Which is the best platform for casual gamers?
 

PC?
I would have to say certainly not pc. most pc games are RPGs, simulations or war FPS games. Plus you have to go through the hassell of upgrading, installing, updated drivers etc... PC defineatly not a casual gaming option.


Playstation? - playstation 2 and 3
this ranks up there for me, there are a lot of games associtated with the playstation brand which cater to casual gamers. Such as dexter, ratchett and clank, crash bandicoot, singstar, Gran turismo, tekken and a whole bunch of just pick up and play games.
the playstation does also have its fair share of RPGs/simulations too, the system has the best variety in my opinion. This is probably due to the playstation 2s huge sucess and the sheer amount of development for the system.
But i think importantly the sony brand as seen as not a geek brand like microsoft, so the demographic for PS is inherently more casual. I can see this amoung the people i know who own consoles. Everyone at my work who has a console has an xbox (with a few exceptions), and i work in IT. Yet most people i know who are not IT geeks own a playstation or a nintendo. (with a few exceptions)

xbox? - xbox and xbox 360
To me this is slightly less a casual gaming system than the playstation, the xbox seems to attract PC gamers, with the majority seeming to be FPS games. I guess microsoft as a software company just doesnt really cater to casual gaming. with its biggest titles being things like command and conquer. Although having said that, halo borders on casual gaming.
But a good example of the xbox demographic is the failure of Kameo. This game was so amazing. still amoung the best graphics on 360, huge oppurtunity for exploration, but really just great platforming/action gameplay. I cant think of another game like it on 360? and i dont beleive a sequel is being made. I own a 360, but feel like i have nothing to buy, because i am only really interested in pick up and play type games.

nintendo? - wii
To me this platform is all about casual gaming, which is great.
but... i just cannot bring myself to buy a wii.. to me it is just a last gen console (it is slower than a xbox) with a gimmicky controller which is innacurate and doesnt really add much to games once the novelty is gone. it also annoys me that i cant run it in HD.
though more and more i am thinking i should get a wii, just to get away from all of the serious RPG/sim/strategy/war type games which seem to be taking over the other platforms.

How about a Nintendo DS?

And your being really unfair to the Wii there, and it is HDTV compatable, its faster than a xbox, and its more than a gimick (everyone thought the DS was a gimick, but we know how that ended up). The Wii has many "serious" games, just because developer like making cutsie games for the Wii doesnt mean theres no series games at all. :P

I'd go with Wii or DS if you want more casual.

Well, first of all, it's wrong to lump different products of the same brand line together (PlayStation 2 + PlayStation 3 and Xbox + Xbox 360). Just because a previous console had a plenitude of games of one type, doesn't mean its successor will follow in the same footsteps. Case in point, SNES was the RPG platform of choice three generations ago, but in the following generation most RPG developers migrated to PlayStation and not Nintendo 64.

Secondly, the syntagm "casual games" is nowadays mostly used to label small-ish games in the vein of Zuma Deluxe or Bookworm Adventures, usually distributed over the Internet as shareware (or a form of distribution resembling shareware). At the moment, the PC is by far the best platform for those kinds of games.

But I know that's not what you had in mind when you started this thread so let's see...

That's true, those are well known Sony-related brands. However, Microsoft has high quality substitutes for most of those games (Kameo, Conker, Crash Bandicoot is a multiplayer franchise now, still no Microsoft's answer to SingStar, Forza Motorsport 2, Dead or Alive...). Nintendo perhaps doesn't have equals for all of those franchises, but they do have a huge number of games appealing to the more casual crowd which are more or less unique to their platforms (Pikmin, Nintendogs, Animal Crossing, Cooking Mama, WarioWare, Wii Sports, Brain Training...).

PlayStation 2 did, PlayStation 3 doesn't. Right now, there are more upcoming RPGs for the Xbox 360 than for the PlayStation 3, both of the western and the Japanese variety.

That's true, over the years Sony has been doing a much better job of making their products appear cool to common consumers. But Microsoft is slowly improving the image of the Xbox brand and, again, Nintendo completely rules its own segment of the market (kids and family entertainment, whereas Sony mostly caters to older teenagers and young adults).

Like I said, that's true to some extent, but it's important to make that distinction I talked about earlier. Compared to the Xbox, the Xbox 360 is already more appealing to people who are neither PC nor FPS gamers. Microsoft is doing a good job of diversifying their portfolio, but they'll have to do a much better job of communicating that to consumers. They also need more games like SingStar or Nintendogs, but they promised we'll be seeing a lot more of those come holidays 2007 and onwards.

