Sony to take on Apple with next-gen PlayStation Portable, Android game store - Page 3

I hope the PSP and DS don't die - I find them to be excellent systems for playing games, due to the quality of the games and the presence of physical controls.

As good as Street Fighter IV may be on the iPhone, it's a lot harder to play well (and enjoy, in my opinion) than Tekken, SoulCalibur or BlazBlue on the PSP, simply because of the lack of real buttons.

Geometry Wars is painful on the iPhone, and marginally playable on the iPad. With real, dual analog sticks on the PSP2/NGP, it would be flawless.

To me that translates to "elaborate time wasters" vs. "casual time wasters." I'm sooo glad I was born a bit early for the electronic gaming generation, which has claimed so much of so many lives running around in someone else's synthetic maze blowing up virtual non-things.

Word, Keynote and Photoshop are still my favorite "video games." I endure reading about gaming because I have to in order to follow the industries that matter to me.

(Just getting that out of my system. The most sallow-faced among you may feel free to crap on my head for insulting your existence-numbing predilections.)


And those "traditions" are working so well against Apple's model.

I'm not sure any platform provides "a secure way of making money." 2010 was an incredible year to be a gamer, because of all of the awesome games that came out; apparently it wasn't nearly as good a year for the companies that actually made the games.

I think iPhone development is certainly risky: you have no guarantee that Apple will approve your app! Barriers to entry are low, resulting in drastically increased competition. Moreover, your income can be much lower on the iPhone since your game probably sells for 99 cents (30% of which is pocketed by Apple), rather than $30. As a result, you may need to sell 30x as many copies of your game.

The App store itself is a bizarre popularity contest; it seems to reward instant gratification and eye candy over a possibly deeper experience and quality design. As a result, some great apps end up at the bottom of the heap and are ignored or forgotten while a "fart app" makes the top 10 for 2010!

That's not to say that it's impossible to be successful on the App store - you just have to make a great app, promote it via other channels, and get lucky!

Somehow, I have the feeling that the demographic "hardcore portable gamer" is a pretty small segment. Those are the only people who will forego an iPhone or iPod Touch in favor of this new PSP.

Yeah, or wasting time simulating a highly abstracted medieval war with plastic pieces on an 8x8 grid, pretending to buy and develop real estate while rolling 6-sided dice and collecting $200/week in fake money, or figuring out what words could be made with a certain collection of letters. Curse those terrible new-fangled "games" for destroying the youth of today!

I gather you don't waste time reading books, going to movies, listening to music, watching television, pursuing "non-productive" hobbies, or posting on web forums either. ;-)

Actually Apple will approve anything that meets their guidelines.

Sony can (and will) disallow complete games, for all sorts of reasons. Including "we don't like it" or "we already have something like that". The TRC lists for both Sony and MS are very difficult to pass. And developers have to pay for each submission. I once had a game refused because it stalled if a user pulled out a controller at one specific moment in the game!


Huh?


I think you need do a bit more research.
On the app store, developers charge what they want to. From free to $1000. Apple takes a 30% hit.

With conventionally sold PSP titles, you have to pay a unit royalty to Sony. And pay for the duplication and inventory production. THEN you have to share revenues with the bricks and mortar shop. So a $30 title will earn a publisher about $10. The developer might only see $2 or $3 from that sale.

I think Sony's electronic distribution is similar to Microsoft (a 70-30) split. ie. Sony take 70%.

I agree that content can get lost in the App store. But it's not Apple's job to promote your game.

C.

My bad. Here is the downloadable game history for the PSP in the US:

November 2007 PC based PS Store
October 2008 PSP based PS Store
PSP Go Revealed May 2009

I was technically correct in my statement tho as I said nothing before the PSP Go had internal memory and could make use of digital downloads. Starting in later 2007, 3 years into the system's lifespan, you could start downloading games on the PS Store on your PC and transferring them to your PSP to save on a memory card. A year later you could access the store from your PSP itself. A year later the PSP Go came out and there was finally a PSP with internal storage.

This new version is clearly a large jump past the PSP Go, especially in looks.

At first I was concerned that PlayStation Suite was only available for Android and not the iPhone... then I thought about how well PlayStation 1 and PSP games would work in emulation on the iPhone or any Android phone without actual buttons...

