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In the last half dozen years gaming has changed from a hobby enjoyed by spotty, sad, geeky teenage boys who hadn't discovered the joys of the fairer sex.
Now of course gaming is "cool". Everybody whose anybody has a Playstation stuck under the tv. Gaming has spread from the teenage boys past-time, to the massmarket entertainment medium of the future- the industry currently outweighs the profits made by the film industry!
With the change, the target markets for gaming have also changed... or rather, widened. No longer is the teenager the market that games are made for. Now trendy young adults in their 20s and 30s have a Playstation tucked away, whilst younger kids have a N64 for amusment.
So, what's made this change come about?
Personally, I think the biggest factor is Sony's enterance in the market. You see, before this console manufacturers were quite a small scale business. Sony took things a step further, advertising the consoles as being "cool", and pushing their brand name all the way. It paid off too... an estimated 100million Playstations have been sold worldwide, with the next generation of consoles predicted to top that figure.
Which is all good for gamers of course. We get bigger budget games, with better graphics, cinema quality sound, and white-knuckle storylines. In fact, companies such as Square now employ psycologists to make sure their storylines have the right emotional impacts on the gamer.
Let's hope the upwards trend of games continues!
Sonic
Now of course gaming is "cool". Everybody whose anybody has a Playstation stuck under the tv. Gaming has spread from the teenage boys past-time, to the massmarket entertainment medium of the future- the industry currently outweighs the profits made by the film industry!
With the change, the target markets for gaming have also changed... or rather, widened. No longer is the teenager the market that games are made for. Now trendy young adults in their 20s and 30s have a Playstation tucked away, whilst younger kids have a N64 for amusment.
So, what's made this change come about?
Personally, I think the biggest factor is Sony's enterance in the market. You see, before this console manufacturers were quite a small scale business. Sony took things a step further, advertising the consoles as being "cool", and pushing their brand name all the way. It paid off too... an estimated 100million Playstations have been sold worldwide, with the next generation of consoles predicted to top that figure.
Which is all good for gamers of course. We get bigger budget games, with better graphics, cinema quality sound, and white-knuckle storylines. In fact, companies such as Square now employ psycologists to make sure their storylines have the right emotional impacts on the gamer.
Let's hope the upwards trend of games continues!
Sonic
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I don't think this is a particularly good thing, simply because developers aim games at this 'trendy' audience, not the 'real' gamers who play games much more, and therefore are trying to make the game appeal to the 'trendy' people.
This means gameplay can often take back seat to graphics, and developers pay tons for movie rights, which ultimately do nothing to enhance the gameplay, but just sell the game.
Of course there are good points, but I think 'hardcore' gamers suffer more because of this meteoric rise of Gameing popularity.
This means gameplay can often take back seat to graphics, and developers pay tons for movie rights, which ultimately do nothing to enhance the gameplay, but just sell the game.
Of course there are good points, but I think 'hardcore' gamers suffer more because of this meteoric rise of Gameing popularity.
pb wrote:
> So Daytona and Virtua Fighter were just figments of my imagination at the
> Saturn's release?
Tekken, et al, didn't get shown until a full four months
> after the Saturn had been on sale in Japan.
Sega always planned to produce
> arcade conversions for the home, as they always had with their previous
> machines, including the 3D games as well.
Ah, but how many more arcade conversions did Sega pull out soon after release. (Oh, and was daytona a japanese release, or did that come a couple of months later???)
Trust me when I say that the Saturn was not initially designed for 3D gaming...
Sonic
> So Daytona and Virtua Fighter were just figments of my imagination at the
> Saturn's release?
Tekken, et al, didn't get shown until a full four months
> after the Saturn had been on sale in Japan.
Sega always planned to produce
> arcade conversions for the home, as they always had with their previous
> machines, including the 3D games as well.
Ah, but how many more arcade conversions did Sega pull out soon after release. (Oh, and was daytona a japanese release, or did that come a couple of months later???)
Trust me when I say that the Saturn was not initially designed for 3D gaming...
Sonic
So Daytona and Virtua Fighter were just figments of my imagination at the Saturn's release?
Tekken, et al, didn't get shown until a full four months after the Saturn had been on sale in Japan.
Sega always planned to produce arcade conversions for the home, as they always had with their previous machines, including the 3D games as well.
Tekken, et al, didn't get shown until a full four months after the Saturn had been on sale in Japan.
Sega always planned to produce arcade conversions for the home, as they always had with their previous machines, including the 3D games as well.
Pb, you are completely right about AM2 making 3D games, however, these were SOLELY aimed at arcade gamers.
You see, Sega saw the arcade and home markets in a completely different way... the whole point of the arcade was to give gamers something they couldn't get at home. Since home gaming had ALWAYS been 2D, and Sega planned for it to stay that way, Sega's arcade divisions made 3D games for the arcade gamers.
