Sony pretends to bring back backward compatibility

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Report: Sony turning to Gaikai for backward compatibility -Destructoid

I like cloud computing and all, but I'm not keen on the idea of cloud gaming as it gives the publisher too much control, no accountability and bandwidth speeds really just aren't there and reliable enough yet. Sony doesn't want to let you have your PS2 games on your terms, they just want to make money off you again somehow.

What's worse is I could see this undercutting and hurting studios making Vita ports of PS2 games or HD collections for consoles. Sony will not dare let PS3 games on that service until PS4 is out, either, you can bet on that.

I want gaming to be accessible, but not at the cost of an online tether and a subscription fee.

[Yygdrasil]

Re: Sony pretends to bring back backward compatibility

I have a feeling I'm going to be dusting off my PS2 soon.

... but what to do with that FFXI HDD? Doorstop... or tire chalk?

[Ketaru]

Re: Sony pretends to bring back backward compatibility

I have a feeling I'm going to be dusting off my PS2 soon.

I never put mine away. Was the original PS3 really so expensive because of the backward compatibility? That's the explanation I was given.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Sony pretends to bring back backward compatibility

No, its not expensive because of the BC. The early models emulated by hardware, but there was a version that did the emulation via software to cut costs - this is before the first price drop and bigger HDD model that came out in 2008 and the significant price drop that came later in 2009.

Sony has always had the means to do it, they just don't want to do it. They want people to clutter up their entertainment space with Sony products, not be convenient and consolidate technology into new devices. Progress in technology tends to have convergence and consolidation in new products. Its what makes the smartphone so spiffy and even someone has backward as NIntendo gets that and will make last gen games compatible with a current gen system.

Nintendo dropped BC for Wii like five years after release. That I can understand. New console on the way, some costs needing to be cut and anyone that really wanted BC would have had a Wii in the first few years. Sony dropped the compatibility and did little to address the PS3's still-unattractive price point back then. SOE babbled some nonsense about PS3 having "enough" games and it being "too costly" to keep compatibility.

But back between 2006 and 2009, people were honestly still just content with a PS2. I know I was. It wasn't until early 2009 that games for me stopped happening.

[Malacite]

Re: Sony pretends to bring back backward compatibility

I have a feeling I'm going to be dusting off my PS2 soon.

... but what to do with that FFXI HDD? Doorstop... or tire chalk?

Impossible to Gauge bonfire

[Aeni]

Re: Sony pretends to bring back backward compatibility

Whether you like it or not, everything is moving to the cloud. Microsoft, Apple ... heck, even open source looks like they want to move to the cloud. It removes overhead costs and the burden of hardware maintenance. Of course, all of this depends on the kind of internet infrastructure and the reliability questions it poses, but there's nothing anyone can do to stop it. Most of the Fortune 500 companies have already or are in the process of shedding their IT departments for this solution and the trend is only going to continue.

---------- Post added at 08:52 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:50 AM ----------

I have a feeling I'm going to be dusting off my PS2 soon.

... but what to do with that FFXI HDD? Doorstop... or tire chalk?

My PS2 unit is on the fritz but the HDD is still working just fine. I have a JP slim PS2 as well but due to region locking, it's pretty useless for all but a couple of games in my library.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Sony pretends to bring back backward compatibility

Aeni shows up to defend bullshit and misses the point. Color me shocked.

Cloud computing is fine for things that need the internet. Not all games need an internet connection. Diablo III (i.e. bullshit you defend) does not need internet for single player, it is enforced to protect the interests of Blizztardvision. It has not made the game more convenient for players, but a hassle. Progress is eliminating hassle.

And I don't know if you know this, but we're about to it a cap on wireless bandwidth within two years. That means cloud is going to have huge problems. Especially for something like this.

Spectrum Crunch | Extra Credits

Short version: Bandwidth cannot be infinitely subdivided. There's a limit. Thus, forcing internet connectivity on games is incredibly stupid for games that don't need it (not to mention it creates problems for the user fo the sake of protecting the publisher). Games are the largest bandwidth hog of them all. If this is not resolved you're going to see a ton of businesses backing out of this practice, but then, they shouldn't be applying it to everything to start with.

[Firewind]

Re: Sony pretends to bring back backward compatibility

Aeni shows up to defend bullshit and misses the point. Color me shocked.

