Activision wants consoles to be replaced by PCs

[cbn]

http://www.thegamersblog.com/2010/07/07/activision-wants-consoles-to-be-replaced-by-pcs/

We live in a world where we have mul­ti­ple plat­forms for gam­ing. PC, PS3, 360, WII, etc. Each plat­form has vary­ing amounts of power when it comes to play­ing games. Games are released across sev­eral plat­forms and the plat­forms that have the weak­est specs or the worst con­trols tend to get the watered down, crap­pier ver­sions of the games released.

Activi­sion, one of the lead­ing cross plat­form pub­lish­ers, wishes to move away from the “walled gar­dens” set by Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo.

The pres­i­dent of Activi­son, Bobby Kotick, believes that the major­ity of peo­ple pay­ing to use XBL are pay­ing to play Mod­ern War­fare 2 — –Activi­sion does not get a share of that profit.

“We’ve heard that 60 per cent of [Microsoft’s] sub­scribers are prin­ci­pally on Live because of Call of Duty,” Kotick told FT. “We don’t really par­tic­i­pate finan­cially in that income stream. We would really like to be able to pro­vide much more value to those mil­lions of play­ers play­ing on Live, but it’s not our network.”

While one might feel bad that activi­sion isn’t get­ting in on it’s “share” of the prof­its one does have to real­ize that it releases $15 dol­lar map­packs that it sells mil­lions of. Hav­ing said this it isn’t like Activi­sion is hurt­ing for money.

Kotick’s solu­tion is to turn to the PC, where it can set its own model for pric­ing – not unlike what Bliz­zard has done with World of War­craft and Battle.net. Kotick stated that Activi­sion would “very aggres­sively” sup­port the likes of HP and Dell in any attempt of mak­ing an easy ‘plug-and-play’ PC that would hook up directly to the TV.

While I would love to see gam­ing return to the PC as a pri­mary gam­ing plat­form one does have to real­ize that their are some games that just play bet­ter on con­sole based sys­tems such as side scrollers, sports games, and party games. It’s very hard to use the PC as a party plat­form because a sin­gle unit does not pro­vide play access to 4 or more peo­ple simul­ta­ne­ously. If this issue could be addressed then it would make the PC more viable as a mass appeal plat­form. I hate play­ing games on any­thing other then a PC, espe­cially shoot­ers. One does have to real­ize, how­ever, that some games just play bet­ter on consoles.

Con­soles do pro­vide other ele­ments to devel­op­ers that make it eas­ier and cheaper to pro­duce games. Games made for con­soles have the exact same require­ments across the board for every­one play­ing so you only have to test the game on one sys­tem instead of 300 mil­lion dif­fer­ent com­bi­na­tions. Con­soles also have the ease of play fac­tor that you don’t get cur­rently with PC games and thats just putting the CD in and play­ing. Gen­er­ally with PC’s you have to install the game before you can play it and for those less knowl­edge­able this can be a real pain.

 

[aigomorla]

and as i predicted.

the console will be replaced by a netop.

🙂

most of the revenue from a console company is from the games, and not the console itself.
it would make sense to cut the margin down even further, and make a more family orientated console which could enter the market
and both a console + internet gateway + htpc in a more PC fashion.

 

[cbn]

and as i predicted.

the console will be replaced by a netop.

🙂

I also thought this comment from Activision was pretty interesting:

Kotick stated that Activi­sion would “very aggres­sively” sup­port the likes of HP and Dell in any attempt of mak­ing an easy ‘plug-and-play’ PC that would hook up directly to the TV.

 

[ModestGamer]

Wait for it.

console on a PCIE slot built in a graphics card. Multiple systems one PC.

 

[grimpr]

Steam them, stream them, play them. Not a bad job and niche for AMDs cheap Fusion chips on netops as Aigo thoughtfully pointed out.

 

[Jovec]

This is just Kotick being his usual greedy ass self. And short-sighted by forgetting how consoles simplify the development process by providing consistent hardware.

 

[SHAQ]

Is it simpler to develop for up to 6 platforms instead of 3 major competitors in the PC field? Most problems with the PC are because of software conflicts not hardware architectural differences. A console is a closed system so software conflicts are nonexistent.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Wait for it.

console on a PCIE slot built in a graphics card. Multiple systems one PC.

I've had that idea as well but it still holds the same segregation problems, as you'd still need to purchase the individual console cards to play respective Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo games.

The idea here is to kill the different consoles for a more unified format, so you'd play Gran Turismo, Mario, and Halo all on the same hardware, and 3rd party developers wouldn't have to worry about programing for different platforms.

Now unless you're talking about the unified 'console' being built into a single PCI-e card that you could plug into any current PC not powerful enough to play the games on its own, then yeah, that could be a brilliant idea.

