That number on its face sounds impressive, but it's still half the install base of the Wii, and 7 million less than the 360. Compare that to the fact that the PS2 sold over 5 times as many units as its competition.
A more pertinent number to this discussion is titles sold per console. I don't have those data on hand, but last I heard, the PS3 had a miserable stat in that category, as most early units were bought by videophiles as a cheap Blue-Ray DVD player, and weren't really being used as a game console.
By either metric, Sony doesn't dominate the market like they did with the PS2, and this has turned some of the design decisions made years ago into big liabilities.
There are a number of reasons to make a console hard to program for, but they all rely on a huge install base that the PS3 doesn't have.
The article quotes a developer saying that if you are going to develop for multiple platforms, it is best to start with the PS3, because it will be easy to port to other systems than to port to the PS3. If there were 20 million PS3's in homes, this would ensure that the 360 and the Wii would be seeing lots of ports instead of original games.
Another reason is that investment in programming knowledge and tools is very expensive, and once a studio has the expertise, they are likely to stick with the platform in order to maximize their investment.
Sony was counting on a success similar to the PS2, were developers would have to program for the PS3 because that's where the users would be. Without it, the 'benefits' of a hard-to-program console become liabilities.
Phil Jackson had a famous conversation with Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf, back in the Michael Jordan era. They were talking about what motivated people. Jerry said it was greed and fear. Phil said it was pride and love. Phil doesn't work for Jerry anymore.
Both management styles have their proponents, so the fact that in this story, there were a couple managers who lean toward the fear and greed philosophy isn't exactly shocking, and it really doesn't make the case that those types of managers are the only ones who keep their jobs in tough economic times.
That is the Washington State University LUG, located in Pullman, WA. The post left that unclear, but the fact that this is a college-based LUG in a university town helps to explain why there are sorority girls involved.
I guess you could say the XBox "worked," but if it was any company but Microsoft, that console would be dead. They still are subsidizing the hardware to the tune of hundreds of dollars per console. They've lost billions of dollars on it, and they have 2nd or 3rd place numbers to show for it, depending on which statistics you look at.
Now, I'm not saying the XBox sucks. I love a lot of the games (mmmm... Dead Rising), and I think XBox live is one of the best innovations to hit gaming in a long time. But from a business standpoint, it's been an unqualified disaster for Microsoft.
I don't dictate whether they take their laptops home. Some of these guys are workaholics that can't live without their computers at their side 24/7. Also, we are working with international partners in several different time zones, so, "business hours" can be all over the place. Lots of travel is involved, as well. The times when the laptops are powered on, connected to the network, and not in use are completely unpredictable. That's kinda the point of this Slashdot story - how do you do backups for that scenario?
Once a day, it runs a backup of my laptop and everything on my machine comes to a grinding halt for five to ten minutes.
A solution is not a solution if it doesn't get used. We have only 5 guys with laptops, but some are smart enough that they can cause trouble. I was using a network backup to tape drive, but these guys could go into their Windows task manager and kill the process, 'cause they didn't like the way the backups bogged down their performance. Since I had a solution in place, my ass was covered, and they were on the hook for any problems if we didn't have a current backup. Still, a laptop loss or hard disk failure will cause me a lot of headaches, whether or not it's my fault.
So the second option I implemented was external hard drives for all laptop users. They can back up their own stuff, whenever is convenient for them. Yet they are kinda lazy and very busy with other stuff, so I've been hearing rumors that some laptops are only getting backed up once a week. Or worse. With the external drives in the users hands, I can't keep any track of what is going on. Once again, my ass is covered, but a disaster will still be a headache for me.
What my guys need is something with logs that I can see, and will back up their laptops to a server, but will give them some scheduling control so as not to interfere with their work. The compromise we are working towards is some file synchronization software. Something that has scheduling capability, but can also be initiated by the user. When they are VPN'ed in, or in the office and connected to the network, and they are going to lunch or heading to a meeting, they can click an icon on the desktop to set off the file transfer. I can see a log on the server and know who hasn't been backing up in a while, and send a reminder email, or even automate the email reminders.
