It looks like I may have one crucial detail of the Google Stadia package completely wrong.
Like many people, I was thinking that Stadia was basically "Netflix for Games," but if the team at Techlinked are correct, then Stadia may closer kin to XBox Game Pass, with a monthly fee that only gives access to a few free games, with major AAA titles being something you'll need to purchase separately in order to secure access outside of that free period.
This means that the US$1090 over 8 years cost of Stadia that I had calculated as being comparable to the average 8-year cost of console ownership is wrong. The Stadia actually costs US$1690 ($1090 for the service, plus $600 for the games), which amortizes over 8 years to US$211.25 per year, compared to the US$112.50 annual cost of console ownership over the same period. With the added disadvantage, for Stadia, that you own nothing at the end of those 8 years, compared to the console experience which leaves you with a console and 10 games that you own.
Much of Stadia's marketing is still deliberately vague, so clarification
on these details could still emerge and magically make the whole thing
suddenly awesome, but I doubt it. If this is indeed how Stadia will work, then Stadia... sucks. Even the free version won't actually be a new gaming paradigm; it'll just be a new digital distribution channel. Which nobody wanted. Mazel tov!
Showing posts with label 4K. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 4K. Show all posts
June 06, 2019
January 13, 2019
So.... I guess that was CES?
Does anyone else find it weird that 2019's big Consumer Electronics Show wasted the entire week without showcasing anything for actual consumers?
I mean, sure, we got LG's rollup OLED TV, which looks sexy but costs US$8000, and which will need to be replaced in two years' time because of OLED's severe screen burn-in issues. Who can afford to spend $8K every two years on a roll-up gimmick TV? Who is this for?
We also got a plethora of 8K TVs, at a time when even 4K TVs aren't really a thing yet. I mean, it's great that the likes of LG are making 4K sets that are comparable in price to 1080p sets; if you're needing to replace your TV, and don't need a refresh rate higher than 60 Hz for any reason, then you can certainly go 4K because it won't cost extra so why not? But you still don't need a 4K TV for which there's almost no content available, and you definitely don't need an expensive 8K set for which there's even less content on the menu. 8K is nothing but costly, boasting high price points while delivering zero value to the consumer... which was basically the prevailing trend of CES2019.
Oh, yes, and then there's 5G... which, again, boasts a premium price while being completely useless to consumers since there are no 5G networks. And, no, AT&T's 5G E nonsense is not a 5G network, and does not count. Which brings us to CES2019's other prevailing trend, which was straight-up lies told to consumers about expensive products which are being marketed at them, without being in any way designed for them.
Worse yet, the one big discussion about technology that consumers actually care about was never mentioned by any of the big exhibitors.
I mean, sure, we got LG's rollup OLED TV, which looks sexy but costs US$8000, and which will need to be replaced in two years' time because of OLED's severe screen burn-in issues. Who can afford to spend $8K every two years on a roll-up gimmick TV? Who is this for?
We also got a plethora of 8K TVs, at a time when even 4K TVs aren't really a thing yet. I mean, it's great that the likes of LG are making 4K sets that are comparable in price to 1080p sets; if you're needing to replace your TV, and don't need a refresh rate higher than 60 Hz for any reason, then you can certainly go 4K because it won't cost extra so why not? But you still don't need a 4K TV for which there's almost no content available, and you definitely don't need an expensive 8K set for which there's even less content on the menu. 8K is nothing but costly, boasting high price points while delivering zero value to the consumer... which was basically the prevailing trend of CES2019.
Oh, yes, and then there's 5G... which, again, boasts a premium price while being completely useless to consumers since there are no 5G networks. And, no, AT&T's 5G E nonsense is not a 5G network, and does not count. Which brings us to CES2019's other prevailing trend, which was straight-up lies told to consumers about expensive products which are being marketed at them, without being in any way designed for them.
Worse yet, the one big discussion about technology that consumers actually care about was never mentioned by any of the big exhibitors.
August 30, 2018
With 4K displays having failed (so far) to displace 1080p, Samsung has now revealed their 8K displays
I love c|net's headline for this story: "Hello, 8K displays: TV's next must-have feature isn't really a must-have."
The article that accompanies that bit of pith is almost as pithy:
The article that accompanies that bit of pith is almost as pithy:
That's because those supposedly hot TV features eventually faded away.
The latest TV "must have" that you actually don't really need -- at least right now -- has arrived at the IFA electronics show in Berlin. That's 8K, the super-crisp display technology that has four times the resolution of 4K screens. (I know, the math confuses me too.)
[...]
It's the latest "next big feature" from an industry that has hyped advancements with dubious value. It may be a long time -- if ever -- before you'll even consider one. Experts say you'll have to sit really close to the screen, even with huge 85-inch TVs like the Samsung, to notice a difference in the sharpness, and there isn't even content you can watch on it. Also, you can bet these initial TVs won't be cheap. As CNET TV expert David Katzmaier noted in his initial thoughts about Samsung's new TV, "all those pixels might be so much overkill."[One might say exactly the same thing about 4K, too, but I digress.]
But people tend to hold on to their TVs much longer than their phones. The push to get 8K into the market -- when 4K is just starting to become a thing -- underscores the industry's desire to give consumers a reason to upgrade and pay more for a premium product.I'm going to disagree with c|net on one point: 4K hasn't started to become a thing, yet, either. You don't need 4K, for which there's basically no content available, and you definitely don't need 8K, for which there's nothing.
