Anyone else LIKE GC & GBA connectivity idea?

[MVS]

Please, John, when Nintendo figures out how to make money with online games, you'll see Nintendo online games.

Until that day, they've got the "Don't ask, don't tell" theory going.

Don't ask about online, and don't tell what the fuck the plan is.

[Damian79]

so why the fuck havent any GAH

in a day or two they could add online play but the bastards dont

GGGRRRRR

Maybe the tools or the hardware wasn't available yet?

[Blaine]

Originally posted by Shin Johnpv
look at the full article they mention where it is middleware that developers buy kits for at about 1000 bucks

Right. It's middleware. I mentioned that.

But the question I still have is...will it be just like any other middlewear or will Gamespy have something else into it? 1000 a kit is okay money, particularly if that's a per-game licence.

Or...and I stress there is no indication that this is true, but only a small notion of trepidation on my part...will Gamespy see further revenue via a subscription fee or something? If you notice, they've made sure to mention that they "run the servers" and provide the bandwith. Things like that cost money. Will those expenses be covered by thier licencing of the code or will further payment must be made to GameSpy by the users. Rhetorical question at this point because I don't think I'm asking anyone who actually knows first hand.

[Omni]

Originally posted by dog$
Fact: If nobody bought a GBA, GBA would be discontinued.
Fact: If GBA was discontinued, Nintendo wouldn't be offering this link-up BS as their source of innovation.
Fact: If GBA was discontinued, Sony wouldn't be making the PSP.

But since you people have to buy your handhelds, this has to happen too. These are the consequences of your actions. Suffer.

Yes, Nintendo should discontinue the GBA because you don't like it.

Quit acting like a douche bag just cuz you happen to be in the minority. Play your console games and stop complaining.

[Shin Johnpv]

Originally posted by Blaine
Right. It's middleware. I mentioned that.

But the question I still have is...will it be just like any other middlewear or will Gamespy have something else into it? 1000 a kit is okay money, particularly if that's a per-game licence.

Or...and I stress there is no indication that this is true, but only a small notion of trepidation on my part...will Gamespy see further revenue via a subscription fee or something? If you notice, they've made sure to mention that they "run the servers" and provide the bandwith. Things like that cost money. Will those expenses be covered by thier licencing of the code or will further payment must be made to GameSpy by the users. Rhetorical question at this point because I don't think I'm asking anyone who actually knows first hand.

from the looks of the article it looks like the SDK (software developers kit) will be 1000 bucks and then theres this "Pricing for deployment licenses is based on the specific toolkit suites used by the game developer." so it sounds to me like developers will also have to buy a liscence per game

kinda how developers pay for a dev kit and then have to pay a liscence for each game they make on a system

probably the same thing here would be my guess

from the sounds of it it doesnt sound like its going to be an end user cost

[MVS]

No money and allowance to get = no official Nintendo online plan.

[Blaine]

Originally posted by Shin Johnpv
from the looks of the article it looks like the SDK (software developers kit) will be 1000 bucks and then theres this "Pricing for deployment licenses is based on the specific toolkit suites used by the game developer." so it sounds to me like developers will also have to buy a liscence per game

kinda how developers pay for a dev kit and then have to pay a liscence for each game they make on a system

probably the same thing here would be my guess

from the sounds of it it doesnt sound like its going to be an end user cost

Only reason I can't convince myself of that is this:

Middleware products typically exist as a one-time purchase. You have further restrictions such as "once per game" or "once per year" or what have you, but if we were to make a game (depending on the product) we could get a one game licence. We never have to pay anything again.

That's the thing though...Gamespy will sell thier kit and make money off of it, but for game x this current model says that's the ONLY money they'll ever see for it.

And a thousand dollars is chump change for running something like a game server (bandwith as well) for an indeterminate number of people (we'll say...10,000 max) for an indeterminate amount of time. And that's me pretending the whole grand is going to operating costs and they never pay the people who actually created the kit.

So while the money they made from Nintendo implementing thier software in Mario Kart was paid, they're still incurring costs from the games existence, i.e. people are playing it on thier servers.

It doesn't add up for me. There has to be more money coming in from somewhere. Ads won't cut it and unless Nintendo or GameSpy are a whole lot more generous than I'm giving them credit for.

Someone gots to pay.

