Slashdot Mirror
Video Game Wars Aren't Always Games
Salon has a surprisingly deep article about how video game machine makers are engaged in a "War for America's Thumbs" and how their products are no longer just toys but are rapidly become multi-purpose electronic appliances. Greg Costikyan, who wrote the piece, is the author of Fantasy War and, Salon says, 26 other commercial games. Well worth reading!
"Unchecked this could be a big problem."
But... But... Where's the checkbox? I can't find it to check it!
Oh, wait... I see what you mean. Sorry.
Some people have suggested that Costikyan is biased against the DC because he says that Power Stone its only good game. This is not true, he is simply biased against the the types of games that are popular (and good) on the DC. Check out http://www.costik.com/ if you want to see where he is coming from. He is old-school "design is key", not new-school "appearance is key". I tend to agree with him (although Soul Kalibur is incredible!).
I'm a little cautious about these all-in-one set top boxes that game companies are trying to produce. Sure, the main focus is still games, but here you have Dreamcast shipping with a modem, soon to get a zip drive, and PS2 playing DVD movies and having USB and Firewire support. The line between consoles and PC's seems to be blurring.
In fact, I think it always has. Just about everyt major game system at some point touted that they'd have a keyboard and a disk drive to make them more "computer like". Usually these things never shipped and when they did (SNES mouse for example) they failed miserably. The difference today is that a lot of these components are shipping WITH the system themselves, putting an emphasis on multi-use machines from the get-go.
But are consumers ready to adopt this? To me this is such a big gamble, especially with so many dismal failures in the past (3DO and CD-I come to mind), but I think now is the better time to take such a risk. Some people are more comfortable with the idea of surfing the web on their TV's (ala WebTV), so this isn't a new idea to most people. And most people have heard of DVD and know it's the way movies will go someday. However a lot of people (generally speaking) don't have WebTV or a DVD player. A lot more people (again, generally speaking) play games, and to get these options in a system that usually sells below cost (what a bargain!) is a dream come true.
The real test will be how companies like Sony and Sega market their machines after they catch on. Will they still be "game" machines, or will they be the "magic black (or offwhite) box" that sits in your entertainment stand and does it all? How they market this stage (along with how easy these things are to use) will be the difference in whether they get everyone to buy a system, or just those who want games. If anyone wins this race at all it'll be a huge marketing coup. If they all fail, it may be the end of the Set-Top box concept as we know it.
Consumers want function, reliablility, and low cost, and configurability works unacceptably against reliability and cost to buy excessive and useless functionality. (Keep in mind I'm not talking about the kinds of computers most of us use and will keep using, I'm talking about one grandma and little Timmy could use.)
When the motherboard/expansion card paradigm and harddrives came around and got cheap, computers moved radically away from the initial PC concepts that got them into homes in the first place. The PC-as-appliance will come, but it will be like a cross between an iMac and a game console:
1. It will have an OS in ROM and flash, and will boot in a few seconds (remember the C64?)
2. You will never have to install anything on it. The idea of having to install software is ridiculous for a computer appliance. You will just pop in the CD for the application you want to run. My grandma knows that to watch a movie she first has to pop the right tape in the VCR.
3. It will not be upgradeable, or if it is, the user better not ever notice that it is happening, and it will never screw up the software they already have. The successful maker will have figured out how to put as much as possible for the useful lifetime of the machine into it from the beginning. It is pointless to have an infinitely upgradable machine when chip and storage technology advances at the speed it does.
So who's gonna do it? Sony's got the best chance: they know how to make stuff cheap, they've got a big installed base, and they finally figured out you need backward compatibility, even in game consoles. Apple could also do it if they got the vision.
Who's never gonna do it? Who's completely incapable of even forming the thoughts necessary to accomplish such a machine? I think we all know who...
X-Box, phhhhhhhhhhtpt (now watch they go and do it :)
----------------
Overheard: "Aww, why'd you go and install Windows on a perfectly good machine?"
> However, the author of the article neglected to mention that the Sega Dreamcast is based on the
> Windows CE platform.
Just a quibble, and I'm sure others will point this out. The Dreamcast is not _based_ on Windows CE. The Dreamcast will run a version of Windows CE, but CE is on the _game_CD_, not in the Dreamcast console.
// TODO: fix sig
I think the key obstacle in the way of convergence is the television's poor resolution. Slashdot on a TV is unusable. Replace TVs with reasonable quality displays with 720 progressive or higher vertical resolution, and it's an acceptable monitor for most home users. Once video games can do HDTV out and HDTVs start becoming reasonably priced, that's when the line between the console and the computer becomes very fuzzy.
From the X-Box, it sounds like Microsoft is trying to make sure that if this happens, they're in position. It's surprising, given the expected timeline and the current pace of graphics chip turnover, specifics like the nVidia GeForce256 would be mentioned. I suspect, however, that's just linking the project to the hottest current 3-D chip, and the specific chip won't be chosen until the machine is closer to release.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
The idea is simple: hardware and software has become so cheap, and internet access so ubiquitous, that the only two things people still care about are their peripherals and their precious data. Why update RAM when you'll need a new motherboard and CPU also to get your machine up to date? Heck, it'll all be obsolete soon enough anyway. The solution is easily removable hard drives (external SCSI? USB2?) so people can get their data moved over to a brand new box every couple of years whenever an app comes along they'd like (and that doesn't run on the old hardware). It'll still be a general purpose computer, but without the messy piecemeal upgrade path of current machines.
OS on a chip? Who cares. Just include an OS on every application CD and load it into memory. Far fetched? Maybe. But people in general only care about their data and the apps to modify said data. And PCs are getting more and more simplified every year...
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Has there ever been a non-gaming magazine/website article that got all the facts right? No. Be happy they got a lot of the main one's right. I've seen MUCH worse mangling than they did.
Well, the whole thing could be argued for years, with no one ever changing sides. I personally prefer my GBC over any of the other system, but for a console, the N64 is my favorite. It just plain has more of the games I like. The only thing that intrests me on the PSX is Gran Turismo and GT2, which is the only games I own/will own for it. So the whole arguement is basically dumb, because people will have their opinions on what games they like. Now if someone said they hated all N64 games because they are on the N64, that is a whole other matter.
Really, I mean, I'm willing to take slag for mixing up the Atari Lynx with the Jaguar... Or thinking the Net Yaroze had something to do with online gaming.... But to accuse me of having something to do with D&D is too much. The original edition of Dungeons & Dragons was designed by Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax.
Rant mode on:
Every single freaking time Slashdot posts a story that has something to do with the DC, somebody posts this kind of crap. For the (hopefully) last freaking time, THE DC DOES NOT EXCLUSIVELY RUN WINDOWS CE!!! The OS is decided on by the GD-ROM, so a developer could use WinCE, or they could use Sega's own OS. Arrgghhh, why can't people get it through their thick heads?!?!?!