He does that all the time. I've finally realised it's best to just ignore him.

Cloud computing is fine for things that need the internet. Not all games need an internet connection. Diablo III (i.e. bullshit you defend) does not need internet for single player, it is enforced to protect the interests of Blizztardvision. It has not made the game more convenient for players, but a hassle. Progress is eliminating hassle.

And I don't know if you know this, but we're about to it a cap on wireless bandwidth within two years. That means cloud is going to have huge problems. Especially for something like this.

Spectrum Crunch | Extra Credits

Short version: Bandwidth cannot be infinitely subdivided. There's a limit. Thus, forcing internet connectivity on games is incredibly stupid for games that don't need it (not to mention it creates problems for the user fo the sake of protecting the publisher). Games are the largest bandwidth hog of them all. If this is not resolved you're going to see a ton of businesses backing out of this practice, but then, they shouldn't be applying it to everything to start with.

The problem with Cloud Gaming is a conflict of interest. As we have known for years, what is in the publisher's best interest is not in the consumer's best interest. There are very few countries that have the infrastructure to support it as well. Sweden, Germany, France and South Korea, maybe Japan are the only countries that can even support anything like cloud gaming to the scale in which people are talking about. The majority of other countries are at least 10-15 years behind having the sort of infrastructure in place to support cloud gaming.

If you look at Steam and XBox Live you can see elements of cloud gaming that can be supported by the average consumer: small files stored in the cloud as a backup. The problem is is that the type of gamer that actually likes that is also the type of gamer into the habit of externally backing up save games anyway so the entire thing just seems entirely redundant at this moment in time. Maybe in 15+ years when the majority of areas with a good gaming market has the infrastructure in place to support something as huge as Cloud Gaming it would be worth revisiting this topic but for now, people investing in it would probably be better off investing elsewhere. The current market for full Cloud Gaming is so tiny it's just not even worth considering until at least 10-15 years from now.

Even partial Cloud Gaming is causing issues as Blizzard have proven. Everyone remember the Starcraft 2 launch? It was impossible to play a Singleplayer skirmish for a full 6 weks after launch to check out the maps for multiplayer because the servers that supported "Singleplayer Games" were always down. Compare to say Dawn of War 2 or Company of Heroes, Relic pulled off Partial Cloud Gaming perfectly there in that you only need a continuous internet connection if you have a Human player slot open for Camapign and Singleplayer Skirmishes. If you lost your connection it just meant that your saves didn't get uploaded to the server until you reconnected and saved again. Diablo 3 is also proving that the market is far from ready for cloud gaming as even Blizzard's own servers can't support the bandwidth required for such a massive feat.

EA are also proving that requiring a continuous connection to remain in a game is a bad thing. Dragon Age Origins and Dragon Age 2 are notorious for locking players out of the game entirely because EA's servers are down and you have DLC installed. So basically according to EA you can play a game offline but you can't save it or load a save if you paid them even more money for DLC that is already on the disc because your account is inactive or you lost your connection to the server because of a serverside issue. I love ME1 and 2 and DAO and DA2 but the fact that I'm completely locked out of both games because I can't log into my Bioware account due to it being tied to my Warhammer Online account which I had cancelled over 18 months ago...You can probably see where this is leading...I know that as I play SWTOR...I can't really criticise EA without sounding hypocritical abut seriously. Four entire games I not only paid for but also bought full sets of DLC for are completely unplayable because I bought DLC for them and my account is classed as inactive.

If this is the future of gaming I think I may join the rabid nostalgia fanboys and start wearing nostalgia goggles that are welded to my eyes...

[cidbahamut]

Re: Sony pretends to bring back backward compatibility

If this is the future of gaming I think I may join the rabid nostalgia fanboys and start wearing nostalgia goggles that are welded to my eyes...

I know some folks who'll give you good rates on the welding. Just let me know when you're ready to make the jump.

[Firewind]

Re: Sony pretends to bring back backward compatibility

I'd actually weigh in more on the issues with cloud gaming but to be honest, the video that Omgwtfbbqkitten linked us to pretty much covers the issues presented by the technology and while it mostly only really applies to the US for now, it would become a pretty major issue for other territories as well.

