The Video Game Critic

Why do developers feel obligated to push a console to the limit??  Just make the frickin' game!  If it has SNES quality graphics that's fine - just as long as the game is good.

This same mentality is the reason we rarely see 2D games on modern consoles.  There's this mindset going around that unless the game looks like Gears of War nobody will want to play it.

[QUOTE=The Video Game Critic]Why do developers feel obligated to push a console to the limit??  Just make the frickin' game!  If it has SNES quality graphics that's fine - just as long as the game is good.

This same mentality is the reason we rarely see 2D games on modern consoles.  There's this mindset going around that unless the game looks like Gears of War nobody will want to play it.

[/QUOTE]

We'll play it; the masses just won't buy it.  Likewise, if it's too far off left center, the masses won't buy it.  The good thing about the PS2 with such a large install base was we did get a few off the wall games. 

[QUOTE=ActRaiser]

[QUOTE=The Video Game Critic]Why do developers feel obligated to push a console to the limit??  Just make the frickin' game!  If it has SNES quality graphics that's fine - just as long as the game is good.

This same mentality is the reason we rarely see 2D games on modern consoles.  There's this mindset going around that unless the game looks like Gears of War nobody will want to play it.

[/QUOTE]

We'll play it; the masses just won't buy it.  Likewise, if it's too far off left center, the masses won't buy it.  The good thing about the PS2 with such a large install base was we did get a few off the wall games. 
[/QUOTE]

I don't think I buy that. It just depends on the marketing for the game, which is really quite underrated as a factor in how well a game does. If a game is marketed as some kind of also ran, it will more than likely sell poorly. Logic would dictate that a game that has a really high budget will get a big marketing push. Gears of War was marketed like crazy. Those TV spots in particular were some of the best TV commercials for a game in recent memory (too bad the actual game didn't have any moments like the commercial, with that rock ballad brilliantly juxtaposing the intense action on screen).

Take a game like Contact for the DS. Who the heck knew anything about this game? It's a very interesting RPG by Suda 51 and co., yet it was released with a whimper. Hence, poor sales.

-Rob

[QUOTE=feilong80][QUOTE=ActRaiser]

[QUOTE=The Video Game Critic]Why do developers feel obligated to push a console to the limit??  Just make the frickin' game!  If it has SNES quality graphics that's fine - just as long as the game is good.

This same mentality is the reason we rarely see 2D games on modern consoles.  There's this mindset going around that unless the game looks like Gears of War nobody will want to play it.

[/QUOTE]

We'll play it; the masses just won't buy it.  Likewise, if it's too far off left center, the masses won't buy it.  The good thing about the PS2 with such a large install base was we did get a few off the wall games. 
[/QUOTE]

I don't think I buy that. It just depends on the marketing for the game, which is really quite underrated as a factor in how well a game does. If a game is marketed as some kind of also ran, it will more than likely sell poorly. Logic would dictate that a game that has a really high budget will get a big marketing push. Gears of War was marketed like crazy. Those TV spots in particular were some of the best TV commercials for a game in recent memory (too bad the actual game didn't have any moments like the commercial, with that rock ballad brilliantly juxtaposing the intense action on screen).

Take a game like Contact for the DS. Who the heck knew anything about this game? It's a very interesting RPG by Suda 51 and co., yet it was released with a whimper. Hence, poor sales.

-Rob
[/QUOTE]

I'm not so sure a huge marketing push for Contact would have improved its sales.  I remember eagerly looking forward to this game 6 months before its release only to get bored out of my mind playing it.  I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.  I know you like it a lot but that one just didn't do it for me.

I love the quarky games that offer something different as well but in Contact's case, to me, it's just not that compelling of a game.  Gears, compelling and fun.  Hence, big sales to the masses.

If 'the masses' really demand everything to look like 'Gears of War", I reckon "Wii Sports" was pretty much a disaster as a pack in game.

It is a little bit amazing to me how many compilations and remixes we have seen of 10 - 20 year old games, that must sell fairly well, and yet no one seems to take a chance and create an original game or even a sequel of these franchises.

Especially Nintendo. Super Mario World is what 15+ years old now, and since that game we have seen several rerealeased 2-d Mario's on GBA and one (finally) original effort on DS, that was well recieved, sold awesome and is still selling, and not a hint of a Wii reiteration. (SPM obviously is not the same thing) I would bet a home console version of "SMB 4" would have done a lot more for the Gamecube than Sunshine, so maybe it's time to go back and breathe some new life in proven game play.

I think as a whole we are all better off the more the market fragments and looks to satisfy different wants, even if that means less and less people will experience the same types of games.

[QUOTE=Steerforth]If 'the masses' really demand everything to look like 'Gears of War", I reckon "Wii Sports" was pretty much a disaster as a pack in game.

[/QUOTE]

Dude, no where did I mention graphics

"Gears, compelling and fun.  Hence, big sales to the masses."  Same goes for Wii Sports.  geesh.