Ngmoco Boss: Sony's NGP is "Dead On Arrival"

[Worgen]

ehh the problem with phone and pad stuff is that its really hard to get past simple flash games, most of which you can play for free on a site like newgrounds or kongregate

And yet for all of that, what is quite possibly the single most successful individual game ever created, Tetris, is not only in the same vein as a simple flash game, but you can basically use programming a version of it as a way to learn Flash and similar platforms. Simple does not mean bad, or unentertaining.

That's the thing about the handheld market: you aren't selling Squaresoft's 80-hour epics, Bungie or Infinity Ward's hour-sucking pvp multiplayer, or anything else. You're selling something that you pull out while waiting two minutes for the bus to arrive, waiting in line at McDonalds, or sitting on the john. Just from how much games cost to develop, major players in the games industry are at a disadvantage here: you can't put a million dollars into a project that's going to sell for $1.50.

The handheld market is significantly different than it was years and years ago - and mostly because 'the handheld market' now consists of 'everyone who owns a smartphone' rather than the people you typically associate with video games.

my point isnt that it cant be stupid successful my point is that declaring something doa just because it doesnt fit with casual crap is stupid, I mean cod makes absolutely stupid amounts of money each year but we still see rpg games

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Yeah, I never understood why Sony tried to get in to the hand held market to begin with. It was clearly Nintendo's sole area, and Sony never seemed to catch on. Of course, who would have thought Apple would have a real shot at de-throning Nintendo? Stranger things have happened, but I'm going to have to say that this is a losing battle for Sony.

 

[Defense]

Yeah, I never understood why Sony tried to get in to the hand held market to begin with. It was clearly Nintendo's sole area, and Sony never seemed to catch on. Of course, who would have thought Apple would have a real shot at de-throning Nintendo? Stranger things have happened, but I'm going to have to say that this is a losing battle for Sony.

The problem with that is that somehow a console is a failure because it doesn't come out on top. Sony still managed to sell 60 million PSPs with Nintendo known as the supreme handheld ruler. Sony got in the handheld market because of their huge popularity, coming out on top both times with the Playstation brand.

 

[Mako SOLDIER]

I stopped taking the guy seriously when he said there were tens, if not hundreds of thousands of quality titles available. Tens, if not hundreds of thousands of titles, yes. But quality? Um, no. Out of those, we get about 10 that will get played for more than five minutes before it's forgotten. And let's not forget how many of the supposed 'games' are just crappy blackjack or sliding puzzles etc. Sure, Angry Birds may well have sold in the hundreds of thousands, but a single triple-A release on a console often does that in a weekend. Make no mistake, mobile phone gaming is an interesting novelty but it really isn't a threat yet, not to anyone with any taste in games at all. It's mainly 10 second game-bites for the terminally short of attention span.

 

[Mako SOLDIER]

Yeah, I never understood why Sony tried to get in to the hand held market to begin with. It was clearly Nintendo's sole area, and Sony never seemed to catch on. Of course, who would have thought Apple would have a real shot at de-throning Nintendo? Stranger things have happened, but I'm going to have to say that this is a losing battle for Sony.

The problem with that is that somehow a console is a failure because it doesn't come out on top. Sony still managed to sell 60 million PSPs with Nintendo known as the supreme handheld ruler. Sony got in the handheld market because of their huge popularity, coming out on top both times with the Playstation brand.

Plus, the PSP was the place to be for the franchises we loved on the PSOne & 2. Silent Hill: Origins, Crisis Core, Dissidia, just to name a few. Now, with Capcom jumping onto the good ship 3DS and producing canon Resi games for it, that may well shift, but the point is that the PSP had some pretty strong exclusives going for it. I bought it for the sake of Crisis Core alone (getting the wondrous little game that is Patapon in the bargain) and although I didn't buy more than a handful of games for it after that, it was still worth it.

 

[DTWolfwood]

so will anyone hold this man accountable for his words if the 3DS and NGP are huge successes? no.

so y does what he says matter in the least bit?

 

[Azure-Supernova]

I really do laugh everytime I hear about smartphones being a threat to handheld consoles, considering that they're two different devices that serve many different purposes.

How many people purchase a HTC or iPhone with hardcore gaming in mind?
Now I swore I'd never use this term again, but smartphone games are casual and are designed for the casual crowd. They're not designed for die hard fans. As much fun as Angry Birds might be, it's not got the punch of well known titles that the 3DS and NGP will be host to.

It's a phone that plays games on the side of being a phone. It's not a threat. When big name developers start abandoning Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft in favour of the electronic equivalent of a swiss army knife; then I'll be worried about the future of handheld gaming. When I see Bioshock or Call of Duty or Dead Space or Grand Theft Auto getting iPhone exclusive releases (you know, ones with effort put into the dev and all) then I'll be worried.

