TPC is a three part organization, partly owned by Creatures, Game Freak, and Nintendo. It handles all aspects of the Pokémon Franchise. Each has a third share of the company, but Nintendo fully owns Creatures so they have a two thirds share in TPC and Pokémon as a whole.
I'm going to attribute the dramatic sales increase for Fire Emblem 3DS entirely to the fact that you can marry and have kids with a moe underage dragon girl.
Now you know how to make PA3 a sure-fire hit!
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joshgotroDeviled EggThe Land of REAL CHILIRegistered Userregular
I'm going to attribute the dramatic sales increase for Fire Emblem 3DS entirely to the fact that you can marry and have kids with a moe underage dragon girl.
Like, these projects pop up and most of the fan-investory (fanvestor?) response is "man XYZ game is going to be awesome!"
And in some cases (like Double Fine) it probably will wind up being awesome, or if not exactly awesome then at least a finished product. Lots of the pitches just seem like a way for kickstarter to collect a bunch of brokerage fees, though
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
The thing is that a lot of people don't realize that there are reasons why publishers will not publish these games that have nothing to do with being evil/keeping the small man down/whatever.
The thing is that a lot of people don't realize that there are reasons why publishers will not publish these games that have nothing to do with being evil/keeping the small man down/whatever.
Yup, it's given all the people with the "I know better than them" superiority complex a place to throw their money. And I expect they will all be just as reasonable and understanding when it doesn't always return exactly what they expect.
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
The thing is that a lot of people don't realize that there are reasons why publishers will not publish these games that have nothing to do with being evil/keeping the small man down/whatever.
Publishers don't publish a game for a lot of reasons. For Double Fine, it's because "Adventure games are dead." for Al Lowe, it's actually "The publisher gave us a shot, but we need to prove we are worthy of it." For Shadowrun, it's "We're a startup!" For Auditorium 2, it's them continuing their original model.
In my mind, this is like a private version of the national endowment of the arts or a patron system. It shows that there is a market for more than just the publisher-made model. And yeah, people are going to be burned. But it'll be a hell of a ride for the good ones.
The thing is that a lot of people don't realize that there are reasons why publishers will not publish these games that have nothing to do with being evil/keeping the small man down/whatever.
Publishers don't publish a game for a lot of reasons. For Double Fine, it's because "Adventure games are dead." for Al Lowe, it's actually "The publisher gave us a shot, but we need to prove we are worthy of it." For Shadowrun, it's "We're a startup!" For Auditorium 2, it's them continuing their original model.
In my mind, this is like a private version of the national endowment of the arts or a patron system. It shows that there is a market for more than just the publisher-made model. And yeah, people are going to be burned. But it'll be a hell of a ride for the good ones.
I'm just not looking forward to the day when X game comes out and there are the people who are happy with the game and the people who are unhappy with the game start yelling at eachother over it.
Oh, and the people who never invested in the game and also didn't buy it when it came out, but still think the game is bad and the people that funded it are bad.
There's just gonna be some ugly clusterfucks either way.
I cant wait until a company makes a game that I did NOT kickstart, but I really enjoy and it sells really well and is a success, but the people who DID kickstart it hate it.
PSN: mxmarks - WiiU: mxmarks - twitter: @ MikesPS4 - twitch.tv/mxmarks - "Yes, mxmarks is the King of Queens" - Unbreakable Vow
Publishers also expect to make a certain amount of money whereas an independent Kickstarter is probably quite happy to just get paid enough to create something he loves. Though massive profits would of course always be nice.
I can't wait until a Kickstarted game comes out, most everyone who Kickstarted it is satisfied, and the game also does well on its own, highly rated and successful.
I swear, schadenfreude is the only pleasure most internet users live for. :P
Publishers don't publish a lot of IPs because 3m units isn't good enough, or New Vegas didn't rate highly enough, or they all have unreasonable expectations because of CoD.
Literally, there is your problem. Publishers somehow think every IP should sell in the high millions. So they dump a ton of money into uncanny valley graphics, blow hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads, constantly hop up and down on developers to keep or add features that sold other games, and we end up with generic game Y because generic game X sold so well.
Hi, Syndicate, I'm looking directly at you while I say all this.
Publishers don't publish a lot of IPs because 3m units isn't good enough, or New Vegas didn't rate highly enough, or they all have unreasonable expectations because of CoD.
Literally, there is your problem. Publishers somehow think every IP should sell in the high millions. So they dump a ton of money into uncanny valley graphics, blow hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads, constantly hop up and down on developers to keep or add features that sold other games, and we end up with generic game Y because generic game X sold so well.
Hi, Syndicate, I'm looking directly at you while I say all this.
No, this is the assumption that a lot of people are carrying to Kickstarter and using to tip their hand into dropping lots of money into projects that are risky at best. Not just at risk of being good, but at risk of even becoming a game. Sure, in some cases that happens, but even then, why do you think they want over 3m sales? Because they want huge profits for the game (naturally)? Or because a game like that would be pretty expensive to create, and it needs to recoup its costs. So why would a 3 man team with a design document be able to make for $200,000, what a 20 man team with years of experience need $20m to make? The "I know better than the publishers" attitude is exactly what's going to cause this to go wrong.
I think the real issue, and this could very well be the reason I am not a successful wealthy industrialist, is that there's no avenue for anyone who DOESN'T want to make a gajillion dollars.
I mean, I know everyone wants to be rich, but I feel like some developers, sometimes, just want to make something and, I dunno, just make a living off of it. Like Swery. Games like Deadly Premonition never had aspirations of being anything more than what they were, and I would guess was successful beyond what anyone expected - because its great! And everyone's thrilled. However, if they expected it to make millions upon millions, no one would be thrilled.
Movies come out that are smaller - not everything is expected to be a summer blockbuster. Studios put out smaller movies, and they're not expecting billions back. I wish games had that mentality.
PSN: mxmarks - WiiU: mxmarks - twitter: @ MikesPS4 - twitch.tv/mxmarks - "Yes, mxmarks is the King of Queens" - Unbreakable Vow
Publishers don't publish a lot of IPs because 3m units isn't good enough, or New Vegas didn't rate highly enough, or they all have unreasonable expectations because of CoD.
Literally, there is your problem. Publishers somehow think every IP should sell in the high millions. So they dump a ton of money into uncanny valley graphics, blow hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads, constantly hop up and down on developers to keep or add features that sold other games, and we end up with generic game Y because generic game X sold so well.
Hi, Syndicate, I'm looking directly at you while I say all this.
No, this is the assumption that a lot of people are carrying to Kickstarter and using to tip their hand into dropping lots of money into projects that are risky at best. Not just at risk of being good, but at risk of even becoming a game. Sure, in some cases that happens, but even then, why do you think they want over 3m sales? Because they want huge profits for the game (naturally)? Or because a game like that would be pretty expensive to create, and it needs to recoup its costs. So why would a 3 man team with a design document be able to make for $200,000, what a 20 man team with years of experience need $20m to make? The "I know better than the publishers" attitude is exactly what's going to cause this to go wrong.
