Something I've always liked to talk about in the everyday is soul. Things which have soul in them. Not soul as in soul music, but something within something. Something which gives it a personality, something gives it a being, something which gives it almost a life which gives it a human quality.
Let me putn it to you like this. Take the millenium falcon from star wars. Wasn't it in itself a charecter. It never really worked to well. It always had to be pushed. But all the time watching it, you felt compelled to scream it on. You were behind that ship and every time, it just pulls through. The ship in itself or at least the idea had soul in it. Now let's take, staying on the space ship theme, the red squadron fighters (I don't know their name). These things were designed by machine, built up to do one thing. To fight. Admitadely they did it well, but they had no personality. All it would ever do is fight or talk about fighting. It had nothing in it giving that factor of desire or wanting. Sure it looked alright, but that's about it. All it was, was a machine interface built to work and to do.
Now I'm not saying that to have soul something should break down every 3 minutes. But something must give somehting back. It has to reward you for being with it. It has to interact with it. The millenium falcon had soul because in the film it tried. And it kept trying. The fighters didn't because they did.
So can games have soul power? I think so. Lets take say 2 examples like the two above. Say burnout and need for speed. Both of these are track racers, both are very good games from a technical stand point. But burnout gives something that need for speed does not. Need for speed feels like a technical marvel. A machine. Very push button to go. The characters put into them simply hides this now as a marketing tool and it feel very artificial. Wheras burnout gives a feel of a person not a machine. A feeling of let's go do this. GO have fun. Come in. Blow stuff up. GO FOR IT!!!! It has soul under the hood. It's not the most sophisticated thing in the world, but my god it is one hec load of fun. You feel compelled by it. You feel it wants you to try harder. It wants you to play more. Not like need for speed, where it it only wants you to play till the next one comes out. It has somehting which can only drive it on. Take away from burnout the dj (annoying though he is) how it tells you how to break stuff. Take away from it runnning through billboards how it congratulates you from going through every fence and how it slows down on all the jumps. What are you left with? Just another racer. Need for speed almost. But because of all those little details, you absorbed by the game. Whereas need for speed, is just not there. It doesn't relate. It just does.
Cannot all games be capable of giving something back? Of giving the user some experience. Is it trully that hard? Soul can come from anywhere and interaction is but one possible aspect. If all producers were to absorb themselves with passion in their ideas in their everyday, would not gaming be better for it? Or will they just make another product on the line?
Recently I read this:
Despite the beating it's been taking from both the press and the buying public, Sony is refusing to change its PlayStation 3 tune, issuing a press release claiming that neither the Xbox 360 nor the Wii can compete with it on equal terms.
As the most expensive of the three major gaming consoles on the market, the PlayStation 3 has lagged behind the Xbox 360 in worldwide sales and been absolutely demolished by the Wii. Strategic price cuts have proven successful in the past - Microsoft saw a major jump in Japanese sales of the Xbox 360 after it lowered the price in September 2008 - yet Sony has remained adamant in its refusal to make significant reductions of its own in order to boost sales. And in response to a recent Microsoft statement that its sales lead over the PlayStation 3 is growing, Sony has countered with a claim that its console offers more dollar-for-dollar value than either the 360 or the Wii.
"The Xbox 360 requires additional money, multiple upgrades and additional external devices, putting a burden on the wallet and adds clutter to the entertainment centre," Sony said. "The PS3 is the perfect example of a product featuring superior technology and a sophisticated design creating an ideal all-in-one entertainment product."
And despite the fact that Sony doesn't consider the Wii a competing product at all, it doesn't escape the company's attention. "The Wii's lack of enhanced features comes at the expense of a comprehensive entertainment solution," the statement continued. "So as PS3 continues to evolve without the need for additional parts or expenses, expect the competition to continue peddling add-ons in an effort to keep up with the Jones'."
Sony claimed that upgrading the Xbox 360 Arcade, the entry-level Xbox console, to the level of the PlayStation 3 would cost between $449 and $499, and added that many of the PS3 features simply cannot be had on the Wii. "The Xbox 360 and Wii offer a set of features in their own right. However, when you take a look at the feature offerings side by side, there is only one true winner in delivering total value and price," the press release said.
I would now like to say, oh my god, sony sales team, you are the biggest retards I have EVER heard of in my lifetime. How can really justify all of this? Alright let's go through this shall we?
"The PS3 offers more dollar-for-dollar value than either the 360 or the Wii, so we aren't going to slash prices, and so increase sales!!" Then we'll get a fridge magnet, paste it to our arses to show we have one thing no other man has and get loads more sex when we all get fired for incompitance and are forced to become gigalos because everything else uses too much brain power. That's ridiculous. I mean yes whilst the PS3 has a bucket load of features, for one, the person who owns a PS3 probably owns them all already in better form. e.g. iPod for Mp3s. Except a Blu-Ray player, but that's stupid anyway, because the future is in HD on demand TV not DVDs anymore. If playstation honestly think they can keep prices high becasue they're console has more stuff in, so don't have to slash prices then they are wrong. Wii hasn't slashed prices because if they did the universe would implode with orders for them. Playstaion on the other hand don't have this issue. Their issue is the big warehouses full of PS3s up and down the country. Because (dadalh!) no one wants one.
"The PS3 is the perfect example of a product featuring superior technology and a sophisticated design creating an ideal all-in-one entertainment product". Nnnnnnno. If the PS3 was infact as they say all in one, then their motion controls, for one, would work. Second, so what if you want to pay for extra features on the 360. I want this feature on my cheap games console. Good grief, look how much cheaper it STILL IS. And better. The only reason that PS3 actually HAS all in one package is becasue it copied the others so labouriously.
"The Wii isn't a competeing product" Look just becasue Usain Bolt won gold a mile clear of everyone else, doesn't mean he didn't compete. In the same way, just becasue the Wii is outright thrashing the bollocks off you in sales, doesn't mean that they aren't competing for best console, cos at the moment they are outright affecitng your sales. Yes it doesn't have all the gizmos in the world, but isn't that just plain embarassing? Look we have lots features. Oh n, everyone owns a wii, which comparitively sucks in technology. But is so fun that if you give it to a child, his brain will explode with uncontrollable joy. Give a kid a PS3 on the other hand and he will implode with uncontrollable rigormortis, becasue there is too much stuff to understand.
"We are retarded" Too true.
All in all, I really don't see how PS3 can justify all this. It's just silly.
Some of you may have noticed the new 360 screen. Well it has something which looks alot like a Mii on it. Now don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against copying good ideas, if it works well and you can use it why not. But the 360 has also looked into the Wii motion sensors. And now this is where an idea becomes a console. Admitadely, they're probably not going to release it for the 360 but all the same, we buy consoles for their personalities. The 360 is the happy slappy console which is for 18 year olds really (like me) and people who like fps (like me) and people who like their email (why don't I have a 360 yet?). The wii is very different. The motion sensors appeals to an indy crowd (like me) who like different games and normally artty graphics (I really need some money) and the PS3 is for the person copying the 360 and wii owners. If 360 lose their individuality they lose what makes the console appealing. Look if we want a wii we'll get a wii. We DO NOT want a wii 360. Ta.
(and yes I still don't like PS3s)
