Feature - Lateral Thinking - Mainstream Is Ignorance
A sideways look at the gaming industry
Submitted by: Sideath
It's interesting to see so many mothers going into my local GAME, and coming out with a copy of GTA: San Andreas. The situation is similar in Gamestation - a chat with a friend of mine who works there reveals: 'yeah, it's obvious that they're buying it for thier 7-year-old kid or whatever, but what can you do? I mean it's not illegal or anything, and if you tell them, "you know it's an 18 game", they give you that evil look, as if you've injured thier pride, as as if you think they don't know what thier doing (which they don't)'.
This reflects back a few days later, half way through a game of Mario Kart at a friends house. Tony (currently 4th/4), throws his controller on the floor after falling out of the track (again), says 'this is shit', and starts blabbing on about how much the PS2 is better, and why there are better games on it, and so on and so forth (you know the drill). As a huge advocate of Nintendo, I asked him the vital question: 'can you really name a revolutionary exclusive title on the PS2?'. That was met with silence. However, the truth is that there are revolutionary, exclusive titles on the PS2 - Katamarii Damancy and Ico to name a few, so how come Tony couldn't name them?
It's a funny old world, isn't it? The best titles on the PS2 and 80% of the people that own a PS2 don't even know they exist. The great thing about Nintendo is, they actually know which of thier titles are the best - Resident Evil 4, The Wind Waker, Super Mario Sunshine (oh, do shut up), F-Zero GX, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, Advance Wars, Wario Ware, and indeed, Mario Kart: Double Dash itself, to name a few. These are the titles Nintendo gives the most attention to. Which is great, in my opinion. Sony, on the other hand, seem to ignore the most innovative titles avaliable for thier (admittedly), excellent console. Katamarii Damancy, the highest scoring PS2 game in 2003, didn't even get a release here in the UK and Europe, while Ico, because it sold so badly when it first came out because of Sony not spending enough money on advertising, now sells for over £60 on amazon because of its rarity.
So, the greatest problem with gaming is not 'Sony's games sux0rs', or lack of innovativity, but because the mainstream is igonrant to the greats out there, and the fact that the games which deserve to be celebrated aren't being so. Rant over. CWg.
Submitted by: Sideath
It's interesting to see so many mothers going into my local GAME, and coming out with a copy of GTA: San Andreas. The situation is similar in Gamestation - a chat with a friend of mine who works there reveals: 'yeah, it's obvious that they're buying it for thier 7-year-old kid or whatever, but what can you do? I mean it's not illegal or anything, and if you tell them, "you know it's an 18 game", they give you that evil look, as if you've injured thier pride, as as if you think they don't know what thier doing (which they don't)'.
This reflects back a few days later, half way through a game of Mario Kart at a friends house. Tony (currently 4th/4), throws his controller on the floor after falling out of the track (again), says 'this is shit', and starts blabbing on about how much the PS2 is better, and why there are better games on it, and so on and so forth (you know the drill). As a huge advocate of Nintendo, I asked him the vital question: 'can you really name a revolutionary exclusive title on the PS2?'. That was met with silence. However, the truth is that there are revolutionary, exclusive titles on the PS2 - Katamarii Damancy and Ico to name a few, so how come Tony couldn't name them?
It's a funny old world, isn't it? The best titles on the PS2 and 80% of the people that own a PS2 don't even know they exist. The great thing about Nintendo is, they actually know which of thier titles are the best - Resident Evil 4, The Wind Waker, Super Mario Sunshine (oh, do shut up), F-Zero GX, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, Advance Wars, Wario Ware, and indeed, Mario Kart: Double Dash itself, to name a few. These are the titles Nintendo gives the most attention to. Which is great, in my opinion. Sony, on the other hand, seem to ignore the most innovative titles avaliable for thier (admittedly), excellent console. Katamarii Damancy, the highest scoring PS2 game in 2003, didn't even get a release here in the UK and Europe, while Ico, because it sold so badly when it first came out because of Sony not spending enough money on advertising, now sells for over £60 on amazon because of its rarity.
So, the greatest problem with gaming is not 'Sony's games sux0rs', or lack of innovativity, but because the mainstream is igonrant to the greats out there, and the fact that the games which deserve to be celebrated aren't being so. Rant over. CWg.
posted by sideath at 5/03/2005 12:02:00 pm
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