Curmudgeon Gamer
09 July 2007
The Race to Cut
Sony has announced a price drop. Other than "Do I buy in August or November?", my question is this:
Is Sony beginning the same kind or price war they started (and won) with Sega?
For context, see the text of this comment by MonkeyKing1969 on my post documenting price drops for the original PlayStation.
The blue laser diodes have reportedly dropped in cost. The Emotion Engine hardware has been dropped from the new 80Gb PlayStation 3. Sony has reported that they have nearly full capacity production of the PlayStation 3 systems. Ideally they should be able to drop prices as their costs change, and this $100 price drop seems to be part of that.
So what's different? Whereas I suspect that Sony controlled the production of almost everything in the original PlayStation and in the PlayStation 2 (except perhaps the RamBus stuff), they have a partnership with NVIDIA for the PlayStation 3's graphics chip, the RSX. That's an entanglement I bet they wish they didn't have. As I recall, NVIDIA and Microsoft didn't part on the best of terms from a similar relationship on the original Xbox.
Microsoft doesn't own everything in the Xbox 360, but it does own more than the original Xbox. Still, it does depend on IBM and ATI/AMD for parts. The Xbox 360 ain't no Saturn, so to speak, but I'd like to hear a professional's opinion on how quickly and deeply Sony and Microsoft will be able to reduce costs of their respective systems.
If Sony drops the price again in a year by another $100, I do wonder if Microsoft will be able to keep up. Perhaps at that point, Nintendo's Harrison will want to reconsider his bravado.
Is Sony beginning the same kind or price war they started (and won) with Sega?
For context, see the text of this comment by MonkeyKing1969 on my post documenting price drops for the original PlayStation.
The blue laser diodes have reportedly dropped in cost. The Emotion Engine hardware has been dropped from the new 80Gb PlayStation 3. Sony has reported that they have nearly full capacity production of the PlayStation 3 systems. Ideally they should be able to drop prices as their costs change, and this $100 price drop seems to be part of that.
So what's different? Whereas I suspect that Sony controlled the production of almost everything in the original PlayStation and in the PlayStation 2 (except perhaps the RamBus stuff), they have a partnership with NVIDIA for the PlayStation 3's graphics chip, the RSX. That's an entanglement I bet they wish they didn't have. As I recall, NVIDIA and Microsoft didn't part on the best of terms from a similar relationship on the original Xbox.
Microsoft doesn't own everything in the Xbox 360, but it does own more than the original Xbox. Still, it does depend on IBM and ATI/AMD for parts. The Xbox 360 ain't no Saturn, so to speak, but I'd like to hear a professional's opinion on how quickly and deeply Sony and Microsoft will be able to reduce costs of their respective systems.
If Sony drops the price again in a year by another $100, I do wonder if Microsoft will be able to keep up. Perhaps at that point, Nintendo's Harrison will want to reconsider his bravado.
--jvm at 23:53
Comment
[ 2 ]
17 April 2007
Gates: No strategy for a console (in 1996)
While I'm recovering use of my thumb, I've been doing some reading. I ran across this fun bit in a Next Generation interview with Bill Gates from June 1996.
We don't have a strategy to do a $200 game console that is a direct competitor to what Nintendo, Sega, and Sony are doing, and our business model isn't to charge software developers money. So if you compare a Nintendo game, where you've got to have that big ROM that's very expensive and pay a royalty, versus a CD-ROM on the PC, where there's a zero royalty, it's quite different.Just over a decade later and:
- Microsoft has released two consoles, one of which essentially was a Windows PC.
- Microsoft charges to develop for and publish on those consoles.
NG: So are the games Microsoft is developing primarily designed to showcase Windows 95?
Bill: No, it's to make money.
Labels: history, interviews, microsoft, xbox, xbox360
--jvm at 22:42
Comment
[ 10 ]
27 February 2007
Where is GNU/Viva Pinata when you need it?
On Sunday while out shopping with the family, my four-year-old son and I stopped in a nearby GameStop. I skimmed through the used PlayStation 2 and PSP games and he found his way to the Xbox 360 kiosk which was running a demo of Viva Pinata. He stayed glued to that for about five minutes, and as I was finishing up a peek at the GameCube games he came over to ask me to start "the pinata demo" again for him. We fired it up, to his visible elation, but he was soon bored with the series of chatty cinemas that run before you can play.
I looked at the time and realized we would need to leave soon, so after a few more minutes I prompted him that we needed to head next door and find his mother and brother. He dropped the controller and off we went.
As I was leaving, I realized I had glimpsed a bit of my future.
I don't provide rigid rules about which books he can get when we go to a bookstore, which movie we can watch together on Friday nights, or which friends he plays with at school. I do make suggestions, and the books and movies are for kids his age, but within reason he has mostly been free to pursue his interests.
