Bethesda Boss Pete Hines Wants To See Closed System Walls Come Down

The only this more ridiculous than this article and the idiot who wrote it are the morons who believe it. Way too many whiners about this game and you have all been finding any little thing to cry about. You call this game a cash grab but you play money hungry games like Fortnite… or GTA V.... okay.... I mean you haters will just believe anything some imbecile writes. I'm already a level 20 in the game and have been doing very well without having to spend more than what I paid for the game. Stop believing everything you read you simple fools.

PSN NEVER had walls to play with PC users. And if this liar meant what he is saying, then Fallout 76 would already support cross play with PS4 and PC and since recently, Xbone and PC too. You never intended to have any form of cross play in this game whatsoever so why pretend now when you were exposed when you can't blame Sony for not having now???

"There are those in gaming who believe game streaming--the "Netflix of games"--is going to be a very big deal very soon. Sony already operates in that space with PlayStation Now, while Microsoft is working on a game-streaming service of its own. EA is also working on a game-streaming network."

Ahh NO! That's a non starter. The major pubs and ind players, along with their shills in media and online, need to get over this boondoggle of an idea/fantasy, to stop fantasizing about their little total control/power dreams and start actually working on advancing game and dev tech. (hardware and software) Getting a little sick of single path action movie like "experiences" and big open empty static worlds (in both terms of events/low level story and physical nature), or AI that would lead one to believe that the "AI" making just plain random choices, would be more likely to end in competent and logical actions.

As far as I know Pete Hines is Bethesda's head of PR -- I don't really think the headline should be calling him "Bethesda Boss."

The ONLY exclusives that makes sense is when they are 1st parties, or when 3rd party titles were funded by the platform creator. Like Bayonetta 2 and 3 that I've heard were funded by Nintendo.

It'll remain so for years to come. You want Netflix exclusives? Get Netflix, not Hulu or others. Streaming won't change games like that. I don't know what sort of weed Hines smoked, but it must be great!

Also, if they are here for the consumers, they should want to give the best services at the best price. But many of us knows that once streaming picks up, many big guys will screw up one way or another.

Pete Hines every fucking day: "Hey gamers! We here at bethesda love you! We don't support those dang anti-consumer practices! No sir!"

**** off with that. Actions speak louder than words. Fallout 76 looks like trash and Beth Softworks hasn't done any real innovation since like 2006 as far development. I don't care about Pete Hines' opinion on the industry when he isn't doing anything interesting for it.

Man Pete Hines sounds like a blowhard.

Well he and Bethesda can start by making their own console and then market it the way they desire. They should focus in learn how to make games without so many bugs and learn to keep their mouth shut if they can't deliver what they ask for (multi cross platform fallout)

Hey how about not restricting your games to effing Steam then. Been waiting 7 years to play Skyrim and still want to play F4.

i highly doubt there will be a day where a sony console can run nintendo and microsoft games locally or vice versa. funny how betheda didn't mention nintendo -- their new best friend lol. nintendo will forever design its own hardware and make games that are catered specifically around that. why would nintendo want to forgo its vision by having its games run on competitors' console with a controller they never had in mind for example?

why would sony, who owns numerous first party studios and who has invested billions of dollars into them, allow their games to be played on competitors' consoles if it won't benefit their ecosystem and hardware division? if you can kill two birds with one stone, why wouldn't you?

the gaming industry has always been unique in that hardware was always different amongst the competitors and as a result, games were always unique to said platforms. so long as you continue to have companies developing hardware, exclusive software will exist in order to sell the hardware. good luck trying to convince sony, microsoft and nintendo into dropping their hardware business... nintendo in particular would rather go out of business than put zelda on a sony or microsoft console. it is more about the power of the brand and the experience one associates with the brand... these companies want to be able to control the experience entirely and not leave that in the hands of a 3rd party. for example, what if mario galaxy had been ported to the xbox 360 during the rrod era? that would taint nintendo's reputation as mario would indirectly be affiliated with the problem that gamers were facing with the shoddy hardware... nintendo protects its brands and image almost as much as disney and wouldn't put itself in such a position.

that said, the walls could potentially fall IF -- and it is a big if -- streaming takes over and the demand for local hardware becomes mute. in such a situation, there will no longer be the need for r&d from the various console makers and as such, there will no longer be a drive to make exclusive games to sell the hardware. all generic streaming boxes will stream games in the exact same way, so there will be no desire from the big three to worry about a proprietary box any longer. perhaps they will still manufacture unique controllers, sure, but they will be compatible with every streaming box. of course, this is a pipe dream at this point in time. i cannot see streaming becoming stable or efficient enough for at least another 10+ years, and even then, bandwidth caps and spotty infrastructure in various regions around the world will always be a factor preventing such a vision from truly taking off.

