8th July 2005, 11:47 PM
I agree with DJ in that there has been very little in the way of "innovation" in this console generation. The EyeToy classified as innovation? Come on. It's as gimmicky as the E-Reader and everybody who isn't a Sony fanboy knows it.
If anything, I'd say the closest thing to any sort of hardware innovation was the introduction of the WaveBird. Sure, there had been wireless controllers before it, and you can find third-party ones everywhere now, but Nintendo got it <i>right</i>. That's just for consoles, now the DS is innovative. It offers dual screens and a touch screen with which to play games. The PSP is a wonderful machine and it's definite competition, but really, what is new about it? It's a widescreen, souped up Game Boy that used UMD discs instead of carts. To use the barest of analogies, that's all the PSP is. The DS offers a new sort of experience, and a break from the same-old same-old.
As far as games, there wasn't a whole lot of innovation, but oh, the sequels kept on pouring out, didn't they? I'd say the innovative game of this gen was Katamari Damacy. It's the only game I've played this gen that was completely different from anything I'd ever played before.
As ABF said, this article was written by someone who either hates Nintendo, is a Sony or MS fanboy, or both. The fact that it spends the majority of it's time bashing Nintendo's faults and ignoring their competitors' leads me to believe this is far too biased to place any stock in whatsoever.
If anything, I'd say the closest thing to any sort of hardware innovation was the introduction of the WaveBird. Sure, there had been wireless controllers before it, and you can find third-party ones everywhere now, but Nintendo got it <i>right</i>. That's just for consoles, now the DS is innovative. It offers dual screens and a touch screen with which to play games. The PSP is a wonderful machine and it's definite competition, but really, what is new about it? It's a widescreen, souped up Game Boy that used UMD discs instead of carts. To use the barest of analogies, that's all the PSP is. The DS offers a new sort of experience, and a break from the same-old same-old.
As far as games, there wasn't a whole lot of innovation, but oh, the sequels kept on pouring out, didn't they? I'd say the innovative game of this gen was Katamari Damacy. It's the only game I've played this gen that was completely different from anything I'd ever played before.
As ABF said, this article was written by someone who either hates Nintendo, is a Sony or MS fanboy, or both. The fact that it spends the majority of it's time bashing Nintendo's faults and ignoring their competitors' leads me to believe this is far too biased to place any stock in whatsoever.
The Earthworker Race has ended. Everybody wins.