Monday, December 7, 2015

14.) Microtransactions

       When I attended GDC Next in 2013, microtransactions was the talk of the industry. "They are the way of the future for our industry" I heard from people constantly; but... that's only if they are done right. Steam implemented broad free 2 play support. We've already seen the online gaming world embrace the power of microtransactions. At the conference, I witnessed many games on PSN and Xbox Live that announced they would support in-game micro-payments. At first I was skeptical of this emerging microtransaction trend. It bothered me and boggled my mind as I ventured out with people from GDC Next whom I'd never met before at bars and networked with them. So, the goal of this next blog post is to talk about the pros and cons of microtranscations, and to provide potential solutions.


PROS of Microtransactions
       So lets start with the potential positives of Micro-transaction game models.

1. When micro-transactions are done well, they are better for both the consumer and the industry. They let consumers try out titles before they invest.

2. They set their own payment scale and potentially acquire assets that will go up in price.

3. Micro-transactions allow the industry to avoid a lot of problems with piracy without having to resort to terrible DRM.


       At first, it sounded great to the ears of game developers (especially "newbies" like myself) listening at these conferences. I remember walking into the show floor area and taking notes from developers being interviewed. As I stood behind an army of journalists taking notes, I overheard developer say, "A micro-transaction model would allow developers to cater both to the consumer who wants to spend five dollars and to the consumers who wants to spend $500; rather than just trying to sell everything regardless of value to the consumer who wants to spend $60."Like some of you reading this, my eyes got big, and I don't mean that in a good way. I literally thought I was going to faint. I thought to myself, "How would consumers spend $500 on an average videogame?"

       I was use to spending $60 or often less on a single game. If you buy a game for 60, some of the guys are now selling their DLC packs for $50 which is $110. Luckily at the time, I was working at GameStop and I was able to checkout up to so many games, so I never really bought a lot of games unless there was one I particularly really wanted. Once you get into these micro transactions which so many game companies are hoping that players do, you could easily spend $200 or more on just one game. You could pay that much for an Xbox 360 or PS3, not that you would at this point, for the same price that you are spending on one game. I am aware that there are gamers out there who play MMORPGs and they are use to spending thousands of dollars sometimes. My point is, that's not the entire industry! This is not how AAA gaming has worked for years.


CONS of Microtransactions
       Now of course at the time, majority around me at GDC did not think about the cons of micro-transactions. As it stands right now, we are headed in the complete opposite direction. Companies see to be interpreting micro-transactions to mean "free for all gouge fest". Although the potential positives of microtransactions are more than great if implemented well, my fear is that microtransactions has that same exact potential to destroy gaming as we know it now. That is just how serious I think the level of Micro transactions is becoming with the way game companies have implemented it now.

So how are microtransactions implemented now for console games at the moment?
       For example, more and more AAA games are being sold up front for 60 dollars at full price, while excluding the primary features of the game, and then later adding more features to the game at a cost through microtransactions. So I have to ask: Why should players have to spend extra money for the rest of the game's features after they bought and paid for the game for full price?


"Do you realize that it is getting to the point that to fully experience a game, you almost have to spend as much as you would on a console?"
-- ReviewTechUSA








It Unbalances the Game
       Games that could make money in the current market will sink under the weight of untenable prices and player backlash. With that said, what amazes me the most is that this day in age, there are fanboys out there who are defending this very issue. Gamers are totally defending the fact that there are micotransactions in a 60 dollar AAA game. They are literally regurgitating the same excuses that the companies behind creating these games are using. An example is the claim that micro transactions does not affect the gameplay. In my defense, it does because it has the potential to makes games unbalanced for players. This hurts and exploits the business model of Free 2 Play shooters because players can essentially pay real money to win.

       P2W (Pay to Win) is the idea of being able to buy power that cannot otherwise be accessed by the use of the in-game system. Ultimately, this can result in unfair advantages making players' gameplay experiences less fun. As you read on, I further explain how microtransactions affect gameplay for better and for worse. Granted if gamers keep proving that they are willing to buy $70 for in-game items, this industry is going to keep trying to sell them to us. When it comes down to it, this becomes our own fault as gamers. This is a hard problem to fix so lets keep this focused on the industry for now.





A History Lesson
       Are we going to be spending the same amount of money that people were spending on Neo Geo consoles back in the day? One game was $200. That's why it died especially when you add inflation to the mix. You were spending more money on a cartridge and not the system. This is why the system didn't do so well. Game companies need to come up with better alternative business practices so that game consumers will not feel as if they are trying to milk the customer dry. As gamers, we need to stand up for ourselves and say hey, this is simply unacceptable. History, if it has taught gamers anything at all, is that bad business practices in the game market is what led to the crash in the gaming industry back in the 1980s. Check out my first blog post here.

       If game companies don't cut it out, that greed is going to get the better of us. The fact that these game companies are looking to milk gamers dry and make us spend hundreds of dollars on basically one game is absolutely ridiculous! This can't be sustained no matter how hard game companies try to cover up and talk about their sales alone on Micro transactions. This is not going to last as gamers begin to realize games are becoming less affordable. In order to sustain the gaming industry, then things need to change. Its simply not practical. Over time, games are going to continually become more expensive. I use to be excited about the gaming industry because it was once evolving for the better, and somewhat still is, but now that it has become such a lucrative industry, I am starting to see the industry at the very moment evolving for the worse. As a gamer, it pains me to say that I have never been so frustrated with the gaming industry and I am trying to be optimistic because this industry has played a huge role in the vast majority of my life.


How Monetization Can Harm F2P





So now that I have covered some of the cons, lets now shift our focus on to the solutions.


So the question is what else are game companies going to have to do to make their games profitable? What do we need to do in order to make micro-transactions work better in games?

Below is a list of solutions I thought about sharing, some of which I gathered and highlighted from Extra Credits.

SOLUTIONS:

1.) NEVER SELL POWER!
    We have seen this in the new Star Wars Battlefront game published by EA with the pistol players could purchase.

"If game companies sell special or overpowered weapons and abilities, this will alter the balance of gameplay. This is the quickest way to make players feel as though they are being taken advantaged of. In all honesty, it would be harder for players to compete with those who paid for their weapons and gadgets. Selling power really does force players to pay in order to play. When you are balancing your game, which players are you going to cater to? The people who are monetizing or the people who aren't?"
-- Extra Credits


2.) SELL CONVENIENCE
       "The goal is to sell convenience. Things like extra bank space and character loadout save slots. These are great because they are utterly unnecessary and the player at first feel the default amount is going to be plenty. Sooner or later, anybody who is dedicated to the game will find it actually worth their money to have some of these extra features. Even things like selling leveling speed is ok. Its not as good as selling supplementary perks but it just means that players blaze through the content faster. It doesn't unbalance your game or effect any of the other players. All it does is make it more convenient for players to see the later stages of your game if they choose. Just never sell power!"
--Extra Credits

  • Larger Inventories: Allow players to pay money to increase the size of their "backpacks" or inventories in games. For example in a game like Borderlands, this would allow players to carry more weapons and ammo as they fight enemies online together. A feature like this would also encourage teamwork and allow players to hold items for their teammates if their inventories are already full. 


