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Kojima Predicts the End of the Console
nathanielinbrazil writes "Konami founder and developer Hideo Kojima predicts gaming console is a dying breed. Anticipates gaming on demand via Internet. 'It's a bold prediction,' Sony Computer Entertainment Japan President Hiroshi Kawano told reporters nervously. 'We hope he continues to develop for platforms, but we deeply respect his sense of taking on a challenge.' Kojima launches his follow-up game Heavy Metal Solid Gear: Peace Walker in late April designed for the PSP."
I know the guy is widely respected in gaming circles, but...is there anyone out there other than me that can't stand most of his gaming work?
Living With a Nerd
The console makers keep shooting themselves in the foot. I'm going to build a gaming HTPC soon. I can't buy both PSN and XBL content because I don't want to update my consoles and lose features, get banned, etc.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
There must be some hundreds of people who've felt the hit of those declarations.
I can only imagine how I'd roll with such a punch... "This will be the year of Linux on the desktop" - Bill Gates... Unngh.
Most of my friends have ditched computers for consoles in the last few years with virtually none returning.
Kojima is talking about ditching consoles for handhelds.
Many people have predicted the move toward either One Single Console To Rule Them All, or in this case none at all. The problem with this sort of prediction is that it does not account for the profitability of such systems. As long as money CAN be made by putting out a console, someone will. And as long as someone does, others will want a share of that pie, thus competition. It's the reason why Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo could fold eventually and still we'd end up with a multiple console market competition.
Procrastination drives much of my own gaming, and I think this holds for a large share of people. The closer a game comes to my "legit" computer usage, the more likely I will pick it up. So yes, game consoles do not stand a chance with me.
-- up-modding policy: make a good point, write self-contained.
I like computer gaming for the depth - Total War, Master of Orion, etc. Console gaming fulfills the high adrenaline stuff - God of War, Uncharted. Of course, computers get some of that too, but not all of it. But all of this is really off topic. What I believe he's trying to say (having not read a single line of TFA) is that there is strength in a subscription-based gaming service. It's an interesting concept. If you pay $2 an hour to play Bioshock 2, and I finish it in 6 hours, that's only 12 dollars. But I have a friend who is on like his fourth play through - he'd be up near $50. It seems to me then that a subscription service penalizes heavy gamers but would be great for mid-casual gamers like me. It would also save me the heartache of paying $60 for C&C4, when at whatever hourly rate they wanted to charge I could find out that it's awful in an hour or less. Ultimately I think there's room for both services, if for no other reason than the ability to play games in places where there is no significant connectivity.
Jealously hoarding mod points since 2007.
The game's name is Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. Heavy Metal is a totally different series.
~Syberz
While i love seeing these predictions from time to time... i actually played his last game and realized that whoever wrote it must have been completely bat shit crazy. I wouldnt trust the guy to wipe my ass, much less predict the future of gaming. Imo of course.
Consoles are merely a platform whereas the internet is a medium. I can easily imagine a future (or even partially present) where internet speeds make it viable for optical media to be obsolete, and hence allowing for games to easily and confidently implement online multiplayer components without alienating their player base that suffers from poor connections. (though it might be a sad one with DRM).
For casual gaming, yes and this has already happened to a degree with smartphones.
But for hardcore or graphics intensive games, I don't see anything beyond PCs or consoles. Heck, the trend is so much towards consoles, this generation we have 3 of them with respectable size audiences. Six, if you count the DS, PSP, and PS2 (because it's still selling). Back in the original NES days, there was one winner and the rest were afterthoughts.
Years ago, things like the Wii Controller would only differentiate the systems if it came standard with the console, but really dedicated hardware like the Balance Board would never have taken off (power glove, super scope, etc anyone?) and after the initial game very few others would follow because the install base just wasn't there. Now even more dedicated hardware than the console/controller itself is taking off.
I just don't see platform agnostic gaming being feasible in the near-future. It's usually the attention to detail and tailored package that makes the experience and sale.
The console itself may not be dead, but will just become one more internet "appliance", doing precisely what Konami says, accessing the net on demand to play the users game of choice. With VMs becoming more and more prevalent it is only a matter of time before they start to appear on consoles. It would not be very hard to do it now in fact. So a console could run a VM to appear to be any machine....or a PC could run VM to appear to be a console, hmmmm.
