David Jaffe - In Ten Years Just One Game Console

The folks at 'The 1up Show' had the chance to interview David Jaffe, the well-known designer behind God of War. They discuss his upcoming project for the PS3, Calling All Cars, the future of the God of War series, as well as the ever-increasing price of making games. From the article: "A lot of games recently it's cell phone, PC, DS, PSP, if you look at EA they blanket it -- it's everywhere. As a gamer, I kind of miss the 'you can only get it on this system.' There's kind of an excitement that was about that back up until recently. With this new hardware, though, that idea is seems to be going away. Is it really all going to come down to first party now? Or it ultimately going to come to one system? 'Cause 10 years from now there's going to be one system because there's so much more third party software than first party software from any hardware manufacturer. It may not be feasible to make it the war of the first party or the war of the exclusives." The entire interview is viewable online.

Comments

Not very eloquent

[ShedPlant]

I don't know about the quality of his games, but he isn't a very good speaker.

Can't see the "one console in ten years" happening, either.

Re:Not very eloquent

[Thansal]

Nope!

he tends to run his mouth off alot, and watchign him can be rather amusing (especialy watching him drunk at a party, telling off the PR guy who is supposed to be making sure he doesn't say stuff he isn't supposed to).

The 'one console in ten years' thing isn't 100% right (cut 10 yrs to 5-6), but it is possible. Before the current gen (heh, no longer is it next gen!) systems launched there really was only one player, the PS2. The market share they had over both the xbox and the NGC was segnificant, why? Exlusive 3rd party games.

However, as he pointed out himself, the exclusive 3rd party game seems to be a dieing breed. We now see games beign proted over to every system they can, simply because a port can capitalize on the inital investment required for a new game with out spendign (relativly) much more.

So yah, he is shooting his mouth off, but he says some key things to watch.

Re:Not very eloquent

[HappySqurriel]

Can't see the "one console in ten years" happening, either.

If it does happen I fear for the health of the industry ...

As it has been talked about inside of the industry many times, when you have one platform which is as dominant as the PS2 is/was you end up in a very bad position; you have (basically) no choice but to produce a game for that platform which makes the company who produces the platform grow arogant and stop meeting your needs. If you look at the PS3 you can see the consequences of Sony's success with the Playstation and PS2; a Blu-Ray player which increases the cost of the syste, Blu-Ray discs which increase the production cost of every game, a complicated (difficult to develop for) platform with an inadequate tool set.

Re:Not very eloquent

[revlayle]

Indeed, remember Nintendo's stance with game production for the NES? They had practically a stranglehold on that industry... eventually Nintendo fell from grace and was replaced by Sony, over time, did similar, albeit, not as sinister as Nintendo in the NES days, but enough that they got too cocky and are now slowly falling from grace.

You get one console, that particular console manufacturer gets a monopolistic attitude about keeping that one console financially on top. One day, they push consumers far enough, that some other enterprising addition to the console industry walks in shakes up the playing field quite successfully.

Will we see *effectively* one console someday? I'm sure - I bet that won't last long, however.

Re:Not very eloquent

[sesshomaru]

Actually, I'd say that was true last generation with the PS2. If you are just talking about TV console gaming, I like to say the number one TV based console was the PS2 and the number two TV based console was the PS2, with Gamecube and Xbox battling for 3rd and 4th place. The contest wasn't even close, if you were serious about having the largest selection of games, and of getting any major non-First Party "exclusive" eventually ported to your system, you had a PS2.

I'll note that the only TV based consoles I owned were Dreamcast and Gamecube, but I'm being objective here. If you weren't a blind zealot and you like games, you owned a PS2 +/- one or more of the other consoles.

My own position on Sony was always, "From Hell's heart, I stab at thee," but they won hands down.

This generation, who knows?

Re:Not very eloquent

[Penguin's Advocate]

The PS3 isn't so different from the PS2 in those respects. The PS2 used a DVD drive, while DVD's were just beginning to become popular (just as the PS3 uses a Blu-Ray drive just as Blu-Ray starts to become popular (which is the truth, Blu-Ray sales are increasing at a ridiculous rate, more than 700% since the release of the PS3 and now outselling HD-DVDs)). The PS2 was by far the most difficult console to develop for. It was downright painful. The gamecube and xbox were far easier to develop for, and yet the PS2 still came out on top. Sony has sold more PS2's than almost all previous consoles combined (not counting the PS1, which sold nearly as many as the PS2). They easily outsold the xbox and gamecube by more than 10 to 1. Based on Sony's history with game consoles, Nintendo and Microsoft need all the advantages they can get, and they still might lose, by a lot. In terms of games, the PS3 is far behind at the moment. As far as I am concerned, there are no good games for the PS3 yet. I've got a 360, a Wii, and a PS3 (as well as an xbox, gamecube, ps2, dreamcast, ps1, ..., atari 2600)
I have about 20 games for the 360, most of which I like, I have every game that has come out for the Wii, most of which I like, and I have 2 games for the PS3 (resistance and dark kingdom) both of which suck. I bought the PS3 as an inexpensive blu-ray player, and I have about 20 blu-ray movies. But. I have more PS2 and PS1 games than all other games for all other consoles I own combined. And every one of those PS2 and PS1 games works in the PS3 (with the glaring exception of guitar hero until the adapter comes out). I only have one TV, and I can only have so many consoles hooked up at once without making a mess, so the PS3 has successfully taken the PS2's place beneath my TV as well as adding a blu-ray player to my setup. ....There was a point I was getting to here... O yes, the point is, that even though the PS3 sucks as a next gen gaming console (in terms of currently available games), it is still a sound investment (as far as electronics can ever be considered a "sound investment") for many people because you're getting a PS2 and a blu-ray player in one unit with the possibility of good next gen games in the future. Sony can probably sell the number their aiming for (6 million by march) based on that alone. (Also, a Note on DRM: 95% of the people who will buy these first 6 million PS3s probably don't know what DRM is.)

Re:Not very eloquent

[TB]

I agree. Its funny how so many idiots were calling the PS3 dead 6weeks into its life forgetting that it mirrors the PS2 and PS1 in almost every way. Of course the difference with the PS1 was it was underpowered for what the devlopers expected, they fixed tht in PS2 and PS3. With over 19 games due on the PS3 in about the next 60odd days things are looking good or it to continue where the PS2 left off.

Re:Not very eloquent

[HappySqurriel]

The PS3 isn't so different from the PS2 in those respects. The PS2 used a DVD drive, while DVD's were just beginning to become popular (just as the PS3 uses a Blu-Ray drive just as Blu-Ray starts to become popular (which is the truth, Blu-Ray sales are increasing at a ridiculous rate, more than 700% since the release of the PS3 and now outselling HD-DVDs)).

"The PS2 has a DVD player and the PS3 has a Blu-Ray player so they are the same" argument is flawed.

• DVD was released late 1996/early 1997 and the PS2 was released 3 years later
• DVD movies were available for (almost) every new movie at many/most video rental stores
• The PS2 launched at the traditionally acceptable price of $300 US
• Besides resolution and Sound Quality the DVD format offered several benefits to everyone who would buy it (not just early adopters who had high end TVs and Surround Sound Systems

The PS2 was by far the most difficult console to develop for. It was downright painful. The gamecube and xbox were far easier to develop for, and yet the PS2 still came out on top. Sony has sold more PS2's than almost all previous consoles combined (not counting the PS1, which sold nearly as many as the PS2). They easily outsold the xbox and gamecube by more than 10 to 1.

Well, the PS2 outsold the Gamecube and XBox by a margin closer to 4:1 and that doesn't include the number of PS2s that were replaced; personally, after my 3rd PS2 broke, my Sony TV broke after 2 years and my Sony DVD player broke after 13 months I decided never to buy another Sony product (suprisingly enough, my Gamecube and Samsung/Toshiba products have all lasted several years). The thing people never take into consideration is that the PS2 had (essentially) "won" before the Gamecube and XBox were released; the PS2 sold 5.5 Million units in Japan, 6.5 in North America and (IIRC) 4 Million in Europe before either the Gamecube or XBox were released. The PS2 had sold 20 Million units worldwide by the end of 2001 whereas the Gamecube and XBox were sitting at 2 to 4 Million units; at that point every third party developer in the world supported the PS2 and Nintnedo and Microsoft were forced to fight for development (Nintendo used licencing agreements and Microsoft used money to attract development but neither could surpass the pull of the PS2).

Sony can probably sell the number their aiming for (6 million by march) based on that alone

PS3 In Stock; Possible Sign of Weaker Demand
Report: Sony's Global PS3 Sales to Miss Target by 25%

Re:Not very eloquent

[Anonymous Coward]

"The PS2 has a DVD player and the PS3 has a Blu-Ray player so they are the same" argument is less flawed than you make it out to be.

1) Ok, the DVD was launched 3 years before the PS2, Blu-ray only 1 year before the PS3, however DVD's took forever to take off and didn't even surpass VHS for sales until just recently (nearly 10 years later).

2) Blu-ray movies are available everywhere, go to best buy, go to blockbuster, hollywood video, etc, they have blu-ray movies all over.

3) Traditionally acceptable prices don't mean much, look at the 360.

4) Besides resolution and Sound Quality? How about excellent scratch resistance? Or, far more to the point, a single format for movies and games?

5) Fair enough, the numbers were closer to 5:1, I did base that on numbers I read a while ago and apparently as of sept 2006 it was more like 5:1, but Sony is still making and selling the PS2 actively, which isn't happeneing with the xbox or gamecube and that's only part of this statement. The PS2 outsold everything this holiday season once again. It outsold the Wii, it outsold the 360, and it outsold the PS3. For the month of december alone the PS2 sold 1.4 million units. And yet all of this is ignoring the fact that the PS2 is painful to program, the gamecube and xbox are infinitely more programmer friendly. They both have better libraries and better support and, in several ways, better hardware, and still the PS2 kept getting developers.

As for hardware reliability...I don't know where I stand on that, I have two first generation (purchased day 1) ps2's, one American, one Japanese (yay region free dvd player). Both of them still work great, never had any problems. Though I do have to admit I know that many people have had problems. The only system I own that I've had problems with is the xbox, even my NES and Colecovision still work great.

6) As for the 6 million. If sony thinks they can do it despite analysts saying otherwise, they probably have a plan as to how. It would be worse for them to keep the number high and miss it (despite repeated warnings) than for them to accept a lower number and hit that.

