Xbox killed the Nintendo star

The lectures this week on immersion raised a few interesting points about video games and the gaming world that I had never considered in all the hours clocked on various consoles. My first point stems from my younger days spent playing firstly my Nintendo64 and then later upgrading an Xbox. The idea being that I could, due to the certain expectations and understanding of the software complexities, become immersed in my Nintendo games but when upgrading to an Xbox and more advanced graphics I could no longer go back to my Nintendo and become immersed in those old games as easily. It seems that once I had tried these improved games, where the advances in gameplay have been aimed at improving, and more readily causing immersion, I now find it harder to become immersed in games which I can see have clear flaws in the basic structures that aim for realism. The example that springs to mind comes from an old favourite of mine on my Nintendo, the game ‘1080 snowboarding’. Although I always loved this game, once I played an Xbox version of the game, ‘Amped’, whenever I would go back to my Nintendo version, although still being insanely fun certain things which had never stood out before began to seem ridiculous. Just the way the snowboarders would stand, or how they would fall, most of their general movements now seemed alien and unnatural. They no longer seemed like people, the illusion of realism was shattered.