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Are the first years of consoles that bad?
RainbowDespair
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Another thread brought this question to my mind: are the first years of consoles really that bad as people make them out to be?
I decided to do a little research on Gamerankings.com. Due to the way the search engine works there, I decided to look at both the year each console was released and the year afterwords since all of the consoles I looked at were released near the end of the year to catch the Christmas shoppers. So if you want to get technical, this is looking at the first year of each console plus a month or two.
Here are the results. I included a sample of a few of the more noteworthy titles released during this time for each system. Feel free to argue that Game X should be up there (some genres I'm not very familiar with like sports titles & stealth titles are underrepresented). Note that the over 90% titles are included in the over 80% count.
Oh and I'm not trying to infer that review ratings are the end-all of games. Heck, I've been playing Atelier Iris 2 like crazy for the past few days and finding it to be one of the most enjoyable games I've played in a long time and that game only has a 70.1% rating on Gamerankings.
DS
'04 - 1 Game over 80% (Super Mario 64DS)
'05 -16 Games over 80% (3 versions of Nintendogs), 3 over 90%
Some of the Notable games include:
Mario Kart:DS, Castlevania:DoS, Advance Wars: Dual Strike, Meteos, Kirby: Canvas Curse, Animal Crossing, Phoenix Wright, and Trauma Center
PS2
'00 - 8 games over 80%, 2 over 90% (SSX & Madden NFL 2001)
'01 - 39 games over 80%, 11 over 90%
Some memorable games include:
GTA3, MGS2, Gran Turismo 3, Devil May Cry, Final Fantasy X, ICO, Silent Hill 2, Klonoa 2
XBox
'01 - 13 games over 80%, 1 over 90% (Halo)
'02 - 37 games over 80%, 3 over 90%
Some notable games included Shenmue 2, Jet Set Radio Future, Steel Batallion, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and uh help me out here guys.
XBox 360
'05 - 9 games over 80% (Go Geometry Wars!)
'06 - 26 games over 80%, 3 over 90%
Notable games included Gears of War, Oblivion, Dead Rising, Viva Pinata, and Burnout Revenge (included because my SO will kill me otherwise)
Gamecube
'01 - 10 games over 80%, 3 games over 90% (Smash Bros!)
'02 - 22 games over 80%, 6 games over 90%
Notable games included Metroid Prime, Super Mario Sunshine, REmake, Eternal Darkness, and Animal Crossing
Wii
'06 - 3 games over 80% (Madden NFL 07 & Trauma Center), 1 game over 90% (Zelda of course)
PS3
'06 - 5 games over 80% (Resistance:Fall of Man & various ports)
On an interesting note, users generally rated Wii titles higher than the magazines rated (Wii Sports having the biggest discrepancy) whereas users generally rated PS3 titles substantially lower than the magazines did.
My general opinion is that the first years of consoles generally aren't that bad. Looking at years when the PS2 was in its prime, the numbers weren't that much higher than the first years presented here. I imagine most of the feeling that consoles have slow first years generally come from weak launches (followed by 2-3 months of nothing much) combined with the lack of a backlibrary of games.
I decided to do a little research on Gamerankings.com. Due to the way the search engine works there, I decided to look at both the year each console was released and the year afterwords since all of the consoles I looked at were released near the end of the year to catch the Christmas shoppers. So if you want to get technical, this is looking at the first year of each console plus a month or two.
Here are the results. I included a sample of a few of the more noteworthy titles released during this time for each system. Feel free to argue that Game X should be up there (some genres I'm not very familiar with like sports titles & stealth titles are underrepresented). Note that the over 90% titles are included in the over 80% count.
Oh and I'm not trying to infer that review ratings are the end-all of games. Heck, I've been playing Atelier Iris 2 like crazy for the past few days and finding it to be one of the most enjoyable games I've played in a long time and that game only has a 70.1% rating on Gamerankings.
