Beauty And The Console

Pong was two lines and a square. Snake was one line and a square. Tetris was just a bunch of shapes. Graphics in gaming can be very deceptive. These three arcade classics would never be nominated for any Miss World beauty pageants yet contain a distinct elegance that is rarely on show in modern games. In these days of simplicity, no one cared about lip movement in cut scenes, whether their character could move more than two directions, they cared about how good the end product was.

Nowadays aestheitcs means to make the game look realistic to the point it could pass as some sort of alternate reality or parallel universe. However this isn’t why people were attracted to consoles in the first place. Realism didn’t exist in 8, 16, or even 32 bit dimensions so why is it such an important aspect of gaming? Especially now when if you were to take the same game and show it to someone on the Xbox 360 and PS3 and asked which was which, the results, I would wager, would be inconclusive.

Differences = minimal

The use of graphics as a marketing tool is therefore fast becoming superfluous. When it was used in the past to “wow” consumers in advertising campaigns, the price would always be in the small print. The Atari Jaguar was the first 64 bit console but at $250 it was hardly the sort of pocket money given to children by their parents. People weren’t ready for it when it in 1993. Nor were they in 1997 when the N64 was released to provide competition for the Playstation. A 32 bit console [Playstation] versus a 64 bit one. The Playstation outsold its competitor 3:1 and again typified that popularity wasn’t decided by just a number.

Arguably, better graphics is just natural evolution but it has got to the point where devolution is the next, most logical, step. Some may say this is counter-intuitive but for every pixel of dust the Wii (the most popular of the current-gen consoles) has swept under the covers, they have been replaced with new, exciting measures that has opened up entirely new markets. Physical involvement like prancing around trying to hit tennis balls in Wii Sports indicates that Nintendo have made a console that appeals to a completely new demographic.

Types of people who shun the opportunity of chainsawing heads in half or setting nuclear missiles off in online servers but would rather play more accessible, surreal, colourful, family-friendly titles. This has somewhat lead to a renaissance amongst gamers who want to break the cycle of playing through campaigns of first person shooter after first person shooter. The Gamecube (the Wii’s father) laid the foundations in this but titles like Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker quickly became ridiculed for their “cartoony” layout. But this was to be Nintendo’s last hiccup.

The Wii, with over 50 million sales worldwide, is now a pioneer of new technology - not just technology that has been refined to look slightly better than its predesccor. Nintendo has realised that its most successful games like Super Mario, Metroid, Zelda, were played not because they were the most beautiful to look at. They were played because they were fun, inventive, revolutionary. Great games are a reflection of its developers but great graphics are just a mirroring of current technology.

Link in 8 bit glory