Actually its because publishers refuse to sell anything that doesn't have HYPER REALISTIC HD GRAPHICS.
Look at the budget for a game. Modeling and such is literally 50% of the budget if not more. Things like Battlefield 3? yeah, probably 2/3rds of the money, if not more, was used entirely to make the Frostbite engine and the graphics.
I think people are seriously underestimating just how much publishers force waste on developers by demanding X level of graphical fidelity to 'compete' on current console/PC 'standards'. The actual gameplay and such? A pittance of the cost and time spent, unless it is something incredibly complex. This is why PC devs can self-publish, or publishers like Paradox keep making money. Because none of their games spend millions modeling super HD 3D++ ultra graphics.
Publishers don't publish a lot of IPs because 3m units isn't good enough, or New Vegas didn't rate highly enough, or they all have unreasonable expectations because of CoD.
Literally, there is your problem. Publishers somehow think every IP should sell in the high millions. So they dump a ton of money into uncanny valley graphics, blow hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads, constantly hop up and down on developers to keep or add features that sold other games, and we end up with generic game Y because generic game X sold so well.
Hi, Syndicate, I'm looking directly at you while I say all this.
I think that's one of the biggest problems in the industry right now. Every publisher expects every game to be a AAA title worthy of a $60 asking price and pushes their developers in that direction. Great example - Beyond Good & Evil 2. We all want to play it, but let's be honest, the audience for it is probably not enormous and the chance of it being a giant hit is pretty slim. It looks from the outside like they are turning it into a huge blockbuster sized game.
Ubisoft is going to look at the money dumped into it versus what it makes back and chances are it's going to lose money at least initially. If they pared down the game a bit in budget and scope, understanding it will likely be a niche market game and had the game out earlier at a lower price, they would probably show a nice profit.
It's why I think Tim Shafer will have success going forward with Kickstart projects or Psychonauts 2 funded by Notch if that happens. He budgets according to his known audience size and doesn't kid himself into thinking that a graphic adventure is going to sell like Call of Duty. He'll make a good profit, live to make another game, and we get a fun game in the process.
Publishers don't publish a lot of IPs because 3m units isn't good enough, or New Vegas didn't rate highly enough, or they all have unreasonable expectations because of CoD.
Literally, there is your problem. Publishers somehow think every IP should sell in the high millions. So they dump a ton of money into uncanny valley graphics, blow hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads, constantly hop up and down on developers to keep or add features that sold other games, and we end up with generic game Y because generic game X sold so well.
Hi, Syndicate, I'm looking directly at you while I say all this.
No, this is the assumption that a lot of people are carrying to Kickstarter and using to tip their hand into dropping lots of money into projects that are risky at best. Not just at risk of being good, but at risk of even becoming a game. Sure, in some cases that happens, but even then, why do you think they want over 3m sales? Because they want huge profits for the game (naturally)? Or because a game like that would be pretty expensive to create, and it needs to recoup its costs. So why would a 3 man team with a design document be able to make for $200,000, what a 20 man team with years of experience need $20m to make? The "I know better than the publishers" attitude is exactly what's going to cause this to go wrong.
Actually its because publishers refuse to sell anything that doesn't have HYPER REALISTIC HD GRAPHICS.
Look at the budget for a game. Modeling and such is literally 50% of the budget if not more. Things like Battlefield 3? yeah, probably 2/3rds of the money, if not more, was used entirely to make the Frostbite engine and the graphics.
I think people are seriously underestimating just how much publishers force waste on developers by demanding X level of graphical fidelity to 'compete' on current console/PC 'standards'. The actual gameplay and such? A pittance of the cost and time spent, unless it is something incredibly complex. This is why PC devs can self-publish, or publishers like Paradox keep making money. Because none of their games spend millions modeling super HD 3D++ ultra graphics.
And I'm arguing it from the other side. That publishers insist on these things, the enhanced graphics, the advertising budgets, the gameplay styles, because it's their business to know that these will sell the game better than broader than one that doesn't feature any of those things. Yes you get the occasional breakout hit, but things are like they are because they work. What you're seeing with the spate of Kickstarter backing is a whole lot of people who want to believe that every delicate flower of a game idea can succeed, when that just isn't the case. This article gives that perspective from a guy who's job it is to look at game pitches and decide if they'll sink or swim. Kickstarter is being flooded by pitches from people who've never made a game, asking for a few thousand dollars because they think that game budgets are over-inflated, not realising that games are expensive, work-heavy projects both before and after you've actually made the thing.
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Brainiac 8Don't call me Shirley...Registered Userregular
edited April 2012
This dude is going to burst a vein.
Xenoblade Chronicles is an amazing game. The characters are engaging, the storyline is epic, and the fresh combat blends MMO style cooldowns with the feel of an old-school, turn-based RPG.
However.
The graphics. Dear god, the graphics. I can’t decide whether the technical capabilities of the Wii make me want to projectile vomit or take a 12-gauge to my television, and it makes me angry enough to mail a severed unicorn head to Nintendo’s main office because this game deserves better. It deserves better than gasping fish mouths bobbing up and down through beautifully crafted dialogue. It deserves better than jagged edged fuzzy textures comprising a breathtaking landscape set within the body of a fallen god. IT DESERVES BETTER THAN WHAT YOU’VE FORCED THIS GAME TO BE, NINTENDO.
<deep breath>
I honestly believe that Xenoblade Chronicles could have been this generation’s Final Fantasy VII. Not since I was a child have I been as absorbed by a world; not since the heyday of JRPG’s during the SNES era have I spent my time away from a game solely consumed by thoughts of playing that game, anxiously awaiting whatever new plot wrinkle might be revealed. This game is that good, and it does it all in spite of the absolute turd monster of a graphics engine the Wii poops out on screen.
I have to commend the folks at Monolith Soft. They’ve done the best they can with what they have available, and you can see the vision they’re so desperately trying to make a reality. The ideas on display in Xenoblade Chronicles are nothing short of amazing. We’re talking Shadows of the Colossus crossed with Final Fantasy amazing. Unfortunately, and through no fault of Monolith Soft, the Wii laughs at their dreams. It takes those dreams and flushes them down the toilet of GameCube-era hardware Nintendo likes to call cutting edge.
I for one am sick and tired of it. I’m tired of Nintendo having these awesome franchises and brilliant developers and shafting them with an absolute garbage can of a system. I’m tired of seeing Mario relegated to kitschy ideas because there’s no horsepower under the Wii’s hood; I’m tired of seeing Link fighting through the Temple of Brown Textures and Jagged Edges; I’m tired of seeing games like Xenoblade Chronicles, games with a world vision that dwarfs the imagination and fills the mind with awe-inspiring jaw dropitude, get thrown under the bus by Nintendo insisting on Grandma Waggle Party IV as its core demographic.
