As popular as Steamâs Early Access program is for PC games, youâd think one of the big consoles might have a plan of their own to let gamers regularly pay for and play games before theyâre finished. They donât, but from what two top people at Sony and Microsoft told me, theyâre at least thinking about the pros and cons of having one.
Last week, I talked about possible early access programs for PS4 and Xbox One with Shuhei Yoshida, head of worldwide studios at Sony, and Phil Spencer, the head of all things Xbox at Microsoft.
For context: the Early Access program on Steam has been hugely popular, helping games such as The Forest, Rust, Prison Architect and others find big audiences befoe theyâre even done. Gamers have happily paid for the right to download and play regularly-updated builds of games and give feedback as the developers keep working and releasing newer versions. Steam Early Access has at times also been controversial, angering gamers who buy into an early access game only to see the gameâs development stall.
So⊠an early access program for Xbox One or PS4?
âIt is interesting, when you look at this yearâs E3âwhether itâs us or PlayStationâthere are a lot of betas that are happening,â Xboxâs Spencer told me. âIâve started to think about: âIs there a way to more programmatically think about what betas mean on a console?'â
The Xboxâs Phil Spencer: âI donât have a plan thatâs locked on that, but just having a bunch of betas happening, Iâm not sure if thatâs the best way to run a console, either.â
Spencer mentioned that the Xbox One already has an early access program of a sort at the console platform level. Some 100,000 or so people are part of a âpreview programâ and receive console firmware updated in advance, experimenting with new features and stress-testing.
âI have thought: âIs there a way to look at that platform all up for games, so you have this environment where, yeah, sometimes you have games where things might not work as perfectly as you would want but youâre able to see things a bit early?â
âI donât have a plan thatâs locked on that, but just having a bunch of betas happening, Iâm not sure if thatâs the best way to run a console, either.â
Spencerâs right about the proliferation of betas and alphas on consoles that is making for a somewhat ad-hoc early access offering already. Just last week, gamers suddenly got to play a Battlefield Hardline beta and a Destiny alpha on PS4.
More betas are coming throughout the year, and Microsoft is partially selling their big fall Halo collection with the promise of December access to a beta for Halo 5. What was once rare has begun to feel constant, albeit only involving huge big-budget games, as opposed to the indie games developing in public through Early Access on Steam.
PS4âs Yoshida: âWe cannot just to decide to do that alpha thing with one title, in my opinion. I think we have to work on the title of the program or channel to clearly to show that these are still early.â
As for Sony?
Yoshida, Sonyâs head of worldwide studios says there is âdefinitely some interest from some developers but we have to really message and communicate well to consumers to do that. The good thing that has always been with consoles is that itâs very easy to play. You just open the [game] and it works.â
If someone downloaded a game on PS4 and found that it was not finished and in an alpha state, Yoshida said, they might be surprised to run into unexpected complications. âWe cannot just to decide to do that alpha thing with one title, in my opinion. I think we have to work on the title of the program or channel to clearly to show that these are still early.â
If that sounds like thereâs a plan for early access on PS4, not so fast. When I pressed to figure out if itâd be happening, he said, âFrom my standpointâhead of studiosâthere is interest from developers, thatâs all I can say.â
The Sony and Microsoft men sound like theyâre well aware of the hazards, but Spencerâs notion, in particular, rings true. If there are going to be all these betas showing up for console games, why not go with a full early-access program? Of course, early access wasnât originally about big game companies, but there are plenty of indiesâthe kind who use early access on Steamâmaking games for consoles, too. Maybe theyâd like it.
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