by [name redacted]

Part twelve of my ongoing culture column; originally published by Next Generation, under the title “OPINION: Yuji Horii was Right to Opt for DS”.

You’ve probably heard this Dragon Quest business; in a move surprising to professional analysts everywhere, producer Yuji Horii has decided to go with the most popular piece of dedicated gaming hardware in generations for the next installment of the most important videogame franchise in Japan. If people are bewildered, it’s not due to the apparent rejection of Sony (whose hardware was home to the previous two chapters). After the mediocre performance of the PSP and the bad press regarding the PS3 launch, Sony has become a bit of a punching bag for the industry’s frustrations. Fair or not, losing one more series – however important – hardly seems like news anymore.

So no, what’s confounding isn’t that Horii has changed faction; it’s that he appears to have changed class, abandoning home consoles – in particular, the sure and sanctified ground of the no-longer-next generation systems – for a handheld, commonly seen as the lowest caste of dedicated game hardware. In these early days after the announcement, the news can be tough for people to wrap their heads around. Why would Horii take a step “backward” from the spectacle of Dragon Quest VIII? The series has always seemed old-fashioned; has he finally given up on it? Or was it a compromise, to avoid offending either Sony or Nintendo by choosing one over the other? Maybe – since the game looks pretty far along – when he started he wasn’t aware how well the Wii would succeed. Maybe he’s just biding his time for the inevitable Wii follow-up. Or just maybe – and here’s a suggestion that you’ll see somewhat less frequently – Yuji Horii knows exactly what he’s doing.

A Potter’s Wheel

Although Dragon Quest indeed is one of the most old-fashioned, craftsmanlike series out there – sticking with the RPG conventions it established twenty years ago, refining itself ever so slowly from one incarnation to the next – it’s that same craftsman’s quality that allows Horii to see and accord his conventions for the compromises they are: placeholders he is intent on eliminating, yet is content to entertain so long as they remain the simplest and least affected solution to a complex problem.

Judging from what Dragon Quest IX adds to the series, it appears the DS is – far from a step back – the only current platform that lends itself to his next set of changes: doing away with menu-based random battles, and shifting player control down to a single avatar, both goals that until recently had no perfect resolution. The DS is especially perfect for eliminating the latter (and thereby justifying the former), as aside from the Xbox 360 it’s currently the only dedicated system with a definite online plan (and indeed a friend-based one) – allowing a whole adventuring party of individuals. Further, that the DS is so saturated in Japan, and amongst much the same demographic spread Horii targets with the series, means that nearly anyone you want to play with will probably be available.

For a game this experimental (there’s a difference between an MMO and a limited multiplayer epic; it’s the same difference between GTA and Dead Rising), there’s also the factor that the DS is also far cheaper to develop for than any of the new systems (or even the previous generation’s). What strikes me as most significant, though, is for what the game sets out to do – especially given the level of player identification intended this time around – a portable system is arguably superior to a home console anyway. It’s intimate; you can take it with you; it allows you to play as often, as much, or as little as you like.

It’s sort of interesting; everyone was waiting for Horii to announce the game for the Wii, so they could wave it as an obvious piece of evidence for the change of the times. Dragon Quest always hits the biggest platform, and only makes it bigger; if he were to choose Nintendo, then surely the Wii would be the winner this time – and therefore all its lofty claims would be substantiated, by virtue of success. Maybe they were right, all this time! And then… Horii does something unexpected, and somehow it’s not as important a sign, because it’s pointing at something that people often disregard out of hand.

In a way, though, Horii couldn’t have chosen a more telling move. Just like that, and more innately than if he’d gone with the Wii, he’s driven home an ancient point that, for about a year, has been tickling us from the margins every time we check the news: technical specs and novel design elements are, in and of themselves, meaningless as a summation of a platform’s value. What is important, rather, is the role served by that hardware and how well the hardware lives up to that role. If it’s true in the case of the DS versus the PSP, or the Wii versus the PS3, then it should be applicable on a universal level.

Old and Gray

As videogames are a medium wholly reliant on technology, we all know – and to some extent harbor – a bias toward innovation. New is innately better than old; sophistication is by nature greater than simplicity. Greater is superior, and therefore of a higher class than less powerful architecture. The PSP blows the DS away because it’s way more powerful and sleek (or vice versa, because the DS is more “innovative”). The NES is primitive and unfortunate compared to an Xbox. And then, most peculiarly, more powerful classes of hardware (at least in North America and Europe) have greater prestige and significance – placing PCs above consoles, above handhelds, above mobile phones and whatever else. There’s this perceived loss in absolute quality, every step down the ladder – like making an analog copy of a copy.

So the Wii has gone some length to deflate the first issue (though – naturally, I suppose – people keep getting caught up on its novelty rather than its argument) – and with the Virtual Console and Xbox Live Arcade and Sony’s Mystery Service, all three hardware manufacturers have paid at least some lip service to the second one. Again – especially when paired with the Classic Controller – Nintendo has gone furthest, though all of the gestures are welcome. Creating a universal present, where select games from any period and any hardware configuration are presented as worthwhile, goes a long way toward breeding appreciation for videogames as a form rather than as a showcase.