DS
'04 - 1 Game over 80% (Super Mario 64DS)
'05 -16 Games over 80% (3 versions of Nintendogs), 3 over 90%
Some of the Notable games include:
Mario Kart:DS, Castlevania:DoS, Advance Wars: Dual Strike, Meteos, Kirby: Canvas Curse, Animal Crossing, Phoenix Wright, and Trauma Center
PS2
'00 - 8 games over 80%, 2 over 90% (SSX & Madden NFL 2001)
'01 - 39 games over 80%, 11 over 90%
Some memorable games include:
GTA3, MGS2, Gran Turismo 3, Devil May Cry, Final Fantasy X, ICO, Silent Hill 2, Klonoa 2
XBox
'01 - 13 games over 80%, 1 over 90% (Halo)
'02 - 37 games over 80%, 3 over 90%
Some notable games included Shenmue 2, Jet Set Radio Future, Steel Batallion, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and uh help me out here guys.
XBox 360
'05 - 9 games over 80% (Go Geometry Wars!)
'06 - 26 games over 80%, 3 over 90%
Notable games included Gears of War, Oblivion, Dead Rising, Viva Pinata, and Burnout Revenge (included because my SO will kill me otherwise)
Gamecube
'01 - 10 games over 80%, 3 games over 90% (Smash Bros!)
'02 - 22 games over 80%, 6 games over 90%
Notable games included Metroid Prime, Super Mario Sunshine, REmake, Eternal Darkness, and Animal Crossing
Wii
'06 - 3 games over 80% (Madden NFL 07 & Trauma Center), 1 game over 90% (Zelda of course)
PS3
'06 - 5 games over 80% (Resistance:Fall of Man & various ports)
On an interesting note, users generally rated Wii titles higher than the magazines rated (Wii Sports having the biggest discrepancy) whereas users generally rated PS3 titles substantially lower than the magazines did.
My general opinion is that the first years of consoles generally aren't that bad. Looking at years when the PS2 was in its prime, the numbers weren't that much higher than the first years presented here. I imagine most of the feeling that consoles have slow first years generally come from weak launches (followed by 2-3 months of nothing much) combined with the lack of a backlibrary of games.
RainbowDespair on
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My initial inclination is to believe that this has something to do with most reviewers having HD, and most users not.
Either that or for all the lip service that reviewers play to "gameplay over graphics" they really care more about graphics than your average user does.
Before that, there's even more of a drought than usual, especially during winter and summer.
Being an early adopted just sets you up for disappointment, mostly ports, knowing you'll end up with the lesser and inferior hardware and paying top dollar to front the cost of technology not yet adopted by the Joneses. I am aware this is a hardcore gamer site so most just have to have the goods at launch and then have more reasons to complain when there are no games to play and all the other issues that go hand in hand with the first years of all launches.
I prefer to catch up on all the massive backlog established over the course of the entire previous generation while prices drop and more material becomes available, but I hate not being able to get in on the buzz and hype.
At least the Wii has the novelty factor going for it; just playing Wii sports is a hell of a lot more fun than trying to convince oneself that a PS3 is worth $600!
I don't want to derail this topic or anything, but I just have to ask, what the hell is it with girls and the burnout games? I've all but given up on trying to get my girlfriend into games, as while I may have had a little success I have absolutely no control over what direction her taste in games develops in. I can understand her preference for platforming and Generic-Gem-Busting-Puzzle-Game over elite counter terrorist actshun! but Burnout is a complete statistical anomoly to me. And the kicker is she prefers playing it on her own, since you kind of need the full screen to see whats going on
[spoiler:e5c0799b09]crashing cars[/spoiler:e5c0799b09]
kekekeke
It'll just get worse as the tech gets more complex and games take more time to make.
What's the ratio of games were released that year compared to games about 80% or whatever?
There is less games in the first year because there are less developers working on it, the following year means more games and chances are more quality games.
Satans..... hints.....
Out of curiosity what do you feel these standards are?
