Probing the Guts Of the Consoles

Max Entropy writes "Finally, an in-depth article of the technologies within the GameCube, PS2, and Xbox. The article covers architectures, processor/memory silicon, I/O, expandability, and storage among a host of other topics." If you are wondering what makes each system distinctive (Besides the fact that one has about a hundred times as many games, one overheats, and another has Luigi) this might be worth a read.

Comments

Amusing article.

[Netmaster]

Amusing infact.
Especially since I am looking at buying a box within these next days. Have anyone heard of any real progress on running *BSD on the Playstation II btw?

One thing they left out

[Anonymous Coward]

is that the Xbox also has an X-10 compatible home automation controller built into the power supply. If you notice, a small serial data cable leads from the motherboard to an area of the supply (the part of the supply farthest from the large capacitors). No software is known to control this yet, though. IIRC the IC that they used will only send signals, not receive them.

Re:One thing they left out

[cdrudge]

So let me get this straight. I should add to the pro/con of a box the possible feature of something that is not currently available. Isn't that kinda like saying that one box is better then the other because someday it could outperform the others if the software is written. If you want to sell me a console, sell me on what it can do, not on what is may never do. I do admit that it probably added a trivial to the over all costs in the long run. Do you have any links that tell more about this?

Re:One thing they left out

[ThatComputerGuy]

So let me get this straight: Nothing much to say, just wanted to make that three of the same statments in a row. Wow!

Re:One thing they left out

[NineNine]

I can picture it now.... Instead of turning off a light switch "manually", now all I'd need to do would be to turn on my XBox (and stereo and TV), boot it up, navigate to the X-10 management, choose the correct light switch, and select "off". Wow. That sounds like a great timesaver!

Gee...

[Ranger Rick]

...someone sounds a bit pissy, don't they?

Despite the fact that PS2 has more games, Super Monkey Ball is reason enough to buy a GameCube. I would think CmdrTaco makes enough money by now that he could buy each of the consoles and not feel the need to slam the ones he didn't get... =)

Re:Gee...

[Anonymous Coward]

CmdrTaco can't afford an *operating system*, let alone an entire console.

Moral of this story: don't sign an employment contract that pays in "Jon Katz love-bucks", or "VA Linux Options" (at $10.00/share)

Re:Gee...

[telstar]

Once again, it's nice to see unbiased reporting coming from Slashdot.

Consoles the future?

[euroderf]

Am I the only one who has noticed that the remit of consoles increases year on year? At first they were simple gaming machines, now they focus on email, broadband, DVD playing, web browsing, etc etc.

With MS's .NET initiative, one can't help but wonder if the concept of a 'home computer' will become entirely redundant. After all, the fact is that .NET will enable traditional tasks performed by applications such as MS Word, Excel etc to be done entirely over the web. With the rise of consoles, this will render the home computer redundant in time.

Another advantage is that consoles are so easy.

I mean, I find Windows and Mac OS X very complicated and difficult to use - I am from a pre-computer generation, and have watched with a little bemusement as these glorified typewriters conquer all.

They are dividing society into two classes, the Digirati, who can understand Computers running super complicated, unintuitive OS's like OS X and Windows, and the disposessed, who just don't understand and never will.

Consoles, by extending their grasp, may remove this knowledge gap by providing a wonderfully simple, hermetically sealed system that can be easily used by everyone, including your granny, and me!

I will welcome the day, I think, I don't like the idea of supercomplex computers running increasingly difficult OS's taking over all simple tasks and dispossessing those with better things to do than understand the impossible complexities of Internet Explorer and Microsoft Word.

I look to Sony, MS and Nintendo to provide a democratic and egalitarean new computing future for all, in which everyone can share.

Re:Consoles the future?

[rudy_wayne]

"They are dividing society into two classes, the Digirati, who can understand Computers running super complicated, unintuitive OS's like OS X and Windows, and the disposessed, who just don't understand and never will."

There is no "Digerati" - some sort of elite upper class who automatically understand complicated things (such as computers). This is pure bullshit. All human beings are born with the same basic level of intelligence. The difference is how it is used. Some of us choose to better ourselves, and so we work a little harder and try to learn things. Others ... your so called "dispossed" ... prefer to remain stupid because they are too lazy to put out any effort toward learning.

Re:Consoles the future?

[operagost]

Seriously ... if this were true, that only some sort of elite could really use computers ... why is it that I have seen mildly retarded people (you know, Forrest Gump types) using computers? The division is really between the brave/inquisitive and the fearful/dismissive.

Re:Consoles the future?

[Wonderkid]

In the 1980s, I came to the same conclusion, being horrified at how 'personal' computers then (and alas, even now) were hard to use, expensive to maintain, and not very compelling in operation, except when running games. So, in 1984 I prematurely formed a company to develop a 'replacement' to the 'PC', and we hope to launch such a machine within the next few years. While a trojan horse entry into this space by games consoles may seem like a good idea, they lack the form factor to make .net such applications practical. (We conceived the .net idea way before MS anyway and it's been in our business plan since the 1980s.) Phase 1 of our somewhat ambitious, but carefully laid plan is available at http://www.onumber.net. We look forward to sharing more about our machine(s) on Slashdot when the time is right. Much work to do. Rather walk the walk than talk the talk anyway, so time to go.

Re:Consoles the future?

[frank_adrian314159]

They are dividing society into two classes, the Digirati, who can understand Computers running super complicated, unintuitive OS's like OS X and Windows, and the disposessed, who just don't understand and never will.