So what happens in the next five years when he asks for a game console of his own? And what if he asks for an Xbox 360, hardware that I don't intend to own for myself until it has ceased production, at the earliest? Or Microsoft's next system? Or some future Microsoft handheld system?
In short, what if he wants to play Viva Pinata, or some other game that can only be had on a system that I refuse to buy for myself?
I looked at the time and realized we would need to leave soon, so after a few more minutes I prompted him that we needed to head next door and find his mother and brother. He dropped the controller and off we went.
As I was leaving, I realized I had glimpsed a bit of my future.
I don't provide rigid rules about which books he can get when we go to a bookstore, which movie we can watch together on Friday nights, or which friends he plays with at school. I do make suggestions, and the books and movies are for kids his age, but within reason he has mostly been free to pursue his interests.
So what happens in the next five years when he asks for a game console of his own? And what if he asks for an Xbox 360, hardware that I don't intend to own for myself until it has ceased production, at the earliest? Or Microsoft's next system? Or some future Microsoft handheld system?
In short, what if he wants to play Viva Pinata, or some other game that can only be had on a system that I refuse to buy for myself?
--jvm at 09:05
Comment
[ 11 ]
23 February 2007
Exclusives for the new generation
Platform exclusive features will be the replacement for platform exclusive games. The latest case is Spider-Man 3 for the PlayStation 3 which will have a special New Goblin mini-game.
We saw the beginnings of this trend last generation: Splinter Cell (exclusives map on PS2, GBA connection on GameCube), Soul Calibur II (platform-exclusive characters), and Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (original Prince of Persia emulated on the PlayStation 2, the sequel Prince of Persia 2 on the Xbox). It will only get worse this generation.
It used to be that you could buy all three platforms and the exclusive games for each. Now, to get access to everything you not only need all three platforms but also all three versions of a particular game. Lovely.
And, yes, I did buy both versions of Pinball Hall of Fame, one for my PlayStation 2 and one for my PSP.
We saw the beginnings of this trend last generation: Splinter Cell (exclusives map on PS2, GBA connection on GameCube), Soul Calibur II (platform-exclusive characters), and Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (original Prince of Persia emulated on the PlayStation 2, the sequel Prince of Persia 2 on the Xbox). It will only get worse this generation.
It used to be that you could buy all three platforms and the exclusive games for each. Now, to get access to everything you not only need all three platforms but also all three versions of a particular game. Lovely.
And, yes, I did buy both versions of Pinball Hall of Fame, one for my PlayStation 2 and one for my PSP.
--jvm at 21:28
Comment
[ 4 ]
06 February 2007
Why Manhunt 2 may not appear on PS3 and Xbox 360
Today Rockstar announced that Manhunt 2, sequel to the sadistic original game from 2003, will be published for the PlayStation 2, Sony PSP, and Nintendo Wii. While I am dismayed that another sadistic piece of garbage will be published, the choice of platforms is very interesting. If Rockstar were to simply port the version from the PlayStation 2 to the more powerful Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, they would be skewered for the lazy effort. They may avoid a full version of Manhunt 2 for those newer platforms, one that takes full advantage of the next generation hardware, because the end result would tread a little too close to real not just for the likes of Jack Thompson or even the ESRB but for the general public.
The passing generation of console hardware can do some amazing things. One has merely to look at Halo 2 and God of War 2 to see what the hardware can accomplish in capable hands. Yet those games fall measurably short of photorealistic. Most average people can still tell that the images on the screen aren't real.
For the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, however, the gap has narrowed. Moreover, this is Rockstar, creators of Table Tennis for the Xbox 360, a game lauded for its realism. On these newer platforms, the expectation of photorealism -- or some close approximation -- will be intense. Were Rockstar to make a photorealistic Manhunt, they'd need to show all the gore that had previously been chunky and blurry in the lower polygon, muddy textured PlayStation 2 game.
Manhunt is the kind of game that celebrates the image of a man's vain attempt to stuff his entrails back into his lacerated gut. No doubt there is a segment of the market that not only wants to see such sights, but in fact to cause them to happen. But the segment that stomached low resolution approximations of that scene on a PlayStation 2 is probably a good bit larger than the segment that wants to see a high resolution version, complete with pulsing, steaming, veiny intestines.
And Rockstar aren't alone in avoiding the bleeding edge of graphics. One of the most savvy moves I saw in the market last year was Valve's re-invention of Team Fortress. Imagine applying today's graphics to this original vision of TF2:
You would not come up with the form of TF2 that Valve has settled on:
So Rockstar has chosen to hit the platforms on which it can get away with this kind of game without crossing a virtual boundary. Beyond that boundary lies a whole new reality, the likes of which we have only begun to understand. I don't begrudge Rockstar's decision to avoid applying the full power of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 to the kind of game that would force us to ask some uncomfortable questions. I wish them luck and I'll be watching as always, an interested observer. However, the questions are still there: How real is too real? Which virtual activity will we, as a society, be willing to tolerate?
