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Forums - Gaming - What is holding gaming back? (my vision for the future of gaming)

Rainbird on 21 September 2010
Squilliam said:

It makes a lot of sense from the perspective of improving the overall market however in the current console climate it is implausible. However there is one hope. If any two console manufacturers were to unify their online system ala PSN on Wii and PS3 or Live on Xbox 360 and Wii etc or their next generation equivalents they would achieve a massive competitive advantage. So whilst it makes sense from a logical perspective in may not happen in reality.

The most likely unification scenarios are probably:

Xbox Live and Wii

Steam and Wii

PSN and Wii

Though I don't favour any particular one as being more likely over any other. I suspect that Steam has the advantage due to not already having a conflict of interest against the current console space.

Which is why I didn't really want to discuss the odds of this happening.

But you are right, an online "merger" of sorts could be the most likely first step towards this scenario. Valve have already taken a small step in this direction with their expansion to Mac (awesome thing to do, highfive to Valve).



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leatherhat on 21 September 2010
Rainbird said:
leatherhat said:
Rainbird said:
leatherhat said:

If we had universal consoles we wouldn't have motion control or blu-ray or optic media and no one would attempt to make any great innovations in the hardware space. Not that those examples, besides optic media, are particularly great new things but they are examples of what happens when hardware companies compete. Take that away and they have no incentive to do anything new, or to make first party games. 

See, I don't think we would see great innovations in the hardware anyway. Optic media would definitely have come along anyway, and if, for example, this generation had been as I described with Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo playing with the same hardware, nothing is to stop Nintendo from releasing their console with the Wiimote and Wii Sports and steal all the spotlight. There would still be enough competition in the gaming space, although more so in the software and online services than anything else.

Except for the fact that since the consoles are universal you could easily play wiisports on sony or MS platform. There would be no exclusives, no benefit in creating anything. Not even including the fact that the wiimote probably wouldn't have come to pass since sony and MS would have shot it down. 

The console is universal, the controller is not. The hardware manufacturers can create whatever controller they like, and it becomes the job of the developers to support these. The three main controllers might be mandatory to support in a game.

So with Wii Sports, it would sell buttloads with Nintendo's hardware and controllers, but if you didn't buy a Nintendo console, you can just buy a Wiimote and Wii Sports and you're still good to go on your Sony console.


You're contradicting yourself. Why would anyone buy nintendos console over sony's if they can buy a wiimote (or sony's version of it) and wiisports for either system? The only factor for sales would be price. And of course there's the simple fact that a universal standard would have an organization or board to regulate it and all three would be on it, and MS and Sony would have shot motion controls down. 



ǝןdɯıs ʇı dǝǝʞ oʇ ǝʞıן ı ʍouʞ noʎ 

Ask me about being an elitist jerk

Time for hype

Pyro as Bill on 21 September 2010

It's already happening to an extent.

Buy a Valve game and you get a version for all of your platforms so you can play your game on any machine capable of playing it. It only applies to PC-Mac atm but if Sony, MS and Nintendo allowed Steam on the consoles you could have access to your 3rd party game library from any computer/console with cross platform play.



Nov 2016 - NES outsells PS1 (JP)

Don't Play Stationary 4 ever. Switch!

Squilliam on 21 September 2010
leatherhat said:
Squilliam said:

It makes a lot of sense from the perspective of improving the overall market however in the current console climate it is implausible. However there is one hope. If any two console manufacturers were to unify their online system ala PSN on Wii and PS3 or Live on Xbox 360 and Wii etc or their next generation equivalents they would achieve a massive competitive advantage. So whilst it makes sense from a logical perspective in may not happen in reality.

The most likely unification scenarios are probably:

Xbox Live and Wii

Steam and Wii

PSN and Wii

Though I don't favour any particular one as being more likely over any other. I suspect that Steam has the advantage due to not already having a conflict of interest against the current console space.

