cliffbo
02-11-2008, 07:32 PM
if you want to know Sony's vision of the future read this. the best article i've read in years:
i agree with every word... and the third party he speaks of i believe will be EA
EDITOR'S VIEW: The Single Platform Cometh
By Colin Campbell Print | Send to a friend | Email the editor
Colin Campbell converts to the apostatic belief that the single games platform is a historical inevitability.
Image I’ve always argued against the notion of a single games platform, for two reasons. First that it could never happen; the hardware big boys wouldn’t wear it. Second that, even if such a thing were possible, on balance, it would not be a good thing for the consumer.
Now I’ve changed my mind on both; with a few caveats.
You’ll be relieved to hear that, even as a recent convert, I’m not completely evangelical about this stuff. I have my doubts. I certainly won’t be bounding up and down the halls of GDC asking bemused strangers if they’ve “heard the good news”.
I still see the other side of the argument. But I do believe it is probable that a single platform will one day emerge and that such a thing would, on balance, be good for consumers and good for the game industry.
It is entirely wasteful to be developing, marketing and manufacturing the exact same product for two systems.
From trawling the forums and the blogs, my rough estimate is that about 80 percent of people who care about this sort of thing disagree with me. But since we are talking about an event that has not yet happened we’ll all have to just wait and see who has the right of it.
In the meantime, let the debate continue.
From an industry point of view, the benefits of multiple platforms are not greater than the drawbacks (I’m talking here about competing consoles, not multiple types of games devices, such as mobiles, toys etc.). It is entirely wasteful to be developing, marketing and manufacturing the exact same product for two systems that, for all intents and purposes, are pretty much the same while being entirely incompatible.
It’s no coincidence that the most strident views about this subject – from developers and publishers – come out in favor of a single platform. Making games for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 confers no benefit on the maker. It would be easier and cheaper to make just one version, especially if that one version didn’t carry a hefty licensing fee payable to the manufacturer.
For consumers, multiple platforms offer choice. However, they also offer non-choice. If you are an Xbox 360 owner who would like to play Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune or Metal Gear Solid 4, you must pay $400 for a PS3; even though you already own a product that does pretty much the same job. If we take it as gospel that software is more important than hardware, it’s a bad deal to offer hardware choice at the expense of software choice.
Consumers are aware of the schism between games consoles and this does not, in their eyes, offer any benefits when they choose which console to buy or, indeed, to buy one at all.
Retailers, at present, must also divide their stores into sections devoted to different platforms. Again, in a business that depends on margins and eliminating waste, this is a wasteful system.
A single platform would eliminate waste at the production stage, and potential waste for consumers; but would it grow the market beyond the size offered by multiple platforms?
Of course, you could argue that owners of more than one machine are inflating the size of the market currently, but this supposes that they are buying more games as a result of owning more machines. This seems to me to be unlikely or, at best, marginal. Games players do not allocate the time and money they spend playing games according to the number of consoles they own. Also, they very rarely buy the same game for more than one system.
To answer our question we have to try and work out what form a single platform might take. Likely, it won’t come from a single hardware manufacturer dominating the market. We’ve already seen the biggest companies in the world exerting all the effort and will at their disposal, and failing to either sustain dominance, or to wholly break it. And anyway, such a scenario would be the worst of all possible worlds.
A single platform controlled by a single company would be disastrous for the game industry’s growth. Imagine where we’d be now if PlayStation 2 or even NES had so completely dominated that no competing system had dared to launch. We certainly would not have the quality of games, technology or online services that we do have. Competition has brought us these benefits, but, later, we’ll come onto why that force may be a case of diminishing returns. I do not want to be hoisted by my own petard here. I do not deny the manifold benefits of competition.
Third party publishers, entertainment providers and manufacturers of consumer electronics have the most to gain.
It also won’t come from Sony and Microsoft (and definitely not Nintendo) laying down arms, sitting together and singing Kum Bye Ya. All these companies have a strong agenda to dominate the living room entertainment hub. They won’t give up. Why should they?
A single platform would need to compete with existing interests and, effectively, destroy them. There is never going to be a ‘grand deal’ between Microsoft and Sony and Nintendo; at least not until those companies have been sufficiently awed by the competing ’single platform’.
It would need to be sponsored in part by third party publishers, who have by far the most to gain from such a platform and by entertainment providers and manufacturers of consumer electronics that might also gain. It would need to be embedded in a ubiquitous home entertainment technology (the thing sometimes referred to as the ‘set-top box’ even though it won’t take that form) – the open-platform entertainment hub from which consumers download, view, store and enjoy a significant proportion of the their entertainment.
I know this is a semi-mystical idea, oft-derided, but the history of consumer product-economics and the undoubted benefits of some form of standardization are undeniable.
