“The Model T Of This New Platform Is The PS3″

@bakagaijin: 2am? ouch! XD

Glad my post didn't offend though and we both seem to agree on the underlying point which is always nice :3

~shares cookies with bakagaijin~

@Geminosity: What you say is true though, the Wii has made quite an impact, and definitely has helped propel video games into the mainstream. It sort of picked up where the PS2 left off--PS2 helped propel video games to where were are now, yet the Wii has helped that progression by going after a demographic that the PS2 could never truly make a substantial impact on. Does it really matter what system he was referring to? Probably not. All three systems are doing things that are important to gaming.

I realize it may have sounded condescending while I was writing it, and from the length of my post I should have just explained the damn thing. But I shouldn't have to explain the history of the Model T, and all of the social and economical intricacies involved. It's too tiring to get into something like that at two in the morning anyway. :P

Thanks for your reply though. I expected to wake up to a board full of hate, but instead I get a well thought out response.

Ok, enough of that--I'm off to play inFamous!

The Model T was the first sturdy car affordable by everyone... He is calling the PS3 affordable?

GustavusOrr

@uchennaokafor: in what ways are these two games making an effort to not be generic? elaborate. Fallout 3 (nuclear wasteland, been done before), and Oblivion (haven't played it, but if that isn't generic Fantasy I don't know what is).
I don't get how you can say 95% of RPGs from Japan are "shit." explain that too, please. of course it's hard to create a story and world that haven't been done before (no idea's original) but like @bobtheduck said, look at Eternal Sonata. or even Lost Odyssey.

I really fail to see where you're coming from.

mat1cs: virtuous mission

@FireSketch: Um, I think you mean PC's drool.

The problem with the Model T description, is that the vehicle ushered in motorized vehicles for the main stream. It was the first real 'affordable' car. Hello! The PS3 is not the first 'affordable' console. Far from it. It's the second most expensive one.

If anything is going to usher in anything at this point, then the 360 has the best chance. It's got a very strong fan base, and it has a very large install base. The Wii could accomplish this, but no one cares to.

@Ricardo Freitas: wrong reply :x

Ricardo Freitas

@Vishus: +1

fortelv999

@konexile: Or quoting an Iron Maiden song.

@Jaems: he is not a halo bitch and he has played both Ico games so that makes him more of a gamer than most people who only own an xbox.

Ricardo Freitas

@Zach Prichard: What the ps3 does the different is the fact that is backed up by Sony,a company who tries to rely on innovation ( not Microsoft strongest point at all) let's not forget that it was Sony who made the Team Ico games, that team would never be sustained by microsoft, they are not green and fast enough for them, Microsoft stands with greediest companies ever, it's destroying this medium more than it's helping it.

Ricardo Freitas

@pslong9: I agree with your 1st statement but I don't think its silly he singled out the PS3. I have everything except a Wii (sold it) and the PS3 by far gets more play time and usage over the past year than my 360. The PS3 exclusives > X360 exclusives *imo* but thats probably personal taste - the PS3 is a far superior media streamer than the 360 and thats just fact.

d1gw33d

@fdisk: Kinda destroyed your point when you put halo up with those games... And go and play MGS the game still plays spectacular compared to current games.

Ricardo Freitas

@IamNinja: Agreed, but neither movie did it for me in the end.

@Ad-hominem:
I would say the Wii is more like a motorized skateboard, but those things are cool...

@Rctdaemon: AND the Model T was one of the first widely affordable automobiles. Not exactly the category for the PS3 when compared to the comptetition.

@WonkersWatilla: Actually Peter Jackson's not fat at all anymore, he lost a boat-load of weight, and Del Toro did Pan's Labrynth which was pretty amazing.

@celery: what? he's not giving off a "spiel." Dude is just answering some questions in an interview in which he relates to videogames and what he sees as a possible path where multiple entertainment industries will converge to further story telling; which is really already starting to happen, Cloverfield being an example (graphic novel with new story being released online after movie). He didn't say "I am right, all bow to my incredible video game industry knowledge." For Christ's sake people, calm the fuck down. Go read the full interview if you haven't; it like, a whole 2 pages.

