Wednesday, August 29, 2012

What Is Sony's "Console Wars" Movie?

Sony Pictures, you may have heard, has bought up a bunch of domain names relating to a movie project called "Console Wars." Yesterday, HitFix's Kris Tapley ambiguously tweeted that he'd heard of the project before and described it as "The Social Network" but for video-games.

So... a non-fiction drama about corporate-rivalry in the video game world? Interesting. But what would it be about - which "war" are we talking about?

It would be almost comically cynical and gauche for Sony to make a movie about a business they are one of the three major players IN - even in a "names changed" fictionalized version everyone would be able to tell which one is supposed to be Playstation, making it impossible not to be looking for moments of self-aggrandizement. Also, the movie would probably be current-gen because that's when the mainstream audience/press started caring about the games industry... and most of the "drama" in Generation 7 has involved Sony tripping over it's own shoes in some way.

I'll get called "biased" for this, but the only remotely movie-worthy console-biz story of Gen7 is the Wii: a company that used to be on top, now struggling on the verge of collapse, making a hail-mary pass that everyone says is insane and will fail based largely on the ideas of it's chief creative guy (Miyamoto as Billy Beane from "Moneyball," basically) ...only to see it become a giant restorative success. Like The Wii or not, that's the story.

The "Great" Console War, of course, was Nintendo vs Sega in the 80s and 90s (back when consoles actually had totally different sets of games and such) but I agree with Devin at BAD that it'd be hugely unlikely for Sony Pictures to be so gun-ho to make an 80s period piece featuring almost-exclusively Japanese actors.

That said, if Sony really does want to make a movie about the game business where their brand gets to be the underdog turned conquering hero, the "birth of the Playstation" would be the way to go: Screwed-over in a VERY public and humiliating way by the industry's top dogs, turning the remains of that screw-over into thier own brand, ultimately getting-over on aforementioned top-dog by innovating where they refused to? That's a movie. On the down side, there's no way Nintendo is going to agree to let their logos, names, products etc. be seen in that movie; which you'd kind of need...

13 comments:

ScrewAttackSamus said...

yeah, I'm perplexed too. I can't help but feel like this might turn into Sony propaganda. Ever since the PSP Sony has just been screwing up time and time again. The Vita is probably doing WORSE than what the PSP's first year was like.

Sabre said...

"I'll get called "biased" for this, but the only remotely movie-worthy console-biz story of Gen7 is the Wii: a company that used to be on top, now struggling on the verge of collapse, making a hail-mary pass that everyone says is insane and will fail based largely on the ideas of it's chief creative guy (Miyamoto as Billy Beane from "Moneyball," basically) ...only to see it become a giant restorative success. Like The Wii or not, that's the story."

The problem is, that is where you have to roll credits, because the story continues with the casuals that made it possible "betraying" them for iPhones, Nintendo losing almost all of their money and then coming grovelling back to the very gamers they spat in the face of at the start of the film.

It would be like making a Nazi WW2 film where the Nazis conquer Europe, and then cut to credits to make them seem like the winners.

It would have to be Sega V Nintendo. The Playstation 1 film would work, but as you say, Nintendo isn't going to allow that.

Steven said...

If they did a PSone origin film wouldn't the use of the Nintendo name be classed as fair use?

Anonymous said...

"I'll get called "biased" for this, but the only remotely movie-worthy console-biz story of Gen7 is the Wii"

You're biased, happy?

So instead of a Sony propaganda movie, you would want a Nintento propaganda movie? Any movie made by the big three would stink of this, each one making themselves look like the hero when in reality all three are just corporate giants out to make a buck.

Anonymous said...

It's probably just going to be a chick-flick about two frenemies competing over who is the better friend to Jennifer Lopez after she gets dumped...

Mr. R said...

Look no further than the last comment, we have a winner. :)

Looks like they saw "the social network" did well so their making a clone of that. Somewhere I bet Zynga will rear its ugly head.

Mr. R said...

"they're"

Anonymous said...

@Sabre

You are so hilariously misinformed it's almost cute.

Nintendo didn't lose "all of their money." Good god. Not even half of it. Not even a tenth of it.

And yeah they "spat in the face" of gamers. By uhh... Making Wii Sports. I guess. Such offense.

The biggest shame of this generation is that the label "casual" and "hardcore" became the words that drew the lines in the sand. Nobody even knows what "casual" means anymore, except "game I don't personally like." It's never been applied with anything remotely resembling consistency, and its repeated use is a pretty tired meme.

BTW Nice Godwin.

ScrewAttackSamus said...

You'll have to forgive Sabre, Nintendo beat him up and stole his lunch money back in high school. And then there was that incident involving an N64 controller and a squeegee.

Anonymous said...

@Anon
The biggest shame of this generation is that the label "casual" and "hardcore" became the words that drew the lines in the sand. Nobody even knows what "casual" means anymore, except "game I don't personally like." It's never been applied with anything remotely resembling consistency, and its repeated use is a pretty tired meme.


Yeah, it is like Bob never used words like 'hardcore' himself to describe games he doesn't like, right?

@Aiddon

Must be time consuming defending Bob across multiple sites huh?

Renan Greca said...

I'd be totally up for a movie telling Nintendo's story from the 1800s up until Wii U's release.

And, like others said above, Sabre's comment is laughable... :/

Anonymous said...

@Anon

Oops I forgot I was defending Bob instead of dealing with Sabre's hilarious misinformation.

Want to address my points instead of something Bob said? Or do you think he's an easier target than me?

Me, I hate both terms "hardcore" and "casual" because they been diluted to the point that they mean nothing.

And actually, Bob discussed what the meaning of "hardcore" meant in his video "Waggle War" in which it seems the majority thinks that "hardcore" is just a "mature-content" aesthetic. Meaning that just having macho tattooed dudes brawling in slums is "hardcore", even if the game is essentially Wii Sports Boxing.

Erisianus said...

They may tell the story of their glory days. Especially when it won against Nintendo after it toyed with it for some years during the development of that Nintendo CD-based console that never was.