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You’ve all heard the rumour. Gamecube could be Nintendo’s last console. They’re going to do something that Microsoft and Sony won’t – and that’s to stop making other consoles.
While Sony and Microsoft are inevitably already beavering away on designs for the PS3 and Xbox 2, Nintendo are planning a revolutionary approach to future console gaming, and that’s to place their emphasis on quality, innovative software, rather than increasing the power of hardware – which certainly gives a sure sign that there isn’t going be a Gamecube successor any time soon.
Why?
Because, according to Nintendo’s new President, Satoru Iwata, the “Current level of technology is perfectly adequate” and “In a climate where higher polygon counts and faster processing speed is becoming a preoccupation with developers”, it’s easy to forget that it’s inventive gaming that’s carried Nintendo since the NES.
This is obviously taking a slight dig at the competition that is Sony and Microsoft, who, as I said, are already planning consoles which incredible power. If they do this, games that will follow will inevitably be based around graphics, with unoriginal ideas, just silly remakes under different names with slight character variation. Maybe storylines will be different, but the actual idea is the same – it’s nothing new.
That’s what Nintendo want to change, They want to be the first to concentrate on new ideas for games. Which is why they want to distance themselves between the ongoing, raging war that is occurring between Sony’s and Microsoft’s giant multimedia machines.
According to Nintendo, it doesn’t matter how many machines Sony and Microsoft sell, so long as they make their software “…attractive enough to drive consumers to buy our hardware” Mr Iwata also sent out a grave message obviously as a warning to the industry: “We Can’t be too optimistic about the games market. No matter what great products you come up with, people get bored.” He’s right, isn’t he? As a Ninty – and other Nintys are bound to agree – I pride myself upon owning great innovative titles that keep spewing from Nintendo’s creative brains, but even Nintendo will run out of ideas sooner or later. So, is it really a good idea to carry out Iwata’s plan? I think so. We need new games, to keep gamers interested. At E3 (you all know what E3 is, right?), there was easily enough evidence to suggest that (Nintendo’s stand aside ) the market s already inundated with horridly boring clones of already well established gaming genres. Look how many third-person adventures, platformers and irritating cartoon licenses that kept popping around at E3, all identical from the visuals and front end.
I think Nintendo are wise fellows to stick with the Gamecube. It’s easily the console best for quick, easy development, which leads to outstanding results at the same time! It’s a developer’s dream, no doubt, that they can spend more time on creating innovative ideas, and then quickly convert them into real forms to see the outcome, and then keep on using trial and error to finally end up with the desired end product. If the Gamecube can do that, then the prospects are bright, and with Nintendo fellows at the helm, never before seen games should be ripe for the pickin’.
Iwata also said: “The effort to produce machines with better technology has reached its limit. If things continue, they may lead to the decline of the entire industry”.
Do you think that’s an overreaction? Or do you think it’s time that NIntendo, Microsoft and Sony stick to their already impressive consoles and leave it to developers to create new, interesting, inventive, high-quality gaming? Why should Sony and Microsoft make a brand-new console with better specs, only to find that developers find coding and programming harder and more time-consuming? Sure, the graphical outcome would be, no doubt, outstanding, but to push them hard enough to spend as much time upon making the game a treat to play? Even if developers did manage this, surely the gap between each game released would be substantial? Maybe, maybe not, Sony and Microsoft may make their new consoles developer friendly, we’ll see.
But I’d just like to say, that I won’t be against Nintendo being a software-only company like Sega, if they’re willing to place more of an emphasis on the quality of games.
*Inspired by NGC
Thanks for reading.
Shocky.
While Sony and Microsoft are inevitably already beavering away on designs for the PS3 and Xbox 2, Nintendo are planning a revolutionary approach to future console gaming, and that’s to place their emphasis on quality, innovative software, rather than increasing the power of hardware – which certainly gives a sure sign that there isn’t going be a Gamecube successor any time soon.
Why?