This article really got at the coolest part, which is the fact that the playstation 2 is going to supplant about 7 other devices, and put sony, which also owns a whole lot of content, in a position to own its whole digital distribution process, from the moment that a movie camera starts rolling to when people watch the movie in their homes.In truth, I think that the PSX2 is only going to deliver marginally better graphics and sound than the dreamcast (which is, as they say, the bomb). But it's going to win because it's capacity as a game console isn't nearly as impressive as its ability to act as a set-top digital content delivery platform.I don't agree, however, with the notion that consoles are trying to get a piece of what desktop pc's have. Slashdot audiences notwithstanding, most Americans don't spend hours staring vacuously into their monitors, they spend hours staring vacuously into their tvs. In their capacities as information delivery devices, the consoles in question provide an entirely different, more passive sort of entertainment than PCs, which is what people want, sadly.
god is just pretend.
It seems to me that people have forgotten something about the MS console:
It is made by an American company. A quick check of the past history of video games will show that almost without exception, the successful consoles have come from Japanese games companies.
Why?
Because PC's are not as popular in Japan than in the rest of the world. This is one reason why the Dreamcast has internet facilities and a keyboard. Even the NES had an expansion pack that added a floppy drive and keyboard, which was only sold in Japan.
For the MS console to succeed, it will have to have support from the big Japanese companies such as Namco, Squaresoft and Konami. It will be obvious to anyone that all of these companies are capable of producing games that sell systems. Namco's SoulCalibur is reason alone to own a Dreamcast IMHO, and the Japanese will go mad for any of Squaresoft's Final Fantasy series.
A quick check of my knowledge about MS games is that 1: They are not the sort of games that the Japanese market would really be interested in buying and 2: They generally suck (some exceptions apply here)
I have been watching the games industry since the second wave (NES, SMS) in the late 1980's and whenever an american company (Atari, 3DO) has released a games system, it has failed. I know Atari had success in the first wave of systems, but nothing of theirs was successful post-1990.
and on the Dreamcast... is it just me or do other people think that Sega have made a big mistake, just as they did with the Saturn and Genesis systems, neither of which were successful in when faced with serious competition... i'm getting flashbacks to the MegaCD add-on and the Megadrive 2 systems as well as the saturn... oh well, SoulCalibur rocks anyway...
life is a canvas/and the paint is hope and promise/the world is ours/no one can ever take it from us.
This is about the tenth time someone has mentioned this mistake in the article. I'd just like to point out that really it was Atari themselves that killed the Lynx and Jaguar. They were unable to get a critical mass of games support for these systems, the marketing was bad and Atari themselves were in the final stages of a decline that began in the mid-1980s.
Competition from Nintendo, Sega and later, Sony simply compounded a problem that Atari had from the beginning.
life is a canvas/and the paint is hope and promise/the world is ours/no one can ever take it from us.
One on more clairification: In the story it states, Nintendo at one point said that Dolphin would, but now wavers on the issue. in talking about online play. Well, in a recent interview Miyamoto has said that they are working on one and that,
"It would be a mistake to assume that just because we haven't announced anything, nothing exists, because that's not true. I think, particularly in the U.S., connectivity and online gaming is extremely important"
BTW, that link also lists some other stuff about the Dolphin that you might find interesting.
Well, no. But he *did* (co)design Paranoia which is a pretty damn fine game.
The Computer Says So, and The Computer Is Your Friend.
As console games try to cross over into the world of the Internet, they just might want to consider the opinions of one of the first to cross over from board games to computer games (and the first to see on-line gaming as an interesting place).
Perhaps more to the point would be to consider Costikyan's role in the Great Schism of roleplaying. At the time of pen-and-paper roleplaying's third generation (GURPS, The Fantasy Trip, Paranoia, etc), there were two schools of thought on how the future of the genre should go: generic-universal and narrow-focus.
Both groups saw that TSR was making most of its Dungeons and Dragons money off supplements. But they advocated different ways of taking advantage of this fact.
Generic-universalists sought to produce a single system which would cover a wide variety of genres (from sci-fi to high fantasy, for instance). They then expected to make their money selling a large number of supplements enabling that wide range of genres.
The narrow-focus group (of which Costikyan was a leading proponent) sought to produce highly-focused products which implemented a single idea very well. That idea might be original (as in Paranoia, Vampire, Werewolf and Toon) or based on a movie (Star Wars or Ghostbusters) or a series of books (ICE's Tolkein-based system). Their plan was to make money selling supplements which very explicitly outlined the exact details of the game world.
I suspect some of the reason the narrow-focus group has had so much success is the quality of the games which Costikyan contributed.
As a participant in this pseudo-religious debate, Costikyan probably has some valid insights into this kind of conflict. He may be planning to take a side himself, given that he has done so in the past.
And let us not forget his novel, "Once a Hero," one of the great high-fantasy works of recent years.
And what about his father's connections with shady election-law politics in New York City? Certainly the "last lawyer in Tamany Hall" never hesitated to plunge into an ideological schism.
Eternal vigilance only works if you look in every direction.
"but when I pick up on one error I start to wonder who many others exist that I'm not seeing."
hmmm?
Playstation didn't won the war against N64 because it had the better games, but because it had the cheapest games : CDs are easy to copy, and you're not disapointed to throw away a game that cost you 1$.
The playstation brought us a new generation of games : a good FMV intro, and nothing behind.
On N64, there's no FMV intro, but there's games with an incredible gameplay (Mario or Yoshi for example).
The PSX has great games (metal gear...) but there not as fantastic as on the N64 : when I play Zelda, I play with a constant smile on the face.
> Tomb Raider is a console game, did okay on the PC, but it came now where near duplicating the
> success from the console systems, which is what my point was.
Just a quibble, I believe Tomb Raider came out for PC first and was ported to Playstation, so I'm not sure why you're calling it a console game.
And it did well enough on the PC to have two sequels and with TR 1 and 2 re-released as Gold editions (with extra levels) and Tomb Raider 4 coming out in November. (Talk about milking a game.)
I'm not arguing with your general point, just quibbeling with a detail.
// TODO: fix sig
Will there be any more "classic" consoles after this new generation?? (dreamcast, ps2, dolphin)
Theese new games can all be used in different ways other than the previous generations of consoles, its more than just playing games now.
The integration with conventional computers for example... dreamcast on a LAN... I just dont like it. Theese games will lose a big group of users if this continues, since not just anyone can afford a regular internet connection or a LAN. And isnt it going to be a lot more complicated as well???
I can just imagine the generation after this one.. Plug it into your computer and watch...
I just love the playstation and so on, but I really miss the old stuff which you can just... play.
/Zantaman
Just goes to show that some moderators will abuse their priviledges just because they are a) jealous of people with high Karma b) have a personal distaste of the person they are moderating down for no reason and/or c) have some other idiotic reason which has absolutely nothing to do with an objective, unbiased evaluation of the comment itself. Honestly, I'm not very concerned, but thanks for pointing out that I was indeed very much on topic.
