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Game Wars 2 - Battle for the Living Room
securitas writes "The New York Times' John Markoff writes about the fight to own the living room in the next-generation game console wars, with a digital divergence predicted instead of the much-hyped convergence. With games historically being a driving force in consumer PC growth, Intel is pushing PC-based systems as the dominant platform while the videogames industry is looking to the next generation of consoles as media hubs. Sony, Nintendo and IBM are firmly in the console camp. Microsoft has one foot in each of the PC and console camps, cooperating with Intel on the PC front while looking to IBM for the next Xbox. Meanwhile, Apple is taking its own tack, buoyed by the phenomenally successful iPod. Steve Jobs has been highly critical of iPod clones with video and gaming features, and some are looking to Apple for the next home entertainment revolution. Markoff also talks to WildTangent's founder Alex St. John, who predicts the PC makers and Intel have a losing strategy."
Who said consoles can't have keyboards? And I think most people prefer stand-alone gaming devices than use the PC. The PC is for Messenger/Email, etc. (oh yeah, and walkthroughs ;-))
Apple? No.
Apple tried a set-top / gaming console box in 1996 with the "Pippin", which was going to be manufactured by Bandai and run a version of the Mac OS related to System 7. It was going to run a PowerPC 603 (not 603e) because they were cheap, and be a WebTV-style device and, mostly, a gaming console, and of course since everyone knew gaming and computing and multimedia was all converging, it would be the center of as-yet-uninvented miraculous new killer apps. (Sound familiar?)
Mostly it was a disaster because Apple didn't court any of the right game developers except for Bungie (this was before Halo), and the PlayStation with its hardware 3D graphics support just blew it away when it was introduced in Japan at about the same time as the Pippin announcement to the developers. The Pippin was stillborn.
I don't know who are the "some" people mentioned in the headline who look at Apple to compete with the behemoth forces of the console manufacturers, but if some ill-advised group at Apple is looking to compete in this space, I would expect the same hamhanded approach that Apple has always had with gaming.
Console games outsell PC games 10 to 1, you idiot. It's about a $10 billion industry worldwide, and PC games are maybe $2 billion worldwide.
The fanatical DRM is the reason that all the 3rd party developers are in this business. Without the DRM, the piracy that plagues the PC industry (and keeps it down to this ratio, BTW) would drive everyone out to other more profitable software ventures.
Remember Kevin Mitnick?
The name Markoff taints my impression of the story since he's the one who sensationalized things enough to screw Mitnick.
So now I see Markhoff and I think overhype
I want to listen to uncensored radio over the public airwaves. Nobody's adapting to me. I also want an article from slashdot to have significant original content like a DIY-jet, or a cool program. But slashdot is now more boring and business oriented. Again, nobody adapts to me. The reason? In both cases, the feedback channels have been switched off.
On the other hand, you didn't address the content of the article at all. It's about divergence.
Personally, if the PC market split from the consumer content market, I would be very happy. This would allow me, a developer to buy the OS and hardware I want while my less technologically inclined friends can just buy a tv-box and worry about which games it will play. Would you rather content be the market, or the same content in a different wrapper (a la Win vs. Lin vs. Mac)?
No, in that as a multimedia center, it sucks.
Think about it. I want to listen to some music. I pick up the CD, put it in the CD player, settle back on the couch, and hit the remote control to start it playing (as well as control its volume, skip over tracks, etc.)
Or I want to watch a DVD. I pick up the DVD, put it in the DVD player, settle back on the couch, and hit the remote control to start it playing on my 68 cm (that's about 27 inch) TV.
Or I want to play a game. I pick up the game disc (unless you have something that predates the PS2, other than the PS1, in which case you pick up the game cartridge), stick it in the console, pick up the controller...
You get the idea.
What happens with a PC? I decide I want to watch a movie. I've ripped all my DVDs to disk, so I trawl through the collection of files, pick the one I want to watch, and settle back to watch... on my 17" monitor. Or music -- same sort of thing.
Until a company comes up with a device that:
- hooks up to the telly
- lets you rip your CDs/DVDs to hard drive without any intervention, and ideally in real time or better
- automatically titles those CDs and DVDs accurately
- gives you a nice, easy to follow menu to pick out the CD or DVD you want to watch/listen to
the standalone devices aren't going to go away. They're easy to setup, and easy to use. Tivo is part of the way there. But there's currently no way to go the rest of the way with the blessing of the entertainment industry (Hollywood, RIAA, et al.)As for gaming: there are two things the PC has over consoles. First, the ability to get pirated games easily. Secondly, the far vaster possibilities in terms of control with mouse and keyboard, cf console controller. (I'm ignoring patching and suchlike for the sake of discussion.) Against that, you have the never-ending upgrade treadmill, where you almost have to buy the latest and greatest hardware to play the latest and greatest games (not quite, but you get the point, I trust). Console? Plug it in, switch it on, it works. Maybe it needs an add-on, like a network port, but the basic thing just plain works.