And the alternative is to remove low cost general purpose computing machinery from the masses, replacing it with specialized harware which will perform only carefully circumscribed tasks? Talk about disempowering! At least with the current setup you can get software to do something other than to play games. And there is at least an opportunity to learn how to more with the boxes.

I look to Sony, MS and Nintendo to provide a democratic and egalitarean new computing future for all, in which everyone can share.

Oh yes! And I am sure that they will allow you to do whatever you want with them. Do you really think that they'll let people do "unauthorized programming" for these? Thanks for tuning out and turning off. Have a nice Brave New World, Mr. Gamma. Just be glad you aren't one of those Alphas or Betas who have to work so hard and never have any fun...

Geez, I never thought I'd see someone on /. that thought that dumbing down the system was a good thing. Now I have seen everything (unless you were trying to troll, in which case, you win).

Re:Consoles the future?

[big_groo]

I won't comment on your 'insigtful' social commentary, but I do take exception to this:

"Back in the days when a game console was just a game console..."

Uh...like today?

Does the GameCube play DVDs? CDs? No. It plays games, and Nintendo has stated before that it is first and foremost, a gaming machine. I don't want to throw my 72-in-one home entertainment system in a backpack and take it to my buddies house so he can spill beer on it. Damn...I'm afraid to move the PS2...I feel as if I'm going to break it. The GameCube has a *handle* on it!
(and it's *tiny*)
Move the XBox? Ha. You don't lug your PC around, do you? Might damage that HDD.

I'll take the GameCube over the other systems *any day*. Plus, you can plug your GBA into it.

Sweet.

Re:Consoles the future?

[Pussy Is Money]

Hook, line, sinker, rod + reel, buddy.

Re:Consoles the future?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well the guy goes to adequacy. They are really bad satirists that come off as trolls, since their satire is of so poor quality.

Re:Consoles the future?

[KewlPC]

"I am from a pre-computer generation"

So then you must (at least) be in your fifties. With the introduction of the transistor in the 1950's, computers became reliable enough to be manufactured and sold to paying customers. And with Digital Equipment Corporation's introduction of the minicomputer in the 1960's, computers became small enough and cheap enough to begin to come into widespread use.

Being born before the introduction of the IBM PC doesn't make one part of the "pre-computer generation".

Another point: the general purpose desktop computer will never go away. Too many people and companies have a stake in it's continued existance for this to happen. For example, how could all these wonderful console games be written if all that existed were consoles? Or how could graphics manufacturers test out new designs when they have to design a whole new system in addition to the GPU every time, instead of just designing a new card? Or what about the people who use their PCs and other general purpose desktop systems for more than playing games, browsing webpages on the internet, and writing documents in MS Word?

I for one, despise consoles. The Linux kit for the PS2 increased my interest in that system for a short while, since it would make the PS2 a general purpose computer instead of just a gaming console, until I realized something: I have 256MB of RAM in my PC, and my motherboard has room for up to 2GB. The PS2 has a mere 32MB of RAM. The XBOX has 64, and from what it looks like the GameCube has a paltry 24. This isn't nearly enough for my needs. Or what about the fact that, since I edit movies and create effects for them on my PC, I need all the hard disk space I can get? With a PC I can start with several tens of gigabytes, then add hundreds more if I need them.

The problem with consoles can be summed up as this: they are underpowered systems whose manufacturers deliberately lose money on, with the intention of making the money back through developer license fees and royalities from each game sold. This is how it has been since the days of the Nintendo Entertainment System, and isn't going to change.

You say that consoles are easy while Windows and OS X are complicated, difficult, and scary. So then
a)how are you visiting this site?
b)why are you visiting this site?
c)how do you manage to run a website?
d)why don't you just take the 2 or 3 hours it takes to learn Windows? I'm not even going to mention Linux, since it'd most likely take you a half hour to type "startx" so you could have your pretty GUI.

Re:Consoles the future?

[Anonymous Coward]

You suuuure bit. Euroderf's a heck of a troll.

Re:Consoles the future?

[aka-ed]

Another fine argument for establishing a mod-up for skilled trolling.

Re:Consoles the future?

[jgerman]

There is no "Digerati" - some sort of elite upper class who automatically understand complicated things (such as computers). This is pure bullshit. All human beings are born with the same basic level of intelligence. The difference is how it is used. Some of us choose to better ourselves, and so we work a little harder and try to learn things. Others ... your so called "dispossed" ... prefer to remain stupid because they are too lazy to put out any effort toward learning.

Yeah and all people are born with the same basic level of beauty and athletic ability. what a crock of shit. Some people are born more intelligent than other, some less. Some are born with a natural talent in certain areas. Engineering, math, art, whatever some people have it and some don't.

However, all that being said, there is no reason that the "dispossessed" will never understand is also a crock. There is no reason why (nearly) anyone could not learn to use a computer.

Re:Consoles the future?

[GodInHell]

Heh,
has anyone else noticed the tendancy for one or two of the early /. posters to be decidly pro-MS, anti-linux? Rather, I take that back, that makes it sound to simple; no, this is a trend to post almost exactly the kind of rhetoric Microsoft spits out.
Subconciously repeating what MS tells them to think through any of the media outlets 'ol Bill is striving to conquer, or maybe some farming from MS?
Heh, yeah, this is paranoid. But anyway, /. editors, has a report ever been run against which users or (if you record it) IPs are posting against some subjects. Heh, now there are some numbers I'd really be interested in seeing.

-GiH

Re:Consoles the future?

[Trinn]

Someone else who bought the Dreamcast Fishing Controller then?

Re:Consoles the future?

[cancrman]

Did you even look at his website? That's some fucking scary right wing shit. I can't even believe he brings himself to post here. Must be infatuated with his low UID.

