to entry for developing it is intentionally very low. But it will never have the kind of major software development support our resident Big Three do – nor does it help that, on Android, there’s already a fractured install base. There would have to be a near collapse of the games industry as we know it before such a unified movement could be feasible…
So who wants to cause an industry collapse with me?
Wednesday, 8 June 2011
E3 Roundup & Comment
This article has also been hosted on the VG Resource. Abridged Versions of this article have also been hosted at The Yorker.
While the Electronic Entertainment Expo of 2011 is still in progress, the conferences for the 3 big names, Microsoft, Sony & Nintendo are done and dusted. The in-depth details of what’s on offer has already been plastered all over other gamine news sites (and no doubt your Facebook and Twitter accounts); but this is just a little summary of what stood out to me.
I’ve always taken E3 with a pinch of salt. While it’s the major US event for games publishers to share new projects and releases with the masses, it all boils down to the hard sell. The presentation of the publisher conferences matters just as much as the products they’re trying to market, and they don’t always do the job well.
Microsoft
The Xbox 360 played very close to its strengths this year; a user base with a high percentage of shooter enthusiasts (of which I am definitely not), and a still-developing market in the Kinect. Don Mattrick, president of Microsoft Entertainment, informed us early on that the exclusives this year would show heavy support for the Kinect, and they definitely kept to that through the conference.
Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is the perfect blend of Shooter and Kinect-bait. The gesture controls and voice recognition were used to create a very intuitive-looking customisation menu system; but part of me feels that such a cool concept is a little wasted on gun fetishism. On the other hand, the gesture controls for the actual combat look so entirely ridiculous that any sense of coolness flew right out of the window.
Part of the demographic for the Kinect is of course young children; so to demonstrate Kinect Disneyland Adventures (Essentially Kinect Adventures! with a Disney theme) and Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster, stage-ready, rosy-cheeked children were wheeled onto the stage. These kids are always annoyingly saccharine and are good for a chuckle. But on the other hand, can you imagine these child-demographic games being demonstrated only by adults? Creepy.
Kinect Funlabs is a new e-store where you can download experimental Kinect software other developers have made. There’s a huge ‘homebrew’ community for the Kinect, and Microsoft did a good job of harnessing it. I hope we don’t have to pay for the demos though; they look very bare-bones. The conference was wrapped up with a short trailer for Halo 4; which caught me by surprise – Bungie said that after Halo Reach, they weren’t intending to produce another main-series Halo game. So either Bungie loves consumer money too much to keep their word, or Microsoft is using another developer to keep the cash cow running. Not cool.
Sony
Sony offered a much wider range of genres than Microsoft this time around, but they really pushed the PS3′s 3D functions, just like how almost all of the 360 exclusives sported Kinect. Of course, the 3D effect was entirely wasted on us paupers watching the conference through the internet.
There were a lot of solid titles that definitely garnered my interest. Uncharted 3, which was a bit moodier and grittier than I’d like still impressed me with its brighter action scenes in Arabia. inFamous 2 still has me incredibly hyped, but there was nothing that we didn’t already know. Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time will hopefully be a great sequel to the PS2 games I remember fondly, but I’m sad they got rid of the cartoonish cel-shading.
They also announced some new IPs in Starhawk, a game with an aesthetic cross between Borderlands and Halo, but looking to promise standard-fare shooter action; and Medieval Moves: Deadman’s Quest, which looked like a reasonable first-person action adventure game, but it reminded me heavily of a tech demo demonstrated for the PS Move last year – featuring a similar setting, but a magic-using protagonist. It looked much less polished than this effort, but a lot more enticing in terms of mechanics.
Some of the games mentioned were not specifically Sony exclusives, but instead would have bonus content or Playstation Move functionality; which smacked of them being unconfident in the lineup of exclusives they had. Don’t sweat it Sony, you’re doing just fine. But next time you get 2K Games to demonstrate their next NBA 2K game, don’t have them go by halves. Kobe Bryant can’t hold a candle to the glorious Shaq.
The official announcement of the Sony Vita is a surprise to few (even the name of the then-titled NGP was released a few days back, along with some of its planned titles), but the lineup for release games is looking a lot stronger than the 3DS’ effort. Diablo-clone Ruin and fighter’s dream Street Fighter X Tekken are the titles that have me salivating, but then there’s no guarantee they’ll actually be available any time soon.