Re:Not very eloquent

[Babbster]

1) Blu-ray was launched mere months before the release of the PS3 - one player (not even a Sony) at $1,000. It's not even close to comparable to the situation with PS2 and DVD, particularly considering that even as the PS2 was released DVD players were coming down towards $200.

2) There are around 140* titles available on Blu-ray currently, where the number of DVD titles was several times that at the time of the PS2's release. The number of retail outlets is pretty meaningless since back then retailers and rental outlets were only just coming around to the idea that VHS would ever die out - having been through it once, they now know that the tech can change.

3) What about the 360? It sold very well in its first year of release despite the fact that the "acceptably priced" version was considered by many to be "crippled." Also, despite Microsoft's own supply troubles at launch, the 360 still sold more units than the PS3 during its launch period.

4) I can't argue the scratch issue. I know that the DVD format has suffered significantly in the market due to scratching - wait, it hasn't? Damn! As for a single format for movies and games - you mean, like DVD? Wow!

5) Blah, blah, yes, the PS2 has tons of games and is still a very viable console.

6) Are you sure about that? I don't know that Japanese companies are as willing to reduce numerical expectations as US companies. Part of the reason that US companies do this is to avoid running afoul of the feds (the SEC and the FTC) because if their numbers are invalid it can cause problems with stock prices. As far as I can tell, Sony's plan is to make PS3s as fast as they can, which is neither unexpected nor new. Considering that they've missed their targets so far, your faith in them on this matter seems a bit blind.

Personally, I'm format agnostic since I don't own either HD DVD or Blu-ray yet, but the level of apologism for Blu-ray and the PS3 reaches new heights daily. Further, the attempts to read crystal balls to determine the eventual winner are lame since nobody has released a standalone Blu-ray or HD DVD player for a price that would be considered affordable by the masses. I'll only start believing in a future winner when there is a sub-$300 standalone player - at that point, the race will be close enough to the finish line to make a reasonable call.

*This number comes from a count of titles at "DVD Empire," an Internet DVD site. For the sake of completeness, I'll also note that there are 150 HD DVD titles available, and that Blu-ray and HD DVD sales at this site are split up about 57/43 in favor of HD DVD on the year, with a more recent advantage for Blu-ray (presumably spurred by the release of the PS3).

Jaffe...

[RandoX]

...wasn't he an illustrator for MAD Magazine?

Re:Jaffe...

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be Al Jaffee

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jaffee

Re:Jaffe...

[MyDixieWrecked]

I thought he was gonna be king of the world. But that was Randolph Jaffe. Perhaps it's his brother?

(the above link is a GREAT book, btw).

Re:Jaffe...

[93,000]

Yes. In fact, if you print out this article and fold it in properly, it becomes a whole different story.

Re:Jaffe...

[PreviouslySeen]

if I only had mod points!

Re:Jaffe...

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess the scumbag who modded this had mod points to burn.

One console?

[Anonymous Coward]

It must sound incredible to a PS3 developer, but...

There will never be just one console, because someone always tries to get their share of the market, and the market has to stay competitive.

Re:One console?

[Concern]

the market has to stay competitive.

You've got it wrong. It doesn't have to do anything.

Quite often markets naturally consolidate into a trust or monopoly situation.

If no one thinks they can make money competing against Microsoft, then they simply wont. They'll invest their time and money where they can get an easier return. Then eventually Microsoft can get lazy or sloppy or expensive enough that there will finally be enough incentive for people to come back and take a shot at it... but this could take years or decades and there is no guarantee, if the barriers to entry are high enough, that it will ever happen in your lifetime.

One Console = PC

[yeggman]

As PCs get cheaper I think they will take market share from the consoles, until the PC becomes the de facto single console. I think there are already more PC game titles than console titles, and the penetration of PC's is higher than that of game consoles.

Re:One Console = PC

[Bohnanza]

As PCs get cheaper I think they will take market share from the consoles, until the PC becomes the de facto single console. I think there are already more PC game titles than console titles, and the penetration of PC's is higher than that of game consoles.

This is pretty much the OPPOSITE of what really seems to be happening. Have you been to an EBgames or Gamestop store recently? They pretty much ONLY stock console games, with one small rack of PC games at most.

Re:One Console = PC

[ElleyKitten]

As PCs get cheaper I think they will take market share from the consoles, until the PC becomes the de facto single console. I think there are already more PC game titles than console titles, and the penetration of PC's is higher than that of game consoles.

PCs are the home of MMOs and simple puzzle games, but everything else is on console. The console market is booming because they are simplier, you don't have to run anti-virus on your PS3 and setting up 4 people in the living room to play games is a lot more comfortable and easier with a 360 than a PC. I don't think people are giving up their consoles any time soon.

Re:One Console = PC

[Daemonstar]

They pretty much ONLY stock console games, with one small rack of PC games at most.

I would reason this is because they:

1. Make money off selling consoles and games (they don't sell PC's)
2. Don't have to deal much with tech support issues (even just the calls, themselves) with consoles

The support end goes up when you're dealing with customers who have PC's. Console games *should* either work or not since they're made specifically for a particular unmodified console. That way the guys in the store can focus more on sales and not on tech support (read: less training).

Re:One Console = PC

[nomadic]

Yep, I remember back when Electronics Boutique only stocked computer games, mostly C64 and Apple.

Re:One Console = PC

[Dr. Eggman]

What Gamestop/EBgame stores are you shopping at? Mine may have walls of Console games, but they are quite spread out, setup to display the games and advertise there presences I suppose, but PC? Two or three shelves stacked face to face, end to end, so dense they could easily fill entire walls. PCs just don't seem to get the same level of attention it seems, but in terms of quality I've always found myself back between the PC shelves.

But I'm also think PCs have the chance to become as close to a de facto console, not that I think such a thing would ever really happen. The arguments is pretty old, but basically, PCs already have a huge mass of people who buy them for work, document processing, ect. I won't specify, but consider that the smart PC gamer recognizes that it doesn't take a $1000 or often even a $500 upgrade to play the latest games, unless your really behind in the hardware or wish to play the latest games at the greatest settings. With relativly cheap upgrades an average working PC can still play great games. All the consoles have made laudable efforts at 'beyond gaming' integration this generation, but none of them are even close to the PC in terms of sheer digital convergence. At best, I look at home consoles as a sort of bizarro world Mac built for gaming and a little of some other utility (as a general term...) stuff on the side.

Re:One Console = PC

[Half a dent]

It seems to come around in cycles - big console launches (PC goes quiet except for it's core game types - strategy, puzzle, online). Then new PC graphics cards come out that **** over the current generation of consoles (Store shelves begin to fill with PC games again). Repeat.

Re:One Console = PC

[Scynet85]

Yeah, and PC game sales seem to be increasing a bit: http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/jan20 07/id20070122_804652.htm

Re:One Console = PC

[Thraxen]

Not going to happen. In fact, it's going the opposite direction. Unless people start putting their PCs in their entertainment centers, this will never happen. Not everyone has elaborate dual screen gaming rigs like many users here have. The vast majority of people still place their PCs in home offices, bedrooms, and/or on tiny corner desks in their homes... and use PCs with integrated graphics and audio.

Re:One Console = PC

[7Prime]

,p>Actually, #1 is pretty much a non issue. Game retailers make almost nothing on consoles, as companies advertise prices so heavilly, retailers are practically forced to sell them at break-even prices, and then make money on games (sort of like the hardware manufacturers themselves, sans Nintendo).

As for Tech Support? That would fall to the game manufacturer, not the retailer, so this isn't the issue either.

No, the reason is that the PC game is dwindling right now. I'd like to think that this comes from a general disgust of the industry that came out of the late 90s, which is when I ditched. Too many requirements, having to own just the right versions of software and hardware, or things wouldn't work. It became a full-time job just to do the research on what hardware and software you needed. Also, people enjoy being able to lounge back in their recliner or sofa and play games, and use an input device designed with gaming in mind. I'm not saying PC gaming won't come back, but in terms of what you get out of either, for what you have to put in (time and money), PC gaming has a lot of uphill battles.

Re:One Console = PC

[ElleyKitten]

I won't specify, but consider that the smart PC gamer recognizes that it doesn't take a $1000 or often even a $500 upgrade to play the latest games, unless your really behind in the hardware or wish to play the latest games at the greatest settings.

Or, you could spend half that and get a Wii. Or, you could spend $100 and get a PS2 and access to hundreds of games never released for the PC. Consoles are really the more frugal choice over PC gaming.

Re:One Console = PC

[DeeDob]

As other have said, PC gaming is getting dimmer since the last 10 years.

Here's a big part of the reason:

It is becomming increasingly difficult to have the "correct" gaming PC. I bought games i could never use because of confusing minimum / recommended requirements specs (and sometimes other problem not indicated anywhere) and totally lost my money because of being unable to return an opened box.

I know lots of people who got the same treatment. Buy a game, have to spend 300$ (as example) in upgrades or don't play it because you can't run the game you just bought.

The best exemple was with Myst IV. Minimum requirements on the box:
Video card specs... check
Ram requirements... check
Processor... check
Everything else... check.
Parents bought the game. Couldn't play.

The ATI card my parents had had problems with the game. It was unplayable. It seems the "laptop" version of the video card was incompatible with the game. It was written in the manual, but not on the box. 3 patches later and still some problem with the game on their laptop.
In the end, they bought an expansive game that they couldn't play.

Similar thing happened to me recently with Paradise, not playing correctly during cinematics even though the game detects that everything is fine with my system.

I still have the MechCommander 2 CD i got over 10 years ago or so. Game CD is in the CD-ROM drive and the game brings a pop-up: "please insert the original game in your CD-ROM drive".
Well my CD is an original and legally bought in a legal store. After reading, turns up there's an "incompatibility" with the CD protection software and SOME CD-ROM drives.
Well, i tried it on three different CD-ROM drives and it always have the same bug.
In the end, i had to crack my legally bought game just to play it.

Friend of mine bought Oblivion for PC. Game was choppy and berally playable on his machine. He upgrades his video card for 200$ to be way above the minimum requirements specs of the game. 200$ later and the game is still choppy. He has a gig of RAM. To this day, he still don't know why Oblivion is choppy on his machine. He just got sick of it. His cost: 250$ (video card + game he has trouble playing).

