The Battle Of The Consoles: From Atari To The Xbox

msolnik writes: "There's been a lot of talk about Xbox, and GameCube, and even more speculation about the technology inside the box. However, the console wars are not going to be won based purely on technology. There's a long history of cyclical win and lose peaks and troughs for companies that have tried to stay the course in this business. Nintendo stands alone in having survived a number of generations of innovation and still managed to remain a contender in the market. Tom's Hardware has delivered this unique assessment of The Console Wars." Update: 12/06 16:28 GMT by M : Note that Tom's has updated some of the charts in the article - they note that there was a misunderstanding between Tom's and the article's author as to which version of the charts to post.

losing on technology

However, the console wars are not going to be won based purely on technology.

They might be lost though. If it turns out to be really easy to modify an X-Box enough to run Linux and play your MP3's, DIV-X movies, do email, etc, then people might buy an X-Box and never spend a penny on an X-Box game.

Since Microsoft, as with most console companies, are selling the console at a loss, and making up for it with game sales, this can't be a good thing for them. Their choice of almost-standard components might cost them in the long run.

Re:losing on technology

Of course, if people buy the hardware as a cheap PC console to hack on, and never buy games, Microsoft will also be able to take those numbers to the game writers and say "Look how large the installed base of the X-Box is. You should write your games for us, not the PS2 or GameCube."

In that case, taking the loss on the console won't hurt Microsoft in the long run, as it will increase their dominance in the gaming market.

Re:losing on technology

Microsoft will expect to lose money on a certain number of sold machines. Any machine morethen that will make profit.

You are assuming that the "losses" Microsoft are making is due to capital investment, and it makes an operating income on each unit. But it is widely believed that each unit actually costs more to manufacture than it is sold for, meaning that every sale will result in a loss, on top of capital investment. Under this model, the cost is recouped from the games. The percentage of the profit made on total games sales that Microsoft receives must cover the loss on the consoles, and the capex plus interest, and anything left on top of that is the only profit MS will see.

So the question is, what is the average number of games/merchandise that must be sold per console in order to make a profit?

Re:losing on technology

(trying not to repeat to many previous comments)

However easy it is, it still sounds like a geek thing. Most people who would even consider doing a thing like that would already have a perfectly functional PC.

Saying that, using standard technology may get them into trouble in other ways. IANAEE (electronics engineer) but I bet that over millions of units, the custom hardware which most consoles use costs less. As the production ramps up, jamming loads onto a few custom made chips starts to pay.

If they think they can win the console wars the same way they one the browser wars (and let's face it, IE costs something to produce and distribute) then they would've had to come in a lot lower than $300. I'm assuming that their plan is to ultimately have the "all MS" household but they forget that:

browsers are cheap to make in bulk

people don't spend $100s on games for their browser
Unless they get the games that people want to play, they will come unstuck.

This insightful analysis has been brought to you by a Sega Saturn owner.

Wheres the SNES???

On this page [tomshardware.com], there is a chart that shows "Console History", with the relative successes by companies shown in bold. Not only is th SNES not boled, It's not even there. I find this very unsual, since growing up, everyone I knew had an SNES, period. You were considered "way out of it" if you were stuck with one of those crappy Genesis things.

Re:Wheres the SNES???

I find this very unsual, since growing up, everyone I knew had an SNES, period. You were considered "way out of it" if you were stuck with one of those crappy Genesis things.

Maybe it was a regional thing? When I was growing up only a few people I knew had a SNES, but everyone had a Genesis. I think mostly because certain games, Madden Football, MK3, really sucked on the SNES. Although the kid who had the SNES was quite popular once he got Mario Kart...

That was then, this is now

A better 'that was then, this is now' comparison might have been to show Wolfenstein 3D and Return to Castle Wolfenstein... Enormous difference ten years makes!
(Even better, show the original Wolfenstein game, 2D with stick figures. Wasn't that kind of a 'Berserk' ripoff? Coward. Fight like a robot.)

Some Constant Rules though

I have played and enjoyed consoles since the original NES. Despite the many faces that have come and gone, a few constant things seem to always add up to success. A system needs to be easy to develop for, have enough power/expandability to not be far behind to competition, and/or have forward momentum from a previous successful system. However, often success breeds arrogence, and companies forget these principles.

A combination of two or more of these usually makes up for a lack in the others. Likewise, failure in multiple categories often doom a system. Nintendo dominated with the SNES, which had an incredible set of developers. But they took a long time developing a replacement, and when they did the N64 was both hard to develop for, couldn't run old games, and didn't have the ability to easily hold as much as the PS1(FMV on a cartridge?). It had plenty of power over the PS1, but not much else.

