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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."
Apple's entered this arena once, with the Pippin Dont expect them to return anytime soon after the large amount of $$$s lost on that debacle.
drunk chemists
People keep claiming the next big console revolution will be a PC killer, but they keep being wrong. I have an X Box and it's great for sports games with your buddies, or for playing when I can't get my husband off the comp, but games like Battlefield, UT 2004, CS and upcoming titles like Doom3 and HL2 require a keyboard, mouse, a desk to prop it all on, and mad processing. Also, I plan to keep investing in monitors over buying an HDTV. I just don't care about the TV in my household. The computer is my entertainment of choice.
The PC already is a multimedia center...
Can I bum a sig?
I just recently played this FoxSports online game and had to install some of their crap just to play this stupid game. I then was informed by someone that WT's plug-in is spyware ridden. Well after running AdAware, I found 400 pieces of infestation from these fuckers. Luckily AdAware fixed this shit.
Avoid anything from WildTangent.
1) Fanatical DRM that predates even TCPA.
They have always had copy restrictions for games (like the PC) but now they come with restrictions against fair use of the media that they play, too. They have far more powerful restrictions than PCs do.
2) Lack of modding abilities.
Console games can't be modded. There'd never be any Counterstrike or Capture the Flag if the consoles had exclusive domain over games. Even now, users cannot mod console games that have identical releases on PCs which are modded (see: Morrowind, NWN).
If DRM conquers the PC market, however, consoles may rise up and totally own all their base in gaming and media.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
I already gave up on video games (except for Xmame) and went back to boardgames and Dungeons & Dragons.
Pass the cheetos, will ya? And where's the Mountain Dew?
I agree taht freedom is a key, but value is also LARGE key. Cost is big on the minds of consumers in this industry, sometimes even at the expense of freedom.
Also, there are cases where freedom is a negative. In the PC world freedom gives developers the ability to push out games with mucho bugs/little playtesting for balance, then patch it later. Also cheating is much more prevalent on the PC.
On the other hand the less free Xbox has neither of these problems, because you have to be using an unmodded Xbox and title to play online and developers don't have a chance to patch a botched release. These are freedoms that have been removed on the Xbox, but are definite plusses in the minds of some.
Steve Jobs has been highly critical of iPod clones with video and gaming features
Why has it become such a common conception that any harddrive based mp3 player is an iPod knockoff? Last time I checked Rio "invented" the mp3 player (Oct 1998, 32MB PMP300), and Creative "invented" the harddrive subcategory (Aug 2000, 6GB NOMAD Jukebox). It took over a year after Creative, and 3 years after MP3 players first appeared for Apple to enter the game with the original iPod (Oct 2001, 5GB iPod). By that time Creative was already releasing second generation harddrive players with twice capacity as Apple's best ipod at almost the same price.
So obviously iPod had nothing to do with creating the harddrive player. Maybe everyone is copying the iPod look? A general examination of the market doesn't seem to agree with this. iPod has a unique style of smooth curves and controls that blend into the unit. It's coloration and texture make it look almost ceramic from a distance. Compare that with just about every other player on the market: Rubberized edges and buttons, contrasting colors like sharp blues and reds stripping plastic silver. Where as the iPod look is like a bar of Ivory soap, the rest of the market is flooded with devices that look like tiny boom boxes. The only device that seems to come close to iPods smooth colors is the original Nomad Jukebox, the very product the iPod was copying (even then the Nomad retains more of the mainstream consumer electronics feel with its metallic silver highlights). Even the iPod look and feel is basically confined to the Apple court. The navigation system, an evolution of Sony's jogdial thumb navigation, is patented, and the placement of controls below and screen above is nothing new (the granddaddy of all MP3 players used that arrangement). Everything about the iPod screams different (a good reason for its success).