If you switch exclusively to HTPC gaming, what do you plan to do when friends come over, or when a relative drops kids off at your house?
A - Have a party.
B - Sell them on the black market.
So your solution is to make console more PC like?
heh.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Both Left4Dead titles support split-screen with a little playing around in the config files, if I remember correctly.
I haven't listened to anything that guy says since having to bleach my eyes after naked Raiden.
Now if he announced a web game where Snake invades Farmville with giant mechs I might take notice.
What I believe he's trying to say (having not read a single line of TFA) is that there is strength in a subscription-based gaming service. It's an interesting concept. If you pay $2 an hour to play Bioshock 2, and I finish it in 6 hours, that's only 12 dollars. But I have a friend who is on like his fourth play through - he'd be up near $50. It seems to me then that a subscription service penalizes heavy gamers but would be great for mid-casual gamers like me.
I apologize for the generalization, but aren't most heavy gamers also better gamers simply due to the nature of their many hours of experience? Perhaps they'd burn through Bioshock 2 in only three or four hours the first time through, and even less the next time through. With 'volume discounts' they may actually get a better deal than a mid-casual gamer in the long run.
With services being integrated into TVs and being able to get home theaters streaming from a file server, I don't doubt a dedicated console will disappear from living rooms. The games will still be there, but they will be loaded on your server/computer and allow you stream them to whatever room you're in. Sort of like a localized OnLive.
Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo will try to keep you locked into their platform, but that will only last a generation or so longer. I can see Steam becoming even bigger and integrating the streaming play, locking others in a different room out while you're logged into your account (unless they have an account of their own).
No sig for you!!
Konami founder and developer Hideo Kojima predicts gaming console is a dying breed. Anticipates gaming on demand via Internet.
The flow of that is positively dreadful.
Trine supports same-screen multiplayer gaming on a PC...and it's AWESOME.
Living With a Nerd
Many big name titles already don't support split screen on the 360 or PS3, because they realized their market is in online gaming with really good graphics. The Wii just doesn't count in this discussion, but yes it still serves that niche you speak of.
I forayed into console gaming. Found it fun, easy, and enjoyable until Sony and Microsoft became complete asshats. Going back to the ol' PC.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
These guesses at the future state of things are no more insightful than someone saying "FIRST POST".
-- if you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine
It will come right after the year of Linux on the desktop.
+1 Disagree
I find the lack of commas alarming. William Shatner could never read that if it was in a script.
I think in terms of the end of next decade he is right. The console will be replaced with iphone/ipad type devices which can be tethered to your TV/computer/etc... and be used as a gaming device.
This is also the way the desktop computer will be going as well.
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
I'd hate to have that for any bioware or strategy game due to the sheer amount of gameplay involved. I imagine quite a few people here would be poor if they had to pay an hourly fee to play Civilization; Small games can last up to 6 hours :P. If we moved to a subscription based architecture, developers would probably change their design strategy to generate short bursts of content, which will ultimately lead to smaller, more shallow games. No offense to Telltale games, but the episodic content of Monkey Island and Sam & Max feels like a shadow of their predecessors' former glory. I wouldn't mind seeing what the industry does with subscription based content, but I wouldn't want to see it move as a whole to this form of distribution, at least for some developers.
Street Fighter IV was pretty notable. I prefer the PC version because I can use my hacked together arcade-quality USB joystick with it. It annoys me when I play tournaments using a stupid 360 or PS3 gamepad. Charge players like Blanka and Balrog just aren't the same. Which brings up MAME and emulators in general. Oh, and Madden has been multi-player single screen for a long time now for the PC (at least 10 years). The only was your statement really holds is if by "notable" you mean "FPS." And no, there are no PC FPSes I'm aware of that do split screen multiplayer gaming.
Many big name titles already don't support split screen on the 360 or PS3, because they realized their market is in online gaming with really good graphics.
Many? Really? I doubt you could even provide 30 examples of multiplayer games that don't have split screen.
I can think of worse things to happen to gaming, but not many. Until the Internet is as reliable and widespread as electricity there isn't much chance of this happening and working.
