The weakness in Playzilla's armour?

[Baroque]

We were talking about the PSX on #ntsc-uk earlier tonight and it got me thinking, (always a bad thing I know), but what if the PSX is a success and the PS3 followed on in it's footsteps?

The PSX isn't a games machine like the PS2, it's an entertainment oriented item of consumer electronics.
A DVD/CD Player & Writer, Digital Video Recorder, Set top box and games machine all rolled into one. The idea is that it replaces your DVD player, TiVO/Sky+ Digital Video Recorder, and games console under your TV.

If the PS3 follows suit then it's no longer a video games machine, it's an entertainment device which happens to play games.

Now stay with me here, if such a device takes off, it puts Sony's Playstation product line in competition with damn near all the rest of the consumer electronics industry, all of whom have the technology to offer the consumer the exact same entertainment device...except for the gaming portion.

Microsoft won't beat Sony, Nintendo won't beat Sony, you'll beat Sony by commoditising their gaming advantage. To beat Sony you need to do to Playstation what the consumer electronics industry did to Betamax. Standardise either side of it and make the technology irrelevant.

The Playstation brand only means so much to gamers, consumers will follow the games, and if you were to offer the game development industry a standardised & widely available platform, to which they had to pay only minimal license fees, I'm guessing publishers would take it very seriously.

If Matsu****a, Mitsubishi, JVC, Samsung, LG, Sharp, Phillips and everyone else were to flood the market with this standardised format, just build it into new categories of entertainment devices, or add it to existing ones (DVD players, Digital Video Recorders, anything which you hook up to a TV.) it would have the chance of turning Playstation into the gaming Betamax.

PSX & PSP has Sony attempting to level their gaming advantage at almost every maker of consumer electronics products out there, from the digital set top box, to the DVD player/recorder, to the CD player, to the MP3 player and the Game Boy. PSX/PSP takes them well beyond the gaming market and into the mainstream consumer electronics industry

If the rest of the industry doesn't get their act together then Sony will eat their lunch, all of it. We could be taking about something on the scale of the rise of DOS in the PC industry.

But if they do get their act together, we might just be rapidly heading towards a single format market, and the decline of the brand they used to call "Playstation".

[yashiro]

Yes, maybe. Although it'd be more the gaming VHS than Betamax.
Stop worrying about this crap and play some games.

[Baroque]

Yes, maybe. Although it'd be more the gaming VHS than Betamax.

The point was to turn Playstation into Betamax, it was the other guys who were on the side of VHS. Right now, Playstation is VHS and everyone else is Betamax.

Stop worrying about this crap and play some games.

I'm not worrying and I write these things down -SO- I can play games.

Once it's out, it's out and I can go do something else, if I don't get what I need to write out, it wrecks my concentration. I don't write because I want to, I write because I have to.

[Super Stu]

Hmm. Valid point, which Sony presumably have considered. If Matsu****a et al were to garner a consortium to create a standardised platform, would they resurrect old stuff (M2), take a leaf out of Pace's book (Dreamcast) or give MS the slice of the pie they so desperately want (ie an xbox based home entertainment system). Would MS even want to do it as part of a group? You know how fond they are of pulling out of consortiums and going it alone.

It's an interesting idea, not quite sure who and how the combinations of egos would come together to sort it (unfortunately, I was too young to appreciate how VHS came to swamp Betamax).

[metal_mutley]

Trouble is though, that it would be really hard to have an industry standard hardware platform within the confines of the current funding model. Viz, consoles at a loss = user base => software at a profit. I think this is the sort of problem that killed the 3DO dead in the first place, and it is unlikely that it would be solved by some do-it-all hardware app.

[Burai]

The 3DO dream didn't work because there wasn't really anything to have in the expensive all-in-one home entertainment system. What films were released on VCD in the west that made it worth upgrading from VHS? And play music CD's? Hi-fi's costing ?80 could do that at the time.

A ?700 box that replaced... well nothing.

The thought of a single platform doesn't worry me in the slightest.

After all, we've been living with a single platform, more or less for the past 8 years and before that the Famicom had domination of the market.

People say that it will stunt hardware development. To that, I can only say it's a good thing. With more and more publishers and developers going down the pan each month due to risng costs, wouldn't it be so much easier (and cheaper) if they had just one platform to worry about and not have to worry about releasing a game for a format that's about to go up the swanny because of a competing console causing it to flop or because all of Sony's competitors are forcing their hand to release a new one?

How far could the Dreamcast have gone? And will anyone truly master the Xbox or GameCube before 2005?

It's so easy for the manufacturer to write off a bad lot and start again, but what about the consumer and the devlopers who've thrown their weight behind it?

The current hardware lifecycle is dangerous for both the manufacturer and the people who make the games, so if that could be locked down, I'd be more than happy. We're getting to a stage where each console has exactly the same looking games anyway chucking around so many millions of polygons and textures that raw numbers don't matter any more - devs have polys and frames going spare these days, so nothing will be like the PSone/N64 > Dreamcast leap that startled us back in 1999.

