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If this thing works...

post #1 of 56
3/24/09 at 8:44am
Thread Starter 
Wow. It seems like there are a lot of things that could go wrong, and I'm still not 100% sure how it works, but this could really change things up, as well as help further along the doom of physical media.

The biggest danger is how it's totally internet dependent. No net = no games whatsoever.

Still though... wow.
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post #2 of 56
3/24/09 at 9:43am
Outstanding concept. I'm genuinely impressed - obviously i'm sure it'd be different in execution.

The on-demand aspect of it is something we should be seeing on LIVE by now though, there's a pre-built customer base there that'd pay through the teeth for OD gaming. I guess they're trying to promote the lack of having to buy upgraded hardware for PC gaming, but for most hardcore PC gamers, 720p wouldn't be adequate - and for the less hardcore, a monthly fee to play games would probably be slightly daunting.
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post #3 of 56
3/24/09 at 9:48am
Even if it doesn't work, I'm going to have to applaud them for some outside the box thinking on this one. Now how do I get my hands on that beta?
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post #4 of 56
3/24/09 at 9:49am
Eventually it will come to this, but for this particular product I'll wait until I see it to really believe it. But if it works, it will virtually end several big companies.

Edit: Actually doing the numbers, off the top of my head, and I can't see how it can possibly work.
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post #5 of 56
3/24/09 at 9:55am
I'm glad I'm not in charge of making it work, but with the abiility to put a major dent in piracy, you just know that EA and others are going to be spending a fortune to make it work, damnit.
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post #6 of 56
3/24/09 at 9:55am
I don't foresee anyone owning discs for anything in the coming years. It's an obvious and necessary evolution, but I have a nagging fear that running games out of terminals would lead to unfair pricing schemes. Also, it might cause the internet to break.
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post #7 of 56
3/24/09 at 9:57am
Seems awesome, but good luck finding an affordable Australian 5 mbps internet connection with a decent download limit. Our broadband here is a joke. Fuck you Telstra.
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post #8 of 56
3/24/09 at 10:00am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Minsky View Post
I don't foresee anyone owning discs for anything in the coming years. It's an obvious and necessary evolution, but I have a nagging fear that running games out of terminals would lead to unfair pricing schemes.
If it does work, then you know someone is going to come along and copy it. As long as there's competition, reasonable pricing schemes should exist.
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post #9 of 56
3/24/09 at 10:04am
Also, don't forget that their servers will have to be able to handle thousands of instances of games, not to mention thousands of stable 5Mbps connections. We're talking Google amounts of hardware and bandwidth.
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post #10 of 56
3/24/09 at 10:06am
I'm more thinking along the lines of arcade pricing, where you either pay by the attempt, or pay for units of time. Dovetailing into that: if pricing schemes change to match a new distribution model, you might also see games change, as well. I dread a return to Rush'n Attack-like difficulty and brevity.
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post #11 of 56
3/24/09 at 10:11am
Well how much bandwidth is actually being used here? All I'm seeing that's going to be streamed is the video, and streaming HD video is up and running quite smoothly on the interwebz. As for what kind of superhuman monster rigs are going to be processing the gaming on their side, I'll have to think longer about that one.
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post #12 of 56
3/24/09 at 10:19am
Incredible idea, but unless the internet in the States steps up it's going to be wasted. A reliable 5mbps connection, and high enough bandwidth cap (ie: none at all) to use this are pretty tough to come by. Even with Comcast's fairly decent cap I go through it pretty easily with gaming, movies, music, video, etc. This would blow through that in no time I would think.
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post #13 of 56
3/24/09 at 10:29am
It's the new Phantom!
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post #14 of 56
3/24/09 at 10:30am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Minsky View Post
I don't foresee anyone owning discs for anything in the coming years. It's an obvious and necessary evolution, but I have a nagging fear that running games out of terminals would lead to unfair pricing schemes. Also, it might cause the internet to break.
Removing physical ownership of games from gamers will not happen for quite some time. Unlike with music, the high starting price means resell is very important for most people.

The only way we'll see it eliminated is with realistic pricing - half the price of the disc-based title, roughly the price most games will get second hand at a moderate age.

