Mama Robotnik
Member
I always enjoy EDGE articles, they're smart and thorough. This one (published in E203, recently added to their website) discusses why this generation is staying put for the forseeable future.
-EDGE seem to think speculation that Apple will move towards a home-entertainment box is worth consideration.
-The quote "the hardcore audience is just too few in numbers" from Bizzare Creations is very much a cause for concern. Are we an endangered-targeted-demographic?
-Not quite sure what Perry is on about regarding moving-with-the-times and expensive hardware. Can anyone decipher a point?
-Fun Pachter quote of the day, PC gaming is almost irrelevant. In terms of the sheer size and scope of the casual market, I can understand the position. Then again, top of the charts right now is a casual, accessible PC Game. But is this the exception rather than the rule?
Interesting article, written before E3 but still very relevant.Generation when?
By Edge Staff
June 17, 2009
Since the NES, every five years or so a distinct new wave of technology has washed across the industry, bringing with it new power and functions to a market galvanised by the promise of faster, better, more. Change was once always tantalisingly close. Regional differences would see a console newly launched in one territory while its successor was only a gasp from being announced in another, such as Segas Master System, which was launched in Europe in September 1987 and followed by the 16bit Mega Drive in Japan just 13 months later.
The current console cycle, which began with Xbox 360 in 2005, shows little sign of ending. Even with E3 looming before us at the time of writing, we have little hope of Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft announcing hardware that represents a generational leap beyond what is sitting in gamers living rooms right now. Its a sentiment that CEO of EA John Riccitiello shares, stating during an investor conference call in May: Although we are in uncertain times, we continue to believe we will have an extended hardware cycle and we continue to see robust growth with our various direct service businesses. Same for Activisions CEO Bobby Kotick, who said in a similar call a couple of days later: I think that theres a lot of runway for all of these devices we dont really anticipate there are going to be material changes to the console landscape any time soon. Of the biggest publishers, only Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has made direct reference to a new generation, saying in January that he expects new consoles in 2011 or 2012 and in May that his company is preparing to support them. Gamings highest-profile analyst, Wedbush Morgan Securities Michael Pachter, bluntly refutes that, stating in a recent investor guidance email newsletter: We do not expect the next generation to begin before 2013, if at all.
If Riccitiello, Kotick and Pachter are right, it means that the current generation will be gamings primary focus for at least eight years. What does that mean for publishers and developers? What does it mean for manufacturers? And what does it mean for you? After learning about the dynamic resolution trickery that Wipeout HD uses to achieve its form of 1080p, do you still hanker after the true high definition Sony promised in the run-up to PlayStation 3s launch? Do you fear a yawning chasm between the fidelity of a top-of-the-line PC and your wheezing Xbox 360?
Not that it really matters what you think. As Pachter says: The public has zero power in this. In a landscape in which Nintendo did the unthinkable with Wii and found new audiences for videogames with console technology that didnt even exceed the capacity of the most powerful example of the previous generation, enthusiast gamers are too small a proportion of a newly burgeoning videogame market to count. But thats assuming you actually want new hardware. You may be perfectly satisfied with firmware updates and add-ons, whether incrementally improving what you originally purchased, as with Sonys strategy for PS3, or, in the case of Microsoft, making sweeping revisions like last years NXE and relying on the power of Xbox Live to serve up continual refreshments. Todays videogame consoles are no longer static devices, and Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo are still investing heavily in developing their existing platforms. As such, they have little to gain by suddenly introducing a new console generation.
Or, conversely, they have a lot to lose by introducing one. The need for each manufacturer to reap profit from the current generation is paramount. Sonys financial reports in June 2008 put losses incurred by PS3 at over $3 billion and, overall, SCE is still losing money, even if its a little less every quarter ($612.4 million in the financial year that ended March 2009) as PS3 software sales rise and production costs become reduced. Microsoft, meanwhile, may have finally brought Xboxs division, Entertainment and Devices, to profitability in 2007, having lost some $4 billion producing the original Xbox, but todays financial figures dont include the estimated $1-billion-plus three-year warranty programme the company initiated as a result of Xbox 360s red ring of death and E74 error problems.
Its important to note that Nintendos position is very different to that of Sony and Microsoft. Cash-rich and powerful with publishers, Nintendo can afford to build a new console. But Pachter is adamant that Wii HD will only match the power of PS3 and 360. They always had the plan to get some traction with Wii and then bring out Wii HD. I dont know if its end 2010 or a year later, but its coming, he tells us. Wii HD would be a canny business move. Publishers and developers are increasingly comfortable releasing games for current-generation technology, having reduced costs and streamlined production processes. And with Nintendo able to build a system thats straightforward for developers to port their 360 and PS3 games from, and to, it would be an easy sell to ensure that principal game licences like FIFA, Tiger Woods, Call Of Duty, Guitar Hero and GTA appear on it from its earliest days on sale.