March 18, 2018
"Drawerware"
With VR's two-year anniversary coming up quickly, I've been seeing a lot of videos and articles in the last week analyzing the current state of the industry, and questioning whether VR has, really, any future at all. This article from TechCrunch is a good example:
As you might have guessed from the title of this post, I was positively tickled by the "drawerware" terminology, credit for which goes to Wired:
If you feel like there's a common theme for these articles, you're entirely correct. It seems that an industry which was entirely convinced, just a year ago, that the single biggest obstacle to mass adoption of VR was its price point, are now realizing that dropping price points haven't really helped, and started moving in the direction of the real problem: the simple fact that VR really isn't useful.
November 29, 2017
4K already obsolete as HDMI 2.1 brings 10K support.
I piss on your 4K. Talk to me when you have a 10K display to sell. Which is also won't need and won't buy, naturally, but whatevs.
From engadget:
Confused yet? Don't worry, engadget have this handy chart to help you figure it all out:
See? Simple as cake.
Sarcasm aside, this really serves to reinforce why I don't think 4K is going to become a thing. Not only is there no 4K broadcast standard yet, and no legislative push happening (a la HDTV) to mandate one, but 4K itself has already evolved itself right into obsolescence before most consumers even knew it existed. Seriously, will you still shell out $1400 for a 4K monitor, knowing that any 4K display that you look at today will be missing all the features that you'll absolutely want five minutes from now? Unless you're a hardcore early-adopter, the answer is probably, "No."
And all that assumes that you were interested in 4K in the first place, which most consumers aren't, but... well, I've covered that already, haven't I?
No, I stand by my earlier assessment: 4K is not, and will not become, a thing. Ever. Save your money.
From engadget:
Back in January, the HDMI Forum unveiled its new specifications for the HDMI connector, called HDMI 2.1. Now, that HDMI specification is available to all vendors who have already adopted HDMI 2.0. It's backwards compatible with all previous HDMI specifications.
The focus of HDMI 2.1 is on higher video bandwidth; it supports 48 Gbps with a new backwards-compatible ultra high speed HDMI cable. It also supports faster refresh rates for high video resolution -- 60 Hz for 8K and 120 Hz for 4K. The standard also supports Dynamic HDR and resolutions up to 10K for commercial and specialty use.
This new version of the HDMI specification also introduces an enhanced refresh rate that gamers will appreciate. VRR, or Variable Refresh Rate, reduces, or in some cases eliminates, lag for smoother gameplay, while Quick Frame Transport (QFT) reduces latency. Quick Media Switching, or QMS, reduces the amount of blank-screen wait time while switching media. HDMI 2.1 also includes Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM), which automatically sets the ideal latency for the smoothest viewing experience.You know how it's already something of a pain in the butt to figure out whether the 4K display you're looking at actually support all the bells and whistles that make 4K "worthwhile," like HDR? Well, actually, if you're reading this then you probably don't, but the 4K label is something of a mess right now, with multiple competing 4K flavours, most of which aren't worth wasting time or money on. Well, you can add VRR, QFT, QMS, and ALLM to your shopping list of "must have" UHD-HDR-4K features.
Confused yet? Don't worry, engadget have this handy chart to help you figure it all out:
See? Simple as cake.
Sarcasm aside, this really serves to reinforce why I don't think 4K is going to become a thing. Not only is there no 4K broadcast standard yet, and no legislative push happening (a la HDTV) to mandate one, but 4K itself has already evolved itself right into obsolescence before most consumers even knew it existed. Seriously, will you still shell out $1400 for a 4K monitor, knowing that any 4K display that you look at today will be missing all the features that you'll absolutely want five minutes from now? Unless you're a hardcore early-adopter, the answer is probably, "No."
And all that assumes that you were interested in 4K in the first place, which most consumers aren't, but... well, I've covered that already, haven't I?
No, I stand by my earlier assessment: 4K is not, and will not become, a thing. Ever. Save your money.
November 19, 2017
Prognostication
December is coming... and with it, what is (traditionally) a slow time for news.
In a normal year, everything that will be announced this year has been announced by now; results for this quarter won't be known until January, so there are no meaningful numbers to analyze; and everyone in the news business is only weeks away from the annual crop of year-end top story roundup articles, which normally hit just before everyone goes on holiday for a couple of weeks.
As such, I wouldn't normally be expecting to have too many new developments to blog about for the rest of the year. Of course, 2017 hasn't been a normal year, and it's always possible that the fast-evolving gacha/loot box story will continue to have legs, but I'm guessing that now's a pretty safe time to make a few predictions before taking a bit of a break myself.
So... prediction time! At least regarding the topics that this blog has mostly been about for the last couple of years.
Having languished all year long, VR will continue to sell poorly this XMas season. Thanks to HTC's just-announced Vive Focus, the Microsoft-backed Mixed Reality headsets have managed to be obsolete before properly hitting the market, and the original Vive, Oculus Rift, and PlayStation VR are all basically dinosaurs now... and it's not like consumers were all that interested in them before. Sales of VR should continue at this same poor level, with no new major announcements or releases until the new year at the earliest. [UPDATE: June 17th, 2018: RIGHT!] E3 has just happened, with nothing of note being announced for VR, in either hardware or software. Oculus Go's release has had no measurable effect, either.
Prediction: No developments for at least three months, if then. VR will continue to not be a thing.
