GRcade

Dark Dragon 64 » Tue Jun 10, 2014 2:48 pm wrote:Not really, that didn't deserve to be called a finished game when it 'launched'. Anyway, the difference is that Sony itself has acknowledged that this isn't a launch, but beta. If Sony called it a launch but it ran poorly, it would be as much of a launch as Battlefield 4 i.e. none whatsoever.

I think the distinction is product vs. service. Some product that's self-contained can surely be said to be done before it launches, but any service can't really be tested without being launched first.

You could hire hundreds of testers, but you won't know if everything works in specific locations, or with millions of users, until you try it in those conditions, and there's no way to do that without pushing it out the door.

I still don't see how that turns a beta into a launch. The point of the beta is to test the capabilities of the service and to make it clear that this is in no way a final version of the service or a real launch.

PlayStation Now opens to everyone in the US from whatever date they said. The service will be live, indefinitely, and freely available. There will be no Non-Disclosure Agreement and it will be open to critique. It will have launched.

Then why isn't it called a launch for North America? It's been explicitly labelled as a beta and that, in my view, is what it is. Do you also think that all the early access games on Steam have launched merely because they're available for purchase?

Dark Dragon 64 wrote:Do you also think that all the early access games on Steam have launched merely because they're available for purchase?

Yes.

Actually, no. I know they have.

That's ridiculous. Watch the video below for why:

That video just reinforces the point that when something is put out in the wild, it's launched.

I think that if a game goes up on early access, it should be reviewed by critics as if it were a finished title, not "when it's ready"

Y'know, like it launched or something.

You want to stop equating "launched" with "no further work to do". The word for that is "finished". Jesus, even just look in the dictionary: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/defin ... ish/launch

My point is that if PlayStation Now was truly being launched in North America, Sony shouldn't be calling it a beta. As it stands, Sony knows that the service isn't ready to be officially launched and it has avoided doing that. Early access, like the contemporary beta tag, is a veil behind which people can hide after releasing incomplete products. PlayStation Now should be launched officially or not at all and, given Sony's use of the word beta, it sounds like the service isn't ready for launch.

Games that go on early access should be judged as if they were finished, but the point of this is to discourage incomplete games from being put onto Steam. In a similar vein, Sony shouldn't charge for PlayStation Now until it is ready to officially launch it. Of course, if the PlayStation Now Beta is free, that adds to the idea that the service has not launched because Sony knows that it isn't ready for monetisation and this brings it away from the early access simile.

Launching an open beta is still launching, whether or not you believe it's not a "true" or "official" launch (whatever that means).

Well, everybody's scores were strawberry floating DESTROYED by Reggie's hands.

I drew a line in my notebook as quickly as I could for those hand gestures. Triple-checked the number of lines. 175 it is.

I'll keep it open to see if any of the other predictions or megatons surface by the end of the show, but for now...

Ad7 is our provisional winner. With a "high" score of -650

YEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Well done dude!

Reggie

Still time for myamoto to appear with a prop too.

WTF Reggie

Grats Ad7, and thanks for running this jiggles! Gave me and my friends a few laughs through the conferences as we all played along

4th, I'll take it.

Thought a Driveclub demo was a sure thing.

So have I actually won this then?

A game and retro vol 1&3..... Dayum

2nd How did that happen?

Great competition, jiggles, thanks for taking the time to organise it.

Well, unless I got some of the megatons or predictions wrong I think it's safe to say we can wrap it up.

GG, jiggles - thanks for running the show!

Well played, Ad. You stormed to a momentous victory!