REBUTTAL TO: Xbox.. The Next RPG System?
It boggled my mind when I clicked on the Editorials link and found the
only thing in the update was an editorial I had written two and a half
years ago, and then I thought it would be quite clever to post a
rebuttal of sorts to my own writing.
There are really two issues here: one is whether Fable lived up to its
potential and the other is whether the Xbox has lived up to its
potential. Fable, honestly, is pretty much its own editorial and with
such I'm going to leave it alone. Granted, it does have innovation
and from what I've read (note: still have not played it sadly) it
still looks to be quite an experience, despite the amount of
innovative ideas that were passed over for various reasons.
Now, in the previous editorial, I discussed several factors about the
Xbox and about Microsoft and what they could do to boost the amount of
quality games coming out exclusively on the system, especially RPGs,
and why those RPGs could do things that no other RPG has done on a
console system.
The first point that I did harp on quite a bit was the hard drive,
which has been infinitely underused and ignored by developers, making
me wonder if there are data access issues or if Microsoft limited the
amount of space any one game could take up on the hard drive. It is
hard to believe some of the things that many games have not taken
advantage of with the Xbox, but it would not take much convincing for
me to believe that, since the hard drive is only eight gigs, Microsoft
had some sort of restrictions so that players could keep their music
on the drive as well.
Another issue that I touched upon was Microsoft pulling the same thing
that Sony did with the PlayStation, which was funding a bunch of
smaller projects in hopes that the few that succeeded would pay for
the ones that did not. In the long run, this was the case. Several
of Sony's early successes were created in this manner. Microsoft has
not done this nearly enough, and considering the financial hit they
are taking just with the Xbox, I can imagine how investors might frown
upon Microsoft throwing more money at companies that might not pay off
in hopes of "killer aps."
I think the main difference, though, between Microsoft and Sony's
influx of tiny development studios is just that there aren't as many
tiny development studios. Honestly, the cost to develop a
first-generation PlayStation game was microscopic compared to an
average Xbox game. The money needed to invest is much harder to
spend, and there just aren't as many independent developers that can
handle it. The market has completely transformed since that time
seven or eight years ago.
Now, this might all sound negative, especially considering many people
do not believe Fable lived up to its potential at all, but there is a
bright shining light of hope. First of all, as the next-generation
hardware is released, development cost for Xbox and other
current-generation systems is going to drop. That means that
hopefully those who weren't willing to pay the price for development
before will now find it much less of an issue.
Secondly, going along with that point, the life cycle of console
systems have gotten considerably longer since they went to disc media,
there is still a lot of life left in the Xbox, and with backwards
compatibility now an industry standard, I find it highly unlikely that
production of Xbox games is going to stop any time soon.
Finally, combining all of these points, I think that the Xbox, during
the second half of its life, will see more titles with experimental
gameplay. There will be ambitious developers and publishers who are
trying to make waves, and to do that you've got to innovate.
Considering that the Xbox is quite easy to develop for, I'd say
there's a very good chance it will be the top choice for experimental
gameplay on consoles.
Have I bought an Xbox? No. Is Fable going to make me buy an Xbox?
Yes, although not quite as quickly as I had intended before. Do I
still have hope in the Xbox to have some quality RPGs? Yes, I do,
even if I have to make them myself.
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