Game Development Giant

Fifty dollars more expensive than the PS2 because it's worth the price!

In the latest issue of GAME magazine, photos of Jester and Dreambox3 as well as screenshots of the Gallant game are used as the cover.

The title of the cover is the sentence above.

This price is also a price decided by Mars Entertainment after careful consideration. Fifty dollars should be a just right price, no more, no less. It is almost a little cheaper than the price of later game consoles, but a little more expensive than the current game consoles. .

In Jester’s memory, the price of PS4 was set at US$399. About two years after its release, it was reduced to US$349. In fact, the price of US$399 was not very expensive at the time. By the time it reached US$349, the price It is already very close to the people, and the price of Microsoft's XBO is also similar.

And during this time period.

Jester has also conducted a survey. Players still think that it is better not to force game consoles to be too high from other companies, because this will make them feel that they are not worth it. After thinking about it, Jester feels that fifty dollars higher should be a price that players can accept, no matter how good your stuff is.

When there are similar products.

Buyers will experience a relatively large attenuation. Although it is only fifty dollars higher, there will still be a certain attenuation of the purchase price, but this attenuation is relatively small when it is within the range of fifty dollars. This is something Mars Entertainment can afford.

Moreover, if your own game is good enough and outstanding.

Even with this part of decline, people will still buy it again. Therefore, the only way to make the console more expensive than others is to make better games than others - or to put it more accurately. , is to make games that other game companies cannot make, just like Nintendo. The price of their consoles is relatively high. It is believed that the performance of their machines is low and can only keep up with the previous generation consoles of the other two, but the price is not much cheaper than the current generation.

The reason.

Or because Nintendo not only has the IPs of players’ favorite works. Or because the games they make are different from other game companies.

After the interview with GAME was released, it quickly caused an uproar.

But the price of fifty dollars is not outrageously expensive.

But on some forums, some players still complain. However, the vast majority of players are still rational. They have discussed before that the price of Dreambox 3 may be on the high side. They believe that based on the functions of Dreambox 3, it is natural that their price is higher than the other two companies. However, They also have a worry, that is, although the performance is high, the cost is also high.

But whether we can get players to pay for it is a big question.

If the prices were similar before, they would not worry about this problem. Because the development capabilities of Mars Entertainment are originally stronger than the other two.

When prices are similar, players are naturally willing to buy consoles developed by game manufacturers that can develop better games. But once the price rises, what Mars Entertainment has to do is not just outperform the other two. It's good enough, but much better.

Let’s use another accurate term.

It is to make players clearly feel that your game is a higher level than the other two games, so that players can willingly spend more than the other two games to buy your game console.

This is not an easy task.

The original Nintendo N6~4. In the competition with the Sega Saturn and the PS1 of that world, and with the release date falling behind in the North American market, they were forced to make an unprecedented reduction in the size of the game console. For this matter, Minoru Arakawa even personally apologized to his father-in-law. Moreover, there are two phenomenal games on N6~4, Mario 6~4 and Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

It is because of these two games that it clearly surpasses Sega and Sony. The sales of N6~4 have achieved a superb record in North America.

If it weren't for the fact that it would be too difficult to develop games on the N6~4, especially Hiroshi Yamauchi's insistence on using cassette storage for game storage, it would be nothing for Nintendo, which has reserves of black technology in this area. They are using cassette compression technology. It was crushing. At that time, when games were developed on Sega or PS, CDs were used and no cassette compression technology was needed.

For third-party game companies, it is very convenient to master.

But for Nintendo's cassette compression, it's completely different. Games that could originally be made on Sega or Sony's PS are now available on Nintendo's consoles - of course, the performance of N6~4 is pretty good, compared to PS is not inferior, especially for 3D games. Third-party game companies have no way to compress games with the same effect onto cassettes. You know, they can compress them onto discs effortlessly.

To compress it onto a cartridge, they would need help from someone at Nintendo, which was not free.

In addition, the price of cassettes completely beats the price of optical discs, whether in terms of cost or other factors.

In other words, at the same price of $60, they would receive much more money from selling a CD-ROM game than from selling a cassette game.

Of course, the performance of cassettes is indeed better than that of optical discs. Just one reading speed beats all optical discs in an instant, but the difficulty of compression is still an unavoidable problem.

You can't say that Nintendo can compress a game from hundreds of megabytes to tens of megabytes and put it into a cassette without any obvious reduction in picture quality. I can only compress the game to a normal capacity, and the picture quality will inevitably be reduced, right?

Ever since.

Third-party manufacturers abandoned Nintendo one after another.

Of course, it’s not that there aren’t third-party companies that have developed good games for the N6~4. For example, the N6~4 version of Capcom’s Resident Evil is not inferior to the PS version. As for the reason, it’s on the cassette. To compress the above, they received free assistance from Nintendo.

Of course, these things are just some of the history of Jester and them.

With the death of Hiroshi Yamauchi, Nintendo was under the control of Minoru Arakawa, his successor. With the beginning of transformation, there will no longer be the shadow of Nintendo and Nintendo in the gaming industry, so naturally this kind of thing will not happen.