So this is what I say to you Nintendo. It’s time to s*** or get off the pot. You used to be great at hardware; hell, you were one of the companies that STARTED video gaming as we know it. Remember the NES? Remember the Super Nintendo? Those were cutting edge systems, and you did great games the justice they deserved. In today’s world, technology has evolved to the point where it’s not acceptable anymore to give us dross when we know there exists the capability for diamonds. It’s not acceptable to shackle an obviously talented team like Monolith Soft to the ball and chain of the Wii because you want to sell waggle. Either take your hardware seriously, or get out of the game entirely and let those more capable take over.
I’m asking, no, I’m begging you, Nintendo. Cut those shackles. Let Mario, let Link, let our beloved heroes of youth soar like we know they can. Let us visit the worlds they deserve to inhabit.
Chris "Warcraft" Kluwe is the Minnesota Vikings' punter, Tripping Icarus' bass player, and Andrew Reiner's hand model.
The question is, come next generation, will graphics be such a huge deal with the rising cost of development and the fact that most companies are having a hard time affording making new games as it is? Will the next gen consoles be close enough in power that gaps like this won't be as noticable?
I firmly believe that the WiiU will match or slightly beat out the current gen consoles in power. MS won't push graphics as the main thing next gen now that they have tasted success with the dirty casuals, and Sony won't be able to afford to make the PS4 a graphical powerhouse this time.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.n (also the dudes crazy, Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 were far from kitschy ideas)
Publishers don't publish a lot of IPs because 3m units isn't good enough, or New Vegas didn't rate highly enough, or they all have unreasonable expectations because of CoD.
Literally, there is your problem. Publishers somehow think every IP should sell in the high millions. So they dump a ton of money into uncanny valley graphics, blow hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads, constantly hop up and down on developers to keep or add features that sold other games, and we end up with generic game Y because generic game X sold so well.
Hi, Syndicate, I'm looking directly at you while I say all this.
No, this is the assumption that a lot of people are carrying to Kickstarter and using to tip their hand into dropping lots of money into projects that are risky at best. Not just at risk of being good, but at risk of even becoming a game. Sure, in some cases that happens, but even then, why do you think they want over 3m sales? Because they want huge profits for the game (naturally)? Or because a game like that would be pretty expensive to create, and it needs to recoup its costs. So why would a 3 man team with a design document be able to make for $200,000, what a 20 man team with years of experience need $20m to make? The "I know better than the publishers" attitude is exactly what's going to cause this to go wrong.
Actually its because publishers refuse to sell anything that doesn't have HYPER REALISTIC HD GRAPHICS.
Look at the budget for a game. Modeling and such is literally 50% of the budget if not more. Things like Battlefield 3? yeah, probably 2/3rds of the money, if not more, was used entirely to make the Frostbite engine and the graphics.
I think people are seriously underestimating just how much publishers force waste on developers by demanding X level of graphical fidelity to 'compete' on current console/PC 'standards'. The actual gameplay and such? A pittance of the cost and time spent, unless it is something incredibly complex. This is why PC devs can self-publish, or publishers like Paradox keep making money. Because none of their games spend millions modeling super HD 3D++ ultra graphics.
And I'm arguing it from the other side. That publishers insist on these things, the enhanced graphics, the advertising budgets, the gameplay styles, because it's their business to know that these will sell the game better than broader than one that doesn't feature any of those things. Yes you get the occasional breakout hit, but things are like they are because they work. What you're seeing with the spate of Kickstarter backing is a whole lot of people who want to believe that every delicate flower of a game idea can succeed, when that just isn't the case. This article gives that perspective from a guy who's job it is to look at game pitches and decide if they'll sink or swim. Kickstarter is being flooded by pitches from people who've never made a game, asking for a few thousand dollars because they think that game budgets are over-inflated, not realising that games are expensive, work-heavy projects both before and after you've actually made the thing.
EA sure has a great track record with things like Syndicate, eh? In fact, most of their franchises pretty much underperform for how much money they throw at them. Fancy that.
In fact, most studios who chase after that hyper realistic dream never seem to sell enough to turn a profit, hence most publishers losing money except with a mobile division. Hmm.. lower powered, fun, games making money hand over fist compared to multiple billion dollar budget super HD graphics games? Wow, it's almost like all the graphics in the world can't save a bad game.
Just FYI, Arksys and Xseed make profit. Enough profit to make cool physical editions for games and everything. Most of their games can be considered anything but huge graphic powerhouses. I wonder why that is? I mean, all their games are extremely niche, even. Same with NIS. Yet they continually run profitable and continually release 'niche' games with cool extras most SUPER FRANCHISES can't afford to offer, or charge super high prices for.
I think your view is skewed and is invariably whats wrong with publishers, and thats pretty obvious by the number of studios who release games and get folded, franchises that never reach profitability, and publishers continually having to skip ideas, can them, or make them as generic vanilla as possible.
Chris Kluwe is an awesome gent. That must be the article that NeoGAF took offense to. He was tweeting the other day about how he loved Xenoblade Chronicles, but alot of the impact from emotional scenes is lost when your characters look like dying fish when they talk or something.
Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
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Brainiac 8Don't call me Shirley...Registered Userregular
Chris Kluwe is an awesome gent. That must be the article that NeoGAF took offense to. He was tweeting the other day about how he loved Xenoblade Chronicles, but alot of the impact from emotional scenes is lost when your characters look like dying fish when they talk or something.
Meh, the dudes allowed to his opinion, but it just got me thinking about whether graphic differences will be such a big thing next gen. Nintendo's will improve obviously, but the other two companies have really strong reasons not to push graphics like they did at the start of this generation.
Publishers don't publish a lot of IPs because 3m units isn't good enough, or New Vegas didn't rate highly enough, or they all have unreasonable expectations because of CoD.
Literally, there is your problem. Publishers somehow think every IP should sell in the high millions. So they dump a ton of money into uncanny valley graphics, blow hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads, constantly hop up and down on developers to keep or add features that sold other games, and we end up with generic game Y because generic game X sold so well.
Hi, Syndicate, I'm looking directly at you while I say all this.
No, this is the assumption that a lot of people are carrying to Kickstarter and using to tip their hand into dropping lots of money into projects that are risky at best. Not just at risk of being good, but at risk of even becoming a game. Sure, in some cases that happens, but even then, why do you think they want over 3m sales? Because they want huge profits for the game (naturally)? Or because a game like that would be pretty expensive to create, and it needs to recoup its costs. So why would a 3 man team with a design document be able to make for $200,000, what a 20 man team with years of experience need $20m to make? The "I know better than the publishers" attitude is exactly what's going to cause this to go wrong.
Actually its because publishers refuse to sell anything that doesn't have HYPER REALISTIC HD GRAPHICS.
Look at the budget for a game. Modeling and such is literally 50% of the budget if not more. Things like Battlefield 3? yeah, probably 2/3rds of the money, if not more, was used entirely to make the Frostbite engine and the graphics.
