Next Generation Cat Fight

The gaming industry may be an ever more lucrative business, but in some ways it seems as if kids are still running the place. Gamespot has up an article in which they discuss the nasty things the Big 3 have said about each other. From the article: "Robbie Bach: The other two companies' presentations [at E3] weren't surprising. Sony's [PS3's] capabilities are the same as ours. Nintendo is aiming for the niche market [with its Revolution]. The current-generation Xbox sold more than the PlayStation 2 in North America last Christmas. We will become the market leader with our next-generation console." The Guardian Gamesblog has commentary on this.

Comments

My dad is tougher than your dad!

[xutopia]

Usually these exclamations have no value whatsoever except in this case the daddys will be in the ring soon and we'll have real data to show who wins.

My idea is that they'll both be successful to varying degrees.

Hard to imagine...

[TripMaster Monkey]

Quote from Robbie Bach in TFA:

Sony's [PS3] will be able to use seven controllers simultaneously and connect with two high-definition TV sets. But it's hard to share a single screen with seven people, and it's also difficult to imagine a room with two high-definition TV sets.

Yeah, Robbie...I remember when it was difficult for Bill Gates to imagine a computer program that required more than 640K of memory...

Oops...

Re:Hard to imagine...

[rokzy]

they use bluetooth. bluetooth is limited to 7. they're just saying you could connect 7 devices and a controller is a device. it has nothing to do with games having seven players or anything. it was probably started by a marketer, not a real person with sense.

Re:Hard to imagine...

[0kComputer]

Yeah, Robbie...I remember when it was difficult for Bill Gates to imagine a computer program that required more than 640K of memory...

That would be funny if he actually said that but he didn't fucking say it.

Now please take your trolls somewhere else.

Re:Hard to imagine...

[VStrider]

No! No, no, not 6! I said 7. Nobody's comin' up with 6. Who plays with 6 controllers?? You won't even get your heart goin, not even a mouse on a wheel.
7's the key number here. Think about it. 7-Elevens. 7 doors. 7, man, that's the number. 7 chipmunks twirlin' on a branch, eatin' lots of sunflowers on my uncle's ranch. You know that old children's tale from the sea. It's like you're dreamin' about Gorgonzola cheese when it's clearly Brie time, baby. Step into my office...cause you're fuckin' fired!

Re:Hard to imagine...

[HiredMan]

[Steve Martin]
"Oh, ho, ho, irony! Oh, no, no, we don't get that here. - We haven't had any irony here since about, uh, '83, when I was the only practitioner of it. And I stopped because I was getting tired of being stared at."
[/Steve Martin]

Why fight?

[ZephyrXero]

All 3 consoles will be damn near equal...there's no difference really except for the games and services now... It's time for an Open Console, but I doubt any of these three will want to give up their licencing fees...

Re:Why fight?

[Jacius]

You must have some insider info on Nintendo's console, then! From what I've read, Nintendo's console will, in terms of specs, be significantly less powerful than either PS3 or Xbox 360. Of course, Nintendo's counting on their console being superior in some way that turns out to be more important than pure processing power. (Maybe it will have a funnitude rating of 33!!!)

An Open Console would be really nice, but (like you pointed out) the only market-players with the means to mass-produce a new console have an economic motive not to do so. There have been hobbyist projects in the past to make small, Linux-based console systems, but none of them really took off, even among FOSS enthusiasts.

And of course, Joey Newshoes, age 13, doesn't want to build his own console just to play some crummy tetris clone. For an Open Console to become truly popular, it would have to a) be available in retail stores, and b) have a good selection of quality games. The latter might be possible as more commercial-quality games are being made/ported to Linux. The former is almost inconceivable, from an economic standpoint, because it would require a lot of resources to mass-produce the consoles, and a profit would have to be made without the licensing fees, which means trying to undercut the 3 major players on price.

Frankly, I think our best bet would be a regular Linux PC with a TV-out port and some USB controllers. Consoles all have standard hardware, but is variation in hardware a problem? With a couple abstraction layers between the hardware and the game, the difference between e.g. an AMD and an Intel approaches zero.

