Console-exclusive games are coming to PC. Where will TV games go?

Recently, there have been media reports that the Xbox One exclusive game "Sunset Overdrive", which was scheduled to be released on October 28, may have changed its release plan. Judging from a latest advertising poster, the developer and game production team may include PC in the target platform.

Following "Dead Rising 3" and "Rise: Son of Rome", "Sunset Overdrive" may become another Xbox One exclusive game ported to the PC platform. After one "port" after another, the future development path of game consoles has become increasingly confusing.

Will “porting” make Xbox even less popular?

At present, although the developer Insomniac Games has not officially confirmed whether "Sunset Overdrive" will be available on PC, outside analysts believe that more and more ported games will make the poor sales of Xbox One worse.

This year, the two giants Sony and Microsoft brought game consoles into the next generation with two new products, PS4 and Xbox One. While the product performance has been greatly improved, we also see the trend of game consoles moving closer to "PCization".

Both PS4 and Xbox One use the same X86 design as PC in their choice of processor architecture. While lowering the threshold for hardware adaptation for game development, it also makes console games more similar to PC games in terms of operation and computing.

In terms of system and software design, Microsoft has always advocated the concept of platform unification. On the new console Xbox One, in addition to a real-time operating system to control the hardware and resources of the Xbox One, other games and applications are run on a complete Windows 8 and a streamlined version of Windows 8. In a sense, Xbox One is, to a certain extent, a variant device of PC with enhanced gaming functions.

Based on the above viewpoints, it is not ruled out that more works will appear on both game consoles and PC platforms or will be ported from game consoles to PC platforms in the future. As for players, if there are no exclusive games, even in the face of 3A-level cross-platform masterpieces like "GTA V" that have been launched on consoles for a long time in advance, many people choose to wait. Moreover, in the Chinese market where the game copyright system is not yet perfect, PC games are equivalent to "free" games. Coupled with the restrictions on content sources of newly arrived game consoles such as Xbox One, the charm of game consoles will be greatly reduced.

Is multi-platform the new way out for TV games?

The simultaneous release of gaming titles on multiple platforms has overshadowed traditional gaming consoles, but from another perspective, multiple platforms may bring new life to the controversial new TV gaming products, most of which are based on the Android system.

Not long ago, I learned from a leading TV game developer in the industry that connecting TV games with other platforms will become a major trend in the future and is also the key to popularizing TV games among a wider user group.

Now, whether it is the powerful PS4 and Xbox One, or TV game boxes such as Ouya and Fun Box developed using mobile chips and Android systems, their output end is always the TV, and the usage scenario has always been the home environment.

But for some consumers, especially game enthusiasts, they are not necessarily heavy users of TV. It can even be said that with the current trends, the carrier of games has begun to shift from PC to mobile devices and Android devices.

The role that TV should play in the gaming world is to act as a branch. Instead of using "split screen" and other modes to force all players to stare at the TV, the game should link users who stare at the TV to play games with users who stare at their mobile phones to play games, giving full play to the natural advantages of the large screen of TV and mobile devices, making mobile games more amplified and making TV games more dynamic.

Technically, with the rapid development of mobile chip performance, from "Trinity" promoted by NVIDIA Tegra chip to "BioShock" which will soon be launched on iOS platform, the vision of mobile phones achieving console-level game graphics performance is no longer far away. With the assistance and support of developers, it is no longer difficult to bring high-quality games to the three major platforms of TV, PC and mobile devices.

Therefore, the real selling point and highlight of TV games in the future may no longer be how amazing the picture quality of the game itself is to reflect the production level, but how many different experiences the large screen of the TV can bring to players, and how new feelings can be created for existing game types with the help of TV.

The launch of console-exclusive games on other platforms may really sound the clarion call for the decline of game consoles, but TV games themselves will not die out.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.