Comment by MetaWhirledPeas
2 days ago
> Game console updates used to be big deals. The SNES was a revolution. PS2 was huge.
There are two categories of "big deal". The SNES and PS2 were big deals simply because game graphics had so much headroom for improvement. Now that the low-hanging fruits of color palette, resolution, frame rate, texture quality, animation quality, and geometric complexity have all been squeezed, the improvements are more asymptotic.
The other "big deal" category is gimmicks. I would argue that while it is a hallmark of Nintendo, the gimmicks have flopped as often as not. Most of Nintendo's big sellers were fairly conventional. (The most glaring exceptions being the original Game Boy, the Wii, and the Switch.) I'm glad they do the gimmicks, but I'm also glad they don't only do the gimmicks.
But those are three hells of exceptions (can you actually do that in English? I was trying to pluralize "a hell of an exception").
They are the 3rd, 4th and 7th best selling consoles of all time. And you forgot the dual screen in the DS (2nd best selling of all time).
Maybe many of the gimmicks flopped, but others wildly succeeded and Nintendo wouldn't be what it is without them. In fact, it probably wouldn't even make consoles by now, following the fate of Sega.
On your English question, “three hells of exceptions” sounds like something from Dante’s Inferno. It’s a nice phrase but not quite what you’re after.
I can’t think of how to make it work. That phrase might just be inherently singular. Too bad, plural would be useful.
Exactly. For a while you could have huge improvements from better hardware. Then there were some cool new gimmicks. Now both of those seem to be played out.
And that’s happening across the board. All the stuff I’d go ogle in Best Buy as a teenager is now basically maxed out both in terms of hardware and gimmicks.