 

I would say steam and PS3 are most likely since steam cloud and whatnot are coming with portal 2

This is just a one off cooperation, in most likelihood Sony had to allow Valve to put Steam cloud on PSN before they would release their games on that platform. Overall Sony would probably hate it if everyone who bought a PS3 game had a copy on Steam by default because it could drag people away from their console.



Tease.

Rainbird on 21 September 2010
CGI-Quality said:
Rainbird said:
CGI-Quality said:

Hmmm.....not a bad read, I just hope it doesn't come to pass. Part of the reason the industry remains strong and alive is because of firece cometition on both hardware and software. If we subtract the hardware, you'll find much less activity at the market, IMO.

But you don't subtract the hardware unless you look at it from the developers perspective. If games were to run on DVDs, Sony could still have a blu-ray drive in their console for movies. Hell, it might even be usable for games as long as they were built for both DVD and blu-ray, although in the current age, most HD games are anyway.

But the market lives and strives on competition. You have to admit that less hardware would surely injure that process.

I don't really see where the competition is hurt in my scenario though, other than pricing at least.

HW manufacturers are free to sell and further develop their hardware at whatever price they like though, and to do what they like. Include a game, include a bigger harddrive, include whatever. What if Samsung wants to build a console into their TVs, or whatever they might want to do?

This is just something that needs to be taken into account from the beginning, because the hardware must not be too expensive to begin with, but that's the only downside I see really.

And in my scenario, competition would grow a lot with regards to online networks and services.



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leatherhat on 21 September 2010
Squilliam said:
leatherhat said:
Squilliam said:

It makes a lot of sense from the perspective of improving the overall market however in the current console climate it is implausible. However there is one hope. If any two console manufacturers were to unify their online system ala PSN on Wii and PS3 or Live on Xbox 360 and Wii etc or their next generation equivalents they would achieve a massive competitive advantage. So whilst it makes sense from a logical perspective in may not happen in reality.

The most likely unification scenarios are probably:

Xbox Live and Wii

Steam and Wii

PSN and Wii

Though I don't favour any particular one as being more likely over any other. I suspect that Steam has the advantage due to not already having a conflict of interest against the current console space.

 

I would say steam and PS3 are most likely since steam cloud and whatnot are coming with portal 2

This is just a one off cooperation, in most likelihood Sony had to allow Valve to put Steam cloud on PSN before they would release their games on that platform. Overall Sony would probably hate it if everyone who bought a PS3 game had a copy on Steam by default because it could drag people away from their console.


A one off cooperation still puts it closer to unification then any of your examples



ǝןdɯıs ʇı dǝǝʞ oʇ ǝʞıן ı ʍouʞ noʎ 

Ask me about being an elitist jerk

Time for hype

Rainbird on 21 September 2010
leatherhat said:
Rainbird said:

The console is universal, the controller is not. The hardware manufacturers can create whatever controller they like, and it becomes the job of the developers to support these. The three main controllers might be mandatory to support in a game.

So with Wii Sports, it would sell buttloads with Nintendo's hardware and controllers, but if you didn't buy a Nintendo console, you can just buy a Wiimote and Wii Sports and you're still good to go on your Sony console.

You're contradicting yourself. Why would anyone buy nintendos console over sony's if they can buy a wiimote (or sony's version of it) and wiisports for either system? The only factor for sales would be price. And of course there's the simple fact that a universal standard would have an organization or board to regulate it and all three would be on it, and MS and Sony would have shot motion controls down. 

Maybe I should be a bit clearer with my scenarios. I'm imagining it this way: Controllers are not universal, they can be created by the HW manufacturers, but do not have to be approved by anyone outside this one company. If Nintendo then makes the Wii mote and bundles their consoles with Wii Sports, advertise it and so on, they would get the effect that we have seen now with the Wii.

But if people who bought a Microsoft console wants Wii Sports, they just go out, buy the game and buy a Wiimote, because that's all they need to play it. They already have the console.