I think people are seriously underestimating just how much publishers force waste on developers by demanding X level of graphical fidelity to 'compete' on current console/PC 'standards'. The actual gameplay and such? A pittance of the cost and time spent, unless it is something incredibly complex. This is why PC devs can self-publish, or publishers like Paradox keep making money. Because none of their games spend millions modeling super HD 3D++ ultra graphics.
And I'm arguing it from the other side. That publishers insist on these things, the enhanced graphics, the advertising budgets, the gameplay styles, because it's their business to know that these will sell the game better than broader than one that doesn't feature any of those things. Yes you get the occasional breakout hit, but things are like they are because they work. What you're seeing with the spate of Kickstarter backing is a whole lot of people who want to believe that every delicate flower of a game idea can succeed, when that just isn't the case. This article gives that perspective from a guy who's job it is to look at game pitches and decide if they'll sink or swim. Kickstarter is being flooded by pitches from people who've never made a game, asking for a few thousand dollars because they think that game budgets are over-inflated, not realising that games are expensive, work-heavy projects both before and after you've actually made the thing.
EA sure has a great track record with things like Syndicate, eh? In fact, most of their franchises pretty much underperform for how much money they throw at them. Fancy that.
In fact, most studios who chase after that hyper realistic dream never seem to sell enough to turn a profit, hence most publishers losing money except with a mobile division. Hmm.. lower powered, fun, games making money hand over fist compared to multiple billion dollar budget super HD graphics games? Wow, it's almost like all the graphics in the world can't save a bad game.
Just FYI, Arksys and Xseed make profit. Enough profit to make cool physical editions for games and everything. Most of their games can be considered anything but huge graphic powerhouses. I wonder why that is? I mean, all their games are extremely niche, even. Same with NIS. Yet they continually run profitable and continually release 'niche' games with cool extras most SUPER FRANCHISES can't afford to offer, or charge super high prices for.
I think your view is skewed and is invariably whats wrong with publishers, and thats pretty obvious by the number of studios who release games and get folded, franchises that never reach profitability, and publishers continually having to skip ideas, can them, or make them as generic vanilla as possible.
Like the realistic, tactical squad-based police shooter for $200,000. I'm sure they just needed to turn the graphics dial down and the code practically writes itself. I already acknowledged that I'm not speaking for every case, but you're acting like you still are. There are a whole lot of speculative projects going up on Kickstarter that people are throwing money at because the 'big nasty publishers would never back it because it won't sell X million copies and make X00 million dollars', when that's just not the whole picture. To think like that is arrogant, and only going to lead to a lighter wallet.
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Dac VinS-s-screw you! I only listen to DOUBLE MUSIC!Registered Userregular
Chris Kluwe is an awesome gent. That must be the article that NeoGAF took offense to. He was tweeting the other day about how he loved Xenoblade Chronicles, but alot of the impact from emotional scenes is lost when your characters look like dying fish when they talk or something.
It's funny how NeoGAF reacted aggressively to his opinion when it's the usual, stereotypical "I WISH THIS GAME WAS ON NEXT GEN" opinion GAF usually loved circa 2008-9 or so. Otherwise, it's what Henroid said a thread ago: he's using rude because that's what notices you.
Xenoblade Chronicles is an amazing game. The characters are engaging, the storyline is epic, and the fresh combat blends MMO style cooldowns with the feel of an old-school, turn-based RPG.
However.
The graphics. Dear god, the graphics. I can’t decide whether the technical capabilities of the Wii make me want to projectile vomit or take a 12-gauge to my television, and it makes me angry enough to mail a severed unicorn head to Nintendo’s main office because this game deserves better. It deserves better than gasping fish mouths bobbing up and down through beautifully crafted dialogue. It deserves better than jagged edged fuzzy textures comprising a breathtaking landscape set within the body of a fallen god. IT DESERVES BETTER THAN WHAT YOU’VE FORCED THIS GAME TO BE, NINTENDO.
<deep breath>
I honestly believe that Xenoblade Chronicles could have been this generation’s Final Fantasy VII. Not since I was a child have I been as absorbed by a world; not since the heyday of JRPG’s during the SNES era have I spent my time away from a game solely consumed by thoughts of playing that game, anxiously awaiting whatever new plot wrinkle might be revealed. This game is that good, and it does it all in spite of the absolute turd monster of a graphics engine the Wii poops out on screen.
I have to commend the folks at Monolith Soft. They’ve done the best they can with what they have available, and you can see the vision they’re so desperately trying to make a reality. The ideas on display in Xenoblade Chronicles are nothing short of amazing. We’re talking Shadows of the Colossus crossed with Final Fantasy amazing. Unfortunately, and through no fault of Monolith Soft, the Wii laughs at their dreams. It takes those dreams and flushes them down the toilet of GameCube-era hardware Nintendo likes to call cutting edge.
I for one am sick and tired of it. I’m tired of Nintendo having these awesome franchises and brilliant developers and shafting them with an absolute garbage can of a system. I’m tired of seeing Mario relegated to kitschy ideas because there’s no horsepower under the Wii’s hood; I’m tired of seeing Link fighting through the Temple of Brown Textures and Jagged Edges; I’m tired of seeing games like Xenoblade Chronicles, games with a world vision that dwarfs the imagination and fills the mind with awe-inspiring jaw dropitude, get thrown under the bus by Nintendo insisting on Grandma Waggle Party IV as its core demographic.
So this is what I say to you Nintendo. It’s time to s*** or get off the pot. You used to be great at hardware; hell, you were one of the companies that STARTED video gaming as we know it. Remember the NES? Remember the Super Nintendo? Those were cutting edge systems, and you did great games the justice they deserved. In today’s world, technology has evolved to the point where it’s not acceptable anymore to give us dross when we know there exists the capability for diamonds. It’s not acceptable to shackle an obviously talented team like Monolith Soft to the ball and chain of the Wii because you want to sell waggle. Either take your hardware seriously, or get out of the game entirely and let those more capable take over.
I’m asking, no, I’m begging you, Nintendo. Cut those shackles. Let Mario, let Link, let our beloved heroes of youth soar like we know they can. Let us visit the worlds they deserve to inhabit.
Chris "Warcraft" Kluwe is the Minnesota Vikings' punter, Tripping Icarus' bass player, and Andrew Reiner's hand model.
The question is, come next generation, will graphics be such a huge deal with the rising cost of development and the fact that most companies are having a hard time affording making new games as it is? Will the next gen consoles be close enough in power that gaps like this won't be as noticable?
I firmly believe that the WiiU will match or slightly beat out the current gen consoles in power. MS won't push graphics as the main thing next gen now that they have tasted success with the dirty casuals, and Sony won't be able to afford to make the PS4 a graphical powerhouse this time.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.n (also the dudes crazy, Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 were far from kitschy ideas)
Maybe it's because I'm in America, but isn't this more of a niche game (here)? I mean, one that probably would have suffered or not been made if it needed a bigger budget for better graphics?