Fair play, perhaps I've misinterpreted that. But that just then asks the question of whether or not there's a place for a dedicated, non-phone handheld device in 2011. I suspect not, strongly.

This is misleading - while it's true that the PlayStation Store wasn't rolled out until 2007, the original PSP in 2005:

- came with a removable (and, importantly, upgradable!) memory card (mine was 32 MB, tiny but big enough for game saves)
- supported downloadable game demos and other software
- supported downloadable firmware updates

you will likely witness defensive and dismissive talk (a typical reaction to a viable threat) about a competing product . ignore most of it; be amused by all of it.

anyways, here's some gameplay footage. more specifically, a video montage followed by a live demonstration of Uncharted http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKsWSzAe5R4&hd=1&t=4m30s

I can appreciate your translations to "elaborate time wasters" and "casual time wasters" despite the fact that I have enjoyed video games since pong and the atari 2600.
No if you'll excuse me I'm going to go look up the meaning of sallow-faced.

I've watched lots of movies on my PSP, none via UMD, I've listened to music from it, and it plays awesome games. Have you actually used one before?


That's weird, I have downloaded PSP games from the PSN store, and I only have a PSP-2000, I'm fairly sure you have never even touched a PSP.

Here's the thing though, the PSP2 stage demo was playing PS3 ports. They demoed Uncharted and it looked amazing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6j6rNKXB6sw

They even suggested it was as powerful as a PS3. It's not too wild a statement when you consider the PS3 is over 4 years old now and the PSP doesn't really have to output HD, nor does it have to run near 60FPS - it can be 1/3 the performance and look pretty much the same. Battery life has been noted as comparable with the previous PSP, which is 5 hours.

They got rid of UMD in favour of Flash media and it is a pretty big device so plenty of room for a bigger battery:



It ends up being lighter than before due to ditching the UMD drive.

I wonder if the PS3 will end up being the last big console Sony makes. Portable gaming is clearly the way forward. Just wireless display output to a TV and it will be a great gaming device.

I still think the iPhone has an advantage in terms of size because it lets you have the games with you all the time. You aren't going to carry that PSP2 around everywhere along with your phone.

Sony will have the big games developers behind them though and that's really where Apple need to make some effort. The watered-down versions of the major franchises just aren't that good.

The iPhone 5 rumour suggested dual-cores so we could safely assume half the PSP2 performance but that's still plenty of power and between a PS2 and XBox. Plenty for some big titles. Apple could even pay 100 developers $1m each to port their games instead of spending it on advertising. Then people will come to the platform for the games and they recoup some of the money.

Good God the NGP is HUGE!!!

Hard to out innovate Apple!

Looks like they just need to make a slide in adapter for the iPhone to add the control pads. Now that would be a game changer.

It does look great. But don't believe all the hype. Sony have consistently exaggerated the performance of every console they produced.

The numbers I have heard was that it could shift more polygons that a Wii. And with pixel shaders too.

So exaggerated performance or not - it is certainly very good.


You are not wrong there.
It's been a long time since the last generation of consoles, and there's absolutely no appetite within the industry for another costly transition. The cost of creating great content that maxes out these machines is still too high for the returns. (Unless, of course, you own a Halo of War Duty Auto Ismo)


The problem for Sony is their alliances with these big games devs is not all love and charity. Sony end up "supporting" those big developers. To make the platform attractive they entice strategic titles onto their platform with cash. Or just buy the dev team outright. This is how Sony secure much needed glamour to the platform. But the strategy is expensive. And does nothing for their bottom line.

I don't think Apple even consider playing that sort of game. Apple adopt a "if you build it, they will come" philosophy - and the whole idea of mutual blackmail and incentives just does not occur to them.

One interesting thing is that the specs of this machine and a dual-core iPad / iPod 5 are really not that different. It'll be interesting to see if devs move content from iOS to NGP or vice versa.

C.

Well it is beefy device and, without UMD drive, there should be more than enough place for a decent battery. Original PSP was pulling around 5 hours with reasonably small battery, which is not bad for 3D games - I don't think my 3Gs would last 5 hours while playing any demanding 3D game.

