Game Overload
Posted at May 12, 2006 04:08 PM - Category: Stuff
First, what the hell is a hurricane doing in the middle of the US?
Onto business, I've been getting a video game overload from E3 this week. Coming out of the show, everything points to PS3 losing big time this generation. It's expensive and doesn't do anything more than the rest. To me, it seems like a half-assed Wii cloned controller mixed with a half-assed XBox Live knockoff. The graphics also don't look significantly better than the XBox 360. For the 50% increase in price, you'd expect a 50% increase in quality. But the hardware specs don't lie and the system just isn't worth the cost. I know I'm not buying one. In fact, I think Peter Moore has hit the nail on the head. I'll be getting a Wii in addition to my 360 for the price of just the PS3. And, by the looks of it, I'm going to be having way more fun.
Speaking of the Wii, some people seem to be worried about it. I'm not. The one thing I've always noticed is that when you have to buy a special controller for a game (e.g. Samba de Amigo or DDR), you get a much better game experience. So, making it a permanent part of the system means there will always be that part of the experience. There's also the big reason for having the special controller: marketing. For years, new systems have been sold on the basis of better graphics. But that's only pushing games for existing gamers. New gamers don't really have a basis of comparison. If they see a motion blurred racing game or real time self-shadowing character models, they don't think anything of it because they don't see it as being an improvement, just their baseline. However, people are most definitely going to be talking about the new controller on the Wii. It senses where you are and lets you directly manipulate the game. That's going to be huge.
Any time I've ever seen someone play a video game who's new at them, they always swing and twist the control around trying to move it to manipulate what's going on the game. This is going to give people the direct manipulation that they want and need to really enjoy the experience. In terms of usability, as we've moved into this 3d universe, we've kept our 2d controllers. Emily has the hardest time trying to play Halo because it's not natural to map 2d movement on a controller to the 3d movement on the screen. I guarantee you if we both had Wii remotes, she would be much better at the game. For the first time, we have 3d games and we have a 3d controller. It's basically the promise of virtual reality without the silly helmets.
