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[Imbarkus]

No rumors or concrete info here, just an idea I had for a console, that I thought I'd float out to GAF to see what sticks. The only photoshop mockup work I did was against some WiiU pro controllers. I don't necessarily suggest/advocate this as a Nintendo console, though to be honest they are the ones the concept best fits.

THE SETUP
We are all familiar with the point in time in which polygons and 3D modeling and movement helped move console game experiences from two dimensional movement, gameplay, and strategy to three dimensional gameplay. There's no denying it was a transformative time, characterized by watershed releases like Super Mario 64 that redefined gameplay interaction in a 3D space.

I propose a console that tackles and grapples with movement, gameplay, and strategy along the dimension of time.

THE FOURTH DIMENSION?
Yes I know full well the 4th dimension is not time, but rather something I cannot even conceive of. I watched that video where this high school kid put me in my place by being way more brilliant and able to understand actual physics, and you can too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGguwYPC32I

So, yes, I know "The World's First 4D Console... It's About Time!" is pure marketing drivel. Brilliant, earth-shaking marketing drivel.

THE MOCKUPS

And for fans of offset sticks I made this one:

THE SKINNY
Essentially the console "records" all of your gameplay progress and activities in a game, and this information is kept on your console and available the next time you visit the game. This is not a video recording, but rather a recording of 3D positioning and movement data, game variables and world data, game choices.

We've seen a couple of seconds of this concept executed in various racing games, or other games with a "rewind" feature. Think "Braid, the Console." That time-rewind feature is the concept of this console taken to the Nth degree, using it to solve a number of pernicious gameplay challenges that have plagued both 2D and 3D games, and maybe unlock games that take new forms.

This is why the Play/Record button is a combined entity. When you move forward you are playing and "laying down gameplay." Scrub back through that gameplay if you didn't like how you did, and play it differently, and lay down a new history of your exploits!

PROBLEMS SOLVED

• Why a Console? - What is at all unique about a game console now that they play the same games as PC's, patch and require online like PCs, use the same controllers as PCs, etc. Significant OS/engineering would be required to support this "4th dimensional" feature, something for which a dedicated console engineered for the purpose is best.
• Save Points - Eliminated, hit the stop button to stop the game. Come back, and pick up where you left off, or rewind from that point. Maybe a few seconds "lead-in" replay would get the player going. You could also add "Chapter Points" for people to use to be able to skip back to specific points in their playthough, if such a thing ends up needed.
• Checkpoints - ditto, in fact this development would actually, by necessity, change the whole concept of game difficulty (if in EVERY game you could rewind to just before you made a mistake).
• Cutscenes Plus - (added 3/13) full rewind, fast forward, pause support for all cutscenes, as well as in-game conversations, in-game scenes, all of it. How many like me always play with subtitles because we can't risk missing a crucial segment of dialog, unable to trust what can be paused and what can't... and knowing for sure next to nothing can be rewound?
• Branching Narrative - Easing the ability to "see" the whole game ensures branching narrative development is not wasted on players who "don't want to replay." Games could even safely shift to shorter experiences with more possibilities for where it could go, leaving whole sections of content unseen on a typical playthrough, knowing the game would be rewound and re-attempted.
• Streaming and Media - How about a rich video recording and editing suite with full camera control allowing you to build flythroughs or machinima of your playthrough? A simple microphone on the controller combined with a bundled or separate camera peripheral opens a lot of possibilities for recording and sharing... exactly what so many people are into now.

PROBLEMS REMAINING

• Engineering - I don't even
• Online Gaming - Um, well, this is why Nintendo is the first company that comes to mind with this. You could always disable those features online and still have the playthrough recorded for makin' videos of the exploits.
• VR - No reason why this concept wouldn't work with it, but given it's status as Big Buzz right now I should probably assume Nintendo is already work on "WiiR"
• Motion Control - Like above, this concept pretty much ignores all that and pretends that the unnamed Nintendo-like console maker is focused on controller-based console-gaming and what can be done in that area that can innovate and create excitement.
• No, Seriously. Engineering - I'm not sure of the challenges of "record all gameplay" but I imagine it would take a top-down engineered framework for tracking variables, items, whatever is recorded. I know PS3 Skyrim issues came from the amount of stuff recorded in the game saves and limits on memory. So put 128 GB of RAM into the thing or something I dunno I'm the idea guy. If it limits the amount of graphics whiz-bangs, then Nintendo's the shop to do it. Make it a handheld and you limit the graphics a bit, and yes, you could call it The 4DS.

