That is the subject of today. As I wrote a few chapters in the past regarding that, some people had questions and questions are good. But to coin a phrase, I just got you an evolution here. This is merely a setting, merely an example and I believe it opens up the game stage for everyone involved (mostly for the Amazon Luna).
The game I selected here was Crush, Crumble and Chomp by Epyx. A game I bought around 1986 as a CBM64 disc game.
As we see the image above, we see the map as the CBM64 was able to manage with its 64Kb. It was a big thing in 1985, in 2023 not that much and in this case we see the first step of evolution, we use the map that was used in Watchdogs 2, which also plays in San Francisco.
Like in the movie Rampage we start with three monsters. Godzilla, Dwayne Johnson (oops, I meant the giant Gorilla) and the wolf. What makes this different now is that this game has three game modes. In mode one we are the government side. We get to automate (to some degree) the police, the army and the fire brigades. As the game progresses we get to enhance the intelligence of the government sides and we get more hardware to do so. In the second mode we get to play the monster and we can have a free for all on the city of San Francisco. The more damage, the higher the score, and of course there will be options to have a snack in the shape of Malin Åkerman, its only fair as she played the Corporate B from hell. It is mode three that becomes the stage, we now get to ‘program’ the monster and we got through the motions to make it as smart and devastating as possible. More important when it gets to level 4 (my mind came up with 5 levels) you can put your monster online and see how it does as others try to play the game with YOUR monster and that gets you ‘international’ recognition. You see, as I personally see it, the game that Jon freeman and Jim Connelley designed deserves a second chance to life and I thought it was limited at the time, but that was due to the memory restraints on the CBM64, now we can turn it to something real with real sides. Of course Ubisoft would have a large advantage to produce it as they created the city, but that shouldn’t stop others. Ubisoft has more advantages, as it adds Chicago and London and more importantly, as they add New York the mayhem is close to complete.
I would like to try and find a way to incorporate the music used on the CBM64 which was Mussorgsky – Night On Bald Mountain, it set the tone nicely and was a great choice to have. This took less than an hour to create and the library for a dozen more games are coming to mind. A stage that would service the 50 million subscribers in one setting and optionally the Amazon Luna setting too and this was not the best game to begin with (compared to thousands of other games). For the GAAS environment enhancements are the future of gaming and when Amazon figures this out they will be off to the races leaving Microsoft far behind them, as they should have in the first year of operation against Microsoft. Microsoft can buy all the software houses they want, but those with a lack of imagination will hollow out Microsoft faster and faster. Creativity cannot be bought by those who embrace fake it till you make it. That is how I see it.
The thought took me by surprise. I had been playing Minecraft that day and the dream took me in a different direction, the merging of games. Now in the case of Minecraft this might merely be a DLC, or added to the game, but the stage opens up new directions in gaming.
To give you the rundown, I need to take you on a small trip. In my days of the Atari ST, the game ‘The Sentinel’ was released and I was happy, a remake was made in the late 90’s and it was awesome on PC, the music was fantastic and the game left an even deeper impression. The game is about a sentinel, it cleans the world, it rotates and nothing will survive in its gaze. It seems simple, but the 3D landscape is tricky and there are 1000 levels (if I remember correctly). So to win you need to get to the highest point and devour the Sentinel. The game is simple, but addictive and the PC edition even more so. But what happens when we take the Sentinel and make it massive, it cannot be devoured. Yet if you can get close to it, you could ‘attack’ it and get glowing bricks from it. The glowing bricks give the player powers. Blue will drop never ending water when active, red drops lava and so on. Yellow becomes a sun beacon. The Sentinel however changes the landscape it sees, and as such destroys your house, reduces it to rubble (with all the stuff still there. A rare event that changes the speed of the game and creates chaos. But that is merely one side, so what happens when we have BOTH games? We have thought of it and it does not always apply, but what happens when we have games from the same maker? For example AC Origin and AC Valhalla? They have implemented the cosmetic parts in later games, but what if we can push it both ways and more than just cosmetic? So Horizon Zero Dawn AND Horizon forbidden West? The games can be played separately, but what if we could unite these games? Add even more terrain? That is (optionally) the power of streaming games, streaming games will make this possible.
It is a continuation of an idea I had in the past (and wrote about it). The original EA CBM64 game ‘Murder on the Zinderneuf’ now with a Bioshock look. Fully 3D, yet that is merely the start. For the Amazon Luna, the idea came for Luna keys, gold and silver. So when you play the game you could find a chess set, when found the option opens up to unlock THAT chess set in the game chess. It makes for a new setting of long term gaming. In addition, the idea came that could open up other games and other makeover of games. Like the game Clue, Harry Potter themes (if that was open to offer) and so on. In that same stage Assassins Creed 2 could offer a renaissance Italian chess set and so on. Not every game will offer this, but with every iteration that does we add value to gaming, we add interest in people who like to play chess to play other games. When you play the new version of ‘Murder on the Zinderneuf’ a game like monopoly would suddenly get an additional playable token (the Hindenburg) and it is that interaction that gamers will become hungry for and they will play more, enjoy more and experiment more. The power of streaming games is not unlocked for the simple reason that the game owners are merely looking to ‘copy’ their game on a new platform, to get more names, more players but no one is looking in creating better players, more fun and more joy. It is seemingly past them.