New deployments won't be happening at any brisk pace to start the new year, either, as companies come to realize that keeping pace with Microsoft's overly-aggressive update schedule is simply too difficult and too costly - the Windows-as-a-Service model has some serious problems that Microsoft badly need to solve. January is also not normally a big season for major system changes; many companies have synced their fiscal calendars to the taxation year, which means that the end of the year is also the end of their fiscal year, so January is normally spent on year-end book-keeping -- again, not normally a good time for a disruptive, company-wide new OS rollout.
Individual users won't be migrating to Windows 10 en masse, either. PC sales have been declining steadily for years, so I don't expect to see a wave of XMas PC purchases this year, and users with older PCs have made it very clear that they have no intention of switching unless and until they absolutely have to.
Add one and one and one, and you get no major shifts in the OS market until next February, at the earliest... which mean no big change in NetMarketShare et al's reported statistics until the first of March. Any changes that happen will be marginal, and Windows 10 won't overtake Windows 7 until next year, no matter how badly tech media bloggers want it to happen. The real test will be the period from next March to next November; if Windows 10 is going to take off, it will have to be then, when big companies with fresh budgets can do deployments with the least amount of disruption. If it doesn't happen then, it won't happen until closer to Windows 7's end-of-life in 2020.
Prediction: No big developments for at least three months here, either. [UPDATE: June 17th, 2018: RIGHT!] Or, mostly right, anyway. Microsoft parted ways with the former head of their Windows and Devices division, and broke that division up across the company, which means that they've abandoned their Windows-focused strategy entirely. The fact that this was necessary says all that needs to be said about the strategy itself; even Microsoft finally gave up hoping that it would start producing results. That OS market is still not shifting significantly, with Microsoft themselves no longer expecting that to change, confirms my prediction.
I read that as Nintendo not having nearly enough units in stores to sell this season, which is a problem since the period from Black Friday to Boxing Day is when most retailers (in NA, anyway) post up to 50% of their year's sales (October to December can be up to 70% for some retailers). Failing to have enough units in stores at this time of year is a huge misstep, one which Nintendo will not recover from until well after the post-holiday hangover -- consumers normally don't spend much in January or February, with sales not picking up again until March.
Nintendo, of course, were bullishly predicting that they'd hit 15 million units sold by March, but there are a lot of assumptions that seem to underlie that prediction, including the pace of sales remaining more or less constant in spite of supply problems at a critical point in the year, and the traditional early-year sales slowdown. Nintendo are also assuming that every Nintendo household will be buying multiple Switches, something which seems like an unrealistic expectation.
Of course, the Nintendo Switch could become a full-blown craze, just like the original Wii did, but events like that are incredibly rare, and most companies only ever get one of them. The Wii became a craze because it appealed to people who'd never gamed before, in the same way that the PS2 became the best-selling console of all time by also being the cheapest DVD player on the market when it launched; there's no evidence yet that the Switch appeals to anyone except early adopters, longtime Nintendo fans, and core gamers who spend a lot of time travelling and who are willing to buy their favourite games a second time in order to have a version to take with them.
The Switch boasts only two games with real system-selling potential, and both of them are aimed at long-time Nintendo fans who were always going to buy the Switch, anyway; if you're not a long-time Zelda or Mario fan, the platform doesn't have much to offer except the opportunity to spend more than retail (because cartridges, for fuck's sake) buying games for a 2nd time that you either already own, or can buy more cheaply on Steam without incurring several hundred dollars of additional expense. And since Nintendo's gaming handhelds have declined in popularity every year since 2009, largely replaced by the smartphone for most users... well, suffice to say that I think a full-blown craze is unlikely.
The Switch will almost certainly outsell the WiiU, but that's a low bar to clear, frankly. If the Switch is still selling 2 million units a month after it passes the 20 million mark, I'll concede that it's remarkable launch has strong enough legs to keep running; until then, I will continue to regard Nintendo's plans to double production, and then double it again, to be just so much PR bullshit -- statements aimed more at their shareholders than anything else. The Switch is probably here to stay for a while, and will certainly avoid the ignominious fate that claimed the WiiU, but it won't be equalling, let alone surpassing, the PS4's market share anytime soon. And they won't be launching in China, either, no matter how badly analysts want it to happen.
And so, naturally, they decided to spend the year coasting, instead.
Sony coasted while Nintendo announced, and launched, the Nintendo Switch, a handheld/console hybrid that outsold all other consoles combined last month, at least in the U.S., in spite of persistent supply issues; apparently still stinging from the failure of PS Vita, Sony have no plans to contest the handheld gaming space with an updated machine of their own. Sony coasted while Microsoft announced one consumer-friendly initiative after another, from Play Anywhere to backwards compatibility to cross-play, something on which Sony are still dragging their feet; they kept coasting while Microsoft debuted the XBox One X, the "most powerful gaming console ever made," which can actually outpower and outperform the PS4 Pro -- thus giving Microsoft the hardware performance edge, for the first time this console generation.
With all this coasting, one might be forgiven for thinking that the people in charge of Sony's PlayStation division had basically stopped caring... mainly because that was pretty much what had happened. Even though I'd never heard his name before this year, I wasn't at all surprised to learn that Andrew House, the head of Sony's PlayStation department, was retiring; the whole of Sony's past year felt like the work of someone playing out the string until they could finally retire and spend the rest of their time bass fishing. Sony's gaming division lost a lot of momentum in 2017.
