Gwanatu T said:
You're mixing up Anti-aliasing with texture filtering. The DS actually does have anti-aliasing, and it's what keeps the screen from becoming a pixilated mess. It's got a custom edge AA filter I believe and it's something the developers cannot disable, just like they can't circumvent the framerate requirements. This was a tradeoff Nintendo had to make with the power of the hardware, and ultimately I think it was a good one. The textures are tolerable but the screen pixilation would have been completely unbearable; just take a look at the GBA's 3D games for instance, you can hardly make out anything on that screen at that resolution.
Yeah, you're right, I meant texture filtering. The lack of filtering is what makes DS 3d look like PSX 3d; the N64 had highly filtered polygons, the PSX and DS unfiltered. The filtering makes things look far better, really... though I do like the DS's solid framerates in 3d, DS 3d to me looks pretty bad compared to N64 3d. N64 3d looks so much better... those effects (filtering, Z-Buffer, etc) make a real difference.
It's funny how that works, because I was the only Sega person out of everyone I knew. I had the Genesis and the Saturn, and it wasn't until the Dreamcast came out that I finally got people to switch over. Everyone I knew as a kid had a SNES, and even though I had owned an NES prior to my Genesis I just loved Sonic and Sega's games so much that I felt compelled to stick with them over Nintendo. I got a Saturn after the Genesis, and then an N64 after that for obvious reasons, and then of course a Dreamcast after that. I traded in every system and game I ever owned unfortunately, simply because my parents weren't exactly rich and I only got a few bucks allowance per month, so when something new came out it was out with the old, in with the new, you know? The Dreamcast was the first system I didn't have to sell, simply because I was finally at working age and bought a new game every single week with that money. Man I miss being able to do that, lol :lol
Well, I never did have many friends, and that got smaller with time. So I'm really only talking about a few people, in addition to a few relatives' families... let's see. This is mainly about the early/mid '90s of course, as was the question, though for people where I know, I listed newer consoles too. But I'm not listing people I didn't know back then.
1: NES (otherwise unknown, some relative we saw a few times -- I remember this because they had Zelda... and Rampage, but Zelda!)
2: NES, SNES, PC (older cousin who quit gaming in the early '90s -- Mario World, Bionic Commando, Super Star Wars, SMB, that's about it I think...)
3: NES, Genesis, Mac (then quit gaming, as far as I know)
4: NES, N64, PC (unknown after about 1997, but used to be a good friend -- played his NES games a lot.)
5: PC (one of my friends never had any consoles...)
6: Genesis, N64, Game Boy Color, PC, Xbox 360 (my best friend,m probably)
7: SNES, Game Boy (otherwise unknown, didn't play his games that much -- on SNES, SFII is the only one I remember really)
8: Game Boy, Genesis (in '97 or '98), N64 ('99), PSX (2000), Dreamcast (they won it as a prize...), Game Boy Advance, Xbox, PC (my younger cousins, seen them frequently over the years)
(Darnit, why do I always turn everything into lists, even when I'm not trying... oh well.
)
... and game demo stations and people I didn't see often enough to remember here. Demo stations around here were mostly SNES, Genesis (6-game changer), Game Boy, Virtual Boy (during its year of life... too bad, I've always thought the VB concept was awesome, and since getting one a few months ago I think the execution was pretty good too, really), PSX (demo discs), N64, etc. I remember playing a Turbografx demo station once, and only once, in Toys R Us sometime... it was a shmup, of course.
So yeah, not much SNES. I did read Nintendo Power every month for years, though, and subscribed for two years (1995-1997; the rest of time I read it from the library, because they've subscribed to it since the early '90s), of course.
But mostly, like most people, I mostly played what I had, that is PC and Game Boy games. And as that list shows, most of my friends were into PC and Nintendo games too, unless they'd liked the Genesis... I didn't even know anyone who had a Playstation until my cousins got one in 2000! Look at who I knew and you'd think the N64 had won that generation and that PC gaming was as popular as console gaming. And that, of course, is why they say that personal experience means nothing.
The first person I knew well who was a Playstation fan was my first college roommate, who had a PS2. Man, was he annoying...
Even he also played PC games though.
As for selling stuff, I'm a "never wants to get rid of anything" person, so the list of games I owned but don't have anymore is quite short... five or six PC games I lost, two GBC carts that I lost or broke, two GB games I sold because I hated them (I don't miss those two, unlike the others)... that's about it.
... oh right, I think I lost a DS game too...
