212: Destroy All Consoles

[Pendragon9]

I don't see this happening. At all. They're trying to topple all three gaming giants in this industry.

And as Jack Thompson will tell you, it is impossible to do.

 

[NeonAnderson]

no, consoles are not coming to an end and lol at some of the arguments in the article...

First of all OnLive is a TERRIBLE example to be giving.

OnLive promised a lot of things and made most of it up as they went (just look at the maximum range of their servers, i think you can find this number on wiki). OnLive will never work, it is too costly and no one wants to pay monthly only to have to pay again to buy and rent games!

You would need too many servers all over the world to get OnLive to even work at all, lets also not forget that OnLive does not really work nearly as good as they would want you to believe, often there is a delay, even at one of their demonstrations where they servers were not even that far away there was a delay!


As for the free to play games, once again a bad example, all free to play games have micro transactions along the line, i like to refer to them as hidden fees. You start to play the free to play game, get into it and just as you are starting to like it a window will pop up, want to get the most out of the game PAY FOR PREMIUM CONTENT... etc...

Free to play games are also way lower quality than normal games and thus for those who have the money to buy a console or to buy World of Warcraft, it is much more desireable than playing some shitty asian free to play game


Sorry but analists cant tell you everything, they cant tell you if you are going to live or die tomorrow, they cant tell you the future, they dont even have crytal balls!

They just look at numbers, but they never factor in everything and often dont even know anything about the thing they are talking about.

In this case its obvious they are looking at the gaming industry all to cut and dry...

Free to play games, no matter how big, will never bring up as much profit as WoW does NOR will they even bring up nearly as much fun as WoW does!

In the end, all that matters is the quality of the product, at this time, full paid for games have the highest quality and give the most fun, thus consumers will look at their options and if they have the money, they will go and buy a Wii, a PS3 or an Xbox 360. Or they will be buying a gaming PC.

Only people with limited amounts of money tend to play free to play games and often they draw their friends in who even might already own a console or WoW as friends like to play games with each other.

So to summarise, that article is full of shit
Consoles will always be here, PC gaming will always be here and OnLive is going to fail... badly... I mean come on... they dont even have plans for Europe yet, nor does it even seem at all possible for them to provide OnLive to everyone in the USA, due to the extremely limited range of their servers!!!

 

[GonzoGamer]

The eradication of gamestop is reason enough for me to hope streaming services are a success.
Bring it on.

It's also a great answer to anyone who was trying to shop for a next gen console and had to decide for an expensive toy, an expensive console that spontaneously combusts, or a ridiculously expensive console that doesn't. Those aren't great choices for any consumer group and I know plenty of people who haven't taken that next gen plunge because of those choices.

Then again, this probably will bring fourth a new breed of even more smug and self-important fanboy to annoy all the console owners they way they've been annoying each other.

 

[veloper]

It will never happen.

Streaming games is possible, but streaming last generation games never will be.

Suppose 1000 players per server, ten times less than a typical WoW server. So that's an increadibly generous estimation.
WoW is hugely succesful and Blizzard is swimming in dough, so a poorer busines will prolly need to cater to more than 10000 players per server to make a profit.

Only unlike WoW for this streaming business *everything* has to be done on the server this time.

Then what would be theoretically possible right now, if internet connections were all perfect and only the CPU proved to be a bottleneck?

A core i7 965 extreme edition can do about 75000 MIPS.
75000 MIPS /1000 clients = 75 MIPS per client.

A pentium 2 could manage about 800 MIPS. That was a good cpu back in 1998.

So even in the most optimistic scenario there is no way in hell they could stream games that less than 10 yrs behind the current generation.

 

[Ashbax]

while this streaming thing looks cool, and has the air of enevitability about it, it has one major hurtle to get over, and thats THE IDESTRY ITSELF.

Who says the comsole companies are going to let this happen? Consoles have been the norm for decades now and if one thing that history has told us, its that humans as a whole loath to deviate from the norm. alot of people are extreamly comfortable and happy with their consols and disks. these are the people that Sony and Microsoft target, the ones between the hardcore and the casual, in that gray area that continueously spits money at them. for the sake of these people, and more acurately the revenue they generate, the big boys are going to try thier dammedest to keep this new format out of their market.

