4 ms·
>There are very minor differences, but I remember when N64 was such a vastly different experience from the PlayStation. Even the original Xbox was differentiate
by EpicEng 7y ago
>There are very minor differences, but I remember when N64 was such a vastly different experience from the PlayStation. Even the original Xbox was differentiated
Did it ever matter though? I played a lot of video games and owned nearly every system. I played the systems that had the games I liked, and I don't recall anyone I knew doing differently. Games sell consoles, not specs.
That said, I can think of one counter example: Sega Genesis and their "Nintendon't" campain, as well as the subsequent "blast processing" marketing push. I remember kids talking about "blast processing" during our console holy wars at lunch. The genesis was also initially targeted at the NES.
- pjmlp 7y agoAnd specs make games, specially in what concerns game design.
- EpicEng 7y agoNo they don't. Gameplay, story, character development... these things make games. Specs can enhance the experience, but a good looking piece of crap is still a piece of crap. The XBOne is more powerful than the PS4, but it got murdered last generation. The 3DO and Jaguar both had specs that topped the competition at the time, but they didn't have the games and they failed.
- pjmlp 7y agoSpecs isn't about teraflops or triangles per second, rather what experiences the hardware allows to deliver, or what constraints it imposes on game design that have to be worked around to deliver a good experience. Most are discussing this here from the point of view from gamers, I rather see it from game development point of view.
- EpicEng 7y agoSure, but ultimately there are things more important than visuals and load times. Look at the switch right now; it's basically a high end phone, but there are some amazing games being developed for it. If I were making video games I know I'd get excited about developing for a platform which lets me do more than I could before, so I get it, but I don't recall any console in history winning their generation because of specs.
- pjmlp 7y agoAgain misreading what I write, specs go both ways, as limitation or as liberating, it is all a matter of what the platform provides and making games in fuction of what they allow. In no moment have I equated specs to super computers on the bleeding edge of hardware engineering.
- EpicEng 7y ago>In no moment have I equated specs to super computers on the bleeding edge of hardware engineering. Don't know how you came to the conclusion that I implied that, but I guess I'm just completely missing the point you're trying to make here. You said: >And specs make games, specially in what concerns game design. And I'm saying that specs mean very little in relation to gameplay and story. Yeah, obviously you wouldn't be successful releasing the NES today, but no one would do that. The switch has been beating the crap out of the XBOne since release. The reason is that it has better games. At the end of the day, consumers want fun games. All talk of specs and pretty graphics fades away if your console doesn't have those. It's like web devs who get all excited about their framework of choice. No one else cares. Maybe I just read too much into that single sentence you first replied with?
- pjmlp 7y agoSo I guess we have been talking past each other. That is exactly my point Switch specs lead to the game designers targeting it, to create game designs that would accommodate a more interesting experience, given the target platform. Had the same team started with XBOne and the gaming experience would have had a completely different design.