2nd April 2009, 8:52 PM
(This post was last modified: 3rd April 2009, 6:09 PM by Dark Jaguar.)
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/04/01/gdc09-...-to-be-sk/
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/04/02/gdc09-...continued/
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/04/02/gdc09-...ed-page-2/
Here's an interview that answers a number of questions. Unfortunatly, I don't like the answers and I thought up a new question.
Firstly, this guy indirectly confirms my fear that distance will have a major impact on lag times when talking about what fibreoptic networks would bring to the service.
Secondly, he in a single fell swoop not only confirms they aren't interested in putting classic games on the service, but that as time goes on they'll remove older games from the service. While a "purchase" option is apparently going to be offered, I have to ask what manner of purchase it is where they can just take it away from you at a later date. It would be more accurate to say it's a single payment rental.
He does explain a number of the physical solutions they're coming up with, which is interesting in a sense but they've already lost me.
They admit they haven't even considered how they'll handle downloadable content. It makes me wonder how they'll even handle custom user content. On modern games that have a full menu to activate and deactivate custom content, they'd at the very least need to set aside server space to allow users to upload home designed content, and from there set up the programs to load this special content as needed on their side. I suppose that could work to an extent, but there are "supported" mods and then really heavy modifications that go beyond a game's built in systems. It's hard to believe they'd have things in place to handle the more extreme full game conversion mods, or that they'd even care to bother.
This brings me to another issue. Will they make sure all their games are running at their very highest possible settings? I'm not just talking about just clicking on a game and clicking the "ultra graphics" button. There's plenty of extreme modifications that can be done in a game's configuration file that aren't in the options normally, which some people turn on at a future date when computer hardware has reached a point that it can support those changes. Will they be slowly updating those config files, or at least allow us to mess with them?
These issues can be pretty complicated when you're actually the user on your own machine trying to max out your settings as best you can.
Anyway, that vague feeling of not really liking the idea of supporting it is becoming more concrete over time.
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/04/02/gdc09-...continued/
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/04/02/gdc09-...ed-page-2/
Here's an interview that answers a number of questions. Unfortunatly, I don't like the answers and I thought up a new question.
Firstly, this guy indirectly confirms my fear that distance will have a major impact on lag times when talking about what fibreoptic networks would bring to the service.
Secondly, he in a single fell swoop not only confirms they aren't interested in putting classic games on the service, but that as time goes on they'll remove older games from the service. While a "purchase" option is apparently going to be offered, I have to ask what manner of purchase it is where they can just take it away from you at a later date. It would be more accurate to say it's a single payment rental.
He does explain a number of the physical solutions they're coming up with, which is interesting in a sense but they've already lost me.
They admit they haven't even considered how they'll handle downloadable content. It makes me wonder how they'll even handle custom user content. On modern games that have a full menu to activate and deactivate custom content, they'd at the very least need to set aside server space to allow users to upload home designed content, and from there set up the programs to load this special content as needed on their side. I suppose that could work to an extent, but there are "supported" mods and then really heavy modifications that go beyond a game's built in systems. It's hard to believe they'd have things in place to handle the more extreme full game conversion mods, or that they'd even care to bother.
This brings me to another issue. Will they make sure all their games are running at their very highest possible settings? I'm not just talking about just clicking on a game and clicking the "ultra graphics" button. There's plenty of extreme modifications that can be done in a game's configuration file that aren't in the options normally, which some people turn on at a future date when computer hardware has reached a point that it can support those changes. Will they be slowly updating those config files, or at least allow us to mess with them?
These issues can be pretty complicated when you're actually the user on your own machine trying to max out your settings as best you can.
Anyway, that vague feeling of not really liking the idea of supporting it is becoming more concrete over time.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)