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Next Console Generation Defined By Software, Not Hardware
Fast Company recent spoke with Microsoft exec Shane Kim about Natal and the future of the Xbox 360. Kim said they're very interested in continuing to build out support for social networking and digital distribution, and he also made some interesting remarks about their long term plans. Quoting:
"It really has much more to do with ... the innovation and longevity that will be created when Project Natal is added to that mix and the value and the entertainment options that we continue to expand on Xbox Live. The 'next generation' will be defined by software and services, not hardware. In the past we would always get this question: 'Hey, there's a new console launch every five years and you're coming up on that time for Xbox, right?' That's the old treadmill way of thinking. Before you had things that were very obvious, from a hardware standpoint — pushing more pixels, the move from 2-D to 3-D, 3-D to HD, etc. We got a very powerful piece of hardware in Xbox 360. I am confident that we have more headroom available, in terms of developers and creators figuring out how to get more out of the system. So I worry less about new hardware having to enable us to move to a different level of graphics. It's much more about the experiences that you are going to deliver."
Where the console with the best hardware (PS3) is winning, and the under-specced Wii is in a distant third place.
Oh, wait.
Sounds like they're trying to turn the console into a locked-down PC.
As we achieve a given level of sophistication in any field and make technological limits virtually go away, the limiting factor is always going to be human creativity.
Take oil painting, for instance. We've had mostly all the colors we need for hundreds and hundreds of years. Yet, new and interesting art is still being created. When the development of paints were still in the early stages I'm sure people marveled at new colors like we today marvel at ever more photo realistic graphics. But once the initial excitement wears off what we're really left with is how good the game plays, how well written the story is, etc.
Games, like books, paintings, movies and so many other things before them, will not be defined by technological achievements in the coming centuries. The best games I've played to date aren't good because of tech, but great stories and immersive and imaginative environments. Grim Fandango is still the best game I've played to date story-wise, and while the replay value of an adventure game like that is sadly very low I'm very much looking forward to playing it again with my kids once they are old enough. It is worth noting that i played Grim Fandango as an adult, so the nostalgia factor is not dimming my senses much at least... ;)
.: Max Romantschuk
maybe it was "powerful" in 2005 when it was unveiled. But for today's standards, a Xenos graphics chip is a joke. Xenos GPU was the precursor of the Radeon R600 processor, which was used up to Radeon HD 3400. You can get a Radeon HD 4650 for under 50 bucks, and will totally obliterate Xbox's graphics capabilities.
Problem is gaming companies are making many titles "console only", or their PC ports are crappy emulation (like GTA4) - that leaves gamers with no choice but buying/using a console with outdated hardware.
- Human knowledge belongs to the world
Fast hardware lost this gen to the slowest (Wii). It lost last gen to the slowest (PS2). You can argue that two gens ago, the PS1 was slower than the N64, although that's less certain. Raw speed is most certainly not the most important component of success for a console.
I wouldn't say hardware was unimportant, though. The Wii won because of its hardware, clearly. But it needs to be looked at in terms of what the hardware actually brings to the buyer. Higher res? Who cares? Faster refresh? Doesn't matter. Better AI and gameplay? Well, that might help, but it's pretty clear that the 360's and PS3's improved processors aren't being used for that.
New methods of control, new interfaces, whole new styles of gameplay? Microphones, vibrations, sensors, speakers, and so forth... now, that will catch a customer's eye. That makes playing a game something new, instead of a slightly glossier but nearly indistinguishable version of an older game. New hardware is important, but the growth needs to branch out in new directions, instead of being this one-dimensional 'better graphics' mantra that the consoles have been pushing. Improvements in graphics are mattering less and less.
In the really old days, a platform was almost synonymous with its hardware: when you wrote straight assembly on the Atari VCS and directly controlled the video interface, the hardware was your game platform. What you could or couldn't do on the platform was more or less defined but what you could or couldn't get its bizarre hardware to do. (There's an excellent recent book that traces just how big an influence the Atari's odd hardware had on its game design, among other things.)
But that hasn't been true for a while. Sure, hardware is still an important part of the platform. But so are lots of other things. What's the programming model? What kind of SDK do you have? What libraries are there? How does the platform look to a programmer? What can they do with it easily and what's hard to do on it? Hardware is only one of the things from that perspective; unless you're programming on bare metal, what matters is the entire stack. The hardware could be so terrible or so great that it makes or breaks the entire stack. But I would suspect that of the things that can be an impediment to producing a good game on a particular platform, "the hardware just couldn't support what we wanted to do" is the bottleneck less and less often.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I'm not sure whether to think of this development as a good thing. The obvious benefit for gamers is that they won't need to buy a whole new console so often. But the gaming industry seems to be hitting a technological wall, in that graphics are about as good as they need to be to look shiny and realistic. Same for gameplay complexity. There's a bigger difference between an Atari 2600 level of technology (as in "Adventure") and NES-level ("The Legend of Zelda"), than there is between NES-level and oh, PS1 level. That is, once you get to a halfway-decent tech level you can get recognizable graphics and gameplay that's not all that different from modern games'. "Final Fantasy X" could've been made for the NES if it'd had more raw storage space.