3.) EARNABLE CURRENCY
       "Let players earn every type of currency in your game, even the ones they can also pay for. There is really no good business reason to stop free players from earning pay currency in games. It needs to be a remarkably slow process but there is no business justification for preventing someone from gaining access to all the items in your game if they are actually willing to put in the time and dedication to earn it in game. Many game companies fear that no users are going to pay if they can earn in-game currency. This is simply not true. Giving away currency has 4 major advantages."
-- Extra Credits

  • 1.) Players feel as though the game is fair and its not going to force them pay at any point. Many players are turned away from the idea of free to pay microtransaction games because of that nagging feeling that they are getting scammed to squeeze more money out of them. So if players know they have the option to earn all of the stores' items, and no one is forcing them to pay anything, they are a lot more likely to begin playing in the first place.

  • 2.) Using the in-game store in free 2 play titles is sort of a magic barrier for many players. Its something that seems difficult, foreign and unnecessary to many people, that is until they actually use it. As soon as players uses the store once, game companies are more likely to monetize again. Think about how much inertia it took to get you to download STEAM and make your first purchase, or even to buy your first DLC pack. The second time around came a lot easier didn't it?

  • 3.) If you've balanced earning pay currency in your game, anywhere in the ball-park of well, many players will eventually decide that their time is more valuable than the small amount of money it takes to purchase currency. BAM! You just converted some of your players to paying users. The best part is that they feel more comfortable giving over more money at that point. Either because they are already deeply invested in the game or simply because they feel the game is giving them a fair shake. The choice to make these purchases is up to gamers. Again, the game should never force or make the players feel forced to pay.

  • 4.) If game companies don't do this, thee will exclude everyone without a credit card or without disposable income. As a result, this means game companies would be cutting out a big chunk of their audience who make up such an advent part of gaming communities. Game companies need to realize that a good portion of their audience provide ancillary services to games, such as maintaining Wikis and putting out YouTube videos. You don't want to loose these players because it will cost you greatly.


4.) IN-GAME ADVERTISING
       We have seen this somewhat work well with games on phones and tablets. At the very moment, we haven't seen this implemented on game consoles. If implemented well, in-game advertising for console games, especially 3D games, will help game companies generate more revenue. By cutting out the "middle man", game companies can sign up their own sponsors. For example, in an open 3D world game like Grand Theft Auto or Watchdogs, they can sign up sponsors who want to advertise their products and services to target their players online. So for instance, a 3D model of a billboard in the game would actually display a real world advertisement for a company trying to market their gaming computers to players. The ad could even be animated and sound from the actual advertisement would play from the billboard in the game.

       Unlike games on phones and tablets, players would not feel like their gameplay is constantly being interrupted by advertisements or worry about ads draining their battery. This would help game consoles have a slight advantage over mobile devices. This is because the advertisements have been integrated online, built into the actual game world of the game. If implemented correctly, this would be a great way for game companies to integrate ads in their games and could potentially become a very lucrative source of revenue for them. No strings attached! This would provide an excellent way of doing Free 2 Play Right. The irony with Grand Theft Auto 5 is that the game deliberately pokes fun at a lot of companies with their "fake" advertisements shown in the game.


Promote Other Games
       In-game advertising will also allow game companies to help sponsor and promote other game companies' games; earning them more exposure. So what if players in Watchdogs could walk into a videogame store and watch actual trailers and YouTube videos of another game? This would be a great way to reward players as well. By simply watching their ads, they could get offered things like discount codes that would be sent to them which could be put towards their next game purchase. GamesChart does something similar to this for Android Phone devices.




Please vote for in-game advertising on Xbox One Feedback by clicking this LINK!


5.) BETTER INCENTIVES
       "Always keep your monetization plan in mind as you build the game. Encourage players to get their friends to help with game objectives and task, even if the other players don't necessarily own the game. This will also encourage players to bring in more of their social network and help expand the game community. Make paying more palatable, and make players' game experience enjoyable, and less disjointed rather than something that's been tacked on and figuring out how you are going to monetize near the end of production."
-- Extra Credits


6.) NEVER Separate the Community!
       "For example, if you have a multiplayer game and you only allow paying players to partake in certain game modes, maps or specific zones, you've not only effectively decreased the size of your community but you have also curtained off paying players from the non-paying players. Its like you walk into a club or some sort of party and you can't enjoy certain areas because there is a buff security guard standing next to a sign that reads: "VIP Section Only!". Personally, I am not a fan of this idea in games. Some of they best ways to get non paying players to actually pay for in-game content is to actually having them hanging out and socializing with the paying players."
--Extra Credits


7.) Market Test Your Prices!
       "We should literally market test everything! You can even market test the box art for your game. Not market testing a make or break feature like how much your items should cost is down right criminal!"
--Extra Credits

No matter how good the Microtransaction business model looks, both in terms of earnings or even potentially better player service, just to reiterate:

In-game monetization with microtransactions is not the right business model all the time or for every game!

       "You wouldn't build an entire game and wait until the last minute to choose the input device. So don't do that with your monetization scheme either. Microtransaction games would be better if the microtransaction elements are built into the design from the ground up, rather than just being layered on top like icing on a cake. That's the only way its going to be better for the consumer, the developer and the distributor. Even if this is the way that most games end up going in the future, its crucial to make sure its important that its the right tool for the job. For many games, it will make more sense for subscription or pay up front and that shouldn't be forced to change."
--Extra Credits


8.) Make Mobile Videogame Apps! 
       Large game companies can create apps to help them with the costs of creating their triple-A games. Just to be clear, I am not saying they should port their triple-A 3D games to mobile devices solely to cater to more people now that everyone has phones. The reason why is because the gameplay simply might not play well on these touch-screen devices due to the controls and the fact that the players' thumbs might get in the way. The gameplay for these games have always worked well with the mouse, keyboard and gamepad controllers in mind and that's fine. What I am saying is that they could take individuals from their team to work on a separate game entirely as an app since it wouldn't kill their budget or require too many people. We have since this work with Fallout 4 when they announced Fallout Shelter. Fallout Shelter is a free-to-play mobile game which is based in the Fallout universe, however its a different game entirely which plays well on a mobile touch-screen device.


My fear is that the game industry (mostly as far as consoles) is not evolving for the better, but for the worst. It is my hope that things will turn around soon for the better because its not looking good right now. Man... it's hard out here for a gamer!



Agree or disagree with this blog post? Do you have any ideas or thoughts for additional solutions you would like to share? Please comment below. 


Tuesday, December 1, 2015

13.) Project Offset

       This day in age, the first-person shooter genre is being saturated with military games and what I call the "me too" aspect. Only so few game companies are getting creative, adventurous and testing the waters with new ideas for their first-person shooters while majority aren't. Why not a first-person shooter which takes place within the fantasy genre? The game was called Project Offset; a fantasy FPS that was in the works for PC and Xbox 360, but was unfortunately cancelled. It was created by a company called Offset Sotware and was built from the team's impressive proprietary Offset engine. The technology was so impressive in fact that Intel bought the studio in early 2008 and the game and game engine all went with it. The graphics hardware the game was being designed for did not ship, so as a result Intel cancelled the game. The Project Offset team were disbaned at Intel, so the founders of Offset Software formed a new company called Fractiv which had put them back at square one. The IP and Engine are property of Intel, so its future is out of Fractiv's hands. The first-person shooter genre could use something like this for a change of scenery and gameplay.