The Saturn was completely based on the continuation of 2D gaming, and when Sega saw Sony's specs they suddenly upgraded the Saturn (badly), and rushed development.
It was only a few months after release that Sega was able to convert many of their famous 3D arcade games...
Had the console originally designed for 3D, Sega would have probably made a far bigger effort to base it around their arcade architecture in the same way the DC is based on the Naomi arcade board.
Sonic
You see, Sega saw the arcade and home markets in a completely different way... the whole point of the arcade was to give gamers something they couldn't get at home. Since home gaming had ALWAYS been 2D, and Sega planned for it to stay that way, Sega's arcade divisions made 3D games for the arcade gamers.
The Saturn was completely based on the continuation of 2D gaming, and when Sega saw Sony's specs they suddenly upgraded the Saturn (badly), and rushed development.
It was only a few months after release that Sega was able to convert many of their famous 3D arcade games...
Had the console originally designed for 3D, Sega would have probably made a far bigger effort to base it around their arcade architecture in the same way the DC is based on the Naomi arcade board.
Sonic
===SONICRAV---> wrote:
> On the contrary, pb, Sega did not plan to release a 3D console.
Well AM2 were already working on the console for a while, so it seems a bit strange that they should bother programming for the thing if it couldn't do anything they had already created in the arcade? Not saying you are wrong, but it would seem a little bit strange since they had been saying that more converted games like Virtua Racing would be appearing on their new machine a while before it was built. Perhaps what happened was that they saw the specs of the PSX and decided to make the 3D side more powerful, thereby changing the maths co-processor needed to calculate the polygons?
I know that they did change the chip specs just before launch, but I think you will find that it wasn't due to having no need for 3D in a console, since they were already in that area way before the Saturn existed.
> On the contrary, pb, Sega did not plan to release a 3D console.
Well AM2 were already working on the console for a while, so it seems a bit strange that they should bother programming for the thing if it couldn't do anything they had already created in the arcade? Not saying you are wrong, but it would seem a little bit strange since they had been saying that more converted games like Virtua Racing would be appearing on their new machine a while before it was built. Perhaps what happened was that they saw the specs of the PSX and decided to make the 3D side more powerful, thereby changing the maths co-processor needed to calculate the polygons?
I know that they did change the chip specs just before launch, but I think you will find that it wasn't due to having no need for 3D in a console, since they were already in that area way before the Saturn existed.
Like the PS2, sony were expecting to keep the PSX going until they could realease a really cheap Next-gen console. But then came the DC, it was highly dubious that a week before the DC's launch that sony announced the before unexpected PS2. The PS2 was rushed like the saturn and was given a cheap DVD drive whch was manufactured by sony so it cost them nothing worth worrying about, then of course all the casual gamers go 'WOW it has the words Playstation, sony and DVD in the same sentence I must get that!'
And the crap console won again...
And the crap console won again...
On the contrary, pb, Sega did not plan to release a 3D console. Instead, they thought it best to produce a 2D console, with 3D gaming being something only apparant in the aracdes. (all discussed in the my topic on Sega).
Of course, the Saturn was eventually released with 3D capabilities, but this only occurred AFTER Sony had released the specs for the PSx, showing it was a 3D gaming console.
In retaliation, Sega quickly changed the console by sticking in a better vector processor, and second CPU... which made the console powerful enough to do 3D, but horendous enough to be impossible to code for. Yu Suzuki was quoted as saying that only a handful of Sega's own staff could code for the console! (Mind you, games like Panzer Dragon, and NiGHTS! were superb).
Hence it was Sony that drove Sega to make their console 3D.
Sonic
Of course, the Saturn was eventually released with 3D capabilities, but this only occurred AFTER Sony had released the specs for the PSx, showing it was a 3D gaming console.
In retaliation, Sega quickly changed the console by sticking in a better vector processor, and second CPU... which made the console powerful enough to do 3D, but horendous enough to be impossible to code for. Yu Suzuki was quoted as saying that only a handful of Sega's own staff could code for the console! (Mind you, games like Panzer Dragon, and NiGHTS! were superb).
Hence it was Sony that drove Sega to make their console 3D.
Sonic
Now now, 3D was going this way on the arcade scene already, with both Sega themselves and Namco making some classic fighting games. Driving had also become all polygons, mostly from these two companies. Sony, of course had little or nothing to do with this at the time, but realised that Sega had a hit on their hands after they released Virtua Racing on the Megadrive and ill fated 32X. This spurred both parties on to bring the new arcade games to their consoles, which is when Sony approached Namco for their games and sega got AM2 team to work on their new Saturn hardware.
