The End Of Consoles?
If OnLive works then there's no need for a console. If there's no need for a console, where does that leave Sony?Published 25/03/2009 at 20:59 by Pixl1983
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During a discussion at GDC with fellow industry analysts David Cole and Colin Sebastiank, Michael Pachter, analyst for Wedbush Morgan, has made a bold prediction that these will be the last consoles we see from Sony and Microsoft.
Pachter claims that costs of consoles is too high and that Sony aren’t likely to break even until 2015. He says “[Third party publishers] are not going to support a PS4 or Xbox 720″ due to the high costs of development and manufacturing and that this may well force the companies to turn to a more unified delivery platform. To publishers, the idea of digital distribution is an attractive one that cuts down costs drastically, but, whilst the upsides are very tempting, there will be consequences on the high street.
This is heavily routed in the buzz that’s going on at GDC over ‘cloud gaming’ being spearheaded by OnLive. As I’m sure most of you have heard, OnLive is looking to banish any need for serious hardware. Either as a 1mb download or tiny set-top box it streams a live feed of the game over the internet only requiring a minimum of a 2 mb connection for SD and 5 mb for HD.
As an idea it seems a bit presumptuous. How many of use have 10 mb connections? Think about it, half taken up by OnLive and half for the rest of your house. My Virgin connection is about to be upgraded but what about the rest of Europe? And what about download caps? I can’t see this as a viable idea in the UK until something like city wide wireless broadband is implemented and lord knows we’ve been waiting ages for that.
But what about 4 years down the line? When the current consoles have had their time, will the economy be in a stable enough position to pursue expensive technological progress? As has been mentioned before, will there only be room for one platform? Whilst the idea of a unified home console sounds like world peace it also sounds like a monopoly. Right now we have a choice. Not the choice of games but the choice of what we play it on. Whilst for some the grass is greener, for most of us the grass was more expensive and black. I chose my console not because it was pretty or pwnd cos it was Sony, but because I didn’t like (or trust) the competition.
So if cloud gaming works, where would this leave Sony? Will they just become another publisher fighting for the attention of the consumer behind the mighty EA or will they soldier on with their hardware?
I can’t help but think that the game has just changed. The goal posts have moved and I’m not sure how I feel about it.
Comments
Please note that all comments are the opinion of the individual author and not TheSixthAxis.
Paragonknight | 25/03/2009 21:07
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I hate the idea.
Paragonknight | 25/03/2009 21:08
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Isn’t the download cap global? Like don’t all ISP give download caps?
Mike | 25/03/2009 21:12
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You replied to your own comment
And some ISP’s have ‘unlimited’ internet, but even these are governed by fair use policies.
X_Yoshy_X | 26/03/2009 07:39
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NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
I HATE THE IDEA!!
Spotter5 | 25/03/2009 21:11
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I too hate the idea. I like to physically own something.
Also, what controllers would you use for the set top box?
Mike | 25/03/2009 21:11
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I’ve always been against digital distribution really. You can’t beat having a physical game in your hand. It’ll be a welcome addition to the gaming world, but I can’t see it dominating. Not for a long time anyway. Not everyone has the internet, and even with the ones who do, the majority won’t probably have a speed capable for this.
jediryan123 | 25/03/2009 21:14
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thank god for the forums ey pxl
shrimpeh | 25/03/2009 21:24
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I think theres city wide wireless in Norwich? Am I wrong. I live there yet I always forget about it when I’m in the City.
BigCheese | 25/03/2009 21:41
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I think this is a pants idea. No more PlayStation is not good. This sounds a little Harry and Billy if you ask me.
Paragonknight | 25/03/2009 22:01
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I like to have instruction manual with my games as sometimes they are fun to read.
Plus that means no more collector’s edition or limited edition casing. Not that I care but just something worth mentioning.
BioEye | 25/03/2009 22:04
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I really don’t know where this will go. It’ll need some serious advances in tech and morals of people for it to work. I don’t think the big 3 will give up easily.
andytorr | 25/03/2009 22:07
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The controller for the OnLive thing is absolutely horrible. I wouldn’t ever purchase such cheap crap to go next to my TV. Never.
Paragonknight | 25/03/2009 22:13
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If that’s how you feel…then I’m with you.
cc_star | 25/03/2009 22:15
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It’s got the same layout as the 360 one which sucks, but I noticed its wireless so perhaps the set-top box will be bluetooth and not some propriortory service so a sixaxis may work with it
Paragonknight | 25/03/2009 22:24
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Let me guess…90% of the games will be FPSs?
cc_star | 25/03/2009 22:10
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A guy from Infinity Ward has tweeted that he’s tried it out and it IS amazing, and should work for singleplayer games, but can’t see how it would work for multiplayer gaming
Pixl1983 | 26/03/2009 09:12
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I have a feeling it’ll be set up for multiplayer in a similar way to both Xbox live and PSN. I will fully admit that, if it works properly with 2mb connections I’ll be impressed. It IS a great idea. You’ll always be on the cutting edge graphics-wise and if/when developers start to make games specifically for it, they have a huge amount of processing power to use. We’re effectively talking about games that are literally defined by the talents of the devs. No maxing out of hardware.
Paragonknight | 25/03/2009 22:15
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I’m never on my laptop after 0100. Bittorent is classed as P2P isn’t it?
A_R_M_O_N | 25/03/2009 22:16
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Screw this. Gimme my PS4 retards
Paragonknight | 25/03/2009 22:23
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lol.
DJ Judas | 25/03/2009 22:31
Epic
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Call me elitist, but I like the constant upgrade race of PC gaming and like to have a tricked out comp.
Kind of takes the shine off playing the latest game at gloriously high settings when the PC you’re playing on looks like a shoe-box.
As far as consoles go, I like the idea of a lack of exclusives. I’m getting fed up of having to fork out for every console if I want to enjoy every game.
That said if it becomes a monopoly with no competition what’ll that do for prices? Competition’s the only thing that keeps technology pushing and prices down.
furis | 25/03/2009 22:37
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For our wallets, this should be a relief. With this solution we would not need to buy any console, saving us a lot of money.
A nightmare scenario would be a monopoly for this “cloud-gaming”-service, but we can already see companies as steam selling games online. It should not be a hard job for them to change to a “cloud-gaming” service.
OnLive will not become the only company with this service, as for us this way to play games should be our answer for our prayer, no need to upgrade our computers or buy new consoles. Maybe the ps3 is the last console you buy, but maybe the console you use for this future service. Hell, why not?
cc_star | 25/03/2009 23:31
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Patents.
OnLive reportedly has over 100 patents either approved or pending regarding this cloud/remote gaming, if they have received good advice not other service will be similar in scope to this
Paragonknight | 25/03/2009 22:42
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I’m wondering do we get to choose what to play? As for the price, I imagine it won’t be cheap?
cc_star | 25/03/2009 23:33
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You choose it from a menu
Kind of like the PSN store, but when you click on it, it doesn’t download it, it just runs it natively on the server and streams it to you