Myst Uru: works choppy, slow, but playable on my parents laptop computer. Graphic problems on my own desktop. On both machine, the games tells our hardware is "ok".

I won't count the number of games that require you to be "admin" to run them. Trying to make them work on a user account is ALWAYS a nightmare.

Mind you, i work all day with computers and do a lot of programming. I'm not a complete idiot when it comes to software and requirements. Sometimes, you can't see the problems you might have before you have tried the software, when you can't return it.

Results:
I switched to console gaming.
Parents are not buying any more games.
Friend switched to console gaming.

PC gaming will NEVER become the #1 platform for gaming (casual games like Minesweeper or Solitaire not-withstanding) as long as you need a computer game installation 401 degree to let you play them.

Simply put, PC gaming is a total mess.

Console gaming on the other hand, you buy... it works. No hassle, no problem, no long installation, no investing in constant upgrades every year.

The only true "hope" for PC gaming is if Vista and the "Games for Windows" program actually can solve that mess.

Until then, no... One Console != PC.

Re:One Console = PC

[7grain]

...you don't have to run anti-virus on your PS3 ...

...yet.

Re:One Console = PC

[Mark Maughan]

No, the reason is that the PC game is dwindling right now. I'd like to think that this comes from a general disgust of the industry that came out of the late 90s, which is when I ditched. Too many requirements, having to own just the right versions of software and hardware, or things wouldn't work. It became a full-time job just to do the research on what hardware and software you needed. Also, people enjoy being able to lounge back in their recliner or sofa and play games, and use an input device designed with gaming in mind.

Plus the fact, that when first released, the game should probably still be in beta. And when somebody complains about this, they just respond, well every other PC game is like this too, as if that makes it better.

Re:One Console = PC

[RESPAWN]

Not to mention, consoles are the simpler/easier choice. It's rare that I can buy a new PC game, and not have to make some tweaks/install new drivers/perform a rain dance to get it to run right the very first time. At the very least, I usually end up adjusting the graphics options to find that perfect balance between playability and eye candy.

With a console, with the exception of a very few, rare occasions I have never had to do anything more than put in a disc and hit Power/Reset. No troubleshooting. No patches to download. No drivers to update. Consoles just work. For somebody like me who sometimes has a hard time carving out gaming time, the ability to just sit down and immediately play is important for me.

(Note: the rare exceptions I spoke of were 1)a bad burn of a disc. No biggie -- shit happens. I just exchanged it for anotother copy at the store. 2) RE4 for the PS2 didn't like my 3rd party memory card. First time I've ever had an issue with the card, but I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later with a 3rd party peripheral...)

Re:One Console = PC

[Anonymous Coward]

PCs are the home of MMOs and simple puzzle games, but everything else is on console.

BS. Most of the major action titles and RPGs are ported to the PC as well, so they are hardly console exclusives, and there are more genres you can basically get only on the PC: realistic simulation games, turn based strategy games, RTSes, most adventure games. Also moddable games such as NWN2.

I get so freaking annoyed with people proclaiming the death of PC gaming. The sales numbers they quote never include international sales, monthly MMO fees or the ever growing online sales. If you add all those it wouldn't surprise me if the PC is actually still the biggest single gaming platform in the world.

Re:One Console = PC

[Krandor3]

And don't forget the huge number of PC games that get released buggy and almost unplayable because they know they can just patch it later. I stopped buying PC games on release day because they would never work on release day. You needed to wait at least for the first patch.

Re:One Console = PC

[KDR_11k]

The biggest source of profit for Gamestop is used games and they don't sell used PC games. That's probably the biggest reason they allocate so much space to the consoles (and most of it to used games with a few token new ones).

Re:One Console = PC

[Dr. Eggman]

Granted, I'll give you the Wii as It seems a bit of an oddball in its good value, but my point is that even that stuff released on the PS2 could run on a PC, hell I'm sure I could even find an emulator around here somewhere that would do it, but games you'll find on the xbox 360 and PS3 would even be playable with a cheap-o upgrade, were they built for PC. My favorite example thus far has to be the upcoming Crysis (if only in theory.) Everyone is excited about Crysis' fancy Directx 10 abilities, even though at the very begining it will only support Directx 9. Directx 9 support won't go away when Directx 10 comes out and Directx 9 supporting cards are as cheap as a GeForce 6800 Ultra PCI-e (or AGP if your still back that far as I am) for as $50 on Ebay. Will I beable to play Crysis at the bare minimum? most likely. And if not, have you seen the prices of 7000 series lately, $100-150 I guarentee you I could find a card capable of enjoying Crysis. A more definite example would be Half-Life 2's episodes. They are going to support multi-core processors starting with episode II, and have long since supported 64-bit processors (something that seems to still struggle in gaining acceptance in the software) but I'll still be able to play it on my 32-bit processor with AGP GeForce 6800 Ultra, probably darn near top settings too. In this example, Half-Life 2: Black or Orange or whatever will be coming out just the same for Xbox 360 and PS3.

Old consoles (Wii exempted) are the real frugal choice. When it comes down to the latest games, PC can brawl with the best of them and can (with proper perspective) be cheaper too.

Re:One Console = PC

[ElleyKitten]

BS. Most of the major action titles and RPGs are ported to the PC as well, so they are hardly console exclusives,

Uh, sure. I'm playing Final Fantasy XII on my PC right now. Oh wait, I'm not. Dragon Quest? No. Xenosaga? No. Legend of Zelda? No. Super Mario? No. Dead or Alive? No. God of War? No. Wii Sports? No. Do I have to go on?

and there are more genres you can basically get only on the PC: realistic simulation games,

Sims have been ported. Plus, we have Nintendogs.

turn based strategy games,

Final Fantasy Tactics, Fire Emplem, Tactics Ogre, etc.

RTSes,

Alright, you got me. Even IGN doesn't have a section for RTSs

most adventure games.

The best PC adventure games get to Xbox (Myst series, Siberia, Dreamfall) and the DS has gotten/is getting some interesting ones that won't make it to PC (Trace Memory, Hotel Dusk, etc.)

Also moddable games such as NWN2.

I should have added modding to the PC's strengths of MMOs and simple games.

I get so freaking annoyed with people proclaiming the death of PC gaming.

If you noticed, I didn't proclaim the death of PC gaming. I said that people weren't giving up their consoles any time soon because someone was proclaiming the death of console gaming. I'm also aware that, as much as the PC gaming market doesn't interest me, no one's giving up their WoW and other PC favorites either.

Re:One Console = PC

[maglor_83]

It's rare that I can buy a new PC game, and not have to make some tweaks/install new drivers/perform a rain dance to get it to run right the very first time. Am I the only person on slashdot who hasn't had to jump through hurdles to get games running? Back in the days of DOS, sure, but these days just pop in the disc, click install, and run.

Re:One Console = PC

[I'll Provide The War]

Two or three shelves stacked face to face, end to end, so dense they could easily fill entire walls. PCs just don't seem to get the same level of attention it seems

Just look at their[EBGames] business model to see why. They want to sell you a used console game for $35 that someone just traded in for $5. The margins on PC games are a small fraction of this.

Re:One Console = PC

[tepples]

Unless people start putting their PCs in their entertainment centers

What will entice people to run TV out of their Lenovo-compatible PCs? More gamepad-friendly PC games published by indie developers?

Not everyone has elaborate dual screen gaming rigs like many users here have.

You mean like this dual-screen gaming rig?

Re:One Console = PC

[RESPAWN]

I said it's rare, but it's not impossible. Galactic Civ worked the first time out of the box... but there were already patches out by the time I bought it, so of course I had to download and install the patches before I started to play. Flight Simulator X worked the first time as well. But, I still had to tweak the graphics to find that happy medium. Out of the box, the game had the visual settings cranked way down and... well, it looked like crap. Yeah, it's not that huge a deal to have to tweak the visual settings during first play, but it's something that I don't have to do whenever I put in a new XBox game. :-P When I only have 15 minutes to play a game, I really don't want to spend half of that tweaking the graphics. Getting a game to work on a console is just more simple. (Well, unless it's my vintage NES. Then I have to hyperventilate myself just to get Double Dragon 2 to work. Kind of.)

Re:One Console = PC

[fatalfury]

That will not happen until PCs get user-friendly (and reliable) enough for plug-n-play. That's why people love consoles so much--they always work, no drivers to download, no new parts to install (gfx cards, ram), no need to install games then download patches (although the patch thing is unfortunately becoming an issue for the console gamer). Well, that and consoles are much cheaper than a good gaming PC (even the PS3!).

Re:One Console = PC

[Sage Gaspar]

Consoles are really the more frugal choice over PC gaming.

It all depends on what you're looking for. The original Half-Life, released in 1998 with modest system requirements, had legs that carried it to the present day with its modability. Starcraft and Warcraft 3 are great RTS that are still worth playing. The hallmark space sim, Freespace 2 from 1999, is essentially a free download, and it has recently been endowed with a fan-created graphics overhaul. The original Neverwinter Nights has a lot of great custom servers and some fun fan-created campaigns for your roleplaying needs. StepMania is like DDR but much better in terms of customizability and options... and it's free. Freeciv is a turn-based strategy game with lots of customization options... and it's free. There's metric shittons of abandonware that's still great. Depending on your ethics, you can have access to the full libraries of the NES, SNES, Sega, etc. If you're feeling guilty you can always send the fifty cents to a random reseller and call it even.

There are always demos and trials (some MMOs have free trials that continue pretty much indefinitely, for example). The MMO for $10-15 a month fulfills some people's entire entertainment needs and constantly evolves.

On top of this, it utilizes a device you probably already have. You basically just need any computer that's not an absolute dinosaur to do everything I've listed in this thread. If you want to play modern games at a decent clip you'll need an okay graphics card (mine retails for sub-100 now) and possibly an extra stick of RAM or something (about $50-100 depending on how much you want to drop in) coupled with any system you're likely to find on store shelves.

Anyway this is all just a big web penarz contest, people buy what they want to buy and no one has a crystal ball to see where the industry is headed.