(But still, the one I most miss is Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (CD version)!) I just couldn't sell games just for the purpose of getting money. What if I wanted to play that game again, after all? If I've sold it, I'm sure that I'd eventually regret it, so I don't.
To drag this section on topic: How about the Virtual Boy? Such unique hardware... so powerful for its time, for a handheld... it's impossible to take screenshots of or emulate, though. Oh, you can do it, but it completely loses the whole point of the system, which are the 3d effects; playing a VB emulator or looking at screenshots really doesn't give you a picture of what the system looks like. And you can't watch someone while playing. And it came with a manual that was FULL of red-box warnings. So yeah, I can see why it failed... but still. Before the GBA, I think there's no question that the VB was the most powerful "handheld" ever... I do wish it had done better.
And as I think I said in this thread, I'd REALLY love to see playable copies of Zero Racers, Bound High, and Dragon Hopper. We all know that they were very close to completion and should be in pretty playable shape... they looked so great in Nintendo Power, it would be awesome to see them. Zero Racers was essentially F-Zero done with textureless wireframe graphics, Red Alarm style. Bound High and Dragon Hopper both were top-down platformers which used the 3d effects to make jumping look cooler. All three were in development in 1996, but when Nintendo decided to discontinue the Virtual Boy instead of relaunching it in fall 1996, the three games being worked on as the keys for that relaunch were cancelled... at least, that's the story I've heard. It sounds reasonable, though. Other cancelled VB games were canned much earlier on, but those three were far into development.
I only own a PSP right now, so don't feel too bad. I'll get a PS3 one day, but that's not any time soon. It's too expensive and I just don't care enough honestly.
I know, I should just think "I like the games, who cares what console they're on", but... I can't help but somewhat dislike Sony. I don't really dislike any of the other hardware manufacturers, past or present, but Sony... them I still do. But yeah, I certainly will play the games I'm interested in on the platforms, if I have them (and I have PSone and PS2)... in some cases maybe not as much as if the same game was on another platform (because of how I dislike the PSX/PS2 (dualshock) controller, dislike the PS2 system design (aesthetics), etc), but I'll play it for sure. I mostly got a PS2 this year because of how I'd noticed so many PS2 games had gotten so cheap... haven't spent more than $10 on any games for the system yet, and I got the system for $40.
And I have some good stuff... Ico, FFX-2 and FFXII, Maximo, Wipeout Fusion, etc...
Oh, and I'm certainly not a blind Nintendo fan. I've been very, very disappointed with their online strategy for a long time now, to say the least, for example... but as a PC gamer, how could I think anything different about an online strategy so backwards?
Oh, I know, Nintendo has a long history of trying online networks. That history would fit this thread too -- from the Famicom network to the Satellaview to Randnet (64DD network), Nintendo had networks... they just didn't do that well, or Nintendo didn't stick with them. It kind of makes me think that after the failure of the 64DD, Nintendo simply gave up on online, and they haven't looked back yet. The Wii certainly has the worst online features of any console in the last two generations except, well, Nintendo's own Gamecube and GBA. Yet in the previous generations, in Japan, Nintendo had actually been pushing online technology. It's almost like just as people started to care, they abandoned it... though part of the problem has to have been that the networks never left Japan, while Japan has, for a long time, been a much less receptive audience to online gaming than other places like the US, Europe, South Korea, China now, etc. I'm sure that was part of the problem, and it's the core of the reason why Nintendo doesn't care to improve the Wii or DS online networks. There's just not much demand for it in Japan, and Nintendo makes decisions based on what Japan wants, not what the US or Europe want.
If Nintendo was American, "Friend Codes" would never have existed. But anyway.
SW Episode 1 Racer looked terrible on the Dreamcast, and ran just as bad as it looked. IIRC it was a direct port of the N64 version, framerate and all. The only difference was that it had to run in 640x480 like all DC games did, otherwise I'm sure they would have kept the 320x240 original N64 resolution the same :lol
Everybody says this, but given how barely upgraded so many other PSX and N64 games were on DC, and how as I said Episode I Racer had very, very good graphics for the N64, it makes me wonder... why criticize that one while other that aren't that much better, I think, get praised? Strange... but I should play the DC version, just to see.
As for add-ons, it really helps when an add-on is not only bundled with a popular game, but when it's cheap. The fact that I can't buy a balance board on it's own and for less than $50 really is a difficult thing. I'm not sure when I'll end up with the balance board, because I'll get one eventually with all the titles that are coming out supporting it, but having an add-on for $80 and having one for, let's say $20, makes a huge difference, and it would probably show in sales if there's enough incentive in games.
