New consoles bring new change...
 

http://news.com.com/Game+publishers+...html?tag=st_lh

Looks like the newest consoles are gonna be intense in the graphics department. Thing is that most of them will be tried and true games that sell well and not necessarily games that will be creative. Even now, there's parts that'll be recycled from one game to another (such as basketball graphics) but I'm just wondering...

How long can this go on? How long are people going to truly be so obseessed with the graphics of a game over the gameplay? Even now, some of these RPGs on the PS2 are GREAT looking. But they suffer from horrible voices, bland or recycled battles against that same monster you fought on planet two in the second dungeon. But it looks good.

So what's gonna be after the next Playstation? Or for that matter the Xbox? I may just stay behind in the Nintendo - PS2 era while the world passes me by...

Now adays, game developers can basically do everything they want on the 'standard' level of gaming. The only things hindering them from doing everything are 1) The consoles graphics capabilities and 2) the games size. So.....of couyrse almost all studios now only really care about how powerful a systems hardware is and how big they can make the game while still being cost effective (including production cost).

Of course, Nintendo is trying to change this, claiming their DS and Revolution systems are going to 'bring a new type of gaming beyond just better graphics'. We'll see if they can pull it off.

In my opinion, I don't mind emphasis on enhanced graphics, as long as its to a point. Yes, you hit one thing on the head, companies are putting WAY too much into graphics and putting far too little on the other things, such as getting the voices to be good or even adding those small features that will make the game better for smaller amounts of people. I nother words, they only do things they know almost everyone will like and if there's something they think only certain people want, such as Japanese Audio in RPGs or more customization of items in MMORPGs or something, they don't bother with it. For the most part, studios just throw graphics, explosions, sex or sound into a game and say it'll sell...which it does.

Gameplay hasn't been very original on the current systems, even with companies which use to invent game systems like Nintendo, Capcom, SNK and to a point, Square. There were some who predicted, back in the days of FFVIII and such, when FMVs seem to be such a big focus, that graphics would be more important than gameplay in the future. It seems to have happened, although in my opinion, many of the games in past like FFVIII, which focused on having amazing FMVs or graphics for their time, still had original gameplay and tried to make the game more like a game than a graphical showcase. Now we seem to have moved away from that alot....

I hope the next generation of consoles come, when they realize they can basically do anything they want, they will focus more on the little things and gameplay rather than graphics.

I find myself reflecting, after reading this artcle, and I'm in awe. Hiroshi Yamauchi, Nintendo's ex-often-called-nearly-insane President, said oooh, I want to say it was late into the N64 lifecycle or early in the Gamecube cycle, that eventually Sony's strategy of hyping graphics over gameplay wouldn't work. That time seems to have come, and it appears that it'll likely bite Sony and now Microsoft in the ass. Sony and Microsoft hype these ultra-powerful graphics (Ahem, FFX, Fable, Halo) but the gameplay tends to be fairly shallow or short, simply because too much money is going into graphics. It seems to be coming to a point where producing graphics like those is simply not profitable and so people will either have to revert to simpler graphics to stay cost effective and lure people with great gameplay -- Which is what I want dammit, cuz if I want a story I'll read a book. If I play a game, I want freakin' gameplay, and yes, that includes RPGs like the FF series -- exactly as Yamauchi predicted. Ofcourse, theres also the possibility of increased use of middleware and recycling code, but from what I know recycling code wouldn't be all that effective due to the extremely different nature of how some games physics and AI have to be coded. You can't take the AI from a basketball game and put it into a FPS or a game like GTA. I ponder.

Let's hope that in the future, more companies can be like Tecmo or Nintendo or Konami and take great and innovative gameplay AND incorperate it with increasingly good graphics and such....but not at the expense of gameplay. And in my opinion, even more important than 'story' is the characters IN the story. Hence why I think Suikoden is better than FF, because the games are centered around the characters, not centered on the story with characters being put in to make the story do what the creators want it to. And that's also why I think FFVI or VIII are the best FF games, because they are the ones where the characters were the focus and the story was created around them, not the other way around.

People have long talked about the issue of the graphics whore like it's a new problem, but it's something that's been a part of video gaming for nearly two decades now.