       The game was truly ahead of its time in many ways. It featured parallel storytelling, epic battle scenes, objective based multiplayer and groundbreaking visuals. Combat was a mix between close-quarters and long range shooting to create a high action experience. The game was also going to feature rideable creatures such as Seige Trolls, Dragons and Battle Boars.




       The Offset Engine was capable of displaying hundreds of enemies on-screen, allowing for truly massive battles. While this may not be so new this day in age, keep in mind that this footage was shown in 2007. 













       The technology behind the Offset Engine was incredible. At the time, it had many features that game engines today didn't have. With features like real-time ambient occlusion, real-time shadows, cinematic quality motion blur, depth of field, specular bloom and soft particles. Whether you are aware of this or not, but the self-shadow technique used in Unreal Engine 3, Cry Engine 2.0 and other engines was developed by Offset Software.

















       Project Offset was not going to be seen through the eyes of a single hero, but through several. Each hero's story was going to intersect and the actions you decide as one character was going to have consequences on the path of another character. This feature of parallel storytelling would have made for some very interesting gameplay. It would have allowed for expansions to be released episodically, telling the tale of new characters. 













       As far as multiplayer was concerned, Project Offset was going to feature a class based multiplayer component that picks up where the story ends. This would allow players to fight the war online. Multiplayer was going to feature classic game modes like deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag and objective based modes with anywhere from 2-24 players. In objective mode, opposing factions would face off, fighting to gain control over cities. The player classes in the multiplayer was going to include Warriors, Engineers, Paladins, Wizards and Assasins. Each various class was balanced while having some advantages over each other. This would have resulted in a class game of Rock-Paper-Scissors distributed among your teams. The way it was going to work was like follows: Warriors trump Paladins, Paladins trump Engineers, Engineers trump Assassins, Assassins trump Wizards and Wizards trump Warriors.  












       The Offset Engine allowed for many things. Imagine a game where nearly every model is created with the amount of detail and effort found only in a cinematic. 



       It saddens me to see such hard work and potential go to waste. Just imagine an FPS game  set in an epic fantasy world! This was in the works long before Skyrim. A game where you can choose one of many character classes. A game where clans can combat over mission based objectives and be ranked accordingly. A game where you can play alone, coop, team based objective or deathmatch. Just imagine that for a moment. The controls would feel exactly how an FPS player would expect. Play as an archer and your skill using the bow and leading your target is what will set you apart. When battles get up close and personal, pull out your sword and continue the fight through melee. Do you like vehicles? Any Battlefield fans reading this? If yes, awesome because now imagine having creatures you can ride, dragons you can fly, siege weapons you can man; all part of an epic battle between you and your foes. 


       So what are your thoughts? Would you like to see something like this made into a game? Would you like to see this project continue somehow and returned to Fractiv? Please comment and share your thoughts below. 

Sunday, November 29, 2015

12.) Is this Current Game Console Generation the Worst?

       Is this the worst console generation we have seen in years? You can argue and measure the next-gen's consoles success purely based on sales but this has to be the worst I have witnessed and experienced thus far. Games are now being released in half-finished form, forcing gamers to download patch after patch just so they can play the title they paid $60 for. PC gaming still has its issues, of course, especially if you don't own a high-end PC capable of running the latest titles. However, console gaming is where we're seeing most of the major fails, and if the industry doesn't fix these problems, more players will grow frustrated enough to stop buying games altogether. So here are my list of reasons and trends that are the biggest problems with this generation of console gaming.


1.) Backwards Compatibility
       I will be the first to admit that I was greatly excited when Microsoft announced Xbox One would be getting backwards compatibility. You can see my excitement in my blog post here. However, I felt bad for all the consumers who traded in their Xbox 360 and games for that platform just to purchase and or afford the Xbox One. I am not entirely happy with the way this feature has been implemented so far. The Xbox One burns the entire game to the system. This kind of defeats the whole purpose of playing games from the disc because discs helps save memory. Next-gen games takes up enough storage already and I don't need anymore draining it. So it looks like I will still be keeping my Xbox 360. I had six Xbox One games and they have already taken up 90% of the hard drive. Which brings me to my next topic.


Advantages of Playing Games from Discs
       Although games are becoming digital, that does not mean we should abandon game discs! Discs are not some outdated form of technology. You have to take into account that full games are Gigabytes of memory which will take up a lot of space on a 500GB hard drive. Being able to play games from discs are great because they are essentially portable, convenient and take up less memory than a download of the full game. Due to game discs being portable, this allows players to easily share their games with their friends and family. You also have to take into account and consider all of the other downloadable content such as game demos, music, tv shows, movies, videos and map packs. When you add all of that on top of downloading full games, it will take up majority of the console's hard drive space in almost no time. This is partially why we see Microsoft and Sony adapting the cloud because it allows gamers to store their game saves and memory to a server, but an internet connection is required for this to work ofcourse. This brings me to my next topic. 


2.) Mandatory Installs & Not Enough Storage
       Remember when you just popped a disc into your console and the game started? That never happens anymore because developers now release games before they're ready. This puts gamers in a situation where they pop the disc into their console and then wait an hour or two for updates to download. Considering that being able to instantly play games once gave consoles an edge over PC gaming, this is a major problem that needs resolution.

       Yes, as gamers, we want developers to make games faster, but we also want them to make sure that the games work and that main characters aren't missing faces (which actually happened with the release of Assassins Creed: Unity). So after you've inserted the disc in your system and walked away for an hour, you'd think the game would run perfectly, right? No, because those updates and patches still don't cover every bug and the next time you want to play the game, you may have another hours' worth of updates to download. Meanwhile, you could just plug in your old copy of Legend of Zelda on the Nintendo 64 and save the princess before these patches even download.

       Gamers, reviewers, journalists, critics and many others alike this day in age solely looked at Xbox One and PS4s' hardware specs and automatically jumped to the conclusion that the next-gen consoles are better. I've been saying for the longest time, that next-gen games will fill up the hard drives in no time at all. This is because they are stored on Blu-Ray discs and both Xbox One and PS4 have mandatory installs required for all games. So while so many people were bragging how the new systems had 500GB of storage at launch, many gamers were left disappointed.

       When a close friend of mine bought and started playing two of PS4's first-person shooters, he was already using more than a 10th of the drive. Call of Duty Ghosts required 49GB of space and Killzone: Shadowfall required 45GB of space. At the time, Sony alternated between calling this "mandatory install" and "caching", the later term allowing for the possibility that the data may not have to stay on your hard drive. Now Xbox One owners have the option to purchase external hard drives to store their games on them, while PS4 owners have to swap out PS4's internal hard drive manually with a new one. If you are looking for a tutorial on how to replace your PS4's hard drive, check out the following video below.




