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It's interesting that, on long running and well regarded (but obviously, not authoritative) site "HG101’s Top 47k Games of All Time" [0], the top 50 ranked titl

It's interesting that, on long running and well regarded (but obviously, not authoritative) site "HG101’s Top 47k Games of All Time" [0], the top 50 ranked titles includes virtually no games - 1? 2? 3? arguably - of a technically more advanced pedigree (than the Switch's capabilities), in terms of applied processing grunt, 'graphical fidelity', etc. Expand that analysis further, to the top 100, and it remains true. 'Regard accumulated over time' would clearly be a factor in that bias, but not a definitive one. Relatively modest processors like the A57, and (vastly) weaker, are still the home of the majority of human video gaming enjoyment. [0] http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/hg101s-top-47k-games-of-all-time/ http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/hg101s-top-47k-games-of-all...

danbolt 3y ago
Broad acclaim requires a broad minspec.
wk_end 3y ago
Your point is well-made, but I'm going to nitpick anyway. Video games have been around, at this point, for 40-50 years. On that basis alone you'd certainly expect the majority of human video gaming enjoyment to predate the A57. The Switch has been a commanding platform commercially for its lifespan; given the ease of pushing out multi-platform games with Unity or Unreal Engine, devs are more likely going to target the lower-spec hardware and get a huge install base for free than to limit themselves to more advanced hardware. Nier: Automata is no. 5 on that list, and while it runs on the Switch, by-all-accounts it's somewhat knee-capped by the hardware. The PS4 original is what's listed, and one wonders if it would've received quite as much adoration if it launched on the Switch and looked or played the way it does on that platform, or even if the devs would have had the resources or freedom to develop it as-it-is in the first place. Including the top 100, Bloodbourne is at no. 63 and, so far as we know, requires computing power the Switch doesn't provide. Outer Wilds is at no. 96 and you could raise similar questions about it as about Nier; it's made it to Switch (as of last week!), but it took the devs an extra four years to get it there. It's, frankly, a somewhat quirky list. Among other things, it's heavier than most would be on Japanese visual novels, and it inexplicably has "Lode Runner Online: The Mad Monks' Revenge" at no. 35. Also, don't underestimate the "regard accumulated over time"/historical import factor, which is a pretty universal element of how critics tend to approach these things. For example, the most recent (2022) Sight and Sound "100 Greatest Films of All Time" has no movies made after 2001 in the top 10; a full half of it predates what most people would consider "modern cinema" (roughly speaking the French and American New Waves in the 60s). Of course, ultimately your point stands - technology hardly makes the game, and there's a good case that computing hardware has reached a "good enough" point of diminishing returns in the ways that it does. My PS4 is ten years old now and I still haven't seen anything on the next gen systems (themselves around four years old now!) that make me feel like I need to upgrade. I'm also of the opinion that various factors have made games-at-large increasingly less interesting over the past few years, but that's probably just me getting older and sadder.
- toast0 3y ago
  > "Lode Runner Online: The Mad Monks' Revenge" at no. 35. Lode Runner is a pretty popular game. I'm certainly not going to try to figure out their methodology, but I'm guessing Lode Runner volume sales peaked with this particular Win95 compatible version that was likely bundled with many computers that sold with Win95. The naming is a bit outlandish sounding now, of course, but it also plays in offline mode.
gary_0 3y ago
I wonder how many of the "best movies of all time" were shot on film, weren't edited with computers, and had an inflation-adjusted budget of under $50 million.

danbolt 3y ago

Broad acclaim requires a broad minspec.

wk_end 3y ago

Your point is well-made, but I'm going to nitpick anyway. Video games have been around, at this point, for 40-50 years. On that basis alone you'd certainly expect the majority of human video gaming enjoyment to predate the A57. The Switch has been a commanding platform commercially for its lifespan; given the ease of pushing out multi-platform games with Unity or Unreal Engine, devs are more likely going to target the lower-spec hardware and get a huge install base for free than to limit themselves to more advanced hardware. Nier: Automata is no. 5 on that list, and while it runs on the Switch, by-all-accounts it's somewhat knee-capped by the hardware. The PS4 original is what's listed, and one wonders if it would've received quite as much adoration if it launched on the Switch and looked or played the way it does on that platform, or even if the devs would have had the resources or freedom to develop it as-it-is in the first place. Including the top 100, Bloodbourne is at no. 63 and, so far as we know, requires computing power the Switch doesn't provide. Outer Wilds is at no. 96 and you could raise similar questions about it as about Nier; it's made it to Switch (as of last week!), but it took the devs an extra four years to get it there. It's, frankly, a somewhat quirky list. Among other things, it's heavier than most would be on Japanese visual novels, and it inexplicably has "Lode Runner Online: The Mad Monks' Revenge" at no. 35. Also, don't underestimate the "regard accumulated over time"/historical import factor, which is a pretty universal element of how critics tend to approach these things. For example, the most recent (2022) Sight and Sound "100 Greatest Films of All Time" has no movies made after 2001 in the top 10; a full half of it predates what most people would consider "modern cinema" (roughly speaking the French and American New Waves in the 60s). Of course, ultimately your point stands - technology hardly makes the game, and there's a good case that computing hardware has reached a "good enough" point of diminishing returns in the ways that it does. My PS4 is ten years old now and I still haven't seen anything on the next gen systems (themselves around four years old now!) that make me feel like I need to upgrade. I'm also of the opinion that various factors have made games-at-large increasingly less interesting over the past few years, but that's probably just me getting older and sadder.

toast0 3y ago
> "Lode Runner Online: The Mad Monks' Revenge" at no. 35. Lode Runner is a pretty popular game. I'm certainly not going to try to figure out their methodology, but I'm guessing Lode Runner volume sales peaked with this particular Win95 compatible version that was likely bundled with many computers that sold with Win95. The naming is a bit outlandish sounding now, of course, but it also plays in offline mode.

gary_0 3y ago

I wonder how many of the "best movies of all time" were shot on film, weren't edited with computers, and had an inflation-adjusted budget of under $50 million.