 |
So there is this interview just put up yesterday with Executive VP, Andrew House about ps2 online gaming. After reading the article you'll soon get an erie feeling. A sinking pain deep in your gut when you realise this interview should have taken place over 2 years ago....NOT in late 2004 where we are really on the cusp of a new generation of consoles to be released.
Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm some crazy fool. If I ran my own electronics entertainment company, I would have realized all the junk he is talking about 4 damn years ago. Hell, it's not even hard to notice. All one has to do is analyze the market of PC ONLINE GAMING!!!!! I have been saying this forever. Why the don't these companies look at the positives in PC ONLINE GAMING. Where Online gaming has been since it was first born!
Nobody ... not Sega, not Sony, not Microsoft ... have chosen to take a hint from what made PC online gaming so successfull. Instead of giving users the power to run their own games; to run their own communities; they have all chosen to keep online games firmly within their control. Putting piles of restrictions on games using authorization services and centralized gaming hubs which lock all gaming options into a central location leaving the end user powerless. (SNAP, DNAS, LIVE)
Why attempt to herd users into your own single gaming service and community, when you can give the END USER the power to run their own servers and communities. Instead of 1, 2 or 3 major hubs for gaming.....you would have thousands of individual communities. Run by the end user, marketing your product for you without having to spend a dime. There is also a huge importance of, the dedicated server. which I will go into at great lengths at another time.(If your wondering what a dedicated server can do to keep a community alive, check out tribes aerial assault.)
What is a perfect success example of the PC Online Gaming business model? Unreal Tournament 2004 (I would pick counter-strike, but I am looking for a more current example). Did anyone see the server list from just the DEMO? Hell there were thousands of servers, mostly ALL user run and managed. And the actual final build of this game has a list of servers that seems to span on till infiniti. Right now the amount of people playing this game and the sheer amount of mods involved is staggering. There is probobly just as many people playing UT2k4, than all the people playing on PS2 online or Xbox Live at any given moment. Hell just for shit's and giggles I scanned the original Unreal Tournament servers, and it came back with 1216 players currently gaming at 8:31am CDT on a saturday morning. And this game is 5 years old.
"I personally believer in that eventually, and this is pretty far down the road, that user-generated content or the ability of the consumers to modify and customize their gaming experience and then sharing with other gamers will be a very, very powerful part of this experience."
It pisses me off that Andrew House is just now talking about the 'possibilities' for user created content or giving gamers more control over the online experience. This certainly will not happen anytime soon with the PS2. We already know all the games coming out from now until next fall. Were not stupid. This guy is talking like the online gaming tooth fairy is going to come in and leave a FireWarrior dedicated server with password control under our pillows. Maybe a map or 2 gets released for Socom 2. MGS 3 gamers should get downloadable camoflauge. And Timesplitters 3 gamers will be able to trade maps online. However we know this already. And to be honest, this shit should have started happening 2 years ago.
I also love how he talks about 'tieing the islands together'. If sony wanted to do this...they should have done it from the BEGINNING. Microsoft wanted all their islands tied together so they made xbox live. If sony wanted to do this they should have done it from the beginning. Now it is impossible. It's like trying to turn Al Bundy's Dodge into a fucking BMW. Not gonna happen.
Also this quote is just a fucking riot:
I think one of the things we're really pleased about is that so far in the two year history of the online initiative we've been able to pursue, in the online arena, the same philosophy that we did in the offline which is basing the brand and basing the PlayStation 2 experience about diversity."
News flash to Andrew House. For the Past 2 years the playstation 2 online games have been dominated by sports games. The list right now still has sports games beating out other genres at a total of 35 games, compared to 32 for the other genres combined. Diversity my ass. What planet is this guy living on?
But how would he know this anyway. When OnlineConsoles, an independent non-profit user run community and it users have compiled the only REAL 100% accurate PS2 online gaming list on the internet. And sony's own website and company can't keep track of what games have what online functions and what games are even still online in the first place. It still baffles me that we all have to strain so hard to find all the technical information that is currently compiled in our online game list. We shouldn't have to do this. This is information that should be gathered by sony employees and put up on their website.
Sony needs to realize this is the direction they have chosen from the beginning. They need to stop jumping on the xbox live bandwagon as if they are about to 'get all involved' with their online gaming products. Especially since the network adaptor has been out for years. If sony was going to embrace user control, they would have been promoting Tribes Aerial Assault as one of their TOP online games. But, TAA doesn't have DNAS authentication built in, so they would much rather sit back and completly ignore the game. To put off worries about software pirates playing the game online for free, or gamers running rampant with cheat codes. We all 'get' the fact that PS2 online gaming has and always will be based on the DEVELOPERS discretion. It's hit or miss. Either the developer codes, hosts, and sets the game up right, or they don't.
"Ah, yes, a very good question and I just pulled up some data on my laptop to have it for you. The key titles right now are..."
The fact that the corporate brass doesn't know what is going on in their OWN company, and are dependant on a series of pie graphs and bar charts on their laptops for valid information, is extremly disconcerting. Here is the reality of this all. Sony is a big huge company with a series of divisions, focus groups, and field teams. Outside developers pitch their ideas to Sony. Drones then say "Yes we think this game will work well in such a such demographic. We approve this game". A dev kit is sent out to the developer to make the game and then it goes back and forth to sony's advisory panels. Then the game gets released to the stores once it has passed through a mine field of red tape. There is no all encompassing online gaming team at sony that is making sure a quality online product hits the market. Sony said at the beginning they will be leaving this up to the developer.
I like my PS2 for what it is and what I have gotten from it entertainment wise so far. However I get a little thrown off when the VP of the company for said product is lieing strait to gamers faces. Andrew House knows jack about the current state of online gaming in the industry let alone the very system his company sells.
The console companies are light years behind from the sound of this interview. With MS opting to leave a harddrive out of xbox next. The console gaming industry could be in for a bumpy ride. Nintendo could sweep in and dominate everything online wise next gen, or everyone could migrate back to PC online gaming. Regardless of what happens. With business strategies like these, it sounds like PC online gaming will be strong for another 5 years atleast.
The thing that really gets me is, I'm just a gamer. Why do I realize this all? Maybe it's because I am a gamer...and Andrew House is just some old guy in a suit ... with a laptop. |