The passing generation of console hardware can do some amazing things. One has merely to look at Halo 2 and God of War 2 to see what the hardware can accomplish in capable hands. Yet those games fall measurably short of photorealistic. Most average people can still tell that the images on the screen aren't real.
For the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, however, the gap has narrowed. Moreover, this is Rockstar, creators of Table Tennis for the Xbox 360, a game lauded for its realism. On these newer platforms, the expectation of photorealism -- or some close approximation -- will be intense. Were Rockstar to make a photorealistic Manhunt, they'd need to show all the gore that had previously been chunky and blurry in the lower polygon, muddy textured PlayStation 2 game.
Manhunt is the kind of game that celebrates the image of a man's vain attempt to stuff his entrails back into his lacerated gut. No doubt there is a segment of the market that not only wants to see such sights, but in fact to cause them to happen. But the segment that stomached low resolution approximations of that scene on a PlayStation 2 is probably a good bit larger than the segment that wants to see a high resolution version, complete with pulsing, steaming, veiny intestines.
And Rockstar aren't alone in avoiding the bleeding edge of graphics. One of the most savvy moves I saw in the market last year was Valve's re-invention of Team Fortress. Imagine applying today's graphics to this original vision of TF2:
You would not come up with the form of TF2 that Valve has settled on:
So Rockstar has chosen to hit the platforms on which it can get away with this kind of game without crossing a virtual boundary. Beyond that boundary lies a whole new reality, the likes of which we have only begun to understand. I don't begrudge Rockstar's decision to avoid applying the full power of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 to the kind of game that would force us to ask some uncomfortable questions. I wish them luck and I'll be watching as always, an interested observer. However, the questions are still there: How real is too real? Which virtual activity will we, as a society, be willing to tolerate?
--jvm at 18:53
Comment
[ 9 ]
29 January 2007
A tiny defense of EB Games employees
I'll play against expectations for a bit and say that my one experience with Xbox-on-Xbox-360 compatibility in an EB Games was pretty good. Apparently the guy in this short story about an EB Games visit wasn't so lucky.
I was looking over the GameCube games when I heard an employee helping a woman standing in front of the Xbox games. I heard him say something about backward compatibility and how you could tell from looking at the boxes. That seemed strange, so I walked over and asked if he could tell me what he told the lady. He pointed to a BC printed on the price stickers for some Xbox games. According to him, that BC means that the Xbox game is compatible on the Xbox 360 according to Microsoft's official list. He further explained that if the compatibility list were updated, the price tags were not reprinted, so if I had a question about a particular game I could always ask or check Microsoft's site.
So, no, they're not all bad. But still, the story linked above is entirely believable because I've seen employees with a similarly loose understanding of reality.
I was looking over the GameCube games when I heard an employee helping a woman standing in front of the Xbox games. I heard him say something about backward compatibility and how you could tell from looking at the boxes. That seemed strange, so I walked over and asked if he could tell me what he told the lady. He pointed to a BC printed on the price stickers for some Xbox games. According to him, that BC means that the Xbox game is compatible on the Xbox 360 according to Microsoft's official list. He further explained that if the compatibility list were updated, the price tags were not reprinted, so if I had a question about a particular game I could always ask or check Microsoft's site.
So, no, they're not all bad. But still, the story linked above is entirely believable because I've seen employees with a similarly loose understanding of reality.
Labels: game stores, xbox, xbox360
--jvm at 08:50
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[ 3 ]
22 January 2007
A few notes on artistic games
A piece I wrote speculating on an aspect of games this coming generation is up on Next-Gen.biz this morning. The topic is what I call artistic games, and I thought it might be worth adding few comments here.
- I intentionally left the term "artistic game" vague, which some might feel is a weakness of the piece. I can certainly appreciate that criticism. There are a few games that folks generally agree are artistic (or simply art) and I tried to stick to those as examples to minimize the discussion of just what constitutes art and focus on the point, which is that an evenly split market may lead to a more conservative market.
- There are some notable exceptions to the observation that most artistic games ended up on the PlayStation 2. I think Odama would count, and I could even see The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker too. Maybe something oddball like Cubivore or P.N. 03? All the examples I came up with were on the GameCube and I couldn't think of anything on the Xbox, although that might be simply my relative lack of knowledge of the Xbox library.
- I had to exclude handhelds since there are more experimental, and therefore artistic, games in that space. In particular, I find several of the games from the Bit Generations line for the Game Boy Advance to be beautiful specimens of design.
--jvm at 11:12
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[ 9 ]
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