There is a flurry of related news stories too---MAN OH MAN OH MAN! Plus Sony is now giving PS3 developers a free-of-charge Maya tool kit----dude I a had a geek-freak session with all of that--I want to play with Home now hehe!

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this is another article on the GDC---I don't know if I fully agree but I have to say I wish Nintendo did make a more powerful system---although to go as far as call it a piece of sh*t I think that would nullify Nintendo making improvements--why listen to someone if they are going to smear you? I think if he confronted Nintendo privately he may have been able to garner results although who knows he may have--all I know is what is in that article--but while I agree with most of that I have to say I doubt his statements will get any real world results.

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Sony's Home game reminds me a lot of Disney's Virtual Magic Kingdom, where it's just a casual game where you can collect special outfits or things and do casual activities all in the context of something larger (the Disney parks). It's something I've been wanting to make for a while for a Christian-based game, because these RPGs are so much fun to play, but it's sad that their sole goal is to drive marketing for Disney parks or Sony games -- we could do so much more by making something that tries to bring parents and kids together to play, to promote good activities for kids like church camp or Bible-quizzing or missions groups or whatever -- we could make a really fun online safe place for kids to play. I've done some work in this regard, and that's what my Javascript isometric game examples were for. Looking back, I see that I talked about it fair bit already in this thread.

Point two -- regarding the Wii -- here's an interesting quote from the article:

quote:

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Hecker also took Nintendo to task for not taking games seriously enough. "It's not clear to me that Nintendo gives a s*** about games as an art form," he said. To illustrate his point, he searched for references to games as art on all three console manufacturers web sites. While he found numerous such references on both the official PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 sites, Wii.com had none at all. He then shared quotes from executives at Sony and Microsoft talking about games as a serious artistic medium, and then a quote from a Nintendo executive saying the company only wanted to make "fun" games.

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For context, a great read regarding "games as art" is Raph Koster's book A Theory of Fun -- for those who aren't aware, Raph Koster worked on Ultima Online and was creative director on Star Wars Galaxies. Anyways, it's a really good book that talks about what fun is, and how it works to exercise the brain to recognize patterns, etc. It's a wonderful treatise, and while it's certainly not the only way to think about "fun", it's certainly a very good theory of fun (hence the title) and I learned a lot about it. If you're interested, Will Wright wrote the forward to the book and it's pretty good. Anyways, building off of that, fun is an artform in and of itself. Player interactivity and immersion is something that isn't always easy to achieve, and while people might get immersed in Gears of War from the great AI or get sucked into Resistance: Fall of Man for the incredible graphics and plot, the Wii is an artform that seeks to bring people together and provide a context for people to interact in a beneficial way. As much as pretty pictures and complex fuzzy-logic is an artform, there's something very satisfying about beating a tennis ball back and forth with your Miis in a very intuitive way while joking and sharing pop and a bag of chips. What's not artistic about that? The Wii focuses on expanding the mechanics of games into new ways never done before, because the input mechanics never allowed it. It's an art form that focuses on bringing mom or dad or grandma or grandpa away from the TV shows and movies and getting them interacting with their kids, in a way that the PS3 or 360 never would have. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with the PS3 or the 360 -- they just have a different audience, and different tastes in what makes "art". But when the PS3 doesn't even have rumble on their controller, it's sad because that's one of my favorite parts of racing or fighting games -- getting physical feedback as to what's happening to my characters in the game world.

I dunno' -- I could keep ranting, but I think that Nintendo is *totally* focusing on games as art, and they always have. Look at Shigeru Miyamoto (one of Nintendo's most iconic figures), and what he did to make Zelda an art:

quote:

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The Legend of Zelda was principally inspired by Miyamoto's explorations as a young boy in the hillsides surrounding his childhood home in Kyoto,[2] where he ventured into forests with secluded lakes, caves, and rural villages. According to Miyamoto, one of his most memorable experiences was the discovery of a cave entrance in the middle of the woods. After some hesitation, he apprehensively entered the cave and explored its depths with the aid of a lantern. This memory has clearly influenced Miyamoto's work, as cave exploration is a major element of most Zelda games. Other than Miyamoto's childhood, Norse and Japanese mythologies have played a large role influencing the series, as well as Medieval European culture. Miyamoto has referred to the creation of the Zelda games as an attempt to bring to life a "miniature garden" for players to play with in each game of the series.

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So I don't know what people are saying that Nintendo isn't focusing on creating artistic games. It seriously makes me wonder... with how much Sony and Microsoft tout the artistic side of their games makes me think that they're talking so much to make up for how they lack in the gameplay side of their artistic innovations, while Nintendo is busy working on making great games and selling them as such.

Edit: I just watched the Little Big Planet presentation, and that's a very fun game. Sony is working hard on this "Games 3.0" thing, and I think it's great -- I just don't think that talking about "games as art" is necessary to have a focus on it, and by Nintendo's actions, I feel that this guy's article slamming the Wii for not being artistic is really a load of bologna.

