Screaming Coasters
Strata Poster
When the Apple Console comes out, it'll smash everything.
favorite console v2
- Thread starter eddy1282
- Start date
AmandaPanda
Mega Poster
Sega Megadrive (or Sega Genesis is what it was called in the US)!
ciallkennett
Strata Poster
N64 is probably my favourite console of all time. 64 bit graphics = win.
big john
Mega Poster
in my opinion all are great im an avid collector of old skool retro stuff for example after a bit of didleing on ebay i bagged myself a panasonic FZ-01 3DO for £18 just got a Atari jaguar for £22 and an N64 for £6 just waiting for the nes and virtual boy to finish so i can pick em up cheep at finish lol so if anyone has any old retro stuff they wanna off load or sell get in touch with myself hehe
kimahri said:
The Saturn was a funny one. Between the MegaDrive and SNES era, you had a gluck of "next Gen" consoles :roll:
There was the 3DO, Jaguar, CD-i (and probably some others) that essentially jumped on the new CD-Rom and 3D technologies that were just emerging.
They all thought - we have the latest stuff and everyone will jump ship from their old befuddled Nintendo and Sega consoles.
What they failed to realise is that there's a return on investment people like to get from a console. Generally, early adopters will want a lot of years of play because they paid a lot for the console close to release - plus they have invested heavily in a games catalogue.
Late investors are cheapskates and only buy when the the console is cheap and the games are cheap. They get to play the games their rich mates played three years ago for half the cost.
Generally, you'll find that people will not give up their console for a new one until around 5 to 7 years after the console release. You'll always have some people who "must have", but they're a real minority in larger scheme of things.
Atari, Panasonic and Phillips all failed to understand this and produced a half gen update well within the product life time of the Mega Drive and SNES.
Sega thought they had it right with a full next gen console - but they were still within the 5-7 year period, AND they shot themselves in the foot. Christmas 1994 when the Saturn was released, the best selling console was? The Mega Drive/Genesis. Sega slashed costs to get rid of their stock, and all the cheapskates bought it. Millions of the things :lol:
The Saturn was rushed to market to beat the hype machine Sony were building with their new console - the Playstation. They didn't quite have the technology right and were trying to break new ground in the way games were designed. It made the console stick out as it wasn't liek anything the industry worked on currently. So nobody could code it as well as they could the PSX.
In mid 1995 the Playstation came out at about $100 less than the Saturn and took everything. Sega had botched the Saturn missing out on video compression and light sourcing - the two things that really made the PSX stand out.
Properly coded, the Saturn was probably better, it had dual CPU's for instance. However, it was just released too early against much cheaper competition still in life cycle(Mega Drive) against a hype machine built around a new console which promised the world.
Of course, Sega failed to learn from this and repeated EXACTLY the same thing with the Dreamcast. They rushed to market to get the next big thing on the shelves first. They competed directly against a massively price cut PSX and in the marketplace against a promised astounding PS2 (which came with the added bonus of a DVD drive).
So they were still in the PSX/N64 life cycle, perceived better tech due very soon and stiff competition.
Sony played that round very well, they got the PSX down in price well before PS2 launch to get people bought into the brand. Then they converted those users to the PS2 over time (with the backwards compatibility). It's why the PS2 did so well, even though in reality, the Dreamcast was probably a better bit of technology.
Sony of course tried repeating this again this gen. They failed for the same reasons Sega failed though (I say fail, we'll come to this). The technology was too complex and out of standard for coders - something we're still suffering from (as PS3 owners) away from first party developments. Again, cost was too high and Sony dropped in against a much cheaper and more appealing tech (the Wii AND the 360). This round has been a real wild one though. Prior to this gen, there were patterns - but I think that this round is heading to 1984 meltdown if we're not careful. At the moment, it certainly appears to me to be VERY similar to the fervent atmosphere in the very early 80's.
Now, I say the PS3 has failed. It's not really fair. The PS3 has now outsold the total number of X-Box units shifted. The 360 is about 10 million ahead. Considering that the X-Box was a fair success, both consoles are actually doing very well - it's just compared to the Wii that they are flagging - in terms of console sales generally, they're doing very well for this early on in the life cycle.
