Steam

[Loony BoB]

After spending years without having much experience (if any) with Steam, I've recently noticed I will not be able to play many of my beloved future PC releases without it - Football Manager and Elder Scrolls to name a couple of series it would be painul for me to miss out on. So, with that said, discuss Steam and introduce the ups and downs of it to me. I'm reluctant to commit to a purchase without knowing how the game will (or won't) be affected by having to play it through Steam. I know there are people out there who get pretty upset that things are only released via Steam, and I'm interested in why this is, and if it will affect me in any way.

[Pike]

I like the way it tracks how much time you spend playing a game and I'm proud of my 412 hours of Civ IV.

I also like that it works in Linux with Wine.

I don't like that sometimes it bugs out or randomly decides to use up all of my CPU.

Overall, I'm pretty neutral on Steam. I have it installed, and boot it up when I need to use it. It's a good place to find deals if you don't feel like being a pirate.

[nik0tine]

I don't like that sometimes it bugs out or randomly decides to use up all of my CPU.This, along with STEAM occasionally taking ten minutes to start and/or some of my games behaving the same way, are the only problems I have ever had with STEAM.

Well, aside from WON going down and dealing irreparable harm to the greatest community of modders that ever was. But we don't talk about these things anymore.

[CimminyCricket]

Someone explain Steam in detail to me please, I have never used it.

[Loony BoB]

Steam (software) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_(software))

[Bolivar]

Steam is a client made by Valve in around 2004 to act as an all-in-one application that brings their PC games to one launcher and runs certain things throughout them. You can buy all of their products on the Store page within Steam and eventually other developers put their products on the service until eventually it became the pre-eminent distribution and game client for all PC gaming. You have your own friends lists, groups, and communities on Steam, it has built-in anti-cheating software that runs throughout games, you browse game servers via Steam, and it even has the little perks like stat tracking and Achievements. The best feature is probably how you can store your saved data on the cloud, and even your game purchases. If you get a new computer, all you have to do is download Steam, log on, and select from your list of purchased games which ones you want to download onto that hard drive. They even let you pre-load games onto your computer so once midnight hits for the release date, you can officially start playing the game you already paid for and downloaded.

It's similar to Xbox Live, except far more robust, and free. It's also extremely popular because Valve restricts what kind of DRM measures developers can take.

When it came out, the immediate response was to bitch because it took longer to load into a game because of all the checks and stuff it does. But once you have a need to utilize some of the other features, we realized how powerful the bundle of services were, to store your purchases on the Cloud, streamline updates, and a decent amount of social features. There's an EoFF group on Steam, I'm a part of it and would actually like to see if any of you guys would wanna get in on some Counter-Strike soon.

If I could afford to keep up with PC gaming, I would probably game exclusively through Steam. My user name is the same here, Bolivar, with a capital B (i think).

[CimminyCricket]

I will download this eventually!

[Rostum]

I absolutely love Steam. They always have really awesome sales on, and I've managed to get some incredibly good titles extremely cheap.

If anyone wants to add me my user is ldowell.

[nik0tine]

When it came out, the immediate response was to bitch because it took longer to load into a game because of all the checks and stuff it does. But once you have a need to utilize some of the other features, we realized how powerful the bundle of services were, to store your purchases on the Cloud, streamline updates, and a decent amount of social features. In defense of all the bitching, most of these features were not implemented until way later. In the early days of STEAM even the friends list wasn't functional.

[Bolivar]

When it came out, the immediate response was to bitch because it took longer to load into a game because of all the checks and stuff it does. But once you have a need to utilize some of the other features, we realized how powerful the bundle of services were, to store your purchases on the Cloud, streamline updates, and a decent amount of social features. In defense of all the bitching, most of these features were not implemented until way later. In the early days of STEAM even the friends list wasn't functional.

True, but it was only a few months after launch I think I moved to my dad's and was trying to figure out how to get my games on their computer, and was all like "damn, I didn't bring the discs, how am I gonna.......................Wow."

[Iceglow]

Steam is ok, though for some reason my Civ 5 which was working fine doesn't want to load atm, might have to uninstall it and re-do that see if it changes anything.

The biggest issue for me is when a game requires both Steam and a Windows Live gamer tag (which btw can be your XBL gamertag, hence I have a couple of hundred achievement points on my XBL tag for Dawn of War 2 a pc only title) it's like massive overkill, though I haven't had any real issues due to the both of them being used for the game.

Steam is a bit of a process whore though and loves to take up way too much of my processor power.

[Nice]

I recently got into pc gaming, so Steam and I are best friends. I think the day I found Psychonauts was the day I cried a little - love that game.

[Yeargdribble]

I remember I was first introduced to Steam when HL2 came out. God did I ever hate it. It was the most annoying intrusive thing ever. At that time, still on dial-up in an area where that was the only option, I hated the idea of always needing verify an internet connection to play a game I paid for.

Years later I love Steam very much. I can play my games offline (with a little foresight) and I can happily have any of them pretty much ready to go in a short amount of time without actually having to keep them on my hard drive. I might just get in the mood to play something on my extensive list, I tell Steam to download it and in a fairly short amount of time, I'm playing it. I don't have to go to the attic, get the box, find the activation codes and do all of that crap.

As a result, I've actually bought second copies of many of my games just to have the convenience of Steam.

For games that have cloud saving, it's fantastic to be able to start up on another computer and pick up where you left off. I did this a lot with Torchlight moving between my desktop and laptop.

I also love Steam's sales which are nearly constantly happening. I picked up Limbo today for $2.50 and got my wife a copy of Duke Nukem Forever for $6 the other day.

I also love sending (and receiving) gifts through Steam as well as getting special deal when I can buy games in bulk at a reduced rate and send them to friends.

I like that Gabe Newell views Valve as a service company rather than a product company. I'm aware that Steam is DRM, but it's certainly DRM done right.

I used to be the kind of person that lamented the loss of the box. I loved having my beautiful collection of boxes on a shelf and I still enjoy it with my console games, but Steam has finally made me embrace digital distribution which is the inevitable future.

I love Netflix, but I'd much rather have a service that was like Steam for movies and TV shows. I'd love to be able to buy digital copies of my stuff and view them anywhere. I know Apple sort of does this and so does Amazon, but I can't say I trust either of them yet (especially Apple).

I also like the chat and voice chat functions within Steam. They've been great for friends and even for just playing a game with my wife in the other room.



As for the cons I can think of for Steam, the biggest one is that it might all end one day and my games will be gone. Theoretically, if that happens, they will unlock all of the games from their service to the people that bought them, but we can't really know. There is a certain piece of mind that comes with having a physical copy of a game and you give that up for convenience with a service like Steam and have faith that your investment won't be all for naught one day.

[Slothy]

As for the cons I can think of for Steam, the biggest one is that it might all end one day and my games will be gone. Theoretically, if that happens, they will unlock all of the games from their service to the people that bought them, but we can't really know. There is a certain piece of mind that comes with having a physical copy of a game and you give that up for convenience with a service like Steam and have faith that your investment won't be all for naught one day.

I sometimes think about this myself and hear it brought up by others, but something I realized quite a while ago is that it's really no different than buying any game ever. Eventually consoles die, physical copies deteriorate (like my copy of FFIV on SNES that doesn't go past the title screen anymore) and PC standards change. Not everything continues to be supported and re-released. Eventually you won't be able to find a used replacement for the console that stopped working on you last week, or you'll be left trying to emulate some obscure hardware, or an outdated operating system just to run your favourite classics.

Really, our Steam libraries face the same questionable future that every other title ever made faces. That question of whether or not we'll be able to play it in ten years. On the plus side, I think we can take some peace of mind from the fact that as long as Steam is making money hand over fist it isn't going anywhere. And while there may be people who hate it for one reason or another, it's still making them money hand over fist because they know how to treat their customers well.

[Yeargdribble]

Yeah, that really does calm me. I have some old systems and games that still work on them... even a Nintendo. I almost mentioned it in the previous post but I realize how actually transient even hard copies can be. Trying to install some of my oldest PC games by disc is a nightmare.

I'm sure that once upon a time I could've bragged that I had the hard copy of some game on 5.25" floppy, but what the hell good would that do me anyway? In 5-10 years I might feel the same way about DVDs and my collection of hard copy game discs will be even more worthless.

Emulation really made me aware of how technology will always change in a way I'm not expecting and so it might still with the games in my Steam library... for the better. They will always be accessible in some way.