The problem with these devices, in my opinion, is that they are not multipurpose. Nobody wants to carry a cellphone, an mp3 player, a gaming device, an ebook reader, etc. People want all-in-one devices and until these other companies realize it, they will continue to make niche products. By the way, I don't just mean all-in-one devices. I mean all-in-one devices that do everything, if not all things, well.

There's a hard-core of gamers that would sacrifice the convenience of multi-purpose devices in order to get the best gameplay experience. But it really isn't a big audience.

It is, however, a very vocal and very demanding audience. And Sony has damaged itself by paying way too much attention to it.

C.

I tend to disagree.

While PSP is not considered to be runaway success, it did sell around 60 million units. For the most of the time it was more expensive than competing GameBoy, and being a "premium" handheld console I'm finding it perfectly normal and expected to sell less than "mainstream" handheld console.

I think that this new NGP has potential. It keeps all the advantages of real console (and improves with dual analogue controllers and likes), but it also tries to get into casual gaming with dual touch surfaces; that alone has potential for some very interesting control schemes. Plus, there is removable media for distribution of big games - something iDevices suffer from, at least in my book (as I'd prefer not to download and keep 10+ GB games in built in storage).

We can expect that, from performance point of view, NGP hardware will be bettered - maybe even before NGP is available - but GameBoy teaches us that performance is not winning factor when it comes to consoles.

If the price is right, this thing will have combination of casual cheap downloadable touch-screen and physical controller games (what kids and grownups would be able to purchase for a change), as well as hard core games with full battery of hardware controls (what kids would be getting for spec occasions - birthdays, Christmas etc). As such, it could entertain over the whole year without breaking bank on premium titles only. Plug it to a TV and you get almost PS3 quality. This device actually could be good enough to cover all aspects of gaming - portable casual, portable hard-core and home gaming - minimizing need to have more devices (and minimizing ownership expenses).

I think that is very good proposition. IF this device delivers what is being promised.

That's right, I think we are getting close to where the industry hits the quality plateau. Hardware has its limits but when you think of what goes into a game, people have to essentially try and build a fully functional world out of nothing. You have to design concept art, translate into models, have texture artists do the characters and landscapes, get an engine to handle the physics and rigging, write shaders for the surfaces and apply them to every object in the game, manage all the effects like particles, rain, volumetrics, have voice actors speak the parts, sync that up with facial animation, add sound effects to the environment, test the game a thousand ways to see what breaks it, build it for various platforms, market it and so much more in between while making sure you don't go bust in the process.

Budgets for big titles are up to $100 million per title - that was for GTA 4 with 1000 people working on it for 3.5 years. Good sales are 10-20 million copies and most games don't come anywhere near that. Average will be about 500k-2m. If the push the budgets any higher without the market expanding, the cost has to go up. I'm surprised that the games industry survives right now with games the price they are at $60 (£40).

I don't like the trend I see in gaming where developers try to make a single game last as long as they can and push 20+ hours of gameplay with open-world, empty adventures where most of the time you spend just moving around a very wide space and you have to wait years between releases. I much prefer the shorter 5 hour games where you can look forward to quicker release schedules and would just focus on the quality of the experience not the quantity.

Mobile gaming has kind of helped in terms of the budget and scheduling but it has damaged the industry a bit too by lowering the standards and prices expected. A 99c game with a sketch bouncing on a ledge shouldn't dictate how much Square Enix can charge for Tomb Raider.


Yeah, that is what Apple prefer to do. The games publishers are struggling though, they've taken a massive hit with the economy. If I had the money that Apple had and the passion they promote for creativity, I'd try to demonstrate it by directly supporting the creative industries who need the help. With $50b+ reserves, a $100m investment is nothing when they spend $3b on component deals. The content industries will ultimately be the most important ones so they need to invest heavily in them now.

Heheh.


I thought that was pretty clear, but I will explain.
Barriers to entry are much lower: any Mac + $99 and you're an iOS developer. Boom.
Drastically increased (in volume at least) competition: 300,000 apps in the App store vs. how many PSP/DS games?


On the app store, games are 99 cents to $10 or so. Or free. Guess which ones you're going to be competing with? Yep, 99 cents and free.


Hmm, if that's the case, then I shall recalculate. Your game is 99 cents on the App store, of which you get 70 cents. So to make that $3 you only need to sell 4x or 5x as many copies of your game.