The big theme at GDC this year was social platforms, with the evangelists insisting that hardcore gaming is going away forever within 5 years. 5 years ago, these same guys were using absolutes to describe the total decline of PC gaming. Nobody said a word about Facebook. The only prediction worth putting stock into is that the future will continue to become more unpredictable.
As a result, computers become more versatile every year, while consoles become increasingly limited to single applications.
And at the same time console and console game sales keep growing every year with sales that are eclipsing the PC version of a game by sometimes more than a magnitude. You tend to overestimate how much DRM and the locked-down nature of a console matters to most people. That is, it's a non-issue.
Was it not just a week or 2 ago that someone else said that the end of computer gaming was coming soon, and consoles would reign supreme?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Or by "party" did you mean "LAN party", which defeats the purpose of an HTPC?
"An" HTPC, perhaps. Multiple HTPCs, not so much. Since many multiplayer console games are still best played in multi-console LAN party mode. (Much less ass-hurt about "screen lookers", etc.)
Single-screen, single-console multiplayer console play is not something to be preserved as a valuable feature, but abolished as the crocky krufty wart it is.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
"There are 10 types of people... Those who understand binary, and those who do not."
Seriously, there are two kinds of spendy gamers out there. There are the non-technical types, who will go out there and buy a console, buy a bunch of games, buy new controllers... They have no desire for a true PC, don't want a desk to put the keyboard and mouse on, just want a little machine in their entertainment center.
Then there are the technical types, who want to upgrade their video card, processor, boot off a SSD... They want to be able to push the edge, and may get as much fun out of tinkering as they do from the gaming.
IMO *both* markets are worth pursuing, even if they diverge. Don't shove everything into one niche.
it helps to read. he's basically saying consoles aren't portable enough. So that means handhelds.
I wonder if the portable market is better than console. More competition in that area would certainly be nice though.
I should alter my statement. By "multiplayer" I mean co-op. So please, list these "many big name titles" that have a co-op mode but don't let you do it split screen. And since there are 1300 games between the PS3 and Xbox combined you should have no problems coming up with numerous examples.
Since the future of PC Gaming is in doubt as well, at least they will have plenty of company. I guess that leaves Facebook games FTW.
Which brings up MAME and emulators in general.
I made a point to mention PC games because most emulated ROMs are not cleared for Internet distribution. So I'll pretend you said "Midway Arcade Treasures and Namco Museum" instead, in which case I sort of agree.
Oh, and Madden has been multi-player single screen for a long time now for the PC (at least 10 years).
Madden NFL 09 and Madden NFL 10 have no PC version.
The only was your statement really holds is if by "notable" you mean "FPS."
I'm assembling a list of HTPC party games and am looking for viable alternatives to console party games such as Bomberman, Smash Bros., Mario Party, and the like. Can you think of any more good ones?
And no, there are no PC FPSes I'm aware of that do split screen multiplayer gaming.
For co-op there are Serious Sam and L4D.
iPhone, iTouch, and iPad are information appliances with an incredibly well designed App Store, yes. As they are touch screen based, they are not particularly useful for business users that might need to write polite emails. So who uses them? We'll people browse the web and use web site apps, but the apps not oriented towards media consumption are GAMES !!!
I don't see why game consoles cannot have application stores that are every bit as successful as the iTunes Store, perhaps games requiring more storage will require different content models, like a cheap social initial game with costly running add-ons ala farmville, but the locked down hardware and distribution model historically occupied by consoles has actually expanded, not retracted.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
There's always MAME.
When you look at the rise of online multiplayer, I think the style of gaming you describe is already dying out - even on consoles. When people play with multiple people, they tend to play online, with their own equipment. I'm sure at least 3 or 4 people will chime in with "BUT I STILL HAVE FRIENDS OVER TO PLAY!!!", and that's fine, but it's not a question of whether or not such a thing EVER happens, but rather if it's a situation common enough for the market to keep catering to it. If we're not past that point already, we're fast approaching it.
Besides - I can play video games all the time - with our without other players, when I want to kill time. Why would I waste face-time with my friends pulling out video games?
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
I used to love PC gaming, but the enjoyment just isn't there anymore. Mainly it is the hardware / driver / tweaking issues and ridiculous DRM that killed it for me.