You deserve a gold star
Why 80 percent? A lot of those 80 percents are, to me, are rather boring. Tons of them are sports games, mostly EA and a few others, that are the usual yearly updates. A lot of the first years' games see plenty of 'updated' last-gen games, which can be decent, but not spectacular, netting 80+ scores but really don't do a whole lot. Not that it's a bad thing per se, but it's not something that early adopters to their hundreds+ dollar new machines were hoping for really looking forward to.
You can look at numbers above an arbitrarily drawn '80%' line, sure. But you have to look past those numbers to see what games were included in those numbers, and perhaps which ones weren't.
Also, retro compilations and 2D games never get a fair wrap in reviews. :P
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
The PSP also had a great launch, with Wipeout, Lumines, Tony Hawk UG2 Remix, Darkstalkers, Ridge Racer, Twisted Metal, and Metal Gear Acid.
The Wii? Zelda, Rayman, Excite Truck, Elebits, Metal Slug, Madden, Trauma Center, and the virtual console.
Let's go back a ways. XBox? DoA3, Halo, PGR, and Oddworld. Gamecube? Wave Race, Luigi's Mansion, Super Monkey Ball, Rogue Leader, Smash Bros, and Pikmin.
For the most part, systems have pretty good launches. The PS2, PS3, and DS all blew at launch (which didn't stop 2 of the 3 from selling like fucking hot cakes). But seriously, all this bitching about new consoles not having good launches is from people that expect every game to be amazing. News flash, not every game is awesome. Ever.
Edit:
My fiancee just slapped me for that. Thanks.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
XBox
'03 - 48/8
'04 - 45/5
'05 - 48/6
'06 - 11/0
Gamecube
'03 - 30/7
'04 - 27/1
'05 - 18/1
'06 - 1/0 (Lego Star Wars 2)
PS2
'02 - 54/7
'03 - 57/9
'04 - 56/7
'05 - 47/7
'06 - 29/4
Oh and before anyone cries foul at the '06 Gamecube stats, this search was done with their default "Only show games with over 20 reviews" hence the omission of Twilight Princess (most review sites only reviewed the Wii version and didn't bother doing a separate review for the GC version).
So there is a noticeable jump in the second year for all three systems although the severity jump varies from console to console (almost double with the XBox, smaller percentage with the Gamecube & PS2). Oh and I wasn't trying to imply that anyone use these kind of stats to determine which console to purchase, because that's just silly. Obviously there are a number of factors that should go into deciding on a console to purchase such as price, hardware features, and of course, how many games it has that you want and how badly you want them. Nor was I trying to imply that review scores are infallible - many of my favorite games didn't do so well with the gaming press.
I do think that people may be overly picky in their perceptions on new systems. Now if you only like a single genre of games then yeah in most cases, you're better off waiting a few years before buying a system. However, if you're more open in your gaming tastes, it seems to me that most systems have plenty of worthwhile games by the end of the first year.
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire,
If Year 1 sees a console get five 80% reviews and 1 90% review, and Year 2 sees 29 80%'s and 5 90%'s, that is one thing.
But if Year 1 only saw 10 games released, and Year 2 saw 120 games released, that gives Year 1 a 60% success rate (6/10), and Year 2 a 28.3% success rate (34/120).
Success rate is largely irrelevant, though, as we have other forumers and reviews to pick off the bad ones. I think all anyone should care about is how many total quality games come out for a system.
This I don't get. Who cares what the percentage to good game and bad games are? I'm not a game reviewer; I don't have to play every game that comes my way. If a system gets 5 games I want in a year, it really makes no difference to me if the total # of games released for that system that year was 5 or 5 thousand.
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire,
Are these lists for the first 12 months after the console launched, or just the titles that came out for that year ? If so, the ratios will be muffed for consoles that launched late in the year.
I can easily see this, i've played through Gears co-op no this guy in my halls awesome HD tv and it was phenomenal
When I saw the game on a SD tv at my friends room yesterday, it looked unplayable to me.
No games at all except for mostly tech demos and ports. Feel the Magic I regret not buying...and that's about it for launch games I desired besides Mario 64.
I'm very pleased it managed to survive those first rocky months.
