tl;dr. The real work is whittling it down to 1 page from 30.Why does OP get so little likes after so much work? Show some gratitude ppl.
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tl;dr. The real work is whittling it down to 1 page from 30.Why does OP get so little likes after so much work? Show some gratitude ppl.
The wonder years are the best for discussion. In a lot of ways, Saturn, N64 and PSX were the last real generation of inventive gaming machines.For me it's also about just having something interesting to discuss. I can look at and talk about older console designs practically forever. Like the SEGA Saturn, N64, Jaguar, PS3...not just about the architectures themselves but getting into the reasons why certain choices were made, what problems they sought to tackle vs. how effective they were in tackling them, the differences in their solutions vs. competing products, the effect those choices had on game design for those systems etc.
feel like pc is basically the expensive "premium" version of ps5/xbox these days, and consoles going hybrid will only widen the gap.Mmm....if a company thinks they can deliver well on a mobile/hybrid system concept, I don't see why they shouldn't try. If it gives some competition for Nintendo, that'd be great, as it means more for gamers at the end of the day.
Budget, time and manpower isn't deep enough. If everyone made games with the scope of:IMO it's down to three simple things: budget costs, amount of required manpower, and required time of development (in part influenced by scope).
Your crusade against the Sony PC ports are admirable, but the evidence we have at hand indicates it won't stop. It has been almost 5 years since the first PC port with Horizon. Here is what happened:
- Sony MAU is at an all-time high.
- The PS5 is selling better than the PS4 in its largest market, and is now closing the gap between it and the PS4 worldwide, and will likely overtake it, despite the shortages and issues from covid. At this point in the PS4 lifecycle, it was also significantly cheaper, especially in non US countries. If the PS5 had a decent price cut this gen, it probably would have exceeded PS4 easily by this point.
- There has been no significant increase in the CCU count of the Sony ports to PC. This goes to show, while a profitable porting market exists on PC, no major exodus from Playstation to PC is occurring. For those PC gamers that picked up the Playstation for exclusives and no longer will, it hardly matters to Sony, mostly because that addressable market is very small, and because they will still pick up those same exclusives on PC anyway. People entrenched into their respective ecosystems are hardly going to be swayed to switch primary platforms because of a handful of games, especially in the increasingly digital age.
- Most critically, despite what us armchair analysts might think, the data Sony themselves has indicates this is a winning strategy so far. They will only change when the market forces them to change, and right now PS5 is setting record revenues, highest MAUs, and billions from the PC ports. Perhaps if the PS6 is a total disaster, but I'm going to bet that won't happen.
As for securing third-party exclusivity, this is getting increasingly harder to do. Western Studios are well aware that skipping PC equals a ton of lost sales, but Eastern companies are hardly asleep to that fact. More than 50% of Capcoms revenue comes from PC now. Monster Hunter Wilds sold the most on PC. Skipping PC these days can potentially mean hundreds of millions in lost revenue.
I'm happy to see Sony is doing more PC ports than they did in the past, and they are coming more quickly. I hope that continues. I'm fine with waiting 6-12 months to get a PC version if it means I don't have to buy future PlayStation hardware. I'm happy to have TLOU on PC. Now if they could just give me Demon's Souls and Bloodborne...
In part one, you repeat a common misconception concerning Sony's PC port strategy. Shawn Layden put it best: "The strategy as we were developing it when I was there was that we need to go out to where these new customers are, where these new fans could be. We need to go to where they are... Because they've decided not to come to my house, so I've got to go their house now. And what's the best way to go to their house? Why not take one of our top-selling games?"
From the outset, they recognized that there was a large hitherto untapped audience on PC that was not interested in purchasing console hardware -- they were plenty content with all the advantages afforded by the PC platform, why spend extra money on what they considered to be an inferior platform? -- but might shell out cash for quality first-party games made available to their preferred platform.
This fantasy that Sony hoped to entice PC gamers with late ports to buy a Playstation system for subsequent exclusives needs to be put to rest already.
Consider the recent economic backdrop: heavy inflation has been putting a strain on many people's budgets, apparently there's a recession looming on the horizon, prices for certain PC components are ludicrous. If anything, I expect that at least some PC players will switch to consoles full-time simply because they offer the most bang for your buck; but setting aside hundreds of dollars to get a secondary system for just a handful of exclusives? Very few people would fall into that bucket.
You'll probably get your wish and for players who want that for genuine reasons, great. Personally it'd just mean more reasons to not buy a PlayStation, but ultimately that's a question SIE have to ask themselves over time: is it worth it?
tl;dr. The real work is whittling it down to 1 page from 30.
The wonder years are the best for discussion. In a lot of ways, Saturn, N64 and PSX were the last real generation of inventive gaming machines.
Here's a kicker: all the money and time spent console-ifying those APUs is to literally reduce functionality. They can place every PC game out of the box and connect to multiplayer servers free of charge. So Sony and Microsoft hire giant teams of engineers to strip functionality out of those chips to install paywalls at every turn. "Oh you've got a copy of FEAR for your PC, which this APU can run. Gotta make sure you can't play it so we can charge you $39.99 for the handicapped remake."
