Unity CEO John Riccitiello "Sony F***ing Nailed It

You should post more than a video since not everyone wants to watch several minute videos with possibly silly ranting . What happened? Where is the short summary to open the conversation or is this channel promoting as it always seem to be same

 

Agreed. I've been burned by wasting time on these random video postings before. How about an elevator speech on the content?

 

Elevator speech:
John Riccitiello said that Sony did everything right regarding what gamers want with the PS4 while Microsoft screwed it with their expanded media console approach. Second part of the video is guessing whether Sony will stay on top this time or whether Microsoft will recover much quicker this time because in the end both are pretty much equal in regards of game fidelity and XBOne is cheaper. Though PS3 in the long run also outsold XB360 despite the rough start.

So in the end it's sort of a rant/prognose with a slight wow-factor because of John Riccitiello saying the word "F***" in one of his speeches.

You're welcome internet.

 

Well done Mister R. The next step: convince Microsoft to allow to export a project to an 'retail Xbox'. There, do not worry, i will buy an ONE.

 

Thanks, I can happily ignore this entire post now.

 

That's been my biggest peeve and still has me really hot under the collar. Don't get me wrong, I love my XBONE but one of the main attractions for me pre-ordering was the promise that every retail console will be a dev kit. Here we are, a year and a half in, and still no deving on the retail box and MS seems to have completely backed away from it. I spoke with an aquiantance who is a program manager in the xbox division and he even backed away from really addressing the issue.

 

Now all Sony has to do is come up with a pc operating system and they can take over the world. Or something like that.

 

Why take over the world when you can create your own "Sony World" in VR with Project Morpheus <<Evil Laughter>>!

 

That thing is sexy.

 

I think my wife has one of these in her nightstand...

 

And they say there's a lack of women in computing. They're just hiding it in their nightstands.

That is essentially my premise for world domination. Why go through the effort of ruling this world when you can have your own paradise with your own physics and reality?

Procedural universe generation in VR. That's the plan. With the growing interesting in such things in our culture, I think I could end all life in a few generations because the addiction to VR will be so out of hand that people spend 3-5 days in their own paradise and then drop dead.

<<not so threatening or evil laughter>>

 

Does this guy have a podcast or does he post only post youtube stuff with random gameplay footage?

 

I was saying the same things a year before either console launched. The current situation is exactly as I predicted.

The real issue Microsoft has to deal with now is its tarnished brand, and the dearth of exclusive titles for the XBox One. Kotaku recently published a "best-12-games" list for the Xbox One. Only two of those twelve titles were exclusive. The rest had broad platform reach, and none of them were generally thought of as being best on the XBox One.

Microsoft took a serious hit to their XBox brand with the launch of the One. Before that point they seemed to have the next console race in the bag. But the botched launch set them back considerably. And even after a "price-drop" for the Xbox One, the PS4 is still outselling it consistently.

A major factor for this is that the PS4 is being considered the go-to platform for multi-player, multi-platform releases. This is where the XBox One's botched launch is doing the most damage. Early adopters flocked to the PS4. And now many of those early adopter's friends are basing their own console upgrades on the system that those early adopters leaned towards. (so that they can play multi-player titles together) This is also where Microsoft's shaky transition for XBox Live is biting them in the ass. If Microsoft had come out of the gate with an equivalent offering to the multi-player support on the XBox 360, they could have swayed a greater number of early adopters to pay a little extra for superior multi-player. Instead, their insistence on reinventing the wheel is hurting them in the on-line space, and Sony even got away with charging for their own on-line support. (without any serious outcry from fans)

At this juncture, a "price-drop" simply isn't enough. And the XBox One's price drop isn't even that. They simply stripped out the system's most expensive peripheral and adjusted the price accordingly. Buying a Kinect-enabled XBox One will still run you $500. (even if you buy the system and the peripheral separately) The only real card Microsoft has left to play is platform exclusives. And they're looking pretty thin in that department. Titanfall didn't have the oomph they were hoping for, neither did Sunset Overdrive, Project Spark is suffering from having the Kinect stripped out of the system, and the Master Chief Collection has been a bug-riddled mess, with no end in sight.

Going into E3, Sony just has to stay the course and showcase some solid platform exclusives and indie titles. (I love the indie support and PS+ entries on my PS4) Microsoft is floundering, and they need some really exciting exclusives.

