Starcraft 2

Other Games
41

Framerates and higher resolutions are the two main improvements that you could have. For example, imagine if all Xbox 1 games were fully backwardly compatible with the 360 (by writing the games to run in a framework that was reimplemented on subsequent systems). Have several resolutions available as options (say, 480p, 720p, and 1080p), but have the higher resolutions unavailable (greyed out, for example) if the hardware can’t support that resolution with a smooth framerate yet. So for an Xbox 1 game you might only have 480p available. Boot up the game on the 360, and higher resolutions are available. Similarly, an Xbox 360 might run in 720p, but run in 1080p on a future console. It’s similar to how Doom 3 had an “Ultra” setting that pretty much no PC could handle at the time of the game’s release. Also, any framerate issues could be cleaned up on future hardware (ideally the framerate would be smooth in the first place, but in real world console games this doesn’t always happen).

You could have a software check to prevent newer games from running on older hardware at all if the framerate wasn’t going to be reasonable in the minimum resolution. So long as the required specs are clearly stated on the box, it’s only a little different from buying a game for a particular console… there would just be more intermediate steps between each generation. The iPhone is actually a good example, it just needs a bit more quality control so that apps are guaranteed to run smoothly if the spec says that its supported.

42

Resolution alone isn’t enough benefit to bother upgrading though, especially if it’s already in HD, even if not the highest possible, or highest upcoming. And why spend more money to take more advantage of the upgrades if most people don’t upgrade? It would be a cycle. And for meaningful upgrades like the “ultra” setting it would again be akin to PC development as Abadd is saying. Backwards compatibility with higher res can probably be done already if the new systems are similar enough to the current anyway, it shouldn’t need for the games to be developed under a specific framework and have built-in graphics settings for simple things like that? If they wanna do it is another matter. As for the frame rate, I don’t think people should put up with it if such a scenario happened. I’d prefer a game to be optimised to run smooth for my system than have a cop-out of 30 or less fps like many games on the PS360 nowadays do in order to have pretty shiny bullshots but let the gameplay experience suffer. An upgrades scenario just gives room to developers to produce unoptimised shit like they sometimes do on PC.

43

i would definitely put in the effort/money to upgrade to be able to go from 720p to 1080p/1200p

in fact i love upgrading in general, whether it be game visuals, sound hardware, etc

44

While I think having an improved framerate would be beneficial, higher resolutions would be a mixed bag. Most devs would only bother supporting the higher resolutions if there was a high enough adoption rate… otherwise, you’d just end up with super-sampled textures, etc. Would maybe look marginally better, but very debatable if it was worth the upgrades.

To be honest, and I don’t mean to tout OnLive to heavily, simply because the I don’t think it’s quite ready yet and the current implementation is severely lacking, but if that tech improves, all this discussion is moot. Why bother with user-side tech upgrades when all you would have to do would be to improve the server-side and everything benefits consistently across the board (well, at least all titles moving forward after the upgrade)? Users would benefit from always having the highest end graphics and physics and whatnot possible, while devs still only have a very limited hardware setup they need to budget for. Of course, this assumes that bandwidth isn’t an issue anymore, as was discussed earlier.

45

Even if OnLive worked out, how long until it actually became the standard? Steam for example and other services have certainly worked out, yet years later digital distribution is still not the standard. Game streaming will take even longer. It willl just be yet ANOTHER SKU developers have to cater to, and therefor add to the problem instead of help fix it, for quite a long while. I really see no need for it in any case, technology becomes better and cheaper all the time, we have no need for cloud rendering for video games, not for what most people will consider acceptable/great graphics at least, and having to have a GREAT internet connection 100% of the gameplay time is certainly another bump in the road for it (personally I wouldn’t put up with even minimal lag for a single player game, not to mention the amplified effect for online games - much like I despise the trend of not aiming for 60 fps in video games today). Besides, computers become more powerful all the time for more than gaming, so why not make use of them for that as well (and yes, I know most people would be OK with a Pentium III as they may just browse facebook and do text editing, but many others do far more with it, and besides even HD video streaming and watching requires a decent system among other common low end functions). And yeah, MMOs may be popular, but they play OK even on 56k dial up modems from my experience (at least WoW did). OnLive won’t. Though I kinda do like the idea of a Matrix-quality MMORPG running off some super powerful cloud setup and streamed to us, I kinda feel that given a couple more generations of hardware, the top software possible with it will appear almost as good as that to most. And it’s not like all developers would or should make games like that from that point on, what of all the other genres that break when there’s any sort of latency, like something like Metal Slug, or other generally more old school types, or indie games or whatever.

