Consoles as We Know Them are Gone

[Kageru]

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2277507,00.asp

A highly inflammatory title which is grievously over-stated, but an interesting discussion. The comments against microsoft and intel sound valid, the suggestion that microsoft and sony over-extended on this generations console seens plausible and this gets my head nodding,

"All a console is is a giant DRM device. A console's job is not to enable you to play games, but to stop you from playing games you didn't pay for. If a console goes online, and plays community based games, its primary value, the reason Microsoft and Sony make the console and get a third of all the revenue, because they control the DRM and security."

[Stephen Zepp]

Wow--Orb sounds hauntingly familiar..../duck

[schild]

Alex St. John is a tool.

Wild Tangent used to be crap malware DRM-Riddled bullshit.

Then a guy made fate.

Fate was pretty awesome.

That guy is gone now, no one should be listening to Wild Tangent anymore.

[naum]

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2277507,00.asp

A highly inflammatory title which is grievously over-stated, but an interesting discussion.…

/yawn

Nothing new in that drivel… …if anything, trends today look like the console is going to dominate… …not like there's an absence of DRM on PC, in fact, there's another thread here about having to have CD in drive and I wrote there how that a big reason I just don't do many PC (or Mac) games these days…

[stray]

I hate it when World of Warcraft is used as a representative of PC games. Or even representative of games in general, for that matter. It's almost as much a service as it is a game.

[Ratman_tf]

He's completely wrong. We have gone over this. There's no excuse for people blaming their shitty-mcshit failues of games on piracy.

This fellow seems entrenched in his ivory tower of theories, safe and warm from cold reality.

P.S. Sims 2 is easily crackable. When I had to crack H&M Fashion (A legitamatley purchased copy) to get it to run on Windows 98, it was as simple as moving a file into the Sims 2 folder.

One drag and drop.

Sims 2 continues to be one of the most successful PC titles.

[HaemishM]

Alex St. John is a tool.

Wild Tangent used to be crap malware DRM-Riddled bullshit.

That guy is gone now, no one should be listening to Wild Tangent anymore.

QFT. WildTangent is a shit company, and "Orb" is a shitty idea. Consoles aren't going anywhere. The Wii just put the console in GRANDMOTHER'S HANDS, while MOM AND DAD are playing with Grandma, while GRANDSON is beating the shit out of his 360/PS3. The only thing keeping PC's a mainstream device is connecting to the World Wide Web and the World Wide Warcraft.

[Stephen Zepp]

Alex St. John is a tool.

Wild Tangent used to be crap malware DRM-Riddled bullshit.

That guy is gone now, no one should be listening to Wild Tangent anymore.

QFT. WildTangent is a shit company, and "Orb" is a shitty idea. Consoles aren't going anywhere. The Wii just put the console in GRANDMOTHER'S HANDS, while MOM AND DAD are playing with Grandma, while GRANDSON is beating the shit out of his 360/PS3. The only thing keeping PC's a mainstream device is connecting to the World Wide Web and the World Wide Warcraft.

You are contradicting yourself in the middle of your anger declaration:

and "Orb" is a shitty idea

The only thing keeping PC's a mainstream device is connecting to the World Wide Web and the World Wide Warcraft.

As he describes it, Orb is very much like IA, and at it's hard it's simply digital delivery and social networking  (you know, using that WWW you mention more effectively?) in a console-like manner on the PC.

[Venkman]

He's not using WoW as a way to explain PCs. He's using it as just one example of why all still-active MMOs are successful (and secondarily why they remain almost solely-PC games): constantly connected communities playing a game that the average person can't pirate and benefit from (yea there's all those folks hacking/cracking/'sploiting and selling for cash, but the entirety of the RMT industry is peanuts compared to just what WoW alone makes, much less when you add all the other sub-based games in).

The only thing keeping PC's a mainstream device is connecting to the World Wide Web and the World Wide Warcraft.

And that they were already there before both. Few pundits discuss the fact that PCs are not what you buy new of every three years like a console. There's some crazy legacy shit out there that are still fine for www and games. This is one reason social networking, online games, and social networking games took off like they did. That stuff works on anything, including Palm OS in some cases.

Also, his point about graphics is spot on. I love graphics and have a rig that can push them. But people aren't stupid, and they want engagement. Too many awesome looking crap has come out for people to just buy a game because of how it looks anymore.

I don't agree with him on the Xbox and PS3 though. The X360 sold itself also because of the graphics, but the connectivity was always what it was about. And the PS3 was trying to claim the same for awhile, until they realized just about the only thing they would be able to pull off, and therefore market the heck out off by holiday 2006 was the graphics. imho :)

[eldaec]

All a console is is a giant DRM device.