Smidget

@Ad-hominem: Volkswagen Beetle?

uzivatel

So, in a 100 Video Game Years, Sony's going to need a bailout?

@squidyj: I'm not sure you DO have to have an emotional connection with the main character. For pure entertainment purposes there doesn't need to be any emotional connection, but if we're talking something more cinematic or something striving to be "art", it could be different. You don't really need an emotional connection with the supporting characters, either, but Half-Life 2(to continue with that) wouldn't be nearly the amazing game it is without the supporting "cast".

Gordon Freeman is just a hand on the screen holding a crowbar or a gun(but not steering wheels!), so yes he is the empty shell of you. I feel there's a larger player disconnect from games with cinemas and player dialogue, but maybe I'm in the minority on that one.

Del Toro's favorite video games are Shadow of the Colossus and ICO.

Therefore, he's cool in my book.

@BiologicalShock: But that's not a singular experience.

And anyway, PC's rule!

FireSketch

so what's the wii? The little toy jeep that kids ride around in?

cutechao999

Wasn't one of the primary distinctions about the Model T its affordability? Ironic.

Bort

@Hey_Blinkon: I hear if anyone touches the chip, a baby explodes.
That's why it hasn't been removed.
Because no-one wants exploding babies.

rosebud

beez1717

@Deathbearer:
Clearly he didn't remember that the Ford Model T was the first car that was priced low enough that the people who made them could afford to buy them.

Purple Dave

@dumburntoast:

It's not a question of the stories they are telling or are trying to tell, it's more a question of their ability to draw you into their stories and provide that emotional question. Furthermore it's about their ability to do so as games and not as movies within games.

@Thorax Ramrod:

How then do you suggest to develop an emotional connection to the main character? Perhaps it is impossible for the main playable character within a 'game' to develop a true character and through that any sort of way for players to react and connect emotionally.

It seems to me that in gameplay the main character is forced to be the empty shell of you ala Half-Life 2's Gordon Freeman.

That was a fairly effective presentation but still we are disconnected from the world we are inhabiting. The strong predilection towards sociopathic behaviour in GTA and other sandbox games is testament to this. Suspension of disbelief in a movie is easy because the viewer isn't involved in the creation. So for games we have both a higher (perhaps impossible) requirement to involve our players and at the same time it's much harder to do so.

Even in a completely physicalized photoreal world you still run against the barrier of interaction. It's supposed to be an interactive medium but the ways in which we interact are crude and unintuitive. Controllers are bad the way they are. They allow us to do things like circle-strafe but they separate us from the world.

@dumburntoast: No... no, they really don't. You'll not find a game in the world -- right now -- which measures up to Proust or Chaucer or Dante or Ovid or any of the other truly great writers. Even the games we laud for their top-notch stories are only pulp fiction quality. The philosophy in BioShock is no better than you could find on the shelf in any major airport.

@-[[CHoZO]]-: i hope you mean 2012, cause i still got a lot of shit to do....

@BigMoose is a big moose: I wholly agree with you, BigMoose. The reason each of our major media is successful is that they all differentiate themselves. Film is successful because it does things which novels cannot. Poetry is successful because it does things which film cannot. Music is successful because it does things which paintings cannot. All art has the potential to move you or to tell a story; but not all art should do so in the same manner.

Video games are a primarily interactive medium; they are a medium which offers something unique, something we haven't really been able to do before. They offer the ability to undertake ventures of visual, collaborative storytelling -- to tell game-stories (those stories wrought of action rather than inaction; the stories which unfold each time we play a game of checkers, not each time we watch a cutscene), but also to present us with distinct visuals. When you take away interactivity -- when you take control out of the player's hands and give him a cutscene, when you force her movements, you are losing some of the essence of the medium. Doing so just brings gaming closer to other media, which will make it more difficult for gaming to ever stand as a "serious" pursuit. (Perhaps some don't want gaming to be serious -- that's fine by me, but the OP of this thread seems to think otherwise.)

