Slashdot Mirror
Sony Acquires Virtual Game Station
Silverhammer writes: "You were wondering what the terms of the Sony/Connectix lawsuit may be? Well, MacCentral is reporting that they're actually entering a "joint technology agreement" which "can lead to improved development tools, innovative consumer products and productive enterprise solutions." If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." Funkengruven points to the announcement itself.
Sounds like the Commodore business model, only you also have to fire all your marketing and sales people and hire only South American tree monkeys to fill the positions, and hire criminally stupid management to keep it all together.
Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.
I read the internet for the articles.
Has anyone given a thought to what Palm did with the Copilot? Also, the PS3 is in development.
If you consider that the dev machines for making PS games are pretty expensive, and custom hacks, then a software based development platform would be much cheaper. That's why Palm brought the copilot under it's umbrella, it's faster to hack with the copilot.
Now consider the PS3, it's in the dev stage right now. Sony dedicated a chunk of Silicon in the PS2 I/O processor to emulate the PS, if they were to simply load the emulator software into ROM on the PS3, it saves them fabbing costs. Fab costs are much more than software development costs.
It seems that under this new agreement all Connectix emulator technology is now property of Sony. Connectix can sell through June, but then will provide "support only". Will Sony rerelease the emulator and start selling it "... under the auspices of the joint agreement"?? I highly doubt it.
It looks more like Sony decided that since they couldn't win, they'd throw money at the owners. Would you keep selling your product if someone waved big big bucks over your head?
http://kered.org
Maybe sony has wised up to the value that emulation might bring to them. Look at Sega's decision to get out of the hardware market and focus on software. The money is not in the razors (the consoles) it is in the blades (the games). Although you could argue that Sony is now making boatloads of cash on the PSone (which probably by now costs them $20 to make), I think that's more by accident than by design. Yes, there is value in owning a console platform, but there is value in leveraging your software library too.
Working with Connectix so that they have the option of putting a virtual playstation on anything has a lot of value to Sony in the future. X-Box emulators, and emulators for other sorts of devices could be a huge source of revenue. Just the revenue from a single 10-in-one CD with a bunch of top playstation titles for the XBox (similar to the Sega Arcade CD for Dreamcast) could pay for this arrangement with Connectix.
I saw an interview with the Sega america's president (in ODCM print, couldn't find it online) where he said that PDA's are getting to the point where they can run Sega's immense 16-bit library in emulation. Could Sony be looking at the same thing for their PSone library?
Tony Hawk on your iPaq, anyone?
- Twid
- "When you want something with all your heart, the entire universe conspires to give it to you" -Paulo Coelho
Knowing Sony, and the fact that they sell their own PCs, and are somewhat competition for Apple, I'm rather concerned that they'll only continue development on a Mac OS version of VGS, which would be a real shame. After all, they took the wonderfully Mac-compatible Palm and made their own Windows-only (at first) Clie... it was up to a third party USB driver to allow it to interface w/ the Mac, and for no good reason.
-- "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." -Joseph Stalin
Stop! VGS is not Bleem! Repeat after me: The list of supported titles for VGS is NOT short.
See also this completely off-topic link.This will have one of two effects (unless I'm forgetting something). Sony will either:
1. Rewrite VGS so as to optimize the subroutines and maximize compatibility (which then would be something I'd pay for)
or
2. Kill it off after June 30 (per the acquisition agreement) and hope people forget about it.
Personally, I don't really see any benefit for Sony to kill off the emulation project. Sony can't be making much money, if any, on their console sales. Because they would be increasing the potential market for their real cash cow (software; i.e. games), they can only stand to gain from improving the software.
This does raise an interesting question, however. How will this affect other PSX emulation projects? Will Sony try to kill them off because then they *would* then be infringing on Sony's business, will they be acquired also, or will they be suffocated and die (the commercial ones, anyway; the others are labors of love)?
This is a great move for Sony. Harware margins are razor thin, if they're not selling their consoles at a loss.
The real money is made on software, which was until now the games. (This is why Sega has been moving out of the hardware market, they can't compete with juggernauts like Sony.)
But now Sony can bring in software-level margins on both the game system and the games!
Plus we can all keep playing our playstation games on our PCs, with an improved emulator, even.
Am I being overly optimistic, or does everyone win with this deal?
Karma: Bored. (Thinking about resurrecting the "Anyone else is an imposter" joke.)
My fantasy speculation is that now that Sony is going to get into the PC market, while MS is going into the game console market. Down the road this could lead to a Sony Gaming OS. I'm not taking the prospect seriously right now, but far stranger things have happened. And if the XBox turns out to be a dud, it could be fun to watch.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
You seem to have missed the point, which is that emulating game consoles is neither interesting nor important enough to be considered "blatant stealing", "a turning point", or anything but a slashdot article for a sleepy Thursday.
As for the deal itself, it's a great move for Connectix - the software was a hopeless case as a commercial offering, and all but dead since the PS/2's appearance anyway. Glad they got some cash out of it before tucking it in the dustbin. They could never have open-sourced it anyway (Sony would have been relentless in their legal opposition, regardless of the fact that they have no case).
Maybe this will end up as a good thing for the software. With Sony's assistance, perhaps the emulator can be optimized and made to work with a greater variety of games. Most psx emulators I've used (read bleem!) have too many bugs to make them alot of fun, and the list of supported titles is too short.
Where's my lobbyist? Right here.