It might be my current choice of reading, Wikinomics, which spawned the idea for me to write this post. A now “classical” book about the new changes the web have caused and contributed to over the last decade. One of the authors have been famous for been ahead of his time with his ideas, visions and visions [Video]. Now I’ve finally had the time and energy to truly read this great encyclopaedia(wikipdia!) and summary of new and fresh ideas, thoughts and collaborations. Full with great examples and explanations on the behind factors for some of those success. Its really a must read! Today these ideas may not seem so revolutionary. yet many businesses and companies sure could need some help adapting to the new changes, challenges and opportunities waiting. Like the game industry…
At the moment I consider buying a Playstation Portable (PSP). It was used as an example in the book on how users want to modify their technological machines, while the hardware manufacture doesn’t and try to stop them. There are tons of great example on devices the user and fans have improved and developed new software, uses and done truly remarkable things with, some even beyond the creators own fantasy. And yet many manufactures constantly work against those who simply want to improve the product. Their afraid that people will “hack” the product, that could result in companies lose sales beyond the hardware, revenue and control. That’s the general assumption it seems. But as with most things, they should try to see the new positive effects instead of the negative ones.
A great example is the game console platforms. If you study all the big game consoles on the market (not including the PC platform) they’re all tightly locked systems. Video game consoles have been described to go in “hardware cycles”, were a new generation enters the market about every 5 years. And the industry also talk about the estimated console lifespan, how many years a consoles lives (=how many years new games continue to be released for the platform). According to the CEO and President of THQ Brian Ferrell, the industry have more sub-cycles today. And claim the traditional Hardware-cycle model to be “dead”. Along with the growth and expansion of the game industry, the segmentation have become more diverse (sub-cycles). A good thing, thou not totally without complications. In today’s market this works, but how good is it for the future?
The point I aim for is this, manufactures should open up their platforms and system more! Mass collaboration for a future prof content platform. Some new games/programs touch this concept of user-generated content like Little Big Planet and Xbox XNA offering the users tools to develop their own games. That’s fine for now, the problem I see is those games are still locked within the console-owners (read Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft = the Big Three) controlled platform. I’ve earlier discussed the problem with Locked exclusice online content. This goes beyond just content. It may be good for now to offer easy tools for user to create their own content and share them with others over the closed network. But to truly create a attractive future platform, the Big Three should open up even more. This could allow the users and community to freely develop new applications, features and harness the power of the consoles and networks. Winning with an Open platform!
“Conventional wisdom says that being open is rather like inviting your competitor into your home only to have them steal your lunch. But in an economy where innovation is fast, fluid, and distributed, conventional wisdom is being challenged.
Winning in a world of cocreation and combinatorial innovation is all about building a loyal base of innovators that make your ecosystem stronger, more dynamic, and more expedient than the ecosystems of rivals in creating new value for costumers. To achieve this, your organization-regardless of the sector of live of business-needs to identify and open up platforms to enable mass collaboration.”
- Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, Wikinomics.
To some extent can I understand the dilemma for the Big Three. They want control so their network, hardware and services isn’t abused. At the same time as they have a responsibility for to offer their costumer a reliable and stable service. And of cause, they want to make as much money as possible! But the price they pay is loosing innovative knowledge and possible free work force from the collective intelligence masses. Its also understandable they don’t want to experience the video game crash of 1983 again. We can assume the industry have learned from their past mistakes! Instead it could speed up the overall progress of the harnessing hardware capacity, software innovations and selection of game available. If you make a search on Youtube or Google Video, you’ll find many many videos were people have modified gaming consoles and created new fascinating applications. And that’s probably without access to SDKs from the manufactures! Imagine what people could create if they had better access to system tools and a developer community hosted and encouragement from the console owner. Building new functions and and applications for their machines, creating more new value for the platform. With army’s of fanboys and fangirls out there, and many with good technical experience and knowledge, what are the the Big Three waiting for?
“A key message in this book (Wikinomics) is that the old monolithic multinational that creates value in a closed hierarchical fashion is dead. Winning companies today have open and porous boundaries and compete by reaching outside their walls to harness external knowledge, resources, and capabilities. Even the stodgy, capital-intensive manufacturing industries are no exception to this rule. Indeed, there is no part of the economy where this opening and blurring of corporate boundaries has more revolutionary potential.”
- Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, Wikinomics.
Which bring us to the PC (including Mac and Linux of cause) platform… Since the beginning the PC have been open for everyone to develop on. No one owns the PC, the open source philosophy is basically built in from scratch. There are no limitations on the PC, if you ignore the hardware side that is. A PC is never finished in the same since as as console, even if there are different SKUEs and new firmware constantly released. The never ending upgrading of PC hardware is both one of its strongest features, and the weakest. One PC are almost never exactly the same as another. This create a endless variety of configurations, all that PC games have to be tested against. Another big factor in the PC community is MODS. Game developers release their code and encourage other to improve, expand or build completely new games! A phenomenon with deep roots in the PC community, and have spawned many big successes and been the breakthrough for many small developers. Microsoft try to work this into the Xbox with their XNA, and it could be fine if it weren’t for the distribution. Developers can’t simply create a game and release it, they have to receive approval from Microsoft and are locked within the Xbox Live network. One area I won’t go into discuss this time is Piracy.
There’s also the question of how future prof the current game generation is? One problem with consoles vs. the PC, is that consoles almost never are automatic backwards compatable. Whether I can take a 10+ old PC game and pop it into my new PC system and it still runs (the only bottleneck nowadays is comparability problems with Windows Vista 64-bit, thanks for that Microsoft!). But I can’t play my Nintendo games on Super Nintendo console, unless there is a adapter to fix this. Many of the current generation consoles start to work out ways to revive old games, by releasing them again and therefore charge for them again! Not future prof or backwards compatible in my view.
I thought this through today when I went home from work, how would I build a game console to fit this new paradigm? When it hit me, that the console already exist, the PC. It still have its limits, but its open. A future gaming console that is an empty shell basically and then let the game community develop the software and upgrade the hardware to fit their need, and explore how far they can push the console. Have trust in the community, and let them show the way to the future. With a young industry as the game business is, how it works today is fine, for now. But in the future when hardware power won’t matter as much as today, the real winner will be the one opening their platform and working with a good community. Why not start today!? They have everything to win.