Wow. That's retarded.


I see consoles as largely worthless to me except for games that revolve around being drunk in a living room with drunk friends. But even I see that statement as retarded.

It is retarded because most people are not like me.


A console is a device for making games hardware cheap and making it fit into a living room without upsetting your better half. Those are not issues for everyone, but anyone who doesn't recognise that they are issues for most people is not someone worth listening to.

Consoles will always have a greater market share for ever more. For the same reason that Toyota outsell Aston Martin.


His DRM and on-board graphics thesis isn't even worth commenting on.

[schild]

Actually, consoles are a unified architecture. If there was only one line of graphics cards (and processors and mobos and sound cards) on the market for PCs, you can be damn sure we'd be in a better state for PC games right now.

That makes a pc a console. oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh.

[eldaec]

But consoles would still sell more units, and the original argument being made would still be retarded. And that would still be because console hardware would fit cheaply and inoffensively into a living room, whilst a PC still wouldn't.

Just because it is possible to make a TVR more accessible, that obviously doesn't mean it would immediately outsell a Ford.

[Salamok]

Main thing that killed consoles for me 10 years ago was Diablo.  Chat room + online multi player game + decent graphics=no desire to play a console.  Now with voice chat and gaming consoles being online I think I am ready to switch back.  If anything consoles have never looked better to me.

Also, console=better DRM is a meaningless statement in light of the online account limited to a single concurrent session being the best DRM to ever hit gaming (PC or Console).

[Azazel]

too long, badly formatted, didn't read.

Orb sounds like the Phantom.

[schild]

I had 2 PS3s logged into my account earlier, but they were both on the same IP Address.

But yea, single concurrent session is important.

[Kageru]

A console, especially the xbox, really is just a restricted PC. If the hardware compliance was tightened up, the DRM was integrated into the hardware (which is the reference to consoles being DRM machines) and microsoft would stop writing crap operating systems they'd be virtually indistinguishable. It's not like a lot of people aren't making media-PC's which are exactly that.

The only real difference is political. It's convenient to split the market into competing proprietary platforms. Although the games creators are obviously starting to find this restrictive given the increasing focus on multi-platform titles in an attempt to make back the money spent.

[eldaec]

A console, especially the xbox, really is just a restricted PC.

It's not *just* a restricted PC.

It's a pretty, disguised, restricted PC.

It's a PC with hardware that has been limited primarily in order to make it cheap.


Consistent architecture is a freebie bonus. It is a developer benefit. It is not why the mass market bought into the console concept.

Consoles took off because they are cheap and socially acceptable in the living room. Being easier to develop for no doubt helped at the margins; helped one console beat the others in each generation; but the games programmers were always going to support one platform or the other, and the market of people looking for a simple games platform that was cheap and fits into their living room electronics stack was always going to be there.

multi-platform titles

This is why I have doubts about how big a deal tighter hardware specifications or a single graphics card would be on PCs.

It doesn't seem that big a deal to release cross-console ports, despite consoles being a much lower spec than PCs. So it is hard to imagine that the variety of specification across PCs is killing many projects. PC projects get killed because fewer people buy PC games, not because the PC is so much more expensive to develop for.

Companies will whine about the variety of PC specs forever, because they see at as wasted effort. But I have my doubts that PC specifications wouldn't fall to console levels without the competition between component manufacturers.

[Venkman]

Consoles took off because they were sold as game (only) devices back when PCs themselves were still these big scary things. You bought an Apple //e or IBM PC XT to do things with. You bought a Colecovision to play games on. Now go back even further by four and five years and count the number of Atari 2600s vs the number of PCs in the average household, and then determine how many of the latter were playing games.

This whole thread is nothing new. We're in the, what, eighth generation of the devices (wikipedia says 7th*) and almost through the second generation of people who are growing up with them. The only thing that's changed over the last 30 years is the companies making them.

PCs enjoyed their heydey, but I always considered that a blip. Consoles couldn't get better because TVs themselves were limited by analog signals and low resolutions. But they always provided more opportunities for real social interaction than PCs by nature. And now with HD and connected, they're just going to take on even more features. Eventually they'll replace PCs even on the utility side, as people start moving away from the concept of keyboard/mouse/monitor/alone (that's decades, not months though :) ).

But when that happens, it won't be an industry dominated by two or three companies. It'll be like what PCs are today, with as much bitching by developers.

* Edit: Added wikipedia citation to correct myself...

[Salamok]

IMO consoles took off because of price and being able to standardize an input device suitable for gaming. 