i believe next gen we will be given an option, though. either purchase a traditional console to play games locally, or purchase a streaming box which will play the same games, but with the obvious caveats. that said, if they can get the price down to $100 for the streaming box, that could potentially be enticing to a sub sect of the gaming community. first party games will still be exclusive to the platform so long as a traditional console still exists for the brand, though. i can totally see sony and microsoft rolling these out next gen and giving people the choice. nintendo is very slow to adapt so i think they are at least 5 years away from attempting this model.

no exlusives, that would mean the death of xbox and playstation(and nintendo). They could just aswell scrap future plans and make a system together. Nintendo+ps+xb = one system. Would be no console war progression to push the developement. And I will never ever pursue streaming over downloaded/physical copy items.

Really seems like Bethesda just doesn't like Sony. All the exclusive deals with Microsoft on past games and now they're preaching about cross-platform play when it's now Sony that's holding back from that idea.

this is the only logical next step. Cross play only paved the way for platforms unification. The way things are evolving, there will soon be very little power difference between the best and weakest consoles/platforms so unifying games across all machines will only make sense. Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty sure exclusives will still be a thing, but there will be less of them and they will be mostly 1st party.

The comments are hilarious. This is the inevitable future and fortunately the average gamer will favor this move. Gone would be the notion of this juvenile practice of buying multiple near identical hardware to plays specific games. All game developers make money from selling software. All console manufacturers make money from selling software. The reason people own hardware is to play these software. The unrefined arguments being levied in the comments is people by games to play hardware but that is not how things work.

Good news is that this is going to happen whether folks like it or not. It would definitely hurt the pride of fanboys which is even better. :)

Yeah that's not really how it works, dvd is simply a format. A game works all together differently than that. Nice idea but that's like saying I should be able to grow wings and fly. Just won't, cant happen.

For 3rd party publisher this is obviously a good move. For platform holder this meant suicide.

Dumbest idea ever, if Nintendo released there games on other platforms then there would be no need to buy there under powered hardware. Only one console would be needed.

Yeah business deals suck but like some comments here already state, the exclusives sell the hardware. Really wish I could have Uncharted series and Bloodborne on my kickass PC but I knew that wasn't going to happen so I just bought em back then and had and still have a lot of fun with them. Would've been awesome to play at 60fps and even better graphics but it is what it is.

This dude isn't suggesting anything that's beneficial to the consumers. He's simply promoting the road for the "streaming only platform" and the "game as a service" BS. And to you devs, whoever walks down that path will receive no money from me.

I guess they should go first by letting you play your stuff on every platform after buying it only once!

If it’s all about the consumer then trust me No One will choose streaming over downloading and owning a game and being able to play it offline. That’s what 99% of gamers want.

"No one buys physical media like a DVD or Blu-ray and worries about having the necessary hardware to play it,"

People did have to choose between Blu-ray and HD-DVD before one became dominant. Also, both Blu-ray and DVD came, with in many cases region restrictions - that's the equivalent to platform exclusivity for those forms of media.

Bethesda and Pete Hines are hypocrites. We need more criticism regarding these business heads speaking from both sides of their mouths. It's ironic that he would use DVDs and Blu-ray as a metaphor for an open system, yet Bethesda (along with EA, Take Two, and Activision) have been fighting the idea of second-hand trade of used video games for the past 10 years. Funny enough, you can buy used DVD and Blu-ray discs without worry. There is a reason why these companies are pushing for a DRM all-digital future.

I get what he's trying to say. In a perfect world, it would be great to have games be able to play universally no matter what company built the box, but unfortunately that's just not how business is done with this industry. Exclusives are what sell hardware for these companies and they turn a lucrative profit from doing so.

It's an optimistic idea that I can dig, but unfortunately it's not a realistic one.

Seriously, this guy is an idiot. I'm glad Fallout 76 is looking like it's going to be a failure.

His DVD example is a bad one. Believe it or not, not all DVD players are created equal. There are region codes to consider, plus cheaper DVD players have fewer codecs, so there is a greater chance a DVD won't work in it.

And I've got admit, games made exclusively for a specific console tend to be a lot better than those made for multiple platforms. Well, for Sony and Nintendo anyway. Until the publishers can guarantee that a game made for all systems will be just as well optimized as a first party console exclusive, then I can't stand fully behind this idea of no "closed systems". I mean, I'd like to stand behind it, but, if anything, publishers have been cutting more corners than ever.

Pretty hypocritical considering they tried to make it platform exclusive away from it's competitor (Steam) because they didn't like getting a cut taken.