*spin-off* Importance of Backward Compatibility Discussion
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Yes, if the new console's clock speed was 3-4 times the old console. Note I didn't say "power", I said clock speed. Since the new console is almost half the clock of the old, there is almost zero chance of a traditional virtual machine based emulation.
The PS3 is a perfect example for this generation. To enable BC with the current console design, hardware would have to added. That hardware is costly. You don't add costly hardware to a console to enable a scenario that doesn't bring in more money, and, in fact, can reduce the new game sales.
Now, sure, they could have designed the console with a new PowerPC chip of some kind, but that would be almost as costly as the other solution. The chip would have to be huge, hot, and expensive compared to a jaguar. And even then, it would take work to enable BC. You would want out of order execution, which would change the timings for old games. The dev and test cost is substantial with a library the size of the 360.
You claim they're losing money by not giving you BC, but that's not really true. It would only be true if no one else bought the console you would have bought. They will easily be able to sell every console they make for the first year or so, thus no money was lost by you not buying a console.
There is significant latency associated with the pass thru interface. Which is fine for TV or other non-interactive content but not gaming.
It's hard to disagree with a lot of that even though I want BC. But you did completely ignore Joker & mine's point of making it easier for your existing userbase to jump ship to other platform. I think we're already seeing that happen since the other platform is technically superior & $100 cheaper to boot. I think BC would have diminished that somewhat. There's even stuff that they could have done better with the software & OS even if they didn't allow BC for games. I mean, hell, you can't even voice chat/message cross platform. You can only text message each other, WTF? That's the biggest crock of shit I've ever seen. They even dropped planned support for Skype for 360. Hell I'm better off buying a PSP or Vita for Skype functionality & use that to chat with Xbox One users. LOL
Tommy McClain
Yeah, but I already paid for those. Plus, doing all that extra work to re-release them on a different platform seems like a waste when they could have just left the original title on the Store & just made it accessible to the new platform.
Tommy McClain
For no BC, it's a disrupt to your customers base so it's always a thing you trial to avoid when you managed a line of products. And more than the money is on the services (Games, TV, DLC). Have BC easily a smooth adoption. And you can sell BC. Is a real plus in the two first years of console life, after is ROI decline quickly.
Other effect and probably the more negative, you give a very bad message for the future of Digitals sales… a effect not easy to estimated but real…
On the 20 gamers (PS3, 360) I'm really know, from 2-3 games years buyers (your Joe six pack aka Madame Michu in french term), to 20+ games/year, many are not happy with the fact that their digitals buying are not port for the next gen… So they not in good state for buying digital goods on the current and next gen. More than half have stop to buy digital on current gen after the no BC for One and PS4…
I'm known it's on a small sampling and not a marketing panel (and not the no brain customer that marketing like to sample) , but it's not a good step. The digital sales will grow on the next gen, right. But not in the range that they will do… On my little sample many are more easily to buy digital on their smartphones or tablets, than on console, due to this fact… Always give a trust face to customer…
And many are more easily switching for their next system… And you probably known the transition… One is not in a good position… (and PC and Steam got more attract…no so many but more than six months old).
But on my pov is normal, due to the poor marketing plan give by MS (a student give a better plan, they have good points, good ideas so normally is easy)… But it's often the case with short high margin vision, you 're lost the long run vision, and in fine you lost a lot of money, I saw this all days… And generally you also forget the target pov, damned in the past it's the first thing you learn, understood the target. It's like hunting you need to known the target.
P.S: And for the record, I don't give a oriented questionnary to my little sample, just let them speaking like I'm doing with customers. It's more work, but you have a better picture.
It's the same arguments. We all know what the arguments are now, the pros and cons of adding BC. What no-one has done is provide proof that BC is or isn't worth it. There's no evidence that an extra billion up front (maybe more?) to add BC is worth over a billion in returns. One can argue that there's no evidence to the contrary, but I'll take both MS and Sony, with experience of BC, deciding not to support it this gen as proof that it isn't worth the investment. They'll have the numbers and they both decided it's not a sound investment. It's even curious that neither provides a BC hardware module, as the most straight forward compromise moving the costs to the select end users who want BC.
So in conclusion:
Is BC valuable? Yes
Is BC wanted by consumers? Yes
Is it expensive to add? Yes
Is it worth the effort? No
Anyone wanting to progress this conversation rather than repeat it will have to take up the challenge of proving that MS and Sony were wrong and BC would have been of more value to them than not.
So in conclusion:
Is BC valuable? Yes
Is BC wanted by consumers? Yes
Is it expensive to add? Yes
Is it worth the effort? No
Anyone wanting to progress this conversation rather than repeat it will have to take up the challenge of proving that MS and Sony were wrong and BC would have been of more value to them than not.
But it isn't true BC unless you think sony will let you play already purchased ps3 games for free over Gaikai.
