mmm buddah23 wrote...
Lord Phoebus wrote...
I'm surprised you don't see more devs going for PC/Tablet/Cell Phone instead instead of PC/Console. The former gives you the opportunity to use OpenGL instead of Direct X (so Windows, Mac and Linux) and most cell phones these days are about as powerful as a console and touch screens also are pretty good for a RTS UI.
However, while I would appreciate some more devs building for the PC first and then cutting back for the consoles, it wouldn't make financial sense. The tech for the PCs is about 3 generations ahead of the consoles now in terms of graphics capabilities and getting the most out of that tech requires more technical and art resources.
There are some advantages to going for PC only for a small dev., they have no licensing fees to deal with (Sony and Microsoft charge about a 10 fee for each game on their system), it's easier to distribute your product (you can go without a publisher) and you keep more from each sale (digital distribution has zero production costs but costs the same as physical). If you release the dev. tools you can also use the community for debugging and it's easier to release patches. Because the PCs are more powerful you can also get away with less optimized code and still get console quality.
Console gaming will never go away, in fact its wuite the opposite, more companies are going console, and moving away from PC. Bungie did it, Epic did it, Capcom is doing it. Just how it is, PC is mostly going to be for MMO's and RTS games eventually. Just like consoles are going to be for everything else.
Actually, consoles are going away, very shortly in fact. I don't mean this rudely, but I can tell you're pretty young. The statement that "Consoles aren't going away" tells me you're between 13 and maybe mid-20's.
The reason I bring that up is because you (And many others) have grown up in the Psx generation and are making the mistake of thinking that because it's been around most of your years, it always will be.
But it's actually the 3rd generation of console hardware with a lifespan. The first was the Atari/Coleco/Intellivision generation, the second was the NES/Genesis/SNES generation. Each one eventually tapering out and dieing off without any viable replacement.
This isn't any different, the tapering is already happening. Sales are dropping by catastrophic percentages month after month, for most of the last 2 years. Even with CoD, BF3, and Skyrim last year, the year was down 8% in sales. If you cut out just CoD, it's closer to 20%. I know people will throw out tons of excuses, "It's the economy", "It's digital sales". At the height of the recession, video game sales were growing. When they added in digital sales, it was still down 1%.
The problem with consoles, and why they eventually die is many faceted.
1. Controls limit diversity. Because you're limited to a gamepad, the number of potential genres you can have are largely limited. You can't have RTS, Simulators are problematic, point & click interfaces are problematic. The controls lend themselves well to action games, but beyond that, they're largely a limiting factor.
2. Publishers won't fund games they don't think will sell to every console owner. Publishers primary goal is to generate revenue, not great games. They pick and choose what ideas get developed, and they only pick the ideas they think will sell to the very highest percentage of owners, or that can be redesigned to do so. Their primary research strategy is "What sold well last year? Make that." There's no way a publisher would've greenlit Minecraft, it's not "Mainstream" enough. Keep in mind, EA forbade Maxis to develop The Sims, Will Wright had to do it undercover and drop it on them. Many killer ideas are left undeveloped.
3. The license restrictions prevent independent studios from releasing on the platforms without publishers. So either you do what they say, or you don't make your game. Which puts us right back into #2.
4. Platform owners have veto power. Platform owners only goal is to make revenue, they get to have the last word on what goes on their platform. Which leads us back into #2, just replace the word "publisher" with MS/Sony.
Console platforms are inherently self-terminating. All of the above combine to create a stagnant platform that eventually runs it's course because it ends up just releasing the same experience over and over and over. Eventually, people get tired of it.
The mobile app thing is just a replacement for handhelds, with no real potential beyond that. The early success stories are due entirely to the novelty of the control interface, and much like the Wii, will prove to be a much smaller impact than people currently think it will.
Tablets have more potential, but they're ultimately limited by hardware. It's likely they'll end up an interface device for PC's via thin-client/networking with the processing done by the PC.
The PC will become the mainstream device here very shortly. There'll be 2 different flavors depending on your finances.
-Internet based streaming, with processing being handled offsite by someone else, either the ISP or a remote server. Subscription based, and packaged, much like TV today.
-Home server. It'll be installed in the basement, you'll never actually touch it. It'll power screens around the house via wired and wireless networking and wireless peripherals. Tablets will be able to act as displays for it.
Consoles, they're on their downward slope. They're a relic from the past becoming increasingly less relevant.
In closing, since I know someone will try it, "I'm not paying to upgrade my PC all the time!". We're approaching the atomic-level in CPU design. If you don't know what that means, We're almost at the point where we can't shrink processors anymore, We're almost done with conventional design. PC hardware is not too far away from no longer iterating.
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Im all for multiplatform games, problem is, the creators need a much larger team to do it correctly -on time-. I just hope the next gen of games are not on disc, maybe compact flash drives, much more efficient, less heat, more storage space, shorter load times.....much much better.
