What are the biggest historical mistakes committed by the video game industry?

[Prowler]

I thought this would be a fun thread. The video game industry has had a lot of successes and failures. Let's remember the failures shall we?

Nintendo insisting on cartridges instead of moving to CDs in the N64 era: A decision based on pure greed by Nintendo to sell game for a higher price and to get more money from them. This led to developers mostly preferring to take their games to the PS1 instead. This was Nintendo's biggest mistake in history, imo. All the mainstay 3rd party series we've mostly associated with Nintendo systems such as Castlevania, Street Fighter, Final Fantasy, Mega Man, etc. were either gone now or gave the N64 more divisive and not so loved games like the two 3D Castlevania games, while the PS1 got Symphony of the Night, for example.

People forget that the PS1 had a slow start and there was a lot of skepticism about it in its first year or so. Most of those classic PS1 games we all associate with the Sony console, would have been N64 exclusives had Nintendo opted for CDs instead of cartridges. And the history of gaming would have been very different these days. The PS1 would have probably bombed and Sony wouldn't have attempted the video game console market again.

Sega in the 90s in general: Lol, come on now. The Sega 32X plus the botched launch of the Sega Saturn. By the time the Dreamcast came out, it was too late, even if Sega was trying to correct course by then.

Failed systems like the Apple Pippin, the 3DO, the Virtual Boy, the R-Zone, etc.: Enough said.

[Coola Yagami]

Sega in the 90s in general: Lol, come on now. The Sega 32X plus the botched launch of the Sega Saturn. By the time the Dreamcast came out, it was too late, even if Sega was trying to correct course by then.


Ahhh I was gonna bring up the SEGA stuff, especially the poor Genesis getting gangbanged by the SEGA CD and the 32X, with the Saturn right around the corner.

I'd say the Virtua Boy was another big blunder.

[Prowler]

Ahhh I was gonna bring up the SEGA stuff, especially the poor Genesis getting gangbanged by the SEGA CD and the 32X, with the Saturn right around the corner.

I'd say the Virtua Boy was another big blunder.

I mentioned the Virtual Boy briefly alongside other failed systems haha :D

Surprised you didn't address my first point. Wasn't it you who, some years ago, said that one of the issues with Nintendo was its systems becoming the Mario, Zelda and Pokémon only consoles after a certain point in history when they also needed the Castlevanias, Mega Mans, Street Fighters, Final Fantasies and Chrono Triggers to build themselves up in the past? Or was that another user?

[Coola Yagami]

I mentioned the Virtual Boy briefly alongside other failed systems haha :D

Surprised you didn't address my first point. Wasn't it you who, some years ago, said that one of the issues with Nintendo was its systems becoming the Mario, Zelda and Pokémon only consoles after a certain point in history when they also needed the Castlevanias, Mega Mans, Street Fighters, Final Fantasies and Chrono Triggers to build themselves up in the past? Or was that another user?

Yeah that was me, though that was more of a personal pet peeve of mine. Clearly the N64 hit it big with Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, Ocarina of Time and Goldeneye. It wasn't my cup of tea but it was for many.

My example would have worked had the N64 flopped due to lack of Street Fighter and King of Fighter but that clearly wasn't the case.

[Prowler]

Yeah that was me, though that was more of a personal pet peeve of mine. Clearly the N64 hit it big with Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, Ocarina of Time and Goldeneye. It wasn't my cup of tea but it was for many.

My example would have worked had the N64 flopped due to lack of Street Fighter and King of Fighter but that clearly wasn't the case.

Well, actually, I've seen people call N64 "a bit of a flop" before. It seems a gross exaggeration to call a system that sold around 32M units worldwide "a bit of a flop" when the Saturn didn't even sell 10M, but keep in mind that the PS1 broke the 100M barrier in comparison...

So I guess it was a bit of a shock at the time and in the eyes of the public opinion it looked like Sony just waltzed in and crushed both Nintendo and Sega, the two video game giants at the time.

