06.26.13 |
Gaming |
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I’m far from a “hard core” gamer, but a mere two days after E3’s start this year, I preordered the PS4. I’m bullish on Sony for two main reasons: indies and focus.
The indie developer factor
E3 pressers lean on the tried and true: AAA first person shooters, racing games and sports. These are the Hollywood blockbusters of gaming, big budget games that rarely deviate from an expected template to avoid alienating fan bases. I’m not above partaking in AAA franchises with better graphics and AI, but those games will always be there. At this point diversity and originality matter more and it’s increasingly smaller budget indie developers that fill this need.
With development and distribution costs dropping, indies are a rapdly growing presence on most gaming platforms. Mobile gaming is dominated by small developer content, and indie games have become huge sellers on Steam. And it’s not just sales; some of the most critically acclaimed games last year (The Walking Dead, Fez, Journey) were decidedly indie.
Despite this, the XBox One seems tone deaf to the indie movement. The XBox E3 presser gave indies five minutes to hustle through two quick trailers, a total afterthought. Microsoft also forces indie distributers through a lot of red tape. For instance, there’s no self publishing and XBox Live often charges expensive patch fees (often prohibitively expensive for smaller dev teams) to keep games updated. It’s bad enough that several smaller studios have dropped XBox One development entirely.
In contrast, Sony has a more indie-friendly approach: a showcase of eight indies in the middle of their worldwide E3 presser. Self publishing. Aggressive courting of indie studios with PS4 dev kits. The results are almost 30 indie game console exclusives to be released by end of 2014. Sony still has to ensure their online stores are set up so gamers can discover indies easily (a major problem on the current gen XBox 360) but overall Sony has an impressive start.
Focus
Sony appears very disciplined, an about-face from their aloof stance during the PS3 debut. They’ve lined their top ranks with gaming veterans like Mark Cerny, Shuhei Yoshida and Shane Bettenhausen. The heavy gaming thrust of the PS4 is also realistic and practical. Don’t battle against Apple TV, mobile platforms or the many other web browsers and Netflix players in the living room; coexist and focus on what you do best: games.
Contrast that with Microsoft where both the personnel and vision is all over the place. Exhibit A: the DRM PR mess that’s followed Microsoft around from E3 to its 180 flip flop last week. There’s also been little added support or push around Kinect’s gaming benefits, even though it’s the main reason the system carries a $100 premium over the PS4. And XBox One’s split screen, live/cable TV focus feels dated. It’s Google TV all over again, tech effectively dead on arrival.
Smaller issues
Issues that have dominated gaming discussion online are pretty overrated. XBox and PS4 disc DRM is now on even terms and within a year or two I suspect digital downloads will be the default anyway. Microsoft’s pre-E3 vision of an all digital future isn’t just fantasy, it’s an inevitability (the rest of the tech industry – most notably Steam – have already moved this way.) While neither Microsoft nor Sony have revealed their next gen digital download policy, I’d wager they will start on similar footing.
I won’t give either system an edge on hardware either; Sony’s supposed superior gaming architecture could easily be nullified by XBox Live’s cloud computing. That leaves the launch lineups exclusive to each console, both of which are fairly weak (though Microsoft’s Forza 5 looks incredible.) And based on previous console gens, it’s a folly to extrapolate launch titles out to the quality of a console’s library years down the road.
Regardless of what happens, the future of console gaming is uncertain as mobile and PC gaming continue to make inroads. The PS4 could soundly “win” over the XBox One in sales for its first year and still be a failure. But if I’m betting now, I think Sony will start out of the gates ahead on Microsoft.
06.25.13 |
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Ben Kuchera, writing for The PA Report:
Microsoft doesn’t allow developers to self-publish their games on the Xbox 360, nor will it be allowed on the Xbox One. There’s been much talk about this limitation, but few really understand what it means, or why that decision not only screws over indies on the Xbox One, but the PlayStation 4 and PC as well. Microsoft, in one very broad stroke, has made it much harder for smaller developers to operate in gaming as a whole.
Occasionally I questioned if some of the examples here were a bit hyperbolic. But I’ve been reading so many reports of this from different sources that there’s clearly a lot of truth here. As a article commenter points out, it’s ironic the Microsoft tried this experiment back with 360 and the XLIG. Seeing where they started and where they are now…pretty crazy.