The incredibly competitive price of $249 to directly compete with the 3DS is definitely throwing down the gauntlet. The Vita pulls ahead in terms of sheer graphical brunt, but otherwise they’re both host to some very similar features. It’ll come down to the games support in the end.
Nintendo
While Nintendo wasn’t the only company to be releasing new hardware this year, they had been keeping the cards much closer to their chest than Sony has been with the PS Vita. That alone accounted for much of the anticipation for Nintendo’s conference, and they rode that out for as long as they could.
The first section of the conference showed no hint of new hardware info; instead detailing the variety of Legend of Zelda game releases for the 25th Anniversary for the series. A free DSi download of 4 Swords Adventures was what piqued my interest the most, along with the announcement of a soundtrack CD for Skyward Sword… though we probably won’t see that released over in the UK.
Now that’s over, is it time for the hardware announcement? Psyche! It’s 3DS release time. This is still fairly a big deal, but I watched with a hint of scepticism. Last year the support for the 3DS was huge, with many big names like Metal Gear Solid and Kingdom Hearts poised to be released. But the games available on release have been pretty weak, and that wasn’t looking to change. So Nintendo looked to fix that failing with some solid first-party support. And they definitely brought forward some big names.
Mario Kart and Kid Icarus Uprising are my picks of choice, with Mario Kart showing off customisable cars and tracks where your craft can transform into a hang glider or submarine; and Kid Icarus demonstrating some charmingly bad voice acting, and gameplay that heavily reminds me of Sin and Punishment.
Then the Nintendo eShop was brought up. It’s the marketplace system for the Nintendo 3DS, and the update to install it on your system is already live. It functions just the same as the Wii and DSi shops, but in addition to special 3DS software, the range of released DSiWare games (Go and play Shantae: Risky’s Revenge. You won’t regret it.), and a small (and rather terrible) pool of GameBoy games are also available to download. The UK prices seem to be slightly higher than the US ones, though.
Ok, that’s finally out of the way. Do we get the console announcement? Fortunately, yes! The name is announces as the Wii U. Which, while fairly silly, is easy enough to put up with. The revival of Wii/Wee jokes won’t be. They lead the showcase with the Wii U’s controller, a 6.2 inch tablet surrounded by the the kind of buttons you’d expect to see on a modern controller. Only odd thing is the placement of the two analogue sticks – right at the top, even above the D-Pad and face buttons. Why on earth are they placed up there? It might work out to be comfortable in practice, but for now, I don’t think my big, meaty hands can accommodate that positioning.
Beyond the unique controller design, the ‘big deal’ about the Wii U is its processing power and graphics capability. It can now directly compete with the HD-capable PS3 and 360, allowing developers who dismissed the Wii as a non-progressive platform to give Nintendo users the same gaming experience everyone else gets. Which is both a good and annoying thing.
On one hand, I’ll be hearing less chatter about ‘Console Wars’. The scope of games released for each platform are now just that little bit more level. Barriers to entry in terms of developing games for multiple platforms will drop, and I definitely see that as a good thing.
On the other hand, I felt that the limitations of the Wii forced developers to do something different with their games to make them marketable. The Wii U isn’t going to make those developers magically vanish, but the line-up for the Wii U shown could largely be described as “Games the other platforms are already getting”, and that made me a little sad.
In Closing…
All in all, the corporates are starting to get the hang of these Conferences. In previous years, many of these presentations would get bogged down in sales figures, and rambles about company history. But the general populace doesn’t want to hear that, and the journalists in the auditorium sure enough aren’t going to report about it. All 3 conferences were almost all about the new games from start to finish, and I definitely appreciate that. Microsoft didn’t have some new hardware to wow the crowd with, bless ‘em, but that Kinect Funlabs will definitely be something to follow. Never underestimate the genius of homebrewers!
While the Electronic Entertainment Expo of 2011 is still in progress, the conferences for the 3 big names, Microsoft, Sony & Nintendo are done and dusted. The in-depth details of what’s on offer has already been plastered all over other gamine news sites (and no doubt your Facebook and Twitter accounts); but this is just a little summary of what stood out to me.
I’ve always taken E3 with a pinch of salt. While it’s the major US event for games publishers to share new projects and releases with the masses, it all boils down to the hard sell. The presentation of the publisher conferences matters just as much as the products they’re trying to market, and they don’t always do the job well.