So there's a good little knife twist at the end to go along with the less inspired scope.![]()
feel like pc is basically the expensive "premium" version of ps5/xbox these days, and consoles going hybrid will only widen the gap.
i want a home console that out-consoles a pc.
sure, PCs have $2000 monster GPUs and 32-core watercooled CPUs... but they still chug when running physx in software mode.
and PS3 cell SPEs are still performant by todays standards.
if consoles specialize/innovate in the software/hardware space enough, they can still shine.
Budget, time and manpower isn't deep enough. If everyone made games with the scope of:
GTA San Andreas: less than 10M spent, 2 years dev time, 50 people
That should be much bigger than what most studios achieve today.
How we jump from that to smaller games costing more, and taking more time should be studied.
Imagine if an indie pulled off something like San Andreas, graphics and all, it would be a hell of an achievement compared to what they turn out today.
I think the big factor there is timed exclusives. If their single-player games are PS hardware only for a long enough time (9-12 months), they get the bulk of their sales on their hardware. If they release on PC later, that's an added bonus.
I thought it was crazy when Xbox went day 1 PC with all of their first party games. That seemed like they were giving away the game. Putting all their first party games on Game Pass day 1 was also crazy. I'm not surprised that neither of those strategies have worked out for them. But I don't see Sony going down those paths with their PC ports.
Poll too long/didn't vote.
Instead of asking for anything from new consoles, I'm going to ask for new games that genuinely require new consoles.
Gaming is too big to fail now and is set to rot just like movies. Mainstream audiences kill Triple A gaming. The masses always enable the way for things to be ruined you can look at anything and this is true.
I really like Sony's approach of using the new technology and compute power to do things that aren't necessarily graphics...like 3D audio and haptics. More stuff in that direction.
I would like them to expand greatly on their 3D audio initiative. There's no easy way to tell which games have it and which games don't.
its kind of crazy how sony has stepped away from its manufacturing capability over the decades. imagine a world where the world's most advanced node was from a sony foundry.They definitely would shine, but I think the issue is platform holders didn't invest enough in their own foundries and graphics technologies units to keep compute logic & GPU designs (and production) in-house. One could argue the pace of technological advances made that hard for all but the largest of foundries (i.e TSMC) and the most singular-focused tech firms (i.e AMD with CPUs, Nvidia with GPUs), and companies like Sony & MS figured it better to leverage them than keep things in-house since many divisions would be needing that tech & production capacities anyhow.
But still, it could've been great to see them retain that stuff in-house. I know Sony have their own semiconductor branch, but talk is they're going to spin it off. Hopefully they invest in it to make things more competitive with TSMC, Samsung etc. And of course, they have people like Mark Cerny around, but they are still mainly designing architectures based around provided AMD technologies...though they've also had input and influence into the actual core of some designs, like what they're going to be doing with Project Amethyst.
I can also understand that the degree of AAA dev these days, and the need for studios to have stable (and mostly similar) target platforms for their engines & pipelines to optimize for, also necessitates to some level less "hardcore", esoteric custom designs vs. older gens. Doesn't mean we can't miss the older approach all the same; I actually think if a smaller market segment aimed at, say, retro gaming hardware, were to establish itself, we could get some of that higher custom/exotic designs to come back.
We'd just probably be looking at devices with a TAM of 100K - 1 million, vs. 100 - 250 million PS, Xbox & Nintendo can target in a typical gen.
Well for now the 12-18 month gap seems to be doing...okay. And yeah if they stick with that, majority of the sales will still happen on their console, at least in terms of revenue. But what if total unit sales on console go down because more people wait for the PC port, and then buy the PC version super-cheap (or just pirate it)?
I still think we're gonna need more time to see how SIE's current porting strategy to PC actually shakes out, how it could affect their console. Maybe they are counting on Xbox no longer being a viable traditional console option (and Nintendo being perceived as not a direct competitor) to offset most negative drawbacks and retain console players even if they keep the PC strategy as-is (or even accelerate it). Personally, I don't think that'll work out so well, but we'll see.
its kind of crazy how sony has stepped away from its manufacturing capability over the decades. imagine a world where the world's most advanced node was from a sony foundry.
and yeah, homogenizing console hardware has big cost-saving dev benefits.
but its just so boring.
console hardware these days is basically off-the-shelf stuff, with just a couple custom bits and custom packaging.
ooo sony wow, you made a custom power supply for your ps5 chassis. big deal. old sony would'nt've even commented on that.
ooo your shaders are a little different from the PC standard. snore.
it's ultimately the games that matter, but if everything is on pc, and everything looks and plays better there... the main thing consoles specialize in is value.
and value does bring increase the player-base, which encourages devs to make more games... but consoles as merely econo-boxes is a fate i hate.
If Xbox spent the same effort they'd need to make that walled garden for the AMD APU they could make a Windows dashboard to console-ify a PC gaming box.
