2) Because the platform owner has paid a sum of money to a third party developer/publisher in exchange for exclusivity.
Do console makers still subsidize "timed exclusives", where a game is exclusive to one platform for six months to a year while the third party takes the time to finish its port to other platforms?
4) Because the platform in question has unique features that are integral to the design of the game.
You mentioned 4a) games that rely on mouse and keyboard. These can be ported from PC to PlayStation 3 or 4, so long as the game also has a mode that works with the included DualShock controller. But I can think of a few more unique selling points of particular platforms, which can be considered subtypes of 4).
4b) Some games are console exclusive because they are meant to be played by two to four players looking at one screen rather than by players on separate PCs in a LAN. True, TVs have been usable as PC monitors since 2007, but I'm told it's still more common to put a console in the living room than a full-blown PC, and it'll remain so should the Steam Machine flop. And it appears Capcom and WB have warmed up to this route to market, releasing their flagship flat-stage one-on-one fighting games on PC.
4c) Some games are PC exclusive because they primarily act as platforms for community mods, such as Neverwinter Nights. These tend to appear on PC because modding inherently bumps into limits of the digital restrictions management inherent in both consoles and iOS.
4d) Some games are PC exclusive because console makers may disagree with a particular game's concept. H-rated eroge (erotic games), for example, tend to be far more common on PCs because console makers have an image to protect.
4e) Some games are PC exclusive, or at least the equivalent of a timed exclusive, because console makers tend not to want a studio's debut title. It is unclear to them whether a newly formed studio can consistently produce quality games.
Street Fighter IV or V? or Mortal Combat? or do you mean those very specific titles?
I mean platform fighters, a subgenre with three differences compared to the model of Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat. First, platform fighters let a player use the terrain of a stage to gain an advantage over other players, unlike the completely flat arenas of games like Street Fighter. This includes hills and platforms, hence the name. Second, many platform fighters allow more than two players in a match. Finally, platform fighters are more likely to have comical cartoon violence than the blood and gore of Mortal Kombat and are thus likely to appeal to players who don't get off on torture porn.
That depends on how well Xbox One backward compatibility works for offline play. Even if a game requires an Internet connection to install, one can install the game on a high-throughput connection and then play offline. This helps deployed members of the armed forces, who can install games before being deployed. It also helps gamers in rural areas who use a satellite ISP, who are subject to harsh latency all the time and harsh caps most of the day but can bring the console into town or use unmetered early mornings to download a game.
On the whole, consoles have even more digital restrictions management than PCs. The mechanism is comparable to app DRM in iOS, and the policy is even tighter than Apple's. At least PC games are available with hooks for community-made mods, and the PC platform allows GOG to sell games with no DRM at all.
I'd love nothing more than to go back to the days of console licensing being a nightmare for small developers if it meant we weren't flooded with their shit software.
In the old days, you didn't have Internet reviews at your fingertips. That's how you avoid crap in the modern era.
PlayStation game discs work on PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3, and PlayStation 2 game discs work on early PlayStation 3 consoles with the SACD logo. Inability to play PS1 discs on PS4 surprised me.
Nintendo has been good at keeping one generation of back-compat on its consoles from this millennium as well. Game Boy and Game Boy Color games work on Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Advance games work on Nintendo DS, GameCube games work on Wii, Nintendo DS games work on Nintendo 3DS, and Wii games work on Wii U.
Not that there aren't a handful of exceptions. For example, The X-Files relies on bugs in PS1 silicon and thus behaves wrong on later systems where the bugs were fixed. Guitar Hero On Tour doesn't work on DSi or 3DS, and Dance Dance Revolution doesn't work on Wii U, both due to included controllers that use the legacy ports.
Superiority would be a combination of performance capability
Say you're considering a $400 PlayStation 4 with one controller. What $400 gaming PC build beats it in the fourth quarter of 2015?