If your game is on PSN, it might actually get noticed. Can't say that for the App store. But if Sony takes 70% then you need to sell (more than) twice as many copies of your PSN game...

Of course, you might as well be on PSN, XBL *and* the App store if you possibly can!

Yet, surprisingly, the iPad lives on (as does the iPod Touch.)

I think some people like the iPhone but don't need or want the "phone" part, particularly if it locks you into a 2-year, $1600+ contract.

In any case, the Nintendo DS series seems to be doing just fine. Apparently not all parents want to get cell phones for their kids, and not all kids want to play games on phones. They do want iPads, though, apparently...

The Kindle, Nook, etc. seem to be doing just fine as well.

Perhaps more amazingly, the Flip Video is still alive. Though I do suspect that Pure Digital may have sold itself to Cisco at exactly the right time...

Sony's "next gen" portable is classic Sony: jam pack every bell and whistle Sony's great Japanese engineers can devise into a single gizmo. a real tour de force.

except that is not what anyone except nerds/geeks wants, or can figure out how to fully use.

Sony should learn from MS even, and the success of the Kinnect. the Kinnect is a one trick pony, but it is a good trick: an inexpensive accessory that is compatible with a large installed base of XBox's that nails one important/big market segment - families with younger kids that love to jump around a lot. which is just about every family in the world.

likewise iOS and its several gadgets nail the huge market for "casual" inexpensive games for people of all ages.

Nintendo has put its bet on one major new DSI feature too: 3D. might work. at least will prop up sales of updated versions of its franchise games.

but what is the market for a more expensive and more complicated gizmo that plays expensive games? yet not really better games ...

and after the PSP Go, Sony really can't afford another flop, or it will be out of the PGP running for good.

they are so lost ...

So Sony finally updates the PSP. It might sound impressive, but keep two things in mind:
1. Sony has over promised and played the "salivating specs" game in the past.
2. iPhone will probably get revved every year

The NGP (PSP2?) will probably start aging within a year of its release, next to the smart phones that'll be following it. Never mind that it will probably take Polyphony Digital another 5 freakin' years to release another Gran Turismo game for it. Oh I can't wait until 2016 for that, lol.

In the mean time, Apple's iOS installed base will continue to grow. And if Nintendo's bet is right, and everyone and their mother wants 3D displays on their portable, Sony's NGP will indeed be DOA. But I'll probably still buy one

Well, personally not really, i thought it was far fetched, but remember how a rumor could make the whole rumor mill go crazy and then it's forgotten about a couple of days later.
http://forums.appleinsider.com/showt...hreadid=114170

It's cool to see Sony presenting an ambitious plan, and something that looks like a good console. Did you see that movie showig off the back-touch surface? Looks great.

Anyone who whines about the difficulty of getting an App in the App store should really shut up unless they have gotten a game past Sony.

Yes there is more competition (disadvantage if your product is lame) but the cost of entry is low. Which I'd chalk up as a major advantage.


On revenue..

A PSN game might give a two dollar royalty. I'd argue against the iOS 99c price for a full game.

The App store connects you to a potential audience of more than 160 million iOS devices. I'd assume everything over two years old is retired - so lets say 100m active users.
In two years this might be 150m-200m. That's a big audience.

The current PSP probably has 18M active users. (Who rarely buy anything).
The NGP has zero users of course. In two years time, it may have 6-10M users. Can you see the attraction of iOS development now?

So for iOS developers, it might reward them to lower the price, to reach a larger audience.

We have not yet considered the relative cost of development.

C.

The fact of the matter is that I know no-one, and I doubt that many of you will either, that has bought an iPhone, iPod or iPad where it's 'gaming prowess' was the key factor for purchase.
You say a potential audience.... how many of that potential audience bought the iOS device with gaming as a key factor, outside of the number of potential audience that bought the PSP, DS, and in the future, the NGP.

You may as well say that the PC won every platform war in the past 20 yrs, simply because the act of owning a PC/laptop made it a potential audience/installation for gaming. It may well be an advantage to have a bigger possible audience for iOS developers, but that audience has to be somewhat interested in what you're providing first, for it to matter in any real terms.