It is a stage that needs to be looked at now, because the new makers of systems are looking in that direction and there is no price for second place. As I see it The Tencent Streaming solution is merely a year away. The current owners squandered billions, lost the middle east and now Tencent is about to offer new options, new terrains and they will offer it to millions more. So how much of the playfield will Amazon surrender? Google left the gaming sphere and Microsoft remains useless (which they will spin in a direction like blaming Sony), but the truth is that these three players left well over 6 billion a year on the field and that field is now increasing and is slowly moving towards Tencent. Yes another fine mess they left the gamers. The only player, who had their own niche is Apple and I have no idea what they are up to, they play their cards close to their chest. But they could be the new winner in the 11th hour. I cannot tell, too much speculation on that direction.
But the union of games is a natural concept in streaming games and look at how many offered that stage, the simple answer is none. And when Tencent does offer it, they basically become winner by default. It was so easy to actually listen to gamers (something Microsoft has never done). Sony and Nintendo were not streaming solutions and they have THEIR market. The others (Apple excepted) did this to themselves. Consider what you read here and consider what you see in gaming and then see how natural the ideas actually are.
We have this at times, we go back in time to remember the party we were at, the party we gave. There is a reason for it. It can be sentiment, lust, desire, achievement there are hundreds of reasons why a party remains in memory forever. A party is for most the easiest to see, and there is a second reason. It is a setting where the crowd remembers you, the crowd was part of it, you either distinguished yourself, or you were distinguished by others. It is the crowd that is an essential element in all this. It is part of the multiplayer appeal, or at least that is what I believe is the case. I play single for myself, for my own needs, for my need for joy. I am not a racer of routes, not a shortcut maker of cleverness. I walked through Oblivion and Skyrim for hours, enjoying the perfection that Bethesda created. I see solution after solution that is all about feigned perfection. It is about showing a crowd how perfect you are, but is that a truth? A reality? To present ones self as clever is not a presentation, it is deception. That is the side that I going wrong in too many games. Whilst I focussed on giving the gamer a good time, others are setting the dressing to pretend the gamer is much better than he or she actually is. I have been brooding on this, you see it is the game Elden Ring that brings the real gamers to the surface. I am a real gamer, but I was never that great in action games, I learned that the hard way in Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3. I still have these games. They are beautiful, but for me not something I can hope to conquer. I feel no shame, I have my own speciality and I have achieved plenty of game completions over the 40 years I have truly enjoyed gaming. From the VIC20, the CBM64, the Atari ST, the CBM Amiga, N64, CD32, SEGA Megadrive, Playstation, Xbox, SEGA Dreamcast, the PS2, Gamecube, Xbox 360, Wii, PS3, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and the PS5. I have seen and enjoyed gaming to the largest extent, but when the Xbox360 came things changed. This is not the fault of Microsoft, in this they are innocent. There was a push for achievements and to get them any way possible and I was the same. I wanted (for the most) all the achievements, I was not an online gamer, so I missed out on several achievements. I think it is what ‘saved’ me and even the Sony group has that issue. You are not a gamer until you get the platinum achievement. There is something wrong with that notion. It is like a new dimension of workforce adhering to the Wall Street stage of ‘Greed is good’, it is not, it really is not. I think the stage of Nintendo Switch to do away with achievements was wise, a lot more wise than most of us realise. Ask yourself the question, are you driven by achievements or to have fun? Do you enjoy walking in the world you play in? These questions have been bugging me for some time now. The Bethesda games brought it to the surface and to some degree the Ubisoft games too. Guerrilla pushed it into overdrive with the Horizon games. It matters, it really does because the wrong setting here could break streaming games. In the games I designed for streaming I think about rewards, not achievements. The Luna keys were part of that. Silver keys to the game you get them in and gold keys to unlock something in 5 games that you have at that point. Rewards are more satisfying, rewards are a token of achievement, a point where we all will get, but not having it on every profile matters. It stops the wannabe’s, it heralds those who are and it gives to those who attempt and overcome. We want to be the gamer that has it all, but why? You see there is so much to gain from replayability, there is so much to get when some options are only there for the arcane, for the shadow dancers, for the brawlers and it is possible we will not become all of those to the degree of perfection, but the inner feeling of what we get done is overwhelming and I believe that achievements undermine that. Now, this is nothing against Microsoft (I slapped them often enough), Microsoft brought achievements and it is a great idea, but game makers and others seem to have subverted the concept, that is how I see it and it took me a while to see the Nintendo Switch step as the great step it was. Yet I understand that achievements are important to some, so how to embrace the idea and make it better? The keys are part of an optional solution, but only in part. So to look at the party of what was is also a way to see the side of what might be. I have no idea if I will solve it, it might be up to someone else to do that, but it needs to be done. We need to go back to the old days to when gaming was pure it was about the gamer getting to places, not others judging the gamer on how he got there, how fast and in what way. We lost something there and we need to find it again. The streaming stage will push gaming further, but it will also push weaknesses and corruption of the gaming mind further. Gaming is about checks and balances and we seemingly ignored the balancing act. I have done that as well and now my mind is making up the consideration and the tally of balances missed. How it will fare? I cannot tell at present.