Say you're considering a $300 Wii U. After you subtract the price of a JXD S7800B tablet to replace the Wii U GamePad, what PC build beats it?
game capability
It depends on the genre. Platform fighting games like Power Stone come to consoles first and often only. I guess it depends on whether you're willing to settle for something like Duck Game as a substitute for Smash Bros.
graphic capability
And how about graphic capability in square inches? Couch co-op demands a monitor big enough for two to four people to fit around. Even if PC games push 1080p more consistently than console games, the median console monitor is still physically a lot bigger than the median PC monitor. I'm told few people are willing to build a second gaming PC for the living room or carry the gaming PC back and forth between the room with the computer desk and the room with the big freaking TV.
PC gamers control interfaces are superior in sensitivity and accuracy
The mouse and keyboard have only one pair of analog axes, compared to three pairs on the DualShock 3 and 4. Aiming's better with a mouse, but WASD are digital, making it harder to control run vs. walk speed than it would be with the left stick of a gamepad. PC games tend to be designed around digital WASD because it can't be assumed that players already own an Xbox 360 wired controller or other USB game controller.
The first StarCraft was ported to Nintendo 64, and Command & Conquer Red Alert Retaliation was ported to PS1 with serial port multiplayer between two consoles.
Let me know when PC has a counterpart to PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale or Super Smash Bros. series.
Sometimes, it'd take so long to load the game that the game makers would put in a little mini "loader" game for you to play while you wait for the actual game to finish loading in the background.
Such as Invade-A-Load by Mastertronic. That died out in the optical disc era because Namco patented it and nobody tried to use Invade-A-Load as prior art to invalidate Namco's patent.
They don't lose much (apart from bandwidth) by overseas viewers streaming on BBC iPlayer
Other than that the BBC doesn't own the worldwide rights to all programmes available through iPlayer.
and will likely generate extra revenue when the same viewers buy DVDs of programmes they enjoy from their local Amazon.
Export of BBC-produced programmes is handled through its BBC Worldwide subsidiary. At the top of the Google Search results for bbc worldwide from a PC in the US was an ad for Hulu. (Other search engines are available.) Perhaps you could bug BBC Worldwide to set up a counterpart to iPlayer for use in countries where BBC Worldwide has not already licensed exclusive rights to a particular programme.
Then who got Microsoft and Nintendo to change their policies? Back in March 2011, Reggie Fils-Aime of Nintendo likened "hobbyist developers" to American Idol contestants. But by late 2012, Nintendo was phasing out its ban on home offices. As for Xbox, it was originally announced that Xbox One developers would need a publisher, until Microsoft backpedaled in July 2013 and announced what eventually became ID@Xbox.
it may still not be worth it from the perspective of the lending institution to give you a higher credit limit if you are regularly not paying them interest.
If a lending institution gives me an $800 credit limit and denies me an increase to buy an $853.86 TV, it won't see its share of the swipe fee on that purchase. Instead, I'm more likely to buy it with a checking account through the Cirrus or Plus debit card network, which has a much lower swipe fee, and probably even from another bank on principle.
The biggest game for the Sega Nomad was probably Capcom's Super Street Fighter II, at 5 MB. The biggest executable for Apple's tvOS is 40 times that according to the summary, and that's even before the game downloads its asset pack on first launch.
Sure the screen is bigger, but the graphics aren't much better and you're monopolizing the TV.
But sometimes you want to monopolize the TV because that's more comfortable than trying to fit two to four adult bodies around a 19 to 24 inch desktop PC monitor, especially in games where sharing a screen doesn't mean splitting it. The idea of OUYA was to put indie games on a screen big enough for more than one person. It failed as a product but succeeded in getting competitors such as Sony Computer Entertainment to open up more to indie companies.
The $3 (or whatever) transaction fee goes to the transaction processor for handling the transaction. The interest payments (if any) go to the lending institution (for actually putting up the money that gets loaned out).
Not all of the transaction fee goes to the transaction processor. A fraction goes to the lending institution. And it is from this fraction that lending institutions are able to offer cash back or travel rewards to those cardmembers most able to repay.
Which companies require a Facebook account, and for what positions other than social marketing? And are these companies that Slashdot users would want to work for, compared to companies that find employees through LinkedIn or Stack Overflow Careers?
my understanding of the way it works here in France is that banks, et. al. can lend you as much as they choose to but they can't collect debt that you can't pay if they've loaned you more than you can pay back with 30% of your income. End result is that the banks balk at lending that exceeds that 30% soft limit.
