Slashdot Mirror

I wrote a few years ago about why people submit to console inflexibility. The reasons I came up with include these:

- Less chance of ending up with "fake game" shovelware even worse than E.T., Chase the Chuck Wagon, and other poster children of the 1983 crash
- No worry about reading the tea leaves that are PC game system requirements
- Little variation among PCs in an online multiplayer pickup group of strangers giving nobody an unfair competitive advantage
- Less cheating in an online multiplayer pickup group of strangers due to no mods
- No need for antivirus
- Offline use of disc games is more convenient for gamers in rural areas or deployed on military bases
- Less hardware variation means less chance of driver conflicts
- Living room friendly case by default

If you don't like online games, don't play online games then. If you prefer the good old games you own - do like me, and play them! What is the obsession with having "new" games every year?

You don't seem to understand the agenda, the agenda for the corporate world is to get rid of game ownership entirely. Quake 3 is an "online game" but you own and control it, it has dedicated server that comes with the game and tools to edit levels, Quake champions is an "online game" except the company owns and controls the software, meaning you get jack shit. They simply prevent you from controlling the software by coding it in a hostile way and hopign people are stupid enough to pay for microtransactions.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/...

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/...

If you don't like online games, don't play online games then. If you prefer the good old games you own - do like me, and play them! What is the obsession with having "new" games every year?

You don't seem to understand the agenda, the agenda for the corporate world is to get rid of game ownership entirely. Quake 3 is an "online game" but you own and control it, it has dedicated server that comes with the game and tools to edit levels, Quake champions is an "online game" except the company owns and controls the software, meaning you get jack shit. They simply prevent you from controlling the software by coding it in a hostile way and hopign people are stupid enough to pay for microtransactions.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/...

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/...

It's odd to say they have been losing marketshare for 16 years...you realize 16 years ago they had 0 marketshare and 0 revenues in the console market and they now have ~30% of the market and over $10 billion in annual revenues. Microsoft are raking it in in the gaming division ($10.35 billion) and they have had significant growth over the past years, just a pinch more than Nintendo's revenue ($9.7 billion). Still a ways behind Sony ($17.29 billion) but it takes pretty bizarre mind to try and argue that the XBox has been a failure for Microsoft.

If you can show me citation that they are losing money then I would be very interested because that simply does not seem to be the case no matter how much you want it to be.

But in the long run they are likely to relax those rules

DethLok

You're gullible if you believe this, the trend has been the exact opposite - in order for games to have lootboxes and microtransactions they need drm, do you really think EPIC is going to stop after having made billions on skins in fortnite? You're completely naive.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/...

Rubbish. I do hope you know the difference between a regular RPG (even a multiplayer one) and an MMO,

You're an idiot, before the internet RPG games COMBIND both single player and multiplayer in the same game. They just RPG's and that had campaign and a multiplayer component. All the PC games during the 90's came with both. Companies got smart because they knew people like you were morons. That's why diablo 3 was "rebranded" an mmo... aka They took diablo which was a game fully within our control and it now requires a server in order for you to play the campaign portions of the game.

Game company CEO's want all games to be "online" and stream the files to your computer so you never control the videogame software, they've been propagandizing to you with PR. Don't think so? Go look at UBISOFT's wet dream.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/...

A good point and it's not limited to RPGs.

FPS and RTS games used to be that you could host a local game with your friends on a LAN, few games will let you run a dedicated server without checking into the mothership, let alone let you run on your LAN with software included with the game. All this is done to ensure they can sell you the next minor variant of the same game in 6 to 18 months time. Of course, the holy grail for these companies is to have you pay on a monthly basis.

I find myself shunning more and more AAA titles because they've spend all the money on advertising and locking you in as opposed to creating more than 3 hours of gameplay and spending more cash on indie games. Steam's Early Access program has allowed more than a few indie gems to flourish.

