This here has it mostly right. The "innovation" that Microsoft and Sony claim to bring to the table are mostly either copies of stuff other consoles have already done, or have nothing to do with games at all. I wouldn't go so far as to say games would die, but they certainly would stagnate without the innovative minds at Nintendo.FreakSheet said:
"HOW DARE NINTENDO TRY CHANGING SOMETHING BESIDES GRAPHICS! Graphics are EVERYTHING! I wanna see REALISTIC wood grain on that gray-brown crate I'm about to shoot in Gears of Halo: Medal of Duty so my gray-brown character can blow up those gray-brown enemies! I'll just go back to playing that, and God help them if they dare try to change anything in the next 20 years, or God forbid, make me MOVE something aside from my thumbs! And I won't dare play anything unless it's at least rated T!"
This (Theory: Yahtzee-influenced) crap is getting as old and stale as the games this kind of thinking produces. And before anyone blows up at me for picking on FPS, I can level similar claims against RPGs. No, Nintendo doesn't consistently make the most innovative software, but what company does? (And before you all say Valve, NO THEY DON'T. They're still mostly gray-brown shooters, but more "light-hearted" gray-brown shooters. And Portal alone doesn't save them in that.) At least Nintendo has a lot of variety in style in their software offerings, and more importantly, innovates in its hardware past just graphics in a way that actually impacts GAMES. I suppose I can credit MS for popularizing and streamlining online multiplayer on the console. But aside from graphics and technical stuff, what has Sony done with its Playstation hardware to actually innovate the way we play games? Seriously? I can't think of anything that hadn't already been implemented by someone else. The other console developers, especially Sony, (again, can't entirely fault MS for an original idea once in a blue moon with Live and Kinect) don't want to actually innovate gaming itself because then it takes away from the true focus they want to emphasize: that their machines are really entertainment centers or extra computers that just so happen to play games too. If they emphasize the games too much, it becomes "about" the games, not the other brands in their corporation that MS and Sony want to push on you. Nintendo has none of that baggage, and none of that to lose by pushing gameplay innovation. They're primarily a gaming company, so they have always put games first, not stuff like DVD players, MP3 music storage, streaming movies and TV, or any of that. And for all the Wii's faults (and it does have some of its own), I at least give Nintendo credit for having the balls to try new ways to play games, something MS and Sony have been playing catch-up with them on since they got into the business.
This (Theory: Yahtzee-influenced) crap is getting as old and stale as the games this kind of thinking produces. And before anyone blows up at me for picking on FPS, I can level similar claims against RPGs. No, Nintendo doesn't consistently make the most innovative software, but what company does? (And before you all say Valve, NO THEY DON'T. They're still mostly gray-brown shooters, but more "light-hearted" gray-brown shooters. And Portal alone doesn't save them in that.) At least Nintendo has a lot of variety in style in their software offerings, and more importantly, innovates in its hardware past just graphics in a way that actually impacts GAMES. I suppose I can credit MS for popularizing and streamlining online multiplayer on the console. But aside from graphics and technical stuff, what has Sony done with its Playstation hardware to actually innovate the way we play games? Seriously? I can't think of anything that hadn't already been implemented by someone else. The other console developers, especially Sony, (again, can't entirely fault MS for an original idea once in a blue moon with Live and Kinect) don't want to actually innovate gaming itself because then it takes away from the true focus they want to emphasize: that their machines are really entertainment centers or extra computers that just so happen to play games too. If they emphasize the games too much, it becomes "about" the games, not the other brands in their corporation that MS and Sony want to push on you. Nintendo has none of that baggage, and none of that to lose by pushing gameplay innovation. They're primarily a gaming company, so they have always put games first, not stuff like DVD players, MP3 music storage, streaming movies and TV, or any of that. And for all the Wii's faults (and it does have some of its own), I at least give Nintendo credit for having the balls to try new ways to play games, something MS and Sony have been playing catch-up with them on since they got into the business.
Joy... THAT's what I think games are getting away from today, aside from Nintendo, that so many older games had in spades, and it was a big part of what made those games so fun. We do have unprecedented technical capability and options for customization in our games today, and that's awesome. But a worrying trend I see is that the price of technical progress seems to be the loss of "innocence" in games, so to speak. Sure, an epic soundtrack and innovative gameplay can be enjoyable, and there is a great variety of genres to choose from. But where have those bright, vibrant colors gone? Why does every character in every game have to have some dark, tortured soul? Why does just about every game with a plot nowadays revolve around the horrors of war? Why is Hell a more common setting than the Mushroom Kingdom in games today? It feels like "hardcore" games today have hit a similar vibe to the crappy '90s "gritty reboot" era in comics, trying to appeal to the more "mature" tastes of their "adult" fans and losing a big part of their aesthetic magic in the process. Games don't have to be "grimdark" or deconstruct previous game tropes to be fun and exciting. I would guess that's why I've been playing far more older games lately while my big brick consoles have been gathering dust.