This idea is promising, but I'm wondering what new problem will crop up with it. I'm looking at Vice Versa and SyncBac , for the software, which both have nice features. I'm going to check out BackupPC after seeing it mentioned in this thread.
The Piper Jaffray analyst says, "They're going to need to get their best-branded product on that platform. That will take a good nine to 12 months."
But if the big publishers rush Wii tiles out the door, the Wii could get a reputation for having nothing but crap ports, and lose some of its appeal. On the other hand, with the lag time involved in video games, market share might be cemented before that could happen.
Lots of jobs could benefit from a little artistic knowledge. My father, who remodeled houses for a living, had this problem. He was very handy with drywall and carpet and cabinetry, but he would frequently pick out these garish paint colors that ended up making a room look hideous. I don't need my contractor to be Picasso, but I would like him to be able to pick out some pleasing paint and carpet colors. Likewise, someone with a little design knowledge and solid coding skills can certainly put together a better website than someone with solid coding skills and no design knowledge.
The article says that reviews for EA games have been getting worse since two years ago. That's about when EA started signing exclusive licensing agreements with professional sports. Without an NFL 2K7, why does Madden 07 have to be any better? If you want to play as your favorite NFL team, you have to go wtih Madden.
The article also cites alot of movie and comic book license games as proof of declining quality. But again, EA has the inside track on a lot of that IP. They are one of the few companies big enough to lock up the pricey licenses. There is a reason that Rare never made another James Bond game after their biggest hit, GoldenEye. EA is a giant, multi-platform developer who could pay Universal Studios a lot of money for exclusive rights to James Bond.
And when a kid goes to the store, he doesn't say "That game is an EA game, so it must suck," he says, "That is a Superman game, so it must suck." EA's reputation doesn't get tarnished when Superman Returns sucks. What gets tarnished is the reputation of Superman games (already pretty bad).
Right now, EA has the money and clout to get a lot of exclusive licenses. They can sell a lot of mediocre games with a great license, especially if they are the only ones in town with a game of your favorite series.
Yeah, I think that the 2600 game covers that promised so much and enclosed a game that delivered so little were one of the reasons for the 80's video game crash. The covers frequently would have cool alien landscapes - stuff that looked like a Richard Dean* painting. But the game would have a few colored blocks that moved around. It was such a disconnect, and a disappointment. I think Nintendo's early NES covers were a calculated response to that.
*for those too young, Richard Dean is an artist who does futuristic or surreal landscapes. His art graced the cover of many a Yes album in the 70's.
No Love For Sony
on
PAX 2006 Recap
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· Score: 4, Informative
There was no love for Sony at the PAX this year. At the first Penny Arcade panel, an audience member took the mike and asked the crowd who had a DS. Over half the 2000 or so people in the room cheered or held up their actual DS. He then asked how many had PSP's, and the cheer was pretty small, maybe 1/4 or 1/5 of the DS response.
Minutes later, Gabe was asked what he thought about the PlayStation 3. He replied, "We won't be getting one at launch. It (the price) is ridiculous, and they need to know it's ridiculous." He added, "The future of gaming is the Wii-60," meaning, I guess, a combination of the XBox 360 and the Wii.
Microsoft and Nintendo also both had big booths (although Nintendo was only showing DS games, nothing for the Wii), but Sony didn't show up. It helps that both Microsoft and Nintendo have their headquarters a short 5 minutes from the venue, but there was zero Sony presence.
Re:It's cool to see two people...
on
PAX 2006 Recap
·
· Score: 2, Informative
The article erroneously says it was Monday's strip. Gabe and Tycho made several strips in advanced, so they wouldn't have to work on comics while PAX was going on. Monday's strip was the last of those premades. The strip created at PAX will be up tomorrow. The link will be http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/08/30
That's the problem with pay-for-performance - it invites abuse. Whatever arbitrary benchmarks you set for the CEO/CIO/everyday employee, there will be the temptation to work to the benchmarks and ignore the longterm best interests of the company. Taken to it's extreme, you get an Enron or WorldCom, where executives spent most of their time making the books reflect performance that would enhance their stock options.