One Major Problem

The problem with PS4's method is that there is no way of transferring your memory over from the old hard drive to the new one after swapping hard drives. So how can you get more storage than 2TB? Check out this following video below.





Why are game installs mandatory now?
       One of the major reasons as to why game installs are mandatory is because the Xbox One and PS4 can pull data more quickly off a hard drive than they can from Blu-Ray discs that the games for these platforms are sold on. Running games off the hard drive helps keep the Blu-Ray drive from needing to spin much and prevent a lot of noise. In my own opinion, mandatory installs should be optional to the players. The need to store games on the systems will force PS4 and Xbox One gamers to adopt a PC gamer's sense for balancing what's installed and what is not. Therefore it effects what is or isn't available to play immediately. It was because of this issue I had in the past with PC gaming (while also considering the cost) which played a huge factor as to why I bought a gaming console in the past. I can't even describe how frustrated I am with the gaming industry as it stands right now. Like myself, many console gamers are now forced to decide which games they will keep and which ones they will have to delete in order to save memory and storage on their hard drives.

       You also have to take into account installation times. As much as I enjoyed Fallout 4 on Xbox One, it took 2 hours to install the game. I don't want to have to delete the game in order to play a different game online with a friend considering how long it takes to re-install Fallout. One big issue I have with both Xbox One and PS4 is that even after you have installed an entire game to their systems, you will still need to put the game's disc in the console to run it. Why should the game disc be required to play after the entire game has been burned to the system? Why can't gamers play their games without the disc after install? I sense a disturbance in the force... I sense... Greed.


Why I kept my Xbox 360 
       Microsoft also announced that Xbox 360 supports external hard drives with larger storage capacity. Another reason why I kept my Xbox 360 is because it holds more games than PS3 and next-gen consoles. This is primarily because the file size on last-gen games are smaller than the file size of next-gen games.


Here above is a picture taken of my external 2TB hard drive connected to my Xbox 360. I am using it strictly to store full games to save memory off my Xbox 360's internal hard drive. So far the full games have taken up about 600GB out of my 2TB hard drive. 1Tb is equvialent to 1000GB, so 2TB is essentially 2000GB. 



       I have 159 full games moved and stored to the 2TB external hard drive. Allow me to re-word this a bit differently. My Xbox One, which has a 500GB internal hard drive is literally almost out of memory at only six full games installed. My Xbox 360 slim has a 500GB internal hard drive installed as well and it held up to 130 full games! I'd also like to point out that the vast majority of these full Xbox 360 games were free mostly through Xbox Live Gold. One particular feature I like about Xbox Live Gold is that with every free game, you don't have to keep buying an Xbox Live Gold membership in order to keep playing them. After downloading a free game, it is yours... forever! Unfortunately, Microsoft will shutdown Xbox Live for Xbox 360 either later 2016 or early 2017, forcing gamers to buy the Xbox One. My hope is that Microsoft does not shutdown Xbox Live for Xbox 360 because its all the same service and it would render so many games useless; if not unplayable. 



Look at how much space I still have left on my 2TB external hard drive titled Games! Do you see how much memory I saved on my Xbox 360's internal hard drive?
Catch my drift?

       Microsoft should keep Xbox Live around for Xbox 360 a bit longer because as it stands, there are more games already out for the platform and the Xbox 360 can store hundreds if not thousands of games on hard drives also due to the fact that the videogame file sizes are smaller. Microsoft should capitalize on that aspect, but I fear Microsoft will stop manufacturing Xbox 360. If they do stop manufacturing the Xbox 360, then this will be a missed opportunity. Instead this day in age, consumers are buying next-gen consoles solely because of hardware specs and paying more money for the same games on next-gen simply because of slightly better graphics. My apologies for the poor image quality of the pictures above. I took them from my phone which has a crack in the lens. What we should be looking for as gamers are the features that really set the systems apart and makes them unique. In the end, its a matter of preference and specs don't sell game consoles, awesome videogames do! For a more in-depth explanation on how there hasn't been a console generation that has won sales based on hardware specs check out my blog post here. If you want to see actual proof that hardware specs are not actually required to achieve graphics of great realism, check out my blog post here.


3.) Lack of Variety in Genres
       There has been a watering down of the market with a consistent lack of variety in the genres that are available for most of us as players to be able to enjoy. Too many companies are focusing on what I call the "me 2 aspect" trying to be the next call of duty and gears of war, or whatever game is selling the most at that point in time... Year 2016 which is right around the corner is looking to shake things up a bit within the FPS genre. Below is a video compilation to 10 upcoming titles. If you have any more in mind that weren't shown in the video, please share their names in the comment section below.




First party and third party companies are seemingly ignoring the please of their fans. They say they care about their fans’ opinions, meanwhile they can't back it up because their decisions are proving otherwise. We have seen this with Destiny. Check out my blog post here on ways Destiny can be improved. As time progresses, I am confident we will see more variety of games especially with now that some game companies are exploring virtual reality.


4.) Downloadable Content being released on the same day as the game is released
       Why on planet Earth would game companies do something like that?! It doesn't make any sense. If a game is coming out that day and you are releasing downloadable content, that means that you purposefully took content from the game and made it available separately for an extra sum of money. That shows you are greedy! It seems that downloadable content being cut from the original videogame for an additional price, although that content was part of the game in the first place has become the norm for companies now. Also, a season pass for DLC cost almost half of the original game. Then there are microtransactions that encourages players pay for in-game items. It's ridiculous to ask gamers to pay even more after they've shelled out $60 for a title. Fortunately, smaller development companies break this trend. For example, The Witcher 3: WIld Hunt by CD Projekt Red offered all is DLC for free. It can be tough for smaller game development companies to not get caught up in an industry trend that only wants to take advantage of gamers' wallets. 


5.) Shovel-ware Galore!
       How often have you looked at games on the shelves and had to sort through all the games essentially getting the same price tag as a game that has tons of hours, time, (often money) and more effort put into its creation? Yet it sits side by side with the same exact price tag. Is that fair to gamers?  


6.) Lack of Innovation
       Remember when the first BioShock came out and it was so unique and different that we instantly fell in love with it? Remember that same feeling with titles like Mass Effect, The Darkness and Dead Space? Now since past titles took off, developers got stuck in a sequel rut and kept delivering those same games over and over and over like Assassin's Creed and Madden NFL for example. Even now, with next-gen titles, there aren't a lot of original games making it to development. Unfortunately, so many get cancelled like Prey 2 for instance. Fortunately, rare gems come along like The Last of Us, but those games are too few and too far between. At least independent developers come up with original content, although more often than not, those games only get released for PC.
       Game development companies need to start rapping innovative ideas that are either daring, hasn't been done or just something weird and off the walls, or is a little different from the rest of the pack. Test the waters and come out with something different from the rest of the pack. Make games to express yourselves and try not to compete with the Call of Duty crowd and garner their cash? I'm aware there are more shooters yet to come. Check out my next blog post here about a cancelled game called Project Offset. This is what the FPS genre could use today. Gamers need more innovation in shooters or something for the genres that haven't been getting a lot of innovation and attention like platformers and survival horror. This would be really nice because they would make game genres like the FPS for instance feel less saturated with too many similar games.