Re:Consoles the future?

[Pussy Is Money]

OK, this troll is over. Let's examine it in a bit more detail.

Am I the only one who has noticed that the remit of consoles increases year on year?

Nice touch: remit. Note also the "lonely voice in the desert" approach (/. crowd loves the "nobody cares to look at my research" angle).

At first they were simple gaming machines, now they focus on email, broadband, DVD playing, web browsing, etc etc.

A bit disappointing. Would have expected mention of <insert controversial technology>. On second thought I figure might have diluted the nostalgy for a "simpler past" that's working here.

With MS's .NET initiative,

There it is, the controversial technology.

one can't help but wonder if the concept of a 'home computer' will become entirely redundant.

Nice red herring. Troll establishes emotional bond with the grizzled hackers of yore through the use of the quaint 'home computer'.

After all, the fact is that .NET will enable traditional tasks performed by applications such as MS Word, Excel etc to be done entirely over the web.

Provocation: "the fact is", "will enable".

With the rise of consoles, this will render the home computer redundant in time.

Troll alienates grizzled hackers.

Another advantage is that consoles are so easy.

Cue pointless remark by FlightSimFan about how some games will never move to the console. Also set up the atmosphere for confrontation with the anti-ease-of-use crowd.

I mean, I find Windows and Mac OS X very complicated and difficult to use

Cue anti-ease-of-use crowd.

I am from a pre-computer generation, and have watched with a little bemusement as these glorified typewriters conquer all.

Knowful wink at the humanist and "digital citizen" crowds.

They are dividing society into two classes, the Digirati

Cue the Katz/Wired crowd.

who can understand Computers running super complicated, unintuitive OS's like OS X and Windows, and the disposessed, who just don't understand and never will.

A clever provocation: no mention of Linux at all! Doesn't seem to be very effective in its apparent goal to ignite a UI war though.

Consoles, by extending their grasp, may remove this knowledge gap by providing a wonderfully simple, hermetically sealed system that can be easily used by everyone, including your granny, and me!

"Hermetically sealed" makes a nice appearance. Otherwise not very convincing.

I will welcome the day, I think, I don't like the idea of supercomplex computers running increasingly difficult OS's taking over all simple tasks and dispossessing those with better things to do than understand the impossible complexities of Internet Explorer and Microsoft Word.

Boilerplate common sense.

I look to Sony, MS and Nintendo to provide a democratic and egalitarean new computing future for all, in which everyone can share.

Disappointing. Too flippant for there to be any venom in this tail. Several loose ends left hanging. Rather pathetic attempt to ensnare the FSF zealots with the "share" there as well.

Re:Consoles the future?

[Anonymous Coward]

Move the XBox? Ha. You don't lug your PC around, do you? Might damage that HDD.

PS2 has an HDD too. Don't know if it's been released in North America yet, but they have it in Japan. Comes bundled with some copies of FF10.

Re:Consoles the future?

[Fjord]

Crap. I thought I turned Jon Katz off.

Re:Consoles the future?

[Blackjax]

I apologize for being a bit offtopic here but I couldn't let the following comment pass without addressing it.

"I think you are vastly overestimating the reach of and scope of MS's .NET program. More than anything, MS wants to solidify and calcify its disparate projects into a more unified, uniform offering. .NET is so much in one name - a development environment, an execution environment, a web-services environment, and a server environment - that its goals are often misunderstood. Be clear - MS will not actively create products in one field that undermine directly the value of its other properties. Hence, I think that MS has an empire will not advance consoles to the point of threatning its OS market."

I see a lot of people under the mistaken (IMHO) impression that MS will do anything to protect the role of Windows in its suite of products. This is expressed above in the point that MS would not let .net threaten Windows. This assertion is predicated on the assumption that Windows is the more valuable of the two properties and is necessary to Microsofts future.

I disagree, and if you study the moves that MS has been making with its various products, I think it will become clear that they do too. MS has a clear strategy.

1. Control the runtime environment
2. Use control of environment to control strategic applications
3. Use revenue primarily from the applications to further strengthen control of the environment

Traditionally this cycle has been implemented through Windows(environment) and Office(revenue app). When a technology appears to threaten to provide an additional runtime environment that is not controlled by MS, they extend either the functionality of an existing product or build a new one to provide it. Then they use their other products to ensure that their new offering gets enough market penetration to allow them to control this new playing field. Internet Explorer is a good example of this strategy.

However, this approach is not infallible and MS has been looking ahead and seeing some threats on the horizon which may require more drastic measures. These are:

-The antitrust case
-Java
-Linux
-The saturation of the PC market and less room/funds for growth

So they asked themselves how they can continue to grow aggressively while preventing any of the above from doing an end-run around their defenses and eroding their control of the market to the point where they are simply another player in a fair market.

The answer is quite clever: Redefine what the standard runtime environment for applications is. Enter .Net

If Windows is under assault and may not be able to indefinitely provide the level of control they need to continue their strategy, then it is time to transition to an additional platform. This will provide them insurance in the case that Windows loses its iron grip on the market.

Does this mean that they will give up on Windows? I think not, it is a very valuable property and remains a powerful force. I am simply arguing that they will hedge their bets.

Java never pulled off the assertion that it would essentially become the new platform, supplanting the OS as the important factor. But MS paid attention and recognized that this could work if done properly. The same idea that this could be used to break the Windows monopoly could also work in MSs favor to marginalize the impact of up-and-coming OSs (Linux) as well as runtime environments (Java).

If they port their apps to .Net over the next couple of years but keep .Net running only on Windows (and incidentally MacOS) they maintain the current situation while manuvering themselves into a more secure position for the future.

