It's interesting to see so many people complaining about the hardware. Are we all so spoiled by the endless polygons and physics and 5.1 DTS sound that a good old fashioned "game" is no fun anymore?
I think not.
Of course a one inch screen will never deliver a gaming experience that anyone would call "immersive", but doesn't mean that its a bad gaming platform. There is only one problem for wireless gaming:
There is no money in it!
There are some companies out there trying to make a go of it right now. Most prominently, John Romero's Monkeybone, but also Jamdat which has a small hit with it's "gladiator" game, and Ungames .
Both Jamdat and Ungames are working on a business model that revolves around licensing software to wireless carriers. They call it a "game platform", but it looks to me much more like a rather lame billing system. Then they make some games "on the side" to show how excellent their platform could be if only people would develop for it. So why are game developers trying to sell game "platforms"? Becuase there is no revenue model for wireless gaming .
No room for advertising.
No carrier willing to give away any of the fee for data minutes.
No consumers willing to pay subscription fees
So there you are...
There is a chance (a very small one, I think) that one of these companies will come up with a hit that is so successful that the carriers fall over each other trying to offer it on their system. Then maybe they'll give away some of the money they make on the minutes (like AOL did in the very beginning).
More likely, it will be some lone engineer who reads/. working away on the weekend on a cool idea.
It only takes one before everyone "gets" the potential. After that, things have a way of working themselves out.
It should be fun to watch the fireworks if MS comes to market with a homestation product in the fall.
Sony was the first to try such a thing with it's PS1. It saw that a video game machine with additional functionality might be appeal to the "mass market", mostly adults without children who hadn'y been interested in a home console until that point. The PS1 played audio CD's and was thought of by sony as a component of the Sony "Home entertainment" vision and not as a dedicated game machine.
With that approach, the PS1 conquered the mass market. It took less than two years for the ps1 to penetrate 10% of American homes. By comparison, it took color TV 13 years, 11 for the VCR and 6 for audio CDs.
Now Microsoft is trying to do the same thing with a different set of functionality. Seems like a good idea, but it's a very different world now.
Game consoles are no longer just a niche. 32% of US homes have one sort of console or another. Sony is by far the market leader, and the PS2 is backwards compatable with a huge PS1 base. Whats more, it also plays DVDs. Microsoft will have to price their homestation offering well over the PS2 (or suffer huge losses). It will be interesting to see if consumers are interested in the functionality for the price.
Meanwhile, Nintendo has stayed true to it's fmaily oriented niche and remains by far the most profitable of the players from a pure video game approach. And while all activity is happening in the "Home Entertainment" world, Nintendo is virtually unchallnged on the handheld side with its gameboy and gameboy advance. GBA is projected to become a 500 million dollar business this year!
If I had to choose right now, I'd rather be Nintendo...
Broadband deployment in the US is going VERY slowly indeed. The last number I saw for US broadband was that less than 8% of American Households currently have broadband subscriptions. Thats compared to nearly 40% in places like Korea.
In my opinion, the reason why is the telecom act of 1996, which prevents national long distance operators from offering broadband data service in markets where they haven't opened their systems to competitors.
The result is that long distance operators have been slow to make the necessary network upgrades because they know that if they do, they'll need to let everyone else have access.
The analogy is: "Would you buy yourself a new Porsche if you knew that you had to give a set of keys to everyone on your block".
In the markets where they have upgraded infrastructure, they are doing everything they can to keep competitors off the system. Those things include everything from unfair pricing (E.G. You can rent access to our system for $30/customer per month and resell it, but our price is $19.95 so good luck) to simply denying access.
There is a bill before congress called the Tauzin / Dingel bill which would let long distance companies sell high speed data without having to open their systems. Depending on your perspective, this is either a godsend or a disaster. On the one hand, it should definately speed up the network upgrades, but on the other hand, it won't be nearly as compeitive a market...
Over the past three months, I've been doing some business-model consulting to a company with a struggling MMORPG game. Given that experience, here are a few reasons why I think Square will have a difficult time with this (although I honestly hope they succeed)...
1. Revenue Model I'd love to know how Square intends to charge for the game. Generally, MMORPG games for the PC use a two-part revenue model: $9-$50 for the game software, then an additional $5-$13 per month for a game subscription.
Given the massively multi-player nature of the games, they require enormous support including servers, game masters, billing and account support and on and on. For a decent analysis of these costs, check this out. The bottom line is that it's expensive, way more expensive than your normal game. Square has two sets of considerations here: They probably don't want to become the company to try charging a monthy fee to Console folks who tend to skew younger and have less experience with this genre. This would lead them to either jack up the software price and minimze the monthly fee, or design a game that runs more like Diablo and less like a true MMORPG. On the other hand, these games have network effects, the more people playing them, the more fun they are. That would encourage square to come to market with a low price and use the subscription model to make it up on the backend. It will be interesting to see which way they go.
2. Audience and appeal Despite the buzz, the existing market for MMORPG games is very small, maybe 3.5-4 Million worldwide, and arguably only 1-2 million in the US. They are a unique bunch of people. Given the hardware issues its relatively clear that a console isn't the best platform for these types of games. To overcome that, a console game will need to broaden it's appeal and lower the complexity and learning curve considerably in order to succeed. It will be interesting to see what things square removes from the genre to do this. Based on the coverage in the article, it seems as though trade skills will go completely. So will (I guess) much of the politics and diplomacy with respect to clans and factions. What they have left will be something very different than todays MMORPGs. It sounds like MMORPG lite. Not a bad thing, just very very differnt.
In the mean time, people like LucasArts are working on Star Wars Galaxies to try to popularize the genre a bit by using a huge and popular license. It will be interesting to see which way is more effective.