THE CLOSE
It takes a little bit of thinking about this idea before you look into the ways it could change games. Development has become so expensive that houses are reluctant to put together content that is off the "critical path," yet at the same time all this development cost dumped into a roller-coaster thrill-ride game seems to impress less and less. So much discussion is about game length that you would think we are working a a one-dimension media! Let's spur some discussion of breadth, on depth.

My hypothesis here is that a console can come into this space with a dedicated, engineered function spurring a round of gameplay innovation from a top-down level in a way the PC can't. The N64 analog stick took an existing innovation and made it the centerpiece of a transformation in the way we interacted with our games, spurring innovation in the way we navigate 3D spaces.

I propose someone should do the same with the way we navigate our game TIME.

 

[Delusibeta]

So, in other words, you want all games to have Duke Nukem 3D Megaton Edition's rewind feature?

 

[Doctor_Thomas]

I dislike rewind features out of principle. A console desigened and marketed around it would be console I wouldn't got near out of principle.

 

[Orayn]

For feasibility's sake, I'm seeing this as more of a software than a hardware thing. You could design some advanced demo-recording and time-manipulating features into a piece of middleware that could be implemented in a variety of different game engines, then have some "family" or "suite" of games that make extensive use of it and perhaps link up to each other in some way.

That said, I think a focus on time could be a super interesting design space if devs really sunk their teeth into it.

 

[Imbarkus]

So, in other words, you want all games to have Duke Nukem 3D Megaton Edition's rewind feature?

Huh I'll need to play that.

I do know that most checkpoints suck, most save systems suck, and games with "branching narratives" like Walking Dead don't actually have the guts to develop whole swaths of game people won't see, so the choices don't matter very much.

Even a lot of very good games eventually don't get my full playthrough because they send me back, make me repeat redundant gameplay to get back to the guy that killed me, and articially extend their playtime as a result.

I'd probably revisit a lot of games if this feature was suddenly added. It was part of all the fine titles that graced "Game Room" as well.

Just imagine if developers never had to think about checkpoints, or save systems, or any of those fiddly mechanism bits that manage, control, restrict, enable or impede a player's progress through the game's TIME FRAME, as it relates to their life, stopping, and stepping away, or repeating a challenge, etc.

 

[CertifiedFP]

So, in other words, you want all games to have Duke Nukem 3D Megaton Edition's rewind feature?

Only the console version, which as far as I know, Megaton PS3 is just a reworking of the existing 360 port instead of the PC Megaton Edition.

Which disappoints me, considering that means the console versions have a bunch of extras and misc additions that the PC version is left out on.

 

[Noobcraft]

So Forza has been 4D since last gen?

 

[YianGaruga]

Huh I'll need to play that.

I do know that most checkpoints suck, most save systems suck, and games with "branching narratives" like Walking Dead don't actually have the guts to develop whole swaths of game people won't see, so the choices don't matter very much.

What solves both of those problems is quicksave / save anywhere. Branching storyline in adventure games can be fixed by how Virtue's Last Reward does it. There is no need for a console to be built around any of this.

 

[Boombox On]

Sounds like save states in an emulator.

 

[Imbarkus]

What solves both of those problems is quicksave / save anywhere. Branching storyline in adventure games can be fixed by how Virtue's Last Reward does it. There is no need for a console to be built around any of this.

What about that quicksave right before the big monster you didn't know was there when you were low on mana and life?

How do you name that quicksave, by date? What if the user accidentally deletes that one save they wanted?

If you quick save every minute through a particularly difficult encounter aren't you essentially recreating this feature at a manual and greatly reduced sample rate?

 

[YianGaruga]

What about that quicksave right before the big monster you didn't know was there when you were low on mana and life?

