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Console Makers Pushing For More Network Reliance
Posted by
Soulskill
on Thu Dec 18, 2008 06:23 AM
from the can't-escape-the-cloud dept.
from the can't-escape-the-cloud dept.
There's a story on Joystiq about the convergence of games consoles and network play, suggesting that the industry is slowly moving away from physical media, preferring the control and simplicity of online distribution. The article points out that Microsoft's Games for Windows Live, despite being relatively unpopular, has seen continued development with an eye toward interacting with Xbox Live. Quoting:
"While it's unlikely that the next generation of consoles will completely forgo disc-based media, downloads are quickly becoming a much bigger part of the experience. Some games, such as Rock Band 2 and Gears of War 2, are now shipping with codes for free downloads. This isn't because the publishers like you and want to give you free stuff. It's part of a larger strategy to increase the importance of the online presence, where content can be tightly controlled and decrease the importance of physical media, and thus, used-game sales and rentals."
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Arrrr (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Arrrr (Score:4, Insightful)
> Plus, any online connection forces you to have a legal purchased copy.
Or a pirated server on the near-by PC.
Let's go on with the arms race. We'll see if the result pleases them.
Parent
Re:Arrrr (Score:4, Insightful)
But then, the value of a network is related to the number of people on it.
You could pirate, say, Left4dead and then play it by yourself or with other pirates. But you can't take your pirated copy and play with everybody else; the legitimate network is closed to you. Your experience of the game is not as good, because there are fewer players. So there is a good reason to pay up: the game is better if you do!
Parent
Re:Arrrr (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Arrrr (Score:4, Insightful)
You can join a pirated server with thousands of players. How many more do you need to play a four players game?
Your reasoning only really applies to MMORPGs and yet some people play in WOW pirated servers.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
IIRC, most console makers can detect consoles modified to play pirated games and ban them from their online networks anyways (I know MS did this with the original X-Box). In that case pirated games currently are only good for single player or at best pirate server play anyways. This wouldn't change that.
My only concern in the whole matter would be: all my game now rest on a single hard drive. A single, fragile hard drive. The things that fail with an alarming frequency compared to optical discs. How do
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
This isn't exactly accurate. Buying something like rockband songs or using the gears 2 download code ties the content to your xbox live login. If your xbox dies (not exactly unlikely) and you get a new one, logging in enables you to re-download all that stuff.
Your point still stands however, since 20 years from now xbox live probably won't exist in its current form and you wouldn't be able to re-download anything that you lost.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I've found that Versus play gives the game way, way more longevity. It's just about the only thing I play now.
But yeah, they probably needed at least 2 more regular campaigns and 2 more versus campaigns at launch. Sure, it's already got 20 actual maps, which is quite a few for a multiplayer-only game (how many does TF2 ship with?) but this particular game needs more.
Judging from what Valve's said and what they've done with past games, I expect significant free content releases for the game over the next c
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
1 - I make a cracked server app and release it in public domain.
2 - Someone unrelated to you or me runs the app in a public server and releases the IP to a semi-public list of cracked servers.
3 - You pay 20$ to have your console cracked, or directly buy it cracked for +15$.
4 - You download the list and connect to the servers.
The point is:
IF 5 - They push harder and make intrusive systems.
6 - More people make the effort of joining the pirate network.
7 - More people get involved and add their effort. For exam
Re:Arrrr (Score:4, Informative)
You seem to be very confused about how cracking the 360 works.
The way the anti-piracy works is that they burn the game dvd's in a way that can't be done by a home burner and then they tell the dvd drive in the xbox to check for those signs of it being burned by a real burner.
The crackers get past this by installing new custom firmware on the dvd reader that tells the console that the dvd was industrially burned regardless if it is or not.
The reason some people get banned from live is that the live server sometimes asks questions regarding the data on the dvd and badly made copies sometimes have missing/bad data.
