Business Approach Comparison Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox

[AzBat]

And one of the ways they court developers right now is through XBLIG, which is self-publishing. So I can easily accuse people of being stupid and reading what they wanted into a simple, non-ambiguous statement. The problem is that "indie" devs don't _want_ XBLIG. What they actually want is publisher level support and marketing without having to pay for it. They don't want to self publish on XBLIG. They want to "self publish" on XBLA, which has much lower volume.

Devs didn't want to self-publish on XBLIG because of how different & odd it is from other platforms. XBLIG requires peers to review games instead of Microsoft doing the testing/authorising themselves. XBLIG titles never did allow full access to the hardware & software that XBLA provided. If you wanted access to achievements, leaderboards or Kinect there is no self-publishing opportunity. Name me another platform where self-publishing is supported but it blocks so many hardware/software features.

Tommy McClain

 

[dumbo11]

So it sounds like:
- indie games run in the windows 8 vm.
- the 'indie' devkit will increase the windows 8 vm to 8GB of RAM, and decrease the game VM to zero.
- all games will be listed together in the XB1 store. (not clear whether it matters to a consumer whether the game runs in win8 or native?)

 

[warb]

So Marc Whitten is promising exactly the same access to every single person as AAA gets.

EVERYTHING that is under NDA? Whitten is bending the truth here pretty hard.

If Microsoft does not quickly deny these claims then it is probably what is really is:

I'd soon get sick of denying the claims of people who make a whole bunch of assumptions to put negatve spin on everything. MS should have some people on top of it at this point though.

Or they could spell it all out for us. Indie games will at least see the same hardware as "fully-fledged" games.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I think there's blame to go around on both sides for this. Microsoft could have clearly stated that self-publishing under indie games label would continue and that they would announce, in the future, changes in development and features (Live integration etc). On the other hand, the "news" outlets and gamers could have held off on jumping to conclusions and manufacturing controversy (like they always do) based on the lack of information.

 

[dobwal]

Isn't Sony always copying MS?

MS puts a hard drive into a console, Sony does the same.
MS creates Xbox Live, Sony creates PSN
MS requires fee for multi-player, Sony requires fee for Multiplayer
MS is indie friendly on X360, Sony is indie friendly on PS4
MS invests in a major FPS franchise (Halo), Sony invests in a major FPS franchise (Killzone)

etc....

To claim that Sony was indie friendly first is pretty rich.

To say Sony is always copying MS is also pretty rich.

Sony releases a console, MS does the same.
Sony releases a dual analog controller, MS produces a derivative.
Sony releases a bluray based console, MS is doing the same.
Sony has a GT, MS has Forza.

On another note. Consoles aren't PCs. Logistically its a lot harder to provide an cost effective solution while protecting the hardware's DRM when accommodating self publishing.

A billion indies releasing a bunch of crap wouldn't hurt the PC one bit. Its doesn't cost HP, Lenovo, Dell and any other PC vendor anything. It also doesn't cost MS anything to allow self publishing on windows. PC are open devices. Consoles aren't.

It you download an crappy indie title which doesn't work, you are not going to blame the PC vendor or MS because more than likely you didn't purchase it through them. Nor are you likely to blame them if that title is laden with malware and it steals your sensitive info.

If either of those events happened on a console, Sony and MS would be readily targeted with the blame. Sony's and MS's business model forces them to act as a gatekeeper to the console. To support self publishing they have to bare the cost of providing and supporting an infrastructure that protects the ecosystem and yet allows anyone to have intimate access to the hardware. Having a bunch of people that can't be readily vetted but have developer access to the consoles provides an even greater hacking opportunity than linux did on the PS3. Furthermore, it will cost MS and Sony to wallow through and vet all the submissions they will receive.

In reality, there is no such thing as self publishing on a console. MS and Sony will have to play the natural role of a pub when it comes to indie titles. Look at what apple does with apps on idevices. It provides quality control, marketing as well as distribution. But its also gets to generate 100s of dollars in profit just from the sale of the device. App store sales aren't as responsible as console software to support the overall business of the product.

When an indie devs complains about consoles, they are only looking at the barriers and cost they face as individual entities, they don't take account barriers and cost MS and Sony face in trying to support the overall indie market.

 

[BRiT]

FFS, be mindful of the topic. For those who are having a hard time deciphering what this mean, enough with the product measuring and posturing over who copied who or who deserves props for doing it better.

If you can't keep from straying off topic, many of us are more than willing to hand out vacations from posting on the forums.

 

[dagamer]

So it sounds like:
- indie games run in the windows 8 vm.
- the 'indie' devkit will increase the windows 8 vm to 8GB of RAM, and decrease the game VM to zero.
- all games will be listed together in the XB1 store. (not clear whether it matters to a consumer whether the game runs in win8 or native?)

