This column is doubtless more ironic given my far tamer thoughts on the Xbox One – and console wars in general – I shared with Ben Hoyt just a few days ago. But then E3 happened, and E3 changes everything. Sony is ascendant in the court of public opinion, though by the time I hit “Publish” that could have changed. In a way, though, this Culture Clash column is about a different, subtler clash of cultures than the usual gaming world/nongaming world: gamers who watch and gamers who don’t. All the major companies in this business depend on the majority being gamers who don’t – consumers who don’t follow the industry, don’t study trends, and don’t make decisions based on complex topics like DRM and licensing. Those are the ones who line up in their thousands outside of Best Buy each new console release; those are the ones who move the product, and because they don’t watch, because they don’t care, those are the ones on which Microsoft and Sony alike depend to move their products. Gamers who watch are suspicious. Gamers who don’t may not realize what they’ve put their foot in until all the GameStops shut down. Enjoy!
A Camel
By Matthew Sakey
Originally published by the International Game Developers Association
An oft-recited joke in the business world: “A horse designed by committee is a camel.”
Kind of unfair to camels, which look ridiculous but are hard to beat from a functionality standpoint. Part of the reason camels get the short end of that comparison is that the notoriously cranky and standoffish beasts don’t do much to further their own case. The quip isn’t meant at the expense of camels, but of committees. There is no such thing as wisdom of crowds. Consensus and compromise are best at creating clumsy, kludgy solutions, but ones everyone can live with. Thus another oft-recited joke in the business world goes “success is when everyone walks away unhappy.”
Right now we’re in a generational console announcement cycle, and it looks like a whole lot of committees went into conceiving both the Playstation 4 and the Xbox One.
It was 2006 the last time I wrote about a console launch in this column. So long ago! So much has changed! Steam existed but nobody liked it; the service had only just started selling games other than Valve’s. The first iPhone was a year away. Only 17% of U.S. households had a high-definition TV set in 2006, and of those, only 34% were actually getting HDTV. Now it’s 2013 and we learn that the PS4 and Xbox One will require 720p sets with HDMI. Oh, things have changed.
It’s E3 as I write this. As of this morning, Sony has taken the PR upper hand and Microsoft is hard at work cutting off its own nose. Don Mattrick – in a staggering display of Microsoftian sensitivity – dismissed the entire community of people who can’t get online every 24 hours by telling them to buy Xbox 360s. Thanks for your service, troops! As a reward, you can use the old crap the company will be dropping support for shortly.
E3 only just started, though. Everything could reverse in an instant. Last generation, Sony made all the mistakes Microsoft is currently making. It priced the PS3 too high, reacted arrogantly when questioned, and issued one of the dullest launch libraries I’ve ever encountered. Its salvation was, ironically, Microsoft – which released a device so badly engineered some estimates put its failure rate at one in three. Heck, my seventh (one two three four five six seven) failed a few months ago.
But despite it all, they both wound up doing fine. The Wii was the numerical success story of the last generation, though its star faded rapidly and the Wii U is a non-thing, but all three consoles were triumphs. And I’m guessing that this generation will do fine too, despite oddities in the PS4’s design, despite Microsoft’s PRISM-esque approach to consumer privacy violation, despite every imbecilic thing every executive will say this week.
Because Microsoft, Sony, EA, Activision – they know their stuff. They are employing a proven strategy that only seems strange to you and I because of who we are. Peter Moore said as much in a recent Polygon interview, when challenged on the Xbox One’s phone-home and trading limitations: “I think that is deep in our world. I think the broader world is saying, ‘it’s E3, let’s see some games’ and ‘why should I buy a new console? Show me.’” [emphasis mine]. Moore’s “that” refers to issues about consumer rights, DRM, always-on connectivity, and everything else that’s consumed the industry news cycle over the past couple weeks. He is saying that most people, most consumers, not only don’t know about these issues, they don’t particularly care. And he’s right.
Price, now price is a hard stop. Everyone knows what $500 means. That’s what hurt the PS3 most, and if the Xbox One suffers early it’ll be because of its price tag, not obscure controls on borrowing games. Most people don’t follow the industry like we do, they’ll look at price, nothing more. Most people don’t notice when an executive makes a moronic remark that contradicts everything he and his company has said and done for the past 18 months, like Yves Guillemot just did when he schizophrenically remarked that used games are good for the industry.
Each generation, consoles get more like camels and less like horses, be it in hardware or functionality or both. On one hand, greater functionality is a competitive advantage – the Xbox One’s theoretical ability to act as the nerve center of your entire entertainment network is desirable. PS4’s touch thingy and footage sharing are desirable, at least to some people who aren’t me. To the developers, these are selling points. Even phone-homes and region locks and such are “features” from a certain, non-consumer perspective. All the NES did was play games. It was simple and I could make a case for that… especially since that system would probably cost half what these camels do. But realistically I have to admit that until it died for the seventh (that’s one more than six and seven more than forgivable) time, my 360 was responsible for much more than playing games and I really appreciated that. Now the PS3 does it, differing only in that it hasn’t broken seven (7) times.
When they were inventing the camel, somebody said “it should be able to carry a water supply.” Somebody else said “it should be able to spit, like, a ridiculous distance.” A third person said, “it should be a toed ungulate so it gets traction in the sand.” Result: camel. A readily-mocked but versatile animal, if you look at it right. Horses – elegant and fast but also fragile, skittish, mind-numbingly stupid – were apparently designed by one person. Everything has its negatives, and the message here is that when it comes to a console cycle, the negatives have less real impact than we want to think, and the manufacturers know it. For all their mistakes and arrogance and inexplicable design, all their price tag stupidity and contempt for consumers, all their childish verbal salvos, these companies may suck at building consoles, but social engineering they can do.
