Retail Risks, Hidden Gems, Reviews, and Future Retro Gaming

[dsheinem]

We have this thread and this thread, but so far those are populated primarily by games that are for current handhelds, games that are "also decent" but not especially innovative from this generation (mostly in well established genres), or games that are from previous generations.

What's wrong with mentioning handhelds? A lot of the games I was thinking of are indeed for handhelds, but I don't see how the game being on a handheld makes it not fit your criteria.

you're right, but handheld development is cheaper and less risky (Wii development too, really). I guess I'm thinking primarily about PS3/360, even if I didn't know that until now.

[brunoafh]

you're right, but handheld development is cheaper and less risky (Wii development too, really). I guess I'm thinking primarily about PS3/360, even if I didn't know that until now.

Yeah I hear you.

It goes without saying that the potential for a "hidden gem" type selection of games on PS3/X360 will never be on par with that of the SNES or stuff like that. But I do think there's a good bit of undiscovered stuff, partially due to how often games are pumped out these days and how most "mainstream gamers" (not going to touch the dead horse that is the casual/core debate, I just mean gamers that are primarily interested in CoD, Gears of War, GTA and big name stuff like that) aren't really looking for hidden titles because there is already an abundance of the stuff they want at their fingertips anytime they walk in GameStop or what not.

Perhaps I should do my thing and make a mega list...

[isiolia]

I don't think that the issue will be ability run software so much. To me, things are headed towards there being a few competing "platforms" - Live, PSN, whatever Nintendo does with the Wii U, and so on. Most likely, they'll all support multiple devices with different capability. PSN already has PSP, PS3, and Vita software, some of which can work on all three of those devices. XBL Arcade stuff tends to be XNA, which can be recompiled for other platforms (provided they have the hardware to support it). PC, 360, Windows Phone...

The bigger problem will likely be licensing, which is where physical copies will be handy to have. I don't doubt a fair number of titles will continue to get transitioned to new platforms, Virtual Console style, but there are going to be ones that get passed over for one reason or another. Then again, there'll probably be plenty of titles that will be readily available via download that would have been $200 games on eBay due to a small print run.

It's a mixed bag, and hard to predict.