Publishers don't publish a lot of IPs because 3m units isn't good enough, or New Vegas didn't rate highly enough, or they all have unreasonable expectations because of CoD.
Literally, there is your problem. Publishers somehow think every IP should sell in the high millions. So they dump a ton of money into uncanny valley graphics, blow hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads, constantly hop up and down on developers to keep or add features that sold other games, and we end up with generic game Y because generic game X sold so well.
Hi, Syndicate, I'm looking directly at you while I say all this.
No, this is the assumption that a lot of people are carrying to Kickstarter and using to tip their hand into dropping lots of money into projects that are risky at best. Not just at risk of being good, but at risk of even becoming a game. Sure, in some cases that happens, but even then, why do you think they want over 3m sales? Because they want huge profits for the game (naturally)? Or because a game like that would be pretty expensive to create, and it needs to recoup its costs. So why would a 3 man team with a design document be able to make for $200,000, what a 20 man team with years of experience need $20m to make? The "I know better than the publishers" attitude is exactly what's going to cause this to go wrong.
Actually its because publishers refuse to sell anything that doesn't have HYPER REALISTIC HD GRAPHICS.
Look at the budget for a game. Modeling and such is literally 50% of the budget if not more. Things like Battlefield 3? yeah, probably 2/3rds of the money, if not more, was used entirely to make the Frostbite engine and the graphics.
I think people are seriously underestimating just how much publishers force waste on developers by demanding X level of graphical fidelity to 'compete' on current console/PC 'standards'. The actual gameplay and such? A pittance of the cost and time spent, unless it is something incredibly complex. This is why PC devs can self-publish, or publishers like Paradox keep making money. Because none of their games spend millions modeling super HD 3D++ ultra graphics.
And I'm arguing it from the other side. That publishers insist on these things, the enhanced graphics, the advertising budgets, the gameplay styles, because it's their business to know that these will sell the game better than broader than one that doesn't feature any of those things. Yes you get the occasional breakout hit, but things are like they are because they work. What you're seeing with the spate of Kickstarter backing is a whole lot of people who want to believe that every delicate flower of a game idea can succeed, when that just isn't the case. This article gives that perspective from a guy who's job it is to look at game pitches and decide if they'll sink or swim. Kickstarter is being flooded by pitches from people who've never made a game, asking for a few thousand dollars because they think that game budgets are over-inflated, not realising that games are expensive, work-heavy projects both before and after you've actually made the thing.
EA sure has a great track record with things like Syndicate, eh? In fact, most of their franchises pretty much underperform for how much money they throw at them. Fancy that.
In fact, most studios who chase after that hyper realistic dream never seem to sell enough to turn a profit, hence most publishers losing money except with a mobile division. Hmm.. lower powered, fun, games making money hand over fist compared to multiple billion dollar budget super HD graphics games? Wow, it's almost like all the graphics in the world can't save a bad game.
Just FYI, Arksys and Xseed make profit. Enough profit to make cool physical editions for games and everything. Most of their games can be considered anything but huge graphic powerhouses. I wonder why that is? I mean, all their games are extremely niche, even. Same with NIS. Yet they continually run profitable and continually release 'niche' games with cool extras most SUPER FRANCHISES can't afford to offer, or charge super high prices for.
I think your view is skewed and is invariably whats wrong with publishers, and thats pretty obvious by the number of studios who release games and get folded, franchises that never reach profitability, and publishers continually having to skip ideas, can them, or make them as generic vanilla as possible.
Like the realistic, tactical squad-based police shooter for $200,000. I'm sure they just needed to turn the graphics dial down and the code practically writes itself. I already acknowledged that I'm not speaking for every case, but you're acting like you still are. There are a whole lot of speculative projects going up on Kickstarter that people are throwing money at because the 'big nasty publishers would never back it because it won't sell X million copies and make X00 million dollars', when that's just not the whole picture. To think like that is arrogant, and only going to lead to a lighter wallet.
You mean the realistic, tactical, squad-based police shooter that stopped accepting funding? The one that got almost no funding at all? As, if you look at the kickstarter projects, almost all 'mainstream' style games fail to do?
It's almost like people decide what they want out of games, even just based on pitches, and put their money behind it. Specifically games that would never get published because they'd not be made any other way. (Or if they did, it'd be like Syndicate and X-com, forced into FPS roles because thats what publishers think would sell the best. (Protip: It didn't, and won't.))
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Despite his troll-baiting, his Xenoblade rant isn't without some merit. If Xenoblade had been released a year or two ago on the HD consoles with a Lost Odyssey sized budget, I think it would have done extremely well. It's very much an all-inclusive sort of RPG - it doesn't do anything horribly innovative but it's like a Greatest Hits collection of good ideas from JRPGs, Western RPGs, and MMORPGs - and that's the kind of game that could end up selling very well with the right marketing. It's a shame that it came out on the Wii - not just because of the visuals (which range from fantastic to mediocre) but more because the Wii is rapidly losing popularity and so it won't find the kind of audience it deserves.
Oh and back to the other topic, it's great how keeping your expenses low means that you can find a great deal of success from fewer sales and at a lower price point to boot. For example, with Cthulhu Saves the World selling at the low price of $3 on Steam, all we needed to do was sell like 100,000 copies to "break even" (aka get a decent salary for an equivalent period of time to how long it took to make) and we've done far better than that by now.
Publishers don't publish a lot of IPs because 3m units isn't good enough, or New Vegas didn't rate highly enough, or they all have unreasonable expectations because of CoD.
Literally, there is your problem. Publishers somehow think every IP should sell in the high millions. So they dump a ton of money into uncanny valley graphics, blow hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads, constantly hop up and down on developers to keep or add features that sold other games, and we end up with generic game Y because generic game X sold so well.
Hi, Syndicate, I'm looking directly at you while I say all this.
No, this is the assumption that a lot of people are carrying to Kickstarter and using to tip their hand into dropping lots of money into projects that are risky at best. Not just at risk of being good, but at risk of even becoming a game. Sure, in some cases that happens, but even then, why do you think they want over 3m sales? Because they want huge profits for the game (naturally)? Or because a game like that would be pretty expensive to create, and it needs to recoup its costs. So why would a 3 man team with a design document be able to make for $200,000, what a 20 man team with years of experience need $20m to make? The "I know better than the publishers" attitude is exactly what's going to cause this to go wrong.
Actually its because publishers refuse to sell anything that doesn't have HYPER REALISTIC HD GRAPHICS.
Look at the budget for a game. Modeling and such is literally 50% of the budget if not more. Things like Battlefield 3? yeah, probably 2/3rds of the money, if not more, was used entirely to make the Frostbite engine and the graphics.
I think people are seriously underestimating just how much publishers force waste on developers by demanding X level of graphical fidelity to 'compete' on current console/PC 'standards'. The actual gameplay and such? A pittance of the cost and time spent, unless it is something incredibly complex. This is why PC devs can self-publish, or publishers like Paradox keep making money. Because none of their games spend millions modeling super HD 3D++ ultra graphics.
