Experience Points: The Death And Birth Of Consoles [Column]

After reviewing X-Men Destiny, the most absurdly crafted piece of rubbish to ever hit game store shelves (I’m exaggerating of course, nonetheless it’s still a pathetic game) I decided to play other worthwhile games. During the weekend, this included playing Gears of War 3 and Killzone 3 with Timothy. This was followed by a session of playing through some Sega games in the old school Sega Mega Drive (Sega Genesis the USA) Collection on the Xbox 360. There were some really great games from the Sega era in the collection, like the Golden Axe series (not the crappy reboot), the Streets of Rage series, Sonic 1 to 3, Vectorman 1 and 2, and the Phantasy Star RPG series. However, it was sorely lacking any of the other great Sega games. It was probably an issue with licensing that restricted the catalogue of titles. When playing, some of the games felt clunky with hilarious voice acting and revealed to me how far we’ve come with consoles, from early console development to the present.

Yet I still think it’s relevant to discuss old school games that are direly in need of attention in the current videogames market. Sega had only a few titles that were worthwhile, but what about Nintendo? Yes, you may argue that the Wii has the Virtual Console option and that Sega is releasing old titles on XBLA, but not everyone has access to online services. As we all know, Nintendo are none too kind to nostalgia seekers and love to re-release old titles (especially for the NDS) at full price with an amenity of supposedly ‘new’ features (like 3D, new cinematics etc). Moreover, not all old school games are given a re-release and are left to attract dust in the bowls of someone’s cupboard. Many contemporary videogame developers could learn much from predecessors that succeeded in great bounds, with the limitations of their hardware.

With the release of games like Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 6 (or 3 in the US, which is utterly confusing), Strider, Sonic The Hedgehog 2 utilising the hardware as sufficiently as possible the industry became a hotbed of heated competition. SNES (Super Nintendo Entertainment System) releases from Square tended to be great examples of impeccable visual, gameplay and sound design pushing beyond what other games had achieved with the platform. This is an act which Square has carried out throughout their illustrious career, with Final Fantasy 9 being a determinant indication of their prowess at pushing the boundaries of a limited platform. Sega on the other hand, changed up the platform game with their major console (the Sega Genesis) and invented Sonic as a competitor to good ol’ Super Mario within the start of the 16-bit War which raged on throughout the 90s, and into the 32-bit era. All pushing their technology and their game titles as a means to be the first to be the great pioneer in the videogames industry. Nintendo had long been sought as the boss man of the industry and when Sega came on to the scene it was an all out war.

During the 32-bit era, Nintendo’s appeal diminished and Sony rose to the occasion with the release of their eponymous Sony PlayStation, and with great Devs behind the new console Sega (and Nintendo) were in a bit of a pickle. The rest is history, and I know I could have gone on about the 64-bit era. Although, that’s more recent and everybody already knows what happened. Sega lost the 64-bit era console war when their console the Sega Dreamcast which lost sales figures to the Sony PlayStation 2 (PS2). The Nintendo GameCube was not as successful as the PS2, and Nintendo truly released a successful successor with the Wii.

The industry is stuck in a perpetual cycle of the death and birth of consoles, with some resigning their fate (including their roster of titles) to the annals of history (or your basement). Yet nostalgia still ties down the industry to the past, with giants like Nintendo building an empire off of it. I think being aware of the history of console development is an important tool especially for gamers to measure how far games have come. Where we are now and where we are going to we cannot predict. The questions that cloud my mind are, specifically about the future, are an amalgamation of my nostalgic love for videogames and consoles. Interestingly, I pose myself a few questions like: “Who’ll be the next platformer icon?” with another like “What JRPG franchise will replace Final Fantasy?”.

But I realise that questions are numerous and are a subject of contention for another time. I feel that what makes videogames so unique is a respect for the past, a pursuit of the future and a love of all things videogame-related no matter the intricacy, complexity and simplicity of the game. There is a place and time for each type of game, and the consoles they run on. ‘Choice’ is the beauty of videogames. The life cycle of the medium is part of the process.

Name: Adam Meikle
Location: Durban
Position: Ex-Editor, Indie

Adam has published 431 posts. Read all of Adam's posts.

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