The PC is far too complicated for a media hub. Complexity has its place -- imagine trying to type a novel if all you had was a console controller! -- but not when all you want to do is sit back and enjoy a movie.
I know what I want in a multimedia hub: simplicity, combined with the ability to watch from the comfort of my living room couch (or beanbag, or similar). Until the companies give it to me, I'm sticking to my DVD player, CD player, game console, and TV. (And for that matter: I'm unlikely to buy a new console unless there's some game in the new generation that really grabs me. My gamecube should last me quite some time...)
While yes it can be said that the PC and Console game markets are directly competing, the types of games they excel at are worlds apart. Ever try playing Vice City on a PC, it's a completely different experience from the PS2 due to the excellent aiming but horrible driving. Difficult sniping missions become simple with a mouse, and easy driving missions become difficult with a keyboard.
PCs will most likely continue to dominate the online arena, as well as the cutting edge in terms of graphics. Consoles still excel at what they've always excelled in: sports games, multiplayer on a local scale, and ease of use.
It's much easier for parents to buy their children a $100 Gamecube where every game is guareenteed to work without compatibility hassles, where as enthusiasts have no problem shelling out $400 on a video card and dealing with driver issues for when Half-Life 2 comes outs.
There just completely different worlds, quite frankly, I don't want a console that's a media center, I want a console that just plays games.
ce n'est pas un Sig.
I didn't say lack of modding abilities killed the XBox or PS2. I said PC users will never convert to them without it.
The existence of tons of mods for PC games is proof that modding is extremely popular and is a highly desired part of gaming.
The thing that makes DRM a major issue is that PC users do a lot of fair use stuff (as well as piracy) with their videos and music. This is utterly impossible on a console. This is important because console makers are trying to own the living room via convergence, and their anti fair-use policies WRT media is a major hindrance to their quest for world e-domination.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
I'm more heartened by motherboard makers' explorations into "instant-on" BIOSes which let you use mail and TV functions of your PC hardware without needed to boot Windows and suffer the onslaught of long boot times, a million virii, bad drivers. Windows XP with DirectX9 on it, has given me the black-screen-of-death lockups on more than one occasion when using the multimedia functions on my graphics card.
I liked the blue screen more... at least that way Windows knew it had a problem.
Instant-on technologies seems to be the way to go. With things like bootable USB flash memories, Magnetic RAM, things look more "solid state" and like a console.
Maybe one day my PC will get it's own kernal ROM and boot as fast as my old Commodore 64 did.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
1. Ease of use
a) With consoles all you do is plug it into the tv and power outlet, pop in the game, and you get entertainment.
b) With the PC, you have to plug a bunch of peripherals, login to the OS, install drivers, install the game, install patches, and if this was a perfect world (assuming you also bought the perfect pricey hardware) - you get entertainment. More so than not- you get frustration, even for people intimately familiar with the machine.
oh yeah joe sixpack doesn't mod games let alone know how to installed fan made mods
2. Price
a)A decent PC that plays the latest PC games decently will run around $1000 - $1800 (depending on what is considered decent) (a PC used for just word processing will run about $200).
b)A decent console that plays the latest decent console games will run from $99 - $179.
One more thing while some PCs can now plug into TVs, they still don't consistently look good on Tv's like consoles do....
Based on what the market is saying, consoles are already beating the crap out of the pc for games for the reasons I mentioned above...
I think the battle centers more on the fact that both consoles and PCs have aspired to be catch-alls. Consoles (many of them, anyway), play DVDs and now have multiplayer support. But computers do a lot more besides just gamming...and, with the flexibility PCs provide (not with any real sacrifice in graphics or gamming, IMHO,) they will eventually win out. If only we saw a better market for PC controllers more similar to the ones used in consol gaming.
Every windows user is a sadomasochist.
