July 23, 2008
Convergence
Michael wrote this at 9:41 am:
So E3 has come and gone for another year… and news of announcements from it has spread as fast as millions of hands can work keyboards, like a huge game of Chinese whispers with minimal distortion. Maybe.
Now, I’ve never been one to directly follow E3 - or any other gaming trade show for that matter - because some of those millions of hands undoubtedly belong to games magazine journalists. Yeah, I’m a bit old school for gaming news! This time, it was different. I’m not going to bang on about the games revealed, mainly because the ones which I’m keeping tabs on are ones I knew of before the show. No, for me it was all about the ‘innovation’ of Avatars presented by Microsoft. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m no fanboy of the company - I just happen to have a vested interest in what they do as I have an Xbox 360!
I have noticed something of a trend for a while now - as I’m sure many of you have - of the various console makers vying for the attentions, the affections, of gamers not by trying to be different but by trying to be the same. Arguably the only one that’s done something truly new is Nintendo. So the other two, the giants, are trying to outdo each other and David by playing tit-for-tat catch up. Achievements? Entitlements. Miis? Avatars - both in Xbox Live and Home. Video Store? Yep, Sony’s moving in there too! And on it goes…
This trend is a little worrying to me. I see a future, like Kat does… oh yeah, I’m referencing a reader! I’ll wait until you’ve checked that link… Right, I can see a future of all three manufacturers having identical systems. Or even there just being one system, in a worst case scenario; one which will probably be known as the PSWii60 and have the ability to cook all your food so you don’t ever have to play Cooking Gramma. Considering the amount of crud there is to be found on all three at the moment, can you imagine how bad it’s going to be should that come to pass? I can’t and I have a great imagination!
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:04 am
When the Wii first came out I though it was great that it was getting more people into gaming, but that cute innocent looking little white box with it’s squeaky clean image could be insideously taking the edge off our way of gaming and me no likey.
I still want one though :)
July 23rd, 2008 at 12:54 pm
I’m quite pleased they went with “trophies” rather than “entitlements”. Because “entitlements” is a very stupid name.
July 23rd, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Did they? See, I’m out of the loop a bit with Sony’s version of achievements… that, and entitlements just stuck in my head because it’s such a daft name!
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:48 pm
While Trophies are clearly just a rip-off of achievements, one thing I do like is that they have split them into levels, Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum.
This allows you to distinguish between a score whore with ten thousand points who has five hundred games and someone who has really mastered a certain number of individual games, which is cool.
Still as pointless overall as achievements, though, as no doubt some games Platinum trophy will be easy to get and some will be harder than diamond-tipped ninjas.
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:50 pm
“PSWii60″ gets me every time.
You hit the nail on the head precisely with this. I suppose you could argue that this sort of thing has always happened in every market, what with everyone vying for attention and integrating one another’s selling points at every turn, but that doesn’t give us any excuse to not be worried about the situation nevertheless. In my comment on Scott’s post I was referencing a conversation we’d been having just previously about how every game seems to be ported (quite poorly, in the majority of instances) to every conceivable system on the market… to me it doesn’t seem like such a stretch that somebody in an office somewhere could decide “Hey, we should all just do this one thing and make a bunch of money, what do you say?”
As gamers we like to think there’s some kind of community here. We like to think that whoever we’re vying for in the “big three” is on our side, looking out for us. But when you break it down to basics… well, they are companies in the end. Honestly I don’t think I could be surprised by anything they chose to do, at this point.
By the way, thanks for the shout out, there. :D I feel like an internet celebrity.
July 23rd, 2008 at 4:00 pm
I don’t necessarily see “everyone borrowing everyone else’s features” as a bad thing - it means that they genuinely need to innovate to stay ahead.
But convergence on a single system is unlikely, or at least it’s unlikely to last for long, because at some point someone will say “if we do our own system with X cool new feature I’ve just thought of, we won’t need to share the profits from it with anyone else” and the cycle begins again. Plus there are laws against cartels these days.
July 23rd, 2008 at 4:38 pm
“Innovation is the reward for those who never stop trying”
Occasionally we’ll see true innovation in our space, but a lot of the time we’ll see derivative work. Not a bad thing, just not unique.
But they WILL keep trying and every now and again we’ll be forced to sit back and just say WOW!
July 24th, 2008 at 9:24 am
Tony - I’ve seen someone suggest that Achievements could be graded, in terms of difficulty, into colours; red for difficult to get ones, green for middling and blue (I think) for easy ones. I’m not sure this is such a good thing as it may lead to greater elitism than there already is with some gamers.
Kat - Yeah, I have wondered about games on every format. But I think, in a way, this is good for those who don’t have every format going; for those who do, that’s where exclusive DLC etc comes in. It is also good for those who make the games, as they are increasingly expensive to produce. This may appear to contradict my point about identikit consoles but I think many gamers (not all) have bought into a particular company’s machine because of that whole silly “lifestyle” angle attributed to a specific console. If they’re all the same in terms of features…
And you’re welcome! :D