Whether they can regain that momentum in 2018 in anyone's guess. Sony's new PlayStation head, John Kodera, plans to take Sony's gaming efforts into the cloud, a strategy which aligns well with general trends in the videogame industry, while also being something that the Nintendo Switch's damn-it-all cartridges and tiny onboard storage seem poorly positioned to do. Whether they also decide to update the PS Vita with a new, cloud-powered version remains to be seen, but it's almost certain that the PS4 will get another hardware upgrade, the name of which will also be stupid. Sony is still the dominant player in console gaming, with the PlayStation 4 sitting at 64.9 million sold worldwide (compared to the XBox One's 31.25 million, and Nintendo Switch's 7.02 million), and will continue to occupy the #1 spot for a while, but they'll need to work harder to stay on top.
Microsoft, meanwhile, will continue trying to make XBox Live relevant to PC gamers who mostly game on Steam, while pushing 4K gaming to consumers who mostly doesn't own or want 4K televisions. The XBox One X (or XBO-X) will sell well, because it's new and in stock during the XMas shopping season, but it's really only appealing to people that already own 4K TVs and are also already invested in the XBL ecosystem, which may not be as many people as Microsoft thinks it is. With Play Anywhere equalling the end of actual exclusive XBox One games (anything released for XBox is also released for Windows by default), the only remaining move is for Microsoft to (a) ramp up in-house game development, to try to make the XBL/Microsoft Store look like a more inviting place to buy games, and (b) push the development of Mixed Reality gaming. The first will yield no results at all next year, since games take years to develop, and the second will yield no results at all, period, because VR (see above).
Predictions: Sony will try harder, now that they have a PlayStation head who isn't retiring, although exactly what a Cloud-based PS4 will look like, or how Sony chose to react to the challenge from Nintendo, if at all, remain to be seen. [UPDATE: December 8th, 2017: RIGHT!] PSN/Steam crossplay is a possibility here, especially in light of Valve's recently-announced trust-based CS:GO matchmaking system -- House was against crossplay, but Kodera might change course. For their part, Microsoft simply didn't get the XBO-X to market in time; it will sell well enough this holiday season, but not well enough for them to gain ground on Sony, and Nintendo's Switch will outsell their XBOX throughout the coming year. They'll still end 2018 as the #2 console, but not by much.
Which goes to show the value of prognostications: more often than not, they're wrong. They're still fun, though, and worth writing down -- after all, a prediction that you can later deny having made is kind of cowardly. I'll still check in from time to time, and blog about anything that does catch my eye, including the normal OS market share check-ins on December 1st and January 1st, but that should be about it for the year. No best-of, worst-of, or top-story roundup lists here!
Unless of course, something of interest does happen. And with a year like the one we've been having, it honestly wouldn't fucking surprise me.
In a normal year, everything that will be announced this year has been announced by now; results for this quarter won't be known until January, so there are no meaningful numbers to analyze; and everyone in the news business is only weeks away from the annual crop of year-end top story roundup articles, which normally hit just before everyone goes on holiday for a couple of weeks.
As such, I wouldn't normally be expecting to have too many new developments to blog about for the rest of the year. Of course, 2017 hasn't been a normal year, and it's always possible that the fast-evolving gacha/loot box story will continue to have legs, but I'm guessing that now's a pretty safe time to make a few predictions before taking a bit of a break myself.
So... prediction time! At least regarding the topics that this blog has mostly been about for the last couple of years.
VR:
Let's start with a nice, quick one.Having languished all year long, VR will continue to sell poorly this XMas season. Thanks to HTC's just-announced Vive Focus, the Microsoft-backed Mixed Reality headsets have managed to be obsolete before properly hitting the market, and the original Vive, Oculus Rift, and PlayStation VR are all basically dinosaurs now... and it's not like consumers were all that interested in them before. Sales of VR should continue at this same poor level, with no new major announcements or releases until the new year at the earliest. [UPDATE: June 17th, 2018: RIGHT!] E3 has just happened, with nothing of note being announced for VR, in either hardware or software. Oculus Go's release has had no measurable effect, either.
Prediction: No developments for at least three months, if then. VR will continue to not be a thing.
Windows 10:
November and December are a high-volume time of year for most businesses, when disruptive system-wide OS rollouts are generally considered to be a bad idea; many companies don't even allow new system launches after the end of October (my employer deployed a new order-tracking and -fulfillment system on October 30th, and are coming to rather regret that decision). Basically, this means no new Windows 10 deployments for the rest of the calendar year, and this no Enterprise-driven shift away from Windows 7/Server 2008.New deployments won't be happening at any brisk pace to start the new year, either, as companies come to realize that keeping pace with Microsoft's overly-aggressive update schedule is simply too difficult and too costly - the Windows-as-a-Service model has some serious problems that Microsoft badly need to solve. January is also not normally a big season for major system changes; many companies have synced their fiscal calendars to the taxation year, which means that the end of the year is also the end of their fiscal year, so January is normally spent on year-end book-keeping -- again, not normally a good time for a disruptive, company-wide new OS rollout.
Individual users won't be migrating to Windows 10 en masse, either. PC sales have been declining steadily for years, so I don't expect to see a wave of XMas PC purchases this year, and users with older PCs have made it very clear that they have no intention of switching unless and until they absolutely have to.
Add one and one and one, and you get no major shifts in the OS market until next February, at the earliest... which mean no big change in NetMarketShare et al's reported statistics until the first of March. Any changes that happen will be marginal, and Windows 10 won't overtake Windows 7 until next year, no matter how badly tech media bloggers want it to happen. The real test will be the period from next March to next November; if Windows 10 is going to take off, it will have to be then, when big companies with fresh budgets can do deployments with the least amount of disruption. If it doesn't happen then, it won't happen until closer to Windows 7's end-of-life in 2020.