However, I do have a problem with the way that Sony and Microsoft seem to be steering the business.

Suddenly, the machine designed to play games and maybe DVDs is now an all-in-one home entertainment machine that just so happens to play games. Games are no longer the primary function - they are just part of one big whole bundle of movies, music, TV and games.

For the majority of people that buy games these days, this won't be a problem. However for people like us who take their gaming more seriously, it's a very worrying precident.

And for importers, content-on-demand will be a nightmare. Want to play the latest Japanese release? Tough, you can't download it cos you don't have a Japanese address or Japanese credit card.

Consider this - Nintendo will be the only company releasing a true games console next time out. Are people really sure that going software-only would be the best course of action for them? We're going to be so screwed without a tradtional choice available.

Hey, if the public don't take to this multimedia hub idea, Nintendo might be the only ones left in the games business. Now there's a thought.

[womblingfree]

The PSX isn't a games machine like the PS2, it's an entertainment oriented item of consumer electronics.

The PS2 is an 'entertainment item of consumer electronics' also. It plays DVD's and you can hook it up to the net. In fact it was PS2 which kick started the DVD industry in the first place.

If Sony want to introduce features such as DVD recorders, or anything else they fancy, into the market then attaching the feature to PS3 or onwards is the perfect way to do it.

[Burai]

The PS2 is an 'entertainment item of consumer electronics' also. It plays DVD's and you can hook it up to the net. In fact it was PS2 which kick started the DVD industry in the first place.

Yeah, but DVD's is one function built into the console. Sony make little money from DVD movie sales that they wouldn't have done had you bought the movie for a normal deck anyway.

PSX and presumably PS3 will take the functions of practically every device you have in your home entertainment unit - It'll be your Sky + digibox, it'll be your hi-fi, it'll be your DVD player, your VCR, it'll let you surf the web.

And most importantly it will give you content on demand - not just games but music and movies too - Sony will no longer be selling you just the games but the rest of the shebang as well.

Sony will be placing equal emphasis on each aspect and undoubtedly Microsoft will be too and that's what worries me. It's not a games console that plays DVD's any more - it's a complete home entertainment system.

[womblingfree]

I think we will soon see the death of the games only console. A set top box that does the works has been an industry dream for years. It's an inevitability.

[metal_mutley]

Look, all this stuff about a home entertainment hub with all sorts of non-gaming peripherals added on. I'm not in favour of it and don't think that we'll see it for a while anyhow. For one, the additional costs to make a PS2 DVD compatible were very low (zero?) so it made sense for Sony to include them. They want to get a large installed user base first and foremost so that they can benefit from a superior market position later. This is how the current competition has worked anyway.

If they (or anyone else) go about adding bells and whistles to their standard console (not a deluxe version like the PSX clearly is) then the cost will rise too much. PSX can stand alongside PS2, but not instead of it. The same will apply to the next round.

Sony, or someone else may be wise enough to realise that there is a market for more than one console model.

This all inclusive do-it-all is a pipe dream though. Expense man, expense.

[TheShend]

Look, all this stuff about a home entertainment hub with all sorts of non-gaming peripherals added on. I'm not in favour of it and don't think that we'll see it for a while anyhow. For one, the additional costs to make a PS2 DVD compatible were very low (zero?) so it made sense for Sony to include them. They want to get a large installed user base first and foremost so that they can benefit from a superior market position later. This is how the current competition has worked anyway.

If they (or anyone else) go about adding bells and whistles to their standard console (not a deluxe version like the PSX clearly is) then the cost will rise too much. PSX can stand alongside PS2, but not instead of it. The same will apply to the next round.

Sony, or someone else may be wise enough to realise that there is a market for more than one console model.

This all inclusive do-it-all is a pipe dream though. Expense man, expense.

Isn't that sort of scalable system in place?

You can pick yourself up a cheap as chips DVD player for your layman and then you can scale up to ?1500+ players for cinema nuts.

Maybe thats where the more than 1 system could exist?

[metal_mutley]

Isn't that sort of scalable system in place?

You can pick yourself up a cheap as chips DVD player for your layman and then you can scale up to ?1500+ players for cinema nuts.

Maybe thats where the more than 1 system could exist?

EXUMPTLY!

Do you think I would have bought a crappy GBA over 18 months ago if there was a superior version available for the more discerning, post pubescent, gamer with a substantial income? Correct. I wouldn't.

But the total connectivty provided by my superior GBA PO PA FAX GPS TiVO wouldn't really be taken for granted or useful to a load of old megalomaniac technophiles. They would ahve to market to the lowest (standard) common denominator.

My point is that I don't believe a bells and whistles approach is going to work for the multi-company approach becuause they'd never be able to agree on the real value of a marginal increase in the installed user base. Simple.