It's like special effects in a movie -- you don't talk about good special effects in movies, because you don't even notice that they're there, they just "wow" you.
</rant>

Disclaimer: I have played the PS3, I like it, I think it's fun, and I think Sony is doing great things to try and pursue the gameplay side of games as art, fl0w being one of the chief examples. Microsoft has similarly made great strides, most significantly in its realm of XBox Live and the Challenges and other such things -- they're all doing great, I'm just reacting harshly because people are dissing unnecessarily hard on Nintendo here in this article.

--clint

[This message has been edited by HanClinto (edited March 08, 2007).]

Hehe yeah flOw is weird--but it is fun, interesting use of the motion sensing, but I have been too busy with MotorStorm to finish it (not to mention my brother has owned Zelda for a few months and picked now to get into it and both the PS3 and Wii are on the same tv--so yeah my time is very limited LOL!)---one thing I love about MotorStorm though is the motion sensing in that--especially if you are on a ATV or motorcycle it feels like you are actually holding on to the handle bars

With Nintendo, I am frustrated because I am somewhere between you and the Spore dude opinion wise, I think it took lot of cahones to do what they did (and I really respect Regie Fils-Aime as a speaker and Miyamoto san as an artist) but I don't play my Wii. I don't like Zelda (not saying it is bad, it isn't, but I have never been a zelda fan--too slow paced combat wise I think)---and RedSteel (the game I bought a Wii for) flopped and Smash Bros. Brawl (the game I am keeping my Wii for) Nintendo doesn't even mention anymore--it was set for a June release but from what I understand Nintendo has basically hinted it won't be out this year at all (due to that, on their release list, it isn't mentioned--neither is Metroid). Whats weird about that is, since the Wii is 2 gamecubes basically, why couldn't they have taken the Smash Bros Melee engine and start from there? Doing it that way, they would have had more than enough time to have Brawl out by launch. But yeah, I certainly don't hate them, and when Brawl does make it out I will play it into the ground, but it feels like Nintendo is doing a similar thing as with the DS---release a ton of casual or quirky games and only throw us hardcore gamers a bone once every 6 months or so--I want more than that hehe!!! Which, I was wondering---you know how Nintendo created the Wii mote to be non-threatening so that people could look at it and thing, "Man, I can play with this!"? I was thinking---that may eventually cause them to move up to a PS3 or 360---because once they get confident with the Wii whats to stop them from looking at their loved one's PS3 or 360 controller and think, "I bet I can tackle that now"? Wouldn't be that bad for Nintendo seeing how the Wii had to be sold in the first place for that equation to work, but it kind of illustrates my fears for them---I hope they can work on keeping the momentum so that their console actually remains viable in the living room and that people like me have a reason to allot some gaming hours to it, because there is some cool stuff about it (especially for FPS) and I would like to see it reach its' potential.

BTW for those of you interested in LittleBigWorld http://ps3.ign.com/articles/770/770999p1.html

BTW HanClinto I will check that book out---sounds cool thanks for the heads up on it! Crazyishone also wrote a small report here on CCN about the topic I thought was insightful--described it to my friends as kind of common sense on the issue condensed into an easy to understand short report

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I think it's time to concentrate on making fun, low spec, games that can be played by everyone. At this point you need to be a programmer, computer guru or have a CS degree to be able to play WoW, WarcraftIII,(your favorite game here) which is absurd.

I'm not saying PS3 technology is crap. What I'm saying is that right now that technology is too expensive to be used in home appliances and that we should pay attention/explore other areas than those that have been taking the focus up to this point.

[This message has been edited by Calin (edited March 08, 2007).]

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quote:

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Originally posted by zookey:
Part of it you have to look at though is that a lot of analysts are saying that Sony's PS3 will be dominant--that Sony will have a steady increase of sales

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Those prediction are based on the PS2 experience which doesn't necessary apply for PS3.

quote:

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Originally posted by zookey:

so it isn't necessarily the hardware (I certainly didn't mind paying the 600--although I reserved it as soon as I could and paid it off over a few months which made it easier) as much as Wii Sports is like the current beanie baby or macarena-

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I think it's the controllers and their effect on game play. I'm sure Sony and Microsoft will try to catch up with their own version of 'body controllers' (I like to come up with new terms =])

Anyways my point is that gamedevs have been chasing the graphics factor too much which is something you seem to agree with.

[This message has been edited by Calin (edited March 08, 2007).]

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i hope this has anything to do with this thread :O

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~~~boogie woogie woogie~~~

with graphics: right on! Look at games like Katamari Damacy---most people wouldn't play it because it looks kiddie, but that game is digital crack it is so addictive LOL--actually one of the best moments in the whole series is the PSP version's credits, which let you play in a 8 Bit-2D mode that mixes Katamari with Mario Brothers.

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[This message has been edited by zookey (edited March 09, 2007).]