Note to gimp moderators: I do make a lot of inflammatory and other negative comments. Why don't you mark me down for something that I deserve rather than just seeing the big old bad score of 2 that appears next to my name by default and going, "Oh, I'm going to get this bastard good!" It's pretty sad. :)
~ Kish
Same thing with the previous statement. Since Sony completely skipped over the 64 bit system, N64 really IS the last 64 bit system to market. And it DID come out long after the Playstation. The two sentences should have been separated since it did give the impression that the Playstation was 64 bit. Separate them, you'll see that it's trying to say the N64, the last 64-bit system, arrived later than even the Playstation.
iapetus wrote
Now, anyone fancy taking on the port?
I suspect the port of Linux would be a little bit more challenging than the average CPU. Effectively it is 2.5 CPUs (EmotionEngine, Graphics Synthesiser, old Sony R3K CPU). Hence the SMP tricks of the existing Linux kernel might not be relevant. However, it does offer the interesting possibilities that Mesa could be optimised for the EE, GGI for the GS and a small Linux kernel for the old CPU which will be a real challenge as there is a total of 32M and you cannot assume swap space. The question is how do you develop generic code which migrates to the processor which best suits it (a la variant of SGI processor affinity). Perhaps some Java mobile code layer that identifies the CPU and loads the appropriate vectorised libraries? This applies to a wider class of problems as with the increasing popularity of SIMD instructions (MIPS MDMX, Sparc VS, PPC AltiVec, Intel MDX) you would like to have code which uses the optimisations of the underlying hardware without stressing out too much at the software development level.
The biggest problem I see is that the Sony testbed is about $20K which is out of the reach of most OpenSource groups. OK for the multimillion dollar gaming groups but not for your average OpenSource scrounger. I wonder how many people are interested in some sort of fractional ownership scheme? Say half a dozen people chip in $4K each and host the machine somewhere for OpenSource development purposes (ie dedicated compilation engine) for any number of projects.
If it is to be the media control unit for the house (as Sony claims), it would open up a lot of new devspace like real-time DVD/camcorder editing.
LL
Does it matter? Use the right tool for the right job; Linux isn't always the right tool.. not everything is a nail when the only tool you insist on using is a hammer.
The article was pretty good for the most part except that I feel the author missed a few points as well.
One of the big factors that killed the N64 was lack of third party developer support, including the defections of some big Nintendo supporters in previous console generations. The reason for that was the fact that the N64 used ROM instead of CD-ROM for their medium to distribute games. The cartridges were more expensive, had less space, and only Nintendo manufactured them.
Yes, you have to go jump through a few Sony hoops to produce a playstation game, but you're free to use your own CD-ROM burning plant you like, and due to the low per-CD cost, manufacturing a set number wasn't a huge expense. Given the freedom of going to whoever they wanted to manufacture them, they could make as many or as few as they wanted.
With Nintendo, you needed to order a minimum quantity of cartridges and those puppies were expensive. As a result it cost more, you took more of a risk, and Nintendo made even more profits than before. Even worse, everyone was learning on the Sega and Sony systems how to get around the limitations of CD-ROM and to take advantage of their strengths. On cartridges, you had a completely different set of strengths and weaknesses and that made cross-system ports bad as well as developers working outside of their area of experience.
Third party support is what made Sony king and what killed Nintendo in the latest rounds. Sony barely has any in-house development but they realized that didn't make much of a difference anymore. The Playstation was simpler to program than the Saturn and I mentioned all the Nintendo problems previously. This round, Sega learned from their mistakes, as has Nintendo. Sega deliberately focused on development tools and Nintendo is going with DVD-ROM so third party supporters won't be stuck in a weird medium.
As for the all-in-one machines, I do believe that we are more ready for it now than back in the days of the 3DO. The failure of the 3DO was the price point as well as some weird licensing issues involved. In the case of the new consoles, the cost is being kept to the same competitive levels as before while the functionality is getting to the point that you're going to have those features anyway. If not this next generation, then the one after that certainly will be.
If you think about the whole thin-client phenomena, then the consoles are well poised to be the home thin client phenomena. I can easily see a home LAN set up with several consoles plugged into a home network and a PC running as the server. A cheaper solution that putting PC's all over the place, and everyone gets the benefits of a centralized network server and probable Internet gateway as well. If you really want to get easy to use, put a Cobalt box in place of the PC with the Web-based administrative interface.
Now all the consoles have all the graphics and sound horsepower you need locally to run the games, the server on the network has all of the functionality that the console lacks and needs, and you have a cheap and easy to configure solution for the consumer market. The only hard part is making the home server easy enough for consumers to use.
In time, we might even see a console that drops the DVD-ROM drive and goes entirely through a network plug for remote storage. Given the cheaper cost of a network cable compared to the hardware needed for a local disc and the way consoles like to shave hardware costs down to the penny, that is only a matter of time as well, I feel. Using a network connection entirely means you can have infinite read/write storage elsewhere on the network. You lose the ability to play CD's and DVD's but you have MP3 and MP2 functionality in the box and you download the audio and video from elsewhere. A true thin client solution.
The only problem there is that it fiddles with the economics of the console industry, which exert control over the production of media and makes the royalty collection part rather difficult. That is going to be the really interesting thing, to see how the PC economic model goes against the console economic model. In short, it's going to be an interesting future.
Costikyan has been a superior game designer for many years (at least to my tastes)just because many of his credits are roleplaying or boardgames doesn't invalidate his impressions of how the business end of gaming works. I believe Madmaze had 2 million online players (for those who could stomach Prude-igy). Some of his best efforts include: Paranoia, Pax Britannica, Drive on Stalingrad and Conquistador.
FF7 used FMV in many places. In some cases, the backdrop was FMV while polygonal characters roamed about ontop of it. The framerate went to crap, then, of course, on the polygonal side of things. There were quite a few FMV cut scenes, as well. FF8 makes more extensive use of FMV though, and blends its polygonal action in better with the FMV, creating a more seamless appearance.
Interestingly, at some of the very early demonstrations/talks about PS2 there was talk of a PS2 version of the Net Yaroze. That would almost certainly bring the price down to less than $1000, which is well within reach. Of course, when it's released you'll have to wait in line to get one. I feel I'm entitled to the first one, since Sony generously cancelled the original Yaroze scheme the moment I sent for an application form.
:) Surely it's not impossible to develop using just a bog-standard PC (running Linux, of course) and a CD-writer for getting the software into the PS2...
Besides, I'd be very disappointed if the only way the Linux community could think of to port Linux were by buying a Sony devkit.
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
I've got some points to argue:
1. Nintendo pretty much gets all it's revenue from it's current system in release. If they screw up the dolphin, they're just about done
That is not true. Have you ever heard of Pokemon? Pokemon Blue and Pokemon Red were the top two selling games from January to August 1999. Top two, both made by Nintendo. And Pokemon Yellow was just released, which will sell millions of copies. The Pokemon movies are coming out, I'm sure Nintendo gets a cut on that. Trust me, if the Dolphin failed completely, Nintendo will still be around. And if Nintendo puts a kick ass Pokemon game on the Dolphin (not any of this Pokemon Snap crap), I guarentee that it will not fail. Every single kid in America will want it then. It might not be on top, but I don't see how it could fail. Never underestimate the power of Pokemon.