Microsoft
The Xbox 360 played very close to its strengths this year; a user base with a high percentage of shooter enthusiasts (of which I am definitely not), and a still-developing market in the Kinect. Don Mattrick, president of Microsoft Entertainment, informed us early on that the exclusives this year would show heavy support for the Kinect, and they definitely kept to that through the conference.
Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is the perfect blend of Shooter and Kinect-bait. The gesture controls and voice recognition were used to create a very intuitive-looking customisation menu system; but part of me feels that such a cool concept is a little wasted on gun fetishism. On the other hand, the gesture controls for the actual combat look so entirely ridiculous that any sense of coolness flew right out of the window.
Part of the demographic for the Kinect is of course young children; so to demonstrate Kinect Disneyland Adventures (Essentially Kinect Adventures! with a Disney theme) and Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster, stage-ready, rosy-cheeked children were wheeled onto the stage. These kids are always annoyingly saccharine and are good for a chuckle. But on the other hand, can you imagine these child-demographic games being demonstrated only by adults? Creepy.
Kinect Funlabs is a new e-store where you can download experimental Kinect software other developers have made. There’s a huge ‘homebrew’ community for the Kinect, and Microsoft did a good job of harnessing it. I hope we don’t have to pay for the demos though; they look very bare-bones. The conference was wrapped up with a short trailer for Halo 4; which caught me by surprise – Bungie said that after Halo Reach, they weren’t intending to produce another main-series Halo game. So either Bungie loves consumer money too much to keep their word, or Microsoft is using another developer to keep the cash cow running. Not cool.
Sony
Sony offered a much wider range of genres than Microsoft this time around, but they really pushed the PS3′s 3D functions, just like how almost all of the 360 exclusives sported Kinect. Of course, the 3D effect was entirely wasted on us paupers watching the conference through the internet.
There were a lot of solid titles that definitely garnered my interest. Uncharted 3, which was a bit moodier and grittier than I’d like still impressed me with its brighter action scenes in Arabia. inFamous 2 still has me incredibly hyped, but there was nothing that we didn’t already know. Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time will hopefully be a great sequel to the PS2 games I remember fondly, but I’m sad they got rid of the cartoonish cel-shading.
They also announced some new IPs in Starhawk, a game with an aesthetic cross between Borderlands and Halo, but looking to promise standard-fare shooter action; and Medieval Moves: Deadman’s Quest, which looked like a reasonable first-person action adventure game, but it reminded me heavily of a tech demo demonstrated for the PS Move last year – featuring a similar setting, but a magic-using protagonist. It looked much less polished than this effort, but a lot more enticing in terms of mechanics.
Some of the games mentioned were not specifically Sony exclusives, but instead would have bonus content or Playstation Move functionality; which smacked of them being unconfident in the lineup of exclusives they had. Don’t sweat it Sony, you’re doing just fine. But next time you get 2K Games to demonstrate their next NBA 2K game, don’t have them go by halves. Kobe Bryant can’t hold a candle to the glorious Shaq.
The official announcement of the Sony Vita is a surprise to few (even the name of the then-titled NGP was released a few days back, along with some of its planned titles), but the lineup for release games is looking a lot stronger than the 3DS’ effort. Diablo-clone Ruin and fighter’s dream Street Fighter X Tekken are the titles that have me salivating, but then there’s no guarantee they’ll actually be available any time soon.
The incredibly competitive price of $249 to directly compete with the 3DS is definitely throwing down the gauntlet. The Vita pulls ahead in terms of sheer graphical brunt, but otherwise they’re both host to some very similar features. It’ll come down to the games support in the end.
Nintendo
While Nintendo wasn’t the only company to be releasing new hardware this year, they had been keeping the cards much closer to their chest than Sony has been with the PS Vita. That alone accounted for much of the anticipation for Nintendo’s conference, and they rode that out for as long as they could.
The first section of the conference showed no hint of new hardware info; instead detailing the variety of Legend of Zelda game releases for the 25th Anniversary for the series. A free DSi download of 4 Swords Adventures was what piqued my interest the most, along with the announcement of a soundtrack CD for Skyward Sword… though we probably won’t see that released over in the UK.