And then there is the possibility that the Gamers themselves will defeat this. It happened to Nintendo and the Wii. Everyone was pretty pumped up about the Motion Sensor technology and its aplication to games, but when Nintendo failed to meet our unyielding standards in good time, the Wii was labled a "gimik" and has been on the fall in the hardcore eye for and grey area gamers for a very long time. the only reason it still exsists is because of the casual gamers, but that fanbase has severely stunted the consoles growth from the very begining, and if Nintendo doesnt do something soon, they may even lose them...

I see a sort of "Who Killed The Electric Car" EV1 senario developing, where streaming is given its chance, and then the console companies tag team with the big name developers (shifty eyes at EA and Activision) to bring them down by burring them in obscurity. It will be up to smaller developers to band together with the new streaming technogies to beat Sony and Microsoft into submission.

I for one, am excited about this, despite the fact that i can see its inevitable failure. there is room for true greatness here, as small time developers will have a slew of new opertunities to get themselve in the eye of the masses and really strut their stuff. if streaming technology does actually prevail, there could be so many more original and fresh titles hitting the theoretical shelves of the Internet and alot more people picking them up.

I am going to sit back and root for streamers, while tightly clutching my console as insurance in case they fail.

Yeah, while im skeptical about OnLive, Otyo, and Gaiko etc, If these things work like its said they will, Then they will completely render consoles obselete. However I feel theres quite a chance that maybe the devs are telling a few fibs...

And with your post, theres one or two problems. You said maybe the console/game devs might not let it happen, but a majority of them have already signed up with OnLive and agreed to let them use their current and future games if OL works.

And you said that the wii only exists because of the core fanbase, but the casual gamer population is alot larger than the Hardcore gamer pop.
Nintendo Wii - No. 1 selling console worldwide.
Xbox 360 - No. 2 selling console worldwide.
Playstation 3 - 3rd and worst selling console worldwide.

hard to believe Xbox and Ps3 are being beaten by...that...evil...white...nintendo...junk.

But then again, if OnLive works, the gaming industry will be turned completely upside-down and The big three will be obselete.

I hope its not coming out for at least three years, or it fails or something, because I am looking forward to project Natal to be released and perfected...

 

[Ashbax]

It will never happen.

Streaming games is possible, but streaming last generation games never will be.

Suppose 1000 players per server, ten times less than a typical WoW server. So that's an increadibly generous estimation.
WoW is hugely succesful and Blizzard is swimming in dough, so a poorer busines will prolly need to cater to more than 10000 players per server to make a profit.

Only unlike WoW for this streaming business *everything* has to be done on the server this time.

Then what would be theoretically possible right now, if internet connections were all perfect and only the CPU proved to be a bottleneck?

A core i7 965 extreme edition can do about 75000 MIPS.
75000 MIPS /1000 clients = 75 MIPS per client.

A pentium 2 could manage about 800 MIPS. That was a good cpu back in 1998.

So even in the most optimistic scenario there is no way in hell they could stream games that less than 10 yrs behind the current generation.

Um...well, we dont NEED to stream 10-year old games.
I mean, you dont see the Xbox 360 and Ps3 failing because they are very bad at playing games from just ONE generation ago, and 10 years is two gens, and games from that era dont have nearly the largest market in gaming...

 

[ManiacRaccoon]

While I am skeptical of their claims that this is going to inevitably replace consoles whether or not it is them who does it, the thing that really angers me is that they are bringing micro-transactions into this.

Asking your players to pay a one time price for all the content you release at the beginning is fine if there is enough content and/or it is good content. Even DLC is fine, since it usually isn't that much and delivers a sizable amount of content, and some companies have started releasing them on discs, such as Halo 3:ODST and the new Edition of Fallout 3 packing in all the previous DLC.

Micro-transactions, however, are the greedy, sneaky version of DLC. Whereas DLC provides updates and continues the games' fun, micro-transactions force you to pay out the nose for every single object you want and, in some cases, need to compete with the people who have paid for these things. Not to mention that Xbox Live's DLC at least lets you keep these things, unlike of some micro-transaction games I've seen, that force you to continue to pay for that weapon in order to keep using it. I would much prefer to pay $20 for something that I will enjoy maybe 50% of, and don't necessarily need to keep enjoying the game or compete with others online, and get to keep and re-download if I have to since I have already paid for it, than to have to pay several hundred dollars in order to compete with some person who's given the money by their parents to use it every week.

I realize the need for the industry to make money, but it does that just fine now, without charging the player for every single bit of content. Let me buy the whole game you developed first, if you try to withhold some of it in order to get more money, I'll just never buy your stuff. I'm not saying there aren't people who wont buy all those little things, but it means the rest of us get cheated out of a full game, and I bet some of those people still hate having to pay extra, but like those who provide the endless purchases of party games on the Wii holding back the development of other types of games (though that, at least, seems to be finally turning around), they don't realize that by giving in they are sending the message that we will all do the same. I, for one, will not.

