greeode georgetta debbora
Kylee Evancho
One system will let you get 10 of the 5 million low rent, common denominator andriod and iOS games that you can play on your phone. The other just one massive blockbuster from a huge development studio. NO CHOICE.
You can also spare me the Apple TV BS. Apple TV is a giant failure and sucks as a streaming box. Not only is the Xbox far superior with more content, the Roku is a better streaming box. Of course sales increase when your product has nowhere to go but up.
So the only people that would be remotely interested in a Steambox, already have a Steambox called a PC, and many of these people have already created home theater PCs and have them hooked up to their HDTVs.
Good post, I think the points on xbox you have highlighted are all valid (you would hope Microsoft would fix those in their next console, but then they do seem to tie themselves in knots sometimes, look at how convoluted they made changing a hard drive in the xbox in comparison with Sony PS3).
As you suggest I think Apple would step in the market at some point, but especially if these android based consoles like OUYA start to sell in numbers, that may prompt a similiar iOS type approach from Apple.
Tim Cook just announced yesterday at the Goldman Sachs meeting that Apple is paying out $1 Billion per month to independent game/app developers. Apple has the ability to remake an entire market in a matter of months. They are moving at light speed.
yes, i have timed the minutes going by while looking at my watch (or playing Tiny Wings or Galcon on my iPhone) while waiting for Forza or Portal or CoD or N4S, etc load, or even go between levels. i have timed the minutes while updates download and reboots happen. i have watched my kids get confused and not understand the error messages and warnings. i have fought with microsoft to recover my live-id.
On the other-hand you suggest that MS should allow patches less often. If you reduce the ability for developers to patch their games, you being to hinder the user experience if there were any bugs/content issues needing attention.
Lastly, a game or app update takes no more than a few seconds most of the time, maybe a minute or two on occasion. Compared to the PS3, the Xbox 360 updates/patches are WAAAAAAY faster (and immensely smaller in size).
For a simple user(forget an app developer woes on xbox, for a moment) why in the world I need to pay for XBOX LIVE GOLD membership for using the basic apps? Arcane pricing strategy. I would guess an ad revenue stream for free apps will be a better one.
You could be right. I think to be a competitive console in 2013-2014 that could last a few years you would want to launch with about 4x the CPU+GPU, 2x the RAM and at least 128-256GB of flash. this seems to me outside the path of the iPad CPU/GPU/Storage trajectory, but well within what they could cheaply build given their assets. I wrote about this on HackerNews, =5210636.
I am not against paying for services as long as i am getting something out of it. Current Live pricing feels like i am paying ransom to use basic features. If they threw in a full Xbox music membership and one Gold account on the device enabled Netflix and all current gold tier apps for all users on the console it might be worth it.
Seems fake to me. I guess Sonys propaganda defence works in full force because they afraid of what MS is cooking for next xbox.now They would not to complete his that. MS will cover all bases this time with another hardcore gaming push in order not to loose the core of their system
Hi, i really like your comments on XBox. I personally have problems with some other things on xBox 360, like forcing me to pay for an Gold Membership just be able to watch a Lovefilm (read Netflix in Germany) or even public television like Germans ZDF.
Its not like apple delivers a good price-performance ratio and this is clearly an important factor for a Console and Mediabox, as Users dont want to buy every two years a new one.
Apple could just deliver that much pads and phones, because they are subsidized by Network contracts.
I agree with you that it would be great to have one box for everything, but its much to soon for this and the only way it will happen is inside the cloud. But as most people in the World dont have good enough Internet speed and the pings are sky high, dont see this happening soon. We will see traditional Consoles, this generation mixed with more Media capabilities, for at least two more Generations.
Maybe in 10-15 years the cloud will be much more present and playing Games via Stream will finally get a good and smooth experience.
Agree. I think the game console market is saturated and we need some new devices to perk it up. AppleTV is pretty nice and a solution from Valve will get my purchase if a new HALF-LIFE is shipped! :o)
The other thing is that Apple barely has to invest anything to make the switch you are talking about. The AppleTV leverages off-the-shelf hardware (iPod touch w/o a screen) and software (iOS) and the entire Mac/iOS ecosystem. Apple paid out $1 billion to iOS developers last month. Apple is already selling/renting 500K movies/TV shows PER DAY and just sold its 25 billionth (?) iTunes song. iOS apps are on a steeper trajectory than iTunes trax.
