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Games Entertainment

Console Launches Good And Bad 87

Posted by Zonk from the launches-i-have-known dept.
Another interesting feature from 1up: rundowns and scores for console launches from the last twenty years. From the article: "The DS, on the other hand, is hardly the system one would have expected from its launch. The system's U.S. debut was a dull thud, with the one truly notable title being a port of Super Mario 64 with compromised control and jaggier graphics. (It also popularized the lamentable concept of "launch windows.") Chalk this up to the fact the developers only learned about the system's existence half a year before its debut. Fortunately for early adopters, the system has gone on to accumulate a killer lineup."
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Console Launches Good And Bad More

Console Launches Good And Bad

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  • Meh... / Xbox 360 launch (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Fred Or Alive ( 738779 ) on Sunday November 13, 2005 @08:13AM (#14019804)
    Is it just me, or are most of the scores pretty arbitary? The entire article is pretty contentless, if this were a magazine it would probably be a sidebar to a proper article on console launches or something.

    ---

    Anyway, I think the Xbox 360 launch is very impressive, in that as someone living in the UK we're getting at about the same time as everyone else, and not six months (or more) after the first area to get it. Of course Microsoft doing this does seem to mean that the 360 will be in such short supply just about everywhere, as they've got three big launches simulatenously, with the possible bonus of new technology teething troubles. (I don't buy the "It's all marketing" stuff, the rumours make it sound like Microsoft are having problems getting enough of they systems together in time to me, it just sounds too bad).

    The lack of much info on what the launch software lineup is going to be is rather disturbing, although as the article points out, few console launchs actually have that many games, especially for the first launch (remember that North America and Europe usually get the consoles after Japan, so a few more games will be ready compared to the Japanese launch). Although of course, some of this is from Microsoft's rush to get the console out of the door. I guess the lack of announcement about launch games is Microsoft trying to get as much time as possible for games to be completed, but I think with about a week to go it may be getting to the point where it's impossible to actually manufacture and distribute a game in time for the launch.

    • Re:Meh... / Xbox 360 launch (Score:5, Insightful)

      by macshit ( 157376 ) * <[snogglethorpe] [at] [gmail.com]> on Sunday November 13, 2005 @08:28AM (#14019849) Homepage
      Is it just me, or are most of the scores pretty arbitary? The entire article is pretty contentless,

      Yup.

      1up.com seems to be pretty awful in general though, so I suppose it's par for the course; the real question is why do they get referred to so often on Slashdot?
      • "1up.com seems to be pretty awful in general though, so I suppose it's par for the course; the real question is why do they get referred to so often on Slashdot?"

        "Posted by Zonk on Sunday November 13, @12:39PM"

        Bingo.
        • To be fair, Zonk posts the huge majority of the articles, so certainly there will be some bad and some good.
          • I don't get most of this Zonk-hate either. Hell, unlike most of the editors he seems to actually do stuff like post news he found himself (rather than rely on the submissions queue all the time), and actually write games reviews.

            Sure he posts lots of drivel, but this is Slashdot. That's Situation Normal.
            • I think the parent comments explain the 'Zonk-hate' pretty clearly. He doesn't seem to read or understand most of the submissions he accepts. And he fishes for 'news' in contentless advertising channels like 1UP and IGN.
              • Really, I think a lot of the stuff posted from 1up.com is interesting, if not really news. But what would you prefer, all games.slashdot to be press releases from game companies and the opinions of random yahoos on their blogs about what they think the problems with gaming are? Yeah, that'd be news..
      • "the real question is why do they get referred to so often on Slashdot?"

        Because, drivel or not, 1up regularly has interesting or semi-interesting articles that arent your standard review/preview/newspost. When was the last time IGN or GameSpot did something similar to this?

    • Re:Meh... / Xbox 360 launch (Score:5, Insightful)

      by badasscat ( 563442 ) <basscadet75@@@yahoo...com> on Sunday November 13, 2005 @12:18PM (#14020723)
      Is it just me, or are most of the scores pretty arbitary?

      Completely, and most of them are utter bullshit.

