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Post by GamerL on Nov 18, 2017 21:13:32 GMT -5
How is it worse? It has more content than DOA2 on DC. The Xbox version was also four years away when the PS2 launched, so that's not exactly relevant. It's a bit uglier, at least to my eye. |
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Chezni
Junior Member
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Post by Chezni on Nov 18, 2017 21:41:43 GMT -5
Another what-if:
What if Nintendo had released the Nintendo AVS instead of the NES in America and Europe? The AVS could have garnered developers and demoscene enthusiasts not unlike the Commodore 64, Atari ST and Amiga computers.
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Post by GamerL on Nov 18, 2017 22:21:29 GMT -5
I like the idea in the OP of some other big company entering the market later; the example of Apple is good, imagine if they launched a console, say, in mid-to-late 2006, on the trail of the launch of the first generation of iPhones. Yes, I'm fascinated by what it would have been like had Apple made a console around the time of the iphone, which I remember being rumored for a while. Given the highfalutin nature of the company I imagine first party games for an Apple console would lean more in the "games as art" direction than in sci fi shoot 'em ups like Halo and Gears of War. One thing's for sure, it would have had a beautiful design for the console itself. |
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Post by dsparil on Nov 19, 2017 9:13:26 GMT -5
Apple did release something broadly conceivable as a "console" in March '07, the Gen. 1 Apple TV which is basically a low powered Mac running a stripped down OS X 10.4 stuffed into a thin square with rounded corners. After the total failure of the Pippin, they weren't going to head back into that market. The Gen. 1 uses laptop parts, 1Gz Pentium M and Gefore Go 7300, to save power and to keep the size down, but it would have been easy to bump up those specs to at least Wii level without a whole lot of issue, but what would be the point? They had no game developer base at the time, the APIs would have been the OS X versions since the iPhone hadn't shipped yet, and they would have had to eat the margin on hardware. It wasn't even able to stream directly from the internet until an OS upgrade in '08; you had to either sync from a computer or use one as a streaming intermediary. If it had launched with iTunes streaming, the only advantage it would have had over the Wii is iTunes streaming which not going to be as much of a draw as an innovative control scheme and Nintendo's games. The Gen. 2 Apple TV (Sept. '10), is a different story. Now you have what is essentially an iPhone 4/iPad 1 in a box at a time when they were already huge successes with a large developer base. The processor in it could have handled console quality graphics at 720p—it didn't support 1080p until Gen. 3—with a bump in specs, but it stuck to streaming. What you could do, and almost no one actually did, was to use Airplay to stream what to display on the TV screen on top what was being displayed on the phone (likely just controls); sort of a reverse Wii U set up. There was a side scrolling helicopter game that did this, but I can't think of anything else. Starting with the iPhone 4S, you could mirror the screen to the Apple TV which worked okay. It was fine in my apartment because the router and TV were near each other, but it barely worked at my parents' house where the router was in the basement. It isn't until the Gen. 4 in 2015 that you actually have the platform opened up to more than just Apple approved developers who could only use a limited Javascript-based framework for creating streaming apps; freeing up developers from that framework actually made the quality of streaming apps plummet across the board if they stopped using it. Requiring the support of the included remote initially was a mistake in a sense, you only have two buttons and a finicky touchpad (edit: plus accelerometers that don't get used often), but dropping this requirement didn't help either because very few people are going to buy an optional peripheral. The sign that Apple is not serious about games was allowing Microsoft to buy Bungie, the premier developer of Mac games. I didn't have a Mac then, but many Mac using friends were extremely disheartened. Apple simply didn't see games as a market in which they were actively involved. They bought Final Cut mainly to keep it out of the hands of a competitor which was the literal situation with Bungie as they did see themselves as having a foothold with creative professionals. Side note about that, Jobs's conception for the Apple Store was actually catering exclusively to creative professionals, but he got talked out of that. So, the start point for "What if Apple had released a console in '07", is really "What if Apple had bought Bungie in 2000 (or earlier)". I don't really think that would have been happened either since Bungie kinda wanted to get away from Apple since they didn't take gaming seriously, and Apple as a company still wasn't doing too great in 2000. Now let's say Apple did buy Bungie who go on to produce several Halo games exclusively for Macs, the pre-Microsoft Halo was already cross-platform, and a console was released instead of the Apple TV with say Halo Trilogy as a launch title. You still run into the issue that the iPhone greatly outstripped the Mac in popularity so you still have the issue of a bifurcated developer base.  |
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Post by jackcaeylin on Nov 19, 2017 9:18:31 GMT -5
I am glad that Apple never tried to be a part of the console market. Another bigshot from another industry will only force the consumers to be connected with smartphone stuff. I would much prefer if an unknown company would penetrate the market. It would be healthy for the competitive market.
The Stuff with EA and Suda51 is interesting. It is impossible to predict the result. I liked Michigan: Report from hell,Moonlight Syndrome as well as Silver Case. Then again, Lollipop Chainsaw was huge hit for the company, very hard to analyze.
now my alternate gaming histories:
Imagine if SMT III: Nocturne was a success and Okada would still be a part of Atlus, I wonder, would Atlus still be Anime like nowadays or would they try to do different stuff like at the early era?
Imagine if developer Sting had success with the Depth. Heaven series: then we would still get interesting games with unique gameplay. Nowadays, Sting is doing shitty gameplay for shitty games like Utawarerumono.
if Platinum Games (or Clover Studios) games like Bayonetta and Vanquish were successfull, would they do still awful gameplay systems like at Nier Automata or would we still get crazy over the top stuff like Bayo, Revengeance and Vanquish?
Yours sincerely
Jack Caeylin
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