2. You just can't beat the social interaction in talking about online gaming
That's what we call, multiplayer. Yes, you don't have 32 other people going at the same time with computer Quake, consoles max out at for four usually (with N64 and DC), but it's a lot more social than Quake is. You're in the same room, cussing out the people that are shooting you in Goldeneye, and you can hit them, and see the despier in their eyes when you frag them. I'll take my console multiplayer over PC multiplayer anyday. That isn't to say that online playing isn't important for new systems, it is, but I disagree with your comment on not being able to beat the social interaction on online playing.
I got n64, when it first came out, and mario64. I got it because of mario64, and it mario64 was the only game to ever come out for it I would be happy with my purchase. Goldeneye and zelda are both the kind of game that justifies a whole system also. I'm happy with n64. I also got psx a few years ago, because Final Fantasy 7 was coming out... I'm happy with that game... Wild Arms and Xenogears are good RPG's also. Im happy with my purchase of a psx. I play my psx a lot less now though. The n64 games (to me) have more substance. I still want to play my n64 constantly, but psx is getting kind of stale. Games like Resident Evil just werent very much fun to me. I'd heard so many good things about it, but it can't compare to Alone In the Dark. Most psx games ive played are quick thrills, where n64 is more engrossing. No judgement here, just contrast.
>>But conventional wisdom says that at most only >>two systems can coexist at any one time.
>Only two systems? And what is this conventional >wisdom?
Conventional wisdom = what's worked in the past and deemed likely to work again.
Remember the olden days of the Atari 2600? Then, along came the Intellivision, owned by rich kids whose parents could afford to buy them the newest and more powerful.
Others tried to successfully crack the early home-game market and tanked. Remember ColecoVision? Even the highly visible and marketable Donkey Kong franchise couldn't keep that thing afloat.
Even Atari, the early undisputed king of home video games, took a beating on the Atari 5200. Too few games, too little consumer interest. The original Nintendo arrived around the same time (IIRC), and that was the end of the 5200.
Like it or not, general-public consumers either are not able, or simply will not spend the mental processing cycles on, keeping track of more than one or two competing systems.
Furthermore, retailers are not willing to gamble, allocating precious display real estate to unproven systems and untested competitors. Everyone wants a proven winner.
Consumers want a product that's going to give them the most bang for their buck, both in terms of processing power *and* a huge library of games. Retailers want a readily-available stock of high-margin games, accessories, and other doodads to fill display cases. They want to sell what people want to buy. Retailers are anything but advocates.
More than two systems will divide up the pie too thinly. Now that we've had several generations of video games, manufacturers are aware of this and are marketing and planning accordingly. Furthermore, witness the attempts at multi-function units: DVD, audio, net connections, etc. Why just sell someone a upgraded Playstation, when you can sell them not only more polygons, but a replacement for that Microsoft WebTV box as well?
We'll see how many of these new systems flourish, but I agree that there's no way all four will make it to market and survive.
Whoa, dude. OK, that's it -- you're cut off. No more coffee today. Go home and sleep it off
But beyond that, the generally accepted reason that the Nintendo 64 failed to grab the PlayStation's market was because it used catridges and not CDs. It's due to the N64's medium for games that it has a limited library (cost more to make, quite simpley). A CD costs about $1 to manufacture, while a cartride costs about $30.
More importantly, CDs offer so much more storage. The biggest catridge game so far has been Zelda: The Ocarina of Time for the N64, and it was only 32 megs (you may have heard 256--that's because Nintendo uses megaBITS, not megaBYTES like the computer industry does). CDs, as anyone here knows, can hold 660 MB, and on top of that, you can use multiple CDs for one game. That can't be done with cartridges.
And the info on the Saturn is a bit misleading. The Saturn was released at least two months before the PlayStation (probably longer), and Sega screwed themselves. They actually did a surprise release of the system. Stupid, since none of their third party developers were ready with any games. The Saturn was also difficult to program for (it used two 32-bit processors).
And the reason Nintendo thought they could pull it off is because they did pull it off with the Super Nintendo vs. Sega's Genesis. The Genesis had an impressive library of games by the time the SNES came onto the scene, but Nintendo ended up winning that race. Of course, the storage mediums were both cartridges, and the SNES was, in most respects, the more powerful machine.
Still, I know more about consoles than I probably should, so I can't fault the guy too much. I'm impressed just to notice that he recognizes that Sony's claim of 75 million polygons a second involves using the processor for nothing but crunching polygons, which will just never happen.
Just an interesting note: Console game developers use this to their advantage. The lower resolution actually provides some free anti-aliasing. Hook some of those polygonal games up to your monitor, and you'd probably notice they're a bit more jaggeded looking.If Microsoft release the X-Box (and I have real doubts they will), it will fail. They seem to be going to console/PC route, and those fail. People want simplicity in consoles; that's their draw. I really don't think console online gaming will pick up much either. I love a good game of Tribes on my computer, but when I sit down to play my PlayStation, I don't feel a need to play in a community.
And on a related note, no game that has enjoyed success on the PC or on a console has done the same on the other platform. The two main problems are the controls (gamepads vs. many keys on a keyboard) and saving points (save-anywhere design of most first person shooters, save after a level design of console platformers, and save in designated areas of console RPGs).
"It's from the article, stupid."
End of the first page, duh?
Almost every console has something that it does a little better than the rest of the consoles of its day, and has a game that alone justifies the entire box. The Saturn has Panzer Dragoon (Panzer Dragoon Saga being my favorite of the line) to justify the entire box (course that title did come a little late -- but it did have earlier gems.) The Saturn also did 2d games (street fighter for example) better than any console of it's day. The psx seems to be the king of RPGs there are tons of them out for it and FF7-8 alone are worth the whole thing. The N64 seems to do first person shooter well. And Zelda alone is worth hooking the thing up to the TV. Heck, even the Jaguar had Tempest 2000.
> Sony makes Microsoft look like the free software operating system Linux -- as a result,
> many developers are unquestionably rooting quietly for X-Box.
>
> I question the validity of this assessment. The spin of this statement seems to be that not only
> is MS the dark horse candidate, but is the bastion of free enterprise in a feudal console
> world.
I believe he's only using an analogy. That is, Sony's control over games released for Playstation compared to Microsoft's control over games released for PC is similar to Microsoft's control over it's operating systems compared to Linux. Within that context, it is arguably a valid analogy.
// TODO: fix sig
Just a minor nitpick. Mario started in the arcade. He was the little guy on Donkey Kong and later Nintendo released "Mario Brothers" for the arcade. Donkey Kong was ported to the Colecovision and then later the Atari 2600 and Intellivision. Just a bit of pointless early 80's trivia for you.
point 1)
you're right about that, something I overlooked (I don't keep up on console games nearly as much as I did when I was your age). That relates to what I said about the importance of software over hardware.
point 2)
you've got a point here as well. I did spend a lot of time playing 4 player mario kart and it was a lot of fun. The thing i don't like about it though is the TV res isnt that great to begin with, so when you have the screen divided into 4 its even worse, and small. Plus you can see wher everyone else is, which is a big drawback in certain games.