Re:One Console = PC

[ElleyKitten]

I was talking more about the systems rather than the games, but you're right, the PC does have a wealth of free games to play, and a good MMO will satisfy your gaming needs for much cheaper than buying a new game every month, if you're into that sort of thing (though there are MMOs on consoles, too). But upgrading your PC constantly for the newest games is a hassle that I don't like, which is why I dropped PC gaming. My husband bought a PC about two years ago (granted, it was bottom of the barrel), and we had to build him a whole new computer to play Oblivion (it had integrated video and no AGP or PCI-E slots). It would have been cheaper just to buy him a 360 (but he wanted a new computer). And of course, there's already games out that he'd need to upgrade his computer to play well. The nice thing about consoles is that new games come out for them for 5 years (unless you got a Dreamcast...) without having to worry about upgrades. I'm also not fond of PC games because I run Linux, and Wine doesn't handle the newest games well (or often at all) and I don't want to dual-boot. But that's me, not PC games. I think it does really come down to what your looking for. If you want to play WoW, then even a Wii or a PS2 is a terrible deal, but if you want to play FFXII or Wii Sports or Zelda, then even the best deal on a gaming PC/upgrades is a terrible value for you. I don't think console gamers and PC gamers will ever agree, because we like different kinds of games and we like to play in different ways.

Re:One Console = PC

[ElleyKitten]

Game retailers make almost nothing on consoles, as companies advertise prices so heavilly, retailers are practically forced to sell them at break-even prices, and then make money on games (sort of like the hardware manufacturers themselves, sans Nintendo).

Actually, game stores make very little on new games as well. The real profit-maker for dedicated gamestores is used games. They give out about $20 for recent/popular games traded in, and then sell them for $45. That's more 50% profit, which is kinda hard to get for a retail business. But, they can only do that for console games. When they try to do that to PC games, they can't have a warranty, because getting a no-cd crack for a PC game and returning it because it's "broken" is trivial compared to doing the same for a console game, and they have no way of testing games because they don't keep PCs laying around like they have used and demo consoles everywhere, and no one wants to buy something used without a warranty, so they stop selling them.

If you go into stores without used games (Walmart, Bestbuy), you'll find the PC section is about equal in size to the console section.

Re:One Console = PC

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, sure. I'm playing Final Fantasy XII on my PC right now. Oh wait, I'm not. Dragon Quest? No. Xenosaga? No. [...]Do I have to go on?

I think you may have to. I actually like some real role playing in my role playing games, so that the decisions I make actually have an impact on the plot. Not just games that consist of pressing the "A" key until the film has stopped playing.

>>realistic simulation games,
>Sims have been ported. Plus, we have Nintendogs.

Haha, you ARE a console player. Look, I was talking about realistic simulations like Flight Simulator, Silent Hunter 3 or economic simulations like Railroad Tychoon. The Sims....please. :D

Capitalism disagrees

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, companies will just GIVE UP trying to make money!

I mean, seriously, the only company making a console now that even was in the game business ten years ago was Nintendo. How many different companies have put out a console since then? There's no way that companies will cease trying to make money on console hardware in the games market.

If he is correct, it will most likely simply be because of computer/console convergence. The only real reason you have a console now is because it interfaces with your TV easily and comes with nice controllers and all the games "just work" on it. If computers become ubiquitous, stable, and easily accessible, I believe it is possible that one day we will have NO consoles. But ONE console -- not a chance.

Re:Capitalism disagrees

[posterlogo]

Where do they make their money, just out of curiosity? It can't be the console right? Each one is sold at a loss. Do they really get enough in licensing fees for game development to be *highly* profitable. Because you don't have to be losing money to call it quits -- you can just decide it's not profitable enough. It's happened to many consoles in the past.

Re:Capitalism disagrees

[holycrap3007]

>>I mean, seriously, the only company making a console now that even was in the >>game business ten years ago was Nintendo. just wanted to point out playstation was released in 1994. >>How many different companies have put out a console since then? 4 (sega dreamcast, MS Xbox/360, nin gamecube/wii, sony ps2,3) >>If computers become ubiquitous, stable, and easily accessible, I believe it >>is possible that one day we will have NO consoles How many video cards have ATI and NVIDIA released in the past 10 years?

Re:Capitalism disagrees

[heinousjay]

Only the PS3 is currently sold at a loss, most likely.

Exclusive Titles

[maddskillz]

As a gamer, I kind of miss the 'you can only get it on this system.'

As a gamer, I find this kind of statement asinine. I really only have the budget for one console, so I am forced to miss out on some games. I love the Gran Turismo series, but am not going to buy a PS3 just to play that when I have a perfectly good xbox 360. So I miss out on that game. To me, the console is a platform; I am not choosing an allegiance to one side or the other.

Re:Exclusive Titles

[Aladrin]

I find it amazingly stupid as well. He actually gets hyped about a game because it's only on 1 system? WTF? In my list of 'cool features' for the game I'll never actually make but will perpetually plan, that is NOT in my list.

As a gamer, every time I hear 'exclusive' I cringe. I have way too many consoles on my rack at home as it is. At this point, it looks like if PS3 has any exclusives, I'm either going to find a sucker to borrow a PS3 from for a week, or just do without. Do without is much more likely. (I did the borrow thing with the 360 and ended up buying one, though. Haven't regretted it.)

Re:Exclusive Titles

[SethraLavode]

Actually, I half-agree with him, though not for the reason he gives. I like console exclusive -- assuming I have the console it's exclusive to -- because usually that means the dev team is concentrating on making it the best game they can for that hardware.

Multi-platform games are usually semi-optimized for one system, but not fully-optimized so that they can port it over. RE4 and Tales of Symphonia benefitted hugely for being originally GC-exclusive, and the games would have suffered if they had been concurrently produced for the PS2.

Re:Exclusive Titles

[Jim Hall]

For me, it's not about "choosing an allegiance to one side", but it's about quality games. I hate it when I play a game that's been written to the lowest common denominator across all the available platforms (sometimes also including the PC.) Every platform has its strengths and weaknesses - and they rarely overlap. So you find that level maps have been broken down into smaller chunks that are easier for one system to cope with, but that means interrupting play with a "loading" screen. Or graphics are done poorly because it works better on one of the systems. Or the control scheme sucks because you have to support the button layout on all the consoles at once.

A well-done game that happens to be exclusive to one system is okay for me.

Re:Exclusive Titles

[maddskillz]

I totally agree with you about the dev team concentrating on one system. I want the best possible product.
I just think his logic made no sense

Re:Exclusive Titles

[adam31]

"Cross Platform" in many cases just means "Lowest Common Denominator" in terms of technology. If I own Console A, I don't want the game to be on Console B because it means that the developer wasted some of their talent on building the B version, and possibly cut features on A they couldn't do on B.

Plus, from a developer perspective there is really no joy in doing ports, neither games nor engines. As a developer you want to target your hardware as specifically as possible and never look back.

What is evil is partial exclusivity, where certain characters or levels are only on one platform, and that is just assinine greed. It is foreseeable a different kind of exclusivity... developers being paid to eliminate features from one platform, to skew side-by-side graphics comparisons. Do you doubt this will happen?

Re:Exclusive Titles

[Danny Rathjens]

The worst part is when they port from console to PC and yet they keep the horrid clickfest of an interface instead of letting you use some of the 104 keys on your keyboard. I just got around to starting to play Oblivion and you can tell those guys designed for consoles and not PCs(they just coded a few keys as analogs for the 8 or so on a console gamepad). And Final Fantasy XI online, which held my attention for nearly a whole month was even more horrid in that regard. I can't believe the mindless repetition and endlessly nested matroushka menus that console people will put up with whereas PC gamers want single keystrokes. At least, the smart ones do; PCs do have their own boring clickfests like Diablo. ;)

Anyway, my point was that I think this is why exclusives are often preferred and why some games turn out to be really awesome. e.g. Halo for xbox or Thief for PC.

Re:Exclusive Titles

[tepples]

In my list of 'cool features' for the game I'll never actually make but will perpetually plan, that is NOT in my list.

Unless Microsoft tosses a wad of cash your way, right? Or unless you can't get your title approved on the other consoles due to being a small company, right?

Re:Exclusive Titles

[Aladrin]

"Or unless you can't get your title approved on the other consoles due to being a small company, right?"

How would this make it a 'cool feature?' Even MS throwing a wad of cash my way doesn't make it a cool feature, it merely makes me more wealthy.

Re:Exclusive Titles

[tepples]

How would [getting approved on only one console] make it a 'cool feature?'

It's better than getting approved on 0 consoles, thus not having access to monitors larger than 24 inches except on the (uncommon) home theater PC, thus having to increase the system requirements for four simultaneous play to four computers.

Even MS throwing a wad of cash my way doesn't make it a cool feature, it merely makes me more wealthy.

Microsoft investing cash in your game gives your company the budget to expand support for Xbox Live and for the Xbox 360 graphics architecture. PS3 doesn't have a clear online strategy.

Re:Exclusive Titles

[Raenex]

You call your friends "suckers"? Yikes.

Re:Exclusive Titles

[Raenex]

A well-done game that happens to be exclusive to one system is okay for me.

Even better would be well-done ports to the other systems.

Re:Exclusive Titles

[BendingSpoons]

What are you talking about? Every gamer misses system exclusivity. When I was a kid, I couldn't enjoy a Super Nintendo game unless I knew the kids with SEGAs couldn't play it. Sure, I was a little miffed when I found out that not only could the SEGA kids play Mortal Kombat, they could do real fatalities. But hey: it just made playing Battletoads that much sweeter.

In all fairness, while this quote made this designer look like a jack-ass, I didn't see the original context. (The link to the article goes to a video? No thanks.) But given that he's getting paid to keep his product limited to one system, I don't much care for his opinion on the matter anyway.

Worst thing that could possibly happen

[shirizaki]

Having 1 console doesn't help anyone at all, except the game developers looking to make a buck. Not only that it impedes competition, which has been the breeding grounds for some of the best franchises and games ever made, but it allows the market to be flooded with crap games and hardware. Who would you go with other than someon else? The genesis/snes battle spat out some of the best games and franchises.

THere's more 3rd party games, but there's still plenty of first party games that rope peopel in to a certain console.

There's more 3rd party action today because video games are taken more seriously then something that vegetates us. That and back in the old days exclusivity was almost commonplace unless it was sports games. Console companies could pay the money to keep it exclusive. Today, not so much. Also look how the industry has changed: It used to be Sega, Nintendo, and Atari: all 3 were in the video game business only. Now it's Microsoft (OS, web content, videogames), Sony (computers, electronics, videogames), and Nintendo, who has managed to be video games only.

Right now the console industry couldn't get any better: Nintendo delivers games while MS and Sony square off in the ring for home media control with content and video games. It's the software industry that could change.

