

Sony Acquires Virtual Game Station 63
Silverhammer writes: "You were wondering what the terms of the Sony/Connectix lawsuit may be? Well, MacCentral is reporting that they're actually entering a "joint technology agreement" which "can lead to improved development tools, innovative consumer products and productive enterprise solutions." If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." Funkengruven points to the announcement itself.
Basically (Score:1)
If you can't beat em, buy them out
Re:hm (Score:4)
Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.
Re:So, what will the effects be? (Score:1)
Re:Advantage:Sony (Score:1)
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Palm CoPilot, PS3 (Score:3)
If you consider that the dev machines for making PS games are pretty expensive, and custom hacks, then a software based development platform would be much cheaper. That's why Palm brought the copilot under it's umbrella, it's faster to hack with the copilot.
Now consider the PS3, it's in the dev stage right now. Sony dedicated a chunk of Silicon in the PS2 I/O processor to emulate the PS, if they were to simply load the emulator software into ROM on the PS3, it saves them fabbing costs. Fab costs are much more than software development costs.
If I were Sony.. (Score:1)
If only.. (Score:2)
If I had my choice I would prefer to play PSX games on a computer, purely because I carry a computer with me everywhere I go and my PSX is pretty stationary.
Re:All Your Playstation Are Belong to Sony!!! (Score:1)
Re:So, what will the effects be? (Score:1)
Don't believe Sony's marketing
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Leonid S. Knyshov
Re:a victory for consumers and corporations (Score:1)
$329 in store and $349 online
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Leonid S. Knyshov
Re:Buy it and kill it.... (Score:1)
Re:So, what will the effects be? (Score:1)
BTW VGS can tell the difference between ligit and copied game CDs, I tried the demo the other day - I thought it was just a bluff.
Re:So, what will the effects be? (Score:1)
Re:So, what will the effects be? (Score:1)
Re:Just a guess: (Score:2)
This may not be the win we think... (Score:3)
It looks more like Sony decided that since they couldn't win, they'd throw money at the owners. Would you keep selling your product if someone waved big big bucks over your head?
Re:This is great for Connectix (Score:1)
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Scott Jones
Newscast Director / ABC19 WKPT
join em? (Score:1)
If you cant beat em, Own em.
<g>
Re:Basically (Score:1)
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Re:Maybe sony has wised up (Score:1)
Also see this interesting story [theregister.co.uk] on The Register about Sony portable PSone rumors.
- Twid
Re:Maybe sony has wised up (Score:1)
I'd tell him it wasn't a personal insult since I didn't know his name, especially if he was wearing a t-shirt [thinkgeek.com] that said "I am an anonymous coward." 8-)
You're missing my point, but heck, I'll let it rest after this... my point is that I think Sony is making a proactive investment now in looking at emulating PSone's so that they can take advantage of upcoming technologies, like the XBox and new PDA's. Then, they will look at providing that backcatalog on new medium for the new devices. Someone already responded to my original post with a really good point about this.
I think we're closer to agreement than you think...
That's it for me on this thread!
Re:Maybe sony has wised up (Score:1)
There was an interesting article [theregister.co.uk] in The Register about how Microsoft could lose $2 billion on a successful XBox launch. Hurt Microsoft, pre-order an XBox and buy no games for it.... 8-)
- Twid
Re:Maybe sony has wised up (Score:2)
>no-one has yet managed to produce 700Mb ROM cartridges cost effectively.
I'm going to make a note of this and put it next to these quotes. [uptowncity.com]
You're assuming:
- That every playstation CD uses all 700MB.
- That a game like Tony Hawk couldn't be cut down in any way to fit into another form factor.
- That memory technology is static.
Call me a technological optimist, but I believe this problem can be solved. For example, Sony already has MD Data 2 discs [minidisc.org] with 650MB capacity on the market.