BigMoose really nailed it with Portal. Of course, Portal is still primarily linear, and nonlinearity is the eventual goal. (And that's not nonlinearity in the sense of branching plot trees, which could also be presented as a series of distinct-but-linear plots, but nonlinearity in the sense that content is generated on-the-fly based on player actions, though it would ideally be governed by certain rules of the setting. That is, you could have a game set in the French revolution, with a number of rules defining the manner in which NPCs could act and how the story could progress, but beyond that character action would truly influence the game world.)

Half-Life 2 did the same sort of thing, and, in fact, I think presented the story in a slightly better manner, in that Gordon's inability to bring about change in the game world is explained in the course of the story. (As the G-Man explains, Gordon doesn't really have free will -- everything Gordon does is being watched over, and since the G-Man can step in at any moment and stop Gordon, the G-Man's approval of Gordon's every action is both required and implicit. That is to say, if Gordon were to do something the G-Man disapproved of, the story would necessarily end, so the progression of the story assumes Gordon's acting in accordance with the G-Man's desires. But, uh, I'll stop there -- getting into a discussion of the intricacies of the Half-Life series' plot is beyond the scope of this post!)

@kitsuneconundrum: nice rhyme there at the end, you must have been practicin'

@SketchyIndividual: Impossible. model t's only come in black.

@[twitter.com]: Nothing wrong with anime stories. What there are problems with are the overwrought anime stories, the stories of action-anime and JRPGs. In the vast majority of action-anime series and JRPGs, it's a simple formula of youngster-gets-drawn-into-crisis-only-to.... That's 99% of action-anime and JRPGs right there.

On the other hand, you've got anime like Kino no Tabi and Seirei no Moribito which feature some action, but also feature exceptional storytelling.

You're also making a fatal flaw in your argument in suggesting that taking away the visuals is at all a valid way to investigate the story. After all, taking away the visuals from Vertigo turns it into a crap film. With the visuals, it's one of the best films ever made.

All these know-nothing Hollywood types know is visual presentation, sound, and story-telling. They don't understand the gameplay and real technical mechanics of a video game that truly makes them enjoyable to PLAY.

Gameplay and controls will always be more important than story, visuals, or audio, regardless of the genre.

@bakagaijin: Ah I get it. What you're saying is that it's a typo and he meant to say the Wii :3

After all, unlike the PS3 it's had an impact on society and the industry, it converges things like news, weather, games and utility (aka non-gaming) and like the ford T analogy it's cheap and everywhere.

Poking fun aside, I seriously doubt that any particular console in this generation is our 'Model T' in all seriousness. The PS3 may have a lot of convergence but I don't believe it has the level of penetration or cultural interest needed to make it such.

Also, if you believe you have a point to make, make it. Statements such as "I don't have the time or patience to explain it" generally means there's nothing to explain and a mask of cynicism or intellectual superiority is rather passe in this day and age of the internet. Don't consider this a flame but rather a piece of advice on how to have more fun on the interwebs and get your point across more easily; people tend to listen better when you don't attempt to be condescending, especially when it's not warranted :3

@SketchyIndividual:

It's a time when you die
And without asking why
Can't you see what they do
They are grinding things down
They are taking our land
That belongs to the clans

FREEDOM! FREE-FREAKING-DOM... dom dum dum dom!

@dumburntoast: BioShock is a good example of a solid game story.

CrianBrecente

Wait....what?

jedbeetle

@Rockabully: The main issue is that he's giving off a generic futurist spiel. Vague and unsubstantiated analogies, "bold" claims without any reasoning behind them, and some random date pulled out of nowhere attached to the whole package. Playing Ico doesn't count as research for this kind of stuff. Does he see us flying around with personal jetpacks in 10 years too?

celery

@Hey_Blinkon: The PS3 is a failure in every sense of the word "failure".
If that's the future, then lets all hope that the 2010 end of the world prophecy is true.

-[[CHoZO]]-

@rannic: And I honestly mean that as a compliment.

@[twitter.com]: Umm... you sure about that?

[www.imdb.com]

716

Xbox 360 = The Pinto?

Rockabully

@WonkersWatilla: Both love video games, but Del Toro is a big Team Ico fan. Needless to say, I think folks need to stop criticizing his opinion as if he's never picked up a game before.

Rockabully

@GeneSnoogans: The Wii is a VCR/DVD combo. It's great for reliving old experiences, but you can have some new ones if you want. But if all you want is new stuff, you'd buy something else.