There's little to no incentive for most consumers not to own a disc.
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post #15 of 56
3/24/09 at 10:31am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Russ Fischer View Post
It's the new Phantom!
We could use the sweet Phantom lapboard with this!

EDIT: And about lack of physical media, I'm not comfortable with not owning the physical media on anything but music. I can easily rip CD's, back them up, and not take up a lot of HDD space. Ripping DVD's or Blu-Rays, and games is difficult, and expensive to have the storage space for all of it. I think of, what if I have a fire? I can show my insurance company the photos of my DVD's, movies, everything physical in my home that I spent money on, and insure those things. I show them a picture of my external hard drive and say "I had $5,000 worth of movies on there" and they're going to give me the money for that? I don't think so.
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post #16 of 56
3/24/09 at 10:52am
This is a great idea if -- and it's an awfully big if -- I'm not going to get charged the same price for a game as I would if I bought the physical disc. If the company isn't having to shell out for printing discs and packaging, I shouldn't pay the same as if the game came with it.
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post #17 of 56
3/24/09 at 11:02am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bees?! View Post
Removing physical ownership of games from gamers will not happen for quite some time. Unlike with music, the high starting price means resell is very important for most people.
A terminal-only distribution model would kill secondary markets, which would be a coup for big developers. If anything, busy secondary markets might hasten this into reality, rather than slow it down.

Nothing's happening overnight, but with disk space getting so cheap, I don't see physical ownership of games being around for very much longer.
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post #18 of 56
3/24/09 at 11:05am
Quote:
Originally Posted by BillyG View Post
EDIT: And about lack of physical media, I'm not comfortable with not owning the physical media on anything but music. I can easily rip CD's, back them up, and not take up a lot of HDD space. Ripping DVD's or Blu-Rays, and games is difficult, and expensive to have the storage space for all of it. I think of, what if I have a fire? I can show my insurance company the photos of my DVD's, movies, everything physical in my home that I spent money on, and insure those things. I show them a picture of my external hard drive and say "I had $5,000 worth of movies on there" and they're going to give me the money for that? I don't think so.
I think it's a sense of ownership. Even our youngest generation's grown up with having physical media so even they'll expect it in their lifetimes - it's a sense of owning something with your purchase, a tangible object that you can take to a friend's house and share. A download is never going to be that flexible, nor have the same feeling of paying and receiving goods - it feels more like you're receiving a service.

It'll be down to making downloadable content either too cheap for hard copies to compete (forcing the competition out) or finding a way to physically reward the consumer for their purchases. It'll be the former.
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post #19 of 56
3/24/09 at 11:10am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Minsky View Post
A terminal-only distribution model would kill secondary markets, which would be a coup for big developers. If anything, busy secondary markets might hasten this into reality, rather than slow it down.

Nothing's happening overnight, but with disk space getting so cheap, I don't see physical ownership of games being around for very much longer.
Exactly. People want to be able to sell games on. They're used to being able to flog them when they're no longer wanted - if the system doesn't give this opportunity I see a distribution model like this replacing concepts like the video game rental, but the video game purchase?

It'll be solely down to what they charge, which will not be similar to LIVE's cost.
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post #20 of 56
3/24/09 at 11:13am
Quote:
Originally Posted by BillyG View Post
what if I have a fire? I can show my insurance company the photos of my DVD's, movies, everything physical in my home that I spent money on, and insure those things. I show them a picture of my external hard drive and say "I had $5,000 worth of movies on there" and they're going to give me the money for that? I don't think so.
I see abandoning physical media as the solution to the problem you're citing here. Since you'd be streaming from somewhere else, the only data you'd need to physically "own" would be the credentials used to access your remote media.
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post #21 of 56
3/24/09 at 11:14am
That does make sense, movies on your system would also be stored centrally elsewhere for future download - certainly reducing risk of loss.

Making it even less like you're owning something.
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post #22 of 56
3/24/09 at 11:16am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bees?! View Post
Exactly. People want to be able to sell games on. They're used to being able to flog them when they're no longer wanted - if the system doesn't give this opportunity I see a distribution model like this replacing concepts like the video game rental, but the video game purchase?
Sure. I'm saying that in the future, people won't even be given the option of going to Gamestop and buying Oblivion used for ten dollars. Whether or not this is desirable for the consumer is a whole different topic.