My "quake experiences" were on a t1 through a LAN. I didnt mention this because my post was getting way too long. Thus I had myself and my 4 friends on different computers, either beating each other or working together to beat some hapless fools online. It was HUGE fun, and still is. Half the time when we get together we'll start off talking about quake..."hey remember when I killed 10 guys with 1% health and still capped the flag?" etc. Of course a t1 through a LAN isn't common except in a college environment (maybe business if you can get away with it) but more and more people are getting braodband access in their house, and often have more than 1 computer around.
"What's D&D, ya old phart?" asks HP...
his voice muffled as he dives into his portable hole.
_________
Sometimes, when I'm feelin' bored, I like to take a necrotic equine and assault it physically.
_________
Sometimes, when I'm feelin' bored, I like to take a necrotic equine and assault it physically.
He meant the PC-Engine (TurboGrafx 16).
link
--
Heh, touche. BTW, I've heard they've edited that article on the fly. Changed the bit I highlighted.
While I'm not positive (I wasn't in the know for PC games at that time), I thik that Tomb Raider was designed initially as a console game. I say this mainly because all of EIDOS' games are done like this--Legacy of Kain and its sequel Soul Reaver are two examples.
http://www.ga mezero.com/team-0/articles/features/thumbs_up/inde x.html, please give it a read...
http://www.ga mezero.com/team-0/articles/features/thumbs_up/inde x.html, please give it a read...
They are cramming in all the features that we in desktop computing has
Console's come in from the hardware side
all in all an entertaining read
Bain
Sanity is a majority vote.
Also, that article seemed to claim that:
Hu? Playstaion is only 32 bit, isn't it?I hate to say it, but Win CE might be a big advantage to those (Dreamcast & MS thingo) that use it, because then PC games can be easily ported.
The Playstation 2 does look nice, thought, doesn't it? *S*
Anyway, the computer game industry has always been a bloody battlefield. Remember the good old days of Atari? Atari tried to copyright and patent the concept of game console, and for a while other platforms had to pay a big amount of money to avoid getting sued to kingdom come. (Sounds familiar?)
There is hardly anything new with the "next generation" platforms coming. People still want pretty graphics, nice games, a few household names. Advance in technology and new features (such as Internet connectivity) will work if they don't obscure the core elements. The technology is progressing, but the fight is the same it was back in the Intellivision/Atari war.
The interesting upstart in this industry is Microsoft. They're basically trying to find the middle ground between gaming platform and personal computer. Too bad it will fail miserably! People either blow $3,000 on a killer machine, or they blow $300 on a gaming console with equivalent graphics. No one will be interested in a compromise that is neither one or the other.
I don't think Microsoft is capable of thinking as an upstart company anymore. It's not like they're stepping into a smaller market and injecting more money than competitors can (think the browser wars.) They're going up against GIANTS such as Nintendo and Sony. These guys have been in the game for a long time.
And so, the Dolphin and the PSX2 will come out, and Microsoft's box will do as well. People will be torn over which platform to buy for a while. Then, one or two platforms will emerge as superior, and the market will move in that direction.
And for once, Microsoft will be a roadkill on the side of the gaming industry history. I'll laugh all the way through WipeOut 3.
Won't that be fun to watch?
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
I swear, I'm sick of hearing "It's the [insert vacuous shot in the dark reason for long-winded explanation of whoever's narrow (or even broad) opinions here], stupid". Anyone else get tired of reading articles that say, "Hey, stupid, let me clue you in!" I'd have more to say, but I'm having trouble getting past that part (it's the second article in a row that had that stupid paraphrase.. "It's all in the originality, you damned idiot!" =P).
~ Kish
Only two systems? And what is this conventional wisdom? In all of my experience, the gaming industry has been the most unconventional of all "high-tech" industries.
And how can their only be two systems? IMHO, it's either like Highlander(tm) "There can be only one", or there can be a limitless number of systems.
After all, I've seen multiple platforms for new games. You can get the PC version, or the Sega version, and etc. The end customers will simply pick the best system which suits them, based on price, extra functions, and features (probably in that order).
More games means more customers means more games -- a virtuous cycle
This statement is rather ambigious. Does it state that the more customers, the more money, thus more games? Or perhaps, customers are hooked on games, and want to buy the next version (look at Final Fantasy, and many Flight Simulator games).
And you're also finding a trend that sequals are coming out on new gaming systems. Look at Mario, which started on your basic NES, and has evolved to N64, and will probably go on from there.
I guess what it comes down to, is if somebody wants a PC, they're going to buy a PC. And if somebody wants a gaming console, that's what their going to buy. And in each industry, there needs to be sufficient competition to kep quality up, and price down.
A Beta PSX2 takes 5 seconds to render an image that takes a K6-III 400MHz 19 sec, and a 500 Mhz Alpha 21264 26 seconds
Yeah, but can it run Linux?
-------------------------------------------
"One motivation must surely be to get Windows into the console market, even if that means Microsoft has to go it alone." However, the author of the article neglected to mention that the Sega Dreamcast is based on the Windows CE platform. There are CE logos on the Dreamcast box and the logo appears when you load some Dreamcast software. Many insiders have suspected that Microsoft has used it's partnership with Sega to gain experience in the console industry in preparation for launching its own console. One benefit that the author also ignored is that basing a console on a common (Windows) platform also enables easier ports of computer games. The Dreamcast is already seeing this with ports of Half Life, Baldur's Gate and many other computer games planned. Microsoft may be planning to capitalize on this in order to get the foot hold that it needs in the industry.
A decent article, but I think it was a little rough on the Dreamcast, calling it "inferior" to two machines which aren't even released yet. Yes, I think the PSX2 will be a very impressive machine, and I am curious how the tech of the two will compare, but the DC is here now, and is nothing to sneeze at.
I also reacted dubiously to the author's statement that the only Dreamcast title that had received "glowing reviews" was Power Stone. Power Stone is a good title, but he is ignoring the two star Dreamcast titles - Soul Calibur and NFL2K. I literally have not seen a single magazine give either of these titles less than a 9/10 score, and many people (including myself) have bought a DC almost completely on the merits of these two games.
In any case, I -am- an enthusiastic Dreamcast owner, but am not a biased Sega fanatic - I am genuinely interested to see what the new Sony and Nintendo systems will be able to do. It just seemed to me that the Salon article went a little overboard bashing the Dreamcast, espescially when its competitors won't even exist for several months.
I've been watching this video game thing since
I saw a Pong machine at DFW in 1975.
It's like I was telling my nephew, each generation
of kids will grow up and produce better machines
than they had.
FS1 on a TRS80 with 4k was impressive.
...And the real wild-card, Microsoft's mysterious X-Box, may also appear in fall 2000.
I don't know about you, but just the name of the thing gives me chills up my spine.
This the where the Borg collective thing comes in, or could it the truth that Mulder and Scully are looking for - or it is both?
The truth is out there.
Not!
That line froze my blood. Somewhere, in the recesses of my mind, there is a little place that keeps the axioms. In its repotoir are "X is less than X+1", "Your name is Shawn", "Coffee is good" and "Nothing, *nothing*, could make Microsoft compare favorably with Liniux". Right now, I'm having trouble telling what is true.