If Linux (or some other OS) takes off and/or Windows loses its effectiveness, then they shift fully to .Net. The ports of .Net that they have already prepared for other OSs get released and it becomes their primary platform offering instead of their secondary one. Consider this as well, how much of the antitrust emphasis has focused on restricting Windows and how much has focused on restricting .Net? MS cares about retaining control, and Windows is a means to this end not an end in itself. If .Net becomes the more viable platform then they'll play that card for all its worth.

Also consider the issue of growth, this is where the Xbox comes in. MS needs growth for 2 reasons, revenue and control. The more people use their platform, the more apps they sell and the more money they make. The more people use their plaform, the more control they have over the market and the more difficult it will be for others to unseat them. Having millions of PC users use their platform provides a good level of security. Having 3x-10x that number through the addition of XBox users and MS Personal Video Recorder set top boxes is far better. They don't have to worry about much additional cost for software development since the apps will all be written to the conveniently standard .Net platform. Write once run anywhere...

The parent post said "I think you are vastly overestimating the reach of and scope of MS's .NET program. " and I think this is wrong...most people underestimate .Net because they look at it now and see it in the context of today, not in the context of where things are going. They don't look at it from a broad strategic perspective and miss the fact that MS does.

I don't particularly like or trust MS (I'm a Java developer and love it) but the terrible elegant beauty of their strategy never ceases to amaze me. The other thing that never fails to amaze me is how people continually forget to consider the big picture. Micorsofts actions are always viewed as discreet, isolated things and people choose to ignore the fact that they all come from the same company and often might be related.

Think it through and consider how all the markets they play in can support each other rather than as simple offerings to compete against the players in those markets. An interesting picture will develop.

When is Linux for the PS2 hitting the stores?!?!

[pHaze]

This has been advertised for sooooo long. I have 2 ps2's I finally have a use for, as soon as I can port Apache and mysql over.

A wonderful writeup

[Digitalia]

Now I have a little bit of "proof" I can break out when I want to deprecate the PS2. reading the writeup for the Gamecube, I was struck with how innovative the design seemed. Of the three, it seems the most traditional in function and intention, but it achieves that with the usual Nintendo pizazz. It'd be a pity if the Gamecube failed to capture a significant market share.

Re:A wonderful writeup

[Anonymous Coward]

I really enjoy my Cube, the library of games available now is wildly varied, something for everybody. N64 was rather week, but the currently available selection and those coming soon was enough to convince me. And I must say that I love the new controller. I already own a DVD player, so that "feature" is not missed at all. I'd recommend the Cube to anybody.

Re:A wonderful writeup

[jgerman]

Nintendo games as a general rule suck. Sorry it's the truth, not all of them but compare the great PSX games with the great Nintendo games (keep in mind I'm well past 12 years old which seems to be the target for Nintendo). Small list for Nintendo. It doesn't matter how "innovative" the design is, it's the games that matter. If I can play great games on a toaster I'll be happy.

I shouldn't say the suck, but single player games are pretty meagre for the Nintendo. The multiplayer games are incredible though, I have yet to find a game I can pop in for the PS2 that three or four people can all play and have fun with. Nintendo seems to excel with these.

Personally I like to have the PS2 so I can be anti-social and play FFX for hours on end, and have the Cube for a bunch of friends sitting around and beating the crap out of each other in Smash Brothers.

Re:A wonderful writeup

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that Nintendo clearly targets kids, but they aren't exclusive to kids as they are fun for adults too. The bottom line is now that I'm IMHO more mature I can sit down and enjoy a game and see passed its graphics to enjoy it for what it is.

Compare that to the "mature" games on other systems. Mutant Vampires that slay overally amroured gaurds by sneaking up behind them and punching through their chest and dropping their heart on the ground in front of them??

I'm sorry, but I'd rather play a game targetted at kids than one targetted at teenagers. Nintendo's kiddie outter layer is much easier to swallow for those not in that target audince than the above "adult" (teen) outter layer. It's a shame that teenagers have to be cool and reject Nintendo games based on theme rather than whether the game is entertaining or not. :(

Oh well, that's just the way the world works. I'll be happy playing my Nintendo games that "suck because I'm not 12 anymore and I'm too cool for Nintendo".

Some misinformation from the article

[Gath]

The article claims that the PS2 cannot play DVDs without the remote control, which is not true. It can play them just fine without. The XBox, however, cannot. It's not that bad of an article, just not objective enough.

Re:Some misinformation from the article

[SuiteSisterMary]

To further clarify the situation, the Xbox doesn't ship with DVD capability in order to also not ship with the 30 dollar licensing fee from the DVD Consortium. The Playstation 2, however, does mean you're paying 30 dollars, even if you'll never put a DVD-Video disc into it. Matters to some people.

Re:Some misinformation from the article

[ink]

What concientous buyer would purchase a Microsoft product while boycotting the CSS Authority? Isn't that like subscribing to Rush Online (tm) in order to sleight Dr. Laura?

Re:Some misinformation from the article

[SuiteSisterMary]

No, it's like not paying for functionality you're not planning on using. Isn't that what a whole lot of the whining about Microsoft and 'bundling' is about?

Re:Some misinformation from the article

[Afrosheen]

I doubt you'd never put a DVD into the drive, considering most of the bigger, newer games like Devil May Cry ship on DVD media. It's there for the storage space, not to reap cash from unwitting owners.

Re:Some misinformation from the article

[SuiteSisterMary]

There be a difference between DVD-ROM and DVD-Video.

