Why we need a better "Gaming Platform"

[SinbadEV]

Let's say that this year's "Standard" is as follows

this years?
and next year i need to buy a new system?

with consoles one has to buy a new system every 4-8 years, with computers you need to buy a new one every year to keep up or buy a top of the line system this year and upgrade it in 2-4 years when it becomes too obsolete... smartphone (which I put in the same category) you need to upgrade every year to keep up... this is why, I think, so many developers still prefer consoles...

With my "standard" system there would be a rolling installed base.

this year you have, maybe 1 million systems capable of playing this years standard games, and 2 million systems capable of playing last years standard games and 3 million systems capable of playing 2 yearses agos standard games... so, if you were a game developer (in 2011) you could produce a game that targetted the 2010_1.0 standard and have 2 million potential customers or target the 2011_1.0 standard and have 1 million potential customers, or you could target let's say 2011_2.0 and have 500 thousand potencial customers...

you, as the consumer, would only need to upgrade your system when a game came out that you wanted that won't run on your current hardware...

[knorke]

if you were a game developer (in 2011) you could produce a game that targetted the 2010_1.0 standard and have 2 million potential customers

Does not happen.
How many new PS2 games were made since the PS3 came out?
Why do they not make a new Call of Duty that runs on older systems to get lots of customers?
Because people always buy the newest crap anyway.
Also because lol.

[SinbadEV]

Alright, so I'm beginning to remember/realize why the standards idea is such a bad one...

So, to the other idea I have:

First of all, the fundamental problem with most shape tracking systems is that they are attempted using a single camera.

So, my idea would be to make a 3 camera system:

you would place one at the bottom right and left of the display and one at the top center of the display.

Ideally the top centre one would be a HD camera capable of taking 1080p video and capturing even higher quality stills.

the bottom left and right cameras would have a lower resolution but higher optical sensitivity and frame rate (ideally these would be capable of very low infra-red sensing so it could cheat and find "warm bodies"... and to receive the frequency of infra-red light sources like remote controls)

okay, so out of the gate this system, provided it had the right software, could interpolate a 3D mesh representing the room it is in with particular sensitivity to human bodies and IR light sources... to this situation we could add a PSMove style controller with some buttons and other controls and accelerometers/angle sensors and whatever and then the cute little "sphere at the top would have an array of infra-red transmitting LED's flickering as specific frequencies so that the two bottom side cameras could figure out their position is space etc for fine control... this would also, after calibration, allow this controller to act as a pointing device to allow for mouse like control...

an additional enhancement would be for there to be a infrared projector that would cast a invisible grid over the play area that could assist in the body tracking part...

[KaiserJ]

4-8 years for a console?!

it's been about 4 years since the ps3 came out... but before that? probably an average of about one per year. sure, there are some gaps in there between 16 bit and 32 bit tech, and between odyssey and pong, but for the most part even 4 years is a large gap that ignores stuff like new peripherals/addons as well as handheld systems

developers ignore PC more and more these days for a variety of reasons, but the bottom line is profit

with your system it sounds like, if anything, you'd need to upgrade more often than every 2-4 years, because as knorke said, the business these days is to present the newest and the best.

when is the last time a -big- console game, one of those blockbuster christmas or august releases, was on obsolete hardware?

errr nevermind then i guess :/

edit: make your capture system, it doesnt sound impossibly hard or impossibly expensive

[PicassoCT]

i wonder why console games dont get cracked regularly and pirated to pc? Titles like Halo Reach, why dont they end up in the treasure chest? Dont tell me, for the x-box 360 you need a emulator, its a pc in a box, with a ring of death, thats all.

[Neddie]

Differences in architecture. You have to emulate the hardware using software, which poses some difficulties.

[PicassoCT]

Performance Isue? Ive seen peopl burning games for consoles, so it is possibel, but i cant understand how the leave the whole pc-market behind for valve only.

[Johannes]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWbLOFGSEDo

[knorke]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWbLOFGSEDo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzQIRTRHQ9w

[dizekat]

Let's say that this year's "Standard" is as follows

this years?
and next year i need to buy a new system?

with consoles one has to buy a new system every 4-8 years, with computers you need to buy a new one every year to keep up or buy a top of the line system this year and upgrade it in 2-4 years when it becomes too obsolete... smartphone (which I put in the same category) you need to upgrade every year to keep up... this is why, I think, so many developers still prefer consoles...

Nope. Developers prefer consoles because
1: less piracy,
2: glitches are predictable, if it works for you it works for everyone on same console. 100% successful run.
Unlike PC where not only you have to deal with many models of graphics cards by 2 manufacturers, there's also shit like "catalyst control center" and nvidia equivalent where newbies will force settings onto everything and then send you bug reports. Where people with system way below your official minimum specifications buy your game "because black ops worked for me, and it has higher requirements" and then complain loudly. Where the bugs in graphics hardware and drivers are work-arounded on per game basis by graphics card manufacturers. Where you got antivirus software that may slow down your game by factor of 50 (true story, happens to me). On PC it is very difficult to ensure that >90% of your customers can run your product, and the remaining small percentage who cant are quite loud. Where the best you can do is get to the point that you get shitton of bug reports and complaints for issues that are resolved by reboot or driver update. Where no matter how obviously is it a hardware problem, people will complain that your game suck, not that their hardware sucks.

Smartphones, if you are targetting several different brands at once with java's "compile once run somewhere", are like PC but a ton worse.

cost of upgrading the computers is absolutely negligible comparing to cost of human work time (even if you are paid very little) and is also quite negligible comparing to cost of gamers a gamer plays, and as such has no importance for commercial development.

[dizekat]

if you were a game developer (in 2011) you could produce a game that targetted the 2010_1.0 standard and have 2 million potential customers

Does not happen.
How many new PS2 games were made since the PS3 came out?
Why do they not make a new Call of Duty that runs on older systems to get lots of customers?
Because people always buy the newest crap anyway.
Also because lol.

can't you run call of duty on graphics cards that are cheaper than call of duty? would people on those systems buy call of duty? i dont think so. those obsolete hardware users are for most part not potential customers.