Then how do student loans work? Where I live, child labor laws ensure that someone fresh out of high school (which the French call lycée) is unlikely to have enough work experience to have a large enough income to afford a loan to pay for university.
Also, what good would it be for an investor/bank to loan you money and you pay the money back in full every time without interests?
The Wikipedia article Interchange fee should answer some of your questions. If there's anything you don't understand, let me know and I'll work to get it cleared up.
Getting a bigger credit limit only to use it for larger payments just means you cost them more.
This biased source claims the opposite: $3 of every $100 you spend goes to the banking industry. In fact, American Express started out without revolving credit at all, instead requiring cardmembers to pay in full each month and relying on these swipe fees.
Buying a $1,100 bike on a $1,000 card may require presenting both carrot and stick:
Open a checking account at both the bank that issued your credit card and some other bank other than the bank that issued your credit card. For example, if you have a Visa card through JPMorgan Chase Bank, you might open an additional checking account at Ally.
Deposit $1,100 plus the minimum balance to avoid a monthly service fee into each of the checking accounts. A linked balance might satisfy the issuing bank's automated creditworthiness tests. This step requires not living from paycheck to paycheck, but buying a $1,100 bike instead of a $22,000 car is one way to build up enough savings to pull this stunt.
A week before the purchase, telephone customer service of the issuing bank: "I'm about to buy a one thousand one hundred dollar bike from $merchantname on $merchantstreetaddress. I believe my checking balance here clearly shows my ability to pay. Otherwise, I could pay with my $otherbank card, and $otherbank will get the swipe fee, not $issuingbank." You don't need to tell the issuing bank that the other bank's card is a debit card.
Also if you want to but a bicycle for $1100 and your credit limit is $1000 then just go an pay $200 into the account *BEFORE* you buy the bike, that way your account won't exceed the credit limit.
That depends on whether the terms of use of your credit card account allow payments in excess of the current balance. I've read mine, and they happen not to.
Slashdot Mirror
2) Because the platform owner has paid a sum of money to a third party developer/publisher in exchange for exclusivity.
Do console makers still subsidize "timed exclusives", where a game is exclusive to one platform for six months to a year while the third party takes the time to finish its port to other platforms?
4) Because the platform in question has unique features that are integral to the design of the game.
You mentioned 4a) games that rely on mouse and keyboard. These can be ported from PC to PlayStation 3 or 4, so long as the game also has a mode that works with the included DualShock controller. But I can think of a few more unique selling points of particular platforms, which can be considered subtypes of 4).
4b) Some games are console exclusive because they are meant to be played by two to four players looking at one screen rather than by players on separate PCs in a LAN. True, TVs have been usable as PC monitors since 2007, but I'm told it's still more common to put a console in the living room than a full-blown PC, and it'll remain so should the Steam Machine flop. And it appears Capcom and WB have warmed up to this route to market, releasing their flagship flat-stage one-on-one fighting games on PC.
4c) Some games are PC exclusive because they primarily act as platforms for community mods, such as Neverwinter Nights. These tend to appear on PC because modding inherently bumps into limits of the digital restrictions management inherent in both consoles and iOS.
4d) Some games are PC exclusive because console makers may disagree with a particular game's concept. H-rated eroge (erotic games), for example, tend to be far more common on PCs because console makers have an image to protect.
4e) Some games are PC exclusive, or at least the equivalent of a timed exclusive, because console makers tend not to want a studio's debut title. It is unclear to them whether a newly formed studio can consistently produce quality games.
Street Fighter IV or V? or Mortal Combat? or do you mean those very specific titles?
I mean platform fighters, a subgenre with three differences compared to the model of Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat. First, platform fighters let a player use the terrain of a stage to gain an advantage over other players, unlike the completely flat arenas of games like Street Fighter. This includes hills and platforms, hence the name. Second, many platform fighters allow more than two players in a match. Finally, platform fighters are more likely to have comical cartoon violence than the blood and gore of Mortal Kombat and are thus likely to appeal to players who don't get off on torture porn.