I agree that some devices are better when they have more functionality. But with the console systems it's more like they're becoming a "Jack of all trades, master of none". Yeah, if you shell out the $40 to get the remote that "enables" DVD playback on the XBOX, you can watch movies on it. But why? My existing DVD player has much more functionality than the XBOX (not to mention more sets of outputs). It only cost $100. So the argument that we should buy a console because "it plays all the hottest games AND movies" falls apart when you can get better results by buying the items seperately at not much more cost. The only company sticking to thier guns on this is Nintendo. I doubt we'll ever see a Nintendo console that plays anything but games. I also believe customers will realize that they're paying an extra $100 for a console that duplicates the functionality of everything already under thier TV set.
It's kind of scary, but I'm actually going to agree with this all-in-one scum:
Markoff also talks to WildTangent's founder Alex St. John, who predicts the PC makers and Intel have a losing strategy.
Most people don't want (or need) the flexibility of a true computer; they want a media suite, and office suite, and games.
The console people are always complaining about too much PC hardware. Well, everybody has different needs, so you can't suffice with one cookie cutter. Instead, have maybe four or five cookie cutters (standard, economy, deluxe, media, etc...), with a small amount of modularity (just like consoles...).
Software comes preloaded, and can be bought and is updated AOL-style (you sign off, it updates to a new patchlevel). Data is stored on some kind of USB memory drive or remotely. A consequence of these is if your machine breaks at the hardware level, you can trade it for a new one (maybe exaggerating there).
Of course not just anybody can develop for these machines: you'll need to license an SDK. Applications are written in some kind of Java/.NET-kind of environment, so software can be box brand-independent, and only first parties need (or maybe can...) to write an architecture-native VM. Architecture will most likely not be a marketing issue (they may all be different).
Oh, did I mention that the boxes are all locked down, laced with DRM, TCPA, DMCA, and any other good acronyms I missed. Software will automatically try to determine if you're trying to do something illegal/illicit (like scanning money, viewing kiddie pr0n, etc...). They might have a backdoor to make it easier for law enforcement to collect evidence.
And this has degenerated into a tinfoil bonanza.
Most game publishers will swiftly replaced a damaged game CD/DVD, so long as you mail the disc to them, and pay $5-10.
My copy of SSX Tricky was replaced that way. Disc got scratched, sent in the game, and they gave me a new copy: case, instructions, and all.
Making backup copies of games and such was definitely important back in the old days, when we kept games on rather fragile floppy discs, and the companies that sold the games to us weren't exactly big-money companies with such nice replacement policies. Today, that's not the case.
Sure, you might bitch abouot spending $5-10, but if you're REALLY making fair use backup copies of everything you play, then you will spend more than that in making those backups. Not ALL of your games are going to break.
The way that I see it this guy is preaching the same thing we've all known for a year or two now. While I agree that consoles are ideal for "dominating" the media center living room, the adoption of a media center to dominate is reliant on other things. For one thing, piracy. Large central media storage devices are great if you have large amounts of various types of media to store and display at the push of a button. You knock out the piracy, or try and build a legitimate product on piracy and the idea is busted.
Take the Xbox for example. It's great, if you mod it. Why is it great if you mod it? Because it becomes a media center. What do you do with that? Store large amounts of pirated material. But what if it wasn't modded? What if you could buy the media to store on a media center on demand? Well super duper, that sounds great. If it's affordable (which it won't be), and it's better than the alternative (why is it better/cheaper than DVD's and CD's?).
Isn't this what people with on demand cable and a dvd player already have? What sort of content distribution would support this model? There is a lot of competition here, and emerging technology, and dubious security. The profitability in such a media center will undoubtably be in the content (similar to video game systems) and thus if you can't secure the content distribution or it's storage the business plan falls apart. The opposite is true if you can sell the machine at a profit with the consumer knowing he/she will make up the cost in convienience and free media.
What happens when these models don't follow through? Bust. What will probably happen?
I for one, predict a bust. These machines will not be as profitable as these big wig coorporate chairs anticipate.
YOu know, not everybody has those problems. In fact, discounting the problems with playing older games in newer versions of Windows, there have only been two games I couldn't get to run right away, and that was because my hardware's a bit out of date (GeForce4 MX, I will destroy you.). I'm talking about putting in the game, installing, and having it work fine right away. I think I remember a small hitch somewhere with Enter the Matrix...but I'm not even sure about that.
Get a good system and you won't have any problems. The only problems I've had are...well, the equivalents of trying to play GCN or SNES games on an N64, I suppose.
All the things you listed work fine on my computer, a Sony Vaio. Disk in drive, remote control... only thing missing is a 27 inch TV; I prefer my 13 foot projection screen but there's really nothing stopping me using a television if I really wanted to.
Is your only problem that your computer didn't come with a remote control or decent media software? Honestly, if that's all that's holding back sales then more companies will include them.