Because, according to Nintendo’s new President, Satoru Iwata, the “Current level of technology is perfectly adequate” and “In a climate where higher polygon counts and faster processing speed is becoming a preoccupation with developers”, it’s easy to forget that it’s inventive gaming that’s carried Nintendo since the NES.
This is obviously taking a slight dig at the competition that is Sony and Microsoft, who, as I said, are already planning consoles which incredible power. If they do this, games that will follow will inevitably be based around graphics, with unoriginal ideas, just silly remakes under different names with slight character variation. Maybe storylines will be different, but the actual idea is the same – it’s nothing new.
That’s what Nintendo want to change, They want to be the first to concentrate on new ideas for games. Which is why they want to distance themselves between the ongoing, raging war that is occurring between Sony’s and Microsoft’s giant multimedia machines.
According to Nintendo, it doesn’t matter how many machines Sony and Microsoft sell, so long as they make their software “…attractive enough to drive consumers to buy our hardware” Mr Iwata also sent out a grave message obviously as a warning to the industry: “We Can’t be too optimistic about the games market. No matter what great products you come up with, people get bored.” He’s right, isn’t he? As a Ninty – and other Nintys are bound to agree – I pride myself upon owning great innovative titles that keep spewing from Nintendo’s creative brains, but even Nintendo will run out of ideas sooner or later. So, is it really a good idea to carry out Iwata’s plan? I think so. We need new games, to keep gamers interested. At E3 (you all know what E3 is, right?), there was easily enough evidence to suggest that (Nintendo’s stand aside ) the market s already inundated with horridly boring clones of already well established gaming genres. Look how many third-person adventures, platformers and irritating cartoon licenses that kept popping around at E3, all identical from the visuals and front end.
I think Nintendo are wise fellows to stick with the Gamecube. It’s easily the console best for quick, easy development, which leads to outstanding results at the same time! It’s a developer’s dream, no doubt, that they can spend more time on creating innovative ideas, and then quickly convert them into real forms to see the outcome, and then keep on using trial and error to finally end up with the desired end product. If the Gamecube can do that, then the prospects are bright, and with Nintendo fellows at the helm, never before seen games should be ripe for the pickin’.
Iwata also said: “The effort to produce machines with better technology has reached its limit. If things continue, they may lead to the decline of the entire industry”.
Do you think that’s an overreaction? Or do you think it’s time that NIntendo, Microsoft and Sony stick to their already impressive consoles and leave it to developers to create new, interesting, inventive, high-quality gaming? Why should Sony and Microsoft make a brand-new console with better specs, only to find that developers find coding and programming harder and more time-consuming? Sure, the graphical outcome would be, no doubt, outstanding, but to push them hard enough to spend as much time upon making the game a treat to play? Even if developers did manage this, surely the gap between each game released would be substantial? Maybe, maybe not, Sony and Microsoft may make their new consoles developer friendly, we’ll see.
But I’d just like to say, that I won’t be against Nintendo being a software-only company like Sega, if they’re willing to place more of an emphasis on the quality of games.
*Inspired by NGC
Thanks for reading.
Shocky.
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Hmm, if ninty do try to drag out the cube while ps2 and xbox replacements are available, i think we'd really see if quality games can succeed against the flow of markting, hype and novelty
In my opinion, the dreamcast's failure in a business sense seemed almost paradoxical next to the games available.
Would ninty go the same way?
I'm sure there could be a significant improvement in graphics in the near-future ('near' being a few years) - significant enough to attract customers anyhow. But then, there would still be all those gamecubes out there, in existance, so if there were still cube games being released that competed on overall quality with new consoles' releases, and that was recognised by the public, they could still buy the games. They'd still have their old gamecubes there too.
Maybe that's where you could seperate this scenario from that of the dreamcast - it wouldn't require many people to be buying the console itself.
So perhaps the only stumbling point could be that people would be too blinded by the new technology to give the 'old' console's games a fair chance.
And would't it be great to see if, as so many of us seem to keep saying, it's the games that count?
