Console Proposal

How will you make other companies make games for it? Considering games easily costs $5+ million, how exactly are you going to convince companies that developing games for your console will be a good investment?
And how will you convince anyone to buy the console? Will it be cheaper or more powerful than a PS3? Will it have more or better games?
And how will it be able to do anything you can't do cheaper on a PC? I doubt you'll be able to get custom hardware designed, so won't it just be a cut-down PC?

Just a couple of questions you might need to consider.

Well, you have hit me with a lot. I will do my best to explain.

First of all, the team will make the console and a few basic games. If the games are good, it will attract other game companies to make games for our console. There's not too much to go in depth with on that right now since there is no console. Marketing will have to be good, I will be recruiting marketers once it is done, too. Really I can't promise any specs. yet since I have no team and no final decisions. I am just here to recruit a team.

Last, yes it will be like a PC, just cut down with better than average graphics.

If you are interested in JOINING, please contact me.

Patrick

The problem would be penetration. A game developer is not going to produce games for a given console if they don't think many people are going to own the console, and nobody's going to buy a console if they don't expect there to be a good selection of games for it.

Look at it this way: you've said that this will be pretty much a cut-down PC. So suppose that some game company is trying to decide between making a PC game and making a game for your console. Given the market penetration of PCs, why would they choose your console instead?

What OS and APIs are you going to use? Remember DirectX only works on Microsoft products so you'll be stuck with SDL and OpenGL or Allegro or some custom job nobody has heard of before.

XGameStation

Consoles for us..... why not?
Console?
Open Source Console
Console looking for games
Indrema console (wow, that's a throwback!)

Is your idea different than any of those? If not, I'll be perfectly blunt: you're wasting your time. Unless you have a market differentiator, you will never produce anything more than a garage tinker toy for geeks and nerds.

Happy hacking.

Those are some very good points that I will have to sleep on. However, for future references, is there anyway to get something done and sold without a market differentiator. Now tell me, what is a good stratagy for selling (never-the-less building) a product on the market. I think i'm on the wrong track if I have no logic or theory to my plan.

Patrick

Quote:

Original post by mntlinstituteflr is there anyway to get something done and sold without a market differentiator.

No, of course not. "market differentiator" == "reason a certain group of people would want to buy your product instead of some other product".

Quote:

Now tell me, what is a good stratagy for selling (never-the-less building) a product on the market. I think i'm on the wrong track if I have no logic or theory to my plan.

In the console market, you mean? Simple: don't. It's oversaturated as it is. Just because you want something to work, doesn't mean it will. Consider: If it were reeeally possible for a 13-year-old to produce and market a video game console on a whim, would there really be so few consoles out there?

Quote:

Original post by mntlinstituteflr ...is there anyway to get something done and sold without a market differentiator?

Not really. In all likelihood, if you produce a commodity and advertise, somebody will buy at least one unit. But one unit doesn't break-even, much less yield a profit.

To yield an operating profit, or even create a zero-profit but sustainable enterprise to continue producing and improving the commodity you need to compete with similar products in the same market segment/category. Since you're looking at manufacturing a console, your competition, whether you like it or not, will be the Microsoft Xbox and Xbox 360, Sony PlayStation 2 and 3, and Nintendo GameCube and Revolution (yes, like next-gen consoles, you have to compete against the current gen). So what does your console plan to offer to attract consumers that the others won't?

Given that this is extremely difficult because of the cycle of credibility (who's making it?) leading to available games (what games run on it?) building its credibility (who's making games for it?), you may have to look at an alternative. So you think "I'll target independent developers and market it as a low-cost entertainment option for consumers." But they already have a PC, and indies already develop for PC, so why should they - or the consumers - switch to your platform?

Further, QA is expensive, particularly to do right, which means that your greatest overhead will not be manufacturing, but ensuring that every game released for your console lives up to the "slap it in and play, without bugs" expectations that consumers have of consoles. "But," you reason, "I'm making it available really cheap, and letting indies develop for it for free." Joe Public doesn't care. If he spends money on a device that plugs into his TV and he plays from the couch, he expects it to work just like every other device he plugs into his TV and plays from the couch.

Can you handle it?





Good luck.

I have had the idea once upon a time...
You can just make some sort of computer add-on that you plug into the USP ports to play, it would save you tons of proggramming time and you could sell it for 50-100$. Just make it have updated video cards and sound cards. Also make it be able to run any game made for computer and the games you make, but, make your games required of the computer console add-on. In the proggramming of your games have it read like

if (console detection = 1)
{
load game;
}
else if (console detection = 0)
{
cout << "You need the (insert console name) to play this game.\n";
system("PAUSE");
return 0;
}

Quote:

Original post by Servant of the Lord ...USP...

USB (Universal Serial Bus)?

Quote:

Just make it have updated video cards and sound cards.

USB 2.0 isn't remotely fast enough to have both video and audio data travel across it from the CPU and main memory.

Ideas are good. Engineering feasibility is even better.

So are you going to have your own electrical engineers design it or will you use pc hardware?

Quote:

Original post by Oluseyi Quote: Original post by Servant of the Lord ...USP... USB (Universal Serial Bus)? Quote: Just make it have updated video cards and sound cards. USB 2.0 isn't remotely fast enough to have both video and audio data travel across it from the CPU and main memory. Ideas are good. Engineering feasibility is even better.

It was an idea I had, I don't know much(much = anything) about computer egineering and I am only a beginner programmer.

Also, yeah I do mean USB. Sorry, forgot what it was called.

Quote:

Now tell me, what is a good stratagy for selling (never-the-less building) a product on the market. I think i'm on the wrong track if I have no logic or theory to my plan.

Throwing a few billion dollars at it seems to be the usual method. Microsoft lost $4 billion on the XBox, and Sony pumped tons of money into the original Playstation too.

Essentially, you need to convince both developers and customers that your console *will* become a success. Otherwise customers won't buy it, which means developers won't make games for it. Or developers wont make games for it, which means customers won't buy it.

So, winning over both sides at the same time takes money. Lots of money. (Remember how much Sony advertised the PS? On top of that, they've spent crazy amounts of money working with developers, helping them make games or paying them to do so, just to get the console off the ground. And then they had to sell the console at a loss just to make sure lots of people bought it)

True... all these are things to think on. However, I have thought of another idea. Correct me if this has already been done, I might just be clueless. Here's my plan:

Alright, forget about the console for now. I have thought of actually making a game pad identical to the xbox, ps2, ps3, xbox 360, gamecube, and revolution and make it USB enabled. Therefore, you can just plug it In to your computer and play your favorite PC games but with the console controller. All it needs is just a wee bit of configuration for each game to get the buttons mapped right.

Give me your input guys and gals...

Patrick

um..but the xbox, ps2, ps3, xbox 360, gamecube, and revolution controllers AREN'T the same. How exactly do you plan to create an object which is identical to other objects which are not identical to each other?

Quote:

Original post by Sneftel um..but the xbox, ps2, ps3, xbox 360, gamecube, and revolution controllers AREN'T the same. How exactly do you plan to create an object which is identical to other objects which are not identical to each other?

and, if i may add, whats the point?

I remember reading that the xbox 360 pad is going to be compatible with PCs anyway. That and there are loads of pads/joysticks available, why should i buy yours?

Quote:

You may think it's crazy at first, but really, it's not all too insane.

Actually, yes it is.

Haha...

Alright, i'll give it all up.:P

Patrick