The One Console Future

Our good friend David Jaffe was recently heard to opine that he wants a one-console future. He's not alone - Denis Dyack wants this too. This is basically developers wanting to not have to code for multiple platforms.

On the surface of it (and I appreciate this simplifies the argument somewhat) this means that we get better games (developers can focus more on content rather than platform) at the cost of innovation (with only one hardware license holder with skin in the game, they're less likely to challenge established norms; Nintendo wouldn't have ever made the Wii if they hadn't tanked so badly with the GameCube).

My problem with all of this is that I think the one console future is actually here, and it's a wolf in sheep's clothing: it's the venerable PC. This is the utopian platform that you want, where there's innovation by the score (motion trackers, physics cards, high end graphics processing, commoditised yet high performing central processing, multiple displays, 7.1 sound, all the inputs and outputs you could want) and all you need to do is write for it. Even the cost of the platform is dropping significantly: you can get a PC for USD$199 that plays world of Warcraft.

Alas, alack, there might be some problems, especially problems from the perspective of developers like Denis and David.
1. There's no platform holder - no standard.
2. Piracy's a cunt.

Well: I don't think those problems really exist to quite the same level as common thought would have you believe. Let's discuss these two, shall we?

First: there's no platform holder. Wait a minute - sure there is. Every time you buy a new rig, you're dropping dimes into the cavernous coffers of the Evil Empire themselves. Microsoft definitely own the PC platform, despite what Linux and Apple pundits would say - apart from a small splinter of resistance fighters, that war's over. What's more important is that Microsoft are acting like a platform holder, with their Games for Windows initiative. You get quality assurance, compatibility, easier installs, online play, the works.

From a consumer's point of view, the benefits are clear - the PC is trying to be more like a console, making it easier to use the platform to play games. Not sure if the game will work? Just check the back of the box vs. your Windows Experience Index, and viola - your answer is there. Not sure if your machine's compatible? Well, if it's running Windows Vista, you're good to go.

The story's even better for developers - they get a known yardstick to aim at. Code for Windows APIs, go through a certification process similar to PS3 or X360, and viola - your game gets stamped with a Games for Windows logo, and it's like you've just dropped it into the console bin from a consumer point of view.

Second: piracy is definitely a real challenge. It's a challenge because everyone wants to get paid. If I just dropped 20 million złotys onto The Witcher, I want to see some return on that; I don't want piracy carving a hole in my back pocket. I think that's a fair stance - even criminals want to get paid for their work, and game developers (despite with Jack Thomson would say) are definitely not criminals.

However, there are ways that you can get around this particular challenge without raping your customers silly. We've all seen the problems when excellent games like BioShock come pre-crippled with anti-piracy features that piss off legitimate paying customers, and don't do the job; BioShock was available fully as a Torrent download before it hit retail here in New Zealand. That's some jizz in your eye isn't it? You managed to piss off people who paid you for your hard work, and didn't deter people who were going to steal it anyway. Nice one.

Things have got to change.

Some people have already started that change, in the world of online gaming. You don't need to make an MMORPG to get online authentication; you can still have a game that plays local to a PC, but needs to connect to servers to get game state updates and so on. Low bandwidth services like this could be cost effective and eliminate piracy completely; you can't play the game without the bit of the engine that talks to the client.

Taking it one step further, you can make your game fully online, but instanced, offloading the traffic to your customers; your service become a matching system and "town hall" and nothing more. Think of things like Battle.Net, Guild Wars, and Hellgate - those are variants of this kind of idea, where some sort of online connection is needed but you can play effectively irrespective of the quality of your network connection.

Naturally, if people don't have an Internet connection, they're sort of screwed. But then, if people don't have an Xbox 360, they can't play Halo 3 - I don't see there being a formative difference here; there's just two different kids of have/have-nots being described.

There's other options too, with people like valve stepping in with their Steampowered initiative; Steam does online activation with cryptography and all kinds of monkey magic, and allows you to take your games to any PC with an Internet connection to install and play. It's not perfect - there's still pirated versions of Steampowered games on Torrent sites - but the model is decidedly better than what happened to Crysis and Unreal Tournament 3, where pirated versions of the product outnumbered legitimate copies 5 to 1.

In many ways, piracy for some people is a convenience thing - if it's faster to get it via Torrent than to pay, they'll do that. Cutting down on zero-day warez is probably a very important facet of piracy protection, and a robust PKI-based system helps with that. If people can't get the latest games all their friends are talking about by downloading, they might just pay for them, or not play them at all; either way, they're not stealing them. There's not a lot of empirical evidence to support this, but I do know that overwhelimingly my friends with iTunes and the ability to buy songs at a dollar a hit have stopped Torrenting music. There's got to be something in that.

Naturally, I do appreciate that game developers don't want to risk their 20 million złotys on human nature; so back to the online systems, where people get to authenticate themselves as a legitimate user. And the authentication systems are already there with GFW Live - tie yourself into that system and Microsoft have the infrastructure already for managing accounts. You just need to provide the game servers and how the magic works at the back end.

Where to from here?

Problems still remain. I'm not blind to the fact that because there's so much innovation and disparate hardware, getting a useful gaming experience across the installed base of PCs is tricky. Does your customer have a ATi Mobility card, or an nVidia 8800GTX Ultra? Sure, the Windows Experience Index helps here, but it doesn't make your product accessable to all people; they just know if it's going to work based on their own configuration. In many ways, this isn't unusual for console development either; you want to make a game that works on a Wii, you code for a Wii. You know the hardware of a 360, or a PS3, is constrained in some way - there's some features that you just can't pack in the box because the hardware won't do it. This wouldn't change with a one-console future; whatever that console was, it would have some kind of limitation. The Windows Experience Index allows developers to choose their own point of constraint.

The problem is that the very strength of the platform - flexibility, price advantage or innovation, whatever - doesn't lend itself to being constrained. The best thing you're going to hit is some kind of compatibility index, and we've got that. So, it's not a console with known parameters, but it is a model that can work (you can pick your parameters to aim for).

I do think that the platform is changing for the better; Games for Windows is relatively new, as is Windows Vista and its DirectX 10 lovechild. But these technologies are positive, not negative, and have the chance to remake the face of PC gaming in a significant way. It gives developers their one-console future, especially if over half of America has a PC anyway.

Let's stop hoping for some sort of Utopia where someone like Sony or Microsoft makes a licensable "one console" and embrace the Utopia we've got already, hm? You don't need to invent the future when it's already here.