But I still want a PlayStation 2. Partly due to the dozen or so Playstation games I own.
Shawn Poulsen (Fruan)
"On Slashdot, many obvious things are insightful." - Annonymous Coward, 2000/7/9
I was going to post these in my previous post, but I had to find the URL
http://www.haveland.com/cgi-bin/getpovb.pl?searc h=Single%3A&submit=List+all+Single+Resu lts Slow Site Don't Slashdot it!!!
A Beta PSX2 takes 5 seconds to render an image that takes a K6-III 400MHz 19 sec, and a 500 Mhz Alpha 21264 26 seconds
Hmmm. One of the reasons usually given for Sony's success in the last round of the console wars is their opening up of the market to a higher age group. Particularly with what the article later goes on to say about convergence, the battlefield this time is surely to be decided by the fickle tastes of twenty-somethings?
That's just plain wrong. Even assuming that the best of the next generation consoles can display 20 million pps sustainably (out of the question for Dreamcast, highly unlikely for PS2 and doubtful for Dolphin) then even at 30fps that's less than a million polygons on screen at a time. Millions of polygons simultaneously will have to wait for the next generation of consoles.
Not particularly exaggerated. Sony make it clear in their press releases exactly what the 75mpps figure is for, and also provides more realistic values.
Sony's Net Yaroze wasn't an attempt to get people playing games online. It was a home development kit for the Playstation. The only 'online' aspect was the fact that you could download software created by other Yaroze owners.
Um. No. There were initial bad reactions to a development system based around Linux ([shudder], command-line debuggers!) but developers who've worked with the kit are almost universally positive. In one notable case (Team Ninja, of Ninja Gaiden and DOA fame) they claimed it was easier to develop for than Dreamcast.
A typical game for any next generation platform is going to cost more. The days of single developers knocking up games in their bedroom after work are gone, you know... From the way the article goes on, you'd think that Sega and Sony hadn't done anything at all to ease development (rather than, say, providing solid support for developers in the form of WinCE and Sony's middleware projects) and that Nintendo had the monopoly on such plans.
No comment. Incidentally, did you notice that Sony's TOOL devkit for the PS2 runs Linux?
All in all, an interesting article. I'm slightly concerned that someone billed as an expert in online gaming thinks that the Yaroze has anything to do with it, though...
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
As the console continues to eveolve, eventually Sega, Sony, and Nintendo will stop trying to market their systems as "consoles" and will call them by their rightful names: personal computers. Because that's what they'll be. There will cease to be two separate niches and your Playstation 6 will be just as configurable as your typical desktop.
Who knows? Maybe someday the Playstation 7 will even run Linux and Windows.
"Prejudice is wrong; you should hate everyone the same."
Costikyan is one of the original group that *invented* D&D...but I s'pose most of y'all are too young to remember *that*.....
mark
Sony and Nintendo can live together. The have since the playstation came out. Sony has all the older population who is more into games like parasite eve, and the Final Fantasy series, while Nintendo has the "cute" factor. The mascots of Nintendo (eg. Pokemon, Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda) all appeal to a younger audience (although I catch myself pulling $100 out of my wallet to buy a color gameboy and pokemon blue every now and then).
The article made a good point about how some companies might shy away from developing for the playstation 2 becuase of the simple fact that you will need a masters degree in PSX2 development to do anything astounding. Although in all actuality big compaines like Square will always impress us with whatever they can wrench out of the console. Weren't you guys seriously impressed with the FF7 FMV's? That was groundbreaking... The people I talked to about it didn't even know the PSX could handle that type of graphics.
Anyway... all I'm saying is, a console is only worth its games. If the PSX2 is too hard to make visually stunning games, then the Dolphin will get a larger market share. The dreamcast will always have its place becuase there are die hard sega users that won't have anything else.
Sure, having the best tech is great, but Playstation kicked N64, because it had the better games.
I dont know if I agree with you on that. I have a lot of hard core gamer friends, and their playstations are all collecting dust as the N64 is getting beat up from overuse. Rgardless though, where N64 has an easy win is in games like Mario and Zelda. These have always been games that sell consoles, they have a reputation for quality and gameplay that will move units no matter how late into the game they come. They also (IMHO) are more engrossing than your run of the mill playstation games. I bought a NES for Super Mario Brothers, I bought a N64 for Ocarina of time. As for the playstation, the only games I saw were shooting, fighting, driving, and killing. They seemed very one dimensional, like alot of PC games. No rewards the second time you play it. Or the third. Dont get me wonrg I like brainless carnage sometimes (mmm Quake), but it wont keep my coming back. With games like Mario and Zelda, there's always a new trick to learn or secret to find.
-Rich
So when all these mighty new systems that can supposedly do anything in the world come out, sega has already had tons of market saturation and distrobution. These 3 other systems will have to compete to keep up in the market...or they will be seen as the next generation (above dreamcast) in which case sega could come out with ANOTHER system Q1 2001 and still capitalize on the market.
Second and more important, the rate of advancement in the fields of personal computer cpu's and graphics cards gives this "specialized gaming market" some intense competition. A year ago when i read about the TNT2 I was truly impressed. sadly enough, the GeForce256 doesnt impress me by such a margin as i see even better technology in the near future. Give that market 10-12 months? we may very well see the first native IA-64-intel coded games flying on fantastic 'fpu's`. Ok, so the $ is a giant issue there. Well think of it this way..if P3's and Athlon's go to 1+ Ghz at their current rate of clock speed growth (which they seem about to do) then whats to stop you from spending $500 to build a complete p3-600 system?
The market war here between these consoles seem interesting, but I see it as a last ditch effort for these companies to extend their lifetimes, while maybe allowing themselves a foothold into the PC gaming market....sure console games make more $ but unless something revolutionary happens, i dont see any real growth in that market.
Daedalus III
IMHO, it's either like Highlander(tm) "There can be only one", or there can be a limitless number of systems.
in any two-cent econ course they tell you exactly what you wrote. there is either the one absolute best platform that comforts everyone, or there is a limitless number of startups who are smart enough to make a new box with a kick-ass game.
but deeper analysis says, "not really!" gaming industry follows more conventional rules than computer/internet industry. in most cases, an oligopoly settles in the market. Such as the car industry, banking, even electronics. Computer industry might have an order of magnitude more companies in the game, but still
There simply cannot be a limitless number!
after all, if there was a large number of Sony's, you wouldn't know which one to buy. chances are, games wouldn't be so lucrative if people were staring at 200 different games.
There is a limit at how many different companies and types of game you can have! There are shoot-em up's, rpg's, driving, fighting, strategy, board, but that is about it. this way people know what they like.
same with manufacturers, it is very nice that once you go to a store you know that you ONLY have to choose between PSX and N64! any new platform will either be rejected, or push someone out of the picture.
that is it. (don't flame)
p.s. prediction, X-Box will never settle in, while Dreamcast will probably push Nintendo into financial trouble.
--
I question the validity of this assessment. The spin of this statement seems to be that not only is MS the dark horse candidate, but is the bastion of free enterprise in a feudal console world.