:crazy: Come again?

Kameo wasn't a failure, although it wasn't a huge success either. But not all launch games manage to achieve stellar sales, especially when they belong to the genre not particularly appealing to expected early adopters of the platform.

Kameo will almost certainly get a sequel eventually. As for other similar games, there haven't been that many (Lego Star Wars 2, Bionicle Heroes, TMNT, Sonic the Hedgehog, Meet the Robinsons), especially high quality ones, but it's even worse on the PS3. In the coming months the Xbox 360 will be getting Rayman Raving Rabbids (supposed to come out tomorrow?), Crash of the Titans, Beautiful Katamari Damacy, Looney Tunes: ACME Arsenal and Banjo Kazooie 3, at the very least. Again, more than the PS3 will.

But I agree the Xbox 360 is in a dire need of some great platformers, it just doesn't make much economical sense to introduce a huge amount of them too early, when the platform is still not at the price point appealing to the majority of fans of those games (kids and families). Both Microsoft and Sony have a bit of a problem there because their consoles are still too expensive for average consumers. Microsoft is going to be able to resolve that problem a lot sooner, though.

That's fine, but we're not talking about you, we're talking about the whole market, right? And as far as the mainstream is concerned, the Wii is currently the most desirable next gen console. Having all the upcoming releases in mind, it will probably remain on its throne, at least for this particular segment of the market (more casual audiences).

It's not like installing and running games on a PC is rocket science. Hell I started doing it when I was 6.

Like insane mentioned, your definition of casual is very different from how I perceive it. To me, solitaire, Zuma, or Tetris are casual games whereas a game like Gran Turismo or Ratchet and Clank are not that casual. So let's first then make it clear what you mean by casual games?

Same, and I managed to crash the PC most of the time, and making my brother angry. lol. Those were the days. :D

I remember my brothers PC was too weak to run windows 3.1, so he had tell windows which program to run on the command line, else it would crash before it was able to run the program :)

And same, I had no problems installing and running programs as well back in DOS and on Windows 95(I never ran Windows on a regular basis before 95 came around). Anyway, consoles frustrates me. Half of the fun with PCs is that you can do whatever you want with it. PC is democraty, while consoles are dictatorship ;) It's why the PC is the only thing for me, or for anybody who respects the individual and his or her right to decide for him- or herself.

Commodore may not have known the full extent to their actions, when they wanted to bring the home computer into every home. But because of their actions I can raise my voice and declare in a high steady voice: I am a computer user, and I can use it to do practically anything I want.

ok since i wasnt very clear i will clarify what i meant by casual games :)

I am refering to the types of games like platformers, or fighting games, or racing games that the average, non computer person who owns a console can pick up, play for 20 mins when they feel like it. Of the type of games you might play with friends having a few drinks. Good examples are Tekken, Gran turismo, crash bandicoot.
What i an terming as "non casual" games, are games like oblivion, command and conquer, the sims, stealth style FPS games (rainbow six), war simulation games.

Insane, i hear what you are saying, i i think you are right, microsoft are making an efort to improve the variety on their system, its just that third party software developers choose more serious geeky type games for the microsoft platform if they are to make an exclusive for it.
As you say right now the ps3 doesnt have any more "casual" (as i just defined ;)) games than 360, but there are a lot of amazing looking casual games in development with HUGE budgets (lair, heavenly sword, ninja gaiden, ratchett and clank), and remember the system hasnt been out long.

wii is a mixed bag really. You can understand why it sold so well, everyone seems to delight in the controller. Being nintendo you know the games are going to be fun, and lighthearted. Yet... there is just so many amazing games in development at the moment, and most of them will not end up on wii due to hardware constraints. So you really have to compromise when having wii as your only gaming system, because you have essentially got a last gen console, with a fancy controller and a limited selection of games (VC games excluded).
I see the wii as being a secondary console, i.e you have your ps3 or 360, and a wii aswell.

