Steve Dave Part Deux
Newcomer
I think Sony should create their own microprocessor architecture and go after Intel. Should be a slam dunk.
I hope that's extreme sarcasm. If not, we just might have to temp-ban you for suggesting Cell revival.
I reckon they should push the envelope, get chummy with Motorola, and resurrect the 68K line...
Pay for Play make perfect sense, especially for devs. The customer buys playtime - let's say 10$ for 20 hours. Whatever he plays - COD or LOU or FF5 - the playtime will be recorded and the money (minus a fee) will go to the respective dev/publisher.
Last gen over 200mil consoles were sold - 10$ per month for each amounts to lots more money than it's made today. Of course you could make the service tiered - starting from 5 up to 30$ for unlimited playtime/games.
Contrary to what one may think, I dont envision the end of the consoles, since you cannot hope to stream PS4 quality gaming. And economically, it doesnt make sense for a company to spend the money on computing power kept internally when they can offload the cost to the consumer - usually at a small profit.
I'm just saying "pay for game" as a business model is obsolete and it impedes profit-making for everybody in this business. I hope Playstation Now is the gamechanger (although 6 years ago my feeling was that MS could be more open to this ideea than Sony).
I find it interesting that there is even a big deal being made out of this. its the same failed tech as gakki and that other streaming service that went bankrupt .
It will be interesting to see how it works on hardware without buttons and analog sticks. But I have no interest in this outside of consoles and the amount of games from the psone/two era I would want to still play would be under 50 titles perhaps
At this point in time I am more interested in remakes from those era's of gaming.
It will be interesting to see how it works on hardware without buttons and analog sticks. But I have no interest in this outside of consoles and the amount of games from the psone/two era I would want to still play would be under 50 titles perhaps
At this point in time I am more interested in remakes from those era's of gaming.
Game streaming is just starting out. Gaikai is probably the most promising of the lot. Will have to see how well they execute.
TV, tablets and phones will just use a separate controller if necessary. These accessories are on sale today, even without Gaikai. There may be dedicated Gaikai gaming devices too.
Hecatoncheires
Newcomer
Sony is actually going after Steam right now by getting all the indies and b-tier devs into the PlayStation boat. In contrast to Valve, Sony can offer tons of AAA exclusives. Valve on the other hand always had exclusives on lower budget levels, but these times are gone. With the new console, Sony is stealing one of the most important pillars of the Steam success.
I also think you're euphemising the Steam concept a little bit too much. Only because it works great for the PC platform doesn't mean that it will become the dominating system in the gaming world (I'm probably misreading your post at this point, though). On AAA terrain, Steam simply can't compete with the game libraries of consoles and this won't change because 1.) of the 1st-party armada and b) because consoles are generating incredible revenues to software developers. On top of that, Valve will always rely on very expensive hardware to have the bulletpoint "graphics" on their side (it's PC gaming after all) and we all know what the $599 price tag means in the realm of console/mainstream gaming. PC gaming was always very hardware-centric and SteamOS and Steam Machines won't change that fact. In times where the budget of a studio is becoming the dominating and limiting factor for the graphical fidelity of a game, I can see this little detail to become a real problem for the whole concept of Steam. It's only a matter of time until PC gaming will lose the "graphics" bullet point. For the nerdy and technophiliac hard-core it will most likely remain the system of choice, but I really doubt that Valve will ever attract the commercially important mainstream. I'm the only one in my circle of friends who knows that Steam exists lol.
Simply put, at some point the cost of making a game with hyper-realistic graphics is going to be so high, it doesn't make sense to do it anymore. Also, we are soon entering diminishing returns for graphics, the jump from the 360/PS3 to XB1/PS4 isn't as high as XB/PS2 to 360/PS3. And when you have games like Angry Birds and Candy Crush raking in tons and tons of cash, that becomes far less appealing to developers (we already see micro transactions infecting even single-player games, frankly it sickens me).
I don't thinkl that's true. The cost to produce for PC and Valve is $0, assuming you have a PC. The cost to produce for PS4 is still $xxxx. Yes, Sony were 'generous' and gave access to SDKs for free, but they have now asked for these back unless the indies who already started their PS4 game pay $xxxx for the SDK. The indies you're hearing from about how great Sony are being are the professional, top 5% of indies. For everyone else, PS4 is still a hell of a lot more expensive than Steam, so won't be jumping into the PlayStation Boat any time soon - ticket prices for that ride are just too high.
Perhaps one of the biggest features of streamed games is no SDK. If the servers are PC based, just develop on PC. Play Now and similar services in the future could be completely free to contribute too with developers getting a %age of subscription, or Sony getting a %age of rental fees if games are rented per title.
The SDK price is measure of commitment. If you you can't put more than $0 into your work, the alarm bells should be going off. It's a low bar, but it keeps the rif-raf out. Sure anyone can make an Android or PC game, but there is so much crap because of the low costs. The barrier to entry should not be high, but some non-zero amount is not much if you are serious about your art and career.
pMax
Regular
Also, you don't usually need 10 sdk machines on a small company, I believe you usually need the console only to actually run the software...
What would be really nice for us PS3 owners is if a PS Now subscription allowed you to download the games to a PS3 and skip the whole streaming from the internet part. Remote play from a PS3 to a PS4, Vita and other devices inside one's home removes a lot of the barriers that the internet throws up when talking about game streaming.
You wouldn't even need to house the PS3 in your entertainment center. I would probably plug it directly to my modem and then use it to stream to my future PS4. I would definitely buy a Vita under such circumstances too.
Aren't free games from PS+ tied to maintaining a subscription? Doesn't seem all that difficult to do the same for PS Now?
Plus there are millions of PS3s out in the wild. Why not make use of them when it comes to PS Now? Its basically free infrastructure housed locally.
You wouldn't even need to house the PS3 in your entertainment center. I would probably plug it directly to my modem and then use it to stream to my future PS4. I would definitely buy a Vita under such circumstances too.
Aren't free games from PS+ tied to maintaining a subscription? Doesn't seem all that difficult to do the same for PS Now?
Plus there are millions of PS3s out in the wild. Why not make use of them when it comes to PS Now? Its basically free infrastructure housed locally.
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Not for PS4. There's a test kit which is something like €700-800 I think, and the SDK which is, I dunno, a couple of grand. Two and a half k to take a chance on developing for a console is certainly going to keep out the riff-raff, but it's also going to keep out plenty of creative types too. Ergo, Hecatoncheires is incorrect in saying Sony are in a position to pull indies away from Valve.
Indies covers both proper, established companies with a full business model, and bedroom coders working on a budget of zero, or pocket money. Until a console is open to all of those, it's not really indie-friendly. It'd be part indie friendly. It'd be elite indie friendly, or successful indie friendly.
That is a very restrictive definition of the term "indie friendly". And it seems only applicable to software because if you applied that definition to hardware, no platform would be indie friendly.
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