And like you said, Steam is super solid and staying on top because of their service angle. So long as that's the case they will continue to be the leader and I'll feel safe about my library. I also have the feeling they will evolve with new technologies rather than get eclipsed by them.

And even if they don't, until the inevitable future, I'll use the service that's the best out there by a long shot.

[Bolivar]

but Steam has finally made me embrace digital distribution which is the inevitable future.

Wrong! But I agree with pretty much everything else...

[Slothy]

What gives you the idea that the move to digital distribution isn't inevitable Bolivar? Companies like it because with systems like Steam it provides less obtrusive DRM to cut down on piracy, they cut out the retail middle man, and for now at least, eliminate used sales. Customers tend to prefer it since they can simply download a title whenever they want from wherever they are without having to track down discs, or find some way of using completely outdated formats, and you avoid the physical degredation which is unavoidable with physical media.

Sure, older gamers of our generation may cling to physical media a while longer, and until broadband connections are available in the majority of the world with reasonable badwidth caps (or my preference, no bandwidth caps), there will still be some need and demand for physical copies. But younger gamers are growing up with this stuff. In a few years, we'll probably have an entire generation of gamers who don't remember digital games not being available, and they probably aren't going to mind switching over completely.

Frankly, I'll be surprised if physical media sales haven't been completely over taken by digital sales within ten years.

[Jessweeee♪]

I think I would love Steam if I didn't pirate so much. And I think I wouldn't pirate so much if I had a PC that was better suited for gaming. Unfortunately not all developers release demos for all of their games! (Not that it justifies it or anything, that's just how I roll.)

[Yeargdribble]

Unfortunately not all developers release demos for all of their games! (Not that it justifies it or anything, that's just how I roll.)

In my mind it justifies pirating it to try it out and before you buy it if they aren't going to offer a demo.

And I'm with Vivi22. I don't see how you can deny the inevitability of it all. When's the last time you bought a physical CD for music? If you can say recently you are in the absolute minority. Almost everyone downloads (legally or not) their music these days. It's super convenient to carry around 1000s of songs with needing the CDs, the player, and the storage space for all of those discs. That's one medium where the general populous has already figured it out and made the move.

It is absolutely starting to happen with games. Look at PC games? Have you seen a decent PC gaming section at any stores lately? They are usually pathetic, but sales are great online with stuff like Steam.

Once upon a time you bought an expansion pack for a game. Now you get DLC... digitally. You very rarely find a stand alone expansion for any game that isn't from Rockstar or Blizzard but almost every game has tons of DLC and much of it substantive enough to otherwise warrant a disc.

Handheld gaming hasn't quite gotten there, but they are trying. PSP had a lot of downloadable games as did the DS. Quality was hit or miss, but now everyone plays games on their phones. Games like Infinity Blade are pretty solid and show a direction gaming could go in.

A lot of people are getting the feeling that dedicated gaming handhelds are becoming a thing of the past. I personally don't expect to see another generation of them beyond 3DS and Vita (and their multiple iterations). If there is another generation it will almost certainly be digital only, but I think the phone market will kill gaming handhelds.

How many of you wear a watch any more? Or carry a pocket calendar book? The modern day phone has made them virtually obsolete and it's doing the same for handheld gaming. Even listening to people who work in games journalism, many of them are talking about how they don't bother carrying their handhelds + games.... they just play on their iPhones... and can often get a game for 1-3 dollars that would cost them 20-30 on DS.


Aside from all of these obvious trends, just think about it from a business standpoint. Manufacturing and shipping costs go way down. You don't have to give retailers a cut to carry the product any more. At worst you lose visibility, but as time move forward, gaming culture is more omnipresent. Even companies like Zynga are bringing people in and making them aware. The average gamer is in their 30s and likely has kids. You don't need a storefront full of millions of dollars of cardboard cutouts and posters. People advertise amongst themselves through word of mouth, the internet and most people just know their sources.

I can't remember the last time that I was first made aware of a game because I saw an add in public or in a magazine.


Crap... we're way off topic and I've been ranting for too long... uhh... Steam is awesome. Hope Skyrim is on sale during the holiday sale this year.

[Iceglow]

For once I can hardly believe I am saying this but I actually kinda actually agree with Yearg in most of his points, I will point out that there are still huge markets for CD and DVD for movies and music though I must concede that the market is in a decline over the past 5 years. The biggest shame is the average iTunes distributed MP3 is only at 128kbps which is less than CD quality and getting a legal copy of a song in higher ratio is pretty much impossible and generally will rely on someone who has brought the CD to rip it and upload illegally. There is however one paragraph I wanted to quote here because:



Once upon a time you bought an expansion pack for a game. Now you get DLC... digitally. You very rarely find a stand alone expansion for any game that isn't from Rockstar or Blizzard but almost every game has tons of DLC and much of it substantive enough to otherwise warrant a disc.


Now, this is for the most part true. I just really wanted to point out that: Rockstar very rarely release stand-alone expansions. In fact they don't if you take Ballad of Gay Tony and Lost & Damned from GTA IV or Undead Nightmare from Red Dead Redemption. These were released as DLC Ballad of Gay Tony and Lost & Damned only became a standalone pack based on their huge success as a DLC and was not released on stand alone format for several months after TBOGT got a dlc release. Undead Nightmare was a bit different in that the disc and the dlc came out at the same time but that was based on their success with the GTA IV expansions, Undead Nightmare also included smaller DLC packs such as the Liars and Cheats pack. Blizzard on the other hand are even worse. Their stand-alone expansions for WoW are nothing of the sort, each requires the previous expansion to be playable thus not being stand alone in any way, expansion pack? Definitely but not stand alone. Stand alone expansion packs would mean an expansion pack for a game which can be played without the installation of the previous iteration of the game. There's only 2 games I can think of off the top of my head in such a position Relic's Dawn of War 1 and 2 both come with stand alone expansions, Dawn of War Dark Crusade is an expansion and for multiplayer purposes would require previous expansions and the original Dawn of War to gain access to all races but the campaign and the multiplayer could both be played with the expansion alone. The other game is Guild Wars where each pack with exception of Eye of The North is stand alone and does not require the previous iterations to play.

edit: Guys, why is the word position when immediately followed with a colon filtered to Bou's?

[Loony BoB]

I agree with most of Yearg's points, too, although when it comes to handheld gaming I don't think it's inevitable that it will be combined with phones. There are things that you can't fit into both zones when it comes to phones and gaming. For starters, screen size. I love having a PSP-size screen for gaming. Would I want to hold a PS3 to the side of the my head when making calls? No, it's too big. There are certain physical things about handheld gaming consoles that just don't work well at all for phones, and vice versa. Some games/features do work on phones, some simply will not, at least not any time soon.

[Old Manus]

I'm trying to find somewhere where it's spelt STEAM

[Yeargdribble]

@Iceglow

Perhaps the word stand alone was a misnomer. When I think about the term expansion, in my mind, it indicates reliance on the full version of the previous product. Otherwise most people would just call it a sequel. I'm just saying that Rockstar and Blizz are about the only two out there that still put what would otherwise be DLC into a form you can pick up off of a shelf.

As for audio bitrate and iTunes... they are slowly making songs available in higher quality, lossless, etc. If they don't, competitors will trump them by stealing all of the audiophiles. They've also moved into the cloud business to keep competitive with Amazon. As our world gets more connected and more wireless, the cloud stuff is going to be even more prevalent and eventually people are going to probably laugh at the concept of using hard drive space to keep their media. Sure, we'll probably have thumb sized 4 TB SSDs by then and it might not matter, but I have the feeling the wireless trend will beat the media storage increase and people will probably want access to their huge libraries of BR quality movies on the go. Why keep 25+Gb file when you can just stream it?

It's not that unlikely that people will have access to personal libraries of hundreds of movies through a cloud (hell, Amazon basically has this going on now and so does Netflix, though without ownership).



@BoB

Most of me wants to agree with you entirely. I still want gaming hardware that is made to do what it does well. I want all the things the Vita has. However, I'm not sure it's going to continue to be a viable thing. The DS had unprecedented popularity partly because it offered casual games on the go before phones got in on the business. Some adults got one from Nintendogs or Brain Age... or they got one to pacify their kids. I still see a lot of kids walking around stores with a DS in tow.

I think a big part of why the PSP didn't do as well (apart from the library) is that we, the myopic gamers, think that gaming is all about us. But a device aimed at only us, the "hardcore," isn't going to sell enough.

We can blame the flop of the 3DS to its launch line-up, but now there are some decent games out and even though it sold amazingly well on BF with Mario, it's still not doing gangbusters like the DS before it.

