Poll: Team ICO or Nintendo?

[Same River New Water]

The Intellivision used overlays over their keypad for games - many of these used the four directional arrows for movement.The First Joystick on a console goes back to the Atari 2600 - before that, in british fighter planes. By your own admission, shrinking it down does not qualify as an innovation. Meanwhile, the Playstation was the first console to have two, using the other for camera control, as well as the first to use two sets of end buttons. The Ps2 was also the first console to use DVD's as their medium (I still don't know why Sega didn't make the switch), and the Ps3 is the first to use Blu-Ray.

Most of the changes you attribute to Sony are evolutionary steps forward: more realism, an extra thumbstick, greater character/environment interaction. The changes Nintendo made were more revolutionary; or to be less hyperbolic, Nintendo took games in new directions, whereas Sony took games further along in the direction they were already heading.

Saying the difference between a joystick and a thumbstick is as insignificant as the difference between a small virtual enemy and a large virtual enemy is silly. You're just point-scoring there. And bringing in a technology from a field outside games, as the early joystick-based game consoles did, is innovative - applying an existing technology to a new use is a form of creativity.

Anyway, agree to disagree, whatever. I'm not up for an extended debate on this one, because I don't feel like getting called a fanboy for stating the bloody obvious, which is what usually happens (not by you, probably, but by someone).

 

[GuerrillaClock]

No disrespect to ICO, but Nintendo has been the main creative force driving the games industry for twenty years or more. A few games, no matter how outstanding, can't compare to that.

And here is that fact that many people forget, in their rush to partake in the latest fad - bashing Nintendo.

Without Nintendo's innovations the industry as we know it would not exist. It is highly unlikely ICO, Shadow of the colossus or even the PlayStation brand itself would be around were it not for them - remember the PlayStation was only born as a result of Sony's collaboration with Nintendo for a disc-drive add-on for the SNES.

And it's not all in the past, either. Bash Wii Fit, Wii Sports and the rest as much as you like, but nothing like this has ever been done so well on home consoles before. Mario Galaxy was the most stunning display of game design seen this gen, possibly ever, and Nintendo have proved to everyone that after 25 years they still produce quality like no other company can.

Also, how on earth can you possibly compare a company that has released two (admittedly very good) games to one that has been consistently proven to produce excellence and innovation for a quarter of a century, and pretty much built gaming as we know it today?