will nintendo ever be a serious contender?

@Alchy
Back in the NES -> GC days, when I didn't always have much of an income, for obvious reasons, we'd often just bring our controllers between homes when we needed extra ones (most people with a system usually had at least 2). So the part about each requiring 4 controllers in "each home" kinda isn't much of a valid point.

The Wii even has a built in memory in the Wii remote to allows you to transfer the Mii with you as you jump around (if you for some reason would want to use it wherever you go, without keeping a one on other systems... if Mii supported games = your thing).

What the Wii of course does not have, is the stats/save transfer system that games using memory cards/paks often allowed for in the previous two generations. The PS3 also doesn't have a proper system that easily allows for this (with the exception of remotely stored leaderboard data, should you choose to restore you profile on another system). On the 360 it's fairly easy, though, if the game supports it, and... if you have a memory unit.


@nonesuch:
Speaking of the PS1 texture handling? It's to avoid having to spend valuable system resources on accurately calculating the rendering correctly.

 

carnivol the wii MOST games let you transfer saves via SD card. And you're right. I have ONE wii mote. My brother has two (thanks Wii Play!) my girlfriend has one. She'll bring her wii motes to play Wii sports or Boom Blox.

Graciano when he comes over often brings his own GC controller for Smash. The only reason I typically have more than 2 controllers per console is I come from a full family.

 

Most online enabled games don't, and I was mostly referring to games where the players have a "profile" (or progress) of sorts that they'd want to bring if they go from one console to another (temporarily). Most Wii games I've seen only recognizes the existence of one such save in system memory. So no loading of individual profiles for each player, and even if the game supports it, you'd have to start copying things back and forth between SD card and system memory (or even worse; shuffle saves, using two SD cards, in those cases where the game only approves of one block.)

 

RGB scart is your friend.

 

lack of Z-buffer and perspective correction nonesuch

 

I think we have the N64 to thank for real-time cut scenes. CGI pre-rendered cutscenes always spoiled the action for me. It broke the immersion completely, by showing you graphics far superior to those in the game.

As the N64 couldn't store these cutscene movies, games would render cutscenes in real-time (Zelda OoT being a prime example). This kept you in the action and in gthe 'zone' with the same graphics being used to progress the story.

One of my biggest dislikes of gaming of that era is the hoprrible use of pre-rendered CGI movie cutscenes. They are fowl.

 

especially earlier ones, where 3D rendering technology was new back then (3ds max 1,2), is horrible.

What I still find irritating is that no matter how good graphics are, the animation is usually ass.

 

NO ONE else felt this way but me in elementary. This is why FF7 could never do it for me, you go from controlling like 4 polygons (exaggeration but it gets my point across) but in Ocarina of Time there is no change in the graphics engine, keeping you fully immersed.

Metal Gear Solid did this pretty well too

 

It's nice to have someone understand what I mean. FF7's graphics really have aged badly- and the frame rate during battles is poor as hell. And the pre-rendered backgrounds also just look cheap nowadays.

The N64, as someone did previously say, set the standards for 3D games. Mario 64 and Zelda 64 set the standard in how a good 3D camera and action system should perform (eg lock on). For me personally, Playstation games have much less character and charm than their N64 rivals. To me, there is something admirable about creating a game within restraints (eg cartridge, limited texture space..). CDs and their modern-day large storage equivalents (Blu Ray hint hint or even DVD) just allow for lazy game production. There is no need to eek out that last bit of storage space or finely craft that texture. The same with sound- just hire an orchestra; the space is there, so if you have money, good quality music can be made. With a cartrdige, that was rarely viable; we have some beautiful tunes that fit within a game on a tiny amount of memory. For me (once again), I love thinking that the music design was within small limits, yet could acheive so much with the proper passion and finesse.

</waffle>

We do all have to acknowledge that both consoles and their games have important places within the history of our hobby. Without their respective strengths and weaknesses, the gaming landscape would be very different today. *Raises glass to Playstation and N64*

 

@randyrandall:
That's an interesting point about the music. Using synthesized music allowed some N64 games to segue smoothly from one track to the next. Ocarina of Time even mixed player-made ocarina notes into the full song they represented, and in dungeons the ambient music would morph seamlessly into menacing enemy themes.

Playstation music changes were more often heralded by a loud "ker-chunk!" from the unit as it abruptly changed audio tracks.