Yeah, that's a good point. A cheap addon bundled with a popular game that has broad, easy-to-understand applications will do well; an expensive one, or one that has limited use beyond specific game types, will not. The record bears this out. Wii Motion Plus looks like a likely first category type; the Wii Balance Board, second category, I'd say.
Yeah, I can't tell the difference at all in those videos, but I distinctly remember being blown away by the DC version's framerate, but I remember that the arcade version had a "softer" look for whatever reason, don't know what that was. I'd have to see it in person again to see, but you may be right. The DC version was absolutely unbelievable though, and remains my favorite arcade racer next to Crazy Taxi. It's feature set was unmatched and it's gameplay remains unchallenged to this day, unbelievably.
And I got the GC version coming from 100-something hours played in the N64 version and wasn't particularly impressed in the paucity of the changes in comparison... I now have it on DC too, but it's pretty much the GC (MAT3) version but without the broken save system and controls and ruined 3/4 player race/stunt mode framerate of that version. Graphically they're the same.
I will say that the difference between DC and arcade was probably larger with Hydro Thunder than Rush 2049, but I'd say I noticed it with both... though yeah, it was more with Hydro Thunder. They obviously rushed that for the DC launch, it didn't even have a four player mode (I say this because the N64 port, released several months later, added one in -- and because MAT3 was a straight DC port (minus control customization and other issues as usual for the collection), the N64 version is still the only home version of the game with a 3 or 4 player mode... the DC did have better graphics and framerate than N64 of course, though. Like with Rush 2049, there is a definite, and noticeable, graphical difference between N64 and DC... but it's not ten times or something, it's two or three times probably, depending on how much stock you put on better textures and framerate. But neither one of them looks arcade-perfect, that's for sure. I've put a lot more time into Hydro Thunder arcade than Rush 2049 arcade (which I have only played a couple of times, as I said), so in that case I could definitely notice the difference.
Well the Dreamcast effectively ushered in the new generation of games; multi-platform everything. Last-gen really started this trend, and I'm not sure if it's just the sheer complexity of games nowadays that's brought this, or that companies feel more compelled to go multi-platform because they can make so much more money. It's frustrating but it's yet another reason that I own a 360 and a Wii and not a PS3. The PS2's domination of last generation coupled with the fact that many large companies preferred to work on the PS2 resulted in a lot of PS2 ports that simply just did not take advantage of the Xbox or the GC, and especially the GC since it took more work to port things over (I'm sure mostly because of the discs and the drive speed).
I don't know which was really better though, the days of exclusives or of multi-platform releases. Really, I lean towards the exclusives, particularly for the PC, where the multi-platform thing has done a great job of ruining a great many classic PC games and franchises. They all get consolized, and in the process simplified and made less interesting. And in the past, even consoles benefitted -- the SNES got a slower, traditional Aladdin platformer, the Genesis a faster one with swordfighting instead of jumping on heads. They were both great games, but completely different... Of course other games back then were multiplatform, like some other licensed games (The Lion King was essentially the same on every platform it was on, for instance, and it was on a lot), but this was not always true. Games which are good on every platform should of course be ported, so a larger audience can play them; but exclusives are good too, even if it's very frustrating when one you want isn't on your console. If every console has the same exact games aside from first-party titles, though, what's the point of having separate boxes...
That's the question now in the gaming industry, I think, between PS3 and 360. It's definitely pushing the whole "one console future" thing. And that would not necesarially be bad -- look at the PC for example, having one standard OS has done nothing but help PC gaming. Of course there many other factors vary wildly, but at least there is one major OS. But PCs are not consoles, so what's best for one isn't necesarially best for the other. One platform also means no competition, which means lazier, less adventurous releases. Windows would likely be even better if it had more serious competition... so yeah, on this, I'm not sure.
Really, the key is if there are actually differences between the platforms. Are they or, more importantly, their audiences interchangeable, or are they truly different? If their audiences are different, then why not have different platforms, and at least some different games? But if their audiences are similar, why not have your games on all such platforms? It makes sense. It's like politics, it works not just because there are several parties, but because the parties are truly different, which they most certainly are.