Rainbird on 21 September 2010
Pyro as Bill said:

It's already happening to an extent.

Buy a Valve game and you get a version for all of your platforms so you can play your game on any machine capable of playing it. It only applies to PC-Mac atm but if Sony, MS and Nintendo allowed Steam on the consoles you could have access to your 3rd party game library from any computer/console with cross platform play.

And Valve deserve massive kudos for that move, I absolutely love it!

I would love it if 3rd party online services could open up on these consoles, but I forgot to mention that in the OP. xP



leatherhat on 21 September 2010
Rainbird said:
leatherhat said:
Rainbird said:

The console is universal, the controller is not. The hardware manufacturers can create whatever controller they like, and it becomes the job of the developers to support these. The three main controllers might be mandatory to support in a game.

So with Wii Sports, it would sell buttloads with Nintendo's hardware and controllers, but if you didn't buy a Nintendo console, you can just buy a Wiimote and Wii Sports and you're still good to go on your Sony console.

You're contradicting yourself. Why would anyone buy nintendos console over sony's if they can buy a wiimote (or sony's version of it) and wiisports for either system? The only factor for sales would be price. And of course there's the simple fact that a universal standard would have an organization or board to regulate it and all three would be on it, and MS and Sony would have shot motion controls down. 

Maybe I should be a bit clearer with my scenarios. I'm imagining it this way: Controllers are not universal, they can be created by the HW manufacturers, but do not have to be approved by anyone outside this one company. If Nintendo then makes the Wii mote and bundles their consoles with Wii Sports, advertise it and so on, they would get the effect that we have seen now with the Wii.

But if people who bought a Microsoft console wants Wii Sports, they just go out, buy the game and buy a Wiimote, because that's all they need to play it. They already have the console.

But that just leads me back to my point, why would nintendo get any benefit from the wiimote when sony and ms can use them on their system as well. The nintendo platform wouldn't be unique in anyway from the competition. 



ǝןdɯıs ʇı dǝǝʞ oʇ ǝʞıן ı ʍouʞ noʎ 

Ask me about being an elitist jerk

Time for hype

Rainbird on 21 September 2010
CGI-Quality said:
Rainbird said:
CGI-Quality said:
Rainbird said:
CGI-Quality said:

Hmmm.....not a bad read, I just hope it doesn't come to pass. Part of the reason the industry remains strong and alive is because of firece cometition on both hardware and software. If we subtract the hardware, you'll find much less activity at the market, IMO.

But you don't subtract the hardware unless you look at it from the developers perspective. If games were to run on DVDs, Sony could still have a blu-ray drive in their console for movies. Hell, it might even be usable for games as long as they were built for both DVD and blu-ray, although in the current age, most HD games are anyway.

But the market lives and strives on competition. You have to admit that less hardware would surely injure that process.

I don't really see where the competition is hurt in my scenario though, other than pricing at least.

HW manufacturers are free to sell and further develop their hardware at whatever price they like though, and to do what they like. Include a game, include a bigger harddrive, include whatever. What if Samsung wants to build a console into their TVs, or whatever they might want to do?

This is just something that needs to be taken into account from the beginning, because the hardware must not be too expensive to begin with, but that's the only downside I see really.

And in my scenario, competition would grow a lot with regards to online networks and services.

I'm a little confused then. Are you saying you'd want a universal console market, or cheaper hardware with a larger quantity of software?

I imagine that the hardware that actually plays the game is universal. This would be designed by someone who know what they're doing, maybe a collaboration across companies, I don't know. This hardware should be designed for profit and a good startingpoint for a new generation. So since it would be universal, it would be pretty stupid to create a console that costs $800 to make. 

If this scenario were to happen next generation, I imagine we'd see the 'base' bundle (one console and one controller) be $299 or so. So it wouldn't be a big step up from this generation, but that's a sacrifice worth making imo.