 

It comes: E3 2015.

 

The irony is that it did that partly and maybe even largely because it's a bluray player.

 

And a super computer with an epic cell architecture they should have stuck with just for lolz.

 

Totally with you, they should have never dangled that carrot until they were ready to follow through. Granted, I'm still excited that they confirmed at GDC/Build that you will be able to use a retail unit as a dev kit by the end of this year (2015) but if it was going to take that long they should have kept quiet until they were ready or at least close to ready.

 

Sony is also much better at marketing. Microsoft has always been terrible at that. HDDVD was a superior technology to Bluray but Sony knew how to get people behind it.

Yeah once they delayed it I had a sneaking suspicion that it was going to be tied to the Windows 10 everywhere situation. Looks like (speculatively) Windows 10 will hit non-pc devices such as phone and xbox around September so it should be shortly after that we see the retail dev kit functionality.

 

Eh? HDDVD was inferior (less storage, lower max bitrate), but cheaper.

--Eric

 

So, are we just posting videos now?

Okay then:

My point: This is spam. They guy made a link then left without adding ANYTHING to the post or the thread. And he's been doing it a lot.

 

That was my impression, too.

 

Depends on perspective (and then vs now). There are advantages and disadvantages to both, but at the time of the format war Bluray was unable to produce dual layer disks. Both disk types were blue laser but they used a different data density. HDDVD was the same as regular DVD so there was less storage space, but the manufacture of the disk was better and the protective coating thicker. Bluray required a thinner protective coating and much more susceptible to scratches. They did produce a harder coating to mitigate that but it is what makes the manufacture (and price) of Bluray disks more expensive.

Edit: HDDVD also had the capability to use both sides of the disk, support for more codes and was region free. It did come at a slower transfer rate though. In the end it's about 6 of one, half dozen of the other, it just depends on what features are the most compelling and Sony was able to market more effectively which is one reason Bluray won out.

 

Bluray had dual layer and additional formats from nearly the beginning, so those weren't actually advantages HDDVD had during the format war. The only thing they were able to push was the price (and being region free, forgot about that). Not that I actually own a Bluray player, or HDDVD for that matter, so I'm not sure why I care. It was interesting to follow at the time. (But it was kind of a hollow victory since online distribution ate into the market quite a bit.)

It's not spam. Spam has a pretty specific definition, and "posting a video with no explanation" isn't at all what that is. I'd certainly prefer that people not do it, but we don't seem to have any actual rules against it.

--Eric

 

I'd say it's bad form but not spam. It would be spam if he was the owner of the channel and would be promoting it in versious sub forums at once, I think.

Either way @angrypenguin - I've bought my PS3 only a year ago and I've noticed that in fact I do use it more as a media station and BluRay player than for the console itself. Personally I'd still prefer the PlayStation to XBox. That's more beacuse Microsoft showed in the early stages of XBOne's release where they are heading in the long rund and what they want to implement about DRM and control mechanisms. And that doesn't sit very well with me. Despite the changes nack to a more traditional approach ... for now. MS showed that they rather have a control console and I don't like that. I'm all for making people buy instead of pirate but I think draconic DRM (which is a term I rarely use but I think is justified in the origional design) is the wrong approach to it. I'd stay with Sony as well if only my personal opinion as a gamer mattered.
(I'd also stay with Nintendo but we'll have to see what they are coming up with after the WiiU.)

Microsoft are doing a lot of things right lately. And I really do have respect for them as a company. And I think the XBox controllers are the best gamepads for the PC - period.The XBOne though ... not a favorite of mine.

 

@Eric5h5 @angrypenguin actually the bestestest technology would be a video player that could play the data in Sony's super dense storage tapes.

 

Sounds like he's upset more by MS recent plan to cooperate with other major gaming engines than any failure of MS regarding Xbox One.