It’s likely that such a technology, if and when it came, would need to be at least as good as whatever it sought to replace. In other words, if the publishers all got together tomorrow to launch a single platform, it would need to do at least what Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 do now.
Unlikely, you say, and you’re absolutely right. But we’re forever being told that this hardware cycle is set to last for ten years, which offers up plenty of time for the cost of the technology to fall significantly and for the nature of home entertainment to evolve way beyond the status quo.
In order to win, the single platform would need to beat those products using technical parity and sheer awe-inspiring numbers. It would certainly not begin life as a single platform.
The level of technology that we currently call cutting edge will become commoditized way before it becomes superseded by a next generation. And if that doesn’t happen this generation, it will likely happen in a future generation.
Modern gaming technology would need to be offered up to people who never really asked for it, but are happy to entertain it in their homes. We have to believe that embedding game consoles into the home entertainment hub will generate sales of games to ‘new’ consumers and will satisfy people who see themselves as gamers.
Let me put it another way; if Microsoft opened up the Xbox 360 technology tomorrow and gave it away free with every digital set top box, would that in some way diminish your enjoyment of Xbox 360? Or would it create a massive consumer base, generating bigger investment in game development and opening up publishers to taking bigger creative risks? Because that’s part of the key here. The single platform would ideally be both ubiquitous and open.
The reason why it’s taking gaming so long to find a natural monopoly is because the advantages of competition outweigh the advantages of standardization. Consumers have been happy to upgrade to new consoles every five years or so. Publishers are just about able to wear the cost of converting their products to multiple platforms. Also, although it’s always been a struggle, they’ve been able to keep up with entirely new platforms every five years. But that’s not to suggest they’re happy with the situation, or that they’d be happy for it to continue in a world where either new platforms deliver smaller technological advances or one where new platforms take ten years or more to arrive.
Even in a world with a single platform, there would be room for alternatives that cater to specialists tastes.
The mistake many of us make when talking about the single platform is to take it, literally, at its word. What the publishers mean is a platform so dominant that they don’t need to work with other platforms if they don’t want to. But it shouldn’t preclude specialist, niche platforms with small dedicated (or even exclusively first party) games libraries.
Even in a world with a single platform, there would be room for alternatives that cater to specialists tastes; 99% of cars conform to a pretty narrow range of attributes but there is still a market for way-out automobiles for certain tastes and budgets. Likewise, in a world of ubiquitous gaming, there is always going to be a market for the oddity, the outsider that just won’t conform (enter, Nintendo) or portable games that either complement the single platform, or operate wholly outside its domain.
So when I talk about a single platform, I mean a default platform that ‘works just fine’ for the vast majority of consumers. Even then, the default platform would, at some point, need to be updated suggesting some form of transitional fragmentation, advanced versions of games that work with the advanced format and the older format, perhaps (much like HDTV sets which can show a variety of signal-types).
Let’s get back to the most convincing argument against a single platform – the argument to healthy competition.
Undoubtedly, it’s been a mixture of tough competition, game design innovation and rapid technological progression that has defined the last 30 years of the game industry. Without any of those components, the game industry would not be in the happy position it now holds. A single platform seems to put a freeze on two of the three. Why then, would we want such a thing? Would slowing down advancement be worth the candle of a massive audience?
A single platform could only work if progression were built into the plan from the beginning. There is no denying that such a thing would be extremely difficult and fraught with potential hazards. The powers that would control the single platform – game publishers and manufacturers of set-top boxes - might be keen to slow down costly attempts to progress the technology; so much so that they could even endanger the health of the game industry.
This is why the single platform would require some form of inherent upgrade-ability both in software and hardware terms. It is not easy to see how this might be achieved. But it is certainly possible and, given that you and I might not be thinking about buying a more advanced console than the ones we have for another decade, it doesn’t seem so far-fetched to suggest that technological progression in game hardware is slowing down; or at least that the gaps between progressive jumps in hardware advances are becoming so stretched that a single platform becomes feasible.
I do not deny that, at this point in history, an imminent single platform looks unlikely – we really are looking years and years ahead here. Nor do I deny that such a thing has its inherent problems and disadvantages. But I now believe that the current system in which two or more closed-platform consoles compete for a 30-40% market share will be replaced, one day, by a ubiquitous open platform with a 90% market share.
An open platform with an installed base of billions would be better than the situation we currently have; with the proviso that progression is built into the plan. Otherwise, the singe platform will inevitably be challenged by superior products, and we’ll be back where we started. In other words, the single platform would be exposed to market-forces and would not be some communist-era-style product forced on consumers by the all powerful entertainment complex.
Future gazing is always a brain-aching exercise and this is an especially complex problem. The game industry’s specific quirks have delayed standardization and will continue to do so. But that doesn’t preclude this process from happening at some point.