Also, you can waggle your remote at the Wii and make it do things.

Wow people sure are defensive. Let's face it, video games have a lot of growing up to do, and there really isn't much to do in GTAIV's sandbox that isn't some form of delinquency.

And don't go saying games with cutscene-driven narratives are the exception, because these are telling you the story and not letting you just experience it. Games like Half-Life are the exception, although even games like these have a lot of growing up to do.

Take a game like Mass Effect, which people think has amazing story and dialouge. Try watching The Departed and then immediately go back to Mass Effect, it will seem like a child wrote it.

What the game industry needs is more outsiders, idea people not constrained by the norms already developing and definitely not people who studied programming all their lives who think they can pull good stories and writing out of their behinds.

boogiewithmoose

@ncprime:

Sure, a broad generalization. Do you think he really thinks that that is the ONLY thing the game is about? I mean, I can't speak for him, but I am sure he was just simplifying it.

As for what else it could be... well, who knows. But the way I read it was that Rockstar meticulously crafted the living, breathing recreation of New York city for a crime simulator. Albeit fun, if you could focus all that energy that they obviously put in towards a different type of "living", "breathing" experience, it could be so much more.

@Mucudadada: To hell with cut scenes, more games should cut the cut scene out completely to help establish themselves more as their own medium. Half-Life for example.

Don't get me wrong, the games you listed are totally cinematic, but in that respect they're too much like films.

@Pombar: ..orgy porgy

@Mister_Bump: hold the phone. i made the same mistake: del toro did not make the hellboy sequel

@Gam3r: that's heading in the completely opposite direction. anime stories may be entertaining to watch, but take away the visuals and you've got some grade F story right there.

@Ueziel: The comments aren't really hate, but more light hearted jest. They weren't insults toward you. And so...

You should get that chip checked out. Looks deep.

Hey_Blinkon

@Dreamwriter: How do I say this without coming off as an ass?

I don't have the time or patience to tell you, really. At least I can see your actually thinking critically about it, unlike most.

I'll ask you a question, and you can take it from there.

Think about what was so different about the Model T, besides the actual make-up of the car. What did it do for car-production in general? Why was it so revolutionary? Quote: ""In the next 10 years, we're going to see all the forms of entertainment-film, television, video, games, and print-melding into a single-platform 'story engine'" end quote. Think about the assembly line. think of this "convergence". What was so different about it?

You could also ask some other questions like "What sort of impact did it have on society, in particular, middle-class American's?" Why was this so important?

These questions are as simple as they come, and I'm sure there are many more that could be raised to help point you in the right direction. Unfortunately, this isn't something I really want, or need to get into.

The time it took me to read his quote was the same amount of time it took for me to understand what he said. The reason I cringed was because some of these responses are so knee-jerk reactionary. They don't have any clue on how to approach a statement like that. And for that I'm sorry. All I can say is "educate yourselves". And I mean that in every way imaginable.

So your free to pick this apart, and say what you will. Call me what you like, say something snide to make yourself feel better, or try to take the time and try to understand what he said. This isn't about "fanboys" or "which system is better". But this is about me going to bed, because it's 2:30 in the morning and I'm fucking tired.

Bombs away.

del toro, don't speak. hellboy 2 ... ugh

and it's obvious del toro doesn't have a gaming-grade pc :p or else he wouldn't have made such silly statements.

@Mucudadada: my 2 cents. all those choices are crap.

1. needs editing, heavily convoluted
2. cult twist - no no
3. not oscar worthy but art nonetheless

my choices would be along bioshock, gta4. but hey, you're the film student! :]

@Hey_Blinkon: Oh get off it. So sorry that pointing out how dumb it is that people continuously hate on Nintendo for no apparent reason in every possible situation even though they've given us an entry in literally every series they have dominion over is apparently being "controlled by Nintendo."

People need to get over it.

For me there comes a point where enough is enough. Sometimes I just wanna play a game, or just wanna watch a movie, just wanna read a comic book. Do we really need to put them all together and hit the pulverize button?