Then I tried a friend's later on and he had Kirby on it... man, my bank account cried, but screw that bitch. 8)
Basically, everything is at its most expensive (games and hardware) and least reliable. I tend to wait a couple of years (just 1 year for the 360, though) before considering a purchase.
See, from my point of view, pretty much every launch is shitty shitty shitty.
Also, its not just the launch that people have issues with. Right after the launch there always seems to be some kind of drought where hardly anything worth playing comes out.
The Dreamcast launch is kind of unique, assuming you're talking about the US launch, which came almost 10 full months after Japan's (I hear the DC only launched with 4 games there). All that extra time allowed for a much larger catalog of games right out of the gate. It didn't hurt that the Dreamcast was the home version of the Naomi arcade board, and launched while the arcade scene was breathing its last gasps of relevancy. Porting games like House of the Dead 2 and Power Stone (a couple of the most well-remembered launch titles) was effortless.
Also, numbers are basically meaningless. Yoshi Touch & Go is averaged at 75%, so it wouldn't be included despite being a great game that many declared game of the year on this board. Also, Battles of Prince of Persia is at 65% but yet everyone I know that actually plays it, loves it.
I find it extremely hard to think that many people declared Yoshi Touch & Go to be the best game of the year. That was the year that we saw Resident Evil 4, Guitar Hero, Shadow of the Colossus, Civilization 4, Ninja Gaiden Black, Lumines, Psychonauts, and Dragon Quest 8 just to name a few games. Now I have no doubt that there are a few diehard fans of YS&G (definitely not me; I tried a demo of it and got very bored before I ran out of lives), but there will always be diehard fans of flawed games (Siren being my personal favorite).
On other notes...
I played through Gears completely with a SDTV and didn't have any problems. Then I went ahead and tried it on my parent's humongous HDTV and though I will admit it looked better, it didn't blow me away or anything (I was more impressed with how Burnout Revenege & Geometry Wars looked). I think people overestimate how badly you need an HDTV for a 360. I'd say a broadband connection is much more important for one's enjoyment of the system (for XBLA games and demos even if you don't like online multiplayer) than an HDTV as long as your SDTV is of decent quality.
Oh and Dirty, I'd say you're too picky with your gaming tastes if out of the 30+ games Shadowfire presented, you only saw 4-5 games that you liked.
And I'm very surprised (but pleased) that through this thread, we've discovered that there's something in the female gene that makes them love racing games involving crashing and destruction. Maybe I should start hyping up Excite Truck; see if I can talk her into buying us a Wii.
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire,
They are pushing out new consoles too fast then. Fuck all these new consoles without decent software. In all honesty I haven't really seen a dramatic graphical jump SINCE the dreamcast. The 360 is finally getting some decent software and the Wii won't have the rest of its line up until the end of 2007.
If development cycle is moving too fast for them to make a decent lineup, then its moving way too fast.
Not finalizing the hardware till a few months before launch is pretty much par for the course with consoles, and console "generations" have held steady at 4-5 years since the NES. And aside from the NES, console launch lineups have always been a bit shaky. So that's nothing new.
Though I will agree we've reached the point of diminishing returns for visuals... sure, the 360 and PS3 have amazing horsepower, but it's to the point that all that power can only improve the visuals some, not to the huge, revolutionary extent of previous console jumps.
Maybe the life of each console will have to be extended, since it'll be increasingly hard to convince people to upgrade with a seemingly small bump in graphics.
I kinda hope that someone makes a game with 'last-gen' visuals on the 360/PS3. It'd be interesting to see what sort of stuff we get.
Well, to be honest, I felt like he was bloating the list of good launch games. It seemed like he was confusing "good" with "good enough." A lot of those games were fun enough to play because it was launch and there wasn't really anything better to play instead, but Mediocre stuff like Kameo, King Kong, and Luigi's Mansion got put on the shelf to collect dust as soon as some genuinely great titles came out.
Maybe he was thinking of something with the scope of the GTA3 series, but with the graphical detail of RE4?