Extra Punctuation: Getting Innovation Wrong

[Custard_Angel]

Dear Yathzee, you surprise me with this article. Clearly you are un-woo'ed by this whole 3D thing trend and you've decided to take a whack at whoever does 3D. I can't blame you, I'm not totally into it myself just yet, being old school (like i am) i bet you prefer good ole 2D games too.

But as an (e)Journalist, I wish you had been more objective on your evaluation of the facts at hands. If anything, Nintendo has been paving the way of innovation for years while others just wait to see if its gonna pickup, and clone it if it does. Haven't always been successful, i'll give you that, N64 was rather a failure than even a product. The wii on the other hand had more success than anyone dare anticipate prior to its release. Among the big three (even four back when Sega was still there), only Nintendo believed in motion sensor in a remote. Now look, tremendous success. MS rushed to get Kinect out and get its bib too, then Sony "moved" into that market as well.

3D, let me put it this way, is a when, not an if. The deciding factor will be "who can do it right". just enough to add the "whoa" factor and not too much to avoid the "huh, so dizzy" factor.

The sooner you get on that trend, the sooner you'll start being able to experiment with that line.

And now, its history repeating. Nintendo wants to get out before everyone. Everybody is busy speculating why in their own opinion its not a right move...again, bashing the big N on this, on that, on what they speculate they should do. Future can only tell what will happen. My opinion is that Nintendo will rack up fuckloads of money while MS & Sony catch up the train that just left.

A more journalistic approach to your article should have understood the obstacles and challenges ahead, what pieces are in place, what's missing and try to survey the 3D market along with other hot trends in gaming and how the three leaders are positioned to address that.

Well anyway, i felt i had to share because you're usually so good at describing what a game did right, what it did wrong, what it should have been and with good humor. In this one, it felt like you where bashing Nintendo pure and simple.

Yahtzee isn't a journalist.

Yahtzee is writing an opinion piece.

This is his opinion:

3D is a fad that needs to die because it can't possibly advance the medium in any meaningful way.

Take it or leave it.

 

[2xDouble]

3D never was anything more than a gimmick to raise the price of movie tickets, and motion controls simply never were implemented well. Touch screen controls are probably the next big thing. The DS and its iterations are very popular, no matter what anybody says about them, and developers actually gave a shit enough to incorporate its "unique" functions. (Of course far, far too many devs incorporated them badly or as simply another button, like the Wii controls.) The popularity of toys like the iPhone, iPad, and Android have brought a new generation of shovelware to more people than ever... and people continue to buy that crap.

You're right, Yahtzee. Nintendo is pulling its hair out, screaming "what the hell do you people want?". But what are Sony and Microsoft doing? nothing.* It works for now, but as you said, simply pushing for bigger, better graphics isn't going to work anymore. Nintendo is trying to innovate in a market which, ironically, both desperately needs and vehemently rejects innovation.

Maybe Bob was right [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/2911-PC-Gaming-Is-Dead-Long-Live-PC-Gaming]. Maybe the "home console" and "PC" markets as they were 5 or 10 years ago is evolving away from boxes and living rooms and into handhelds and cloud computing or whatever. As I said before, this industry desperately needs to evolve. Nintendo is searching out what we want, and Sony and Microsoft are starting to experiment. It'll probably be awhile before any of them actually stumble across the next big innovation, and they're probably all going to eat some serious losses trying to find it.

What really needs to happen is hardware and software need to evolve together. Neither is going to make any progress at innovating unless both embrace experimentation. Take the auto industry. Car manufacturers aren't developing non-gasoline technology, because fuel companies aren't developing alternative fuels, because car companies aren't making vehicles to use them... etc. Right now we're finally seeing the beginnings of a new movement, but only because both cars and fuel are evolving at the same time. The same thing must happen in the gaming industry.

*(Ok, not nothing. They're trying to copy Nintendo's failed experiment because it made money. Badly copying a bad idea is only going to get you a worse idea. Look at what happens when people keep trying to outsell Blizzard by cloning WoW...)

 

[veloper]

Sorry Yahtzee but the wii is, was and will be the highest selling console of this gen and also the only one that made profit right since the launch.

If this is "getting innovation wrong", Nintendo will continue to prosper.

 

[Raeil]

It can be, but in both cases the 3D is not necessary to your enjoyment, much like HD quality graphics.

This is such a load of crap and I don't know why people keep saying it. HD quality graphics are absolutely necessary. HD quality graphics don't just make things look nicer and more realistic if that's the art style chosen (which is a + for immersion right there), but they also effect things like draw distance and pop-in. You go try to make a GTA IV or Saints Row for the PS1 and see how well that works out for you when you can only see a yard or two down the road before everything turns into a indecipherable white mess in the background.

