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Acer Labs' (ALI) Plans Box To Play PS2 Games, DVD
bemis writes: "Techweb has an article about Acer's plans to bring PC and PSX gaming to DVD players in China next year (and hopefully domestically here in the U.S.) ..they are also ramping up a chipset for 266MHz DDR SDRAM for Athlon systems to bring the bus speed up from a paltry 200MHz." Not much detail is given about the hinted-at game / video boxes, but the project sounds pretty ambitious. At this rate, DVD players will pass the $100 mark soon.
It doesn't do PS2, just the original PSX
What sort of controllers will be used? My experiance with PC "gamepads" has been moderate to poor.
PC games are designed to use a mouse and a keyboard. Console games are designed for that systems control pad. It's how it is, and it's probably how it's going to stay.
Will their controllers provide support for PS2's pressure sensative buttons? Will they be sleek and comfy? Will it provide enough buttons to satisfy an every-key-used-game like THPS? Will it still be simple enough to play Puzzle Fighter on?
I think that the chip is an ok idea, but there is a fine line between PC games and Console games. Look at Quake* for example. On PC for a while, huge hit, great game. N64 (or whatever your favorite console gaming system is) version of it comes out and sure its fun to play for a little bit. But does it really compare to the PC version? I think not.
The line must be drawn! All arrows point to this system failing or doing moderatly well.
Way to read the article, folks. "And at its labs in China, the company is developing an embedded operating system and emulation software that would run PC and Sony Playstation games on the RISC chip"
/. once again.
This is a general-purpose, 300MHz RISC chip. There is no way in hell it could emulate the special-purpose, 300MHz SIMD-based Emotion Engine, nor its dual-channel RDRAM memory.
Nor is there any reason why ALi would ever want to do so. All gaming consoles, including the PS2, are sold at a loss. The only reason Sony wants to sell PS2s is that they make money on licensing fees for each game sold. The console is a loss leader. There is no way to make a PS2 for less than $300; if there was, Sony would sell them for less than $300. Therefore it is a very simple conclusion that this chip emulates the PS1--simple enough to be emulated without incurring additional cost--not the state-of-the-art PS2.
Shame on
Chinese officials are good about looking the other way when it comes to IP, especially if it is to the benefit of China. In any other country, whether this idea ultimately ends up being on the level or not, there would be a restraining order against the manufacture of these devices so fast that a small flotilla of Navy ships would have the shipment stopped in the middle of the Pacific.
--
There is no K5 cabal.
There is no K5 cabal.
I am not the real rusty.
The concept sounds interesting, to me it sounds reminiscent of the X-Box. But this has Playstation support too. Can't Acer get sued over this? I read the article, but I didn't see if the article meant that you could POTENTIALLY play Playstation games on this DVD player natively or if you had to install third party software (Bleem!). I know Sony took Bleem! to court (they haven't won a case yet). Isn't Acer in danger of butting heads with The Big Boys at Sony? I wonder if we could see a "universal" console system that supported every console in the market that used the same kind of media, like CDs. Interesting.
They make the money back on the games sold.
This will create consoles they don't have to take a loss for. But they'll still get the money for the games sold.
The concern should be whether this can provide reasonable performance. But that should be a market concern.
Sony may pretend to be outraged but i don't think they'll mind much.
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
These hybrid systems are currently only slated for a Japanese release, with no US release planned (where US release = anywhere outside Japan). At the moment, Nintendo is trying to go down the 'games only' road (which I personally believe in), so I doubt they'll make a big push for the hybrid to be released outside Japan.
There are heaps of news stories around on Matsushita and their somewhat hazy Gamecube plans, and instead of me putting in heaps of effort and actully making heaps of links, I'll make you all a special link today ;)
Google search for 'Matsushita Gamecube dvd movies'.
Heaps of articles there, enjoy. :)
(Offtopic rant: The best thing happening in the gaming world in the next week is the US release of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. Nothing else worthwhile is happening.)
Isn't there some law about licencing CSS on machines with software and DVD capabilities as opposed to DVD players with CSS in hardware. Won't this decision place the DVD player in the computer category and hence void the CSS licence?
If a machine can do PC games, it can probably also do PS/2 games with something like MoSlo.
Will I retire or break 10K?
At this rate, DVD players will pass the $100 mark soon.
They have already broken this mark. I saw a DVD player yesterday at best buy for $99. The manufacturer was KLH, and at that price, I wouldn't expect much. Nonetheless, the fact that prices have dropped this far is fairly impressive.