Rubbish. I do hope you know the difference between a regular RPG (even a multiplayer one) and an MMO,

You're an idiot, before the internet RPG games COMBIND both single player and multiplayer in the same game. They just RPG's and that had campaign and a multiplayer component. All the PC games during the 90's came with both. Companies got smart because they knew people like you were morons. That's why diablo 3 was "rebranded" an mmo... aka They took diablo which was a game fully within our control and it now requires a server in order for you to play the campaign portions of the game.

Game company CEO's want all games to be "online" and stream the files to your computer so you never control the videogame software, they've been propagandizing to you with PR. Don't think so? Go look at UBISOFT's wet dream.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/...

> Its not as bad as you would think and it's designed for those devices and the graphics are way better than you think.

Yes it is. It's far worse. Whales are < 2% of the customers, but make > 95% of the money for game developers.

https://venturebeat.com/2013/0...

5th Planet chief executive Robert Winkler revealed at the Game Developers Conference Online in 2012 that with its game Clash of the Dragons, 40 percent of revenue came from 2 percent of players who spent $1,000 or more. Ninety percent came from those who spent $100 or more, and the top whale had spent $6,700.

As an ex-professional game developer 95+% of mobile games are crap

* Hurry-up-and-wait gaming that constantly nag you
* Exploitative predatory tactics such as gambling (loot boxes), in-app-purchases, and ads.
* Mobile games tend not to respect your time, money, or space.

There ARE games that don't exploit the players:

* Hidden Folks
* Limbo
* Minecraft
* Terreria
* The Room (and all its sequels)
* The Witness
*etc.

You have to look, but they are there.

> No one wants to lug around a PC computer to play a multiplayer game.

Uh, that's what mobile gaming is -- by definition.

This is ignoring the fact that some games just DON'T work (well) on a mobile. i.e. Let me know when I can play:

* Starcraft 2
* World of Warcraft

on a phone.

Mouse + Keyboard is vastly superior for some games.

Mobile gaming is here to stay. That's NOT the problem. The problem is the exploitative behavior.

It is bullshit like this is driving the mobile games straight into the ground.

... I guess I only play games in the 5% then, like any other platform (THANKS Steam Greenlight).
Warhammer Quest, Neuroshima Hex, Settlers of Catan, Smash Up, Exploding Kittens, my favorites.

Whales, we care because? Some people buy tons of Steam games on sale and never play them. On $3000 computers, bitching about frame rates until rounds of performance patches and driver updates come out.

Who said phones need to run Starcraft or WoW, you just came out of nowhere with that.

So keep your keyboard and mouse??

This whole post is strangely combative.

Oh and I'm a Linux administrator, so that makes me an expert on stuff.

> I just don't "get" the appeal of gaming on a phone.

* Portability, and
* Addiction, aka hurry-up-and-wait gaming, loot boxes, and exploitation

To fully answer the question, you need to understand the:

Psychology of gaming whales

> Its not as bad as you would think and it's designed for those devices and the graphics are way better than you think.

Yes it is. It's far worse. Whales are < 2% of the customers, but make > 95% of the money for game developers.

https://venturebeat.com/2013/0...

5th Planet chief executive Robert Winkler revealed at the Game Developers Conference Online in 2012 that with its game Clash of the Dragons, 40 percent of revenue came from 2 percent of players who spent $1,000 or more. Ninety percent came from those who spent $100 or more, and the top whale had spent $6,700.

As an ex-professional game developer 95+% of mobile games are crap

* Hurry-up-and-wait gaming that constantly nag you
* Exploitative predatory tactics such as gambling (loot boxes), in-app-purchases, and ads.
* Mobile games tend not to respect your time, money, or space.

There ARE games that don't exploit the players:

* Hidden Folks
* Limbo
* Minecraft
* Terreria
* The Room (and all its sequels)
* The Witness
*etc.

You have to look, but they are there.

> No one wants to lug around a PC computer to play a multiplayer game.

Uh, that's what mobile gaming is -- by definition.

This is ignoring the fact that some games just DON'T work (well) on a mobile. i.e. Let me know when I can play:

* Starcraft 2
* World of Warcraft

on a phone.

Mouse + Keyboard is vastly superior for some games.

Mobile gaming is here to stay. That's NOT the problem. The problem is the exploitative behavior.