Using a keyboard isn't all that great for immersion (unless in game chat is available), unfortunately no one ever put a strong enough foot forward and made 1 controller to rule them all for the PC industry (not counting the keyboard).

[Venkman]

Joystick.

But your point is otherwise well made. Even with Joystick games, you needed to use the mouse and keyboard to get there. And that's because the OS was designed around the keyboard, and then mouse, and then that's it.

[eldaec]

IMO consoles took off because of price and being able to standardize an input device suitable for gaming. 

Using a keyboard isn't all that great for immersion (unless in game chat is available), unfortunately no one ever put a strong enough foot forward and made 1 controller to rule them all for the PC industry (not counting the keyboard).

There was a standard input device for gaming before consoles.

It was a joystick.

Controllers were cheaper, and it turns out, people put up with them. God knows why I would want one on a PC when I have the vastly superior mouse available.

[Fabricated]

someone explain to me why I should care about someone announcing another web-delivery pay-to-play/subscription thing again

[Salamok]

Joystick.

But your point is otherwise well made. Even with Joystick games, you needed to use the mouse and keyboard to get there. And that's because the OS was designed around the keyboard, and then mouse, and then that's it.

the pc joystick didn't exactly keep up with the times and in no way would I ever state that it was the 1 controller to rule them all (past 1982 anyhow).  I was referring to them keeping up with the times and releasing a standardized game pad. 

[Salamok]

Controllers were cheaper, and it turns out, people put up with them. God knows why I would want one on a PC when I have the vastly superior mouse available.

hard to use a mouse while chilling on a bean bag, plus I haven't seen any player 1, player 2 mouse solutions.

[Jain Zar]

Consoles took off because they were sold as game (only) devices back when PCs themselves were still these big scary things. You bought an Apple //e or IBM PC XT to do things with. You bought a Colecovision to play games on. Now go back even further by four and five years and count the number of Atari 2600s vs the number of PCs in the average household, and then determine how many of the latter were playing games.

This whole thread is nothing new. We're in the, what, eighth generation of the devices (wikipedia says 7th*) and almost through the second generation of people who are growing up with them. The only thing that's changed over the last 30 years is the companies making them.

PCs enjoyed their heydey, but I always considered that a blip. Consoles couldn't get better because TVs themselves were limited by analog signals and low resolutions. But they always provided more opportunities for real social interaction than PCs by nature. And now with HD and connected, they're just going to take on even more features. Eventually they'll replace PCs even on the utility side, as people start moving away from the concept of keyboard/mouse/monitor/alone (that's decades, not months though :) ).

But when that happens, it won't be an industry dominated by two or three companies. It'll be like what PCs are today, with as much bitching by developers.

* Edit: Added wikipedia citation to correct myself...

The computers that did the biggest business as a home entertainment machine were the 8 bit computers.  Commodore 64 and in the UK, the Sinclair Spectrum.
They were cheap, easy to use, and better (well, the C64 anyhow..) to most competing consoles until the SNES/Genesis.  (Which the Amiga should have beat but Commodore couldn't market water in the desert...)

And the C64 used the standard Atari styled Joystick.  Which sadly never evolved once Nintendo showed us a controller with 4 buttons (even if 2 weren't designed as action buttons, a particularly stupid thing) and how useful it was.

(The Amiga later got multibutton controllers using the same pin setup, as did the Sega Master System and Genesis, which even went as far as a 6 button!)

You would think after Star Raiders and the kludges Imagic made for Riddle of the Sphinx and others made for Robotron that by 85-86 there would be nothing but multibutton sticks but there ya go.

[Margalis]

If the hardware compliance was tightened up, the DRM was integrated into the hardware (which is the reference to consoles being DRM machines) and microsoft would stop writing crap operating systems they'd be virtually indistinguishable. It's not like a lot of people aren't making media-PC's which are exactly that.

The only real difference is political.

Um you just listed the differences. While we're asking for DRM, a better OS and better hardware compliance can we ask for ponies also?

There's no difference between a console and a hot-dog...if the hot dog was electric and shit.

[stray]

Not always the case, but I think the way consoles are designed also dictate the nature of the games on them -- and the features of those console games carry wider appeal than the type that were geared with the PC in mind. So I don't think they're just more popular because the hardware is more standardized -- the games themselves are more streamlined/more visceral/more out-of-the-box. At the extreme, it's a difference between, say, Tony Hawk and Supreme Commander. And the former is simply going to be more popular with the kids.

