Tagged: opinion

Culture / Feature / Sony

15 Jun, 2018

PlayStation 4: Our Once and *Former* King?

I hold to the belief that the current ruler of the console space at any given time didn’t get there by being smart, visionary, or tactful. They got there largely for one reason: the hubris of the former ruler of the console space. Nintendo dominated with the SNES and Wii but fumbled with misjudged follow-ups. Sony dominated with PlayStation 1 and 2 but overpromised on PlayStation 3 and hobbled developers with exceedingly proprietary architecture. Microsoft took the lead for the fantastic Xbox 360 era but reneged on their promise of a digital-only future, giving disgruntled gamers only one recourse: PlayStation 4.

In all these cases, the current leader did more to set themselves back than the competition did to deftly outsmart them and Sony is just the latest example. They’ve been riding that good will gale of Xbox dejecters since 2013 but their blowhard ego is very nearly ready to shred through their own sails. The signs have been on display for years: After bolstering their meager lineups with streams of indie titles, they’ve cooled immensely on promoting smaller developers. They continue to dance around the inability to change your PlayStation Network ID name. But most visibly is their continued stance against online cross-play between rival platforms.

Microsoft’s Phil Spencer has been extending the olive branch of cross-play peace for years and Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aime has most recently remained open to the idea. Sony, in comparison, seems dead set against it and they are quickly alienating themselves from the rest of the industry. This has all come to a head after Fortnite debuted on the Nintendo Switch this week and left players who had previously played on PlayStation 4 with inaccessible accounts.

The situation is upsetting enough but Sony’s response (thus far, at least) is worrying. The official statement is a self-aggrandizing one that prides Sony on being open to the PlayStation community’s wishes while completely ignoring the complaint. The statement delivered to the BBC reads:

“We’re always open to hearing what the PlayStation community is interested in to enhance their gaming experience. With… more than 80 million monthly active users on PlayStation Network, we’ve built a huge community of gamers who can play together on Fortnite and all online titles.

We also offer Fortnite cross-play support with PC, Mac, iOS, and Android devices, expanding the opportunity for Fortnite fans on PS4 to play with even more gamers on other platforms. We have nothing further to add beyond this at this point.”

This, I feel, is one of those moments when you can see the tide turning, the overinflated ego unable to rebalance itself after a misstep that sends it full-tilt into oncoming traffic. PlayStation 4 is strong, but growth is slowing. If cross-platform play is where Sony digs in their heels — while more online-only games release every year that support it outside of PS4 — then by the time they reluctantly concede it could be too late.

Where would the crown go from there? Microsoft has an amazing platform but they’re still suffering from the “always-on” backlash and are missing the exciting exclusives to spark a major shift to their side. The Xbox One X hardware, the Play Anywhere and Game Pass features, and Mixer integration are a great groundwork for a fantastic leader but the games and support just aren’t there. Still, if you’re pissed at Sony and want to play The Division 2, Anthem, Fallout 76, or Rise of the Tomb Raider, Xbox is your only console recourse.

That said, I think Nintendo is poised to gain the biggest boost should Sony drive the divide between its players too wide. The Switch continues to sell well and Nintendo is still riding high on the wave of “It’s coming to the Switch” announcements. They’re also using indie Nindie releases to great effect in supporting their traditionally thin lineup.

Would enough PlayStation dissidents side with Nintendo? Would that be enough to push player and publisher support for the Switch over the already beleaguered Xbox? Look, I’m terrible at predicting this stuff but I do believe a changing of the guard is coming. I just wanted to put this out there because it’s a pattern I’ve been thinking about for a while now. What do you think? If Sony royally pissed you off, where would you go?

Culture / Feature

26 May, 2009

The Price of Progress Part 4: Overplayed

price-of-progress-overplayed

I’ve still got this stack of hastily scribbled notes and print outs stacked at the side of my desk so I figured it was time to get back to this series of posts and wrap things up so I can retire them to the shredder. Now, I like music and I like games so when the two get together I’m almost always ready to play but over the last decade or so of music/rhythm games things have started to get a little… stale.