The hardware is too expensive for the casuals and they all have phones now. Hell, the hardware is borderline too expensive for the gamer and the games are certainly too pricey. I think this might spell doom for the Vita as well. It's great and impressive and I want one, but is it going to sell enough to make a decent profit?

As many kids as I see with DSs now... I also see many kids with a phone. Their parents have Angry Birds or something similar that they got for a buck and they hand it to their kids in the store. It makes it hard to justify spending hundreds of dollars on a gaming device and then 20-30 bucks on the games when you can spend 1 dollar on a device you already own to keep your kids happy.

By the time the kids are in their teens they will care more about having their own phone than having a gaming device and the games will come along for the ride.

As much as you and I love dedicated gaming hardware, kids growing up now probably just aren't going to care enough. I think as less people get interested in having a gaming handheld in lieu of just using a phone, the companies just aren't going to waste the money.

Hell, I love my DS and PSP, but I've gotten to the point where I don't bother carrying them with me because my iPod Touch is easier to game on on the go unless I'm going to be sitting still for 3+ hours on a plane or something. I end up playing my handhelds and home in bed and laughing at myself for the absurdity of it.



If handhelds are going to hold out, they are going to have to change significantly. They are going to have to be something that ties into the console experience allowing you to take your console game with you to some degree. The Vita is leaning in that direction, but I'm not sure it will fully get there. I think we'll have to see our handhelds as an extra piece of hardware that connects to our console (like a Kinect or Move) and works with it to give us something new rather than a standalone console of its own that costs over 200 bucks with 40-60 dollar games.

Okay... I believe that was the least concise thing I've ever typed...

[Loony BoB]

Most of me wants to agree with you entirely. I still want gaming hardware that is made to do what it does well. I want all the things the Vita has. However, I'm not sure it's going to continue to be a viable thing. The DS had unprecedented popularity partly because it offered casual games on the go before phones got in on the business. Some adults got one from Nintendogs or Brain Age... or they got one to pacify their kids. I still see a lot of kids walking around stores with a DS in tow.

I think a big part of why the PSP didn't do as well (apart from the library) is that we, the myopic gamers, think that gaming is all about us. But a device aimed at only us, the "hardcore," isn't going to sell enough.

We can blame the flop of the 3DS to its launch line-up, but now there are some decent games out and even though it sold amazingly well on BF with Mario, it's still not doing gangbusters like the DS before it.
The 3DS hasn't sold well because it's crap, to put it lightly. The same reason that 3D televisions haven't sold well. It's a gimmick, not a must-have. Games are still being made for the DS and the 3DS has had more problems over the DS than it has selling points over the DS. To use the 3DS as a case study for handheld consoles in general is like using the SEGA Saturn as a case study for TV-connecting consoles in general. It's picking a bad launch and making a bold statement based on it.

The DS is the second highest selling console of any kind and the PSP has out-sold the NES, Xbox 360 and PS3. So going by sales alone, if anything, handheld consoles are selling better and therefore in a healthier position to continue as such. And you're also going on the assumption that Nintendo will be happy to put Mario onto a hardware device that isn't created by Nintendo. When was the last time that happened?

The hardware is too expensive for the casuals and they all have phones now. Hell, the hardware is borderline too expensive for the gamer and the games are certainly too pricey. I think this might spell doom for the Vita as well. It's great and impressive and I want one, but is it going to sell enough to make a decent profit?
Again, look at the DS and the PSP. They sold extremely well, better than the PS3/360 and in the DS's case better than the Wii. Handheld systems have sold more over time, larger consoles have sold less over time. It may sooner be that handheld consoles replace larger consoles by connecting to TVs.


As many kids as I see with DSs now... I also see many kids with a phone. Their parents have Angry Birds or something similar that they got for a buck and they hand it to their kids in the store. It makes it hard to justify spending hundreds of dollars on a gaming device and then 20-30 bucks on the games when you can spend 1 dollar on a device you already own to keep your kids happy.
I don't know about where you live, but not everyone and their uncle has the latest phone where I am. It's a market, yes, but how powerful are the games, how much of the functionality do they have? Sony have already ported some games to the phone market, but would Nintendo do something similar when none of their games (to my knowledge) have ever been ported to another system - ever? Nintendo hasn't released a Pokémon MMO on the PC despite it being a guaranteed cashcow, possibly capable of bettering World of Warcraft (and it's the only thing I can think of capable of doing so) but they haven't. The only reason I can think of is that Nintendo don't want to develop games for anything but their own consoles.

Will consumers be happy to get a poorer product? Personally, I would rather pay ~£250 for a good handheld console and ~£80 for a phone that doesn't run games at all than pay £200 for a phone that plays games. Because it's not the same - and so long as there are enough people who are of similar opinion then I don't think the 3DS/Vita will be the last we see of handheld consoles. I think they have at least a couple more generations in them yet.


By the time the kids are in their teens they will care more about having their own phone than having a gaming device and the games will come along for the ride.
Yes, they will care more about having their own phone. But unless their parents are loaded to begin with (in which case they'd buy both console + phone seperately anyway), the parents will probably not be coughing up £200 for a phone capable of running the latest games. They'll just buy them a £80 phone at best, and the kids will have to use their own cash to buy something better than that.


Hell, I love my DS and PSP, but I've gotten to the point where I don't bother carrying them with me because my iPod Touch is easier to game on on the go unless I'm going to be sitting still for 3+ hours on a plane or something.
Yeah, but how good are the iPod Touch games? Could the likes of Angry Birds really compete with Uncharted's supposedly PS3-quality graphics on the Vita, or the gameplay of Mario / Zelda / Pokémon games? Also, consider how many different systems that people would need to develop for. While the iPhone certainly has sold well, it still only has (after a quick check) around 4% of the cell phone market. That's the biggest share, to my understanding, for a smartphone out there. 4% is around 73million, which is about on par with the PSP. It includes all generations of the iPhone, and it is worth noting that many of the iPhone sales have gone to the same people after they bought each new generation, so it's unlikely there are 73million iPhone end users. So I'd still say the PSP has outsold the iPhone. And that's just a group (and a very differing group considering the changes made over generations) of operating system and hardware that a developer would need to design for. After that, there is Android, which has bugger all major selling games to my knowledge and the number of different phones it works on means a huge amount of varying hardware. And then of course some Android operating systems will work on some phones while others will work on others, depending on the phone's age. And then there is Blackberry and so on. Basically the only real market out there is the iPhone at the moment, and whether a £20 (let alone £30/40) game would sell well on the iPhone is something that is yet to be realised.


I end up playing my handhelds and home in bed and laughing at myself for the absurdity of it.
...but you still make use of them, and that sums up why they will continue to sell. :) Maybe not to the extent of the DS did, but they will still sell in the tens of millions and that's enough for developers to consider it worthwhile.


If handhelds are going to hold out, they are going to have to change significantly. They are going to have to be something that ties into the console experience allowing you to take your console game with you to some degree. The Vita is leaning in that direction, but I'm not sure it will fully get there. I think we'll have to see our handhelds as an extra piece of hardware that connects to our console (like a Kinect or Move) and works with it to give us something new rather than a standalone console of its own that costs over 200 bucks with 40-60 dollar games.

Okay... I believe that was the least concise thing I've ever typed...
Handheld gaming will evolve, and possibly merge with regular larger consoles. They'll find a way because there is a market for them and companies will always want to tap into that. Finally, they will find a way because it allows for stability and control, something the cell phone market can not really provide developers at the moment.

Sony have been trying to find a way to tap into the cellphone market for years and they have come up with a bunch of flops. That will also encourage their gaming console development for years to come.

In short, I disagree, with various reasons! xD

[Yeargdribble]

In short, I disagree, with various reasons! xD


<3

[Slothy]

To use the 3DS as a case study for handheld consoles in general is like using the SEGA Saturn as a case study for TV-connecting consoles in general. It's picking a bad launch and making a bold statement based on it.

Not really. It's looking at the most recently released handheld launch and trying to discern if maybe handheld gaming is going to start declining. Yeah, the 3DS had a terrible launch and there were a lot of reasons for that: 3D not being a necessity, being priced far too high for what it does, and likely the fact that the average consumer buying one for their kid probably doesn't realize it's a completely new system from the DS.