Phones are phones. Consoles are consoles.

 

[shadowform]

ehh the problem with phone and pad stuff is that its really hard to get past simple flash games, most of which you can play for free on a site like newgrounds or kongregate

And yet for all of that, what is quite possibly the single most successful individual game ever created, Tetris, is not only in the same vein as a simple flash game, but you can basically use programming a version of it as a way to learn Flash and similar platforms. Simple does not mean bad, or unentertaining.

That's the thing about the handheld market: you aren't selling Squaresoft's 80-hour epics, Bungie or Infinity Ward's hour-sucking pvp multiplayer, or anything else. You're selling something that you pull out while waiting two minutes for the bus to arrive, waiting in line at McDonalds, or sitting on the john. Just from how much games cost to develop, major players in the games industry are at a disadvantage here: you can't put a million dollars into a project that's going to sell for $1.50.

The handheld market is significantly different than it was years and years ago - and mostly because 'the handheld market' now consists of 'everyone who owns a smartphone' rather than the people you typically associate with video games.

my point isnt that it cant be stupid successful my point is that declaring something doa just because it doesnt fit with casual crap is stupid, I mean cod makes absolutely stupid amounts of money each year but we still see rpg games

You can't use 'stupid' in both contexts in the same sentence, it just doesn't work.

Besides that, my point is that the market for mobile games is entirely different than the market for console games, even down to how they are played. Compared to the total market, the number of people who will sit down and play a mobile game for an hour or more are a tiny fraction of the number of people who would buy the game, so it doesn't make SENSE to design them with the same ideas in mind as you would a console. The NGP, with all of its power and interface options, is pretty clearly a device designed to provide a console-like experience on a mobile platform. Simply put: this isn't necessary, and it's not what people look for in the mobile gaming world.

 

[Worgen]

ehh the problem with phone and pad stuff is that its really hard to get past simple flash games, most of which you can play for free on a site like newgrounds or kongregate

And yet for all of that, what is quite possibly the single most successful individual game ever created, Tetris, is not only in the same vein as a simple flash game, but you can basically use programming a version of it as a way to learn Flash and similar platforms. Simple does not mean bad, or unentertaining.

That's the thing about the handheld market: you aren't selling Squaresoft's 80-hour epics, Bungie or Infinity Ward's hour-sucking pvp multiplayer, or anything else. You're selling something that you pull out while waiting two minutes for the bus to arrive, waiting in line at McDonalds, or sitting on the john. Just from how much games cost to develop, major players in the games industry are at a disadvantage here: you can't put a million dollars into a project that's going to sell for $1.50.

The handheld market is significantly different than it was years and years ago - and mostly because 'the handheld market' now consists of 'everyone who owns a smartphone' rather than the people you typically associate with video games.

my point isnt that it cant be stupid successful my point is that declaring something doa just because it doesnt fit with casual crap is stupid, I mean cod makes absolutely stupid amounts of money each year but we still see rpg games

You can't use 'stupid' in both contexts in the same sentence, it just doesn't work.

Besides that, my point is that the market for mobile games is entirely different than the market for console games, even down to how they are played. Compared to the total market, the number of people who will sit down and play a mobile game for an hour or more are a tiny fraction of the number of people who would buy the game, so it doesn't make SENSE to design them with the same ideas in mind as you would a console. The NGP, with all of its power and interface options, is pretty clearly a device designed to provide a console-like experience on a mobile platform. Simply put: this isn't necessary, and it's not what people look for in the mobile gaming world.

yes I can

what the guy is saying is that a mobile system that will be mostly used for console type gaming is doa because it has to compete with flash games on phones and the pad, my point is that hes wrong

 

[shadowform]

ehh the problem with phone and pad stuff is that its really hard to get past simple flash games, most of which you can play for free on a site like newgrounds or kongregate

And yet for all of that, what is quite possibly the single most successful individual game ever created, Tetris, is not only in the same vein as a simple flash game, but you can basically use programming a version of it as a way to learn Flash and similar platforms. Simple does not mean bad, or unentertaining.

That's the thing about the handheld market: you aren't selling Squaresoft's 80-hour epics, Bungie or Infinity Ward's hour-sucking pvp multiplayer, or anything else. You're selling something that you pull out while waiting two minutes for the bus to arrive, waiting in line at McDonalds, or sitting on the john. Just from how much games cost to develop, major players in the games industry are at a disadvantage here: you can't put a million dollars into a project that's going to sell for $1.50.

