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"Dringo's theory on the real future of gaming"

Remember when we all start out on the forums. We sat there and go "the future of gaming are VR machines". Yeah.... errr no. We know full well that they are just so many many many years away. Even after our life time perhaps.

But Nintendo knew the future is in trouble. Games machines are forever technically going forward. But not for much longer. Games are becoming more photo-realistic, even today's X-box, PS2 and Gamecube are possibly good enough. But the PS3, Xenon and N5 truly will be the final nail in console progressions coffin. So what next?

Well although consoles will struggle to go forward, that isn't strictly the case for handheld gaming.

That's when Sony went, "s**t, Nintendo can actually win this thing!"

You see after the N5 Nintendo can rest on the Gameboy. A franchise that can at last display as good graphics as home formats. The N-Gage and up-coming PSP prove it. With a small connection to the TV and you have a home console/handheld combo. Multiplayer will almost be totally done by online play... Gaming as we know it has changed.

So Sony have to enter the handheld market. Start to knock away some of Nintendo's monopoly. After all there is no guarentee Sony can beat Nintendo again. After all they are ready this time. But have Sony got it wrong?

The PSP is a brilliant piece of kit, MP3 player and video player combo. Genius idea. Plus the £200 price point proves this is an expensive gadget for the adults. Now tell me people, how many adults do you see with Gameboys?

According to Nintendo, with their new plan to see Gameboy to adults (with the SP), a few more than before. But Nintendo will still admitt, the Gameboy sells to children and hardcore gamers. Adults are few and far between. But Sony are different, for starters Playstation is a multi-million selling brand and all these extras are sure to tickle adult gamers fancy. A bit like Nokia, I mean with their brand name and a load of cool extras they would sure make a million selling handheld system...

Oh wait.

Well I'm sure with CD lasers and in built memory to store game data and MP3 abilities will not damage battery life at all. Well maybe, not that it matters I mean battery life doesn't affect the success of a handheld console at all. Just ask SEGA. Oh wait. Well that doesn't matter, it looks so cool with top graphics. They'll get a head start over Nintendo for sure, I mean it's not as if Nintendo plan to launch a handheld system just before the PSP. Oh wait. Well come on, Nintendo haven't learnt anything, I mean the SNES was just as popular as the GAmeboy franchise. Oh wait.

Yes from my standpoint I'm supposed to see it like this. But I'm also a casual consumer, despite the PSP looking hotter than Elisha Cutherbert I can't see a flock of eager people to buy this £200 handheld system. Not even I'd go for it, It's like those PALM computer thingy's, damn they are cool... but there is no way I'd ever get one.

Nintendo are not as stupid as they look. As the Gameboy starts to flag they buy into Pokemon and release a colour edition. Moments before Pokemon started to slide the GBA was launched. As Children became the main consumer of the product Nintendo released an adult edition. The SP. More expensive but damn cooler. Come the PSP launch the SP will suffer a long overdue but very good price cut. The PSP will be facing off against the words most popular console, both the adult SP and the normal childrens edition... at a fraction of the PSP's price.

Not to mention the fact that Nintendo are also getting a head start over the PSP with their own new fangled hand held device the DS. The DS could fail, but the idea could be cool enough to win over gamers hearts.

Sony are not going to walk over Nintendo this time. Nintendo are making sure of it. With a war going on between the DS and PSP for advertisement space you know the GBA will quietly move on by as the biggest selling system still. You just know, like Atari, like SEGA, Like Nokia... Sony could well be the next victim to the handheld massacure. Sure unlike those 3 Sony are a bigger threat. But, Nintendo are actually putting together a defence system this time... they've never done that before.

If the PSP falls will that be the end of the fear that Nintendo will falter? Yes. Nintendo will continue with their handheld dominance, and when and if they are finally forced out of the home console market... the power between the 2 divisions will be so minute... none of us will care.

Dringo - fanboy till the end.

Dringo wrote:
> A; If it was supposed to say publishers then edit your post.

I can edit my posts??

Bonus wrote:
> Each pad suits the games which are made to be played on it :D
>
> MGS suits the PS2 pad, as does Pro Evo.