But if you take 3D out of the picture it's not that bad in terms of hardware. And now the price is far more reasonable but it's still not doing a whole lot better than before the price drop. Unfortunately, until the Vita hits it's really the only thing out there right now that we can look at to see if there may be a trend starting with handheld sales. And a far more apt analogy than your Saturn one would be that it's like looking at the sales for the first 8 months or so after the launch of the Xbox 360, or PS3 and Wii way back in 2005/2006 to see if there's any indication of a weakening in the market. Again, we'll see how things hold up when the Vita hits, and then how the sales continue on for the next few years, but the 3DS if nothing else indicates we may not see either console do as well as the last generation of handhelds did. And that alone would be very significant given that until now, handhelds have been huge business, and historically dominated by Nintendo. If that's not the case anymore, especially long term, then you have to look at what's changed and the most obvious factor is the increasing prevalence of smart phones and tablets.


larger consoles have sold less over time.

Historically speaking, no they aren't actually. Look at the total sales for all consoles this generation. It's actually almost equal with last generation, but a much more even split between the three companies. Sure, no single console went on to ship 150 million units like the PS2, but the PS2, and even the PSX before it were anomalies. No other console has ever dominated the market like those have, except, arguably the DS in the handheld market. But given Nintendo's long held monopoly over that market, I'm not sure even that's fair to say given the sales of the PSP.

Point being, console sales haven't declined considering this generation isn't even over yet, so your point about handhelds supplanting consoles based on sales doesn't hold up. Console sales are as healthy as ever (healthier if you compare to more than just the last generation).


It's a market, yes, but how powerful are the games, how much of the functionality do they have?

Speaking in terms of power is a bit silly considering phones are becoming vastly more powerful every year. The rate of development greatly outstrips that of handheld hardware development, and while they may never be as powerful as a dedicated handheld like the Vita at launch, it would be somewhat foolish to think they couldn't be comparable, or even surpass them within a few short years.


Sony have already ported some games to the phone market, but would Nintendo do something similar when none of their games (to my knowledge) have ever been ported to another system - ever?

You assume that Nintendo can remain relevant in an age where they have to compete with things like smart phones. They've spent the last 5+ years building and tapping into the casual gaming market, but now there's been a dramatic shift in that market away from consoles like the Wii, or even handhelds, and to the phones many casual gamers are already buying, and the tablets which caught their attention as being the next cool thing. If the majority of the handheld market does transition into using these devices instead of dedicated handhelds then it won't matter what Nintendo is doing. Only the hardcore Nintendo faithful would remain interested in what platform they're developing for, and that is not the market that Nintendo was attracting with the Wii to begin with.

Simply put, casual gamers don't care who develops the games, they just care that they're readily accessible on platforms they already own anyway.


Will consumers be happy to get a poorer product? Personally, I would rather pay ~£250 for a good handheld console and ~£80 for a phone that doesn't run games at all than pay £200 for a phone that plays games. Because it's not the same - and so long as there are enough people who are of similar opinion then I don't think the 3DS/Vita will be the last we see of handheld consoles. I think they have at least a couple more generations in them yet.

Sure, smart phones don't offer the same level of gameplay experience as a dedicated handheld right now. The lack of physical controls alone hurts them in that respect. But who's to say that won't change as the market continues to develop. Keep in mind that the market for mobile games is still incredibly young, and the quality is dramatically better already than it was even 2-3 years ago.


Yeah, but how good are the iPod Touch games? Could the likes of Angry Birds really compete with Uncharted's supposedly PS3-quality graphics on the Vita, or the gameplay of Mario / Zelda / Pokémon games?

Given the number of downloads Angry Birds has had since release this question is moot. It may not compete directly with those games since it is far cheaper and on a completely different platform, but the market has spoken and it is a huge success. It's already competing with them and making Rovio as much money as any of those series bring in in a single release.


Also, consider how many different systems that people would need to develop for.

This is almost a non-issue given a number of factors. First, you aren't going to develop for anything other than a smart phone with a thriving market. Second, there are really only 3-4 viable options in that market space. And finally, development is so cheap at that level and tools such as the Unity engine so readily available that there is little standing in the way of even small development teams making a game and porting it to multiple platforms with relative ease. There would certainly be some added difficulty in testing your game on multiple hardware configurations, but by and large, most manufacturers are using a very small number of chipsets, and you can readily target your game at certain hardware levels.


...but you still make use of them, and that sums up why they will continue to sell. :) Maybe not to the extent of the DS did, but they will still sell in the tens of millions and that's enough for developers to consider it worthwhile.

Frankly, as the mobile market continues to develop I find it more likely that we'll see a blending of your standard smart phones and traditional handheld consoles than seeing handhelds continue as separate devices. We'll see how it plays out in time, but as smart phones become more powerful and add more functionality handhelds are becoming more and more redundant if you ask me.


In short, I disagree, with various reasons! xD

[Yeargdribble]

Alright... I really didn't want to get into another long response, but it's been eating at me since I read your last response, BoB. I'm gonna try to keep it short and only address some of the points, especially since Vivi covered much of it.


Again, look at the DS and the PSP. They sold extremely well, better than the PS3/360 and in the DS's case better than the Wii. Handheld systems have sold more over time, larger consoles have sold less over time. It may sooner be that handheld consoles replace larger consoles by connecting to TVs.

First I'll say, I think I pretty much fully agree. I'd thought of handhelds evolving to work better with consoles, but I think your idea of them essentially replacing consoles seems even more reasonable.


Will consumers be happy to get a poorer product? Personally, I would rather pay ~£250 for a good handheld console and ~£80 for a phone that doesn't run games at all than pay £200 for a phone that plays games. Because it's not the same - and so long as there are enough people who are of similar opinion then I don't think the 3DS/Vita will be the last we see of handheld consoles. I think they have at least a couple more generations in them yet.

You and me are of the same mind, but I don't know that most consumers are. The other big deal is that a phone that plays games also does dozens of other things. People aren't buying a phone that plays games. They are buying a phone with internet access, GPS, app capability and ultra-multi-functionality. The fact that it plays games is ancillary, but ultimately has the large effect of making other handhelds look less attractive.


Yes, they will care more about having their own phone. But unless their parents are loaded to begin with (in which case they'd buy both console + phone seperately anyway), the parents will probably not be coughing up £200 for a phone capable of running the latest games. They'll just buy them a £80 phone at best, and the kids will have to use their own cash to buy something better than that.

I'm seeing fairly poor kids with phones that can play at least rudimentary games. You may also be underestimating most kids' gaming needs. When I was in HS, I liked "real" games, but even kids who bring their DS to school have the most abysmal game libraries full of the casual tripe. If that's all they are interested in, a phone is going to sate them more than you might expect. It's counterintuitive to me too, but most kids really don't have the interest in deep gaming that you and I probably do. We're n the Zynga/Rovio generation where people can be eternally satisfied playing simple games. It's much like how you probably know older people who can play solitaire or Bejeweled every day of their life and be endlessly satisfied.


Yeah, but how good are the iPod Touch games? Could the likes of Angry Birds really compete with Uncharted's supposedly PS3-quality graphics on the Vita, or the gameplay of Mario / Zelda / Pokémon games?

If you skim the rest, at least read this. I think you're underestimating the quality. I certainly did before I had one. You realize there are ports of games like Secret of Mana and FFIII, right? There's a game called Mage Gauntlet that's iOS only and it's basically a SoM type game and it's great. Then there are games like Infinity Blade and its upcoming sequel (http://www.giantbomb.com/quick-look-ex-infinity-blade-ii/17-5329/) (which looks like it adds a ton more depth).

Not only are there pretty decent and deep games, but games like Infinity Blade take advantage of the control scheme and uses it in an idiomatic way. The Dead Space game for iOS was also incredibly deep with amazing controls (really no functionality was lacking compared to DS2) and it added to the storyline.

Not all games are Angry Birds or Tiny Wings. There are lot of great games.

The other big thing to keep in mind is that you, and I, and the game journalists who used to s**t all over these types of games grew up using a controller and feel like that's the only way to go. We're less adaptable. You ever run into someone in your youth who was used to an Atari joystick and couldn't use a controller? Or someone who didn't game at all before Nintendo and couldn't make Mario run and jump at the same time? It was intuitive enough for us at the time, but people coming to it newly had a hell of a time. I think that might be where you are now. You're probably not yet willing to concede that touch controls, though not as awesome as physical controls, are more than adequate and can be pretty good.


I'll try to stop there...

[Rostum]

The general population don't want a gaming specific hardware for portable gaming anymore. Their iPhones, Androids, Windows Phones, etc. can do all that and much more now. Do not underestimate the rapidly increasing advancements of the technology behind these smartphones. As Yearg points out, it's far from limited to Angry Birds and Tiny Wings - Oceanhorn is one I'm really looking forward to (http://www.diygamer.com/2011/11/oceanhorn-ios-game-inspired-nintendos-wind-waker/).

