Submitted by “Chinese PC maker Lenovo will go head-to-head with the big boys in the video game console market, looking to snatch away market share from the likes of Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony. On Aug 9, a team of some 40 Lenovo software engineers was spun off from the Lenovo Group to develop and market the ‘Ebox’, a platform similar to Microsoft’s Kinect for Xbox 360.”
Microsoft files suit against Lenovo over the name and its perceived similarity to “Xbox” in 3… 2… 1…
Edited 2010-08-29 22:40 UTC
This is about as good as the iPed.
Like so many technology companies, they completely fail to realise that technology alone isn’t compelling enough for success, good software is required above all.
Who exactly will be writing games for this thing? Will it be cheap Chinese knock offs of well known games too? Cogs of War?
There are 1.2 billion Chinese. Odds are there’s good game developpers in there. Remember, existing consoles are illegal in China, so the market is wide open.
I don’t know where you got the idea from that existing consoles are illegal in China.
The publishers just don’t sell them officially there but China is not North Korea where imports are illegal.
And even if they were illegal: It’s China. No one gives a rat’s ass about legality there.
I’ve been to China a couple of years ago. At least in the big cities there are entire malls where you can everything media related.
Not only are in there shops that specialized on selling unlicensed DVDs (those may close for an hour or two if there is a police raid but as long as the police doesn’t catch them selling that stuff no one is arrested), there are also video game shops. They import consoles from Japan, package a different power adapter with plugs fitting in Chinese power sockets and that’s it.
Availability is not the problem. Price is. The average Chinese worker has trouble financing a PS3. OTOH Nintendo portables sell well there. Cell phone gaming is also big there.
And by looking at the products placed in the malls, PC gaming seems big, too. I had trouble finding the latest PC games but the supply of good, slightly older PC games (say 2 years old) was plenty — naturally unlicensed copies for just a few bucks.
Bottom line is: Chines people know good games. They won’t buy a Lenovo console just because it’s sold by a Chinese company. If Lenovo’s console only has crap games, no Chinese will buy it and rather invest the tight money into a CD-ROM with tons of new cracked JavaME games for their phones (maybe today CDs with cracked Android games are also available — Android didn’t exist when I was there).
Edited 2010-08-30 00:08 UTC
Yeah, plus the “tiny” fact that most consoles (if not all of them these days) are made in China anyways.
The only thing that may have slowed down the rate of adoption of consoles in china is that there is not as much pirated software ready available for those platforms. And if there is something that most Chinese are not willing to do, out of principle, is paying full price for a piece of software. It is so ingrained in the culture, that I assume lenovo will figure out how to make money on the HW not the SW, which is basically the opposite business model from all major console makers.
According to a friend of mine who’s lived in China for several years now, most Chinese buy their Xbox 360s already modded to play pirated games. So yes, they do have consoles, and they do have games. They just don’t pay full price for their software.
Out of those 1.2 billion perhaps 1% is even enough educated or capable of buying this thing. Also market isn’t open, it’s filled with total crap! Small percentage of that shit ever sees light in outside China which is good thing since they are horrible copies of western products (I would use word abomination).
Totally, it’s pretty much why the PSP failed in comparison to the DS. Software not as good or as much.
I think anyone who attempts to enter the game console market at this point needs to purchase a few studios to secure first party titles.
This is what microsoft did when entering the console business with bungine and many other studios.
Let alone Nintendo, which despite the consoles, they also are the #1 video game publisher/developer in sales.
It’s simply just not about making awesome hardware anymore..
The thing with the DS and the Wii is not about quality or quantity, PSP and the other consoles have enough games and lot of them are great, but I can’t imagine my grandma or my father playing god of war. With the wii and ds they don’t need to be hardcore gamers to have fun.
No, that has nothing to do. First. that’s just a plus that allowed Nintendo to expand the market, Neither Sony nor Microsoft had that and sold millions of consoles anyway. Second, Wii Sports, Wii fit, etc are *extremely* quality products polished until the tiniest detail.
So, I insist, to be successful you need very strong first party that releases quality products and kicks our console into relevance, not cool tech.
haha, yeah complete and total quality. Nintendo has been pushing the same products out since I was 5. Mario 1,2,3, Mario 64, Mario Sunshine, Mario Galaxy 1,2.
First party Nintendo hasn’t changed a lot in 20 years, don’t mistake iteration for quality.
A Chinese console with access to the Chinese MMO market would be more than enough to keep it profitable.
The same brand does not equal the same product. Each of those is completely innovative compared to the predecessor (exept maybe SMG2), and no other company in the industry does that except Nintendo. Compare that to any other product like FIFA, God of War, DMC, Final Fantasy, where each release is the same as the previous on with maybe a -minor- improvement.
Wii Sports was a success in sales, and pretty much changed the industry, and you can’t deny that even its simplicity is taken care to the tiniest detail.
Except Mario 64, Mario Sunshine and Mario Galaxy 1,2 are all variations of the same game.
What exactly is the innovation? It’s still Mario 64 but instead of jumping into paintings in a castle you’re jumping around planets from an observatory.
Nothing you said shows how Nintendo has innovated in any way. While every franchise/IP suffers from stagnation, Nintendo has turned nostalgia into gold.
If you think Mario Galaxy is anything like Mario 64 then you are made of cardboard. The experience of playing the games is quite different, even if they have a lot in common. Just like the experience of playing mario 3 was not at all the same as that of mario 1, even though they are essentially 90% the same game.
Are you arguing that Star Craft, Star Craft II, Warcraft II and Warcraft III are all worthless because they’re the same game as the original Warcraft? It’s true that they regurgitate an established formula, but sometimes we prefer to see an existing idea done again (and better, hopefully). It’s a *good* formula and pleasingly regurgitated.
How far do you want to take the idea? Are all RTS games pointless after the first one? Should we have stopped at Wolfenstein 3D? Or does each studio get one shot per genre, then it’s old hat?
You seem to be equating “quality” with “originality” which is a false comparison.
Do you know why Nintendo keeps making Mario games and we keep buying them? Because they’re good. The average Mario game is between better and *much better* than the average video game of its type at release time. This has been true for years and is not a small undertaking.
Nintendo games are generally *high quality*, but not necessarily high originality. Originality has its place, and I am all for it, but I’m also a fan of doing and redoing existing genres and titles, if you can make the revisions be non-boring (and they can, and have).
If you want breathtaking, risky innovation then Nintendo does a bit of that, too. The wii and everything related to it are examples, as was the game boy when it was first released.
PSP failed because nearly every game for the first 2 years was a near direct port of a PS2 title. Thats why Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops was made a PSP exclusive, it is the part of the story that takes place after the prequel MGS3 and is alluded to throughout the series.
It was also ill suited for the PSP only having 1 analog stick and no secondary shoulder buttons. A common problem as you couldn’t move the camera angle, so if you where crawling out from under something you had to do it blindly, which made it suicide to go under things.
is what I wish them most. Lots of it, with a dose of good will from the universe and all gods and druids and witches and shamans etc.
I just want a 13″ WXGA+ Thinkpad with nVidia graphics and a matte screen. Do one thing, and do it well.
I coulnd’t find it in the Fine Article, but I wonder what platform Lenovo is going to run on the Ebox.
A customized version based on Mycroseft Winbows with DirectE hardware acceleration.