Re:Some misinformation from the article

[Afrosheen]

Yeaarrggh matey, so there be, so there be. Ye be an angel to the landlubbin' moderators today, like ye olde beacon in ye foggy nite.

Re:Some misinformation from the article

[bdipert]

Thanks to all of you who've emailed me with this correction! I wasn't able to get any of the consoles in-house so was working off the manufacturers' documentation. Leave it to Sony to suggest that people buy hardware they really don't need! Actually, Sony PR was extremely unhelpful on this article; as soon as they heard I was doing a comparison piece, they quit returning my phone calls........

Re:Some misinformation from the article

[C64]

What concientous buyer would purchase a Microsoft product while boycotting the CSS Authority?

Indeed. It makes much more sense for a concientous buyer to deal with scrupulous companies like Sony.
cough RIAA's Membership List cough

If your going to bash MS, at least try to do it intellgently.

Re:Some misinformation from the article

[Jace of Fuse!]

Isn't that what a whole lot of the whining about Microsoft and 'bundling' is about?

Bundling, as you point out, is getting a lot of people annoyed over the XBox.

Funny though -- I bought my XBox without a bundle. If you don't like the bundles "Vote With Your Dollars", don't buy one. I didn't.

Re:Some misinformation from the article

[Ryokurin]

It should be noted that a good portion of the cash that is sent to the DVD consortium is going to Sony anyways, so the 30 dollars is more on the lines of 20-15 dollars.

Re:Some misinformation from the article

[ink]

Touche! I suppose the Gamecube is the correct choice then?

Re:Some misinformation from the article

[ivan256]

FMV in many games is stored as DVD video.

Re:Some misinformation from the article

[SuiteSisterMary]

Yes, it is. But that's not the point. The video won't start playing if you plop it into a set-top DVD player. I can encode DVD-Video to a CD-R if I really want to (and have; I have a wonderful CD with various THX, DD and DTS trailers) but that does NOT make it a 'DVD-Video disc.' Similarly, a CD-R with a whack of wav files on it is NOT a CD-Audio disc. A CD-R with a whack of wav files on it *in a certain way* is, however.

Re:Some misinformation from the article

[ivan256]

No, but technically putting DVD video on a CD still requires a license. How did you encode the video in the first place?

Re:Some misinformation from the article

[SuiteSisterMary]

Ah, but if it's encoded as video clips, it doesn't, if I recall correctly, need to be CSS'd. And it's the decoding of CSS that you're paying the royalties for. After all, encoding MPEG-2 is easy enough.

Re:Some misinformation from the article

[Nyarly]

On the other hand, it's $30 you'll pay on top of the $300 for either Xbox or PS2. Except you won't pay it for the PS2.

Gekko

[Anonymous Coward]

The Gamecube CPU doesn't quite have Altivec like a G4, but it does have something pretty useful for racing through matrix multiplies; data prefetching and paired single operations. Paired Single operations simply use the FPU to work on two singles instead of a double. For graphics and physics and most math intensive operations this essentially doubles the performance.

Looking at the specs it doesn't seem that special. But when you develop for it you'll be impressed. In many ways it is clearly the best console.

Of course that can be said about any of them...

Re:Gekko

[Ryan Amos]

It doesn't have Altivec like the G4 because it's not based off the G4. :) It's based off the PowerPC 750 (G3) and is designed as a general-purpose embedded processor. Sony's Emotion Engine (not the main CPU, but it is often used like one) is also powerful like this, with some insane vector units and other fun stuff. Though honestly, I don't give a flying fuck if my game console can do vertex shading or bumpmapping or whatever so long as the games are fun. You know, some people still play chess...

Re:Gekko

[Anonymous Coward]

hehehe, I couldn't agree more about graphics not being worth much. A game is still going to be a bad game, even if it has 10% more polygons than last years. Or vertex shaders. Or whatever. And Nintendo makes the best games in the world.

Unfortunatly there are quite a few good ones on the PS2 (I'm a big fan of Polyphony Digital's Gran Tourismo 3!), Dreamcast, Gameboy Advance and Windows which means I have multiple systems. :(

I posted that tech info because somebody was saying it was Altivec that IBM added to the G3. Its not, its more like the 602 that IBM made for 3DO's M2 system.

As for the G3 itself the chip is really suited to a game console. Paired single FPU operations with memory prefetch (although the psuedo-SDRAM really helps), only 4 pipeline stages for minimal branch prediction penalties, in order operation to keep the costs down (if any type of software developer can go in with asm and make things fast its game developers so there is no point in OOO), and can handle two (or three if one is a branch) intructions per cycle.

Nintendo, well ATI/ArtX, was very smart in designing this console.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

overheats??

[Anonymous Coward]

If i remember right, demo xboxes were supposedly overheating because they were in very enlosed cases with little room for air to circulate to cool it off.

I have not heard a thing about production xboxes off the shelf that are overheating. In fact, I have not seen anything about overheating, BSODs occuring at all.

Editors, if you have any evidence for your allegations, please provide them, otherwise you look just like bitter fools spreading FUD.

Re:overheats??

[nice]

I left my XBox on over the weekend (shame on me, but I was out drinking) and came back and played my game with no problems for many more hours.

The only problem I have with the XBox, aside from the expensive low quality DVD remote that you must have (and is somewhat hard to find), is its rather large area. It's the only console that won't fit on my mammoth 1985 VCR :)

Bullet-Time (TM) rocks.

Re:overheats??

[Osty]

If i remember right, demo xboxes were supposedly overheating because they were in very enlosed cases with little room for air to circulate to cool it off.