In my opinion, the dreamcast's failure in a business sense seemed almost paradoxical next to the games available.
Would ninty go the same way?
I'm sure there could be a significant improvement in graphics in the near-future ('near' being a few years) - significant enough to attract customers anyhow. But then, there would still be all those gamecubes out there, in existance, so if there were still cube games being released that competed on overall quality with new consoles' releases, and that was recognised by the public, they could still buy the games. They'd still have their old gamecubes there too.
Maybe that's where you could seperate this scenario from that of the dreamcast - it wouldn't require many people to be buying the console itself.
So perhaps the only stumbling point could be that people would be too blinded by the new technology to give the 'old' console's games a fair chance.
And would't it be great to see if, as so many of us seem to keep saying, it's the games that count?
It always amuses me when people talk specs. After all, has anyone here had first hand experience in developing for these consoles? Just because NGC say that developers say that the GC is the easiest console to create games for, it's unlikely to be the easiest for every company.
If you really want to talk about specs, all the consoles are pretty much equal. Although people DID complain about the PS2 being hard to develop for at the outset, the masses of technical support and middleware available for the console means that it's development cycle is now highly developed. Meanwhile the GC and Xbox have well designed achitectures, but don't yet have a massive code library due to their age. For the next few years the console performances should stay pretty much instep with each other- it will be the developers who determine how good their games perform technically. (for example, Shinobi on the PS2 will look as good as any Xbox or GC game released up till now).
However, this is all complete tosh of course- it's the games that count.
The whole premise of this topic is an article in NGC which itself is biased. Don't believe me? Well, have they EVER said that the Xbox or PS2 has something over the GC- like the Xbox's included modem, or simply complementing a game on another console? Of course not- that's not what people read the magazine for! I could just as easily create an article saying why Microsoft are focussing their efforts in the right direction by supporting small developers, or concentrating on the hardcore elite! The whole idea of trying to ask which console is better is nonsense- they're all aimed at doing different things. It's like asking if a heater is better than a freezer!
Sonic
If you really want to talk about specs, all the consoles are pretty much equal. Although people DID complain about the PS2 being hard to develop for at the outset, the masses of technical support and middleware available for the console means that it's development cycle is now highly developed. Meanwhile the GC and Xbox have well designed achitectures, but don't yet have a massive code library due to their age. For the next few years the console performances should stay pretty much instep with each other- it will be the developers who determine how good their games perform technically. (for example, Shinobi on the PS2 will look as good as any Xbox or GC game released up till now).
However, this is all complete tosh of course- it's the games that count.
The whole premise of this topic is an article in NGC which itself is biased. Don't believe me? Well, have they EVER said that the Xbox or PS2 has something over the GC- like the Xbox's included modem, or simply complementing a game on another console? Of course not- that's not what people read the magazine for! I could just as easily create an article saying why Microsoft are focussing their efforts in the right direction by supporting small developers, or concentrating on the hardcore elite! The whole idea of trying to ask which console is better is nonsense- they're all aimed at doing different things. It's like asking if a heater is better than a freezer!
Sonic
I think what Solskjær was these polygon counts that MS have been boasting about.
It turns out that although the Xbox has the best processor and the best graphics chip, they've really just been selotaped together and therefore can't ever give their full potential.
The Gamecube parts are designed to work with each other in the most efficient way. That way, although the Gamecube's processor does less "ticks" than the Xbox (485 million compared to the Xbox's 733 million), because the Xbox's processor has such slow connections to the RAM and Cache, it ends up actually using less of its ticks than the Gamecube uses...
And other things like that...
Anyway, the step up from Snes to Playstation was huge.
The step up from Playstation to the N64 was also big but nothing compared to the Snes-PS leap.
The Step up to the Dreamcast was fairly small considering the gap was 2-3 years but it had a noticable effect - it smoothed out the limited graphical capabilities of previous machines and allowed the games to run faster and look sublime.
When the PS2 came along, most of it's games actually performed worse than the DC's and even when devellopers got the hang of using it, the differences were still trivial.