Re:Worst thing that could possibly happen

[trdrstv]

Having 1 console doesn't help anyone at all, except the game developers looking to make a buck.

Um... It hurts them too. Remember when Nintendo had 90% share with the NES? The put 3rd party developers over the barrel. Because they could. Sony was no different, and I can't imagine MS being more 'benevolent'. Having solid competition between 2 or 3 providers is healthier for developers.

Exclusives are important as they drive sales of any console. Most people only buy 1, and they buy the console for the games, not the other way around.

'you can only get it on this system.'

[Anonymous Coward]

Last I checked, there were more than enough 'you can only get it on this system' titles on all 3 console platforms. Also, since when were "cellphone, PC, DS, PSP" considered "consoles"? The DS and PSP are hand-helds/portables, the PC is clearly not a console, and the only cellphone that would even apply to the group of hand-helds would be Nokia's N-Gage.

Re:'you can only get it on this system.'

[Anonymous Coward]

Correction: ...all 3 *major* platforms...

Umm... summary?

[rehtonAesoohC]

From the summary:

"A lot of games recently it's cell phone, PC, DS, PSP, if you look at EA they blanket it -- it's everywhere.
Did I miss something here? O.o

Wii anyone?

[Prien715]

I suppose he means the PS3 and the 360 for which there will be Halo and Final Fantasy as the exclusives. Nintendo doesn't really seem to have a problem with exclusive games (Mario Kart/Party/64/etc, Metroid, Zelda, Smash Bros) and I'd argue the biggest reason behind Nintendo's success is because of their first party games, especially since other than Capcom (Resident Evil 4, Viewtiful Joe), I can't think of any other company that even did GC exclusives (granted, these games were later ported to PS2). With the Wii, it's even more different. The vast majority of Wii games are ONLY on the Wii console. Ubisoft and other publishers are doing Wii-only games with no chance of a port.

So I don't know what this guy is talking about with lack of 1st party support or exclusives, unless he means Sony and MS.

Re:Wii anyone?

[GeckoX]

Because he's talking about the entire market.

He's not talking about the Wii specifically. And not being a Wii developer, from his perspective, it has very little impact on what he's saying in that interview.

But you already knew that.

Re:Wii anyone?

[trdrstv]

Ubisoft and other publishers are doing Wii-only games with no chance of a port.

Though that is a logical assumption, there are many multi-platform Wii titles already, including Rayman Raving Rabbits. Despite the game being clearly built around the Wii-mote, they ported it to the PS2. Unline Viewtiful Joe, I can't imagine Rayman RR being nearly as fun on the PS2...

Re:Wii anyone?

[PingSpike]

Am I the only one that thinks that any Wii game that can be ported successfully from the Wii to one of the other consoles probably is either going to be a crappy Wii game or so horribly bad and unplayable on the other consoles they shouldn't have bothered? If they really take advantage of the Wii control scheme (as they should, since thats virtually all it has going for it) then that game it going to require a major reworking on the other consoles.

If there's any threat to the wii not doing well, its developers building titles that only 'sort of' take advantage of the wii's controller so they can make it a cross platform title. I know there already are plenty, but are any of them really all that good? (This is an honest question, I don't have a wii)

Re:Wii anyone?

[trdrstv]

I know there already are plenty, but are any of them really all that good? (This is an honest question, I don't have a wii)

Call of Duty is a fine FPS on the Wii, and I can't possibly imagine playing Rayman Raving Rabits on anything other than Wii. It was built completely around the Wiimote, ratcheting it down to work on a standard controler... I'm amazed it was ever considered, let alone done.

He is making a big assumption

[jbreckman]

He is assuming that all the consoles will be essentially the same, just by different brands.

Which, essentially, is true. Up until now at least. The Wii and the DS both have completely different input methods, which makes entire genres of games available which weren't available for other systems.

As long as new systems are not just "the same but FASTER", this prediction won't come true.

Re:He is making a big assumption

[honkycat]

You have a good point. The only real innovations in consoles since the NES have been pretty minor. Controllers got more complicated, gained extra buttons, and analog sticks. Consoles got either hard drives or larger flash drives. Graphics/sound/processing got better and faster. All of these things happened for every manufacturer at about the same time. There has been no reason to single out a platform for your game if you have the resources to port it to the others, unless one of the console manufacturers will pay you for exclusive rights.

I'd say that the additional processing power on all the platforms levels the playing field to a great degree. In the days of the NES/SMS, you had to do a lot of low-level programming to take full advantage of the hardware's very limited capabilities. Now that every console has what was a supercomputer in the NES/SMS days, you can do fairly abstract programming and it's a smaller task to port to multiple platforms (proportional to overall game development cost, not in absolute cost).

But, the Wii/DS and other unique innovations might provide non-technical reasons to single out platforms. Of course, it remains to be seen if these are technical curiosities or revolutionary developments.

Re:He is making a big assumption

[ucblockhead]

You don't think Microsoft and Sony don't both have projects right now to create a Wii-like controller?

Re:He is making a big assumption

[Duds]

And if that happens then the console will need to cost near double the current launch prices on launch because people won't take losses on consoles if they don't control the games.

Market-based products

[phorm]

Which is good and fine if you are, say, Sony. In that case they can afford to cut their console/video-game division. However, in the case of a company such as Nintendo whose primary market is centered around video-games, the packing-it-up option basically comes only with a complete shutdown. In this case, the pressure is for them to continue building a more diverse or better-selling product, despites the oodles of money that other companies may have to throw in that comes from their other divisions (for Microsoft: PC Software/hardware/etc, for Sony: Consumer Electronics, Stereo, Movies, Music, etc).

Re:Market-based products

[Concern]

You're quite right - competitors, including Nintendo, could certainly close down. Sega certainly did.

Re:Market-based products

[DrEldarion]

Not necessarily. If the Wii and DS had failed, I could see Nintendo going the way Sega did - forget making consoles, just release your games for the consoles other companies make. It worked out EXTREMELY well for Sega, and given the strength of Nintendo's franchises, I can see it working out quite well for them, too.

Bread on his table

[Prien715]

In case no one can read between the lines, he's saying that platform exclusivity is a very good thing that needs to be saved. ...He's also an exclusive title developer for Sony.

No self-interest here.

Re:Bread on his table

[GeckoX]

What, is being a game developer supposed to be an altruistic endeavor now?

Self interest isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Counter his statements, not his completely reasonable (for his position) pov.

Re:Bread on his table

[Prien715]

He's entitled to speak as a biased party, I was merely letting everyone know his inherent bias and possible political motivations to say what he said.

It's like having Green Mountain energy talk about renewable fuel sources or Chevron talk about the clean burning gasoline. It's the difference between an advertisement and a documentary.

Re:Bread on his table

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Jaffe is an independant developer (kinda like Sora, who are doing Smash Bros Brawl) who is contracted to Sony.

Same diff, really, but I felt like being pedantic.

Never happen...

[Mondoz]

The Fanbois will never let this 'only one console' thing happen. They'd launch some kind of jihad against the surviving consoles the likes of which the world has never seen. The aftermath would leave the world a scorched earth, barren, desolate place. No life would remain, only the scarred, smoking rubble of a once proud gaming civilization. Perhaps the consoles themselves would rise up and enslave the populace, using the humans as living pawns in their own games. Interestingly, these scenarios are only marginally worse than the existing console related threads which appear routinely on /.

This sounds very much like: "In the future, all restaurants are Taco Bell."

Re:Never happen...

[eieken]

PS3: u guys sux ps3 4vr! Nintendo: You suck, our console is the best. Xbox: No, you suxzorxz xbox pwnzoxz youx! PC: Hahaha, my video card alone costs more then you silly puny consoles.

Re:Never happen...

[eieken]

Sprinkle a few
's in there and that would have been just right!

Not a chance, but this may be more likely

[the computer guy nex]

Console developers could come together and make a hardware/api "standard." Same type of disc, same hardware capability, etc.

Each console would then have its own flavor around it. Microsoft could continue the Xbox LIVE service for game delivery, purchasing/renting movies and music, home theater integration, peer to peer communication, PVR capability, etc. The next gen of consoles will be much broader than just games.

Game developers then could make just 1 game for all consoles that meet the "standard" and would be assured compatibility. More time is spent making the game better rather than making it work on different pieces of hardware. Development costs would plummet.

Console developers could then focus on making the best hardware that meets a standard and gives the customer more functionality. Game developers could focus on the game itself, rather than morphing the game to fit different hardware. Customers can buy 1 disc and play it in a PC, Mac, xbox, playstation, nintendo, etc.

Will it happen? Most likely not, but probably a better chance than companies simply leaving the console market. Games make too much money.

Re:Not a chance, but this may be more likely

[ESOB]

Console developers could come together and make a hardware/api "standard." Same type of disc, same hardware capability, etc. Console developers could come together and make a hardware/api "standard." Same type of disc, same hardware capability, etc. They have, it's pixel shader 3.0, DirectX 10, x86, cd/dvd and the windows OS. (Note: there are more hardware and api standards but listing all would go beyond the point.)

Exclusives considered harmful

[Futaba-chan]

As a gamer, I kind of miss the 'you can only get it on this system.'

Well, that makes one of us. As a gamer who doesn't have an unlimited budget to throw at acquiring every platform in existence, I absolutely hate exclusives.

The one exception to that would be games that take advantage of a feature that's only available on one system, such as the DS touchscreen/stylus or the Wiimote. I'd much rather have good games that are well designed to take advantage of a system's features than lots of titles dumbed down to the lowest common denominator to get them on as many platforms as possible. But for titles that don't have those technical limitations, it's exasperating to have something unavailable for reasons that don't benefit me as a gamer.

Iconic

[MeanderingMind]

There are exclusives for all the systems, but they aren't iconic in the ways they used to be.

15 years ago the average gamer age was much younger than it is now. Gamers were kids, and kids identified with icons. Whether it was TMNT or ghostbusters on the television, Nerf or Super Soakers in the back yard, or Mario and Nintendo we were young and brand loyal.

In short, things felt a lot more black and white then. There were a lot of excellent and appealing iconic games. Sonic was arguably at the best he ever would be. In fact, many people feel the same way about Mario, Link, Samus and more. Something was lost between the SNES/Genesis days and the polygonal era that followed.

To some extent, it was the exclusive games. In those days most games of note were on one system or another, with key differences notable between the ports when they weren't. The difference between the systems was much more palpable.