Anyway, I'm a huge Nintendo fan, but I had to get a PS2 in my teens eventually since the GameCube was not getting a lot of good stuff that the PS2 got. As an adult, I've found the PC to be a good alternative for Nintendo, but the Switch also has been changing that. Having said that, I own the Switch versions of NieR Automata, The Witcher III, FFVII-FFVIII remaster twin pack, Resident Evil REmake, FFX/X-2 HD remaster, Red Dead Redemption(never came out on PC iirc) and Diablo III. And plan on getting more in the future. I love that the Switch has so much 3rd party support.

Of course I love the first party Nintendo series, but I can't just limit myself to those, you know? There's a lot of cool **** out there and a world outside Nintendo. So yeah, I'm all for having a good collection of 3rd party titles for my Nintendo systems.

[ToTheNines]

Naughty Dog never making Jak 4.

[Prowler]

This probably ties into my 90s Sega point as well but...

Sega dropping the ball on Virtua Fighter and almost letting it die: VF2 revolutionised 3D fighters. It had everything to become the Street Fighter of 3D fighters, but somehow, was completely surpassed by Tekken.

[Coola Yagami]

in that case I'd throw in Capcom's flop with Street Fighter III. The long-awaited sequel and we got only Ryu and Ken and a bunch of weirdos. I get new generation but maybe it was too new, too soon. At least throw in some people like Guile's daughter or a disciple of Sagat with similar fighting styles, which is what they kinda did with Sean and I guess Remy but that was until Third Strike. Maybe throw in Hugo from the start to have that 'hey that's the guy from Final Fight' hype.

Roster-wise I would have had Ryu, Ken, Akuma, Chun Li, Hugo and Sagat from the getgo, some character that references Guile and then the new guys. That might have gone over better than just Ryu, Ken and Sean at launch.

Capcom's flop with Marvel VS Capcom Infinite. So bad it missed EVO. So bad Marvel was like 'fine, we'll do it ourselves' when they started working on Tokon Fighting Souls.

Also Tecmo nearly killing the DOA series with 6. I was ready to go all in (Hitomi) and purchase the dlc characters and whatnot, but they pulled the plug after a year.

[Prowler]

in that case I'd throw in Capcom's flop with Street Fighter III. The long-awaited sequel and we got only Ryu and Ken and a bunch of weirdos. I get new generation but maybe it was too new, too soon. At least throw in some people like Guile's daughter or a disciple of Sagat with similar fighting styles, which is what they kinda did with Sean and I guess Remy but that was until Third Strike. Maybe throw in Hugo from the start to have that 'hey that's the guy from Final Fight' hype.

Roster-wise I would have had Ryu, Ken, Akuma, Chun Li, Hugo and Sagat from the getgo, some character that references Guile and then the new guys. That might have gone over better than just Ryu, Ken and Sean at launch.

Capcom's flop with Marvel VS Capcom Infinite. So bad it missed EVO. So bad Marvel was like 'fine, we'll do it ourselves' when they started working on Tokon Fighting Souls.

Also Tecmo nearly killing the DOA series with 6. I was ready to go all in (Hitomi) and purchase the dlc characters and whatnot, but they pulled the plug after a year.

3rd Strike is a GREAT game, but I too would have preferred a more familiar cast. I simply am not a fan of most SFIII newcomers except for Elena, Makoto, Ibuki and Yun maybe. And I'm the biggest Necro and Remy defender you'll find! But I'd rather just have Dhalsim, Blanka and Guile instead.

And Sean, who was supposed to be the breakout new character of SFIII was made into a low tier geek.

Tecmo killing off DOA basically sucks yeah. DOA 5 is much better than DOA 6. DOA 6 has CRIMINAL prices for DLC packs, holy hell.

[Coola Yagami]

3rd Strike is a GREAT game, but I too would have preferred a more familiar cast. I simply am not a fan of most SFIII newcomers except for Elena, Makoto, Ibuki and Yun maybe. And I'm the biggest Necro and Remy defender you'll find! But I'd rather just have Dhalsim, Blanka and Guile instead.

And Sean, who was supposed to be the breakout new character of SFIII was made into a low tier geek.