Yes there are a few ways of doing this, but can we tell that anyone is right and the other one is wrong? That is actually a serious question, to go further, it is a lot more serious than anyone realises at present. You see Google and Amazon are taking different roads.
Google In February 2022 Will Nelson reported ‘Google Stadia focus reportedly shifted to licensing the streaming tech’ and of course there are interested parties there. And we were given “After launching in late 2019 the Google game streaming platform was met with some criticism regarding the quality of its streams, latency, and connection issues. After a slow roll out of major titles and news that the internal Stadia development studios would be shut down, all was looking lost for the game streaming platform.” This makes sense, but it is not a given, in addition we saw news that gamers had access to 50 games, whilst some sources claim that there are 200 games at present. The last one does not make sense to me. It does technically. There are all kinds of resource issues with streaming games and for the most they could be temporary, or merely in play until a full width of gamers is seen, it is better to open the tap a little further later on than finding out that the basement is now a swimming pool. All this makes sense to me, yet the gamers tend to lack patience. If you doubt that, ask Hello Games (No Man’s Sky) and CD Project Red (Cyberpunk 2077), they’ll tell you a few stories. But Google seems to go a path.
Amazon Amazon has another path, a more traditional gaming path with a reported number of games that surpass 80, a 60% limit above Google. For gamers this matters, and we need to realise that even as Amazon has a few other options to differentiate itself from Google, the question is will they? Then there is the number of games and kids will see two systems that can do pretty much the same, one has 50 games the other one 80. Which one do you think they chose? So yes Amazon has an advantage for now, but they have by their traditional approach a second one.
See the image, a gamer has to go from A to C, we assume that they will go via B, but Google shows us that they can get there via D as well. Now we get the tricky part. By focussing on licensing Google decided a path, in this we would assume that Amazon is more likely to be the success and I feel that this is correct. And here is where we need to realise that Amazon being a success, does not mean, or imply that the Google path will be a failure. Both can succeed and here we see the larger stage. Some designers will adhere to becoming a licensed technology owner, to set a larger path for THEIR game. This could be good, but for every version of Doom, we also see versions of Apex and Destiny, we see Battlefield 2042 and that list goes on a little longer, so how many failures will the Google Stadia house until it drowns the brand? I honestly do not know, but if you know gamers, you know what a fickle lot of hormones they can be and that is before we consider the new player Netflix, or whatever Tencent launches (I do not believe for one second that business decisions was a reason to stop), and with $200,000,000,000 on the line, Tencent remains a factor (for now).
And all that whilst I gave articles where we see that the Amazon Luna has a lot more options and that is not including the 50,000,000 console solution (I gave hints in earlier articles). In all this I will see Netflix as an optional new player and I have written off Microsoft, they lost too much and they lost credibility with the gamers, it will take them years to overcome that and at that point Amazon will be the most likely new top 3 player in games town. Google is not disregarded, but with the path they chose, they are less likely to succeed, and that success will depend on the first half dozen AAA titles, if they remain absent, Google will no longer be a gamer or a player, but that cannot be decided now, it will take until December 2023 until we see that finalisation. There is a side in me wanting to tell others that Google is on the wrong path, but that is incorrect, the larger stage is that none of the others have decided to tae the path A,D,C, and that does not make it wrong. Even as I show it with a square, there is no clear information on the paths taken and whether one path is equal, longer, or shorter. Time will decide that and in that we will need to wait, but in case of marketing hypes, I will side with Amazon. Not because they are better, these two systems are a lot more on par than either is willing to admit to (that is how I personally see it), I saw several enhancements to the system that both can do, but with a licensing path Google is less likely to go there, then there are a few other paths and without development Google will also not go there. So Amazon has an advantage, will they take it? I cannot tell, I doubt anyone can tell for sure. But as I calculated it around 2 years ago, that market is close to $600,000,000 at nominal and that is a mere 0.3%, but with such numbers, do you know anyone ignoring such optional revenue? Especially when the system out now could run that solution? It is a mere thought that drives the solution, I wonder what is required to hold such greed to account.