It is bullshit like this is driving the mobile games straight into the ground.

They aren't advantageous and are cosmetic only.

Totally irrelevant to the fact that it's still gambling. It's a slot-machine mechanic that allows people to put money in and get in return something that may or may not be worth anything at all. In the case of CS some of the rarer skins are worth thousands, which has created a whole economy of its own where people and streamers are not in fact playing the game itself at all but simply acquiring/opening boxes in the hopes of getting rare loot that can then be sold for money. Hell, there have even been gambling sites like 'CS:GO Lotto' set up in which people can trade their skins in for essentially a chance of winning better/higher value skins. In 2016 this caused a controversy because it turned out that 2 of the guys that had been promoting said site heavily on youtube turned out to be the owners of said site without disclosing that fact. From the link:

Two prominent YouTube stars, ProSyndicate and TmarTn, have been embroiled in an ongoing scandal regarding the rise of 'gambling' with weapon skins won in the Valve-operated online shooter CS:GO, having been revealed to be the owners of a gambling site which they've been promoting heavily via their YouTube channels.

The site, CSGOLotto.com, is one of many which allows players to use the skins they've unlocked in the game as chips, assigning them a value based on rarity and desirability. In many cases, these skins are then bet against other players, with a slot-machine style random number generator picking a winner who then keeps the pot. On other sites, the pot is bet against the outcome of other games of CS:GO. The keys used to open loot crates in the game must be bought with real money via Steam, and because the skins can be resold via the platform's trading system and 'cashed out' by buying games as gifts and selling the codes via various marketplaces, many such operations have already faced accusations of enabling unregulated real-money gambling, resulting in a class-action lawsuit being filed against Valve itself.

This is not a small industry, nor a new one. A recent Bloomberg report estimated that around $2.3 billion worth of skins were wagered on CS:GO related websites in 2015 alone. Already, several calls had been made to investigate the legality of such operations, especially in the US, where gambling is heavily restricted, especially given that many of the sites don't restrict participation based on age or location, and even those which do are usually at odds with laws surrounding real-money gambling.

However, the most recent development, as discovered by YouTuber HonorTheCall and promulgated by H3H3 productions, is that CSGOlotto.com was joint founded by TmarTn and ProSyndicate, who have both posted videos with titles such as WINNING BIG $$$$!!! (CS:GO Betting), showing them using the site and winning considerable amounts. Not only does that contravene YouTube guidelines about the disclosure of interests and payments, there's now considerable suspicion surrounding the veracity of the bets screened by the pair, with the suggestion emerging that, given their privileged access to the back-end mechanics, both could easily have fixed the outcomes in their favour in order to make for more persuasive footage.

These guys were essentially making videos about how they won soooo much money by playing on the site that they happened to own (without telling that they own the site and can therefore affect the odds of the slot machine). That's the textbook definition of marketing gambling to children.

The reality is Counter strike would have died if it weren't for these 'loot boxes';

Total bullshit. CS:GO is one of the most popular FPS games with a huge scene of professional teams and tournaments and a fan-base that follows said teams

probably both from their Zenimax lawsuit and from Valve/Steam/Vive significantly outselling them.

Nope.

Isn't his claim backed up by the chart you just linked? Your chart shows that by the end of last year, the Vive was expected to outsell the Rift in terms of cumulative sales over their lifetimes by 25%. If that's not outselling, what is?

It may get worse though, because the Rift has been available in various incarnations since 2012, whereas Vive only entered the market in April of last year. In clicking through to some of the other pages linked from your article, it sounds like the analysts may have included those other incarnations in the cumulative sales estimates for the Rift, rather than limiting it to the retail version that launched about the same time as the Vive. If so, it would mean that in just 8 months the Vive not only overtook the last 4 years of Rift sales, but that it managed to surpass them by 25%, suggesting that it may be outselling the Rift in terms of monthly sales by quite a bit more than 25%.

Also worth pointing out: just because Oculus has Facebook backing it financially, it doesn't mean they can afford to be unprofitable. Facebook is going to want to see a return on their investment. If Facebook decides it's getting too expensive, Facebook will shutter Oculus, even though they may be perfectly capable of funding it until the sun dies.