- Twid
Maybe sony has wised up (Score:4)
Working with Connectix so that they have the option of putting a virtual playstation on anything has a lot of value to Sony in the future. X-Box emulators, and emulators for other sorts of devices could be a huge source of revenue. Just the revenue from a single 10-in-one CD with a bunch of top playstation titles for the XBox (similar to the Sega Arcade CD for Dreamcast) could pay for this arrangement with Connectix.
I saw an interview with the Sega america's president (in ODCM print, couldn't find it online) where he said that PDA's are getting to the point where they can run Sega's immense 16-bit library in emulation. Could Sony be looking at the same thing for their PSone library?
Tony Hawk on your iPaq, anyone?
- Twid
No more MacOS version? (Score:3)
Enterprise solutions? (Score:1)
Re:Big Corp != Bad (Score:3)
Stop! VGS is not Bleem [slashdot.org]! Repeat after me: The list of supported titles [connectix.com] for VGS is NOT short.
See also this completely off-topic link [yahoo.com].So, what will the effects be? (Score:5)
1. Rewrite VGS so as to optimize the subroutines and maximize compatibility (which then would be something I'd pay for)
or
2. Kill it off after June 30 (per the acquisition agreement) and hope people forget about it.
Personally, I don't really see any benefit for Sony to kill off the emulation project. Sony can't be making much money, if any, on their console sales. Because they would be increasing the potential market for their real cash cow (software; i.e. games), they can only stand to gain from improving the software.
This does raise an interesting question, however. How will this affect other PSX emulation projects? Will Sony try to kill them off because then they *would* then be infringing on Sony's business, will they be acquired also, or will they be suffocated and die (the commercial ones, anyway; the others are labors of love)?
This is great for Connectix (Score:2)
The company has made almost zero-profit thanks to rampant piracy. Needless to say, they've felt a bit burned by this.
Now, they finally get a chance to make some money.
Buy it and kill it.... (Score:2)
For consideration, Sony Computer Entertainment will acquire from Connectix all assets related to the VGS emulation technology. Connectix will continue to offer the current version of both CVGS for Macintosh and Windows until June 30, 2001. Connectix will provide continuing support to existing users. All further emulation development for the PlayStation(R) game console will proceed under the auspices of the joint agreement.
"if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.... (Score:1)
Re:Buy it and kill it.... (Score:1)
a victory for consumers and corporations (Score:3)
This is a great move for Sony. Harware margins are razor thin, if they're not selling their consoles at a loss.
The real money is made on software, which was until now the games. (This is why Sega has been moving out of the hardware market, they can't compete with juggernauts like Sony.)
But now Sony can bring in software-level margins on both the game system and the games!
Plus we can all keep playing our playstation games on our PCs, with an improved emulator, even.
Am I being overly optimistic, or does everyone win with this deal?
Other emulation projects are in danger (Score:1)
hm (Score:1)
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Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
Just a guess: (Score:1)
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Advantage:Sony (Score:2)
Let 'em emulate our old platform. But stay the fsck away from PS2!
Re:a victory for consumers and corporations (Score:2)
Hopefully I'm wrong, but I'd say you're being over optimistic.
I'm not sure what incentive Sony has to market this emulator commericially. It's true, hardware margins suck (witness the selling of PS2's at a huge loss)... which makes selling a software-based Playstation seem somewhat attractive at first....
But after a few years, console margins aren't that bad because the hardware vendors have usually shrunk and integrated the components to the point where they're HUGELY cheaper to make than they were a few years previously, when the console was first introduced to market.
Look at the new PSOne... it's about the size of my smoke detector! Tiny! I wouldn't even be suprised if Sony was making money on PSOne hardware sales at this point.
Of course, hopefully I'm wrong and you're right, and Sony won't kill the product. It could actually be a REALLY neat selling point for their VAIO PC's.... Playstation compatibility!!!
http://www.bootyproject.org [bootyproject.org]
The Biggest and better creation !!! =) (Score:1)
=(
Re:Just a guess: (Score:1)
This is true, but they also recieve royalties for each game that is released on their systems (publishing/licence fees). Sony's 1st party game sales totals pale in comparison to these licence fees.