Whilst playing a game (Horizon 2, Forbidden West) my mind was drawn into a setting I have not openly done before. In the intro part we are (optionally) drawn into the conflict of intentional versus unintentional shortsightedness. A thief preventing theft is the clue (not giving away anything. But consider that I consider Microsoft to have shown (several times) the application of intentional shortsightedness. This goes back from the Xbox One and after. For whatever reason they did this, they set up intentional shortsightedness on storage for the longest time (since 2011). And I have scolded them for it, I could do so because their competitor (Sony) set up an option where it could be solved. They did this in the PS4, PS4Pro and PS5. Microsoft since the Xbox One avoided that and only now (2020) offered another option, I reckon because they could no longer avoid that. Now we see streaming and I warned about congestion, the setting in the UK is now “UK’s biggest network operator, might soon become its biggest 5G provider. EE currently has 5G live in the UK in 160 places and plans to cover the whole country by 2028.” So proper national 5G in the UK by 2028, implying congestion in a lot of rural places. Europe and the US are in no better state. There we see “All of the major U.S. wireless carriers say they have nationwide 5G service, but industry analysts say that service is largely indistinguishable from 4G LTE service”, yet 4G LTE and 5G are not the same, in no uncertain way! So we see an industry who is hiding behind shortsightedness to leave one third in the dark and that applies to the UK, US and Europe. 1/3rd is not worthy to be properly connected and in that we see a problem, it will taint streaming systems (and it works for Sony in no small way too). But I am not here pleading for Sony, I am here pleading for gamers.
The game gives us the stage of unintentional shortsightedness, because can we predict what happens or what is needed in 1000 years? Of course not, but the clarity we could see in 2011 was addressed by one and not the other, that makes it intentional. They cannot hide behind ‘We did not see that coming’ because nearly all could see it coming a mile away. Some hid behind what would expected to come (trade agreements) and someone boasted his trumpet too soon and the brand suffered, the other one made a video of one person handing a disc to another person and made short of the situation, but they too hoped for change and it is seen in there terms of service, the media largely ignored it whoring for digital dollars, but they too are guilty.
These are all stages of intentional shortsightedness. So when does it become unintentional shortsightedness? Because of the filtered business approach, the approach of common sense or the approach of what a board of directors stipulates? I honestly do not know. I am willing to go with common sense, but common sense and business sense are not aligned, or better stated they are more often not aligned than aligned. There is the stage of common sense versus service level agreements, there is the stage of common sense and dependancy of suppliers and there are a few other stages. Yet if the the UK is any indication, the delay to national 5G (real 5G) until 2028 sets a much larger premise. The ability to offer 5G solutions and 5G added abilities to a nation when it needs to rely on other means. It is (as I personally see it) as the 80’s setting that Dutch Luc Sala stated as the have’s versus the have not’s and it is coming to actual deployment in the next 5 years and not merely in the Netherlands, it will be seen on the global stage. A stage of technological discrimination, the problem is to see the difference between intentional versus unintentional shortsightedness, because even as a game brings it to the forefront, this stage has been deploying for close to 3 years and if you want to refresh your information (I stated it several times) at present only Saudi Arabia has a national deployed 5G network, and it is more than that it is merely 700% faster than the US, it is a nation that took serious steps to make its nation 5G and over the next 5 years it might get a lot more benefits in its wake than any other player. South Korea might have an advantage as well, but that will be seen over the next 2 years. A stage that we saw coming a mile away, so is it at that point intentional or unintentional shortsightedness? I will let you decide. But the lack of services that we will see pop up all over whilst some providers hide behind ‘It works fine under 4G LTE’ and whilst the media keeps n ignoring certain steps should inspire you to seek out the real information bringers and make sure that the media starts operating less under the appeasing structure and more supported by the common sense pillar.
Just to recap the important setting “In theory, 5G is likely to reach speeds that are 20 times faster than 4G LTE. 4G LTE has a peak speed of 1GB per second; 5G could theoretically achieve speeds of 20GB per second. … But where you might get 10Mb per second from your 4G network today, 5G could possibly provide 100MB per second everyday speeds”, so it becomes the “Do you really need 20GB per second?” And you think you are swayed, but the part ignored is that banks and others can have 20 times the transactions, so when you are in a bidding war and you will (nearly) always be missing out on a bid, it becomes the option where those who have will get the goods, those who have not will miss out on the goods. Transactions that are 20 times faster, the seesaw in a truly unbalanced stage. Consider your business where the information is brought to you at 5% speed, how appealing is that to some?
All matters that were out in the open for 4-6 years, now slowly pressing on your business, on your home, on your gaming and on your stream speed. You really think I was kidding when I saw congestion as the next big evil coming to your front door? So when short sighted people give you (on June 4th 2018) ‘NBN chief blames online ‘gamers predominantly’ for fixed wireless congestion’ and whilst we see see “The fixed wireless component of the NBN covers approximately 600,000 Australian homes. 234,000 homes are currently connected.” The larger ignored setting is that “streaming 4K video can use as much as 7 gigabytes (GB) per hour”, a clear setting of intentional shortsightedness, as (Australian) Netflix users surpassed 11,000,000 the Q1 2019, as such we see a massive cluster of shortsightedness. The issue here is prediction when does prediction become intentional? I cannot tell and Covid changed the metrics by a lot, but the levels of congestion were clear, they were clear before covid (2018), there are cogs that are connected, but I can tell you right now, that those claiming to see the difference can not always tell (including me), but I saw a lot of the factors upfront and I blogged them at the time since before covid. As such I feel that I have proven that a lot of unintentional shortsightedness was indeed intentional shortsightedness. Yes, I agree that some cases can be made in a few directions, but not all and too many points were unattended by too many industrials, and not merely in one nation, but near global and in the upcoming 5G commercial wars it will give raise to several failings that we are bound to see in 2023 and 2024. Perhaps suddenly the issues I raised in the streaming wars are a little less innocent, especially from the view of some of the industrials as they gave them. Consider some ‘stream’ presentation and consider who in the end they are really for.