More than that, the possibility that those units were overheating was nothing more than speculation. The only units that ever had problems were those running earlier demo discs, and it was announced that the demo discs were bad -- they were built for the XDK box which has twice the memory (for development purposes), rather than the production XBox, and so would often step past the potential memory space of the real XBox (see how the XBox isn't a PC? If it were, it'd use that nice hard drive as virtual memory, but it doesn't because it's not a PC. Oh, sure, a game could implement its own virtual memory handler, but that has to be done on a per-game basis, as with any console ...). Thus, software problem, not hardware problem. The possibility of overheating was just Slashdot jerking its collective knee.

Re:overheats??

[operagost]

What the hell are you talking about? He didn't compare his XBox to a damn GameCube. Since he also didn't say how big the space above his VCR was, I don't know how you could say he's lying. Maybe he's trying to fit it into 3 cm of space, how do you know? One thing is for sure, you're not ready for the high school debate team.

Re:overheats??

[Anonymous Coward]

If the stories were moderated, all the editors would have negative Karma... (wonder how fast they would put in a minimum Karma cap).

Re:overheats??

[Anonymous Coward]

Osty is not even ready for elementary school. Give him some time to mature.

Re:overheats??

[arfy]

Don't know about overheating but a friend of mine who was cadged by his young into buying an Xbox has taken it back twice for freezeup problems and even after trading for new units has gotten no satisfaction. It won't run for more than an hour, he says. If his tots weren't so in love with one game involving a little troll called Munch he would've dumped it as a lemon long ago.

Re:overheats??

[nice]

I couldn't give you the exact dimensions of either right now. Suffice it to say when I said area, I indeed meant surface area, granted it is rather tall as well.

The point, anyway, was that it is not conveniently stackable on devices you might normally find it stacked upon [in homes].

If I were to compare it with the Gamecube, I'd be a bit more impressed with the Gamecube's compact nature. It actually looked smaller IRL than it did on television. It, of course, lacks many features of the XBox (which undoubtedly contribute to the size), so I am willing to concede worth to the XBox and put it somewhere else.

Re:overheats??

[JLester]

Right, that is just misinformation and sour grapes to Microsoft. To test this, I left mine running from Friday afternoon to Monday morning while we were gone for the weekend. It was using Dead or Alive 3 in the auto-fight mode. The XBox was enclosed in my entertainment center the whole. It was still going strong Monday morning when we got back.

Jason

Re:overheats??

[metatruk]

Editors, if you have any evidence for your allegations, please provide them, otherwise you look just like bitter fools spreading FUD.

Re:overheats??

[SuiteSisterMary]

Remember the problems the Dreamcast went through at launch? And the Playstation 1? Possibly the Playstation 2; I wasn't paying much attention.

Re:overheats??

[martyn s]

Did you mean surfarce area, or did you mean the area of the base, or the footprint?

Re:overheats??

[troykoelling]

I have no bias because I never owned a game console except for an atari when I was about 6. I work at a Target so I get to see all three and talk to customers about how they feel. X Box is the worst customer reaction. I don't know if it is overheating but a lot of them have just frozen up (power gone for no reason), causing the customer to have to send the box back to microsoft after sitting on the Microsoft customer service line for in one case, 2 hours. The freezing of the box made them loose the game because they can't open it without power unless they risk damaging it by prying it open thus voiding any warrente. Its not easy to get the game back once you ship it to Microsoft to fix. Playstation had some problems too when it first came out but people are generally more happy with that and Game cube has few complaints.

Re:overheats??

[noone42]

From a friend of mine who happens to work at Radio Shack, I've heard that several XBoxes were returned to their store due to overheating problems. Apparently the DVD playing hardware can overheat the unit if it is in an enclosed space and running for a long period of time.

Re:overheats??

[3ric]

I've had my Xbox for a month and it runs cool. It's cool to the touch no matter how long I leave it on. I think the overheating thing is a myth. I know that PS2 overheats, though.

Re:overheats??

[Matey-O]

The freezing of the box made them loose the game because they can't open it without power unless they risk damaging it by prying it open thus voiding any warrente. Its not easy to get the game back once you ship it to Microsoft to fix.

Spoken like a true Target employee...dija happen to notice the pinhole on the front of the device that's the MANUAL EJECT ACCESS?

Poke it with a paperclip. Learn something.

Re:overheats??

[Osty]

First off, considering the fact that he said it's the only console that won't fit on his VCR, nor did he specify what consoles those where, and that the gamecube is a console, it makes sense that I bring it into the equation. He didn't mention it, I did. He left the door open for it to be mentioned, though. Now, if he were trying to fit it into 3cm of space, then no console would fit, not just an XBox. Therefore, it stands to reason that he is not talking about a 3cm space.

Since he didn't mention in his original post whether he was talking about area (width*length) or depth (height), I was bringing up both possibilities. I was also providing my own empirical evidence (to counter his empirical evidence) showing that he is wrong. Had he provided the dimensions of his VCR, that would be one thing. However, since he described it as a "mammoth 1985 VCR", one would assume that it would be larger than a JVC SuperVHS hi-fi VCR made within the last two years. Since the XBox fits just fine on my VCR (the JVC just mentioned), I cannot fathom how it would not fit on a "mammoth" VCR (well, unless it's really old and has a pop-up slot for the tapes, rather than a slot in the front, in which case no console should sit on it).

Re:overheats??

[archen]

And the irony here is that people with PC's have been laughing for years at the Mac people using paper clips to get their disks out, and now people buy a MS Xbox and use one to eject games and DVDs...

Re:overheats??

[Fjord]

The nerve of some people, eh? I know if I was working a minimum wage + 25 cents/hr job I would memorize the troubleshooting characteristics of every product the megacompany I work for sells. Then would happily distribute this information to the people who should have been told how to get their game our when they called the customer service line for the product. Then I would complement the customer service line.