The reason it is directed at gamers is because, at least according to a lot of internet rants I've read (hey, some are even in this thread!), gamers hate the ESRB. Yes the ESRB is flawed, arbitrary, sometimes manipulated for commericial purposes. By reminding people that 6-year-old girls play games too, it might clue in the people who are so quick to cry censorship and see only the bad things about the ESRB.
Today's gamer demographic is much more diverse that it was 20 years ago. Game content is as diverse as movies. The twentysomething male gamer doesn't have to worry about it, but a lot of parents only have the ESRB to tell the difference between harmless kiddie games like NickToons, or something like Ratchet and Clank, which has cute cartoon animals on the cover and lots of shooting and blowing things up in the game. Sometimes our age group forgets that, and this campaign is to remind us.
Games get cancelled all the time for lots of reasons. But if this actually was a Rockstar game, instead of a game from another studio also owned by Rockstar's parent company, I can't imagine that controversy would have anything to do with it's cancellation. Rockstar is made up of a buch of smartasses and their success has been in large part due to the controversy they create. They have no reason to mess with the winning formula that they clearly love.
"The original design would have been safe but what seemed an innocuous change completely changed the dynamics of load bearing"
While the original design may have been safe in theory, it was unbuildable. The supporting rods would have needed to be threaded for their entire lower half (which wasn't in the original design) in order for the loadbearing nuts for the higher walkway to be put in place. And that threading would have been damaged to the point of uselessness when the top walkway was raised into place. The original design was flawed. The disastrous change was made to fix it.
Being a control freak company isn't always bad, (although it hasn't always been good for Apple - I'm not posting this comment from a Mac), it's just bad for a company claiming that they are pursuing greater 3rd party support. It makes it hard for you to play nice with others.
If you own the market, like Apple does for mp3 players and Nintendo used to for game consoles, you can get away with it, and it can be great for you. Apple is able to use its position as market leader to bring the record companies in line, which in turn only enhances their position. But the music industry hates it, and if they ever have an alternative to Apple, you can bet they will jump ship at the first opportunity.
The trouble is, Nintendo is a control freak company. They don't like to be dependent on 3rd party. They like to be in charge and they like to make money off of everything. When they were the only game in town, they could get away with it. If developers wanted to make a game, they had to do what Nintendo said. I remember some controversy in 1989, the president of Namco made some public comments about how Nintendo's control was hurting the industry. Nintendo responded by threatening to stop allowing Namco to make games for Nintendo consoles, and the Namco president shut up. When the PlayStation took off, it offered developers a choice, and Sony offered much better licensee terms. Nintendo hasn't been able to control developers since the mid-90's, but they still want to.
For the GameCube, Nintendo invested a lot in 2nd party support. They put a ton of money into Retro, Rare, and Silicon Knights. Despite having first crack at development hardware, only one company, Silicon Knights with Eternal Darkness, had a launch title ready. Retro was working on 6 launch titles. Of those 6, only 1 ever saw the light of day - Metroid Prime, and that didn't come out until a year after launch. Rare was supposed to deliver Kameo and Perfect Dark Zero for launch. Two years after GameCube came out, those games were nowhere in sight and Nintendo sold their half of Rare to Microsoft. Nintendo poured tons of money into those companies, and it didn't pay off at all. They had companies they controlled, but those companies couldn't deliver.
Now that Yamauchi has finally retired, maybe Nintendo can really change its relationship with developers. Maybe they can get 3rd parties on board in the competitive climate of today's console wars. But maybe a leopard can't change its spots.
Slashdot Mirror
There were 20 million GameCubes sold.