It is a saying and I have heard it many times. Out with the old, in with the new. Yet in the world of media as an aggregated whole, that saying does not make much sense. For a few reasons my attention came back to Infamous:Second son I gave it an 83% rating when it initially launched (and I stand by that). You see, the game has brilliant and spectacular moments. In all but one setting it is close to brilliant. The one setting is linearity and in a near open world it is worse than a death curse. Linearity makes everything too predicable and that was the short coming of that game. It starts brilliant, the brother setting, the awakening of being a conduit and the power of smoke. It was amazing and until the second power comes into play it is all great, after that the party sizzles and linearity sets in. But that first area in Seattle is just grand. Then I thought what to do and I do not need to do anything, but Sony might. Consider that the game has a good and a bad setting. What if Reggie didn’t had a brother, but twins Delsin Rowe and Darren Rowe. One goes good, the other bad and that becomes a much larger story, one for the TV or whatever streaming service Sony has. They already own the IP, so that would not stop them and the setting could be larger, not larger in the stage, but it could give Seattle more than Amazon and Frasier (to opt an idea). The setting in the game was great and the antagonist Augustine was better thought up than most other antagonists in TV world. They both get the stage to clean Seattle each in their own way and there we need to set the station where the good one wins the concrete powers (and cleans up the streets and heals the reservation victims), as well as open up a much larger conversation. Can we separate people who are different? You see, Augustine is seen as evil, but her motives were pretty pure (from her point of view) and even as the game never went into that, the TV series might just do that and to be honest, the powers we saw in that game were freakin awesome.
I am a little surprised that no one had thought of that track with a game that was optionally much larger than we all thought it could be. Especially as studios are vying for streaming successes. Sony has a few IP’s in stock that they could alter in many ways and Infamous:Second Son is merely one of them.
Yes, there is a lot of anger in Bethesda land. As we take notice of “We have tried to be as clear as possible, not a timed exclusive, this is simply where the game is being made.” Starfield is a Microsoft exclusive and the fans are angry. I get it, I am not angry, it was a brilliant move by Microsoft, it is why I placed all kinds of IP on the public domain (here in my blog) for Sony and Amazon (Luna) so that their independent developers can make a totally new RPG game and the IP is free for them, it is my way to giving Microsoft the bird. These developers are not out of pocket for $8,500,000,000. And they deserve it (I hope).
So whilst we take notice of “Hines went on to point out that Bethesda fans on PlayStation consoles might not be shut out entirely from playing future titles from the studio”, we do understand that the PS5 is outselling the Xbox 2:1 and it will take some time before cloud gaming is expected to become congestion free, and that is providing that you have a true unlimited account, as some give us the stage of Xcloud on about 3GB per hour, so someone with a new 200GB account will run out of data in about 65 hours, that is likely less then 2 weeks for average gamers and 1 week for what some call the true gamers. After that it will be $30 per hour to game. And that is if it all goes correctly, I feel certain that congestion will hit soon enough. You see some sources give me “Optus now offers unlimited data across its range of postpaid mobile plans. As with Telstra, if you go over your data allowance, you’ll be capped to speeds of 1.5Mbps.” so if it is unlimited, how can you go over your data allowance? And consider that capped data does not allow gaming, not at 1.5Mbps. So we are (for now) locked to our consoles and PC’s. Is it a wonder that Amazon gives you Ubisoft+ at $1? The end is nowhere near here and it is a lot worse in places where you are rural, especially the US, Canada, France, Germany and several others. And in that light we need to see Bethesda. And they do give clarity with “Certainly, there are going to be things that you’re not going to be able to play [on PlayStation]” that is why Microsoft paid billions. They had a bad setting an inferior system and they got the people addicted to certain games across. Even though it is not a given, I feel certain that the new none online Elder Scrolls is most likely going to be a Microsoft exclusive. It makes no sense to get angry, they paid billions and the people on Sony will have to make a choice and I helped them by handing the independent developers on Sony and Amazon IP for free. I will try to add a few more titles and it is up to the developers to create them, but at least I handed them an alternative and I did mention a few more titles for consideration to remaster.