While the world is busy telling MS what to do, I think MS should update and price the Xbox One as a 4K capable BR player as expand the online market of Fire TV and Apple TV type devices in gaming. That's a place were GooglePlay or Apple App have no large presence. They do need to cleanup the curation of the Windows Store though to leverage that. And they need to see about repacking their big game hits to by downloadable or at least easy to order online from the Xbox and shipped. There is a big market for nutrition and fitness logs and activities they missed out on that their SW engineers should have had no problem creating a competent set of applications with comprehensive curated databases for the Xbox one and other Windows devices that smoothly integrate across all Windows HW. The calendar is still being used as a boring business type event planner when it could be used to integrate with fitness, education, school and what all the tablet and mobile call notifications - but instead of the insipid game app notifications this concept is poorly utilized for now they could enable the creation of private family or school notification groups with planned and completed activities showing up on a Xbox One central calendar switchboard. A bit like those post-it note reminders and such. None of these concepts is new but shows that despite of this talk of cross platform integration, SW developers seem to almost obtusely ignore integrating across devices. Job security I guess. Who is the US or Greece doesn't need a competent budget planner and why isn't that integrated with nutrition planning, utilities and bill planning, and all their other bills? Why isn't something like automobile maintenance and health maintenance integrated?

There are all these basic human needs that are ignored by Microsoft, Apple, and Google compared to the entertainment choices they unoriginally keep throwing up against the wall hoping it'll stick. By now as consumer oriented companies they should have smoothly integrated budget, nutrition, sports, safety, and other apps addressing basic human needs integrated into a notification responsive calendar. With online shopping now why haven't they cooperated with retailers like Wal*Mart and allow one to plan their grocery shopping online and then be presented with a list to printed out to go pick up & pay for while integrating that activity with a budget and nutrition app? It's as simple as designing a standard product writeup such that a shopping app can pull the information and use it locally. Look at Wal*Mart and you'll see that the information is there but not in a standard way to be downloaded and reused locally. The receipt can be scanned in after paying at home to preserve price competition. Why aren't things like a simple protocol for schools to communicate homework and exam expectations to parents so that the parents can sync those expectations locally and privately note and track their children's progress?

MS is already in every school and business but grew fat being overly reliant on Office. For all the talk of integration and innovative they haven't been in straightforward ways that matter. They already have access what are they waiting for?

Yes, entertainment is ultimately the lifestyle differentiator with which they can make huge profit margins but they address basic human needs management so incompetently they leave a huge market that would like competent assistance untapped. Even as I type this message my browser has slowed down such that I count the seconds between key presses and when the letter shows up in the browser. With one tab open.

More than 20 years into the web and still they are trying turn it into how many ads can you squeeze onto a page rather than solving the problems at hand. Address and solve the problem at hand and then use advertising to support and complement it.

MS made the right choice for their customers and business and will grow from there. Much as Unity can't be a games
only engine and ever hope for any good growth, which by the way they aren't attempting to find a hardware division - MS choosing it's growth it's specialization of the software business and Sony chooses it's growth in the specialization of the hardware business.

It's a fundamental misunderstanding of JR of what Sony and Microsoft are as businesses and his use of swear words is indicative of that.

 

Its worked so far.

 

Unity has been a non-games-only-engine for many years. Used for architecture, simulations, etc.

--Eric

 

And increasingly education.

 

I want to teach a unity class after I've got the experience for it.

 

SW is increasing created as increasingly sophisticated frameworks such that it's use increasing relegated to subject matter experts. That's why Unity has great potential and the interest in the education market, not because the SW engineering arcana on which it's built.

Look at online education businesses like BlackBoard and see how a network of subject matter teaching experts basically created the educational content BlackBoard uses as part of their government jobs that the BlackBoard business owners just sit back and rakes in the cash for administering.

 

It'll be interesting to see what comes out on top for sure. My school uses BlackBoard for some things, but the game dev program is also getting more classes every semester.

 

I agree the Sony really played it smart this round. What compelling reason would a gamer have for getting an XBox One instead of a PS4 at this point in time?

The only thing about the XBox One that excited me was the announcement that every XBox One would be able to become a dev kit. However, even that has yet to materialize.

 

If the exclusive games they want are on the XBox One.

 

This was me with the early Halo series.

So far the new Star Wars Battlefront is only displaying the PS4 logo in trailers, so it looks like I might switch for my next console purchase.

Gamers don't care a huge amount about specs. They care about the experience. And the experience is heavily dominated by the games available.

 

I wouldn't shell out extra money just for a game if I didn't like the platform / owner of the platform I proved that several times over by having $2,000 in the bank as a child with no bills and I bought neither the ps3 nor xbox360. I didn't care that the next ninja gaiden was a sony exclusive or that halo, originally a mac exclusive, was purchased by microsoft to become an xbox (not even xbox & pc) exclusive.