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9033&Itemid=2&limit=1&limitstart=0
i agree with every word... and the third party he speaks of i believe will be EA
EDITOR'S VIEW: The Single Platform Cometh
By Colin Campbell Print | Send to a friend | Email the editor
Colin Campbell converts to the apostatic belief that the single games platform is a historical inevitability.
Image I’ve always argued against the notion of a single games platform, for two reasons. First that it could never happen; the hardware big boys wouldn’t wear it. Second that, even if such a thing were possible, on balance, it would not be a good thing for the consumer.
Now I’ve changed my mind on both; with a few caveats.
You’ll be relieved to hear that, even as a recent convert, I’m not completely evangelical about this stuff. I have my doubts. I certainly won’t be bounding up and down the halls of GDC asking bemused strangers if they’ve “heard the good news”.
I still see the other side of the argument. But I do believe it is probable that a single platform will one day emerge and that such a thing would, on balance, be good for consumers and good for the game industry.
It is entirely wasteful to be developing, marketing and manufacturing the exact same product for two systems.
From trawling the forums and the blogs, my rough estimate is that about 80 percent of people who care about this sort of thing disagree with me. But since we are talking about an event that has not yet happened we’ll all have to just wait and see who has the right of it.
In the meantime, let the debate continue.
From an industry point of view, the benefits of multiple platforms are not greater than the drawbacks (I’m talking here about competing consoles, not multiple types of games devices, such as mobiles, toys etc.). It is entirely wasteful to be developing, marketing and manufacturing the exact same product for two systems that, for all intents and purposes, are pretty much the same while being entirely incompatible.
It’s no coincidence that the most strident views about this subject – from developers and publishers – come out in favor of a single platform. Making games for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 confers no benefit on the maker. It would be easier and cheaper to make just one version, especially if that one version didn’t carry a hefty licensing fee payable to the manufacturer.
For consumers, multiple platforms offer choice. However, they also offer non-choice. If you are an Xbox 360 owner who would like to play Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune or Metal Gear Solid 4, you must pay $400 for a PS3; even though you already own a product that does pretty much the same job. If we take it as gospel that software is more important than hardware, it’s a bad deal to offer hardware choice at the expense of software choice.
Consumers are aware of the schism between games consoles and this does not, in their eyes, offer any benefits when they choose which console to buy or, indeed, to buy one at all.
Retailers, at present, must also divide their stores into sections devoted to different platforms. Again, in a business that depends on margins and eliminating waste, this is a wasteful system.
A single platform would eliminate waste at the production stage, and potential waste for consumers; but would it grow the market beyond the size offered by multiple platforms?
Of course, you could argue that owners of more than one machine are inflating the size of the market currently, but this supposes that they are buying more games as a result of owning more machines. This seems to me to be unlikely or, at best, marginal. Games players do not allocate the time and money they spend playing games according to the number of consoles they own. Also, they very rarely buy the same game for more than one system.
To answer our question we have to try and work out what form a single platform might take. Likely, it won’t come from a single hardware manufacturer dominating the market. We’ve already seen the biggest companies in the world exerting all the effort and will at their disposal, and failing to either sustain dominance, or to wholly break it. And anyway, such a scenario would be the worst of all possible worlds.
A single platform controlled by a single company would be disastrous for the game industry’s growth. Imagine where we’d be now if PlayStation 2 or even NES had so completely dominated that no competing system had dared to launch. We certainly would not have the quality of games, technology or online services that we do have. Competition has brought us these benefits, but, later, we’ll come onto why that force may be a case of diminishing returns. I do not want to be hoisted by my own petard here. I do not deny the manifold benefits of competition.
Third party publishers, entertainment providers and manufacturers of consumer electronics have the most to gain.
It also won’t come from Sony and Microsoft (and definitely not Nintendo) laying down arms, sitting together and singing Kum Bye Ya. All these companies have a strong agenda to dominate the living room entertainment hub. They won’t give up. Why should they?
A single platform would need to compete with existing interests and, effectively, destroy them. There is never going to be a ‘grand deal’ between Microsoft and Sony and Nintendo; at least not until those companies have been sufficiently awed by the competing ’single platform’.
It would need to be sponsored in part by third party publishers, who have by far the most to gain from such a platform and by entertainment providers and manufacturers of consumer electronics that might also gain. It would need to be embedded in a ubiquitous home entertainment technology (the thing sometimes referred to as the ‘set-top box’ even though it won’t take that form) – the open-platform entertainment hub from which consumers download, view, store and enjoy a significant proportion of the their entertainment.
I know this is a semi-mystical idea, oft-derided, but the history of consumer product-economics and the undoubted benefits of some form of standardization are undeniable.
