Game Development Giant - Chapter 828

c822 next generation console

How popular was WII back then?

Let’s put it this way, the combined sales of PS3 and XBOX360 at the beginning of their release were not as much as the sales of WII.

It’s even more popular than Jester’s own Dreambox 3 now. At least the current sales of Dreambox 3 are the same as those of Sony’s PS2 and Sega’s SS combined. It’s far inferior to what WII did for PS3 and XBOPX360 in the early days of the era. A crushing victory.

Jester remembers that when Satoru Iwata was promoting WII in New York, he once did a very famous event, that is, he invited many house mothers, all mothers of young children, to let them experience WII and the games on WII. You know, children’s mothers are basically the natural enemies of game consoles. They seem to hate toys that can make their children addicted.

Although it is not that there are no enlightened mothers, such mothers can only be regarded as a minority whether in the United States or later in China.

On the contrary, if it is a father, he will not be so resistant. After all, during the WII period, fathers basically grew up playing game consoles such as FC and Sega MD. Their attitude towards game consoles is completely different from that of their mother.

At that time, the industry was scornful of Satoru Iwata’s invitation to these children’s mothers to play Wii, and the promotion methods or activities. They thought Iwata was simply stupid. At that time, the fiasco of Nintendo’s previous generation console NGC was still vivid in their minds. , although Satoru Iwata’s revolutionary innovations on the previous NDS gave Nintendo a breath of relief, but it still rashly refused to let go of the console when the technical conditions were far inferior to their competitors.

This makes many people in the industry, whether players, media or other game-related workers, think it is simply stupid.

They even predicted that this time WII would end in a disastrous defeat like the last NGC.

Countless people were waiting to see the jokes about Nintendo, Satoru Iwata and their new console WII – but the fact was a slap in the face to everyone. Nintendo’s parent-child games plus motion controllers are simply a perfect combination. Almost all the young mothers who participated in the activities organized by Satoru Iwata became fans of Wii, and many of them were even boycotters of the game before.

You know, as long as the mother is impressed, the child’s game console is not far away.

The subsequent facts speak for themselves. WII, with its terrifying age-appropriateness, has taken over almost all markets, and the gameplay of Shigeru Miyamoto’s games has been improved to an unparalleled level with the blessing of somatosensory, such as “Super Mario Galaxy”, “Super Mario Galaxy” 2》The designs and levels of these games are simply as wonderful as works of art!

we can even say. Even ten years later, Chao Ma Yin can still be called the greatest 3D level game in the history of world video games.

Although WII faced the shortcoming of weak stamina in the later period of its time.

But the ultimate reason for this shortcoming is still because of the low configuration of WII, but this cannot hide it. WII is the biggest winner of the same generation of consoles. As of 2014 statistics, WII has sold a total of 1.2 The sales volume of 100 million units, and what is the sales volume of PS3 and XBOX360?

Just 80 million units each.

This is simply a brilliant victory. It is also a victory for somatosensory game consoles.

Of course, motion sensing games can only be said to be a short-lived experience in the entire history of electronic games. After the great success of WII, subsequent motion sensing games can only be said to be a thing of the past. Although people in the industry previously believed that motion sensing games will bring A great change in the history of games, just like the side-scrolling level brought by Super Mario that replaced the 2D still picture, “Doom”, “Quake”, “Mario 6-4”, Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Games like “Final Fantasy 7” bring video games into the world of 3D games.

But unfortunately, this time the speculation did not come true.

It is a pity that somatosensory games have risen with the brilliance of a comet, but then declined at the speed of a comet.

Jester before crossing over. There is no new type of game in the electronic game industry that will replace the current 3D games. We can only say that VR or AR equipment is very possible, but the technology is not mature and the process will be difficult.

Maybe when the PS5 generation arrives, we will see a real VR game console released, but can VR games replace traditional 3D games? Only God may know this.

Mars Entertainment’s motion-sensing gaming console was created ten years ago. At that time, it was just a small team, and the project it was working on was the top secret within the company. Only a few people knew about it. Among these people, no one except Jester knew how important this department would be in the future. , in the past ten years, Jester has attracted a large number of professionals in somatosensory control.

Don’t hesitate to give a lot of money.

This has allowed Mars Entertainment’s somatosensory technology to advance by leaps and bounds.

Make it possible for the next era to make somatosensory games available ahead of schedule.

At the beginning, the number of people in this somatosensory development team was small, and those who knew the inside story did not take it seriously. However, as time went on, the number of people in this team became larger and larger. At most, it was even equal to the number of people in the development team of Dreambox 3, although some of them were later streamlined. However, the number of people is still almost one-half of the console development team, so the cost of this team is very high.

This caused a lot of criticism from those who knew the inside story.

But Jester explained this: “We are investing 10 million US dollars now for a market of one billion or even billions of US dollars in the future!”

Is there really a multi-billion market for this thing being developed?

No one could believe what Jester said.

But Jester doesn’t care much, because the development of somatosensory games is a strategic project of Mars Entertainment, and this matter will continue according to his will until the advent of the somatosensory era.

In fact, since the beginning of human thoughts and emotions, there has been a way to adjust the mentality and relax in the face of huge pressure and crises – games. From ancient “stone ball Cuju” to “flower shuttlecock”, from the earliest “chess game” to “origami”, a variety of entertainment activities have always accompanied people’s lives. To this day, many ancient games have been handed down. Although many of them are different from the ancient gameplay, it is not difficult for us to see the common point of the games from these games-sports.