I've been thinking about whether AI could be a breakthrough technology that revolutionizes gaming, but after reading about game-specific AI I'm kind of shell-shocked. The kind of AI that people want for games tends to be remarkably stupid, mostly meant to dispense quests and die entertainingly. From what I understand of that impressive-looking recent demo about the AI-driven kid, 90% of that was fake, and didn't need to be real AI to impress an audience.
So, unless developers find new gameplay styles that really push the hardware, there's little point in advancing the hardware any farther. I don't much care whether my enemies splatter with true Newtonian realism when I frag them with a plasma rifle.
Revive the Constitution.
While technically the Xbox 360 is a great console, the big problem with this console is the hardware leaves something to be desired in terms of noise and hardware reliability.
I'm hoping that within the next two years Microsoft will do a "hardware refresh" on the Xbox 360 with a new model that uses improved chip technology to lower the running temperature (hence less need for noisy cooling fans and to improve circuit board reliability) and to possibly offer Blu-ray disc support (especially now that Blu-ray technology licensing needs only one lower cost license, not multiple licenses like in the past).
I am on my fourth 360. I do not expect it to last another six months!
I have a backwards compatible PS3 and PS2 games on my HDTV look very good and are still very playable graphically because my PS3 can up-scale and smooth so "good enough" applies here. PS1 games even the good ones do tend to look grainy so they are not acceptable at least to me so there are now only a few PS1 games I would consider playing now so "good enough" does not apply here.
I'll give you anecdotal evidence : I have a backward compatible PS3 too, and I see very clearly the jagged lines on PS2 games. It doesn't deter anything from the enjoyment.
Like lots of people, I bought FFVII on PSN (fastest selling PSN game for PS1 BTW) which is far worse, and it still doesn't deter from my enjoyment.
So "good enough" applies perfectly well here.
I have a Gamecube and while the games are playable and acceptable on my HDTV (37", 720p) you can pick the reduced graphics quality which does detract from the overall enjoyment of the game. I suppose "good enough" could apply here but I would prefer "just acceptable". So basically if you have a HDTV it is hard to play a game that is made for an SDTV unless that game can be up-scaled and smoothed properly. Unfortunately the larger the HDTV the worse the SDTV graphics looks even when up-scaled and smoothed although "barely acceptable" still comes to mind.
BUt you're wrong anyway. It's funny how you accuse the Gamecube of being the problem, when it's actually your TV that has a problem.
On my HDTV (55" 1080p), the Gamecube games were far more beautiful on it than on my old 50" SDTV. There was just no comparison, the HDTV was better. Then again, I chose a HDTV with good electronics, that render most SDTV programs far better than SDTV (and it's calibrated too).
A HDTV should be a better piece of equipment than a SDTV, and so display SDTV better, or there's no point in buying one, especially if you expect to view SD content on it.
Kuro line of HDTV, which are references, also display SD content better than SDTV.
Also, what you're saying is strange, because the games were far better looking from the Gamecube on my HDTV, than any PS2 games upscaled by PS3, on the same HDTV, where the jaggies were very apparent despite the smoothing.
Like it or not HDTV will replace SDTV and people will want HDTV content hence the move to purchasing HDTV ready game machines such as the Xbox360 and the PS3 which together exceed the overall sales of the Wii although not by a huge amount yet.
Yet in Japan, one of the country with the highest HDTV penetration in the world, with lots of HD content already available, the Wii is trouncing both of its HD competitors.
HDTV vendors were using the Wii in events to promote their HDTV...
It's also funny that you have to put 2 competitors together to finally come to a number bigger than the Wii, and saying it's the situation "yet".
While the truth is that the XB360 was out one year earlier than its competitors, and went down from the highest 100 % market share in its generation, all the way down to below 40 %, with several price cuts already.
You put 2 competitors together, which have a high chance of having overlap, which both had price cuts, new models, and even were out before the sole SD console, which stil have had no price cut, still has only one model (until tomorrow in Japan were the black Wii will be out) available, and you manage to believe in an optimistic outcome for the HD consoles, so that it can validate your theory ?
Well, there's still hope, but I'm amazed at this level of hope.
I think you believe that people buy HDTV primarily for HD. I've always believed they bought them because they were thin.
You say it as if limiting capabilities is a bad thing. Hopefully it will force the developers to be more creative and we'll get some decent games instead of the same repackaged shite with slightly higher framerate/pixel count/level of detail.
I'm sure that will fail hard.
Look at the Wii! That was Nintendo's message from the start, that developers would have to be more creative with the Wii, as its graphics are good enough, and developers couldn't rely on better graphics.
Look at the game's industry answer! Lots of arrogant developers (mostly western ones, but some japanese ones too) saying they don't even know how to work in a "limited" environment like the Wii, and don't even want to try.
Who says that there isn't room for hardware improvement in game consoles. Real-time raytracing would be a huge improvement that has yet to happen, but is probably reachable at game console costs in 2 more generations.
The day I say that hardware has gone far enough is when I can't see any further improvement with my eye from increased pixel counts (my eye has a fixed resolution), framerates (my brain only runs so fast), color depth (my eye has a fixed color resolution ability of around 10m colors optimal), or realistic technology (if I can't tell it from real already, then making it twice as good from that won't be any improvement to me). I can see that day arriving in the next decade or so.
In short, once technology can create a seamless realistic experience at an affordable cost then no further improvement in that area is necessary and efforts should be directed to other areas instead.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."