Game Pass was supposed to be the all-you-can-play subscription service that put Xbox on top after a disastrous generation. Instead, it's a failure that's threatening to ruin the company.
“Netflix for games” has proven to be far from the ideal solution.
I think the reality is that we outgrew our need for consoles the way they’ve always existed, with certification, exclusives, walled gardens, generations, etc. that no longer make sense. If you want physical to come back, it’s probably on a PC somehow, but people also don’t typically have disc drives anymore, and even offline games tend to get patches and updates that you’d have to account for in some way; the media you can store that on will have a more restrictive shelf life and cost more to purchase.
There is definitely a benefit to having a set platform for game developers to target.
I don’t mean that PC is a bad platform… I just mean it’s a moving target. An ever-evolving target. The further back you go in the PC library the worse the game compatibility gets. We completely lost 16-bit games years ago without much fuss.
Consoles, though, serve as checkpoints almost. Place GTA IV into an Xbox 360 and it’ll act exactly the same as when you bought it.
The answer there is emulation. Good Old Games sells old DOS games and they work fine on modern computers because each comes wrapped in a DOS emulator tuned perfectly for it…
That’s why GoG introduced the preservation program. So they can continue maintaining that software. But it’s a strict list.
How many indie titles on PC aged out of the platform and have no maintainer?
You get what I’m saying? Even the older console titles can still play on the console they were designed for… but PC is so nebulous that both software and hardware can age out of use.
And once again, I must insist, I am not saying PC is a bad platform. I’m saying PC is a moving platform. Having a set target is a good thing for development and playability. We here are all a-okay with workarounds and emulation layers. But sometimes it’s a good thing to just have the person sit down and start playing without troubleshooting.
Perfectly tuned forever, just keep the game bundled with the same emulator.
If eventually the system that the emulator runs on diverges too far from what the emulator was able to run on, then wrap it in another emulator to emulate that. Or just update the emulator, DOSBox is under the GPL.
How many indie titles on PC aged out of the platform and have no maintainer?
If you have an emulator then you don’t need a maintainer. As far as the game is concerned it’s still running on the exact same computer that it did when it was first released.
A person who purchased Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone for PC would be unable to launch the game in any modern OS. But if they have it on PS1, it still works.
They’d need a PS1 emulator for that. DuckStation, for example.
A person who purchased Minecraft in 2011 can no longer play that game on the same computer they purchased it from.
The newer versions of Minecraft can’t. The old version they purchased in 2011 still can because it hasn’t changed.
I’m saying PC is a moving platform.
And I’m pointing out that an emulator need not be a moving platform. It can be a frozen snapshot of a particular moment in time. Get a game working on an emulator and you can freeze that emulator’s code and configuration and then you’ll know that the game will always work on it from then onward. Bundle the emulator with the game, like GOG does, and there’s no “fiddling around” - you can indeed just sit down and play it.
I do wish they’d include some CRT shaders on their version of DOSbox though. Lots of those games’ pixels were never meant to be seen by the naked human eye.
You can swap out their dosbox.exe with a version that includes CRT shaders, such as DOSBox Staging or DOSBox-X.
Or you could wrap the existing DOSBox window in an external shader using ReShade, it’s a universal post-processing injector that can add a CRT filter. That way the emulator they wrap the game in remains untouched, you’re just modifying the visual output.
My search also found all-in-one frontends called ExoDOS and LaunchBox/RetroArch to do this to a whole library of GOG games so that you don’t have to do it individually to each.
Also, I get where you’re coming from, but it’s the economics of it that are tearing down consoles. If you’ve got a set target, Game X launches on PS4. Now the PS5 comes out. It plays PS4 games, but it can’t ever run them better than the PS4 ran them. It also asks for an upgrade to run the “PS5 version”. It also demands you use a PS5 controller and not a PS4 controller. Game X is still super popular for more than the duration of the PS5’s lifespan. Now the PS6 is coming out, and the cycle will repeat.
Because of console cert, and all of those added costs, it’s far easier to get out the next indie hit on PC for less money. People go to play the indie hit, and it’s old news by the time it gets a port for Switch 2.
PS2 used to have tons of exclusive games that Sony didn’t even pay for the privilege. Now architectures and capabilities are so similar that if you’re making a game on only one platform, you’re leaving money on the table. So as the customer, you’ll probably end up going for the one with the most games you want to play, which has a greater chance of being PC every time the above paragraph happens.
Online gaming doesn’t have to come with a subscription fee, but they all choose to, and customers are savvy enough to notice their long-term costs after they’ve been gaming for some time.
Each of these things gets people to check out of the console space as it loses the value it once offered.
Nah, I’ve hit stuff that can’t run in it. No amount of futzing with the IRQ settings would restore audio, that kind of stuff.
Regardless, the issues you describe is not necessarily the way things have to be. I mentioned the Evercade in another post elsewhere. It’s a console made with cartridges. You put the cartridge in. You play the game. You don’t need to subscribe to anything. You don’t need to upgrade to another version. You don’t need to purchase the missing chapter.
If I made a game today for the Evercade, yes it would need to go through certification, but in 20 years, if I put that Evercade cartridge in my Evercade… It’ll play. No ongoing maintenance patches. No workarounds. No troubleshooting by the end-user.
EDIT: That came out more smarmy than it should have. I meant that the PS5 doesn’t need emulators, VMs, and translations layers for the software that was designed for it.
