I think the complaining about ports is a modern gamer thing. Even on old SD systems where development was much easier and cheaper ports were a big thing. Take the Saturn-whether it was ports of Arcade games or ports of PS1 games it’s got loads. I have tons of old games magazines and there was great excitement in the Saturn mags for Wipeout, Quake, Duke Nukem etc. Same in the N64 days when (that name again) Wipeout, V-Rally and Resident Evil 2 were ported.
Next gen and people were chomping at the bit to play swathes of SNES Ports on GBA. The GameCube launched with Burnout, SSX Tricky, Crazy Taxi, Sonic Adventure 2 etc.
Since the advent of HD Gaming development has got much more time consuming and expensive. Ports help in terms of finance (keeping studios going) and efficiency (funding engine development).
For Nintendo especially ports from Wii U make sense as that system was such a flop. Games like Mario Kart and Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze are more attractive on Switch and finding a bigger audience as a result. But PS3/360/PS4/XB1 have hundreds of ports because of the hook of reproducing older games in HD. The Switch gets loads because of the hook of having the likes of Skyrim, Diablo 3 and Doom on a portable.
I find the complaints about ports baffling and a touch over-entitled. They take a lot less work and aren’t ring produced instead of new games. It doesn’t work like that. I don’t get why the critics of ports would want to deprive others of the chance to play games they may otherwise have missed or the chance to play games again. They help the companies developing games, they help sell the system they’re on. And despite the complaints on internet echo chambers a lot of people out there are having fun with them.
“I see it more comparable to your favourite music artist bringing out a ‘best of’ every year instead of releasing new albums”
An analogy that would make sense if there were no new games. If this year alone Nintendo hadn’t released 6 brand new games, 3 Labo games and 2 big DLC packs along with publishing a brand new third party exclusive (two if you include Fitness Boxing?), along with 4 Wii u ports.
For a lot of non-techy people I know the attraction of DVD was being able to easily jump to the bit you wanted to watch so much more easily than on VHS, along with that lack of degradation. Blu Ray just offers better picture quality.
I see it more comparable to your favourite music artist bringing out a ‘best of’ every year instead of releasing new albums @StuTwo
Not even remotely.
For a start we’re generally talking about games that have been out of circulation for a long time. Plus it’s media that can’t be watched on hardware you can easily go out and buy brand new.
@Anti-Matter "For me, Ports = Gift from Heaven."
Exactly and most forget that already from the chats on here.
@StuTwo lets stop with false equivalence here. You can get your VHS converted to DVD by yourself or a Audio shop can do this for you. This is what annoys the most making bad analogies is the worst going here.
It’s a great analogy. You’ve just not engaged with it.
We wouldn’t stand for classic films not being available in the latest format so why should we accept classic games are only playable on archaic platforms?
@StuTwo Isn't DVD a more stable format than VHS though? (at least when properly handled. Yes, if you slap greasy fingers on the surface of the disc, you'll ruin it faster than a VHS tape)
That matters more to me than the picture quality upgrade. I bought a lot of movies on DVD but don't feel the need to buy them again on Blu-Ray.
Have people forgotten that VCRs were known to rip tapes when they got in a particularly vengeful mood? (and also, the tape degrading after you watch the movie like 100 times or whatever it takes)
Oh VHS was terrible. It’s an archaic format. Like Wii U. Or Wii. Or GameCube. That media is less optimal than Switch carts and less optimised for use on a modern screen (not to mention not portable). GameCube games weren’t even widescreen in most cases.
Its not the 1980’s anymore. There is no technical reason not to port games from a generation or two back. It’s easy, they benefit from the process (in most cases) so if people are willing to buy them why not?
I’ve got rid of almost all of my dvds because I don’t really need them why everything is available online (which is more convient than hunting down the dvd).
@StuTwo Great analogy. Imagine if the only way you could watch your favourite film was on VHS, or if your favourite songs were only on cassette or vinyl.
People naturally want all their games in one place. And with the Switch, which functions as both a home console and a handheld, we've never had a greater opportunity to do this. No-one is asking for ports at the cost of brand new games. And actually, as @Skywake has pointed out: ports make Nintendo money, meaning that they have more resource to expand and create new games. It's win-win.
I'm pretty sure the only people complaining about Switch ports either are new to internet discussions on Nintendo Switch or have intentionally ignored all presented reality in order to continue to believe their reasoning to why their opinion MUST be right, facts be damned.
I mean, I thought Halo 4 would be a mediocre selling game, Telltale was the future of gaming and Wii U would sell better than N64 in 2012, but you don't see me pretending these things are still true just because I was wrong.