How do you name that quicksave, by date? If you quick save every minute through a particularly difficult encounter aren't you essentially recreating this feature at a manual and greatly reduced sample rate?

Yes. Just make quicksaves every minute and include a little screenshot and some information automatically. Maybe keep the last 10-20 and delete older ones. There is no need for the granularity you're requesting and you don't need a new console for it to work.

 

[MrBS]

OP I think this can/already be solved via software rarther than hardware.

Also bitterly disappointed this topic wasn't about Ken Kutargi's insane PS3 E3 keynote.

 

[abstract alien]

I want to see the OS and UI designed to take advantage of this.

 

[Kurdel]

And how does this differentiate itself from any quicksave+hard save feature?

 

[Imbarkus]

Yes. Just make quicksaves every minute and include a little screenshot and some information automatically. Maybe keep the last 10-20 and delete older ones. There is no need for the granularity you're requesting.

I think the reliable presence of these features offloaded from the developer would be of great benefit. The reliable presence of online social and matchmaking features was arguably one the big boons to the XBox 360 last gen, even though social features and matchmaking as concepts and code already existed and were implemented on a case-by-case basis by developers.

Who could have perceived at the time how the ubiquity and easy availability of those features would have transformed console game development last gen?

The quicksave/screenshot solution has existed forever, and does its dirty job on a case-by-case basis. There's room for improvement there, IMO.

And how does this differentiate itself from any quicksave+hard save feature?

Automatic, consistent, and reliable across all titles in behavior, control, and execution, because of its base-level design into the OS and functionality of the console.

 

[Refreshment.01]

Basically you propose what any game or software that records player inputs does? i don't know why you think we necessitate new hardware for this.

i always wanted the feature to record input data integrated into consoles at OS level. It is less wastefull than what consoles such as the X1 and PS4 are doing when video sharing. The only downside would be that the input data will require for the user to own the piece of software.

This is a feature you see a lot in PCs with emulators and it was more or less in "vogue" during the last part of the 90's early 2000's. Lots of games supported demo recordings.

At the very list you tried to come up with something interesting. There most be a ton of clever stuff we can do with the level of power and availble hardware we have right now that companies are failing to take advantage of because they want to move into the next new thing to make profits.

 

[YianGaruga]

I think the reliable presence of these features offloaded from the developer would be of great benefit. The reliable presence of online social and matchmaking features was arguably one the big boons to the XBox 360 last gen, even though social features and matchmaking as concepts and code already existed and were implemented on a case-by-case basis by developers.

Who could have perceived at the time how the ubiquity and easy availability of those features would have transformed console game development last gen?

The quicksave/screenshot solution has existed forever, and does its dirty job on a case-by-case basis. There's room for improvement there, IMO.

You're suggesting that this feature would be useful in every game though, which is very wrong. Some games would be a lot worse with it.

 

[Imbarkus]

Basically you propose what any game or software that records player inputs does? i don't know why you think we necessitate new hardware for this.

I imagine there are also world-state things to be dealt with, people filling their huts with wheels of cheese and all.

You couldn't just record input unless you were then going to "loop up" all procedural physics, AI characters, etc. etc. back into place when the game was restarted.

New hardware is, honestly, just a necessity because of RAM needed, but an OS level design for the feature, plus the branding and mind-share that it takes to make this something would require a new product with the concept front and center, IMO.

 

[TomShoe]

The 4-Dimensional console prototype in action:

 

[Kurdel]

Automatic, consistent, and reliable across all titles in behavior, control, and execution, because of its base-level design into the OS and functionality of the console.

I still don't see what that brings to the table, especially when you consider that not every game benefits from a quick save feature, never mind a dedicated hardware solution to do it.

Imagine the memory management nightmare! It would give devs of games like Super Meat Boy or Spelunky added work to cut it out, or install a deletion protocol and options.

 

[Imbarkus]

You're suggesting that this feature would be useful in every game though, which is very wrong. Some games would be a lot worse with it.

It is admittedly a feature that would be strongest with single-player games, skill-based games, in its naked form. CCG's... not so much.

But I was trying to go with something that fit "console" as I understand it.

But not only would it not fit all games, I pointed out it may even lead to development of new kinds of games, or at least existing kinds of games structured to be played differently. "Explored" rather than "completed."

