How much do people really care about graphics?

[Dresden]

Nintendo's arguement is not that graphics is not an issue, but that "last-gen" graphics are good enough. Regardless of who buys it, in the early analysis, it seems people favor cheap and okay graphics over expensive and high-tech, if the Wii vs PS3 sales are to be believed.

Also bare in mind Nintendo is the grandfather of console gaming and to some gaming itself. I'm sure it's developed it's fair share of a fan following, to say the least, with an appetite for reliance. I don't think people necessarily "favor" last generation graphics, that's sort of a blanket statement. I for one appreciate graphics in the highest regards. They merely will settle for them.

 

[quest55720]

Also keep in mind if you don't have a HD-tv to play on the difference between old and new gen is greatly diminished. When I first had my 360 on my old SDtv it was nice but not that impressive. It was not till I got a HD-tv did the 360 really shine. I would say that 75% or more of Wiis will be hooked up to SDtvs and those people will not see enough of a difference to really care till they upgrade to a HD-tv. Also the Wii will more often than not IMO be hooked up to the TV the kids use and not many people have a HD-tv just for the kids. Until the adoption of HD-tvs skyrockets nintendo can partially hide the graphical difference. Now if most people had HD-tvs I think it would be a different story while Nintendo could of did less graphically compared to the 360 and PS3 the console would of had to support 720p.

 

[avaya]

Gaming is an interactive audio-visual experience. Three things matter: What you do, what you see and what you hear. It would be difficult to argue what matters most of all and to what degree. Citing such and such a systems sales as proof for your argument is flawed since ceteris paribus is never met.

Everything is relative to a standard. Taking the handheld space as an example and in reply to DeadlyNinja, if the DS had GBA level graphics do you think its key game Nintendogs would have sold anywhere near what it did? Not a chance.

Another one, would Wii sell if Wii tennis’ visuals were equivalent to Pong?

Taking the opposing view, will Virtua Tennis 5 in all its 1080p glory sell even a fraction of what WiiSports will sell? Not a chance.

However none of this is evidence that graphics matter more than unique control or the opposite. The only thing that matters is what captivates an audience and for games it is always some combination of interactivity, graphics and sound.

From my personal point of view graphics matter a lot. I can’t play games from the PS1/N64 generation anymore because it is painful for me look at the screen and see those visuals. It’s a real shame because FF7 and FF8, two of my most enjoyable experiences ever, can only be remembered with rose tinted glasses. I used to think Gran Turismo 1 was like Grandstand on your PlayStation. Today it is just a pixelated mess and I would rather play V-Rally on my mobile phone.

Maybe the 1080p Bravia X-Series in our flat has spoiled me.

 

[DeadlyNinja]

Everything is relative to a standard. Taking the handheld space as an example and in reply to DeadlyNinja, if the DS had GBA level graphics do you think its key game Nintendogs would have sold anywhere near what it did? Not a chance.

I don't know about that. While the 2D graphics are surprior on the DS, most people can't really tell the difference between DS and GBA 2D. When Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow was first revealed, many people were arguing about how it looks like a GBA game on Gamefaqs (ok, fine, not exactly the most intelligent place on the planet) until someone posted pictures of Aria of Sorrow's Soma pics to compare with the DS Soma then people stopped complaining. I've never played Nintendogs so I can't say how much of an impact the 3D graphics have on the gameplay.

 

[avaya]

The 3D Nintendog's would not look so super kawaii on a GBA that is for sure. Nintendogs was DS's key title in every region. It started the DS revolution in Japan - propelling it above PSP on Media Create and in Europe it is by far and away the number one selling game on the DS.

 

[g35er]

Gaming is an interactive audio-visual experience. Three things matter: What you do, what you see and what you hear. It would be difficult to argue what matters most of all and to what degree. Citing such and such a systems sales as proof for your argument is flawed since ceteris paribus is never met.

Are you saying we can't gleen anything from sales numbers? If item x has five features and sells well, we don't know which of those five features or combo of features caused it to sell well. If item y lacks one feature that item x has but has additional features and it sells well, we don't know what combination of features that item y has that caused it to sell well. But we do know that the one missing feature wasn't the "big hinderance" that would have caused low sales. That's the point about the Wii's graphics. We can say definitively, graphics was not the achilles heel of the Wii we thought it would be. At least up to now.

Also bare in mind Nintendo is the grandfather of console gaming and to some gaming itself. I'm sure it's developed it's fair share of a fan following, to say the least, with an appetite for reliance. I don't think people necessarily "favor" last generation graphics, that's sort of a blanket statement. I for one appreciate graphics in the highest regards. They merely will settle for them.

People certainly don't favor low quality graphics over high quality graphics.

Nintendo certainly does have a built in audience, but it didn't seem to help them much with the Gamecube, which matched the graphics of it's competitors very well. There's a whole different kind of buzz with the Wii that we've not seen from a Nintendo console since maybe the SNES days.