MS does not work that way. If they want to take the console market, undoubtedly they will make development costs next to nothing, sell the machine for very little, and barge into the market in standard MS fashion simply by ignoring the rules. They will ride the freedom horse into town and slip in Windows somewhere along the line to build their brand.
Or something like that.
Yeah, I love Toon. That's fine. And maybe the fact that he has relatively limited experience developing for the system's he's writing about doesn't invalidate what he has to say. I should point out that I have nothing but love for the honorable Mr. Costikyan. I was complaining that Salon implied that his other 26 games were ALSO probably computer games. Sure, their statement was technically accurate. I just don't find it all that honest.
-=Best Viewed Using [INLINE]=-
Re:video games, microsoft, etc. The 64DD was recently released in Japan. There's a 64DD version of F-Zero-X that allows you to create tracks/craft, I don't know what other games use it. Don't forget, Nintendo makes plenty of money off the Gameboy and GB Color as well, the N64 is probably comparable in significance to Nintendo, as the Playstation is to Sony overall (about half). If the Dreamcast flops, Sega can always go into software publishing. They already do PC games, they have loads of classic games to make sequels of, they have the 'gameplay' experience. Sega Consoles might die, but the games would probably go on. Online gaming is fine for Americans with flat-rate connections, but the rest of the world can't really afford to game online at 2c/minute. Also, there's a fair bit of work to be done to make this welcoming and accessible to newcomers and casual gamers, as opposed to hardcore clan members. Plus multiplayer games are inherently limited story-wise, you can't easily have the beautifully scripted storylines and FMV of FF7, or the carefully balanced tension of Metal Gear. So I strongly disagree that online is the ENTIRE future of videogames. HDTV isn't the answer really - why bother creating a new standard, when you could just plug stuff into a decent VGA monitor? Which is what the Dreamcast does, BTW. Today's games already exceed TV resolutions, and can't wait 10 years for HDTV to become common. As regards convergence - what makes consoles special is not the hardware, but the standardisation. This allows games to use all the available power, unlike PC games, and to achieve tight integration with standardised controllers etc. Eg Gran Turismo on the Playstation has a really good interface from the analog controller, better than any PC game joystick one. Equally Sonic Adventure on Dreamcast uses the VMS (mini-tamagochi-like-thing that slots into the controller). For Microsoft (or anyone else) to succeed, they just need to create a hardware standard that is affordable to manufacture, and represents an attractive proposition to developers. No more, no less. So it needs a good launch with a handful of really good games, to kick off the installed base, and then it just needs to be easy and accessible to develop for. The games will follow, and you have a success. Whether it's built from recycled PC bits (X-Box, and Dreamcast to a certain extent) or uses state-of-the-art custom chips (N64, Playstation2), is irrelevant. If it isn't a separate standard, then it will just be a cheap PC, which is a different game entirely. So the Saturn failed because it had a bad launch with only 1 good game (Virtua Fighter), and was too hard to develop for, and the N64 has struggled at times, because it hasn't been an attractive platform for developers (hard to develop for, commercially a dubious proposition).
How about..
Tomb Raider
Grand Theft Auto
Final Fantasy 7
TOCA (Touring Car Racing)
Wipeout
Some of these were more successful than others, but I think they all enjoyed significant success on PC and Playstation.
'Free anti-aliasing' is excellent for low-res Playstation games, however with Dreamcast onwards, the games are generating details that cannot be seen on TVs.
This is the most pathetic article I have ever read. Factually incorrect and making ridiculous assumptions. First paragraph: the Genesis and SNES crushed the Atari Lynx. Huh? The Lynx was a handheld system in no competition with the SNES or Genesis. The Gameboy crushed Atari's Lynx and Sega's late to market GameGear for reasons which still befuddle me. One might (wrongly) claim the SNES and Genesis crushed Atari's Jaguar but the truth is that the Playstation and Saturn lead to the Jaguar's demise. This sort of blatantly wrong information destroys much of the article. As do the constant (and unsupported) claims that the Playstation 2 is obviously more powerful than the Dreamcast. Show some evidence or the claims are simply claims, not facts. It's especially amusing to read things like, "Not 25 times more powerful, but 2 to 4 times for sure." Please. A puff piece funded by Sony and/or Microsoft, certainly. A "suprisingly deep" article, hardly.
And, lest we not forget, in addition to "Toon" (which apparently is available on amazon.com) and the others, he also did that classic SPI wargame, "The Creature That Ate Sheboygan". Ah, those were the days...
The article says the new machines "can display millions of polygons simultaneously". But a television screen doesn't even have half a million pixels! A 1280 x 1024 monitor has 1.3 million. Am I missing something here?
I agree totally with you. Sony fanboys, and even sony itself seem to think all Sony has to do is come out with a more powerful console with the word "playstation" stamped on the side and the world will beat a path to their door. A company VP has said that they expect to sell over a million consoles in Japan by the first day. Come on! When they sell 100,000 DC's the stores were all packed and many companies ran out. Methinks a million in a day is physically impossible. Even if it succeeds, it will probably sell less than Sony is expecting. Sony is ripe to get punched in the nose by the little Guy (ah little Hedgehog.)
Never be impressed by FMVs. It's just AVI (equivalent) playback; nothing clever at all.
Now, FFVII was good, but its strengths were its size, atmosphere and plot. The graphics were excellent in the sense that the backdrops were well drawn, and the 3D models superimposed on them were expressive, but that's not a technical marvel.
--
Yeah, but only 4 are computer games. Unless you count the thrilling Manhattan Address Locator.
http://www.crossover.com/costik/ has the word on who this crazy Costikyan fellow is. Some of you may remember him as involved with Toon, Paranoia, and Star Wars : The Role-Playing game. Or for "Another Day, Another Dungeon." But probably not for Evolution.
-=Best Viewed Using [INLINE]=-
More games means more customers means more games -- a virtuous cycle
This statement is rather ambigious. Does it state that the more customers, the more money, thus more games? Or perhaps, customers are hooked on games, and want to buy the next version (look at Final Fantasy, and many Flight Simulator games).
more games means more customers -- I'm pretty sure this just means that people are more likely to buy the console that has lots of titles rather than the one that only has a handfull
more customers means more games -- Would you rather develop your game for for a console that has sold 60 million units or one that has sold a very small fraction of that?
I think the guy who wrote the article may be a tad confused; the Atari Lynx was never a competitor to the console games, it was a portable color game that was more competing with the likes of Gameboy. Maybe he meant the Jaguar?
Make affiliate bucks
That's interesting, I had the opposite impression: I haven't seen an N64 game that made me want to buy the system, whereas I have 5 or so games lined up to buy for the PSX after I finish FFVII again. Your mileage may vary, but certainly both consoles have games that sell systems. In fact, PCs have games that sell systems, too, like Quake!
I think your point that the games are different is very well taken. Maybe it's based in the diferent companies: Nintendo seems to want more of a G-rating on their games, though that's changed a lot recently.
