We Won't See an Xbox 720 or PS4

[Logan Frederick]

We Won't See an Xbox 720 or PS4

Xbox co-founder and online games advocate Alex St. John has seen the light at the end of the console gaming tunnel and it's not shining on an Xbox 720 or Playstation 4.

"I think we're looking at the last generation of consoles. There's not going to be an Xbox 720 or a PS4, I'll make that bet, not going to happen," announced St. John, the Chief Executive Officer at online games developer and distributor WildTangent [http://wildtangent.com].

St. John is not just any industry executive making bold claims on the rise of digital distribution. Having worked at Microsoft, co-creating DirectX and convincing the upper brass to enter the console gaming business, St. John has knowledgeable insight into the future progression of technology.

"I made several observations about the console business and why it would be strategic for Microsoft at that time. What's interesting is that the assumptions that got Microsoft into the game business are also reasons why I think consoles may be at an end," he said.

Consumers are currently trapped in a frame of mind that has them purchasing consoles, something St. John sees changing in the near future as they break the binds of digital right management.

[blockquote]
The first is that from a consumer's point of view the console is an enabling game service. That's not correct. A console is a game-disabling experience. The console's job is to prevent you playing games you didn't pay for. The principal reason that Sony and Microsoft get a cut of everybody's games is because they prevent piracy. This allows the publishers to invest more money in a game because they can be confident that it won't get stolen and will have to be paid for at a premium. In a world where that is a driving factor affecting the economics of a game, you need a console. In a world where games are MMOs (massively multiplayer online) or community based that can't be pirated, I don't need a DRM (digital rights management) console any more.
[/blockquote]

The second major shift is from the relevance of graphics to multiplayer gaming.

"The era of consoles defined by graphics and high-production values is over," he says. "Sony and Microsoft took the bet that prettier graphics would be the huge differentiating feature for their consoles. They were wrong. Everybody expects things to look good, so making it look 10 per cent better doesn't have a big impact on its value. Since that's changed, we now live in an era where community defines the value of a game, not production values. So the community dynamics of an MMO are more valuable to a user than how good the graphics look."

In tune with his statements at Casual Connect [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/85256] last month, St. John says the Wii's reliance on peripherals is similar to how arcades diversified to stay alive once systems matched their graphics and technology. "When consoles came along and matched them for graphic capabilities, it destroyed that differentiator for the arcade business. The only arcade machines you can find left today are ones based on big input controllers which are expensive to put into the home: dance pads, steering wheels, guns," he noted.

When will we see the industry shift to focus on online distribution of games and the burial of consoles? St. John says it'll be when publishers get dollars from their digital distribution ventures.

He explains, "What we get today is publishers saying they'll try it and if they like what they see, they'll give us a lot more. I think it will take a few years for this model to mature with the big publishers but I would expect that eventually the ad-supported PC market will become analogous with the Xbox 360 and the PS3."

Source: Telegraph [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/2008/08/18/dlgame118.xml] via Joystiq [http://www.joystiq.com/2008/08/18/alex-st-john-were-playing-the-last-generation-of-consoles/]

Permalink

 

[Jumplion]

Despite the fact that I'm sick of everyone saying that the 360 and PS3 were selling on graphics alone (It's the god damn processing power of the PS3! It gives them more things to work with, do you see developers complaining that they can make the Graphics a wee bit better and then use the rest for AI or rendering?) I do have a weird feeling about this/the next generation of consoles.

It's the same feeling with the Wii, what is Nintendo going to do next that's "innovative"? I couldn't see them doing Virtual Reality suits, that's more of the high-tech things Sony would do. Make the motion control more responsive?

With the 360, what could MS possibly do to "improve" the 360? Not much, unless they want to pull out a new format out of hteir ass.

Same thing with the PS3, how are they going to improve it "technologically"? They could make Blu-ray more effective, or they could just make a brand new format, wait a few years, and put up that console with the Rnbw-Beem.

Though, now that I think about it, the handheld market is definatley going to outlast the Console market.

