Task 5: part 4 my personal history

The year 2000 and onwards was the year were I actually began to be interested in not just playing games but also researching about the game industry. As I bought my very own console the Playstation 2, the only reason why I bought Sony’s Playstation over the other competitors; Nintendo, Sega and dreamcast, is because Playstation was the console that had all the games and backing from the third party developers, and the fact that nearly everyone who loves games had one whether it be the first or second console.

The reason why Nintendo did not do so well with the Nintendo cube is because it had very few support from other developers and most of its games were child oriented, which is why it lost my attention in purchasing one. However, the only product that got my attention was the Gameboy series; in 2001 they introduced the Gameboy Advance which maintained Nintendo’s market position. Shortly after Microsoft Corporation seen the loss of Nintendo and Sega, and introduced the Xbox. The Xbox was not a big success at first but the release of Bungie Studios Halo became an instant hit with the consumers, and the game still is a hit with game becoming a global franchise with current gen console Xbox 360.

I think as the year’s progress the game industries are going to see more demands from consumers and some not meeting those demands and thus getting bad reviews and feedback. Also the cost of developing these games is expanding rapidly and if games do not sell as they should more companies will be closed and companies will be bought from other businesses.

It’s time to dream...

I do not want games to be a matter of playing something I want them to be real, I don’t mean realistic graphics, I mean playing it without a TV. I want to be able to touch, feel, smell everything that is going on. When someone dreams it’s like they are in another world were everything and anything is possible that’s what I want to see. I want to be able to customize a character and use that same character in all my games, I want to be able to talk to that character in the middle of playing Halo 164 – Combat Massively Evolved. I want to see games that use the whole entire world as the environment even having a showdown in my back garden, using my dad’s car for a quick escape. That is what I want to see.

Task 4: History of computer games part 3: 2000

The gaming world has come a long way since the early days when gaming was just being introduced to the gaming audience. It has also developed in terms of cost and funding each game. In the early days PACMAN for the 2600 game console, also known as the Video Computer System (VCS) was made for $100,000. However in the 21^st century that would probably cover for the staffs wages, this brings me to another point; there was only one person who was involved in making PACMAN, which took him couple of months to make. A successful game i.e. Halo can take over a year to make and would require over hundreds of people.

I hear lot of people saying that $100,000 back in those days was a lot of money compared to know as developers are spending millions in putting a game in to the market. It took about $40 million to make Halo 2 and sold over 8 million copies. The cost of making games is one of the major issues concerning the game industry as the cost will keep on rising year upon year. Also the time it takes to put games on the market is rising and will rise in the future. Final Fantasy XIII took about 5 to 6 years make, everyone was expecting the game to be faultless but it was one of the crappiest ff titles around (my opinion).

I think more and more people are going to demand their games to be released earlier, or release them a bit later but needs to be perfect. When gamers have to wait a long time they sometimes lose interest in games and simply do not buy the game, or they might just get a pre-owned copy. Pre-owned games is another problem that companies have to face now, as more people are only buying pre-owned games. This may be because the game itself costs too much or they do not see the need in buying a brand new game when they can buy it a lot cheaper.

There are a few developers who are combating against pre-owned games, Polyphony Digital have now made exclusive content available for those who buy new copies of games which I think is a good way in making gamers buy new games.