The “Break it Down” Blog

Back when the PS3 and Xbox 360 were first announced, we aren’t ashamed to say that we were avid fans of the PS3 platform… much more so than the self-aborting Xbox 360. It was a much higher build quality, the technical achievement of the Cell Processor was ridiculously complex and therefore impressive, it played Blu-ray disks… the list went on and on.

The unfortunate reality, 2 years later, is that my Xbox 360 sees 80% of my game time on it because the multiplayer/online experience is just so much better — that’s a software problem, not a hardware problem. Unfortunately Sony likes to move at the pace of an elephant, and instead of matching parity with Microsoft immediately with friend-connectivity functionality and at least keeping the argument of “Which one is better” going, in true Japanese fashion, they decided to focus on hardcore functionality instead.

Right now, the Xbox 360 is a better gaming experience. Sony has promised us a 10-year product cycle with the PS3 however, and with some of the more recent PS3 platform and 3rd party engine enhancements, it looks like the platform is finally starting to come into it’s own.

While PS3 still cannot rival Microsoft’s crafted gaming experience on the PS3, they are getting closer… but that’s not the interesting part.

When you sit and think about what it would take for Sony to “win” in the long-run, you have to think about what the new hotness is in gaming, more specifically two things:

• Motion control
• 3D (???)

Nintendo did pioneer motion control and got it into everyone’s minds and homes, but it wasn’t the “1:1″ experience we thought it would be, nor is the new Wii MotionPlus.

Sony has already shown us that they’ve been working on visual motion control, again promising 1:1 motion-mapping experience… maybe we’ll get it this time?

In addition to that, NVIDIA has quietly been promoting their 3D Vision product, to deliver a true 3D gaming experience to PC gamers that have:

• GeForce 8-series or higher
• Display capable of 120hz or higher

If you recall, the NVIDIA RSX graphics chip inside the PS3 actually provided the launch base for the 8-series of PC graphics cards. And as far as 120hz displays, they are all over the place when it comes to televisions (but not necessarily PC monitors).

… do you see the trend forming here? Let’s recap:

1. Sony’s R&D to Product cycle moves at a glacial pace, but it moves.
2. Sony launched the PS3 as an unnecessarily complex/functionally advanced technology platform.
3. Motion-controls and 3D are becoming the new hotness in gaming, discussed at all the gaming conventions for the last year.
4. Sony showed off some R&D progress they’ve made with visual motion-control last year.
5. Sony has a 3D-enabled graphics processor already shipping inside the original PS3
6. Most television sets sold in the last year (and possibly longer) provide support for 120hz, the base requirement for successful 3D rendering.
7. FUTURE: In 2011 Sony releases motion control for the PS3
8. FUTURE: In 2012 Sony releases 3D glasses for the PS3, providing a comprehensively detailed “experience” in your living room.
9. FUTURE: 2013 Sony hints at the PS4, which will ship with all these features out of the box.
10. FUTURE: 2014 Sony demos off advanced tech for the upcoming PS4
11. FUTURE: 2015 Sony announces the PS4 for Christmas of 2015, it includes 1080p 3D rendering, full 1:1 body-motion control (no more need for devices)

The bread crumb trail is there and it all seems to point at this. I have no idea what Microsoft and Nintendo will do in response. I wouldn’t expect main-stream 3D from Nintendo until 2018 or later (that sounds like a long time, but Nintendo won’t do anything that is ‘cutting edge’, they make too much money re-selling us their last-gen game systems).

Microsoft will absolutely fight Sony tooth and nail down this path, but given Microsoft’s history with human-computer interaction, I’m going to guess their motion-mapping is going to have problems for years.

Deciding Factor: It’s cheaper for content developers to leverage their existing technology stacks, engines, frameworks and previous game assets for a long-standing platform than it is to develop new technology for a new platform. We saw this with Windows XP for 100 years and again with Nintendo Wii.

Giving game developers 10 years to develop an expertise and asset library around a platform and then letting them continue to leverage that for better and better selling titles is going to be huge. I fully expect Microsoft to introduce a new revision to the Xbox family in 2012 that will cause moaning and groaning from game companies that have to re-evaluate their tool stock and see what works and what doesn’t — starting from scratch in some regards.

It’s interesting to think about… in a few years, the PS3 might win afterall.