Yopaz said:
Food analogies never work in these kind of discussions because there's no programming involved in making food stay in a container. You can drink soda off the floor if you're desperate, but you can't make a program made for Ubuntu run in Gentoo just by saying that it should. It has to be made to work and that takes work. If Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony or any other publisher pays for the development of software they have to pay for it to be compatible with their hardware and the OS runing on that hardware. So if we are going to use your bottle argument we could say that we demand fluoric acid should be available in glass bottles because it's not consumer friendly to only offer it in plastic, giving us no choice of what material we want for our containers.
The fluoric acid analogy is perfect because it involves us asking for things that aren't done for a reason.
Except for in this case, all the bottles were recently changed to glass bottles for cheaper manufacturing costs, just Pepsi want you to use their slightly larger bottle instead of another company's bottle.
This ain't the PS3 era any more. The consoles and PC all use the same x86 hardware architecture these days. Hell, the Xbox and the PC share the same Operating System too. The whole idea of consoles, as well, is that they're cheaper and easier to develop for thanks to similar hardware and systems. If this isn't true and they're massively drastically different, we've lost yet another argument against PC.
Moreso than making a program compatible between consoles, making a program run at all is the hard work. Making it work for both consoles of course takes some work, but half the idea of them being similar is to not make it a chore to develop for your console, as that'd lose you third party games that wanted to go multiplatform.
If a company is very low on resources - sure, maybe I can see cross platform compatibility being an issue. That'd have to be very low though, especially considering other companies who are low on resources manage to pull it off just fine.
Now let's look at this hypotetical situation. There are no exclusives. Microsoft fucked up with the Xbox One reveal and lost a lot of potential customers. Why would anyone buy an Xbox One over a PS4? Well, no reason. Xbox One fails drastically, next generation is Nintendo and Sony. Nintendo's not competing for the same audience, Sony releases the PS5 with their patented system and there you have it, the anti-consumer policy preventing used games is introduced because we don't like exclusives.
This ignores the simple fact that MS DID fuck up with the Xbone reveal, and DID lose a ton of potential customers. From everything I hear, it wasn't exclusives that brought them back. Hell, at the time they were also criticised as all their launch titles looked like stuff we already had, with a graphical upgrade, rather than anything system selling. It ended up still being sold, and competing, because it did offer features that people wanted still. Namely, the dropping of Xbox Gold requirement for a number of services, allowing users a cheaper method of accessing them than going with Playstation.
But no, I'm sure that the Xbox managed to survive not because of brand loyalty, Microsofts backsteps, and a number of features on the console itself that people wanted. It was just the exclusives that people weren't impressed with at the time.
And hell, for fun, lets take it that MS did drop out of this round of consoles. Not likely, they would have still had a bunch of consoles built they wanted to sell, and would be selling, but they were a minor player. Sony Introduces a new consumer unfriendly system this generation, while Microsoft rescinded theirs thanks to backlash. Hey, look, Microsoft are getting a bunch of sales now and are a popular company again!
Doubly so if it happens at the start of next gen, and Sony state "We're going to be consumer unfriendly", while Microsoft are "We've learnt our lesson".
I don't see why you think this wouldn't mean competition for Sony just because MS lost one console generation. Hell, they arguably HAVE lost this console generation, with Sony way ahead in sales by all estimates. I guess that means Sony can implement any anti-consumer policy they want now right? I mean they've won, there's no competition as Microsoft wasn't as successful as they'd want to be this generation, right?
Console features is the short term competition, what decides what you'll get early in the cycle of a new generation. Exclusives are the long term competition and it's not like they can just suddenly change the hardware of an existing console generation. Oh wait, they did. Competition is necessary. It's what keeps companies at bay.
It doesn't require a change of hardware. These things are fucking computers now. Just add some new software, offer a new service, or come out with a new, worthwhile, addon. Yeah, offer new hardware versions. You seem to be saying that them updating the hardware is an argument against me, when its more an argument against you're whole "Short term, can't change it" thing.