A more pertinent number to this discussion is titles sold per console. I don't have those data on hand, but last I heard, the PS3 had a miserable stat in that category, as most early units were bought by videophiles as a cheap Blue-Ray DVD player, and weren't really being used as a game console.
By either metric, Sony doesn't dominate the market like they did with the PS2, and this has turned some of the design decisions made years ago into big liabilities.
There are a number of reasons to make a console hard to program for, but they all rely on a huge install base that the PS3 doesn't have. The article quotes a developer saying that if you are going to develop for multiple platforms, it is best to start with the PS3, because it will be easy to port to other systems than to port to the PS3. If there were 20 million PS3's in homes, this would ensure that the 360 and the Wii would be seeing lots of ports instead of original games. Another reason is that investment in programming knowledge and tools is very expensive, and once a studio has the expertise, they are likely to stick with the platform in order to maximize their investment. Sony was counting on a success similar to the PS2, were developers would have to program for the PS3 because that's where the users would be. Without it, the 'benefits' of a hard-to-program console become liabilities.
Phil Jackson had a famous conversation with Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf, back in the Michael Jordan era. They were talking about what motivated people. Jerry said it was greed and fear. Phil said it was pride and love. Phil doesn't work for Jerry anymore. Both management styles have their proponents, so the fact that in this story, there were a couple managers who lean toward the fear and greed philosophy isn't exactly shocking, and it really doesn't make the case that those types of managers are the only ones who keep their jobs in tough economic times.
A kid with a GameBoy, huh?
Not Swiss German. Just normal German with typical internet spelling and grammar.
That is the Washington State University LUG, located in Pullman, WA. The post left that unclear, but the fact that this is a college-based LUG in a university town helps to explain why there are sorority girls involved.
I guess you could say the XBox "worked," but if it was any company but Microsoft, that console would be dead. They still are subsidizing the hardware to the tune of hundreds of dollars per console. They've lost billions of dollars on it, and they have 2nd or 3rd place numbers to show for it, depending on which statistics you look at.
Now, I'm not saying the XBox sucks. I love a lot of the games (mmmm... Dead Rising), and I think XBox live is one of the best innovations to hit gaming in a long time. But from a business standpoint, it's been an unqualified disaster for Microsoft.
I don't dictate whether they take their laptops home. Some of these guys are workaholics that can't live without their computers at their side 24/7. Also, we are working with international partners in several different time zones, so, "business hours" can be all over the place. Lots of travel is involved, as well. The times when the laptops are powered on, connected to the network, and not in use are completely unpredictable. That's kinda the point of this Slashdot story - how do you do backups for that scenario?
Once a day, it runs a backup of my laptop and everything on my machine comes to a grinding halt for five to ten minutes.
A solution is not a solution if it doesn't get used. We have only 5 guys with laptops, but some are smart enough that they can cause trouble. I was using a network backup to tape drive, but these guys could go into their Windows task manager and kill the process, 'cause they didn't like the way the backups bogged down their performance. Since I had a solution in place, my ass was covered, and they were on the hook for any problems if we didn't have a current backup. Still, a laptop loss or hard disk failure will cause me a lot of headaches, whether or not it's my fault.
So the second option I implemented was external hard drives for all laptop users. They can back up their own stuff, whenever is convenient for them. Yet they are kinda lazy and very busy with other stuff, so I've been hearing rumors that some laptops are only getting backed up once a week. Or worse. With the external drives in the users hands, I can't keep any track of what is going on. Once again, my ass is covered, but a disaster will still be a headache for me.
What my guys need is something with logs that I can see, and will back up their laptops to a server, but will give them some scheduling control so as not to interfere with their work. The compromise we are working towards is some file synchronization software. Something that has scheduling capability, but can also be initiated by the user. When they are VPN'ed in, or in the office and connected to the network, and they are going to lunch or heading to a meeting, they can click an icon on the desktop to set off the file transfer. I can see a log on the server and know who hasn't been backing up in a while, and send a reminder email, or even automate the email reminders.
