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Microsoft's Real Plan For XNA Gaming Domination?
h0tblack writes "While many have heard about the XNA 'game software development platform' from Microsoft's announcements at GDC earlier this year, the full scope of their plans are only just becoming clear. Eurogamer has a surprisingly candid interview with J Allard covering the latest plans from Redmond. XNA isn't a rehash of DirectX tools for the Xbox2, PC and WinCE devices after all, it's a full-on assault on the gaming world, with the prize being complete dominance of the market. The site also has a BitTorrent of the interview, since it was originally recorded in video form."
"It wants to create the entire standard of gaming across every platform. Scratch that. It wants to own the entire standard of gaming across every platform. This isn't about warring between incompatible standards, it's about creating a standard - a VHS-standard of ubiquity." Except this VHS will only work in one company's VCR...
Microsoft is slowly learning in the console arena, but one lesson they absolutely need to do to make the XBox2 the dominant player is to get as far as possible from being a PC-Like system, as far away as possible from PC game ports, and keep every single game they can get their hands on exclusive for the life of that particular console if possible. Not just 3 months, but years. They also need to court Japanese developers, strike deals with the larger companies such as Square/Enix, get more games from KOEI, pay large sums for ATLUS to translate games specifically for them. They need niche RPG titles out the ass to pull in the anime geeks, they need to do a LOT to win the minds of all the Japanese gamers that ultimately drive more than half this market right now. And if they can get teams specifically for adding in Live! support to these devs games, its a good start.
Before the Xbox was released, Microsoft tried to sell Sony a development kit that would allow Sony (and their 3rd party developers) to develop games on a standard platform.
;).
If you read the book "Opening the Xbox", Bill Gates was pretty irritated and confused when Sony turned them down flat. Why would they turn down Microsoft? Oh, sure - it would also make these games easier to port to a MS based system in the future - but MS was trying to help Sony!
Anyway. Sony saw through the game. And while XNA might be the greatest thing in the world to folks who want to port games between the Xbox, the PC, the Pocket PC - it's probably not something that Sony and Nintendo give a big rats ass about.
That's not to say that Microsoft's plan is a bad one. When Thief III comes out, I'll probably get the Xbox version. I've got a Pentium 800 as my old "game" machine, and I haven't turned it on for about 6 months now (I made the OS X switch some time ago). The Gamecube, PS2 and Xbox let me play what I want and I don't have to spend $300 - $600 every 12 months to keep up my video card/ram/processor/motherboard/whatever.
MS probably realizes this; I'm willing to bet their seeing higher Xbox sales on Xbox/PC titles (such as Knights of the Old Republic). So for games, I'll expect to see more of their emphasis to the Xbox.
Which is kind of a problem - it's still a major money loser for MS. It could be a winner in the long run, but will that means they'll have to open it up a bit and start letting people use it as a PC like system, which could eat into their PC sales profits? That could be a dual edged sword, since that means people could get used to using a "console" as a computer.
Eh. Either way, I'll just keep my eye on the situation. The best games will rule (which looks to be Nintendo for the next 9-12 months, with some nice looking gems on the other platforms), and I'm not about to give up my Powerbook any time soon
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
I don't like the idea of Microsoft controlling gaming but maybe they're on to something. This could help small developers because they won't have to create a new game for every platform on a limited budget. I think it's an ingenious idea, I just wish it wasn't done with continued world domination in mind.
Now is the time, if any, for people to start making games work in Linux as best as possible. If something isn't done soon, all the gaming manufacturers will start building games to work with this system and make them completely unusable in Linux.
What!? Do we have to try and make *everything* run great on Linux just because Microsoft has entered (or is expanding) a certain line of business? Sure, [L|*]nix is great for lots of stuff, but do we always have to pull out the Linux sword and slash at MS' knees just because they're breathing? (Keep reading before modding me down.)
Don't forget, MS already owns the PC gaming platform market (the PC itself) for the most part. In comparison, they only have (I'm guessing) 30-40% of the console gaming platform market with the Xbox.
As long as computers receive electricity, there will probably be *thousands* of gaming manufacturers (read: indies) developing for a wide range of systems. In fairness, I think your comment is in reference to the mainstream developers and publishers. But hey, if you were them, and you wanted to stay in business, earn a profit for shareholders, etc...: Would you develop for a relatively small niche market accustomed to getting stuff for "free"? OR, would you develop for an installed base in the millions who are accustomed to paying $30-$50 per title?