I have to say, looking at the past, the world is NOT ready for another new console (even a Wii 2) in the next two - three years. I think it will happen, but I think it will be a failure. Timing is wrong, and anyone who does it will simply "do a Sega".
jayjay
Giga Poster
[spoilsport] I'm a PC gamer [/spoilsport]
The only decent console I've ever owned is a Wii. Basically the Nintendo has cornered the "fun casual games" market and is doing a fantastic job of delivering, as evidenced by Mario Galaxy/Mario Kart/Wii *insert word*. However, the whole motion thing is a gimmick and actually I think it's just the games that hold it up. Nintendo have always been good at these sorts of games (see: anything in the Mario series (perhaps not Sunshine)).
edit: oops, apparently this is a bumped old topic
The only decent console I've ever owned is a Wii. Basically the Nintendo has cornered the "fun casual games" market and is doing a fantastic job of delivering, as evidenced by Mario Galaxy/Mario Kart/Wii *insert word*. However, the whole motion thing is a gimmick and actually I think it's just the games that hold it up. Nintendo have always been good at these sorts of games (see: anything in the Mario series (perhaps not Sunshine)).
edit: oops, apparently this is a bumped old topic
The Wii depresses me. Mario depresses me. Mario Kart depresses me. Zelda depresses me. Make. Some. New. And. Original. Games. Nintendo!
It wouldn't depress me if they were EA or Activision who you know are going to repeat ad infinitum an IP with minor changes each year. My issue with Nintendo is that they're heralded as original and the "real gamers choice". They just aren't. And please, stop tacking motion controls onto everything to make it "new". Super Mario Wii does NOT need motion controls. Mario Kart does NOT need motion controls. Resident Evil 4... Was the best game ever and the motion controls made it :lol:
Okay, so tack them on where it needs it, but not where it makes you sit playing a game looking like somebody with either epilepsy or Parkinson's disease. That and stop giving us the same games over and over please?
It wouldn't depress me if they were EA or Activision who you know are going to repeat ad infinitum an IP with minor changes each year. My issue with Nintendo is that they're heralded as original and the "real gamers choice". They just aren't. And please, stop tacking motion controls onto everything to make it "new". Super Mario Wii does NOT need motion controls. Mario Kart does NOT need motion controls. Resident Evil 4... Was the best game ever and the motion controls made it :lol:
Okay, so tack them on where it needs it, but not where it makes you sit playing a game looking like somebody with either epilepsy or Parkinson's disease. That and stop giving us the same games over and over please?
slappy mcguire
Mega Poster
Re:
I can't help but agree with you about the potential for a crash though; I am convinced decades are cyclical every thirty years (the noughties mirrored the seventies, the tens the eighties, just as the twenties will mirror the sixties and nineties, split roughly as the periods of 'us', 'me' and 'them' respectively), and as basic economic situations tend to mirror these trends - here is the elephant in the room - the turnover is there, the profit though is not, and while money is made on the consoles, very quickly it is chucked back into the system as the three companies try to steal competitive advantage.
Worse still is the financial state of most of the publishers; even monoliths like Activision and EA aren't the cash cows they once were, and ultimately it only takes a couple of big players to fold or pull out of the market, and the whole thing comes down like a house of cards, leaving the ipod and android platforms, on which independent developers like Roxio thrive, therein giving us our new generation of Speccy's and C64's and their legion of bedroom coders.
Absolutely fabulous post, a pleasure to read.furie said:
I can't help but agree with you about the potential for a crash though; I am convinced decades are cyclical every thirty years (the noughties mirrored the seventies, the tens the eighties, just as the twenties will mirror the sixties and nineties, split roughly as the periods of 'us', 'me' and 'them' respectively), and as basic economic situations tend to mirror these trends - here is the elephant in the room - the turnover is there, the profit though is not, and while money is made on the consoles, very quickly it is chucked back into the system as the three companies try to steal competitive advantage.
Worse still is the financial state of most of the publishers; even monoliths like Activision and EA aren't the cash cows they once were, and ultimately it only takes a couple of big players to fold or pull out of the market, and the whole thing comes down like a house of cards, leaving the ipod and android platforms, on which independent developers like Roxio thrive, therein giving us our new generation of Speccy's and C64's and their legion of bedroom coders.
Cheers Slappy
On that, just reading about Nintendo "struggling" with profit forecast for the last fiscal year down 82% on projected. Capcom are also posting warnings. Both EA and Activision have shut studios and high profile franchises have gone. Disney Interactive are closing their "non-pap" developers too.
I think the biggest shock (which kind of confirms the post I made earlier) is the "failure" of the 3DS. It's sold about half the number of bloody PSPs sold in the same period. Likewise, normal DS sales are still strong. Nintendo is competing with itself.
You can see Sony already gearing up for the release of the Vita. PSP Go is gone and they're steering people away from the platform, selling it off cheap and they'll try to kill it off slowly as they did the PS2 by reducing support (not that you could reduce support for it much, it's a system devoid of titles). The DS is still strong though. Still high profile, strong selling titles coming out for it, and the DS-I is still in mid product cycle. Nintendo are doing right reducing the 3DS price point, but they need to push the death of the DS. They need to get people to start moving on, which they can do, but only if they actively try and put people off buying the DS, but while they're still making money from it, how can they? Nintendo have released the 3DS too early and are paying.
