Consoles are no longer Consoles

People these days talk a lot about how the next console generation will be the last console generation. They are wrong. The era of the XBox, PS2, and Gamecube was the last console generation. What we have now are not consoles. They are entire home entertainment systems contained in a small chassis. Other than the ability to receive phone calls, your smartphone and your entertainment chassis are pretty much the same thing. Everyone wonders when the next "console" generation will come out, and many were disappointed about the lack of announcements at this year's E3. Well, I hate to tell you, but it won't be for a while. Why? Contracts.

Let me break it down for you. Sony and Microsoft have contracts with many different companies to deliver media on their systems for a price. XBox alone has Netflix, ESPN, Hulu Plus, Amazon Video, DVR capabilities for Verizon and Comcast, and contracts with dozens of different production companies to stream and sell movies and music via their Zune service. With a new console, they would have to double up these contracts to get the same services on next generation hardware. Furthermore, the price of these contracts would go up. A more expensive console means the service providers would want a bigger piece of the pie. The apps for delivering all this content would have to be rewritten to be compatible with next generation hardware. The cost of a new entertainment chassis would be at least $699, or the price of a cheap computer.

It seems, though, that Microsoft may have a leg up on the competition in the form of Windows 8. Windows 8 was only briefly mentioned at their E3 press conference, and what was mentioned was the fact that XBox 360 games will be playable in the operating system. Also remember that Kinect is now compatible with Windows and Windows 8 uses the Metro UI, the same UI found on XBox 360 and Windows Phone 7. What this says to me is that the next XBox will be a Windows 8 computer, one with an app store where Microsoft can let these companies program their own executables. Unfortunately there will be no way to guarantee all the services at launch of the new XBox that are available as apps on the 360, but if it does just ship with Windows 8 then all those services will be accessible via their websites anyway.

One other bullet Microsoft will have to bite with a Windows 8-powered next gen XBox is that the platform will have to be more open. They can do their best to close it off, eliminating access to the registry, command prompt, control panel, etc. but they won't be able to do anything to stop developers from distributing apps over their own websites, or competing services like Steam. The only way they could would be if it did not have Internet Explorer installed from the start (which it will, what with it coming out on 360 this fall) or blocked installation of programs without some kind of digital approval stamp, much like what Apple is doing for OSX programs now. No matter how closed they try to make it, at its core it will be Windows 8-powered, and someone will find a way to gain access to the full Windows buried deep inside. At that point, there'll be no stopping it from becoming the rumored Steam Box.

So where does this leave Sony? Well, pretty much in the dust, unless they team up with Microsoft to create a Playstation-certified Windows 8 VAIO which, believe it or not, is a definite possibility. Heck, we've heard rumors that the next XBox will have a Blu-Ray drive. Since 360 games will be playable in Windows 8, they'll just all become PC games. That would just leave new, specialty Blu-Ray games to be playable in the system's drive, ones that would only be compatible with this system. Yes, I understand there is a lot of conflict here, mainly between Playstation Network and Xbox Live, but are either of those going to matter when you have Steam games running on your 60" TV? Don't think so.

In the end, the PC is going to be the winner, just as it has been for every console generation. At the beginning of a console generation, everyone thinks the PC is dead. By the end, PC game sales have embarrassed console game sales (cough Diablo 3 cough); they end up with more services, openness, usability, and power; no contract requirements on the end of the manufacturer; and PCs do not become outdated as quickly as consoles (with the exception of laptops built to be weak like netbooks).

Windows has won the console war. Deal with it.

Oh, right, Nintendo. Yeah, um, whatever.

Silver Shop - Beast Mode Tech Setup

Inspired by my good friend Jon Jones, I have decided to give you guys a rundown of the tech I am currently running. This is all used mainly for game development, but as they're also my personal PC's they're great for gaming in general, watching movies, listening to music, and 2-camera Google+ Hangouts (which I'll go over in a bit).

Here's the setup as it stands today. It consists of my main rig, my laptop, my TouchPad, and my Palm Pre.

Let's get the small stuff out of the way first.

This is my Palm Pre. That's right, it has a gesture area button. This is, indeed, a Palm Pre- on Sprint. Fuck anyone who hates this phone! I have been running all my business off this phone for over two years. The ability to sync all my contacts, calendars, emails, social networks, and various business accounts seamlessly makes handling everything effortless. Got an email? Boom, right in my notifications. Need to update the calendar? Boom, done three minutes before my friends with iPhones can even access their calendar app or figure out how to sync it to the business Google Calendar. webOS is amazing, which brings me to my next piece of tech.