Beyond that, it was quite simply easier to play. That's not to say it was easier to win, I'd be shot by many gamers if I claimed the old games were easy. What I'm suggesting is that it was much easier for anyone to simply pick up a game, a controller, and have fun.

This is something that up until recently the market had forgotten. Regardless of whether I like playing games for 15 minutes or 15 hours (ah, college) it's nice to have fun the moment I start playing. The longer it takes to get the ball of fun rolling, the less likely I am to maintain interest.

In conclusion, games should live by the Othello motto. "A minute to learn, a lifetime to master". Complicated and confusing controls/gameplay do not a deep game make anymore than confusing and disjointed plot/dialogue makes a good movie.

Re:Iconic

[Jerf]

Something was lost between the SNES/Genesis days and the polygonal era that followed.

Personally, I think it's because the control schemes available for 3D games have enforced the same basic mediocrity of control onto all 3D games. We didn't notice because we didn't have anything better to compare with. As a result, there's a certain sameness.

Despite what you may think, this post isn't about a Wii, which I've only spent about 5 minutes with (on Excite Truck, no less) anyhow. It's about the difference between interacting with the real 3D world and the computer world; the differences are so large you almost can't see them anymore. The Wii may be a step in the right direction, but it's still just a step.

One example: I don't care how stupid your new real-world Army recruits are, even the ones that manage to blow themselves up never spent two minutes running full speed into the nearest wall while looking nearly straight down or straight up. But that's a normal part of learning a first person shooter. It shouldn't be.

On the other hand, a traditional gamepad maps into a 2D space quite well. Up => Up... what more could you ask for?

Re:Iconic

[JoshJ]

Except in Mario and a lot of other games, where up does nothing and you have to press A to jump.

Doubtful

[John Harrison]

Unless the company that makes the "one system" executes flawlessly then there will be someone waiting to eat their lunch. Note how Sony dominated the last generation yet appears at this point to have misfired this time around.

all restaurants are Taco Bell?

[tpjunkie]

Where can I sign up for that?

Re:all restaurants are Taco Bell?

[Sabotage]

He doesn't know how to use the three seashells!

Re:all restaurants are Taco Bell?

[fatalfury]

Obscure Sly movie reference FTW!

Of course. It already happened on desktops.

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

'Cause 10 years from now there's going to be one system because there's so much more third party software than first party software from any hardware manufacturer.

Of course. It already happened on desktops, and they've been around for twenty-five years. In fact, I'm reading this on my Winux OS PCac right now.

Welcome to 1993...

[Intellectual Elitist]

> Console developers could come together and make a hardware/api "standard." Same type of disc, same hardware capability, etc. [...] Each console would then have its own flavor around it. [...] Game developers then could make just 1 game for all consoles that meet the "standard" and would be assured compatibility.

Welcome to 1993 -- it's the 3DO all over again.

Re:Welcome to 1993...

[Snad]

Welcome to the 1980s. It's MSX all over again...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Wiimote360

[everphilski]

There is no reason you couldn't make a WiiMote and sensor bar for a XBOX360 (or playstation for that reason). Then you'd have the best of both worlds - all available input methods, and 1080p.

Re:Wiimote360

[jbreckman]

Of course you could make a WiiMote for anything you want. It wouldn't make a difference though. The reason that the wii is successful is that *everyone* who has a wii also has the WiiMote and sensor bar.

Everyone.

Lets say EA comes out with a cool game that requires the WiiMote and sensor bar. They would obviously release it for the Wii - however, they have the option of creating a third party peripheral addon for the 360 and sell the game+peripheral. This means that anyone wanting that game on the 360 would need to buy that extra "controller" just for the one game. (A WiiMote costs $40, so figure the game+remote would cost $100 total) That is a lot. Plus there would be no unified way for other games on the 360 to use that fake "WiiMote".

Think of it like the dance pads that people have. There are very few games that *require* either of these. This is because so few people actually have them that it doesn't make sense to develop for it. If every 360 or Wii came with one, you would see a lot more innovative uses for that input device.

There is nothing technologically that microsoft can't do with the 360 that Nintendo did with the Wii - there is just stuff that they DIDN'T do. And since every 360 owner doesn't have the imaginary "WiiMote360", no one is going to really develop games that use it.

Re:Wiimote360

[elrous0]

Not to mention all the patent lawsuits that would follow. I'm sure Nintendo isn't particularly keen to license the technology to a competitor.

-Eric

Re:Wiimote360

[Anonymous Coward]

hello,

patents!

Re:Wiimote360

[kisrael]

So very true.

You saw the same thing with multitaps and multiplayer gaming; sure Sony had 4-player gaming via multitaps, but because it wasn't built-in functionality, fewer developers bothered to support it (after all, it's not necessarily easy to make a game environment that can be multiplied by 4 on the same system..) I'm kind of a Sony-hater because even the post-N64 PS2 needed a (different!) multitap, and I think it set party-style gaming back a few years.

My theory is, gamers will spring for duplicates of the controller they consider "normal", but most other accesories remain "novelty items", including multitaps. (well maybe not memory cards). Still, because of this I'm very thankful that the Wii came bundled with a nunchuck controller; the nunchuck allows the Wii to stay in the same ballpark of controller evolution over the last decade (i.e. two analog-y inputs, and the one-finger-only precision of a thumbstick) while still remaining true to the "lets do something new" vibe. But if you only got a Wiimote, the nunchuck would barely be more popular than the "classic" controller.

It did already happen on desktops.

[paladinwannabe2]

The market converged to IBM compatible PCs running Windows.

Apple/Linux may eventually get enough market share to make Windows cease being a monopoly, but as far as hardware standards go the market has converged.

My thoughts on PC gaming

[aztektum]

PC games could wipe the floor with consoles if a few chinks in their armor were sorted out. First off the communication between hardware/software needs to be made as transparent as possible to alleviate the whole "We have so many different types of hardware to support." problem. It's moving in this direction, but unfortunately it is DX10 and MS saying "You have to meet these requirements on your hardware to be compliant." OSS can't seem to pull itself together here. Second, there needs to be a framework for loading/caching game data on the fly. No more installing 5+GB of data. I want to drop the disc in and go. Optionally you could give the user the ability to install if they are so inclined and they could gain the benefit of shortened load times and +5 FPS. Finally, I agree the keyboard+mouse is the most robust control system in the world, but better support for gamepads and games designed with them in mind on PC will only help bring attention to the platform. Ultimately this is pointless though. I still firmly believe that at some point we'll stop buying consoles, DVD/CD players, cellphones, etc. Everything will be networked, integrated into one device, we just buy data. Who knows what the time frame is for this, especially with big business today still trying to keep their hands gripped tightly around their "niche". The promise is there though, lookit iPhone. If it delivers, it could very well be the start.

Re:My thoughts on PC gaming

[ravyne]

Microsoft is actually doing all these things and a little more to boot.

As a game developer, DX10 really is moving in the right direction.

In D3D10 for instance, much work has gone into solving the "small batch" problem - a condition caused by the fact that state-changes (binding different textures, shaders, etc) are so expensive on today's 3D accelerators that processing many small batches can severly impact performace. Developers end up jumping through a lot of hoops in an attempt to optimally batch their triangles. This and other improvements to D3D10 have cut overhead by approximately one-half. They've also removed the capability-bits mechanism in favor of the more-defined feature compliance you mentioned. Cap bits were terrible because they only told you if a feature was supported, nothing about performance - Intel's Integrated graphics only support software vertex shaders (in the driver) for instance. Other accelerators make similar claims, or outright don't support a feature their caps bits claim to.

Microsoft is also pushing the play-from disc technology as well, though its slow to be embraced. For some reason, game devs are reluctant to do things differently than the way they've always done things, even if it is better - See all the bitching about migrating to the LUA profile model in Vista. The groundwork to do this is there now, its simply a matter of developers starting to make use of it.

PC joypads are also starting to come together now that Microsoft is pushing XInput over DirectInput. XInput not only provides a clean API to xbox-style gamepads, but also defines certain layout constraints. Things like the primary axis being the left thumb-stick, or button 1 is the 6'oclock face button. You'd be amazed at the amount of difference in non-XInput PC gamepads have in this area, "button 1" might be the 6'oclock face button on one pad, or the left trigger on another. This amount of variance is the primary reason that gamepad support is almost non-existant on most PC games, realisticly you'd have had to impliment a completely configurable control scheme, or not bother with it at all. Given the lack of a standard layout and the fact that it had to support every input device under the sun (gamepads, throttles, flicktsicks, peddals, etc) DirectInput became a unnecesarily large and comlex API. XInput pretty much solves everything from a developer standpoint, and its nice be able to take your Xbox 360 controllers to your PC when you need a gamepad; One (or more) fewer controllers to own and keep charged up.

The final big thing MS is doing to make the PC a more console-like experience is to bring XBox Live to the PC. Hopefully this will bring the days of everyone having different, half-finished or buggy multi-player lobbies to an end. A lot of companies have developed solid and featureful in-house implimentations over the years, aleviating the second two problems, but having a more unified experience is quite nice and will allow games companies to spend less time developing and maintaining their proprietary lobby systems. On top of that, there's now the possibility of playing PC vs Xbox 360.

In short, Microsoft is doing a lot to make the PC a more console-like experience, both from the developer's side and the user's side, but I still disagree with the grandparent that the PC will ever subsume the role of the console. People use consoles because they are stupidly easy to use. There's no worry about minimum specs or the quality of system components having a negative impact on performance. There's no worry about spyware or trojans. There's no worry that the input device you just picked up won't work well. Some of these problems are simply not solvable on the PC without pandering the a least-common denominator.

Linux and other FOSS Operating Systems will be able to ride the wave this will bring as well. Khronos is already working on OpenGL 3 specs which will streamline the API and bring it inline with D3D10 features, much in the same way that D3D10 is a streamled evolu

Re:My thoughts on PC gaming

[KDR_11k]

It's moving in this direction, but unfortunately it is DX10 and MS saying "You have to meet these requirements on your hardware to be compliant."

Well, duh, if the API is supposed to be the same independent of the underlying hardware you need guarantees for how the hardware behaves and all the minimum features must be available. Would be pointless if you still had to check for everything if it's available on the system or not and deal with different implementations of a "standard" with each vendor. If the API offers multipurpose shader units then the hardware must have them, otherwise what would you do if the code assigns an order to these units?