Of course, there's absolutely no reason disc-based systems couldn't use synthesized music, and surely modern systems have enough memory and processing power for large, natural-sounding instrument banks.

 

Many PlayStation titles utilized synth/midi-like music tracks, but off the top of my head I can't think of any that featured as smooth transitions between tracks and variations of tunes as many N64 games did (Perfect sample for this would be to take a look at various games developed by Rare)


Realtime cutscenes are indeed nice. Cartridges certainly helped people stick with realtime a lot too. There aren't many cinematic scenes in PS1 games that were done realtime. Metal Gear Solid is probably the only game I can think of that did cinematic stuff realtime on the PS1 (Okay, so I just remembered that Aconcagua did a fine job with it too). I love how Capcom's pretty much entirely ditched FMVs and going full force on the in-game engine stuff. The fact that the cutscenes in Resident Evil 5 are realtime is at times mind blowing. Resident Evil 4 on the GC was amazing at times 'cause of this too (However, a lot of the cutscenes in the PS2 version used pre-recorded sequences utilizing in-game assets, just like Killer 7 on the PS2 and the Xenosaga trilogy did)

 

nonesuch, it is true that, of course, CD-based and new consoles do have this capability, but I've rarely seen it used. Nintendo is a great example of that though- the games that use it slip my mind- but in some of their more recent games, the music will seamlessly link into an enemy encounter music.. Pikmin 2 is an example actually. Or a boss, where when you reveal their weak point, the music will become more tense- Mario Galaxy's Bowser boss being an example..

I guess the N64's limitation and that behalf just spurred it along somewhat- the laxy 'easy' option wasn't available.

 

very good topic !

Yeah, the right words ! :nod:

Today, talk about optimisations (in many means), sequenced music, assembler language, non unified memory, lib or others api ... to a developer. He answer you : "what are you talking about ?!"

 

to be fair only the N64 and the 2 XBOXes have had unified memory architecture (UMA) afaik.

Also, asm may not be used in XNA but I m pretty sure that the PS3 and the Wii allow working on the metal for the most part.

 

Guess that makes me the only one who absolutely loved (and still does)
Pre rendered 3D cutscenes and Pre-Rendered backgrounds. Personally I feel FF7 Has aged well, if you play it on a smaller set or even a PSP(which looks the best and fantastic as well IMO). Anything big though and yeah I can see people's points lol.

But what do you expect? It was Squares first fully 3D game. Makes you savor what is possible in Game with XIII coming up.

 

FF7 aged horribly. Saga Frontier, legendo of mana and such aged perfectly.

 

Mick Jagger aged horribly too.

 

It's true that FMVs at one point were a really nice draw in certain games. To the point that they were a real treat and somewhat of a reward for your hard efforts. But in this day and age, it's almost absurd to see how much of the FFXIII stuff that has been shown so far is from pre-rendered scenes (I think it's sad that there are people who firmly believe everything they've seen is realtime)

In my opinion, with the current advances in graphics, FMVs only really serve their purpose on the weaker platforms when displaying stylistic changes, which is what they often served as in the PS1 days too. Changing between the abstractness of the interactive characters to the more realistic/detailed/defined designs usually seen in the concept art and such.

Also, I agree with Karsten on Legend of Mana having age pretty well, while FFVII's wonky modeling techniques, inconsistent background renders and multi-styled FMVs has not aged well. Somewhat disagree about Saga Frontier aging well, though... that game kinda looks like it was made with whatever ended up not being put to use in FFVII.

 

To each his own, they say. *shrugs* but it is true a lot of FFXIII shown has been FMV, but to the average person they aren't likely to tell the difference. But the difference is there. And I could honestly care less. Something so small isn't going to detract from the experience of the game to me.


I agree on Saga Frontier, it looks more on par with VII than any other square game of the generation. SF2 on the other hand has aged even better.

I dont' know why but I like just about everything, while I enjoy modern , I also Love and appreciate everything in previous generations just as much.

 

Not agree. It depend on the diference of quality between FMVs and real time. FFXIII has realy nice FMW compare to ingame graphics. It's always a pleasure to watch it.

Hum... It depend on which screen used to play. We cant' judge a 90' era game on LCD \ plasma screens. The render of the game is awfully trashy on this technlogy.