For various reasons, which I shall not go into here to preserve the flame retardant-ness of this post, I ventured out to buy a Sony PlayStation 3 last week. Keep in mind the system has been out since November, 2006 so it's nearing its fourth year of being on store shelves. Now, I've been out of the console scene for quite some time and have pretty much been a PC/Portable gamer since I sold my 360 a couple years back; so imagine my surprise when I trotted into my local GameSh(t)op and was told that they were out. "No worries," I thought... "Just point me to the nearest place that has one," thinking to myself, "Hey, I live in the greater Seattle area; we're the bastion of technology and all things geek-ery. They're bound to have many of them all over."
Not so much, as it turns out. "Everywhere is sold out right now. Would you like to pre-order Final Fantasy XIII?" "You mean for a system I don't even have yet? ... ... ... sure okay (damnit)." Shocked... defeated... dismayed... I set on back home. I had just pre-ordered a game for a console I don't even have yet. Why? Because as I sat there, I thought to myself, "Self, what if you get the system, then go to get the game and the game itself is sold out? What then?"
See there's this crazy phenomena that console gamers have to put up with. It's called "availability." See when I built my PC, if Sapphire didn't have the video card I wanted, you can be sure that XFX, BFG Tech, ASUS and other acronym-based companies would make identical ones all within $10 of each other price-wise. When a game came out for PC that I wanted... there was never a fear of "If I don't reserve my copy, I won't get to play it." I go into Steam, click purchase, click next and then start downloading. This got me to thinking.
The central "advantages" of the console world are a) compatibility, as in if you get a PlayStation game, it's going to play on PlayStation hardware; no system requirements, no question "can I run this?" or not; b) development costs. Without having to make scalable games, you can design a game from the ground up for one piece of hardware and pump all the energy you can out of that hardware, this can bring development and post-release development (i.e. patches) costs down significantly. Then I started thinking about current generation hardware. Xbox Live! Updates, PS3 firmware issues and patches, game installs, game patches/fixes, web-browsing, social networking, movie watching (NetFlix, Blu-Ray)... these consoles have most of the advantages of PC's... except for one:
Availability.
Sure all those bells and whistles are fantastic; but right now they're only fantastic in theory. I still don't have my PS3. If this were a PC, I'd be gaming right now. So with all the advantages of recent years being stuffed into consoles, none of it matters if you can't get those systems into the hands of the people that want them. If you release huge games like Heavy Rain, Final Fantasy XIII, God of War III and the like in a month that you're running short on hardware supply, how can you expect to expand your install base? I honestly have to mention (for fear of firestarting) that if it weren't for Heavy Rain, Blu-Ray, and built in Wi-Fi I'd have probably walked out of there with an XBox 360. I'd also wager that Japan-centric titles also stayed my wallet-hand in favor of waiting, but it was still a moment of contemplation.
All being said, I plodded on home, sat down in front of my PC... loaded up BioShock, set some people on fire and felt better about myself.
Not so much, as it turns out. "Everywhere is sold out right now. Would you like to pre-order Final Fantasy XIII?" "You mean for a system I don't even have yet? ... ... ... sure okay (damnit)." Shocked... defeated... dismayed... I set on back home. I had just pre-ordered a game for a console I don't even have yet. Why? Because as I sat there, I thought to myself, "Self, what if you get the system, then go to get the game and the game itself is sold out? What then?"
See there's this crazy phenomena that console gamers have to put up with. It's called "availability." See when I built my PC, if Sapphire didn't have the video card I wanted, you can be sure that XFX, BFG Tech, ASUS and other acronym-based companies would make identical ones all within $10 of each other price-wise. When a game came out for PC that I wanted... there was never a fear of "If I don't reserve my copy, I won't get to play it." I go into Steam, click purchase, click next and then start downloading. This got me to thinking.
The central "advantages" of the console world are a) compatibility, as in if you get a PlayStation game, it's going to play on PlayStation hardware; no system requirements, no question "can I run this?" or not; b) development costs. Without having to make scalable games, you can design a game from the ground up for one piece of hardware and pump all the energy you can out of that hardware, this can bring development and post-release development (i.e. patches) costs down significantly. Then I started thinking about current generation hardware. Xbox Live! Updates, PS3 firmware issues and patches, game installs, game patches/fixes, web-browsing, social networking, movie watching (NetFlix, Blu-Ray)... these consoles have most of the advantages of PC's... except for one:
Availability.
Sure all those bells and whistles are fantastic; but right now they're only fantastic in theory. I still don't have my PS3. If this were a PC, I'd be gaming right now. So with all the advantages of recent years being stuffed into consoles, none of it matters if you can't get those systems into the hands of the people that want them. If you release huge games like Heavy Rain, Final Fantasy XIII, God of War III and the like in a month that you're running short on hardware supply, how can you expect to expand your install base? I honestly have to mention (for fear of firestarting) that if it weren't for Heavy Rain, Blu-Ray, and built in Wi-Fi I'd have probably walked out of there with an XBox 360. I'd also wager that Japan-centric titles also stayed my wallet-hand in favor of waiting, but it was still a moment of contemplation.
All being said, I plodded on home, sat down in front of my PC... loaded up BioShock, set some people on fire and felt better about myself.