Clearly you don't remember fiddling with config.sys for those last few K needed for the game you just bought. And then flipping through the manual looking for word 6 of paragraph 2 on page 12 so you could actually play it. If PC gaming can survive that, it'll survive this no problem.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
You do know that it actually is possible to have fun without a computer on at all? Especially with friends over, you just have a party. And kids, even nowadays are easy to entertain by giving them (depending on the age ofcourse) a stack of paper and some crayons. I don't even own a game console, and *gasp* still get on pretty well, and parties really aren't boring orso. Infact, my experience is that parties without game consoles are more fun than parties with.
Manuals are your last resort only
As a long time PC gamer, I'd say games are easier to play now than they ever were on the PC. Games tend to support the vast amount of hardware out there, even low end stuff. I haven't had a driver issue in a long time, you may want to upgrade to computer made after 2000. DRM can be an issue but it's only invasive on a small number of titles that I don't buy (they're usually console ports anyway).
And to me, the experience is dramatically better than a console (although I only play PS3 and Wii). You get more varieties of games, not just action and party games. Vastly better multiplayer, better graphics, more challenging types of games (from indies to AAA), etc.
PC gaming is awesome.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Psst: I think he meant a party with human interaction. Y'know, like in the old days.
This is the voice of World Control. I bring you Peace.
The point of a party video game, as opposed to an online video game, is to be a conversation piece around which humans can begin to interact by trash talking.
Scorched Earth.
I am 100% convinced that every game will depend on a platform. Nobody's going to be writing self contained all-in-one games where the game embeds the whole platform (what, is this 1975, with embedded "pong" consoles.?)
You will need something to run it on.
What he probably meant to say was "don't depend on any particular specific platform."
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Doesn't the success of a platform be it console, PC or Internet live and die by the quality of the game? Would any of the big three consoles be big if there were no quality games? I don't think most people care what the game plays on so long as it meets their entertainment expectations.
UNIX/Linux Consulting
He probably does.
That sort of stuff is positively benign and quaint compared to the nonsense they pull today.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
"An" HTPC, perhaps. Multiple HTPCs, not so much.
Now everyone needs to bring a gaming PC, a monitor, and a copy of the same game to the party. I was talking about parties where the people are here for some other reason, such as to celebrate a birthday, and they get an itch to play a video game. Do you always make sure to bring your gaming PC whenever you visit someone else's house just in case someone wants to game? I was also talking about situations in which not all players own their own gaming PC, such as kids still in school.
Much less ass-hurt about "screen lookers",
Not all video game designs depend on hiding information from other players, and a single screen is not necessarily split. What advantage would "screen lookers" have in a game like Super Smash Bros.?
The PC is the Unique Gamming Platform.
The problem is that people like Sony and Microsoft are soo greedy, that want to control *everything* you say and do. Do you want to use a name with the letters "gay"? banned till 9/9/9999.
All these people (MS, Sony...) want to work in the "Bridge Tol" bussines. Just getting a piece for everything that moves in "his" hardware. Parasiting the work of others.
-Woof woof woof!
I made a point to mention PC games because MAME comes without ROMs, and at $150,000 each, I'll pass.
It also penalizes people whose gameplay style is explorational, like me. When I get a new GTA game, usually the first thing I do is spend a couple of weeks just wandering around the city looking at stuff and learning my way around.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Why do people keep insisting that PSP and iPhone games will supplant full-blown console games? They aren't even the same thing, to start with. I mean, unless I can hook up my wheel and pedals to my iPhone, then hook it up to a large screen display and into my surround sound, this is like saying the Sony Walkman will replace live concert audio systems.
Street fighter 4 is a great PC multiplayer game.
Good-bye
Console makers are predicting the end of Konami.
After a hiatus, I just bought another console game earlier this week (my 34th for the Wii - Pinball Hall of Fame - The Gottlieb Collection), so consoles are alive and well.
Konami, on the other hand ... only one game from them, $89 and it was absolute trash.
And kids, even nowadays are easy to entertain by giving them (depending on the age ofcourse) a stack of paper and some crayons.
My family's annual reunion tends to self-segregate into three areas: the table with the crayons and the modeling dough, the table with the video games, and the rest of the hall where the dominant activity is random gossip about friends of the family that others will probably never meet. I'm in charge of the video games, and I'm trying to prove that it's possible to replace the Wii with a PC, even among people between the crayons stage and the gossip stage.
