Topic: Why Super Mario Galaxy 2 would be better on 360

Is there any thing more overrated then graphics in video game games? It's like one of the last things I judge a game by.

Game Play > Graphics

Nothing done with the pointer couldn't be done with dual analog. Sunshine used the control stick for pointer control, don't see why Galaxy 2 couldn't.

No one said graphics are greater than game play. But if you take the same game and add better graphics, it'd be foolish to complain that it looks better.

That would be a completely different game, requiring much more severe changes to the player control than you're letting on. With Sunshine, you stopped and aimed from an over-the-shoulder style viewpoint whenever you wanted to spray something, which is necessary when trying to aim in 3rd person like that. In Galaxy, you can aim freely and comfortably all over the screen (grabbing enemies with Yoshi's tongue, zapping upcoming enemies with star bits, springing the hidden coins during a boss battle in order to replenish life) while still in full control of your platforming, ie. without stopping to aim.

I do know that you prefer lying down or whatnot and don't find using the pointer comfortable, but for those that do, it's unlike anything achievable by dual analog, as is made particularly clear when jumping about freely with Yoshi while grabbing enemies or items in any direction using his tongue. There are also other sections of these games that rely on the pointer for their unique feel, like the pull-star sequences, which in fact would be very different in a gamepad context.

What's more is that you're also missing the much more important issue of sales that I was bringing up: if you made it dual analog, you'd immediately cut out a very large portion of the people who buy and play Mario games, who often fall well outside the typical gamer groups. That means that you'd have less a less economically viable game, and you couldn't pour the tremendous resources into development as Nintendo has been able to do given their reasonable expectation of very high lifetime sales.

Sunshine you had to stop because that's how it was designed, not because that was the only way possible. Also, the C-stick was terrible for anything other than camera control.

And Mario fans will buy a new Mario game no matter the controls so long as they don't do anything too crazy like Sunshine (which still sold well anyway).

I never said dual analog would be better. I was just taking issue with the idea that it'd be impossible to play the game on 360.

The only way it'd be better on 360 is if it had co-op, an idea that has met unusual resistance in this thread. Obviously it's a big assumption that Nintendo would add it just because they could, but it's still fun to imagine leaping around in 3D with a friend. If that were a reasonable assumption, I'd gladly sacrifice pointer control for dual analog.

And on a side note, for the record, pointer controls only bother me if used inconsistently. Most of the time in Galaxy 1&2 you don't need it, so I'll play in a more relaxed position, but then I have to get up on the occasion that pointer is demanded. Even so, not a deal breaker by any means.

Leaping around together in 3D on one local system doesn't seem tenable given the way the levels constantly shift camera perspective as you move into adjacent sections; online would be another matter, but that would again be a very different subset of consumers you're aiming at.

It is impossible to play the game with dual analog, without, as I said, fundamentally changing the gameplay. The only way you could even approach the kind of pointer freedom in that context would be to devote one stick to moving a cursor around the screen at all times while platforming with the other one, but that would still leave most tasks that are remarkably easy in Galaxy 2 nearly impossible to pull off. A 3rd-person viewpoint combined with analog aiming has never really been pulled off like that, because it can't reasonably be done; if you want to have your character roam freely on screen while also controlling a cursor, you'll need to lock the cursor to the screen movement to some extent, and that would make much of the gameplay impossible which relies on fixing the camera in a particular perspective (top-down, 2D-style, etc). It's very different having the cursor be based on pointing within the currently visible area, which feels natural on a pointing device but horribly cumbersome on dual analog, like moving a mouse pointer with a stick while platforming.

Mario fans will always buy the games, yes, but what we know of as the core Mario fans don't lead to the kinds of sales we've seen on the Wii. NSMBWii, for instance, has sold over 13 million copies already. The fact is that particular games are only possible within a particular marketing and consumer strategy. Why hasn't there been a truly great FPS on the Wii? Because a company can't sink the full resources needed into such a project, because they know that the genre simply won't sell well on that system. It's very much the same with the idea of a game like Galaxy coming about on the 360 or PS3: it simply wouldn't be viable without fundamentally changing the nature of the games to appeal to a different set of consumers, which would then alienate many more in the process, who for instance don't have any intention of picking up dual analog or who will never pick up a traditional gaming system that isn't more of a social device.

That's why the question is somewhat nonsensical when you examine it closely. It is only by closing off certain paths that a company opens others. The Wii's underpowered CPU is inseparable from the rest of its success, because that was part of making it cost effective in the year in which it debuted, and getting it out there in front of any similar tech to come, thereby winning over an entirely new part of the market. The question asks us to imagine a hypothetical world in which companies don't have to make any hard decisions about who they are targeting or where to put their resources, and says to take something, like Galaxy, which is the direct result of Nintendo's choices and successes over the past years, and then simply add on capabilities from a different system which resulted from entirely different choices.

Dual analogs would work, but would be slower and/or less intuitive. Your argument for better graphics applies here too: it makes no sense to deny that better graphics would be an improvement, so you can't deny that a better control scheme (on Wii) is also an improvement even if it's possible to have other options.

In the end the article comes down to "Super Mario Galaxy 2 would be awesome if it had different graphics, different controls, different level design (to support co-op, online, and achievements), and was available on a different system". Seems to me that they don't want Super Mario Galaxy 2 at all... otherwise they'd just enjoy the Wii game as is.