[Bolivar]

First off, we already have a thread about dedicated handhelds vs. smart phones (http://forums.eyesonff.com/general-gaming-discussion/139895-ultima-creator-speculates-consoles-doomed.html). I'm not a mod, but you should all go there for further elaboration on why you're wrong :)

Second, on topic of what I was asked: no, I don't see digital as the inevitable future. Part of that is elitism, I love my physical copies with cases and I'm a sucker for great manuals. But I'm not totally against the idea; all my PSP games are digital and frankly I've had a fantastic experience with my first digital-only platform.

But as some of you acknowledged, broadband is not a reality in a lot of places, more than you would think. What's even scarier is that places without internet at all are not as rare as common sense would had you believe, either. Look up how many Xbox 360 users never sign up for Live and I think you'll start to see my reasoning.

But storage is an issue as well. My PSP collection is considerable, but not large by any means, and I'm already at the point where I have to decide what to keep on its hard drive. Very few titles in my PS3 library have large installs, but those 60 gigs came and went like it was nothing. If we were to live in an environment where ALL of those games would be stored digitally, I just don't know how it could be done, not to mention how much music and video I like to keep on my PS3 as well. I know storage is more abundant nowadays and streaming is a developing solution, but the latter gets back to the internet problem. If universal broadband is even further away than universal internet already is, then universal streaming of HD games and movies is a very distant pipe dream.

But the common flaw with all of your (except BoB!) arguments is that you seem to believe if one thing is selling well, none of its competitors can sell at all. Much like my argument in the handheld thread, if non-digital products have enough demand, companies will happily produce to meet it. You can talk about how many people like Angry Birds all you like, but that doesn't stop Call of Duty from selling 20 million, Battlefield from selling 10 million, and Skyrim and Uncharted each selling 5 million, all at $60 a pop, in a span of about two months, with all of them releasing in about a three-week window.

[Big D]

Steam is a huge pain in the arse. I'm only hanging onto it for a handful of Valve titles and a few cheap classics. For everything else, I'll stick to the plug-and-play functionality of conventional gaming.

Imagine if you've just bought a book from your local bookstore. Turns out it's a Steam bookstore, though, so all the pages are blank. Everytime you want to read the book, you have to phone the bookstore to activate it. If you get a bad line or they hang up on you, then tough luck - no book for you. You still get to have a big, blank tome taking up space on your bookshelf though.

Also, unless you buy the book the moment it comes out, you won't get to read a single line until it's spent several hours updating. Especially if you've had the misfortune of buying Team Fortress II: The Novel.

Finally, you'll occasionally run into an error that prevents you opening the cover of your book. To solve this, you'll have to delete several pages, then replace them. This happened to me the last two times I played Portal 2. Thanks to various Steam-exclusive dicking around, it took about 30-40 minutes from first clicking the game icon to actually earning the privilege of playing the game I'd paid for.

When it works well, Steam is fine - it's functional, social, and has a decent interface. But it's far too prone to errors, and far too picky about when you're allowed to play your own games.

[Slothy]

But as some of you acknowledged, broadband is not a reality in a lot of places, more than you would think. What's even scarier is that places without internet at all are not as rare as common sense would had you believe, either. Look up how many Xbox 360 users never sign up for Live and I think you'll start to see my reasoning.

Can't say I blame people for not signing up for XBL with some of the stories I've heard over the years. :D

But I'm aware of everything you mentioned about the availability of broadband, and internet connections in general throughout the world right now. More aware than the average person without a doubt. But we're not speculating on what's going to happen right now (ie: the next 2-3 years). We're talking about long term what's going to happen, and I fully expect that downloads will have surpassed retail sales withing 10-15 years, and eventually retail sales may be a thing of the past entirely. Digital is already massive on the PC especially compared to retail (though it's too hard to get concrete numbers on digital sales to compare accurately). With broadband connections becoming more and more available, internet coming to new areas everyday, and constant improvement in networking technologies, the expansion of digital sales to the entire world is almost inevitable, even if it's not a reality for everyone, everywhere just yet.


But storage is an issue as well. My PSP collection is considerable, but not large by any means, and I'm already at the point where I have to decide what to keep on its hard drive. Very few titles in my PS3 library have large installs, but those 60 gigs came and went like it was nothing. If we were to live in an environment where ALL of those games would be stored digitally, I just don't know how it could be done, not to mention how much music and video I like to keep on my PS3 as well.

Except it's already being done. Putting aside the obvious fact that 60GB of storage was small even when the PS3 came out let alone now (a 1TB hard drive can easily be had for under $100 these days), the solution to storage issues already exists through services like Steam. I don't even have most of my Steam games installed at the moment to be honest. When you have a consistent and fast internet connection, there's no need to keep everything on your PC when you can readily log into your account and download most games again in minutes, if not an hour or two.


and streaming is a developing solution, but the latter gets back to the internet problem. If universal broadband is even further away than universal internet already is, then universal streaming of HD games and movies is a very distant pipe dream.

I have issues with the idea of streaming and cloud gaming if only because there's no way you can do it yet for the entire experience without considerable lag, particularly online multiplayer. Connections which are fast enough to download a 10-20 GB game in under a few hours are fairly common in urban areas throughout North America at least, and are expanding in coverage all of the time, but the amount of bandwidth and speed it would take to send the control input signals to the game server, stream the content back to you, and communicate with other players is absurd. We're still years away from these being competitive services.


But the common flaw with all of your (except BoB!) arguments is that you seem to believe if one thing is selling well, none of its competitors can sell at all. Much like my argument in the handheld thread, if non-digital products have enough demand, companies will happily produce to meet it.

None of us is arguing that at all. What we're arguing is that digital sales are far better for the developer than retail sales. The fact that they keep substantially more money from every sale is reason enough for them to push in that direction in the future. There's no manufacturing costs, no shipping costs (aside from hosting servers which is dirt cheap by comparison), and you don't have to give a huge cut to a retail store. Why would companies want to keep focusing on retail and getting maybe 10-30% of the money from every sale when they can give 30% to Valve and keep the other 70%? If companies can get people to buy into digital sales (which again, is already happening on the PC) then they will push things in that direction as much as they can. They may still cater to the people who prefer physical copies to some extent, but they would be better off trying to move away from that.


You can talk about how many people like Angry Birds all you like, but that doesn't stop Call of Duty from selling 20 million, Battlefield from selling 10 million, and Skyrim and Uncharted each selling 5 million, all at $60 a pop, in a span of about two months, with all of them releasing in about a three-week window.

This really isn't an argument for physical sales still being popular in the future. Sure those games sold a lot of physical copies. That's because consoles are lagging far behind on digital distribution so if you're going to look at how some of the biggest games of the year sold in their biggest markets, of course people bought physical copies. It was either that or not buy the games at all.



Imagine if you've just bought a book from your local bookstore. Turns out it's a Steam bookstore, though, so all the pages are blank. Everytime you want to read the book, you have to phone the bookstore to activate it. If you get a bad line or they hang up on you, then tough luck - no book for you. You still get to have a big, blank tome taking up space on your bookshelf though.

I don't know if every game does this, and I haven't had a problem registering a game on Steam since, but when I bought Half-Life 2 on day one (physical copy no less) and installed it the Steam servers were too busy to authenticate it. Not a big deal though because they still let you play the single player as much as you wanted until you could connect and authenticate, so who really cared? Now yes, if you're buying a copy digitally and can't get a consistent connection that would be a problem. But it's more than a little naive to think that that will never change.


Also, unless you buy the book the moment it comes out, you won't get to read a single line until it's spent several hours updating. Especially if you've had the misfortune of buying Team Fortress II: The Novel.

This already happens on consoles as well even if you buy physical copies. And speaking only about multiplayer games like TF2 for a moment, you can't play online multiplayer with an outdated version of a game unless the game happens to support dedicated servers and you manage to find one that wasn't updated. Good luck on both of those counts. Automatic updating is also something that you will not see go away. Don't want a single player game to update though so you can play it right away and update when it's convenient? I believe on Steam at least you may be able to turn off automatic updating (I'm not at home now so I can't check), but either way, there's always offline mode.


Finally, you'll occasionally run into an error that prevents you opening the cover of your book. To solve this, you'll have to delete several pages, then replace them. This happened to me the last two times I played Portal 2. Thanks to various Steam-exclusive dicking around, it took about 30-40 minutes from first clicking the game icon to actually earning the privilege of playing the game I'd paid for.