Adding: This particular device might be a Phantom. I'm referring only to the underlying concept.
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post #23 of 56
3/24/09 at 11:23am
Your idea of the future is one that says the consumers lined up to buy downloadable games and shunned hard copies. I'll respectfully disagree with you and claim the optimist's view.

It's never going to happen - the companies will want too much money for the digital copies, the consumers will rightly tell them to sod off and life will continue as before, except the companies will increase the amount of DRM required to play a title.

I'll concede that if any format is going to pick it up though, it'll be PC gaming.
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post #24 of 56
3/24/09 at 11:34am
Wipeout HD, Pixeljunk, World of Goo, Flower, Stardust HD, et al: half the stuff I play on the PS3 is raw data. I think we're already halfway there. And how is it pessimistic to shun hard copies?
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post #25 of 56
3/24/09 at 11:54am
What's with all this talk about "wanting to feel a sense of ownership when you buy the product."? People said the same thing about music ("I like opening up a package and reading the booklet"), they said the same thing about movies, and you're saying the same thing about games. Face it, if the price is right, giving up the physical product is worth it, and with games at $60 a pop, I don't think it'll be that hard to find a "right price".

If anyone should be scared, its NVIDIA and ATI (assuming this works.)
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post #26 of 56
3/24/09 at 11:59am
This is progress. Maybe this won't work quite well, but I see this technology as inevitable to work eventually, and I welcome it. And yes, I'm young and I've always known games to exist in bulky cartridges, and I mean really, why must you own a box and CD? This could even be good for the environment, perhaps. As mentioned before...everybody does the same with music. It takes something like vinyl to make one buy physical copies today, because of its irreplacable art and sound. As the owner of a comp that can only play Half-Life 2, this sounds great.
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post #27 of 56
3/24/09 at 12:00pm
Exactly. Like I said, even if it doesn't work, it's what it represents that has me excited.
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post #28 of 56
3/24/09 at 12:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Anthony View Post
What's with all this talk about "wanting to feel a sense of ownership when you buy the product."?
It depends on the media type.

I think we all feel this way about books, because there's a direct interaction between the user and the media. Not only can I pick up and feel the book, but I physically and directly interact through the act of reading. CDs and DVDs are just pieces of plastic, and aren't integral to any kind of user experience. I interact with a DVD exactly twice: when I insert it and remove it from a reader device. Why would I care about that?
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post #29 of 56
3/24/09 at 12:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Minsky View Post
Wipeout HD, Pixeljunk, World of Goo, Flower, Stardust HD, et al: half the stuff I play on the PS3 is raw data. I think we're already halfway there. And how is it pessimistic to shun hard copies?
It doesn't benefit you, the consumer - giving you the choice to sell on something you have purchased. Immediate access to a product is simply the consumer instinct demanding now instead of value.

You also didn't have a choice of purchasing hard copies of those games. Where's the competitive pricing? It's not pessimism. I'd say you've just been convinced you don't need the things i've mentioned.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Anthony View Post
What's with all this talk about "wanting to feel a sense of ownership when you buy the product."? People said the same thing about music ("I like opening up a package and reading the booklet"), they said the same thing about movies, and you're saying the same thing about games. Face it, if the price is right, giving up the physical product is worth it, and with games at $60 a pop, I don't think it'll be that hard to find a "right price".

If anyone should be scared, its NVIDIA and ATI (assuming this works.)
I've already said price dictates this. A £50 game is not in the same price league as a £10 album, especially since you can purchase tracks individually and you still have the choice to purchase and burn a hard copy (and probably always will be able to).

There's innovation in this product, but it's foolish to think this is something beneficial. They didn't develop this product to save you guys money on graphics cards - they developed it to take the money for your graphics card in a completely new way.
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post #30 of 56
3/24/09 at 12:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Minsky View Post
It depends on the media type.

