Gaming Steve Episode 72 - 06.15.2010

[Summoner]

First time i heard a GS Podcast

[vonboy]

is he gonna try to do another for this e3? or not because he thinks e3 is boring this year?

[sgore]

Nintendo has Mario, Zelda, Metroid and like a million others. Xbox has Halo and now Gears of War. Sony has ... what exactly? Uncharted is a step in the right direction, but otherwise they don't have a solid title that you associate with Sony and the PS. I would say BluRay is the closest they have to an identity, and BluRay is a pretty boring game to play.

Sony has no true identity and it's killing them...

Steve, mark my words, someday PaRappa the Rapper will return.
And oh how foolish we all shall feel.

[martyk]

Well, they do have God of War, but nobody really cares.

I must say, while I can appreciate the Wii in terms of technology, game wise I feel like Nintendo has really let us down over the last few years.  Hopefully the 3DS will take steps to remedy this.

[Krakow Sam]

While the Wii doesn't really have the same density of really good games as the Gamecube or the DS or similar, It still has some solid first party offerings. Mario Galaxy being the cream of the crop, of course, but Metroid Prime 3 and Twilight Princess were by no means bad.

[martyk]

True, I'm just saying that there are very few good games out there for it, and a whole lot of shovelware.

[Gaming Steve]

True, I'm just saying that there are very few good games out there for it, and a whole lot of shovelware.

Yet 6 of the top 10 games sold in the US in all of 2009 were made by Nintendo. Not published by Nintendo, made by them. So all the profits go directly to Nintendo. Nintendo is so dominate now it's making the other console makers totally insane.

With the new lineup it's possible that Nintendo could have 8 of the top 10 games for 2010, it's just that strong.

Xbox and Sony have a few very strong titles, but nothing like what Nintendo is doing. And Nintendo titles only come out on Nintendo and nothing else, If you want to play Mario, Zelda, Metroid, MarioKart, WiiPlay or any of the other top 10 games you need a Wii. Sure most 3rd party games don't do that great on the Wii, but that's the 3rd part publisher's problem. They continuously put out crappy games thinking, "we'll just make a quick game, put it on the Wii, and hopefully it will sell SOMETHING". The PS1 and the PS2 had the EXACT same problem. The most popular console always gets the most shovelware.

And don't think the Xbox or PS3 doesn't get it's fair share of shovelware. Check out the games at GameStop and you'll see a freaking mountain of shovelware for ALL consoles.

[martyk]

Oh yeah, no argument here.  And I know full well how sucessfull Nintendo has been.  While it has a much lower good/bad ratio of games to the other consoles, those that are good are phenomenal.

[PatMan33]

True, I'm just saying that there are very few good games out there for it, and a whole lot of shovelware.

This is absolutely not true and is probably something that drives Nintendo crazy when people say it. I'll give that the Wii probably has a higher percentage of shovel ware than other consoles. But other consoles so many bad games on them the comparison is just silly. The issue, I think, is that some of the so-called "shovelware" games are now sitting at the top of best seller lists and it drives "real" gamers nuts. I think I'm starting to reiterate what Steve is saying.

I'm looking at a stack of Wii games right now and it has twenty games in it. That's more than I have for the N64 or the PS2. I should also mention that the twenty games I have aren't all of my games, just the good ones. We see the likes of Mario Galaxy 2, Okami, A Boy and his Blob, Metroid... the list goes on. Maybe I can't convince you, but the library doesn't lie. The Wii has plenty of superb games and uniquely superb games and while it may have a bit more shovelware than the other consoles, that's no reason to write the system off. There's more to the Wii than the "gamer's" perception of it. And a real gamer isn't going to care about the ratio of good to bad. They're going to be playing.

[martyk]

Again, I reitterate, I know that the Wii has a number of good games.  I'm just saying it has more bad games than the other consoles.  I admit, there are certain games that I would define as a bad game that others would disagree with me about, but it's my oppinion.

[Cobra]

I will agree shovelware isn't a wii excluive EB is now constantly having sales and I mean constantly they went out of one sale that promoted with some bunny rabbit character I sware the week it ended they started a construction site "warning watch out for falling prices sale" They have tables full of games many of them shovel and for all systems. I also saw some brand new titles half off they just dont have room I almost got brand new Metro 2032 or what ever it is because it was half price (new).

I ended up buy Pokemon Platinum 2nd hand and had to fight myself not to buy Mario & Luigi Bowsers inside story along with it.

[Gaming Steve]

The all-time-leader of shovelware is by far the original PlayStation. The PS had hundreds of titles released for it and Sony would allow just about anything to be released on that platform. It was actually a key to its success as all Nintendo games needed to be approved by Nintendo and they didn't approve most "serious" or hardcore games. So those all went to the PS and then suddenly "hardcore" console gaming was born.

However because of this wild west approach there was a TON of crap released for the PS. And in Japan 4 games were released for every 1 released in the US. Think about that for a second ... there were thousands of titles released in Japan for the PS and their population is much smaller than the US.

And to make matters much worse you can't return or sell games used in Japan (or even rent them). This has changed a bit since the days of the original PS, but imagine going into a store and staring at over 1000+ PS titles, knowing that whatever you buy you will have to keep. There was no secondary market for games in Japan. It's really amazing that the PS was as successful as it was considering how much crap was released for that system.

Overall all systems have tons of crap released. The issue that publishers/developers have with the Wii is that almost NOTHING sells on the Wii no matter the quality ... unless it's published by Nintendo. This is driving publishers insane right now as they don't know how to develop for the Wii. So you are hearing more complaining than normal.

[Yokto]

Finally listens to the new podcast and i like it. Fun to see you back in biz.

As a PC gamer i am a bit sad to hear that almost no PC game being shown. Civ V looks interesting but we know what it is. Fallout New Vegas is the game i am looking most forward to on the PC however as it seems to be taking a lot of good parts form the original Fallout games and also making the Fallout 3 experience deeper. (In Fallout 1 and 2 i never got as much of a survival experience for example as i did in Fallout 3 which i find great. The Hardcore mode seems to be right up my ally.)

By the way what is your view of smaller or slightly unorthodox publishers like Paradox and Stardock? These pushers seem very focused on the PC market and i really like the games they come out with. That they do not in general use a lot of annoying DMC have also lead me to actually buy more of there games.

[Kishmond]

Sounds like Steve can make it big as some sort of... well, actual journalist.
I've always trusted his opinion and I think it would be cool to hear about the stuff no-one else is talking about.

[PatMan33]

I had a dream about a new podcast last night. Hopefully it comes true.