      I truly believe that, like films or music or a lot of other things, you need the passage of time to judge the quality of any console launch. True, part of the equation is the excitement generated at the time, and the organization of the logistics, marketing and promotion, but the whole purpose of a launch is to start selling a system (duh) and often the particular strategy being used takes some time to play out. To at least some extent, it's pretty meaningless if you have a launch that generates a lot of hype but not much in the way of sales (i.e. Dreamcast).

      So, there's that. But some of these scores are also completely ridiculous on their face. The DS landed with a "thud"? It sold as many units its first week as the PSP! The PSP's the one that only sold half the units produced.

      Anyway, you can't take any article like this too seriously because they're specifically written to generate discussion like this - controversy is the goal. But this list does seem particularly ridiculous.
      • This article is quite specifically rating the quality of the games that were released at launch. You can argue that it didn't do that very well by forgetting to mention certain launch games, but the stuff you mentioned about sales and future performance is irrelevant to what the article is trying to achieve.

        Rob
    • I posted [penny-arcade.com]on Penny-Arcade forums. Basically the conversation talked about how it's a good idea to wait for a game you want to play before you buy a system. With each new system, you see less difference in games than the last system, and the original launch titles are must buys because there isn't a whole lot of options in games. I think Nintendo 8 bit was the biggest step forward in gaming, and will remain so for quite sometime. These new systems don't impress me though because there isn't a game out th
      • I'm probably going to wait as well - there's no way I'm spenging £280 (plus £20 for the best video cable for my TV, plus £50[1] for each game, plus however much the rechargable battery for the controller is, plus...) anyway, it's all way too expensive at the moment, I'll wait for a price drop (or two). Plus, I'd rather wait and see what the games look like, and what the competition has to offer. I don't doubt Microsoft has some trump cards, like Xbox Live, but I'm not going to jump on thei
    • This article CLEARLY conforms to the "Ratings of Console Launches Standards And Measures Act of 1897 APDX C49a." No really, what would you expect a "best and worst" article to be other than subjective?

  • What the hell (Score:2, Insightful)

    by el_munkie ( 145510 )
    is a "launch window"? I enjoyed Mario 64 DS quite a bit, mostly because I regard Mario 64 as the best 3D platformer ever made. The graphics seemed on par with the N64 version, so I don't see what they're griping about.

    • Re:What the hell (Score:3, Interesting)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 )
      "The graphics seemed on par with the N64 version, so I don't see what they're griping about."

      It's a mixed bag. The textures aren't filtered as nicely as on the N64, but the polygonal edges are anti-aliased giving it a nice crisp look. Also, the characters are more detailed etc. SM64's a great game on the DS. Okay, I've played it before, but it wouldn't take long for anybody to realize that it's a very good 'play on the go' game, mainly because of it's 'small portions but many many servings' mentality.
    • Maybe they were gripping about the fact that it was on par with the N64. When it is quite a few years AFTER the N64.

      But I agree, I loved the Mario 64 on the DS. Almost had me considering buying a DS just for that game.
  • I sat there with my C64 playing William Wobbler and said "hah! like it'll ever get this good!"

  • More opinion than fact. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MeanderingMind ( 884641 ) on Sunday November 13, 2005 @08:20AM (#14019828) Homepage Journal
    The article is interesting at best. While reviewing all the previous major console launches is a good idea, the result here is about 70% opinion and 30% fact. Instead of presenting us with much in the way of information, we have some vague statements about hype and retail shipments, followed by arbitrary statements as to how well the launch went, and how the system fared thereafter.

    Anyone who ever tries to call any console a success or any other console a failure (beyond being immediately branded a fanboy) will ignite whatever medium used into arguments about how Nintendo profited on the Gamecube, Microsoft didn't even want to with the Xbox, and how Sony dominated.

    I can already hear the weapons being armed.
    • Who'd have guessed?

      Rob

  • on what basis is there star rating (Score:4, Funny)

    by draccip ( 915410 ) on Sunday November 13, 2005 @08:21AM (#14019829)
    how can the ps2 get only 3 stars for launch. i made ove 3000 dollars selling ps2's on ebay. no other console has matched that hype since or previously.

