Why haven't I heard about this before now? Well, I don't own a PSP and therefore don't read news about it, that's why. But still, this is big. The specter of free, open-source games is deadly serious to the console industry, which relies on the "razor blade" business model: consoles are sold at or below cost, with the expectation that those costs (and hopefully profits) will be made up through game sales.Microsoft uses the threat of withholding Live! service to prevent people from using hacked or modded games on their Xbox and Xbox360 consoles. And no free, open-source video game is likely to rival the experience of a multi-million dollar, studio-produced game any time soon. But with retail prices for next-generation titles creeping up to $60, demand for less expensive games may grow. The threat may not be imminent, but I think it is very real. Something to watch....
3 comments:
The threat of someone making a home movie with their video camera of their boyfriend in a homemade Batman costume, putting it on DVD and making Warner Brothers worried about DVD sales of "Batman Begins" is real, too. Please - we don't have 140-person teams and $20 million budgets for these games just so we can have really cool after-work happy-hours.
I'm thinking of a quote, something to the effect of, "the World Wide Web is just a passing fad."
Every single Golden Globe nominee for best picture this year was an independent film, with a budget under $30 million.
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