Likewise, the current PS2 isn't as easy to develop for, or as powerful as the Xbox and Gamecube. But it is easy enough, and since it can run all the PS1 games and came out first it has a huge market penetration jump start. If a company can only afford to initially develop for one platform, they will probably do it on the system that has the most market share. Likewise, many consumers will buy the system with the most games, building an upward momentum for the system. Neither Nintendo(with experience) or Microsoft(with $$$) are small contenders who can be counted out, which is good as it will make sure none of the companies sit on their laurels. Hopefully, we will get to seem some really great development in the years ahead.

sketchy at best

The review seems a bit sketchy. How can we skip from 'Tennis for Two' (1958) to Doom (1993)?

Aside from a few sales numbers, I see no mention of Atari. This is more of a Console vs PC's article --- and new consoles at that.

Oh yeah, I don't think the PSX was 64 bits.

-B

Battle for the console? Nope!

There may be a battle for the console market, but the question is why are they at war.

Microsoft is looking for control over the television. They think they've taken the first step, selling a box that people hook up to their TV. Too bad it's $300, but that's the microsoft way - you might as well charge the customer if they're willing to pay.

Nintendo is looking for control of the gaming market. Control of the television is not an aspiration - yet.

A "Unique Assessment"? Try "Not Worth Reading."

...Further proof that the world is in dire need of more (competent) editors.

The authors open their article with a neat little chart listing "the dates of the introductions of various consoles. ... Relative successes are listed in bold." NEC's Turbografx 16 is listed in bold, as a "relative success." Sega's Genesis, on the other hand...? Apparently Genesis wasn't "relatively successful," according to Hodgson, etc. Oh, and FYI, while I'm sure Nintendo appreciates their listing N64 as a "relative success," they might have preferred that the authors at least INCLUDE the Super NES on the list.

Their wonderfully-short second section, "Console History," spans in painstaking detail the gaming industry's progress during the crucial period between the heyday of MIT's Rail Road Club and the formation of software giant Infocomm in 1979. From there, they proceed directly to the next logical video gaming landmark -- with a third section, accurately titled, "Then Came Doom."

The article's most valuable offerings are a 21-item chart comparing a whopping three consoles (Xbox, PS2 and GCN), including such poignant criteria as "DVD Movie Playback" and "Broadband Enabled"; and a whole five sentences comparing these three systems, proving conclusively that somewhere during the authors' extensive research for this article, one of them did in fact quickly scan MSNBC's "Game Time" article -- which, it's worth adding, is a vastly more useful and intelligent article (with regard to the current "Top 3"), and can be found at the following URL:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/techgames_front.asp

crib

Technology doesn't matter...Dreamcast anyone?

It's obvious that technology doesn't really come into play when consoles are concerned. It's all about marketing and getting the buy-in of the game development companies. Just like the applications make the OS, the games make the console.

The Sega Dreamcast was WAY ahead of its time when it came to graphics. Soul Calibur is one example of a game with outstanding graphics that kick the crap out of anything on the PSone (which was the competition at the time). Personally, I think it competes more directly with the PS2, but that's another topic altogether. The point is that it didn't have the backing of the game developers like the PS did, so in the end, it lost out. Not because it was an inferior system (it wasn't), but because the marketing push and support wasn't there.

Of Gameboyrs and TurboExpress

I'd actually never heard of the TurboExpress, which doesn't surprise me. I spent most of my early console-playing years playing Nintendo systems - I have the NES, SNES, N64, Game Boy... Only this past May did I buy something not of Nintendo, and that is my Dreamcast.

But as far as the Game Boy is concerned... Let's face it, Nintendo played its cards right. When the GB first came out it actually wasn't that expensive. It boasted the power of the NES (which was the only Nintendo console available) and a simple grayscale LCD screen. And it was cheap. When I got my GB, I bought it myself with money I had saved up (I was maybe 11 at the time), and it was maybe $150 CDN for me to buy. Plus I was able to afford a game or two.

Now, along comes Sega's Game Gear a few years later. Think Portable Genesis. That's all well and good, but the colour screen drove up the price enough to make it more inaccessible to some. And from what I understand from a couple of people who had them, they weren't that great for battery life.

Among the Nintendo users, people were always posing the question of when Nintendo would release a colour version of the GB, and the reply was when Nintendo could guarantee a similar price and similar battery life - two of the important factors for a good handheld console.

The Game Gear folded, maybe because it was too expensive. The TurboExpress was definitely a technical achievement for the time, but the price was definitely a little much, and out of the price range of its target audience.

Yes, Nintendo's taken its sweet time to producing a 16-bit colour handheld, but one thing I respect them for is their methodology. With the GB line, they tend to wait until they can guarantee that any new products meet price and performance requirements set by their original device... And it's been worth the wait.

