Carmack: iPhone more powerful than Nintendo DS, PSP combined - Page 2

Again, with the early adopters. A game platform is usually still a viable market with new games for a couple years after it's been replaced with a newer model. Not many buy a new platform right away, the peak is usually a while after the initial introduction.

Mel, I was being Sarcastic. I have been taking lessons from sapporobaby evidently. Sorry about that.

I agree, Steve doesn't get it when it comes to gaming.

They don't need to add profit margins onto the media as they make the money on the game. It's different selling flash media on its own for consumer use. It is added cost though.

I wish Sony had sold their games on flash for the PSP. UMD was just awful. Noisy drives, slow load times, much bigger compared to DS cartridges.

The download model has limitations.

It prevents game resale - quite good for the seller of course as Valve discovered when they locked down resale of CD-Keys.
If the servers go down or you lose your internet connection, you don't get any software - games or otherwise. Whereas I could easily go to a local store and buy a game sold on other media.
If your connection is slow, big games won't be popular and how do you reinstall them after a device reset?

The advantages are that you aren't limited to local store selection.
You should get the games cheaper as there is no packaging and physical distribution costs.
And if they manage to get the games under 500MB like classic games from the PSP online store then you can get pretty good quality games and the download should only take about 30 minutes.
Since you'd only have 3-4 big games max at a time, you could easily fit those onto an 8GB ipod/iphone.

In the case of the iphone, I think that the online method is a good way to do things. I still think it would have been better allowing apps to be distributed outside of itunes but Sony didn't do this either and I still used their service.

I think the iphone would excel more at adventure games and RPGs like Final Fantasy. Action games don't work so well with touch - I personally found Super Monkey Ball more frustrating than challenging. I miss games like Escape from Monkey island, Broken Sword and Discworld. You can actually play some of these with ScummVM for unlocked iphones/ipods but I've played those games years ago.

Companies like Microids and the Adventure Company would do well to get in on this market:

http://www.microids.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ivdz0IsTGc8 < excellent game
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTP_rLch_qw < gameplay
http://www.dreamcatchergames.com/

These games were around 1GB in size but they had a lot of cut scene that could use better compression nowadays. Game like this are perfect with a touch screen and better for say flights and train journeys as you have to get involved in the game and think about what you're doing. It's like an interactive book.

???

They cater to different markets. Always have. Consoles are great, because you don't have to worry about HD space (well, not so much with the 360/PS3), or if your video card will run the game smoothly. Consoles are a closed system, with set requirements. Look at how almost no current PC system can run Crysis for shit. But on the 360/PS3, they would be forced to work within the specs, or end up with a really choppy, sluggish game.

No, you pour your cash into a gaming PC. A console you just buy, along with the games and extra accesories.

In setting a price for products, a margin is added for every expense needed to make the product.

That's incorrect. Business must do the same thing to every part of their expenses when pricing a product.

All physical components are subject to the same costing. It doesn't matter whether it is the gaming machine, or the game cartridges. If they simply pass on their costs on the hardware, they will lose money overall.

What you are doing is the same thing people always do when they aren't familiar with manufacturing. You forget that there are many costs involved with a product. In the end, the parts only account for some fraction of the overall expenses. Those expenses must be recovered, and there must be margins on top of that for a profit to be made.

It isn't arbitrary. The way to do this is well known. If I, as a manufacturer, pay $1 for a part, it will cost you, the consumer, at least $2 for that part in the finished product, and very possibly $3, and in some cases, even more.

No one simply passes costs through as a matter of good will.