That just leaves the weird one – the universe of apples and oranges where people can claim that Metroid II on the Game Boy sucks in comparison to Super Metroid on the Super NES, or people can get freaked out about Dragon Quest moving sideways to the DS rather than “forward” to the PS3 or Wii. And it’s here, I think, that Horii has picked up the slack – so strongly, with such a high profile, that it brings all like comparisons into the open for reevaluation.

Advancement, innovation, is a concept with a very narrow range of importance. If we’re speaking linearly, and with such definition as to be rendered academic, X+1 is a greater value than X itself. The problem in application is that each of the three “major” classes of hardware – gaming PCs, consoles, handhelds – serves a different purpose, making cross-comparison no more valid than comparing the value of a firefighter to a defense attorney on the basis of their paychecks. Within each class and across each generation, of course, each platform also has its own voice. Yet across classes – this is perhaps the most immediately important. It means that handhelds are in theory every bit as significant an outlet as the most powerful all-in-one home system; their value simply depends on how well they serve their function.

Monster in your Pocket

Since the Game Boy first launched, one of the biggest issues faced by the portable market has been identifying that purpose. It had an immediate hit with Tetris, then next to nothing until nearly a decade later when Pokémon began to suggest a unique appeal to the hardware – besides allowing you to play anywhere crappy stripped-down versions of all your favorite hits, or giving your kid something cheap to play with. Even Nintendo saw the Game Boy as a sort of a ghetto, of fleetingly small concern next to the Super NES; to support the system, they pulled Game Boy creator Gunpei Yokoi’s studio off of nearly all home console development – as if to say “it’s your baby; that makes it your problem”.

The most important thing the NES did, when it came around, was draw a new distinction between arcade games and home console games. As the circumstances of a home console are almost totally different to those of an arcade, the role and function served by a home console should ideally be adapted to its unique context. Whereas arcade games focus on flash and visceral thrill in exchange for a small immediate investment, game cartridges are damned expensive – and as you will play them in your own living room, they need to offer a more lasting, nuanced experience. Thus, home games gradually became longer and more elaborate. They adapted.

For handhelds to be more than a cheap novelty, they need to do the same thing: to offer something distinctive, that addresses the role and function suggested by the unique context afforded by this hardware class. So what do handhelds have to offer over home consoles? Well, they’re certainly more intimate. Whereas with home consoles you’re sitting in your living room, zoning out at your television set, handhelds offer most of the benefits of a book. You can sit or stand anywhere; bring them on the bus or to the bathroom. You can play a few minutes then snap the lid, just as you can read a few pages here and there. You’re physically cradling the system in your hand and peering at it – meaning the entire game experience is enclosed within your bubble of personal space. This leads to better concentration and sense of identification or ownership. It also tends to suggest more mentally absorbing or personalized experiences.

A New Order

So what kinds of games are best suited to handhelds? Ones involving either a bunch of concentration and focus or a bunch of ego attachment, that one may break off at any time or spend a long time poring over. Tetris fits into this description about as well as anything – save the personalization issue, of course. (You can’t even save high scores!) Pokemon involves concentration, a huge ego element from the collection and renaming and raising and showing-off and battling against friends, and an enormous time sink of an experience, divided into bite-sized chunks. Brain Age again hits all four (especially when you take into account the included Sudoku puzzles), as do most of the other “non-game” lifestyle games that have made the DS what it is.

More curiously, though – so long as you can save anywhere, there’s almost no better place for strategy games and RPGs. Adventure games. Classic arcade games. Anything that constitutes an introspective, focused experience which you’re allowed to snap out of at will. Now, the thing about this realization – if handhelds are so much better suited for so many “hardcore” genres, then what the heck purpose does that leave for home consoles?

I think the truth is somewhere between the PS3 and the Wii. The Wii is amazingly important for bringing the issue up at all, though its detractors are also somewhat right in one respect. What home consoles have to offer (especially in the post-arcade era) is spectacle – a visceral, physical quality that you can’t get with a heady little handheld. Game consoles are best served by being big, dumb, flashy cathartic experiences that you can share with your friends and family. What the Wii brings is the physical side that console games have so long been missing. Since this system is a proof a concept, and it basically exists to drive home a certain set of related points, it doesn’t so much matter that it doesn’t offer a particularly showy experience. The PS3 and 360 are, I think, just barely showy enough that they can get away with once again simply being things moving on a screen that you react to by twiddling your thumbs. This is the last generation before everything comes together. It’s gotta be, or we’re going to be wasting a half a decade.

In a sense, handhelds have become the new consoles and consoles have become the new arcade machines. That’s not absolutely true, as handhelds still hold a unique appeal that consoles have never been able to enjoy (and vice versa). Still, it’s close enough for Dragon Quest – and judging by sales numbers, for the general Japanese audience. On the third hand, the point here isn’t the facts of the situation, however fascinating they might be; it’s that everything has its ideal context, and that every context has a unique set of qualities to address. If the DS has taken off and the PSP hasn’t – well, hey. Maybe, for all its merits, Sony kind of missed the point with that system. If handhelds are threatening to become more important than home consoles, it’s because we’ve finally figured them out, kind of – whereas we’re still struggling to make something effective out of home systems. At least now we know what to look for.