Prediction: No big developments for at least three months here, either. [UPDATE: June 17th, 2018: RIGHT!] Or, mostly right, anyway. Microsoft parted ways with the former head of their Windows and Devices division, and broke that division up across the company, which means that they've abandoned their Windows-focused strategy entirely. The fact that this was necessary says all that needs to be said about the strategy itself; even Microsoft finally gave up hoping that it would start producing results. That OS market is still not shifting significantly, with Microsoft themselves no longer expecting that to change, confirms my prediction.
Nintendo Switch:
There's no doubt that Nintendo's having their best year in a long time, but the Switch's first year hasn't been without its problems... chief among them, of course, being the production issues which prevented Nintendo from meeting any of their production milestones, as far as anyone can tell. In a recent presentation to shareholders, Nintendo's CEO answered questions about whether Nintendo would have enough units in stores for the upcoming XMas season by talking about the quarter after that... never a good sign.I read that as Nintendo not having nearly enough units in stores to sell this season, which is a problem since the period from Black Friday to Boxing Day is when most retailers (in NA, anyway) post up to 50% of their year's sales (October to December can be up to 70% for some retailers). Failing to have enough units in stores at this time of year is a huge misstep, one which Nintendo will not recover from until well after the post-holiday hangover -- consumers normally don't spend much in January or February, with sales not picking up again until March.
Nintendo, of course, were bullishly predicting that they'd hit 15 million units sold by March, but there are a lot of assumptions that seem to underlie that prediction, including the pace of sales remaining more or less constant in spite of supply problems at a critical point in the year, and the traditional early-year sales slowdown. Nintendo are also assuming that every Nintendo household will be buying multiple Switches, something which seems like an unrealistic expectation.
Of course, the Nintendo Switch could become a full-blown craze, just like the original Wii did, but events like that are incredibly rare, and most companies only ever get one of them. The Wii became a craze because it appealed to people who'd never gamed before, in the same way that the PS2 became the best-selling console of all time by also being the cheapest DVD player on the market when it launched; there's no evidence yet that the Switch appeals to anyone except early adopters, longtime Nintendo fans, and core gamers who spend a lot of time travelling and who are willing to buy their favourite games a second time in order to have a version to take with them.
The Switch boasts only two games with real system-selling potential, and both of them are aimed at long-time Nintendo fans who were always going to buy the Switch, anyway; if you're not a long-time Zelda or Mario fan, the platform doesn't have much to offer except the opportunity to spend more than retail (because cartridges, for fuck's sake) buying games for a 2nd time that you either already own, or can buy more cheaply on Steam without incurring several hundred dollars of additional expense. And since Nintendo's gaming handhelds have declined in popularity every year since 2009, largely replaced by the smartphone for most users... well, suffice to say that I think a full-blown craze is unlikely.
The Switch will almost certainly outsell the WiiU, but that's a low bar to clear, frankly. If the Switch is still selling 2 million units a month after it passes the 20 million mark, I'll concede that it's remarkable launch has strong enough legs to keep running; until then, I will continue to regard Nintendo's plans to double production, and then double it again, to be just so much PR bullshit -- statements aimed more at their shareholders than anything else. The Switch is probably here to stay for a while, and will certainly avoid the ignominious fate that claimed the WiiU, but it won't be equalling, let alone surpassing, the PS4's market share anytime soon. And they won't be launching in China, either, no matter how badly analysts want it to happen.
Prediction: The Switch may move another million or so units over the holidays, but it won't hit the 10 million mark by the end of December, and will fall well short of Nintendo's 15-million-by-March target. [UPDATE: December 12th, 2017: WRONG!]
PlayStation & XBox (or, XBO-X):
Sony began 2017 with a commanding position in the console gaming market. Although Steam was still dominant on PC, and had more than twice as many installed users as PS4, Sony still had 53.4 million PS4 users worldwide, and was projecting 18 million more over the course of the year; they had the best-selling non-smartphone VR headset on the market; they had pushed their updated PS4 Pro console out a full year ahead of Microsoft's Scorpio; and they had successfully crushed Nintendo's WiiU, which had launched poorly, sold worse, and finally gone out of production. Sony were winning; all they had to do, to keep winning, was keep their collective foot on the gas.And so, naturally, they decided to spend the year coasting, instead.
Sony coasted while Nintendo announced, and launched, the Nintendo Switch, a handheld/console hybrid that outsold all other consoles combined last month, at least in the U.S., in spite of persistent supply issues; apparently still stinging from the failure of PS Vita, Sony have no plans to contest the handheld gaming space with an updated machine of their own. Sony coasted while Microsoft announced one consumer-friendly initiative after another, from Play Anywhere to backwards compatibility to cross-play, something on which Sony are still dragging their feet; they kept coasting while Microsoft debuted the XBox One X, the "most powerful gaming console ever made," which can actually outpower and outperform the PS4 Pro -- thus giving Microsoft the hardware performance edge, for the first time this console generation.
With all this coasting, one might be forgiven for thinking that the people in charge of Sony's PlayStation division had basically stopped caring... mainly because that was pretty much what had happened. Even though I'd never heard his name before this year, I wasn't at all surprised to learn that Andrew House, the head of Sony's PlayStation department, was retiring; the whole of Sony's past year felt like the work of someone playing out the string until they could finally retire and spend the rest of their time bass fishing. Sony's gaming division lost a lot of momentum in 2017.