Something just makes me feel uncomfortable.

EDIT: Also, for some reason I can imagine the console business just like the TV business or the camera business, you know there are a bunch of "TVs" to choose from but which one to choose? That sort of thing. If there isn't going to be a 720 or PS4 or even a Piddle, then I could imagine that PC gaming would probably rule but I feel that PC gaming would rule as hard without hte Consoles.

Just a feeling...

 

[donbueck]

I'm not sure that you can tell a consumer that their console disables them, they simply don't care. I would also ask that if WoW looked like Everquest 1, would 8mm+ people still play it? Maybe I'm off-base there, but I don't think I would.

 

[shatnershaman]

Despite the fact that I'm sick of everyone saying that the 360 and PS3 were selling on graphics alone (It's the god damn processing power of the PS3! It gives them more things to work with, do you see developers complaining that they can make the Graphics a wee bit better and then use the rest for AI or rendering?)

A cell processor can make graphics? What?

 

[Logan Frederick]

I'm not sure that you can tell a consumer that their console disables them, they simply don't care. I would also ask that if WoW looked like Everquest 1, would 8mm+ people still play it? Maybe I'm off-base there, but I don't think I would.

The point is valid, but then I think you have to take that further. Will spending another $10 million on improving the graphics of a game give you another 8 million users? At what point does the cost of improving the game not yield the results to make it worthwhile?

 

[Jumplion]

Despite the fact that I'm sick of everyone saying that the 360 and PS3 were selling on graphics alone (It's the god damn processing power of the PS3! It gives them more things to work with, do you see developers complaining that they can make the Graphics a wee bit better and then use the rest for AI or rendering?)

A cell processor can make graphics? What?

I'm probably just dellusional, I hardly know what I talk about half the time.

 

[Bronzebow]

The point is valid, but then I think you have to take that further. Will spending another $10 million on improving the graphics of a game give you another 8 million users? At what point does the cost of improving the game not yield the results to make it worthwhile?

I think that's an interesting point. To me, it seems like there is going to be a minimum set of graphics that is deemed to be 'acceptable.' At the same time it seems logical that there would be a ceiling where most people would be happy with graphics that aren't QUITE that good, like a videophile bell curve.

I think that these two points are influenced by what is currently available, technology wise. With the improvements to televisions and hi-def capabilities, it seems to me like this would not be the time to mark as the end of this shift. I just can't picture now being the point where improved technology hits this sweet spot of "good enough" and "I don't want to pay that much money for that photo realistic game."

Mind you, I'm no expert. Just my two cents.

 

[Human Bomb]

All I got from this article is that the console market will die (mostly) because of the popularity of MMO's and community driven/digitally distributed games. That's great to say, but there is a twofold problem here. PC's are still damned expensive, both to acquire and upgrade, and it's getting little harder to find a home where you'll find a console or two and a gaming PC. There's also a bit of a barrier preventing people from going out (or staying in) and buying one or especially more than one MMO. The problem lies not in the Second M, but the first. The Massive one. You can only devote so much time, money and dedication to a game that needs all three to be fun.

Are PC games less fun?

No.

Do they cost less?

Nine Hells, no! You still have to pay for the software. (Ad supported subsidized gaming? No thanks.) And if a new game comes out, and you want it to look all pretty like the others? RAM and Video cards aren't cheap even on good sites, and it takes a bit of effort to upgrade if you do it yourself. Tack on monthly subscription fees and internet connections that have data limits before they start charging you through the nose.

As long as people want to just turn on a game and have it work, hold a game pad or wiimote or whatever, and hang out playing games on their TV, consoles will still have a market.

 

[anNIALLator]

No, consoles aren't going anywhere, at least until Computers stop getting out of date within a day of purchasing. Consoles offer simplicity - people can buy a game and play it. They don't have to worry about installing it, or buying a hyper conductive, nitrogen cooled, AI matrix from the future to keep their PC from melting when they play Crysis. As for digital distribution, why wouldn't it work on consoles? When you buy a console, it stays a console. they may break from time to time *cough 360 *cough, but they don't get viruses, they don't slow down and they take up less space. Yes, computers have the high end graphics, yes, they have mice and keyboards, but I don't have the money to keep up with the exponetionalising technology .