  • Um wait (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FidelCatsro ( 861135 ) * <fidelcatsro@gmaDALIil.com minus painter> on Sunday November 13, 2005 @08:27AM (#14019847) Journal
    How can the Xbox 360 launch get 4 stars and a 1up .. It hasn't been launched yet . Talk about jumping the gun a little , it is still pre-hype .
    • I'm gonna go out on a limb and say some money was exchanged. You know, the same way Xbox360 games were nominated for the SpikeTV VGAs.
      • "I'm gonna go out on a limb" Sounds more like you're putting your best foot forward , I totally agree .
        Either that or they made the Daikatana error , or as Public enemy would say "Don't believe the hype , its a sequel . as an equal can I get this through to you"(had to) .
        The SpikeTV awards a complete joke , except they are not funny .. so they are like a "Dharma and Greg" joke
        • Yes, I know I would pay a lot of money to get rated four out of five stars, with a conditional saying basically "assuming nothing else goes wrong." Oh yeah, that's a glowing review. Jesus, slashdotters can dream up a conspiracy anywhere.

          A lot of people are excited about the Xbox 360, so why can't 1up say they think things are going well so far?

    • Par for the course. It seems to be acceptable within the gaming community to review games that aren't even released, as well as consoles. Though this does go further by reviewing the release of a console before that release has even occurred.

    • Re:Um wait (Score:3, Insightful)

      by DeadScreenSky ( 666442 )
      Journalists have been already playing the launch games for a while now. Because of this 1up presumably has a very good idea of the what their quality and variety will be. The launch is only about a week away.
  • Maybe in other parts of the world, but here in germany, from what I gather, it was largely recognized as a stillbirth. Pretty much noone even knew about the thing and even those of my gamer friends who own PS, PS2, XBox & GameCube all never bothered to have a look at the Dreamcast when it was released. They got interested later, when good games started to appear on it ("Skies of Arcadia" and "Resident Evil: Code Veronica", for example), but it remained an insider's tip.

  • wtf (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Mr.Dippy ( 613292 )
    PSP gets 4 stars but PS2 gets 3 stars? I call shennanigans on this article. I remember people camping out for the PS2 and in the Washington,D.C. area alone people were getting mugged for them. The PSP was a little more of a whimper. People were like "it looks cool but I'm not blowing 250 bucks on it." Also within the first day there was reports of crappy hardware production on the PSP. Remember the dead pixel issue? The arthur of this article is just pulling stuff out of his ass.

  • Console Releases... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TheZorch ( 925979 ) <thezorch@BOHRgmail.com minus physicist> on Sunday November 13, 2005 @11:28AM (#14020494) Homepage
    Here are my scores for console releases:

    NES - (4 Stars)
    The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) came about not long after the bottom fell out of the US gaming market. Atari, Colecovision, Intellevision, and even Commodore were flooding the market with subpar game titles because in their minds quantity = profit, but today we know that quantity is no where nearly as important as "quality". The NES gave us quality games that were better than some of the title on many of the exisiting, and extinct gaming platforms.

    Gameboy - (2 Stars)
    When it first appeared most people weren't all that certain about the Gameboy. The green/blue LCD screen was very hard to see, and its initial release wasn't too spectacular. As more and more games were released and the handheld became more and more popular that is when the system really took off, but it wasn't until it had been on the market for a few years.

    Turbografx-16 - (2 Stars)
    Its sad but I have to give the launch of the TG-16 a small score. The TG-16 known also as the PC-Engine in Japan, during its day was the #1 Top Selling system in Japan. It had a vast and innovative library of cartridge and CD-ROM based games, but mismanagement and lackluster marketing on the part of NEC eventaully killed the system before it even had a chance to make an impact in the US. The TG-16 is technologically superior to the NES and the PC-Engine had a library of truely spectacular games, but NEC failed to bring many of the more innovative titles to the US. They should have, could have, done much better.

    Sega Genesis - (3 Stars)
    The Sega Genesis was an overall success for Sega, by far it was their most successful console in the company's history. It wasn't all that technologicall superior to systems like the TG-16 and later the SNES, but during its day the system did well. The launch of the Genesis saw a lot of activity, but some of the first generation games for the console were subpar. It wasn't until a year later that some really impressive games started appearing. The Genesis was also the first console to offer games that broke the 8 megabit barrier.