And I'm arguing it from the other side. That publishers insist on these things, the enhanced graphics, the advertising budgets, the gameplay styles, because it's their business to know that these will sell the game better than broader than one that doesn't feature any of those things. Yes you get the occasional breakout hit, but things are like they are because they work. What you're seeing with the spate of Kickstarter backing is a whole lot of people who want to believe that every delicate flower of a game idea can succeed, when that just isn't the case. This article gives that perspective from a guy who's job it is to look at game pitches and decide if they'll sink or swim. Kickstarter is being flooded by pitches from people who've never made a game, asking for a few thousand dollars because they think that game budgets are over-inflated, not realising that games are expensive, work-heavy projects both before and after you've actually made the thing.
EA sure has a great track record with things like Syndicate, eh? In fact, most of their franchises pretty much underperform for how much money they throw at them. Fancy that.
In fact, most studios who chase after that hyper realistic dream never seem to sell enough to turn a profit, hence most publishers losing money except with a mobile division. Hmm.. lower powered, fun, games making money hand over fist compared to multiple billion dollar budget super HD graphics games? Wow, it's almost like all the graphics in the world can't save a bad game.
Just FYI, Arksys and Xseed make profit. Enough profit to make cool physical editions for games and everything. Most of their games can be considered anything but huge graphic powerhouses. I wonder why that is? I mean, all their games are extremely niche, even. Same with NIS. Yet they continually run profitable and continually release 'niche' games with cool extras most SUPER FRANCHISES can't afford to offer, or charge super high prices for.
I think your view is skewed and is invariably whats wrong with publishers, and thats pretty obvious by the number of studios who release games and get folded, franchises that never reach profitability, and publishers continually having to skip ideas, can them, or make them as generic vanilla as possible.
Like the realistic, tactical squad-based police shooter for $200,000. I'm sure they just needed to turn the graphics dial down and the code practically writes itself. I already acknowledged that I'm not speaking for every case, but you're acting like you still are. There are a whole lot of speculative projects going up on Kickstarter that people are throwing money at because the 'big nasty publishers would never back it because it won't sell X million copies and make X00 million dollars', when that's just not the whole picture. To think like that is arrogant, and only going to lead to a lighter wallet.
You mean the realistic, tactical, squad-based police shooter that stopped accepting funding? The one that got almost no funding at all? As, if you look at the kickstarter projects, almost all 'mainstream' style games fail to do?
It's almost like people decide what they want out of games, even just based on pitches, and put their money behind it. Specifically games that would never get published because they'd not be made any other way. (Or if they did, it'd be like Syndicate and X-com, forced into FPS roles because thats what publishers think would sell the best. (Protip: It didn't, and won't.))
And I'm telling you that I will be amazed if those successfully-backed games are finished on time, within budget, and to anywhere near the promised standard. Hell, I'll be amazed if half of them meet even one of those criteria.
Despite his troll-baiting, his Xenoblade rant isn't without some merit. If Xenoblade had been released a year or two ago on the HD consoles with a Lost Odyssey sized budget, I think it would have done extremely well. It's very much an all-inclusive sort of RPG - it doesn't do anything horribly innovative but it's like a Greatest Hits collection of good ideas from JRPGs, Western RPGs, and MMORPGs - and that's the kind of game that could end up selling very well with the right marketing. It's a shame that it came out on the Wii - not just because of the visuals (which range from fantastic to mediocre) but more because the Wii is rapidly losing popularity and so it won't find the kind of audience it deserves.
True, but if it had the increased budget/development time to create those art assets in HD, would it have released when it did or would have been delayed even longer, which means more units would need to be sold in order to break even? Even though the art isn't as good as it could be in HD, perhaps the developer is making money on it at this point, where it would have made less from the expense of HD art.
There are going to be developers who won't port their game to the Wii-U because of the graphical/technical disparity, and the amount of effort it would take to change their game to port it over, such as adding interface options to the tablet touchscreen of the controller.
It is probably why Nintendo is lead by first-party titles (probably).
Side note: Madden 13 on the Vita won't accept/use PS3 saves of Madden 13 on the PS3. I guess they missed the memo about EA's Universe goal.
Xenoblade Chronicles is an amazing game. The characters are engaging, the storyline is epic, and the fresh combat blends MMO style cooldowns with the feel of an old-school, turn-based RPG.
However.
The graphics. Dear god, the graphics. I can’t decide whether the technical capabilities of the Wii make me want to projectile vomit or take a 12-gauge to my television, and it makes me angry enough to mail a severed unicorn head to Nintendo’s main office because this game deserves better. It deserves better than gasping fish mouths bobbing up and down through beautifully crafted dialogue. It deserves better than jagged edged fuzzy textures comprising a breathtaking landscape set within the body of a fallen god. IT DESERVES BETTER THAN WHAT YOU’VE FORCED THIS GAME TO BE, NINTENDO.
<deep breath>
I honestly believe that Xenoblade Chronicles could have been this generation’s Final Fantasy VII. Not since I was a child have I been as absorbed by a world; not since the heyday of JRPG’s during the SNES era have I spent my time away from a game solely consumed by thoughts of playing that game, anxiously awaiting whatever new plot wrinkle might be revealed. This game is that good, and it does it all in spite of the absolute turd monster of a graphics engine the Wii poops out on screen.
I have to commend the folks at Monolith Soft. They’ve done the best they can with what they have available, and you can see the vision they’re so desperately trying to make a reality. The ideas on display in Xenoblade Chronicles are nothing short of amazing. We’re talking Shadows of the Colossus crossed with Final Fantasy amazing. Unfortunately, and through no fault of Monolith Soft, the Wii laughs at their dreams. It takes those dreams and flushes them down the toilet of GameCube-era hardware Nintendo likes to call cutting edge.
I for one am sick and tired of it. I’m tired of Nintendo having these awesome franchises and brilliant developers and shafting them with an absolute garbage can of a system. I’m tired of seeing Mario relegated to kitschy ideas because there’s no horsepower under the Wii’s hood; I’m tired of seeing Link fighting through the Temple of Brown Textures and Jagged Edges; I’m tired of seeing games like Xenoblade Chronicles, games with a world vision that dwarfs the imagination and fills the mind with awe-inspiring jaw dropitude, get thrown under the bus by Nintendo insisting on Grandma Waggle Party IV as its core demographic.
So this is what I say to you Nintendo. It’s time to s*** or get off the pot. You used to be great at hardware; hell, you were one of the companies that STARTED video gaming as we know it. Remember the NES? Remember the Super Nintendo? Those were cutting edge systems, and you did great games the justice they deserved. In today’s world, technology has evolved to the point where it’s not acceptable anymore to give us dross when we know there exists the capability for diamonds. It’s not acceptable to shackle an obviously talented team like Monolith Soft to the ball and chain of the Wii because you want to sell waggle. Either take your hardware seriously, or get out of the game entirely and let those more capable take over.