This idea is promising, but I'm wondering what new problem will crop up with it. I'm looking at Vice Versa and SyncBac , for the software, which both have nice features. I'm going to check out BackupPC after seeing it mentioned in this thread.
How is an MMO game where the developers are cheaters who give themselves and their friends an advantage? That's scandalous. http://endie.net/cs/blogs/endie/archive/2007/05/25 /Eve_Online_Developer_Cheating_Again.aspx
The Piper Jaffray analyst says, "They're going to need to get their best-branded product on that platform. That will take a good nine to 12 months."
But if the big publishers rush Wii tiles out the door, the Wii could get a reputation for having nothing but crap ports, and lose some of its appeal. On the other hand, with the lag time involved in video games, market share might be cemented before that could happen.
Lots of jobs could benefit from a little artistic knowledge. My father, who remodeled houses for a living, had this problem. He was very handy with drywall and carpet and cabinetry, but he would frequently pick out these garish paint colors that ended up making a room look hideous. I don't need my contractor to be Picasso, but I would like him to be able to pick out some pleasing paint and carpet colors. Likewise, someone with a little design knowledge and solid coding skills can certainly put together a better website than someone with solid coding skills and no design knowledge.
The article says that reviews for EA games have been getting worse since two years ago. That's about when EA started signing exclusive licensing agreements with professional sports. Without an NFL 2K7, why does Madden 07 have to be any better? If you want to play as your favorite NFL team, you have to go wtih Madden.
The article also cites alot of movie and comic book license games as proof of declining quality. But again, EA has the inside track on a lot of that IP. They are one of the few companies big enough to lock up the pricey licenses. There is a reason that Rare never made another James Bond game after their biggest hit, GoldenEye. EA is a giant, multi-platform developer who could pay Universal Studios a lot of money for exclusive rights to James Bond.
And when a kid goes to the store, he doesn't say "That game is an EA game, so it must suck," he says, "That is a Superman game, so it must suck." EA's reputation doesn't get tarnished when Superman Returns sucks. What gets tarnished is the reputation of Superman games (already pretty bad).
Right now, EA has the money and clout to get a lot of exclusive licenses. They can sell a lot of mediocre games with a great license, especially if they are the only ones in town with a game of your favorite series.
Oops, I meant Roger Dean, not Richard.
Yeah, I think that the 2600 game covers that promised so much and enclosed a game that delivered so little were one of the reasons for the 80's video game crash. The covers frequently would have cool alien landscapes - stuff that looked like a Richard Dean* painting. But the game would have a few colored blocks that moved around. It was such a disconnect, and a disappointment. I think Nintendo's early NES covers were a calculated response to that.
*for those too young, Richard Dean is an artist who does futuristic or surreal landscapes. His art graced the cover of many a Yes album in the 70's.
There was no love for Sony at the PAX this year. At the first Penny Arcade panel, an audience member took the mike and asked the crowd who had a DS. Over half the 2000 or so people in the room cheered or held up their actual DS. He then asked how many had PSP's, and the cheer was pretty small, maybe 1/4 or 1/5 of the DS response.
Minutes later, Gabe was asked what he thought about the PlayStation 3. He replied, "We won't be getting one at launch. It (the price) is ridiculous, and they need to know it's ridiculous." He added, "The future of gaming is the Wii-60," meaning, I guess, a combination of the XBox 360 and the Wii.
Microsoft and Nintendo also both had big booths (although Nintendo was only showing DS games, nothing for the Wii), but Sony didn't show up. It helps that both Microsoft and Nintendo have their headquarters a short 5 minutes from the venue, but there was zero Sony presence.
The article erroneously says it was Monday's strip. Gabe and Tycho made several strips in advanced, so they wouldn't have to work on comics while PAX was going on. Monday's strip was the last of those premades. The strip created at PAX will be up tomorrow. The link will be http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/08/30
Well, if Sony says they are on track to have 4 million PS3's in stores by year's end, it must be true.