 

[masterhibb]

He's forgetting one very important thing: if I put a 360 game into my 360, it plays, simple as that.

If I put a game into my PC, 4 out of 5 times it looks like hammered cow pat until I go fiddle with some setting or other. Maybe I have to reinstall a driver, or go tweak an .ini file, or change my network settings to let it see the rest of the world. Worse yet, many games will have strange graphical glitches, or simply poop out to the desktop randomly, and there's nothing you can do about it until the devs release a patch 3 or 6 months down the road. It's not technically their fault, there's just some unique interaction with your particular hardware that does something they weren't expecting.

After all that, you still have to buy a new graphics card or some more RAM every 18-24 months because all of a sudden your new games are running at 15fps or fewer even on the lowest graphics settings. I bought my PS2 8 years ago, and there are still games being released today I can put in and play with no hassle whatsoever. Not to mention, if you're putting all this money into upgrading a computer, do you really want it to be the one that's hooked up to your television? It may not matter to the email/word processing crowd, but anyone who does video or audio editing, programming, or other tasks requiring intense calculations might rather sink that cash into the PC that they can sit at and use as a real PC. With a console, you only need one powerful computer, and then you buy a gaming box (you only have to buy once!) that costs about as much as a cheapie email/word processing computer.

There are more benefits to console ownership than piracy prevention and pretty graphics, and I really don't see those being completely met by the PC in the next 5-10 years. You'd think one of the co-creators of DirectX would have learned this by now.

 

[gibboss28]

No, consoles aren't going anywhere, at least until Computers stop getting out of date within a day of purchasing. Consoles offer simplicity - people can buy a game and play it. They don't have to worry about installing it, or buying a hyper conductive, nitrogen cooled, AI matrix from the future to keep their PC from melting when they play Crysis. As for digital distribution, why wouldn't it work on consoles? When you buy a console, it stays a console. they may break from time to time *cough 360 *cough, but they don't get viruses, they don't slow down and they take up less space. Yes, computers have the high end graphics, yes, they have mice and keyboards, but I don't have the money to keep up with the exponetionalising technology .

Since when have computers gone out of date within a day? 0.o

 

[fluffylandmine]

I believe some people need to visit the 'misconceptions of PC gaming' thread

It really comes down to personal preference as yahtzee said, a PS3 may work for you beter than a Wii, a PC could be better than a 360 as long as it meets your wants and needs in a system.

And yes soon consoles will be PCs and PCs will be cheaper and easier to make/upgrade. Then it'll be a battle of what parts you have because we need competition to make people want to improve and innovate so games will get better. We don't know what'll be next because we don't bother to think that far.

 

[Rath709]

The 360, PS3 and Wii are what I would call testbed platforms. They're the Pathfinder vessels that will lead to the Defiant Class that the next generation of consoles will be. Look at the way the Wii has seen call for and development of Motion-Plus. Look at the 360 and the way it's adopting Mii-like avatars and could be going for motion control. Look at all the different sized hard drive SKUs now available. We're being tested, and what we call for now (a hard drive for the Wii, gorram it...) will be expanded on in the next iteration.

 

[Jumplion]

I think some of you are missing the point (or I could just be delusional...again). This isn't about wether console gaming is dieing or if PC gaming is taking over, it's what we're going to see in the next-generation of consoles and frankly I'm a little worried.

When you look at the past 6 or 7 generations of consoles, there was a significant difference in almost all of them. You could tell the difference between an Atari 2600 and an NES, the difference between the SNES and the N64, the PS1 to the PS2 both graphically-wise game-wise and functionallity-wise.