That depends on how well Xbox One backward compatibility works for offline play. Even if a game requires an Internet connection to install, one can install the game on a high-throughput connection and then play offline. This helps deployed members of the armed forces, who can install games before being deployed. It also helps gamers in rural areas who use a satellite ISP, who are subject to harsh latency all the time and harsh caps most of the day but can bring the console into town or use unmetered early mornings to download a game.
On the whole, consoles have even more digital restrictions management than PCs. The mechanism is comparable to app DRM in iOS, and the policy is even tighter than Apple's. At least PC games are available with hooks for community-made mods, and the PC platform allows GOG to sell games with no DRM at all.
If you are excluding previous generation games for consoles, then how would you analogously define a "generation" for PC?
Anonymous Coward wrote:
I'd love nothing more than to go back to the days of console licensing being a nightmare for small developers if it meant we weren't flooded with their shit software.
In the old days, you didn't have Internet reviews at your fingertips. That's how you avoid crap in the modern era.
PlayStation game discs work on PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3, and PlayStation 2 game discs work on early PlayStation 3 consoles with the SACD logo. Inability to play PS1 discs on PS4 surprised me.
Nintendo has been good at keeping one generation of back-compat on its consoles from this millennium as well. Game Boy and Game Boy Color games work on Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Advance games work on Nintendo DS, GameCube games work on Wii, Nintendo DS games work on Nintendo 3DS, and Wii games work on Wii U.
Not that there aren't a handful of exceptions. For example, The X-Files relies on bugs in PS1 silicon and thus behaves wrong on later systems where the bugs were fixed. Guitar Hero On Tour doesn't work on DSi or 3DS, and Dance Dance Revolution doesn't work on Wii U, both due to included controllers that use the legacy ports.
Superiority would be a combination of performance capability
Say you're considering a $400 PlayStation 4 with one controller. What $400 gaming PC build beats it in the fourth quarter of 2015?
Say you're considering a $300 Wii U. After you subtract the price of a JXD S7800B tablet to replace the Wii U GamePad, what PC build beats it?
game capability
It depends on the genre. Platform fighting games like Power Stone come to consoles first and often only. I guess it depends on whether you're willing to settle for something like Duck Game as a substitute for Smash Bros.
graphic capability
And how about graphic capability in square inches? Couch co-op demands a monitor big enough for two to four people to fit around. Even if PC games push 1080p more consistently than console games, the median console monitor is still physically a lot bigger than the median PC monitor. I'm told few people are willing to build a second gaming PC for the living room or carry the gaming PC back and forth between the room with the computer desk and the room with the big freaking TV.
PC gamers control interfaces are superior in sensitivity and accuracy
The mouse and keyboard have only one pair of analog axes, compared to three pairs on the DualShock 3 and 4. Aiming's better with a mouse, but WASD are digital, making it harder to control run vs. walk speed than it would be with the left stick of a gamepad. PC games tend to be designed around digital WASD because it can't be assumed that players already own an Xbox 360 wired controller or other USB game controller.
The first StarCraft was ported to Nintendo 64, and Command & Conquer Red Alert Retaliation was ported to PS1 with serial port multiplayer between two consoles.
Let me know when PC has a counterpart to PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale or Super Smash Bros. series.
Sometimes, it'd take so long to load the game that the game makers would put in a little mini "loader" game for you to play while you wait for the actual game to finish loading in the background.
Such as Invade-A-Load by Mastertronic. That died out in the optical disc era because Namco patented it and nobody tried to use Invade-A-Load as prior art to invalidate Namco's patent.
Uh, have you heard of smart pointers?
Yes, and the pre-C++11 std::auto_ptr was a confusing piece of crap.
Or RAII?
Isn't that the trade group that sues music fans? Oh wait, that's RIAA. But yes, I understand the advantages of automatic finalization.
Have you used C++ in the last 5-10 years
Last 4 years would be more honest, as C++11 added the smart pointers and other things that make modern C++ feel like modern C++.
