Generation One
In September of 1995, on the first day the console was available to a skeptical public, I dropped three Ben Franklins on a Playstation and was introduced to something that seemed at the time like digital nirvana. Playing Twisted Metal, Warkawk and even the entirely mediocre Battle Arena Toshinden on that September evening felt not just like a monumental leap of technology but gameplay. Glorious three-dimensions and blazing virtual worlds of violence and destruction offered me virtual experiences like I'd never enjoyed before. The public response to the Playstation shocked seemingly insurmountable rivals with established industry presence like the Super Nintendo, 3D0, Atari Jaguar, Sega Saturn and Nintendo 64. Companies historically familiar with consumer confidence and brand recognition were suddenly marginalized into niche markets or uncompromising obscurity as the Playstation rushed from retail shelves. Sony's freshman system remains the only console that's ever inspired me to suffer launch day chaos.
While I love my Xbox 360, which I purchased some four months after launch, it doesn't really do anything from a player's perspective that the Xbox, or for that matter Playstation 1, hasn't already done. I know we like to talk about next-generation, but from my obscenely comfy Aeron Chair, we're still in the same generation that began September 9, 1995.
The PC title Quake usually takes much of the credit for ushering in the era of gaming in the third dimension, but, in that discussion, far too little recognition is given to Sony -- a phrase I don't use often. Quake launched onto the PC in the summer of 1996 by which point Sony's seminal machine had been dishing out 3D gaming glory for eight months. Certainly Quake ushered in a new era of PC gaming, and introduced us all to the money siphoning necessity of 3D acceleration, a concept that wouldn't be truly cemented into the Gamer's Big Book of Requirements until – guess who -- Sony financed and published Everquest, the first major PC title that demanded 3D acceleration in 1999. But, Carmack's genius effort was not the first nor most influencing effort to push games into a third spatial dimension.
It's impossible to understate how significant the 16 months between the launch of the Playstation and the end of 1996 were to video games as we know them today. Within those 16 months games released included: Duke Nuke'em 3D, Quake, Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, Tekken, Warcraft 2, Super Mario 64, Wipeout, Mario Kart 64 (in Japan), Meridian 59 and Diablo. The year also introduced new methods for controlling our gamespaces including shoulder buttons, analog control with the Nintendo 64 (analog came to Playstation in 1997) and WASD+mouse controls for PC titles. We were playing games in a different way.
Let that soak in for a moment. It's twelve years later, and the industry is still rifling through variations on the concepts created in 1996. That, my friends, is a generational leap.
The Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360 are nice upgrades with some pleasant bells and whistles that meet the standards one expects in a new system: faster processor, better storage, more advanced media and online features. I don't fault the makers for bringing new hardware to the market, but can we call it a new generation if the games we play are only modified versions of the children of '96? Where is the new dimension to gaming now?
Ask Nintendo. Whether they will eventually usher in the next gaming paradigm, they seem to be the only ones left exploring the frontiers. The jury is still out on the Wii, and must remain so for at least a year. It seems a system perched on the knife's edge between monumental success and gimmicky fad, but can't we begin to describe the Nintendo DS as the first generational leap in portable gaming since the Gameboy. By fundamentally breaking the assumptions of how players interact with games the system seems to have sparked a creative renaissance from developers who widely populate the DS with new ideas, new styles of play and fresh explorations of familiar themes.
But have we seen the same such renaissance on the console end? Certainly the success and creativity on the DS proves that the talent is out there, so why the disconnect between the fresh creativity on handhelds while the home consoles languish in relentless monotony. Sure the PS2, Gamecube and Xbox had moments of greatness, as their progeny inevitably will, but the key to a generational shift must be measured by the magnitude of industry response. 1996 is the prime example, a deluge of games that became classics by virtue of creativity and uniqueness and inspired by technology offering the industry new avenues to explore. Does the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 really bring that kind of dynamic to the table? What do they offer besides poly-crunching power that describes their system as next-gen?
The Wii holds some hope for me. I don't know, and wouldn't dare predict the fickle nature of consumers, but at the very least we can talk about Nintendo in terms of bringing something truly unique to the table. The kind of interaction people talk about when describing playing the Wii is not anything like the static descriptions you hear of playing a game on any other system. Is the Wiimote the next WASD or analog control? Might that daring break from tradition spark the same kind of creativity and widespread appeal as the DS or perhaps the Playstion One? Certainly as you read this you've already formed an opinion. I've heard them all, and the fact is that I just don't know.
As for Sony's Playstation One, it was quietly put to pasture in March 2006 with too little fanfare after 11 years of production. Over its life, Sony shipped 100 million PSones and released nearly 8,000 titles worldwide for the system. The king is dead.
Long live the king.
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I think you have to give Microsoft the credit for integrating the voice chat support into the platform as seamlessly as they did.
And polygonal graphics have been out on Atari with Arctic Fox even way before PS1, to be technical.
XBox Live | Twitter | Flickr
Virtual Boy. It just hasn't hit its stride yet.
Chiggie Von Richthofen wrote:
Yet, realistically, does the voice chat radically change the games that have been created? Yes, it adds a new dimension to the game, and allows for more intricate planning and execution of squad- and team-based strategies, but outside of games like Lifeline and Manhunt (at least on the PS2), which utilize the voice feature as either an integral part of the game (Lifeline), or an additional strategy within the game (Manhunt), it hasn't really changed the way games are played at their core.
If you take into consideration how poorly Lifeline and Manhunt did in the market, I'd say voice chat is an add-on, rather than a revolution, which is what Elysium's referring to in re: the DS, the original GB, and the PS1.
Don't get me wrong, I love me some voice chat in games, precisely for the reasons I mentioned above (not to mention being able to crack jokes as part of the effort to distract the enemy). I just believe that, in light of what Elysium's talking about, it ain't quite the same thing yet.
We're here. We're queer. We'll rip your f*cking face off with our fabulous claws - kaostheory
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I think you actually have to give MS credit for their entire online interface, including voice chat and seemless integration into the console experience. But, that didn't redefine gaming at all, only created degrees of accessibility. Further, the Xbox Live advances weren't shipped with the system, but were released a year after the Xbox launched, creating incremental advancements as opposed to generational leaps.
I'm not saying no other system has done anything significant to advance gaming, but I am saying that a leap in generation requires a more monumental shift and a marriage of technology to creativity.
I felt -- I feel -- that Shawn, Rob and Julian were making out with the game, and as their friend I felt it was important to point out that they were making out with an ugly chick. - Cory Banks, keeping it real
Excellent points here Elysium. The term "next-gen" is thrown around too liberally in many industries - I guess for lack of a more creative way to refer to the "new products" companies are developing and trying to market. I was going to comment about the advancements in online multiplayer gaming brought about through Xbox Live - but you addressed that well enough in your follow-up post.
So to truly classify a gaming experience as next gen must the system offer an "enhanced" means of interfacing with games such as Nintendo has done with the Wii and DS? Or does any significant advance in the immersive nature of a game, aside from the interface, classify as "next gen"? I'm not sure and the article got me to thinking about this.
Xbox Live: DirtierParsley
PSN: Dirtier
Its not every generation that you add an entire dimension to the list of accomplishments. Can you fault Super Nintendo for bringing nothing new to the table? With its fancier wiz-bang graphics and more complicated control. I do believe that this generation offers great things, things which just weren't done in the previous generation. The tight integration of Live into the 360. Friends lists, easy invites to games, game updates, new game content, hell new games with XBLA, even movie, TV and video downloads. You could argue and say that Live on XBox 1 did many of these things but I can count the number of titles I remember having downloadable content on one hand. Live is now a mandate, not an option.
If you're still looking for justification of the new generation, just remember: Playstation 3 plays games in 4D!
XBox Live - PSN - Twitter
Listen to Partners In Lag!
The majority considers a generation to be a set of consoles brought out to compete with each other. They don't seem to be big on whether one system is just an upgrade to the previous one, lacking innovation. It's nice to see an analysis of capabilities and gameplay innovations, but nobody said that being "next generation" demands new anything. Desktop, non-gaming-oriented PC's haven't changed generations in terms of capabilities in a very long time. See: Ethernet. Do we want to create a new term to use with this analysis instead of "next-gen"?
Now the PS3, Wii, and 360 are current-gen, and their predecessors are last-gen. Once the PS3 appeared the term next-gen changed to specify the as-yet-unannounced systems coming from the big three. I guess the handhelds have their own generations, with the DS and PSP being current-gen.
InfinityDevil on PSN / XFire
Gone completely farbot.
Agreed 100%.
What did the Playstation offer over previous consoles to make it worthy of such reverence? Primarily poly-crunching power, right? It felt like a big generational leap not because the system's games were such a huge quantum leap ahead but because the hardware allowed for more elaborate 3d graphics than previous consoles. PS1 offered an incremental improvement. A large increment, to be sure, but an increment nonetheless, just like rumble and analog control, seamless integration of an online service and voice chat, graphics in HD, etc.
Xbox Live: CrankyBaby
Steam: Podunk
If we're to consider the breakthruthiness of a platform only in the context of its at-launch capabilities, then things like Samba Di Amigo and DDR are going to be left out undeservedly.
P.s. and even WASD+mouse, for that matter.
XBox Live | Twitter | Flickr
Bah, Descent was out a full year and a half before Quake, and 7 or so months before the Playstation released in the US.
Certis wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:
It depends I guess on how you want to quantify the leap from one generation to the next. I was very skeptical about the 360 when it launched, but looking at it now, and how it seamlessly integrates Live!, showcases amazing High Def graphics and has a superb wireless experience, it's generations above it's clunky older brother.
It doesn't make the games or gameplay any better (for the most part) but it provides a much more brilliant experience than what I'm used to with any previous console.
Maybe generations should be calculated when phenomenal new discoveries are brought to the table, like 3d graphics, the d-pad, integrated online service, etc. It's all one big progression, regardless of what system introduces it or does it the best.
Maybe we should slap on the next-generation label every two system launches, and let the ones in the middle work out the kinks first.
XBL/PSN/STEAM
Descent 1 and Terminator: Future Shock were technically the first titles on the PC to feature a fully 3D engine. T:FS pioneered mouselook in 3D FPS, something that gets mistakenly attributed to Duke3D and Quake. Technically, Descent had mouselook too, but it is not a "typical" FPS. Its method of mouselook was better replaced with a good joystick.
But I think Terminator didn't have a freelook. You could only rotate in 90 degrees left/right.
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Terminator: Future Shock was a fully 3D fps and it had vertical+horizontal mouselook - exactly like Quake. Doom was the FPS of that era that only had a horizontal mouse support.
Aw. I must be confusing it with some other earlier Terminator game then.
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That was my feeling too. My own personal "revolution" was on the Nintendo 64, when I got to see all these great 2D games remade into great 3D games.
I feel that physics are the next "great frontier", not the Wii controller. The Wiimote needs to be integrated with existing control features, something like 2 nunchuks that let you point at the screen. I don't want to have 3 different types of controllers, and a box full of "sh*t" to play different games.
Physics simulations are inherently "fair." Every human being on the planet is an expert on falling objects. Right now we mostly see Havok used for explosions and dead bodies, maybe throwing objects; we've hardly scratched the surface for the uses of these things. After that, we'll see liquid simulators, better AI technologies from movies and such, etc.
"Once you can accept the universe is matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy." -- Albert Einstein
They need to begin using Havok engine for dynamic visualization of Oogaba.
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I think the new DOAX has already tread that hallowed ground. I don't know if they use Havok in particular for their oogaba physics, though.
Xbox Live: CrankyBaby
Steam: Podunk
Live's impact is huge.. it brought online and team gaming to people that never would have normally done so. It will be copied and standard from now on in each future console.. and perhaps eventually on the PC side as well.
Wii's impact could also eventually be as significant bringing gaming in general to people who may have NEVER played video games or at best played only occasional and as a matter of passing. It will be interesting to see if Nintendo does some other things with the Wii that further blur how consumers view it. I for one could easily see teenage girls picking and choosing outfits with their Wii trying them on the screen to see how they look and then purchasing those exact outfits through the Wii and custom interfaces with participating retailers.
Aint nothing new about the world order..it's been playing since the day they put George Washington on a quarter
85's face the truth you're too dumb.
http://www.myspace.com/armyofthepharaohs
I would call that the best 16 months of my life.
Do you ever walk alone like a drifter in the dark?
Most games right now are software porn. They take your most base, primitive urges, capitalize on them, and then slap a so-called "storyline" on top of it. Doom's lonely marine is no less a staple of first person shooters than a pizza-man-with-a-surprise-in-his-pants is to porn films.
The next generation of games should move away from cartoonish glorification of greed and violence and into a more serious, poignant form, which has the writing and setting level closer to a movie.
If you give me a game where I blow up monsters, it better look like the scene in Aliens where they just landed the ship and walked in the rain. I want to hear the chatter of my comrades (without them repeating the same phrase 5 times over), I want to have a washed out view as the rain drops hit my helmet. I want the sound of that first door opening to be rusty, futuristic and vaguely sinister.
I want to have terrifying discoveries inside the base, I want to have plot with a degree of emotional involvement, wide-eyed discovery and betrayal. I want to have this feeling again, where I can't wait to see what adventures await behind the next corner.
I want the music composer for "Frequency" and "Final Destination" to make music for a new-gen game. I want real writers writing a dialogue and a setting that actually works. I want real sound designers and real set coordinators. Etc etc.
Alright, I am probably stating the obvious here, but I just wanted to point out that although new interfaces open up vast vistas of new possibilities, there is still so much room to explore with old ones.
Re-shuffle the interface, and you ground all (game-literate or not) to the level of novice. I'm not please to admit my repeated loss to a four year old girl at WiiSports' bowling, despite having been a video game player for more than 15 years, and she, for... well... less than 4, surely? Naturally, to accomodate the lack of familiarity, the games that work best for a new interface are the games that focus more on introducing this alien interface than doing smarty-pants deep-dish game mechanics. This was clear at the beginning of the DS's life cycle, and is clear now, with the Wii. The games start shallow, and ask little from the player in terms of interface skill. As the lifetime progresses, and familiarity increases, more complex games open up to the increasing skill of the player-populance.
Consider how indoctrinated we have become into the conventions of various exiting genres: By now, large numbers of people are used to the mouse-aiming of FPS games, the grouping systems of RTS games, or the customizeable shortcut keys in RPGs. These are fairly clunky methods from a pure user interface perspective - real hurdles for players which are not so much deftly leapt over as they are painfully endured, slamming, as they do, into your groin as you try to speed past as fast as possible.
Those base skills, proliferated through a large enough populance, allow developers a foundation from which to try deeper game mechanics, introducing players to what's core to gaming - the joy of the deeply interactive. When people can move around FPS games like it's second nature (which only comes through practice) you can start to up the mechanical-ante, and not just do lowest common denominator stuff. Portal, for example, is such a headf*ck that I'd be incredibly surprised if the majority of players would be able to handle it if it were released at the same time as quake. I know my mouselook skills wouldn't have been up to task of flick-shotting a portal onto a wall as I fell through two holes, infinately.