If you look at Dreamcast exclusive games you'll find that the games definitely looked significantly better than the N64/PSX exclusive games. Games like Headhunter, Phantasy Star Online, Ooga-Booga, any 2K sports title, Sonic Adventure 2, Outtrigger, House of the Dead 2, Crazy Taxi 1/2, Metropolis Street Racer, Shenmue 1/2, Jet Grind Radio, Skies of Arcadia, Quake 3, Test Drive LeMans, Ferrari F355, UFC, MDK2 and Soul Calibur to name a handful. I'm sure there are more, but I will agree with you that most games looked like high-res PSX/N64 titles, simply because they were. Many developers were probably afraid to develop specifically for the DC, and with good reason given Sega's history.
PSO... looks good by itself I guess, but I find it very hard not to compare the game to the superior GC/Xbox and PC (Blue Burst) versions later on, which have much, MUCH better graphics than the game had on DC... but yeah, it looks of that generation anyway, even if the later versions look better. As for those other games, I haven't played all of them, but I would agree that many of those look pretty good, and clearly are of their generation and aren't just upgraded last-gen titles -- Jet Set Radio, Skies of Arcadia, MDK2, Soul Calibur, Crazy Taxi, those are all good ones to mention for that. But a lot of developers were pretty lazy...
It's also worse because of how short the system lived. If the system had lived longer it would have become less of a problem over time, of course, but as it died so fast, in a lot of cases we only see first or early second generation games, and then that's it... eventually most games would have looked like the best games, not the worst ones. But the system died too fast for that to happen.
Of course its true that the DC could never scale up to match the GC and Xbox, and because of how easy it was to develop for some of the early titles look about as good as anything on the platform, but even so, things would have improved. Just look at the GC, Factor 5 made one of its best looking titles at launch in Rogue Leader, but overall game graphics improved quite noticeably over the system's life. Even Factor 5 found plenty of room for improvement, when they made Rebel Strike and showed just how much power the system truly had...
DrGAKMAN said:
Just as I said in this topic, Nintendo is probably contemplating the pros & cons of going for an evolutionary approach or waiting for the next revolution before bringing out new hardware. The reasoning for going for an evolutionary approach is that they could improve the current Wii in much needed areas/features and "play it safe" and release it much sooner "just in case" market conditions (Wii starts tanking, PS3 & X360 start to sell as much as Wii) call for it. But even in the worst case scenerio I still really don't see market conditions changing so much that Nintendo would have to release a "WiiHD" to take redical action...even still, I'm sure Nintendo is preparing for that with comments like these. Longer term and under best conditions they'll have more time to wait for whatever they think is the next revolution and go for it then.
In order to properly assess the above I really have to see what Nintendo is doing against D4 (if they can't win in that case, they will likely advance a successor to NDS (and Wii?) sooner in order to offset that issue and introduce VC to the handheld side), what they're going to do about the Wii's lack of storage (will they open up SD/USB...I don't think so, but if it's a major firmware upgrade then that firmware could give a better look at what they're planning for future systems) and ultimately what's up with WiiDVD (is it coming, will it have more storage, more memory, more features, possibly being an answer to those wanting a WiiHD while co-existing with the current SD Wii?).
I'm sure Nintendo is, as always, working on new hardware, but it seems pretty likely that they think they have plenty of time to decide... this generation isn't going anywhere anytime soon, and Nintendo shows absolutely no signs of listening to the critics and making new, HD-capable systems. Why should they, raking in the billions like they are? Doing something like that would, I'd think, as likely threaten their business as help it. They want to keep this going as long as they can...
Evolutionary upgrades like a storage solution are probable, and that is something they should have done a long time ago of course, but radical change... doubtful, particularly on the Wii side. They won't be replacing the Wii for years. And even for the DS, I highly doubt their next handheld will be in the next year or two... maybe, but it seems doubtful. But we'll see. It is true that Nintendo has a lot of teams doing things that we don't know about, both for games and hardware.
As for HD, they can ignore it. The mass market can't even figure out how to properly plug in the HD into their television, much less care about the picture... and the core already have 360s or PS3s too.
camineet said:
somewhat off-topic, but in a sense, on-topic--Exellent USENET post on 3DO M2,
Cagent/3DO MX, and a little bit on N64.
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.video.3do/msg/e44a0abde83a5f60?hl=en&dmode=source
That is really interesting. You made an M2 thread now, though, so that discussion might be better there... but that post was interesting. Obviously I disagree about how successful the M2 may have been (I believe that there's absolutely no way it could have beaten the N64, 1996 or 1997 release dates... and saying that the N64 had a "niche market" when it sold 32 million consoles worldwide and was the most successful second-place console ever? Um... yeah... no.), but it was interesting regardless.
