Next Console Generation Defined By Software, Not Hardware 177
Fast Company recent spoke with Microsoft exec Shane Kim about Natal and the future of the Xbox 360. Kim said they're very interested in continuing to build out support for social networking and digital distribution, and he also made some interesting remarks about their long term plans. Quoting:
"It really has much more to do with ... the innovation and longevity that will be created when Project Natal is added to that mix and the value and the entertainment options that we continue to expand on Xbox Live. The 'next generation' will be defined by software and services, not hardware. In the past we would always get this question: 'Hey, there's a new console launch every five years and you're coming up on that time for Xbox, right?' That's the old treadmill way of thinking. Before you had things that were very obvious, from a hardware standpoint — pushing more pixels, the move from 2-D to 3-D, 3-D to HD, etc. We got a very powerful piece of hardware in Xbox 360. I am confident that we have more headroom available, in terms of developers and creators figuring out how to get more out of the system. So I worry less about new hardware having to enable us to move to a different level of graphics. It's much more about the experiences that you are going to deliver."
As opposed to the current generation.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Where the console with the best hardware (PS3) is winning, and the under-specced Wii is in a distant third place.
Oh, wait.
It's a PC. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:As opposed to the current generation.. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a nonsense comment. The software ALREADY defines the consoles. You can have the latest hardware in the world, but if you have no decent games, your system is a paper weight.
Microsoft really do know how to make something out of absolutely nothing don't they...
Re:As opposed to the current generation.. (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem with the PS3 is not that it doesn't have software but that it's software and features don't distinguish it enough from the cheaper competitor: Microsoft. The Wii OTOH did a couple of things right: target a broader audience, secure exclusive titles for their system, and set a lower price. Software is certainly a significant part of selling a console, but there are other contributing factors like price and accessibility.
Isn't this inevitable? (Score:4, Insightful)
As we achieve a given level of sophistication in any field and make technological limits virtually go away, the limiting factor is always going to be human creativity.
Take oil painting, for instance. We've had mostly all the colors we need for hundreds and hundreds of years. Yet, new and interesting art is still being created. When the development of paints were still in the early stages I'm sure people marveled at new colors like we today marvel at ever more photo realistic graphics. But once the initial excitement wears off what we're really left with is how good the game plays, how well written the story is, etc.
Games, like books, paintings, movies and so many other things before them, will not be defined by technological achievements in the coming centuries. The best games I've played to date aren't good because of tech, but great stories and immersive and imaginative environments. Grim Fandango is still the best game I've played to date story-wise, and while the replay value of an adventure game like that is sadly very low I'm very much looking forward to playing it again with my kids once they are old enough. It is worth noting that i played Grim Fandango as an adult, so the nostalgia factor is not dimming my senses much at least... ;)
powerful piece of hardware? (Score:5, Insightful)
Problem is gaming companies are making many titles "console only", or their PC ports are crappy emulation (like GTA4) - that leaves gamers with no choice but buying/using a console with outdated hardware.
Hardware (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't say hardware was unimportant, though. The Wii won because of its hardware, clearly. But it needs to be looked at in terms of what the hardware actually brings to the buyer. Higher res? Who cares? Faster refresh? Doesn't matter. Better AI and gameplay? Well, that might help, but it's pretty clear that the 360's and PS3's improved processors aren't being used for that.
New methods of control, new interfaces, whole new styles of gameplay? Microphones, vibrations, sensors, speakers, and so forth... now, that will catch a customer's eye. That makes playing a game something new, instead of a slightly glossier but nearly indistinguishable version of an older game. New hardware is important, but the growth needs to branch out in new directions, instead of being this one-dimensional 'better graphics' mantra that the consoles have been pushing. Improvements in graphics are mattering less and less.
Re:As opposed to the current generation.. (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, the perfect example of this is the Gamecube and Wii.
The Wii is basically an overclocked gamecube with some new input devices. (oversimplification, but you get the idea)
Compare 2001 Gamecube games to 2008/2009 Wii games, and look at the difference in graphics quality. Twilight Princess is available on gamecube, and it puts earlier titles to shame.
So yes, I agree - software already defines the console.
Re:As opposed to the current generation.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Aside from the Bluray I'd say the Xbox360 has better hardware. Having 3 dual threaded in order processors is infinitely better than one single threaded in order processor with 7 crippled DSPs strapped on. The graphics card on the PS3 is no better; had the PS3 come out when scheduled it would have been top of the line hardware, but having a 7800GT in the console was rather unimpressive given when it came out, IMHO...
The Cell was built to easily pump through HD media (they were planning it for handling their Bluray content) and was designed before ATI/Nvidia started decoding HD video on the card. It was not designed for games.
I don't really care though. Bluray will likely be to DVD what the CD was to the cassette-- there will be no need for a new video content format. Theater quality (or better) video with as many sound channels as you want? DVD was nice, but there was still room for improvement. Any new format from now on will likely go the way of the SACD or DVD-Audio....
Re:Isn't this inevitable? (Score:3, Insightful)
I fully agree with you. I'm more impressed by advances in story telling tech, than fancy graphics. Mass Effect, for example.
Mind you, both never hurt.
In the past I was always more immersed in narrated games like Diablo II, than newer, more graphical games like Oblivion. Poor narration and amazing graphics (marred by the occasional horrible texture) really detracted from the experience, not to mention the totally unbalanced combat. I got much more pleasure out of earlier games.