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Re:a victory for consumers and corporations (Score:5)
It turns out that Martin Phillips, age 47, of Canton, OH does not win with this deal, but he's the only one.
Bingo Foo
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Re:a victory for consumers and corporations (Score:1)
This can be fun. (Score:3)
My fantasy speculation is that now that Sony is going to get into the PC market, while MS is going into the game console market. Down the road this could lead to a Sony Gaming OS. I'm not taking the prospect seriously right now, but far stranger things have happened. And if the XBox turns out to be a dud, it could be fun to watch.
Re:a victory for consumers and corporations (Score:2)
One could argue that it does make piracy of Playstation games more viable -- running a pre-packaged emulator is less involved than mod-chipping a Playstation.
Then there are others who argue that rampant software piracy helps promote the platform.
Then the first group points out that if everyone's pirating the software, no one's making money.
Then it starts to devolve into the typical arguments heard in the Napster threads and a fist-fight breaks out.
So if I were Sony, I'd probably fight like hell to stop emulation of the Playstation. But if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
Re:Maybe sony has wised up (Score:1)
This is true, but is undeniable that the company that owns the console is at a huge advantage, provided that development for that console is not open and there are no competing consoles to develop games for.
Look at the NES during the last half of the 80's. Nintendo *owned* the home videogame market, and locked out 3rd-party developers who would not submit to Nintendo's licensing policies. Basically Nintendo made a lot of money from these people for doing nothing (aside from providing a key to get past the lockout mechanism, and then slapping a "Seal of Quality" on the game, and endorsing the licensed developers instead of suing them like they sued Tengen. Something like 30% of the cost of a 3rd-party game actually went to Nintendo, not the actual developer.
Contrast this with the relationship Atari had with their 3rd party developers. When other companies first started developing games for the Atari 2600, Atari was pissed off and tried to sue, but they lost. They didn't have a means to lock out competing developers, so they just accepted that other people could make games for the 2600 and they wouldn't see any of the money from it. This resulted in the development of a huge library of games for the 2600, which enabled Atari to sell a lot of console units. But if they weren't making money directly off of the sale of the consoles, this would not have benefitted them at all.
In the 32-bit age and beyond, there has been a healthy amount of competition, with no one system dominating the market to the extent that the Atari 2600 or NES did in their respective primes. But if one company does come to dominate the console market, they will be able to dictate terms to developers such that they will make money from their efforts in the form of licensing fees, even though they're not doing any real work to deserve it. Nintendo tried to pull the same draconian licensing deals with the SNES and N64, but since the market had the Sega Genesis and the Sony Playstation, 3rd-party developers had other options, and they took their business elsewhere. The result was a significantly smaller library of games for the SNES and N64, and the overall quality of those games was less than it could have been if Nintendo hadn't alienated some of the first-tier developers (Square especially)
Clearly then, it is of great benefit to a company if they can completely control developer's access to their console, especially if they are the only game in town. Sony was close to this, given the less than spectacular market performance of the N64 and Sega Saturn. If another company had essentially opened up a viable alternative (such as Bleem! and other PSX emulators) which allowed compatibility for the console and took control away from Sony, this ruined their shot at becoming the monopoly that Nintendo was during the 80's.
Now that the PSX is reaching obsolescence there's little incentive for them to try to control the PSX platform, and in fact there's more incentive for them to open up the console to keep the game library alive for a bit longer until interest in it is relegated to a marginalized segment of retro-gamers. So (IMO) it's not that Sony has "wisened up" and decided to play nice and share the pie with everyone, they just recognize that the prize they were fighting for is now irrelevant, and it's no longer in their interest to persue the matter.
I rang, you rang, we all rang for orangutang!
Re:join em? (Score:1)
If you can't beat 'em, eat 'em!
