Next gen's gonna be the worst gen ever! *spawn

[Silent_Buddha]

MMO's alone are relatively tiny, roughly around 100-150M/month. FB and other social media stuff I have no idea about but it those don't really help NV all that much as they don't rely on GPUs.

I think you might be surprised just how much MMO's pull in. Sure traditional MMO's only pull in a fixed amount per user, but F2P MMO's generally pull in more per user than fixed monthly MMOs. And there's been quite a few formerly fixed monthly MMO's that have switched to F2P and doubled to quadrupled how much they were pulling in each month.

Amusingly EQ1 (still receiving expansions), the longest running MMO of all time currently, has just recently switched to the F2P model. Interesting because EQ2 did it quite a few months ago.

Good luck getting hard numbers though. Just like Steam, GOG, and other DD sales services we're unlikely to ever know just how much those F2P MMOs are pulling in. Although it's possible that some of the publicly held companies might release some info.

Regards,
SB

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Dreamcast, PS2, PS3 (pre-slim), and hacked Xbox already been there. Allowing the install of Linux as an OS. Although with varying levels of access to the hardware.

But they were never sold or positioned as such. That wasn't the reason you bought them. Precious few people bought a Dreamcast or Xbox to write letters to grandma! But next gen will be different because we'll have apps, and the consoles will be sold as much on their non-gaming tasks as anything. It'll be about services. Buy our box and watch movies, browse the internet, use Facebook and Twitter, message/chat with friends, play games, use web apps, etc. If company A advertises their box as "plays games" and the other advertises theirs as "does everything", all other things being equal the latter will get more interest because it offers better value. And as support for apps and services is fairly cheap, there's no reason to limit your hardware. If you're going to build a GPS box, you need a CPU and GPU so may as well support movie and music playback. If you're going to build a smartphone, you'll need a CPU and GPU so may as well support games. If you're going to build a console, you're going to have a CPU and GPU so may as well throw in non-gaming features. There's no sense to artifically limiting console hardware any more. Nintendo found this with DS and Wii. "We're all about the games," they said, and then added web browsers and media functions.

 

[Rodéric]

Could you do me a favour guys, and use "MMOG" when meaning Massively Multiplayer Online Game, because whenever I read "MMO" I think 'Massively Multiplayer Online', and your sentences make no sense...

 

[Arwin]

Could you do me a favour guys, and use "MMOG" when meaning Massively Multiplayer Online Game, because whenever I read "MMO" I think 'Massively Multiplayer Online', and your sentences make no sense...

Yes, because people are known to be terribly bad at this whole context thing, and then there's this whole player aspect of Multiplayer, which is also incredibly open to interpretation ...

 

[fearsomepirate]

Dreamcast, PS2, PS3 (pre-slim), and hacked Xbox already been there. Allowing the install of Linux as an OS. Although with varying levels of access to the hardware.

If you have to hack/jailbreak the hardware to use it, it's not an "open system." Yes, technically, you can make an PC out of OXbox parts with a mod chip and some other hackery. But it certainly wasn't a PC coming out of the box. And given that Sony could and did remotely disable OtherOS, that's not much of a PC, either.

Damn, those early Apple computers really weren't Personal Computers at the time then! As could not upgrade them with non-Apple products at the time. Or Texas Instruments early computers or some of Commodore's early computers. Or any of a host of other computer manufacturer's in the early days.

Yes, back in 1989, when someone said, "Did you buy a PC or Mac?" all you would get was a quizzical stare, because no one would have had any idea what you were talking about.

I already said the word has gray areas. I would consider Commodores, Macs, Ataris, etc to be in that gray area. Relatively inflexible hardware, but flexible software. The PS3 was on the outer edge of that gray are for a little while. If you want to call them PCs, fine. But you know what? I can store software on my TI-86 calculator. I've had both games and scientific programs on it. Is it a "PC"?

I'm in the camp that considers tablets and smartphones to be more "post-PC" than "handheld PC."

Considering you have freedom to write whatever apps you want on XB360 through XNA, it becomes a very hazy line to draw. Likewise, if PSSuite becomes an open platform like Android, then PS4 would satisfy your PC definition, no?

Then it's moving to be more "post-PC." Kind of a gray area if you want to view things on a "PC/not PC" linear scale, but I don't. I highly doubt either company will really let the platform be "open," though. There's too much invested in being able to control the online gaming experience now, and a key selling point of consoles has always been the relatively pain-free experience, which they can't do if anyone can write and install whatever software they want.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Then it's moving to be more "post-PC." Kind of a gray area if you want to view things on a "PC/not PC" linear scale, but I don't. I highly doubt either company will really let the platform be "open," though. There's too much invested in being able to control the online gaming experience now, and a key selling point of consoles has always been the relatively pain-free experience, which they can't do if anyone can write and install whatever software they want.

