All this can be said of previous generations. What specific titles for the Dreamcast wouldn't have been at home on a PS1? Or an N64 for that matter. Does Mario 64 really differ from Crash Bandicoot that much? Just look down lists of games for that generation of consoles and you'll see many, many games from a multitude of genres that were released across multiple systems.

The console exclusive games of that time weren't radically different either, graphically or otherwise. They just had an established brand that one associated with a particular console: Mario for N64, Sonic for Dreamcast and Crash Bandicoot for PS1 for example. We still have that now, it's just that mascot characters come from different genres to the traditional platformer. So for instance Solid Snake and thus the Metal Gear Solid franchise is associated with the PS3, while Master Chief and Halo are associated with the X-Box 360.



Because its profitable and because tech hasn't stopped advancing just because you can now get Internet on your console. Faster processors, more memory etc allow for bigger games with more action in the past. I just recently completed LA Noire, a huge game with amazing attention to detail. The X-Box 360 version is spread over three discs. Now imagine the next X-Box console with updated processors, memory and disc reading technology could potentially handle running a game many times its size with even more attention to detail and thus even more immersive gameplay.

Sure that won't matter for small indie titles and Mario UWii or whatever the fuck, but for certain games the flexibility improved hardware would allow could result in some excellent, boundary pushing games as well expansions of established franchises like GTA. Who knows, it might even result in a Modern Warfare game that lasts longer than 15 minutes, though knowing the developers they'd probably pour all that new processing power into meticulously animating dust clouds and the throbbing patriotic boners of the games protagonists. I sure do miss popping away at cuboid nazis with a jerky M1 Garand.

Are you fucking kidding me? Considering that the Dreamcast was ridiculously more powerful than the PS1 and you'd have to be insane not to notice it the answer to that question would be NONE of those games.

The Dreamcast was the first console to support online play and while there weren't a LOT of games that took advantage of it it was still a big selling point until Xbox did it one better.

Did I mention it was WAY superior graphically? I mean 32 bit vs 120 bit? Are you kidding? Just compare the ports of arcade games that ended up on both systems. Playstation couldn't even handle 2D sprite based games as well as the Saturn, let alone the Dreamcast.

Many of Dreamcast's killer app titles would have never been possible on a 32 bit system. The Dreamcast definitely had it's own style going for it, primarily because Sega produced so many of the games for it themselves.



In that it was a much better game with more creative level designs, yeah.



I'm not fucking stupid.

I'm talking strictly about the exclusive IPs.



Oh Jesus.



You know, games can be different even when they are part of the same genre.

If you can't tell the difference between those 3 franchises in their basic gameplay mechanics, level design or even aesthetic sense then you either haven't played them much or you're not much of an observant gamer at all.



Actually I'd say Kratos is more of the unofficial Sony mascot than Snake at this point.



Graphics mean fuck all at this point. Space and memory is something that can still be improved on sure. But as of now we're at that point where the graphics are so cutting edge that the fact that so many companies still pour gazillions of dollars into rendering smoother textures is just sad and typical of how superficial the industry really is.

If Microsoft and Sony are gonna keep bullshiting us about how they are the future then they need to put their money where their mouth is. I think it's time for them to realize that innovation has been lacking in other areas and graphics should not be doted on at the expense of everything else.

Games still have a way to go in many categories. Design. Writing. Music. Control. Coming up with new themes and genres.

And I dunno, actually coming up with interesting visual styles that all that amazing graphical power could actually be applied to. Which is what the actual purpose of graphics should be anyway.



I think we're already at that point where things can be done with the most advanced hardware currently available and NOT be a brown and grey FPS or a God of War wannabe. Sony are thinking outside of the box with some of their titles, hell even EA. But Microsoft? Not so much.

Microsoft publishes great, innovative games on a regular basis, and does a better job at it than Sony, by a good measure. When it comes to disc-based games, both publishers put their name on the same kind of stuff. On the Marketplace, though, Microsoft published some really neat games like Braid, Limbo, Iron Brigade, and will continue to do so with Fez. Sony has also put out their most innovative games on their online store, but the games have generally not been quite as well made.