Re:overheats??

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is that ironic?

Re:overheats??

[zonker]

Ummm... That's fine and all, but I for one saw an Xbox at BestBuy a week ago that was down. When I asked what happened to it, the sales guy said it overheated and wouldn't work anymore. He said it just doesn't bootup at all. So yeah, I'd say there is a problem there... Of course, the demo cases they have them in don't provide a lot of airflow either...

losing its appeal?

[DocStoner]

"The shoot-'em-up game genre, popular in the past, is losing its appeal as television viewers behold the horror of real-life war on the evening news. What game genres will replace it is less clear"

HUH!?! I beg to differ. Too many people have asked me about playing Q3, Half-Life, and UT online in the last few weeks. Since the prices of pc's have dropped and broadband availibility growing in my city, more and more people are wanting to "shoot'em up" online. (Oops, forgot to mention that the price of those games have dropped recently.)

Re:losing its appeal?

[Afrosheen]

I haven't seen any horrors of real-life war, just strafing and bombing runs, a 4 second clip of a b2 or something similar rearraging rubble on the Afghani landscape. Actually probably not even that detailed, just a clip of something flying. Very 1984-ish.

Re:losing its appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

You really don't want to see the horrors of war.
Really.

Leave it to your imagination, or watch "Private Ryan" or the hand-to-hand fighting from "Highlander" or "Braveheart".

Or watch enough VietnamTV footage, for more modern treatments.

You really don't want to see it.

Re:losing its appeal?

[jo42]

> more and more people are wanting to "shoot'em up" online.

As long as no real blood is spilt, nor no real pain is felt, then people will continue to want this sort of rot. It's part of the biological make up.

Neat article

[joshyboy]

Filled with nice specs, but I was hoping the guy might have also compared the features with what is actually a reality with games today..., but I don't think he even could havbe, based on the info at the bottom:

Technical Editor Brian Dipert, for all his time spent researching and writing about 3-D graphics and other multimedia topics, doesn't play anything more complex than Solitaire on his desktop and notebook computers and his Casio E-125 Pocket PC

Re:Neat article

[torqer]

Yeah, he also so needy for attention that he lists his phone number at the bottom of the article.

Re:Neat article

[bdipert]

Not my preference, believe me. Standard EDN format required of all editors, for all articles

The Xbox does not overheat

[jkc120]

I have had the xbox since it was released, and it has not 'overheated' once. The only time it did anything out of the ordinary was with the Obi-wan game, and I've heard reports from a couple other people of seeing the occasional fluke with the game. So please don't make generalized statements claiming the xbox overheats all the time, when in fact, I think you'll notice that the production xbox is very, very stable.

Re:The Xbox does not overheat

[omidk]

yeah i completely agree with you. This is slashdot FUD at its worse. This site is getting more and more difficult for me to stomach everyday.

Re:The Xbox does not overheat

[linzeal]

Tom's hardware will prove that it will overheat, somehow somewhere he is plotting the demise of an innocent xbox.

Re:The Xbox does not overheat

[SuiteSisterMary]

I haven't trusted Tom in years. I fully expect to see something like this:

As you can see, the Xbox overheated 100 percent of the time, while the Playstation 2 didn't overheat once.* *Test conditions: The Microsoft Xbox was wrapped in tinfoil and place into an oven heated to 400 degress farenheit for all tests. The Playstation 2 was placed in a refridgerator and cooled to 50 degrees farenheit for all tests.

Re:The Xbox does not overheat

[byran lei]

>I have had the xbox since it was released, and it has not 'overheated'
>once. The only time it did anything out of the ordinary was with the
>Obi-wan game, and I've heard reports from a couple other people of
>seeing the occasional fluke with the game. So please don't make
>generalized statements claiming the xbox overheats all the time, when
>in fact, I think you'll notice that the production xbox is very, very
>stable.

HAHAHAHA! Microsoft employees commenting about stability! What a laugh! You guys must not visit the local Kmart's,Wal-mart's and Target department stores. If you did, you idoits would see all the stock *DEAD* XBOXES stitting next to the *STILL RUNNING* stock PS2's and GameCubes. Which says the XBOX doesn't have much of an uptime. Sure if you turn it off every 30 minutes or so, the XBOX wouldn't have a overheating problem since it won't get the chance to hot enough to crash and burn......

Re:The Xbox does not overheat

[prisoner]

While it may be bad form for an employee to comment on a product, my experience is similar to his. Our longest stretch was playing Halo for about 6 hours - with no trouble. I don't know about dead boxen in stores, the store I bought mine at must have cleaned them all up....:)

Re:The Xbox does not overheat

[ashsmith]

Aye, we've had several marathon Halo games (12+ hour sessions) without any problems. At least one of these sessions has started with a warmed machine (i.e. been left on overnight - oops).

I an only speculate on what is causing demos to overheat. The documentation has three or four paragraphs on picking a nice, cool spot for the box - including tips on not placing it near a stove or radiator. Keep away from volcanos, I suppose.

Anyway, this seems like so much FUD from my highly scientific sample of exactly one abused unit.

"one overheats"

[neurocide]

boy, guess someone's bias against microsoft runs real deep, doesn't it .. i've had my xbox on since nov 15th practically, not one GSOD, not one crash, and no overheating.

and that whole harddrive/memory card thing is a great idea, imo.