7.) No third-party headset support
       In the past, so many gamers invested in a nice wireless headset for the next-gen launch. Unfortunately, the majority of third-party and wireless headsets did not work with the PS4 or Xbox One at launch. Gaming headset didn't come cheap folks. They cost gamers hundreds of dollars. So its understandable why so many gamers are upset about their existing headsets not fully working with PS4 and Xbox One. The obstacle on the Xbox One is the new proprietary headset port on the controller, which is different to the one on Xbox 360. So now gamers are pretty annoyed because they have to spend $24.99 on the Xbox One Stereo Headset Adapter just to use their headset (if its compatible) on the new platform. If you are looking for a way to get your Turtle Beach headset working on PS4, check out this upgrade kit. Yeah, so now gamers have to go through so much hassle just to see if their headsets are compatible on Xbox One and PS4 and then pay an additional sum of money just to use their existing headsets.


8.) Always Online 
       Most games now require network connectivity. As of right now, Xbox One Will Not Play Games Without an Internet Connection, even if those games don't have multiplayer. Hopefully, this will soon change. "Always on" isn't supposed to have become a thing with console gaming, but it has, especially if you're a member of Xbox Live or PlayStation Plus. Even if you download a game through those services as a subscriber, if you happen to have Internet issues, you can't play that game until the system connects to the gaming platform's network and verifies that you're a subscribing member. This often happens with other titles, too, although it's not supposed to. And considering that high speed Internet is relatively reliable in most parts of the U.S., this shouldn't be a problem. However, what about when you've got networks that go down often? You often can't play when you want to.


9.) Cross-Platform Online Play


       Lets say I own Black Ops for Xbox One and my friend owns Black Ops for PS4; why can't we play online together? If its the same game, why should it matter what systems we own in order to play online? Everyone has their own preferences. Just to be clear, I am not a fanboy of any particular platform. My preferences range all over the place. I am simply addressing my concerns about this console generation and trying to help make consumers more aware of these topics. Currently, console gamers are restricted to playing titles on the PlayStation Network or Xbox Live, and many gamers pick either Xbox One or PS4 based on what their friends purchased. Opening up online multiplayer gaming across different platforms will remove a big restriction in console gaming as well as PC. Unfortunately, this might also open up many conversations and concerns around which titles should allow PC gamers to play against consoles. A mouse and keyboard can still have many advantages over a gamepad for first-person shooters for example. To fix this, allow gamers to have the option to choose whether or not they want to include gamers into game matches based on their platform. This poses a new challenge, since game developers will still have to find balance between console and PC gamers if they do decide to play online with one another.


10.) A Higher Demand in Pre-ordering Games




11.) Playstation 4 Gets PS2 Emulation




10.) Bring Back Split-Screen Gaming: Part 1

       Halo 5 lost one of its defining features out of the secries; local split-screen multiplayer. It infuriated me when it was announced that this generation of Halos wouldn't allow for friends to sit in the same room and play the same Halo. The original Halo launched a full year before Xbox Live and it was still able to build a robust multiplayer experience on the back of split-screen, making playing along one side of your friends in the living room one of the most integral parts of the Halo experience. What's even more frustrating is when I hear gamers say things like, "It's 2015, who uses split-screen anyways? Its all about online play now." What's funny with this statement is that they either don't realize or forgot that Halo 3 combined both. You could play split-screen offline or online in Halo 3 both cooperatively or in multiplayer. Borderlands 2 for instance offered online co-op up to 4 players, offline co-op up to two players and System Link up to 4 players.


So why doesn't Halo 5 offer split-screen?

       343 tried to explain in terms of hardware, split-screen mode wouldn't be feasible with Halo 5. They said they are attempting to reach a 60 frame-per-second benchmark that competitive gamers especially those who play first-person shooters demand.

"Realistically, for Halo 5, it's not something we can just throw in a patch. It's just not feasible with the way the engine works."
-- Frank O'Connor

       As with many videogame upsets, there are petitions to bring back split-screen co-op to Halo 5. Frank however did go on to say while Halo 5 might not have split-screen, we might see this feature implemented in Halo 6.

"Splitscreen is fun for me too. It's not something that I object to, and we would've loved to put it in. We'll talk about it for the next game, and we'll talk about it for the future."
-- Frank O'Connor

Frank went on to saying that all the physics calculations in the game are tied to the frame-rate. So if they drop down the frame-rate to accommodate for additional screens, it would "crud" up the gameplay and timing of everything in the game. 


Here's why I feel 343's reason is completely BOGUS!

       Below is a video of Halo 4 - The Master Chief Collection running on Xbox One at 60 frame-per-second. Notice the consistent frame-rate no matter how heated the battle. It drops slightly split seconds at a time when there are lots of particle effects and explosions occurring on-screen. In all honesty, we wouldn't have noticed these slight dips in frame-rate if it weren't for the FPS number display at the bottom. It dropped to 46fps for a second. On the Xbox 360, Halo ran at 30 frames-per-second. Here is a detailed article which explains more on how Halo 4 got the most out of the "old" Xbox 360: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-vs-halo-4.





Halo 5 is running on next-gen hardware. So is the Xbox One's hardware not good enough?

       As an independent developer, I understand that the Halo games for the most part are fully capable of 60 frames-per-second on the Xbox One. The random drops in frames happen for a few seconds because these games are ports from Xbo 360's architecture which was hard to work with and severely different to the current architecture used in next-gen consoles. Contrary to popular belief, it is not impossible to properly optimize these titles for the current architecture. I've come across gamers with an 8 core PC that can run Diablo 1 and 2 with no problems. The FPS drops are simply lag spikes that happen as the Xbox One renders objects into the world that were originally coded for a completely different architecture. As for Halo 2 in the Master Chief Collection, the lag spikes occur because two engines are essentially running at the same time. The Xbox One has to emulate the original engine.

       This is part of the reason why we are seeing Xbox One's backwards compatibility only support so many Xbox 360 game titles at a time. Due to the demands of emulation for some Xbox 360 titles, this is why we are seeing some of these games completely remade on a brand new game engine built for next-gen hardware specifically. To conclude, if Halo 4 ran this smooth on Xbox One, and it also supported split-screen coop, how is it that the physics calculations in Halo 5 hurt the frame-rate so vast when they are no different from the physics in Halo 4? I can't go into too much information as to why physics are tied to the framerate in games with this blog post, but if you would like to see why, check out this article here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3aq9we/why_do_video_game_devs_tie_physics_to_framerate/.


I know 60 frames per second is a standard this day in age. From gamer to gamer, I have to ask... should a feature like split-screen be removed from your game just to achieve 60 frames per second? Instead of being able to play the game in the company of a friend, cooperatively through a mission, you are both forced to play it online on separate consoles? After all, Halo 4 on Xbox 360 supported split-screen and the entire game was running at 30 frames per second.


 What are your thoughts on split-screen? Is it a relic of the past? Or does it still play a role in games now and in the future? Please comment and share your thoughts below.