Send an email to the author of this post at steerpike@tap-repeatedly.com.
This content appears under the author’s copyright at the International Game Developers Association (IGDA).Views expressed herein are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of the IGDA or its members.
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I kind of hate that you’re right. I wish people were more properly aware.
Great read. I think it has a lot to do with values as well. I recently received an interesting petition on Nintendo’s horrendous rating by an international anti-slavery electronics NGO. I doubt that will be much of a buzz amongst E3, which is one supremely bizarre carnival.
As Dix says this is all too true. Microsoft has dominated this generation and most people who play on an Xbox 360 today are probably not using the first one they bought (myself included). That’s insane and terrible. I haven’t owned a boatload of consoles for comparison, but no other gaming device I’ve owned has ever broken. My NES from 1990 can stll play games 23 fucking years later. Presumably the Genesis I gave away works too. I’m sure my Xbox 1/Classic/Giant Green X would work if I plugged it in again. Only had my PlayStations for a few years but they’re doing fine. Xbox 360s around the world broke in an unprecedented manner … and nobody really cared. I got my RRoD’d machine replaced for free, but then I bought another one because it was sleeker and quieter. Who does that? Idiots like me. And Steerpike.
I see no reason to believe things will change. “Micro$oft is the evilz” we’ll all say now. But come holiday 2014/2015/2016/etc. this all could very well be a distant memory. It’ll have forced online, forced Kinect, ugly DRM, but it will also have the Call o’ Dewts, the Blops, the COD Dog, the NFL brought to you by Pepsi brought to you by Doritos brought to you by smelling like A Man.
“Xbone forever,” they’ll say.
Direct hit. The average consumer who is buying these products is far removed from the deep trade conversations around them. It’s not that they’re not smart. It’s just that they don’t follow this as closely and it doesn’t really matter to the bottom line.
Oh man, xtal, never give away your Genesis. I mean dude, for Sword of Vermilion alone…
We’ve all had an interesting sort of ongoing discussion here about the next generation – buy or don’t buy, buy at release or buy later, buy which first, etc. I was pretty firmly in the “skip it until HUGE price cuts” camp until the day before yesterday when PS4 pricing was announced. Then I thought, well, $399 isn’t that bad. So I’ll make that call based on launch library, but the truth is I’ll probably buy one, possibly before they do a price cut, but not on day zero.
I was always ambivalent about the Xbox One as a game console. As a media device it sounded pretty sweet, but the more we learn about its security measures – especially ironic given that the entire U.S. news cycle is caught up in this PRISM thing – the more I recoil. That, plus my technical problems with the 360 (I don’t know if I’ve told you guys, but I’ve had SEVEN (!) of them break on me), makes it a pretty huge turn-off. Knowing me I might weaken if there’s some game I just can’t live without, but… no.
Just no.
They depend on us being a minority (or being suckers like me and xtal). The good news is that Microsoft might just get its comeuppance from the “gamers who don’t” despite that group not knowing the deep trade conversations. $499 is a conversation anybody can have. Sony learned that to its sorrow, but at least it appears the lesson sunk in.
I don’t know what’s worse, average consumers not being savvy (isn’t everyone supposed to be skint these days?), or savvy consumers still going out and buying this stuff (Steeeerpiiiiike!). I’d like to say I vote with my money — in vain! — but the truth is I just don’t spend much.
The best thing about the Xbone is that Microsoft have made it easier than ever to totally disregard them. Even though I don’t intend on getting a next-gen console, the PS4 looks tempting based on the glut of interesting racing games appearing on it, the inevitable interesting exclusives, and of course Sony maintaining the status quo with regards to DRM, connectivity, used games and renting. The fact that it’s relatively cheap and looks nice is a bonus. Not sure about the Wii U, it’s an outside possibility at best. I think the Vita and 3DS stand a better chance of me picking them up but with my Nexus climatising me to sub-£3 games I think I’ll have difficulty stomaching the full price titles again! We’ll see.
Interesting… Seems like more people were “watching” than Microsoft thought…
Net connectivity every 24 hr…that’s just crazy.
Maybe the consumer base who dont have net connectivity is very small for MS to neglect…in that case it just might make sense.
SP.You did actually buy 7 xboxes??..Then it must be really REALLY good for all the things that you do on it.
Connect console to TV insert disk and go…that’s the advantage of consoles the way I see it.
Unless a majority of the consumer base have their consoles connected to the web, the additionaly net connectivity is nothing but a pain.
If the majority of the consumers do not bother about these things (If I am reading it right), they will be forced to be online, AFTER they have made this purchase.
Since online monthly charges are a fraction of the console cost (which they have already shelled out on), they will grudgingly shell out.
Maybe this is strange to you but what’s the point in buying a console when the library is still unknown?
Unless of course the new console is doing something so good that you just need to buy it…I just dont see the reason to run and buy.
I guess now we should call it the Xbox 180 *rim shot*.
Just when we thought “Xbone” was going to take a stranglehold … Microsoft reverse their used games and always-online policies, giving us the glorious Xbox 180. *Swish*
Actually, Amit (good to see you by the way! It’s been a long time!), I only bought two of them. The rest were warranty repairs. And the second purchase was just usual Steerpikian dumbassery. I didn’t have to buy it, but Bioshock was coming out the next day and they’d told me it would be three weeks to repair my then-latest red ring system. I can’t have that, nossir.
With Microsoft’s recent reversal on a lot of this stuff, they’re back in the game… but frankly as I say above, the real issue is PRICE, not functionality. I’ve gone from “wait it out” this generation to very possibly picking up a PS4 around launch time. $399 isn’t cheap, but it’s just on this side of some invisible barrier. Xbone’s $499, though, that’s on the opposite side. And that’s what might kill them.