neorichieb1971 wrote:The industry will crash because graphics are TV quality.
We still have a long, long, LONG way for videogame graphics to approach lifelike. Professionally done CG for $200 million dollar movies still shows some obvious areas for improvement, nevermind real-time graphics on consumer grade hardware. The next generation looks nice, but it still doesn't look real by a longshot. It looks like exactly what it is... more advanced videogames. This argument was brought up when the PS2 came out as well, but I don't think anyone can look at a PS2 game these days and say "yes, I fully believe this looks indistinguishable from real life."
Basically, games will drop in price to $25-$35 at the most.
Wishful thinking with no basis in reality. Games already go to that price in a few months, but there's a reason for this: games don't have a long shelf life. Most sales are made at or near release, and in this window, gamers have actually been receptive to
more expensive games in the case of Halo 2 and Half-Life 2. Besides, if games cost more to make, why would the prices be cut in half? On the slim chance that this happens, you can be sure to expect more in-game marketing than you ever thought was possible, believe me (hey, just like the movie industry again!).
You can see how the industry is going because Sony and Microsoft are having to lose money on each piece of hardware. Its only a matter of time before someone bites off more than they can chew. $400 + for PS3 is ridiculous, adding 2 games is even more ridiculous.
People paid similar amounts for the PS2 in droves. What will hurt it is a bad release period (why they're avoiding a holiday release for either 2005 or 2006 I'll never know), not the price.
Turrican wrote:Hmm, yes. But my post was not "unique games versus evil mainstream franchises". On the contrary, I recognize the qualities in Ridge Racer and Wipeout. 2097 is "art" like Ico, and overall a better game to boot.
My assumption was a little different. Before Playstation we did not have (I'm talking of big franchises, not just games):
Ridge Racer
Tekken
Wipeout
Resident Evil
Gran Turismo
Silent Hill
Armored Core
Metal Gear in his "Solid" incarnation
Not to mention Final Fantasy's popularity in the west.
In comparison to that, PS2 brought us less "staples" franchises: Onimusha/DMC, GTA in its successful form... And that's pretty much it. ZOE is a failed experiment, and Ico had the same market impact that Skullmonkeys probably had on Ps1. (or, better analogy, SotN: greatly praised by critic but very low sales).
I'm not against these successful brands, my complain is that there are not so many anymore. In other words, just like the NES was a revolution with Mario, Zelda & Metroid, the Snes simply followed the path. That's not to say I'm not happy with Super Metroid, but PS2, PSP and PS3 seem to just walk the path paved by PS1.
Again, you're right, nothing too scary about it (like no NES fan was "scared" by SNES), still, one might wonder when the next revolution will come.
Well, you're also leaving out the Xbox, which at least has Halo to its name. Silent Hill didn't really become a "franchise" until this generation, and I wouldn't call Armored Core a huge franchise (though it might be in Japan, which I'm not sure of).
This generation also saw the return of mascots in the way of Jak & Daxter, Ratchet & Clank and Sly Cooper. Microsoft tried their hand at this with Blinx, but that flopped so I won't count it.
Project Gotham Racing seems to have gained quite a following, and it's gone from a distant competitor to GT to being a selling point for the 360.
This generation also saw the creation of Xenosaga, which hasn't done too badly for itself. Super Monkey Ball also sold quite well.
Burnout went from "what's that?" to "you mean you haven't played a Burnout game yet?!" over the course of about a year.
Was Sony as good this gen as last in terms of franchise creation? Nope, but Microsoft managed to pull some of that slack (which is to be expected... the newcomer has more to prove, like Nintendo did and Sony did). Also, interestingly, western franchises really took off this gen, with Elder Scrolls going from an obscure PC RPG footnote to a reason to buy Microsoft systems, western mascots mostly doing well, the FPS continuing to climb in popularity, etc.
Of course, I'm not claiming that this generation was the huge boom that the previous one was. It was a generation mostly of refinement, much like the 16-bit generation was compared to the previous one. The next generation looks to be much the same, and it doesn't particularly bother me. The industry isn't going to come crashing down like some people predict just because the earth hasn't shaken like it did with the release of the Playstation or NES. Most industries (including entertainment ones) don't have complete reinventions and gigantic strides foward once a decade. The videogame industry has been the odd one out on that, not the other way around, and it looks like it's finally getting ready to settle down.
Assuming Nintendo's plan to cram their square peg into a round hole (innovation through awkwardness!) fails to have any impact, of course.
Oh wait! (knocks on wood)