HP TouchPad! I managed to snag one in a TigerDirect HP Laptop sale. The laptop became the company laptop and is currently being used for file syncing on Children of Liberty, so it is not in my possession. However, the TouchPad is, and it was free. This thing is in-fucking-credible and HP really dropped the ball on discontinuing it. Remember how I said running the business was dirt easy on my Pre? With this thing, I can not only keep the calendar and my contacts synced, but typing emails is 100x faster, I can show off screenshots and video at conferences or meetings really easily, and I can even play my Flash games I've put online! Let's see your iPad do that. I used to leave those duties to my laptop, but it has since become a strictly on-the-go work station.

This is my laptop, a Sony Vaio with a quad-core Intel Core i3 at 2.13ghz, 4GB of RAM, 500GB HD space, and an NVIDIA GeForce 310M chipset, running Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. I have been using this thing to show off Children of Liberty since its old Multimedia Fusion build (and in fact got it right before PAX East 2010 for that very reason), but have since been using it mainly for bringing back and forth to the office. This thing is fairly light, but I wouldn't want to lug it around for more than a couple hours at a time. This gets carried around in my old Timbuk2 messenger bag from high school, where it fits perfectly into the soft secondary pocket and stays nice and protected, while the power cable, USB cables, and mouse fit into the main bag area. When I need my Wacom or TouchPad with me, that goes into the back pocket. It's certainly not a top-of-the-line laptop, but a very solid mid-range piece of tech. It can play just about anything at medium settings, though, and can just about max the latest Unity build of Children of Liberty. That's all that really matters, because when it comes to gaming and game development, I'm all taken care of.

This is my baby, this is my jam. This mofo is an AMD Phenom X6-powered monster, running at 2.8Ghz PER CORE, 8GB DDR3 RAM, eVGA GeForce GTX 460, Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi (yeah you heard me, sound card, and it's regular PCI so when I have the money to throw in another video card I'll also have the room), almost 3Tb of hard drive space, Logitech G15 keyboard (the greatest keyboard ever made), Logitech MX620 Mouse (frictionless scrolling is such an amazing innovation, I can never go back), DVD writer, a 3.5" floppy disk drive for decoration, multi card reader, Wacom Intuos tablet, XBox 360 controller, HP webcam, and running Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit all encased in an Antec 900 chassis with a Samsung SyncMaster 216BW monitor. This thing can run anything at full settings. The venerable Manveer Heir once said of this, "When you turn your computer on, does it say 'Is it in yet?'" It'll take anything I throw at it and laugh. It's a joy for game development, renders HD video at a good speed, Photoshops without a care in the world, can run GTA4 and Assassin's Creed at full settings (not to mention every other game on the planet, yes, even Skyrim), and is just an intimidating piece of machinery if you don't know what you're doing with it. Also, that is a screenshot from Children of Liberty as the background, duh.

My programs for game development consist of:

• Adobe Creative Suite 4 with Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and Flash
• Silo3D for modeling
• Multimedia Fusion Developer 2 for prototyping, flash games, game jams, and small projects
• Unity 3.4 Professional for, you know, the big shit
• Pinnacle Studio 14 for video editing
• CeltX Studio for dialog editing
• OpenOffice for business work and design docs
• Google Chrome for everything else
• Steam with way too many games to count or list.

The one thing I'd add to this would be a multiple monitor setup, but as it is I'm too low on desk space to manage it. Some day, though.

Let me know what you guys think! If you have any other questions about my setup I'd be happy to answer them. What's your setup look like? I'd love to see it!

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

I'm not an Apple man. Never have been. Oh sure I have an iPod Shuffle and use iTunes to listen to my music, but that's the extent of my Apple devotion. I've always used Windows. I have a Palm Pre instead of an iPhone. My laptop is a Sony. I don't even have a tablet computer. Yet, it's hard to deny the impact the man had on the world of technology.

May I also remind you that Steve Jobs was rich - very, very rich - thanks to people like you (and me) who have purchased Apple products. As we speak, there are hundreds of thousands of protesters out in New York, Boston, and other cities demanding that the rich "pay their fair share." I cannot help but wonder how many protesters have Tweeted this on their iPhones.

Steve would not have wanted you to demand sympathy from others. He would have wanted you to go out and do something great, to come up with something fantastic and new that can change the world. Sympathy is earned. I am sympathetic toward Steve's family. I am not sympathetic toward people who demand money for doing nothing, especially when they are trust fund babies. Steve was not a man who did nothing. He made more of his life in his short 56 years than most of us do in twice that time, from inventing and reinventing Apple; to Pixar and NeXT; to defining the PC, digital music, and smartphone worlds.

Everyone has potential. Even those of you out there now, in the cold October night, hold up in tents, protesting whatever it is you read on Facebook, could be at home instead with your friends and loved ones, enjoying their company, and thinking about how you can change the world like Steve Jobs did. It's not about the money; it's about what you leave behind when you're gone.

RIP Steve Jobs, 1955-2011.