http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-09-gran-turismo/50802?type=wmv
context:
1, I want to get back to work on my novel
2, I really miss Gran Tourismo
Effectively Sony and Polyphony Digital will launch what should be bar-none the best racing experience to date.. in a vide game.
While they take their sweet time putting it together though good racing experience have come and gone to fill the game between GT 2 and whatever Sony comes up with.
Shall we say that GT 2 still stands as one of the best straight up racing experiences out there and it was, at the beginning of this decade the reason I bought a PSOne.
So it's kinda sad, a decade later that I haven't touched the game.
I haven't even got a Playstation 3. And don't want one. That I don't have one probably isn't the fault of this game not being in development but it's a big part of the reason.
So.. what is there to do that whole decade of waiting?
I started writing up my book. After seeing the above trailer it occurred to me that my book would pretty much be Gran Turismo 6 or 7 something. Where it's an mmo and you can effectively buy cars and parts as though they were real products with real currency.
Like at some point the tipping point will occur where watching a game at home, or race in this example, doesn't matter if it's a real car and driver or a gamer and his digital toys.
To the viewer it's all the same crap. The online racing community will have enough consumer fans for sponsorships etc to support them. Besides that the more progress is made in computer handware and network latency and bandwidth, the sooner you could see real online gaming communities have primetime, mainstream appeal.
But even if it's decades away (the technology and infrastructure), so to it seems is a Gran Tourismo worth playing and watching.
So I'm watching the video though and it starts to bug me.. that nagging fealing that we're still in the stone age. When will it actually happen? when will the great unwashed actually give computer gaming a real chance versus real life superstars and their sports and million dollar racing machines?
Is it just the graphics? You can look at that video and be at once in awe of the progress the studio has made in ten years, or you could look at that video and wonder.. how in 10+ years have they still failed to manage to have people in their videos that look compelling enough to watch?
Besides that.. why are Japanese developers in particular so reliant on animation? Can't they generate real persistent intelligent worlds?
That is likely to be the tipping point. The point where MMO's in general start to really matter.
For the moment they are just super video games, but you can't seriously expect anyone to watch. Nor for advertisers to kill their own grandmothers to fill that game space with targeted ads.
Once Gran Turismo acts the part besides just playing the part and looking the part.. once you can just jump in and live inside that game, buy your cars and move them around, schedule your life around it, as a fan or gamer, there isn't a real possibility for a big enough community to support the game outside of the gamers and production and publishing company.
But, once you can play a game with the depth and quality of Gran Turismo, that takes itself so incredibly seriously and manages to live up to most of what they are trying to build.. maybe someone will pay to watch you play and compete. That extra money will support the platform.
Trully PD have amply demonstrated they should be managing the infrastructure of a racing world entire instead of a single stupid title. They could build the world while other companies fill it with game play.
Because.. driving cars is fun.. maybe. Having the choice though of playing a first party game like PD's GTV OR Wipeout.. still and has never been much of a choice. You can't get a game like Wipeout that has the quality, budget, attention to detail and massive balls that GTV has.
Cause seriously, once GTV finally add damage and multiplayer.. and they even seriously start whispering about another itteration.. won't there be that many more me-toos cashing in where PD fails to have a product for sale?
It must really hurt them to see Forza 3 coming up when it's trash compared to what they have to offer. Though they can stay aloof, FM3 has many features they lack. FM3 also by the words of the developers has something else that Sony products seem to never have.. developers that talk to each other and share.
It's like baby steps but FM3 is the result. They aren't sharing a full contiguous game space yet.. but they are sharing knowledge.
Perhaps in another decade one camp or another will develop that one game that becomes that one game everyone is interested in. Where the infrastructure is either built into every TV (it plays the game the way some tvs ship tuners as standard) or because HMs do all the hard stuff and you just stream the game through your TV.. It might get expensive buying hardware to process games when we'll really need to worry about just displaying it and paying for bandwidth.
context:
1, I want to get back to work on my novel
2, I really miss Gran Tourismo
Effectively Sony and Polyphony Digital will launch what should be bar-none the best racing experience to date.. in a vide game.