Whether they can regain that momentum in 2018 in anyone's guess. Sony's new PlayStation head, John Kodera, plans to take Sony's gaming efforts into the cloud, a strategy which aligns well with general trends in the videogame industry, while also being something that the Nintendo Switch's damn-it-all cartridges and tiny onboard storage seem poorly positioned to do. Whether they also decide to update the PS Vita with a new, cloud-powered version remains to be seen, but it's almost certain that the PS4 will get another hardware upgrade, the name of which will also be stupid. Sony is still the dominant player in console gaming, with the PlayStation 4 sitting at 64.9 million sold worldwide (compared to the XBox One's 31.25 million, and Nintendo Switch's 7.02 million), and will continue to occupy the #1 spot for a while, but they'll need to work harder to stay on top.
Microsoft, meanwhile, will continue trying to make XBox Live relevant to PC gamers who mostly game on Steam, while pushing 4K gaming to consumers who mostly doesn't own or want 4K televisions. The XBox One X (or XBO-X) will sell well, because it's new and in stock during the XMas shopping season, but it's really only appealing to people that already own 4K TVs and are also already invested in the XBL ecosystem, which may not be as many people as Microsoft thinks it is. With Play Anywhere equalling the end of actual exclusive XBox One games (anything released for XBox is also released for Windows by default), the only remaining move is for Microsoft to (a) ramp up in-house game development, to try to make the XBL/Microsoft Store look like a more inviting place to buy games, and (b) push the development of Mixed Reality gaming. The first will yield no results at all next year, since games take years to develop, and the second will yield no results at all, period, because VR (see above).
Predictions: Sony will try harder, now that they have a PlayStation head who isn't retiring, although exactly what a Cloud-based PS4 will look like, or how Sony chose to react to the challenge from Nintendo, if at all, remain to be seen. [UPDATE: December 8th, 2017: RIGHT!] PSN/Steam crossplay is a possibility here, especially in light of Valve's recently-announced trust-based CS:GO matchmaking system -- House was against crossplay, but Kodera might change course. For their part, Microsoft simply didn't get the XBO-X to market in time; it will sell well enough this holiday season, but not well enough for them to gain ground on Sony, and Nintendo's Switch will outsell their XBOX throughout the coming year. They'll still end 2018 as the #2 console, but not by much.
Somewhat unexpected:
Wow. If you'd told at the start of this year that I'd end it having more to say about the Nintendo Switch than about Windows 10, I'd have said you were crazy, but here we are. I guess Nintendo's comeback console is just much more interesting than anything Microsoft is doing, these days.Which goes to show the value of prognostications: more often than not, they're wrong. They're still fun, though, and worth writing down -- after all, a prediction that you can later deny having made is kind of cowardly. I'll still check in from time to time, and blog about anything that does catch my eye, including the normal OS market share check-ins on December 1st and January 1st, but that should be about it for the year. No best-of, worst-of, or top-story roundup lists here!
Unless of course, something of interest does happen. And with a year like the one we've been having, it honestly wouldn't fucking surprise me.
November 07, 2017
4K's other problem...
Leaving aside, for the moment, that people mostly do not have or need 4K displays, and probably won't anytime soon since there isn't (and won't be) a 4K TV broadcast standard, it turns out that 4K has another significant problem, and this one may well be even more serious. In this age of Netflix binging and videogame downloading, it's looking like the sheer size of 4K content files may be its Achilles' heel.
From VentureBeat:
Yes, data caps! Everybody has one, and 4K content will burn through your data cap so quickly that 4K may just not be worth the trouble, even if you have a 4K display. Which, statistically speaking, you probably don't... and won't.
Did I mention that 4K gaming really isn't a thing, yet? The new XBox One X is not going to change that, either; much like 3D TVs and monitors, and the VR technology which is withering on the vine as we watch, 4K is doomed to eventual irrelevancy. Seriously, save your bandwidth, and your money.
From VentureBeat:
The Remedy Entertainment sci-fi adventure Quantum Break is 178.1 GB on the Xbox One X. If, like me, you have a 1TB data cap with your internet service provider, downloading that one game will consume more than one-sixth of your total for the month. With games at these sizes, consumers now have to consider both the cost of the game and the effect it will have on their limited internet service. That should worry Microsoft, Sony, Netflix, and any other company that trades in data-intensive entertainment.Pretty Good Gaming posted a pretty good video on the subject, too:
Yes, data caps! Everybody has one, and 4K content will burn through your data cap so quickly that 4K may just not be worth the trouble, even if you have a 4K display. Which, statistically speaking, you probably don't... and won't.
Did I mention that 4K gaming really isn't a thing, yet? The new XBox One X is not going to change that, either; much like 3D TVs and monitors, and the VR technology which is withering on the vine as we watch, 4K is doomed to eventual irrelevancy. Seriously, save your bandwidth, and your money.
January 08, 2017
This is what the end of Moore's Law looks like, part 2
When this year's devices just aren't that much more powerful than last year's devices, or the year's before that, or the year's before that... well, there's just less incentive to replace them, isn't there? That's what we're now seeing in sales figures of devices across the board, and according to some analysts, it's not likely to change much, anytime soon.