46

Except for the fact that services like Netflix have completely taken over the home video scene, greatly boosted by their instant streaming. And I’m not talking about OnLive streaming to PC. I’m talking about something like OnLive streaming directly to, say, your TV, dvd player, whatever. If there is no hardware to purchase and there is no need to sit in front of a PC, I think it opens whole new avenues for people.

The biggest obstacle at that point would be having a consistent controller. One way around that would be to simply release a small receiver with a standardized controller. If that were to replace consoles, developers would have less platforms to develop for.

And yes, older technology becomes cheaper and cheaper, but when has that stopped gamers from wanting bleeding edge technology? And as I mentioned, I specifically stated that it would only be a possibility once bandwidth was no longer an issue.

The rest of your comment was just a rant on how things are good enough the way they are. As history has proven, it just doesn’t work that way. Technology changes, the way we consume media changes. I very well could be wrong, but to me, it makes the most sense. For example, most of the movies/TV I consume nowadays is via Netflix on my PS3 or X360. The convenience of having it instant and high enough quality trumps owning disks (at this point, I only buy movies if they have a specific significance to them). And I know I’m not alone on this - 61% of Netflix’s users are streaming their content regularly (which is up from 37% just last year). Considering the size of their usership, that includes a lot of “casual” users (they surpassed 15 million users in the US this year, up from 10 million last year). As more devices become streaming enabled (hell, even a lot of TVs have the ability to hook up to the net and stream Netflix without a set top box), this number will only increase.

It would allow for quicker distribution of titles and not to mention would all but eliminate piracy issues. Of course, it would devastate retailers, which will probably be the biggest battle, though I’m sure companies will find ways to monetize the hardware (peripherals, etc). It’s going to be an interesting decade for gaming, that’s for sure. Think about it - just 10 years ago, I highly doubt most people knew what a smartphone was. Hell, most people didn’t even have laptops. Now smartphones are becoming an essential part of many people’s lives and laptops have been outselling desktop PCs for over 5 years. Things will continue to change and the industry needs to continue to change with it, otherwise we’ll end up like the Japanese gaming industry - everyone else will have moved on, but they’re still clinging to the past.

47

I didn’t say things are good enough as they are anywhere. I merely commented on the possibility for “high enough quality” visuals just as you find streaming videos to be “high enough quality” when a Blu-Ray offers more. It was a tiny part of my comment, just mentioning the possibility for cloud rendering to offer better visuals and better realised worlds with near infinite computing power, yet the consumer being indifferent if he finds the visuals of “standard” at the time hardware to be of “high enough quality”. And then I tried to stress that there are drawbacks with streaming as well, not just the benefits of cloud rendering (that not all developers have a use for) and the potential ease of use.

48

What I meant was that you were defending the status quo in terms of how the business currently works. On the one hand, everyone talks about how lame Blockbuster is for holding onto their antiquated business model; same with the music industry. People often comment on the fact that they’re so desperately fighting to maintain their old business models. And yet, you’re suggesting that the game industry should do exactly that, when there is a potential game-changing technology on the horizon?

And why wouldn’t visuals be good enough? The visuals for these games would not be dependent upon bandwidth (assuming that the compression is good). You can already stream HD video instantly. Right now, sure, the bitrate suffers a tad, but it’s getting better every year. And again, once we get better fiber put in place, those issues will be long gone (or hell, if over-the-air speeds keep improving, no need for cables period). And even if, say, an expensive home console has marginally better graphics, users will always go the path of least resistance. PC games offer the best visuals, yet the vast majority of gamers have migrated to console. And let’s not even talk about the Wii. If there is only a marginal graphical difference, but users pay a fraction of the price for a streaming service that upgrades itself, which do you think they’ll prefer?