@JayJ
"Some of us like having new things and get tired of the same old stuff all the time."
Well, that's your problem if you feel tired by same things over and over again.
Developers are NOT forcing you to buy port games if you don't like them. Port games are Perfect for gamers who want to play specific games that used to be from other machines to be played on the same machine they have. For example, the PS4 games that i think i want to play is The Sims 4 that used to be on PC. Since i don't play PC games anymore, i can still play The Sims 4 on consoles without worrying about hardware incompatibility like on PC.
I think your purpose to create this thread by asking peoples to stop buying port games is just useless. Some of us still like to buy port games, but it doesn't mean it will send the message to developers that we like to play same games over and over again. Again, more choices are merrier.
I remember trying to backup (through video capture devices) some recordable VHS tapes with a bunch of one-off cartoon specials from my childhood. But it was too late to save them, the quality had already degraded to indistinguishable. (garbage all over the picture, distorted sound, etc.)
Granted, part of it might have been because my parents always used SLP because we didn't know anything about quality vs. length, we just assumed more recording time was always better. (I'm not even sure how much the recordable tapes actually cost typically in the '80s and '90s. Maybe if prices were as crazy as I'm hearing about at the beginning of the format's life, it would be understandable to want longer length to maximize content on the tape. But not by the like the early 2000s when new tapes were a few bucks apiece.)
What I found this year was quite a few people complaining about Switch having a disappointing 2018 in comparison to 2017. But for me I enjoyed this year even more, and what contributed to such an enjoyable year was all the great ports I got to play - but the thing is, I'd never played these originally, so as far as I was concerned, they were as good as any exclusive on the Switch.
The reason games aren't continuously made available is because of original licensing agreements.
From what I heard, movies licensed third party content on a permanent basis for the particular film.
Whereas video games only licensed for a time duration.
The same with TV shows. Though I've heard some TV shows might've had licensing that distinguished between (traditional, live) broadcast and home video usage.
Not sure where video on demand such as Netflix fits into that, as it gives the user the ability to watch the content when they want (as a physical copy) but yet also allows the content owner to revoke access to the content (which can't be done with a physical copy... as long as we continue to forget DivX (or DIVX or whichever one it was) existed.)
People can do what they want but that doesn't mean we all need to go along with it.
Let's flip this on its head. How about this: we don't need to go along with going against port begging. So put up and shut up or ***** elsewhere and take your gatekeeping elsewhere.
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lets stop with false equivalence here. You can get your VHS converted to DVD by yourself or a Audio shop can do this for you.
I'm not sure you've quite grasped the point that was being made. You certainly didn't do a very good job of tearing down the point here either way. Highlighting the fact that you can "convert" old tapes to newer formats strengthens the argument in favour of ports for games. As you said, I can take an old VHS to a shop and get it converted to DVD if I don't have the original hardware. I can't do that with my old games because console games, with few exceptions, must be played on the original hardware.
In any case the point that was being made was that as someone who owns Toy Story on VHS it would be absurd of me to complain that it's on Netflix or UHD BluRay. It existing on these new formats takes nothing away from my ownership of it on VHS. If anything I'd be worse off if they didn't re-release that movie because it would mean I'd have less opportunity to watch Toy Story and no ability to watch it with HDR, Surround Sound, non-degraded visual quality and higher than SD resolutions.
I see it more comparable to your favourite music artist bringing out a ‘best of’ every year instead of releasing new albums
Except it's not really like that is it. It's more like your favourite artist re-releasing your favourite albums in full with bonus tracks and new packaging but still releasing new material. Like Radiohead releasing "OK Computer OKNOTOK 1997 2017" last year and "A Moon Shaped Pool" the year before. Nobody forced fans to buy the re-issue and in any case they're also still releasing new content.
But even then the comparison between music and games is seriously broken. An artist's most limiting resource is time and individual creativity. If an artist is working on a project it means they are physically taking resources away from other projects. Games aren't built like that. There are literally thousands of people working at Nintendo one way or another. Having some working on ports doesn't stop others from developing new content. Quite the opposite, it keeps the lights on.
If you're going to shoot down someone's analogy the very least you could do is come up with an argument that makes sense. The original analogy both of you were tearing apart made significantly more sense in the context of the argument being made than anything either of you wrote in response.
Some playlists: Top All Time Songs, Top Last Year
"Don't stir the pot" is a nice way of saying "they're too dumb to reason with"
A port is better than nothing at all. Just look at the Wii U’s third party support from 2014-2017 other than LEGO, Nintendo funded third party games and Skylander games, third party support was non-existent.
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Topic: The port begging needs to stop!
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