Disclaimer: I have no horse in this race, other than wanting to see the facts win. Aside from a handful of professional applications, I think all VR goggles are a fad and little more than a stepping stone to more immersive (yet-to-be-invented) experiences with actual staying power. I think they make for neat tech demos, but I have no interest in owning any of them, nor a beef with any particular one.

Please. Let them rant, as long as they do they at least don't harm anyone.

Yeah, not in the least. We saw jackasses like Jack Thompson get some sway with the trendy fucks in the industry last time. We're seeing it again with Sarkeesian and her ilk, and the trendy fucks in the industry again. This is the garbage that eventually gets spawned out of it. Gamers on the other hand? They don't like identity politics being pushed into their medium. Just a FYI to anyone who's' reading, the stuff being pushed in the GI.biz article is the same BS that was pushed by people like Leigh Alexander. Another adherent to the "but muh progressiveness look at muh virtue signaling..." which lead to the death of her career.

The whole progressive identity politics virtue signaling bullshit usually kills whatever it attaches to. It's doing a great job of killing comic books, it did a great job of killing atheism for a while until there was a push back. It attempted it in video games and failed, but they're still trying.

Carmack's comments about "coasting on novelty" weren't related to mobile VR. They were about VR in general, including the Oculus (after all, he was addressing an Oculus Connect audience). The original article that CNET cites gets that fact right. How CNET got it so wrong is beyond me, but the /. headline should be corrected, since otherwise his comments come across as a pithy no-brainer that mobile VR sucks (which is no surprise), rather than a stinging exhortation for improvement in the general space of VR.

This guy left Sony in december 2015. Why lie and say "Sony's Content Director Calls Them Thieves" ?

I don't particularly care for Sony (read: I think they're miserable bastards), but come on!

Should I be OUTRAGED when gay-themed films don't cater to me? Should I demand equal hetero time?

You wouldn't be the first to do so, of course.

If the product itself appeals to you, ignore the flashy advertising if it doesn't suit you.

It'd be great if game developers could ignore the console duopoly, but it's not exactly a realistic option.

Except Nintendo is practically the only game developer that does this. Search for "let's play" videos on youtube; there are TONS of them, from current generation games no less. If you upload a let's play for a nintendo game, they'll DMCA you and either demand you insert ads and they keep all of its revenue, or you have to remove it completely.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/a...

If you want Nintendo to share the ad revenue, you have to delete all of your videos of non-Nintendo games from youtube:

http://recode.net/2015/02/04/n...

(Disclaimer: I don't watch pewdiepie.)

NVIDIA promised their previous chip is comparable to PS4.

There is really no way that anything can look like a calculator compared to PS4

I concur. Visually it is mildly interesting but it ignores the elephant in the room:

* Modern game design spends more time focusing on form then function

Grind-Grind-Grind! /glares at Warframe, Path of Exile, Diablo, etc.

When your refer to your customers as whales attempting to suck as much money out of them as possible, the industry of shovelware is fucked

I, the GP, never said nor suggested "they keep pouring money into a failing TV business."

Learn to read. (It might help with your spelling at the very least.)

If Sony was smart they would *exit* the TV business after *failing* for 10. Straight. Years.

Sony is perfectly capable of fucking up the company all by themselves. Let's see, Mobile had a loss of -1578, more then 3.5 times what the Financial Services makes.

From 2006 until 2009 the PlayStation division lost 4.6 Billion

In 2012 they lost 2.8 Billion

In 2014 they lost 78 million

/sarcasm, Oh I'm sorry, I forgot Sony already has an economic genius right there! How else could they continue to constantly lose money on the PlayStation! *snicker*

Maybe they should take lessons from Nintendo on how to be profitable.

But keep drinking the Sony Kool-Aid there buddy.

I, the GP, never said nor suggested "they keep pouring money into a failing TV business."

Learn to read. (It might help with your spelling at the very least.)

If Sony was smart they would *exit* the TV business after *failing* for 10. Straight. Years.

