Reasonable said:
heruamon said:
Reasonable said:
heruamon said:
Errrr....EA's boss said something similiar about a week ago...Price cuts for consoles were too little too late... |
Of course they did. It's like those who sell cars to make money and those who sell petrol. If I sell petrol so far as I'm concerned (in purest terms) the cheaper cars are the better - and the unrealizable ideal would be if they were free. That way I get to sell more petrol and make more money.
If I'm EA or Activision or any publisher the cheaper the consoles are the better from my point of view. It's not my problem MS and Sony, for example, put in expensive tech or have to sell at a loss - I sell games and the more consoles sold the better. Simple price elasticity indicates the cheaper something is the more it will sell (ignorning other complications and underlying demand and market size of course) and therefore the cheaper the better for the HW to produce a bigger market for the games.
The caveat for the console makers (and the complication) is they get a cut on the games, too (so far as I'm aware). Otherwise the situation would reverse nicely and they'd want games to be free to encourage the most people to buy the console to get at them. I imagine that is the nub of the situation which makes EA, etc. feel they have a fair claim on the HW side as they only make money on the games while in theory the console makers can make money on the HW and the consoles. Of course, the fact the console might be sold at a loss is the other complication as the console makers then need to balance the money from more games vs the loss from more consoles to try and pick the sweet spot.
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To me...they should be taking a longer term view, and encourage the console makers to more improvements to software, and to keep the generations longer..that way, developmental cost are lower for software, and install base is higher. We really should see new consoles for another 3 years a minimum....
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I agree 100%. The better route to start now is looking at the SDK at development approaches to reduce the cost of development. I think id stated recently this should be the focus currently, reducing the cost to produce the game in the first place rather than raising game prices or selling consoles at a loss.
I look at the Crytek development tools for example, with their very fast and intuitive level building where you can swap with the press of a button from editing to play mode and back, or LBP which is essentially a game built on its own development SDK, and I think that's what we need more of.
Imagine if the tools allowed for games like Gears and Uncharted to be made at half the cost, and smaller games at a fraction of the cost, that would have better long lasting impact.
BTW in my comment I wasn't agreeing with the situation, merely noting the situation as I observe it. You point is spot on though IMHO.
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LOL...what's so funny is that we can see the problem so clearly, but do the console makers? In all fairness, I think the console makers are seeing that a little bit...and I really hope we don't see another Xbox or PS being launched for another 3 years...Wii is another story, but even there, I think they are doing just fine without a tech refresh. When we see reports of game development cost dropping 70%, then we can start looking at a new console generation. The $59.99 cost model has to work for games next generation, and hte console makers have to port as much SDK tech from this generation to the next, and depend on developer creativity to deliver new and rich experiences...ie. keep cost low!
"...You can't kill ideas with a sword, and you can't sink belief structures with a broadside. You defeat them by making them change..."
- From By Schism Rent Asunder