From Computerworld:
From Computerworld:
According to Gartner, which provided Computerworld with its latest device shipment forecast broken out by operating system, in 2016 Windows powered about 260 million devices of the 2.3 billion shipped during the year. Windows accounted for approximately 11.2% of the total devices, which overwhelmingly ran Google's Android.
Meanwhile, iOS and macOS -- the latter was formerly dubbed OS X -- sank to 248 million devices in 2016, a 10% drop from the year prior. The cause: Slackened sales of the iPhone, Apple's dominant device and biggest money maker.
[...]
Gartner's forecast was another gloomy report on almost every device category, with shipments flat this year compared to last and growth not projected until 2018.
"The global devices market is stagnating," said Gartner analyst Ranjit Atwal in a statement Wednesday. Mobile phone shipments are growing only in emerging markets in the Asia and Pacific markets, Atwal added, and noted that, "The PC market is just reaching the bottom of its decline."
The PC industry's troubles have affected Microsoft most of all; Windows is almost entirely dependent on PC shipments, which have been stuck in a protracted slump. Future shipments were further hit when Microsoft walked away from the smartphone business last year.
[...]
PCs will not disappear -- something some pundits fretted about as the sales and shipment downturn extended past earlier records -- but the business has been hard hit: In 2012, for instance, more than 350 million PC-like devices shipped globally.
Gartner is still betting that a PC replacement cycle will boost shipments, even if only slightly. But this week's forecast -- unlike the one in October -- predicted a delayed growth. In October, Gartner had said the PC business would claw its way back into the black in 2017; this month's prognosis is that growth won't occur until 2018.Now, predictions like this should always be taken with a few grains of salt, and the fact that this prediction amounts to, "not this year, but maybe next year," along with predicting that iOS + MacOS sales numbers will recover and surpass Windows' (but without going into details as to why that should happen, now that consumers have apparently soured on Apple's product line) are both problems. Gartner's also pegged the Enterprise shift to Windows 10, and thus new devices, to 2018... again, without explaining why the trend should start then, and not closer to 2020, when cost-conscious companies can continue to operate just fine for another couple of years using the hardware and software that they've already paid for.
The shift of market share from traditional leaders like Apple and Microsoft to Google and Android is somewhat interesting. The fact that Apple is aggressively dumping features that people use all the time (like standard USB ports and headphone jacks) from their devices is probably not helping the Cupertino crowd, and Microsoft's attempt to push their customers into the cloud may actually be helping Android. Google, after all, has lived in the cloud for a long time, and unlike Microsoft can continue to provide those cloud-based computing services for free (supported by ads, natch, but then Google's always been ad-supported).
Overall, though, we appear to be seeing a continuation of trends that have been evident in device sales numbers for a while now. Apart from PC gamers, early adopters, and other enthusiasts, it seems that everyone is pretty happy with the performance of the devices they already own, only replacing those devices as they wear out... and mostly replacing them with cheaper Android devices, rather than more expensive iOS/MacOS or Windows products. None of the new hardware's "features" are things people really want or need, nor are they particularly impressive as technological achievements in and of themselves. Moore's Law alone simply can't drive the high-tech hardware industry anymore.
Which leaves us with the real question: Now that Moore's Law isn't the driving force behind the hardware business, what happens to the the computer makers and consumer electronics companies who have, for decades, been relying on that rapid pace of development to drive sales? Everything we're seeing, from 3D and 4K TVs, to VR and the Internet of Things, fairly screams of the creeping desperation that these companies must be starting to feel as ongoing decline turns into an inevitable plateau.
3D TVs did not become a thing, and while 4K TVs might be out-selling older-model HD TVs lately, they're still not selling nearly as well as HD TVs used to; absent another legislative push from the U.S. Congress, it doesn't look like market forces alone will make 4K into the new standard for TV broadcasts, either. VR still lacks a value proposition which would make it appealing to consumers, as does the Internet of Things -- it's easy to see how companies flogging the hardware would benefit from its widespread adoption, but there's very little advantage on display for the average consumer. And, if this year's tepid coverage of CES's offerings is any kind of guide, it would seem that hype alone isn't enough anymore to sell consumers expensive new tech hardware that they don't actually need, and which isn't actually outperforming the hardware that they already own.
December 17, 2016
Native 4K gaming is not actually a thing
It turns out that Sony and Microsoft have been lying to us. Surprise!
From Pretty Good Gaming:
The Country Caller also has coverage of this story:
From Pretty Good Gaming:
The Country Caller also has coverage of this story:
4K and HDR are the two buzzwords that have been circulating in the tech world and now, in the gaming world as well. The launch of Xbox One and PlayStation 4 Pro brought those two technologies in to the console space.
Showing the difference introduced by the two standards can be difficult, and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) acknowledges as such. In a recent podcast with Major Nelson (via SegmentNext), Xbox’s Albert Penello talked about the two standards and how it is challenging to market them simply because showcasing them requires the right display technologies.
[...]
4K presents four times as many pixels as 1080p, but to actually perceive a clear difference, one must own a 4K display first to see all those pixels sharpen up the image as we go from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. High-Dynamic Range (or HDR) is probably even more difficult to showcase, just because the displays until now have been SDR in comparison. HDR improves the range of colors that the TV can produce. For example, if you get 10 shades of gray with a standard TV, you get 50 shades of gray (no pun intended) with an HDR display. You simply get colors that are true to life. The luminosity of the screen can allow dark scenes to show more depth and hidden details, and bright scenes can be brighter.