Sony is perfectly capable of fucking up the company all by themselves. Let's see, Mobile had a loss of -1578, more then 3.5 times what the Financial Services makes.

From 2006 until 2009 the PlayStation division lost 4.6 Billion

In 2012 they lost 2.8 Billion

In 2014 they lost 78 million

/sarcasm, Oh I'm sorry, I forgot Sony already has an economic genius right there! How else could they continue to constantly lose money on the PlayStation! *snicker*

Maybe they should take lessons from Nintendo on how to be profitable.

But keep drinking the Sony Kool-Aid there buddy.

Shouldn't be the customer's problem. A big part of the root cause of the Kickstarter backlash is that it makes it into the customer's problem.

I know people who have taken entry-level development positions with large games developers. That's certainly one way to get experience. Yes, the pay, working hours and culture will probably suck, but that's the price you pay for wanting to work in an over-subscribed field. Any large developer will always be carrying a lot of people with little to no experience of games development - the things that suck which I just mentioned mean that this is a field with high turn-over. What matters is that there are experienced people in the right places.

In fact, given that the main skill that seems to be lacking in failed Kickstarter campaigns is project management, you could argue that relevant experience doesn't have to come from games development. Delivering (or at least making a major contribution to) any complex technical project within fixed time and budget constraints is good experience, regardless of field.

Launching a Kickstarter or Early Access for an implausible game design and taking people's money for a project that you then mismanage horribly and fail to deliver any product is not a viable business model. Unfortunately, a lot of people seem to think it is.

I don't think serviscope_minor implied that either, he just said its hardly news that either a private sector or public sector employees slack off, they both do. You can argue that we all pay taxes so we should care more however if you buy the product you may also pay higher prices for products. Of course people should care that this is happening, and it should be addressed, all serviscope_minor implied is that it wasn't a problem specific to the public sector. I think its more big vs small, or little buget vs big buget. e.g. http://www.gamesindustry.biz/a..., you can't tell me there wasn't a bit of waste there.

I actually think the reason that this is important is not private/public sector but due to the consequences of bad work. If a patent office employ grants a bad patient it effectively blocks the rest of the world from using that knowledge, without a costly, and long legal battle. That is a massive cost to the world. Where the Xbox one controller, so what it really only effects microsoft.

there are a lot of indi games coming out that are launched by ONE guy. [...] They're published by steam

For mouse-and-keyboard genres, that's fine. And for games in genres that use multiple gamepads and one monitor, that will become practical once Steam Machines become widely available. Until then, does Valve publish stats on how many Steam users use the Big Picture mode? Last time I checked (18 months ago) it was about 1%. So games in multiple-gamepad genres, such as fighting games, party games, and cooperative platformers, tend to be developed for consoles. And to release a game on a console, I would need to become a licensed developer with SCEA or NOA. Or are there statistics showing that a substantial number of people connect a PC to a TV?

For mobile devices, if a game is point-and-click like Bejeweled or Fruit Ninja or one-button like Canabalt or Flappy Bird, anyone with a computer can get started on Google Play for about $300 to buy a device and a lifetime developer certificate. But for games in genres that heavily use directional control, a touch screen alone isn't going to do very well. I tried playing the trial version of Pixeline and the Jungle Treasure on my Nexus 7, and I kept missing the jumps because my thumb kept drifting to the side of the on-screen jump button. I tried again with a keyboard and it was fine, but I imagine that few Android gamers are going to want to buy and carry a keyboard around to get the same experience that they already get with a major dedicated handheld game system. I haven't been able to find sales figures for the Bluetooth gamepads that clip onto Android phones. It appears that in order to release a game in a genre associated with directional controls, I would need to become a licensed developer with SCEA or NOA.

As such, you could do that anywhere in the world.

I mention cities like Austin, Boston, and Seattle because the U.S. video game industry appears to be concentrated in those cities, and I've been told that the best way to demonstrate "relevant video game industry experience" to console makers in an application to become a licensed developer is to have worked for an established video game studio for several years. It's like acting: you'll eventually have to move to New York for stage or Los Angeles for screen.

