JoshuaJSlone
Member
With the competing home platforms now of such different capabilities, one of the oft-repeated arguments is that a game being made for Wii instead of PS3/X360 would limit its potential. Obviously this is true from a graphical perspective, but that's not always what is meant. I'm curious for examples of where this could be the case. It seems to me that what people sometimes take to be a newly opened possibility due to more powerful hardware isn't really a new possibility; it's just now doable without cutting as many graphical corners. Where isn't this the case?
Through the 70s, 80s, and 90s there were clearly ways that processor-based enhancements allowed for more complexity. A game that could use 16 colors could do more than a game that was stuck with 2. Hardware that allowed 32 sprites moving simultaneously allowed for more to be going on than hardware that only allowed for 8 sprites. Rotation allowed for things to go beyond simple 4 or 8 possible directions, and going 3D took these new directions off a flat plane.
However, that's all in the past. The possibility changes going one generation of 3D system to the next generation of 3D system are less obvious. A character moving from point A to point B may do so with more polygons, better textures, at a higher resolution, and with a higher frame rate (I wish), but it's still a character moving from point A to point B. I look at GCN/PS2 games, and don't see a whole lot that couldn't (or wasn't) done on N64/PS1 in uglier form.
The obvious one that immediately strikes me is that with more powerful hardware it becomes possible to use better physics on a wide scale, rather than using it selectively or inaccurately.
Some of you read this and probably think I'm a blind Ntard missing the obvious. Fair enough. I'm not a guy with a lot of X360/PS3/high-end-PC experience under my belt, which is why I want to hear what some of you think are good examples to the contrary before I continue saying such things and looking the fool.
Through the 70s, 80s, and 90s there were clearly ways that processor-based enhancements allowed for more complexity. A game that could use 16 colors could do more than a game that was stuck with 2. Hardware that allowed 32 sprites moving simultaneously allowed for more to be going on than hardware that only allowed for 8 sprites. Rotation allowed for things to go beyond simple 4 or 8 possible directions, and going 3D took these new directions off a flat plane.
However, that's all in the past. The possibility changes going one generation of 3D system to the next generation of 3D system are less obvious. A character moving from point A to point B may do so with more polygons, better textures, at a higher resolution, and with a higher frame rate (I wish), but it's still a character moving from point A to point B. I look at GCN/PS2 games, and don't see a whole lot that couldn't (or wasn't) done on N64/PS1 in uglier form.
The obvious one that immediately strikes me is that with more powerful hardware it becomes possible to use better physics on a wide scale, rather than using it selectively or inaccurately.
Some of you read this and probably think I'm a blind Ntard missing the obvious. Fair enough. I'm not a guy with a lot of X360/PS3/high-end-PC experience under my belt, which is why I want to hear what some of you think are good examples to the contrary before I continue saying such things and looking the fool.
