There’s a rumor – thanks 1UP – that a PS3-based, high-def collection of famed games Ico and Shadow of the Colossus will appear sometime in 2011, like the recent God of War HD collection. No official announcement has been made, but as 1UP points out, it would make fiscal sense for Team Ico to release an HD bundle of its games just before launching its still-mostly-under-wraps new title, The Last Guardian. Rant follows.
A fellow named Fumito Ueda leads Team Ico – a small, internal-to-Sony development crew that is pretty explicitly left to its own devices. They’ve only produced two games in… I think about ten years, but those two games are both considered among the most important and beautiful yet seen in the medium. Ironically, Ueda himself is quite adamant that games are not art. In fact, he’s described them quite forcefully as “a consumer product.”
What makes this interesting is that it sort of demonstrates the core issue of the definition of art. For most of history, people have assumed that creators define what is art – for example, if Picasso creates a painting, and calls himself an artist, then it’s art. But what would happen if Picasso insisted that what he created wasn’t art? That it was just a colorful product he’d made, to sell, thinking that someone might want to hang it on a wall to brighten up a room?
Is industrial design art? The slick lines of the iPhone, the odd individual inventions from Art.Lebedev studio, the by-vote consumer items of Quirky.com? Is there a difference between something being stylish and being art? This I do not know. But I can respond to the first question – what if Picasso insisted that his painting wasn’t art.
The answer is that Picasso can insist until the heat death of the universe, if someone else thinks it’s art, then it’s art. And this is the response to Fumito Ueda’s argument as well. He’s certainly entitled to his opinion, but if I look at Shadow of the Colossus and see art, then it’s art to me. Art is in the eyes of the consumer, not the creator. If Fumito Ueda sees what he’s doing as product development, hey, more power to him. As long as he continues doing it.
So if this rumor is true, you can bet that I at least will be grabbing a copy. It would be awesome to play those games in 1080p. I mean, damn.
Email the author of this post at steerpike@tap-repeatedly.com.
If they actually ship this, then this will be the very first thing they’ve done that will make me want to buy a PS3. So here’s hoping.
Art, shmart, just please, please, please, please, please be true. My PS3 is all atwitter in anticipation.
I vote HELL YES.
Side note: if I needed one good excuse to live indefinitely it would be to witness the heat death of the universe.
Would this be a bad time to admit I’ve never played Ico or Shadow of the Colossus?
Having said that, I never played either of the God of War games until the collection on PS3, and I thoroughly enjoyed that. This would perk my interests, that’s for sure.
Oh Mat. Go buy ICO. Right this very minute!!!!!!!!!111111
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WHAT?! YES. That would be gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh.
Mat C, you are in for an exceptionally exceptional treat if/when it comes. Yes indeedy.
Shadow comes close, very close to making my Top Ten Games of All Time List…if only there wasn’t that certain…cop out at the end. I should say more to avoid spoilers (hint: it involved a leg).
This might reignite my half-hearted search for a good keyboard/mouse interface for a PS3 to replace the much-loathed-by-me controller option. I couldn’t advance very far in Colossus cause of the controller ineptness dealie and I think I finally couldn’t win a middle of the game fight in Ico for same ineptness dealie issue. Still…the cost of the PS3, the controller and the games…hmmmm that is a lot.
As far as the prickly issue of what is and what is not art, which I noticed all of the above posters successfully skirted, well to me it’s partly about intent and partly about consensus. Stuff needs to age for a while before any sort of conclusion can be reached. If the creator is adamant that what they are making is not art, I’ll usually take their word for it. If they are playing some coy reverse psychology game then it probably is not art.
Yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes.
Jakkar you broke the side bar! You fiend!
IdiditonceandI’lldoitagain!YESYESYESYESYES! D:.<
A big emphatic YES from me. I would totally buy a PS3 package of HD Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, and I don’t even own a PS3 (yet).