More important than that, though, has been the ways the Xbox has changed the significance of the dashboard and online interactions. Considering Sony's habit of begrudgingly copying 70-90% of their main rival's features to stay competitive, I wouldn't clap them on the back for thinking outside the box. I think they're most happy when they try to stay as well within the box as possible, given that their grand adventures outside of it have been PSN+ and Home, 2 horrible things that nobody wants to talk about.

I still hold out hope that Microsoft and Sony will collaborate on the next system, so all my friends are in one place and I can save a lot of money. But that's just a dream of course.

Well my mistake here really goes to prove my point. The Dreamcast is a 6th Generation console and as such should be compared to the PS2, Gamecube and X-Box. I meant the Sega Saturn. The question still stands.



Arguably - I don't generally care for 3D platformers regardless - but what does creative level design have to do with hardware differences?



Care to elaborate on how I'm wrong?



Of course, but very few of these differences can be ascribed to differences in hardware as you claimed.



Right back at you concerning modern franchises that you disparage so much.



I thought you said that graphics don't really matter, now you're slating a console for not being fabulous enough in its use of game colours.

I'm not slating the console, I'm slating the developers for not being very creative with the amazing hardware they have to work with.

And just to explain the hardware differences of the last 3 gens a little bit.

The SNES's advances over the Genesis in audio and color pallete were a pretty big deal at the time, as well as games like Donkey Kong Country and Star Fox which wouldn't have been possible on the Genesis.

It's ability to scale and rotate backgrounds to create a pseudo 3D effect (like in Super Mario Kart) was something the Genesis couldn't do, and Sega ended up creating the Sega CD add on to compete with those advances.

And also the Genesis was originally set to compete with the NES and it's major advantages over it was something Sega really loved to brag about back in the day. Back when graphics actually did push gaming forward they had every right to.

The Genesis did have at least one advantage over the SNES in that it could handle more sprites without suffering from noticeable slowdown which is something SNES games had an issue with. That's basically what that whole "Blast processing" stuff was all about. The Genesis was made for arcade ports, and indeed arcade ports were much better on the Genesis.

Software was pretty different too. SNES was the ideal console for RPGs so it had a lot of them and Genesis had very few of them, the 6 button controller also meant that it was the more popular system for fighting games even though the Genesis eventually got a 6 button controller of it's own. SNES's framerate hassles meant it was far less popular for shoot em ups and more fast paced action games which thrived on the Genesis, and sports games tended to be better on Genesis too.

The PS1, Saturn and N64 all had their big pros and cons. PS1 and Saturn were 32 bit consoles, PS1's 3D rendering was very blocky looking so many of the best remembered games like Crash Bandicoot and Silent Hill had to work around those limitations in pretty creative ways and adopting style over realism, while games like Metal Gear Solid that did achieve impressive realism for the time took massive budgets and ridiculous amounts of effort to overcome the severe limitations.

Saturn's 3D rendering was considered the ugliest of the three so it became the ideal console for 2D games that would have seemed out of place on the PS1 or N64. Because people considered it outdated that was a big factor in it's commercial failure.

N64 was the one console that stuck to cartridges instead of CDs. This meant that N64 games didn't suffer from loading times, but it damaged Nintendo's third party support greatly as PS1 with it's CD memory was the better system for creating bigger, more epic games, as well as better audio.

N64 still had a major advantage in the quality of it's graphics though as it was the only true 64 bit console, it couldn't produce as many textures as the competing consoles because of it's cartridge format, but the graphics were much smoother and considered a major breakthrough from PS1's highly pixelated 3D graphics.

I don't think games like Final Fantasy VII and Metal Gear Solid would have been possible on the N64, but I don't think Ocarina of Time or Perfect Dark would have been possible on the PS1 either. PS1's third party support was the major factor in it's dominance over the N64, as N64 only had a few truly memorable games from third parties.

The big software differences was that Saturn had a major advantage in arcade ports and PS1 had a major advantage in RPGs, but it truly excelled at damn near everything. The N64 fared very well with platformers, racing games and sports games. Unfortunately so did the PS1. First person and third person shooters were the only thing N64 truly dominated in, interestingly enough.

As for last gen. Dreamcast was the first to go online, then Xbox went online, and then Gamecube if rather half assedly. PS2 had the crappiest online because Sony left it to third parties to run the online servers instead of providing their own online service like the other consoles did. Also Xbox and PS2 games came in DVD and CD format while Gamecube games came in those little special discs. Which was a pretty bizarre move.

