Spielberg: Games Will Stream to TVs
While he didn't go into actual specifics, he referred to the arcade boom during the 1970's and 80's, and how they have now gone the "way of the dodo bird," meaning that home consoles, last generation and current generation, have made arcades virtually extinct.
Spielberg admitted that he began playing video games long before he had a family, finding himself enthralled with the first Pong game back in 1976 while directing his blockbuster movie, Jaws; ten years before his first child. He said it's quite easy for him to switch between game development and motion picture development because he's a fan of both genres. "I would be a hypocrite if I thought the gaming business was hurting the movie business," he said in the interview. "I go out to movies, and I play games. I used to go out to play games until games came to us."
He goes on to talk about Gameworks, a chain of sixteen "entertainment venues" that launched in Seattle back in 1997, a joint venture with Sega, Universal Studios, and Dreamworks. Spielberg and his clan withdrew from the venture four years later, and the chain eventually filed for bankruptcy in 2004. Sega Sammy Holdings swooped in and bought the chain in 2005, and is now operated by SEGA Entertainment. He attributed the downfall of Gameworks to gaming consoles "selling like hotcakes."
"All the video game parlors went the way of the dodo bird, and now we're all playing at home, and someday we'll be playing directly on our TV sets, bypassing all the platforms," he added. Spielberg also admitted that he's a PC gamer above anything else (even though his two games are Wii-specific titles), however he plays on the Xbox, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 when he can. He said that the PC and aforementioned consoles offer the "micro physics" experience: he's glued to the screen, looking at the fine details, noticing things more easily.
The Nintendo Wii, on the other hand, is more of a macro experience for Spielberg even though gamers are more physical with its library. "It makes you feel like you're inside the game, not outside the game," he said. Because of this "overview" experience, Spielberg decided to create Boom Blox and the upcoming sequel, Boom Blox Bash Party. "I wanted people to really feel that when they threw an object, it would have a real effect."
Spielberg goes on to talk about his involvement with the development process, claiming that he's over at Electronic Arts at least once a week. He also mentioned that he wanted the gaming industry to advance into true 3D gaming with a "good set of glasses" and a monitor designed specifically for 3D rendering. After that, he wants the industry to move into virtual reality. "I really think virtual reality, which experimentally came and went in the 80s, is going to be redeveloped just like 3D is being redeveloped today, and that's going to be the new platform for our gaming future."
While virtual reality is an obvious progression for many gaming genres, Spielberg vaguely outlines an obvious evolution of gaming: from consoles to games on demand, to 3D, to virtual reality. Gaming on demand isn't an impossibility; cable companies would simply need to agree on a standard hardware configuration and integrate the technology into DVRs and set top boxes. Simply plug in a game pad, choose a game to rent via a list, let it download locally, and simply press play.
The idea of games on demand isn't new: Phantom Entertainment (Infinium Labs) attempted to create a games on demand console (receiver) years ago. Although the device was cancelled back in 2006, on demand services are now commonplace within cable and satellite TV subscriptions. It's only a matter of time before games are added to the current list of movies, television shows, and music videos, fulfilling Spielberg's prophecy.
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I'm all for the video game streaming so long as it works well, which I can't see it doing with out some serious bandwidth - like 50 Mbps. It'll take at least a few years for this to go mainstream
I wonder why kind of PC gaming rig Spielberg has?
I can almost picture him now...03:00am, sitting in a dark office hunched over his keyboard, surrounded by empty cans of RedBull, wearing only a t-shirt and his tighty-whiteys screaming at the top of his lungs "But I need that f'ing health pack!! Heal me or I will give your ass a close encounter with my foot!!!"
Maybe, but there are a few problems.
As Sneaky Snake said, bandwidth is a huge issue. With cable companies dreaming up ways to cap our bandwidth or do overage charges, this is a problem.
Next is consumers embracing this. People are on the edge about DD, so streaming or cloud gaming is a step beyond this.
Finally I worry that this will lead to pay to play service. I loved the arcades of my youth, but once I was able to buy and game and play it to my hearts content without paying each time I knew which was was better.
No mention of Onlive - which claims to do just this - live streaming of games. Personally I don't see it happening but it's worth talking about here.
You know, compare Gameworks to Dave and Busters and, at least around here, they both are full. D&B is CROWDED! Wonder why? Hmmm. . .
Lots of respect for Spielberg, but he's not one I would look to for technology prediction - FILM technology? Sure. Game technology? No.
I think part of the reason why GW went BK a few years ago was the withdrawal of funding and, quite possibly, mismanagement. D&B is doing well (and now, so is GW) because they are marketing themselves as destinations.
Spielberg needs food. LOL
http://www.onlive.com/ Ehm Hello do people live under a Rock?