As other posters have commented in response to my question, evidently not

You do realize Notch rakes in $100+ million every year, right?

2012: http://www.forbes.com/sites/da...
2013: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/a...

The article also doesn't mention the controversy about Elite Systems and their apparent failure to pay the developers they are making money off:

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/a...

No but this article says the Indie section is going away:

Yesterday, Microsoft's Studios corporate vice president Phil Harrison told Eurogamer that the marketplace on the company's new Xbox One console would combine retail games, Xbox Live Arcade, and Xbox Live Indie Games into a single section. . . With the Indie Games section going away, that means developers are stuck with the standard Xbox publishing rules.

So yes, indie games will need a publisher which sorta not makes them indie anymore. This might be a misunderstanding but Oddworld seems to think they are being forced to use a publisher. MS might have to clarify this point. There is a need for a publisher in games mostly for funding; however, Oddworld is self-funded. They don't feel like sharing revenue and profits when they don't have to share.

Not sure where you're getting your numbers from but they're WAY off:

If you were to take your "new car market" number of $14.5 billion and http://www.gbm.scotiabank.com/English/bns_econ/bns_auto.pdf Scotiabank's 2012 # of units produced: 62.45 million you'd have an average price of $232 per vehicle globally.

The US market alone the used car estimate is over 350 billion and while estimates are that twice as many used cars are sold as new - the prices are obviously radically different though. US new car sales are roughly 15 million at an average price of ~$30,000. That would make it a 450 billion dollar industry in the US alone.

The global game market is estimated at $47 billion (2010, excluding hardware), the US market has about 7 billion in new physical game sales and just under 2 billion in used game sales http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-02-06-USD14-8-billion-spent-on-gaming-in-us-last-year-says-npd

Here's the thing though - in both those cases you're only looking at dollar values - not units sold. Used game and used car prices vary and are significantly lower than new prices. If you estimate 7bil/$60 = 117 million units, 2 bil/$15 = 133 million units - not including private sales, gifting, loans, rentals, etc. In reality the numbers are too complex to calculate reasonably, new games aren't always sold for $60, used not for $15, etc etc. Conservative estimating though would suggest that the used market is at least as large, unit wise, as the new market and that's why Microsoft and publishers want control of it.

So far I've not seen anything about the always-on requirement for the internet connection.

That feature is make or break for me, because if it *needs* an internet connection to be always enabled, I can tell you now I won't buy this -- they had their chance, and they put ads into both my home screen and my games.

Did anyone who actually watched the event see anything about this? I've checked several articles so far, and none of them have mentioned that part.

Always on internet definitely not needed according to this: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-05-21-xbox-always-online-the-answer-is-no

Didn't they win last year? It's sort of a dubious honor, but you know what they say, there's no such thing as bad publicity. ;-)

Simply put, customers already are voting with their wallets.

How's that working out for you?

TLDR: Mark of the Beast contender (RFID) makes way to CDROMS as method to communicate with hardware.
--
Examining Sony's Internet-free method for blocking used game sales

New patent filing describes using RFID chips to tie games to a single user.

by Kyle Orland - Jan 3, 2013 5:55 pm UTC

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/01/examining-sonys-internet-free-method-for-blocking-used-game-sales/

"A newly published patent application filed by Sony outlines a content protection system that would use small RFID chips embedded on game discs to prevent used games from being played on its systems, all without requiring an online connection. Filed in September and still awaiting approval from the US Patent Office, the patent application[1] for an "electronic content processing system, electronic content processing method, package of electronic content, and use permission apparatus" describes a system "that reliably restricts the use of electronic content dealt in the second-hand markets."

[1] http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2013/0007892.html

Used game sales continue to be a major concern for many big-name publishers and developers, who see the practice as a drain on the revenue they earn from selling new software. Sony's patent explicitly points out that suppressing the used game market will "[support] the redistribution of part of proceeds from sales of the electronic content to the developers."