@zombiefrank82: I've been playing Eternal Sonata lately, and I wonder how people could call that cliche, except that it uses the same style as all the tales games visually (maybe a bit more pastel)

Storywise... I can't think of anything. It's Frederic Freaking Chopin! A world that (maybe) exists in his dream, he's aware of it, and he's just going along for the ride... I'm not seeing the cliché in this one.

@BigMoose is a big moose: Seconded. If you ask me, I'd say bollocks to that "cinematic games" thing. Some games (and incidentally, I *am* thinking about two of the three Mucudadada mentions) are just CG movies with a bunch of playable sequences thrown in.

Gaming as a medium has the potential for a unique, maybe even revolutionary form of interactive storytelling, but only in recent years a few shy designers here and there started taking little baby steps in that direction. I'm thinking about Bioshock and Portal, for example, but also smaller titles like The Suffering, a little jewel that I think was sadly underappreciated, especially since it had quite a few brilliant ideas in terms of narrative.

eclipsemattaru

I'm pretty certain that if you look hard enough, you will find gaming already has a Citizen Kane. It's just that the games I can think of that could take that honor would never be recognized as such by people outside of gaming.

@Mucudadada: I'd put the first or second MGS instead of 4, personally.

@Ad-hominem: A moped.

kiddoblivion

@kitsuneconundrum: Yes PCs can do all that. The problem is that they don't do all that unless you make them do it.
Your average person doesn't wanna fuck around and learn a bunch of shit just to get a bit of functionality out of their chosen box. They want to be able to plug it in and just use it.

@slim934: I have to agree with you.. He reminds me of Solidus Snake.

And that posture.. is just like the postures of various MGS characters on their concept art. I have a MGS2 poster on the back of door.

I think we need a game based on this.

SeikenFreak

@kitsuneconundrum:
AND MY (geforce gt)AXE !

well, this guy DID say that Ueda's work-- Ico and Shadow of the Colossus-- were masterpieces and has taken inspiration from them, so he's all good in my book.

finalgearsolid

As others have said here, I agree that the Model T/PS3 is a rather poor analogy. And IMO, here's why.

The Model T was mass-produced cheaply, and sold cheaply so the average person could afford one. Cheap, either in production costs or in how much it sells for, is not how I would describe the PS3.

The current PS2 however, would IMO be far more applicable.

And as for his assertion of A Contract With God (a great GN) being the "birth" of the GN, His Name Is Savage by Gil Kane (1968) and Milt Gross' wordless adaptation of She Done Him Wrong (1929) both say hello.
Readers in France may be able to suggest more, but I forget the names of those at the moment.

@MuteWinter: Well there are more of them that are at least trying to make an effort. Fallout 3 and Oblivion at least offer a good level of depth, seriousness and character development. Its certainly not perfect but I can at least say that they have developed over the years. JRPGs on the other hand seem to have gone backwards.

@MonkeyChunks:
Yeah, I think Chrysler still has a shot to make it in today's economy; after all, Jeopardy is still on every week day at 7:30 PM EST and I too hope Crystal Pepsi will make a comeback.

@Thorax:
You forgot McG; Terminator 4 had a lot of heart.

@Mucudadada: Yet those sequences are hardly interactive. You really might as well be watching a movie at that point. I'm not doing the "LOL MGS ALL MOVIES" troll or anything, but when the memorable/worthwhile moments of a video game come from spooled cutscenes and/or scenes with severely limited input, is it really the game being lifted up to cinema's heights or rather it retreating to the media form which best connects to the receiver? Personally, I'd put MGS with the latter. I myself would sooner replace it and Flower on your list in favor of Shadow of the Colossus, which is arguably the best known example of "cinema worthy" game which maintains its narrative through both its cutscenes and gameplay.

Move over wheel, WE GOT THE VIRTUAL BOY

protoman

@BigMoose is a big moose: I's about a happy balance. If the list were bigger I would add SotC and Ico.

@bakagaijin: OK, so you explain it then. How does the Model T fit into this analogy in any way, shape, or form? It had nothing to do with convergence. It was designed as simply as possible, using all off-the-shelf parts and not the most technologically advanced parts either (opposite of PS3). It was the cheapest car BY FAR (opposite of the PS3), and thus the most popular of its time (opposite of the PS3). His analogy just doesn't work. Heck, the only thing innovative about the Model T was how cheaply it was built using assembly lines.

