Gaming’s most bizarre decisions
They did what!? Say hello to gaming's most bungled business decisions
If God had handed Moses Ten Commandments about making money rather than saving humanity’s collective eternal soul, then ‘know your audience’ would have been right up there. This brings us neatly onto the awesome, but decidedly indie, No More Heroes coming out exclusively on Nintendo’s family-friendly machine. Don’t get us wrong. We’re all for devs like Grasshopper Manufacture making brilliant left field games for the shovelware-saturated system. It’s brilliant for hardcore Wii owners. Not so brilliant for the publishers’ bank balances when the risky game doesn’t exactly fly off the shelves.
Above: Far too much *almost* crotch-grabbing for your Wii-playing gran
Was the decision defendable?
“Rumble was the last generation feature.” That’s the proud line mega important Sony suit Phil Harrison spouted during an interview with GameDaily BIZ in 2007… eight months before the rumbling DualShock 3 was announced at TGS 2008. D’oh! SixAxis motion controls, in all but the rarest of cases, are uniformly awful. So ditching a beloved feature of your pad for such an untested idea looks like grade A lunacy from the outside. Dig a little deeper, though, and you’ll find this is probably the least bizarre decision in the entire feature.
Above: Definitely the future of gaming
Was the decision defendable?
Yes. Simply because there’s an argument that the decision was never entirely in Sony’s hands. Indeed, if it hadn’t been for a pesky little multi-million patent lawsuit, it’s likely all our PS3 pads would have been stuffed full of finger-shaking goodness right from the off. When the PS3 was first launched, Sony was locked in a dispute with Immersion Corporation, who claimed the DualShock’s rumble infringed on one of their existing designs. Shortly after the case was settled, Sony miraculously found a way to integrate the rumble into the PS3’s pad, something the company had frequently stated was impossible beforehand. Hallelujah!
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Above: Phil does love some delicious egg on his face
Getting rid of the guy below.
For this guy…
Was the decision defendable?
Well you could make a case tha… yeah, we’re definitely not finishing this sentence with any tiny semblance of credibility, are we? We’ll just quit while we’re ahead.
Dec 10, 2009
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David has worked for Future under many guises, including for 12DOVE and the Official Xbox Magazine. He is currently the Google Stories Editor for GamesRadar and PC Gamer, which sees him making daily video Stories content for both websites. David also regularly writes features, guides, and reviews for both brands too.