Quote:
Original post by cbenoi1 Oh, you mean like .. Java?
Yes. Java does a lot already, but developers need gaming specific APIs if the thing is designed for more important stuff than just hobby.
I think a VM platform makes sense in the PC, since the PC is a mess of different configurations. You still won't be able to guarantee a lot of things, but with some sort of profile rules, i.e. predefined configuration sets, this problem could be diminished.
One could produce a game and target a specific profile, and new profiles could be created as the hardware evolves.
Producing your own hardware is not easy, you would need to be a Dell in order to sell it in huge quantities. Even with cheap PC parts, it would be difficult if you don't have the millions. But software in the other hand...
> Java does a lot already, but developers need gaming > specific APIs if the thing is designed for more > important stuff than just hobby.
Windows XP comes with .NET and any game developer can access Managed DirectX. You will notice some forums already have some level of activity around managed DirectX, so it's not like it's brand new or obscured from the general public in any way. Java has been around on PCs for a long time now, and .NET for a few years. It's the compile once, run anywhere paradigm. Either one solves platform fragmentation issues quite nicely and there are lot of high-quality tools available.
Problem solved.
Just out of curiosity, though. How come we don't see commercial games based on those VMs that often?
Well, I'm waiting for some code to compile, so I'll write this...
Designing & Building Consoles: An FAQ.
Q: How do I make a games console like, say, an XBox360?
A: You don't.
Q: Wha-? Why not?
A: Because it's too expensive.
Q: Why's that?
A: With the exception of Nintendo's "Wii", consoles are what marketing people call "Loss Leaders". They're sold at a loss to encourage people to buy them and increase their market share. The greater the market share, the more attractive the console is to developers. More developers = more games. And each game sold for your console means money in the bank for YOU, not just the developer: Developers pay you a license fee to release their games for your console. THAT is where their profits come from. (And, yes, that's why console games cost so damned much.)
Q: Oh. But wasn't Atari a really, really small company?
A: Yes. 30 years ago, the market was small, costs were tiny and so anyone could -- and did -- get into the industry. Nolan Bushnell got lucky with Atari because he pretty much invented the concept of games consoles. Unfortunately, this wasn't enough. Atari eventually went bust about ten years ago. A French company called "Infogrames" bought up the rights to use the "Atari" name and logo a few years ago from the receivers. So today's "Atari" is actually a completely different company.
Q: So, er, how _do_ I make a console then? Hypothetically.
A: Hypothetically? Okay, here's the basic recipe:
Ingredients:
Business skills Marketing skills Communications skills Logistics skills Steaming great piles of money -- ideally, about a billion dollars Some Engineers Some Games
In that order.
Use your business sense to study your target market. You'll need to build contacts like they're going out of fashion: you'll need to sell your baby all over the world and that means your market is complex. It's not just shooters and racing games.
A console that's only popular in one territority is of limited interest outside that territory, so you HAVE to sell it in as many locations as possible. At the same time. With games localised for each market. With ratings for each market. And so on, and so on.
This means spending great gobs of cash on setting up logistics with distribution partners around the world. It means supporting them with vast sums of marketing money alone -- TV spots, newspapers, financial markets, you name it. And that's just for the _consumers_.
You also have to sell it to the trade: the distributors, retailers, publishers and developers. If you're a complete unknown, you have to be able to point at an excellent track record if you expect them to risk millions of development capital on a brand new, untested, untried console that may very well flop. (Many do. Even Nintendo have had a few duds. Virtual Boy, anyone? Sega Saturn? Philips CD-I? Commodore CD32? CDTV? 3DO? Atari's Jaguar? The list of failed consoles is endless.)
Games! You'll need games! Lots of games! Designing your console requires liaising with developers, or you'll end up with a sow's ear that's so painful to develop for that nobody can justify the expense of scaling the steep learning curve. The whole point of a console from a developer's perspective is that it's a standard, uncomplicated platform. (PCs already have the "really nasty, complicated architecture" market sewn up; there's no point competing with them.)
So: throw some crack engineering talent at the problem. Tell them what your sale price will be and make damned sure they stick with it. And remember: you'll also have to plan the manufacturing processes and logistics of delivery not just for the console, but all those lovely games!
Marketing will also need to be involved at an early stage. What will the console look like? What kind of user interface(s) will it offer? How will it differentiate itself from its rivals? What do gamers _want_? (That last part is market research. Don't skimp. Millions of dollars go into this alone.)
But what about games? How can one design and develop games for a console that hasn't yet been manufactured and whose specs live in a pimped-out server cluster?
That's where emulation comes in. You'll need to design and develop emulators that can give developers something to use as a baseline to develop their games for. Over time, you will want to roll out updated emulators, prototype hardware and more to these developers. This is tricky stuff. And don't forget the nice, shiny NDAs -- you'll need some lawyers for those. (Lawyers have endless uses. Some of them will even have a drink with you down the pub without charging you a Drinking & Socialising Fee.)