If this could live on the same console with non-rewindable online multiplayer, the conept of the "linear single player game" might not even exist on the console.

 

[sade]

I don't see how this concept is related with hardware.

 

[Refreshment.01]

I imagine there are also world-state things to be dealt with, people filling their huts with wheels of cheese and all.

You couldn't just record input unless you were then going to "loop up" all procedural physics, AI characters, etc. etc. back into place when the game was restarted.

New hardware is, honestly, just a necessity because of RAM needed, but an OS level design for the feature, plus the branding and mind-share that it takes to make this something would require a new product with the concept front and center, IMO.

You' ll have to excuse me, im not neither smart nor well educated, so probably the idea is flying above my head.

What i can tell you is that all the scenarios and applications explained in your oppening post had been done (and are done) by recording player input. Even with games that rely on heavy physics use like Half Life 2 for example. Or for another nice real world example, take Mario Galaxy 2 in which something like the super guide exists, it allows for the failed player to let the game play a runthrough of the level with the option to regain control at any time. Or Prince of Persia Sands of time, or Blinx, or any recorded demo on an emulator.

i would say mainly the idea of new hardware is what im puzzled about in the first place and then why base the console just around one idea, an idea that has been used many times in gaming when a developer chooses to.

 

[bobawesome]

I know this isn't what you're referring to at all but this was the first thing I thought of when I saw the title:

 

[Capitan]

as long as I can violate causality, sounds good.

 

[Imbarkus]

Refreshment I'm no scientician either, but I think what you mention only works only if there is no randomization in the game. Recording an input-string playthrough of GTAV, for example, would fail to return the player to where they left off if a random car got in the way upon "restore."

Although it might be amusing in that case to watch the rest of the inputs play out and try to make up a little story for the onscreen action.

I know this isn't what you're referring to at all but this was the first thing I thought of when I saw the title:

Heh thanks I'd never seen that.

 

[Orayn]

You' ll have to excuse me, im not neither smart nor well educated, so probably the idea is flying above my head.

What i can tell you is that all the scenarios and applications explained in your oppening post had been done (and are done) by recording player input. Even with games that rely on heavy physics use like Half Life 2 for example. Or for another nice real world example, take Mario Galaxy 2 in which something like the super guide exists, it allows for the failed player to let the game play a runthrough of the level with the option to regain control at any time. Or Prince of Persia Sands of time, or Blinx, or any recorded demo on an emulator.

i would say mainly the idea of new hardware is what im puzzled about in the first place and then why base the console just around one idea, an idea that has been used many times in gaming when a developer chooses to.

Well, what OP is describing is a little more advanced than a demo based on player inputs. It would have to be more akin to the theater mode from Halo, where the position and rotation of players, vehicles, projectiles, etc. are all fully recorded at a reasonable rate and you can freely roll forward and back through a whole match with all those details preserved.

I agree that it still doesn't need dedicated hardware, though mixing in long, detailed recordings of game state with the ability to resume the game from any point would be somewhat more of an engineering challenge.

 

[whiteninja]

Sounds like the rewind feature in retroarch. It's kind of satisfying to see megaman dying, coming back to life, then dying again and again.

 

[Raonak]

I don't see why this would be hardware related.

Plus save-state snapshotting is a far more efficent solution

 

[Overside]

Stop trying to make a chrono trigger. You do not want something like that falling into the wrong hands.

 

[the-pi-guy]

The 4th dimension is actually the x axis.

 

[Rats Off To Ya]

Blinx: The Time Sweeper: The Console

 

[Florida_Man_5000]

I watched the OP's video and now I don't believe in his theory of forth dimension of space unless you want to call it the "infinite dimension". I rather like to think of it as time even if that isn't technically a "dimension". So what is a 4D console again?

 

[Kinthalis]

Yeah I'm not seeing why this requires new hardware, or even why it couldn't be done today. You're talking about system state saves with a history component.

Hell, that's how things like distributed revision control systems for developers work. Something like github.

It stores every change I've ever made in a program and allows me to warp back in time to any revision. Not only that but there can be (and usually are) various branches or versions of the same code that I can navigate to and revert to, I can even begin a new branch from a previous build.

