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Masahiro Sakurai refused to add Dolby Surround to a Kirby game because players had to sit through the logo
(www.videogameschronicle.com)
this post was submitted on 20 May 2024
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Most households have a TV with TV speakers, only capable of L/R. Why pay money and have people sit through a corporate short film for a feature most won't use?
Its two seconds for the benefit of 5.1, so the people that have it can benefit. And the people that don't can upgrade later.
Who games on a 5.1 surround setup?
So many assumptions here.
Let me refute them through educated guesses.
So because some people have a crappy home theater setup everyone should have a crappy experience?
Hey my setup's great, I just don't need 5.1 surround sound that bad
Without at least 5.1, why even bother playing games or watching movies?
Imagine consuming media with speakers rather than high-end OEMs to shut out all outside sound. Might as well just read books in a crowded café.
Imagine not being able to feel explosions in your gut because you have a pair of tiny speakers strapped to your head instead of a big long-throw woofer moving air.
Sorry I'll be explicit: I'm making fun of how pretentious you sound and can't take anything you say here seriously. I actually agree that a monster sound system can greatly enhance a movie or game experience, but the difference depends on the specific media. I saw Fury Road three times in the theater because I knew my home system would never match the experience. Something like Star Trek TNG or My Cousin Vinny or, as the topic of this post, Kirby's Air Ride hinges far less on the audio quality to deliver the intended content. Gatekeeping enjoyment behind speakers makes you a colossal ass.
Now you're just playing
Sound is at least as important to the experience as the picture. Go watch a scary movie with the sound muted and you’ll notice it’s not scary at all.
Playing a game or watching a movie with just 2.0 audio, or worse: using the TV’s built-in speakers, is such a diminished experience that you might as well not bother.
IMO
Watching a movie with 5.1: great
Watching a movie with 2.0: great
Don't get me wrong, I think it's cool, and I find good sound design at least as important as good visuals. It's all part of the aesthetics package. One of my fondest media memories is watching Jurassic Park at a relative's house with the sounds of the raptors coming from speakers all around. I even spent great expense setting up my own 5.1 setup.
But I've been chasing this dragon for too long. Audiovisual fidelity doesn't move the needle for me anymore (pardon the metaphor overload). I no longer feel the need to have my media reach out and immerse me - if it's good, I can do the work and use my imagination to get lost in the fantasy
From the pareto principle it can be said that if the cost for adding a feature for the little percentage of users is quite high, it is not worth it.
Bear in mind that Kirby Air Ride came out in 2003, on a console that's only meant to be hooked up to CRTs. How many users back then do you think would've had access to this feature in the first place? Or would still be playing this game if/when they upgrade later?
It was uncommon, but not so uncommon that it didn't warrant being added to the game. Especially when Dolby was handing out licenses like candy apparently. I would imagine it was cheap to get a license, and would make some sense why Air Ride wouldn't have it. Air Ride is my favorite Kirby game, but even I recognize that Air Ride is probably one of the lowest budget Kirby games.
That sounds a bit as if you were saying: The plebs shall wait for the joy of the wealthy.
The problem people have with your argument is not the existence of 5.1 surround sound.
Nor is it that the vast majority of households can’t afford a properly tuned surround sound setup instead of haphazardly throwing speakers around which arguably creates a worse experience than stereo.
It’s that the Dolby implementation requires publishers to license it and pay for an unstoppable ad that plays before every session, while benefitting only the petit bourgeois.
Notice how you reverted so quickly to your capitalist brainwashing. May be a good inspiration to see what other ideologies have been implanted into you.
It is two seconds.
Negative change worms it's way in through small defeats. The first DLC's were a small price for a lot of content, the first YouTube ads were only a single ad that was just a few seconds long, the first video game preorders came with amazing rewards, etc. When you allow for 2 seconds, then what's 3 seconds? What's 4, 5, 6? What's 30 seconds? What's 2 minutes? We've seen examples of this all throughout capitalism's history; to ignore them is, well, ignorant.
Per use.
I strongly prefer 0 seconds.
Not only is it just 2 seconds, but it's 2 seconds while the game is no doubt being loaded into memory while it plays anyway.
This is like whining about the Pixar animation that plays before all of their movies (for much longer than 2 seconds).
Gamecube doesn't have enough RAM to preload everything at startup like that, you have to go through the menus and pick a game mode and map to load.
Surely if it needed that startup load anyway, then Sakurai wouldn't be saying he turned the license down in order to get players in the game faster. I'm going to trust Sakurai's word here!
Sure, and the Spectrum ZX I used to use 35 years ago had even less. The GameCube is ancient history, it's not the benchmark for a reasonable amount of memory for anyone.
Edit: apologies, I forgot we were talking specifically about a GameCube game.
I would understand the complaint if it was longer, like 5 or 7 seconds long for just the Dolby logo. But its not.
Like, if seeing a logo for two seconds bothers you that much, better close your eyes when ~~driving~~ ~~riding the bus~~ walking around town, otherwise you might see a dreaded billboard or advertisement.
My state banned billboards for the same reasons.
It's a really good reminder when I'm ever in another state that things like that just... Aren't needed.
The advertising thing is a slippery slope, and it's OK for people to draw the line for how far down the slope they're willing to go higher up than you would. It's also OK that your line comfortably holds a 2-second ad.
No position here is unreasonable, and everyone should keep that in mind.
Gonna just completely ignore that said 2s is otherwise unneeded so you can feel like you still have a point, hm?
Seeing an ad while walking does not require me to stop what I'm doing and wait for the ad. Putting an unstoppable ad in your pre-game logo does
Loading screens in a game take longer than two seconds and don't have the benefit of running one time before the game starts and adding surround sound support. So you would rather be greeted with a black screen as a game with less features loads instead?
Great idea.
People in this thread don't want to waste 2 seconds per use of a video game on a logo screen, but will happily waste the day discussing it.
Yeah. It's called principles. Maybe when your corporate overlords have some for sale you'll be and to afford them.
Hey, let's not resort to name calling.
It is actually unreal to be downvoted for saying this. What a place to be.
Don't really care, honestly.
Still not name calling.
Yet you keep replying, how funny
Absolutely
The irony of not wanting to "waste time" when you're about to play a video game, too.
That's me time, not dolby time