I came across this article from 2001 and I get many Dejavu's
Broadband Consoles - A Pipe Dream?
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/a_pipedream
Its quite interesting that Sony's and MS's vision back then never happened (broadband and mobile gaming integration), only to start taking form 1 and 2 generations later. Perhaps MS's vision to use cloud server to augment games is still not ready. The claim that it can augment the performance of games (5T???) sound like the "broadband" fluff of 2001. It didnt take off. Its touted visual enhancements from cloud are practically limited as it appears so far and the benefits from cloud come from elsewhere. In addition MS's TV integration feature is not something that can be accessed by the whole market and it remains to be seen if and how soon a significantly larger market will have access to. In the future this will be a stronger card as the technology will be advanced and established enough for a bigger market to enjoy.
Now there are two things that may happen. Either the PS4 will be like the GC and XBone will be like the PS2 because Sony doesnt look forwards, or XBone will end up like the DC and the PS4 will end up like the PS2 because MS tried to bring features that the market isnt technologically and economically ready to use yet.
Most of us seem to forget that Sega was a very forward thinking company in the past too, grasping opportunities sooner than they could benefit from them. They were the first to try 3D glasses, motion controls, CD's, handhelds with colored and bright displays, integration with handheld devices like DC's PDA like memory unit, etc, (strategies that damaged them than benefited them) but the most notable was trying to implement online gaming (an effort that started on the Genesis), was tried n the Saturn and moved to the DC with plans of an online service. But the market wasnt ready to adopt them and the technology didnt keep up with the vision so the execution could not be fulfilled as visioned. Today all past failed efforts have become the standard. They work. They are strong selling points
When I read the above especially the bold it reminds me of the below DF regarding Cloud based augmentations
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-in-theory-can-xbox-one-cloud-transform-gaming
The two challenges - latency and bandwidth
Economic considerations: why multiplayer makes sense
Broadband Consoles - A Pipe Dream?
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/a_pipedream
Sony is like Nintendo in 2001. They say games are the primary purpose. Not a move that benefited Nintendo. An irony considering Sony's original vision to transform the Playstation platform into an all in one device. Hopefully this was just a PR attack and Sony will look seriously into providing more than just gaming features.Elsewhere in the interview, Gosen hammers home his thoughts on the way Sony and Microsoft are trying to market their products, and slams the multimedia device market, saying that Game Cube is a gaming device first and foremost, and that to do anything else in this market at the moment is suicidal. Gosen also slams his competitors' attempts to integrate gaming with mobile phones, saying that low-level ideas like the recent Pokemon Crystal mobile modem for serving statistics from Nintendo's servers can work, but that multiplayer gaming is not prepared for. He also makes an interesting point about broadband. Both Sony and Microsoft are using key market phraseology like "the centre of the home entertainment network" and "broadband-ready" to get people excited, and even Sega's new deal with Pace is to produce a "home gateway". The whole industry seems to be swooping on new standards such as DVD and the Internet, whilst ignoring what made it special in the first places; the games, or so he says.
Its quite interesting that Sony's and MS's vision back then never happened (broadband and mobile gaming integration), only to start taking form 1 and 2 generations later. Perhaps MS's vision to use cloud server to augment games is still not ready. The claim that it can augment the performance of games (5T???) sound like the "broadband" fluff of 2001. It didnt take off. Its touted visual enhancements from cloud are practically limited as it appears so far and the benefits from cloud come from elsewhere. In addition MS's TV integration feature is not something that can be accessed by the whole market and it remains to be seen if and how soon a significantly larger market will have access to. In the future this will be a stronger card as the technology will be advanced and established enough for a bigger market to enjoy.
Now there are two things that may happen. Either the PS4 will be like the GC and XBone will be like the PS2 because Sony doesnt look forwards, or XBone will end up like the DC and the PS4 will end up like the PS2 because MS tried to bring features that the market isnt technologically and economically ready to use yet.
Most of us seem to forget that Sega was a very forward thinking company in the past too, grasping opportunities sooner than they could benefit from them. They were the first to try 3D glasses, motion controls, CD's, handhelds with colored and bright displays, integration with handheld devices like DC's PDA like memory unit, etc, (strategies that damaged them than benefited them) but the most notable was trying to implement online gaming (an effort that started on the Genesis), was tried n the Saturn and moved to the DC with plans of an online service. But the market wasnt ready to adopt them and the technology didnt keep up with the vision so the execution could not be fulfilled as visioned. Today all past failed efforts have become the standard. They work. They are strong selling points
We agree with Gosen. When Dreamcast was first launched, the argument was that in time its Internet capability would win the market for it. This was an utter failure. Broadband didn't happen for the people Sega needed it to, and despite the Sony, Sega and Microsoft business plans to the contrary, it still hasn't. Uptake of ADSL in this country is limited to some 50,000 people so far, whereas in the USA, the system is plagued by problems with dodgy providers. Then there's the cost, in both territories. As for cable connections - for the most part, the companies that provide those have their own plans for the service with regard to gaming. Even Sony's plans to introduce broadband in Japan are meeting with problems. All of the companies hinging on this technology want to "pipe DVDs and television directly into your home" amongst other things, but they seem to have grossly underestimated the amount of bandwidth required for such tasks. Even the relatively simple process of streaming a movie using proprietary technology so that customers can pause a program mid-transmission and watch the rest of it saved to their hard-disks is going too far. DVDs running at full pelt usually use about 8Mbps, and many have said that Sony's fibre optic system in Japan, which is set to operate at around 3Mbps will be good only for low-movement scenes. Then there's the claim of a teletext style Internet interface amongst other things.
When I read the above especially the bold it reminds me of the below DF regarding Cloud based augmentations
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-in-theory-can-xbox-one-cloud-transform-gaming
The two challenges - latency and bandwidth
Economic considerations: why multiplayer makes sense