    SNES - (4 Stars)
    The Super Nintendo Entertainment System was almost as big a success as the NES but it fell slightly short. Their saving grace was the inclusion of Super Mario World which incorporated nearly every special effects feature the hardware could do and wasn't all that bad a game either. We also have the SNES to thank for the existance of the Playstation. Nintendo first made a deal with Sony to develop a CD-ROM addon for the SNES, but the deal fell through and Nintendo got in bed with Phillips and their CD-I technology. That also failed to show anyting, but in the meantime Sony was hard at work using what they learned from being burned by Nintendo to develop the Playstation. The SNES provided us with the first true 3D graphics games like StarFox, FX Traks, and Doom which used the SuperFX chip. The SNES not only had great graphics but its Sony designed sound chip forever changed the world of console game music. I still load up a SNES emulator to listen to the soundtrack of Final Fantasy II (Final Fantasy IV in Japan).

    Sega Saturn - (1 Star)
    This console had problems from the get go. Sega didn't have all of the developer support they needed to keep a steady stream of new games coming to the market, and their development tools were also lacking. Many game developers found the dual processor architecture of the system too difficult to work with. It wasn't until the system had been out for two years that really great games start to appear, but it was too little too late to save the system.

    Nintendo 64 - (4 Stars)
    Critics blasted Nintendo for not using the popular CD-ROM format for the N64, but they followed SGI's recommendation that CD-ROMs would be too slow for the system. That would later come to haunt Nintendo as one of their most important developers, Squaresoft, jumped ship and began work on a game for the Playstation. That game was Final Fantasy VII, a
    • I'll throw my comments out for the older systems launch as I lived thru every single one of them.

      NES - (5 Stars)
      The commercials were way ahead of time. The gold zelda cartridges was unbelievable.

      Gameboy - (2 Stars)
      The black and white screens were difficult to market. They were smart to advertise against those tiger electronics handheld systems that played 1 game only like pinball or race cars.

      Turbografx-16 - (5 Stars)
      They marketed the hell out of the 1st generation of games. That was the problem. Their
      • Atari Jaguar - (2 Stars)
        I too will give 1 more star than Lynx. But fuck, this thing had an aliens game and that was it.

        Not quite, it also had Jeff Minter's Tempest 2000.


      • The gold zelda cartridges was unbelievable.

        Yes, but it wasn't a launch title so it had no impact on the system launch.

        Turbografx-16 - (5 Stars)
        They marketed the hell out of the 1st generation of games.

        Really? Not in my neck of the woods. I barely heard about the TG16 until Bonk was released. Perhaps their launch marketing was only targeted at the top end markets?

      • Sega Saturn - (1 Star)
        Shortest marketing life span I have ever seen. Their marketing guys went to lunch and never came back.

        In japan, Sega had the most awesome marketing guys working for them during the Saturn/Dreamcast era. They made the legendary Segata Sanshiro campaign [overclocked.org] for the Saturn.

        It was protagonized by a Judoka, called Segata Sanshiro (a pun on a famous Judoka called Sugata Sanshiro), who traveled through Japan, pummeling kids who were playing baseball, or dancing, instead of playing with their Sega

      • Re:Console Releases... (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Neo Geo was a niche product which they sold for many years. They still make carts for it. Originally the Neo Geo console was supposed to only available as a rental through video stores - this is Japan - but enough people asked for one to buy, so they started selling it.

        SNES only destroyed Genesis towards the end of its lifetime, when Sega was too involved with Sega CD, 32x and eventually Saturn and Nintendo was coming out with excellent games like Donkey Kong Country. Before that, Genesis outsold SNES just

    • Re:Console Releases... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Dehumanizer ( 31435 ) on Sunday November 13, 2005 @02:51PM (#14021475) Homepage
      Agree with most of it, except for the last part: Nintendo doesn't target "kids". It targets "everyone".

      People still make the mistake that "if it hasn't got sex or violence, it must be for kids". But games aren't like those toys that say "ages 3-6", which a 10-year old will probably find too simple and boring.

      This guy [slashdot.org] said it better than I probably could.

    • While I agree with you on some of the launches, some of your scores and reasoning is way off.

      Gameboy (5 stars) : Launched with Tetris, singlehandedly sealing the Gameboy in the realm of gaming history and handheld dominance. The sheer number of Tetris clones will attest to that. On top of that, this was back when black and white TVs was still the norm for the average citizen having a monochrome screen in a HANDHELD was frikin amazing.