Tecmo killing off DOA basically sucks yeah. DOA 5 is much better than DOA 6. DOA 6 has CRIMINAL prices for DLC packs, holy hell.

At least in my area, some people tried out SF3 and went right back to playing Super Turbo which was still around.

It also didn't help that there weren't any 'jump in' characters. Everyone seemed to suck or be very weak compared to the tried and true Ryu and Ken.

[FredWolfLeonardo]

During the making of PS4 and Xbox One, that guy at Microsoft who said that if you want an offline console, you should buy an Xbox 360.

Sony couldn't have asked for a bigger endorsement. They even made a "How to trade PS4 games" video which trolled the at-the-time stated feature of Xbox One games being untradeable.

[Coola Yagami]

During the making of PS4 and Xbox One, that guy at Microsoft who said that if you want an offline console, you should buy an Xbox 360.

Sony couldn't have asked for a bigger endorsement. They even made a "How to trade PS4 games" video which trolled the at-the-time stated feature of Xbox One games being untradeable.

LMAO I remember that. And to top it off, they said it while the 360 was pretty much dead.

Like if Sony was dumb enough to say something similar, they could at least say 'we are still making PS4 titles for those that wish to wait' or something.

[Prowler]

Funny thing is, the Sony consoles were probably the best choices for single players back in the day. The N64, the GameCube and the Wii always were very good co-op/party consoles allowing up to 4 players each. The Xbox 360 had the best online capabilities of its era by far, even though it was paid, while Wii's online was rudimentary to say the least and PS3 suffered massively with the attack on the PSN. Therefore, the PS1, PS2 and the PS3 were perfect single player machines. Especially the PS1 and the PS2. It's where most of the JRPGs and other long adventure-like games could be found on.

Were there any major party games like Mario Kart, Mario Party, Melee, Super Monkey Ball on the PS2? The Smackdown series and Singstar, perhaps? Tekken and Pro Evolution Soccer for 1 vs. 1 matches as well. But the GameCube and the Xbox also had fighting games like and FIFA...

[Andrew NDB]

This probably ties into my 90s Sega point as well but...

Sega dropping the ball on Virtua Fighter and almost letting it die: VF2 revolutionised 3D fighters. It had everything to become the Street Fighter of 3D fighters, but somehow, was completely surpassed by Tekken.

They haven't given up yet: https://forums.thetechnodrome.com/showthread.php?t=63952

[Prowler]

They haven't given up yet: https://forums.thetechnodrome.com/showthread.php?t=63952

Yes but the series has been dormant for ages at this point. It was already considered a dead series in 2015.

[Andrew NDB]

Yes but the series has been dormant for ages at this point. It was already considered a dead series in 2015.

Considering the last Virtua Fighter came out in 2006, yeah. Pretty baffling. By 2006 Tekken 5 had come out 2 years ago, and Tekken 6 would drop a year later. I found this explanation online that sort of tracks:

* Tekken games were on Playstation and Playstation 2 consoles which were a massive success. Virtua Fighter games were on Sega Saturn and Dreamcast - two colossal flops. Arcades were on the way out, people were moving to home consoles, so people ended up picking up Playstations and playing Tekken as their first 3D fighting game. So simply because there were 200+ million units sold of the PS1 and PS2 combined, compared to a few dozen Saturn/Dreamcast consoles sold, Tekken was immensely more popular. By the time Virtua Fighter made it to the Playstation, Tekken was already the de facto fighting game franchise for the Playstation - it was synonymous with the Playstation, and unless you were an arcade player, you wouldn't have known of Virtua Fighter. If you were a console-only gamer (as many were), the fighting game you knew of was Tekken.

* For brand new players, Tekken is easier to play than Virtua Fighter in that if you're completely new to fighting games, you can mash buttons in Tekken and your character will go into some fluid looking sequence of attacks that looks cool. Mashing in Virtua Fighter nets you nothing but some awkward punches and kicks here and there. VF looks much more stiff and robotic for new players who have no idea how to play VF. With Tekken, they can at least get some sort of flow going with mashing.

