I ran across this news while writing up my previous post. It appears that Valve has gone and done exactly what I want for my gaming experience: the ability to have my savegames and configuration settings “in the cloud,” as it were, preventing me from transporting crap from computer to computer. Of course, Valve has an advantage in that it owns the Steam distribution platform, and has already provided the ability to download and play your games anywhere by logging in with your Steam account. This machine-ignorant purchasing and distribution network is just what the console platform holders need to get on board with. The machine on which I’m playing my games, whether a PC, Xbox, PS3, Wii, whatever, should not have to be special in any way for me to get at my games and data. It should be a commodity. A platform on top of which runs my game, into which I load my data. Thank you Gabe Newell for knowing what the hell is going on in this industry.
I seriously hope more folks get on the Steam train and distribute exclusively digital. Screw going to stores to buy games. My PC’s got gobs of free space, let’s use it up!
The situation today with console game storage has gotten absolutely insane. “The Big Three” have made it so much more complex and inadequate than it ever should have been. Microsoft gives you a measly 20GB drive on their standard edition, 120GB if you want to overpay for it (or a whopping 0GB if you buy the “Arcade” version). Nintendo gives you only 512MB of built-in storage, infinitely expandable with flash memory cards if you want to futz around with those. Sony has provided a whole bunch of options throughout the first year (20, 40, 60, and 80GB models — complicated to the point of pointlessness), and has finally settled on 40 and 80. Why is storage such a difficult and largely ignored problem with video game consoles?
The obvious answer to this question is that the tiny cost associated with including extra built-in storage is enough for the platform holders to shy away from the idea completely, at the expense of the customer’s user experience. I understand that the grand majority of their customers probably never need more storage than what their savegames use, but myself and other gaming enthusiasts are not only the very vocal minority when it comes to gaming industry business blunders, but we’re also the coveted “attach rate” customers that pour money all over Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft by buying new games and content multiple times per month. So isn’t it in their interest to listen to us, at least sometimes?
Downloadable content is the guaranteed wave of the future. Rock Band has sold over 6 million songs, Steam is rolling along and crushing retail sales of many PC titles, and Nintendo has sold over 10 million Virtual Console games. Microsoft just recently upped the maximum XBLA game size to 350MB, HD movies are multiple gigs a piece, and added in-game content for some games can reach 1GB in size. With all of these methods of filling your available storage, why isn’t there a better solution?
With the PS3, a marginally savvy user can at least buy a bare 2.5″ SATA hard drive from a wholesaler and bump their storage up cheaply. That’s nice of Sony, but why can’t we just use external USB storage or something similar? Microsoft wants $100 for a 20GB drive, and $180 for a 120GB drive, with no way of expanding your capacity on your own. Nintendo offers no way to increase your primary storage, and even with flash memory cards, you can’t play games directly from them. You have to shift games around between external to internal storage before it’ll let you play them.
In a world where a gigabyte of disk-based storage costs an average of $0.58 [1], and flash-based storage about $4.90 [2], it’s incredible to me that these platform holders haven’t embraced that fact and opened up a little bit more to users adding their own storage if they won’t sell it to us built-in at a reasonable cost.
Another service that should be considered is web-based storage. Google provides me with over 6.5GB of web-based storage across my Google services: Gmail, Picasa, Docs, etc. Microsoft’s got 6GB for me sitting in my unused Hotmail account, why not utilize this for a cool Xbox Live feature? The portability of the data over the web would not only be phenomenal, but also integral to the advancement of the medium. I wish I could have access to my savegame data over the web so that:
- When I’m at a friend’s house playing Boom Blox, we can have access to all the unlocked stages as well as my homemade stages.
- I can play local multiplayer Super Smash Bros. Brawl somewhere else, and play any stage or character.
- When my Xbox hard drive dies, or my Wii is broken, or my DS games stolen, I’ll be confident that my history with games I’ve played is secure.
And how cool would it be if you could simply share out a save file and make it publicly accessible through a web service, like on Xbox.com, or PSN, or a Wii service (if one existed)? The same goes for recorded in-game content, a la “Saved Films” in Halo 3, or user-created skate. videos. Features like this could easily become staples in games, and cool ways to share experiences with your friends without having to actually play with them online.
Something’s gotta give soon. Rock Band alone has the potential to eventually take over your 360 hard drive with songs, if they keep releasing them at the same rate. And with the Wii version of Rock Band, Harmonix has had to resort to releasing standalone discs of extra songs you have to purchase, which negates the “pay for what you actually like” approach.
In the current console cycle, it’s too late to fix this storage issue. I just hope Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo give some serious thought to coming up with a solution for the next go-round. Now off the soapbox.
Bethesda Softworks’ second significant add-on and first real “expansion pack” for Oblivion is slated to hit shelves (virtual shelves, that is) on the 27th of March. It’ll come as a substantially sized download via Xbox Live Marketplace and it’ll be 2400 Microsoft points, which is something like $30. I’m currently about 80 hours into Oblivion, but I just started on the main quest for the game over the weekend. So I’ve got quite a bit to accomplish yet in the game, and this will add even more playability to this individual game. This is definitely a welcome addition to an already stellar RPG experience. Bethesda’s got the right idea… screw all this “episodic content” BS and just design a game that can be augmented and built on to in the future without a hassle. Much better than the Valve approach of just developing each “episode” for so long that they’re like full games, only without as much content. So far Bethesda’s the only one to pull it off properly (we’ve had several house add-ons and the Knights of the Nine… did I mention HORSE ARMOR?), and they’ve done an amazing job.
