Are we a bunch of Sony haters?

[outRider]

Atari Jaguar says "hi." Although its quality can be debated, you can't deny it was the first console to actively push 3D. 3DO as well. Both of which hit before Sony got into the ring.

If Atari designed the Jaguar to do 3D then they failed miserably. So did 3DO. But that's not my point.

Let's start from the beginning, because some people seem to really have a hard time decyphering exactly what it is that I'm attributing to Sony. If you know what I'm talking about then skip this post altogether. My claim was this in response to someone asking what the hell Sony ever did for video games:

Sony did do one thing right (or wrong, if you're one of those people that still complains about the "death of 2D gaming"): the PS1. It basically kick started the consumer 3D hardware industry. If Sony hadn't outfitted the PS1 with what was then a monster GPU, we'd probably be ~5 years behind on graphics today.

They designed their GPU to do 3 critical things with respect to rendering 3D environments: 1) draw textured polygons, 2) transform and calculate lighting coefficients for vertices, and 3) depth sort polygons. It did other things too, like blending, but let's just call that gravy for now. That's the exact model that today's GPUs use because those 3 are basically the backbone of real-time 3D rendering as we know it.

At the time no console did that, at best they all drew and textured polygons (usually quads [], not triangles <|) because it was a perfect way to draw sprites and apply scaling, rotation, and tilts. All of these "next generation" machines still had 2D hardware for BGs and plain sprites to supplement that, they were all basically taking the next logical step forward from where the 16-bit machines were. None of these machines had any hardware to do transforms and lighting, because you didn't need many polygons to draw 2D scenes, nor did you need to light them, nor did they have hardware to do depth testing because 2D scenes don't vary a lot in the z axis. That's what the Jaguar did, that's what the 3DO did, that's what the Saturn did, and that's probably what the Nintendo/Sony machine would have done, since it was in design even before the Saturn. Not even arcade and workstation setups did it all in hardware and/or at a reasonable consumer cost. Sega's Model-1 and 2 used fairly expensive processors to a lot of it in software, for example. The first 3D PC graphics cards didn't even exist at the time, they came out 2 years later in 1996 and only did #1 on the list, they didn't get to #2 or #3 until '98 and '99. The N64 came out in '96 with an SGI GPU and did #1 and #3. The entire consumer graphics industry is where it is today largely because of Sony showing what was possible technically and economically.

So, I'm not saying Sony was the first to do 3D games, or even 3D hardware in general, or that 3D games wouldn't exist if they hadn't released the PS1. I'm saying they came up with the consumer GPU design that everyone else followed, that still stands to this very day, that the entire real-time graphics industry is built on, at a time when their competitors couldn't do it economically, or didn't think it was a big enough deal to design their entire machine around 3D, or flat out didn't know how to do it effectively, or various combinations of the above.

[MarkRyan]

Although, I don't understand how the Wii and the 360 d-pads are any worse than Sony's, because they more closely resemble the normal cross shaped d-pad.

I haven't put the Wii d-pad to test yet, but the 360 pad is definitely worse. The worst first party d-pad I've used, probably. It looks fine and feels fine, but actually using it is a bitch--I realized this the first time I tried typing in my name on one of the 360's on-screen keyboards. Occasionally you'll get three directions out of one button press. Pretty amazing, really.

Crash Bandicoot was never a Sony property.

While Naughty Dog might not have been fully under Sony control before the Crash license moved to Universal, Crash started a PlayStation franchise heavily backed by Sony.

[Bacon McShig]

I'm pretty sure we've been over this point as false a number of times in this thread alone.

It's not false. It may be a lesser issue than consumer interest (although who can really say so until a game actually reaches the consumer), but there's many examples of Sony going over 2D games with a fine-tooth comb while countless gameplay-deficient 3D titles were whisked through their detector unfettered.

Do you really think SNK just doesn't want to bring KOFXI out here?

[Compass]

I haven't put the Wii d-pad to test yet, but the 360 pad is definitely worse. The worst first party d-pad I've used, probably. It looks fine and feels fine, but actually using it is a bitch--I realized this the first time I tried typing in my name on one of the 360's on-screen keyboards. Occasionally you'll get three directions out of one button press. Pretty amazing, really.

Agreed. I thought it might just be my controller. Particularly frustrating in a game like TR: Legend where you'll inadvertently use a health pack (up), when trying to use the binoculars or the flashlight (right and left).

[Master of 7s]

People acting like making 3d mainstream and bringing casual gamers to the table are actually good things are dopes. Plain and simple. To this day the playability of your average 3d game is shit to 2d games. Now we have casual shit bags who think Halo is the greatest thing ever that are now actually RUNNING the industry.

I remember Penny Arcade summing it up nicely that Sony sold out our gaming industry to the same shits who beat us up in Gym class, it's already been said here that Sony simply got lucky and while Sega and Nintendo were tripping on their own mistakes Sony had a chance to shove them under the money bus. Yoshi has it right as fuck.