A couple of people commented on installing games on a pc. yep, usually its not hard, but it sometimes can be. Like when i got farcry for example:
I got the disc, put it in,auto run came up, i clicked install... easy right? yep. Start the game, "hang on a second, why is everything blue? there is nothing on screen?"... search forums, find out it is a bug with nvidia cards, and i need to update my driver and download a patch. Now thats not really that hard either, but for someone who doesnt use computers or doesnt even know what a driver is, it is a lot easier for them to put a cd in a drive and press a power button, like on a console.
Lots of people who are not interested in computers, but are in games just wont bother with pc, because it seems to daunting, a console simplifies everything.

insane, i really hope you are right about kameo, would love to see a sequel to that :)

"A couple of people commented on installing games on a pc. yep, usually its not hard, but it sometimes can be. Like when i got farcry for example:"

It's getting increasingly more difficult these days. The main reason is that there is such a waste variety of hardware, that it's hard to make a game that acts and behaves the same on all types of hardware. With a console, you know everybody got the same hardware, and thus it's easier to make sure it runs the same way on all the consoles of this type.

On a PC, there's always a chance you might end up sitting for hours trying to find out why the game runs slow on exactly your PC, while it runs fine on everybody elses PC, or why your game crashes regulary... or whatever.... So yeah, the console simplifies, but also takes away your chance to replace hardware or upgrade it in anyway - thus the producer of your console, and the developers of games for it, decides when you can no longer get games for it. With a PC, you can upgrade your PC and keep playing both your old and the coming games on it(as long as you can find an emulator, usually). It's those people who love the console who try these days to turn the PC into a machine you never have to open - you just plug everything in externally, and never have to open the PC physically. This is for sure a crime against nature, and I doubt any true PC lover would ever have bought such a PC.

I love the PC because then I know I can keep playing all those old games I got on the shelf. If I had bought a console, I would have needed to have like 5 consoles just to play all my games. That seems like a waste of space to me, and I would probably have ended up selling most of my games and the consoles. I'm just too nostalgic to ever appreciate an console.

Best console for casual games: The Action Max

Doesnt get more casual then watching a VHS tape and occasionally shooting at the screen ;)

Haha!

This was way better. :)

Why does this remind me of commander keen? :P

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi.../Cp-video1.jpg

Believe it or not, I participated in Captian Power back in the days. It seems pretty goofy now...especially when they asked you questions about what "you" think the hero should do and expect an answer in return. I specifically remembering the awkard pause after each question directed at the viewer. I guess it's kinda a precursor to Blue's Clues and Dora the Explorer.

Wow, I envy you. I read about it in the papers as a kid, but we only got the non-interactive version here.

:) Actually, if you ask people like working moms, doctors, construction workers, professors, and my sister (a meetings coordinator for lawyers), it IS rocket science. Why? Because their careers and specializations often leave them little time - and little mindset - to even want to try to figure out how to install a game on their PC or laptop. These are the people who rely on geeks like you and me to enlighten them on such necessities as monthly defrags, firewalls, anti-spyware software, and alternative browsers to Internet Explorer. They have no idea what quad core, 5.1 sound, lag, or graphics card is, let alone RAM.

They may know exactly how to work the nuances of Windows Office, Quick Book, and Excel (I bet YOU don't), but as far as hardware they're totally clueless.

For them a console like the Wii and the X360, and portables like the DS and even Tetris on their cell phones far are sexier for a 20 minute romp than taking hours, even days to figure out on the PC could ever be. THAT is what true casual gaming is all about. Any one of those above people who are willing to invest the time, the hundreds of dollars, and the patience to work the PC just for gaming crosses the threshold from casual gamer to nerd.

Trep, I think Litrick has a very different idea of what constitutes a "casual gamer" than you do. :D

The good thing now is that nerd is no longer a swear word. It used to be attached with a person who had problems with body odour, and who had big social problems, and was often quite strange. These days I have heard the word nerd being used in a much wider sense, and often can actually be a compliment. It used to mean all those things above, but now it just means somebody who knows a lot about computers(which of course can never be a bad thing in this computer age, when "everybody" has to see or use a computer from time to time).

http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/N/nerd.html

Anyway, I would say the most casual game you can ever find are the solitary games for Windows. Quite many have played those games casually at work or in a boring lecture at school. It doesn't really require any technical knowledge to launch, and I have never seen any errors(you had to fix) from them either. They are much easier to launch and play as well than any game for console. I remember my sister loved super mario 1 on the nintendo, and love games on the cell phone and such, but I would never have seen her playing one of those newer console games - neither on wii or xbox or ps3... it's just too difficult and too much bother to figure out how to play them before you can really play them. Games like Sonic the hedgehog and Super Mario 1 on the other hand is much more up her street.