firstly a disclaimer; to all admins, as soon as this spirals into a huge flame war just lock immediately... hell just at the first whiff of one. i want this peaceful
Nintendo, we all know of them... but it finally clicked why they are still in the market. And like Apple have also proved, its LOOKS. But this is from my personal view so if im wrong, well... im wrong to you.
Ill begin with Apple's iPod. This is all from a conversation between me and my tutor about the 'pods. Its all about design. Sure the iPod could have had FM radio, onboard encoding, colour screens. they are Apple they can do anything.
but why?
Why have everything when only the minimal ammount is required? Im breaking from subject but look at Halo, its simplicity boxed. Pick up 2 weapons at a time, melee, 2 grenade types. thats it! There dosnt need anything more, its perfect like that
Talks with fellow clicker and good mate Biax made me realize with TEa its not about how many weapons or features the game has, its about how it plays. Since that talk Progress with TEa speeded up, i stopped making more and more weapons and focused on the game! That week i made 2 levels instead of 2 a week.
Back to Nintendo, the Gamecube is IMO the most beautiful and well designed of all consoles. its contempory with its... well... cube shape. The iPod is the best of the hard drive based MP3 players because its beautiful. Feature-wise its the worst.
Apple is simplisity. it does what it needs to perfectly, as does the Cube. but it may not have hard drives, DVD playing and other features... it just does what it does. and it does it beautifully, yet slightly childishly. Hell if the regular cube came in either white or chrome with some slight modifications it would be a design classic.
Designers and makers alike should just sit back and think about keeping things simple for once. The Gamecube has dots to represent the different controller ports, the PS2 uses numbers *going off top of my head so i may be wrong*. but anyroad dots are stylish whilst numbers died out years ago.
It dosnt even apply just to iPod. the whole Apple system is based around being simple but getting the job done flawlessly.
disregard this as random waffeling if you will, but i do think i have a point.
finally; i love Xbox too, i just think its the ugliest Box next to my beige desktop PC.
Also, Nintendo has this tendancy to make unique games. which are then cloned by every company in existance. I'm a nintendo fan, while they may not have a huge 3rd party support base, their first party games more than make up for it. Hell, if it wern't for all their first party games, the GC probably wouldn't be around anymore.
I have a PS2 and a Gamecube, but I can't remember the last time I played the PS2. It's not really because the quality of the games is better, really, because if I had the same game on both systems, I'm sure I'd rather play it on my Gamecube. I don't really know why, though. I think it may just be because the controller feels more natural to me.
As an uninteresting aside, I always thought they should have made those dots a little different. Like, each slot should have four dots, but port one would have one dot filled in, the second would have two, and so on. I'm very preoccupied.
Anyway, I'm just glad this wasn't a current events/ philosophical debate thread.
I think Nintendo's a lot more dedicated to innovation than you give them credit for being. I mean, think of the number of successful franchises they've created over the years. It's ridiculous. And usually, when they make a new game in a series, they introduce significant changes (Mario Sunshine's water gun, Zelda's cel-shaded graphics, Mario Kart's two-rider system). The changes don't always make the games better, but they're hardly just "making repeats."
You know, of the three, Mario Kart's two-rider system was my least favorite. It only gives each person half as much to do. It's nice to be able to carry two items, but you don't really need two people for that.
Anyway, the point was that they try new things, not that everything they do is wonderful. You take a look at a franchise like Tomb Raider, or Street Fighter, and there's not too much difference between the first one and the five hundredth one.
Simplicity is definitely one of the most important elements to put in a game. If the gameplay is complex and hard to understand, the player will more than likely put the game doewn after 10 seconds.
most of you havnt understood this properly probably because i didnt explain it fully; its not a comparison between the consoles "PS2 is better blah blah", nothing at all like that.
if the iPod looked equally as ugly and was as difficult as its competitors nobody would buy it, but because its simple and beautiful it wins. i saw a link between that and cube, only difference is the competition is more tight with Sony and Microsoft.
>>Yuo won't see street fighter 500, you'll see street fighter 4 ex alpha semitransparent ultra extreme: no preservatives, the new generation strike force: non-fighting edition
Lol, and Ryu will still be there, and he'll still be 18 years old!
Okay, if the iPod is successful because of its looks and its simplicity, and the Gamecube has an edge in looks and simplicity, then why is it also not as successful as the uglier, more complicated consoles?
When Nintendo first unveiled its purple gaming box, I don't think people were universally taken aback with its looks. And I wouldn't say it's the most simple to use. It might be called simple just because it doesn't have extra features like DVD playback, a hard drive, or (much) broadband support, but if you think these are selling points, you're crazy.
Nintendo is still in the market because people like their games. If it weren't for the fact that you have to own one of their consoles in order to play their games, they would sell about 12 Gamecubes and go broke.
Jay! This has always been mmy feeling, not only the nintendo stuff but the TEa bits as well! Game consoles are for games right? Then why the hell do you need a dvd player? It's just asking for trouble!
"shithead, start a flamewar in another topic."
By using language like that you may soon aggravate a flamewar yourself.
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