I recall people being excited about the release of Mario 3 on the NES. One of the main things that had all of us chomping at the bit was the improved graphics that the game boasted. Just look at the inexplicable success of “The Wizard” to see the power of the game’s hype. Other games came out at the time that revolutionized the way graphics were drawn on the NES and people bought them on the merit of the graphics alone, but people don’t remember those games today because they didn’t have decent gameplay.

The same was true of the SNES. Games like Mario World, Final Fantasy 6, and Mario RPG. On the Genesis look at Sonic the Hedgehog or Ecco the Dolphin. All of these were games that had excellent gameplay, but there were plenty of bad games with excellent graphics that came out at the time as well. Does anyone remember Super FX Racing? No? Look at Donkey Kong Country. A fairly bland platformer with frustrating controls that was carried almost solely because it had good graphics at the time.

The same is true with every video game system that comes out. People seem to think that the problem of graphics whores driving the market is a new problem with each system because they’re looking at past systems through rose colored glasses. They fondly recall the games that combined excellent gameplay with excellent graphics, all the while forgetting that there are at least ten turkeys out there with what were good graphics at the time for every one successful game that got everything right.

Games that are based on graphics alone aren’t a new problem, it’s just something that is a part of being a gamer. Graphics based games aren’t the end of the world, and it won’t be the end of the companies since there’s always Joe Schmoe casual gamer who wants to buy something that looks cool and sounds good with his brand new surround system.

Games with rave reviews and untold success because of graphics have always been around and probably always will be, so buyer beware.

The release of new consoles, as far as games go, almost always entails one thing: for at least a half-year or so you're going to be playing some mediocre-ass games. It's almost a rule that when a console comes out it takes a while for developers to get a hang of creating games on the new system. So they usually stick to simple ideas that they know they can do easily. As the system grows and gets into its lifespan developers start becoming more comfortable and willing to take chances that can lead to improvements in gameplay, design, and ocassionally even a truly unique idea.

The only thing that really escapes this rule are release games. Usually there are one or two big hits released with the system in order to help it sell (i.e. Mario 64, Halo, etc.). These are usually made by the system's star development team and are often quite good, if still not exactly ground-breaking.

Daecrist, I'll use myself as an example. I barely play games and for the games I played on the Nintendo, I don't remember anything but Mario. That part's true. But to me, playing Blaster Master was a chore and I hated it. It looked really good but I couldn't get past that green thing on the first level. Still can't...

I never read the hype on great graphics or not. I got into that as an older adult. Even then, I barely buy games and see no reason to continually upgrade my system when it's so powerful right now as is.

What can you do in 10 years? That's anyone's guess. Maybe the next step is gonna be those visors and all for VR instead of what they have passing right now. As it stands, I've yet to play and work on all the games from the past here.

That's it... I can't take it anymore! I'm going to go play Suikoden 1 and you can't stop me Kenryoku! :p

what is this year and a half thing, some great games have come out when the counsol come out to begin with. I think Microsoft and Sony will have probloms since they orignaly were releasing there new systems in 09 then the great company that is Nintendo said 05, that was 4 years less time then they had planed orignally.

Daecrist: The problem is not, in and of itself, the graphics whore. Granted, they've always been around however it was almost always in the context of "Along with excellent gameplay, this game'll be sportin' kickass graphics." because gaming was a niche market. It was for geeks, people who considered (and still do consider) videogames an artform. The problem is the combination with videogames approaching the realm of mainstream picking up more people who make senseless purchases forcing developers to spend more money on graphics which impedes gameplay severely so developers who make creative games but don't have 20 googleplex polygons per model because they spend more time on gameplay don't sell games and so they tend to go under and therefore the ones who want to stay creative and yet stay in business have to spend more money on graphics while trying to maintain a focus on gameplay and so they have to spend more money and the amount of money that has to be spent to produce the certain level of graphics rises asymptotically causing people to go broke.

Great
 

maybe gameplay will skyrocket to 100+ hours to just beat the game normally without getting any secrets or any secret endings.

remember the game chronotrigger. that game offered 20-30 hours of gameplay for me to just get through it to lavos as fast as possible all the while doind the 9 sidequests near the end. but the game offers over 20 different endings. that would take someone to play through the game for like 200+ hours atleast to get each and every ending.

those were the days.