Sunday, August 30, 2015

9.) Microsoft's Hololens

       Realistically, Microsoft's Hololens is a form of augmented reality, not necessarily holographic technology.




       The possibilities with HoloLens is probably endless. It not only provides implications is playing games, but also in helping create them.


Ideas

1.) Laser Tag meets HoloLens
       One of the key points mentioned in the video above is that you can still see the real-world and all of the objects in it using Hololens. This could transform something like Laser Tag on a whole new level. Players could be fully immersed inside a videogame, running around and shooting at enemies projected by Hololens in a real-world arena. Then I came across the following video below.



Saturday, August 29, 2015

8.) Star Wars... in Call of Duty?




7.) A Gamer's Dream of Augmented Reality




This virtual reality theme park is out of this world
Posted by NowThis on Thursday, May 7, 2015


     Welcome back my fellow gamers. A new world of gaming emerges thanks to augmented reality technology. Check out this epic video above!!




Tuesday, June 16, 2015

6.) XBOX ONE Now Supports Backwards Compatibility for 360 Games!!!


       What is going on my fellow gamers?! Microsoft has listened to us! In my 3rd blog post, I was begging for backwards compatibility and I gave reasons as to why it was such an important feature. After watching Microsoft announce at E3 2015, that Xbox One will be backwards compatible with Xbox 360 games, I nearly screamed for joy. I wonder if Team Xbox at Microsoft read my blog haha. I won't steal all the credit. Backwards compatibility is a feature that Xbox gamers from all around the world have been begging for. In my 3rd blog post, I provided options for backwards compatibility to function on the Xbox One. Emulation was one of the options and now Microsoft has implemented it to the Xbox One. Xbox 360 discs also can be played on the Xbox One now after an installation. I am glad that gamers will not be charged money to play games they already own. After all, "It's Hard Out Here for a Gamer!" Just to be clear, I am not a fan-boy of either console, but you can't deny that this was a great move by Microsoft. Streaming games should be optional in my own opinion. Check out the video above by Larry Hub aka: Major Nelson and Bill Stillwell.


Tuesday, May 19, 2015

5.) Why Hardware Specs Don't Matter: Part 2

Euclideon Makes the World' Most Realistic Graphics



       What if I told you that hardware specs won't matter in the future to pull off state-of-the art graphics for next-gen videogames? I briefly touched on this technology in a Facebook Note I wrote back in January of 2013. Thanks to the new breakthrough in Point-cloud system data, it doesn't matter how advanced the hardware is. Most people thought it would take a supercomputer to render this, but it doesn't! That's because the models are not Polygon based like your traditional 3D models. They are based on points, like atoms. So this saves a lot of computing processing power. The scenes created in this video are just for demonstration. There is no telling what game companies like Epic Games or Crytek with their teams of artist and programmers could do if they had this technology.
     
       So why is this technology not in games yet? Originally, there were too many holes and gaps in these models and it was difficult to animate poin-cloud data. What if these game companies found a way to convert their models to point-cloud data in their game engines so that the models can still be animated and treated like traditional models almost? Well, now they can because the creators behind this technology figured out a way to animate it and fill all of the gaps. The graphics in the scenes in this video are running straight from terabyte hard drives. Believe it or not... the load times are completely abolished. This is laser scanned data which has been updated and compressed down to use little memory and then streamed from the hard drive. The impossible is now possible! With this technology, we can now probably digitize the real world. That's kind of a scary thought.

See more videos here: http://www.euclideon.com/media/

Their main website: http://www.euclideon.com/

       The false assumption this day in age is that you need great hardware in order to have amazing computer graphics. This video destroys that assumption. Also, I'd like to note that hardware simply runs the graphics; it doesn't necessarily create the content that the artists created themselves in the game. I have come across so many gamers that say things like, "They should re-make this game with Xbox One graphics". It doesn't make sense because its the game engine that handles that for the most part. The question is, "Can the hardware handle it?" So to re-make a game with graphics to show off the power of a next-gen console, the artists have to change the actual graphics content in the game themselves. In order to do this, they might increase the polygons in the 3d models, improve the lighting, add features like better shaders, normal-mapping, bump-mapping, and maybe even ray-tracing depending on the hardware specs. Unfortunately, this makes their games more and more dependent on hardware specs. Basically, in short and this will sound crazy: With this new point-cloud technology, a game like the Last of Us could run on Nintendo Wii! I have seen this technology run on the Wii first hand and I will admit... I was shocked. Its wild because the Nintendo Wii for example does not have hardware capable of running a game like the Last of Us. After I witnessed a tech demo from Euclideon running on the Wii first-hand, I realized hardware specs soon won't matter in order to play games with high-end graphics. The irony is that it does take advanced hardware to create the games LOL

Right now, its not really my main priority but I think game companies need to look into this so that their games are less dependent on hardware specs. Here are a list of reasons why:

  • 1.) That means people won't have to buy expensive gaming PCs to pull off the level of graphics that they want. 
  • 2.)That means, regardless of what console or game platform you own, it will be even harder to tell the difference visually. 
  • 3.) That means game companies can run their high-end games on more platforms (even if the platform's hardware specs don't live up to the requirements of today's next-gen games). They will reach more people to play their games, thus creating a bigger audience and ushering in more money. I have seen this technology run on the Nintendo Wii first hand. The Nintendo Wii!! Wow!

For a more update version on this topic, please visit my other blog post here.

       There were some confusion later on Twitter about the tech demos I said were running on the Wii. Euclideon released some web demos of their technology which can be found here. All we simply did was stream it through the Nintendo Wii's web browser. With a fast internet connection, it ran pretty decent. Many people had issues with the web demos' visual quality because of latency and possibly low bandwidth. We basically waited until everything had fully loaded which took a while and later it ran pretty smooth. We've asked Euclideon for downloads instead. The reason is so that we could run the demos directly from the Nintendo Wii's hardware to avoid latency and bandwidth issues that comes with streaming. This wasn't too profound since its simply laser-scanned technology. These are just tech demos, not actual games. 

4.) Why Hardware Specs Don't Matter: Part 1

       I have heard a lot of talk about how powerful the PS4 and Xbox One is and isn't. The fan wars is driving me insane; and not in a good way. People are already taking sides about which consoles specs beats the other. This happens with every generation and every generation is surprises me that how little the difference in console specs actually matter when predicting a console's success. So far there has never been a generation where a console with the fastest processor or the best graphics processing unit ended up becoming the dominant console of its generation. Lets go down the list shall we:

3rd Generation 
       In the 3rd Generation, the sega master system was just a plain faster machine than the NES, and the NES whooped it! The NES sold 61.91 Million Units whereas the SEGA MS sold 6.25 Million Units.

4th Generation 
       The Neo Geo had the best specs but lost to everything.

5th Generation
       Even without bringing up the Sega Saturn, which is probably the most technically powerful, the N-64 was way better than the Playstation 1 in terms of ram and processing power. The N-46 had 4 MB of RAM whereas the PS1 had 2MB of RAM. Even with all of Nintendo's brand power and their previous console dominance, it couldn't hold a cndle to the PS1's sales. N-64 had 32.9 Million Units sold whereas the PS1 sold 102.49 Million Units sold.