Yes, there is a whole tirade that one could go on about Windows Live IDs (or XBox Live IDs), billing, and how all of that is incredibly poorly maintained and flakey. Totally cutting edge and competitive with Apple-ID and iTunes billing when XBox Live launched (Cameron Ferroni, you are awesome and my hero), stagnant and pretty broken for most people on a regular basis today.
The system that would be successful in the living room would be affordable, fast loading, easy to navigate, update automatically, suppress annoying messages, open to windows and apple systems, friendly to indie game designers at a low cost of entry, and not necessarily the most advanced thing in the world.
A D-pad, two sticks, 4-6 face buttons, and 2-4 shoulder buttons can be specced out and hardware developers can make their own controller, so long as A is always mapped to A and X is always mapped to X. iOS developers would be able to simply plugin the appropriate API calls to implement the controller and tie it to the same actions as specific touchscreen elements.
My #1 rant is that I am required to insert the game disc even though the game is stored on the hard drive. I can understand a periodic insertion of the disc to prevent passing the disk around to my friends. However, inserting the disc every time is trying my patience.
I assume they are worried about an indie app that would unlock the console and allow piracy of games. This is possible right now but certainly tougher than jailbreaking an iOS device and putting Cydia on it. But it may be time to forgo worrying about that!
NATBRO- Great rant my friend! Here is the deal, I have been noodling a prototype Android/iOS set top for some time. In fact, my specs and design were so close to what ouya got out that I lost the wind in my sails. I bought an xBox (much better BTW) back when Halo 3 came out and 1 week in my power supply died. I was that upset that I returned it and never got another. I recently won an xBox at work and decided to give it another shot. I like Halo 4, but the most played game is Minecraft. My oldest son LOVES it. He told me it was digital legos and I love the creativity aspect.
My daughter who is 5 is always having issues when the update screen comes up because she cannot read that well. Here is my last point. Why are there options to DOWNLOAD/BUY themes when they cannot be used with the current dashboard????????????!!!!!!
Every time I leave a game, even right after saving in the game, the system presents me with this little scare that I may lose progress.
NOT A BIG DEAL. I would rather have this double check in case I forgot to do an in game save.
Yeah, and have you seen the ton of junk on there? A little veto power would help a lot. At least if I go to xbox arcade I know the games will be decent. I am not a beta tester or a focus group. If I am looking for a downloadable game I should not have to wade through thousands of experiments. The best of both worlds is to have a choice which is exactly what arcade and inde offer. Leave that alone.
To this day, fear that we could see a second video game crash, along with a business model that favors development system fees and licensing in lieu of hardware revenue, compels console manufactures to lock out indie devs in an effort to exert tight control over their eco systems.
i appreciate your thoughtful feedback, that is a lot more in-the-trenches detail than I have gotten, though it all meshes with what I wrote and how it appears.
You are so right that developers should and simply have to follow the path to where they can make money. It is the job of a good platform to make that ecosystem work for small and large developers.
The days of fart apps controlling the iOS stores were gone years ago. There will always be the odd naff app that does well but then that just means people want it. If you look through the top 200 lists, most of those apps/games are pretty damn good now.
The console stores, however, need burying in a desert forever like game cartridges of old. I could rant for hours on the myriad of problems with the console stores. It must be costing them hundreds of millions in lost revenue, but my understanding is that internal politics is doing in for them.
i agree it seems headless, at least technically to me. i may not have agreed with some of the technical things that J pushed for with xBox & xBox 360, but I think he was a decider and a great leader there for a stretch.
I honestly hope they read some of it and take it to heart for their future work. I may have written parts of it a bit more snarky than good constructive feedback should be, but there is constructive feedback to be taken from it, I hope.
A lot of developers are getting fed up with the 30% cut Apple are asking. But since its their way or the highway devs are stuck for now. The first console manufacturer that realises its worth their while not to squeeze money out of the very people that bring them hardware sales will be the success.
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