Basically, it's not just a matter of this or that hardware component... It's a matter of design philosophy. And the philosophy behind console development has wider appeal than the PC one. You can't just say, "Oh, PC's can use controllers, so this or that could be just as popular on the PC if they ported it." It's not that simple.

Someone also made a good point above about how consoles share a relationship with the "TV". Whether it's conscious or subconscious, that association is going to be more convenient and easier to jump into than the PC set up.

[eldaec]

Controllers were cheaper, and it turns out, people put up with them. God knows why I would want one on a PC when I have the vastly superior mouse available.

hard to use a mouse while chilling on a bean bag, plus I haven't seen any player 1, player 2 mouse solutions.

Who the fuck uses their PC on a beanbag? You are confusing cause and effect. Few people use controllers (despite their availability) because their PC is not in the living room.

Though the "problem" would of course be trivial to solve if PCs ever became living room equipment. For that matter there are plenty of controllers on the market already, all of which use generic drivers. But who the hell would choose to use one when their PC is already on a desk and isn't going anywhere for reasons wholly unrelated to gaming input devices.

the pc joystick didn't exactly keep up with the times

Only because noone wants such a thing as mice are better for everything except flight sims. PCs still support them, and the drivers that support sticks also support controllers, since a controller is just a slightly less useful joystick, with the heroically pointless "advantage" that it is easier to hold and store in an environment your PC isn't relevant to (the living room).

[stray]

I don't think it's better. I mean, it really depends on what game it is. I think mice suck at an equal number of things that a joystick does. With the gamepad being a middle ground.

Mice are good at strats, most rpgs, shooters, adventure, while they would suck at flight sims, racing, beat em ups, fighters, and platformers -- things that work well with joysticks. Gamepads are satisfactory at just about everything except rts's and complex flight sims... And good at an additional category of games that wouldn't work on either mouse or joystick (say, like, Fight Night, skate, or Katamari).

[HaemishM]

A console, especially the xbox, really is just a restricted PC.

It's not *just* a restricted PC.

It's a pretty, disguised, restricted PC.

It's a PC with hardware that has been limited primarily in order to make it cheap.

Wrong. It's a PC with hardward designed to make it "JUST WORK" for the average numbskull user. That is the true beauty of consoles and why they will always be a bigger mainstream gaming device than PC's. You put a game in and it works. If it doesn't work, you get it repaired or replaced because it's a goddamn appliance, not a hobby.

As long as PC's have different configurations and you have a minimum and recommended set of requirements, PC's will lag behind consoles as gaming devices. Social networking games work so well on PC's because of their ubiquity and ease. Myspace doesn't require set up, it just works. WoW's 10 million subscription accounts are due in large part to the fact that it requires nothing more than an install to get the game working.

Instant Action will never be as big as X-Box Live Arcade, despite the possible install base for IA being larger (more PC's than X360's). Steam without Valve games would never be as big as it is with those games, which is why Orb will be shit, because it will still have to work on PC's.

[eldaec]

Wrong. It's a PC with hardward designed to make it "JUST WORK" for the average numbskull user. That is the true beauty of consoles and why they will always be a bigger mainstream gaming device than PC's. You put a game in and it works. If it doesn't work, you get it repaired or replaced because it's a goddamn appliance, not a hobby.

I don't disagree with you - but I guess this is also part of being cheaper, cheaper in terms of effort required, as wellas in terms of cash.

[Stephen Zepp]

Instant Action will never be as big as X-Box Live Arcade, despite the possible install base for IA being larger (more PC's than X360's). Steam without Valve games would never be as big as it is with those games, which is why Orb will be shit, because it will still have to work on PC's.

Time will tell for sure.

In other news, IA.com is the #1 Mover and Shaker on Alexa as of now.

One of the points Haemish makes is certainly true though:

Wrong. It's a PC with hardward designed to make it "JUST WORK" for the average numbskull user. That is the true beauty of consoles and why they will always be a bigger mainstream gaming device than PC's. You put a game in and it works. If it doesn't work, you get it repaired or replaced because it's a goddamn appliance, not a hobby.

We've spend endless hours trying to make IA as smooth and easy as possible for users, and still get dozens of people daily that simply cannot get it to work (gotta love betas!). And this is on one OS, with 2 browsers.

[Sky]

All a console is is a giant DRM device

Also, PC gaming is dead again? Heh.

PC Gaming: Dead since 1980.

[Ratman_tf]

All a console is is a giant DRM device

Also, PC gaming is dead again? Heh.

PC Gaming: Dead since 1980.

I thought ET for the Atari 2600 nuked this whole video gaming fad... we all just haven't noticed yet.

[Aez]

WoW killed PC gaming by making it too successful.