Re:My thoughts on PC gaming

[maglor_83]

Second, there needs to be a framework for loading/caching game data on the fly. No more installing 5+GB of data. I want to drop the disc in and go. No thanks. Needing to change discs all the time is the thing I hate most about console gaming.

Re:My thoughts on PC gaming

[aztektum]

Sounds like the last console you played was the PSone. Hardly any of the games I've purchased for the PS2 or Xbox 1 were on more than one DVD (I only say hardly cause I can't remember ANY but can't be certain I'm not forgetting one). With HD-DVD/Blu-Ray, I'm sure that isn't an issue even for next gen.

Re:My thoughts on PC gaming

[aztektum]

What I meant was DX10 is the only platform out there that's embraced this mentality. Which means Mac and Linux our SOL unless someone steps up. I didn't have time to proof read, posted at the end of my lunch. In fact my whole statement feels really rushed. I wish /. would just add a frickin' edit button for your own posts like every other forum.

Re:My thoughts on PC gaming

[Anonymous Coward]

Xenosaga Ep.2 and Ep.3 for PS2 both have 2 disc.

Blue Dragon for 360 has 3 disc.

Trip Hawkins and now Jaffe

[Alzheimers]

Jaffe and Trip Hawkins should go and develop the next generation 3DO platform. After all, why make games for proprietary consoles when you can license a common design to whoever wants to make consoles based on it? And if they make it in bright colors, I bet even Nintendo will follow right along too? Right?

Right?

Snappy Answers...

[weeboo0104]

...wasn't he an illustrator for MAD Magazine?

A. No, you clod! They hired him for his good looks!
B. He was actually a writer, but his poor writing skills were overshadowed by his poor drawing skills so he just stuck with what he could be remembered for.
C. Yes, do you have any more stupid questions?

lol

[JoshJ]

"One console in 10 years"? I remember back in 1993 or so everyone was arguing "there will only be Nintendo in 10 years, Sega will be dead." and "Sega will crush Nintendo, in 10 years Sega will be the only one." Then Sony came along and both groups looked foolish.

Jaffe great designer, bad businessman...

[Icepole4]

In a billion dollar industry there is no way one console will win out. Even if Nintendo and Sony didn't sell another console this gen. No way in the world the MS's, Sony's, Nintendo's, IBM's...and any other multi-million dollar company of the world is going to cede a billion dollar industry to one company. There is too much money to be made.

IMO the days of a dominant console are over, and the days of 3rd party exclusives to one console are not far behind. IMO 10 years from now you will still have 3 leading console makers but they won't be making consoles. I forsee a gaming market where gaming capability is included with various electronics as a chipset, i.e a TV able to play playstation games or an AV receiver with Xbox capability....

MMOs and simple puzzle games?!!

[Ender Ryan]

What the hell are you smoking? PCs are the "home" of MMO, FPS, RTS, Puzzle and -real- adventure games, and probably several genres I'm forgetting. Consoles don't come close for any of said genres, and where they make an attempt, they are second-rate(eg. Halo. Yes, compared to its PC counterparts, Halo sucks. Yes, I had an Xbox. Yes, I had Halo.).

I don't see consoles usurping PC gaming's top genres anytime soon.

Re:MMOs and simple puzzle games?!!

[ElleyKitten]

What the hell are you smoking? PCs are the "home" of MMO, FPS, RTS, Puzzle and -real- adventure games, and probably several genres I'm forgetting. Consoles don't come close for any of said genres, and where they make an attempt, they are second-rate(eg. Halo. Yes, compared to its PC counterparts, Halo sucks. Yes, I had an Xbox. Yes, I had Halo.).

I didn't count FPSs as PC games because they're just as popular on console. No, I don't know why, I don't play FPSs, but acording to Wikipedia, the best selling PC FPS - Halflife - sold the same (8 million) as the best selling console FPSs - Halo 2 and GoldenEye. I didn't count RTSs because I always forget about them - sorry. And Trace Memory was an awesome adventure game, so you can take your "real" adventure games and go home.

I don't see consoles usurping PC gaming's top genres anytime soon.

Yeah, yeah, tell me when PC has games that compare to the best console games. Until then, I'll stick with my Final Fantasy, and you can stick with your Halflife or whatever you play.

Yes, consoles and PC have different strengths and weaknesses. No, one is not going to kill the other. I did not say PC games are dying. They're just not going to kill consoles.

Re:MMOs and simple puzzle games?!!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you hold Final Fantasy in such high regard, then you've just tossed your credibility aside when it comes to games. Play a real RPG for a change and you'll see why.

Re:MMOs and simple puzzle games?!!

[flewp]

PCs are also the home of sims, be it flying or racing/driving. I'm a big fan of the Gran Turismo series (for playing against friends), and it simply doesn't come close to being a sim. I've also never seen a flying game on a console that comes anywhere near close to what is available for PCs.

Re:MMOs and simple puzzle games?!!

[thatguywhoiam]

What the hell are you smoking? PCs are the "home" of MMO, FPS, RTS, Puzzle and -real- adventure games, and probably several genres I'm forgetting.

Not so sure about that. A mouse+kb is great for RTS and FPS, I'll give you that. The MMOs we've seen so far require a lot of horsepower so naturally they land on the PC right now, but there's no reason you can't do one for a console (and has been - FF XI).P. But every other genre I can think of, a console controller is way better. Racing, fighting, flying, yes 'real adventure' (Oblivion for Xbox360) and 'puzzle' (too numerous to count on either platform, but safe to say the Tetrises, Katamaris, UNOs and fl0ws are safe in console land). PCs are very powerful and I am not commenting on the quality issue, but specifically the control scheme. The fact that you can plug in a kb+mouse to an X360 or a PS3 blurs the line even more.

Re:You forgot...

[KDR_11k]

Billy Hatcher had a PC port but I haven't seen it for other consoles.

I thinks its all been said.

[vaksion]

One console is not going to happen. So many others have said it. All that can be said, I think has been.

Home theater PC gaming?

[tepples]

Also, people enjoy being able to lounge back in their recliner or sofa and play games, and use an input device designed with gaming in mind.

Then why don't more companies develop games for home theater PCs?

Re:Home theater PC gaming?

[7Prime]

Heheh...

Because game companies would rather have an audience to be able to get money from. I don't know where you live, but I live on planet Earth, where less than 5% of the population (in developed countries) has anything resembling a home theatre, and only about 10% of them have them connected to PCs. And still, that doesn't solve the input device problem, where most PC games are still written for a device that wasn't designed with games in mind.

Hell, I'm a geek, but I'm not THAT much of a geek!

Re:Home theater PC gaming?

[tepples]

I don't know where you live, but I live on planet Earth, where less than 5% of the population (in developed countries) has anything resembling a home theatre, and only about 10% of them have them connected to PCs.

I was using the term broadly to refer to any PC connected to a monitor larger than 24 inches, such as a television set. Why is this use case still so rare? Is there any popular set-top gaming machine that allows for shareware, freeware, and free software?

And still, that doesn't solve the input device problem, where most PC games are still written for a device that wasn't designed with games in mind.

Why is this still the case when there are USB gamepads in Best Buy right next to the gaming keyboards and mice?

Re:Home theater PC gaming?

[ElleyKitten]

I was using the term broadly to refer to any PC connected to a monitor larger than 24 inches, such as a television set. Why is this use case still so rare? Is there any popular set-top gaming machine that allows for shareware, freeware, and free software?

People don't connect their PCs to TVs because most of what they do with PCs makes more sense at a desk, working, writing papers, browsing slashdot (TVs with a resolution high enough to read webpages are still rather expensive) as opposed to things that make sense in a living room, watching video, playing games that don't use a keyboard and mouse. Many TVs don't even have VGA inputs, so many people would have to buy expensive new ones to do that. Even if you did connect you PC to your monitor and got some USB gamepads, can you name one game that plays 4 player on one TV? Sure it would be good if PCs running free software could replace consoles (I do love my GP2x, which is a handheld console running Linux) but Americans don't care about free software. If we did, Linux and BSD would be the dominant OSs, but instead, Americans like simple, shiney, and what everyone else has, so we get Windows and proprietary consoles.

All C64s were identical; used games

[tepples]

Yep, I remember back when Electronics Boutique only stocked computer games, mostly C64 and Apple.

Back then, all Commodore 64 computers were identical, and all Apple IIe computers were identical. The modern Lenovo-compatible PC, on the other hand, is a mess of buggy drivers. Besides, US copyright law imposes restrictions on the resale of authentic copies of PC games that do not apply to the resale of authentic copies of console games, namely that the sale of a used PC game must not look like a rental.

Dual core: the other runs soft T and L

[tepples]

If the API offers multipurpose shader units then the hardware must have them, otherwise what would you do if the code assigns an order to these units?

Run vertex shaders in software, on the other core.

Re:Dual core: the other runs soft T and L

[KDR_11k]

The result would be so slow that you could just as well tell the owners of that hardware that their hardware is incompatible so they don't start complaining to the game's tech support that they get only two FPS.

Re:Dual core: the other runs soft T and L

[tepples]

Run vertex shaders in software, on the other core. The result would be so slow that [...] they get only two FPS. Is this the case? Have you benchmarked software vertex shading on a recent dual-core processor?

Re:Dual core: the other runs soft T and L

[KDR_11k]

No but considering the shader units are highly specialized chips that can do loads of operations VERY quickly and do so in the video RAM it would add a lot of unnecessary load to send that data back to the CPU and let it do those computations. The CPU would have to do loads of quick matrix operations on the geometry as well as calculate multiple per-pixel effects. There's 32 (or so) of these unified shader units on a graphics card. Good luck sending all that data over the video bus, processing it in the CPU and sending it back all the while the CPU is calculating the game behaviour and the bus is saturated with all the drawing instructions sent by the code. I've seen what loading a texture over the video bus every frame does (2 FPS), a pixel shader, especially with multiple passes, would produce a lot more data than that.

What he means, not what he says...

[aphxtwn]

I think what he meant was about how consoles, may become cloned and become like PC's, but basically dedicated gaming computers. He was saying there's so many 3rd party developers developing for all three platforms compared to 1st party developers, there may be a time when a 3rd party developer may just need to make one release and have it work on all consoles. Here's one possibility, standardized PC gaming rigs. Perhaps multiple hardware vendors could standardize the hardware API and driver interfaces - like DirectX or something of that sort. If the engine needs to be updated then the hardware vendor can send patches to update their game interpreter. I think PC's are nice because of customization, but there might be a day when an xbox is on a desk with a kb+mouse, running a dedicated gaming OS.