It’s likely that such a technology, if and when it came, would need to be at least as good as whatever it sought to replace. In other words, if the publishers all got together tomorrow to launch a single platform, it would need to do at least what Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 do now.
Unlikely, you say, and you’re absolutely right. But we’re forever being told that this hardware cycle is set to last for ten years, which offers up plenty of time for the cost of the technology to fall significantly and for the nature of home entertainment to evolve way beyond the status quo.
In order to win, the single platform would need to beat those products using technical parity and sheer awe-inspiring numbers. It would certainly not begin life as a single platform.
The level of technology that we currently call cutting edge will become commoditized way before it becomes superseded by a next generation. And if that doesn’t happen this generation, it will likely happen in a future generation.
Modern gaming technology would need to be offered up to people who never really asked for it, but are happy to entertain it in their homes. We have to believe that embedding game consoles into the home entertainment hub will generate sales of games to ‘new’ consumers and will satisfy people who see themselves as gamers.
Let me put it another way; if Microsoft opened up the Xbox 360 technology tomorrow and gave it away free with every digital set top box, would that in some way diminish your enjoyment of Xbox 360? Or would it create a massive consumer base, generating bigger investment in game development and opening up publishers to taking bigger creative risks? Because that’s part of the key here. The single platform would ideally be both ubiquitous and open.
The reason why it’s taking gaming so long to find a natural monopoly is because the advantages of competition outweigh the advantages of standardization. Consumers have been happy to upgrade to new consoles every five years or so. Publishers are just about able to wear the cost of converting their products to multiple platforms. Also, although it’s always been a struggle, they’ve been able to keep up with entirely new platforms every five years. But that’s not to suggest they’re happy with the situation, or that they’d be happy for it to continue in a world where either new platforms deliver smaller technological advances or one where new platforms take ten years or more to arrive.
Even in a world with a single platform, there would be room for alternatives that cater to specialists tastes.
The mistake many of us make when talking about the single platform is to take it, literally, at its word. What the publishers mean is a platform so dominant that they don’t need to work with other platforms if they don’t want to. But it shouldn’t preclude specialist, niche platforms with small dedicated (or even exclusively first party) games libraries.
Even in a world with a single platform, there would be room for alternatives that cater to specialists tastes; 99% of cars conform to a pretty narrow range of attributes but there is still a market for way-out automobiles for certain tastes and budgets. Likewise, in a world of ubiquitous gaming, there is always going to be a market for the oddity, the outsider that just won’t conform (enter, Nintendo) or portable games that either complement the single platform, or operate wholly outside its domain.
So when I talk about a single platform, I mean a default platform that ‘works just fine’ for the vast majority of consumers. Even then, the default platform would, at some point, need to be updated suggesting some form of transitional fragmentation, advanced versions of games that work with the advanced format and the older format, perhaps (much like HDTV sets which can show a variety of signal-types).
Let’s get back to the most convincing argument against a single platform – the argument to healthy competition.
Undoubtedly, it’s been a mixture of tough competition, game design innovation and rapid technological progression that has defined the last 30 years of the game industry. Without any of those components, the game industry would not be in the happy position it now holds. A single platform seems to put a freeze on two of the three. Why then, would we want such a thing? Would slowing down advancement be worth the candle of a massive audience?
A single platform could only work if progression were built into the plan from the beginning. There is no denying that such a thing would be extremely difficult and fraught with potential hazards. The powers that would control the single platform – game publishers and manufacturers of set-top boxes - might be keen to slow down costly attempts to progress the technology; so much so that they could even endanger the health of the game industry.
This is why the single platform would require some form of inherent upgrade-ability both in software and hardware terms. It is not easy to see how this might be achieved. But it is certainly possible and, given that you and I might not be thinking about buying a more advanced console than the ones we have for another decade, it doesn’t seem so far-fetched to suggest that technological progression in game hardware is slowing down; or at least that the gaps between progressive jumps in hardware advances are becoming so stretched that a single platform becomes feasible.
I do not deny that, at this point in history, an imminent single platform looks unlikely – we really are looking years and years ahead here. Nor do I deny that such a thing has its inherent problems and disadvantages. But I now believe that the current system in which two or more closed-platform consoles compete for a 30-40% market share will be replaced, one day, by a ubiquitous open platform with a 90% market share.
An open platform with an installed base of billions would be better than the situation we currently have; with the proviso that progression is built into the plan. Otherwise, the singe platform will inevitably be challenged by superior products, and we’ll be back where we started. In other words, the single platform would be exposed to market-forces and would not be some communist-era-style product forced on consumers by the all powerful entertainment complex.
Future gazing is always a brain-aching exercise and this is an especially complex problem. The game industry’s specific quirks have delayed standardization and will continue to do so. But that doesn’t preclude this process from happening at some point.
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9033&Itemid=2&limit=1&limitstart=0