Now whether it's myself, Sega and Sony. There is no possibility of using cassettes, because this is a technology that will inevitably be eliminated. Secondly, none of the three parties has the technology of Nintendo's cassette compression in Jester's memory. Faced with the simple storage of optical discs, all three of them chose the latter because it is simple, easy to use, and because it makes money.

Although at present, cassettes still have performance advantages over optical discs.

Since Nintendo was able to create a wave of super gods with Mario 6~4 and Zelda: Ocarina of Time, there is no need for it to be unable to do so.

In fact, the console war between N6~4, Sega Saturn, and Sony PS should be the first in console history. The most ups and downs, in Jester's mind, it was much more epic than the War of the Century between SFC and Sega MD and later the Three Kingdoms War on PS3, XBOX360 and WII. It can be said that it seems to be Sony's Became the final winner, but in this battle, there were actually no losers.

All three parties emerged as winners.

Although in the original history, the PS2 was like a tiger after it was released, but later people analyzed it, if Nintendo's NGC had not let go of the cassette storage. So this time in the console war, Sony's PS2 will not be better than the previous one.

Originally, N6~4 taught Nintendo a big enough lesson.

Unexpectedly, Nintendo didn't know how to learn from NGC. As a result, since they announced that their new console will continue to use cartridge storage. They were almost abandoned by the entire third party.

A console abandoned by a third party has no future.

But the most difficult thing is to make the game quality much better than that of PS and Sega Saturn, and to maintain it for a long time.

Fortunately, my performance is comparable to that of the two consoles. Under such circumstances, it is not too difficult to do this, after all. The development capabilities of my own company team are as good as those of Sony and Sega. With the support of better hardware, it should not be difficult to develop better games.

Jester also knew that relying solely on his own Hero would be useless.

This game took five years, cost 200 million U.S. dollars, and gathered at least half of the entire company's elites to develop it. To use an inappropriate expression, that means the whole country is working hard for this game. , with such power, it is natural to be able to do things that others dare not even think of, such as the three major projects of the 20th century in the history of science and technology.

Manhattan, Apollo, and the human genome.

Of course, importance is not the same as the degree of concentration of power, but the meaning is the same.

However, this method can only be used once, because it is too inefficient. If you invest 200 million, the best result is only to maintain capital. No one is willing to make such an investment multiple times.

Thinking of this, Jester asked about the progress of other independent studios, especially those that had not yet completed the game and were intensively developing it.

Jester got through to Shigeru Miyamoto’s team in Kyoto.

When Nintendo announced the launch of the game market and sold its own game resources, Zelda was acquired by Mars Entertainment. Shigeru Miyamoto also joined Mars Entertainment, and also launched a sequel to Zelda , the level is very high, and fans are very accepting of it, especially helping Dreambox2 to add many players and fans that were not there before.

This time, Jester and Shigeru Miyamoto had previously discussed the idea of ​​a 3D Zelda.

However, Shigeru Miyamoto is worthy of being called the God of Games in history. He himself has actually thought about how he should design a game in a 3D world.

Jester discussed with the other party and found that Miyamoto Shigeru's ideas on how to design 3D games were no less than his own, especially games like Mario and Zelda. Although Jester had existing games for comparison, But I still felt a sense of shame.

For the first time, Jester felt why Miyamoto Shigeru was respected as the person who made the greatest contribution in the history of gaming in the original world.

After all, countless designers learned how to develop 2D games starting from his Super Mario, and countless designers learned how to develop 3D games starting from his Mario 6~4 and Zelda. Games, and countless designers have learned how to design somatosensory games starting from his Super Horse Silver. This character who runs through the entire game designer is naturally qualified to be called the God of Games.

Of course, how should future VR games be produced?

Shigeru Miyamoto should not be the one to consider it. After all, Nintendo is unable to compete with Sony or Microsoft on equal investment in VR equipment. Sony may not even be qualified to compete with Microsoft on an equal basis. .

Shigeru Miyamoto's Zelda: Ocarina of Time started not too early, so, so far, it is not finished.

For this game, the game has high hopes.

However, after talking to Shigeru Miyamoto, he still felt a little regretful. Although the development of Zelda Ocarina of Time was going very smoothly, after all, it was a little late when the project was established, and the progress was already lagging behind. In addition, the people on Miyamoto's team It's not too much, and he has a character that strives for perfection, so the progress can't be accelerated. Jester had talked to Shigeru Miyamoto before, hoping that his game could be on the first release of Dreambox 3.

At that time, Miyamoto Shigeru just said that he would try his best.

But judging from Miyamoto Shigeru's current reply, there may be no hope of catching up.

But soon, Jester comforted himself. If Miyamoto Shigeru's Zelda Ocarina of Time is released this year together with his Legend of Heroes, then it may be that this year's Best Game of the Year selection will be the same. There will be a shocking battle that will make ghosts and gods cry.

After all, it is a landmark game that was inspired by Shenmue, combined with some successful sandbox games of later generations and many settings.

The other one was released in November of that year. In just over 30 days at the end of the year, more than 2.5 million units were sold. It became the best game of the year and was even praised. Countless designers, game media, and game players call it a flawless game work. (~^~)