BTW: I'm all for indie game developers -especially on Linux. I still believe thats where a lot of the great *game play* still originates. Graphics, mo-cap, glitz, and licensed music is neat, but I STILL appreciate the feel of my Asteroids and Lunar Lander ships! (Yes, I know they didn't originate on linux, but you know what I mean. :-)
This one gang kept wanting me to join cause I'm pretty good with a bo staff.
Quoting the article:
J Allard: [...] Fast forward four or five years when every game is online
Maybe it's just me and my 20some-year gaming history, but I don't see single-player games going away anytime soon. Online games are fine if you have a few (or several) hours to blow, but if you just want something to relax with for 15 or 30 minutes I doubt that's what you're looking for.
Plus, of course, there's the entire commuting/riding/etc contingent. This may not be such a big deal in the US, where if you're moving, you're usually driving, but here in Japan, it's typical to have 1-2 hours of "dead time" a day on trains, buses and the like. Plenty of people play games during this time (one of the latest rages is "Gyakuten Saiban"--"Turnaround Court Case", I guess--and I can't decide whether that's a bad thing, but that's a different story); but who's going to go to all the bother of logging into an online service when they'll have to drop out as soon as they leave the train?
I can't see why Microsoft are going to charge extortionate fees or demand additional royalties for using something like this. Look at the model for Visual Studio. Does it make development easier? Yes. Do MS expect royalties from distributables? No. Does it tie you in to using Windows? Yes. The purpose of XNA is to make it easier for people to create games on Microsoft platforms. MS then make money on the OS or, in the case of consoles, from the sale of the game itself (just like Playstation get money from every PS game sold). Seems pretty transparent to me and hopefully good news for the smaller development studios.
When Sony and EA have huge market share it's okay, but as soon as MS wants to be competitive it's sinister? They have to make a profit in gaming or get out and this is just another step in that path. Would it be better to just have Sony or Nintendo running gaming or have strong competition?
What's the deal with being online?
Online games are huge but usually equire enormous time commitment. Many occasional gamers like to spend an hour or two a week (say) playing games. With most MMORGs or online FPSs this is impossible, you either play all the time or not at all, especially since there is a monthly fee associated with it. If you play occasionally you either get your butt kicked all the time or you can't keep up with your friends.
My theory is that online multiplayer games will saturate their audience pretty soon, if it hasn't happened already. How many MMORGs can you play at once?
This has very little to do with porting games at all -- XNA doesn't particularly make it much easier to port a game to a different platform. The author of the article on Eurogamer makes some far fetched comments to that effect; which seems to indicate he has no idea what development is like, or what XNA will really provide.
The whole point of XNA is provide a solid common library, which focuses on common game development tasks. This allows different platforms to very easily interoperate, but does not make it significantly easier to port games to other platforms. For instance, making a set of games that share the same game world and are all Live aware becomes quite simple, but porting a Xbox version of that same game to PC does not suddenly become a simple task.
I don't see how people are jumping to the conlusion that providing XNA and reference designs is economically infeasible. Certainly Microsoft would like to create a reference design platform in the future. Yes, Microsoft thinks this can start with with XNA. Yes, it's a good idea.
The whole pointing in having a reference design is to increase interoperability, reduce development time, and reduce development cost. If another company makes a device using a reference design, it won't take your suggested 3 months to port a game to run on this new device -- it will take zero months, zero weeks, zero days, zero hours... no time at all since it will run on that device immediately.
You don't have to rewrite anything in a PC game to have your game run a different manufacturer of GeForce 4 cards -- it works on the reference design boards, it works on Asus boards, it works on Hercules Guillemot boards, and it works on everyother board based on the NVIDIA reference design. Does this fact suddenly make NVIDIA foolish for abandoning their board manufacturing business in favour of performing just the design tasks and chip fabrication? ATI seems to be following a similar plan these days as well -- platform and reference design work.
If Bob decides to buy and use a reference design for MasterBlasterSuperConsole, he's essentially creating a MasterBlasterSuperConsole -- not another platform. Say the original MasterBlasterSuperConsole designers still sell their version of the MasterBlasterSuperConsole and everyone likes Bob's MasterBlasterSuperConsole better. The consumers proceed to buy more of Bob's than the original by a large margin. Are the designers of the original sitting on the street crying? No, they're taking in a killing from Bob's MasterBlasterSuperConsole since he has to pay the original designers a very significant percentage of his profits to them. Is Bob upset? Not really, he didn't have to design much -- just copy the reference design and add a few tweaks here and there.
There are a lot of companies that operate in this fashion -- ARM in one of the largest microprocessor developers in the world without even selling microprocessors. IBM also licences out it's microprocessor designs to other companies (the Power architecture seen in PowerPC, amongst others, is a good example). Ericsson isn't loosing any sleep from becoming increasingly a design house, providing specifications and reference designs to companies that specialize in mass production. There has literally thousands of companies that do business in this very fashion with great success.