[Shin Johnpv]

except the servers they are hosting are hosting games
it sounds like a P2P solution meaning one of the guys on their GC will be hosting the game not Gamespy

Gamespy is only hosting the connecting aspect
the chat aspect

kinda like what that SNAP thing or what ever its called from sega

something like that I would imagine uses little bandwidth and doesnt need much of a server

[Blaine]

Originally posted by Shin Johnpv
except the servers they are hosting are hosting games
it sounds like a P2P solution meaning one of the guys on their GC will be hosting the game not Gamespy

Gamespy is only hosting the connecting aspect
the chat aspect

kinda like what that SNAP thing or what ever its called from sega

something like that I would imagine uses little bandwidth and doesnt need much of a server

Right, there are no Nintendo games with a persitant multiplayer field (like a MMORPG). In a case like that, the server has to know and track everything in the game (it has to know the game's 'state') and contiunually update the state to hundreds of players. That requires beef.

In this case, no state is needed to maintain since everyone who is playing is always connected (always meaning for the duration of that game. Sorta simple logic. If you're not connected, you can't be playing) and since they're all using the same game with the engine then everyones game will respond the same to whatever new information is given. That is to say, the game's state can be kept in sync by only telling the clients the barest minimum of information.

Even with something like...a packet relay, those Kb add up. I mean, think about it. I'm really not much of a networking guy, I understand whats going on to a degree but that's about it. So keep that in mind if anyone spots any glaring logic-errors on my part.

People will probably be playing in at least a 4 player game. We'll say the game uses a 24 byte packet (I have NO idea, wouldn't even be able to begin to guess, I pulled that number right out of the blue. But I can see it being higher, but not so much lower).

We'll say the clients update thier state twice a second. Again, out of the blue, probably higher, lower would be really bad.

So for each player who is playing theres an up transfer of 48 bytes a second. Each player recieves 48 bytes a second. That's 96 bytes per person per second. 4 players is 344bytes per.

Average game...we'll say...5 minutes. That's 300 seconds times 344bytes, or 103,200bytes (103kb). A fair estimate is 10 games at any given moment online (average, peak times and lulls).

Which is 1.03MB every 5 minutes, 12.36MB every hour or 296.64MB daily.

And that's just packet data, not including the bandwith on thier chat services, IM and 'virtual data hosting' or other transfers that they'll see by people who bought games that were the end result of thier kit.

That number is about 9 gig a month. Which is really, in this day and age, nothin'. You can cover that with a $10 a month webserver (not to say that a regular old webserver could keep up).

But my point is this. All of that is based off of my 24byte packet, 4 player game with a maximum average of 10 games at any given time.

Half-life uses a 600 byte packet, sent approx. 2 a second (once every .4 seconds).

Twenty five times my estimate. If you think about that and the fact 40 people online, on average, is a really low ball number.

You can see that JUST the passing of packets (Halflife packet size, our 9 gigs times 25 [9 gig for $10 estimate]) will stand to cost Gamespy $3000 a year.

Now remember that they're offering a bunch of service in addition to that, which has to include employees who also earn pay.

But even if GameSpy was run by AI, solar powered robots, who required no maintanace (and also recieved no pay for writing the SDK), GameSpy loses $2,000 a year for every game that uses them just for the packet transfer alone. And I low balled every number I could concivable do.

So like I was saying. Someones gots to pay. And unless Nintendo or Gamespy are more generous than I give them credit for. I can't help but think that someone is gonna be me.

..Not that I really have a big issue with that, mind. I understand this sort of thing is expensive. I'm just wondering how much and how long.

HEY! Maybe I'm totally wrong, I'd be all for that.

.....

And now that I go back and re-read that. Each player will up 48b and down 154b (everyone's packets but thier own...right? Yeah, I think that's right).

About 1.6 times what I guestimated.

Yeah, this whole post wasn't that mathematically sound but, my point still stands.

[Drewbacca]

Originally posted by Blaine
Which begs the question:

What's in it for GameSpy? Is this middleware like Renderware, where they make money when the developers buy thier kits?

Or is this going to be a situation where...payment is in order to GameSpy.

Feels like the first, but I've been screwed enough to know the second isn't impossible.

Money.

Originally posted by MVS
Please, John, when Nintendo figures out how to make money with online games, you'll see Nintendo online games.

Until that day, they've got the "Don't ask, don't tell" theory going.

Don't ask about online, and don't tell what the fuck the plan is.

Words of reason and clarity.

This is what makes it a very UN-Sega like decision. Good business isn't always good for gamers.

Most people don't like paying monthly fee's, and charging people in addition to upfront isn't what Nintendo wants to do, obviously. I think they should couple with a third party, give them the ad revenue for the interface (Gamespy Arcade, etc.) and just do it like that.

It won't happen, but it's a solution.