The used-game blocking method described in the patent involves a "radiofrequency tag" and a type of programmable ROM chip that are paired with each game disc and can communicate wirelessly with the game system. The tag and chip can be used to store "unique information" about each console the game has been played on. Thus, when the game is used on a second system, the unique information stored on the disc can be compared to the information stored inside the new hardware, and in turn checked against "use permission" data stored on the EEPROM chip itself. As described in the patent, this "unique information" could be a system identifier or some sort of unique user ID that is somewhat portable between systems.

The patent describes users being asked to "pass the use permission tag over the RF reader/writer," suggesting some sort of near-field communication (NFC) area on the system itself that is used to launch this confirmation process. The patent also describes the RFID tag being used to decrypt content on the disc, which could provide a method for locking certain on-disc content to certain users who have unlocked or paid for the privilege. The system would theoretically also make game discs much harder to pirate, since illicit copiers would have to include correctly configured security chips in their copies, rather than using off the shelf media.

Of course, the fact that Sony has applied to patent this idea is a far cry from confirmation that this kind of protection system is in the works for the PlayStation 4. Even if it is, Sony could easily leave it to individual publishers to decide whether or not to implement it. In May, industry analyst Michael Pachter recounted a conversation[2] with SCEA president Jack Tretton where the Sony executive said he was "totally opposed to blocking used games."

[2] http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-05-14-pachter-claims-sonys-jack-tretton-supports-used-games

It was about this time last year that rumors started to swirl that Microsoft was planning to block used games from being playable on the next Xbox. In March, similar rumors popped up surrounding the PlayStation 4[3], codenamed "Orbis" in leaked documents.

[3]

Yes, and Microsoft can use their cash mountain to "encourage" developers to use the app store, even running it at a loss for a while in order to destroy Valve's business. It's not as if they've never done this before!

Certainly! If you don't recall reading about it earlier here on Slashdot, David Braben has come out publicly against the rights of consumers to resell their used games. You can read it here.
And here is his rant against people hacking their own property.
His choice to use GNU/Linux as a kernel in his product notwithstanding, this man is no friend to those of us who value digital freedoms.

It's painfull to see this comment modded +5, insightfull no less...
Mr. Browne has nothing against second hand sales.
He just has an axe to grind with gamestop, who actively prohibit customers from obtaining new games.
See here: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-04-12-the-real-cost-of-used-games

The thing is, nobody seems to have digged deeper than TFA and that is a real shame.
It is why journalism sucks these days. Seriously.
And that is why we have internet rumors going global news.
There is nothing as stupid as taking news by face value these days..
People becoming parrots with no capacity to actually understand.

YOUR FUCKING AUTOMATED MORONS, there is said it.

Wait a minute. Game Designer? Here's the original article Browne wrote. Read his bio at the very bottom. The guy is a friggin' exec. No wonder he's bitching about lost sales to used games, how else is he going to explain his company's lack luster performance?

MS said they dropped doing the heavy processing on Kinect itself... 1, 2, 3. What's left does at best "entry stages" of processing, which don't give you much... (especially since MS certainly keeps the juicy details of their approach secret, an approach to which entry stages are adapted).

512 megabytes of ram would sound big, yes, so I just checked - it's 512 megabits. Nothing too unexpected for a device dealing with lots of images.

And as I mentioned, the flash is 1 MiB; certainly nothing more than basic firmware.

MS said they dropped doing the heavy processing on Kinect itself... 1, 2, 3. What's left does at best "entry stages" of processing, which don't give you much... (especially since MS certainly keeps the juicy details of their approach secret, an approach to which entry stages are adapted).

512 megabytes of ram would sound big, yes, so I just checked - it's 512 megabits. Nothing too unexpected for a device dealing with lots of images.

And as I mentioned, the flash is 1 MiB; certainly nothing more than basic firmware.

Really? as funtapaz pointed out, Valve's Doug Lombardi confirmed earlier this month that they were not working on a Linux port.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2010-08-12-valve-on-steam-part-two-interview In the second half of that article (sorry, couldn't find it anywhere login isn't required) Doug Lombardi denies a Linux client is being developed.