[Baroque]

Look, all this stuff about a home entertainment hub with all sorts of non-gaming peripherals added on. I'm not in favour of it and don't think that we'll see it for a while anyhow. For one, the additional costs to make a PS2 DVD compatible were very low (zero?) so it made sense for Sony to include them.

Nope, it added another $20 to every machine Sony built. they had to pay the MPEG consortium a per system license and that was an extra $20 loss which Sony initially couldn't pass onto the consumer. Remember, it took over a year for the PS2 to break even.

Hence the reason Microsoft get consumers to buy the remote in order to enable XBox DVD playback. That license fee is wrapped around the remote, and as they are selling the system without DVD playback out of the box, they don't have to pay for every XBox unit they sell, just every remote unit they sell.

If they (or anyone else) go about adding bells and whistles to their standard console (not a deluxe version like the PSX clearly is) then the cost will rise too much.

I'm not so sure, think about it all you need is a fast enough CPU, a Hard Disk and some software to make it do the Digibox/Digital Video Recorder tricks. We can guess that the PS3 will come with a HD & an ethernet port, DVD writer technology is now mass market and the license fee for DVD playback has started to come down now that the BluRay stuff is starting to slowly creep into the high end. As for software, well how many geeks is Sony willing to stuff full of soft-drinks and snacks? It can all be done and it can be done on the cheap.

Deluxe versions of anything don't really sell very well, especially for a mass market product like the Playstation. In many senses the PSX will be a test of the waters to see if a deluxe product could sell in decent volume against the PS2. Sony know that if they don't push new technology into the box, then Microsoft will and Microsoft will price their offering down to compete with the standard Sony games device in order to screw any deluxe model as well as kicking the standard models backside in value for money.

The all in one wasn't a reality for the PS2, though Sony wanted it to be, it can be a reality for the PS3, as all the bits are right here, right now, and they'll be much cheaper in 05/06 or whenever the PS3 pops it's head up.

This all inclusive do-it-all is a pipe dream though. Expense man, expense.

Go tell that to Ken Kurtagi, it's been his pipe dream since 1997 and now he just happens to run all of Sony's microelectronics business, as well as SCEI and numerous entertainment technology incubators inside Sony.

Microsoft put a Hard Disk & ethernet port as standard in a games console, they then allowed you to rip CD's & download content with it.

The future has already happened, the PSX is an acknowledgement of that. For Sony it's now only a matter of software. With the PS2 they proved they were willing to choke on red ink early on to sell their system, it'll be the same the next time around.

[Baroque]

My point is that I don't believe a bells and whistles approach is going to work for the multi-company approach becuause they'd never be able to agree on the real value of a marginal increase in the installed user base. Simple.

They don't have to.
All they'd need to do is set a baseline standard spec and then work it into or wrap it around whatever they choose. The gaming silicon would be a known quantity, the devices it ends up in wouldn't. It could be part of a DVD player, built into a TV, or part of an all in one box. It doesn't matter where it is, so long as it's in lots of things and all adheres to a standard which game developers can develop for and deploy on.

Playstation is Sony's Trojan Horse, it's their strategy for ensuring it's their box which sits under your TV and the PSX is their first attempt at trying to get rid of all the others which currently sit under there.

That's why Microsoft are losing a fortune of the XBox, they had this idea that it was going to be the buggy BSOD PC which was going to act as gatekeeper to all the digital entertainment, Sony made it clear that the PC wasn't going to get a spot in the living room, so Microsoft had to get into the console business and are staying in no matter what the cost.

[metal_mutley]

That license fee is wrapped around the remote,

That's really interesting. I didn't know that. It had honestly never occurred to me (but I had to put up with a ?300 launch price.) [I'm not being sarcastic]

I'm not so sure, think about it all you need is a fast enough CPU, a Hard Disk and some software to make it do the Digibox/Digital Video Recorder tricks.

Well, I'm guessing that that's the sort of **** that makes the TiVO system sexpensive. I don't claim to be an expert at the costs of technological implementation, but even if DVD playback costs $20, it's not much compared to the loss being made on 2nd place in the console war. Remember now, that Sony are still charging more for their hardware several years after launch because of their market position, not their technological lead.

all of whom have the technology to offer the consumer the exact same entertainment device...except for the gaming portion.

This is the bit that I'm coming round to in your view (or some bastard son of your view). What if Sony, knowing that they make a loss on this part of the commodity, were to put it out to license, not charge anything, and recoup through software charges. Other manufacturers may be willing to take the hit at the production stage because of the huge competitive advantage that Sony'd enjoy over them otherwise.

Thing is here that I believe Sony has got a far greater chance of standardising the videogame format than any consortium of other manufacturers. And if products were being sold as multi-hubs, then there'd be more scope to absorb the costs and whatever.


BUT how popular is a single proprietary tecnology ever going to be anyway? Phillips may have invented the CD, but they never standardised tuners or amps. What is so special about a television set top that makes it so different? I want separates for my sky, video and DVD.