If you like 3D, fine, but you need to come up with something relevant to say when people say they don't like instead of spewing this nonsense about how HD quality graphics are not needed, because that's simply not true.

Sorry, this was incorrectly quoted as someone else, not me hence why I didn't respond to it in the original post. [Edit: I was incorrect, but we said the exact same thing, so I felt I should respond to it.]

It's true, HD has definitely helped the immersion and quality of a game, but is it necessary? For some games, of course it is. For a large amount of games though, it seems that HD exists to make things look better. From my limited understanding of video graphics, it seems the two things you mentioned (draw distance and pop-in) are hindered by HD. Sure, they've both increased during the HD upgrade, but if HD wasn't being used, couldn't the processors draw further and cause more pop-in? I could see HD being used to increase the resolution of the further distances, but is that fully necessary? Maybe, maybe not (again, I'm not extremely educated on this, so I can't give a straight answer) From personal experience, and this is my personal experience only, HD doesn't seem to be necessary in the majority of games, hence why I play a lot of my 360 games on a standard def TV.

With 3D, again, it's not hugely necessary. Personally, I think it's great for immersion, but I can see why people would be annoyed at it, hence why the majority of companies are producing the possibility to view their content in 2D.

 

[Andronicus]

In regards to Yahtzee's new controller innovation, I'll be interested in seeing how well the back touchpad on the NGP will be utilised. If done correctly, it could become a pretty revolutionary feature; it adds a whole new way to manipulate the game by using fingers that would otherwise be completely useless.

Then again, whenever I played my PSP, I found that the unused fingers had a tendency to go to sleep, especially the pinkies. This could affect it somewhat. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

 

[walsfeo]

The experimental / transitional phase is where the fun lies. You don't have to buy everything, or cheer everything on, but change and experimentation is exciting.

 

[Xenominim]

I agree 3-D probably isn't the future whatsoever. People don't want to sit around with glasses on their heads, it causes headaches for a lot of folks, and there are other limitations involved. But I think it is a cool stepping stone towards the next level of immersion which is what companies are aiming for. Motion controls, HD, voice recognition, now 3-D, the rumor of texture based touchscreens. It's easy to imagine holograms, maybe another stab at virtual reality (remember when this was the next big thing around the turn of the century?), tactile gloves, and other technology coming together very soon in the future. Probably not five or even ten years, developers simply won't be able to create enough content using all this new tech, and I'm sure costs for consoles would be prohibitive. But this is certainly a step towards that next level. I think now it's maybe a matter of just letting developers catch up with the tech before they take the next leap forward, because right now it is kind of fracturing things to the point where a developer can't use this technology because it can't apply to other consoles, which limits the money they can make back on it.

 

[repeating integers]

I actually liked Tron: Legacy because (among other things) it used 3D as more than a cheap gimmick. It used it like the Matrix used a green filter - scenes inside the Grid were filmed in 3D, scenes in the real world were filmed normally. In the end, though, unless this practice becomes way more common, I agree with Yahtzee - it's not the way forward.

 

[Epic Fail 1977]

I agree with the gist of this article, but...

but now processing power is about at the highest level it can be for practical purposes. Sure, we could still staple more and more memory on but there are going to be fewer and fewer companies in a position to make the most of it.

What? Is that a joke? Firstly, console processing power is nowhere near the highest it can be. On the inside, the 360 is basically a PC; I'm sure that after all this time it could be upgraded without significantly affecting the cost, reliability, size, or heat/noise output. Secondly, most game developers struggle constantly with the low amount of RAM on consoles. If that RAM were increased it'd used up by developers before you can say "Hello World". I'm really baffled by your notion that developers would struggle to use it.

But yeah, I agree that some 3D technologies create a cardboard cut-out effect, and the various new motion controls are all worse than a standard controller, and that none of them are likely to spell success in the immediate future. But Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo et al. know that to stand still and do nothing is to die, so they're all trying to do something, bless them. I'm happy to let them fumble around in the dark until one of them stumbles into a good idea.

 

[GrizzlerBorno]

I have watched exactly HALF of a 3D movie in my life, and played zero games in 3D. Is Yahtzee proud of me yet?

OT: It seems to me that the "Next clear direction" for gaming is to somehow incorporate the sense of Touch into Video games. Why should we use just Sight and hearing (smell sucks so we don't need that)? No idea how we could go about that though.

 

[bombadilillo]

I think the best way to use the touch screen on a controller would be for vague movements, like swiping your finger across it. It wouldn't have to be specific, just general stuff like that.