I think we all feel this way about books, because there's a direct interaction between the user and the media. Not only can I pick up and feel the book, but I physically and directly interact through the act of reading. CDs and DVDs are just pieces of plastic, and aren't integral to any kind of user experience. I interact with a DVD exactly twice: when I insert it and remove it from a reader device. Why would I care about that?
It'll happen to books too. I think the main thing keeping the Kindle from reaching market saturation is the price. If that sucker were a $100, I'd invest. And given 3-5 years from now we'll start seeing electronic paper, it's only a matter of time. It's not something you're going to adopt over night, but what technology has been?
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post #31 of 56
3/24/09 at 12:23pm
Amazon has already provided the world with that electronic book. Paper will never get replaced - hard copies are too important to most businesses.
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post #32 of 56
3/24/09 at 12:34pm
Huh? Just backup your electronic records to an offsite server, you ponce.
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post #33 of 56
3/24/09 at 12:35pm
I've never avoided a game purchase because I was afraid I couldn't resell it. It's nice to be able to trade games or buy older ones on the cheap, but download-only games have elastic prices, too. See a very reasonable $19.99 Psychonauts on XBL, for example.
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post #34 of 56
3/24/09 at 12:36pm
Bees?!, have you tried to sell a used game recently? The average store will buy it for an insulting sum. Unless you want to take your games to individuals and treat them as suckers. And if it's a great game, you're probably not selling it anyway.

Yeah, it's a new way to take your money, but no more than anything else in this consumerist society, especially when some new tech is made.

It's rich to criticize this in terms of rewarding the consumer I-need-this-now-impulse because this applies to anything else.
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post #35 of 56
3/24/09 at 12:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Anthony View Post
It'll happen to books too. I think the main thing keeping the Kindle from reaching market saturation is the price. If that sucker were a $100, I'd invest. And given 3-5 years from now we'll start seeing electronic paper, it's only a matter of time. It's not something you're going to adopt over night, but what technology has been?
We'll see. I've seen electronic paper demoed, and it looks like etch-a-sketch. If they can reproduce a book in a way that doesn't separate the user from the experience, I'd agree completely.
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post #36 of 56
3/24/09 at 12:43pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Anthony View Post
Huh? Just backup your electronic records to an offsite server, you ponce.
Hard copies are not solely kept for backup purposes.

Calm down.
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post #37 of 56
3/24/09 at 12:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by dreary louse View Post
Bees?!, have you tried to sell a used game recently? The average store will buy it for an insulting sum. Unless you want to take your games to individuals and treat them as suckers. And if it's a great game, you're probably not selling it anyway.

Yeah, it's a new way to take your money, but no more than anything else in this consumerist society, especially when some new tech is made.

It's rich to criticize this in terms of rewarding the consumer I-need-this-now-impulse because this applies to anything else.
I don't sell used games in stores - I use ebay and always get a decent price for it, eliminating the middleman and always getting a happy customer who's getting it cheaper than a store would sell it for.

I've said this could well settle as a replacement for rental, but as a replacement for buying games it'll settle badly. The current price structure of the industry doesn't lend well to it being "disposable content". It's far too expensive for people to treat that way.
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post #38 of 56
3/24/09 at 12:57pm
I get what you're saying, but I think it will settle fine. Supply and demand won't be nullified just because secondary markets go away. You might spend a little more, but judging by current DLC pricing schemes, they'll still be reasonable.

It's almost a completely different topic from terminal gaming, though.
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post #39 of 56
3/24/09 at 1:28pm
Yeah, to be honest my argument was that you wont see the death of hard copy gaming anytime soon - not that this wouldn't be a success.

It all falls on price - if it genuinely is priced similarly to Live's then it sounds like I could cancel my Lovefilm game rental subscription and go back to PC gaming.
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post #40 of 56
3/24/09 at 1:48pm
All the arguments about hard-copy ownership of DVD's and games is the same argument given a few years back before iTunes. There used to be quite a CD re-selling market a few years back, and now you cant hardly find a Used CD store.

