Your Perspective on the Gaming Market

[Hawkeyeone]

I don't have much to say here, but here's what I will;

* Nintendo is pushing out NSMB way to much to the point they are recycling graphics, models & music, as well as making stupid marketing gimmicks(see: Coin Rush), even though I'm still a Nintendo fan, just not in that aspect

* Most kids nowadays(not including me), have now found CoD and other crap shooters as their new favorite game, even though this is more about the audience

* Indie games are rising in the market, although I myself think they aren't that colorful and creative

That's all I have to say.

[DioShiba]

It's really hard to say at this point.

I honestly think that consoles like Playstation and Xbox are going to die out sooner or later because they've been having a hard time struggling with actual console sales. Sure Microsoft has Xbox live to keep itself going but that's really just it. Nintendo is still going to strive on consoles because like it or not nintendo knows what the hell they're doing when it comes to making a console and actually selling it to the market.

Let's not forget that despite the Wii wasn't really nintendo's best console it still managed to strive with big hits like Mario, Zelda, and Smash Bros. That and it was really innovative.

PC gaming is going to strive for quite a long time because it pretty much has a huge array of games at it's disposal despite what most people believe. It's not convenient because of how much it can cost, but given that a computer or even now a Mac can do quite alot.

---

I don't get how Bowser seemed more scary back then, he seems more scary and expressive than ever now. His boss battles in Galaxy feel like Bowser wants to kill me. In Mario 64 it just sort of seemed random. He'd shoot some fire over here, run over there. For the most part he was sluggish and easily tricked.

Honestly that kind of feels like an unfair comparison.

Bowser actually felt pretty fucking scary in Super Mario World given his appearance and the fact he was riding a flying car that looks like a clown's head. Honestly I felt like I was looking at a monster when I first saw him when I was about 3 or 4.

His NES appearances were kind of, well limited. But on the SNES he actually felt like he wanted to even kill me throwing those mecha koopas and making those balls crash on you. Then after 4 hits he tries to smash down on you with an angry clown car.

I can agree with you how goofy bowser looked in Super Mario 64 though, but lets bear in mind the console's limitations. If the 64 was more powerful I guarantee he would look pretty freaky. That didn't even happen until Luigi's Mansion mind you (Even though, it was technically King Boo in some reanimated corpse like bowser, you have to admit he was pretty scary in that game.)

[NICKtendo DS]

Koopa Clown Car scares me more than Bowser himself. When I first saw that angry expression, it scared the crap out of me.
Bowser in Luigi's Mansion was scary, because, how ironic it may sound, he came unexpected. AND THEN HIS HEAD COMES OFF!!! Creepiness.
Yoshi's Island Bowser was also panic inducing. He comes running at you and you know that if you don't stop him immediately, he'll crash into you and you DIE.
That's when it's done right. Bowser today is just too predictable. You know that at one point he is going to turn giant. A good Bowser battle is one with an unexpected twist. Giga Bowser's out-of-Smash debut perhaps?

[Kriven]

The Koopa Klown Kar is an interesting thing to bring up, because it doesn't a pretty good job of illustrating the lack of effort going into Mario games as of late. It used to be that something new was brought to the table with each instalment. Instead we get Baby Bowser and Baby Klown Kar. Wut?

[Koopaul]

What about Dry Bowser. Okay he's overused now but what a shock the first time you saw Bowser's flesh burn off!

Honestly I think a lot of it has to do with you guys being younger, and now you see it coming because we've been fighting Bowser for years. I'm trying to imagine it from a young person's perspective. What if they were 6 or 8 or so and Galaxy was their first Mario game?

You don't think they would find Bowser threatening?

I think we've grown up and our tastes have grown up. So we expect Nintendo to grow up with us... but they don't. They still want to make a game for the new generation. Not the people who grew up with Mario. That's probably it. Nintendo wants every Mario game to be someone's first. Because they know it will be. This whole Bowser thing and saving Peach is new to someone!

My theory is that the reverse is what happened to Sonic for a while. They wanted Sonic to grow up because they knew his fans grew up. So we got a swearing hedgehog with guns and complicated time travel melodrama with creepy realistic Eggman.

[puggsoy]

Never having played the original SMB, I was mildly startled by Dry Bowser in NSMB. I mean I wasn't frightened or anything like I would be if I were younger, but I'd never seen it before so it was still pretty surprising.

[Kriven]

Dry Bowser was really cool, NSMB was really cool.

Then they raped it.

[NICKtendo DS]

First time Dry Bowser was awesome. Seeing him robbed of his flesh was a shock not because it was creepy, but because it is a level of goriness you wouldn't expect from a Mario game, and that's counting the RPGs.

The problem is not that we grew up. The problem is that Bowser's threat level drops with every game; you know he's in it to lose.

He's like Team Rocket: The idea of them taking away your Pikachu and even pose a serious threat to you and the world is, well, threatening. Still, it takes a Pikachu to beat them every time to a point these cold-blooded criminals cannot be taken seriously. They're clowns. It stopped being funny years ago, because you know they're going to blast off again, no fucking doubt. Bowser is like that, a monster gone clown, not because we matured, but because his many defeats make him look vulnerable and a joke.

This is why we need a new boss to shake things up (like Dry Bowser was in NSMB, but that magic died in 3D Land) or bring back Tatanga, Wart or whatever. If Tatanga makes a return, what would you expect? He's an alien with spaceships he uses for battle. But what else do we know? What can we expect? More spaceships? A whole invasion? Katsini magic tricks? Rancor? Lots of potential WTF moments that Bowser simply doesn't have anymore. You know he's going to grow giant, spit fire and stand on brilliantly designed bridges hanging over a pool of magma or bottomless pit.

[Kriven]

How do people think Steam will impact the future of game distribution?

[puggsoy]

Hard copies will lessen, I think. Buying games on Steam is way more convenient than having DVDs crowding your desk, not to mention the fact that you can install them on any PC with an internet connection. Now that Linux is in the scene too, this will be a big influence since you can't buy hard copies of Linux games (to my knowledge at least), and more commercial developers will probably make Linux ports now. A lot of games also sync their saves on the cloud so you can play a game from start to finish across multiple computers.

Of course, this will also cause consoles to become more cloud-based. They're already on their way, the Wii U has an array of games buyable online, the PS3 Network is sort of connected to Steam I think, and the 360 has had XBox Live for a while now. For the time being, most games (or significant games, anyway) are still only available on discs. Eventually though, I think consoles will become almost completely cloud-based, along with PC gaming.
I'm not sure about handhelds though. The 3DS has a huge array of online features, but I don't think it'd be a wise move to make it completely reliant on the web. Until an internet connection is constantly available on roads and everywhere a human can walk, handhelds will probably need cartridges (or discs) if people are to play them on the move (the entire point of handheld gaming).

In the end there will probably be a lot less hard copies of games, at least for computers and home consoles. I'm not saying they will die, I certainly hope they don't, partly because Steam games are tied to your account (and thus can't be shared with friends unless you share your account), and I'm guessing it'll be the same for any other online game purchasing systems. Plus it's just cool to have hard copies, being able to physically hold a game is unique.