Yet Gamecube and Xbox had the most power overall and many multiplatform games were designed to take advantage of those systems, which is why the PS2 versions of multiplatform games always had the most problems.

As for software, PS2 won out again because of how much third party developers it had that stayed on board after the success of the PS1. Most of Dreamcast's big titles were first party and Nintendo had some third party support but not a lot.

And Xbox? Let's face it if it wasn't for Halo nobody would have given a shit about Xbox. Gamecube definitely lacked in some genres, once again the RPG. PS2 was the least powerful of the big 3 systems but won out over Xbox and Gamecube due to maintaining the same excellent variety that PS1 had.

So yeah, besides the Wii I don't think the gap between this generation's consoles and what they can do has been so great. Yet for whatever reason PS3 has way more exclusives than 360. For Microsoft that's a big dealbreaker. I think the only reason 360 has beaten PS3 in sales is because of Halomania, but PS3 is starting to catch up.

A big deal because the developers and fans made them a big deal. Both had some awesomely sexy looking games as well as pieces of crap. Donkey Kong Country and Star Fox? I see you with Sonic 3D and Virtua Racing.



Road Rash? Super Monaco GP?



Graphics improvements over the previous generation have pushed gaming forward now. Are you saying the graphical improvements of 360, PS3 and, to a lesser extent, the Wii haven't allowed for more advanced gaming experiences?





How is that not realism?



We've seen a similar leap with the current generation, from DVDs to Blu-ray. I previously mentioned LA Noire. That game comes on three discs for the 360 and only one on the PS3.



Good God why?

If the PS1 could manage this:



Then why do you think it impossible for it to manage this:



?



I think they would have done. It was a new console on the market and it had a number of very good titles. Sure Halo was their big seller, but they had more big sellers than that. You wouldn't say that no one would have cared about the Mega Drive if it weren't for Sonic.



The 360 has outsold the PS3 because the 360 came out first and had a number of great, then exclusive titles. The PS3 has had to struggle to catch it up. The PS3 now has more exclusives because after it had established itself it was the more technologically up-to-date console than the 360, with technology allowing for games like Heavy Rain which the 360 couldn't mimic. Blu-ray discs winning out over HD discs was also incredibly important in this, with the PS3 allowing much bigger games than the 360 without having it spread over numerous discs.

I don't know whether this is true or not because I've never owned a PS3, but the consensus among people I know is certainly that Xbox Live is far superior to PSN.

I'd say the former look better in addition to being far superior games.

Don't get me wrong. I'm by no means biased towards the SNES, I actually prefer the Genesis. And I don't mean to downplay the graphics of that system. I mean Genesis had fucking Vectorman.



The Genesis couldn't scale or rotate backgrounds, instead games like that achieved their pseudo 3D effect by simply swapping sprites. That's something even 8 bit systems like the NES and Master System could do.

But trust me, games like Super Mario Kart or Pilotwings would have not been possible on Genesis. And many SNES games took advantage of the mode 7 chip in some way.



Of course not.

In fact I believe that 360 and PS3 have achieved so much that I think focusing more time and money on graphical power is a waste. Developers have these amazing tools at their disposal. But many of them are content with just making brown shooters for the rest of their career.



Ok, that wasn't the best example I could have used. But it's still a good example of developers having to use genius compromise.

Ever wonder why the old Silent Hills were so foggy? It provided great atmosphere of course. But it was also a very clever way to mask pop up and the PS1's severe limits in draw distance.

Not to say the N64 didn't also have this problem, as many games used similar effects. But again smoother textures and less jaded polygons did a lot in it's favor to produce more vibrant looking games.



But that's more about space than graphical power.



Ok maybe PD wasn't the best example.

But I still say a game like Ocarina of Time would have looked much blockier on the PS1. And imagine if it had loading times.



Oh ok. That was overly harsh.

The Genesis had already grown a good reputation for it's near perfect arcade ports. But it's popularity definitely exploded with Sonic, yes.



Ok you win. But that's still more about space than graphical power.

My main point was merely that older consoles had more of an identity when it came to the actual kind of games that came out for them. It didn't always have to do with the hardware specifics but rather the output of the first party companies and the third party developers the systems attracted.

PS1 and PS2 are still the two best selling consoles of all time. Neither had the best graphics of their time, they simply had the most varied libraries of games.

