If the Sony wants to retake the throne with the PS3, they have to stop pretending it's a PC. The interface is already obtuse enough as it is without opening the floodgates to developers requiring large installations in addition to the disc.
If this was optional or if it was a way to run the games off the console without getting up and putting in the disc, it'd be a great idea. But requiring it (and responding that it's necessary to reduce load times) is bullshit and sounds like a hardware design flaw to me - maybe you shouldn't be jumping up and down pointing at Microsoft's Red Ring of Death fiasco if your own gonna-last-you-10-years console can't even load data in a reasonable time frame.
If this was optional or if it was a way to run the games off the console without getting up and putting in the disc, it'd be a great idea. But requiring it (and responding that it's necessary to reduce load times) is bullshit and sounds like a hardware design flaw to me - maybe you shouldn't be jumping up and down pointing at Microsoft's Red Ring of Death fiasco if your own gonna-last-you-10-years console can't even load data in a reasonable time frame.
5 comments:
Requiring is pretty silly...but why isn't it always an option by now?
It's just as weird to require you to play off a disc when you have a damn hard drive.
I mean, I know I'm going to play Rock Band damn near constantly for the next year, as other games come and go. Would be nice to have that taking up some of my 100 free gigs, and not have to fuck around with changing discs all the time.
Same reason as always: they want to prevent piracy. If it was fire-and-forget installation, what's to stop people from just installing and then passing the disc around to all their friends?
PC gaming has been like that forever - you have a bunch of installation discs and usually need to keep at least one of them in the drive while playing. Unless you crack it.
One of the reasons that consoles are usually more appealing to publishers is that they're supposed to be much harder to pirate games on, requiring a mod chip or some hardware modification that's beyond the ken of the average Joe.
I can't really fault them for not wanting to make theft as easy as possible, but they're going to have to come up with some kind of solution for the future as digital distribution gets more and more important. They're experimenting with Xbox Live Arcade and the Playstation Store downloads now, but it'll be interesting to see how that translates to "real" games (full retail size instead of small downloads).
I think at this point we can get to the position where Discs have unique identifiers or even *SHUDDER* CD keys that are tied to your PSN account. Yes, we are getting in PC gaming territory - but look at how subscription based services like Steam handle it.
I like Warhawk's dual SKU format, but I am worried about the fact that retailers will not like this whole digital distribution model.
Also, You should really check out AudioSurf - it's a great music game that lets you use your own tracks and track stats online, it's pretty neat.
Well, retailers are going to have to figure out how to deal with it, 'cause it's comin' one way or another. Once the Microsoft gets past their ridiculous 56 MB requirement for downloadable games, a lot of doors are going to be opened.
Retailers might as well get behind the idea now instead of getting streamrolled by it later. Learn from the mistakes of the music industry, don't repeat them.
And speaking of music, feel free to pontificate about this AudioSurf. Is it just a PC version of Phase or something?
I think you're best served to get audiosurf info from the horse's mouth:
http://www.audio-surf.com/
And for digital downloads - I just like the idea of accessibility that's being offered to indie publishers. Also, Microsoft hit it out of the park with the XNA initiative - it's just too bad these developers are stuck to a 56 meg limit (I guess it's a good thing for indie developers, as it helps them optimize their software better).
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