* Tekken visually looks much cooler. The character designs are cooler (Jin, Kazuya, Heiachi, Yoshimitsu etc) , the effects and attacks look cooler (electrics). It's must more interesting and visually dazzling to watch for casual players. Virtua Fighter on the other hand has been hamstrung by trying to look 'rEaliStiC' and as a result, the characters look generic as all hell, the combat looks like people just doing simple punches and kicks, there are crap all effects and unless you really know what's going on, the gameplay doesn't look interesting.

[Prowler]

Yeah I'd say that's all accurate.

Honestly, as someone who grew up with Stret Fighter 2 and Virtua Fighter 2 and whose first Tekken game was Tekken 5 when I was already 15-16, it took me a while to like Tekken. It felt rather basic and bare bones. "Press X twice and voilá, a combo!"... as someone who grew up learning the inputs for hadokens, spinning bird kicks, Vega's wall diving attack and Virtua Fighters long inputs for very high damaging moves, Tekken seemed to lack in substance. But it is a game that's accessible and yet can be deep if you want to.

Dead or Alive is a surprisingly deeper game than you'd expect, by the way. Since its main selling point is the bouncy boob physics. But I consider it more challenging than Tekken.

[Andrew NDB]

What are the biggest historical mistakes committed by the video game industry?

* Any game studio, ever, letting themselves get acquired by EA (Westwood Studios, Origin, Maxis, etc.). Tons of great series were swallowed up and sat on, never to be seen again.

* Oh yeah, Nintendo being weird about jumping to CDs bigtime. This cost them immeasurably.

* Adventure games jumping into 3D before that was really viable (King's Quest 8, Quest for Glory 5, etc.)... thereby killing the genre.

* Square skipping Final Fantasy II, III, and V on NES and SNES in the US.

* Mortal Kombat regressing from 3D fighting back to 2D fighting right after Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe.

* Abandoning lightgun games. What happened here? It would be so much cooler now on my 85" TV than back in the day on my tiny 18" CRT and yet... this isn't a thing anymore.

[CyberCubed]

The funny thing is despite Nintendo losing ground to Sony with N64, and then the Gamecube, they bounced back considerably with the Wii, Switch, and Switch 2. Not to mention at the same time in the early 2000's, they had the Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance, DS and 3DS all selling like hotcakes too.

The Gamecube was kinda doomed since GTA only came out on PS2 and Xbox had Halo, so in terms of third party Gamecube just had Resident Evil. Even Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 never came out on Gamecube, weirdly enough when Twin Snakes did.

[Prowler]

What are the biggest historical mistakes committed by the video game industry?

* Any game studio, ever, letting themselves get acquired by EA (Westwood Studios, Origin, Maxis, etc.). Tons of great series were swallowed up and sat on, never to be seen again.

* Oh yeah, Nintendo being weird about jumping to CDs bigtime. This cost them immeasurably.

* Adventure games jumping into 3D before that was really viable (King's Quest 8, Quest for Glory 5, etc.)... thereby killing the genre.

* Square skipping Final Fantasy II, III, and V on NES and SNES in the US.

* Mortal Kombat regressing from 3D fighting back to 2D fighting right after Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe.

* Abandoning lightgun games. What happened here? It would be way cooler now on my 85" TV than back in the day on my tiny 18" CRT and yet... this isn't a thing anymore.

What genre? Adventure games are dead? Eh, Zelda and its clones? Also adventure game is rather vague, so what do you mean exactly?

USA? Not just there. FF II, III and V were Japan exclusives!

Mortal Kombat 9 and X were great games. 11 was pretty good too. Anyway, MK9 (2011) was then the Netherealm Studios took over the series, wasn't it?

Lightgun games? Virtua Cop 2 was the **** on the Saturn. I still have the blue gun somewhere.

[Andrew NDB]

The funny thing is despite Nintendo losing ground to Sony with N64, and then the Gamecube, they bounced back considerably with the Wii, Switch, and Switch 2. Not to mention at the same time in the early 2000's, they had the Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance, DS and 3DS all selling like hotcakes too.