Maybe the streaming thing would've worked out, but with the micro-transactions it just becomes a depressing chore. If this is the future of gaming, I'm hanging on to my Xbox 360, because the future is shaping up to be an expensive place. If they bring micro-transactions to the next wave of game design, I can only hope that more people will take a stand, and let the developers know that this is taking things too far.

 

[Ashbax]

no, consoles are not coming to an end and lol at some of the arguments in the article...

First of all OnLive is a TERRIBLE example to be giving.

OnLive promised a lot of things and made most of it up as they went (just look at the maximum range of their servers, i think you can find this number on wiki). OnLive will never work, it is too costly and no one wants to pay monthly only to have to pay again to buy and rent games!

You shouldn't make stupid accusations when you don't even have your facts (and grammar...) right.

You only have to pay once per month, then you can play all the games you want. FREE

Also, where did you come up with this idea that they are 'making it up as they go along'? They have been working on it for a while, and only recently gave out the details, and they haven't changed their story.
And obviously, they can set up servers in different parts of the world.

And you made the arguement that free-2-play games are lower quality, but these are all the SAME games made by the SAME developers that you get on our current gen consoles.

 

[gamegod25]

It's a bold plan but it's just way too soon.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

This sounds good in theory, but it suffers from one glaring fatal flaw. The bandwidth requirements for streaming games in real time would be huge esp. for games with current generation graphics and sound. Even current high speed broadband connections would probably be insufficient for handling such demand, nevermind that you're alienating those who can't get a broadband connection for one reason or another.

 

[veloper]

It will never happen.

Streaming games is possible, but streaming last generation games never will be.

Suppose 1000 players per server, ten times less than a typical WoW server. So that's an increadibly generous estimation.
WoW is hugely succesful and Blizzard is swimming in dough, so a poorer busines will prolly need to cater to more than 10000 players per server to make a profit.

Only unlike WoW for this streaming business *everything* has to be done on the server this time.

Then what would be theoretically possible right now, if internet connections were all perfect and only the CPU proved to be a bottleneck?

A core i7 965 extreme edition can do about 75000 MIPS.
75000 MIPS /1000 clients = 75 MIPS per client.

A pentium 2 could manage about 800 MIPS. That was a good cpu back in 1998.

So even in the most optimistic scenario there is no way in hell they could stream games that less than 10 yrs behind the current generation.

Um...well, we dont NEED to stream 10-year old games.
I mean, you dont see the Xbox 360 and Ps3 failing because they are very bad at playing games from just ONE generation ago, and 10 years is two gens, and games from that era dont have nearly the largest market in gaming...

Exactly. Streaming games would always suck.

Nomatter how far you go into the future, doing all the work on the server side would always result in an experience inferior to the crap 10++ year old hardware can do and hardware depreciates so fast, that kind of equipment is almost free.

 

[LANProfessor]

It's most likely that much of this is "marketing spin" just like OnLive is ... it's "Gee whiz" technology that really isn't practical for a myriad of reasons, technological and otherwise.

What's good about console (and even PC) gaming is the economy that it stimulates.

Were these streaming game technologies to actually succeed, I have to ask what happens when we're no longer buying new PCs because we can now play Crysis on a decade old laptop? What happens when GameStop and other establishments don't make a fortune from the resale business? Most importantly, what will Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony do when they see a slump in sales?

I suggest that these companies will casually watch and simply lower their price point in response. If gamers aren't buying technology to support their gaming habit, then companies like OnLive do ... it's a simple equation. As gamers aren't particularly well-known for their fanaticism about paying monthly fees for "services" (not WoW) so I expect that a double-whammy will devastate these companies before they even begin to see a revenue stream.

Consumer skepticism really isn't a good sign ... even after all the marketing dollars spent on fake fanboy sites like "onlivefans.com".

Sorry, but the age of the console is probably just beginning. A smart box is infinitely better than a dummy terminal, particularly when the internet connection is down.

 

[jmancube]

I don't desire for this to become the standard for PC gaming, and I do not believe that it will. Although this may appeal to those that don't modify or change the files of the games, this would definitely not appeal to me or to those that wish to get more out of a game.

By having the game on your own computer, it allows you to change or enhance your gaming experience to your own liking. And the best part of it is that it is free.