So whilst some people will get needlessly angry over “I want to be careful. I know it’s a question people care a lot about. It’s also a tricky one for us to answer because, frankly, it can get sensationalised on the internet”, I see it as a BS answer. It is not tricky to answer, it is the result of a $8.5 billion takeover, there was never any tricky setting. The only tricky setting was Deathloop as it was already a PS5 exclusive. At present PS5 is looking at 25 exclusive titles (until mid 2022) and that is not including a few titles that have no clear release date. In addition, the PS5 has crossed the 10,000,000 units sold line whilst Microsoft is nowhere near that, and as we see in some sources “the Xbox team has made it a policy in recent years to not disclose exact hardware sales numbers”, which makes sense when you are the number three console trailing PS5 AND Nintendo Switch. So the Bethesda move was the only one that made sense for them and they had to pay a massive amount for it (because Bethesda is worth it), and yes, there will be a group of people who will switch as they are dedicated as well as bug nuts for the Bethesda games and that is fine, it is what Microsoft paid for, as such I handed my creativity to Indie developers so that they can make a new RPG on PS5 and Amazon Luna. Will it happen? I cannot tell, I do not know, but at least I did not resort to anger, I merely gave others the chance to take a slice of the RPG cake on two platforms. Perhaps that is not the right sentiment, I offered IP so that they could consider going there. And if I find my IP on these two systems I can raise my glass and give Microsoft the bird.
No matter how many how many games Bethesda will make Xbox Exclusive (the right Microsoft paid for) it will hurt them to lose out of millions of gamers who will stick with Sony and that is the stage that they overlooked. When Sony gets a new RPG that is Sony exclusive and it does catch on (one hopes) Bethesda will lose out on a lot more and Microsoft will taste the sour grapes that come with a $8.5 billion investment, it was as I state before a brilliant move, and in this day and age as we are in lockdowns, I will add as much Gaming IP for Sony and Amazon developers (for free) and let that be the lesson Microsoft gets to learn the hard way.
Yes, we all have to create variables to set a larger stage. We know that age gives us a lot, but the 15 people of age 18, the 7 with age 19, the 3 with age 20 are useless, yet when we group them in an age classification of 18-23 we get a lot more information out of our data. This is not new, this is. setting that market research has walked on for decades. Even before some programs added ‘functionality’, the people behind programs like Quantum were already on top of mentioned groupings. So when I see Google 9 to 5 giving us “Google is adding five games to Stadia Pro for August 2021”, I wonder if they have any clue what thy are doing. Apart from the fact that we also get “Killer Queen Black, inspired by the hit arcade game, Killer Queen, let’s you fight for your hive with three ways to win. Will you claim your victory by hopping on the snail, hoarding berries, or wiping out the enemy’s queen?” As well as “Stadia Pro is Stadia’s premium subscription service and your gateway to the best that Stadia has to offer. With an active Stadia Pro subscription, you get a variety of perks, including free games, exclusive game discounts, and top-tier visual and audio quality”. Here we now see a setting where Google is not merely fumbling the ball, it is giving the court to Amazon. There was always a risk of that, but to do it in such a direct way is rather silly. There is no Google Stadia without decent games and by confusing gamers by giving them “there’s Killer Queen Black ($19.99), Valkyria Chronicles 4 ($49.99), It Came From Space & Ate Our Brains ($14.99), and Epistory – Typing Chronicles ($14.99)” we see a stage where Google will not be part of any gaming stage soon enough. Any platform needs traction, any platform, especially streaming systems will need a cluster of gamers, that like grapes suck your soil dry for EVERY game possible, the numbers and exclusivity decide the winner. So when I saw this last Friday, I had to ponder what this means, not only does the setup implies that Amazon Luna will rule the streaming environment, it also implies that Google would fall dead last behind Microsoft. A stage I had not expected to happen. Not only should Google be first, it should be way ahead of Amazon, which is apparently not going to happen, so when we get “The count now stands at 29 titles” leaving us with the implied setting that at present Amazon Luna is wielding a games list three times the size of Google, how was that EVER a good idea? It also leaves us with the implied stage that Amazon will soon be the number 3 system behind Sony and Nintendo and it gets to be better, in that setting there is a larger stage where the Luna could be seen as accepted NEXT to the Playstation 5 gamer and Nintendo Switch gamer, optionally we will see households with these three systems. This changes the future for Amazon in a few ways, should they think this through, they can offer a new level of social networking, offering a link to Sony and Nintendo players, so that they can partake on the social scene, they can offer a much larger stage that would offer the Kindle to a large population who have ignored it (for whatever reason) and set a new level of consumer staging. In this there is an optional chance that a new Triumvirate could be created. In line of the old version where the world was ruled by Julius Caesar, Crassus and Pompey. This version will be one that gamers want, because they are getting hat THEY want, not what makers think they want. Sony, Amazon and Nintendo will get a larger stage to unite and perfect gamers needs, the rest will merely watch on the sides as they are trying to figure out what gamers (according to their marketing department) need. It will set their agenda’s back for close to a decade and in the mean time these three will excel in giving us gamers what we truly want. This is not a given, but when we unite the news from different sources, there is every chance that we go in that direction, and it would make me happy, especially if that puts Microsoft dead last in that field. Serves them right! Huh!
