Pure Speculation! How would Sega have made 8th gen console?

[marurun]

Entry level gaming has been taken over by smartphones, tablets, and other android devices. You know, the stuff that isn't priced entry-level, but that people get for other things but also use to play games.

Honestly, I think Sega's best chance at a console would be an ARM-based device similar to Ouya or the like. They'd have to have their market pinned down and have a very good set of release titles, but I think it could succeed.

[J T]

It would have ultra-realistic graphics like this:



and this


and this


and hopefully this


but dear god, hopefully not this

[01toubib]

Entry level gaming has been taken over by smartphones, tablets, and other android devices. You know, the stuff that isn't priced entry-level, but that people get for other things but also use to play games.

Honestly, I think Sega's best chance at a console would be an ARM-based device similar to Ouya or the like. They'd have to have their market pinned down and have a very good set of release titles, but I think it could succeed.

I agree, smartphones/devices have really taken charge in the cheap games market. But still PS2 at 155 million sales, and Wii at 100 million, I can't imagine the market has complete dissipated.

Why do you you think the ARM-based device/Ouya is the way to head? It would be something completely new for Sega and quite a jump from there normal stuff.

[Niode]

I'm pretty sure Ryan is on the cusp of pitching his console to Sega. Any day now.

http://racketboy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=47145#p47145

[Krejlooc]

Like their RingEdge 2 or RingWide 2 arcade boards. So... like, basically a modern, medium-power PC with a touch screen.

[Original_Name]

I'm pretty sure Ryan is on the cusp of pitching his console to Sega. Any day now.

http://racketboy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=47145#p47145

Awh, stop tormenting him with that!

[marurun]

Why do you you think the ARM-based device/Ouya is the way to head? It would be something completely new for Sega and quite a jump from there normal stuff.

Because the other contenders are completely ignoring that space, even as it advances at incredible speed. Some smartphone screens are hitting 1080p and have the GPU power to support it. Mobile graphics is a space where power efficiency, and thus rendering efficiency, is king. Get a competent 3-4 core ARM CPU that you can crank up the speed on because you're not worried about sustaining a battery and you've got more than enough CPU power to drive things. On the graphics side, you can also pump up the chip speed, again, because you're not worrying about a battery.

While the CPU and graphics chip and memory and all are costly components in a smartphone or tablet, the screen, battery, and miniaturization to the form factor are the greater part of the cost. This means that, partnered with the right chip supplier and OEM, a console configuration will cost significantly less, suck more power, and therefore have the clock speeds ramped up. Beyond that, while there's clearly demand for "next-gen" graphics, there's also clearly demand for games that don't need that. Look at the indie market on Steam and via Humble Bundle. Look at the success of smartphone games. Sure, an ARM-based console might not replicate Batman: Arkham Asylum with all the bells and whistles, but if, for half the cost, you can play a game that controls as well and is just as much fun to play, and perhaps even costs half or 1/3 as much to buy, is everyone really going to complain? Besides, those games could be easy to port for the folks who have the other, more expensive consoles but still want to play them.

Basically, I envision this ARM console as a first-run platform, a way for Sega to push titles quickly to market and then retool and downgrade just a hair for mobile platforms (or upgrade slightly if going the other way) and port directly to other home consoles. And with commodity ARM designs, the hardware would be cheap to produce and easy to develop for. Hell, between Android and other flavors of ARM Linux, there's certainly a lot of well-understood libraries and dev environments for existing devs to work with.

Do take this with a whole can of salt. I'm merely speculating, but it's kind of fun. Ouya is stumbling because they're only hardware, trying to attract software. Sega has a frikkin' lock on software. They have so many older console properties that could probably be leveraged affordably into HD sequels.