The new firmware you speak off isn't actually new firmware, it's a new dvd drive all together that apparently uses millitary technology to make the firmware tamper proof, the current work around is to just install another dvd reader and I suspect the anti-tamper itself will be cracked eventually.
The game console itself is never involved in this piracy war,, it's all waged in the dvd firmware.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And you can't sell that game used (Score:5, Informative)
It has long been the dream of the media studios to kill the secondary (used) market for media (music, movies, software, etc.). Now they've finally stumbled upon the perfect solution (ironic that they actually *fought* the idea tooth-and-nail back in the Napster days).
A sad thing for me, too. I buy most of my console games used at a huge discount online. All you have to do is wait a few months after release and you can get most used games for a fraction of their retail price.
Parent
Preferring (Score:5, Insightful)
the control and simplicity of online distribution.
control and simplicity of online distribution.
control and simplicity
control
Makes Sense (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I hardly ever buy physical games or software for my PC
Most people don't either, but because they work standalone, they can get away with it. The whole "online services" thing software companies are trying to ram down people's throats these days (online OSes, word processing, spreadsheets, games...) is just so they can wrestle control of the software from people's hands and charge whatever the hell they want for anything.
So in short, you'd better not hope software on CDs and DVDs disappears, because you'll b
Re:Makes Sense (Score:4, Interesting)
So if you had access to all of today's technology, and you were designing a software distribution mechanism....
You would put the software on little plastic disks that can't be updated after they are written...
Put those disks in expensive packaging.
Put those disks on consignment with a company that will truck/fly those disks around the country.
To other companies that will put the disks on shelves in stores where consumers can buy them (during business hours).
That doesn't seem very efficient.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You know, you're right. Downloads are more efficient.
While we're at it, markets aren't efficient either. Some people might be willing to pay MORE for a product, but due to everyone buying a game for the retail price, our company Looses all that extra money that the person would have been willing to pay (Consumer Surplus [wikipedia.org]). Lets Find some strategy(Price Discrimination [wikipedia.org]) by which we can get all this money! Then we can drive everyone in the primary AND secondary markets out of business, or buy them.(Monopoly [wikipedia.org])
Re:Makes Sense (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not the physical waste, it's power.
When you sell directly to the customer, you don't have to deal with Walmart/Target/etc who will take a cut of the action, and bend you over when they feel like it. Of course, in this case "you" being Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft who set up the central gateways - it's they who won't have to deal with Walmart/Target as much. The developer still will have to deal with those three. Reminds me of the high cost of cartridges, especially with Nintendo being the only one making them for their console.
ATM, only PCs and Flash games put the power in the developer's hands.
Parent
Re:Makes Sense (Score:5, Informative)
I agree with everything you've said, but I have a slight pedantic nitpick.
Nintendo of America was the only one to produce cartridges for the North American market (not counting unlicensed games). In Japan, several development houses made their own cartridges, and the Famicom Disk System required only a special floppy drive to publish games. NoA adopted this business strategy because they wanted control over what cartridges were published while still encouraging third-party development houses. They felt that uncontrolled development and publication of sub-par third-party games was a major cause of the Video Game Crash of 1983 [wikipedia.org], and wanted to avoid having a second video game crash.
This hit Konami hard - Nintendo of America's guidelines were to only allow five releases per developer in a calendar year, so in order to publish all of the games that they wanted to market in America, they had to start up an American subsidiary called Ultra Games [wikipedia.org].
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Its always nice to have a hard copy (Score:3, Insightful)
Or at least a backup. If the download price is the same as the CD/DVD price then why not buy the latter because then you don't have to bother making a backup yourself? And thats assuming the console will allow you to make a backup in the first place and if it does whether than backup will run anyway. The way DRM is going I doubt it would.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
>>>I hardly ever buy physical games
And what happens when you decide "Well this game sucks. I think I'll sell it on ebay to recoup some of my waste money"? Ooops. Nothing to sell. I rarely keep the games I buy since, as Isaac Asimov wisely observed, only 1% of anything is truly good. The other 99% I play, don't like, and then sell online.