Yeah, they kind of innovated their way out of the hole they'd dug for themselves with the Wii. All that motion stuff was cool and new, and seemed like they were trailblazing for the first time in a decade. And obviously the Switch is popular. But I'm not sure Nintendo ever fully recovered from the CD SNAFU.

What genre? Adventure games are dead? Eh, Zelda and its clones? Also adventure game is rather vague, so what do you mean exactly?

Adventure games as we knew them in the 80s and 90s. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, King's Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Secret of Monkey Island, etc..

USA? Not just there. FF II, III and V were Japan exclusives!

Mortal Kombat 9 and X were great games. 11 was pretty good too. Anyway, MK9 (2011) was then the Netherealm Studios took over the series, wasn't it?

I guess so, right after Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe.

Lightgun games? Virtua Cop 2 was the **** on the Saturn. I still have the blue gun somewhere.

Even going back to the SNES days. They had that cool Super Scope 6... but then they only put out like 1 game for it. But I think it would still be perfectly popular now. If you have some buddies over and don't want to re-learn how to do 30 hit combos on a fighting game, bust out the lightguns and start shooting sh**.

I was just thinking how cool it would be if Robocop: Rogue City had a lightgun mode. That would be amazing. And modern lightguns could have all sorts of cool haptic feedback and built-in speakers.

[Prowler]

The Wii was such a phenomenon for its first couple of years. People often forget that these days. You couldn't find it anywhere in its first year in the market. Similar to the PS5 during the pandemic, I guess.

But I feel like most people set the Wii aside after the novelty wore off and just left it collecting dust and would only play it when they had guests over who wanted to play some Wii Sports again.

Anyway, funny how Nintendo refusing to let go of cartridges screwed them over in the mid-90s but using them on the Switch 1 has worked out perfectly fine. Then again, you can't have a hybrid system that uses discs. It wouldn't work in handheld mode.

But what about the Switch 2 and its game key cards system? Also, keep in mind cartridges are more expensive and that's why Switch 1 1st parties are expensive and Switch 2's even more. Honestly, I love Nintendo, but I'm glad the Switch has more 3rd party support than any other Nintendo system in history because I can buy a couple or 3 AAA 3rd party game for the Switch and still spend less money than on a 1st party Nintendo game. Nintendo games never go on sale with generous discounts online. And irl, even less. I went to buy a couple of games last weekend and Pokémon Sword/Shield still cost 59 euro :roll: and it's not even considered that great of a game. Sorry but that's ridiculous. I ended up buying Red Dead Redemption and the FFVII/FVIII Remaster twin pack It cost me 68 euro in total... but that's 3 games instead of a single one. And 2 of those games are critically acclaimed and loved by nearly everyone who's played them, so the odds of me bot liking them are rather low.

I'd buy a lot more of those spin-off Mario titles and other 1st party games that are decent but not great as well if Nintendo ever put them on sale for 50% off or so. **** paying full price for Mario and Sonic at the Tokyo Olympics. Super Mario Party, Pokémon Let's Go Pikachu, Mario Strikers, 1-2-Switch, Captain Toad, etc.

[CyberCubed]

Captain Toad is amazing. They took those side levels from Mario 3D World and expanded it to its own full game. The Switch version also added more levels and DLC from the Wii-U version. If you enjoyed the Captain Toad stages in Mario 3D World the game is absolutely worth it.

[Prowler]

Captain Toad is amazing. They took those side levels from Mario 3D World and expanded it to its own full game. The Switch version also added more levels and DLC from the Wii-U version. If you enjoyed the Captain Toad stages in Mario 3D World the game is absolutely worth it.

I didn't particularly enjoy them, no. And the Wii U is the only console system I skipped(no, the Virtual Boy does not count).

I'll keep that in mind and check some videos out, then.

[neatoman]

Maybe I exaggerate here and maybe I'm too biased... But I'd still say Nintendo selling Rare to Microsoft was a bad move.

[Andrew NDB]

Maybe I exaggerate here and maybe I'm too biased... But I'd still say Nintendo selling Rare to Microsoft was a bad move.