Corruption of installed files can happen to just about any game on any platform. To say this is solely a Steam issue is silly. More importantly, I've never even had it happen to me. I've had games not work do to a bad update sure, but again, that's not a Steam issue. And usually if files are corrupt, checking the integrity of the Steam files through a simple right click menu will be enough to get it to fix it on its own I believe.

But again, as connections get faster and coverage expands more and more I don't see a corrupt game file as being a huge issue if anyone can reinstall the broken files in seconds, or reinstall an entire game in minutes if it really came down to it.

[Loony BoB]

But the common flaw with all of your (except BoB!) arguments is that you seem to believe if one thing is selling well, none of its competitors can sell at all. Much like my argument in the handheld thread, if non-digital products have enough demand, companies will happily produce to meet it.

None of us is arguing that at all. What we're arguing is that digital sales are far better for the developer than retail sales.
Hey, I wasn't arguing that! I was arguing that the Vita/3DS is not the end of handheld gaming and that phones are not going to replace handheld consoles after this generation, which was suggested earlier on. :p I do think digital sales are going to overwhelm retail sales. My argument was more in line with phones vs. consoles.



You can talk about how many people like Angry Birds all you like, but that doesn't stop Call of Duty from selling 20 million, Battlefield from selling 10 million, and Skyrim and Uncharted each selling 5 million, all at $60 a pop, in a span of about two months, with all of them releasing in about a three-week window.
This really isn't an argument for physical sales still being popular in the future. Sure those games sold a lot of physical copies. That's because consoles are lagging far behind on digital distribution so if you're going to look at how some of the biggest games of the year sold in their biggest markets, of course people bought physical copies. It was either that or not buy the games at all.
While Bolivar might have been arguing the digital vs. retail angle, I can take what he said and use it in the phone vs. console angle... basically just because Angry Birds is selling well doesn't mean that there isn't going to continue to be a valid "tens of millions" market for gaming consoles after the 3DS/Vita generation.


Point being, console sales haven't declined considering this generation isn't even over yet, so your point about handhelds supplanting consoles based on sales doesn't hold up.

Touché in that consoles have not sold less over time (PS2 and Xbox sold 177m, PS3/360/Wii sold 202m to date), but the handheld market has surpassed the console market going by generation. The DS and PSP combined have sold 222m units, the PS3, Wii and 360 combined have soled 202m units. This is going by Wikipedia info, so obviously it could be skewed or out of date, but it's still just as reliable as any other random gaming site out there when it comes to information.

So the original point that the handheld market is booming still stands. The 3DS was a terrible launch and it isn't a good way to judge the market in general.


while they may never be as powerful as a dedicated handheld like the Vita at launch, it would be somewhat foolish to think they couldn't be comparable, or even surpass them within a few short years.
While true, I'd say it would also be foolish to assume that they will, and even then, that they will be marketed correctly and people will buy into the concept.


Only the hardcore Nintendo faithful would remain interested in what platform they're developing for, and that is not the market that Nintendo was attracting with the Wii to begin with.
I think that's a pretty bold assumption. The DS sold 150m consoles, yeah? The 3DS was a failconsole only because if you ask most people in the street about it, they'll assume it's just a 3D version of the DS. But so long as Nintendo want to launch another console beyond the 3DS, I can see them doing very well with it. I'm not arguing that phones will never eventually take over, I'm arguing that the Vita + 3DS are not the end of the handheld market.


casual gamers don't care who develops the games
No, but they do care what games they get, and Nintendo make a large number of the games that many people feel are "must have" games. I don't see Nintendo selling the exclusive rights to Pokémon, Mario or Zelda.


Given the number of downloads Angry Birds has had since release this question is moot. It may not compete directly with those games since it is far cheaper and on a completely different platform, but the market has spoken and it is a huge success. It's already competing with them and making Rovio as much money as any of those series bring in in a single release.
Angry Birds was a success. But it's a success because it's an extremely simple game. The backend may be complex for all I know, but it's like saying that Tetris and Snake were incredibly popular on phones some time ago. Complex handheld games are not successful on phones yet. They will probably be later on, but I just don't see this happening before another generation flows through.


You and me are of the same mind, but I don't know that most consumers are.
But we are proof that there is an ongoing demand for handheld consoles rather than phones that are capable of gaming. And so long as there is a demand, and we are two of many I am sure, there will be a product.


The other big deal is that a phone that plays games also does dozens of other things. People aren't buying a phone that plays games. They are buying a phone with internet access, GPS, app capability and ultra-multi-functionality. The fact that it plays games is ancillary, but ultimately has the large effect of making other handhelds look less attractive.
Outside of holding a console to the side of your face so you can make a voice call, I see no reason that the Vita etc. can't continue to evolve and become capable of doing everything that a phone can do. The success of the Kindle and iPad also adds to the idea that there is a demand for large-screen products. I have no doubt in my mind that eventually we will be able to make video calls, send emails/text messages and work on documents using something created by Nintendo or Sony that is (primarily) a gaming console. You could say "but that's basically just a smartphone!" - if it does everything, it does everything. A phone is just a phone. I can make phonecalls using my computer. Does that make it a phone? No. The primary purpose of a gaming console will remain gaming, but it will have that added functionality that phones and tablets both provide. It'll just be the "midway point" between phone and tablet. Portable as a phone, powerful as a gaming console, functional as a tablet. But with the buttons a gaming console would otherwise have. Touchscreen for typing.


I think you're underestimating the quality. I certainly did before I had one. You realize there are ports of games like Secret of Mana and FFIII, right? There's a game called Mage Gauntlet that's iOS only and it's basically a SoM type game and it's great. Then there are games like Infinity Blade and its upcoming sequel (which looks like it adds a ton more depth).

Not only are there pretty decent and deep games, but games like Infinity Blade take advantage of the control scheme and uses it in an idiomatic way. The Dead Space game for iOS was also incredibly deep with amazing controls (really no functionality was lacking compared to DS2) and it added to the storyline.

Not all games are Angry Birds or Tiny Wings. There are lot of great games.
Yes, but how many of these ports are selling to the number of one or two million? I'll concede that some of those games are better than I'd thought, but having them out there and having people want to buy them on the phone rather than a console is a big ask. And let's face it, FFIII is pretty far away from today's PSP and DS games.

[Slothy]

I think that's a pretty bold assumption. The DS sold 150m consoles, yeah? The 3DS was a failconsole only because if you ask most people in the street about it, they'll assume it's just a 3D version of the DS. But so long as Nintendo want to launch another console beyond the 3DS, I can see them doing very well with it. I'm not arguing that phones will never eventually take over, I'm arguing that the Vita + 3DS are not the end of the handheld market.

I wasn't arguing that they are the end of the handheld market. What I am arguing though is that it is entirely possible we will see sales of dedicated handhelds start to fall now that they aren't the only game in town. Especially when you consider that the casual market was what was really driving a lot of those sales over the years. The DS was popular sure, but it was casual game sales that drove it once the Lite and games like Brain Age were released (I shit you not, looking at the quarterly sales for all regions on Wikipedia, total sales for the DS more than doubled in the last half of 2006 alone. The DS Lite was released in North America and Europe in June, and Brain Age in April of that year). Even my parents bought DS's for those sorts of titles and they are not gamers. They also now have iPhones and the like instead, which they're already going to buy and own anyway without taking games into account. Casual gamers are what made the DS sell as well as it did, largely because now there was a handheld with a dirt simple control scheme that even my mom could use without freaking out, and simpler games aimed at that audience were released in abundance. The same thing happened with the Wii as well. The difference being that 5+ years ago there was nothing else for that market. But now a lot of them have smart phones anyway, so why pay more for a handheld when they already take that everywhere and the games are cheaper?


No, but they do care what games they get, and Nintendo make a large number of the games that many people feel are "must have" games. I don't see Nintendo selling the exclusive rights to Pokémon, Mario or Zelda.

Yeah, but again, that's people like us, not the casual market they tapped into almost by accident with the DS. There's a reason that despite selling around 80 million Wii's and 150 million DS's, games like Mario Galaxy and Zelda, while they sell well, don't sell any better than AAA games on other consoles with smaller user bases, and don't even come close to things like Wii Fit or Brain Age, and certainly don't compare to the uptake rate of things like Farmville and Angry Birds. The casual gaming market in general doesn't care about Nintendo's long standing fanchises. They want shorter, simpler games that they can play in short play sessions then put down. This is especially true of gaming on handheld devices. Something they can already get on their phone which is convenient since they already carry that all the time anyway, for less money, and without any real dip in quality.