Sony wasn't/isn't the best. They were just the richest and now that some one with more cash than them and with better drive to support the industry with good stuff they're failing. Hell even Nintendo seems to be making a comeback with their "Desperation Stunt" (what I like to call the DS now) trashing the PSP supposedly and the Wii still being tricky to find while buckets of PS3 are here, it looks like the vengance I've wanted since the DC days is finally here.

Ok when I step out of the shadows to ask you "What the flying blue fuck are you rambling about?" You know something is amiss.

Seriously, this whole I-liked-it-before-it-was-cool retardation that seems rampant among older gamers like ourselves needs to stop. Sethsez, already said it once so I'll say it again. The industry has never been more hardcore than it is now, it was just smaller.

The games industry has always been about what's the hottest trend that sells at the moment. Back then it was beat-em-ups, shoot-em-ups, fighting games and puzzle games. Nowadays it's First Person Shooters, RPGs, Sports Games and hentai sims. Both eras had/have more than their fair share of overhyped games, liscenced garbage and just all around shitty games. And let's not forget the craptacular localization that brought us such gems as "All your base are belong to us", "Dead Peppers" and "VICTOLY!".

Contrary to what nostalgia will tell you, the golden era of gaming wasn't so grand. It's like people who would have you believe that there was no better time in the United States than the 1950's, so long as you were white.

The wheels of time will continue to spin wether you get onboard or not and trends will continue to change. Instead of being bitter about it why don't try riding the wave while it's there or if you're really that put out about the whole thing, make your own games? Xbox Live Arcade development kits are only 100 bucks.

[Saint of Killers]

It's not false. It may be a lesser issue than consumer interest (although who can really say so until a game actually reaches the consumer), but there's many examples of Sony going over 2D games with a fine-tooth comb while countless gameplay-deficient 3D titles were whisked through their detector unfettered.

There's also many examples of 2D games on Sony systems.

Just because you read something on the internet doesn't make it true.

[Xero_Kaiser]

I think it's worth noting that Gran Turismo has outsold every Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Metal Gear, Grand Theft Auto, Madden, Zelda and Halo game.

Which Gran Turismo game outsold GTA or Halo 2? Or did you mean the series as a whole?

[Nash]

I haven't put the Wii d-pad to test yet, but the 360 pad is definitely worse. The worst first party d-pad I've used, probably. It looks fine and feels fine, but actually using it is a bitch--I realized this the first time I tried typing in my name on one of the 360's on-screen keyboards. Occasionally you'll get three directions out of one button press. Pretty amazing, really.

Agreed. I thought it might just be my controller. Particularly frustrating in a game like TR: Legend where you'll inadvertently use a health pack (up), when trying to use the binoculars or the flashlight (right and left).

You guys have some really clunky thumbs.

[Melf]

no. i think the Genesis had something to do with that.

It accelerated that decline, but you have to go back to the licensing agreements. Once 3rd parties were free to develop on the Genesis, they began to flock to the newer hardware and less-fascist (because they weren't friendly either) terms. Publishers now had choices, and after the shit treatment they got from Nintendo (just read up on Namco's relationship with it), the Genesis was an easy choice. That being said, the trend continued long after the Genesis was discontinued, and it's only now that we might see it reversed.

i never said it did. i said them stiff arming the competition revitalized the industry. people only knew Nintendo and the NES, which at the time made them feel safer about their purchase than buying something in the 2600/5200/colecovision (et cet) era.

Neozeedeater got to this first. The whole "crash" theory is kind of bogus because it only mentions half the equation. Computer owners never experienced any crash, and the period between 1983 and 1985 produced some incredible games for the C64 and Amiga. Nintendo did make consoles viable again, that's true, but it didn't save the entire industry per se.

I think it had as much to do with marketing. The SMS outsold the NES in some countries even with Nintendo having more third-party games. In North America, Nintendo's marketing was brilliant in the 8-bit era. Sega's didn't get good until the Genesis. Nintendo's fascist policies didn't do the consumer any good but I don't think they were the only factor in the NES' success.

I don't think it was necessarily marketing that did it as much as it was the monopoly Nintendo had. It had a lock on Japan, and America was its for the taking due to the one-sided licensing agreements. Sega couldn't get good, since it only had two 3rd parties on its console (Activision & Parker Bros.). So unfair was Nintendo's terms that if a company wanted to release more than 5 titles per year, it had to do so under another name, like a subsidary. Only the biggest companies were even allowed this, hence Konami's Ultra line and Acclaim's LJN. This allowed them an additional 5 games each year.

It's not hard to be #1 when you shut out the competition.

[Changeling]

I've never had a thread give me a headache until this one. Too much shit going on in it.