Some games are great on their own. Look at Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. It's an entertaining game without any additional content. However, when you add some community made mods or mod the game yourself, it becomes a much more entertaining game. A developer cannot make a game that appeals to everyones tastes but through mods, it allows the community to change a game to their liking.

Unless the OnLive system allows you to modify your files, I would not buy this product.

 

[Andy_Panthro]

"With server-side rendering, basically, anything that we put up on that system will work forever."

And if they decide that my favourite game is no longer worth their time hosting... then it will just go?

I play a lot of older games, this has absolutely nothing to offer me.

I'd also second what jmancube said, modding of PC games is great and I would hate to lose that function.

 

[Namulith]

They were saying similar things about WebTV, look how well that went.

 

[L-J-F]

Hell no! This is wrong and hopefully not going to work for SO many reasons, the first being:

"Perry calls this the "moneywall" - it keeps players away from the game and establishes a limit on revenues.
Free-to-play lets players spend as much as they want on a game. While some players spend only a few bucks, others spend thousands."

Honestly, who the **** would trust someone who said that? I mean, their main desire is to milk gamers of every bit of money they have to offer.


Secondly, even if I play on servers in my own country in MP atm (and yes, I have decent broadband), I get lag and chop to a certain degree (really noticing in an FPS where the other players can sometimes run at about 5-10fps). That is streaming a lot less than HD video and a signal TWO WAYS. Let me put this forward, a HD video (1080p - what I play on, and I wouldn't go any lower now I've got that on my PC) is about 12-15gb or so right? For 1 hour? So, no big downloads? You'd be using 10gb per HOUR and playing with worse lag than in online MP AND paying subscriptions and using microtransactions, effectively spending on average $300 a month (I think that's the figure). 300x12 = roughly $3.500 per year.

$3.500 per year. Who the hell is going to pay that much? I sure as crap wouldn't, especially not to "Perry" of all people, I'd sooner give my money to hitler. Not to mention using MASSIVE amounts of usage (10gb/hour = probably 40gb per day if you play for 4 hours (avg?) = 14560gb per year, that's 14terrabytes. Do you know how many games you could download for that?

For the same amount of dowload usage you could download 1456 games ever year. So even if you buy 100games per year (online) (a bit much?) this technology is still 14 times more inneficient than the current method.

That is a ridiculously long post so here's the gist if you're lazy (like me)\

* It's evil - all they want is every penny you can give them.
* Lag.
* 10gb per hour at 1080p.
* $3.500 per year? What about "no".
* 14560gb per year in usage.
* 14 x more inneficient than current model of online purchases.
* Microtransactions/subscriptions which >= even a "hardcore PC gamer"/year.

Honestly, this is wrong for SO many reasons, I just hope they don't find a way to get around the obvious technical difficulties and fuck us in the ass once again. "Alarmist" - why yes, that's because it's alarming.

 

[MortisLegio]

um... No

 

[The Random One]

Yeah, I join the choir. While thinking of what the consequences of such a thing would be is quite interesting, it's not going to happen soon, no matter what OnLive says. There just doesn't exist good enough streaming technology. A poster back there gave a lot of details so I won't doubt him.

I do thing that it can happen eventually, since the capacity of broadband and computers increase exponentially, but it's at least, to be very, very optimistic, 25 years from now. If it happens at any moment before 2034 send me a PM and I shall eat my own hat for your amusement.

 

[Andantil]

I'm horrified that this might work. If it does, PC gamers are going to lose what's most important to them: control. As a PC gamer you have power to alter virtually any file in any game and bend the entire game and all of it's mechanics to your whims, you can add any sorts of mods, change any textures or meshes, add your own soundtrack, even tamper with the AI if you know how. If games streaming takes off PC gamers will lose all modding power over their games and be brought down to the level of console gamers, stuck with vanilla releases and not able to even fix bugs.

I'm scared that Games which are infinitely moddable, like Fallout 3, Elder Scrolls, and the Unreal Tournament series, will die.

User made content is what makes the world go 'round these days and if they take that away gaming will become stale fast.

 

[Sewblon]

I hope that streaming succeeds, but I already see a major problem with the technology itself. What if my internet connection temporarily goes down? with services like Steam and Xbox Live once I download a game, I can play it without access to the internet, you can't do that with streaming technology, and what if the company you sign up with shuts down their services for maintenance or software updates? Cloud computing could revolutionize gaming, if they can solve those issues and give consumers some insurance that they would still have access to their games even if the company goes out of business.