I’m asking, no, I’m begging you, Nintendo. Cut those shackles. Let Mario, let Link, let our beloved heroes of youth soar like we know they can. Let us visit the worlds they deserve to inhabit.
Chris "Warcraft" Kluwe is the Minnesota Vikings' punter, Tripping Icarus' bass player, and Andrew Reiner's hand model.
The question is, come next generation, will graphics be such a huge deal with the rising cost of development and the fact that most companies are having a hard time affording making new games as it is? Will the next gen consoles be close enough in power that gaps like this won't be as noticable?
I firmly believe that the WiiU will match or slightly beat out the current gen consoles in power. MS won't push graphics as the main thing next gen now that they have tasted success with the dirty casuals, and Sony won't be able to afford to make the PS4 a graphical powerhouse this time.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.n (also the dudes crazy, Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 were far from kitschy ideas)
It's hard to say, but I would counter with the argument that there's no indication that Nintendo is any more inclined to push the comparative graphical envelope than its two main competitors.
I do agree--somewhat. Microsoft is absolutely committed to its console occupying the position of a media device as well as gaming machine. Their focus will be divided, for better or worse. And Sony may be smarting after the world's reception to its unique, and expensive, hardware upgrade route with the PS3.
So how exactly does this change anything for Nintendo? If anything, it confirms its existing position as not the worst one from their own standpoint. It's hardly the canary in the cavern.
Nintendo will come in second or third in comparitive power. And the gap will not be that big--we're not talking between oXbox and PS2 or anything. But it'll be there, I'd expect.
Speaking of Nintendo, their actual results came in.
Nintendo continues to lose incredible sums of money, even as the company's new portable dominates the Japanese market and its reported losses were less than its previous estimates. For the 2011 fiscal year (April 2011 through March 2012), Nintendo posted a historic first-ever net loss of $530 million dollars.
Hardware sales didn't quite hit Nintendo's estimates posted just three months prior, which were themselves revised downward from previous expectations. Globally the Nintendo 3DS sold 13.51 million units, Wii sold 9.84 million units and the DS 'family' sold 5.1 million units. Previous estimates were 14 million 3DSs, 10 million Wiis and 5.5 million units DSs. Software sales for the year were 36 million, 102.37 million and 60.82 million units respectively (3DS, Wii and DS 'family').
Accompanying these results, Nintendo released this statement: "While [Nintendo] did post a loss for the recently completed fiscal year, the continuing momentum of the Nintendo 3DS and the global introduction of the highly-anticipated Wii U home console will drive the company back into profitability in the current year." In a separate release, the company forecast a net profit of $245 million for the upcoming year.
Nintendo further clarified that by the middle of its current fiscal year (approx. August 2012), the 3DS will no longer be sold below cost. The company noted New Super Mario Bros. 2, Animal Crossing and a new Brain Age series title are on the way, with the latter coming to Japan sometime this summer.
Nintendo executives will be discussing the company's financial performance as well as plans for the future in an investor's presentation the morning of April 27 in Japan (that's tomorrow afternoon PT here in the United States).
It looks like the 3DS selling really well below cost combined with the Wii and DS fading is what really hurt them. Man. The bet that people would pay extra money for 3D really didn't pan out.
The blunder with the 3DS's launch really fucked them up. They're doing pretty brilliantly right now though, so when they start to sell the 3DS in a profit they'll be able to take back a good portion of that.
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Now you know how to make PA3 a sure-fire hit!
In Japan.
Like, these projects pop up and most of the fan-investory (fanvestor?) response is "man XYZ game is going to be awesome!"
And in some cases (like Double Fine) it probably will wind up being awesome, or if not exactly awesome then at least a finished product. Lots of the pitches just seem like a way for kickstarter to collect a bunch of brokerage fees, though
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
But is it on-cart DLC?! That is all that matters!
Yup, it's given all the people with the "I know better than them" superiority complex a place to throw their money. And I expect they will all be just as reasonable and understanding when it doesn't always return exactly what they expect.
Publishers don't publish a game for a lot of reasons. For Double Fine, it's because "Adventure games are dead." for Al Lowe, it's actually "The publisher gave us a shot, but we need to prove we are worthy of it." For Shadowrun, it's "We're a startup!" For Auditorium 2, it's them continuing their original model.
In my mind, this is like a private version of the national endowment of the arts or a patron system. It shows that there is a market for more than just the publisher-made model. And yeah, people are going to be burned. But it'll be a hell of a ride for the good ones.
I'm just not looking forward to the day when X game comes out and there are the people who are happy with the game and the people who are unhappy with the game start yelling at eachother over it.
Oh, and the people who never invested in the game and also didn't buy it when it came out, but still think the game is bad and the people that funded it are bad.
There's just gonna be some ugly clusterfucks either way.
I swear, schadenfreude is the only pleasure most internet users live for. :P
Literally, there is your problem. Publishers somehow think every IP should sell in the high millions. So they dump a ton of money into uncanny valley graphics, blow hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads, constantly hop up and down on developers to keep or add features that sold other games, and we end up with generic game Y because generic game X sold so well.
Hi, Syndicate, I'm looking directly at you while I say all this.
No, this is the assumption that a lot of people are carrying to Kickstarter and using to tip their hand into dropping lots of money into projects that are risky at best. Not just at risk of being good, but at risk of even becoming a game. Sure, in some cases that happens, but even then, why do you think they want over 3m sales? Because they want huge profits for the game (naturally)? Or because a game like that would be pretty expensive to create, and it needs to recoup its costs. So why would a 3 man team with a design document be able to make for $200,000, what a 20 man team with years of experience need $20m to make? The "I know better than the publishers" attitude is exactly what's going to cause this to go wrong.
I mean, I know everyone wants to be rich, but I feel like some developers, sometimes, just want to make something and, I dunno, just make a living off of it. Like Swery. Games like Deadly Premonition never had aspirations of being anything more than what they were, and I would guess was successful beyond what anyone expected - because its great! And everyone's thrilled. However, if they expected it to make millions upon millions, no one would be thrilled.
Movies come out that are smaller - not everything is expected to be a summer blockbuster. Studios put out smaller movies, and they're not expecting billions back. I wish games had that mentality.
Actually its because publishers refuse to sell anything that doesn't have HYPER REALISTIC HD GRAPHICS.
Look at the budget for a game. Modeling and such is literally 50% of the budget if not more. Things like Battlefield 3? yeah, probably 2/3rds of the money, if not more, was used entirely to make the Frostbite engine and the graphics.
I think people are seriously underestimating just how much publishers force waste on developers by demanding X level of graphical fidelity to 'compete' on current console/PC 'standards'. The actual gameplay and such? A pittance of the cost and time spent, unless it is something incredibly complex. This is why PC devs can self-publish, or publishers like Paradox keep making money. Because none of their games spend millions modeling super HD 3D++ ultra graphics.
