Sega: MadWorld and Wii Were a "Mismatch"

[Not G. Ivingname]

huh. I actually enjoyed Madworld.

It was a fun little game.

Vanquish looks kinda neat though.

It might be so... but from a finacial standpoint, it was failure since nobody bought it.

 

[SavingPrincess]

-snip-

I always think about your words before I type them...

Graphics do not "enhance" gameplay, they enhance "visuals." Mechanics "enhance" gameplay. We've reached a point where even the lowly Wii, in all its "Slightly better than Xbox" glory, are capable of doing any game "mechanics" that its bigger brothers are capable of. You can't say that Final Fantasy XIII would have to be rendered in a "top down" type of style when games like Metroid Prime III: Corruption and Super Mario Galaxy 2 exist. That's plain intentional asinine narrow-mindedness. If anything, due to the varying controller styles, the Wii has a decided advantage in the "mechanics" but lacks the horsepower to output in anything other than 480p... that's it. Sure, you could argue that set-pieces in games like God of War 3 and Uncharted 2 might be harder to pull off, but impossible? Absolutely not. Graphics and gameplay are exclusive, but people tend to lump graphics in with game mechanics. Most developers are just "used" to not having to "dumb down" their visuals to create a game in this generation, but they fail to see that a step backward in visuals in favor of smaller development teams and reduced production costs might actually be a GOOD thing for the industry. Nintendo did, and that's why they're making money hand over fist while other platforms are struggling to break even. The DS proved that gameplay and graphics are exclusive just by the very nature of the system, as did the PSP to an extent.

It's this kind of view that keeps us moving "forward" without taking advantage and perfecting what's available. Back when these things were new, they had quality assurance teams that made sure the game was finished, they stretched the systems to their limits before making the investment in moving to a different platform. This industry has ballooned in development costs and Nintendo came along and showed people that it didn't have to. Back OT: it's statements like the one Hayes made that are causing this to become a top-heavy industry with sequel-itus because they blame things like "demographics" and "horsepower" on why their game did poorly instead of ADVERTISING (of which there was very little) and varied gameplay.

 

[Et3rnalLegend64]

I really wanted to get my hands on Madworld and No More Heroes, but I didn't have the funds. It's really kinda sad.

 

[GamingAwesome1]

Come on, who didn't predict that games like Madworld and HOTD:Overkill (which I quite liked) would flop majorly on the Wii? Mature gamers don't like the Wii due to it's poor game line up and the majority a.k.a NOT ALL of the people who play Wii's don't know any better than the crap they're playing.

At least they realised that it's a bad move. Roll on a port of HOTD 4 for the 360 and PS3! (dreaming over here).....

 

[DrDeath3191]

Oh, and to get on my little pedestal here, I'm quite certain Madworld made more money for Sega than Bayonetta has. Wii games have nowhere near the budget of HD titles, and thus require less in the way of sales to generate profit. If we're taking Heavenly Sword as an example, games on the PS3 need to sell over 2 million units to be profitable. For saftey's sake we'll say it's about 1.5 million on the 360, I'm not sure. Bayonetta has failed to come anywhere near these levels of sales. Yet Sega claims Bayonetta a success. Wierd.

Plus, after all this hooting and hollering about how the hardcore doesn't sell on Wii, we're still seeing a Conduit 2 published by Sega. Mixed messages much?

 

[DrDeath3191]

Instead of responding to half-baked criticisms of my opinion. I'm going to mention something that I think is highly relevant here.

I want to go back, as a game designer when I get to that point, and go over the history of gaming, and take retro-gaming gems and use a lot of new concepts to make them even better. I think gaming, in that old form is a lost art in some respects. But I think the combination of old and new would be a truly brilliant concept and help new gamers step up for Wiimote waggling, to games that are actually fun for longer than 20 minutes.

Maybe Wii Sports did introduce a bunch of new gamers to the hobby. But I don't really feel that the Wii gave them a whole lot to work with. The graphics/gameplay argument is absolutely null and void for the reasons I've said above. If the Wii was making any effort to move beyond simplistic waggling, I might have a different view of it.

So I guess the Motion+ doesn't count for Nintendo's advancement of motion control? Or the Balance Board and Vitality Sensor adding different ways to interact with games?

And the graphics/gameplay thing doesn't suggest that they are mutually exclusive but that graphics are for the most part irrelevant. Beyond letting you know what you are doing, they serve no purpose. Talk about games, not visuals. They do not, despite your half-baked belief, enhance gameplay in any way.

 

[cobra_ky]

"We were brave in that area - but the reality is, Platinum Games is such a cutting-edge developer they need the PS3 or 360 to realize what they actually want to do," he continued. "You saw that with Bayonetta - it was a very high-quality standard... Platinum are definitely more at home on those platforms. [sub]- Mike Hayes[/sub]

I never realized that Professional Troller was a videogame industry position now. That quote is so full of bait you'd almost question on whether or not it's worth it to spend it all on catching the fish. I await the retraction from SEGA Japan. Crazy world we live in.

How is that a trolling statement at all? The Wii is mechanically the least powerful gaming console from a hardware perspective, and that reflects on the possibilities available to developers when it comes time to create games for it. Telling us the Wii isn't really powerful enough to run the sort of games a studio wants to make isn't casting unwarranted aspersions upon the honor of the little platform that could, it's just spelling out the facts. Wiis aren't particularly powerful, and Platinum Games wants to make titles that require more oomph than the Wii can provide.

If this comes across as a something a Troll would say, I posit that you're looking at it from the perspective of an irrational fanboy. I suppose it's trolling to point out that the PS3 has a Blue-ray drive and the X-Box 360 doesn't? Are the (absolutely retarded) console wars so deeply ingrained in gamer culture that a simple statement of facts can be perceived as trolling now? Egad.

MadWorld's financial failure has nothing to do with the processing power of the Wii and everything to do with the audience of the Wii. MadWorld is an M-rated game, and that doesn't appeal to a large portion of the Wii audience.

Obviously Platinum Games doesn't feel like they "need" the PS3 or XBOX360 or they wouldn't be developing Wii and DS games. I doubt you'll see any of those titles published by SEGA, since by this statement they've demonstrated they have no faith in Platinum's ability to sell games on those platforms.

 

[cobra_ky]

Reducing it to that is not right, though. If you watch Making-Ofs of games or read interviews with programers, you will very frequently hear "yeah, technical limitations were the problem with this or that game mechanic". For example, I recall the God of War developers say they wanted to make a level where you had to climb several collapsing pillars to get to Pandora's temple while Cronos was walking around (or something like that). They had to cut it because of technical limitations ("That would've taken forever"), so they replaced it with a 20-second cutscene. With God of War 3 out there, they actually managed to make those moving levels, as well as Naughty Dog did with Uncharted 2 - it would not have been possible without better hardware.

"Technical limitations" does not necessarily mean "insufficient hardware". As a programmer, the phrase "That would've taken forever" indicates to me that the issue was implementing the collapsing pillars in time for release, not any sort of strict hardware limitation. It sounds like a similar situation to the Wings of Icarus, which were cut from the original God of War and included in God of War II. It was technologically feasible for the first game, they just didn't have time to make it work correctly, so they saved it for the next game in the series instead.

 

[The Austin]

can someone tell me why they dont port to it too ps3 and xbox please?

Because Sega is retarded?

Anyway, this definitely deserves a "DUR DUR DUR!!!"

you trying to say im dumb you cockroache

What? No!

I'm trying to say that SEGA is dumb.

(And I think it's spelled "cockroach")