The DRM is no less problematic on a console. It just doesn't get in the
way so much. The consoles are already walled gardens. They don't so much
need to f*ck with your general purpose machine in some vain effort to
prevent you from pirating their game. The console being crippled already
seems to solve most of the "problem".
DRM on a console will probably yield a more convenient result than trying
to do the same on a PC.
"Gigabytes on disk + needing disk in CD drive" always bugged the h*ll out of me on PC games.
Put it on the HD, or leave it on the optical disk. Don't pollute my system
and then make me dig out physical media every time I want to play something.
If I want 2600-esque physical media experience then I can just use a console.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Oh sure, first it's 30 titles, now it's "it has to also be co-op".
I don't have time for this nonsense. I'm sure you play some great split-screen games.
All I can tell you is that more often than not, I've encountered 360 games I had presumed would play locally and only play online. Games where you would either expect it from the series or genre, or where the Wii version has local multiplayer.
So the fact that I can't play the games that I **desire and expect** to be able to is more important than rambling off a list of B or C titles that I don't want to play! The trend is there, and I can only imagine it getting worse unless motion sensing controllers take off on the PS3/360.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
Next time, try reading the article. He's talking about platform independence, not subscriptions.
"In the near future, we'll have games that don't depend on any platform. Gamers should be able to take the experience with them in their living rooms, on the go, when they travel wherever they are and whenever they want to play. It should be the same software and the same experience."
This is the only part of the article that is relevant to the article's title. The rest is about Kojima's new game. Imagine that, a headline that sucks you in only to find out there's little to no content.
I kinda agree with Kojima. It would be nice if games were platform independent. I stopped computer gaming long, long ago when escalating hardware requirements left me in the dust. It's cheaper just to buy a console every few years than it is to upgrade my PC with every new software release. I used to be heavy into flight simulation--the cost of entry is high. Too high.
Spending less time playing a game isn't often better, particularly with games with a great deal of intriguing storyline like Bioshock. Anyone who thinks the merit of a game is how quickly you can power through it is missing something rather important.
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
The console vendors don't need to be megalomaniacal about distribution. The old model already
works pretty well for them. They simply don't have any need to lock you in like that. They can
do quite well with there being n+1 vendors out there where I can get a bit of media from to
play a game with.
The same goes for most stuff actually.
If Big Content weren't so paranoid about piracy, Apple would be moot.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
You have pretty limited experience with on-line games, don't you?
The "human interaction" is richly-textured and explores the full breadth of human ass-hattery, just like in person. Except it might depend on a modicum of skill with the push-to-talk button. And has less chance to degenerate into physical violence and law enforcement attention.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
A - Have a party.
That's one of the scenarios I was asking about. If you're having a party, and you're boycotting the consoles, what PC game do you load on the HTPC to play with your friends? Or by "party" did you mean "LAN party", which defeats the purpose of an HTPC?
Any of these I guess.
There is a war going on for your mind.
My initial reaction to reading that was: "Is Hideo Kojima releasing a game with that title to get confused parents to buy the wrong game when little Johnny asks for Metal Gear Solid?"
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. - Albert Einstein
Aside from cigarettes, I've given up smoking.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It's the usual quantity vs quality. Some people prefer one over the other. Me, I still need to finish Metroid Prime 3.
Unreal Tournament III for the PC not only does splitscreen, it will also do quad splitscreen. Unfortunately it appears that the only controllers that will work for this are the X-box controllers which kinda defeats the purpose of a PC FPS (at least for me, never could use console controllers for FPS games).
There is a war going on for your mind.
But we don't live in a reasonable world. We live in a world ruled by marketing. Manufacturers will keep finding new gimmicks to sell consoles for many years, rest assured. There's more and more expensive motion tracking (camera-based now, which takes a lot of CPU to run). Then there's 3D. Then there's things like facial recognition, gesture tracking, etc. Then brainwave controls. And Live and PSN have proven to my satisfaction that consoles can do gaming on demand via internet as well.
Isn't that what the failed XBOX project was?
The thing Microsoft dropped like a hot potato after trying to prove to the world that a PC-platform based machine would make a better console?