Both parties were previously unaware of what specs their would-be rival would produce and both were working independantly to produce 3D hardware for their consoles. Under AM2's direction, Sega changed their hardware to provide a larger polygon count for Virtua Fighter and also to provide more acurate rendering of Sega Rally et al. Sony had 3D games advice from various companies and worked closely with Namco on their hardware before release.
Both companies launched with 3D gaming, both good and bad. Sega's Virtua Fighter and Sony's Tekken had their fans in equal numbers, as did the likes of Ridge Racer and Sega Rally or Daytona. The 3D gaming had been successfully transferred from Arcade to the home in a move that owed more to the natural development of gaming than anything.
Sega, however, were keen to continue the success of previous hits such as the Streetfighter 2 series on its big selling Megadrive console. This pleased fans of the amazing 2D fighting games who were not afraid of the 3D games muscling in on their turf and knew what all those people new to gaming were missing. Platform games, 2D Beat-em-ups and side scrolling shooters were plentifull on both consoles, but Sega had the lion's share and it's hardware coped better with these, while Sony's strength lay in the slightly higher polygon count and performance of it's own machine.
Things looked even until Psygnosis created Wipeout, Sony saw the opportunity and grabbed it first before Sega could publish it on the Saturn (which they later did) and got lots of advertising and merchandise deals, not to mention their own label music behind it. This marketed the PSX like nothing before it and even the success of Tomb Raider on the Saturn, and then on the PSX after it, couldn't compete.
Both parties were previously unaware of what specs their would-be rival would produce and both were working independantly to produce 3D hardware for their consoles. Under AM2's direction, Sega changed their hardware to provide a larger polygon count for Virtua Fighter and also to provide more acurate rendering of Sega Rally et al. Sony had 3D games advice from various companies and worked closely with Namco on their hardware before release.
Both companies launched with 3D gaming, both good and bad. Sega's Virtua Fighter and Sony's Tekken had their fans in equal numbers, as did the likes of Ridge Racer and Sega Rally or Daytona. The 3D gaming had been successfully transferred from Arcade to the home in a move that owed more to the natural development of gaming than anything.
Sega, however, were keen to continue the success of previous hits such as the Streetfighter 2 series on its big selling Megadrive console. This pleased fans of the amazing 2D fighting games who were not afraid of the 3D games muscling in on their turf and knew what all those people new to gaming were missing. Platform games, 2D Beat-em-ups and side scrolling shooters were plentifull on both consoles, but Sega had the lion's share and it's hardware coped better with these, while Sony's strength lay in the slightly higher polygon count and performance of it's own machine.
Things looked even until Psygnosis created Wipeout, Sony saw the opportunity and grabbed it first before Sega could publish it on the Saturn (which they later did) and got lots of advertising and merchandise deals, not to mention their own label music behind it. This marketed the PSX like nothing before it and even the success of Tomb Raider on the Saturn, and then on the PSX after it, couldn't compete.
I was always under the impression that what Sony did was to market their console to 20somethings?
MegaDrives and SNES, etc.. had always been marketed at kids and teenagers... whereas Sony pushed their machine toward an older market...
20somethings having more speding cash than kides...
Making gameplaying acceptable to a wider audience, especially since little brothers and sisters often want to play the same stuff their older siblings have too?
MegaDrives and SNES, etc.. had always been marketed at kids and teenagers... whereas Sony pushed their machine toward an older market...
20somethings having more speding cash than kides...
Making gameplaying acceptable to a wider audience, especially since little brothers and sisters often want to play the same stuff their older siblings have too?
Strafex wrote:
> ===SONICRAV---> wrote:
I think that what Meka sad a while back was more the case.
Gaming
> was becoming mainstream anyway.
Sony did speed up the process a bit but it
> would've happened anyway.
I strongly disagree...
Neither Sega, nor Ninty were at all interested in releasing their consoles with anywhere near the final specs they did... they designed the consoles around 2D gaming, and it was only when Sony released its 3D console vision that the 2 companies pulled up their socks (check my topic on why sega failed).
Sony wowed gamers with Tekken and the like, but more importantly associated a "cool" Hi fi maker with consoles... which no doubt made the console more trendy...
Whether this would have ahppened otherwose is debatable.
Sonic
> ===SONICRAV---> wrote:
I think that what Meka sad a while back was more the case.
Gaming
> was becoming mainstream anyway.
Sony did speed up the process a bit but it
> would've happened anyway.
I strongly disagree...
Neither Sega, nor Ninty were at all interested in releasing their consoles with anywhere near the final specs they did... they designed the consoles around 2D gaming, and it was only when Sony released its 3D console vision that the 2 companies pulled up their socks (check my topic on why sega failed).
Sony wowed gamers with Tekken and the like, but more importantly associated a "cool" Hi fi maker with consoles... which no doubt made the console more trendy...
Whether this would have ahppened otherwose is debatable.
Sonic
Page: