Tags
God of War: Origins Collection, Kingdom Hearts Re: Coded, Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance, Mega Man Legends 3, Metal Gear Solid 4, Radiant Historia, Resident Evil: Revelations, Silent Hill Origins, Super Mario 3D
There’s no denying that the launch of Nintendo’s newest portable system, the 3DS, has been plagued with its share of problems.
For starters, very few qualifiedly “good” games were available at launch, and just as few have come out since. In fact, virtually all the titles I own are just enhanced ports in some form or another.
Many of the online features, especially the virtual store, were simply unavailable until a few months after the systems launch, leaving an absence of downloadable games which could have at least alleviated the drought of content which often accompanies a new system. Part of what accentuated this omission was that even the DSi store, active on their previous generation system, was unavailable.
And lastly, and perhaps most damningly, the price of the device was simply unusually high at launch, both for the hardware and especially for Nintendo themselves, and likely drove away more than a few prospective early adopters.
Since that time, two of these problems have been fully addressed. The store launched and gave system owners a free copy of a 3D modified Excitebike as a sort of consolation prize for the late arrival. Early adopters (yes, like myself) have been compensated with twenty free games for NES and GBA, whose sticker prices collectively would exceed the price cut on the game.
The downside to this latter apology is that the games are predetermined, though it’s likely safe to say that majority of the batch was selected to provide broad appeal. I instantly downloaded the Zeldas and Metroids and Marios (oh my!) but left stuff like NES Open Tournament Golf by the wayside. I wouldn’t be surprised if one or two of my free GBA games suffer the same fate when they come around.
As for the games, well… that’s likely subjective, but Nintendo’s first party material tends to be quite strong, and more than a few games are around the corner. Some of the responsibility still lay with the 3rd party developers, more than a few of whom got cold feet after the system’s lukewarm reception. I will not pretend I don’t rage at the cancellation of Mega Man Legends 3, a game I’ve been wanting to see and never thought I would for far too long, but more grounded franchises like Resident Evil and Kingdom Hearts promise new entries just around the corner, so there are things to look forward to.
Still, the 3DS gets its share of flak from the online community for, of all things, an entirely optional feature.
The 3D aspect of the system has yet to be required by any game (and really, I don’t see how it could be) and can be turned on and off at a moment’s notice. The only problem I can see is that it’s so branded in the system’s identity that people must think they either have to use the feature or not use it at all.
Otherwise, the only mistake the 3DS really has made until recently was playing it safe. Nintendo, who has experimented more dynamically with how we play games in the past, really just followed a string of sensible upgrades.
Consider that aside from the 3D itself, everything else the 3DS does is based on what the last couple iterations of the 3DS did. The wifi in the system and the online store are greatly improved, the system is inherently much more powerful and the closest thing to an interface upgrade is the slide pad, which works delightfully well with original DS titles, making many 3D games much more pleasant to control.
Hell, even the closest thing to a major launch title from Nintendo, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (3D!) was a souped up port; yet at the same time, Nintendo has done this for years and it’s been a proven business model. The GameBoy Color enjoyed a color build of Tetris and the Zelda’s entry Link’s Awakening. The GameBoy Advance picked up with a build of Super Mario Bros 2, and the DS launched with an enhanced port of Super Mario 64. By all rights, Ocarina of Time has been given the same sort of treatment (and really, reflects the same sort of quality) as anything before.
Most likely the most questionable addition to the 3DS is the slide pad.
The slide pad basically provides the system with a second analog stick. I guess there’s an extra shoulder trigger too, but I’m not gonna get into that.
What I find curious is how quickly people cried fowl at this. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not particularly fond of the accessory either, and it is likely that the next iteration of the system will somehow integrate this feature into it. But there’s such a thing as overreacting.
My perspective is this: Sony’s PlayStation Portable needed a right analog stick for years. Badly. Sony knew it. They’re players knew it. Everyone knew it. Yet Sony released three successive iterations of the system and didn’t take the risk of amending the device to include it (which would have risked alienating earlier adopters).
The issue never seemed to come up when the 3DS was announced, likely owing in part to the fact that the system’s touch screen can often be used for camera control, eventually substituting the missing stick.
Still, that doesn’t seem to be cutting it, as Nintendo has announced this curious little accessory, and many major 3rd party titles are already confirmed to support it. To that point, I can understand being agitated about this (optional) add-on, but isn’t it a bit extreme to say Nintendo hoodwinked a bunch of us into being beta testers? Isn’t Sony’s failure to provide any sort of similar solution (add-on or otherwise) the difference between belligerence and awkward amendment?
I bring this up mainly in light of the PlayStation Vita, which has been met with fairly warm reception thus far for, among other things, adding a second analog stick. Proclamations of “finally!” are certainly warranted, but it seems the biggest difference between the Vita and the 3DS is that the former brings many necessary improvements where the latter simply did not need them.
Look at it this way: the Vita’s best, core offerings are its second analog stick and the abandonment of the UMD format, which was always a particularly poor choice for portable hardware. The Vita is obviously going to trump Nintendo’s system graphically, but that’s always been Sony’s strong suit, and addressing the cause serves little purpose. The DS didn’t look better than the PSP but it sure held up fine.
I adopted the 3DS on day one because I wanted it—this was owing to a few reasons, most of them being that I do enjoy new tech, but a few being that I was having some odd problems with my DSi (whose shoulder buttons were never very good) and I wanted quickly to abandon that machine.
I’m now considering adopting the Vita around the time it launches, for a few reasons. Having to digitally re-buy a few of my more favored PSP games will suck, of course, if I want to play them on the go, but knowing I won’t have to worry about my PSP games come apart on me one day (which I’ve seen my share of UMDs that suffer this fate) is certainly reassuring.
Moreover though, the line-up of quality games is starting to turn in the system’s favor. Honestly, the announcement of a portable version of the excellent Persona 4 is what really grabbed me, owing to my deep love of that game coupled with how well Persona 3 Portable treated me earlier this year.
The other thing that does help is the region-free aspect of the system, recently announced. I’m not a particularly big import player, but I’ve been known to dabble and like having the option. I played a few import titles on my DS a while back, particularly English of the Dead, a version of Typing of the Dead which involved writing words in English to kill zombies. “I know English!” I thought gleefully before spending five minutes stumbling around in the menus. But once I got started, well… it was nice that the option was there.
Why Nintendo added region lock-out for the first time was beyond me and, to be candid, a little disappointing. If a US version of a game is in the bag, I’ll wait for it (as such, I’m seriously conflicted about Xenoblade right now, which I don’t want to give up on yet). Nintendo of America isn’t losing any sales from someone like myself, and given how well the DS did anyways, I seriously doubt imports were biting into their coffers.
On the flip side, my biggest concern is its function as a portable console. This isn’t owing so much to the recently confirmed miserable battery life (the 3DS is really only barely better; why can’t battery technology keep better pace with computer technology?), but more the question of what will the PSV accomplish by being portable.
This is where Sony’s graphics fixation becomes a concern. The PSP was undermined for a while by being a slightly scaled down PS2. Games that were made for both systems didn’t run as well on the portable one and in some cases diminished the potential quality of the home version, such as with Jak & Daxter: The Lost Frontier, whose graphics and controls were clearly optimized with the lesser hardware in mind.
Besides that, more than a few quality “exclusives” saw a PS2 port later to the point that one would sometimes have to ask if it wasn’t worth holding out. Silent Hill Origins was likely the best example of this for me, a game I would’ve enjoyed more playing on the big screen both owing to the atmosphere and the fact that Silent Hill titles function better in the dark anyways, owing to glare making the dark environments difficult to see. Carrying Silent Hill with you outside on a sunlit day doesn’t work too well.
I suppose to this degree it’s a wonder more titles didn’t get ported over, though this new upscale conversion program put upon the two once-portable God of War games via the Origins Collection feels like a delayed response. If the PSP’s goal was to offer the portable console experience, I’d profess that it as much failed as it succeeded, since many of the quality games I’d have preferred to play on a console to begin with.
Admittedly, this is where the Vita could make up for its predecessor. While I’m not clear if I can run the system directly to my TV like successive iterations of the PSP allowed, the fact that games are being designed to switch between home play on the PS3 and on-the-go play on the Vita is certainly not a bad idea. Rather than make me pine for a larger experience the whole time (not too mention a more comfortable controller), it appears the capacity for choice will be greatly improved upon.
Still, with the Vita’s specks not quite matching up to the PS3′s (which would be quite a feat) it may limit the amount of cross-play between high profile releases; i.e., I probably shouldn’t expect to transfer Metal Gear Solid 4 to the portable threshold and carry it with me (though, who knows? Maybe I’ll be surprised).
And just for the record, I couldn’t care much less about the wireless play. I don’t have an account with AT&T and I’m not going to make one just so I can deathmatch on the go (’cause, y’know, I don’t death match). If Sony wants to win someone like me into even sampling online play, I’m going to need to transfer my own unlimited data plan from my phone, and without having to pay some extra fees.
The question does remain as to how these systems will compete. The 3DS has had a bad start, but is far from a bad system—just badly perceived, at the moment. The price cut has helped boost sales, as the forthcoming high-profile titles—led by Super Mario 3D—inevitably will. Nintendo is likely to make more money on the hardware, even with the price cut, than Sony will (since they have a habit of gauging themselves and relying on the software).
It’s possible the Vita did the would-be 3DS owners a favor. By announcing that the Vita price would hover around the 3DS’ range (which I’ll admit is certainly less than I thought it would be), it’s probable that this helped force Nintendo’s hand, considering that Sony’s competing system is imminent.
Of course, one problem that does remain for the Vita is the game library—will it start good? This is certainly something that hindered the 3DS, but then I still got hours of play on DS games I hadn’t yet gotten to, such as Kingdom Hearts Re: Coded and the phenomenal Radiant Historia. Once the Vita’s launch wears off and I need something to fall back to while I wait for the next big game to come out, what can I do without pulling out my (now) old PSP?
I would find it safe to say that I’m looking forward to the Vita, which is more than I would have said a few months ago when it was announced. Curious features have trickled out here and there beyond what was needed and expected, and it might hold up pretty well in the end. Still, Sony’s reliance on technical belligerence as a sales model has hardly been enough by itself to sustain them, and they’ll need a little more finesse to outpace Nintendo’s stride, which will almost certainly pick up by the time the Vita launches here in the US next Spring.
Well… we’ll see how it goes.
While I am more interested in the PSV than any other handheld in the past decade or more (my last one was the Gameboy Advance SP which I only had five games for), it does represent Sony’s intent for the future: namely, control everything, proprietary everything, ???, Profit!
Also: No video output to yout TV, according to wikipedia.
But there’s alot of neat stuff going on. It working with the PS3 so well is a very cool feature (might actually get me to buy a PS3 finally if there’s some definitive game for it), and the front and back touchpads and cameras offering AR gaming is an untouched-upon yet very intriguing concept.
I would like to know more about the connectivity though. If I buy a PS3 game, do I need to buy its counterpart for the PSV? Will the Wii-U-like “extender” feature be for all games, or a subset? Stuff like that.
The 3DS, well… Having never been a huge fan of handhelds, the 3DS certainly didn’t sell me on the concept like the PSV did. I am very turned off the the focus in the 3D. Yes, as you say, it’s an optional feature (I didn’t know that), but then I don’t want to pay a premium for a feature I hate, whether or not I intend to use it. Beyond that I have read that people feel the 3DS was an overall step backwards to the grand steps forward presented by the DS itself, so it’s not surprising that people are upset when Nintendo releases an addon that “should have been part of the core system” and all that.
No one likes buying something, finding that it’s not as good as you would have liked, only then to be sold an upgrade. This also comes with the fact that they’re doing a very early price reduction, which makes those brave early adopters feel doubly slighted.
And lastly, for some holy triumvirate of bitching about things, yes it’s so fucking annoying that they want you to buy a separate data plan for this device, much less one from the shtifest that is AT&T’s mobile network. But then, that’s the standard for the mobile device industry: every screen has its own data plan. Got a phone, ipod touch, tablet and PSV? That’s four goddamn data plans you need.
I’m a little skeptical about the cross compatibility with the PS3 at the moment. Not because it’s a bad idea (it’s not), but because of the question of how much support the feature will ultimately get, particularly when one considers that the PS3 has been around for a few years already and rumors are certainly flying about that the announcement of their next console is inevitable.
The gap between the Vita and the hypothetical PS4 is certainly going to be much more broad than that between Vita and 3, since presumably the PS4 will exist to dwarf all of mankind.
My concern about this feature in particular stems mainly from the fact that the PSP came out a little while before the PS3 rolled around. It featured some support with select PS2 games, but the connectivity wasn’t really heavily explored due to the timing. While the PSP maintains some features with the PS3, they are fairly materialistic. Though the PS4 is hardly a realized reality at the moment, that could change in a couple years, and then the question must be asked whether the same level of support will be sustained between this system and the next.
Granted, Sony’s ten-year plan for the PS3 would alleviate this situation to a degree if it comes true, and good on them I say for the intention, but… well… let’s not hold our collective breaths just yet.
Also: no video output to TV? I’m surprised that Sony would removed what was one of the most clamored-for features of their previous portable.
I’m a bit mixed on the touch pads. I think the backside pad is curious and could be a really useful camera alternative to the right analog stick. I’m more mixed on the one on the screen for a few reasons where gameplay is concerned. First of all, I’ve never seen anyone (Nintendo or Sony or anyone else) provide anything resembling scratch protection for their screens. At least the DS’ clam-shell design will help minimize a little damage, but a screen protector is pretty much mandatory. I haven’t seen any indication that Sony is including a stylus (or indeed if one will even work) and the gameplay demo I saw awhile back with Uncharted showed the player repeatedly stopping to climb over an obstacle with the touch screen. The demonstration is owing more to poorly conceived design, but I’ve some concern that touch screen use will either be limited by necessity or prove to be cumbersome when it involves blocking part of the screen with one’s fat, greasy digits (and smearing up the main game screen in the process!).
Going to your views on the 3DS, I’m both surprised and not that you didn’t know the feature is optional. I think it’s ultimately indicative of the misconception the system has suffered, owing in part to marketing and part to, well, lack of research. That said, I like the 3D aspect and it really does produce some impressive effects in games when used correctly- Zelda does use the feature particularly well in many areas, giving a beautiful sense of depth rather than trying to throw a million things out of the screen. Even then, I don’t use the feature all the time; I generally just turn it on during a part I think will look cool. It does have some short comings, particularly when it clashes with the system’s gyroscope (which Zelda, again, uses quite well) and Nintendo themselves have since admitted that they may have relied to heavily on the trait as a marketing gimmick (which they did).
As for how the 3DS could be a step backwards… I’ve seen such similar complaints and I don’t really see how. Nintendo has taken large strides as well as small ones in the past- the DS was certainly one of their largest, but I can’t think of a thing that the DSi didn’t do right that the 3DS doesn’t follow and improve upon, neverminding the obvious graphics boost. The whole second slide-pad debacable notwithstanding, but I’m looking at that as a recent development and I’m not sure yet (speaking as an owner of said system) how much of a difference it’s going to make. I’m sure I’ll find out within the next six months.
And as for the data plan stuff, well… I can’t really pretend to be shocked. Guess anything I do online with the system will strictly be at home.
That last bit is how I feel about most portable devices (laptops, pads, etc). I realize I’m too cheap to shell out for a data plan I don’t need, so I would only be online at home, where I’d prefer to use a desktop or full gaming console rather than something that fits in my hands. Maybe that’ll change with Windows 8, but probably not with the PSV.
For console lifecycles… it depends on how much value you might get. I actually think Sony has a poor history of integrating peripherals into more than a handful of games. This fault isn’t unique to them, but it makes you realize that the Wii-U has the right idea in making the gimicky handheld controller / screen thing part of the core system. Beyond that: we’re probably getting new consoles in 2013/14, with an announcement at 2012′s E3 followed either by release the next year, or a demonstration followed by release after that.
Sony gets by on a technicality for its alleged ten year life cycle in that some really retarded Japanese developers cling to their old hardware long after it’s been relevant. While we got some good Persona games out of this attitude for the PS2, I would hardly call it an extension of the console’s lifecycle.
The 3D thing. Well, my proclivity towards researching a product depends upon my interest in it. Given the focus of the 3D in the name and advertising, I never bothered to find anything else out about it. To be honest, before your post I’d never even seen what it looked like. I didn’t even know it had more than one screen :p. I also can’t recall the last time I actually went to a game store that had one running as a demo. So there you go.
On the topic of touchpads: I think it’s interesting there’s one on the back, but I honestly have no idea what they’d expect me to do with it. It seems like the most unnatural thing in the world to suddenly need to press on the back of the system.
I know I’ve at least seen 3DS kiosks at Best Buys around here… of course, the systems are usually vandalized…
To further the discussion on console life-cycles, I think it comes from a few other things. I would point out that the 360 has been out for a year longer than the PS3, and the Japanese by and large hate the system, so much so that I knew a US release for Catherine was in the bag when Atlus’ Persona team bothered building the game on both systems. I think with this generation of systems, the recession may be part of what’s keeping the current batch of systems around a bit longer and, honestly, I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad things.
I do realize technical limitations start to get realized more and more but, inversely, it’s also around this time when many of the more aesthetically interesting games come around as developers learn to squeeze every last drop out of what hardware can do.
If anything, I think storage limitations are the biggest issue concerning consoles, particularly evinced by the 360 whose disks are dwarfed compared to the PS3′s. This has led to a few multi-disk games in the form of L.A. Noire and Final Fantasy XIII, both of which reputably ran better on the PS3 (though this may owe more to programming finesse).
But, as you’d mentioned Atlus, I’ve noticed they have a trend of getting onto the current console generation a bit late. Nocturne was about three years into the Japanese PS2′s life cycle when it came out in Japan, and another year and a half after that when we got it. Catherine’s release is farther removed than that, even just going by the PS3 release date, and I imagine they’ve maintained a philosophy of not jumping into new and expensive development right away when they can sustain themselves (and avoid compromising the quality of their games) via portables and last gen systems.
And with further thought on the backside touch pad, I imagine it’s something that could be very naturally manipulated when one’s middle finger rests on the backside of the system while holding it (since the index would be placed at the ready on the triggers). It’s mainly why I think the back-pad would be good for camera manipulation, especially if the developers wanted to use the right stick for some other aspect.
But, we’ll see.
Oh, I think it’s been great that we didn’t have a new console shoved down our throats at the four year mark or anything (I know the PSX systems went from PS2 in 2000 to PS3 in 2006, with the Xbox at the shorter 2001 to 2005 mark, but still).
We’ve been seeing some really great use of the technology and companies have been looking at different ways of expanding their game. We’ve seen the maturation of online support, DLC and so on, not to mention the consoles solidifying their place as a true entertainment system that can play and buy and stream many types of media. Despite their staticity, graphical evolution continues unabated and I really think the next gen is going to have some really slick tricks due to the time difference.
But I could go on for pages about what I think the next generation should have in it and what it likely will have in it and so on.