The logic that just because the iPod has market dominance now means that all products that meet the same need are clones is silly. If that kind of crazy logic where true then every desktop OS would be a "clone" of Microsoft Windows, even Mac OS X.
s/allows the *freedom* consumers want/plays GTA4 first/
:)
You think the general public cares about freedom? How 1998 of you
The console that wins will be the console with the best games. People buy a console to play a game - you bought your NES to play Mario, Gameboy to play Tetris on the bus, PS2 to play GTA3, etc. The general public could give a crap about openness or freedom on their console.
Jon/Slothy
(Game Programmer)
One thing I don't understand is the level of media coverage that Sony/Microsoft get in comparison to Nintendo. Let's not forget that Nintendo is still very much in this race and last time I checked, Nintendo was far ahead (and gaining) compared to Microsoft in World-wide Marketshare. Yet the general media, still acts is if Nintendo is a non-player.
Something intelligent here.
Assuming that horsepower simply makes prettier 'graphics' is the shortcoming of this logic.
/maybe/ an attempt at some fuzzy logic. With more horsepower you can maintain the visual status quo but move forward with opponents that can 'think' without having to 'know' the entire gamestate just to path toward the player.
/outside/ the building.
More horsepower is required to expand gaming. Adding horsepower for the next few upgrade generations will allow developers to increase the gamespace.
Consider interactivity: making the environment something you can break, manipulate, or build. How many items in the average 3d game scene are interactive? maybe 1%? walls aren't, windows aren't, 90% of doors aren't. You're lucky if one of the chairs is.
Right now machines aren't capable of tracking many interactive objects and maintaining the graphics that everyone seems to think are 'good enough'. Half-life2 is going to try, but thumb through the specs they've passed out to would-be licensees and mod makers: there are hard (and relatively low) limits on numbers of interactive objects. Slower systems severely limit the number of interactive objects one can use before the engine bogs down.
This is not to slam Valve, they are at the cutting edge of interactive environments, but rather to show how the cutting edge is still pretty limited.
Then there's AI.
Right now AI are most often straight scripts with
The fact that (nearly) everyone is still using a hacked A* algorithm to get a computer opponent where he needs to be is telling enough by itself. Algorithms more complicated than A* need more processor time. Heck, more processor time for pathing can yield improvements even without changing the algorithms. If you ever played Baldur's Gate, you'll remember that people complaining about pathing could edit their config files to 'up' the number of nodes used to calculate paths. The faster your machine, the more nodes you could add, the better the path-finding.
Even today this problem persists. Much moreso since the problem is now 3 dimensional, rather than 2 dimensional. This problem is at its worst in games with large numbers of units and dynamic maps (RTS games with their placeable buildings). To go back to a Bioware example - their Neverwinter engine doesn't even have a true Z-axis as far as its pathing is concerned. Their engine cannot model a footbridge that a model can walk across and under. They made a good number of concessions to make their game as interactive as possible, and run well.
Then there's lighting.
With as many textures as we have precalculated (lightmaps, bumpmaps, reflection maps) things like truly dynamic lighting are still out of reach. Games like Doom3 and Splinter Cell attempt to mask this by making their scenes predominantly dark and showing off how great dynamic lighting looks with a handful of light sources.
Yet they both limit the number of light sources and also the number of models you'll see on-screen at one time, so the horsepower needed to calculate those few dynamic lights isn't bogging down the machine when the action happens.
Then there's my favorite issue: overdraw.
When's the last time you played a 3d game that modeled, say, an office building that ended up looking like any office building you've ever been inside? I'm betting never. If you had, it'd have been in a 'portal' style-engine, in which case that game will never render the open spaces of the office park
Level designers work within the constraints of the engines. Modern bsp-derived engines overdraw polygons so much that you never see an actual downtown street with buildings you can enter without a load time.
Why isn't there a broad thoroughfare in an Everquest town? Why are the hallways in a counterstrike map so twisty? Why haven't you seen a large office building where you could enter each room?
It isn't for gameplay - though designers do a great
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"