Two open gaming platform efforts

[Posted January 23, 2007 by corbet]

Gamix is an effort to create a Linux-based gaming platform; it is based on the Mandriva distribution. There are some limits to its openness, since it specifies an NVidia graphics adapter. A beta release of the Gamix platform is now available for download for those who would like to try it out.

Meanwhile, the Open Game Console consortium is working on a platform of its own; see this proposal for details. It, too, uses some closed components; the software will be based on an unspecified Linux distribution. (Thanks to Per Ekström).

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Two open gaming platform efforts

Posted Jan 23, 2007 16:30 UTC (Tue) by quintesse (guest, #14569) [Link] (5 responses)

Open Game Console: "However, over the past decade most gamers have actively decided to stop using their PCs for gaming and simply play on consoles."

I wonder if there is any factual data to support this statement?

Two open gaming platform efforts

Posted Jan 23, 2007 17:55 UTC (Tue) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link]

To claim that they "actively decided" seems to be a stretch. Gathering this data would be difficult at this time. Perhaps you could try polling a large number of people who play games and ask about their views at different times and so on. I'm certainly no expert on statistics and surveys but I think such data seeking for retroactive view information would be hard to generate in a reliable way.

If you simply read that as I do, though, it can be readily agreed with. I view it as a sloppy way of phrasing "the pc gaming market has been steadily shrinking while the console gaming market has been more rapidly growing." This can be borne out with relatively easy-to-acquire sales figures. I leave the acquisition of such figures as an exercise to the doubting reader.

Two open gaming platform efforts

Posted Jan 23, 2007 18:07 UTC (Tue) by elanthis (guest, #6227) [Link] (3 responses)

Don't know about "most," but I certainly have. PCs are too much of a pain in the ass to deal with and are far too expensive if you want to game. It's still way cheaper to just buy a PS3 at $600 than to buy a PC capable of playing newly released games throughout the life-span of the PS3.

Combine that with long boot-up time, installation hassle, manual patching, OS instabilities, hardware incompatibilities, and tons of other painful components of PC gaming. Why put up with that when you can just stick a disc in your console, turn it on, and be playing a very stable game in under a minute?

Two open gaming platform efforts

Posted Jan 23, 2007 19:42 UTC (Tue) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link]

Why put up with that when you can just stick a disc in your console, turn it on, and be playing a very stable game in under a minute?

Because Civilization is not released for PlayStation :-)

Bye,NAR

Two open gaming platform efforts

Posted Jan 24, 2007 9:34 UTC (Wed) by Janne (guest, #40891) [Link] (1 responses)

"Why put up with that when you can just stick a disc in your console, turn it on, and be playing a very stable game in under a minute?"

Because consoles absolutely, positively suck for certain types of games?

Two open gaming platform efforts

Posted Jan 25, 2007 0:23 UTC (Thu) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

Add a keyboard and mouse to consoles.. Now they don't suck for those types of games.

Realy, it's not that difficult.

To put it into perspective:
Computer game sales peaked in 1999 with about 1.9billion dollars worth of sales. Since then you had a gradual and consistant decline in sales to were it's now down below 1994 levels with 2006 sales of about 970 million dollars. (this is US sales)

The top 10 games, in terms of sales for the PC are:
1. World Of Warcraft, Vivendi
2. The Sims 2, EA
3. The Sims 2: Open For Business Expansion Pack, EA
4. Star Wars: Empire At War, LucasArts
5. The Sims 2 Pets Expansion Pack, EA
6. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Take-Two Interactive Software
7. Age Of Empires III, Microsoft
8. The Sims 2 Family Fun Stuff Expansion Pack, EA
9. Civilization IV, Take-Two
10. The Sims 2 Nightlife Expansion Pack, EA

It's pretty bad when one game gets 2, 3, 5, 8, AND 10 spots in all the same year.

Now for computer games, world wide, it's slightly over 1.1 billion dollars. For console/portable games it's around 12Billion dollars worth of sales.

http://www.philsteinmeyer.com/40/retail-pc-game-sales-off...

game divided up by sales and usage:
http://theesa.com/facts/sales_genre_data.php

For online stuff you have over 60% of people's time spent on puzzles and browser-based mini games.

Two open gaming platform efforts

Posted Jan 23, 2007 16:38 UTC (Tue) by jpetso (guest, #36230) [Link]

For online gaming stuff, you could also have a look at GGZ Gaming Zone.

Two open gaming platform efforts

Posted Jan 23, 2007 20:14 UTC (Tue) by bryanlarsen (guest, #26230) [Link] (3 responses)

These look like two different beasts to me.

Gamix seems to have both the chicken and the egg, OGCC has neither.

In terms of "chickens", Gamix has 7 games currently available.

In terms of "eggs", Gamix has the start of a viable plan for seeding hardware. Many of today's PC's are compliant with the Gamix spec; they need to get Gamix stickers on to more of them! Heavy proselytization and setting a much cheaper early adopter certification price would go a long way. Hardware vendors, please look into Gamix.

They should also package a few of top free Linux games into gamix ISO's to give away as demos.

OTOH OGCC has neither chicken nor eggs, just a press release, a wiki and a forum.

Two open gaming platform efforts

Posted Jan 23, 2007 20:40 UTC (Tue) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link]

Hmm, I'm not so sure that it is time to be counting those chickens. They are mostly open source games. The games mostly run on pre-existing windows and/or linux deployments. It would be hard to find a Gamix-compliant machine that did not already run windows or linux. Maybe the imac and/or mac pro might fit the bill?

This seems to be a PC-booter approach to PC-gaming. One of the major advantages of PC gaming is that you can use your system for other things in parallel, such as email or chat or whatever common applications get used in sync with gaming. I suppose VOIP applications are really the killer apps at the moment although I suspect they will become more folded into games over time. So call me a doubter on their whole concept, although I could easily turn out to be wrong.

But still, I wonder if they are licensing the right to ship Nvidia's drivers or if they are hoping Nvidia will turn a blind eye. And of course will anyone feel like filing a lawsuit over the GPL legal gray area each and every Gamix image will fall into.

Two open gaming platform efforts

Posted Jan 24, 2007 14:37 UTC (Wed) by wertigon (guest, #42963) [Link] (1 responses)

While there are many compliant Gamix machines, I don't think Gamix really could be considered a console - the specification is too loose. The main advantage to develop for a console is that you can play a game anywhere and it'll just work. None of this "Oh, I'm sorry sir, your system has X and Y which are known to have buggy drivers" crap that you see all too often on PC. Right now I see nothing in Gamix that will prevent that from happening to them, and I think they'll run into that wall quite soon.

OGCC on the other hand is trying to make this work by developing a specific console that can run the "Core OS" or a firmware. It's design is rigid and set in stone, so the "Play Anywhere" trait that all consoles share will be much easier to uphold. IMO that will be the key, but then again, I could be wrong. Only time will tell. :)

Two open gaming platform efforts

Posted Jan 24, 2007 16:37 UTC (Wed) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link]

By specifying the video hardware and shipping the driver, I'd say they have a fair crack at avoiding the "I'm sorry sir you have buggy drivers" problem.

They may fail at the "I'm sorry sir your videocard is too new for the disc you have" problem.