6th Generation 
       Then comes the sixth generation and here comes the Xbox with its monster processor, unbelievable GPU and double the RAM of the PS2. Yet, it sold far less than the PS2. Xbox sold 24 Million Units but the PS2 sold a whopping 155 Million Units.

7th Generation 
       Finally, the 7th Generation. The PS3 really is a bit more powerful with its cell processor with up to 7 cores. The Xbox 360 had 3 symmetrical power pc cores but they were running extremely high for the machine at 3.2 GHz each. ( Which lead to heat issues from initial release). The downside is that the PS3 cell architecture was difficult to develop for because it was locked away behind arcane architecture which requires coding wizardry that not even Sony was always capable of unleashing. Not that it matters because both systems were so soundly crushed by the Nintendo Wii in unit sales, that they felt the need to jump on the motion control bandwagon half the time. The Nintendo 3DS outsold the PS Vita with 29.84 Million Units whereas the Vita sold 2.2 Million.

       My fear is that hardware specs are going to define this generation, because sadly I have seen hundreds of gamers buy next-gen consoles purely based on hardware specs. What we should be looking for as gamers are the features that really set the systems apart and makes them unique. In the end, its a matter of preference and specs don't sell systems, awesome videogames do!  Good exclusive titles like the Uncharted series for Playstation, the Halo series for Xbox and the Super Mario series for Nintendo.

       What features do each of the consoles have which might lead to interesting exclusive titles? Because I am into game development, I look for anything that makes game development easier or cheaper because that's often a major concern for smaller studios; especially anyone taking a big risk on a game. Perhaps more importantly, I am always looking for unique features that allow for game design that couldn't be presented on any other console.

Sunday, May 10, 2015

3.) Bring Back Backwards Compatibility!!!

       Once upon a time, when you bought a new games console, it was often possible to play most of the games designed for the previous machine. This was a handy feature for people who didn't want to have multiple game consoles under their television sets. Backwards compatibility was also great for those who didn't own the previous console device, but did want access to its inevitably much larger and cheaper array of games. In all honesty, I miss Backwards Compatibility and maybe I probably shouldn't. Take a look at the sleek new PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles. Neither the Xbox One or the PlayStation 4 is backwards compatible with their predecessors. You can't insert a disc from your library of PlayStation 2 and 3 games into your PS4 expecting it to play. Just as your Xbox One will shrug indifferently if you slot in Xbox 360 games. I wish I could, and I understand why I can't, but it does not make me want the feature any less. Now however, it seems that for Sony and Microsoft, backwards compatibility, is itself a relic. It... Is... Not! This is mostly my opinion, so feel free to agree or disagree. In this next blog post, I will explain my reasons why.


Why is Backwards Compatibility Important?

1.) Convenience and the Fight Against Clutter
       Let’s start with the really, really obvious. Backwards compatibility in new systems means that you can put your old systems away. First world problem, I know, but the space below my TV is currently occupied by an Xbox 360, a PlayStation 2, a Wii U, a Super Nintendo and a PlayStation 3. I play each system on at least a semi-regular basis. Believe it or not, the 360 sits in the least played category for the first time in its entire life in my house. I don’t want to put any of these away. I play them so much that it doesn’t make sense for me to unhook them, wrap up the cables and toss them on a shelf in my closet. I’d only repeat the process in the reverse order next week. Backwards compatibility means that I can say sayonara to an aging system below my shelf while still boasting the ability to enjoy its software library. Sure, I miss GameCube gaming on the regular, but my Wii U now accounts for two systems. My Xbox 360 almost accounts for two systems, too. Hold on while I bust out my TI-83+…
…that’s four systems over the span of two console spaces below my TV. Space is tight, backwards compatibility makes it a non-issue.


2.) Backwards compatibility is helpful for the launch of a new console. 
       It helps justify the investment by allowing you to actually play your new console (and take advantage of some of the new features) with the last few quality titles of the previous generation. It can be a selling point for those shifting their console loyalty, as many did this new generation, from Microsoft over to Sony. Jumping onto a new platform with a whole collection of exclusives from the past eight years could have been very attractive to early adopters. It also could have presented a competitive advantage for one console and allowed those like me, running out of storage space and HDMI ports on their television, to remove old consoles from their TV cabinet. It could have been a major selling point for either 2013 console, but in the long-run, backwards compatibility becomes a forgotten feature, and I understand why it's absent. The Wii U is fully compatible with every Wii game, but I have already happily abandoned playing Wii discs on the system in favor of games like Pikmin 3 and Super Mario 3D World. I wish I could take my Red Faction Guerilla disc out of the Xbox 360 and finish the game on the new console, but by demanding that capability (and likely forgetting it in a matter of months), I am probably short-changing other more important console features that will have greater longevity. I want the feature now in the early hours of my next-gen console ownership, but ask me again in a few years and just maybe, I might not miss it as much.


3.) It Shows Console Makers Care 
       When a console manufacturer announces some plans to include backwards compatibility with their new system, it tells me that they care about me as a gamer. They have no reason to spend money implementing old gaming architecture other than pleasing fans. Old games rarely earn them money, especially since they are so often purchased through secondhand needs, so there’s no fiscal reason for a console maker to pump funds into developing backwards compatibility. When they do it, they do it because they care about fans. They care that we invested in their system’s last generation by buying up piles and piles of games. They care that we want to continue playing them. So, they work to make backwards compatibility a reality. Both Sony and Microsoft are building their PlayStation 4 and Xbox One with completely new system architecture  That means they can’t possibly play old games. Only Sony is putting money into making backwards compatibility a reality. Yes, they’ll likely charge for it, but we know they spent at least $380 million on purchasing Gaikai, a cloud gaming company, in order to make old games playable on the PlayStation 4.


5.) The Preservation of Games
       Finally, for me, backwards compatibility boils down to the preservation of gaming as an art and historic medium. With film, most studios took care to hold on to the original prints of classic movies. With the coming of new film tech, those prints are revisited again and again so that the public may enjoy them on VHS, DVD and through online streaming. The same can be said for music as it’s moved from vinyl to tape, CD and digital download. These mediums are being preserved across leaps in technology. Gaming? As it stands right now, once the last Xbox 360 dies, that gaming catalogue is almost done forever. Until Microsoft decides it’s time to release a super HD version of Crackdown, we will never be able to play that game again. Game consoles fail over time. And the Xbox 360 especially experienced a completely terrible rate of failure. Who’s to say there will be any working 360s available for purchase 10 or 20 years from now? The difference between games and film or music is that games are very rarely recreated for new platforms. Companies only spend the time porting software if they think that a new generation of players will spend money buying it up. Backwards compatibility is the blanket solution for gamers wanting to play old games.


Proof that Consumers are Effected by Backwards Compatibility 
       There are clearly enough consumers who do want backwards compatibility and sadly, many became the targets of an internet hoax. A recent post on the notorious 4Chan forum encouraged gamers to access the developer mode on their new Xbox Ones and then enter a code that would ostensibly "unlock" the machine's hidden ability to play Xbox 360 titles. It didn't do that, however, it instead locked the machine into an endless reboot cycle, effectively rendering it useless. What ass holes! So if there's enough desire out there for backwards compatibility to warrant a hilarious internet trick, why don't the manufacturers supply it? These are expensive, technically advanced consoles, after all. How hard can it be? Well, the answer is, "very hard and getting harder with every successive generation". I will explain further, so please continue reading. 


