Gaming Trends - When something becomes popular in the video game industry, everyone starts noticing and tries to follow with their own take on it. This is called a "Trend", and it happens a lot when it comes to video games. In this new column, I'll be taking a look at noticeable trends to see who followed it well, followed it poorly, and followed it way too much.
A new console is coming out called the "Evo: Phase One". According to Envizions Computer Entertainment, it turns a computer, media center and PC gaming into a single machine. It will go on sale 10/20 for $680. But between the three major consoles of next-gen, this one seems doomed to fail just like many consoles before it that tried to step up against the big boys .Meanwhile, the Playstation Portable is currently suffering from poor UMD movie sales and lack of more Triple A titles, and could fall under the category of a console failing to step up and survive. Over the years there have been many consoles that tried to step up but quickly died, and this week we'll be taking a look back at just why so many failed. While most just wound up utterly bad, a couple actually turned out to be good.
[Note: I only chose consoles that got released sometime in the U.S. because I don't know what the gaming scene is like in Europe and Japan]
THE BAD TRIES (Console wise):
Nuon - "Project X" was boasting about how they were going to kill Mario. Then they vanished. Then they reappeared as a DVD player called "Nuon". Nuon was supposed to add additional features to DVD Players, including playing 3D video games and play CD's with synchronised graphics. The Nuon's graphic technology was somewhere between the PS1 and N64, but by the time it was released, Dreamcast was already out and PS2 wasn't far away. In late 2001, VM Labs released a homebrew SDK bout the homebrewed software worked on very few Samsung models. With crappy games right off the bat and nothing promising in the future, this died a quick death (and so did VM Labs).
3DO - Created by EA Games founder Trip Hawkins, the 3DO was just another console in the overpopulated 16-bit era. Despite having some cool features for import gamers like no regional lockout and no copy protection, and having it manufactured by third-party companies Panasonic, Sanyo and Goldstar, a big reason it failed was the absurd price it was going for: $700.
$700 for a console? The Neo Geo was about that price too, but at least that was more of a home arcade system rather then an actual console. Even the PS3 at most is $600! So what exactly did 3DO offer to make spending $700 worth it? A bunch of PC and other console ports. Although a lot of those ports were good games, the system barely had any good exclusives (like Gamecube) and died a quick death.
Like Sega, 3DO became a software publisher after their console failed. Unlike Sega, 3DO produced lots of crappy games (Army Men) and went out of business in 2003.
Apple Pippin - Never heard of it? To be honest I didn't either until I discovered it while working on this column. The Pippin was supposed to be a multimedia title player that also functioned as a network computer. But Apple intended to license the technology to other companies like the 3DO, and the only one to actually do that was Bandai. By the time Bandai released their Pippin in 1996, N64, Playstation, and Sega Saturn were controlling the market. With a price of $599, it was too expensive a game console even though it was supposed to be a cheap computer. It died quickly and In May 2006, the Pippin was voted one of the 25 Worst Tech Products of all Time by PC World Magazine.
The Phantom - Phantom is supposed to be the home console for PC games. But the system was constantly delayed over and over again due to financial scandels and what Phantom Entertainment (formerly Infinum Labs) claims as lack of funds. And well...that's pretty much it.
THE BAD TRIES (Handheld wise):
Game.com - Tiger Electronics was well known for it's LCD handheld games. Game.com (pronounced "Game com") was released in 1997 and tried to connect to the internet to download games. Unfortunely, with dumb marketing slogans such as "It plays more games than you slackers have brain cells", really horrible ports of games not developed by the original creators, no backup battery to keep high scores, and the eternal struggle of trying to get online with it, it quickly died after re-releasing a small version called "Game.com Pocket Pro".
N-Gage - Nintendo's Game Boy has dominated handheld gaming. Nokia decided to step up against them, but they quickly fell as just another victim. But unlike the Neo-Geo Pocket or Wonderswan, the N-Gage downright sucked. Despite being able to combine a game console, cell phone, MP3 player, and PDA features combined into one, it sucked a lot.
First of all, when you make the most simplest thing more complicated then it is, you are already doomed to fail. Taking a cart out should not have to require taking a battery out as well. That kind of stupidity makes the original Game Boy look futuristic in comparison. Speaking of games, have you ever seen one really good review for an N-Gage game? The only two I know were Pathway to Glory and Pocket Kingdom, and I had to use Wikipedia to find that out. Plus, playing on a VERTICAL screen is totally wrong as you need to look left to right when playing, well, ANYTHING!
Now let's focus on the Cell Phone part. Besides the lame as hell "taco talking", it wasn't sold in many cell phone outlets until the N-Gage QD, and even then because it was incompatible with Verizon Wireless and any of Japan's cell networks, it just plained sucked. Let's cap it off with the absurd $300 price tag and it's no surprise it only sold 5,000 units at launch.
So let's see: Making the simplest things complicated + Horrible vertical screen + Stupid taco-talking + Not sold as cell-phone enough + Not one killer-app of a game + Really high price = Just one really lousy handheld.