Don't see why you couldn't have a game that worked in the same way.

 

[xenorevlis]

The fourth Dimension is time. We just don't see all of it and can only physically experience one direction of the linear approximation we have designed to count our travel through this Dimension.

 

[Imbarkus]

I'm not sure why everyone is hung up on whether this justifies new hardware. Nintendo could have arguably released Wii motion control as a peripheral for Gamecube. But that would have doomed the initiative and ensured its lack of success, instead of its huge success.

Launching the concept AS a console is the way to "mean it," and ensure ubiquitous and consistency in the feature. Finding a seemingly innocuous "gimmick" feature, like the DS' second touch screen, which in fact transforms the way games are developed on the system is something that is right in Nintendo's wheelhouse when it comes to consoles.

It is what they failed to do with the WiiU, whose gimmick in truth felt like nothing new but a repeat of the trick the DS pulled.

The larger argument here is a console that, in its basic feature set, solves all the problems that lead publishers to favor linearity in games, as well repetition in games as a gameplay consequence.

The shame of this is that I can envision, but not properly articulate all the things this could effect. I imagine open world games sans the towers and icons driving one all over the map to ensure every corner is seen. Instead the world would be filled with stories, as many as could be made without fear of fitting them together or structuring the linear narrative. Each one could be a narrative, taking you to different places in the world, without concern that you walk by all the other places.

If you choose to join, oh I don't know, the Assassin's guild, you would see a completely different world, story, game even then if you chose to join the Mage's guild. You wouldn't have to have a "critical Path" with a sprinkled selection of Mage's Guild content, for flavoring of the same experience everyone else is having.

And these diversions could be everywhere throughout the story you do play, these permutations. Because you wouldn't have to balance it for subsequent playthroughs to avoid having a player repeat half of the story before the game-changing choice. You wouldn't have to figure out a save system, or how to notate progress or significant plot-changing choice points to the player so they could understand how not to miss them on subsequent playthroughs.

I think all these factors together might push games to be actually developed a bit differently, giving the console and its games a unique identity. So that's why new hardware.

But if it also meant Nintendo was dropping other gimmicks for a straight-up controller-gaming console of modern graphic spec with some killer Mario games, while focusing their "gimmick" on an area that, at the very least, would standardize and make simpler the checkpoints and save points and stuff I detailed above, that's also a win in my book.

But it might actually do a lot more than that.

 

[Overside]

The fourth Dimension is time. We just don't see all of it and can only physically experience one direction of the linear approximation we have designed to count our travel through this Dimension.

Maybe you can only physically experience one direction, however not all of us are you, I would appreciate it if you didnt try to lump us all in in with your time normative generalization stereotypes.

 

[Imbarkus]

Maybe you could put a standalone microphone in each controller, too, to record an audio track to go along with the gameplay, as well as to enable speech recognition.

I picked up Lost Treasures of Infocom on iOS the other day...

...and have been playing it using voice recognition. It's gotten me thinking how close we could be to a revolution in adventure gaming with natural voice recognition interfaces parsing input text in newer, advanced ways and presenting stories and scenes with all the modern beauty possible.

It's really adventure games that currently take advantage of branching narratives more than any other. Have I invented the adventure game console? Or would a Mario game now be free to also be an adventure game?

I think the quick rewind feature would be a big help in any implementation of voice control. Really minimize the frustration of misrecognition while the program is training to your voice.

Screw Nintendo. I should Kickstart the thing and call it Twouya.

 

[Hexa]

It is impossible to implement this as hardware feature in modern hardware. Theoretically possible obviously, but it would take far too much to the points its a terrible idea to do it that way.

Implementing it in software is a much better idea, though still reasonably difficult atm AFAIK. You would have to provide tools to developers to assist with that and then mandate it to pass certification. But the implementation would have to be pretty different depending on the game and would involve a lot of work so developers probably wouldn't like it, especially indies, so you'd have a hard time pulling support there. Furthermore, the feature would be completely useless for multi-player, so you'd either have to drop that as a focus or live with the fact that a major portion of the library does not have the "gimmick" feature of the console at all.