OK, that might not be called for but my ego took over for a moment. And there is a larger stage, a stage that goes beyond what we merely think can happen, there are options for Amazon to make it happen, will they? That is hard to say, streaming needs a good internet connection and there is time, but in the next year this war will be settled on the streaming winners and Amazon does seem to be in pole position here, I am not writing off Netflix, but I have no idea where they are at and how they want to offer services, in addition Netflix is also seen as a competitor with the Sony streaming services, a setting that Amazon does not have, so Sony would be eager to add to their functionality without impeding the Playstation and Luna is no threat there, more interesting the Luna, Switch and PS5 can easily sit next to one another and that would sit well with all three, a triumvirate in the making and that is where the others fall away.
I have no idea whether this will really happen, it largely depends on the actions by Amazon and their Luna to show it can be done, but the other two will happily accept a brother in gaming that is not taking the wind out of their sails and Google forgot to see and centre their view to the larger ocean instead of calibrating to whatever coastline they are ogling. That setting of wrong focal point is more likely than not, the stage that will cost them the streaming gaming war, it was up to them and they chose (very) poorly as I personally see it. To be honest, I thought that it would take until early 2023 when 5G is more widely spread for the streaming consoles to set their battle lines and now it seems that at present, with the information given to us, Amazon Luna is all but a decided winner even before the race is off. Considering that they were up against Google and Microsoft, it is an achievement that should not be underestimated.
We all have that, we all get these thoughts that come from childhood, or from early teenage years and we make some form of connection, but the links are vague, missing and usually incomplete. For me it started today as I was figuring out a few things. I had the thoughts before. The first one was about elemental droids (see image) it was a comic book in the early 70’s, and just now I learn that there was a reboot in 2019. The second was some form of living cars, in part animals. Yet this was well over a decade before the original Transformers were launched as a cartoon. The mind is trying to make links, there is the option for gaming, the option for more. I am not doing to much about it, because it is not my IP, someone did the work, someone is doing the relaunch and for the other part, my mind is trying to make links and it is grasping back to those images for some reason. Just like there is setting where streamers (or Hollywood) would do good to start talking to Don Lawrence, who is one of the creative minds behind the Trigan Empire, as I see the half baked series on current channels, that might be a great catch for whomever scores those rights.
Yet the creative writing mind of mine is seeking an outlet and the images my mind calls forth seems to be pushing me back to the 70’s, not sure why. It is like the mind found the solution and it is trying to remember the complete story to present to me, but that is merely me speculatively grasping.
In an era where IP is growing a much larger concern in nearly all fields, as we realise that gaming will represent an amount exceeding $200,000,000,000 by 2023, IP is everything and we already see that only the strongest franchises will survive, Sony and Nintendo have their fair share, Bethesda, Guerrilla and a few others have strong IP, the rest needs to find it or become lost in mediocrity. And they all want their slice of that 200 billion dollar pie. So new IP is where it will be at and at the end of 2023 streaming games will be a massive part of it, games designed to work in client server mode with the client will be as small as possible. And here Amazon Luna has an advantage, with the only unknown player Netflix, who has game-able IP all over the place, so there is the crux. Google is not developing in house and Microsoft seems to rely in their master chief to save them. In that setting the consoles have their market and Amazon Luna has an optional field that could fetch them a massive advantage over the other players, but will they grab it?
We might wonder where they find it. And in all this we see what was brought in 1985-1992, the IP on three systems might not be protected and those owners might be interested to see their ideas push to new levels, there are all kinds of new options, especially in the old alternatives. But that does not stop my mind of thinking up new ideas and new IP. For those in doubt, consider that Jeff Minter brought us the mutant camels and everyone was happy. Yet it took 17 year old Matthew Smith to teach us that Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy were more than ground breaking. Someone had to take a jump into the unimagined. And in all this we ignored a whole range of games, because in those days it as always about the next game, not admiring the current game. That led to the diminished visibility of Andrew Braybrook who would bring the people Paradroid and Paradroid 90, Microprose brought us Covert Action and no one considered where those two could lead us on consoles and in streaming. Even now, some of the games from those days are now making it to Android, they will have an advantage as they develop for streaming systems and those systems will want these games, because the more games they have and the more games that an work in a limited 5G environment, the stronger the pull will be and soon these systems will wake up to the call of number of games and they want that level to be as high is possible with as much quality as possible. In the last 24 hours over a dozen sources are making this claim, as I have clearly made the claim for weeks, for months even. We are now seeing the media waking up, the streaming systems were already on that page, but do they have the IP? That remains to be seen. Yet time will prove that I am right, the moment they make a run for the IP, we will see that they have the sets to make a run on the number three position and they are setting a Hugh yield low impact race. Microsoft paid billions for Bethesda, a good move but there we see less then half a dozen IP, good IP mind you, but still the same IP on other systems and that is the difference, there will be a run on IP that other systems do not