49

I didn’t really comment on business models though, I commented on how stuff works for the user, mainly in regards to latency issues, which to be circumvented often would have to compromise the game’s design (for example MMORPGs don’t play like action games in order to employ systems that are friendly to latency issues). Streaming video alone is a bit different, you don’t care it takes a while for your input to go to the server and back and there can be buffering and what not employed to help keep it smooth. Not to mention that the new fangled 1:1-ish motion controls that are on their way to becoming the standard would make latency issues even more prominent than with buttons.

I was just weighting the pros and cons. I do see the benefits of cloud rendering and posted that the possibilities are intriguing, but not for every single kind of game that exists out there. Maybe users will be OK with it. Maybe MOST users will be ok with it. Hell, maybe most users are OK with facebook games. Maybe. But if so, maybe there will still be a bigger or smaller market for dedicated hardware and the things it does better.

The 2nd paragraph, um, what? When did I say visuals may not be good enough? As for expensive consoles, they would be made cheaper if they felt threatened by such a service. It’s not just the cost that made gamers move to consoles, there are many factors involved and there are plenty PC gamers still, it’s just that few companies reach them.

50

Re: visuals - Sorry, I reread your post and it looks like you were saying the exact opposite of what I thought you were. I think I inserted an extra word in there in my head or something. My bad.

Though yes, consoles could potentially be made cheaper, but there is a diminishing return. You could offer top end games for a very low price with a streaming service, but with a traditional console, going down to a budget price would mean using years-old tech. And price (not just initial costs - the price of upgrades, etc) was one of the major factors, IMO. People didn’t want to spend $300 for a new video card to play the newest games. And on top of that, have to spend a lot of time debugging stuff when they couldn’t get it to work (despite having just spent that much money). Consoles offered a relatively inexpensive box (well, except the PS3 at launch cough) that “just works.”

As for the defending the business model, you may not have said exactly that, but that’s what your comments boil down to. “Streaming won’t work, so let’s stay on consoles.” My point is that streaming will get to the point where it will work (yes, I understand the difference between streaming a movie and a game, but do you think streaming HD video was possible 5-6 years ago? well, technically it was, but it was pretty damn hard and unusual to see) within the next 10 years or so. At that point, the game industry better be ready to adapt. Yes, there will still be consoles - not saying they will have completely disappeared. Like you said, there are still PC gamers. But if history is any indication, it will likely be a very hardcore subset, whereas the vast majority will move on. Sure, it might not be streaming - could be something completely out of left field. As far as I can see right now, streaming has the biggest lead of emerging technologies.

(And as for facebook style games, those will always be there. They’re much more time killers like Solitaire, rather than hobby-based entertainment.)

51

Well I guess I just don’t see it happening in our lifetime, more of another option for some, like digital distribution is now. Yeah internet services get better and more advanced all the time but that takes a while to be applied to the majority. Parts of the US still make do with dial up, nevermind countries with less resources than that.

52

And there will always be luddites that refuse to keep up with technology - but those aren’t the people consuming modern media anyway. And not in our lifetimes? Hell, when I was born, stores didn’t even have computer-run registers. Banking was still done by hand. Games could be built by 2 guys in a garage. Withing my lifetime thus far, we’ve seen the spread of home PCs (which then evolved into laptops), the development of many technologies that were previously science fiction (the internet, cell phones/smartphones, consumer robotics, etc).

Assuming I live for another 50 years, I’d be hard pressed to think that we won’t see vast improvements in network speeds, or paradigm shifting advances in computing technology in general.

When talking about technology, unless you’re talking about “magic,” it’s always a safe bet to never say never :stuck_out_tongue:

53

One thing that hasn’t been mentioned here is that OnLive is very much controlled environments. Until you can have mods and non-commercial games running on the service, there will remain a place for client side games. A setup where every game has to go past a 1st party before it is published works for mainstream console users, but for the indie/mod community you’d need a system like the Web, where anyone can set up a “site” for their game running on a private server. But that could get expensive. It’s one thing to setup a web server, but a game server is somewhat more resource intensive.

I can sympathise with both Abadd and Alex’s points, as I feel cloud-based games have a lot of potential, but might not be a feasible replacement for some time. Not everyone lives in a country where fast Internet connections are available. I can vouch for that group (to an extent). For example on my connection a YouTube video will usually not load without considerable buffering. It’s not that we (the users) are holding back from adopting newer technology. The infrastructure simply doesn’t exist for a reasonable price. A new console or PC that runs client side software can be launched around the world (the Western world at least) without having to take into consideration the infrastructure of the network.