Famicom. A microcosm of the childhood of people in the 70s, 80s, and even some 90s, from “Tetris” to “Super Mario”, from “Tank Wars” to “Little Bee”, perhaps we have long forgotten the excessive number of these games. Details, but that two-hand grip on the handle. The happy moment as the TV swung back and forth remains clearly etched in our minds.

This is what somatosensory brings.

sports!

His charm is endless, but his drawbacks are also huge.

While Jester was recalling things about somatosensory, he came to the somatosensory game console development department that has been transformed into the hardware development center. Now this department has been merged with the console department. Together, they will develop the next generation of Mars Entertainment’s console Dreambox 4. . But internally, they prefer to call it Project Titan 1 because this plan is so exciting and crazy.

Many people in this team firmly believe that when Dreambox 4 comes out, the enemies that are still able to resist under the pressure of Dreambox 3 will be wiped out.

Because these people have already experienced the charm of somatosensory games.

To sum it up once, it is unparalleled.

Carefully asking his chief engineer Modi about the motion controller, Jester just nodded from time to time, without saying whether he was satisfied or dissatisfied. He browsed five or six models of controllers. They are all experiments of the development team. After all, there are still five or even six years before the next generation of consoles.

What will Dreambox4 look like in the future? No one can guarantee it.

In Jester’s memory, in the history of video games, Nintendo was the first company to make motion sensing games. This refers to consoles, not arcade machines. Duck Hunt on FC was actually the earliest console motion sensing game.

However, the motion sensing at that time was very immature and could only be said to be an embellishment. Later, at the E3 exhibition in 2002, the first company to demonstrate motion sensing gaming technology was actually Microsoft. Microsoft said at the time that the next-generation console they were considering developing would have elements of motion control, but it caused a sensation. At the E3 exhibition, I wanted to play with their motion device displayed by Microsoft. It even takes a long line of photos to do it.

But later because I don’t know why.

It may be that Microsoft’s game team believed that motion-sensing games would not make a big difference, so they laid off their motion-sensing team.

The last thing we all know is that Nintendo gave Microsoft a hard slap in the face with the WII.

After asking about the new host and somatosensory issues, Jester was quite satisfied when he looked at these somatosensory controls. An idea suddenly flashed through his mind. To be precise, he was thinking of the second-generation somatosensory device—Kinect.

This is Microsoft’s work of shame and courage.

This is the earliest motion sensing device to be paired with XBOX360. The biggest difference between it and the WII motion sensing device is that it does not require a controller, it only needs a camera. This is also the concept of not using a controller promoted by Microsoft, and even for a time This caused panic in the industry about whether things like gamepad controllers would be replaced, but later facts proved that, at least for the time being.

The position of the handle is still stable.

Speaking of Kinect, his most important thing for the 360 ​​was to allow the 360 ​​to withstand the offensive frenzy after the PS3 exploded with terrifying functions at the end of the generation. Although it was tied by the PS3 in terms of total sales, the 360 After all, it is almost an entire generation ahead. This is something that Microsoft is proud of. From the E3 exhibition, Microsoft, which was making a game console for the first time, heard Sony’s arrogant announcement that the PS3 would sell for $500. You can tell when you cry with joy.

How much pressure they had at the beginning.

Of course, Microsoft’s arrogance also caused them to suffer a big loss later, at least in the gaming field. When PS4 twice killed XBO, Microsoft announced that they would no longer announce the sales of game consoles.

“Let me ask a question, have you ever thought about making a somatosensory device without using a controller?”

Jester asked his chief engineer casually.

This made Modi deep in thought. His Ph.D. in engineering from MIT, who previously worked at NASA, was hired by Jester at a huge cost. After hearing Jester’s words, he frowned and looked carefully. He thought for a while and then said: “Theoretically it is feasible. It is possible to use camera capture, but for now, the accuracy is still too low. It will only be meaningful to try after at least five or six years.”

After hearing the other party’s explanation, Jester nodded.

Although he is very interested in Kinect appearing early, impractical things are impractical. Now that a motion control suite like WII can appear early, it is already a great achievement or success.

“But taking away the controller is a really cool idea.”

Although it is unlikely to be realized now, Modi was obviously very interested in Jester’s idea. He immediately added: “Boss, is our next project to develop such a somatosensory device?” Jester You can clearly see the other person’s desire from the other person’s tone and eyes.

Jester didn’t think much and nodded immediately.

“Yes, it is a motion-sensing device that does not require a controller, or a game console that does not require a controller. I don’t know if it can succeed, but if you don’t try it, how will you know it won’t work?”

“Then our next project…”

Hearing the question again, Jester smiled and said: “Just do what you want. After Dreambox 4 is released, you can develop motion sensing devices for different controllers. I believe he will be awesome. ”

In fact, replacing the controller is a really great concept. The controller appeared with the emergence of video games and has been throughout the history of video games – whether it is the earliest joystick type or the later Nintendo’s original cross-key , or the current trend-setting dual joystick with cross keys set by Mars Entertainment…etc., these are actually explaining one thing.

That is, in video games, the controller is the most indispensable thing.

But you can play the game without a controller?

In the eyes of many players, this is bragging. How is it possible? (~^~)