I can't do that with virtual media.
My argument against this (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's have a look at the current broadband availability here and everywhere. Now let's compare that to the people who have these consoles. My guess is that there will be plenty of people that will be left out in all of this. This move obviously presumes nearly 100% broadband availability. That can't be smart.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Because you thought "pushing for more network reliance" is a user-oriented wish? How quaint.
Console makers wouldn't mind it if only 1/3rd of the population had access to their online games, if said 1/3rd has to pay and pay to play. They don't care about providing service to the other 2/3rd, they only care about their bottom line.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Console makers wouldn't mind it if only 1/3rd of the population had access to their online games, if said 1/3rd has to pay and pay to play. They don't care about providing service to the other 2/3rd, they only care about their bottom line.
Uh ? Telling two thirds of your customers to screw themselves doesn't look like a reasonable business decision...
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Unless of course they got the ISPs to host the data unmetered...
No thanks (Score:5, Interesting)
I've bought a couple of games on the PSN recently and now that I'm done with them, what can I do? Here are my choices:
1. Leave it to fester on the HDD
2. Delete it
Great. What's worse is that a couple of the games I bought turned out to be shit so I can't even trade them for something different.
Make a subscription service instead if you're going to do this. Here's one way it could work:
You pay a certain amount each year and the amount you pay determines how many games you can have downloaded at a time and each game have a number of points allocated to it, so you could for example have Braid (1 point) and Bionic Commando (1 point) and Geometry Wars (1 point) or just BioShock (3 points).
When you're done with the games you can delete them to refund the points.
Good idea? Bad idea?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you cannot really buy a game, then it should be called rental service, and that's it. What can be seen currently is that vendors try to keep the client to think he buys the game, while the cut his rights to effectively change it to rent.
Re:No thanks (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep. If you buy a crap game, but can not sell it on ebay to recover your money, then you never truly owned that game. You were just granted a perpetual rental.
With Cartridge, CD, and DVD games, at least you have something you can physically trade or sell. You OWN it. This past year I've sold off about $4000 worth of my N64, PS1, PS2 game collection. Now imagine if that had been downloaded material instead; I'd be $4000 poorer.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
DLC is online activation for consoles (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like the activation servers for PC games will disappear in the future, and thereby rendering your game useless, DLC will disappear in the future, and thereby render your console game crippled.
Requiring online activation/DLC actually means you rent the game, rather than buying it. If you want to replay an old game in the future you probably have to rent the remake of it.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I've been saying this all along.
Combined with the game makers pushing online features so hard with games means that a game is really only playable for a couple of months to a year.
That's why I have no interest in the current generation of consoles. 60, 70, 80$ games that you don't get to actually play once all the hype around the game dies down? A console that will surely max out my ISP's invisible bandwidth cap? No thank you.
No future (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Uh, I'm pretty sure there have been buildings over two stories for hundreds, if not thousands of years...
Re: (Score:2)
>>>s more people have to fit into the same space, "owning" a few relics like books will be less common.
I'm sure lack of food will be the limiting factor on human population, not books. The average person needs a couple acres of farmland to sustain him. A private library only takes a few cubic feet. We'll run out of food long before we run out of space for our "stuff".
Sure win on both counts (Score:2)
a) publishers and Co make sure that ther are less middlemen, but however the prices to the consumer are the same --> more margin for the publisher and hardware vendor
b) you won't be able to rent your games from BB, Netflix etc anymore. Just shut-up and pay full price, no more renting. "Demos should be enough for anybody to make up their mind on a game; if they like it, buy it"
c) forget about re-selling your games or trading them in for new ones. this is just like those nice little DRM tunes from iTunes.
Re: (Score:2)
I taught my daughter this one recently.