It's a real shame, because the 3DS is actually a really good platform. The system is well thought out and has loads of "nice touches". These touches become even more apparent the more 3DS users there are, it needs a huge user base. It will probably come, but it's going to be a bit of a slog for Nintendo I think; their next big selling point is Christmas really, and they'll be head to head against the Vita. At least Nintendo have popular IP.
I am excited by the Vita though, but like the PSP, I know it's just not going to have a decent games catalogue. It's good I can play all the PSP stuff bought off the store, so there's already a decent digital catalogue of cheap games for it - but I don't think there'll be enough actual stuff for it. I think Sony will also push the Vita/PS3 connection, trumping Nintendo with the Wii U console-pad interface. Well, they'd be fools if they didn't.
It'll all be very interesting to watch.
You're right about the handheld phone market though. I don't know about Apple/Nintendo/MS, but Sony have massively cheap dev kits for their consoles and something called the "Pub Fund" - $20 million a year to independent developers Sony think have a hit product and a good business plan. So in theory, smaller devs can get in and do the whole bedroom coding thing much easier. Likewise there's a cross-platform system that allows a developer to easily port simply games between all the major phones and consoles. There are already a lot of iPhone games ported across to Ps3/360/PSP/DS-I. It's a boom business at the moment, but I think it's mostly tied into the iPhone market where it seems much more "casual" than any other platform.
Interesting times indeed and the next 12 months with Vita and Wii U will possibly make or break my theories :lol: Let's return to this topic then and see shall we?
On that, just reading about Nintendo "struggling" with profit forecast for the last fiscal year down 82% on projected. Capcom are also posting warnings. Both EA and Activision have shut studios and high profile franchises have gone. Disney Interactive are closing their "non-pap" developers too.
I think the biggest shock (which kind of confirms the post I made earlier) is the "failure" of the 3DS. It's sold about half the number of bloody PSPs sold in the same period. Likewise, normal DS sales are still strong. Nintendo is competing with itself.
You can see Sony already gearing up for the release of the Vita. PSP Go is gone and they're steering people away from the platform, selling it off cheap and they'll try to kill it off slowly as they did the PS2 by reducing support (not that you could reduce support for it much, it's a system devoid of titles). The DS is still strong though. Still high profile, strong selling titles coming out for it, and the DS-I is still in mid product cycle. Nintendo are doing right reducing the 3DS price point, but they need to push the death of the DS. They need to get people to start moving on, which they can do, but only if they actively try and put people off buying the DS, but while they're still making money from it, how can they? Nintendo have released the 3DS too early and are paying.
It's a real shame, because the 3DS is actually a really good platform. The system is well thought out and has loads of "nice touches". These touches become even more apparent the more 3DS users there are, it needs a huge user base. It will probably come, but it's going to be a bit of a slog for Nintendo I think; their next big selling point is Christmas really, and they'll be head to head against the Vita. At least Nintendo have popular IP.
I am excited by the Vita though, but like the PSP, I know it's just not going to have a decent games catalogue. It's good I can play all the PSP stuff bought off the store, so there's already a decent digital catalogue of cheap games for it - but I don't think there'll be enough actual stuff for it. I think Sony will also push the Vita/PS3 connection, trumping Nintendo with the Wii U console-pad interface. Well, they'd be fools if they didn't.
It'll all be very interesting to watch.
You're right about the handheld phone market though. I don't know about Apple/Nintendo/MS, but Sony have massively cheap dev kits for their consoles and something called the "Pub Fund" - $20 million a year to independent developers Sony think have a hit product and a good business plan. So in theory, smaller devs can get in and do the whole bedroom coding thing much easier. Likewise there's a cross-platform system that allows a developer to easily port simply games between all the major phones and consoles. There are already a lot of iPhone games ported across to Ps3/360/PSP/DS-I. It's a boom business at the moment, but I think it's mostly tied into the iPhone market where it seems much more "casual" than any other platform.
Interesting times indeed and the next 12 months with Vita and Wii U will possibly make or break my theories :lol: Let's return to this topic then and see shall we?
slappy mcguire
Mega Poster
Actually I see android as the key; not only is it accelerating at a greater rate, there are less casual games, more experimental games, but crucially, it goes through 'versions' (eclair et al) at a rate that Microsoft and co can only dream of. The wii U will be a flop, but I suspect the vita may be a game changer, as it muscles in on the ipad/pod/android market in a really quite intelligent way, whilst the ps3 support could be crucial. We'll see.
EnigmaHyena
Hyper Poster
Sega MegaDrive. It was basically the core of my childhood, and also introduced the world to SONIC. The system also had some crisp, colourful graphics and most the games had music that was really funky. I've always viewed it as the 'cool dude' alternative to the SNES.
I still play MegaDrive games a lot to this day! Still have lots of love for PS1/PS2 too.
I still play MegaDrive games a lot to this day! Still have lots of love for PS1/PS2 too.