There will always be a difference in performance (e.g. 1Ghz vs 2Ghz), but games can have a low minimum requirements and scale up with additional hardware, if they are so programmed. The only problem I see with this in the Windows game market is that the developers are actually pushing for faster hardware, making the system requirements higher each year, so that consumers are pressured into upgrading. If anyone should be able to avoid that temptation, it's FOSS developers.

Re:Why fight?

[Jacius]

The numbers I've seen say the Rev is "2-3 times" more powerful than the GCN, while the Xbox 360 is "13-15 times" more powerful than the Xbox 1, and the PS3 is "35 times" more powerful than the PS2.

Looking at this page, it looks like Xbox's numbers are bigger than Gamecube's in every category. And while the PS2's are smaller, the reported 35-fold increase in performance would put them well above 2-3 times increase over GCN.

So, I hope you can understand how I came to the conclusion that the Xbox 360 and PS3 are more powerful. I'm not claiming that the numbers are what's important, only that (according to reports from the companies themselves), the Xbox360/PS3 have more "RAW CPU/GPU POWAH" than the Revolution.

Re:Why fight?

[Jacius]

The days when game developers had to program for specific hardwares is long over (except, I'll note, in the console industry). Operating systems and libraries like OpenGL and SDL take care of most of that now. Or, at least, they could and should. Game developers should develop for a library (or libraries), not for a set of hardware. The library developers develop for an operating system (or several). The operating system developers are the ones who develop for hardware. It's all about abstraction layers.

As for the "problem" of varying performance between PCs: you plan. You sit down and you say "Ok, we're targeting a system with 500Mhz processor and 64MB RAM. First, we make it fun. If we have time later, we can add toggle-able eye candy (stencil shadows, particle effects, etc.) that take bigger hardware." And then you do what you said. Although, you'd probably be better off forgetting the "If we have time later" part, because a) you won't, and b) it doesn't matter anyway.

From what I can see, most developers don't do this. Most programmers get off on the latest techno-crap like "bump mapping" and "per-pixel shading" which aren't even worth the development time to implement. But the programmers think it's interesting, and the hype-machine convinces consumers that it matters, so they don't spend time on the stuff that actually matters.

In short, the fixed hardware on consoles is a crutch that forces developers to spend at least some of their time on stuff that matters. It enforces a limit that developers should be enforcing for themselves. If the developers had the will-power to keep themselves away from their shiny toys, that hardware limit wouldn't be needed.

Moving on, there's no reason a PC game has to be "installed" any more than a console game has to be installed, except that PC developers like to take advantage of the access speed of hard-drives (which consoles historically have not had). It's certainly possible to run a program off of a CD (even in Linux), and software could even be written to control it with a USB controller.

And, if you had a TV-out port and USB controllers, you could put your PC-console-thing down in the living room where you put your other consoles, and play it sitting on the couch. Most PC towers are quite large these days, but they don't have to be.

Like I said, a homebrew box is probably the most feasible plan; a pre-built Open Console just wouldn't survive in today's market. Maybe, just maybe, they could be sold online and create a niche market. Then it might have a chance for indie developers to make games on it, and slowly expand the market by word of mouth (if these indie developers can force themselves to make fun games instead of eye candy). But if it's Open, what's to stop some other company from saying "Look! We made one that's just like the old one, but with MORE MEGS!" All the weak-willed developers would develop for that console so they could make more eye candy (and making it impossible to play their games on the old console), and we'd have the PC market all over again.

But still... someone show me an Open Console priced and under $150 with a decent API, and I'd buy one myself just to make my own games on, even if no one else bought it.

I agree with you that there's not a snowflake's chance in hell that the Big 3 are going to take the risk involved to do this. For one thing, their shareholders would just shoot whatever CEO tried to do that, because it makes absolutely no business sense.

IBM

[turtled]

And you know who makes out? IBM, they are the core processor for all 3 nextGen consoles. Good for them...

Re:Nintendo's comments are pure gold!