I like the Playstation for long, involved RPGs with lots of scenery, something that's less common on the 64. That's probably a result of CD-ROM vs cartridge, though.
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
A console to replace the PC is like the "thin" PC fad or Java-everywhere computing, i.e. do we really need this stuff? This kind of stuff makes a lot of sense to marketing guys, but it's irrelevent. I'm a geek, I know how I like things. I want games on my console and unix on my desktop. I'm not trying to do things ass-backwards.
Are the people at Salon on crack? They say, in relation to the games on the Dreamcast: "So far, only one -- Power Stone -- has gotten glowing reviews." Uh...Soul Calibur has gotten nearly 100% "Best fighting game ever" reviews, and Sonic Adventure is averaging 8-outta-10, so uh....just pointing that out....and stuff
---------
---------
Moo, Baby. Moo.
WAH. It's designed to be a "catch phrase" summary. (In this case, showing that some people claim the technology is all that matters.) It's not calling the reader or anyone else "stupid." While it may not be the cleverest, we don't need to read your crying about it.
This article did a semi-decent job of analyzing the current and upcoming console offerings, I'm going to elaborate on a few points, and talk about the long term prospects for console systems, and how microsoft could become a big player.
Quality of Games vs. Hardware power of the system
Never, ever underestimate the power of the quality of available games for how far a system will go. The N64 is clearly superior to the playstation in terms of what it can do. But how many games were available for the nintendo when it came out? Only 2, and it took a long time for the better games the N64 had to come out. The article points this out, saying the intalled base of playstations shut out the N64. I'd take that to be about half the reason the playstation did so well. The other half was the fact that it had so many good games. Specifically, final fantasy 7. Square has to put out games to survive, and since the N64 took so long to come to the market, they had no choice but to develop for the playstation. That was a big loss for nintendo. FF7 by itself moved millions of units of playstations, even when the game came out a few years after the systems' initial release. Hardware is irrelevant compared to the actual game play quality of games. This is the real meat of the gaming industry. The fact that N64 used cartriges was also a big problem, which I'd say is also related to hardware. They understand this now, hopefully. It's too bad they never released that disk drive device (I can't remember its name), because I think it really could have helped them.
Financial resources of the companies involved, and experience in the video game industry.
Nintendo pretty much gets all it's revenue from it's current system in release. If they screw up the dolphin, they're just about done. The same goes for sega. They also have some revenue from arcade games, but that side of the gaming industry is a shadow of what it used to be. I'm not sure if sega does much else in other industries, but if they do it doesn't amount to much. Sony and Microsoft are another story. Microsoft basically has unlimited resources. Sony almost does. I know sony gets a huge amount of it's revenue off the playstation now, but even if they left the video game market all together, they'd still be one f'in huge company. In some ways this might work for nintendo and sega. With their backs against the wall, they might be able to use the pressure to put out really good systems. They both have a lot of experience in the industry as well. Sega already released their system, and they've done a much better job than they did on the saturn, in all respects. I don't think nintendo will make the same mistakes either. Microsoft doesn't know much of anything about console systems, but long term I don't think that matters, as I'll discuss a bit later.
Online gaming.
The article brushes this off, saying it is yet to be proven that consumers want this. This is true for console systems, because it isn't yet available, but will be shortly with the dreamcast. It has been thriving on the PC side however, ever since Quake was released. When I first played quake online, it was the biggest rush I've ever had from a video game. My desire to play 1 or 2 player console games went to 0 in a month. You just can't beat the social interaction, blowing off the head of someone's character who exisits in reality somewhere else, and playing against human intelligence. The future of video games IS TOTALLY IN ONLINE GAMING, in my opinion. Even with RPG's, with ultima online. It's just about as addicting as drugs. Every trend I see points twords this. Whichever company recognizes this first will win. Period.
Convergance of the PC and console systems.
This is where microsoft really comes into play. Console systems and PC's are converging faster than most people seem to realize. PC's have made great strides in graphics with 3d cards, and console systems have had huge increases in raw processing power. In 5 or 10 years, I see most video game systems running on a TV as the current cheap-PC with a high end grapahics card. Another post said micrsoft will flop on this front with the "x-box", any PC based system they come up with will cost too much, over the $200 price point you need to move a lot of units. But really, this limitation and the fact that TV resolutions are low are the only hurdles microsoft has to overcome, and this is only a matter of time. Plus these problems will go away without micrsoft having to put money into it itself. For one, the price points of the current high end and low end PC's have been decreasing steadily for several years, and in 5 to 7 years (maybe less) that low end PC with a good graphicas card will probably BE at that $200 price point. As far as resolution, once HDTV has a good market penetration (80% or so, that might be 10 or more years off, however), the problem is solved. PC systems can take over as the only video game system, sega, nintendo, and sony's proprietary architechure is no longer needed, and in comes microsoft with their proprietary OS, since most PC games are developed for windows. Yikes.
I think microsoft can sense this, hence we start hearing rumors about this "x-box". Good name, since right now it's a mystery and might as well be nothing more than some FUD tactic or marketing BS. But say it comes to market in the next year. It will probably flop, they have no experience in this area, and no one would play PC games on a low res TV anyway. But even if it does flop, it will give microsoft valueable experience in this industry, and once the other problems I mentioned are solved, the door will be wide open for them to come in and take over. DO NOT underestimate microsoft here. This a number of years down the road, but the more I think about this the more I see this scenario occuring.
The PC already does it all, and we've seen with Bleem it can play console games just as well. I'll wait for the EMU and just pay for the games, it's the developers that I want my money to go to anyway.
BTW, anyone notice that the list of killer games (mario, zelda, pokemon) are ALL nintendo games.
The reason consoles survive is because they are specialized for a single task. Sony should remember that and learn from the mistakes of others.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Intellivision, Atari and 3DO all tried the tactic of bridging the gap, and all failed because they strayed too far from what consumers look for in a console: ease of setup and good performance of a single task (playing games). If one is going to go through the effort of having a machine that does it all (like a PC), why get a console that doesn't do the job as well?
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
I've always felt that because consoles were "just" for games, their proprietary nature didn't matter too much.
However, if new consoles are to be a Trojan Horse, promising (and bringing) games, while secretly introducing home shopping, video-on-demand, person-person comms, etc -- this is the kind of thing I strongly feel should be based on open standards (and of course, the most open standards are those supported by Free Software).
If we're not careful, we're going to start getting email attachments for which you need a PS2 to read (actually, there are already Dreamcast native file formats, e.g. VMU animations...)
Unchecked this could be a big problem.
--
What is this guy on? I liked Blue Stinger better than PowerStone. Don't get me wrong, PowerStone is OK -- but come on Soul Calibur blows it away. Every magazine I have read has given it at least a 9/10 (and most gave it 10/10.) The DC version even blows away the arcade version! Plus NFL2K has really been pushing dreamcasts out the door. And Sega does have a game like Zelda or Mario -- Sonc Adventure. It hasn't gotten as high reviews as Soul Calibur, but sales records show that almost everyone who bought a DC also bought Sonic (and Sonic gets better reviews than PowerStone.) For a month old system, the DC really Rocks!