It seemed like a bad move for everybody involved, especially Rare. Have they even done anything since the sale? Or was it just like a drop going into the ocean?

I didn't particularly enjoy them, no. And the Wii U is the only console system I skipped

I've got a Wii U, if only to play Metroid Prime 2 and 3, Wind Waker and Twilight Princess in HD.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Nintendo always opposed loading time. With most Nintendo games not being as big as Playstation games, they stuck to cartridges with the Nintendo 64 games. Bitterness over the failed Super NES CD in the early 1990's was probably another reason.

pfVbN4ddkkc

[sdp]

rare would've had a very disappointing output on the Gamecube had Nintendo kept them. Most of their developers left during the end of the N64 era and made new companies, the cracks were already there when Nintendo sold them.

Star Fox Adventures: This game might've been a bit more polished since they wouldn't have needed to rush the game out before they were sold. So that would've been a plus.
Perfect Dark Zero? The PD team had already left and this one was supposed to be cel shaded, even if it had turned out good people would've blasted cartoon Perfect Dark.
Grabbed by the ghoulies? That would've flopped on Nintendo as well.
Kameo: This one actually could've been good had it released on Gamecube
Donkey Kong Racing: This looked bad, there's a reason the reskinned version Sabrewulf Racing never came out.
Conker Remake: Likely wouldn't have sold well, though not sure if they would've ported it to gamecube, they only tried on xbox since they thought that console had the audience Nintendo didn't on N64. Jet Force Gemini had just failed on N64 so nothing there.

fighting games were dead so no Killer Instinct, Banjo Threeie would've likely happened but after the disappointing Banjo tooie, could they really have done something appealing? Counting we've never had a real banjo Kazooie 3 shows they don't have ideas. I don't think we would've seen too much more from them that generation, especially if their early games bombed which they likely would've. The only intersting thing is what would they have done with Donkey Kong, another 3D platformer, how different would they approach it.

As far as their GBA output it would've been almost the same as what we got, remember Rare did plublish games for GBA, a new Banjo Kazooie, the Diddy airplane racing game released as Banjo Pilot, all their other games got reskinned with Rare characters, the GBA DKC trilogy etc. None made a huge impact but their Game Boy games never really did.

[ToTheNines]

* Any game studio, ever, letting themselves get acquired by EA (Westwood Studios, Origin, Maxis, etc.). Tons of great series were swallowed up and sat on, never to be seen again.

I don’t remember the story behind it, but EA Sports used to make MVP Baseball, which was awesome. They quit after 2005 and I always ****ing hated the 2k sports MLB games.

[Andrew NDB]

https://s.faketrumptweet.com/mif3ophi_1ddul86_144827.png

[Prowler]

I don’t remember the story behind it, but EA Sports used to make MVP Baseball, which was awesome. They quit after 2005 and I always ****ing hated the 2k sports MLB games.

EA's golden hen was clearly FIFA. It changed to EAFC a few years ago.

ISS/PES used to be better than FIFA in terms of gameplay, but Konami ****ed it all up after PES 6 and EA did improve FIFA in some aspects from FIFA 06 on slowly.

Konami should be shamed of themselves for losing the war for the best football game series against EA of all companies :lol:

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

fighting games

Following the success of Street Fighter II (1991), everyone made their own versus fighting video game through the early to mid 1990's.

MUxQbZT5YuA

[Prowler]

How about Nintendo censoring the SNES port of the first Mortal Kombat game, completely removing the blood from it and replacing the deadly fatalities with lame ones?

Might be a stretch but I suspect that's when the whole idea that "Nintendo games/consoles are for kids" began snowballing. It's not like the Mega Drive was different from the SNES in terms of audience. But since they didn't censor the original MK game beyond hiding the blood behind a code anyone could figure out, they didn't get slapped with that stereotype/myth. Even if Nintendo did NOT censor MK2 and MK3 at all afterwards.

[Andrew NDB]

How about Nintendo censoring the SNES port of the first Mortal Kombat game, completely removing the blood from it and replacing the deadly fatalities with lame ones?

