Next Gen War

[Bacon McShig]

MS bailed on the XBox, because it was a money pit. Did they want to beat Sony to the market? Yes! But outright dropping support for existing XBox owners and not showing 3rd parties that your company still has faith in the product, doesn't exactly give me a hard-on for the 360.

It's not so much about money as it is market share. Xbox only had 20% of last gen's market in it's pocket, and any effort to further that would be in vain, Sony could coast on their 60%+ without doing anything. So they're focusing on this gen, where they have a sizable lead due to their head start, and where 360 will end up somewhere +/-10-15% of PS3's share depending on how they play their cards. And with that kind of market share, 360's support in its twilight years will be much better than the original Xbox's.

[MechDeus]

I'm completely the opposite. The fact that God of War 2, Yakuza 2, and stuff like that is going to the obsolete PS2 pisses me off. It makes me want a PS3 less. I'd much rather a company drop the outdated shit like a bad habit.

IAWTP. There's a really good reason I wanted to finish FFXII before I brought Gears of War into my house.

p.s. GoW really made me wish FFXII had been made for 360.

[SpoDaddy]

I don't see any mags outright bashing the wiimote, but you and me both know it's gets bashed everywhere.

That's exactly it; print mags weren't trashing the analog stick (aside from indirect shots like "the analog stick allows Mario to walk more slowly at times.....the rest of the game is more exciting, don't worry"). I vividly remember tons of PSX and Saturn fanboys calling the analog stick a giant gimmick in the summer of 96'. I can't prove it because I wasn't recording my conversations in the high school cafeteria or in BBS'es.

Atari was the first system to have an analog stick I believe, but the Nintendo 64 is clearly the system that made it a staple of modern gaming.

As for the PS2 games going to PS3 debate, I think Sony's attitude is that the best way to strengthen the Playstation brand name (which will lead to people biting off $600 PS3's) is to make good games available to the most people possible under that Sony umbrella. The fact that these games can be played on PS3 anyway probably factors into their logic. If PS3 was priced for the mainstream and not a tool to crowbar BluRay into homes I think games like God of War 2 would have been pushed over to PS3 as launch titles.

[Yoshi]

Nintendo's foresight to include a single analog stick to control their cartridge-based, fog-filled games clearly paved the way for everything good in gaming.

[SpoDaddy]

Nintendo's foresight to include a single analog stick to control their cartridge-based, fog-filled games clearly paved the way for everything good in gaming.

Is that some sort of strange way of arguing that the dual shock was not a response to the success of the N64 analog stick and rumble pack? Or are you trying to make the point that PS1 games didn't have their own inherent flaws (such as agonizing load times, jagged pixelated graphics, and surfaces exposing all their polygon seams)?

[NeoZeedeater]

In fact, I don't think Nintendo was the first console to use it, and NeoZeedeater can probably back me up/prove me wrong in that.

Some of these have been mentioned but I had already made a (probably incomplete) timeline of console analog stick/pads.


1976 - Two-way only analog stick for Radofin/Interton family of consoles beginning with the 1292 Advanced Programmable Video System.

October 1982 - Analog stick for 5200. It was non-centering but third-party Wico later made a centering one for the 5200.

October or November 1982 (different sources say different months) - Analog stick for Vectrex.

Early 1990s? - Analog pad for Mega Drive(unreleased, I think). I was going to ask you if this came out since you're the Genesis guy. I can't remember where I saw a picture of it.

April, 1996 - Dual analog stick called FlightStick released for Playstation. I'm not sure the date on the wiki is correct but I do recall this coming out before the other 32/64-bit analog controllers.

June 23, 1996 - Analog pad for N64.

July 5, 1996 - Analog pad for Saturn.

April, 1997 - Dual analog controller for Playstation.

[Port]

The 5200 one shouldn't count. It is still, to this day, one of the worst controllers ever created for the shit analog alone.

[Some Stupid Japanese Name]

Print mags weren't bashing it because NO ONE WAS!
If it were such a horrible idea and no one liked it, why would sega, sony, and everyone else since implement them into their controllers???

[haohmaru]

The 5200 one shouldn't count. It is still, to this day, one of the worst controllers ever created for the shit analog alone.

That and the non-diagonal 3DO pad are in the top 5.

[Tracer]

I meant 2 years after the system came out. I had bought the system about 6 months after KOTOR came out.

ShinjohnPV hit the nail on the head with his comments.

MS bailed on the XBox, because it was a money pit. Did they want to beat Sony to the market? Yes! But outright dropping support for existing XBox owners and not showing 3rd parties that your company still has faith in the product, doesn't exactly give me a hard-on for the 360.

They can't please everyone, clearly, but I would reckon that the titles released before you bought the system aren't less good because they were around before you bought an Xbox.