They don't lose much (apart from bandwidth) by overseas viewers streaming on BBC iPlayer
Other than that the BBC doesn't own the worldwide rights to all programmes available through iPlayer.
and will likely generate extra revenue when the same viewers buy DVDs of programmes they enjoy from their local Amazon.
Export of BBC-produced programmes is handled through its BBC Worldwide subsidiary. At the top of the Google Search results for bbc worldwide from a PC in the US was an ad for Hulu. (Other search engines are available.) Perhaps you could bug BBC Worldwide to set up a counterpart to iPlayer for use in countries where BBC Worldwide has not already licensed exclusive rights to a particular programme.
Then who got Microsoft and Nintendo to change their policies? Back in March 2011, Reggie Fils-Aime of Nintendo likened "hobbyist developers" to American Idol contestants. But by late 2012, Nintendo was phasing out its ban on home offices. As for Xbox, it was originally announced that Xbox One developers would need a publisher, until Microsoft backpedaled in July 2013 and announced what eventually became ID@Xbox.
it may still not be worth it from the perspective of the lending institution to give you a higher credit limit if you are regularly not paying them interest.
If a lending institution gives me an $800 credit limit and denies me an increase to buy an $853.86 TV, it won't see its share of the swipe fee on that purchase. Instead, I'm more likely to buy it with a checking account through the Cirrus or Plus debit card network, which has a much lower swipe fee, and probably even from another bank on principle.
does it have more space than a Nomad?
Yes.
The biggest game for the Sega Nomad was probably Capcom's Super Street Fighter II, at 5 MB. The biggest executable for Apple's tvOS is 40 times that according to the summary, and that's even before the game downloads its asset pack on first launch.
Sure the screen is bigger, but the graphics aren't much better and you're monopolizing the TV.
But sometimes you want to monopolize the TV because that's more comfortable than trying to fit two to four adult bodies around a 19 to 24 inch desktop PC monitor, especially in games where sharing a screen doesn't mean splitting it. The idea of OUYA was to put indie games on a screen big enough for more than one person. It failed as a product but succeeded in getting competitors such as Sony Computer Entertainment to open up more to indie companies.
The $3 (or whatever) transaction fee goes to the transaction processor for handling the transaction. The interest payments (if any) go to the lending institution (for actually putting up the money that gets loaned out).
Not all of the transaction fee goes to the transaction processor. A fraction goes to the lending institution. And it is from this fraction that lending institutions are able to offer cash back or travel rewards to those cardmembers most able to repay.
Which companies require a Facebook account, and for what positions other than social marketing? And are these companies that Slashdot users would want to work for, compared to companies that find employees through LinkedIn or Stack Overflow Careers?
Used cars break down a lot
Even if you buy Certified Pre-Owned and do all scheduled maintenance per its owner's manual?
the whole payments system now revolves around credit.
Really? I thought it revolved around Debit MasterCard and Visa Debit.
my understanding of the way it works here in France is that banks, et. al. can lend you as much as they choose to but they can't collect debt that you can't pay if they've loaned you more than you can pay back with 30% of your income. End result is that the banks balk at lending that exceeds that 30% soft limit.
Then how do student loans work? Where I live, child labor laws ensure that someone fresh out of high school (which the French call lycée ) is unlikely to have enough work experience to have a large enough income to afford a loan to pay for university.
Also, what good would it be for an investor/bank to loan you money and you pay the money back in full every time without interests?
The Wikipedia article Interchange fee should answer some of your questions. If there's anything you don't understand, let me know and I'll work to get it cleared up.
Getting a bigger credit limit only to use it for larger payments just means you cost them more.
This biased source claims the opposite: $3 of every $100 you spend goes to the banking industry. In fact, American Express started out without revolving credit at all, instead requiring cardmembers to pay in full each month and relying on these swipe fees.
Buying a $1,100 bike on a $1,000 card may require presenting both carrot and stick:
Also if you want to but a bicycle for $1100 and your credit limit is $1000 then just go an pay $200 into the account *BEFORE* you buy the bike, that way your account won't exceed the credit limit.
That depends on whether the terms of use of your credit card account allow payments in excess of the current balance. I've read mine, and they happen not to.