We have absolutely no reason to doubt them.
That's the problem with pay-for-performance - it invites abuse. Whatever arbitrary benchmarks you set for the CEO/CIO/everyday employee, there will be the temptation to work to the benchmarks and ignore the longterm best interests of the company. Taken to it's extreme, you get an Enron or WorldCom, where executives spent most of their time making the books reflect performance that would enhance their stock options.
The reason it is directed at gamers is because, at least according to a lot of internet rants I've read (hey, some are even in this thread!), gamers hate the ESRB. Yes the ESRB is flawed, arbitrary, sometimes manipulated for commericial purposes. By reminding people that 6-year-old girls play games too, it might clue in the people who are so quick to cry censorship and see only the bad things about the ESRB.
Today's gamer demographic is much more diverse that it was 20 years ago. Game content is as diverse as movies. The twentysomething male gamer doesn't have to worry about it, but a lot of parents only have the ESRB to tell the difference between harmless kiddie games like NickToons, or something like Ratchet and Clank, which has cute cartoon animals on the cover and lots of shooting and blowing things up in the game. Sometimes our age group forgets that, and this campaign is to remind us.
Games get cancelled all the time for lots of reasons. But if this actually was a Rockstar game, instead of a game from another studio also owned by Rockstar's parent company, I can't imagine that controversy would have anything to do with it's cancellation. Rockstar is made up of a buch of smartasses and their success has been in large part due to the controversy they create. They have no reason to mess with the winning formula that they clearly love.
"The original design would have been safe but what seemed an innocuous change completely changed the dynamics of load bearing"
While the original design may have been safe in theory, it was unbuildable. The supporting rods would have needed to be threaded for their entire lower half (which wasn't in the original design) in order for the loadbearing nuts for the higher walkway to be put in place. And that threading would have been damaged to the point of uselessness when the top walkway was raised into place. The original design was flawed. The disastrous change was made to fix it.
Being a control freak company isn't always bad, (although it hasn't always been good for Apple - I'm not posting this comment from a Mac), it's just bad for a company claiming that they are pursuing greater 3rd party support. It makes it hard for you to play nice with others.
If you own the market, like Apple does for mp3 players and Nintendo used to for game consoles, you can get away with it, and it can be great for you. Apple is able to use its position as market leader to bring the record companies in line, which in turn only enhances their position. But the music industry hates it, and if they ever have an alternative to Apple, you can bet they will jump ship at the first opportunity.
The trouble is, Nintendo is a control freak company. They don't like to be dependent on 3rd party. They like to be in charge and they like to make money off of everything. When they were the only game in town, they could get away with it. If developers wanted to make a game, they had to do what Nintendo said. I remember some controversy in 1989, the president of Namco made some public comments about how Nintendo's control was hurting the industry. Nintendo responded by threatening to stop allowing Namco to make games for Nintendo consoles, and the Namco president shut up. When the PlayStation took off, it offered developers a choice, and Sony offered much better licensee terms. Nintendo hasn't been able to control developers since the mid-90's, but they still want to.
For the GameCube, Nintendo invested a lot in 2nd party support. They put a ton of money into Retro, Rare, and Silicon Knights. Despite having first crack at development hardware, only one company, Silicon Knights with Eternal Darkness, had a launch title ready. Retro was working on 6 launch titles. Of those 6, only 1 ever saw the light of day - Metroid Prime, and that didn't come out until a year after launch. Rare was supposed to deliver Kameo and Perfect Dark Zero for launch. Two years after GameCube came out, those games were nowhere in sight and Nintendo sold their half of Rare to Microsoft. Nintendo poured tons of money into those companies, and it didn't pay off at all. They had companies they controlled, but those companies couldn't deliver.
Now that Yamauchi has finally retired, maybe Nintendo can really change its relationship with developers. Maybe they can get 3rd parties on board in the competitive climate of today's console wars. But maybe a leopard can't change its spots.