To quote another set of numbers the Wii (probably the iPhone's actual closest rival, in terms of gaming) has sold 84m devices as of Dec 31 of last year, yet it is still woefully lacking in third party support for games, with many of them being classed as shovelware simply because they lack any real depth, and many franchises that have tried to cross-over from Other consoles and the PC, or games that attempt to take popular genres from one side to the other, have failed to be real commercial successes, Dead Space Extraction, The Conduit, as just two examples.

The difficulties over control schemes means that many games will use the tilting of iOS to replace an analogue stick, but for most other buttons, these have to placed on screen for touch interaction, reducing the portion of screen real estate that is always visible.

To say that mobile gaming is the future, simply because the iOS supports this claim is sheer folly. Look at Nokia's N-Gage, great idea, not a bad unit, but the amalgamation of phone controls with game unit controls was an absolute disaster.

This is not to say that gesture gaming, which is essentially what the iOS does, has a future, with developers being increasingly inventive with how they use the input options available on the devices, it's just that realistically there is a very real point at which the iOS cannot extend beyond in terms of control layout, particularly on the smaller screens of the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Someone mentioned Infinity Blade, I have it, love the game, absolutely brilliant and without a doubt made perfectly for the iPhone, but could it only have been done on the iPhone? No. Infinity Blade certainly shows what can be done as the future of mobile gaming, but as gaming as a whole. No. That being said, I am about to see what the implementation of Dead Space is like on iOS, but therein lies another problem, iOS will have to be sidesteps in terms of games, prequels, episodic 'run-ups' to console games, like Mass Effect Galaxy.

So to surmise that there is no direction for gaming to go now but towards mobile gaming, and that current generation machines are obsolete and that mobile gaming IS gaming, is ridiculous.

Certainly there might be changes to licensing models etc. brought about in no small part thanks to the App Store model.

My opinion of Apple's forays into gaming and now having 'love for teh gamers' might well change if they actually did something for games and developers in OSX rather than just spouting sales numbers.

To be honest, when you can get a cross-platform release across PC, 360 PS3 and iOS then Apple will have arrived in gaming, but until the production values, gameplay and longevity of games like Mass Effect 2, Uncharted 2, Black Ops and Red Dead Redemption arrive in their FULL glory whether on iOS or OSX, then it really isn't a proper comparison.

P.S. Game Center - great idea, but no guidelines for developers = awful implementation.

I think a lot of kids get iPod touches for the games. Mine did!

That's sort of the point. People buy themselves a nice phone and get gaming machines for free. They don't have to slap down $299 or $399 just to play.


You make my point. The hardcore buy these machines. They also buy surprisingly few titles.


Sony and Microsoft have targeted their products, not at a wide casual gaming market, but at the enthusiastic hard-core, who crave depth and intensity. Who crave lavish visuals and network play, and whine loudly whenever the developers don't give them exactly what they want.

But the fact of the matter is that strategy has failed. Sony have lost a gigantic amount of money on the PS3 - and MS have struggled to break even.

Which is why both have U-Turned with WII style hardware introductions. The goal of the Kinect is to recapture a casual gaming audience. Why? Because there no growth to be had in the hardcore market.

Why doesn't Nintendo attract 3rd party developers? They don't want to. Honestly, they are massively dis-interested in third party games. Nintendo's business model is closer to toy-manufacture than software. It always has been.

This annoying, go-it-alone strategy has resulted in them being consistently profitable.


It really doesn't matter. Apple have created a platform for developers and buyers. It's a different business model from Sony. And different from MS. Regardless of the merits of the hardware, or the control method, it works and people are spending money where they would not before. And some people are making money where they would not before.

The significant fact is that we are seeing growth. And the exciting thing is that there is an opportunity to create new and viable businesses around this platform.

I keep saying, that the NGP will certainly offer the best portable gaming experience. But as a developer looking to make money, I think the NGP suffers from the same problems that have caused so many problems for the current generation of consoles.

If your development costs are tied to Moore's law, and your revenue is tied to economic growth, you get into a bad place very fast.

C.

Much of what you see as a lack of commercial success is actually not caused by a lack of demand or a lack of revenue from the products (and subsequently software sales). It's caused by other factors - piracy in the PSP's case and hardware defects in Xbox 360's case.