This includes couch multiplayer so it wouldn't be good for Nintendo either as SSB, Mario Kart, Mario Party, etc. are important parts of Nintendo's library.

It doesn't sound like a good idea to me OP. Its a good idea in some games and they're already free to do it, but having it in all wouldn't be worth it.

 

[Imbarkus]

I'll bet if the rewind button just had LED lighting under it you could toggle the feature on and off for multiplayer without much confusion.

The entire match being recorded reliably and ubiquitously every time would seem to be a boon to local multiplayer. You could augment that with some intuitive editing software or even some "highlight detecting" work to automate the process to get a good "brag video."

Maybe a camera and some sort of video recording along with the audio is necessary to complete the metaphor of recording and provide what is necessary for streaming/video culture these days. All simple stuff, really.

The software/OS architecture to make it happen (I don't remember saying it had to be a hardware-based solution, just new hardware) and the dev environment it would require that would somehow standardize all these variable is indeed a challenge. But having standards for a lot of those things might also open things up in other ways.

 

[GoldenCrow]

So basically a OS based rewind system mixed with automatic save states.

 

[Coconut]

We already have 4D games since we can move time forward and back. So Thank you Blinx the Cat.

 

[Imbarkus]

So basically a OS based rewind system mixed with automatic save states.

Yeah basically, but it would have to be pretty wide-reaching and thorough to store entire playthroughs of your whole library for you to reload.

Imagine returning to a playthrough to rewind a bit and further refine and attempt to lay down your perfect run, or to go the other way and see what happens then.

 

[Nerdkiller]

Hmph. Clearly you've forgotten all about the unrealised potential that Ken Kutaragi offered when he hyped the PS3.

 

[Imbarkus]

I love Ken. You'll be reaping the power of the Cell as you play PS3 games on your fridge with PS Now any day now.

I feel more like Peter Molytrois... Peter Troislyneux?

 

[Falk]

time/demo stuff

This has been a feature of id tech 3 games since forever. It's how Counter-Strike and (the good

Spoiler

PC

) CoD montages were made. You can do a bunch of crazy shit (with 3rd party tools or otherwise) like cinematic pans, time stretches, etc.

example

example 2 making use of the neutered Theatre mode we got with Black Ops

Heck, there was a huge uproar when that functionality was nixed/obfuscated in CoD:MW2's PC version.

tl;dr it's honestly not very revolutionary. :|

 

[Imbarkus]

Ah well. No takers.

Be kind if cool if Ninty put out a Pro with that offset layout, though, eh?

 

[Gsnap]

So..... wait, what? You're suggesting a console that would be able to natively break games and make the design of said games completely irrelevant? And since it's a part of the console it would be able to work on every game?

That's just dumb. These aren't bad ideas for individual games to implement in their own way, which they already can do since we've already seen plenty of games that allow you to rewind time, but to have an entire system that can do it with every game is just completely unnecessary overkill. It would ruin every form of game design that doesn't play to the strengths of the system, therefore trivializing every game except the few games that would have integrated time control into their mechanics already.

Since the machines we already have allow us to make games that allow the player to control time, it's better to just leave things as they are since the design of games that don't want to incorporate it won't be trivialized or compromised.

 

[Imbarkus]

So what if the types of games that play to the strengths of the system emphasize exploration, choice, and more varied and shorter game experiences that don't support a lot of quick deaths and checkpoint resets...

I still say

Spoiler

WiiR

is a better name.

 

[Kurdel]

I don't think you understand how games are made OP. You are conflating having a widespread quicksave function with being able to explore more of the game world, because you don't waste time, because you can see everything? You realize that still requires devs to build the entire gameworld and timeline like in Majoras Mask, right? Have you played Skyrim, Fallout or Divinity Original Sin? We already have games like this, and we don't need any marketing gimmick attached to a console to make it happen.

Also, saying "the graphics might be intense, so they can do it on the 4DS" is hilarious. The scenario you outline would require 100s of gigs of data per save game, nevermind the cpu/ram requirements of tracking save states of MULTIPLE timelines and aborted timelines after you rewind.

It's a dumb idea, that also happens to be super impractical.