In 2014 I bought a ps3 to play dragon's dogma, but a month later after playing through it a few times I sold the ps3 If Unity had a linux editor I wouldn't need windows or mac either.

Only if they're not shiny graphic obsessed plebs Otherwise you have unending fan wars over specs lol

@Ryiah I tried to cut off gaming a while ago and was doing pretty good until you gave me that link for planets cubed. That'll probably be the last

 

Fair enough, but I think it safe to say that you are in a pretty extreme minority. Most consumers don't operate in such a fashion.

Microsoft can't change the hardware direction of the XBox One at this point. That ship has sailed. They made the changes they could already. (stripping out the Kinect) I'm still disappointed by that decision. Committing more strongly to the Kinect would have helped to set the XBox One apart as a different kind of experience. Sadly, they sacrificed that in favor of short-term sales.

With the current circumstances, the only real hope they have is exclusive software. But from the sound of how they're handling some of their licensing, I don't have a lot of hope for that direction. It's looking like a steady decline for Microsoft in the console games business.

 

Maybe... I'm a little torn. I too was disappointed by the caving and stripping out of the Kinect, but there is a strategy behind it if you look to the future. I think there's going to be a push to compete with Sony's upcoming VR solution.

Think about it... most likely roughly in September, the Xbox One will be updated to Windows 10. This brings Universal apps, though I question the real feasibility of apps that are truly cross platform as it's difficult to design for so many different control styles and form factors, but think about what is coming with Windows 10... Hololens support.

The viability of Hololens has yet to be seen, and everyone is thinking about it in terms of PC, but just what if Microsoft also offers it as an Xbox One addon (and I most certainly think they will). They will also be able to have Xbox One systems that optionally bundle with Hololens instead of Kinect. Stripping Kinect out of the requirements opens the door for them to play with additional technologies.

Kinect was pretty revolutionary in its day... and it was a huge success as it has also been heavily used in research, etc. Not to mention a local company here in Nebraska that uses it for sports analysis and sells entire packages to schools. Hololens certainly isn't the first VR solution and will have some limitations, but if they can pull it off and make it better than Sony's solution (and of course Unity will support it), it could be hugely successful for them.

 

Possibly. But I can assure you that the XBox-brand integration with Windows 10 and Holo-Lens is not a long-term strategy that Microsoft has been brewing for some time. It's a desperation hail-mary after the original strategy of the XBox One stumbled out the gate.

And while I think there is plenty of potential in VR, I think it is initially going to be more of a premium gaming experience that will appeal to a smaller, niche audience. In some ways its the console launch all over again. The reason the PS4 did well is because it focused on a core audience of early adopters, instead of trying for mass-market appeal. Sony actually managed to learn a few lessons from the PS3.

 

While I completely agree with the rest of your post I respectfully disagree with most of this statement. It may not have exactly been Windows 10 and Hololens but Microsoft has been pushing toward the universal cross-device OS for quite awhile. That's the direction they started in with Windows 8... and it was a failure but I think a lot has been learned from it. And they don't just write OS's in a day. DirectX 12 has been in development for a couple of years, and Windows 10 probably as long or longer.

 

Granted. I can't argue with that. Windows 8's design was a clear indication of that strategy in progress. I'm simply not convinced that the XBox One was a part of that strategy until very recently. I think that Microsoft had a very different strategy they had planned for the XBox One, but backpedaled hard after the market reaction.

To be fair, I also think most of the administrators responsible for the XBox One's original strategy and design no longer work at Microsoft. It's entirely possible that the people working on the XBox One's new direction were pulling their hair in frustration while the XBox One was originally being developed. And now that they're having their way, this new cross-platform OS strategy might start to take off. I'm still not personally seeing how this will translate into success for the XBox One as a platform. But that is the nature of untested strategies. I may not see it now, but I do smell the potential. With the right software this could become something worthwhile.

And that's one of the big lessons to take away from this whole scenario. Software is ultimately the key to all of this. This is the reason why Sony's strategy worked in the first place. (and also why they botched the PS3's design so badly) Hololens could be nifty, but without proper software support it's just going to be another peripheral. Microsoft needs to deliver the software. This is an area where they can excel, we just need to see the evidence.

 

You just need to get burned a few times. I'm even better with resisting now because of the traumatic event of playing diablo 3. If the publisher is bad, the game will probably also be bad. Watch dogs... that was hyped more than anything. I saw ads for it everywhere. And then a month after launch none of my friends were talking about it anymore lol.