Yes, hard copies may not be going away anytime soon, but we are heading that way.
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post #41 of 56
3/24/09 at 11:23pm
Not to derail from the fascinating (and pointless, and has been had numerous times before) digital vs. physical media argument, but has it occurred to anyone that the purpose of this device/service isn't to replace regular PCs and PC games, but rather to open a new PC game revenue stream? Specifically the 'non-hardcore PC' gamer. And it sure as hell isn't going to replace Steam as the digital distributor of choice for PC games.
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post #42 of 56
3/24/09 at 11:55pm
Thread Starter 
It's more about curbing piracy and resale more than anything, I think.
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post #43 of 56
3/25/09 at 12:45am
Just watched the GDC conference via Gamespot. Duly impressed. Enough to sign up for the beta, even. I think I'd only see myself using the service as a rental platform, especially given how few PC games get solid demos any more. But the ability to play high-end games on my work PC is certainly intriguing.
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post #44 of 56
3/25/09 at 1:03am
I am going to bet they want to get to the business model of the user paying for the playing time. Not letting you buy a game and play all you want. They will rent the game (or games if it a service wide thing) to you based on playing time. Micro transactions is unfortunately the wave of the future. Down loadable levels, and other content for a fee is the way companies want to go. This makes it even easier. Pay for a set amount of play time, or maybe a monthly access fee (with possible tiers of service with the new and most popular on a higher tier or requiring an early access fee). It would probably be cheap in the beginning, then ramp up as the customer base grows.

Might be cheaper than upgrading a computer, but forget owning a game with this.
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post #45 of 56
3/25/09 at 1:39am
Looked like Xbox LIVE style subscription (which covers the community features), with seperate fees for either rental or purchase of full titles. I don't think they'd have been able to get any of the publishers on board with a play-time based nickel and dime model. No publisher would be stupid enough to think that anybody would pay for that.
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post #46 of 56
3/25/09 at 5:50am
It's an impressive feat, but it's completely uninteresting to me. I want my games to look and play -better-, not worse. Between this and the Wii, there's a big trend towards affordable but crappy gaming, and I'm not sure if that's overall a good thing.
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post #47 of 56
3/25/09 at 6:37am
This isn't a grievance of the service, but something i'm still curious about. Is this a common thing, people hooking their PCs up to their TV?

I could appreciate kids doing it in their bedrooms if they're supplied their own TV - they may well have their own PC in the vacinity anyway and i've certainly tried the connections on my TV once or twice.

But it's a living space, which is obviously why that box they're selling seems most ideal - and where the premium pricing would come in (and negates the saving of buying a new graphics card). Then you'd find yourself restricted by most living rooms lacking a desk in front of the tv with which to operate a mouse and keyboard. So you'd end up using a 360 controller, right?

Wouldn't most people who didn't own one, just buy a 360 instead?
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post #48 of 56
3/25/09 at 7:01am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Farsight View Post
Between this and the Wii, there's a big trend towards affordable but crappy gaming, and I'm not sure if that's overall a good thing.
I agree with this to an extent. I'm not really a fan of the dumbing down/simplification of gaming so it can appeal to a broader audience, but this has been happening for quite a while. The Wii takes it to the extreme with all the shovelware its got in its catalogue.

And Fafhrd, you'd think people wouldn't be stupid enough to fall for the play time based model, but with the all the bullshit DLC hitting Xbox live/Psn that should be either free of charge or simply in the original game to begin with (hello SFIV costume packs!), I have little faith in the overall gaming community.
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post #49 of 56
3/25/09 at 7:19am
To be clear, I -love- simplifying the interface for gaming. I think the Wiimote, while in its current form is a cheap and inaccurate piece of crap, is the future of controllers. Making games easier to pick up and play is a great thing.

Making games have no depth, ugly graphics, and poor gameplay, however...

So this machine seems to fall closer to the Wii side of things than I'd like. It's great to not have to worry about hardware, but we all know that the experience itself isn't going to hold up on our current Internet.
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post #50 of 56
3/25/09 at 4:50pm
Once I buy a game (or movie or book), the only things i need to enjoy it are the media and a device to play that media (irrelevant for books.) Why would I want a third party that's necessary to allow me to enjoy that media?

And, since the Kindle has been mentioned, does anyone know how DRM works with it? Could a friend lend me his ebook, or sell it for 25 cents? If not, I grumpily resist.
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