3. Cost These things are big budget to develop. Given Square's failed film and new management, it will be interesting to see how much cash they are willing to risk on something this new. Square has never been known to go cheap, and I bet they risk a bundle on it. It had the potential to be another very high profile flop for them.
Slashdot Mirror
I think not.
Of course a one inch screen will never deliver a gaming experience that anyone would call "immersive", but doesn't mean that its a bad gaming platform. There is only one problem for wireless gaming :
There is no money in it!
There are some companies out there trying to make a go of it right now. Most prominently, John Romero's Monkeybone, but also Jamdat which has a small hit with it's "gladiator" game, and Ungames .
Both Jamdat and Ungames are working on a business model that revolves around licensing software to wireless carriers. They call it a "game platform", but it looks to me much more like a rather lame billing system. Then they make some games "on the side" to show how excellent their platform could be if only people would develop for it. So why are game developers trying to sell game "platforms"? Becuase there is no revenue model for wireless gaming .
No room for advertising.
No carrier willing to give away any of the fee for data minutes.
No consumers willing to pay subscription fees
So there you are...
There is a chance (a very small one, I think) that one of these companies will come up with a hit that is so successful that the carriers fall over each other trying to offer it on their system. Then maybe they'll give away some of the money they make on the minutes (like AOL did in the very beginning).
More likely, it will be some lone engineer who reads /. working away on the weekend on a cool idea.
It only takes one before everyone "gets" the potential. After that, things have a way of working themselves out.
-rg
Sony was the first to try such a thing with it's PS1. It saw that a video game machine with additional functionality might be appeal to the "mass market", mostly adults without children who hadn'y been interested in a home console until that point. The PS1 played audio CD's and was thought of by sony as a component of the Sony "Home entertainment" vision and not as a dedicated game machine.
With that approach, the PS1 conquered the mass market. It took less than two years for the ps1 to penetrate 10% of American homes. By comparison, it took color TV 13 years, 11 for the VCR and 6 for audio CDs.
Now Microsoft is trying to do the same thing with a different set of functionality. Seems like a good idea, but it's a very different world now.
Game consoles are no longer just a niche. 32% of US homes have one sort of console or another. Sony is by far the market leader, and the PS2 is backwards compatable with a huge PS1 base. Whats more, it also plays DVDs. Microsoft will have to price their homestation offering well over the PS2 (or suffer huge losses). It will be interesting to see if consumers are interested in the functionality for the price.
Meanwhile, Nintendo has stayed true to it's fmaily oriented niche and remains by far the most profitable of the players from a pure video game approach. And while all activity is happening in the "Home Entertainment" world, Nintendo is virtually unchallnged on the handheld side with its gameboy and gameboy advance. GBA is projected to become a 500 million dollar business this year!
If I had to choose right now, I'd rather be Nintendo...
-rg
In my opinion, the reason why is the telecom act of 1996, which prevents national long distance operators from offering broadband data service in markets where they haven't opened their systems to competitors.
The result is that long distance operators have been slow to make the necessary network upgrades because they know that if they do, they'll need to let everyone else have access.
The analogy is: "Would you buy yourself a new Porsche if you knew that you had to give a set of keys to everyone on your block".
In the markets where they have upgraded infrastructure, they are doing everything they can to keep competitors off the system. Those things include everything from unfair pricing (E.G. You can rent access to our system for $30/customer per month and resell it, but our price is $19.95 so good luck) to simply denying access.
There is a bill before congress called the Tauzin / Dingel bill which would let long distance companies sell high speed data without having to open their systems. Depending on your perspective, this is either a godsend or a disaster. On the one hand, it should definately speed up the network upgrades, but on the other hand, it won't be nearly as compeitive a market...
-rg
1. Revenue Model I'd love to know how Square intends to charge for the game. Generally, MMORPG games for the PC use a two-part revenue model: $9-$50 for the game software, then an additional $5-$13 per month for a game subscription.
Given the massively multi-player nature of the games, they require enormous support including servers, game masters, billing and account support and on and on. For a decent analysis of these costs, check this out. The bottom line is that it's expensive, way more expensive than your normal game. Square has two sets of considerations here: They probably don't want to become the company to try charging a monthy fee to Console folks who tend to skew younger and have less experience with this genre. This would lead them to either jack up the software price and minimze the monthly fee, or design a game that runs more like Diablo and less like a true MMORPG. On the other hand, these games have network effects, the more people playing them, the more fun they are. That would encourage square to come to market with a low price and use the subscription model to make it up on the backend. It will be interesting to see which way they go.
2. Audience and appeal Despite the buzz, the existing market for MMORPG games is very small, maybe 3.5-4 Million worldwide, and arguably only 1-2 million in the US. They are a unique bunch of people. Given the hardware issues its relatively clear that a console isn't the best platform for these types of games. To overcome that, a console game will need to broaden it's appeal and lower the complexity and learning curve considerably in order to succeed. It will be interesting to see what things square removes from the genre to do this. Based on the coverage in the article, it seems as though trade skills will go completely. So will (I guess) much of the politics and diplomacy with respect to clans and factions. What they have left will be something very different than todays MMORPGs. It sounds like MMORPG lite. Not a bad thing, just very very differnt.
In the mean time, people like LucasArts are working on Star Wars Galaxies to try to popularize the genre a bit by using a huge and popular license. It will be interesting to see which way is more effective.
3. Cost These things are big budget to develop. Given Square's failed film and new management, it will be interesting to see how much cash they are willing to risk on something this new. Square has never been known to go cheap, and I bet they risk a bundle on it. It had the potential to be another very high profile flop for them.
But then again, nothing risked, nothing gained.
It should be fun to see what happens. -rg