06.18.13 |
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John Teti, writing for The Gamelogical Society on Microsoft’s E3 presser:
If the people on Microsoft’s Xbox team thought of their audience as human beings, they would have acknowledged some of the elephants in the room—like the Xbox One’s extraordinarily confusing used-games scheme or the privacy concerns regarding the always-on Kinect camera, which have only become more urgent as the nation realizes how thoroughly we are being surveilled. If they wanted to speak to people, Microsoft’s executives would not have ticked every box on their Buzzword Bingo card twice over. They know this talk of an “entertainment revolution” is bullshit, and we know it’s bullshit. Yet still they make us sit through this inane emperor’s-new-clothes charade, as they talk at length to nobody in particular.
For a few hours after Microsoft’s presser, right before Sony started presenting, I had already slightly moved away from leaning Microsoft for my next console. All I could think was, you’re not going to address anything the gaming public have been piling on you? Then fuel the fire with endless violent sequels on shooters, and racers we’ve seen before? Little to any indie presence? And then set the price at $500? The presentation was well paced, and there were a few exclusives I could get on board with. But John identifies exactly what left such a bad taste in my mouth.
06.07.13 |
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Tech writer and former Hypercritical podcast host John Siracusa really sets a high bar with his post regarding the likely fates of the XBox One, PS4 for and Wii U for the next console generation. Bottom line, it’s hard to guess who will come out on top now, but I agree completely with John’s belief that there isn’t going to be an “even divide” between these consoles.
If I were a betting man today, I’d say the Wii U will fall far, far short of the XBox One and PS4, both in terms of hardware and games sold. But it’s extremely hard to say now either Sony or Microsoft have the edge. We’ll learn more next week at E3.
02.28.13 |
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Interesting take on the Surface tablet from Penny Arcade illustrator Mike Krahulik. Overall, as a multifunctional computer that is both a relatively slick, pressure sensitive sketch device along with baseline gaming device, he liked it.
01.07.13 |
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This episode recorded this last Saturday at CES has some good back and forth specific to the web in the first twenty to thirty minutes. In particular, hosts Josh, Nilay and Paul discuss the recent spat between Microsoft and Google due to the removal of Google Maps web access on Windows Mobile. There’s talk about monopolies on the web, Webkit and web standards.
11.02.12 |
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Tech writer Bob Cringely:
What Steve Ballmer and Microsoft need to do is clean up their act, quietly trim expenses, maybe even sell a few product lines, and start to seriously stash away cash toward the post-Windows, post-Office world of 2018.
Yes, post-Office. What else can be meant by bundling Office with Windows RT than its value is headed to zero?
If Microsoft can continue to pretend it is big while actually becoming small, they might end up in 2018 with a small residual product line sitting atop $100 billion in cash.
10.26.12 |
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John Siracusa:
Microsoft’s mistake is subtle, but potentially fatal. It’s the seemingly reasonable assumption that defending its market position is the most important goal of any corporate strategy. Microsoft will fail by succeeding. Through its competent, intelligent, practiced execution of a well-honed plan to maintain its dominance, Microsoft will assure its eventual demise.
Put simply, to win in the long run, Microsoft must be willing to risk losing it all. It must be willing to put all its chips on the table, to throw away decades of hard-fought victories, proven technologies, and market-leading products. It must be willing to do what the long-extinct corporate giants of the past were not.
John wrote this over at Ars Technica…in 2005. Given Microsoft’s big bet on Surface, it’s a relevent piece that found itself trending high on Hacker News earlier this week.
10.23.12 |
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A comprehensive look at the evolution of Windows over the years, starting way back with Windows 1.0 back in 1985. Ars Technica already is my “go to” place for extremely in depth hardware and software features, but they’ve really outdone themselves here. Reporter Peter Bright deserves major props for his research and organization.
10.22.12 |
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Casey Muratori writing for Gamasutra:
Experimentation on open platforms is one of the primary sources of innovation in the computer industry. There are no two ways about that. Open software ecosystems are what gave us most of what we use today, whether it’s business software like the spreadsheet, entertainment software like the first-person shooter, or world-changing revolutionary paradigms like the World Wide Web…
…With Windows 8, Microsoft is in a pivotal position to help make this future a reality…Or, Microsoft can ship Windows RT, Windows 8, and Windows 8 Pro with their current policies in place, and be just another player in the touch device space, with their own set of ridiculous hurdles that severely constrain software possibilities and waste developer time with ill-conceived certification processes.
Many fair points made here, but I wonder if the author is confusing the far more restrictive Windows RT – which is very akin to the closed iOS model – with Windows 8 as a whole.