Sorry, Wario, much too long to read, just skimmed. But I don't really care what would be better for the average consumer or fan. I just meant it'd appeal to me more with co-op for the same reason that I love NSMBW. When someone says "better," that doesn't necessarily mean "sell better." I wouldn't rank Brittany Spears over any of my favorite musicians, and I don't think you'd take issue with that.

I don't see why the controls would change the game so much, but whatever. I doubt the average 360 owner would have an issue with it, as most of the popular games on the console require dual analog use.

Ejamer, yea, I'm not saying the article is right, just that it's not as far fetched as some make it out to be. You're making big assumptions that they'd want the very level design changed. Co-op would work in most levels, and neither online or achievements have anything to do with level design necessarily.

Perhaps it'd be clearer to say that, although I think the article makes at least one giant assumption, if someone made a Galaxy game with co-op, I'd gladly sacrifice the Wii-specific features for that one feature, though I think I said this earlier.

Obviously if you take the exact same game and put it on a more powerful system it will be better... The point is, it isn't on 360. It's on Wii, and so are most of the other best games of this generation. That's why we all have one.

The point is that the question is being misunderstood, for what is really being asked must be: wouldn't it be great if Nintendo also had the additional graphical power and online support of the 360, and left the motion off? That's a bizarre question for a number of reasons, and one that ignores the connection between a company's hardware or marketing choices and their resulting games. Galaxy as we know it is the result of Nintendo's strategic decisions over the past several years.

What I'm saying boils down to this: the proof is in what we actually see out there. There isn't and will never be something offering an experience like Galaxy on the PS3 and 360, just as I'll be the first to point out that there isn't and will never be something akin to GTA IV on the Wii, even allowing for trimmed down graphics. Neither case is at all viable. MS and Sony made their investments in certain directions that opened up some markets or experiences and closed others, as did Nintendo. You can't just swap out the hardware and keep the same games with a few boosted features or specs.

This would be called having your cake and eating it too, something we all know that Mario never gets to do, even though he comes blissfully running in after each new invitation from Peach anyway, like Charlie Brown and the football.

People sure do argue about pointless things here.

Not me, though. _cough

To be clear, I would never make the straw-man point you're arguing against. I'm not saying that we should only look to how a game might appeal to the masses, I'm saying that games are only possible within the context of appealing to their target audience(s), whatever those may be. The Galaxy games are made possible (ie., economically viable to invest that much development time and resources in) by their broad appeal to the user base of the Wii. Try to make a Galaxy game for the 360 that will sell to a level justifying the costs, and you'll end up creating an entirely different game in order to sufficiently appeal to the market of 360 users.

In other words, yes, the hardware of the 360 is better in certain respects, but so is the resulting user base (and so, by connection, is the entire relation between player and controls). Galaxy on the 360 would only vaguely resemble the Wii game at best. That's the reality of designing consoles and games for them.

The article doesn't pretend to be saying the game would ever be made or that it'd sell well. It's quite obviously hypothetical and for a specific audience that isn't the Wii audience, hence why when removed from context onto this site you see it as bizarre. Couldn't be a more ordinary question though. Single-console owners have wondered if games they don't have wouldn't be better on their console since the dawn of time.

Edit: I don't see what straw man you're talking about. You just repeated the same point I was talking about: economic viability. The article is hypothetical and does not concern itself with economic viability, and neither do I. You're probably right since no one has tried such a game on 360 yet, but that's not the point at all. The question is would it be better if someone did make it, not whether or not someone would make it.

True, but that's a self-deception by those players who imagine it. I might say that I'd enjoy RE5 with pointer controls on the Wii, but I'd be ignoring the fact that the other decisions made by Nintendo in creating the Wii -- which led to most of what I love on the system -- preclude that from being viable, because the intersection of Wii owners and those who would buy RE5 isn't big enough to justify redeveloping the game from the ground up for the platform.

What I see behind the question is a further question of whether Nintendo should have made its system like the 360 and PS3, focusing on power and online features instead of the motion, simplicity, etc that sold the Wii. That's fine, but if they took that path, Galaxy wouldn't exist in any resemblance to its current form, and that means the question is being phrased in a somewhat circular manner.

See: IGN a.k.a. the biggest graphics-heavy suck-ups anywhere.

It's a harmless hypothetical, nothing to do with self-deception as I see it. I don't know if that's what the site's getting at. I don't understand what goes on through an Xbot's mind, if anything, though I doubt they're so deluded as to suggest that the Wii should be a 360 -- that's just pointless. But I never argued that the article was 100% correct, only that if Galaxy had co-op, sacrificing pointer controls would be fine by me.

Edit: Irken, I don't work for IGN, and this article isn't for IGN, so... okay?

I think what he is really trying to say is the 360 would be better if they had the great games Nintendo has to go along with their graphics but they don't so they can only dream.

But they have Halo! And Gears of War! And... other Halo games! I don't see what you're getting at Splat.

No, I agree, aside from XBLA, it's not exactly the most happening place for software.

I see where he's going with this.

Hence why, if given the choice, I'd rather buy a PS3 than a 360. More exclusives.

Reason 4: Mario could collect Red Rings instead of coins.

I like it right where its at.