Complex handheld games are not successful on phones yet. They will probably be later on, but I just don't see this happening before another generation flows through.

I never tried to claim otherwise. But again, that's a type of game that doesn't matter to a lot of the people who bought the Wii and the DS. I wouldn't be surprised if with this handheld generation we see Sony gain massive amounts of ground, or even overtake Nintendo entirely and not just because of a lackluster launch (in all honesty, as bad as the launch was, they've corrected most of the problems months ago, and with Nintendo's habit of releasing new versions of handhelds there's no reason to believe that one bad launch will keep them from recovering). I honestly think that casual gamers are not going to see as much value in a dedicated handheld anymore when they can get the game experience that they want on a phone. I also think you underestimate just how much this market may have driven DS sales. If they jump ship to the next new thing (and there's no reason to believe they won't), I don't think Nintendo will be as successful in the handheld market as last time.

[Yeargdribble]

The problem I'm seeing with the arguments against digital distribution and phone saturation comes down to basically one thing. Bolivar and BoB are both using the state of current hardware and infrastructure to show why these things won't be possible right now. I'm looking ahead and making predictions based on the direction some things are going.

Sure, phone games aren't as impressive right now and don't sell comparably to handhelds, but they've made significant progress in the last year or two and I see no reason that trend will end any time soon and as the gap closes, the market will be a lot more split to the detriment of handhelds. The strongest point you've probably got is in terms of exclusive titles. Nintendo's only trump card at the moment is Zelda and Mario games that are going to push me and a lot of other people to finally buckle and buy a 3DS. I do wonder if those characters are going to continue to have enough cachet in the future to be system sellers though. Like I said, I'm seeing more and more kids with DS and large libraries of tripe that don't include any Mario or Zelda titles... or really any of the titles you and I think of as deep, quality gaming experiences.

I'll admit my argument against the future of handhelds is quite speculative, but I feel that the argument for digital distribution is far stronger looking at current trends. We've already moved so much toward it. The hardware issues Bolivar mentioned seem irrelevant. Hell, I bought a 2 TB hard drive a few months back for less than $100. It's hard to buy even a cheap computer these days with less than a 1 TB HDD. Citing the 60 gigs of space on the earliest iterations of the PS3 is one of the most spurious arguments I've seen in this thread.

The stronger point is about broadband infrastructure. I certainly sympathize because I used to live in an area where dial-up was the only option... when HL2 came out. It made Steam a huge problem. I realize that even currently not everyone has access to fairly priced high speed internet, but as we get to a point where the majority do, there will be less catering to those who don't just like there was no catering to me back when HL2 came out and I didn't have an "always on" connection.

That brings me to Big D's complaints about Steam? Those problems sound outdated and rare.


Imagine if you've just bought a book from your local bookstore. Turns out it's a Steam bookstore, though, so all the pages are blank. Everytime you want to read the book, you have to phone the bookstore to activate it. If you get a bad line or they hang up on you, then tough luck - no book for you. You still get to have a big, blank tome taking up space on your bookshelf though.

If you have a decent internet connection, this is a non-issue. I've been using Steam almost daily for the last several years and never run into this sort of issue and I have the ability to play offline if I need it.


Also, unless you buy the book the moment it comes out, you won't get to read a single line until it's spent several hours updating. Especially if you've had the misfortune of buying Team Fortress II: The Novel.

You can sit in the comfort of your house waiting for it to download for an hour or you can drive around town a similar amount of time picking it up and coming home with it where you'll probably have to deal with some installation time.


Finally, you'll occasionally run into an error that prevents you opening the cover of your book. To solve this, you'll have to delete several pages, then replace them. This happened to me the last two times I played Portal 2. Thanks to various Steam-exclusive dicking around, it took about 30-40 minutes from first clicking the game icon to actually earning the privilege of playing the game I'd paid for.


In my years of using Steam, this hasn't happened to me once. The fact that you rarely use Steam and it happened to you sounds like bad luck. This isn't a very strong argument against Steam.



But it's far too prone to errors, and far too picky about when you're allowed to play your own games.

Simply not true. If this were generally true than Steam wouldn't be the popular platform it is. The gaming community at large doesn't have much patience for crappy services that give headaches. I think Steams longevity and dominance says a lot about how many people actually have these problems with any regularity.

[Slothy]

spent several hours updating

I only just now noticed this part of Big D's post while I was reading Yearg's response, and this is just blatant hyperbole. Sure, IF you went out and bought a game today which was released 3+ years ago and had been updated dozens of times with GB's of extra content including maps, weapons, new gameplay modes, engine updates, bug fixes, etc. then it might take a few hours to update even on a broadband connection. The point is somewhat moot as I already said because you can't play a multiplayer game without updating anyway and you could play a single player game offline until updating is more convenient (though I have to say, complaining about having to wait a few hours to enjoy the massive content updates that something like TF2 has enjoyed over the years seems a bit ridiculous to me. Sure it may delay your enjoyment for a bit, but you get a vastly expanded game for your trouble). But realistically, I've never waited more than a few minutes tops for a game to update. Even after weeks of not playing something or even opening Steam, or after a large 1GB+ update, I've never waited more than maybe 10 minutes to play something. And usually, I'll just sit down at my computer, start Steam, and let it do anything it has to do while I do my usual rounds at the websites I visit.

Like Yearg said, some of you are looking at these things like here are the problems with these things happening right now which will keep it from happening anytime soon, while he and I have been spending the whole time talking about what we feel is going to happen 10+ years down the road when many of these issues will have long since been addressed for the majority of the population.

Actually, I guess arguing that most people will have broadband in about 10 years could be a bit generous, but only because tele communications companies are dicks.

[Bolivar]

I think you guys are actually arguing this:


But the common flaw with all of your (except BoB!) arguments is that you seem to believe if one thing is selling well, none of its competitors can sell at all.

Because the only thing that will make digital distribution the exclusive means to purchase games is demand. It just doesn't matter how easy or profitable it is for developers. And I think the numbers show that the 100 million+ demographic of enthusiastic gamers vastly and inarguably prefer physical copies to digital distribution channels. It's not because that's the only option - there are a lot of digital channels to choose from nowadays, hell, even Microsoft and Sony now have considerable retail titles for download on the store.


Hell, I bought a 2 TB hard drive a few months back for less than $100. It's hard to buy even a cheap computer these days with less than a 1 TB HDD. Citing the 60 gigs of space on the earliest iterations of the PS3 is one of the most spurious arguments I've seen in this thread.

Do you mean an external hard drive? In any case, I think you missed my point: those 60 gigs went to not even a flash of a fragment of my PS3 collection. Keep in mind that I buy a lot of PS3 exclusives, and there's a growing circle of games that have filled up a double-layered Blu Ray (50GBs), and many more that have either filled up a single layer or enter double-layer territory. This is all compounded by the fact that games are getting bigger and bigger every year, and they'll be even larger next generation. If I had to choose between downloading the 50 Gigabytes of Metal Gear Solid 4 or buying the disc, I would buy the disc every time. And that gets back to your demand dilemma above.

Being that console gaming is many times more popular than PC gaming, I think it shows that in this medium, the playing field is not amenable as movies or music. When I'm having people over, we may want to play a couple races of Motorstorm, do some couch co-op of Killzone 3, go online with Call of Duty, or experiment a little bit in Little Big Planet. We simply can't do that if I have to decide which game to delete and then wait a few hours to download several, if not 20-30 GB. This is where Streaming comes back into the picture, but I think that's another topic.

Back to the original topic: I love Steam, and my PSP buying/gaming habits are very similar. So that's two of my favorite platforms where my content is exclusively digital. But digital just can't satisfy all of my gaming needs, and there's tens of millions of people who agree with me. We're not going to stop playing Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty, and Metal Gear simply because "Match the Cakes" is now $0.99 on the iOS App Store!

[Yeargdribble]

Do you mean an external hard drive?

No. Internal. My past couple of 2 TB HDDs have been internal and the price has been decreasing at a remarkable rate.



In any case, I think you missed my point: those 60 gigs went to not even a flash of a fragment of my PS3 collection. Keep in mind that I buy a lot of PS3 exclusives, and there's a growing circle of games that have filled up a double-layered Blu Ray (50GBs), and many more that have either filled up a single layer or enter double-layer territory. This is all compounded by the fact that games are getting bigger and bigger every year, and they'll be even larger next generation. If I had to choose between downloading the 50 Gigabytes of Metal Gear Solid 4 or buying the disc, I would buy the disc every time. And that gets back to your demand dilemma above.