"Q: Final question, and one I'm sure you're not super-keen to answer, but I promised one of our tech guys I'd ask it. What truth is there to rumours that you're also working on a Linux version of Steam?
Doug Lombardi: There's no Linux version that we're working on right now. ... "

Just thought it might be relevant.

There's been no news on Ep3 because they've been busy making Left 4 Dead 2, Portal 2, Steam for Mac (and working on Steam for Linux or so I hear) and updates for Team Fortress.

From an interview with Doug Lombardi (login required)

Final question, and one I'm sure you're not super-keen to answer, but I promised one of our tech guys I'd ask it. What truth is there to rumours that you're also working on a Linux version of Steam?
Doug Lombardi: There's no Linux version that we're working on right now. ...

You are competing against countries that are giving active fiscal support to the videogames industry, and I think it's a given that you have to put something in place to, quite frankly, level the playing field - so it is my absolutely number one priority, should we win the general election."

O rly?

"We're not going to ask the consumers to suddenly buy another PlayStation console in five years' time and basically have their investment go by the wayside,"

He's referring of course to obsolescence, but if the machine can't even physically survive it's term of technological relevance that's quite an embarrassing quote.

...which can be found here.

Actually Sony took higher losses. It might not be only from losses on PS3 sales but operating losses went from 4.6 billion yen to 39.7 billion yen for the PlayStation division year-on-year. Software sales were down from 22.8 million to 14.8 million so it's not just hardware that's declining.

Back in 2004 Nintendo were famously going to extend the GC life cycle with new peripherals for the forseeable future, including a mysterious EyeToy rival. Said peripheral, presumably, turned into the Wii controller. So obviously this is an idea that's been considered in the past. I guess the GC seemed too aged, at the time, for them to actually go through with that.

Let me rephrase the key point for you.

Playing DVD movies on the Wii will ruin the device over time.

Sorry dude. It is a matter of royalties, not hardware. In Japan they have playback enabled.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/japan-to-get-wii-with-dvd-player

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=148355
 

So let me get this straight -- you want to discourage, not copying, but loaning?

The parent was talking about casual copying. If a game did not implement CD checks, then it could be loaned out, installed, then returned--no copying required. I think it's fairly obvious why game devs prefer users buying their products instead of borrowing them from a friend.

But if anything, this opens up new markets -- game rentals, and used games. And it does drive up the value of a game, if you know it can be re-sold.

Used game sales aren't good for the original developer. If a game is bought for $50, then resold four times for $10-30 each time, how much does the original developer make? $50. Epic Games has voiced their opinion on the issue, and has taken measures to discourage the practice (unlocks/DLC).

The supposed purpose of DRM is to "keep honest people honest", by preventing things like actual copyright infringement. But your comment does tend to indicate the true purpose of DRM -- to prevent people from doing perfectly honest things (like lending) that you'd rather be able to charge for.

I don't disagree with your statement that DRM can have ulterior reasons. However, lending is not always honest. With a book, possession directly implies access. If I loan out a book, I can't read it until it's returned. Software is different; It's dishonest to loan out my copy of Office 2007 to my friends to install, if can still use it.

If you're already forcing them to be online, why do you need to limit the number of saves? Just don't allow more than one person to be online at once.

The point of limiting saves is to create a finite resource, which discourages sharing. Users wouldn't have to continuously be online--only if they want to save their game. Is it an inconvenience to users? Yes. But it is somewhat compensated by the "resume anywhere" feature, while "one user at any time" is only a stick.

And hey, I can lend games on Steam. I just have to lend the whole account at a time, and if I lend my account credentials, I risk losing the account. That's really all the incentive I need -- to limit the number of saves on top of that really serves no purpose, other than to save you disk space.

Actually, that's against the Steam EULA:

You may not reveal, share or otherwise allow others to use your password or Account.

The solution I recommended is better. With Steam, loaning is an all-or-nothing proposition. You can't play one game while a concurrent user plays another, even if you legitimately own both. This is not an issue if a game+saves is tied to a key instead of an account.

Nividia posted sales of USD 892.7 million.

So they offer to settle for $850 thousand?

0.1% of their sales???

... which in AMD's case would probably be 100% of their net profits.