That then begs the question of why you need the touch screen in the first place though, as I can't think of any situation where being able to make those genstures would improve gameplay.

I can think of some things. Its rumored to have a camera too. Think of Okami, you hold the controller up the camera shows the tv image on the screen you draw your symbol on the touchpad to do whatever. That would be awesome.

I love motion controls and think this sounds great. the problem is when they are SHOVED IN EVERY GAME. Its like when every ps3 game had some immersion breaking sixaxis bs part to remind people it could do it. And token wii waggle controls are lame, but when they work they work and can be fun.

 

[Wolfram23]

I think 3D has great potential, it's just not being implemented right. One thing about it is that you no longer need depth of field because your eyes will do it naturally when you focus on the foreground. The problem I have, that kind of throws me out of the experience, is say when watching Avatar and something in the foreground is very fuzzy because the cameras are focusing on the characters. Everything should be in focus... if I focus on the characters then the foreground becomes blurred and vice versa. When you force things to be blurred with 3D, instead of drawing attention to what's in focus like it does in 2D, I find it draws my attention to that wierd thing that shouldn't exist.

 

[Tulks]

It can be, but in both cases the 3D is not necessary to your enjoyment, much like HD quality graphics.

This is such a load of crap and I don't know why people keep saying it. HD quality graphics are absolutely necessary. HD quality graphics don't just make things look nicer and more realistic if that's the art style chosen (which is a + for immersion right there), but they also effect things like draw distance and pop-in. You go try to make a GTA IV or Saints Row for the PS1 and see how well that works out for you when you can only see a yard or two down the road before everything turns into a indecipherable white mess in the background.

If you like 3D, fine, but you need to come up with something relevant to say when people say they don't like instead of spewing this nonsense about how HD quality graphics are not needed, because that's simply not true.

When did I say that? I have no objection to HD visuals, I just find that 3D isn't the gimmick I'm looking for.

 

[bombadilillo]

I agree with the gist of this article, but...

but now processing power is about at the highest level it can be for practical purposes. Sure, we could still staple more and more memory on but there are going to be fewer and fewer companies in a position to make the most of it.

What? Is that a joke? Firstly, console processing power is nowhere near the highest it can be. On the inside, the 360 is basically a PC; I'm sure that after all this time it could be upgraded without significantly affecting the cost, reliability, size, or heat/noise output. Secondly, most game developers struggle constantly with the low amount of RAM on consoles. If that RAM were increased it'd used up by developers before you can say "Hello World". I'm really baffled by your notion that developers would struggle to use it.

But yeah, I agree that some 3D technologies create a cardboard cut-out effect, and the various new motion controls are all worse than a standard controller, and that none of them are likely to spell success in the immediate future. But Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo et al. know that to stand still and do nothing is to die, so they're all trying to do something, bless them. I'm happy to let them fumble around in the dark until one of them stumbles into a good idea.

Yahtzee has made this point before. The amount of development time/money/people it takes to take advantage of proccessing power make it impracticle for to make great looking games without AAA support. So for practicle purposed the hardware is as good as MOST people can afford to take advantage of.

 

[Android2137]

I thought the natural next step would be the merge 3-D with motion control... You know, interactive holographic set-up. Mind you, it would be kinda clunky and intuitive, but as they experiment, eventually it would become effectual enough to be used outside of gaming.

Then 3-D modeling and animation would be soooooo much easier.

 

[Epic Fail 1977]

I agree with the gist of this article, but...

but now processing power is about at the highest level it can be for practical purposes. Sure, we could still staple more and more memory on but there are going to be fewer and fewer companies in a position to make the most of it.

What? Is that a joke? Firstly, console processing power is nowhere near the highest it can be. On the inside, the 360 is basically a PC; I'm sure that after all this time it could be upgraded without significantly affecting the cost, reliability, size, or heat/noise output. Secondly, most game developers struggle constantly with the low amount of RAM on consoles. If that RAM were increased it'd used up by developers before you can say "Hello World". I'm really baffled by your notion that developers would struggle to use it.

But yeah, I agree that some 3D technologies create a cardboard cut-out effect, and the various new motion controls are all worse than a standard controller, and that none of them are likely to spell success in the immediate future. But Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo et al. know that to stand still and do nothing is to die, so they're all trying to do something, bless them. I'm happy to let them fumble around in the dark until one of them stumbles into a good idea.

Yahtzee has made this point before. The amount of development time/money/people it takes to take advantage of proccessing power make it impracticle for to make great looking games without AAA support. So for practicle purposed the hardware is as good as MOST people can afford to take advantage of.

The industry is already becoming a AAA-only affair according to a flurry of recent articles on gaming sites (including this one) so this point is rather moot, no?