The handheld market is significantly different than it was years and years ago - and mostly because 'the handheld market' now consists of 'everyone who owns a smartphone' rather than the people you typically associate with video games.

my point isnt that it cant be stupid successful my point is that declaring something doa just because it doesnt fit with casual crap is stupid, I mean cod makes absolutely stupid amounts of money each year but we still see rpg games

You can't use 'stupid' in both contexts in the same sentence, it just doesn't work.

Besides that, my point is that the market for mobile games is entirely different than the market for console games, even down to how they are played. Compared to the total market, the number of people who will sit down and play a mobile game for an hour or more are a tiny fraction of the number of people who would buy the game, so it doesn't make SENSE to design them with the same ideas in mind as you would a console. The NGP, with all of its power and interface options, is pretty clearly a device designed to provide a console-like experience on a mobile platform. Simply put: this isn't necessary, and it's not what people look for in the mobile gaming world.

yes I can

what the guy is saying is that a mobile system that will be mostly used for console type gaming is doa because it has to compete with flash games on phones and the pad, my point is that hes wrong

Yes, I know you said that, you already said it. Do you have any reasons why your statement would be true, as I do? Or do you just present it as a self-evident fact?

 

[Worgen]

ehh the problem with phone and pad stuff is that its really hard to get past simple flash games, most of which you can play for free on a site like newgrounds or kongregate

And yet for all of that, what is quite possibly the single most successful individual game ever created, Tetris, is not only in the same vein as a simple flash game, but you can basically use programming a version of it as a way to learn Flash and similar platforms. Simple does not mean bad, or unentertaining.

That's the thing about the handheld market: you aren't selling Squaresoft's 80-hour epics, Bungie or Infinity Ward's hour-sucking pvp multiplayer, or anything else. You're selling something that you pull out while waiting two minutes for the bus to arrive, waiting in line at McDonalds, or sitting on the john. Just from how much games cost to develop, major players in the games industry are at a disadvantage here: you can't put a million dollars into a project that's going to sell for $1.50.

The handheld market is significantly different than it was years and years ago - and mostly because 'the handheld market' now consists of 'everyone who owns a smartphone' rather than the people you typically associate with video games.

my point isnt that it cant be stupid successful my point is that declaring something doa just because it doesnt fit with casual crap is stupid, I mean cod makes absolutely stupid amounts of money each year but we still see rpg games

You can't use 'stupid' in both contexts in the same sentence, it just doesn't work.

Besides that, my point is that the market for mobile games is entirely different than the market for console games, even down to how they are played. Compared to the total market, the number of people who will sit down and play a mobile game for an hour or more are a tiny fraction of the number of people who would buy the game, so it doesn't make SENSE to design them with the same ideas in mind as you would a console. The NGP, with all of its power and interface options, is pretty clearly a device designed to provide a console-like experience on a mobile platform. Simply put: this isn't necessary, and it's not what people look for in the mobile gaming world.

yes I can

what the guy is saying is that a mobile system that will be mostly used for console type gaming is doa because it has to compete with flash games on phones and the pad, my point is that hes wrong

Yes, I know you said that, you already said it. Do you have any reasons why your statement would be true, as I do? Or do you just present it as a self-evident fact?

because I stopped paying attention to what I said in this thread long ago, Im not even sure what this is about anymore, I just keep getting replies and responding

 

[Woe Is You]

some game formats don't lend themselves to touch controls

platformers, shmups, actiony games

almost all games suffer if you have to cover up part of the screen to make a touch interface

your fat finger will never be as precise as a thumbstick cursor, though stylus controls make up for that

Funny thing, though: I was surprised how nice of a port Dodonpachi Resurrection for the iPhone is. It's plenty proof that shmups can work. That's not just a shmup, that's one of Cave's flagship games. Infinity Blade? Well, it's not your traditional action game but it is undeniably an action game. Chaos Rings is an example of a "hardcore" JRPG on the iPhone. Super Monkey Ball. And, while it's not on the iPhone, Kirby's Canvas Curse is an example of a platformer on a touchscreen.

The touch screen is merely a different method of controlling things that you have to get around. You just have to design around it instead of just trying to do traditional controls with it.

And seriously, while I love the games on my DS and its library, there's nothing in, say, a game like Ghost Trick that can't be done on an iPhone. I mostly play my DS while I'm at home and during trips when I have to stay overnight somewhere. But shorter trips? Games like Dodonpachi are amazing for that. And I have my phone with me at all times anyways (most people these days do), so they actually succeed in being better portable gaming devices than dedicated portables themselves in that sense.

There's a massive paradigm shift going in the gaming market in general and I'm not really sure Sony (or any of the big gaming corps, really) is catching the drift.