Now that’s over, is it time for the hardware announcement? Psyche! It’s 3DS release time. This is still fairly a big deal, but I watched with a hint of scepticism. Last year the support for the 3DS was huge, with many big names like Metal Gear Solid and Kingdom Hearts poised to be released. But the games available on release have been pretty weak, and that wasn’t looking to change. So Nintendo looked to fix that failing with some solid first-party support. And they definitely brought forward some big names.
Mario Kart and Kid Icarus Uprising are my picks of choice, with Mario Kart showing off customisable cars and tracks where your craft can transform into a hang glider or submarine; and Kid Icarus demonstrating some charmingly bad voice acting, and gameplay that heavily reminds me of Sin and Punishment.
Then the Nintendo eShop was brought up. It’s the marketplace system for the Nintendo 3DS, and the update to install it on your system is already live. It functions just the same as the Wii and DSi shops, but in addition to special 3DS software, the range of released DSiWare games (Go and play Shantae: Risky’s Revenge. You won’t regret it.), and a small (and rather terrible) pool of GameBoy games are also available to download. The UK prices seem to be slightly higher than the US ones, though.
Ok, that’s finally out of the way. Do we get the console announcement? Fortunately, yes! The name is announces as the Wii U. Which, while fairly silly, is easy enough to put up with. The revival of Wii/Wee jokes won’t be. They lead the showcase with the Wii U’s controller, a 6.2 inch tablet surrounded by the the kind of buttons you’d expect to see on a modern controller. Only odd thing is the placement of the two analogue sticks – right at the top, even above the D-Pad and face buttons. Why on earth are they placed up there? It might work out to be comfortable in practice, but for now, I don’t think my big, meaty hands can accommodate that positioning.
Beyond the unique controller design, the ‘big deal’ about the Wii U is its processing power and graphics capability. It can now directly compete with the HD-capable PS3 and 360, allowing developers who dismissed the Wii as a non-progressive platform to give Nintendo users the same gaming experience everyone else gets. Which is both a good and annoying thing.
On one hand, I’ll be hearing less chatter about ‘Console Wars’. The scope of games released for each platform are now just that little bit more level. Barriers to entry in terms of developing games for multiple platforms will drop, and I definitely see that as a good thing.
On the other hand, I felt that the limitations of the Wii forced developers to do something different with their games to make them marketable. The Wii U isn’t going to make those developers magically vanish, but the line-up for the Wii U shown could largely be described as “Games the other platforms are already getting”, and that made me a little sad.
In Closing…
All in all, the corporates are starting to get the hang of these Conferences. In previous years, many of these presentations would get bogged down in sales figures, and rambles about company history. But the general populace doesn’t want to hear that, and the journalists in the auditorium sure enough aren’t going to report about it. All 3 conferences were almost all about the new games from start to finish, and I definitely appreciate that. Microsoft didn’t have some new hardware to wow the crowd with, bless ‘em, but that Kinect Funlabs will definitely be something to follow. Never underestimate the genius of homebrewers!
Tuesday, 6 July 2010
Article Catchup: York Vision Issue 208
The last of the articles I've written this year, and what will be my penultimate issue with York Vision.
This was to be another issue with a guest writer; but that entirely fell through - and very close to the dealine, leaving things in a bit of a hazardous state.
The main deal with this issue was the report on E3, but due to the sheer scale of content that took place during the Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft conferences (saying nothing of the conferences held by other publishers), there was no way I'd be able to cram in all the information I wanted to discuss; especially not on a single page. I will post the extended versions of the conference reports on here.
The Paper Mario article was a replacement for the AWOL entry from the guest writer; and honestly isn't anything outstanding. I found out here that the way Adobe InDesign deals with cutting out images is in no way Sprite-friendly. I had to take steps to make sure the edges of Mario and friends weren't prematurely sliced off.
This was to be another issue with a guest writer; but that entirely fell through - and very close to the dealine, leaving things in a bit of a hazardous state.
The main deal with this issue was the report on E3, but due to the sheer scale of content that took place during the Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft conferences (saying nothing of the conferences held by other publishers), there was no way I'd be able to cram in all the information I wanted to discuss; especially not on a single page. I will post the extended versions of the conference reports on here.
The Paper Mario article was a replacement for the AWOL entry from the guest writer; and honestly isn't anything outstanding. I found out here that the way Adobe InDesign deals with cutting out images is in no way Sprite-friendly. I had to take steps to make sure the edges of Mario and friends weren't prematurely sliced off.
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