The switch from analogue to digital TV broadcasting in the UK has alleviated some of the bandwidth issues over here, we are also running into problems with that issue because Radio is still a massive thing over here, as is Satellite TV, which is the norm in the UK and most of Europe to boot rather than Cable TV. Add in the fact that Europe is basically the biggest mobile phone and Tablet PC market in the world (though China is probably bigger but it's hard to tell just how big the market is due to a variety of data collection issues and the fact that a lot of mobile phones in China are fake reproductions of the actual phones), and it's going to become a problem over here as well.

While a couple of countries in Europe do have the infrastructure in place to theoretically support cloud gaming, the problem on Omgwtfbbqkitten's video may well make that infrastructure redundant if we don't have the available bandwidth.

[Icemage]

Re: Sony pretends to bring back backward compatibility

I didn't like the concept of cloud-based gaming when OnLive was first announced, I didn't like it when OnLive officially launched, and this half-measure from Sony/Gaikai isn't any better. With the state of the average North American internet connection (plus the metered internet connections elsewhere in the world), this is not a workable solution in the long term.


Icemage

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Sony pretends to bring back backward compatibility

At this point Sony just needs to get PSOne Classics fixed for Vita - seriously the five month a science of eShop was less ridiculous than an online store that doesn't sell well over half of what it should be able to play now. At least 3DS had proper BC so the issue of eShop was bearable.

Now Wii U is coming with Wii BC and a proper network. I still worry about them drip feeding content in that shop, but I'll take a drip feed of GameCube titles and originals over what is essentially "online DRMed classics."

Oh well, I was rebuilding my PS2 library on the old PS2 anyway. If Sony can't consolidate technology in a practical way for consumers I see no benefit in waiting on them. I just hope this doesn't hurt rereleases from smaller developers where Vita is concerned.

[Aeni]

Re: Sony pretends to bring back backward compatibility

Aeni shows up to defend bullshit and misses the point. Color me shocked.

Cloud computing is fine for things that need the internet. Not all games need an internet connection. Diablo III (i.e. bullshit you defend) does not need internet for single player, it is enforced to protect the interests of Blizztardvision. It has not made the game more convenient for players, but a hassle. Progress is eliminating hassle.

That's your opinion and quite frankly the opinion of a non-influential decision and policy maker. Also one that is flagrantly narcissistic. How's that bubble you live in, btw?

Let me break it down to you since you just don't seem to get it. Everything is going to the net and that's not something you can decide. Refridgerators don't need to be on the internet. Yet it does. Games like Angry Bird don't need to be and yet it does. There are reasons why people develop these applications in this fashion and far more than your capable of thinking. But, hey, you don't get paid the $ to think about these things so I can forgive you.

And I don't know if you know this, but we're about to it a cap on wireless bandwidth within two years. That means cloud is going to have huge problems. Especially for something like this.

Uh ... no. You're listening to the scare tactics of the ISP industry. Maybe you missed out on the news that Verizon is rolling out near 100mbps service on their FIOS networks. Maybe you missed the news that internet providers in South Korea said that it was near achievable to roll out 1gbps network in a few years. The roadblock to bandwidth is merely political and economical. Maybe if you asked AT&T why they still haven't expanded their existing 4G network rather than try to swallow another company to do that you could get a more accurate picture of what is going on.

[cidbahamut]

Re: Sony pretends to bring back backward compatibility

Hey guys, dummy terminals and mainframe systems are totally the wave of the future. It's a brilliant technological innovation! It's a new forward-thinking paradigm and some other buzzwords.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Sony pretends to bring back backward compatibility

I've waited four years for Fios in my area. I temped at and handled the very cable for Fios. Its still not available here, SO IT IS NOT A VIABLE OPTION.

My choices remain AT&T, TWC, EarthLink and Clearwire. TWC died capping, so I left them. That leaves me with the other three. Internet with AT&T and phone with Verizon just seems weird, I'd never be able to seamleesly break one contract to sync with another. That leaves me with slow EarthLink and spotty Clearwire. The only way to make my option worse would be for Comcast to expand to my area.

It is not viable for me, a downloadable app for PS3 that adds proper BC would be more practical and is possible. People would pay a one time fee for such an app.

Tl;dr: Icemage, Cidbahamut and I all agree on something. That should be a sign this isn't a good idea.