This is the underlying problem; you cannot show the difference when the tech required to demo isn’t available at the consumer’s end. “You have to fudge things a little bit to show the differences,” said Albert Penello. TV manufacturers have been marketing 4K HDR TVs by ramping up colors and making scenes more pop in comparison shots.
So, basically, they're using bullshots to sell 4K gaming. And why not? They've been using bullshots for years to sell all of their games, so why not their game systems?
4K gaming is not going to be a thing. I mean, it's not actually even available, except on PC, and since PC gamers don't seem to be in any rush to buy $1400 monitors, that means that 4K isn't going to become a widespread phenomenon the way HD did. That's because HD adoption was driven by legislative fiat in the U.S., when every broadcaster in the land was required by law to switch from analog broadcasts to HD broadcasts.
Makers of HD televisions reaped an enormous windfall in when everybody replaced their old, analog TV with an HD TV, but that wasn't a natural result of market forces; everybody in NA did not just wake up and want HD television sets. Everybody in NA, faced with the need for an HD TV if they wanted to keep watching television, bit the bullet and bought one, mostly with borrowed money.
4K does not have an equivalent legislative force pushing it, which means that consumers, almost all of whom have recently bought HD televisions, have no need for 4K, especially since there's almost no native 4K content to display on them. HD TVs are good enough for now, which means that only early adopters, the very wealthy, and those whose HD TVs are needing replacement, are in the market for 4K at all.
That's not a recipe for mainstream adoption, and without mainstream adoption, you've got a chicken-and-egg situation again: a small 4K customer base means that it doesn't make sense to make 4K content for them, especially given all the added costs involved; and a lack of 4K content means that there's no real desire on the part of consumers to buy expensive 4K displays.
This is a problem for consumer electronics companies, who need for revenues to go up year after year, and who can't sell huge volumes of HD equipment anymore because everybody has it already. Their solution to this problem is, apparently, lies. I wish I could say that I was surprised, but I'm not surprised.
This is a problem for consumer electronics companies, who need for revenues to go up year after year, and who can't sell huge volumes of HD equipment anymore because everybody has it already. Their solution to this problem is, apparently, lies. I wish I could say that I was surprised, but I'm not surprised.
You don't need a 4K display for gaming. You don't need to buy a new console to drive the 4K gaming experience, especially since those consoles aren't rendering in native 4K anyway. Nobody needs any of this shit, in exactly the same way that we didn't need 3D displays a couple of years back, and don't need VR displays now.
The result, in all three cases? A passionate but very niche market for specialized content which requires the specialized hardware, followed by declining interest, and eventual irrelevancy. It's already happened to 3D displays, of course; it's happening to VR right now, and I predict that it will happen to 4K, too.
The result, in all three cases? A passionate but very niche market for specialized content which requires the specialized hardware, followed by declining interest, and eventual irrelevancy. It's already happened to 3D displays, of course; it's happening to VR right now, and I predict that it will happen to 4K, too.
November 07, 2016
The case for VR may be even weaker than it first appeared
From lifehacker AU:
I think we all thought racing games would be perfect in virtual-reality (AKA VR). We almost took that for granted. Actually, anything that involved sitting seemed perfect for VR.
Sitting in a mech, shooting people. Perfect for VR.
Sitting in a spaceship, shooting other spaceships. Perfect for VR.
Sitting in a racecar, racing other racecars. Perfect for VR.
It makes sense. There’s perceived issues with virtual reality as a concept. We’re all agreed that, while VR has made spectacular leaps and bounds over the last couple of years, there are still problems to be solved.
Prime among them: player movement.
How does one run in VR? How does one jump? How do we climb and how do we shoot? So many of the classic video game verbs don’t really work in VR.
Driving though. We can handle that one, right? Yes. Probably.
But a strange sensation. I’m currently playing Gran Turismo Sport. I’m playing using the PlayStation VR headset. Literally five minutes ago I was playing Gran Turismo Sport like a relatively normal person: a normal person who somehow has a PlayStation 4 Pro and a really great 4K television.
I’m still trying to work out which one I prefer.Remember when I said that VR wasn't going to revolutionize gaming? This is why I said that. Even in a seated experience, playing a game which literally sits you in a cockpit and asks you to interact with nothing but your vehicle's controls, VR isn't better. It might be as good, but it isn't better. And at $600 a throw, it needs to be better than the alternative, not just different.
Hell, considering how many things don't really work in VR, even at $300 a throw, VR needs to blow users away when doing at least those few things that it does relatively well. But it doesn't. I've tried VR, and I can say this from experience. VR is different, it's even interesting, but it didn't blow me away. It's worth trying, but it isn't worth buying, and won't be for a long time yet.
Not that 4K displays are about to be a thing, either. For most people, 1080p will work just fine for everything, gaming included, so don't go thinking that you need a pricey 4K screen to play PS4 games. You don't. But you don't need PSVR, either, which is a problem since PSVR was the headset that VR advocates were counting on to convince the masses to join the VR revolution.
Microsoft's upcoming $300 PCVR headsets will lower the price bar for entry, it looks like they'll be locked to Windows 10 (thus limiting adoption to a maximum of 22.5% of PC users), and no more useful than any other VR headset, I wouldn't bank on them changing the game significantly, either. There are just too many problems with VR, and not enough to be gained from buying in.
Mark Serrels' lifehacker article (well worth a read, BTW, so go give it some clicks) describes this situation as, "Weird." I'd call it not to much weird, as inevitable. The only remaining question is, how long does it take the rest of the world's tech bloggers to catch up to reality?
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