I realize that this might sound like I'm criticising games which have either become over-dependant on engrained gamer abilities, or too shallow to merit any worth as game-qua-game. I don't meant to. It just seems like there's a natural boot-strapping sequence to every new game interface that is invented. Suggesting that "every game is just pong" under-plays the momentum and nuance of established interfaces, which are forcefully opening up new possibilities for themselves, even if it's via the boring repetition of old mechanics, boiling a desire in the masses for something new.
If the gaming technology race ended at C64s, I think that there would still be new ideas to explore today. Ofcourse, the games that came out would probably have more mechanical inter-dissonance than the games we see today, because they wouldn't be able to use increasing fidelity as a crutch to hide a lack of innovation in game-play. But then, different visual represetations of the same mechanics still results in something experientially different, so let's not stone technology just yet!
"This is where our industry is right now: not sure what the hell we're doing, or why, or for whom -- but we're doing it with all of our technical skill and artistic talent and conviction." - Simon Carless
You need to stop watching porn and play Act "Belly of the Beast" in Gears of War!
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Play act "Belly of the Beast" ? Btw check your private messages.
Pyroman sort of beat me to it. Online is the new dimension you've been waiting for.
XboxLive and it's ilk are what makes this "next-gen". You (and those five guys still playing Starcraft) have been doing LAN's since you could toddle. It's so familiar to you that you don't even see it anymore. To the mainstream, this is a whole new world. My mom can play on Live. That same widening of scope that 3d/console games brought to the 1990's is happening in living rooms everywhere right now.
I'll second Aubrey's point regarding the learning curve as well, but for different reasons. I see it as a huge part of the barrier to entry for mainstream gamers. Since you're in the process of getting a 1000 words or so on the subject from me, I'll just leave that there.
Maybe this issue is best debated amongst the people who need to get off my lawn. - JoeBedurndurn
I really don't think the success of the DS relies on a control scheme. Most games don't use anything but the the standard game pad control. Given the option, I choose to control games with the pad. Good games, a system re-design, and a low price are what makes this system fly off the shelves.
I agree that the leap to polygons was a huge step for consoles. The reason I bought a Saturn was Virtua Fighter.
Xbox Live: Armchair Jockey Steam: Armchair_Allstar PSN: Armchair_Allstar
I love the basic additions from Xbox 1 to the 360. I can see who's online at any moment and converse. On the original I had to get in a game first, and sometimes I couldn't read a message from one game while I was in another. The 360 is a huge improvement, and it still has room for growth. Microsoft should use GWJ as a focus group, the features we need right now are the wave of the future.
There's a business opportunity for you, Certis.
"Once you can accept the universe is matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy." -- Albert Einstein
Dammit, I came in here to say that.
Loved that game. And the sequel. 3rd one, not so much.
Terminator:FS had more atmosphere than any 10 games put together, with a few possible exceptions like the Fallout series, Planescape, and System Shock 2. When I played T:FS I really felt like I was there. It's a rare thing.
XBL - UnknownSoldier
EVE - Vakor Zakorian
Well the PS2 had more online gamers than the Xbox.
And given the numbers of folks with pcs online in message boards, chatrooms, myspace, ebay, casual pop cap games, ...... , I don't think Live is a whole new world for people.
Also look at WoW. There's more than twice as many Wow players online than 360 subscribers and yet the 360 is bringing about this big change?
I don't think Live has brought much new to the table except transferred what was on the pc over to the console. IT's really the fact that consoles are a closed platform (MS controls it) that has allowed them to make the service universal on the platform. Also let's not forget you are charged for the privilege of playing online. Also afaik Xbox LIve was originally called MS Zone on the pc.
ONe big reason Nintendo went to a new interface too is money. They can do their cheap fun games again with the new interface and they'll have much of the market for themselves. They can have some of the first dibs on creating new franchises for that interface which will hard to beat later on. Eventually though competition enters and profits will decrease. That's a big reason why they bowed out of the hi-tech race. And why they have went their own direction.