Interesting how their much more successful 360 doesn't use a PC platform at all anymore.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
While that was true at one point Moore's Law has eroded the assertion that computer gaming has a high cost of entry quite a bit. I just built a new Linux workstation that would actually be a quite good gaming rig for $600.00 that's pretty darn cheap. Desktop hardware prices have continued there downward trend since you left gaming on the PC. This particular PC has quad core athlon xII, 4GB ram, Nvidia 9800GT with 512MB ram, 1TB Hard drive, Optical drive etc... Next month it will be even cheaper. And in addition to gaming with it it's also a computer which you were likely going to have to buy to read slashdot.
And we seemed to have reached a plateau on raster based 3D graphics the trend is still up and to the right in terms of transistor counts and polys and shaders and what not but it seem more shallow to me the last few years. We may in fact be approaching the point of integration for hardware accelerated 3D in to motherboards that are acceptable for most games. I will somewhat boldly predict we will see quite good 3D cards built in to MOBOs within the next 5 years.
Vernor Vinge has it right, everyone is going to have a HUD. You could emulate anything the way he describes it.
Unless it is killed by THE industry...
Where's my Tinfoil hat?
People have been saying this since PC gaming came about. It was nonsense then, and it's nonsense now. People don't care that they can get the game for their pc when that pc isn't attached to their 60 inch plasma tv. Furthermore, console games make playing with your friends, in the same room, at the same time, much easier. Consoles aren't going anywhere, and pc gaming isn't either.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
Thanks a lot for pointing out that list. So I guess the HTPC is more like a fourth console than some console fanboys will admit.
How exactly would you set up K&M for four players while using one computer screen? Controllers would seem to be a necessity.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
And then flipping through the manual looking for word 6 of paragraph 2 on page 12 so you could actually play it.
Stoopid SIM Earth!
I drank what? -- Socrates
Uh, the console makers DO know that they are selling software, not hardware. The whole POINT of making a console (from a money-making perspective) is the software licensing fees charged to 3rd party software publishers/developers. Sony and Microsoft and Nintendo get a few dollars of EVERY game made/sold for their system.
That's why consoles will never die. The money to be made is too good, if you can get your console into a few million homes.
The motherboard on my PC has 8 USB ports & you could add more with a USB dock.
There is a war going on for your mind.
You mean back when the team consisted of 1 programmer, 1 animator, 1 artist, and 1 person in marketting? And getting a game to sell a million copies was impossible because there were barely that many home PC's?
PC Gaming back then was entirely different than it was now. I would say that PC gaming was at its peak those years before the NES blasted off. It's been the slowest downhill incline ever since, with a few upward bumps to give us glimmering hope.
For such a short summary, it sure contains a lot of errors. Kojima is not even a founder of Konami - the company was established in 1969, and Kojima was born in 1963. He only joined Konami's MSX division in 1986, when the company had already been making video games for a while. He did go on to become a VP for a while. And this error isn't even in the original article.
"Clearly you don't remember fiddling with config.sys for those last few K needed for the game you just bought."
But notice how once you had that fixed, dos games were often much more stable and less crash prone. Note also you can run dos games today under dosbox emulator but many older windows direct X games are still horribly broken, Mechwarrior 2 for windows specifically used an incredibly early version of direct x which doesn't work on modern systems.
Windows is not some panacea try running an old copy of FF7 for the PC on a modern system.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"Windows is not some panacea try running an old copy of FF7 for the PC on a modern system."
It's especially telling when it's usually much more straightforward and faster to just run the console version under emulator than the native PC one.
One that hath name thou can not otter
I could see it going either way, with a bit more emphasis on OpenCL, and WebGL I could see in 3-5 years that web gaming could improve a lot. Most game controllers have a pretty standard layout, and button settings. Not to mention, I've been enjoying Quake Live quite a bit. I'd be ashamed to see too much more emphasis on the likes of FarmVille, but hey, it happens. Who knows really, it would be possible to have some very immersive environments in a fullscreen web centric UI. I think it could be done to the level of say EQ1, or Runescape fairly easily without any plugins in most of the v.Next browsers.
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
EMM386!! Origin games were notorious for their requirements when it came to memory management in DOS. Ugh!
What about when a publisher doesn't support newer OS versions? Star Trek Armada support stops at Win98. It does run on XP, but sometimes it drops back to the desktop (I love when it does this in multiplayer). So I still have a machine running on 98SE, because it only runs fine on that OS.