Putting fanboy-ism aside here, unless these games are D-Pad based then I'd rather use a different pad.
Gamecube, Xbox, N64, Dreamcast... anyone where the analogue stick seems natural. I'm sure Sony'll fix it for next time though. :-)

> Halo suits the Xbox pad and Zelda suits the GC pad, but no one here
> is willing to detach themselves from stupid corporate loyalties long
> enough to realise this :D

Although I think Halo would be fine on a GC pad and Zelda fine on an Xbox pad, personally.

> So, long may the Nintendo fanboy survive, so that I could annoy the
> hell out of them :D

Hehe! Troll! :-P

Hmmm, having worked with many, many game developers thought-out my career, I would have to disagree with you to some extent here Bonus.

I see what you are saying in so much as that good developer will always want to take the time to make the most of a machines hardware and architecture, but as a hardware vendor, it is a IHVs responsibility to provide developers with the best (or at least a user friendly) environment in the first instance.

In the PC world, the main focus of video card IHVs in the last few years (other than the constant question for speed, natch!) has been to give devs the most powerful tools possible, thus allowing them to creating cutting edge visuals in an environment that is easy to use. A good example here is the Pixel Shader routines and HSL that current (and of course future) generation(s) of cards use. The point here is that it’s not about, as someone said earlier in this thread, an approach that will mean all developers end up using the same base textures or shading code, it’s more about giving the developer the ability to use a standard set of routines that are programmable (thus giving infinite variation) but doing so in an environment that is across the board. This negates the need for individual devs to develop there own routines from scratch – thus saving 100s of hour. And as you will learn when you leave college and start to work in this industry, if there is one thing you never ever have, it’s enough time.

Back to Sony and the PS2 - now it's all very well saying, 'our hardware can do X and Y and can look amazing' but to achieve this level of quality you will need to spend 100s of man hours wrestling with the platforms architecture. But this is far from an ideal environment, yes I know that coders by nature like fiddling with hardware and learning how to get the best out of it, but I can tell you now, 100% that given the choice they would rather not have this headache, and use the extra time making their game a better product. Well that should be 99.9% actually as people like Carmack are more concerned with pushing the envelope of what is deemed ‘possible’ on any given platform, than the actual game – but he is in a group of about 1 (maybe 2 is you count Tim Sweeny).

The architecture of the PS2 is just not an easy environment for a game dev, it’s that simple – you ask any dev and they’ll tell you that the difference between programming for, as an example DirectX, and the PS2 is, and I quote ‘light years harder’. If you want, we can go into a detailed discussion as to the ins and outs of why this is the case – as I love nothing more than talking about this kinda stuff as you’ll know if you have ever read the PC forum. However, I think we both know it’s not worth it.

Bottom line is that with the PS2 Sony went for an architecture that is simply too dynamic, having a system that is based on a multiple-processor structure that requires you to run asynchronous processes in order to get the most from it is far from ideal in a sector where lifecycles are short. It’s just so different from what developers are used to, it’s like learning your trade all over again – which takes time. Imagine going from an environment where CPU code is king, to a machine that has a main processor with two vector units, forcing you into a situation where you need to write assembly code that must manage all six pipelines of the machine.

I have no doubt that the PS2’s power will never be fully realised for these (and many more) reasons. If a product had a cycle of 15 years, this level of depth would be a big plus as you would continue to see the quality of software grow over the machines life. However, the PS2 has a life cycle of say what, 5 years (based on the March release in early 2000 and the PS3 which is due in 2005) as a high level product? Not enough time. Publisher (and the developers) know this.

So what happens, they choose the easy option. Use the methods they are used to, write CPU code and have this do all the work – and the PS2’s CPU on its own simply isn’t powerful enough. Anyway, I am rambling a bit now so I will stop.

Bottom line - the PS2 is too hard to program for – or should I say, it’s too different to program for when you consider its competitors and environment. This is the case whether you are a s**t hot programmer or a second rate studio. The only difference here is that the former have more time and financial freedom to learn how to use the machine.

But this still doesn’t change the primary fact – that the PS2 should have been much, much easier to program. Because all that happens when you have this situation is that we have more bad games and less truly great games. And as a gamer, I for one think that is a negative.