Why are games being made to be so forgetful?

 

As a collector, I generally take a much different attitude to game acquisition and retention. You sold your PS3. I own two PS3s, fully intend to acquire a third, and that is just one of many, many consoles I own. I have an Atari Jaguar. That pretty much says it all. I knowingly acquire unquestionably failed systems, just to have a piece of gaming history.

Naturally, I'm not a typical example of consumers either. I'm pretty much the opposite extreme of what you represent. But somewhere in between our two stances is the middle ground that the average game consumer occupies. And that consumer doesn't give two craps about which company makes their home consoles. (or PCs, for that matter) I'd say that historical precedent bears this out fairly well. The mass consumer can be led by novelty, trends, style, and price far more easily, and will rarely ever do serious research into the game-buying.

As to forgettable games, how else do you make an annual release cycle work? Major publishers make their games forgettable on purpose so that they can iterate on them every year, instead of turning them into lasting and constantly evolving services. The annual iteration model is easier and more profitable. (in the short term) Most of them just haven't come to terms with more modern design methods.

 

I paid 50 bucks for Diablo 2 about ten years ago. I'm pretty sure blizzard has already spent that money. I still play the game.

Ultimately making a perfect, unforgettable game is a bad long term marketing strategy. Under normal conditions you can only sell each gamer one copy of your game. Then it's the end of that revenue stream.

 

I'm only guessing based on discussions with colleagues. Being involved with Unity and such I don't consider myself the average end user for Xbox... I also don't consider the hardcore gamers to be the average users as they are still the minority. So I asked a couple of colleagues who are casual gamers and don't even own a console. Their reaction when I mentioned the possibility of hololens was that they'd buy an Xbox One just for that. Granted this was an unscientific poll of two people but it does show potential.

 

Or maybe you want to use sony's super computer as a base for skynet, so you can take over the world!

It makes sense in a business kind of way. I do live in a country where health care and prisons are for-profit organizations, so it shouldn't be so surprising Oh well, we still have indies and Valve to deliver quality content

I bought the $20 battle chest at least 4 times. Kept losing the CD and key lol. I probably would have bought almost 10 if they didn't add the option to register your keys online.

Higher quality & product longevity is bad for business... that doesn't sound right.

 

I first read that as Battle Chess and I was like, "Holy crap I played the crap out of that game in the late 80's, early 90's!" I remember how awesome the graphics and effects were at the time

 

I don't know... the first part of that strategy is surely "get one plugged into as many TVs as possible", and broadening its use cases was a pretty reasonable attempt at that. It didn't work out, but that's the way things roll sometimes.

Past that, the XBOne is just a computer. Hardware wise it's even a pretty standard computer. It could fit into any strategy, and the fact that it wasn't specifically shared with us ahead of time isn't enough to convince me that it didn't exist. After all, that strategy ultimately boils down to "consolidate product lines, and deliver as many products/services as possible through existing channels". They already have the XBOne out there, they're already supporting it, it's already built on their core technologies, and there's no reason that it, as a computer, can't do most of what MS does for most of MS's customers.

 

The bundled, and required $150 peripheral at launch, the HDMI pass-through, and the dedicated system performance for media-related features would suggest otherwise. The XBox One's hardware is riddled with designs made specifically for the media strategy that Microsoft has already abandoned. Those vestigial features are going to hamper the XBox One until Microsoft gets around to the inevitable "slim" model. And in that "slim" model I fully expect for all of those hardware commitments to be "corrected." (removed to cut down on production costs)

You are correct about the malleability of the system's software. The previous console generation proved just how much a system's interface and feature set can adapt and change just through software revisions. The 360 in particular was known for going through some fairly radical changes in that area.

To say that things could change for the better through improved and updated firmware is a position I can get behind. But you can't simply wave away the mistakes that plagued the system's initial approach. Those missteps are going to be an anchor around the XBox One's neck for years to come.

Had the XBox One come out on its own, all of this discussion would have been a moot point. This speaks to the original subject at hand. Microsoft's latest home console had to come out against a competitor that DIDN'T drop the ball. With the PS3, Sony made a huge number of design and marketing blunders. With the PS4, they brought the thunder, and delivered what may be their best outing in the video-game industry yet.