While they take their sweet time putting it together though good racing experience have come and gone to fill the game between GT 2 and whatever Sony comes up with.
Shall we say that GT 2 still stands as one of the best straight up racing experiences out there and it was, at the beginning of this decade the reason I bought a PSOne.
So it's kinda sad, a decade later that I haven't touched the game.
I haven't even got a Playstation 3. And don't want one. That I don't have one probably isn't the fault of this game not being in development but it's a big part of the reason.
So.. what is there to do that whole decade of waiting?
I started writing up my book. After seeing the above trailer it occurred to me that my book would pretty much be Gran Turismo 6 or 7 something. Where it's an mmo and you can effectively buy cars and parts as though they were real products with real currency.
Like at some point the tipping point will occur where watching a game at home, or race in this example, doesn't matter if it's a real car and driver or a gamer and his digital toys.
To the viewer it's all the same crap. The online racing community will have enough consumer fans for sponsorships etc to support them. Besides that the more progress is made in computer handware and network latency and bandwidth, the sooner you could see real online gaming communities have primetime, mainstream appeal.
But even if it's decades away (the technology and infrastructure), so to it seems is a Gran Tourismo worth playing and watching.
So I'm watching the video though and it starts to bug me.. that nagging fealing that we're still in the stone age. When will it actually happen? when will the great unwashed actually give computer gaming a real chance versus real life superstars and their sports and million dollar racing machines?
Is it just the graphics? You can look at that video and be at once in awe of the progress the studio has made in ten years, or you could look at that video and wonder.. how in 10+ years have they still failed to manage to have people in their videos that look compelling enough to watch?
Besides that.. why are Japanese developers in particular so reliant on animation? Can't they generate real persistent intelligent worlds?
That is likely to be the tipping point. The point where MMO's in general start to really matter.
For the moment they are just super video games, but you can't seriously expect anyone to watch. Nor for advertisers to kill their own grandmothers to fill that game space with targeted ads.
Once Gran Turismo acts the part besides just playing the part and looking the part.. once you can just jump in and live inside that game, buy your cars and move them around, schedule your life around it, as a fan or gamer, there isn't a real possibility for a big enough community to support the game outside of the gamers and production and publishing company.
But, once you can play a game with the depth and quality of Gran Turismo, that takes itself so incredibly seriously and manages to live up to most of what they are trying to build.. maybe someone will pay to watch you play and compete. That extra money will support the platform.
Trully PD have amply demonstrated they should be managing the infrastructure of a racing world entire instead of a single stupid title. They could build the world while other companies fill it with game play.
Because.. driving cars is fun.. maybe. Having the choice though of playing a first party game like PD's GTV OR Wipeout.. still and has never been much of a choice. You can't get a game like Wipeout that has the quality, budget, attention to detail and massive balls that GTV has.
Cause seriously, once GTV finally add damage and multiplayer.. and they even seriously start whispering about another itteration.. won't there be that many more me-toos cashing in where PD fails to have a product for sale?
It must really hurt them to see Forza 3 coming up when it's trash compared to what they have to offer. Though they can stay aloof, FM3 has many features they lack. FM3 also by the words of the developers has something else that Sony products seem to never have.. developers that talk to each other and share.
It's like baby steps but FM3 is the result. They aren't sharing a full contiguous game space yet.. but they are sharing knowledge.
Perhaps in another decade one camp or another will develop that one game that becomes that one game everyone is interested in. Where the infrastructure is either built into every TV (it plays the game the way some tvs ship tuners as standard) or because HMs do all the hard stuff and you just stream the game through your TV.. It might get expensive buying hardware to process games when we'll really need to worry about just displaying it and paying for bandwidth.