1. I think with that monetary effort you could make it pretty damn seamless for the people who are happy to not mess with PC stuff and stick to games with Xbox 4 branding (which would automatically adjust settings, never require a mouse or launcher etc) could get a gaming console experience. The ones who want to become power users could then tap in deeper. Make an easy api for third party devs to make their games Xbox 4 verified.
2. "1,000,000" games available at launch is a pretty tough act to follow for Sony. Especially considering many Sony games would be available.
If I don't have to buy PS hardware anymore, that would be great for me. But I'm also probably in the minority who will spend 5x as much on a PC, and wait all that time to get a port. I doubt there are many people like me out there.
And yes, I think the smaller the Xbox footprint is in the market, the more room PlayStation has to grow and take over those users. Nintendo is great for what they are, but no one is selling their Series console to make Switch 2 their primary gaming platform.
Valve does not have the unquenchable urge to expand infinitely. That is why they won't be able to compete with Microsoft in that arena. They simply do not want to and will not expend the effort required to do so. They're not a machine because their culture doesn't demand it. Valve just wants to make great products. They have no plans or desire for world domination. If anything I could see them partnering with Microsoft to some extent with this endeavor.If some of the rumors are true, that's basically what Microsoft are trying to work towards: a way of bringing the Xbox console usability experience & performance optimizations (for gaming) to Windows. The question I think, is if they can succeed doing that before Valve make big headway with Steam OS adoption rates for gaming thanks to Steam Deck devices and (very likely) new Steam Machine systems.
Because right now, both Valve and Microsoft are working towards something of the same goal of "console-fying" PC gaming; it's just that Microsoft wants to do so while shoring as much of that market share & retention towards Windows, and Valve couldn't care less about enabling Window's vice grip on PC gaming, hence Steam OS and the reason for devices like Steam Deck.
Considering the direction Windows is going in, my personal money is on Valve, but I can't ignore the resource advantages Microsoft has, including their experience from making mass-market consoles. Their traditional advertising, for example, may suck compared to SIE and Nintendo's, but it's still leagues ahead of Valve, who have basically none. Same with direct brick-and-mortar retail sales distribution chain experience & relationships. Where, on that note, it's good Valve are partnering with OEMs to build Steam Deck variants, because those OEMs have that type of experience Valve can learn from, as they get Steam devices to market at larger volumes.
But again, I think it's who gets there first successfully, and while Microsoft in theory have the best shot, Valve has significantly more active experience, cache (among PC gamers and gamers in general), and success in that long-term strategy in practice. So it's an interesting thing to consider.
Valve does not have the unquenchable urge to expand infinitely. That is why they won't be able to compete with Microsoft in that arena. They simply do not want to and will not expend the effort required to do so. They're not a machine because their culture doesn't demand it.
Valve just wants to make great products. They have no plans or desire for world domination. If anything I could see them partnering with Microsoft to some extent with this endeavor.
Theoretically sure, but look at the $15/mo they all have to charge. I don't think Valve wants to flop around in that mud. Imagine the size of the 24/7 multilingual customer support staff required to deal with such fuckery. I wouldn't want to deal with it. Certainly they already get a taste of that and I think it's why they just decided on automated refunds. Something no console maker would consider because they have to claw back every fucking cent they can out of those customers to keep the lights on. It's a sweaty job.Well here's the thing: they don't need to expand infinitely to compete with Microsoft or beat them in the market. They just need solid partners and a great product, and they already have the latter (at least in terms of a portable). Microsoft may have the capacity to expand near-infinitely, but it won't mean anything if the demand simply isn't there.
Like, they already have that capacity in the traditional console space, and look at how well that's been going for them this gen. Performing quite worst than even XBO, against significantly smaller companies in SIE/Sony and Nintendo. Ultimately, this is a customer-driven market, and you have to provide something customers actually want in order to leverage whatever capacities you can afford.
Again, they don't need to have desire for world domination to beat Microsoft in the "console-fication" PC gaming space. They just need a superior product, and solid partners who can help in terms of volume and distribution, which would help with better saturation. So far they seem to be doing a good, gradual build-up of this.
As far as them partnering with Microsoft, I don't see that really happening. Microsoft would need Valve much more than other way around, because Steam (and associated products) are things PC gamers actually care about, not Xbox and PC Game Pass (well, they might like PC Game Pass somewhat more than Xbox, but not significantly more or on the level of Steam). Not to mention, that type of partnership would probably just be worst off for us as gamers and customers; this stage of consolizing PC gaming is a very early market to some extent, and to have the best solutions, you need actual competition.
Plus historically, at least in other sectors, when such early markets have formed, Microsoft's answer to that competition has been to "embrace, extend, extinguish", as a way of pacifying them. It's something they can do given their size, but the targets have to actually fall for the offer first. Valve being privately owned means they aren't suspect to shareholders who might guide them in the wrong direction and have them compromise themselves into a position to be EEE'd.