Microsoft and Sony have been doing this for decades in various different industries -- it's one of the reasons they have been so exceptionally successful. I wholely agree with Allard, it's just a matter of when this will happen.
I wonder if it'll lead to better games, at least in the short run?
Not likely. Yet Another Game Development Library(tm) isn't going to change the industry's inability to greenlight an original design, try something genuinely new, or stop making one sequel after another.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
Don't you understand? In Playstation vs. Xbox vs. GameCube, Playstation II sales are 71.3million, Xbox at 13.7million, and GameCube at 13.9million. With 75% market share, most developers are interested in getting their titles on the Playstation platform first, and Xbox or GameCube or both second. But when MS brings out the next version, the developers are presented with this option: Develop your game for the Xbox, and it's also ready for Windows! So now instead of looking at Xbox vs Playstation market share, they're looking at Xbox + Windows vs Playstation. And with Windows XP alone at 210 million units sold, the tables are quickly reversed on Sony. This is Microsoft yet again leveraging their monopoly on the desktop to beat the competition, instead of developing a truly superior product.
Where have you been for the last decade.
MS will do ANYTHING it can to defeat the competition. And it will use any cludge, any leverage, threat or intimidation to do so. I didn't see anything in that article implying that XNA will be a free and open standard that anyone can use without permission.
Wanna bet the license fees will be under NDA and depend on how nice you are to MS and if you have any naughty ties to MS's competition.
Previously:
Oh My! You want to sell computers with linux/beos/etc pre-installed? Shoot, looks like we'll have to renogotiate your license agreement.
New and Improved with XNA:
Oh My! You want to release a linux/mac/etc client with your game? Shoot, looks like we'll have to renogotiate your license agreement.
Unless XNA becomes independent of MS, it will eventually be used as a weapon. This IS about domination.
While there's some truth to that, there is also a major problem:
PC games don't port well to consoles, and vice versa.
I'm sorry, but it's just a reality. PC games are made to utilize the mouse. Console games are made to utilize the controler. I've never, ever played a PC game on a console that played well (quake 3 on dreamcast anyone?). On a console, it is laborious to put in any data, even naming your characters in final fantasy, while this task (and a multitude of others) are easy on a PC. Not to mention the whole mouse thing. Moving your little cursor around the screen on a console is annoying and time consuming, and nigh impossible without a good analog stick. On a mouse it's second nature. The only port that was even playable was knights of the old republic, and even its interface on the PC was really annoying (compared to a similar game like NWN). And it's not even genres. Games developed for the console stay on the console. For instance, Splinter Cell. Playable on console, unplayable on PC. You had to click a mouse button to go forward. That works for airships in FF9 wher the button is the X on the controler, but not when it's on the mouse.
I wouldn't be too worried. Console and PC games are so vastly different, and created around a different concept of human-computer interaction, that I think it will be a while before the ability to port your game to PC is a huge factor. It will remain what it is now - a way to get a little more revenue without much work, but that only fills a niche market and isn't a major part of the revenue model.
~Will
sig?
It wants to own the entire standard of gaming across every platform.
Microsoft's managers still hang on to the silly dream that they can create a single platform that works for everybody. They can't. First, technically, people have needs and interests that are far too diverse to be served by any single platform. Second, even if it was technically feasible, any market like that is far too large not to attract competition--that's, after all, the purpose of a free market economy.
The only way any company can maintain dominance in a market like Microsoft does is through monopolistic practices. Microsoft could get away with that once because they succeeded when people didn't understand what was happening--but that isn't going to work again, under the scrutiny of competitors and anti-trust enforcement.
Could of course be that they think their is a market, there isn't, could be they think it will win them customers, it doesn't. OR just maybe these companies don't enjoy they idea of being locked onto a OS made by a company that is DIRECTLY competing with them and has a very long history of wiping out competition.
It has far less to do with promoting linux as not ending up in the pockets of Microsoft.
For now DirectX is pretty open and you have the half-life people saying that the PC is for them more profitable because of the lack of license fees wich are needed for console titles. If MS every comes to truly own the gaming world how long do you think this will last?
You are living in a dream world. Small independent game companies are going bust. The Xth rehash of ancient games does NOT count. It is the orignal new stuff that is getting more and more owned by the BIG companies. Companies that can afford a string of money losing titles without going out of business. Would you enjoy a future where games are owned by only the big boys? I wouldn't.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.