      Playstation 1 (1 star) : The PS1's launch games were either overhyped, com

      • Playstation 1 (1 star) : The PS1's launch games were either overhyped, completely uninspired, ugly, and/or just plain bad after coming from the SNES/Genesis war.

        He's talking about the launch/marketing, not the quality of the actual games. You say they're overhyped, that to everyone else means it was heavily marketed, and it was successful. Sony came from outside the entire market and conquered it overnight. Sounds like a successful launch to me.

      • Gameboy (5 stars) : Launched with Tetris, singlehandedly sealing the Gameboy in the realm of gaming history and handheld dominance. The sheer number of Tetris clones will attest to that. On top of that, this was back when black and white TVs was still the norm for the average citizen having a monochrome screen in a HANDHELD was frikin amazing.

        (Emphasis added.)

        B&W TVs being in the norm for the average citizen? Uh, no. Game Boy was released around 1990, not 1975. How old are you?

    • While the selection of games available for the original Gameboy may not have been that impressive, they had one particular game that made all the difference in the world. Bundling Tetris with the gameboy was a move of pure genius, and probably one of the smartest business decisions ever.

      I still think that the DS should've shipped with minesweeper and solitaire built in. I still play those games from time to time.

  • Hey everyone RTFA! (Score:3, Informative)

    by macshome ( 818789 ) on Sunday November 13, 2005 @11:29AM (#14020496) Homepage
    They are discussing the launch lineup of games on the linked page. Nothing more.
    • They are discussing the launch lineup of games on the linked page. Nothing more.

      You're right. They made so much noise about comparing the launches I completely missed their definition of "launch." From TFA:

      "the system's launch library (the liberal definition of launch, which lets it encompass a few months)"

      Maybe it's just me, but IMHO the launch encompasses far more than just the system's initial game library. It also includes marketing hype, distribution, and to a lesser extent build quality. And I also fe
  • Albeit 4 months old, can be found at:
    http://biz.gamedaily.com/features.asp?article_id=1 0257&filter= [gamedaily.com]
    where it can be seen that the DS and PSP are damn close in terms of US sales, and the DS is miles ahead for Japanese sales.
    • Yet another sorry-ass "article" about the DS vs. the PSP. From the linked article:

      examine why the PSP is dominating America, while the DS conquers Japan.

      Then a bit into it, they give some real numbers:

      Total DS software sales at the end of June were approximately 4.1 million units, with total PSP software sales coming in at about 2 million. Hardware sales paint a similar picture. 2.7 million DS units have been sold in Japan, and 1.56 million PSPs

      But then they say that the situation is reversed
  • I think that the 360 launch will be kind of a dud. They really do not seem to be offering anything new. Sure, maybe the HD bleeding edge people will have a field day, but that is not a very large audience. Hell, my 24 inch CRT television is not able to fully exploit the graphical capabilities of the XBox. I do not think that the holiday season will help either because the HD'ers mentioned above would buy this for themselves no matter the season and it is too expensive for most parents to buy for their
  • ... had to be Nintendo with there Nintendo 64. I was so looking forward to Nintendo dominating the next gen during the SNES era, as it was such a golden age of video gaming for me during the SNES era. But then Nintendo shot themselves in the foot by alienating devs and making a cartridge only based system. I hated having to defect to the playstation but you just couldn't make games like FF7 for the N64 because of the dumbass choice to go with cartridge storage. That is the system that totally killed Nint
    • That is the system that totally killed Nintendo's video game image completely and made them into a "kiddy company" or "Nintendo is for kids", what BS, before that Nintendo was for gamers of all stripes, for both the NES and the SNES, it had mortal kombat, street fighter 2, etc.

      Nah, you're remembering things wrong. Sega and Nintendo already fought the "kiddy vs adult" console wars, back in the early 90s. The Genesis was the "mature" console, and the SNES was "just for kids". Remember, while the SNES had MK,
      • "Most of the time I'd visit friends with a Playstation, and marvel at just how long it took them to load their games - only to find lower quality graphics, with a ton of FMV cutscenes. Personally, I'll take faster load times over excess content any day."

        Yeah well the other 90 million people that owned playstation one compared to N64's mere 30 million disagree'd with you. Before the N64 Nintendo had alost the entire video game market, the NES sold over 60 million units world wide, and the super nintendo was

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