They don't support their game, and don't release source to the game engine so people could port it to newer platforms. I'm pretty sure they don't even sell it anymore.
Same goes for Star Trek: 25th anniversary, A call for Unity, and many other games (TIE FIGHTER, I'm talking about you)
So I still have an 800Mhz P3 under 98SE (512MB) for old games, along with an overclocked (am5x86 133@160) 486 class machine (32MB beast) running DOS 6.22/Wfw 3.11 for even older games
Not all games can be run under ScummVM/DOSbox/VDMsound in a reliable fashion
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
The first thing that came to mind when I read the summary was OnLive. With OnLive, all the processing is done on OnLive's side.
Heaven forbid you get any lag, though.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Question: What is the last console you used?
All the consoles of the current generation, starting with the Xbox 360 in 2005, have app stores. They go by the names Wii Shop Channel (Wii), Xbox Live Marketplace (Xbox 360), PlayStation Store (PS3 and PSP), and DSi Shop (DSi).
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Yep, PC gaming was at it's peak from 83-87. Because then, there was no other real way to play. Course, if you couldn't afford a computer then, you were out of luck and had to stick with a 2600 until the NES started rising.
Since about 1993 actually, when developers, publishers and some console manufacturers figured out that some people had been gaming since the 2600 and the early arcade games and were thusly....adults. And unlike kids, we don't have to wait for birthdays or Christmas to get games. There's also more of us, because you're only a child for a short period of time.
I believe Dust 512 due to come out next year will look to achieve just that
Is this a rhetorical question?
hahahaha! ahhhah manuals. who needs em now?
Wait! Whats a sig?
FYI: IL*Surmovik is available for the PS3, and you can get a USB flight stick control. It's not perfect, but it does mostly work. (It's unplayable without the flight stick.)
The cake is a pie
I play games to *avoid* interacting with humans. Plus I spent way too much time punching keys trying to get Keen4 or any of my point-n-click Sierra games to work, to live without a console.
I get when people say that we should get illegal copies of games because we should help the developer or because it's leading to more DRM, but objecting to downloading MAME roms? Really?
You know, "the law" isn't a very good moral compass, unless you find it immoral to play card games on a Sunday, in Alabama.
Dilbert RSS feed
It seems to me that the console vendors are trying (with some success) to have thier cake and eat it. The major games are still sold through traditional retail channels (and are still resellable for the most part* which is what keeps the game shops in buisness) giving them wide exposure. BUT they are selling the extra bits (both dlc and standalone stuff) exclusively through thier own closed distribution systems (avoiding retail markup on them) and those extras cannot be resold.
* Sometimes they include a bit of dlc that can only be used by the inittial purchasor in the box but the core game can still be resold.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
I tracked down a copy of lightspeed (never could find hyperspeed which is better) on some abandonware site one day. Fired it up and it asks a question right from the manual. I used to have all of these memorized, but now I can't find a damned one. I tried a crack, it corrupted the exe. I was really sad. I was totally looking forward to sweet nostalgia. That game did a lot of things that were really cool and was pretty ahead of its time in a lot of ways. If anyone has a copy of the manual, they would totally be my hero forever!
zosxavius photography
laptops are portable.
zosxavius photography
After years and years of people predicting the death of PC games it's nice to see that consoles are finally receiving the same treatment. Welcome console players, someone unimportant has predicted the death of your platform. You're almost real gamers now.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Then there are the large number of gamers who want the best gaming experience practicable, most of us are willing to buy decent PC hardware but not necessarily the most expensive and can run most modern PC games just fine. We are quite spendy, just not reckless like the other two.
Growing in number is a group I call "last years gamer". This group are older, typically over 30 and are PC gamers. Rather then buying a game when it is released they wait 6, 12 or 24 months before buying a game, that way their gaming PC is stable (driver issues all worked out, drivers are the biggest problem for bleeding edge gamers) and dirt cheap. Games also have dropped in price over this time as well. This requires a modicum of patience to do, which is why this demographic is growing as gamers get older. These people tend have large gaming collections, often at half the cost.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Hardware is considerably less varied then it used to be. There are only two CPU manufacturers and two GPU manufactures and they both use the same framework (DirectX unfortunately)
Drivers are only ever an issue for the bleeding edge, wait a month or two and the problems are gone. I havent had a driver issue since Fallout 3.