Gizmondo - It's like the video game version of Enron. It was supposed to combine an MP3 player, Digital Camera, GPS system and gaming handheld all in one. When launched in America, it was only available through 12 Mall Kiosks and their website, sold for $400 ($230 if you didn't mind commercials while you play. WTF!), and four months after release the company went out of business.
EGM's July 2006 issue did a history of why the Gizmondo failed, so I'll giving the jist of it based on that: Tiger Telematics, a flooring company in Florida, decides to make a handheld console sometime in 2003. From September 2004 to 2005, the company loses $300 Million, with the company claiming the money is going to game developmenting while the heads of the company, Bo Stefan Eriksson and Carl Freer, are getting million dollar salaries. After launching in October 2005, the handheld quickly dies when in Febuary 2006 the company goes bankrupt. Eriksson then crashes his million dollar Ferrai Enzo and is jailed for embezzlement of funds. Freer is then arrested for illegally buying firearms.
Basically, the Gizmondo was born as the bastard child of greed and corruption. Yet somehow, it found it's way into the hearts of the homebrew crowd. Poor Gizmondo.
THE GOOD TRIES:
TurboGraphX 16 - This console used HuCards (credit-card sized data cartridges by Hudson Soft) and was the first console to have a CD Module add-on. Having HuCards and CD ROM capabilities gave it a good variety of software and was backed by many of Japan's major software producers, thus making it successful in Japan. When released in America however, it sold for $400 WITHOUT a game and the console only supported one controller. Worse, it wasn't supported by many American developers due to contracts from Nintendo (games made for NES stay on the NES) and the advertising was awful. It was meant to compete against the NES but was soon rivaled and defeated by the Sega Genesis. By around 1994, Genesis and SNES was the focus of the 16-bit era and the system was no more. While not achieving global success, there have been plenty of good games that were released for it that you may see again on the Wii's Virtual Console.
Neo Geo Pocket Color - This was truly a decent rival to the Game Boy from SNK. After the first Neo Geo Pocket failed, they immediately made a 16-bit color version to rival the Game Boy Color. The Pocket Color was being sold in US national retailers and it had some good games like any SNK fighter and Card Fighters Clash. All seemed good for the handheld, but it wasn't. The Neo Geo heads' (the Barone family) failed to communicate with many third-party developers, did not anticipate the Game Boy Advance, and shipped American games in cardboard boxes rather then plastic cases.
Unfortunely, what ultimately killed it was when SNK was bought out in 2000 and it took the handheld console along with it by recalling all of the systems supposedly due to commercial failure. SNK did come back to life, but they are not working on any kind of handheld. But on the bright side, Card Fighters Clash will make an appearance for the Nintendo DS.
THE NOTABLES
While most individuals will follow a trend for a while and stop, some will follow a trend constantly and almost never stop. Two companies notable of following the console trend are Atari and Sega.
Atari - Atari 5200, Atari 7800, Lynx, Jaguar
Atari's problem was that it just couldn't capture what made their old consoles so good. 5200 was bulky and had a bad controller. 7800 was just too late against Nintendo's NES. Lynx was one of the earliest Game Boy victims. Jaguar is known for having the most number of bad games and possibly the worst games of all time. Now the modern day Atari (formerly Infogrames) is losing money and had to sell the Driver franchise to Ubisoft. Where's Nolan Bushnell when you really need him?
SEGA - 32X, Sega CD, Game Gear, Nomad, Dreamcast
Sega's problems is that they tried to do too much at the same time. Did you know that at one point, Sega was trying to support SEVEN different consoles at the same time? Seven! Nintendo and Sony barely support three at a time, but Sega had SEVEN! By the time they focused everything on Dreamcast after Saturn failed miserably, it was too late. Sega is now a third-party developer but apparently not the same Sega from years ago, because this Sega keeps making bad Sonic games.
THE NEXT VICTIMS?
Evo: Phase One - It's basically the same thing Phantom tried to be: a PC Game Console. But can the idea actually work? Most will assume no based on the fact that the Phantom has never been released yet. But how about the gamers that would rather stick to consoles then PC's? Or is the number of those gamers just too small? And what about future PC games that require us to upgrade our PC's? Will the Evo be able to upgrade itself to keep up? While it does look more likely that it will fail, there's always that very slim chance of success. Can't be much worse than the Phantom or Gizmondo's failure.
Playstation Portable - This was really looking promising to finally be a rival to Nintendo's handhelds. But just as there was something cool about it, there was something horrible about it. It could play movies but the sales were bad. It had a good variety of games but very few reached platinum sales. It had a good-looking widescreen but suffered from dead pixels and other hardware problems. Overall, PSP is turning out to be a double edged sword, and it's most likely going to die soon unless the PS1 emulation works out well or if the handheld can get more Triple A licenses. But at least it's really popular with the homebrew crowd.
So this is has been my first Gaming Trends column. I'll be back in a couple weeks for another trend in the gaming industry.
(A huge amount of credit to Wikipedia where I got just about all my info from and EGM for the article on the Gizmondo.)