Microsoft never had a "casual" gaming audience on Xbox or Xbox 360 before Kinect. It's impossible to "recapture" something you never had before.


Actually, the concept of providing tools to small and individual developers to enable them to create software for their platform was used by Microsoft with its XNA project for Xbox 360 before Apple introduced the App Store.

Hmm. Piracy.
Not heard that one before. In my experience people pirate content, that they would never have paid for.

I think most of Sony's losses are down to over-engineering the console and selling at a loss.
Lots of PS3 sales were to the BluRay crowd who never bought games.

It's clear from the last five years that the business model behind consoles is broken. Which is why so many studios are closing, dumping staff, and shifting into different types of content.


For which MS charged at a 70/30 split.
But it's still a good model. It's better than the boxed goods model where 50% of the cash goes to bricks and mortar retail stores. Who then screw developers by selling "pre-owned" content. The sooner the market goes to 100% download, the better.

Apple's (iTunes) business model is nothing special, clever or original. But it has the merit of working.

C.

There are some great games on iOS, but they're not expansive enough to really compare with the likes of the PS3 or 360 or the PC - so the iOS has to compare really with the Wii (to some degree), DS and PSP, and in the future, the NGP, this is my point about this idea that you can't really compare the likes of 360/PS3/PC with iOS - it's a different part of a market that Apple also happens to be in but their target audiences are very different, people don't buy a 360 or an iPod (basing the decision on purely gaming factors), they'll usually buy an iPod at a different time to when they purchase a home console.


I don't agree with this sentiment at all, sorry. Sure many people may not have a large number of titles, currently, but by the same token, they also trade them in, so there is a high turnover in games - something else Apple doesn't have to factor in. I myself have close to 100 PS3 titles, over 40 Wii titles and about 25 on 360.
There is a difference between mobile gaming and gaming on your TV or your PC. To classify that hardcore gamers buy PS3/360/PC games and that another group buys iOS games is missing the point. If I really, really had to choose a 'faction' I'd be in the 'regular, returning gamer' section - what some people might call 'hardcore', but by the same token most of the games I buy for playing on the move, and so on are on iOS.

If Apple wants to 'get' gaming, it cannot redefine gaming on it's own terms to suit iOS. If Apple has a vision for gaming, which as you say is a growth sector for iOS and thus a large contributor to App Store profits, it has to do so across the board, or limit it's ambition to restricted device mobile gaming and digital distribution.


You're right on both counts, but the 360 is nearly 5 years old, the PS3 has a projected ten year life cycle - could you see the iPod touch with such. And yes they have both lost a lot of money on the hardware, some of which is pulled back through the licensing fees on the games.


The goal of both Kinect and Move is a) to remove the key differentiation of the Wii, and b) to expose it's shortcomings (particularly so with Kinect).

I would say that it is Nintendo that is more likely to be affected by a lack of hardware sales than either Sony or MS, because they do have a large number of third party titles, from which they do get significant licensing fees from.



Absolutely - they don't want to, but I'd also make the point that they're not interested in producing new IP either just simple rehash of the same characters time after time, this risk-averse approach to any form of real investment in their platform is what is most annoying - Id also point out the nearly 9 month redesign cycle of the DS.


The main point with the model is that it is, and always has been, digital only, with a price point for most games, that means if you pay for it, hate the game, at least you don't feel you've been ripped off too much; There is no re-sell option, so Apple always gets it's cut, which is something that EA has been looking at with great aplomb with it's Project Tendollar.

My issue is that Apple could do so much more for gamers, in OSX and on iOS, providing wraparound libraries for OpenGL for developers of all levels so that the big name games aren't as huge because they can use shared libraries.

And it pains me to say this, but I think that until Apple really puts some effort into it, that it really doesn't care about gaming on it's platforms beyond it's balance sheet. iOS and OSX are capable of so much more, but the apathy through indifference that Apple has historically shown, makes me wonder if they can really be bothered putting the effort in.

iOS has a much lower barrier to entry for developers than other platforms, and as such, as you rightly say this is reflected in higher prices to consumers, but realistically iOS is constrained by it's lack of controls, and dependence on gestures. And yes it may well complement your existing home console, and certainly make people reconsider PSP or DS purchases, but to say that the future of gaming is mobile, suggests an implicit move that iOS and other mobile gaming will supplant home gaming - which is just daft.


