Mind Game: Innovation Or Stagnation?

By Sandra Maksimovic

The rise and rise of Sony’s Playstation console over the years was mainly due to the fact that it always had better graphics than whatever console Nintendo had out at the time.

Don’t believe me?  For a better understanding, let’s run through some history.

While Paper Boy was not-so-busy delivering the printed goods to the neighbourhood in two dimensional SNES* land, more and more gamers were happy ogling Lara Croft as she bounced around terminating bad guys in Playstation’s 3rd dimension. It was quite a leap.

The Sega 32X and Sega Saturn were also in there somewhere, even before the Playstation too off, but without the cash reserves and marketing muscle that a company like Sony can wield, Sega's consolic aspirations were still born.

Nintendo tried desperately to win back their overlord status with the Nintendo 64 (which was supposedly meant to be able to produce graphics that were on par with the then current 1997 supercomputers).  No good games came out.  Then Goldeneye came out.  No more good games were released.  The disturbing trend** continued.

Sony retaliated a couple of years later.  They upgraded the hardware, increased the floating point, added a few more polygons and announced a few more Final Fantasy sequels to accompany the release of the Playstation 2.  Fanboys rejoiced and so did Sony’s accountants.  Someone dared to inquire about the distressing number of sequels being produced.  They were summarily executed. Nintendo went dark for a while.  

And did I just hear someone mention Sega? [We all know the Dreamcast was the best - Ed]

Then it happened – Microsoft decided to stick their finger in the proverbial pie.  The Xbox was born.  And the selling point?  More megahertz***.

To be fair Sony did manage to attain a few revolutionary titles here and there, some of which include Metal Gear Solid, Wipeout 2097 and Parappa the Rappa.  Nintendo had all those Mario games.  Microsoft had that one memorable franchise, the Halo series.

Honestly though, during that time, how many of us weren’t too busy drooling at the thought of real-time shadow effects, lens flare or even – later to be developed – bump mapping, to even care whether the games being made were still fun?  

How many of us, today, in light of new and more innovative developments, are still under that same spell?

This may seem like a very long-winded way to illustrate a point, but let’s fast forward to 2007 and compare the situation surrounding the imminent release of the Playstation 3 here in Australia.  Following the release of the Wii, and perhaps even the Xbox 360 with all its “Live” features and multimedia trappings, who still cares about the amazing graphics/physics capabilities promised by the PS3 anymore?

If sales of the PS3 in Japan and the US are anything to go by, then not as many of us as Sony would like. The multinational consumer electronics manufacturer says "We're not scared of Halo 3" which is amusing, if not arrogant.

It has taken a long time for gamers and developers to begin to realise that we’ve strayed from the path, that for a while there we were too caught up in “wowing” some amazing water detail and eerily accurate rag doll effects.  

It’s taken a long time for consumers of this media to begin to notice that more realistic graphics doesn’t automatically guarantee a worthwhile gaming experience for your money - look at the runaway success of the Wii as an example. It can't compete with the Xbox 360 or PS3 in terms of processing power and hence the graphical capabilities are not as shiny -- yet the cost effective machine is breaking sales records on a global scale. Nintendo is back, and the marketing types at Sony and Microsoft are scratching their heads in bewilderment.

Trends are shifting and competition can only be a good thing, especially within the burgeoning world of video games.  Competition is what forced Nintendo to lead us to the “revolution” which we now know as the Wii.  It’s what’s driving Microsoft to release more inventive games like Viva Piñata and the new Xbox Vision, a motion sensitive camera peripheral.  

Hopefully Sony will soon be able to bring itself out of its self-induced stagnation with the PS3, and perhaps once again bring something new to the gaming table.

* Super Nintendo Entertainment System
** A trend also known as the "console wars"
*** More processing power; better graphics