The step up from PS2 to Gamecube/Xbox is also pretty trivial.
And GC game could work with the PS2's power with a slightly graphical downgrade.
Any future upgrades will be more trivial still.
That's why Nintendo predict that it'll be atleast 6 years before technology can offer a real improvement over what can be done on current technology.
It turns out that although the Xbox has the best processor and the best graphics chip, they've really just been selotaped together and therefore can't ever give their full potential.
The Gamecube parts are designed to work with each other in the most efficient way. That way, although the Gamecube's processor does less "ticks" than the Xbox (485 million compared to the Xbox's 733 million), because the Xbox's processor has such slow connections to the RAM and Cache, it ends up actually using less of its ticks than the Gamecube uses...
And other things like that...
Anyway, the step up from Snes to Playstation was huge.
The step up from Playstation to the N64 was also big but nothing compared to the Snes-PS leap.
The Step up to the Dreamcast was fairly small considering the gap was 2-3 years but it had a noticable effect - it smoothed out the limited graphical capabilities of previous machines and allowed the games to run faster and look sublime.
When the PS2 came along, most of it's games actually performed worse than the DC's and even when devellopers got the hang of using it, the differences were still trivial.
The step up from PS2 to Gamecube/Xbox is also pretty trivial.
And GC game could work with the PS2's power with a slightly graphical downgrade.
Any future upgrades will be more trivial still.
That's why Nintendo predict that it'll be atleast 6 years before technology can offer a real improvement over what can be done on current technology.
Excuse me?
"Wipes the floor in terms of specs"?
Not quite, laddy. I've yet to see ONE game on the Xbox that outshines the Gamecube graphics-wise.
Just because Microsoft stated it was the most powerful console on the Earth, doesn't mean it is. It's POTENTIAL is far greater.
"Wipes the floor in terms of specs"?
Not quite, laddy. I've yet to see ONE game on the Xbox that outshines the Gamecube graphics-wise.
Just because Microsoft stated it was the most powerful console on the Earth, doesn't mean it is. It's POTENTIAL is far greater.
I don't really care if they do/don't stop making consoles after the future, if even if their consoles are better/worse than the work of their rivals in the market at the time.
Just as-long as i'm able to play all the new Mario and Zelda games, and all the other great Rare and Nintendo titles, i'm happy! :)
Even if it is on the X-Box 3 or PS6.
Look at the GameCube....
The X-Box wipes the floor with it in terms of specs but we love it because of the games it has - like Mario, Monkey Ball, Smash Bros., and loads more!
So if we end-up with the future Nintendo consoles being low-spec'd compared to the others, I won't be bothered! :)
Just as-long as i'm able to play all the new Mario and Zelda games, and all the other great Rare and Nintendo titles, i'm happy! :)
Even if it is on the X-Box 3 or PS6.
Look at the GameCube....
The X-Box wipes the floor with it in terms of specs but we love it because of the games it has - like Mario, Monkey Ball, Smash Bros., and loads more!
So if we end-up with the future Nintendo consoles being low-spec'd compared to the others, I won't be bothered! :)
sedgie wrote:
> AfroJoe wrote:
> Yup.
>
> That'll be enough time to get me a GC.
>
> :D
>
> Do you mean you haven't got one yet :-0
---
Yes. I do.
:-)
I'm actually getting one in October, which is even better than waiting 6 years.
:D
> AfroJoe wrote:
> Yup.
>
> That'll be enough time to get me a GC.
>
> :D
>
> Do you mean you haven't got one yet :-0
---
Yes. I do.
:-)
I'm actually getting one in October, which is even better than waiting 6 years.
:D
First off it is my belief that people have jumped to conclusions. Nintendo never said this was their last console, they merely said the Cube would have no successor anytime soon (unlike the PS2 and Xbox which already have successors in development) because there is no point making new consoles simply for graphics. With N64 Nintendo could make the leap to 3D, and obvious advance, and with the Cube developers can now create large polygon models to fully realise the 3D environments they want to create. Another worthwhile step. But there's no point increasing graphical power simply for the sake of it. I am glad to play visually inferior games as long as they play well and I'm not forking out over £100 every time someone decides graphics need to be better.