You'll probably want your own in-house team of crack game developers, so that you can wow the punters with at least one "must-have" game. It's the games that people want. The console is just the magic box that plays them. Microsoft and Sony both took the route of buying up a few top-grade development teams. Worth a try, but as with the rest of this, it's not cheap. Figure about 50-odd million dollars minimum for that alone.
Each.
As your console comes closer to the release to manufacture stage, your marketing team will want to dream up a cool name for it. Probably a letter and maybe a number combo that trips off the tongue. "X70?" Already taken by Volvo. "F-16"? Type of plane, right? Clearly marketing isn't as easy as you thought, so you'll need to pay someone to come up with a really cool, catchy name. (Something with a "W" perhaps? What if it rhymes with "Me"?)
Once you have your final branding, it's time to pimp it like a cheap prostitute.
And then the really big, expensive part happens...
No! Not the manufacturing! That's NOTHING compared to the marketing cash you'll be spending.
We're talking bribing reporters, selling TV ads, putting out press releases and generally whoring our marketing arses for all we're worth for months and months until, at last, the hype has produced enough hot air to roast consumers' brains into submission. When punters are threatening their fellow human beings with actual, physical violence for dissin' your as-yet-unreleased console, it's time to release it!
And what a release! You planned to roll it out to every single punter who wanted it at the same time, but component suppliers "let you down" at the "last minute", so you've had to resort to a phased release. Some of your games aren't quite ready yet, so you've had to cut back on your launch roster of titles too. NOW your marketing team gets to show its mettle. NOW you find out if the money you've been paying them was worth it.
NOW you get the queues lining up for days on end. NOW you get to hear how your console sold out on its first day. (Well, 'Duh!' We've only managed to _make_ a few thousand of them!)
And now the real reviews kick in. Is your game the next Halo? Is your console the next PS2? Are the punters buying it in droves?
Or have your financial backers been saddled with a Sega Saturn?
You're sitting there, sweating bricks, while the figures roll in. Is it selling? Tell me it's selling! I've invested nearly a billion dollars! PLEASE GOD! pleasepleasepleasePLEASE tell me it's a hit!
Q: Whoa! That's pretty intense! And I thought learning what quaternions were was hard.
A: Yup. And that's just the beginning. Making consoles is a massive gamble. Atari, Sega, Colecovision, Mattel and more have all tried and failed. Only the success stories remain to dance on the graves of their vanquished rivals.
So... still want to make a console?
Sean Timarco Baggaley (Est. 1971.)Warning: May contain bollocks.
Quote:Original post by Anonymous Poster Yes, I did and I see that IBM compatible PCs are ubiquitous. Other proprietary architectures are used only in niches, for very specific tasks. I consider that a success.
I am not sure if you are saying that games is a niche industry or not but Consoles are the dominant platform from a % of games sold point of view. There are many more PCs in the world but they straddle several markets. Many are stuck in offices and those that are at home are multi-function machines. That means a user may never play games on them or, if they do, that their PC time is divided between gaming and other uses.
There certainly is a hardcore of people who use their PC to game (I am one) but PC games make up a smaller % of games sold than console titles do.
Quote:
But developers should care about it? Are you Sony? If not then why do you care?
Simple economics. The developers I work with focus on console because it is a bigger market than PC. A hit console game will sell more units than a hit PC game.
Quote:
If my game runs on a cheap PC and sells well wouldn't that be good? How lots of copies of the game sold on PC are less than the same amount of copies on consoles?
"sells well" is rather a meaningless phrase. "sells better than...." is a much more useful phrase. "If my game sells better on PC wouldn't that be good?" Yes it would, but they don't. It takes the same effort/resources to make a PC game as a console game. If the PC copy sells well but the console copy sells better which is the better platform to be developing for?
It takes the same effort/resources to make a PC game as a console game. If the PC copy sells well but the console copy sells better which is the better platform to be developing for?
I feel you're being unduly kind to the PC.
A PC version normally takes more effort and resources, not just during development, but also for delivery: Console developers don't need to localise installer scripts for each language. Nor do their games need to care whether your console has a German or US English keyboard connected.
And then there's the post-sales support. Console games don't need much in the way of technical support: it'll either work on the console, or it won't. If it doesn't, it usually doesn't get released in the first place, since most console manufacturers require a minimum level of quality.
PCs have umpteen potential combinations of graphics card, sound chip, motherboard chipset and other components for developers to worry about. Middleware helps up to a point, but it's no panacea. Try explaining why Billy's hand-me-down PC won't play your game even though it says on the box that it meets your minimum system requirements. Try explaining the concept of SMA integrated graphics chipsets which share the system RAM. ("But my PC has more than 40 gigabytes of memory!")
I've been the sole customer support guy for an indie developer for years. I've had to deal with issues like the above, not only in English, but also French, Italian, German and even Spanish.
You don't have to worry about any of the above with consoles. That's why they're so popular with both gamers and developers.
Sean Timarco Baggaley (Est. 1971.)Warning: May contain bollocks.
