Posted by substance J on May 27, 2020 at 09:55:10 EST in reply to elsewhere we've been discussing whether the NGPC could've lived on, and what that would've looked like. Of course the ultimate answer when you look back is the thing never had a chance, but it's still interesting to think about I guess!? from exodus.
I guess my reaction is about the tone of videogame criticism and analysis in general moreso than anything specific being said about the NGPC here. If there's a scientific truth at the center of this, I get the feeling people are losing the forest for the trees by applying some kind of success/failure metric based on marketshares or specific IPs from 20 years ago. In the context of the times, it seems more significant to talk about the variety of shell colors and wrist straps, the broader explosion of cute handheld devices across the board (including boring ones like PocketStations and VMUs), Minidisc players and discs, iMode devices, stuff like that. The concept of collectability was being applied to hardware in a way I don't think had been done before. If I had my magazine stash here I'd pull out all the non-gaming periodicals with different models of rainbow-colored frosty-clear iMode phones being advertised on every other page. It was insane. I'd like to think the juicy, pivotal story here is some obscure discovery in translucent plastic molding techniques made by a guy working in factory in the Philippines. Whether or not Melon Chan was an inferior IP for core gamers seems less relevant.
n/t
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