It seems there are only so many songs ready to be licensed out at any given time and a very small stable of which publishers feel are the most appealing to their target demographic (and reasonably priced). It was fine back in 2003 when Karaoke Revolution and Amplitude were the only major music games that focused on popular American tunes, but six years later I’m starting to get tired of the same old playlists. Most of my research comes from MTV Multiplayer’s Music Game Trackfinder but it looks like the outdated utility has finally been retired with all my attempts ending in Page Load Errors (a fairly useless copy was preserved by WayBack Machine here). That’s a shame because it made seeing the trend a lot easier but I’ve still got those print outs on my desk where I tabulated the main offenders.

Featured in no fewer than SEVEN music games are Sister Sledge’s We Are Family, The B-52’s Love Shack, and The Jackson 5’s ABC. I’m sure you can think of several songs of your own that are just plain played out but a few of my personal infamous choices would have to be YMCA, That’s The Way (I Like It), and Celebration. I suppose for casual players it’s not much of a problem since they’re more likely to stick with just one or two music games on a single console, but why should we gamers be tortured with endless covers of Complicated just because we enjoy music/rhythm games or own more than one system? I understand that locking down those mega hits that the general populace knows is important but a strong and varied playlist will keep your game in my good graces a lot longer. Of course, you can supplement things with an online marketplace, but that’s another discussion entirely.

And that’s just American popular music, things get even uglier when publishers start dipping into public domain territory. Nintendo’s the big culprit here, filling both Donkey Konga games and Wii Music with everything from B-I-NGO to Yankee Doodle. You’ve got the tune in your head just from reading the title don’t ya? These are the ultimate overplayed tunes and, unless it’s whipped into an incredible remix, shouldn’t even be considered for your music game no matter how cheap the licensing may be. Things are also getting frustrating in the rock ‘n roll arms race that is Guitar Hero vs. Rock Band. Fighting back and forth for the ultimate catalog of songs, Activision and Harmonix are ensuring that no one will ever be able to play all the songs they like without owning the entirety of each series. Swapping discs, remembering how each game works, and owning a self storage unit full of plastic instruments is the only way to have it all.

What I’d love to see is publishers of these music games (the Big Four especially) reach outside of the comfortable triple platinum megastar category and start licensing niche and indie bands and test-market-certified catchy tunes. Cut a cheap deal and feature their songs in your music game at a discounted price or free for a limited time (a la the iTunes App Store). Your catalog of songs will swell exponentially, feature a rich diversity of styles, and you can brag to your uppety Executive friends that you “totally had that hot new band before anyone else”. Please? I can only handle Oops I Did it Again, Mambo No. 5, and Take on Me for so long before I give up on music games for the rest of my life.

Culture / Feature / Microsoft / Nintendo / PC / Sony

20 Apr, 2009

The Price of Progress Part 3: Marketplaces

price-of-progress-marketplace

Sorry for the oversized image above but its swollen kilobytes say almost more than I can put into words. The advent of the Xbox Live Marketplace in 2006 was a bold move on Microsoft’s part, eschewing the traditional brick+mortar distribution channels and — for better or worse — allowing console games to be released and “fixed” at a later date. But that’s a whole other discussion.

Thanks to Microsoft’s marketplace we’ve become accustomed to weekly downloadable releases in the form of add-on content, videos, themes, demos, and entirely new games. Microsoft keeps the official numbers close to their chest but it’s become apparent that there’s a lot of money and mind share in keeping your games updated and relevant through these marketplaces. Sony was quick to announce their own online store — the PlayStation Network — though it went through some major redesigns in its first year. Even Nintendo, who refused to take their GameCube online last generation was quick to see the profitability behind weekly releases of both old and new games and now has three digital storefronts across the Wii and DSi.

And then there’s the music games again. Each of the big four have their own storefronts that live in separate branded shops beyond the reach of the console marketplaces. It makes sense to keep players within the “experience” of your game but more and more titles are introducing shops of their own and adding layers of unique interfaces. So you go through the Xbox 360 dashboard to your game interface to its own shop interface that’s usually pretty different from the rest of the game. Carry this formula across a dozen games, across three consoles and the whole thing starts to feel congested and confusing.

