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Conclusion
History repeats it's self.
It's an often used cliché, but for once it might be true. I'd like to
draw a parallel for arguments sake and we'll compare:
Nintendo is gearing up to launch a new machine currently called the
"Revolution". Nintendo is coming from a long and esteemed career of producing
machines that have been the home to Iconic games which others are measured
against.
It has witnessed games develop from blocky, bleepy distractions where, like a
book is to a movie, imagination was a strong component in enjoying games to
where we are today with lavishly produced CGI cut scenes rivalling, and in
some cases exceeding what Hollywood produces. Add in Orchestral soundtracks
with major professional Hollywood talent voiced dialogue.
But they are breaking the mold, they have realised or understood or decided
(take your pick) that games aren't just about pretty graphics and gorgeous
soundtracks. They have made the decision to offer developers the ability to
provide new methods of interacting with games. This augments rather than
replaces what currently exists and developers can make use of it or not.
I would imagine that Nintendo have been spurred on by the success of their
touch sensitive DS screens offering new ways of playing, and they will have
paid an awful lot of attention to the success of the Sony Eyetoy and Sony's
Singstar which have introduced (albeit in a limited form) a new audience to
video games that normally would have shied away.
The Revolution brings very new forms of interactivity to a mainstream video game machine by means of gyroscopic velocity sensitive motion detecting inputs. Interestingly what it doesn't bring is a marked improvement in the quality of sound or graphics. The machine is intentionally being reigned in to keep it realistic. What will all this mean for the developers and gamers? Will the developers finally have freedom to develop what they want? Probably not - there is no shortage of new "revolutionary" ideas that could be put into games on current generation machines which don't have clever input methods. Innovation comes in many forms. However, innovation is rarely a commercially viable prospect in the eyes of big business and less discerning mainstream markets. Nintendo is only one of 4 major players in the battle for the gamer's money: Sony Microsoft and the PC publishers all want the gamers money too will they be going out on a limb?
Nintendo are offering something revolutionary, but they are also holding back on technical specs. Can we learn anything from the Konix or draw any parallels? I think we can:
Let's suppose that it's 1989 and the Konix was readily available for you and I to purchase. The machine costs somewhere between £200 and £245. It offers for the money amazing quality sound and graphics. It has at it's heart the revolutionary control system that is a jack of all trades, not only can you play flying, driving and bike riding games but you can plug a regular (Konix preferably) joystick in and play great arcade games. The machine offers ambitious aspiration peripherals like the Power chair (which costs the same as the machine), light gun with recoil, Ski simulator !?!!? etc. etc.
I think the first lesson we can learn is that of the 16 games that might
have seen the light of day, only 2 or 3 actually made use of the
revolutionary controls of the Konix. The rest were standard arcade style
games like shoot'em ups or platformer's. How many Revolution games will make
full use of it's controls?
It is very unlikely that many people would have bought a power chair except a
few early adopters and the typical silly rich. It would be redundant on any
game other than a simulation therefore as much as it pains me to say, it's
probably a huge white elephant.
I would imagine that the revolutionary aspects of the machine would attract
you to it initially, but it would be the strength and quality of the games
that would be the best feature of the machine. Now this is probably the
crying shame of it all. Of course it's well documented that the developers
were crying out for more memory. That still happens today, developers are
never happy with their lot, but they usually make the games work and jump
through the necessary hoops to make great games within the limited resources.
It's still happening today - the PS2 famously has less texture memory than
its rivals and it still manages to produce great looking games (through
developer's blood, sweat and tears!). Developers wouldn't program if they
didn't like challenges and showing off their skills, so I think we can ignore
that.
It's not hard to see the potential of the machine. From the rich colourful
screen shots showing loads of big sprites being thrown very quickly around
the screen, actual usable quick 3D capabilities, great sound features.
The machine had a strong collection of Triple A publishers and developers on
board to create games for it.
It begs the question really, was the union between Flare and Konix a marriage
made in heaven or a candidate for a quickie divorce if ever there was
one?
It's clear that the slipstream was a brilliant and clever design for a game
controller, the light gun and power chair were very well realised ways of
bringing arcade thrills and fun to the masses.
It's also clear that the flare one was a fantastic computer system with the
power and flexibility to allow developers to create games the equal or maybe
even surpassing those games available in the arcades.
My point is, should the two have been put together? Is it akin to Homer
Simpson's experiment with the cat and the dog put together in a sack to try
to create a new species? Would both have fared much better separately? I
personally think they would. If Nintendo are only just doing this now (yes
they've experimented before, and bought oddities like the virtual boy and the
power glove to market) for the launch of a mainstream console, then they must
have learnt something on the way.
If the Multisystem was another boring, vanilla, wedge shaped home computer with a keyboard and floppy drive then it's wouldn't have provided the opportunity to generate comments such as this one from a forum post - [the Multisystem] Never released, It's British!. Probably because they couldn't find a way to make it leak oil :-)
I think the Konix Multi-system was in effect, too good, it was too far ahead of it's time.
I'd still cut off left arm just to own one... but then I wouldn't be able to play it - Doh!