There was a guy talking about server-side computing, or cloud computing, back in the 90s, and he kept saying how he hated "all the little bits of computers" and how when you buy a computer "you have all these bits to put together". But that's what a lot of people enjoy, and a lot of people like to have their games in a tangible format that isn't dependant on anything but them and their hardware.
However, I would LOVE this system for renting games. If it worked well it would be much simpler, faster, and (hopefully) cheaper than a video store. And if anything ever crashed, you wouldn't be so bummed because there's no risk to lose anything but the ability to play a game you only spent a couple bucks on. But yeah, it probably won't be feasible for a couple years at least.
@marcchell0 and spanner_razor: Not sure how this is much different from OnLive except it would probably be integrated into a cable TV provider's on demand services, as opposed to playing over broadband internet. I do find it funny that it's not mentioned too, as this is pretty much exactly what Spielberg's talking about.
Does anyone have any experience with OnLive? How well does it work?
Well, since most cable companies force you to "rent" the equipment from them for an absurd monthly price and prohibit you from using cable boxes and dvr's from anywhere else, I can only imagine what the equipment lease would be on a set top cable box with gaming capability. A basic digital reciever with no DVR is like bucks, a basic low end DVR is 15, and HD DVR's go up from there per month in my area thru Time Warner. A gaming console / digital reciever would be insanely high (if it contained any sort of real gaming horsepower).
@jecht
Onlive is in beta stages right now, and as such only a select few (with close proximity to the Onlive service depots and serious bandwidth) get to try it out
I wonder why kind of PC gaming rig Spielberg has?I can almost picture him now...03:00am, sitting in a dark office hunched over his keyboard, surrounded by empty cans of RedBull, wearing only a t-shirt and his tighty-whiteys screaming at the top of his lungs "But I need that f'ing health pack!! Heal me or I will give your ass a close encounter with my foot!!!"
Ha, nice.
I can imagine it too.
Man has done some wonderful stuff, me luff him long time.
Maybe, but there are a few problems.As Sneaky Snake said, bandwidth is a huge issue. With cable companies dreaming up ways to cap our bandwidth or do overage charges, this is a problem.Next is consumers embracing this. People are on the edge about DD, so streaming or cloud gaming is a step beyond this.Finally I worry that this will lead to pay to play service. I loved the arcades of my youth, but once I was able to buy and game and play it to my hearts content without paying each time I knew which was was better.
Fir bandwidth, let's all switch to fibre! And once we've all had our All-Bran, we can all invest in Fiber-Optic services. Bandwidth issues taken care of. Theoretical bandwidth of a single fiber is more than some countries total bandwidth.
The pay-per-play also might be extremely expensive for hardcore gamers, such as arcades were.
It'll be alright though for those who only want the occasional hour, instead of paying $500 for a PS3 and $50 for a game they use a hour a week.
No sh#Q$$!t Sherlock. Jeez does Spielberg get another academy for this revelation? Another $25M for this prediction. Next Spielberg prediction, it directly streams into your brain.
More means to make America fat!
... WOW.
I wish this article did more justice to gaming history. Plus sorry to inform Spielberg but this is not really a prediction of something 'new'.
Maybe I'm old, but let me impress upon your minds what was once a most glorious invention of it's time: SEGA CHANNEL.
Around a 50 game library, which shuffled with new games from every week to month. Flat monthly subscription fee and you could download whatever game you wanted directly into your sega genesis. It existed, was fast, and a simple child could browse the library of games.
It looks like SEGA was the company looking outside the box, and coincidentally, trying to serve gamers at present (arcades mentioned in the article).
I don't care what people say but I love arcades. I'm not talking about the flashy D&B types(even though I like them too. I carry 2 of their gold cards in my wallet if I need them). Being a product of the coin-op generation of the 80's I believe you can't beat the old-school, pitch dark room, rows of standups, all blaring their noise at the same time. As a teenager I worked in an arcade like this and I have always vowed to build one in my home one day.
It shows that Spielberg... while having a genius for movies... doesn't understand the way technology is changing the world. He's living inside the box and apparently is unable to see that he box is doomed.
The "TV" is a dying technology... games will NOT be playing on TV's in years to come... but rather - "TV Programming" will be playing on what are in reality computer monitors. TV will be just one more media stream that consumers will get to choose from, and it's relative importance... already significantly reduced as the star of the internet has risen... will continue to erode.
I doubt it...
I rather see computer games being created to playback a movie. Current computer technology is so vast they could put a 7 hours movie on a 600MB CD. The quality of the movie just depends on the quality of graphics card you have.
It'd be a great boost to the sales of graphics cards. Instead of games, movies with computer generated images.