The industry is dealing with DRM, Valve and Stardock have proven that you get the same amount of sales without invasive DRM. Even EA is starting to wake up.
If you want to be a PC gamer without the cost then one should become what I term a "last years gamer". Just hold off on buying brand new PC games for 6 to 12 months and enjoy the benefits of price reductions on both games and hardware. I kind of wish I had the patience to do it.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
It's cheaper just to buy a console every few years than it is to upgrade my PC with every new software release.
That's not particularly true, unless you're buying very far ahead into the technology curve. A new console (at the release) will cost you $300 or $400 (The good version of the 360 was $400, as I recall), and an occasional upgrade to your PC will run you about the same. And when you're in between upgrades, you'll be able to run all the games you want just fine. It's not like every game is an order of magnitude more demanding than the last.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
To be fair, you can get motherboards for many common arcade games for less than $100, because people have stacks and racks of them. PROM burners (which also function as readers) are often available under $100. So for around the price of Neo-Geo games, you could have legal license to arcade ROMs. Keep the ROMs in boxes and throw away the motherboards to save space. It's still pretty spendy in most cases, but I suppose some people might be willing to pay.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Seconded.
Newer incarnations, most of which I've never tried: Scorched 3D, a browser-playable Java version called Scorch 2000, and others.
Kid-proof tablet..
I get when people say that we should get illegal copies of games because we should help the developer or because it's leading to more DRM, but objecting to downloading MAME roms? Really?
Some Slashdot users recommend downloading infringing copies of games. I happen not to be one of them. My position is that we should be voting with our feet for other titles in the same genre, not pirate versions. For example, instead of pirating Tetris, play Lockjaw or Nullpomino or Texmaster. Or instead of pirating The Lost Vikings, buy Trine. The key problem with that is that some genres popular on consoles are underrepresented on PC, making it harder for someone who wants to end consoles to find those other titles.
article is not about PC's. It's about saying handheld devices versus consoles.
This is not "Consoles are dying, pcs are the solution". As much as that may be the preferred route, Kojima has a good suggestion: an open access device that works on a laptop/tv/over the net/etc.
The flaw? Every device has different graphics capabilities: you don't *want* every display to look the same. Otherwise you get the equivalent of games like borderlands or starccraft 2 or MW2 where your resolution/field of view is artificially limited for sake of continuity.
We went from typewriter to computer keyboard. One thing about keyboard advantages is the tactile feedback that is necessary if we touch type. I touchtype at close to 100 words per minute. Therefore I conjecture that a keyboard will always be required. It may come to pass that with sufficient software development, that the voice to text could replace the keyboard that is used for quick data entry. I don't know though, if working on a flat panel with a beep signal for feedback will suffice as a keyboard replacement.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Funny, a lot of people seem to be playing this WoW thing or its predecessors and relatives, even though they run on PCs...
Basically, a console is a DRM platform with a graphics card and various game-related peripherals (button-covered pads, tennis rackets, guitars, dance pads, etc.) Sometimes the graphics card in a console is more cost-effective than the equivalent one in a PC, but the peripherals use relatively straightforward interface technologies even if they don't have USB or DB9 serial ports; there's no reason a DDR dance pad couldn't hook up to a PC. It's really all about the DRM, locking the players and developers into a standardized platform where it's hard for the customers to steal the games and hard for developers to write games without contractual and financial arrangements with the hardware makers that keep the price of games high. Bah.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Well, yea, having older machines to play older games is akin to having an NES still around so you can play your NES cartridges. It works both ways. However, with PC gaming there's still a chance you could get your older games to play on newer OSes with tweaks or emulators or something (you can emu your NES/SNES too but it's not as good as having the original console by any means). Of course, it may not play as well as it would on the original OS/333MHz PC, but it would still be playable enough to enjoy it. Now, enter x64 computers and hardly anything works. haha SO, yea, my point is that playing old games is like playing old console titles. It's best to keep an old machine around just as it is to keep your old console around. However, keeping around a big bulky PC sucks compared to keeping around a tiny console.
Slashdot founder and devloper CmdrTaco predicts grammar in summary dying breed. Anticipates full sentences no longer necessary.