Almost every generation improved something or added something, but with the current Consoles we have now everything is already maxed out to it's "potential" with graphics and functionalities (PS3 is basically one huge multi-media centre with amazing graphics). What could the Big 3, or even Big 2 or 1, improve on their consoles already (besides what indigo said)? There's nothing that I can think of that could improve consoles right now that wouldn't make them even more like PCs as consoles are definately turning into PCs now.

This doesn't just apply to Sony and MS, what about Nintendo? What are they going to do? They could beef up their Wii to support even more functions (WiiToo), but people arn't as stupid as we think, they'll notice that it's the exact same thing as the Wii but with better graphics (no, don't bring PS2 PS3 stuff, there's a notable difference between the two).

I hope I'm delusional, and that PS4 comes out with a VirtualReality helmet and that Piddle will help save lives.

 

[Logan Frederick]

The point is valid, but then I think you have to take that further. Will spending another $10 million on improving the graphics of a game give you another 8 million users? At what point does the cost of improving the game not yield the results to make it worthwhile?

I think that's an interesting point. To me, it seems like there is going to be a minimum set of graphics that is deemed to be 'acceptable.' At the same time it seems logical that there would be a ceiling where most people would be happy with graphics that aren't QUITE that good, like a videophile bell curve.

I think that these two points are influenced by what is currently available, technology wise. With the improvements to televisions and hi-def capabilities, it seems to me like this would not be the time to mark as the end of this shift. I just can't picture now being the point where improved technology hits this sweet spot of "good enough" and "I don't want to pay that much money for that photo realistic game."

Mind you, I'm no expert. Just my two cents.

We're probably reaching the "uncanny valley" point. I suppose their is some accuracy to that theory.

 

[Lt. Sera]

Am I the only one who still likes offline single player games? MMO this, multiplayer that..

 

[Rath709]

You're not the only one.

 

[HobbesMkii]

I think this guy's wrong. As a PC gamer, I see very little way it could carry the market. The trouble with the PC industry (and this is what causes all the tech glitches that makes people blame windows) is that unlike Consoles and Macintoshes, the PC market is varied. When you program for a console or a Mac, you have a single set of requirements (more or less, in Mac's case) that it will run on. You have to set minimum and recommended for PCs, because practically everybody has a different rig setup. It's unfriendly to the concept of mainstream, because while you might cut down on the graphics side, even non-graphically demanding games can still tie up tons of RAM (like Europa Universalis III). Combine that with all the background programs that PCs run that consoles don't, and people aren't going to be able to get the experience that the developer wanted them to get from their visually-complex, or feature-complex game. Also, they lack Tray 'n' Play.

I think what's more likely to happen is the moving of Consoles into a sort of hybrid-PC state, where they'll run your basic MS Office software, and possibly become more mobile like laptops, but while still maintaining a set of standards for each machine, so that programmers can develop games that will run across the line. Right now, it's easy for programmers to make good games that run well on a console, because they can be assured of a large audience that will achieve largely uniform results. Consoles are still pretty freaking cheap compared to computers, and I expect that they'll stay that way for the near future.

Also, I still don't think we're anywhere close to Uncanny Valley. The graphics just aren't there yet. They're impressive, yes, but they still smack of "hey, look, it's an obviously CGI cat!" sort of thing. And everybody in the entire biz of "realistic" looking graphics seems to be stuck on this idea of how light reflective everything is (for example, apparently every rock in Oblivion is covered in a thin reflective sheen of water). I don't walk into a room from the darkened basement and immediately get blinded by the window. But walk into a room in CoD4, or Halo 3, or Half-Life 2, and just that occurs. When I can't tell the difference between a videogame and video, that's when we'll be in uncanny valley.

 

[Lvl 64 Klutz]

Am I the only one who still likes offline single player games? MMO this, multiplayer that..

I was about to post the same thing. I play games when I want to get away from other people, and sometimes I feel like I'm the only one (Ok, that sounded unintentionally hilarious, but you get my point)

Unfortunately, he has a point and this IS where gaming seems to be headed. Just look at the gaming discussion forum. Any thread about favorite this moment or best quote, etc etc usually revolves around unscripted stuff, which scares me.