7 ms·

Why not just sell something like the Portal as open in the first place? There are no Portal games to worry about protecting. What's the percentage in locking i

Why not just sell something like the Portal as open in the first place? There are no Portal games to worry about protecting. What's the percentage in locking it down?

lozenge 3y ago
I mean, it's Sony. How long did it take them to get out of the Memory Stick business. There isn't an open system they haven't tried to compete with with their closed, locked-in alternatives. Are you going to buy a PS6 if you build up a games collection on Steam?
dangus 3y ago
If you want a game console company to sell a totally open console, that’s just a willing misunderstanding of the game market on your part. Even the Steam Deck as the most open commercial console on the market is pretty clever in that it doesn’t stop you from using competing software stores, but you still need to invest significant effort into getting them to work. Getting my free copy of Control on the Epic Games Store to work on the console was something that took me a significant amount of time. I could imagine a less technical person being completely unable to do it, but if you owned the game on Steam you just click a button and play. In my opinion, if Sony wasn’t being supremely lazy they would have made the Portal with AMD x86 hardware similar to the Steam Deck and designed it to natively play your PS5/PS4 library on the go instead of making it a streaming-only device.
- TheCapeGreek 3y ago
  >but you still need to invest significant effort into getting them to work This is far more related to their lack of Linux support, and forcing launcher usage via Steam for some games (EA, Ubisoft) than Valve making it difficult on purpose. Nothing stopping you from using Desktop Mode to do whatever you want on the device otherwise.
  - xena 3y ago
    Nothing is also stopping you from putting Windows on the Steam Deck, Valve even provides drivers for you to do it!
    - dangus 3y ago
      My point would be that a very small percentage of users will ever go through that effort, and the Windows experience is so obviously inferior with its lack of tailored UI that it’s not going to be very attractive. Valve knows that the lowest friction activity is buying a game in Steam Deck OS and clicking play.
- Zambyte 3y ago
  > but you still need to invest significant effort into getting them to work. This isn't true for things that actually run on GNU/Linux. Installing the itch.io launcher is as easy as going to desktop mode, opening discover, navigating to the itch launcher, and clicking install.
  - dangus 3y ago
    My point would be that a large percentage of Steam Deck buyers will never even enter desktop mode or do so by accident and leave immediately.
davidsergey 3y ago
I wonder if customer support and warranty is part of the calculation. If they sell open platform – they will have to provide support and potential warranty for it. But I guess that most people are not interested in open platform, only tinkers like us are. And if they make it officially closed platform, they don't have to deal with our complaints, when something does not work, or more likely underperforms.
jsheard 3y ago
If they're selling it at cost or at a loss (I don't know if they are) as a value-add to the PS5 then they wouldn't want people buying it just to play emulators.
- gchamonlive 3y ago
  The argument usually goes like this, but has zero evidence in real life. Even PS2 which was quite infamous for the amount of unlocks and hacks, sold really well and was very successful. I think business do that not to protect sales or anything but to appease shareholders.
  - toyg 3y ago
    You misspelled appealing to game developers and publishers. Most companies will not invest on a platform that makes it too easy to rip them off.
    - gchamonlive 3y ago
      You mean like gog?
      - crtasm 3y ago
        gog is a store, PC/Mac is the platform.
        gchamonlive 3y ago
        Exactly. Meaning opening system doesn't reduce investments, they foster competition. In theory, people should not consider developing for pcs because they are really easy to rip off, and well, that is not what we see.
      - toyg 3y ago
        Gog was born as a bargain-bin store for products that required zero investment and were already widely pirated, it was only upsides as far as publishers were concerned. I know it's different now, but I doubt their no-drm policy is as iron-clad on new titles ar it was on old ones - it's probably left to publishers to do some traditional checks on their own, rather than using a platform sdk.

Why not just sell something like the Portal as open in the first place? There are no Portal games to worry about protecting. What's the percentage in locking it down?

lozenge 3y ago

I mean, it's Sony. How long did it take them to get out of the Memory Stick business. There isn't an open system they haven't tried to compete with with their closed, locked-in alternatives. Are you going to buy a PS6 if you build up a games collection on Steam?

dangus 3y ago

If you want a game console company to sell a totally open console, that’s just a willing misunderstanding of the game market on your part. Even the Steam Deck as the most open commercial console on the market is pretty clever in that it doesn’t stop you from using competing software stores, but you still need to invest significant effort into getting them to work. Getting my free copy of Control on the Epic Games Store to work on the console was something that took me a significant amount of time. I could imagine a less technical person being completely unable to do it, but if you owned the game on Steam you just click a button and play. In my opinion, if Sony wasn’t being supremely lazy they would have made the Portal with AMD x86 hardware similar to the Steam Deck and designed it to natively play your PS5/PS4 library on the go instead of making it a streaming-only device.

TheCapeGreek 3y ago
>but you still need to invest significant effort into getting them to work This is far more related to their lack of Linux support, and forcing launcher usage via Steam for some games (EA, Ubisoft) than Valve making it difficult on purpose. Nothing stopping you from using Desktop Mode to do whatever you want on the device otherwise.
- xena 3y ago
  Nothing is also stopping you from putting Windows on the Steam Deck, Valve even provides drivers for you to do it!
  - dangus 3y ago
    My point would be that a very small percentage of users will ever go through that effort, and the Windows experience is so obviously inferior with its lack of tailored UI that it’s not going to be very attractive. Valve knows that the lowest friction activity is buying a game in Steam Deck OS and clicking play.
Zambyte 3y ago
> but you still need to invest significant effort into getting them to work. This isn't true for things that actually run on GNU/Linux. Installing the itch.io launcher is as easy as going to desktop mode, opening discover, navigating to the itch launcher, and clicking install.
- dangus 3y ago
  My point would be that a large percentage of Steam Deck buyers will never even enter desktop mode or do so by accident and leave immediately.

davidsergey 3y ago

I wonder if customer support and warranty is part of the calculation. If they sell open platform – they will have to provide support and potential warranty for it. But I guess that most people are not interested in open platform, only tinkers like us are. And if they make it officially closed platform, they don't have to deal with our complaints, when something does not work, or more likely underperforms.

jsheard 3y ago

If they're selling it at cost or at a loss (I don't know if they are) as a value-add to the PS5 then they wouldn't want people buying it just to play emulators.

gchamonlive 3y ago
The argument usually goes like this, but has zero evidence in real life. Even PS2 which was quite infamous for the amount of unlocks and hacks, sold really well and was very successful. I think business do that not to protect sales or anything but to appease shareholders.
- toyg 3y ago
  You misspelled appealing to game developers and publishers. Most companies will not invest on a platform that makes it too easy to rip them off.
  - gchamonlive 3y ago
    You mean like gog?
    - crtasm 3y ago
      gog is a store, PC/Mac is the platform.
      - gchamonlive 3y ago
        Exactly. Meaning opening system doesn't reduce investments, they foster competition. In theory, people should not consider developing for pcs because they are really easy to rip off, and well, that is not what we see.
    - toyg 3y ago
      Gog was born as a bargain-bin store for products that required zero investment and were already widely pirated, it was only upsides as far as publishers were concerned. I know it's different now, but I doubt their no-drm policy is as iron-clad on new titles ar it was on old ones - it's probably left to publishers to do some traditional checks on their own, rather than using a platform sdk.