Yantelope

I'm always skeptical because people have been talking about AI for so long. I think there's some fundamental programming challenges when it comes to AI that hardware doesn't necessarily solve. This generation did bring us some great middleware though like Euphoria which really helps add some of those small AI things that have been missing. Next Gen systems would be able to incorporate more middleware processes to make the worlds even more realistic.

http://www.destructo...15-214134.phtml Naming things "complete edition" just fuels my suspicions that the content was cut from the game just to sell it as DLC. Whenever you get a $60 game it should always be complete to begin with.

What genre's do you care for, maybe I can give you better examples. You would see more different types of creatures in oblivion rather than the three or four types limited to that area you're in. You'd be able to have more diverse areas as opposed to areas gradually changing because only so much of the world can be loaded. You'd be able to enter and exit buildings without having to load. You could have way more NPCs and make towns actually seem like cities rather than 4 or 5 people in an empty market. This also might help, in case you haven't seen it:

Limitations? Graphics memory is one of the biggest one. You're very limited in how many and what quality textures and shaders you can load into your frame buffer on current consoles. You're limited in the size of your world that you can load at one point. A lot of games get around this using streaming processes first pioneered by GTA III but there are still limitations on it. It's why you'll notice that tons of the same cars pop up at the same time in GTA because they can't load all the models of the cars into memory at once. You're limited on the number of middle ware programs and AI processes you can run because of memory or just performance impacts. You're limited on the types of effects you can use. There's a ton of ways your limited either by RAM, processing cycles or frame buffers.

Well, consoles usually don't have as much hardware as a full PC because the architecture is more specialized. MS was able to cram the GPU and CPU together for the slim Xbox and saved a ton of money that way. That being said, the price for 2GB of GDDR5 for XFX or Sapphire is the same as it would be for Sony so you can't cram a Radeon 6970 inside a PS3 without it costing just as much. The fact that most advanced graphics cards on the computer are pushing 150+ watts and cost $200+ are probably the biggest reasons why the new consoles aren't here yet. Graphics cards have gone from this: to this: The cost and power of advanced graphics have gone way up and it's a problem facing new consoles. Edit: I know sony won't pay $200 for a graphics card, I just mean that the components inside those graphics cards are expensive.

Ikaruga was a DC game!

You're absolutely right but this thread is about when each of us personally stopped loving Nintendo. If you still love them that's fine. I'd just rather spend $60 on Batman: AA or ME3 than spend $50 on Donkey Kong Country. GameCube's first party library was good. Third Party sucked. I had 13 GC games all of which were exclusives. Only 3 of them were 3rd party games.

The thing is that 85% of people are morons. The same applies to gamers whether you like it or not. The thing is that's a bullshit stat. I'm not denying that there are plenty of morons in this world but to generalise entire groups of people as morons seems a tad moronic in itself. Irony?

This thing? Yeah, a lot of people don't remember that Sony actually made some of the chips that were in the SNES. Shame that Nintendo was so shortsighted and tried to stick with cartridges. I understand the manufacturing implications but it was still a ridiculous decision and they paid for it. As for that FF video, I remember seeing the screen shots of it in Nintendo Power back in the day and being very excited. I didn't actually get to see the video until many years later on youtube. It was a really strange feeling finally seeing a video you'd seen pictures of as a child years ago and forgotten about. As far as library on the Wii goes. I own about 50+ Xbox games I think. About 10 or so PS3 games and all of 3 Wii games. Partly because I borrowed SMG from my sister and didn't need to buy it.

If I were WB what I'd do is release the contend on XBL and PSN for free for a week or two. Everyone can download it now if they want. After that they will have to use a code or buy it. I think that'd be a good PR move and if people download the DLC they might be reminded to go out and buy the game later.

Yes, and Nintendo may talk a lot of wooing developers but when they keep making such proprietary and technologically ancient systems it makes it almost impossible for developers to keep supporting them properly. Sure the Wii U will have 360 games, finally, for about a year until the 720 is released and we're right back where we started.

This is that early FF on N64 tech demo. This.