Such a console can only delay any wishes from game-makers to move to a new generation. Publishers have put massive investments into producing games for todays hardware, and the prospect of ramping up production for a new generation, and the starting-from-scratch installed base that would entail cannot be attractive. Developers are in a similar position. 360 and PS3 are awesome pieces of kit, says Bizarre Creations Martyn Chudley. Personally, Im very happy where we are, with good levels of performance, a mature tool chain and engine, and a very stable user experience, particularly with Live on 360. And, obviously, a nice, healthy userbase.
Having developed games for PlayStation and Dreamcast, and launch games for both Xbox and 360, Chudley has ample experience of what it means to ramp up production for a new generation. Trying to make a game with no tool chain or engine and not knowing what the new platform is capable of is a complete pain, he says. Making games for hardware launch is like trying to build the brakes of a car from leftover bits of old cars, all while you and the car are hurtling towards the edge of a cliff. Speaking for myself, Id like to stick with the current hardware for at least another two or three rounds of games.
One platform, however, isnt a slave to generational change. With new graphics cards and CPUs being released every month, PCs have always provided a technical benchmark for consoles to aspire to. But with the highest-specification PC already running a game like Crysis at fantastical resolutions and with the benefits of DirectX 10-fuelled graphical effects, consoles are already falling significantly behind. In three years, might the kind of people who buy the first consoles of a new generation have gravitated towards PC for their thrills?
Pachter is clear that its not relevant, saying: PC games are such a small slice of the overall business now that its almost irrelevant if theres a quality difference. But its a complex question, not least because of the changes that PC gaming is currently undergoing. PC technology leaders are emphasising other uses for hardware power, seeing GPUs as ideal for such computationally intensive tasks as AI and physics. In relation to the fear that graphics would therefore take a hit, Roy Taylor of Nvidia told us last year: If weve got the baseline graphics at a point where people say that thats good enough, then no. I think were getting to a point where baseline graphics are somewhere around Crysis and thats pretty damn good. What we need is not more photorealism, but more going on. Could developers continue to create games that can take advantage of this power and also easily be ported to the current generation of consoles? Might a gulf in power be harmful to the ongoing development of games on PC?
Going back to hardcore console gamers, though, is this notional group actually big enough to make an impression on hardware strategy? Now we are working with Activision we have to think broader, and the hardcore audience is just too few in numbers, says Chudley. To survive as a studio of over 200 people we have to pay the bills, and even selling a million units of a title these days just doesnt cover the costs so we have to look beyond the hardcore. Pachter, however, wonders whether it really exists at all: Hardcore gamers always want something new, but do they really care whether GTAV plays on a new console or one theyve already got? Most people would just rather it be a better game when God Of War II came out, how many people questioned whether it could really be a PS2 game? Every game is going to get better on existing hardware.
All the while, however, the idea of consoles as they currently exist is being eroded. It might be difficult to imagine forthcoming streaming game services like OnLive, David Perrys Gaikai and AMDs Otoy project practically implemented on existing broadband infrastructure, but their potential cant be ignored. The concept is logical, Perry tells us. We buy the highest end, so the hardware is far more expensive than anybody could normally buy, and finally your gaming experience moves where the world is at. Conceptually, would you rather have a machine sit on your shelf for six to eight years with dust all over it before you can taste the next level? Or would you rather move with the times? Me, Id rather experience it.
And then theres Apple. Pachter admits that he knows no one at the company, but believes that it makes sense for it to build on the success of iPhone and create a living-room computer that plays media (Apple TV style), supports Skype-like internet phone and video calls, and runs applications according to principles set by the App Store, all using similar technology to what Apple is already selling in its MacBooks. It wouldnt represent a new generation, but it could cause for consoles the reshuffling of attitudes that iPhone has done for handhelds.
The only thing thats sure right now is that never before has so much money been at stake or the market so large and complex. Quite which party manufacturers or game producers has the guiding hand in when the next generation hits is unclear. But for the next three or four years at least, they will rely on the game-buying public to continue supporting whats already out, allowing them to finally capitalise on the heavy investments theyve made for it. The consumer doesnt change his behaviour until he knows something else is coming out, says Pachter. If hes right, well just have to wait until the big players are good and ready, busying ourselves with only makeovers and other enhancements in the meantime.
This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared in E203.
-EDGE seem to think speculation that Apple will move towards a home-entertainment box is worth consideration.
-The quote "the hardcore audience is just too few in numbers" from Bizzare Creations is very much a cause for concern. Are we an endangered-targeted-demographic?
-Not quite sure what Perry is on about regarding moving-with-the-times and expensive hardware. Can anyone decipher a point?
-Fun Pachter quote of the day, PC gaming is almost irrelevant. In terms of the sheer size and scope of the casual market, I can understand the position. Then again, top of the charts right now is a casual, accessible PC Game. But is this the exception rather than the rule?
Of course the "elitism" associated with the word is stupid, but it doesn't mean the word can have no meaning.