Damn right you heard me.
I was watching an episode of the Game Overthinker (recommended) which brought up the topic of games as a progressing medium. Today consoles are still toys, but toys targeted almost exclusively towards older, tech-driven audiences (except perhaps for Nintendo...PERHAPS).
The argument here was that once the older generation of gamers who grew up in the 80's and 90's stop gaming, what's left? Kids who were fed Wii Bowling and have no interest in up to date technologies and in-depth gameplay? Bearing in mind here that Sony and Microsoft are not gaming companies but corporations with a SMALL game division- the moment the division stops being profitable, they'll drop it. No more Playstations or Xbox, or lord knows what.
But I rant and *****; what struck me most of all this was, why did it have to change? Because as we got older and technology moved with us we wanted more? Yes, that seems fair. After all game developers are in competition and want to appear at the head of it all. Nowadays though it will be difficult to create a graphics engine that can be considered the "new" look.
If this is the case, instead of just re-releasing old retro games on Xbox Live and the Wii, why has there been no attempt at a NEW retro-console?
Let's be honest here, how many people would not buy say, a "SEGA Neptune" with 16 bit cartridge games? Hell, they wouldn't need to be any larger than DS cards these days and they could still fit the entire original megaman series in there.
Speaking of Megaman, the 9th game of that series (though it looks exactly like a game from the 80's) was only recently developed for just that purpose. I think this is a step in the right direction. If we want new gamers coming into the hobby, should we really expect them to be indoctrinated into Halo 3, or GTA 4? Sure casual gaming is small, cheap and readily available but let's be honest... Carnival Games for the Wii is a good distance away from Devil May Cry. Plus by releasing a new "retro" style console the production values would be sinisterly cheap, making for quick development times and third party team products.
I realise this post is already way too long, so I'll round it up by saying this.
I'd buy it.
I was watching an episode of the Game Overthinker (recommended) which brought up the topic of games as a progressing medium. Today consoles are still toys, but toys targeted almost exclusively towards older, tech-driven audiences (except perhaps for Nintendo...PERHAPS).
The argument here was that once the older generation of gamers who grew up in the 80's and 90's stop gaming, what's left? Kids who were fed Wii Bowling and have no interest in up to date technologies and in-depth gameplay? Bearing in mind here that Sony and Microsoft are not gaming companies but corporations with a SMALL game division- the moment the division stops being profitable, they'll drop it. No more Playstations or Xbox, or lord knows what.
But I rant and *****; what struck me most of all this was, why did it have to change? Because as we got older and technology moved with us we wanted more? Yes, that seems fair. After all game developers are in competition and want to appear at the head of it all. Nowadays though it will be difficult to create a graphics engine that can be considered the "new" look.
If this is the case, instead of just re-releasing old retro games on Xbox Live and the Wii, why has there been no attempt at a NEW retro-console?
Let's be honest here, how many people would not buy say, a "SEGA Neptune" with 16 bit cartridge games? Hell, they wouldn't need to be any larger than DS cards these days and they could still fit the entire original megaman series in there.
Speaking of Megaman, the 9th game of that series (though it looks exactly like a game from the 80's) was only recently developed for just that purpose. I think this is a step in the right direction. If we want new gamers coming into the hobby, should we really expect them to be indoctrinated into Halo 3, or GTA 4? Sure casual gaming is small, cheap and readily available but let's be honest... Carnival Games for the Wii is a good distance away from Devil May Cry. Plus by releasing a new "retro" style console the production values would be sinisterly cheap, making for quick development times and third party team products.
I realise this post is already way too long, so I'll round it up by saying this.
I'd buy it.