...and have had sex with a lot of people's moms. and will TOTALLY PWN YOU N00B!!!!1

One more instance in the long long list of punishing legitimate customers while not harming pirates. Good work WB!

On the topic of the Saturn and the DC: The Saturn was a huge failure for many reasons, the primary one being the cost of the hardware and the ridiculous architecture. The DC was killed by the PS2 and the fact that you could literally burn DC games on a standard CD burner. I don't know that NIntendo has to have two successive failures to leave the hardware market but seeing as to how they always make a profit off hardware ($250 3DS, I'm looking at you) It's hard to see them really leaving it immediately. If however they can't sell consoles that make a profit (Wii U) then they will almost certainly not enter into a race with MS and Sony because Nintendo can't wait 3 years to make a profit off a system launch.

I agree with all that you're saying about the core vs. casual games and E3 this year left me feeling pretty underwhelmed with both Sony and MS. Sony and MS have the resources to try to continue their core games whilst expanding with peripherals. I just feel that these peripherals are doomed to failure eventually. Has the sixaxis controler ever done anything meaningful in a videogame other than balance beams? Anywho, without going to the whole motion control debate I'm going to steer back to the competition between Sony and Nintendo. Sony attacked Nintendo on the publisher front. They made it very cheap for people to make and produce games for their system and they stole away a ton of big name developers and publishers. That was actually the real genius of the PSX. Nintendo never fought to win these people back and instead kept going down their own little path. I still think the Wii was a fad and only extended Nintendo's life in the hardware business. It seems to me quite possible that the Wii U could share none of it's predecessors success and become the Nintendo version of the DC. At any rate, Nintendo's offering, a current gen system 7 years too late? That's not going to win me back anytime soon. I've moved on and I'm happy with my new suitor, for now.

I think what you are overlooking is the impact of Sony and Microsoft on the marketplace. Sony and Microsoft started throwing far more capital at gaming and may have forced Nintendo's hand slightly but for whatever reason it seems to me as though Nintendo didn't expand on their existing market which had already been mostly stolen by Sony and MS. Nintendo misfired on the business front with the N64 with cartridges and again on the GC front with their silly mini-dvds and other publishing flubs. The core audience had already begun to lose patience with Nintendo and Nintendo said they didn't want to compete with Sony and MS and decided to capture a new market. A better analogy is that of a dating couple. At one point you had a happy relationship. You were really interested in that person and you had a great time together. Then that person makes bad decisions either through arrogance or just stupidity. Then the relationship has begun to be tested by another courtier asking for your affections, offering you the things you'd been missing. Rather than try to win you back your lover just runs off with some old geezer. That's pretty much what Nintendo did.

@Atmosk, I may have to backpedal a bit here and admit that Nintendo didn't state that they weren't targeting core gamers anymore, at least I can't find a quote to that nature right now. With that said I think it's pretty obvious given the companies releases from the GC era through the Wii that they clearly turned there back on the core gamer and it's kind of bit them in the but now that the Wii fad is dying out. They may have lied to themselves, saying they were targeting a broader audience but I think that the general apathy toward the Wii from gamers kind of provides proof that they weren't. I know that a company does what's best for them. At one point what they thought was best for them was something I liked. It's not anymore. That's what I'm getting at.

See, there's where you're just flat out incorrect. Nintendo didn't expand their audience. Their stated position was that they were targeting only those who didn't ever play games or people who had stopped playing games of which I am neither. They clearly stated that they were no longer targeting the core audience. (I'm going to have to do some scrounging now to back this up... )

I dunno, when our powers combine....

The problem is that many gamers like myself used to love Nintendo and we wish we still could and it's hard letting go of that. Nintendo shifted its business focus so in a way it did leave me. I'll go back to this quote: That's not really true when Nintendo themselves said they're not targeting the core audience they used to target anymore.

Well, it's not an entirely unfair comparison. You do have many good memories spending time with Nintendo and many of us were children so those rose colored glasses shine bright. You kind of form an emotional attachment from all the great times and it sucks when Nintendo is still around but the good times are mostly gone.