I seem to remember a Game Genie code that would turn the sweat into red-colored.

Yeah, censoring MK on SNES was kind of the end of the battle there. It was embarrassing all around, for Nintendo, for Midway, for the fans, for everybody. After that, like you said, never again.

[Prowler]

Halo no longer being an exclusive for the Xbox and it becoming a multiplatform title also is going to bite Microsoft in the ass, I'm sure.

[Andrew NDB]

Halo no longer being an exclusive for the Xbox and it becoming a multiplatform title also is going to bite Microsoft in the ass, I'm sure.

Not necessarily. Halo doesn't have nearly the following it used to years ago.

[Prowler]

Not necessarily. Halo doesn't have nearly the following it used to years ago.

Really? It used to be the face of the Xbox consoles basically. That being said, it's still a little wild that Halo is no longer exclusive to Microsoft systems.

For those kids who grew up with Halo this must feel more or less like it did for us who grew up with Nintendo and Sega as competitors and then Sonic games becoming multiplatform titles after the Dreamcast died.

[Andrew NDB]

Really? It used to be the face of the Xbox consoles basically. That being said, it's still a little wild that Halo is no longer exclusive to Microsoft systems.

For those kids who grew up with Halo this must feel more or less like it did for us who grew up with Nintendo and Sega as competitors and then Sonic games becoming multiplatform titles after the Dreamcast died.

How many people do you know are still talking about or playing Halo: Infinite, the latest game? How many even care about a sequel at this point? I don't know of anybody.

[CyberCubed]

Halo stopped being relevant after the 360 era. If we're being generous by Halo 4.

[Prowler]

How many people do you know are still talking about or playing Halo: Infinite, the latest game? How many even care about a sequel at this point? I don't know of anybody.

I'm not the right person to ask this question, hence my ignorance on the matter. Xbox historically doesn't sell well in Europe at all. In fact it doesn't sell well outside USA at well. The 360 might have been the most successful Microsoft system worldwide but the others? Nope.

I knew a couple of kids that had the original Xbox back in the early-mid 2000s. One of them was a big fan of Halo but this was way back in 2005. Haven't seen him since 2012 or so.

My brother owns a 360 but Halo is not one of the games he has for it, so I assume he's never played it.

How did Halo lose its popularity? And what made it popular in the first place? Halo is the main reason why the OG Xbox manage to outsell the GameCube even. Which seems kinda wild to me.

[Andrew NDB]

I've always said Halo was an FPS game for people who never played any real FPS games. Most of the big Halo players just vanished into whatever the latest Call of Duty is.

And it kind of sounds like Microsoft may be getting out of the console wars entirely. So it may be moot anyway.

[Prowler]

I've always said Halo was an FPS game for people who never played any real FPS games. Most of the big Halo players just vanished into whatever the latest Call of Duty is.

And it kind of sounds like Microsoft may be getting out of the console wars entirely. So it may be moot anyway.

What is the RPG equivalent of that? Pokémon? And this is coming from a big Pokémon fan, mind you, but your typical Pokémon player isn't going to transition into Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, etc.

Back to FPS games... eh I'm not a huge fan of them. I did have fun playing Borderlands 2 co-op with some online acquaintances on Steam a decade ago but solo? I can't get really invested. I tried Team Fortress 2 which is a beloved game and didn't like it.

I liked Goldeneye back in the day and Doom is pretty alright for a game that came out in 1994 already, but I don't worship it like many do. Wolfenstein 3D aged terribly.

CoDs and such never interested me. I own a Medal of Honor game for the GameCube since my brother got it back in the day. I tried playing it and meh. It also is rather frustrating how every single popular online co-op and multiplayer free to play game is a FPS of some kind: Fortnite, Warframe, Overwatch, etc.

I also hated the shooting missions and parts in Sleeping Dogs since that game has the best combat mechanics of any GTA-like game I've played.

Deus EX Human Revolution is a great game but you're kinda supposed to play stealthy instead of killing and shooting people dead. I just used the tranquilizer rifle for the most part. Sucks that you're forced to shoot bosses dead and can't just beat them with stealth, though.