She wanted a $50.00 itunes card. I drove her to a second hand record store and told her to pick $50.00 worth of music.
she did not understand until I told her... Anything you buy here, if you take pristine care of it, you can sell back if you dont like it anymore in a couple of months. Same with a regular CD from the store.
you cant sell or give away any of your itunes songs. All you can do is delete them and that money is gone forever.
She no longer wants itunes cards
Re: (Score:3)
"we don's show a record..." (Score:3, Interesting)
They're listening to their audience. (Score:3, Insightful)
The only game I bought recently was Fable II on the 360, because I had to. Most of the games I buy for my PC are either via Steam, or other methods (I play LOTRO, the latest expansion was just me paying the upgrade fee and download). I don't see why consoles seem to see the need to lag behind. Sure I copy games for my console, mainly due to the price (AU$100+ for a new release) and also from the lack of ease of buying online.
I used to copy PC games, now I'm happy with a demo and digital delivery. I think the PC market has wised up to the way things ought to be. I bought Far Cry II days after it came out for 1/2 the price of the shops here in Australia. Even if price wasn't an issue, you have to pre-order, wait in line, all that kind of useless crap to say "I got a first copy". Why not give people the option of post-to with digital stop-gap a-la Warhammer Online (yes, I bought this from Amazon).
Even that seems smarter than this whole "you need to own the disc to own a license to our product" crap.
I say good on them, the more digital delivery, the more economical high volume high speed broadband (whatever the flavour) will become. The more music, movies & games delivered this way the better. It will force the hand that controls your packets.
preferring the control and simplicity of online (Score:5, Insightful)
TRANSLATION:
Blocking me from my two favorite activities: (1) Buying a game, playing it, and then selling to someone else to recoup my money. And (2) Buying a game, loving it, and keeping it for the next 10-20 years (classic gaming).
If things devolve to the point where I have to pay full price (versus my current average of only paying $2-3 per game), or where I have to keep buying/downloading Super Mario 64 every five years, instead of simply buying it once and keeping it forever... ...then I will simply stop gaming.
This is what the music industry is trying to do with perpetual renting of music rather than letting us OWN the record, cd, whatever. The game industry should not follow that same path.
Re: (Score:2)
think what they said on the summary:
The article points out that Microsoft's Games for Windows Live, despite being relatively unpopular, has seen continued development
ie, no-one wants it, but MS is going to give it to you anyway. The sooner the latest court case finished and MS gets broken up the better - a standalone gaming division will quickly go under if it had to provide what the users actually wanted instead of being subsidised by the rest of MS.
They are LYING. (Score:5, Insightful)
They want internet connected and online distribution for two main reasons.
1 - it instantly KILLS the secondhand game market. you can no longer buy used games, this drives the price of old games back up to retail levels. no more buying Gears of War for $12.99 used at the local EB or on ebay.
2 - it eliminates 60% of the cost of a game. Packaging and distribution.
Game prices will stay the same or go up, your Quality of gaming will go down, and you can no longer buy used games or rent games to try them out.
That is their goal, everything else is pure BS to make the consumer have buy-in to their plans to screw you over.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You're forgetting another very important reason: game companies can keep up the good old "release first, make it actually work later" schedule. I haven't bought a single game this past year where the final conclusion was: "ok, it's fun to play but buggy, let's put it on the shelf till they can be bothered to patch it". Fallout 3, Mass Effect, Civ4Col, all the same thing.
Yet another advantage of on-line distribution (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So because Internet access provides the potential for this, it's bad? That's flawed reasoning. I liked playing Phantasy Star Online with people around the globe, thank you.
Re: (Score:2)
That's fine. Enjoy PSO.
On the other hand I shouldn't need to keep rebuying & redownloading a non-internet-based game like Super Mario 64 every few years, just because the old servers no longer exist to say "yes it's approved". When the old servers go down, the game stops working.
With the cartridge I buy it once and play it forever.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
>>>this is not an issue and never has been.
I have several online games that no longer work because the servers no longer exist.