54

You’re spot on . If you look at how much in a relative short space of Time the internet has grown for gaming alone, and its just mind blowing.
X-Box LIVE was a bit of niche thing, that only diehards would play and use, now LIVE is massive and mainstream, and the thought of launching a console that doesn’t support Online Broadband out the box just unthinkable That’s just inthe space of 10 years and 2 generation of consoles.

Too early for the next gen, but I be amazed if the generation after that, isn’t server based gaming , it is the way its bound to go as more faster BB comes online. Almost everyone I know couldn’t really careless if the TV goes down, but GOD forbid should the internet be off , for a couple of hours. They goes Nuts .

The Internet is just massive and the call and need for Superfast BB just something that’s going to happen, and the way the world is going

55

Yes, well, I never denied that, but that doesn’t mean the paradigm shift will be what we’re discussing here. People thought we’d have flying cars by now, too. Short of some amazing wireless technology I just don’t see most countries redoing their whole structure any time soon, especially if it’s gonna be outdated in 5 more years. Besides, it’s a big distance to tread from “improving online technology and accessibility” to “ditching multi-purpose hardware and making all game content streamed”. Music is probably the easiest thing to move to a streaming-only distribution, and possibly the industry with some of the most centralised and unified distribution methods, but people still like having the actual files to move to any compatible device they want and otherwise manipulate at will, no? Hot media players like iphones and all that still like to boast about how many songs they fit instead of simply offer a cheaper product with super minimal memory that does streaming music with some kind of subscription service and text based playlists and what not, even though it seems so very possible to do that nowadays, either with the widespread Wi-Fi (which doesn’t need to be all that fast just for music streaming) or possibly with data streamed from mobile phone networks or whatever would work. Surely companies have thought of such solutions (I mean, I considered these years ago) and aren’t doing them for a reason. Perhaps people like the feeling of ownership that comes with having the files at their disposal, even if it’s no longer a physical object.

56

Flying cars is slightly different. Super Fast Broadband is already here and in use right now in some countries, its not the stuff of make believe
To me as more and more countries get online and more and more people want faster BB, it will just have to happen and Governments will have to spend the billions needed.

Not for the next Gen, but for sure over the next 30 years .

57

Solo: No doubt. Just as there is still a healthy PC gaming environment (albeit much smaller than it used to be), there is still a market for those people. Consoles may have taken over as the mainstream gaming option, but it hasn’t completely replaced PC. There will still be a market for people on PC and there will always be people who build their own computers, take part in more grass roots development, etc.

But for most people? Less is more. Take, for example, the iPad. I think it’s pretty useless in its current form. But, I was watching an elderly person using an iPad and it just clicked. We will continue to see a simplification of the end-user terminal and possibly even a shift (even for “PCs”) to mostly cloud-based programs, etc. But, that doesn’t mean custom-built PCs for the types of users you mentioned will go away.

And yes, bandwidth will be very slow to increase in some parts of the world. That doesn’t mean that the primary markets won’t change before the whole world catches up. Hell, even now, there are large parts of the world that still don’t have access to the current generation of consoles.

And you are right - the paradigm shift might very well come from out of nowhere or a very different source. I’m simply saying that given the current direction of the industry and the tech that is being developed, it seems like the most likely option.

58

As much as I think OnLive has a lot of potential, it’s somewhat hilarious to read about people trying to use the service on their old PC thinking “I can finally play games on this thing” only to get an error stating “This service requires a graphics card that supports Pixel Shader 2.0”. Also, the service apparently only guarantees you can play a game for 3 years, after that it may be removed from the servers. So there are still a truckload of issues for OnLive to solve, but I’m nonetheless still impressed that they even managed to launch the service altogether.

59

Well, which is why I said that OnLive in its current form is not the game-changer. Just like Dreamcast with its online functionality, it was ahead of its time, but not quite well-planned enough to make it work for anyone but the hardcore (not to mention that broadband usage was still extremely low).

Given a couple years, there will likely be another company that will expand upon that idea in some form. We’ll see how they do it.

60

For anyone interested, Digital Foundry has an in-depth article about OnLive which basically tells you everything you need to know about the service:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-vs-onlive-article