You have a point about the content inflating alongside the media, but that really introduces another problem I wonder about in terms of how the hell the industry is going to be able to keep up without adjusting their pricing model.


Being that console gaming is many times more popular than PC gaming, I think it shows that in this medium, the playing field is not amenable as movies or music. When I'm having people over, we may want to play a couple races of Motorstorm, do some couch co-op of Killzone 3, go online with Call of Duty, or experiment a little bit in Little Big Planet. We simply can't do that if I have to decide which game to delete and then wait a few hours to download several, if not 20-30 GB. This is where Streaming comes back into the picture, but I think that's another topic.

While I think ONLive is going to flop in the long term, I do think cloud stuff is going to be incorporated to fix a lot of these problems. If more companies learn to manage their game data like Blizzard it will be even less of a problem. You can download the WoW trial and it can load in the background. It will start by installing things you MUST have and continue loading as you play giving priority to things that are important to the location you are in.

A combination of better internet, larger storage, cloud computing and that type of smart streaming tech will end up fixing a lot of these problems.


Back to the original topic: I love Steam, and my PSP buying/gaming habits are very similar. So that's two of my favorite platforms where my content is exclusively digital. But digital just can't satisfy all of my gaming needs, and there's tens of millions of people who agree with me. We're not going to stop playing Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty, and Metal Gear simply because "Match the Cakes" is now $0.99 on the iOS App Store!

I'm with you in every way except that I don't think Assassin's Creed and iOS games are mutually exclusive. But currently the streaming and digtal pickings aren't enough for me either.

[Bolivar]

No. Internal. My past couple of 2 TB HDDs have been internal and the price has been decreasing at a remarkable rate.

Damn... that's insane.


While I think ONLive is going to flop in the long term, I do think cloud stuff is going to be incorporated to fix a lot of these problems. If more companies learn to manage their game data like Blizzard it will be even less of a problem. You can download the WoW trial and it can load in the background. It will start by installing things you MUST have and continue loading as you play giving priority to things that are important to the location you are in.

You know, I actually did this when a friend of mine went back to WoW, he told me about the "up-to-level-20" demo, and I was actually pretty impressed with this (the game as well, I never got into WoW). I think maybe something like this along with an a la carte model could solve it. For example, you could choose which parts of the game (single player, co-op, multiplayer) to keep on the drive. I could see that helping the situation.


I'm with you in every way except that I don't think Assassin's Creed and iOS games are mutually exclusive. But currently the streaming and digtal pickings aren't enough for me either.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see. But with the way quality in gaming has gone this generation, I'm not so sure.

[Rostum]

I'm a collector, and I love collecting physical copies of games. But at the same time I also really love Steam, and I definitely think digital distribution is going to be playing a much, much larger role in the industry. Even with physical copies we are starting to see it, with things like DLC whereas in the past you would have had to go out and buy a physical expansion disc.

I honestly don't think a lot of gamers care too much about physical copies. Show me some real stats to prove me wrong, but with the popularity of Steam it seems the case. I see most users have around 200+ games in their Steam library. Probably a lot more, actually.

The reason I love Steam is I can get games I would never really buy physically since they have such awesome sales on all the time, and in general the prices are about half the price than at the store here. Hard drive space is no issue, since internal hard drives are incredibly cheap these days. Bandwidth isn't an issue, even in Australia's really expensive climate the Internet I have is incredible and doesn't cost much.

In the three years I've been using Steam I have not once had a single problem with logging on, downloading updates fast, or being able to play any of the games I have.

I'm definitely with Yeargdribble (http://forums.eyesonff.com/members/6885.html) on this one.

[Slothy]

Because the only thing that will make digital distribution the exclusive means to purchase games is demand. It just doesn't matter how easy or profitable it is for developers.

Demand is part of it, but I see no reason to believe that developers and publishers won't continue to develop the digital marketplace and try to convert as many people as they can. It's already working on PC and it is far better for them. And in the long run, the number of people who prefer a physical copy to a digital copy will only go down, not up.


And I think the numbers show that the 100 million+ demographic of enthusiastic gamers vastly and inarguably prefer physical copies to digital distribution channels. It's not because that's the only option - there are a lot of digital channels to choose from nowadays, hell, even Microsoft and Sony now have considerable retail titles for download on the store.

No, that doesn't show it at all really. You cannot argue that big AAA titles selling well at retail on release shows that retail is in higher demand than digital and always will be, particularly when these titles are not available via digital distribution. Yes, Sony and Microsoft sell games over XBL and the PSN. They're even selling full retail titles that way now too. Except every retail title released thus far on PSN that I've seen has been at least a year old, and well past it's prime in terms of sales. Everything else they sell on those are indie titles, or smaller titles from bigger developers and publishers, and none of them would ever compete directly with the AAA stuff in terms of sales, not to even mention the complete lack of storage space you already mentioned on these consoles. Add in the fact that when it comes to digital sales they're both years behind Steam and you're basically trying to compare the retail console market to a digital market that doesn't even really exist yet.

If you were to look at a much more relevant comparison you'd look at the rise of digital sales on the PC versus retail sales. And you can not tell me honestly that retail has anywhere near the demand lead on PC that it does on the PS3 where it has no real competition.

[Loony BoB]

I wasn't arguing that they are the end of the handheld market. What I am arguing though is that it is entirely possible we will see sales of dedicated handhelds start to fall now that they aren't the only game in town.
In that case, you were never arguing with me to begin with as I totally agree. :) My big long speel began due to the following...

A lot of people are getting the feeling that dedicated gaming handhelds are becoming a thing of the past. I personally don't expect to see another generation of them beyond 3DS and Vita (and their multiple iterations). If there is another generation it will almost certainly be digital only, but I think the phone market will kill gaming handhelds.
...which I disagreed with. =] But it's cool. We'll see how things go over the next ten years, I guess!

[Yeargdribble]

I honestly don't think a lot of gamers care too much about physical copies.

I get this feeling too. I don't buy my games used and I don't sell my games. Most people I run into seem to have constant flow in and out. A week after they buy it used they sell it to buy another used game. Either that or they used a Gamefly type service.



Damn... that's insane.

Yeah, as a guy who buys a lot of hard drives, I'm really impressed and amazed. There was a 3 TB for $100 on Black Friday. I figure as SSD becomes more common, the old spinny disc types are getting stupid cheap and that's fine by me because I use a lot of space.


@BoB

We'll see. I certainly admit I could be wrong. I even personally feel a bit hasty on that particular prediction, but at the same time don't feel like it's totally unreasonable as fast as things have been changing and given the lifecycle of handhelds.

If they don't go away in 5 years, they will certainly change into something significantly different (not simply a dedicated portable gaming device that only plays portable games made for it).

I'll be happy to eat lots of crow in half a decade when you dig up this thread and quote me to show me how silly I was. :)

[Slothy]

In that case, you were never arguing with me to begin with as I totally agree. :) My big long speel began due to the following...

I should probably clarify that a bit to be "I wasn't arguing that they are the end of the handheld market" right now. But as the technology develops and more of the market moves to phones for mobile gaming, I don't see it as a matter of them never being able to kill the dedicated gaming handheld, even if the dedicated handheld becomes a more game focused phone.

Frankly, it would take so little on the hardware end to make phones competitive with handhelds in the long run that the only thing that will decide what happens is how much the market for dedicated handhelds contracts due to the extra competition.

But if we look at it as a question of what I would like to see happen: I'd love more gaming oriented smart phones, and I'd love if such a concept replaced handhelds completely. I already own several handhelds and a smart phone, and I only take one of those everywhere. So I really do agree with Yearg that there's a strong possibility we'll see the market start shifting more and more in the smart phone and tablet direction over the coming years to the point that dedicated handhelds will become unnecessary.

[Bolivar]

If they don't go away in 5 years, they will certainly change into something significantly different (not simply a dedicated portable gaming device that only plays portable games made for it).

They've already made that change, though. The 3DS has Netflix streaming and probably a lot more to come in the future. The Vita is essentially a tablet. And the PSP has been a great MP3/video player, as well web browser and comic viewer for many years now.

Also, I just wanted to add that this guy (http://twitter.com/onebitbeyond) tweeted that "Steam is a much more closed platform than PSN. Yes, I was surprised too." Not putting it out there or using it to say anything, I just thought you guys might find it interesting :love:

Overall I think this discussion has read its course, good exchange, guys!