 

[avaya]

Are you saying we can't gleen anything from sales numbers? If item x has five features and sells well, we don't know which of those five features or combo of features caused it to sell well. If item y lacks one feature that item x has but has additional features and it sells well, we don't know what combination of features that item y has that caused it to sell well. But we do know that the one missing feature wasn't the "big hinderance" that would have caused low sales. That's the point about the Wii's graphics. We can say definitively, graphics was not the achilles heel of the Wii we thought it would be. At least up to now.

You can take inferences from sales numberes but they are in no way any kind of proof in this particular debate. Ceteris paribus is never met because price, production, availability etc. are not equal.

 

[Monty]

It all depends on what you grew up with, myself, I grew up with spectrums and early pc's playing 2d and barley 3d games . So I'll be quite happy to play games which you could consider having crap graphics as long as its fun to play.

Now give the same game to someone who has grown up with a playstation or playstation 2 and they wont even look at it and will start screaming about how pathetic the graphics are.

Ive got a friend who starting playing the final fantasy series with number 10, and he refuses to play 7 or 8 because of how bad the graphics are. Same with zelda, he played ocarina and never played the snes one. Shame really as the earlier ones are vastly better games.

 

[NovemberMike]

The new graphics have to bring something to the gameplay.

NES was the first.

SNES gave an upgrade that made it more tolerable, and allowed the characters to be more easily recongized.

PS1 and N64 brought us 3D, which opened up a whole new dimension in gameplay.

PS2/Xbox/Gamecube brought a new level of detail which allowed realistic facial expressions and also gave us a new sense of scale with games like Dynasty Warriors.

With this gen, I don't know that the change will be as significant. Sure you might be able to see the pores on people's faces, but unless they can do something more significant than the previous gen's facial animations and such, I think the Wii might have the right idea.

 

[Dregun]

I guess the real question to ask if graphics didn't matter would the Wii sell as much if the 360 and PS3 were the same price....$250? Or you could ask if the 360 came out with a controller similar to the Wii and it gained developer support would it sell on the 360?

Don't want to seem negative toward the Wii but its just a blip during this console war. From the day the Wii came out I hear the same things from people all over the place. "That looks fun, I'd play Video Games if they were that easy" but then I see them weeks later after they got the chance to play one and I hear a different story. "It was great fun to play but I don't think I'd buy one for myself". Its unfortunate that the people buying the Wii's are also telling me they wanted a PS3 but couldn't afford it. I've played all of them and although I think the 360 has a edge on the PS3 I don't see the Wii lasting more then 2 years competitively. If people had the choice between the PS3, 360 or Wii for the exact same price including a bundled game (to make all things equal to the "fun of of the box" factor who really believes Wii would outsell both superior consoles? If we were to take how the GC did last gen we would see that it outsold the Xbox right away and then..well..dropped off drastically. Could we expect a repeat?

Either way the only thing that matters is that the people are having fun playing whatever console they are playing. As soon as we pretend that the Wii is outselling because people don't care about graphics we assume that graphics never mattered to begin with. If we assume that then the other posters were correct, why even evolve past Atari or NES just invent new forms of control.


Dregun

 

[ninzel]

People do care about things being attractive,there are many ways to go about creating that.
Some people are open to many ways,some people are not.

 

[JISHELL]

This thread is why I passed all my hopes over to the bioshock dev team.I hope its all I could ever hope for.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It all depends on what you grew up with, myself, I grew up with spectrums and early pc's playing 2d and barley 3d games . So I'll be quite happy to play games which you could consider having crap graphics as long as its fun to play.

I think there's lots of living proof that that's not valid, me included. I played many an hour on a grotty looking Spectrum game, yet nowadays I'm not happy with naff graphics. Indeed those games of yore are dull and boring to me. Graphics and gameplay have moved on, and my tastes with them. Looking at Lemmings on PSN, I have to say that I'd be interested in buying that game because it looks so good. Even though I played and loved the original, releasing the original wouldn't have me buy it, even though I like the gameplay. But giving me a new, improved version, with the same great gameplay but even greater graphics, I'm suddenly interested.

Remember at the time, those naff graphics were the bee's knees. You were playing among the best of visuals (well, I doubt the Spectrum could ever be classed as the best of anything!). How many people who had a Spectrum would have been happy to play on a ZX81? Not many, because the ZX81 looked so bad by comparison (though next to the ZX80, it was the bee's knees...) And how many people who bought an Amiga were happy to go back to their Spectrum? Sure there's the occassional bit of nostalgia. I had Manic Miner running on an emulator. But 99.9% of my time and interest was in the new better games.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Whenever this issue comes up, people tend to make absolutist statements. Of course people care about graphics. But how much do they care? I think an earlier poster wisely stated that if the Wii did not offer new gameplay or Nintendo's 1st party titles then not many would buy it over an X360 or PS3. The reason? Graphics.

You can't just look at one thing in isolation and extrapolate. The strength of the Wii is it's new gameplay and Nintendo's franchises and its weakness is graphics, and rest assured that this weakness will affect sales. How much is anyone's guess. I would imagine that Nintendo made the right choice to go with a console about as powerful as Xbox and push the controller, rather than lose money on hardware and deliver more powerful graphics technology. They probably gain a lot more people with the controller than they lose with the graphical shortcomings. They almost certainly gain more profits IMO.

