Boombox On
Member
Yay yay, consoles are currently successful. The consoles don’t seem to be going extinct like [insert snarky armchair analyst here] would believe, but there are still issues that I think the manufacturers, Sony and Microsoft in particular, would probably love to solve:
So I thought, how does this problem get solved? Streaming does help, but it involves major bandwidth issues and puts the quality of the game experience in the hands of ISPs, which historically doesn't work out well when unnecessary. Then the idea of engines came about. Unity, Unreal, GameMaker, CryEngine, etc. They all have supports for a myriad of platforms. Even more closed down engines like Frostbite can even work on mobile. Then I thought, Why don’t we just have Playstation and Xbox game engines, and integrate it into their PSN/XBL services?
Think about it:
Pros
Simply put: Customers and developers get their games everywhere. Xbox and Playstation brands are in more people's hands. Everyone wins, right? Probably.
Cons
What do you all think? I’d like to hear some contrarian opinions.
- There has been new market disruption happening on the mobile and PC side of gaming. These are customers that Microsoft, but moreso Sony, have little access to. Look at Sony’s PS4 announcement conference. They spent so long talking about bringing Playstation everywhere, but it definitely isn’t yet.
- The process of creating a console is inherently limiting. You (1) spend millions, billions perhaps on research, designing, development, manufacturing, shipping and advertising a console that you are (2) selling for little profit, all while (3) severely limiting your audience to a relatively select few as the barriers-to-entry are too high (hundreds of dollars). None of this is good.
- Playstation and Xbox as brands are starting to diverge from just about gaming. Notice how Microsoft’s media and entertainment services are all named after the Xbox (Xbox Music, Xbox Video). The same with Sony and Playstation (Playstation Vue for TV). It’s somewhat contradictory to see these brands being spread out everywhere for music and movies but the gaming is exclusives to your one living room box of choice.
So I thought, how does this problem get solved? Streaming does help, but it involves major bandwidth issues and puts the quality of the game experience in the hands of ISPs, which historically doesn't work out well when unnecessary. Then the idea of engines came about. Unity, Unreal, GameMaker, CryEngine, etc. They all have supports for a myriad of platforms. Even more closed down engines like Frostbite can even work on mobile. Then I thought, Why don’t we just have Playstation and Xbox game engines, and integrate it into their PSN/XBL services?
Think about it:
- Developers create one set of code/resources
- Developers commit code to servers, which create different builds per supported platform (Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, Web Browsers, etc) and hosts these builds when it’s time to sell through a PSN/XBL app on your phone, tablet, PC, console, etc.
- Customers buy the game on the platform they choose, and a compatible build of that game downloads onto their device, provided their device supports the correct form of input for the game (controllers, KB + M, VR, touch, etc). There is very little difference between that and how Unity/Unreal works now in terms of development.
Pros
- The Engine idea multiplies the potential audience by a crazy amount because the brands become accessible to more devices, and if this become the main way to develop and distribute games, the investments into a console could drop to $0 because you may not ever need to make another one. Instead, Sony and Microsoft can focus on the parts of the gaming industry that actually makes them money (software and services).
- For consumers, you can still maintain having an Xbox Live or a PSN that exists across multiple platforms. They could still charge for multiplayer (ehh). They could still have exclusive titles, just exclusive to a service instead of hardware (which I’d like to think everyone and their mother would agree is better). Playstation or Xbox is not just something you have in one place, but something you could have everywhere
- For developers, it's going to be much easier to get noticed on a Playstation Store/Xbox Marketplace than say Apple's App Store, which released more games per month than Steam has in it's entire existence.
- Also for developers, no requirement for a definitive console build means no dev kits required, decreasing the barrier-of-entry for console games and enabling more console game developers. There also would be no need for an upfront cost for accessing the library; Sony/Microsoft would get their 30% cut through the service, like how Valve does with Source 2, and it puts more money in the developers’ hands for every sale.
- For Sony and Microsoft, their brands and their games are now in more places, but still maintain some form of control over the development process by providing the IDE and APIs for online, trophies/achievements, and more.
- For Sony and Microsoft, the services being available in more places means higher retention of consumers, which means they'll be more likely to use the service and purchase from that service.
Simply put: Customers and developers get their games everywhere. Xbox and Playstation brands are in more people's hands. Everyone wins, right? Probably.
Cons
- Would AAA publishers be willing to give up the customized engines they have invested years into in order to use one everyone else is using? Would Nintendo even try doing something like this? I obviously have left them out of this conversation because they still put the biggest emphasis on hardware between the three.
- Optimizing for a single platform.. is kind of gone when there isn't just one platform. Would be an issue for the high-end of games.
- iOS and Android currently ask for a cut of in-game purchases, which means that the game you bought from Xbox for your iPhone may have to be bought through a web browser or a completely different computer instead of the Xbox app itself.
What do you all think? I’d like to hear some contrarian opinions.