I won't argue that point with you as such issues of definition don't matter to the topic at hand and point I was making. Consoles as consoles are no more. They are to be replaced by universal machines of usefulness, whether those machines are to be called PCs, post-PCs, MPCDs, UMoU (Universal Machines of Usefulness), Whickymackers, or whatever else. The devices people buy will be either portables UMoUs, TV box UMoUs, desktop UMoU, etc. Some people will want to poke around with the innards of their machines, and buy a particular flavour known to many as PCs, but no-one's going to be particularly impressed with a box that doesn't do a bit of everything and only plays games. Hence the next generation of consoles will be the worst ever in terms of console purity (although it may be the best ever in terms of games or content, or not).

 

[hoho]

I think you might be surprised just how much MMO's pull in. Sure traditional MMO's only pull in a fixed amount per user, but F2P MMO's generally pull in more per user than fixed monthly MMOs. And there's been quite a few formerly fixed monthly MMO's that have switched to F2P and doubled to quadrupled how much they were pulling in each month.

Yeah, I know F2P games often pull in more than regular subscription based thigns. Hell, I've spent about one year of subscription fees in LotRO and a couple of months in Vindictus even though I've played first for about 2-3 months and other for one. Then again I can't see why I should want to spend more on either as I already have what I need anyway. Also, I'd dare say every other MMORPG combined won't get anywhere near the montly revenue of WoW

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Yes, back in 1989, when someone said, "Did you buy a PC or Mac?" all you would get was a quizzical stare, because no one would have had any idea what you were talking about.

I already said the word has gray areas. I would consider Commodores, Macs, Ataris, etc to be in that gray area. Relatively inflexible hardware, but flexible software. The PS3 was on the outer edge of that gray are for a little while. If you want to call them PCs, fine. But you know what? I can store software on my TI-86 calculator. I've had both games and scientific programs on it. Is it a "PC"?

You are still missing the point entirely. The Apple Macintosh was advertised as the Apple Macintosh Personal Computer. Notice the Personal Computer there? You are greatly confused.

At the time in the 80's everyone knew the Apple ][, Mac, C64, Commodore Vic 20, TRS-80, Amiga, Atari ST, and a whole host of other computers were "personal computers." Why? Because they were ALL advertised as Personal Computers.

What you are thinking of when referring to terminology is IBM PC compatible (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC_compatible ). That was used to distinguish common x86 based PC's which were not built by IBM from all the other PCs.

The whole IBM and Compatible part were later dropped fromt that as IBM basically became a minor player in x86 PC manufacturing and all the other brands of Personal Computers died off except for the Macintosh which was rebranded as the Mac.

And you totally missed the other part of what I was saying. Let me bold it just to make sure you don't miss it again.

Your definition that I quoted. Specifically refers to a "closed system" versus an "open system" not as to whether they are a personal computer or not.

A personal computer does not and has NEVER had a requirement of being user upgradeable much less user upgradeable with non-OEM parts. As well while a "PC" is obviously a personal computer it's not usually used as such. As I pointed out above "PC" (as generally used) is an abbreviated form of IBM Compatible PC or IBM PC Compatible used to denote an x86 based personal computer and not generally used to denote "personal computer".

And here ends today's computer history lesson.

So yes, a PS2 running Linux (no hack required) can be considered a personal computer. A PS3 running Linux (again no hack required) can be considered a personal computer.

And to back that up, I believe some countries in the EU originally allowed the PS2/PS3 to be taxed as a personal computer rather than as an electronic gaming device. Heck I believe it was even Sony who likened the PS2 to a computer when they were launching it.

Regards,
SB

 

[fearsomepirate]

SB, you seem to have read right over where I said " If you want to call them PCs, fine." Note also that the 80s were a long time ago, and word usage evolves.

I won't argue that point with you as such issues of definition don't matter to the topic at hand and point I was making. Consoles as consoles are no more...no-one's going to be particularly impressed with a box that doesn't do a bit of everything and only plays games.

Well, consoles that had non-gaming applications have been around almost as long as game consoles themselves. And yes, the new normal is for consoles to have more non-gaming applications.

However...

Note that conventional wisdom had for a decade said you had to have media disc playback to sell your machine. But what happened is that in the mean time, DVDs had so saturated homes that the Wii sold like gangbusters without a DVD player (and this was before either HD console had Netflix). What I see now is that TVs and media players are starting to have more computing power built-in. What happens when that computing power is so cheap and commonplace that either every new TV sold connects directly to the Internet and has enough processing power for all your home entertainment center needs, or everyone has net-connected "media boxes" hooked up to their TVs? If everyone's TV already has that capability in one form or another, it's not going to be a huge selling point for game consoles to also do those things.

Just like the days when the NES was competing against TV-capable home computers, a game console will have to offer something that the rest of the stuff plugged into your TV (or your TV itself) doesn't, especially as these boxes will have games available. IMO, the game console is going to stick around until the console makers run out of ideas--whether it's compelling first-party software, superior online gaming, or something else.