[ZephyrXero]

Did I miss the punchline? That sounds like a pretty valid statement... The gaming population and revenues in Japan are steadily decreasing each year and games just keep getting more complex and inaccessable to newcomers. Nintendogs is like the top selling game in Japan, so if you want to make fun of them for that then you've got some issues...

Fuck Everything, We're Doing Seven Controllers

[0kComputer]

Adapted from an onion article: http://www.physics.mcgill.ca/~arobic/funny/Gillett e.html

Would someone tell me how this happened? We were the fucking vanguard of gaming in this country. The Sony Playstation3 was the razor to own. Then the other guy came out with a three-blade razor. Were we scared? Hell, no. Because we hit back with a little thing called the Playstation3Turbo. That's three Controllers and an aloe strip. For moisture. But you know what happened next? Shut up, I'm telling you what happened - the bastards went to four Controllers. Now we're standing around with our cocks in our hands, selling three Controllers and a strip. Moisture or no, suddenly we're the chumps. Well, fuck it. We're going to Seven Controllers.

James M. Kilts CEO and President, The Sony Company

Sure, we could go to four Controllers next, like the competition. That seems like the logical thing to do. After all, three worked out pretty well, and four is the next number after three. So let's play it safe. Let's make a thicker aloe strip and call it the Playstation3 SuperTurbo. Why innovate when we can follow? Oh, I know why: Because we're a business, that's why!

You think it's crazy? It is crazy. But I don't give a shit. From now on, we're the ones who have the edge in the multi-blade game. Are they the best a man can get? Fuck, no. Sony is the best a man can get.

What part of this don't you understand? If two Controllers is good, and three Controllers is better, obviously Seven Controllers would make us the best fucking gaming that ever existed. Comprende? We didn't claw our way to the top of the gaming game by clinging to the two-blade industry standard. We got here by taking chances. Well, Seven Controllers is the biggest chance of all.

Here's the report from Engineering. Someone put it in the bathroom: I want to wipe my ass with it. They don't tell me what to invent - I tell them. And I'm telling them to stick two more Controllers in there. I don't care how. Make the Controllers so thin they're invisible. Put some on the handle. I don't care if they have to cram the fifth blade in perpendicular to the other four, just do it!

You're taking the "safety" part of "safety razor" too literally, grandma. Cut the strings and soar. Let's hit it. Let's roll. This is our chance to make gaming history. Let's dream big. All you have to do is say that Seven Controllers can happen, and it will happen. If you aren't on board, then fuck you. And if you're on the board, then fuck you and your father. Hey, if I'm the only one who'll take risks, I'm sure as hell happy to hog all the glory when the Seven-blade console becomes the gaming tool for the U.S. of "this is how we shave now" A.

People said we couldn't go to three. It'll cost a fortune to manufacture, they said. Well, we did it. Now some egghead in a lab is screaming "Seven's crazy?" Well, perhaps he'd be more comfortable in the labs at Norelco, working on fucking electrics. Rotary Controllers, my white ass!

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we should just ride in Bic's wake and make pens. Ha! Not on your fucking life! The day I shadow a penny-ante outfit like Bic is the day I leave the console game for good, and that won't happen until the day I die!

The market? Listen, we make the market. All we have to do is put her out there with a little jingle. It's as easy as, "Hey, gaming with anything less than Seven Controllers is like scraping your beard off with a dull hatchet." Or "You'll be so smooth, I could snort lines off of your chin." Try "Your neck is going to be so friggin' soft, someone's gonna walk up and tie a goddamn Cub Scout kerchief under it."

I know what you're thinking now: What'll people say? Mew mew mew. Oh, no, what will people say?! Grow the fuck up. When you're on top, people talk. That's the price you pay for being on top. Which Sony is, always has been, and forever shall be, Amen, Seven Controllers, sweet Jesus in h

Re:Nintendo's comments are pure gold!

[elrous0]

After all, the Japanese loved Tamagotchi and Aibo.

Just what the Hell did we put in that bomb, anyway?

-Eric