I think that's one of the biggest problems in the industry right now. Every publisher expects every game to be a AAA title worthy of a $60 asking price and pushes their developers in that direction. Great example - Beyond Good & Evil 2. We all want to play it, but let's be honest, the audience for it is probably not enormous and the chance of it being a giant hit is pretty slim. It looks from the outside like they are turning it into a huge blockbuster sized game.
Ubisoft is going to look at the money dumped into it versus what it makes back and chances are it's going to lose money at least initially. If they pared down the game a bit in budget and scope, understanding it will likely be a niche market game and had the game out earlier at a lower price, they would probably show a nice profit.
It's why I think Tim Shafer will have success going forward with Kickstart projects or Psychonauts 2 funded by Notch if that happens. He budgets according to his known audience size and doesn't kid himself into thinking that a graphic adventure is going to sell like Call of Duty. He'll make a good profit, live to make another game, and we get a fun game in the process.
And I'm arguing it from the other side. That publishers insist on these things, the enhanced graphics, the advertising budgets, the gameplay styles, because it's their business to know that these will sell the game better than broader than one that doesn't feature any of those things. Yes you get the occasional breakout hit, but things are like they are because they work. What you're seeing with the spate of Kickstarter backing is a whole lot of people who want to believe that every delicate flower of a game idea can succeed, when that just isn't the case. This article gives that perspective from a guy who's job it is to look at game pitches and decide if they'll sink or swim. Kickstarter is being flooded by pitches from people who've never made a game, asking for a few thousand dollars because they think that game budgets are over-inflated, not realising that games are expensive, work-heavy projects both before and after you've actually made the thing.
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2012/04/25/why-xenoblade-chronicles-makes-me-want-to-punch-a-kitten.aspx
The question is, come next generation, will graphics be such a huge deal with the rising cost of development and the fact that most companies are having a hard time affording making new games as it is? Will the next gen consoles be close enough in power that gaps like this won't be as noticable?
I firmly believe that the WiiU will match or slightly beat out the current gen consoles in power. MS won't push graphics as the main thing next gen now that they have tasted success with the dirty casuals, and Sony won't be able to afford to make the PS4 a graphical powerhouse this time.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.n (also the dudes crazy, Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 were far from kitschy ideas)
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EA sure has a great track record with things like Syndicate, eh? In fact, most of their franchises pretty much underperform for how much money they throw at them. Fancy that.
In fact, most studios who chase after that hyper realistic dream never seem to sell enough to turn a profit, hence most publishers losing money except with a mobile division. Hmm.. lower powered, fun, games making money hand over fist compared to multiple billion dollar budget super HD graphics games? Wow, it's almost like all the graphics in the world can't save a bad game.
Just FYI, Arksys and Xseed make profit. Enough profit to make cool physical editions for games and everything. Most of their games can be considered anything but huge graphic powerhouses. I wonder why that is? I mean, all their games are extremely niche, even. Same with NIS. Yet they continually run profitable and continually release 'niche' games with cool extras most SUPER FRANCHISES can't afford to offer, or charge super high prices for.
I think your view is skewed and is invariably whats wrong with publishers, and thats pretty obvious by the number of studios who release games and get folded, franchises that never reach profitability, and publishers continually having to skip ideas, can them, or make them as generic vanilla as possible.
Meh, the dudes allowed to his opinion, but it just got me thinking about whether graphic differences will be such a big thing next gen. Nintendo's will improve obviously, but the other two companies have really strong reasons not to push graphics like they did at the start of this generation.
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Whoever wins, we all lose.
Like the realistic, tactical squad-based police shooter for $200,000. I'm sure they just needed to turn the graphics dial down and the code practically writes itself. I already acknowledged that I'm not speaking for every case, but you're acting like you still are. There are a whole lot of speculative projects going up on Kickstarter that people are throwing money at because the 'big nasty publishers would never back it because it won't sell X million copies and make X00 million dollars', when that's just not the whole picture. To think like that is arrogant, and only going to lead to a lighter wallet.
It's funny how NeoGAF reacted aggressively to his opinion when it's the usual, stereotypical "I WISH THIS GAME WAS ON NEXT GEN" opinion GAF usually loved circa 2008-9 or so. Otherwise, it's what Henroid said a thread ago: he's using rude because that's what notices you.
He's the coolest guy in the NFL! I just wish he'd get traded to Green Bay so I can root for him and not feel dirty.
Maybe it's because I'm in America, but isn't this more of a niche game (here)? I mean, one that probably would have suffered or not been made if it needed a bigger budget for better graphics?
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You mean the realistic, tactical, squad-based police shooter that stopped accepting funding? The one that got almost no funding at all? As, if you look at the kickstarter projects, almost all 'mainstream' style games fail to do?
It's almost like people decide what they want out of games, even just based on pitches, and put their money behind it. Specifically games that would never get published because they'd not be made any other way. (Or if they did, it'd be like Syndicate and X-com, forced into FPS roles because thats what publishers think would sell the best. (Protip: It didn't, and won't.))
That's awesome.
Oh and back to the other topic, it's great how keeping your expenses low means that you can find a great deal of success from fewer sales and at a lower price point to boot. For example, with Cthulhu Saves the World selling at the low price of $3 on Steam, all we needed to do was sell like 100,000 copies to "break even" (aka get a decent salary for an equivalent period of time to how long it took to make) and we've done far better than that by now.
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And I'm telling you that I will be amazed if those successfully-backed games are finished on time, within budget, and to anywhere near the promised standard. Hell, I'll be amazed if half of them meet even one of those criteria.
Multi-millions of bux, pshaw!
It's all perspective.
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True, but if it had the increased budget/development time to create those art assets in HD, would it have released when it did or would have been delayed even longer, which means more units would need to be sold in order to break even? Even though the art isn't as good as it could be in HD, perhaps the developer is making money on it at this point, where it would have made less from the expense of HD art.
Link: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/04/26/ea-spikes-on-report-japans-nexon-makes-takeover-bid/
It is probably why Nintendo is lead by first-party titles (probably).
Side note: Madden 13 on the Vita won't accept/use PS3 saves of Madden 13 on the PS3. I guess they missed the memo about EA's Universe goal.
It's hard to say, but I would counter with the argument that there's no indication that Nintendo is any more inclined to push the comparative graphical envelope than its two main competitors.
I do agree--somewhat. Microsoft is absolutely committed to its console occupying the position of a media device as well as gaming machine. Their focus will be divided, for better or worse. And Sony may be smarting after the world's reception to its unique, and expensive, hardware upgrade route with the PS3.
So how exactly does this change anything for Nintendo? If anything, it confirms its existing position as not the worst one from their own standpoint. It's hardly the canary in the cavern.
Nintendo will come in second or third in comparitive power. And the gap will not be that big--we're not talking between oXbox and PS2 or anything. But it'll be there, I'd expect.
http://wii.ign.com/articles/122/1223811p1.html
It looks like the 3DS selling really well below cost combined with the Wii and DS fading is what really hurt them. Man. The bet that people would pay extra money for 3D really didn't pan out.