Diablo II, Disciples II, Prince of Persia, Beyond Good & Evil, Psychonauts, Warcraft III; They have narration, solid gameplay, puzzles to solve(in some), and decent enough graphics not to detract from the experience.
yeah, it's more about platforms these days (Score:4, Insightful)
In the really old days, a platform was almost synonymous with its hardware: when you wrote straight assembly on the Atari VCS and directly controlled the video interface, the hardware was your game platform. What you could or couldn't do on the platform was more or less defined but what you could or couldn't get its bizarre hardware to do. (There's an excellent recent book [amazon.com] that traces just how big an influence the Atari's odd hardware had on its game design, among other things.)
But that hasn't been true for a while. Sure, hardware is still an important part of the platform. But so are lots of other things. What's the programming model? What kind of SDK do you have? What libraries are there? How does the platform look to a programmer? What can they do with it easily and what's hard to do on it? Hardware is only one of the things from that perspective; unless you're programming on bare metal, what matters is the entire stack. The hardware could be so terrible or so great that it makes or breaks the entire stack. But I would suspect that of the things that can be an impediment to producing a good game on a particular platform, "the hardware just couldn't support what we wanted to do" is the bottleneck less and less often.
Re:powerful piece of hardware? (Score:5, Insightful)
I switched from exclusively PC gaming to exclusively console gaming about 5 years ago and never looked back. I could probably buy a house if i had saved the money i wasted in a hardware pissing contest i had with my friends ("doom looks so much smoother with my dx4/100. Oh, are these real instruments in the background? Have to buy a 200 Euro wavebank soundcard.") when i was younger.
Though i know high end PC hardware is cheaper now, i still enjoy not worrying if a game will work, if i really get the best/intended experience with my rig or if i rather should have waited a month to buy gfx card xy instead of xy+.
I have the same PC since about 5 years now, and will probably buy a new one when they become so small that you could accidentally inhale them.
Re:It's a PC. (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds like they're trying to turn the console into a locked-down PC.
Close. They tried with the original Xbox. With the 360, they did, and did it fairly well.
except that part where they didn't, as evidenced by the billion xbox360 iso's floating around p2p networks.
A thought on the success of the Wii (Score:1, Insightful)
It is obvious that games are a selling point, without them a gaming system isn't worth anything. Hope we can put that behind us now. Additional software might be a nice bonus, but is Playstation Home or Microsofts Avatars really a deal-breaker? I find them to be added value, but not essential. Shane Kim and time might prove me wrong on this one.
Being a Wii- and PS3-owner with a group of friends where the Xbox360 is as common I don't really undestand this flaming "nextgen-war".
The success of the Wii is not only the innovative controls, the price and the broader audience. Many of its games are geared towards the more social gamer. How many PS3 or Xbox360 titles allow you to sit with your friends TOGETHER in the same room and play? Yes, they have superior on-line multiplayer, but lack in what made the previous consoles so different from the PC gaming experience (where PC have had that kind of multiplayer before the PS3/Xbox360 came into the world). The "social" games on the PS3/Xbox360 are often the "peripheral-intensive" games (Rockband/Guitar Hero, Buzz/Scene it, Singstar, etc).
When I have a group of friends I prefer to play with the Wii, actually, many of the games on the Wii is much more fun when you have company. On the other hand, when I am alone, I prefer the PS3 (or the PC) and would most likely play on a 360 if I had one. For me these consoles are not mutually exclusive and when asked to recommend one to someone, I always try to get a feel for what kind of gamer they (or their kids) are.
Re:powerful piece of hardware? (Score:3, Insightful)
Piracy and high-end hardware isn't the problem with PC gaming today. The piracy part is caused mostly from two factors:
The Demos (When there are demos) released aren't very representative of the end product, and often misrepresent a game by only letting you play a small portion of it. Compare any demo these days to the "demo" for Wolfenstein 3D, Doom 1/2, or Quake. The first episode/group of levels was free, and served as a very good demo. You knew exactly what you were getting when you finally ponied up the money for the full version. Most game demos nowadays throw you halfway in the campaign somewhere and show you something which really has very little bearing on the actual game, but seems cool at first glance.
The other aspect is the shittacular DRM they're putting on games these days (Starforce, TAGES, etc) quite often cause serious problems when trying to actually play the game (Limited registrations, activations, etc). And that is driving people to get cracks for the games they bought, which gets them into the piracy scene (As they are the ones who release the cracks for the DRM).
The part of the high-end hardware has always been there, it always will be. There have always been developers pushing the graphics of the current-gen as far as they could and there have always been vendors trying to squeeze every ounce of performance out of their hardware. Mostly, the only problems have been at the driver layer and that seems to come and go in waves from vendor to vendor.
All things said, I'm both a console and PC gamer. I've got a newer rig I play games on, and I've got all the current-gen consoles, and I can honestly say I usually have more fun playing games on one of the three consoles rather than on the PC. The only exception might be first-person shooters. But I've never really liked playing FPS games with a gamepad/joystick.
next-gen (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:It's a PC. (Score:2, Insightful)
Sony is playing the same game. They're just a bit behind.
Right, right. That's probably why the console is region free for games, supports all sorts of third party peripherals and devices and lets you install linux on it, huh?
Re:As opposed to the current generation.. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the PS3 exclusives, where the developers really dove into the system, where the PS3 excells. On cross-platform games the developer usually ports their code for the 360 over to the PS3, and it never gets that same level of polish.
The PS3 has more potential, but they ask a lot of their developers to utilize it, due to the Cell processor requiring different techniques to get the speed. More powerful, but at the cost of unfamiliarity.
So 'best' depends on the viewpoint. Sony has the most powerful hardware, but also the most difficult to develop for. Because of this, 'best' will always be a debate between the fans.
Why Do People Use Junk Words? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why do people use words like "infinitely" into a sentence when they mean "marginally"? For that matter, why do people use "literally" when they mean "figuratively"?
As a representative of this group, perhaps you can enlighten me. I would be literally be infinitely in your debt.