Dreamwriter

@Mucudadada: I'm a little uneasy about your list. While MGS4 and Indigo Prophecy may have been excellent games, I think they are the wrong direction to take games. Both games are a little too cutscene heavy for me. Personally, I believe cutscenes are a serious plague on gaming. It was an old device used in earlier games when the engine was unable to produce anything of a story through playing the game. To me, the best examples of where gaming should be going are Portal and the ICO games. They use minimal cutscenes and allow the game to tell the story.

Nobody will buy it, so it will not exist.

OpinionMan

If that's the case I'll wait for the Model A to come out.

PatMan33

@SketchyIndividual: You're all nincompoops! The PC already does all this and more. Media center, gaming machine, work machine, software & hardware cross compatibility. Hooked up to the living room HDTV. consoles will be emulated sooner or later. Resistance is futile and this divergence must end! open source standards ftw.

kitsuneconundrum

@OW-Holmes:R.O.A.C.H reject: that was wrong, but i laughed my ass off at that statement. you took an old joke and reinvented it.

@IamNinja: Seconded. Nuada was one of the badassingest villains I've seen in recent years.

Rasputin makes me drowsy.

716

The "PS3 as Model T" analogy just doesn't work at all. The Model T was cheap to build, affordable to buy, and nearly everyone wanted one (and could buy one). The PS3 is almost the exact opposite. Given that he can't get that basic comparison correct, I can't really take anything else he has to say seriously.

@Giroro G66: The whole point is that Citizen Kane was the film that legitimized cinema as an art form. Whether or not it is as good as any of the work of the master film makers of today (Uwe Boll, Ben Stiller, Michael Bay) is relatively irrelevant.

LOL, the model T, meaning the console that cant run a 2007 pc game, lol...

TOCATL

In reality he's just using the Playstation name like many folks do. The same way they use Kleenex. Hell he probably called it the Playstation 2 until somebody corrected him.

Zach Prichard

@BryanH: You have to make a logical statement before you can be accused of being wrong.

For instance, if I said that Bill Clinton was actually four dogs in a man suit, and you told me I was wrong, you would actually be feeding into my insane statement.

@Skullabrineâ„¢: Because he's claiming the PS3 is the Model T of video games. Meaning it's a revolutionary technology that is the gateway to a totally different way of doing things. And what people are saying is....that's bunk. It's reactionary talk from a person that doesn't really understand the way the game market works. If he did he'd realize the 360 had opened the multi-facet environment before the PS3. But that's even irrelevant because his prediction won't come true. People have been saying it for years. They keep imagining this non-existent convergence of everything into one device. And that will never be wholly realized.

Zach Prichard

@uchennaokafor: like WRPG characters aren't -generic- uh?
Yeah pal, you're totally right.

@ncprime:
He doesn't own an XBox; to non-gamers like us whatever system they own is the best system in the world since it's the only system in their world.

Going back to cars, I don't know shit about what it's like to drive an Aston Martin; so I thought my 2008 Honda Accord was the best car in the world (Before some asshole stole it last week)

Love you Del Toro, loved Pan's Laybrinth and Hellboy, and can't wait for the Hobbit.

But on this, you are wrong.

@Giroro G66: I my opinion, which is just as informed as anyone's, Citizen Kane was a poor/average movie that employed several new and innovative storytelling and film making techniques that have been used since to better effect and in better films by other film makers. Kane was a very important film, (I don't think there can be much argument about that), but I agree partially with Giroro in that it was not that great of a film.

@Giroro G66:
Under your ideology Colombus was a terrible explorer and Coleco Vision was a terrible console.

Anything looks like crap compared to a modern counterpart; the point is that those things paved the way for their current iterations. Yes, Citizen Kane is terrible compared to The Godfather, but it's the movie that paved the way for modern classics.

Halo, GTA1, FF1, Zelda 1, Super Mario, all those games look and play like crap compared to their current counterparts, but back in the day I'm sure you thought one of them was the shit.

@+ Watch video