I have used actual examples from both Sony and Microsoft to demonstrate my point. You have used two faulty food analogies to prove your point. Why not try a faulty car analogy next time?
You've used faulty food analogies, and tinfoil hat conspiracy theories, to prove your point. Everything else you've said, has actually supported my position that competing on hardware is actually viable, seeing as both companies do it. I feel you don't actually understand what you're arguing against, and think I'm against any form of competition. Nope. Just exclusives. If they're managing to compete on Hardware and other services they offer, that's great, and you've pointed out many cases where they have. Exclusives aren't necessary though, and just encourage anti-consumer behaviour. Hell, they ARE anti-consumer behaviour. There isn't a good side to them.
Casual Shinji said:
Nintendo doesn't do new takes on old genres though. They don't even do new takes on old IPs. They make the same game set in the same world with the same characters, but with a new gimmick. And it's fine if people like those games, I like some of those games, but it's hardly any diffent from the gameplay changes from sequel to sequel in franchises like Metal Gear Solid or other western games. And atleast in those games you get a progression of story and new characters.
There exists this notion that only Nintendo makes real games, and only Nintendo should be allowed to have a console, since the others just make "shitty PCs", and I'm getting a bit sick and tired of it.
To be honest, almost no-one does new takes on old Genres. Recently Splatoon is actually the closest I've seen, ironically from Nintendo. Certainly not Microsoft and Sony doing that sort of thing from my experience.
As for no new takes on old IP... Zelda would like a word with you. Try playing Ocarina next to Wind Waker next to Phantom Hourglass, and there's a fair bit different between them. Not different enough? How about the jump to Link Between worlds, or the new game, with entirely different gameplay compared to predecessors. Sure, Majora's Mask and Ocarina are basically the same, but they're two direct sequels where that's to be expected.
Mario too. 3D Super Mario vs Mario Galaxy vs Mario Party vs Paper Mario vs... He's got so many different game series its not funny, each with different gameplay in it.
Metroid fans complain about getting shitty spinoff games rather than main sequence ones, and the last main sequence one was criticised heavily for not really being like a true metroid game, as well as poor characterisation through how they portrayed Samus being different to previously, in a way many didn't like.
I could do this for probably all of Nintendo's brands. A lot of the time the changes between them are like the changes between Mass Effect 1 and 2; some of the theme of the game is the same, but almost all the rest of it has changed. Sometimes they're not. Each franchise has some level of main sequence where the games are all largely similar, which is also to be expected because hot damn there are those that criticise the change from ME1 to ME2 as making it more Gears of War in space, and lo can one not try to cater to both those who want things the same and those who want things different?
The games are definitely more different in each iteration than, say, a CoD, or Battlefield game is. One potentially close equivalent may be The Elder Scrolls, though I have limited experience pre Skyrim. Yeah, they all share an open world, and freedom with your character. They each have vastly different locations, and the game systems that the game actually plays with are vastly different from game to game as well. Sometimes there are smaller changes, sometimes larger ones.
I also get the exact opposite vibe to you. Go into almost any thread where the WiiU is discussed, or Nintendo in general, and the prevailing attitude is that Nintendo doesn't produce real games, only kiddy sequels that are all the exact same game, and their consoles have no right to exist because they're not MS and Sony's AAA PC like experience. Threads like this pop up after that happens, in order to refute that; Nintendo do make true games, and their games do change significantly with each iteration - and part of that is a change to take advantage of the hardware differences of the platform that they're on, which honestly is why I'm ok with their exclusives a lot of the time; they actually are doing something that couldn't be done on another platform at times. Their consoles also innovate, and do things differently, which definitely justifies their existence.
Other companies produce real games too, and so long as the market for it exists MS and Sony's consoles have a right to exist. However, while people will criticise Nintendo for being different, those who like Nintendo's offerings will criticise MS and Sony for just being the same. That's sort of how online discussions work.
)