Why Xbox One and PS4 Lack Backwards Compatibility 

Hardware Implementation
            One of the most effective ways to provide compatibility with previous consoles that console manufacturers utilized in the past is through hardware implementation. Hardware implementation involves actually including some of the chips from the old machine into the new machine. The Nintendo Wii, for example, was in many ways just a more powerful version of the older GameCube. So backwards compatibility was reasonably straightforward. The Wii originally had GameCube controller sockets and two memory card slots. It was like a GameCube in disguise. The PlayStation 2, meanwhile, had the original PlayStation chipset built in, so it ran pretty much any PlayStation one title. When that chip wasn't being used for backwards compatibility it doubled as an input/output processor, which was pretty canny. As you can see, hardware implementation is not an effective approach because its a technical hurdle that would hold the Xbox One and PlayStation 4's hardware back. What's different now is the increased complexity in hardware and software, and heat issues. The best way to support your old console, in terms of broadest support of all old games, is to actually include the hardware of the old system inside the new one. CPU, GPU, sound chips, ideally the whole caboodle.
            This works well enough when you look at the price list for components, as the old chips have become cheap enough to include without bumping the cost of the new system. Sadly though, with the high frequency clock rates (GHz), designing your board to incorporate the entire old machine is not easy or cheap, and worse, it will emit just as much heat as the old system did on it's own. Heat is a big factor with modern system designs and you do not want to add 100 watts to your output, and another jet turbine style fan. So as new hardware becomes more complex, the inclusion of older chips and processors becomes more expensive, and with margins so tight (manufacturers often make a loss on new machines anyway), it's an easy feature to jettison. Indeed, although both the original versions of the Wii and the PS3 included old feature-sets in the architecture, later versions ripped these out to cut down on costs and allow for price drops.


Emulation
       So what about emulation? This involves running a program on the new console that effectively pretends to be the old machine so that it can play classic games. Nintendo, for example, offers its Virtual Console service for the Wii and 3DS which allows owners to download and play classic Super Nintendo, Game Boy and even Sega Mega Drive titles in their original form. Once again, however, the problem with emulating more recent consoles is technological advance. "It was when the PS3 tried to emulate the PS2 that the increase in technology began to present problems," says developer Byron Atkinson-Jones, whose new game Blast 'Em has just been released. "Like the PS1, the PS2 had a single processor but the graphics system was a lot more complex, allowing for parallel processing, which meant it could run more than one bit of code at a time. You can emulate this on the more modern processors but you have to get the timing between the true hardware-based parallel processing and the software emulated version exactly right. And that timing would also have to take into account the differences between the territory versions, i.e. a game running on PAL or NTSC.
       There are other factors that might be enough to break a game." And timing is not the only issue – the increasing adaptability of the hardware itself is also causing problems. "It's complexity versus schedule," says Hollis. "If your emulated graphics processor is programmable (as PS3 and Xbox 360 are) that creates a huge explosion of possibilities to emulate and test – easily trillions of cases. We are talking large possibility spaces here. No way you are going to be able to emulate all the games, and do the job in a rush. If you had ten years, well maybe. "The second piece of bad news is performance headroom. To emulate an old system's hardware in software you need a system which is significantly more powerful, I'd say ten times more powerful is a good rule of thumb. This current generation is simply not that much more powerful than the last, especially in terms of general purpose compute. Moore's law is basically over for CPUs, and has been for around five years. That means new machines do not have the power to emulate last generation in software."


Cloud Saves the Day?
       Sony and Microsoft are working on leaping with non-hardware streaming solutions. Sony has made promises with its Playstation Now streaming service saying it will allow the PlayStation 4 to play PlayStation 3 games online with streaming video. I was hoping that you would need only a disc from your library to play, but the reality is there are fees associated with playing games you already own which in turn is a major downside. So in my own opinion, backwards compatibility is very necessary! The same goes for Xbox One and Xbox 360 games. Microsoft is already tempering expectations towards how game streaming will work on its console. Even if these systems work well, by the time they are available, the time when they would be most valued will have already passed.


HD remakes.
       From a software standpoint, game companies certainly have the physical ability to port last-generation games to next-generation, and it wouldn't be particularly costly. The downside to this is that people would pay money for games they essentially already own. Because of this reason, game companies should allow gamers to trade in their original copy of the game to put towards the HD remake copy of the game to play on their next-gen system. Console manufacturers and publishers alike need to realize that they revive revenues if they put in some effort to ensure that their games, even long after the previous console generation is over, gets a digital release so that everyone can enjoy them.


ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS

1.) Keep your Xbox 360 and or PS3
       Many of you are reading this and thinking, that is so obvious! But as a former employee at Game Stop, I cannot tell you how many times consumers bought next-gen assuming they were backwards compatible. There are plenty of gamers who don't care for backwards compatibility because they will keep their previous game console anyway. As gamers, right now this is the easiest way to keep playing PS3 and 360 games. With that said, forcing players to own an old console to play old games would obviously mean higher sales of discounted last-generation systems, which would obviously benefit Sony and Microsoft.


2.) Digital Downloads
       The PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, the Wii, and Wii U offer the ability to purchase and download old games from previous consoles, but this is less a function of backwards compatibility, and more a storefront for fans to easily purchase and replay older titles. Digital downloads of older games on PS4 and Xbox One would be essential for consumers looking for older games which are no longer made into hard copies. Downloads of older games is also essential if certain store retailers eventually stop selling hard copies of those games. For backwards compatibility to be a selling point for a new console, the ability to put an old disc from your library into a new system is necessary.


3.) Improve Playstation Now Streaming
       One of the downsides to Playstation Now as I mentioned before is that there are fees associated to games you already own and you have to keep paying for the service monthly to play your last-gen games on PS4. The other issue with Playstation Now is the internet requirements needed to have a smooth gaming experience while streaming to prevent latency. Latency also hurts the visual quality of this videogame you are playing while its streaming. Here are some solutions:
  • Major markets for the PS4 need to soon upgrade to higher bandwidths for better connection speeds
  • Majory markets for PS4 need to come up with lower paying internet solutions since the higher bandwidth is greatly needed 
  • Affordable computer server farms needs to be built within a close enough proximity to people to ensure low latency


4.) Release a Backwards Compatible PS4 & Xbox One Console!!
       For me, backwards compatibility is a huge deal. Console manufacturers argue that backwards compatibility drives the build cost of consoles up. As I discussed with you earlier, this is true and that’s fine. Since its such a technical hurdle for console manufactures to supply this feature, give me (gamers) the option to buy a machine with backwards compatibility for $100 more. I’ll do it! If the Xbox One without backwards compatibility sells for $349, I’d gladly pony up an extra hundred just to play Xbox 360 games on the new system. I don’t think I’m alone with that notion.