Superficial and Lacking

The history was superficial, and the information on the current consoles was wrong in respect to the Game Cube.

First, he makes the common mistake of giving the polygon/sec counts. MS and Sony have theoretical maximum counts while Nintendo's count is real-world with all of the eye candy turned on. He then uses this comparison to show the inferiority of the Cube hardware when the framerate of Cube games could be higher given the same games with complex action.

Look at the columns of features. See "N/A" next to most of the Cube's fetures? It makes it look like there's nothing there, yet the Cube has good marks in most of these rows, such as audio, HDTV, broadband and 56K modem.

Been there

Just my personal opinion....

Atari 2600 was the first game console I bought. Thoughout the game history I think it was the games themselves leading the trend, rather than the game consoles.

We choose a game console by the games which they could run, rather by the innovative technologies it had. I wouldn't buy PS if it couldn't run Final Fantasy, etc.(like I wouldn't consider switching from Apple II to IBM if IBM couldn't run Ultima. ^_^)

I wondered why so many good games would only run on one particular game console, until I got to meet a game developer who told me that gaming industry is in fact, in contrary to what I thought, running a very serious business out there.

Production of a game nowaday involved a lot of money. Unless a game developer signed a very restrictive license agreement with the game console vendor, you wouldn't be granted the right to develop game for their console, and VC wouldn't give you money for your development.

The gaming business in game console is very different from gaming business in PC. Everybody can write games for PC, but only under close-partnership would one be allowed to develop game in a particular game console.

That explain why one game would appear in one game console seldom(not never) appear in another.

"...unique assessment of The Console Wars."

I agree. It stands unique as the worst one I've seen so far.

Infocom did not become doom.

Text adventures are still alive and well, and still to this day feature better graphics than any console. (Even if you have a 1600x1200 monitory, text adventures feature more detail, you can zoom in infinantly on any area if your imangination is good enough)

Text adventures have always been puzzles and NPC interactoin. Sure there is a strong movement away from pure puzzles in the text adventure world, but they are still there. Doom is about finding the blue key, while Zork is getting the theif to do what you can't do yourself.

Tom's Hardware Guide to World History

Part 2:

And thus, with some battle lost, Rome fell, leaving only monuments and lead piping behind

NEXT>>>> The American Civil War

CNBC report on the X-Box

CNBC did a report on the X-Box on monday during Business Center and brought up a good point. Historically consoles have been highly proprietary and had long lifespans. But with the introduction of the X-Box Microsoft is changing the industry. A typical console has a development time of 18-24 months and a lifespan of 5 years. The long lifespan is to recoup the losses incurred in the first few years of producing the hardware.

The X-Box on the otherhand is off the shelf parts. The original development cycle took 18 months, but it can be upgraded every year. There aren't much technical hurdles from keeping microsoft from putting P4's into next year's version of the XBox. They can upgrade is every year and it will still run all the games.

It introduces problems like minimum requirements for consoles, but Microsoft is still ahead because they shortened the development cycle. From now on Nintendo and Sony will have to rethink their business model and will have to play catch up to microsoft in the near term.

Console specs are meaningless

Take it from someone who has been programming consoles and home computers for 20 years. Even back in the day, you'd read that the Atari 2600 had only a couple of sprites, then you'd see games with a dozen or more moving objects. The problem is simple: specs are the raw capabilities of what the hardware can do. They're the *starting* point for the programmer. And of course they're meaningless by themselves. Let's use a guitar as an analogy. Imagine that console makers sold guitars:

1. In the spec lists comparing Nintendo's guitar to Sony's guitar, you'd see that one had 6 strings and the other 12. Does this mean you can play twice as many songs on the latter?

2. Sony claims that their guitar is capable of 1000 chords per second. Now what do they mean by that? Is that the limit to how much beating the strings can take? But what if you played 1000 chords per second? Would there be any time for subtleties or even *changing* chords? Of course not, so who cares about that number.

Hardware specs really are like this (for example, 3dfx loved to claim 3 million triangles per second on some of their cards; in reality, programmers only got about 150,000). Fanboys *love* to think that bigger is better and that console X really can have games with 50,000,000 triangles per second, but that's not how it works.

Not right about the Atari 2600

They say the Atari 2600 came out in 1976 - BUT the ORIGINAL name of that system was the Atari VCS (Video Computer System) the 2600 moniker was added later to keep it in line with the 5200.

-ShieldWolf

Maybe i'm old...

My first console was an Atari VCS (the wooden version of the 2600) - My how things have changed.

Call me nostalgic, but I stil believe the 8-bit days were the best. Get your SEGA Master System or your NES (with funky robot if rich) and you were away!

