Hardware Aware
It seems hard to believe that we are already approaching the next generation, or the next, next generation of consoles. We are already hearing rumors about each respectable company’s new system; notoriously known as the Sony’s PS3, Microsoft’s Xbox 2, and some other interesting acronym/codename for Nintendo Gamecube’s successor. It is hard to believe that only four or five years ago we were still plugged into our Nintendo 64’s, Sony PlayStations, and Sega DreamCasts as we eagerly awaited the announcement for Nintendo’s newest console, the Dolphin, Sony’s PlayStation 2, and Microsoft’s new entry into the game industry, the Xbox.
Also, look at how the computing power has essentially doubled every 12 months since the Atari 2600 launched. These next systems are promising even MORE computing power than we already have, which doesn’t even seem possible given the current standards. I don’t have exact specifications available on hand, but I estimate that the processing power will be in the gigahertz range with gigabytes of RAM and über video cards.
My question to you is this: while we are seeing huge revolutionary jumps in hardware, can the same be said about the software we are playing and/or using? After all, hardware is meant to be a tool to sell software, isn’t it? Forego a loss on hardware, and software sales will certainly cover those losses plus provide profit for the company, in a similar fashion that HP is doing with their printers and ink cartridges.
I think that this business plan has been sorely overlooked by many companies who are attempting to cash in on the hardware while forgetting about the software which sells it. However, there are examples all around us which prove that this idea works. For example, the only software that is keeping the personal computer industry going is every newest release of Microsoft’s Windows family of operating systems. But when you compare Windows 95 with Windows XP, don’t both the O/S’s have the same basic look and feel to them? The software is once again evolutionary. However, when you compare Windows 3.1 to Windows 95, the change is revolutionary due to the multi-tasking nature of Windows 95 vs. Windows 3.1 which did not have any multi-tasking/multi-threading.
Let’s discuss how this situation parallels the gaming industry. I believe that in the course of the last ten years there have been only a handful of truly revolutionary game titles. Mario 64, Zelda 64, and GoldenEye 007 come to my head from the last generation of games. Looking at the current generation, I firmly believe that Halo stands out as the only true revolutionary title of this generation. Many other game studios have simply taken older games and have added/subtracted game play elements to further enhance the game, or have changed the game just enough so it is different. But is this considered to be revolutionary? Of course not. Surprisingly, the latest Nintendo games were even meant to be evolutionary, which is a far cry from what we’re use to seeing from Nintendo. Thinking about what Nintendo could do with the processing power that we have now, back in the N64 days, I almost wet myself. Now that the moment is here, it has for the most part been disappointing.
The main point of the article is this: as hardware evolves, software should not only exceed the hardware in terms of expectations, but should also be able to provide an entirely new way to think about games and to play games. The only game I have ever seen do this is Mario 64. Mario 64 bridged the gap between the 2-D world and the 3-D world. Now as we enter the next generation of consoles, all what we are basically seeing is the 3-D world evolving yet again, when this generation’s 3-D world hasn’t even evolved to its maximum potential. By 3-D world, I mean, what we are able to achieve by playing in three dimensions.
The most obvious reason I see for this sudden rush into the next generation is obviously money. Since gaming has become more main stream and has become more accepted by our society, companies are starting to market towards the general public, many of which equate good hardware with good software.
And once again, you and I, the consumer, get screwed. Even if I am perfectly content with my GameCube, BlockBuster will slowly be moving Gamecube rentals off the shelves, companies will slowly halt production of Gamecube games, and you’ll have to buy a new system just to play a game that the Gamecube was perfectly capable of running. This of course applies to Microsoft and Sony too, perhaps more so because they are identified better with the consumer.
Of course, I could also be wrong. Maybe on the horizon we’ll see games that truly begin to re-define gaming. Maybe publishers can begin to utilize the power at their fingertips to put the processing power where it really belongs - to make the game better - and not into some marketing gimmick that makes the game sound better than actually improving it. And maybe, just maybe, we can begin to see truly revolutionary titles start to crop up from the world’s best development houses, because if one man can spawn an entire industry with a simple idea called Pong, I don’t see why fifty people with budgets in the millions can’t do likewise and create truly revolutionary games.