I think the reality is that we outgrew our need for consoles the way they’ve always existed, with certification, exclusives, walled gardens, generations, etc. that no longer make sense. If you want physical to come back, it’s probably on a PC somehow, but people also don’t typically have disc drives anymore, and even offline games tend to get patches and updates that you’d have to account for in some way; the media you can store that on will have a more restrictive shelf life and cost more to purchase.
Personally I don’t actually want physical media anymore. I just want digital media to actually be something I own.
There is definitely a benefit to having a set platform for game developers to target.
I don’t mean that PC is a bad platform… I just mean it’s a moving target. An ever-evolving target. The further back you go in the PC library the worse the game compatibility gets. We completely lost 16-bit games years ago without much fuss.
Consoles, though, serve as checkpoints almost. Place GTA IV into an Xbox 360 and it’ll act exactly the same as when you bought it.
The answer there is emulation. Good Old Games sells old DOS games and they work fine on modern computers because each comes wrapped in a DOS emulator tuned perfectly for it…
perfectly tuned for it… for how long though?
That’s why GoG introduced the preservation program. So they can continue maintaining that software. But it’s a strict list.
How many indie titles on PC aged out of the platform and have no maintainer?
You get what I’m saying? Even the older console titles can still play on the console they were designed for… but PC is so nebulous that both software and hardware can age out of use.
A person who purchased Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone for PC would be unable to launch the game in any modern OS. But if they have it on PS1, it still works.
A person who purchased Minecraft in 2011 can no longer play that game on the same computer they purchased it from. But if they purchased Minecraft on PS3… it still works today the same as the day it was purchased.
And once again, I must insist, I am not saying PC is a bad platform. I’m saying PC is a moving platform. Having a set target is a good thing for development and playability. We here are all a-okay with workarounds and emulation layers. But sometimes it’s a good thing to just have the person sit down and start playing without troubleshooting.
Perfectly tuned forever, just keep the game bundled with the same emulator.
If eventually the system that the emulator runs on diverges too far from what the emulator was able to run on, then wrap it in another emulator to emulate that. Or just update the emulator, DOSBox is under the GPL.
If you have an emulator then you don’t need a maintainer. As far as the game is concerned it’s still running on the exact same computer that it did when it was first released.
They’d need a PS1 emulator for that. DuckStation, for example.
The newer versions of Minecraft can’t. The old version they purchased in 2011 still can because it hasn’t changed.
And I’m pointing out that an emulator need not be a moving platform. It can be a frozen snapshot of a particular moment in time. Get a game working on an emulator and you can freeze that emulator’s code and configuration and then you’ll know that the game will always work on it from then onward. Bundle the emulator with the game, like GOG does, and there’s no “fiddling around” - you can indeed just sit down and play it.
I do wish they’d include some CRT shaders on their version of DOSbox though. Lots of those games’ pixels were never meant to be seen by the naked human eye.
You can swap out their dosbox.exe with a version that includes CRT shaders, such as DOSBox Staging or DOSBox-X.
Or you could wrap the existing DOSBox window in an external shader using ReShade, it’s a universal post-processing injector that can add a CRT filter. That way the emulator they wrap the game in remains untouched, you’re just modifying the visual output.
My search also found all-in-one frontends called ExoDOS and LaunchBox/RetroArch to do this to a whole library of GOG games so that you don’t have to do it individually to each.
Are 16-bit games not solved via DOSBox?
Also, I get where you’re coming from, but it’s the economics of it that are tearing down consoles. If you’ve got a set target, Game X launches on PS4. Now the PS5 comes out. It plays PS4 games, but it can’t ever run them better than the PS4 ran them. It also asks for an upgrade to run the “PS5 version”. It also demands you use a PS5 controller and not a PS4 controller. Game X is still super popular for more than the duration of the PS5’s lifespan. Now the PS6 is coming out, and the cycle will repeat.
Because of console cert, and all of those added costs, it’s far easier to get out the next indie hit on PC for less money. People go to play the indie hit, and it’s old news by the time it gets a port for Switch 2.
PS2 used to have tons of exclusive games that Sony didn’t even pay for the privilege. Now architectures and capabilities are so similar that if you’re making a game on only one platform, you’re leaving money on the table. So as the customer, you’ll probably end up going for the one with the most games you want to play, which has a greater chance of being PC every time the above paragraph happens.
Online gaming doesn’t have to come with a subscription fee, but they all choose to, and customers are savvy enough to notice their long-term costs after they’ve been gaming for some time.
Each of these things gets people to check out of the console space as it loses the value it once offered.
Nah, I’ve hit stuff that can’t run in it. No amount of futzing with the IRQ settings would restore audio, that kind of stuff.
Regardless, the issues you describe is not necessarily the way things have to be. I mentioned the Evercade in another post elsewhere. It’s a console made with cartridges. You put the cartridge in. You play the game. You don’t need to subscribe to anything. You don’t need to upgrade to another version. You don’t need to purchase the missing chapter.
If I made a game today for the Evercade, yes it would need to go through certification, but in 20 years, if I put that Evercade cartridge in my Evercade… It’ll play. No ongoing maintenance patches. No workarounds. No troubleshooting by the end-user.
But the beauty of an open platform is that people can and have made emulators, vm’s, translation layers, etc.
How much 16-bit software are you running on a ps5?
I run exactly what was designed for PS5 on a PS5.
EDIT: That came out more smarmy than it should have. I meant that the PS5 doesn’t need emulators, VMs, and translations layers for the software that was designed for it.