I suspect the visual will be quite boring from a laptop with an Intel integrated graphics card, but it might look pretty cool with more modern NVidia or ATI Radeon 4770/4800 cards!
i think games on demand have a future int ehg ame industry BUT THEY ARE NOT THE FUTURE
, i think hardware , both pc and console will still hae THE place, on demand systems would require that the dvr BE a consoel as well as cable /sat receiver , or inthe elast it would have tob e streamed aka quality loss for those that don't ahve higher bandwidth. then don't forett eh system fact hardware lovers like myself that enjoys ahvign a console or puttign my own pc together , will stil want the hardware and will still goa nd buy physical games .. afterall we have had VoD and PPV for ages ... and peopel still buy dvds/blu rays
oh and if the big companies buy this up adn stop making physical game media , ther will jsut be smaller companies repalicng them , becuase as a consumer I will never do "game on demand" and as some one goign itno the game industry after college , i will never swtich ot development only on this system , i'd ahve to make games taht folks can own , it's jsut the way i am
I wonder why kind of PC gaming rig Spielberg has?I can almost picture him now...03:00am, sitting in a dark office hunched over his keyboard, surrounded by empty cans of RedBull, wearing only a t-shirt and his tighty-whiteys screaming at the top of his lungs "But I need that f'ing health pack!! Heal me or I will give your ass a close encounter with my foot!!!"
lol who knows it is very likely i have already doen a game of Left 4 dead with him .. (or you for that matter)
@Demonhorde665
I've seen you spell before, seems like you rushed that paragraph.
Anyway, yeah this isn't much of a prophecy considering OnLive is basically this (except on the internet, instead of the TeleVision) And it might just be me.. but I really wouldn't want virtual reality games to become the big "thing". Something about actually having to move while playing videogames isn't appealing to me, which is why i dislike the Wii. I am not that lazy by the way, it is just that after a long day when I am ready to chill and do whatever I want, the last thing i want to do is actually have to move in my Video Game
oh and if the big companies buy this up adn stop making physical game media , ther will jsut be smaller companies repalicng them , becuase as a consumer I will never do "game on demand" and as some one goign itno the game industry after college , i will never swtich ot development only on this system , i'd ahve to make games taht folks can own , it's jsut the way i am
Do what?
Whew, at first I thought, from the title of the article, that Spielberg had somehow been caught up in the scam surrounding that "OnLive" hoax. Still, there are some serious snags he didn't catch, but they're far more understandable, since he's a director, producer, and developer, not quite a business strategist.
* Hardware for playing games is expensive. Upon their release, only the Wii cost less to produce than it sold for. This means for what might be considered to be a good-looking gaming experience, the receiver will have to contain at least, say, $300US' worth of hardware, even with a disc drive removed; hard drives may be cheaper and cheaper every day, but they'll still need to spend a pretty penny on a CPU, and especially high-speed RAM. (GDDR3, let alone GDDR5, costs far more than DDR2) Somebody's got to pay for this. Either the consumer is going to have to be willing to swallow that hefty price tag to game there (where then it's hardly any better than a console, as it's optional) or the cable companies are going to have to bet that it'll pay off for them (and likely slap on an extra $10US or so off of every game sale a la Microsoft/Sony)
* There is, yes, an issue of adopting a standard. If each cable company adopts something proprietary, they will invariably fail, due to a lack of choice, as the main cable companies operate local monopolies. Then there's the issue of that this would require a cable company's service; what about the millions who STILL live far beyond where cable bothers to reach? Sattelite isn't really an option for downloads; it's slow, prohibitively expensive, and the typical strategy is to punish any customer that downloads more than 200MB a day. (so in other words, they gouge customers to the tune of $90-120US a month for what amounts to 6GB of bandwidth)
* Lastly, there's some technical downsides, namely, questions over backwards-compatability, and the tranferability of such games; a lot of customers would be rightfuly irritated if they paid >$50US for a game, only to find out later that they could not longer play it when they "upgraded" to a newer device. Unlike consoles, receivers are intrinsicly tied to a service, meaning you can't just swap what you've got plugged in when you want to play something older. Plus, most people play with games that are not registered to them in an online database, ESPECIALLY once you consider all the billions of console games sold.
All told, I can't see this sort of thing even rising to the level of prominence of the big three console makers, let alone wiping out console games. Sure, cable companies are greedy, but they're also incredibly stupid AND greedy. They'll undoubtedly try to do it themselves, but the most they'd do is prompt Valve to start a "Steam for consoles" service, which would almost certainly demolish the cable companies' efforts in that field, as Steam is well-established, while cable companies have countless hurdles just to overcome their own faults.
I am not the least bit interested to invest in THINCLIENT games
I want all the code on my machine to (ab)use- and inspect as I please. (no, not piracy, you dullards)
sp*berg is too obsessed with the 'power' of the darkside