That famous saying needs to be edited. (Score:1)
More like "If you can't sue their pants off, purchase their assets and give 'em all pink slips!"
relative rubiconism (Score:1)
Re:relative rubiconism (Score:3)
As for the deal itself, it's a great move for Connectix - the software was a hopeless case as a commercial offering, and all but dead since the PS/2's appearance anyway. Glad they got some cash out of it before tucking it in the dustbin. They could never have open-sourced it anyway (Sony would have been relentless in their legal opposition, regardless of the fact that they have no case).
Re:a victory for consumers and corporations (Score:1)
> Dude! Somebody's selling PS2s? Where?
A CompUSA on Dorsett in St. Louis Missouri had them in stock this week. They were giving a price of something like $358 (?) for the machine and a warranty. No price for the machine alone.
This deal might be good for Sony and the consumer, if Sony helps to add PS2 emulation to the program. Given their current problems with getting their machines out, having an emulator would help them at least sell the PS2 games. As it is now, they are selling games to a very tiny audience. That has got to be hurting them big time.
Homage to Mothra, Queen of Monsters, on the occasion of her fortieth anniversary!
Re:This is great for Connectix (Score:1)
I don't deny that they're extrordinarily talented programmers (props), but they're lucky to have come out of it with anything but humongous legal bills or worse, a jail term. Of course, Sony's going to kill it--why would the people who developed the PSX need outside help in emulating it?
Re:This is great for Connectix (Score:1)
OK, I'll give you CDRWin. But what's something that's distributed in volume in .RAR format besides warez?
. . . they don't have to develop the software . . .
I'll admit that in the extremely unlikely (IMHO) event that Sony really wants to sell PSX emulation (built in ROM in a VAIO laptop, maybe?) that having one already done would be easier. But they're in a position to put a PSX on a chip on a PCI or PCMCIA card, capture the same market, probably for less than the cost of a PSX, with no piracy. I just don't see their motivation for buying the emulator as anything other than "Oh, crap--we might lose, then in a few years, everything, including the PSX2, is fair game! Let's buy it, get it off the market, and save the big guns for the first company to introduce PSX2 compatibility."
The Register (Score:2)
The Register has some more information about it here. [theregister.co.uk]
But then again... (Score:1)
But then again, I'm doing this from the casual Gamer perspective of having your system just fast enough to play games for about a year or so, and then doing enough upgrades just to keep up with the bare minimum reqs.
Yes, there are people like me. Usually we're college students paying tuition out of our own pockets.
Now if only Nintendo would do the same (Score:2)
My hope is that Nintendo would do the same with it's older consols and games, help development of emulators, and maybe spark a larger interest in "ghetto games" for the NES/SNES. All this without the pesky hyperventilation of getting those old cartridges to work.
LOL, It seems Sony read my post :p (Score:1)
yesterday I posted about this when I read that sony and connectix were taking an off court settlement,
that's very cool, now we can expect a fully compatible VGS, or at least a much better one (it is already very good)
Agreement (Score:1)
Re:Big Corp != Bad (Score:1)
Big Corp != Bad (Score:3)
Yeah, Right (Score:1)
Re:So, what will the effects be? (Score:1)
Maybe they don't make any money on the box, but even if that is true once you own the box you are going to buy games for it. If they put out an emulator and you can buy GameA for PC or GameA for PS which are going to buy. Then they don't get the money. With lots of games being released for multiple platforms they want their customers locked into using their product only.
The only way I see them releasing VGS as a Sony product is if they loose their lawsuit with a competing emulator (ie. Bleem). Then they can market it as the official emulator at the same price or less and drive the competition out of buisness [microsoft.com].
Re:So, what will the effects be? (Score:1)
I think it's likely that they will kill it.
I hope I'm wrong, though. If Sony brands it's own emulator to play it's outdated games then maybe we'll see a widespread acceptance of emulators by the other gaming behemoths. I for think there is an untapped industry for classic games. More companies should unleash there "dead" products.
A best example of how to use these old games is shockwave.com [shockwave.com].
All Your Playstation Are Belong to Sony!!! (Score:2)