[Rant] What's Wrong with Video Games These Days?

Originally Posted by NovaX

Sure HD may not be the only contributor, but it also the other facets of the games that you mentioned, the physics, world interaction etc. that are far more advanced in PS3 and 360 games. Development for the Wii is nowhere near as much as a game for the PS3 or Xbox 360. Barely even in the same ballpark.

Development costs are not the only method used to judge why or how the Wii has a larger market-share then the other two consoles. Communication between the console makers & third party developers is a critical component, how complex the API development kits on the consoles, or how user-friendly they are to a development house is a component (Its been said by multiple developers that the PS3's cell architecture makes coding difficult compared to the 360, of course this will change over time as they become more familiar with the system) the type of demographics a developer of any given title and what consoles are most centric to their target demographic is a component as well.

Now here's the flip-side of the cost argument. All three consoles have terrible games on them, its a fact of life even disregarding mostly subjective opinions on taste, but the Wii's low development cost allows for developers to create poor games of questionable entertainment value. The higher development cost in its own way, acts as a barrier for entry, so that if the developer makes some game on the 360 or PS3, then the overall quality of the game will have to be higher. This is not all inclusive by any means, but its something I've observed. The same thing happened on the PS2 in the last generation, but the sheer amount of marketshare (Helped by the PS2 doubling as a DVD player), low development cost, good relationship between Sony and third party developers and overall cheaper games (New PS2 games, IIRC, usually debuted new at $50, where-as current generation console titles are about 10 bucks more expensive) all contributed to not only a sea of enjoyable games, but also a sea of crap games by the same effect. Its a double-edged sword in some ways. Of course, this is mostly my own observations so I probably got some fine details off.

Jam it back in, in the dark.