[Coola Yagami]

Damn. Imagine if they made a fighting game with a Free to Play model. Just make the money off skins, stages, custom parts for costumes and newer characters. Kinda like what most fighting games do anyway except the base game and base roster would be free.

[Prowler]

Playstation 3's initial high price(699 euros or so here in Europe!) was also a big misfire by Sony. The system had a slow start because of it. And remember the "PS3 has no games" memes back in the day?

Not anywhere there being one of the biggest historical mistakes since the PS3 ended up rebounding quite well after that abut perhaps it would have outsold the Wii if it wasn't for that...

[Andrew NDB]

What is the RPG equivalent of that? Pokémon?

Jeeze, things are a little wonky nowadays, but back a decade or two I'd say games like the Ultima series and Elder Scrolls are "REAL" RPGs, vs. the people talking about RPGs who are playing stuff like very simplified JRPGs (the earliest Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy games, and so on).

But things have worked out differently as the years have passed. Some JRPGs are REALLY advanced now (I'd point specifically to something like Dragon Quest XI, which really seems to be the perfection of a tried and true model), but others have just morphed to become semi-interactive movies or music videos, largely becoming even LESS RPG-like than those earliest games on NES or SNES. Conversely, there's barely any PC RPG games anymore.

Playstation 3's initial high price(699 euros or so here in Europe!) was also a big misfire by Sony. The system had a slow start because of it. And remember the "PS3 has no games" memes back in the day?

I remember I got my PS3 right away, original model, and it had the full backwards compatibility with PS1 and PS2 games. I even swapped out the hard drive for a much bigger one, successfully. Years into the PS4 I finally sold it on eBay and the winner received it just went, "Doesn't work!" and got fully refunded and eBay wanted me to pay to ship it back to me just so that I then wouldn't be able to resell it because either it got broken in shipping to the guy or the guy is up to something (swapping mine out for another one, or who knows).

I was ready to go to war when that happened.

[Prowler]

Jeeze, things are a little wonky nowadays, but back a decade or two I'd say games like the Ultima series and Elder Scrolls are "REAL" RPGs, vs. the people talking about RPGs who are playing stuff like very simplified JRPGs (the earliest Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy games, and so on).

But things have worked out differently as the years have passed. Some JRPGs are REALLY advanced now (I'd point specifically to something like Dragon Quest XI, which really seems to be the perfection of a tried and true model), but others have just morphed to become semi-interactive movies or music videos, largely becoming even LESS RPG-like than those earliest games on NES or SNES. Conversely, there's barely any PC RPG games anymore.



I remember I got my PS3 right away, original model, and it had the full backwards compatibility with PS1 and PS2 games. I even swapped out the hard drive for a much bigger one, successfully. Years into the PS4 I finally sold it on eBay and the winner received it just went, "Doesn't work!" and got fully refunded and eBay wanted me to pay to ship it back to me just so that I then wouldn't be able to resell it because either it got broken in shipping to the guy or the guy is up to something (swapping mine out for another one, or who knows).

I was ready to go to war when that happened.

I don't have DQXI yet and it's become quite harder to find it in shops lately than it was 3 years ago or so. So I dunno when I'll finally get it. Anyway, the Dragon Quest series is known for never innovating or changing the formula, but nonetheless the games work well as far as the gameplay and story are concerned. Basically, no need to reinvent the wheel when it still works fine.

Damn that sounds crazy. I'm glad I never sold anything online.

[Prowler]

Sony going fully digital by 2028 might be a big historical mistake that's about to happen.

[Mad Dog McMutt]

When I read biggest video game mistakes, one thing instantly popped into my mind and that is Twisted Metal 3. There is no game that disappointed me more than that game. Twisted Metal 1 and 2 were so awesome and I was patiently waiting for the next installment. I bought it instantly when it came out only to be let down drastically. The music was great, and the option to have 4 players was great, but everything else besides that was terrible. I know that the Twisted Metal license went to different developers, but my God they did everything wrong. I have never been more disappointed at a video game than that one.