 

[Jovec]

I've had that idea as well but it still holds the same segregation problems, as you'd still need to purchase the individual console cards to play respective Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo games.

The idea here is to kill the different consoles for a more unified format, so you'd play Gran Turismo, Mario, and Halo all on the same hardware, and 3rd party developers wouldn't have to worry about programing for different platforms.

Now unless you're talking about the unified 'console' being built into a single PCI-e card that you could plug into any current PC not powerful enough to play the games on its own, then yeah, that could be a brilliant idea.

Your idea isn't Kotick's idea. He's just pissed that he's not getting a cut of the XBox Live sub fees. This would be like Steve Ballmer saying that Microsoft should get a 5% kickback of all software sold for Windows. Because without the OS, these software companies wouldn't exist.

 

[cbn]

Your idea isn't Kotick's idea. He's just pissed that he's not getting a cut of the XBox Live sub fees. This is like Steve Ballmer saying that Microsoft should get a 5% kickback of all software sold for Windows. Because without the OS, these software companies wouldn't exist.

I don't know what to say about this. Maybe someone in his company is suggesting alternate ideas to increase their revenue stream.

Who knows? It could be that more developer houses go online? Just look at what Steam is accomplishing. Other companies like Nexon are doing similar things, but instead making their games "free" and collecting money through optional micropayments.

What is even more interesting to me, however, is "Cloud" vs "Client". How much faster and efficient can a company like Otoy or Onlive make their service compared to individuals buying machines?

Or will machines at the client level always be more desirable for various reasons?

It might be very interesting to see a blending of the two (especially for non gaming productivity purposes and goals)

 

[Lonyo]

Basically they love Steam because it allows them to charge lots of money and get a significant chunk of the profits while managing to lock people into their games (being unable to sell them), and gives Activision control over all their customers.

Question is, will Activision set up their own control system rather than continue using Valves, or will they stick with Steam.
They want to move away from console walled gardens into their own walled garden, so I'd assume they would eventually move away and maybe integrate everything into a Battle/net type service where people get locked down, a la Steam, and they can exert total control on all users, a la Steam.

 

[cbn]

Question is, will Activision set up their own control system rather than continue using Valves, or will they stick with Steam.
They want to move away from console walled gardens into their own walled garden, so I'd assume they would eventually move away and maybe integrate everything into a Battle/net type service where people get locked down, a la Steam, and they can exert total control on all users, a la Steam.

Yep, It sounds like they want their own control system.

P.S. I have never played a Blizzard game. How does Battle.net compare to Steam as far as prevention of piracy?

“We’ve heard that 60 per cent of [Microsoft’s] sub­scribers are prin­ci­pally on Live because of Call of Duty,” Kotick told FT. “We don’t really par­tic­i­pate finan­cially in that income stream. We would really like to be able to pro­vide much more value to those mil­lions of play­ers play­ing on Live, but it’s not our network.”

If Activision left MS, wouldn't that spur MS Studios to create a game even better than Call of Duty? How much do games like "Halo" affect Xbox sales?

 

[ModestGamer]

I've had that idea as well but it still holds the same segregation problems, as you'd still need to purchase the individual console cards to play respective Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo games.

The idea here is to kill the different consoles for a more unified format, so you'd play Gran Turismo, Mario, and Halo all on the same hardware, and 3rd party developers wouldn't have to worry about programing for different platforms.

Now unless you're talking about the unified 'console' being built into a single PCI-e card that you could plug into any current PC not powerful enough to play the games on its own, then yeah, that could be a brilliant idea.

basically this or each manufacturer offers a card as well.

 

[Ben90]

I have never played a Blizzard game. How does Battle.net compare to Steam as far as prevention of piracy?

Blizzard use a very unique system to prevent piracy, it stems from having games that don't completely suck. Its actually very easy to pirate any Blizzard game (including WOW), however its near pointless as you are not offered any of the online perks which basically make the game.

Older pirated games such as Starcraft and Diablo II can actually be played on battle.net by brute forcing CD-keys. There are hundreds of sites selling these illegitimate "legit" CD-keys for Diablo II, but its possible to Brute force it yourself.

Newer pirated games such as World of Warcraft use a much longer key, and a more robust checking system which basically elimate reverse engineering and brute force.

Now that I think about it more, Steam and modern Battle.net offer very similar piracy protection. Any game from either is easy to pirate, however in order to play online with legitimate servers, you either need to get lucky as hell with a random string or pay for the game. There are however private communities which allow you to play the game for free, but these are normally very sub par or non-existent making the legitimate game have a higher value than the pirated one. This is in stark contrast to some other systems where the pirated game is actually a better quality product.

*To avoid an infraction, I do not advocate piracy*

 

[johnny.dacu]

The replacement was expected to appear, it was about time.