My 6 year old copy of resistance being able to be played for free on a ps4 would not bring sony money . You paying for gaikai monthly to play that 6 year old game does bring in money for sony.
That's the difference.
Aside from that MS will surely roll out their own cloud based BC. But I suspect it will be for all their devices and maybe even ipads and android tablets.
Reselling software, or even maintaining servers with an emulator, is a very different proposition to supporting old games on new hardware. The fact that people would like to play old games means there's value in providing that, absolutely. Via Gaikai, Sony can monetise that, or just pad out their servers in the early days while the service grows. BC as requested by gamers requires the company to either impact their hardware choices or to add costly hardware, as well as costly software aspects, which (as evidenced by both companies) exceeds what they would get back in terms of repeat custom.
So, to be exact, supporting BC per console (put old game disc in new console and it plays) isn't worth the effort.
@eastmen
I imagine that Gaikai will work in only if you have digital copies associated to your SEN ID or Sony might allow to convert physical copies into digital ones and by giving your physical copies you get automatically a digital version for your SEN account
Too complicated?
Of course Sony might sell old games digitally for cheap ($1-5) but that is not BC.
@Shifty Geezer
BC as we know it ins't worth the effort, I agree, but Sony's idea is to allow any PS game to be played through Gaikai so that BC then won't be limited or require specific hardware.
This is what Yoshida said: "We would like to deliver PlayStation games to all devices...We previously spoke about PlayStation going from hardware to something closer to a service, regardless of the device - of course PlayStation will still be the center, but I think we would like to expand to different things,"
All signs point to BC becoming a reality but in a much broader way that we have now.
I imagine that Gaikai will work in only if you have digital copies associated to your SEN ID or Sony might allow to convert physical copies into digital ones and by giving your physical copies you get automatically a digital version for your SEN account
Too complicated?
Of course Sony might sell old games digitally for cheap ($1-5) but that is not BC.
@Shifty Geezer
BC as we know it ins't worth the effort, I agree, but Sony's idea is to allow any PS game to be played through Gaikai so that BC then won't be limited or require specific hardware.
This is what Yoshida said: "We would like to deliver PlayStation games to all devices...We previously spoke about PlayStation going from hardware to something closer to a service, regardless of the device - of course PlayStation will still be the center, but I think we would like to expand to different things,"
All signs point to BC becoming a reality but in a much broader way that we have now.
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It will be interesting to see what the pricing is, I don't think however you will be able to play anything on the system without an on going fee of some description. i.e. I doubt any sort of outright purchase on the system.
It just doesn't make a lot of sense when Sony is having to pay for the servers based on usage.
What was Gaikai's original pricing model?
It didn't have one, it was used for demos on retail websites, like Walmart.com. Onlive would sell you games like retail, they tried to pull of a monthly subscription along with the per game price but dropped it quickly.
I agree, Sony is going to have to have a per-title or subscription model. The only discount I can see is PS+. What you bought physically or digitally can't really play into it, they can't give away server time just because you bought a game years ago for your PS3.
We do not know the latency, it could be quite small.
Sony and Ms wanting to offer a streaming service for xb1 and ps4 games on the consoles successors could lead to more pc ports.
Servers are mainly pc based so you would want those games to run on a pc and the best time to make your game pc compatible is when your creating the game not x years after
thats if sony and ms think ahead
Servers are mainly pc based so you would want those games to run on a pc and the best time to make your game pc compatible is when your creating the game not x years after
thats if sony and ms think ahead
Per title makes sense only if people get less hours use from the title than it costs to provide it. If someone buys a $60 game and then plays it for hundreds of hours eating up the servers (GTA, COD, FIFA), it'll be a loss-making exercise. The concept really needs either a subscription model or a pay-to-play model. I'm not sure consumers will go a bundle on that, but I'm not sure the economics of outright purchases makes sense. It depends entirely on average consumer's behaviour. If people buy lots more games than they play, it'll work in the traditional model, but I doubt it works out that way. Is OnLive even profitable?
liquidboy
Regular
Surface RT (Windows RT) is one example of "backwards compatibility", MS removed support for existing Windows win32 ecosystem of apps, that may of cost MS the tablet space.
Lets see how well Surface RT 2 works out for Microsoft , I would love to wager my investment property that it will fail big time!
Surface Pro 2 on the other hand I believe will do very well, where it fully supports legacy apps!
Point im trying to make is Windows 8 is one possible example where backwards compatibility was/is important and MS will learn the hard way of its importance ...
Lets see how well Surface RT 2 works out for Microsoft , I would love to wager my investment property that it will fail big time!
Surface Pro 2 on the other hand I believe will do very well, where it fully supports legacy apps!
Point im trying to make is Windows 8 is one possible example where backwards compatibility was/is important and MS will learn the hard way of its importance ...
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