Bonus wrote:
> AfroJoe wrote:
> >And Sony have made statements saying they doubt they'll have it
> ready
> for Christmas 2004, which would be the prime time to gather sales.
>
>
> Agreed, I think the PSP could gather as big a cult status as the
> iPod, not many people actually have one of those either mind :D
>
> Anyway, I'm not particularly interested in the DS. All it is doing
> is emulating what Nintendo did with the Game and Watch series of
> standalone handheld games in the 80's. They had dual screens too,
> wouldn't be surprised if all the DS could do was games similar to
> those but with colour.

A; If it was supposed to say publishers then edit your post.

B: Game And Watch extended their playing field with duel screens. the Nintendo DS gives new perspectives, hidden data in multiplayer, one of the screens is in fact touch screen...

The GBA-GC link up is proof on how Nintendo can pull off a great dual screen idea and with the 30 games being announced at E3 they will prove this. This is the future of gaming.

Bonus wrote:

> Agreed, I think the PSP could gather as big a cult status as the
> iPod, not many people actually have one of those either mind :D

I assume you are joking here, right?

No you cannot deny that hardware performance is a direct result of hardware efficiency.

Neither can you say that Sony are too unskilled to make an API for the platform.

All you can say is that lazy developers make bad games, and top notch developers make good games, that is true of any platform.

Some companie spush the PS2 to it's limits, others dont.

Not every game has to look as good as GT4 or Metal Gear Solid to be a good game however.

The vast majority of PS2 games suck, not just because of the graphics, but in terms of the gameplay programming too, which would be identical on every console.

Collision detection etc isn't really hardware specific, and plenty of PS2 games do that very badly, so that points to lazy developers, not a platform deficiency.

These developers just moan because their life is made harder by having to put some effort into actually getting decent graphics to support shoddy games.

Bonus - I admit that i am not an expert in programming, and I will never pretend to be, but it seems to me that the failure of the PS2 to support a decent programming environment is either lack of adequate programming software handed out by Sony to dev teams, or the failure of the hardware to support adequate programming software.

Which is it? Are Sony just too stingy/unskilled to provide a decent environment, or is the hardware too archaic to provide one?

You can't deny that software performance is a direct result of hardware efficiency.

Bonus wrote:
> The Xbox pad is based on a pad design which I've had for as long as
> the PS2 has been on the go.
>
> Microsoft released Sidewinder pads which are very similar to that of
> the Xbox a long, long time ago :D

Spot on. But the reason for that is, basically other than the addition of analogue functionality to the buttons the design was good back then as well.

Notorious Biggles wrote:
> I'm not a fan of the GC pad to be honest. I find the Xbox pad more
> comfortable. Analogue triggers and thumbsticks, the left thumb stick
> being in the natural position for people, and with the right one in
> easy reach. The normal action buttons fall directly under the right
> thumb, which is spot on. There is a D pad, easy to reach for the
> games that need it, but not interfering with the left thumb stick.
> And the analogue triggers round it all off. Fair point about the
> black and white buttons, but they aren't really action buttons. They
> are secondary buttons designed for things like camera angle changes
> etc. I can move, hold a trigger and mash the coloured buttons
> simultaneously with ease. That IS the epitome of good design. Only
> downside for some was the size. But hey, I'm well endowed, it suits
> me perfect.

This is fair enough: I suppose in the end it's your choice which controller you prefer. But I'd have to say the Gamecube one is probably the best. You mentioned earlier in the post (I didn't quote that bit) that Nintendo have created a control which allows fingers to fall naturally into position, which I wasn't entirely aware of and seems like another good reason to back up the Gamecube pad. So cheers for that, I suppose. :-D

On another note, though, I don't think the PS2 pad is all that great. Sure, it works well with PES3, or seems to anyway. But maybe that's just due to the fact that anyone who plays PES ends up playing a lot and so in the end gets used to the pad even if they didn't originally like it. Other than PES3, I don't feel that it is suited to many other games.

Overall, I'd say the Gamecube is the best, followed by the Xbox pad, then the PS2 one. I've not played Xbox too much, but from when I have, the pad has seemed adequate enough.

The Xbox pad is based on a pad design which I've had for as long as the PS2 has been on the go.

Microsoft released Sidewinder pads which are very similar to that of the Xbox a long, long time ago :D