have, or not anymore, and the remastered and new versions will be accepted (Mass Effect proved that), yes, Mass Effect is exceptional. Yet the makers relied on that to push forward. Now when one of the players get their hands on a dozen IP’s that can be remastered, we will see systems with over a dozen unique games. If they are good enough, it will make them a winner, that is the game and the winning system will have a much bigger slice of 200 billion than mediocre games do. Sony is ready, Nintendo seems to be ready and Microsoft claims to be ready. So where are Netflix and Amazon? They remains silent and they are having a game plan, they aren’t silent because the media makes it so, they are silent because in the final hours any marketing wave will be 2-3 times more powerful than waves created a year in advance. For me Netflix remains an unknown, Amazon less so and they are off to a good start, will they make the number three position in gaming? It is becoming more and more likely, but it is not a given. And there is more, Microsoft gave us 4 hours ago (via Video games chronicle) “As an industry, I would love it if we came together to help preserve the history of what our industry is about so we don’t lose access to some of the things that got us to where we are today and built this industry. That would be a cool thing.” And we see the intent, but not what happens to the IP, it seems to me that Microsoft wants to claim it all, they fear the setting I gave for some time and now it becomes sort of a race and there is where I get to laugh. I put my IP out in the open, making it public domain, it gives game makers free reign to make gams for Sony and Amazon free, but that also limits Microsoft, and any created game is a loss for Microsoft and as they try to make the historic jump (over time) they will lose out more and more. In a stage Microsoft gives us ‘I would love it if we came together’, yes because that has always been their objective (not really). They want it all under the Microsoft flag, a flag I personally detest because of steps they made in the past. They ignored the players and decided for the players what the players wanted, it is not the right way. So as a gamer I revolted and published IP for all other game makers to freely use, my way of stopping a short sighted giant. And it was easy to do, I had the time and I (hopefully) expect that my 5G IP will get me through, it is all I need. The rest is to make a new stage for gamers by gamers and that stage is highly unlikely to have a Microsoft logo.
And still my mind is giving me issues with a comic book from the 70’s, I see a little more, but so far not enough to identify why my mind is pushing me there. Irritating!
Yet I do believe that the mind will win and it will show me what I missed (and why), perhaps in my dreams, perhaps not.
It all started a few hours ago, I decided not to write about the Canadian catholics, because I am too angry, some Bishop Bittman in Nelson asking for patience, we see (source: CBC) “Bittman says those buried in the unmarked graves may also include staff members of the schools”, yes, unmarked graves holding hundreds of unregistered teachers. Their families are all about dumping their carcasses in unmarked graves. Then we see “It’s coming out quite clear now tuberculosis, for example, was rampant around that time, and we know that there was overcrowding in the school”, yes, hundreds of unmarked graves, no notification to officials, as such catholic schools are not just murderous, they are stupid as well? I am in awe of Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, I personally would have scalped the whole lot of them years ago. But this is not about me, and it is not about Canada. As I was venting the rage within me I decided to browse YouTube and I cam across something I had seen before. It is a comparison of space ships from movies, games and TV series. I had seen it before but I looked again and two thoughts (optionally three) became the foundation. The first was seeing the Citadel (Mass Effect series). I was strengthened that my thoughts are still seemingly correct, EA screwed up Mass Effect Andromeda to the largest degree, and I am not sure if they can fix it, moreover the original trilogy is seemingly proving me right. So as the ships and stations pass by two places peak interest, the O4 (Halo), which might have some real life application when you consider the structural advantage that a circle has and the second one is Elysium, the station from the movie with an irradiated Matt Damon. Now consider that we find a station with a 25 mile diameter? Now some shoot them up, but a station with issues, dilemma’s and faults, abandoned for no one knows what reason and you arrive there. A station 1:1 in size and built to size, as such it will only work on a streaming system (for now). Stranded in a segment, trying to make sense of it all and not in some weird fabric way, no a station with systems, with computers with things to fix and as you go through that station you find records, books, recordings and you need to figure out what is what, a game that takes a year to complete, perhaps even longer. Do you have what it takes when it is not about the kill rate? What can be done when you get one robot fixed, then another and more. As you go through the systems, the station and the parts you can access, what more can you find? What more will you be able to do?
A game that I not a game, but it winks at places like the original SimCity, the original programs and we create a place where you work things out and learn. Would you like to learn about the foundations of hydroponics or actually use that knowledge to get a space station running again? And let’s face it, it had never been done before, that is well over half the fun of this and setting your record on your profile will fill you with a massive jolt of ego pleasure, when those around you are behind you, that is where the fun and pride take shape, a drive to be the better scientist, to be the better engineer and the greatest story collector. This is (for now) a streaming solution, to update millions of copies as things needs to improve is not a situation a console and its gamer want to endure, consider Ubisoft and Unity, if 14GB pisses you off, consider what 150GB will do and streaming has the server that keeps it all, the players will notice almost nothing. I wonder who will take a gander into the unknown first, Amazon or Netflix (Google is not developing in-house).
Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be 