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Poll: How should next-gen consoles change the game?

October 30, 2009, 3:25 PM PDT

Takeaway: When the next generation of video game consoles come out, what would you like to see: better graphics, more online capabilities, another input device revolution, or something else?

The Wii’s unique controller introduced video games to a huge audience that would never normally touch them. Nintendo’s accomplishment drives home the point that a new input device could revolutionize gaming much more than a new graphics chipset or increased RAM.

Now that the current generation of consoles has seen its first round of price cuts (Wii, Xbox), it’s time to start looking ahead to the next crop of games. What should the next batch of game consoles do to really make gaming better?

How should next-gen consoles change the game?

J.Ja

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About Justin James

Justin James is an employee of Levit & James, Inc. in a multidisciplinary role that combines programming, network management, and systems administration. He has been blogging at TechRepublic since 2005.

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RE: Poll: How should next-gen consoles change the game?

karlsimonvillani Updated - 10th Nov 2009

I would like to see a feature where you can take a photo of anyone, your friends, mom, grandma or any person you like or dislike and then paste them to the body of the latest Tekken or Virtua fighter character and add voice recordings to the character and then beat the living hell out of each other with these characters, like your grandma's face on a tekken character versus your uncle on a tekken character , then add home audios and let them duke it out . It would be great in games like Quake when you go online introduce yourself and then paste your real face on the Quake character etc.. you get the idea. even change the faces on the FMV scenes etc. you get it don't ya? Even being able to alter games like GTA-IV, being able to cut and paste the characters faces to any image, and add any audio from any movie or any source etc. A total cut and paste , the game basically stays the same but you can add your own circle of friends to it..You could secretly record your friends and family's arguments and taunts and then add them to the game without them knowing , then post them on youtube , great eh? Bascally what I'm proposing and advocating is a built-in Machinima feature into the console. So it can alter the game and also construct a Machinima movie as well,that you can cut and paste from any game to create your own script. You could take the fight scenes out of your favourite fighting game and then add your favourite car driving scenes etc..etc.. the possibilities are endless, the worlds first Machinima Console.You could cut and paste each style of game and make your own shenmue style game with your own themes , save them to your hard-drive and then play the game without having to reload individual discs -for example take a Tekken fight scene splice it with a Burnout Paradise scene then add other elements from other totally different genres and play the whole thing into one seamless experience , because you bought the original games and registered them online you would have the right to Machinima them and then record them as movies or just play them.

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I made a case once

Brenton Keegan 9th Nov 2009

that these economic times are going to force these big companies to innovate in terms of gameplay because they simply won't be able to afford to achieve the same level of production they have been.

People thought I was crazy...

In the end of the day, a video game is a video game and we only have so much money to spend on video games. So these "indie" games that you buy for 5-10 dollars really in a way are competing with the big name games because people only have so much time/money to spend on games.

I think the economic environment and the growing dissatisfaction with the "same old game" is going to alter the game market a bit.

Many of these indie games are available on consoles and a good number of them are exclusive to consoles. You won't find them in the stores but a lot of games are being distributed digitally which has really given the indie developers some power.

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You are (unfortunately) correct

mrh829@... 9th Nov 2009

From the business perspective, you are absolutely correct, which is really unfortunate for gamers.

But, if people stopped buying all these games that were just "more of the same," it would force the big companies to innovate in order to make something that actually sells.

Case in point: I played Grand Theft Auto III until I completed 100% of everything. I bought GTA Vice City, played it a decent amount of time, but never finished it. I rented GTA San Andreas, and realized that it was just the same thing all over again, got bored really quickly. I've never even bothered trying to play GTA IV.

Rather than buying new games lately, I actually have been discovering many open-source games on the PC that are quite fun--but as you pointed out, they don't have quite the same graphics experience as the big names. However, since my original argument is that fun game play is most important, while graphics should only be a nice extra, this doesn't bother me.

The only problem with all these free games I have found (for me, at least) is that these are only PC games--not that I have anything against PC gaming, I just prefer console gaming where I get to relax on a comfortable couch while I play. Maybe I should install Linux on my PS3 to combat this issue...

It would also be nice if the modern day consoles would be opened up to easily allow the use of homebrew software, as, after all, they're all just computers with different input devices, but I certainly won't hold my breath hoping it will happen any time soon.

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