Another concern I have with all these marketplaces is content control and longevity. Think about your own town for a minute and picture all the sole proprietorships — the Mom & Pop stores — that have come and gone over the years. Empty retail space for lease with a dirty outline over the door that echoes “The Pit Stop” or “Scrapbooking Unlimited”. Just because Burnout Paradise has a storefront of its own within the game doesn’t mean there’s always going to be something new. The time will come when Criteron moves on and the Burnout Store will sit dormant, gathering digital dust. Microsoft’s and Sony’s respective music games — Lips and SingStar — serve as another example of struggling storefronts. Updates are announced on a monthly basis for Lips which gives people plenty of time to forget which songs are coming which week while SingStar goes silent for months on end with no new releases at all. Did you even know that there’s a LittleBigPlanet skin for SingStar or that they redesigned the SingStore interface to resemble the PlayStation Store? It’s too easy for these smaller game updates to get lost in the buzz of the big titles like a great sale at that corner store getting drowned out by Wal-Mart’s new Low Price deals.

I’m not saying we need a single black & white interface across all platforms and all games. I understand the allure of having your own in-game shop — it’s like having a website or a blog or a podcast for your game — but some content is best represented right alongside all the rest in a marketplace interface that your users already understand. Let Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo host and serve up your add-ons, it gives you more time and money to make the next batch of stuff even better.

Culture / Feature / Microsoft / Nintendo / Online / Sony

23 Mar, 2009

The Price of Progress Part 2: Price

Pardon the crap text. I'm stuck with GIMP right now

Pardon the crap text. I'm stuck with GIMP right now

Last time I pontificated about the physical price of progress; the amount of content a single title can generate and the growing need for more storage. This time I’d like to take a look at the literal cost and how these downloads can really add up. From full downloadable titles to individual add-on items, today’s games don’t stop evolving once the press release heralds their availability. Most games nowadays receive at least one add-on that brings new multiplayer maps, gameplay modes, more content, and a price tag.

(more…)

Culture / Feature

6 Mar, 2009

The Price of Progress, in Gigabytes

price-of-progress-capacity2

While I work up my next Price of Progress piece on the cost of gaming going forward, I thought I’d throw out some numbers on the data side of things. These aren’t the most accurate figures, I’ve estimated a bit because it’d take me ages to calculate it all, but even slightly flawed it’s easy to see how quickly our games are growing in size.

  • Rock Band 2 currently has 429 songs available to download with each track roughly averaging 25 megs. That’s over 10 gigabytes of data if you simply have to have the complete Rock Band experience.
  • If you’re a fan of music games in general and you also own Guitar Hero World Tour, you’re looking at another 134 songs of an average 30 megs each, or another 4 gigs of data.
  • Music games are understandable and I’ve talked a lot about Burnout Paradise but one surprisingly “heavy” game is Ace Combat 6. Between new missions and an airfield full of downloadable planes you’re looking at an extra 700 megs. The cost for the content is even more staggering but I’ll get into that in the next full post.
  • The seemingly simple game of Pain on PlayStation 3 has grown significantly over the years with just the game and its new stages weighing in at over 700 megs. That’s not including the game’s 12 downloadable characters and the weekly Pain Labs content.
  • Sony’s experiment with releasing the latest Siren game in downloadable chapters will set you back 9.8 gigs for the entire Shibito-hunting experience.
  • Back on Xbox, Japan’s idol-touching phenomenon The Idolmaster features 135 pieces of downloadable content that add new stages, dances, vocals, and visuals each. The storage cost for the entire package is an astounding 51.7 gigabytes. The monetary cost is even more jaw-dropping, but that’s for a later post.

It’s unlikely that any one person would buy all of this stuff but it’s not hard to picture a future where numerous publishers put out weekly add-ons or monthly content to try and keep their $60 discs in your console. Moving on, it’s time to go back to the Marketplaces and start putting dollar values on these gigabytes of data for my next piece.

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