PS3 has the same thing going for it. The Wii may not be terribly varied, but it has something very distinct going for it. 360 doesn't have anything that couldn't work on PS3, nor does it attract any specific kind of games that the PS3 is lacking in.

If somebody would rather have a 360, it would be because he prefers what few exclusives it has and nothing else.

That's as may be, but that's down to the developers more than the hardware.



Granted, but my point is they achieved similar looking games without such capability.



I'm not so sure this is the case. Resident Evil 1-3 were very similar looking games and they weren't particularly foggy. I think Silent Hill made the choices it made purely due to creative considerations rather than hardware.



I'll definitely concede that point, though how much of that is due to nostalgia I don't know.

My only point of contention remaining is the notion that the majority of 7th generation games are mostly brown shooters, games that don't try anything new. Shooters certainly make up a sizeable amount of games released on the PS3 and 360, however there are just as many, if not more, RPGs and sandbox games, games that are also extremely popular. There are fewer major titles on this generation of consoles generally, though. What we've seen is a split between the major game developers who release titles that need a lot of time and money to create and indie game manufacturers who can release more quickly on a much smaller budget. Between the two I think gaming is still in pretty good shape. Certainly enough to keep me entertained, but then I don't play a huge amount of video games and I don't recommend other people play so much that the breadth of titles available to them on the PS3 or 360 doesn't satisfy them.

I'm not really saying modern gaming is in terrible shape. You're absolutely right about indie developers, it's never been easier for them to release a game and for that game to gain a decent following.

Indie gaming and The Wii both show that there's definitely a market for quirkier, more ambitious games. And yes PS3 has it's own share of such games, that something like Little Big Planet could become as successful as it was on something other than The Wii is something I never expected.

I still think that if such a game was released on 360 every fanboy of that system would immediately write it off as "GHEEEEEEEY".

Yes. I have a very narrow stereotypical view of the average 360 owner.



^ Pretty much this.

I don't really offer much thought to console fanboys. Its tribalism at its silliest if you ask me. Having said that, I did quite enjoy the "PS3 has no games" meme that was popular a few years ago, particularly using it on my two PS3 owning friends who are far more into video games than I.

When I do partake in console gaming I tend to gravitate toward the more story driven games, so games like Modern Warfare, Halo and Gears of War are of limited interest to me. Particularly Modern Warfare. Not only is that game morally repugnant, it's also infuriating as fuck to play.

Yeah, times sure have changed because PS3 has the most diverse library to date IMO.

And I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't get Modern Warfare. Graphically it's amazing, aesthetically it's about as unimaginative as you can get.

Online matches have the potential to be fun if I like, I dunno, gave a shit about the people I was playing with or actually had a fighting chance to improve my skills. And when you're dying every goddamn milisecond you are given NO reason to keep playing, none. It's not like an old game where simple skill, trial and error and patience would get you to the end, no, it's just fucking luck and you're NEVER lucky because you're surrounded by a bunch of uber experienced players with radar cloaking devices who are monitoring your every move while you can't see SHIT because your map is useless. That isn't challenging. It's bullying.

Pretty much the only fighting chance a newbie like me has is to either camp (and while ambushing someone can be pretty satisfying it's a pretty fucking boring way to play the game) or use the ol noob tube, which doesn't feel rewarding at all. You might as well be wearing a sign that says "I'm a cheating bastard".

Oh Online Shooters. I will never understand you.

The biggest problem I have with shooters like that is my brain seems to be missing the ability to spot other players and sneak up on them. I spend minutes trying to find someone to shoot at, and when I finally do find other players someone runs up behind me and slits my throat. Cue respawn miles away from anyone and the whole tedious, frustrating process starts again. Fuck that. I'd much rather spend a couple of hours playing Bejeweled.

Not to mention giving those douchebags mics just ruins the immersion.

When I play Goldeneye, I feel like James Bond doing secret missions in soviet russia.

When I play Metroid Prime, I feel like Samus lost and alone in an alien world.

When I play Call of Duty, I feel like punching a bunch of teenage boys in the fucking face.

And I fucking LOVE Bejeweled.

And now my little brother is playing the new Medal of Honor. Even LESS color, and now his cursing and screaming is even worse.

FUCK this genre.