But ultimately this is a big, a HUGE decision, and it could make or break Ninty. If it goes badly, Nintendo may not be able to afford to make another console even if they want to. Because if you look at the consoles now, PS2 is still the most popular choice. I don't know whether Xbox or Cube are more popular here or worldwide, but I doubt there's too much in it anyway. Thing is are people other than the 'Hardcore' Nintendo fans going to carry on buying Cube games when a PS3 or Xbox2 come out? Many people will undoubtedly be wowed by the graphics and buy one of them and buy games for their new console in favour of GameCube. Nintendo will have to produce some pretty amazing games for people to want to buy them in favour of a game for their new console. Maybe that's a good thing? Ninty will have to make games as good as possible to compete. If they can do this and keep it up they'll do fine. But if they can't produce enough games quickly enough, and if like Shocky said they run out of ideas... they could be in for a rough time.
For me Nintendo are making the right decision. I had enough trouble raising the money for my Cube, I don't want to find in 4 or 5 years time I have to do it again. 7 or 8 years sounds a lot more promising. I only hope that Ninty can pull this off. If they can they could potentially show the rest of the games industry the light as it were... graphics aren't the be all end all. We can only hope...
But ultimately this is a big, a HUGE decision, and it could make or break Ninty. If it goes badly, Nintendo may not be able to afford to make another console even if they want to. Because if you look at the consoles now, PS2 is still the most popular choice. I don't know whether Xbox or Cube are more popular here or worldwide, but I doubt there's too much in it anyway. Thing is are people other than the 'Hardcore' Nintendo fans going to carry on buying Cube games when a PS3 or Xbox2 come out? Many people will undoubtedly be wowed by the graphics and buy one of them and buy games for their new console in favour of GameCube. Nintendo will have to produce some pretty amazing games for people to want to buy them in favour of a game for their new console. Maybe that's a good thing? Ninty will have to make games as good as possible to compete. If they can do this and keep it up they'll do fine. But if they can't produce enough games quickly enough, and if like Shocky said they run out of ideas... they could be in for a rough time.
For me Nintendo are making the right decision. I had enough trouble raising the money for my Cube, I don't want to find in 4 or 5 years time I have to do it again. 7 or 8 years sounds a lot more promising. I only hope that Ninty can pull this off. If they can they could potentially show the rest of the games industry the light as it were... graphics aren't the be all end all. We can only hope...
Hmm...
I don't think Nintendo would be THAT drastic as to TOTALLY stop making consoles forever...no, I think they will, maybe, say, in 2009 :-(
But when they do...it'll be time to party!!
Hee hee...
I don't think Nintendo would be THAT drastic as to TOTALLY stop making consoles forever...no, I think they will, maybe, say, in 2009 :-(
But when they do...it'll be time to party!!
Hee hee...
cookie monster wrote:
> Personally i don't think Nintendo would stop making consoles, they
> love it so much.
I agree with you there I honestly think that Nintendo will make another console after the GC. Nintendo have said that the console will have a longer life cycle than consoles currently do around 7 years instead of the normal 5. I agree entirely with Big Ns pres the consoles that are out now are perfectly fine there is realy no need to increse processing speed, polygon count etc. What we want is great games, Gameplay before Graphics I think.
> Personally i don't think Nintendo would stop making consoles, they
> love it so much.
I agree with you there I honestly think that Nintendo will make another console after the GC. Nintendo have said that the console will have a longer life cycle than consoles currently do around 7 years instead of the normal 5. I agree entirely with Big Ns pres the consoles that are out now are perfectly fine there is realy no need to increse processing speed, polygon count etc. What we want is great games, Gameplay before Graphics I think.
Personally i don't think Nintendo would stop making consoles, they love it so much.
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