Why would indie games have more resources than AAA games which need to be limited to 5GB because of reserved RAM for the OS and apps? Heck, at least some of that RAM I'd for the OS, so no app or have will ever have full access to the entire amount of RAM on any system. This isn't the PS2!

It should be implicitly that there are clearly two types of "programs", those that run in the apps VM and those that run in the games VM. You can never have more than one app with assets in RAM in the game VM. Apps are likely to get between 256MB and 512MB of RAM with the last 2-3 apps stored in RAM. OS itself has 1GB and 1GB is likely reserved for future use or may be eventually given back to the game OS.

 

[dumbo11]

Why would indie games have more resources than AAA games which need to be limited to 5GB because of reserved RAM for the OS and apps? Heck, at least some of that RAM I'd for the OS, so no app or have will ever have full access to the entire amount of RAM on any system. This isn't the PS2!

They would not have access to 8GB of RAM - but the windows VM would have access to 8GB of RAM.

Normal console is thought to be something like:
5GB title, 3GB win8.

If the indie game runs in the win8 partition, then that could be reconfigured in 'indie devkits' to:
0GB title , 8GB win8.

In terms of RAM available to the final title, I have no idea.

 

[BRiT]

I took it to mean that Indie developers would have access to the "larger pool of ram" meaning their items would run in the "5GB title" portion. Though perhaps for the 'debug version' they would maybe have the "5GB title" be configured as "6-7GB title" but there would still be some portion of memory used by the "win8 OS" vm and hypervisor.

Of course this is just my own take on it. We'll likely have to wait for definitive details to be released to know for certain.

 

[blakjedi]

If indie titles ran in the OS partition then they are essentially windows 8 WinRT games...they can get universal publishing across the entire windows 8 ecosystem.

*IF* that's the case its a brilliant policy. That would showcase their games to many more millions of people than Xbox one will have access to at launch.

The question then is, why would any dev use the title VM?

 

[warb]

Indie games won't necessarily run on the application side. They've said no RAM limitation for indie's, and you'd want all the standard background functionality.

 

[ERP]

Indie games won't run on the application side. They've said no RAM limitation for indie's, and you'd want all the standard background functionality.

They could pretty easily run two win8 instances, one for the "indy" game instead of one win8 and one GameOS.

But they could pretty easily allow Indy development in GameOS as well. Shipping game images are likely encrypted, and the hyper visor will know if it's launching a signed app vs an in development title. So I'm not sure it's any more of a risk than not allowing it.

 

[Kaotik]

Not amazingly, because MS are currently useless at communicating. Quote:
Not, "we are going to be introducing new, easier, more inclusive policies for developers for developers which we're not ready to talk about yet," nor even, "our policy regards XB1 development for independent developers hasn't been decided, but it's premature to say it'll continue exactly as is." There was no hint at a different indie policy, only comments that 'we are always looking at new ways blah blah' and it would appear that MS found a new way thanks to pressure from the industry (internet bitchers and competition).

One can believe that MS lack of explicit information meant they were keeping their cards close to their chest, but the comments that were released to the public paint a picture of no such considerations going on. The fact it isn't ready for launch shows MS weren't planning open development for all from the outset, or else it'd be in the FW from day one. It's something they've decided to introduce later, requiring the software to be rewritten and updated. Either that or it's hideously complicated to implement.

I need to do some searching when I'm sober next time, but I'm 99.99% sure some MS representative said during E3 that they do have indie plan coming up, what they said (and you quoted) was true at the time but not what they planned for XB1 release, and that they'll announce details when they're ready.

 

[Blazkowicz]

They could pretty easily run two win8 instances, one for the "indy" game instead of one win8 and one GameOS.

But they could pretty easily allow Indy development in GameOS as well. Shipping game images are likely encrypted, and the hyper visor will know if it's launching a signed app vs an in development title. So I'm not sure it's any more of a risk than not allowing it.

I've thought having a game VM and an apps VM is a dumb idea, and that people are making things up. Game would better run on bare metal and a VM for apps already exists, it's called .NET. Then I've just read this http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=163849 so really, MS is running some kind of Hyper-V variant and two VMs on them. I can suppose it uses Vt-d so VMs can access real hardware if needed (and well, you need the GPU obviously!). The GPU offers at least two contexts so it can be used by two VMs at the same time? (similar to Geforce GRID).