Yes very true, but you can't just aim that particular bullet at the hardware manufacturers, you also have to consider the publisher's etc.

Don't talk to me about trading-in games!
The trade-in is killing developers, and from my point of view it's not much better than piracy.


I really don't think Apple gives a damn. It makes a platform. It creates a store. And the "definition of gaming" is the result of a conversation between developers and customers. I think theres something very cool about that.

There's really nothing wrong with Apple staying out of the conversation. It's got nothing to do with them.


Apple provides OpenGL - which is all developers need. But if you're a bit lazy, there's always middleware like Unity and Unreal.

I worked on a game for the PS2. Sony's idea of developer support was a bunch of thick black books with vector processor instruction sets! We'd have killed for OpenGL. Took us a week to get a triangle on the screen.


I think the success of iOS as a gaming device has taken Apple by surprise.
In response they've added a better GPU and a OpenGLES 2.
But I'd be worried if Apple indulged in the sort of craziness we have seen from "proper" games companies. If they followed that example they'd start handing out bribes and obsoleting hardware every few years.

Apple is smart not to copy the actions of failing businesses.


Not really. The console business model is fiercely controlled by the platform holders. The developers and publishers have little control.

But it look like that model is ending.

In five years time, we won't have any boxed-goods. It'll all be in app stores like Steam & PSN. And when the last "Game" store closes its doors, I for one won't be too upset.

C.

It will be interesting to see what happens to the price that the consumer pays, between superstore price wars now, and the future, if the move to digital really does happen. Although until the infrastructure is available to make it a reality in the common home, App stores for full size games won't move into pole position in terms of the favoured place to get games, for most people.

Between Bandwidth, latency and DRM, digital stores have their own issues, I doubt we'll see the back of physical media for a long time, particularly if the size requirements increase, currently for mobile devices this isn't as much if an issue, unless you're on a 3G connection with data plan.

The Android will take over Apple is based on a series of myths, and conjectures. The myths are that Apple was defeated by clones in the 80's - it was defeated by IBM because of IBM's brand - when IBM entered the Market in 1982 it soared past the APple II. However IBM was outsold by Commodore 64 until the mid 80's.

The winners in the 80's were the expensive brands, not the cheap ones. The cheap manufacturers went to the wall, leaving the less price conscious business machines. Apple was in education, and design ( helped by PageMaker). IBM/MS was in businees. The clones later took IBM's entrenched business not Apples. That lesson is the opposite of what most people think happened.

As for now. The past is not prelude. Apple can easily win this market - all it needs to do is have a cheap offering.

Look at the iPod - where android MP3 players could compete. Why dont they? because the iPod touch is $229.00

Android's growth has been at the expense of RIM, Nokia etc. And it has done so in two markets -

I doubt Android would have had chance to survive if it wasnt feeding off Apples success. Google should have named the OS Remora.

Exactly, and second hand house sales is killing new house builders, it is just theft.

And second hand car sales are killing new car sales, another theft.

It is a consumers right to resell their property.

Good point, but it isn't true. Pre-owned car and house sales don't destroy their industry. The ownership of movies and games is very different. With entertainment products, people invest in making content, which it then distributes to an audience to enjoy for a fee. I own my house. I don't really own Star Wars.

Besides, private resales are not really the problem, it's videogame stores which make large profits from turning resale in to a business. They take cash from video game buyers, but don't share that with video game creators.

It's different with movies, when Blockbuster wants to rent out a movie, it buys a special rental version (which is more expensive) - and in that way shares rental revenue with the content creators. Blockbuster is not allowed to rent-out standard consumer DVDs. That's fair right?

But when a game publisher sells a single copy, these stores effectively rent it out 5 or 6 times. Each time pocketing a big chunk of cash. It's a virtual rental model, but with no profit share for the content creators.

It's perfectly legal, but morally, it's not much different from piracy.

I doubt whether the industry can change the law. Control of the law is not within their power. But what is within their power is changing the business model. Which is why the stores are making download inevitable.

Business is war. Game content creators have never much enjoyed sharing half the retail price with bricks and mortar stores. And now the download model will torpedo the stores below the water line.

C.