I was originally expecting Nintendo to capture 20% of the market this generation (from '05 to 2011) and sell about 30 million units. (with MS at 45 million and PS3 at 75 million). Now I'm expecting them to sell more like 40 million units (with MS at 50 million and PS3 at 60 million). I think they've exceeded my expectations.

I will probably own a Wii at the $150 price-point, whereas before I wasn't even considering it. The graphical considerations are outweighed by the fun factor, but not at the $250 price point IMO.

 

[_xxx_]

I bought Wii because of the controller and haven't regretted it for a second. WAAAAY much more fun then anything I ever owned/played, despite the GFX not being the latest and greatest. And I was a sucker for GFX on the PC until recently. Now it's pretty much irrelevant, I haven't even turned on my PC since I got the Wii except for some work-related stuff.

As someone noted a few posts ago, fun >>>>>>>> gfx.

 

[Teasy]

IMO, Wii's success (as DS's success) has little relevance on the sales of their competitors. Just as I see PSP competing in a slightly different market to what DS is selling to, I think Wii's success is especially because it's something new and fresh and probably is that 'perfect 2nd console'.

If I remember correctly you certainly saw DS and PSP sales as being extremely relivant to each other at launch. Your opinion was that PSP's great graphics would kill DS sales off and we'd see a N64 vs PSX situation with DS and PSP. What changed?...

 

[DeadlyNinja]

As someone noted a few posts ago, fun >>>>>>>> gfx.

Righto! If someone goes back to play his or her favorite NES game, do you think they go back to play it for its awesome graphics? People go back to them cause they're fun!

Have you guys ever thought about this: Graphics generally cannot withstand the test of time? Back in 1998 when Ocarina of Time came out, I thought the game's graphics were incredible (for N64), and the gameplay was -- of course -- top notch. Now, when I go back to play OOT, the graphics look like crap, but the game plays just as good as 8 years ago! What about Quake 2, or even the more recent Quake 3? I remember when Q3 was used to to compare graphic cards to, but now when I look at it, I don't see what's the big deal anymore. And you know what, I'll bet you in another 6-8 years, you'll look back at Half Life 2, Doom 3, and Gears of War, and laugh at how bad the graphics look.

There's also another problem if the opposite of what I just said happens. If games like HL2, Doom 3, Gears, etc still look good in 6-8 years, what's to justify me spending another 200-500 bucks on a newest graphic cards? Yeah, sure, you'll have your Super HD by then with games running at 2345p and 300 fps, but unless you're a machine, you can't really tell the difference. I can run OOT on my emulator at 1600 x 1200, but the difference in quality isn't day and night.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

I think art is alot more important than having raw processing power. Alot of next gen games look awsome from a technical point of view but I cant help to think that most of them look really boring and uninspired. Everthing is very detailed, but it doesnt have any life or emotions in it. It will only be nice to look at for 2 hours or so after that you are bored with it. Though that wont happen to all games, some games will look totally awsome because of the better gfx but even the best gfx wont save a game if it just has awsome gfx to offer.

As far as the average gamer goes I dont think they care about gfx that much. Really, if everybody cared about gfx as much as sony and ms want us to believe that why isnt everybody gaming on pc? and why did 100million people buy a ps2 instead of a xbox (or pc)?

I think with xbox/ps2/gc we came at a level were devs arnt that limited in what they want anymore (zelda, big worlds with plenty of detail and interaction, or black for example) and gamers are happy with the amount of detail because things look decently realistic (no uberblocky models and really low res textures anymore). Sure, having more power wont hurt anyone but I dont think it is a must-have at all and gamers in the end dont care about it all that much.

 

[infinity4]

what i think is that graphics are not really related to how fun a game is, but it is definitely necessity in some games. take a look at Gears of War. You would get less fun of sniper shots and chainsaw in Gears without graphics. so sometimes graphics do affect fun of gameplay, but it is more matter for young adults and teens than women or kids

 

[wazoo]

I think art is alot more important than having raw processing power. Alot of next gen games look awsome from a technical point of view but I cant help to think that most of them look really boring and uninspired. Everthing is very detailed, but it doesnt have any life or emotions in it. It will only be nice to look at for 2 hours or so after that you are bored with it. Though that wont happen to all games, some games will look totally awsome because of the better gfx but even the best gfx wont save a game if it just has awsome gfx to offer.

There is no reason that the teams making "arty" good looking games in the current generation stop now because more power is available. What you describe is just the beginning of a generation (or maybe from my point of view the western PC looking games but that is just me). Not all A teams have already migrated or mastered the new gens.

As far as the average gamer goes I dont think they care about gfx that much. Really, if everybody cared about gfx as much as sony and ms want us to believe that why isnt everybody gaming on pc? and why did 100million people buy a ps2 instead of a xbox (or pc)?

people buy consoles because it is cheaper (until now), works all the time, you can play on the sofa, has better library, etc