Also this architecture makes it easy to do remote gaming! It sounds easy to host game VMs in datacenters (which I assume MS would do at some point in the future, if they take that decision) and beam the game via the internet to the consumer (they sell the technology already, it's RemoteFX).
At home the consumer would only need an appliance that runs the "Apps" OS (like the Xbox Loop or mini Xbox on ARM rumor, or just use Surface or PC)

What doesn't work well with remote gaming is the Kinect : you're adding round-trip latency and need for high upload bandwith.

 

[dobwal]

Layperson here. But i've read a couple of papers where the researchers' motivation for virtualizing a gpu isnt simply features like remote play or tansmedia. But because the current driver model isnt suitable for parallel programming.

The main job of drivers are to facillitate the interaction of the api and the gpu. Some researchers seem to believe that function should be moved to the hypervisor. Where i guess in MS's case the functionality is moved to the hypervisor's OS.

Direct X interacts with the hypervisor and the hypervisor interacts with the gpu with wider exposure to the gpu's functionality. Thereby providing developers better access to the programmabilty of the gpu. I guess this is where hsail comes in as you have a virtual unified isa that encompasses both the gpu and cpu? Also moving the critical policy decisions typically made by the drivers to the hypervisor OS which now allows the OS to control the QOS on gpu tasks.

Or am I wrong in my line of thought?

 

[Blazkowicz]

A VM can be foremost for security and isolation, e.g. Java, Dalvik and .NET are VMs and they run managed code that is somewhat sandboxed (the code can still "escape" and infect the host system if there's a java security vulnerability).

You don't need a VM to have an abstraction layer : you're idea can be similar to the concept of Gallium3D, the state tracker for Linux and FreeBSD that has drivers to talk to raw GPU (mostly the open source drivers for AMD and NV GPUs) and implementations of OpenGL, OpenCL and even DirectX 9 lately (by the open source community) on top.
You don't need an abstraction layer either when you run a VM. IOMMUs translate addresses when accessing peripherals (like a MMU translates memory addresses which is useful for multitasking already) so you do get real access from a VM if you want.

Where your idea is interesting is the Apps VM can be restricted to the indirect access you're proposing while the Game VM might be given the option of more raw access to the GPU (still with some kind of arbitration running in the hypervisor maybe)

 

[LightHeaven]

I don't think MS wants to loose about $70 per system and they wont ditch Kinect .




MS had very specific drum beats they wanted to hit to keep the one in the news. The problem is the forum warrior backlash on the DRM caused everything to go to hell .

The original plan was to talk up the tv features of the system , move into the games , then into indie stuff and finally go into Kinect features / drm closer to launch.

They were really naive if they didn't see it coming them... I know that's usually how Ms rolls, but they leaving for latter details about stuff their competitor is banking already was not the best option they could have done.

It's not like they had no warnings about that. Even when it was only a rumor the DRM talk generated rage, and sony kept gaining goodwill for months before xbox was even announced on being developer friendly with the Ps4...

I do believe stuff like self publishing was already on their plans, because the signs were all there really. But Ms, in general, needs to stops holding information when they are asked. I understand the need to message their plans at their pace, but as soon as someone questions about details they still haven't share they have to have people prepared to talk, at least to know they are going to talk about more of that in the future.

 

[LightHeaven]

Again, if they had this planned 9 months ago, it's another showcase of MS's inability to convey its message.

I'm not a PR expert but instead of saying "We have nothing to announce", they could have gone "We are planning to introduce new protocols, which I'm sure Indies will love, it has the potential to shape the market. Details will come pre-launch."(or maybe they could even name the specific convention they were planning if things were more concrete)

This would have created enough hype to give MS some time to breathe.

Anyway, this is megaton, IMHO. Very bold move. I too think it has potential for hacking, but if they allow development on the platform, there's going to be less incentive to hack the thing. Correct me if I'm wrong, PS3 hacking effort quadrupled after the removal of the OtherOS.

Yeah, I don't think the homebrew community will try to break a platform that already allow them to develop many kind of apps and let's you even publish them.

Pirates on the other hand, might, but I guess with everything being virtualized they can open one of the VMs to development without it ever compromising the actual system security.

 

[dagamer]

Yeah, I don't think the homebrew community will try to break a platform that already allow them to develop many kind of apps and let's you even publish them.

Pirates on the other hand, might, but I guess with everything being virtualized they can open one of the VMs to development without it ever compromising the actual system security.

Was the Xbox 360 OS even even fully compromised? It seems like most pirates used hardware hacks to trick the system into thinking game discs were legitimate, whether it be from the disc drive itself or a modchip. I have no doubt the security this time around will be even tighter.

And if you appease the homebrew crowd, the only people working on this stuff will be pirates, and much fewer people have an incentive to help them.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

PS3 had homebrew yet was still a target.