trend
noun
1.the general course or prevailing tendency
That's not dismissive, that's an acknowledgement of popularity. Quit being so defensive.
I put "trend", and quoted your full statement, which said "the result of a trend, not of practicality". I wasn't acknowledging the word trend alone as your full statement, or else I would have quoted just that. But you're acknowledging its popularity as nothing more than "it's just good because everyone uses it". I'm acusing you of thinking dual analogs aren't the best solution for camera control in consoles, and they're just used because all kiddies like it nowadays. Which couldn't be more wrong from the truth. It's the best way. It's the new standard because of practicality, because of how well it works in every single way.
Honestly, I think the fact that it seems to me you've stuck to Nintendo-only consoles all your life has put you in a very biased position. Complaining about the damn analog cradling spots? When has any game whatsoever ever needed those? I remember people complaining about those when the Gamecube and the Wii came out, saying "we're not babies anymore!". Heck, even Nintendo has succumbed to a controller with dual analogs for their new console. Every single current console in the market now has two analogs, and if there was ANY way to freely move a camera better than with a right analog, you honestly think it wouldn't have shown up in any other game whatsoever? None? The pointer isn't any better, or all games would be played in tournaments with pointers. But it's slow and cumbersome to aim at the side of your screen, much slower than to simply click an analog in one side. Maybe triggers? Wrong, it takes two whole fingers, and it only serves the purpose of left and right camera control. What about tank controls? That takes away the player's control of the camera itself, by making him be pointed only to the direction he's running. Worked really well on Bubsy 3D, didn't it? What about camera lock? Still bad, because you have to keep turning your character and pressing a button, just to look in a direction. Oh, maybe lock-on? No, because that relies on the game to tell you which enemies you must be turned towards, instead of you picking them yourself, taking control away from you. Right d-pad, like in the Wiimote? Halfway decent but still not as good as an analog. So WHAT? Tell me, what is the prefered solution for camera control on console games? For platformers, when you need to see something below the platform in front of you? For first person games, when you need to strafe onto a corridor in order to not get shot in the head? For action games, when you want a better look on the side, but a bit above you, to be able to dodge an enemy's move accordingly? Heck, what about third person stealth games? How are you even going to look around your character without an analog? MGS3 was remade entirely in order to use the right analog, for nothing but ease of control. Oh, let's look at a full movement game! You can fly, shoot and pretty much attack in all directions, how are you going to manage something like that without a turning mechanism fast enough to turn the whole camera around to the exact required spot, with a control system that becomes second nature to the player using it?
Once again, fox and the grapes. For curiosity's sake, do you play any non-Nintendo consoles? Any non-Nintendo games in those? Because you seem to be VERY biased in your opinions, purely because you have never played any games that make frequent use of this mechanic. And by that, I mean 90% of any kind of direct control games nowadays.
When you speak to players of what a game requires, they generally take that to mean what it requires from the player, unless specified otherwise. You said nothing of development and you wouldn't be the first person to ignore the slider. Choose your words more carefully.
In a polygon game, stereoscopic 3D is little more than displaying two camera angles. The development time is insignificant, nowhere near the required effort of, say, a 3D Classic (which requires remaking the entire game). It does demand extra power from the system, for sure, but I already addressed that in my last post. Games can respond to the 3D slider, and doubling the framerate while the 3D is off has been going on since launch day. If they're killing the framerate rather than the environment to get 3D, then they're not going to make a much better-looking game without killing both. It's been a criticism of some of the early fighting games, one of the areas where the 3DS was supposed to be strong.
Considering how many games on the Gamecube's successor look worse than a Gamecube launch title, I don't expect that third parties under-performing on 3DS has anything to do with 3D. Poor development is poor development, and as we see in games like Star Fox and RE Revelations, solid development should be able to produce strong visuals with or without 3D. However, third parties have not been willing to put their best foot forward with Nintendo. The lesson they learned over the last console generation is to release shovelware to take advantage of the sheer numbers of Nintendo's userbase, and if Nintendo fails to generate a userbase ten times that of their competitors, they will surely go bankrupt.
It's no wonder Nintendo system owners don't want to buy non-Nintendo games.
Completely ignoring the 3D slider, on a console that has 3D in its name, with a wide-open light in front of my eyes? It's like you're calling me stupid.
Processing power is wasted on rendering two separate screens, and yes, it takes quite a bit of development time to produce the stereoscopic effect. It's not something you can just slap on there. I can't be arsed to give you any detailed explanation. Google it or something.
And I think it's funny how you blame third parties when so far, Nintendo has just been releasing ports and games that have been below the expectations, while third party games like Resi, Beyond the Labyrinth and Kingdom Hearts seem to be the one taking the biggest advantage of the 3DS. Nintendo's failing to demonstrate anything of interest here. The Wii's main issue, is that most developers who made good games for it, ended up selling very little. And nobody wanted to make games exclusive to a single, outdated console when they had two other bigger beasts in the market. So, yes. Nintendo reaped the profits. It was a different matter on the 3DS, because it was a fresh, new technology in a market where the only competitor they had was a new guy.
TL;DR version:
Basically, stop going all conspiracy theory, just because you don't like the truth. Dual analogs are popular because they're the best way to control free camera, not because they're the most used. Third party games tank on the Wii, because Nintendo created a console where most people who buy it, buy games for popularity and the Nintendo brand instead of quality. You did the same thing in that conspiracy theory of yours, that Sonic games get bad reviews because every single reviewer hates them... they're bad! Occam's Razor.