Macs vs. PCs

[aphxtwn]

I think comparing consoles to pc gaming rigs might be similar in some ways to comparing Macs to PC's. Mac's handle backwards compatibility with emulators like what we're seeing now with consoles. Mac's are proprietary hardware (except when they cloned them for a brief time). If Mac folds and allows their hardware to become PC's and PCs to run Mac software, then I think the PC model for consoles could work, enabling the PC-esque realization of one console.

Genres that are underrepresented on PC

[tepples]

Most of the major action titles and RPGs are ported to the PC as well, so they are hardly console exclusives, and there are more genres you can basically get only on the PC: realistic simulation games, turn based strategy games, RTSes, most adventure games.

I have a Lenovo-compatible PC made by Dell, containing a video card connected to a TV, running Windows. What is the PC counterpart to the Nintendo 64 game Super Smash Bros. and the Nintendo GameCube game Super Smash Bros. Melee? What is the PC counterpart to Bomberman that hasn't been abandoned for the last decade? What is the PC counterpart to minigame collections such as Mario Party or WarioWare? Why don't more PC games allow four players with four USB gamepads, one PC, and one TV?

Single-screen multiplayer

[tepples]

The worst part is when they port from console to PC and yet they keep the horrid clickfest of an interface instead of letting you use some of the 104 keys on your keyboard.

Say I have a PC connected to a TV. Will Windows allow a game to make meaningful use of four keyboards and four mice plugged into USB hubs?

Single-screen multiplayer?

[tepples]

Console developers could come together and make a hardware/api "standard." Same type of disc, same hardware capability, etc. They have, it's pixel shader 3.0, DirectX 10, x86, cd/dvd and the windows OS.

But what about input devices? Does this "Games for Windows" standard include a standardized controller that can be used fourfold? All consoles since the N64 (except the PS2) have allowed for at least four controllers, held by four players looking at the same TV.

Re:Single-screen multiplayer?

[demon]

Well actually, the PS2 does - just not out of the box, you have to get the multitap device to support more than two (and you're still limited to four).

Touch screen != exclusive

[tepples]

The one exception to that would be games that take advantage of a feature that's only available on one system, such as the DS touchscreen/stylus or the Wiimote.

I see your point broadly, but a touch screen is by no means exclusive to the Nintendo DS platform. PDAs that run Windows Mobile OS have it. Lenovo-compatible tablet PCs have it. Even non-tablet PCs have the similar "mouse" controller. So why aren't more third-party DS games published simultaneously on Windows and Windows Mobile platforms?

Uses of up button in side-view games

[tepples]

Except in Mario and a lot of other games, where up does nothing and you have to press A to jump.

In Donkey Kong, Lode Runner, and Super Mario Bros. 2, up and down make the character climb ladders. Contra, Mega Man 2, Super Mario World, and several other side-view platform games use up and down to aim some weapons.

IBM doesn't make PCs

[tepples]

The market converged to IBM compatible PCs running Windows.

Wouldn't that be Lenovo-compatible since 2005?

Xbox 360, Wii, and PS3 are "IBM compatible"

[tepples]

In a billion dollar industry there is no way one console will win out. Even if Nintendo and Sony didn't sell another console this gen. No way in the world the MS's, Sony's, Nintendo's, IBM's...and any other multi-million dollar company of the world is going to cede a billion dollar industry to one company. There is too much money to be made.

Funny you mentioned IBM. The company left the PC business in 2005 (and now a winbox is "Lenovo compatible"), but Xbox 360, Wii, and PLAYSTATION 3 consoles all use CPU cores based on IBM PowerPC architecture (Xenon, Broadway, and Cell).

Mirror Mirror on the wall...

[GodInHell]

... what say you that all but one console shall fall? !!tihslluB -GiH

The words of those who've been bought

[Sizzlean]

"As a gamer, I kind of miss the 'you can only get it on this system'." Would he be singing that tune if Sony hadn't paid him a truckload of money to make exclusives?

Is it a chicken-and-egg situation?

[tepples]

Many TVs don't even have VGA inputs

My PC has an S-video output. My TV has an S-video input.

can you name one game that plays 4 player on one TV?

Atomic Bomberman. Possibly Gauntlet and some other games in Midway Arcade Treasures. But my question is why aren't more such games produced? Is chicken-and-egg the only entry barrier in this case?

Re:Is it a chicken-and-egg situation?

[ElleyKitten]

I think it is a chicken and egg situation. Companies don't make living room PC games because people don't have PCs in their living rooms. People don't have PCs in their living rooms because they don't have things on their PC they'd like to use with their TV. More than that though, I think people have a resistance to putting their PC in the living room. People are now downloading movies and TV shows to their PCs (though iTunes, Pirate Bay, etc) yet they play the video on their tiny monitors and not on TVs. Apple is making a dedicated box that's sole purpose is to stream video from a PC to a TV because no one's going to connect them directly. I think the reason is that is people think of PCs and TVs seperately. PCs are for work, typing up papers, reading websites, etc. If you connected your PC to your TV, it would be harder to do that. I've tried surfing the web with my Wii browser, and that's an exercise in frustration. Affordable TVs don't have the resolution to display text well, and sitting at a comfortable distance from the TV makes it even more illegible. Even if you do get a TV that allows you to see text fine, that still moves your PC from your "work" space to your "play" space, so you'd probably want another PC so you can continue to be productive in your "work" space. Then you have the hassle of setting up your living room PC, installing and maintaning the OS (if it's Linux you have to learn that, if it's Windows you have to get and run anti-virus, anti-spyware, etc), finding games that support it and making sure all the drivers play well. With a console, you just plug it in, stick in the game, and go. To most people, even fairly geeky people, that wins out. Maybe if you make cool enough games and stuff for a living room PC then geeks will do that too, but until PCs are much easier than they are now, you're not going to see average people doing stuff like that.

Re:Is it a chicken-and-egg situation?

[tepples]

OK, so we have a chicken-and-egg situation. What do you suggest for authors of shareware, freeware, and free software games, who have no access to consoles due to their lockout chip business model, to break out of it?

Re:Is it a chicken-and-egg situation?

[ElleyKitten]

OK, so we have a chicken-and-egg situation. What do you suggest for authors of shareware, freeware, and free software games, who have no access to consoles due to their lockout chip business model, to break out of it?

Make an awesome game for PC that people can play on their monitors, but think "This would be so much better on my TV". Make setting up multiplayer as easy as plugging in another usb gamepad, and make sure your gamers know this (have that as a selling point on your website, if you have tips on a loading screen put it there, etc). If geeks have a good reason to connect their PC to their TV, they will, you just need to give them a good enough reason. Also, if you'd like to develop for handheld consoles, check out the GP2x. It doesn't have the greatest marketshare, but the platform is open.

Re:Is it a chicken-and-egg situation?

[7Prime]

The dev-kits for the GBA, DS, and Wii are peanuts compared to the profit differences between the console and PC game market. Nowdays, many small companies, instead of making shareware games, are breaking into the handheld market... and soon, I think, the Wii market (since the dev-kits are priced similarly).

The other thing is that PCs had two things consoles didn't: network play, and high resolution. But that was then, this is now, and all major consoles have internet connectivity and 2 out of 3 have HD. As more people hook up their consoles to the internet and buy HD TVs these advantages the PC once had will dissappear. Then there's the keyboard; PC gamers always raive about how much better a keyboard is than a controller. But in actuality, the keyboard is a deterant for the majority of gamers, who would rather not be tied to an office chair, or have a big complicated controller on their lap.

But with consoles going online and at high defenition, the PC game market is only going to look grimmer and grimmer. There are virtually no major advantages to PC gaming, anymore. The innitial price difference between a work PC and a gaming PC is more than the price of a console. The fact that the PC game industry is a moving target, when it comes to hardware requirements, doesn't help. In the time of a console generation, you're going to spend a lot more money on PC upgrades than the price of a console.

I'm still of the belief that the main resistance to consoles is little attributed to features, graphics, styles of games, or anything of that sort... but more to a geek snobishness and the belief that PCs are somehow more "mature" or "sophisticated" than consoles. Why else do you hear PC users crassly refering to console gamers as "casual gamers"? PCs are to the game industry as SUVs are to the car industry: big, expensive, and more talk than walk.

One console to rule them all? Yeah right.

[antonyo]

One console to rule them all, supporting every games, supporting every keyboards, mouses, gamepads, wiimotes and touch screens, all gamers playing on a single multiplayer server, no more console exclusives titles, no more exclusive contents, no more money wasted in yet another useless console, all gaming companies finally respecting the gamers, holding hands and running around in circles in the field of smiling flowers? Yeah right.

For one it's simply too good to be true.

For two, there will always have companies that will think about jumping in the console bandwagon and force us to buy yet another console just to play some console exclusive titles. There will also always have games companies signing juicy exclusivity deals with console companies and hoping to charge us a game 2 or 3 times by porting it with exclusive contents on 3 different consoles. For them, we are just 2 legged money cows, standing in lines for days in front of stores just to get their consoles or games on release day.

You think the Nintendo's Wii will keep a monopoly on Wiimote type of games? It's a matter of time before Sony and Microsoft stop considering the Nintendo's Wii like a ugly little duck and start considering it like a competitor and follow them with their own remote, thus splitting the gaming cake in 3 shares again.

In 10 years absolutly nothing will change, instead it will probably get even worst than now, with more companies jumping in the bandwagon, creating yet another console to drain us more money, the innovations turning into more money cows to be milked and cakes to be shared, and more games companies using Ubisoft's Splinter Cell's or Rockstar's GTA's marketing strategy. Bottomline: gamers will have to whip up more and more money just to miss even more games that get released on different consoles than their own.

I wish things trivial like DVD players, TV, mp3 players, toaster would turn like the gaming world is, and that net neutrality could go to the trashcan. Maybe after paying and juggling on a daily basis 3 differents toasters, 4 differents DVD players, 4 differents TVs, 5 mp3 players and 4 internet services, people would understand what it is to be a gamer nowaday. In the meantime I continue my GTA boycott, even if that make every car scene in Miami Vice as paintul to watch as a stab in the chest.