I currently own a PS2, I use it sometimes, GT3 and GTA3 are pretty good games, lots of fun.. But having observed the progression of games over the last, say, 10 years, I believe they came to a bit of a halt when the Internet got popular.

Games houses all thought "Wow, the Internet, let's make our games support online play, let's build communities!".

Sure, that's a great idea. Brings in money. Uses the Internet. Builds huge user bases (look at Ultima Online, Everquest etc.)

Also, around the same time, more and more games started getting ported to new funky 3D versions - of course Wolfenstein/Doom/Quake were the daddy's - other platforms such as the Amiga failed miserably (With the likes of Alien Breed 3D - the apparent Doom competitor). I've not really seen any _really_ original games in the past 5 years, maybe it's not possible anymore? Maybe people are too narrowminded. I don't want any more 3D conversions of driving games, fighting games, or platform games. What does that leave? Is the games market so huge that we've expired originality and can now only focus on making our GPU's in consoles faster to support prettier textures on the same old 3D models. Who knows.

Why were 3D platform games soooo good? Why did everyone love a parallel scrolling Shoot'em UP? Sit a kid of today down infront of a 8/16-bit console with a 'decent' game from the past. Sure, they'll complain "the graphics are crappy!", but give it 5 minutes of gameplay and they probably wouldn't be able to get off it all day. I doubt they'd be the same with their new GameCube or PS2 or XBOX.

What changed? What happened?

Maybe I just got old and don't get the buzz from gaming I used to, I'm quite partial to a bit of GT3/GTA3 on the PS2 and FlightSim/Quake/UT on the PC - but you just don't get the same flashy lights around the 'gaming' thing anymore.

Be it the XBOX, PS2 or GameCube - they all basically do the same thing. Sure, some have slightly higher specs, some have Internet support, some have big this, big that. Whatever. The key to consoles being successful (as they once were) would be for the games designers. Back in the day, games designers/dev guys would make the most out of the limitations of the machine - look at platforms like the C-64/ZX Sinclair. People used to get excited about the demo's cracking groups etc. used to release basically because it was so unreal of the technology at the time. You don't see that anymore. I'm not actually aware of any 'demo scene' on the PC. Did the PC get too good? Is there nothing worth making a demo about these days?

The flair has gone. Modern games are just conversions of old games, made into pretty 3D and added Internet play.

If you like this...

If you like this, check out the report in May's Wired (9.05). Behind the Screens [wired.com]: An insiders' oral history of the videogame, from the birth of the Brown Box to the arrival of the Xbox. The magazine version of this article also had an awesome four-page pullout timeline (with photos) of video game development since the early 1970's.

I just read that piece last night because I stay about 6 months behind in all my magazine reading. I would like to say I do it deliberately to keep things "in perspective," but its more like I've got too many classes and too much work and too much web site to read the things when they first come in.

One more moderation and I'll hit the karma ceiling...

Re:There's no surprise that Nintendo is still in i

This may be a troll above, but there must be something said to those who think that Nintendo just re-releases the same game with better graphics over and over.

Really, this person doesn't seem to complain about the X-Box's Halo, which could be said to be just a revamp of Quake, which was a revamp of Doom, which was a revamp of Wolfenstein. Or DOA3, which is yet another copy of every other fighting game out there. Naturally these statements aren't entirely true, but it is the same type of argument.

Yes, Nintendo recylces the same video game characters and general themes, but they do a great job of putting them into new gaming experiences that show vast improvements over other games.

NES: Super Mario Brothers was one of the first side scrolling action games ever. Clearly a big step up from the one screen games like Donkey Kong.

SNES: Super Mario World was a huge improvement over the original SMB concept. Larger (sorta non-linear) world, multiple exits in one level, more power ups and abilities for Mario, Mario can ride on "Yoshi."

N64: Super Mario 64 was a much different game than
the side scrollers, being 3D.
With totally different objectives, power ups, level ideas, and abilities.

Game Cube: Luigi's Castle isn't a Mario game. It is a totally different type of game in which Luigi captures ghosts with a vacuum cleaner. It is a bit strange, but it isn't the same thing we've seen before at all.

And of course, by mentioning Mario and other kiddie games, we are of course forgetting Nintendo's other titles. Most of them might be family friendly in that both the small kids and adults can enjoy them, but that doesn't make them kiddie. Zelda and Metroid come to mind, as well as the fact that Miyamoto doesn't produce crappy games in the opinion of most gamers, even those that don't own Nintendo consoles. His worst game was probably Zelda 2, which is a lot better than the average PS2 title by far.

Playing as the same plumber over and over has never ceased to be fun, really.