Re:"one overheats"

[Anonymous Coward]

What they should have said about the Xbox is this:

Just about every Xbox game will either also appear on the PC or another console such as Gamecube or PS2. As someone who owns a fast pc and a PS2 I do not need a console to play 'ports' of PC games to Xbox or games that will come out on my PS2, on the XBox. The Xbox does not seem like it will have too many original games, unless Microsoft buys more developers like Bungie. Halo and other 'exclusive' XBox games are coming to the PC eventually, not that Halo is a good game.

Re:"one overheats"

[cybercrap]

Ok, obviously you have been smoking some crack. I know you didn't just say halo is a bad game. Because if you did then your entire comment is worthless because your obviously mentally deranged. Anyways, people that use the argument about having shit on your pc are stupid. First off, sports games are far better on a console. Secondly, racing games are much more enjoyable on console. Finally, if you haven't noticed, a lot of pc game makers have been going belly up because there ain't any money in it, too many piraters, and too many shitty releases. I have a Xbox and I would say it is the best console out there in terms of hardware and in future software (ps2 has it beat in current software). Also, you can play your ps2 version of a game when I will be playing my superior looking version on the xbox.

Re:"one overheats"

[Anonymous Coward]

The future looks good for PS2 since it sold 15 million units and does not seem to be going anywhere as it also has sold more software for the system than the Xbox. The Xbox has an uncertain future. It remains to be seen if it will be successful. I doubt it will do good in Japan for example.

Re:"one overheats"

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are sports games better on console? What you can have 4 usb controllers on the pc, too. My pc has 8 usb ports. You can get a usb hub too.

Re:"one overheats"

[NecroPuppy]

Yeah, but you probably have the system set up in a well ventilated area.

Your average collage student, however, is going to let dust collect, and possiblly have dirty laundry or pizza boxes stacked around it.

And that will cause it to overheat, and catch some dorm on fire.

And I don't think that this will happen just once. It's going to happen multiple times.

Re:"one overheats"

[jkc120]

Uhh how about a large TV (30" plus). That makes all the difference.

Re:"one overheats"

[Anonymous Coward]

Your average collage student,

collage
n : picture made by sticking together pieces of paper or photographs syn: montage

I trust average *real* students are much smarter, and FGS, how many people are studying "collage" anyway!

Re:"One Overheats"

[Graymalkin]

I was just at the local mall earlier this afternoon. Whilst looking in Software Ect. I asked if I could play the XBox demo they had in the front window which had bee nturned off. The reason it was turned off is it had overheated a couple days before Christmas and they've yet to get a box to replace it with. Unless Rob lives in a universe parallel to my own with slightly different thermodynamics I don't think his comment was out of touch with reality.

Re:"one overheats"

[Anonymous Coward]

You can get a 30 inch computer monitor then instead of buying an Xbox.

Re:"one overheats"

[Anonymous Coward]

It was already established that most games are not gonna be exclusive to the XBox.

Re:"one overheats"

[Anonymous Coward]

Besides the fact that you are wrong about exclusive games, you forget the fact that any honest person can see with their plain eye that the XBOX has the best graphics to date on any system. Now, you may like Gamecube for it's lower price point and unique games - that's fine. The best console does not have to have the best graphics. But with games like Project Gothem Racing and DOA3, there is no way I would A) want to play these on a PC and B) want to play them with worse graphics on another console.

Re:"One Overheats"

[Anonymous Coward]

Whilst looking in Software Ect. I asked if I could play the XBox demo they had in the
front window

The demo box is the one that many are saying over-heat, for various factors mentioned in posts above. Did you ask them if they've had any problems with production boxes, or if any have been returned? Sure you might not get a fully truthful answer if they think they're gonna sell something, but you might be surprised.

Re:"one overheats"

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you seen Grand Turismo 3 on Playstation 2? It looks just as good as Project Gotham, but the cars do not shine light so unnaturally, so fools like you think it does not look as nice. Project Gotham cannot be compared to GTA3 as the latter has great gameplay and the former has medicore play. Gran Turismo 3 screenshots Also GTA3 draws many more cars onscreen than Gotham racing ever does. GTA3 when you play the game, it looks like you are watching racing on tv, Gotham racing the cars are always too lighted and shiny, it looks fake.

Also I will admit DOA 3 looks nice, but the gameplay sucks. It is just a medicore 3d fighter, Tekken 3 is more fun to play.

I can not believe you picked DOA3 and Project Gotham as examples of why the XBox is better. They are all graphics and no gameplay. Geforce 2 cards on a pc can handle those graphics, especially if you output it to a tv. For a 100 bucks get a Geforce 2 and return the Xbox. All the Xbox exclusive titles, mean that those games will not come out for other consoles, but they will come to the PC.

Re:"One Overheats"

[aka-ed]

I gather you are under the impression that an in-store demo Xbox is not from the production run? What would be the point of retooling the production line to make special "demo" boxes that are defective in ways the stock model is not?

Every other electronic appliance, the "floor model" is straight out of inventory. Perhaps you have confused the pre-production demo boxes (which would have been PCs with special hand modifications) with "floor model" or "in-store demo" machines, quite a different thing and, unless I am grossly mistaken, right off the production line.

can't wait to run BSD on it

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't wait to run NetBSD on these game
consoles. BSD has been ported to every
processor built since the '70s.

Re:can't wait to run BSD on it

[Anonymous Coward]

BSD has been ported to every
processor built since the '70s.


Really? Where can I find a version for the 6800. Or the 6502?

nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

"At first they were simple gaming machines, now they focus on email, broadband, DVD playing, web browsing, etc etc"

Bah.. Yes, at first in 1972 they were just that. But hey, the Odessy only had 40 transistors/resistors/diodes and the "computer" world was a bit different then.

Current gen:PS2 has planned NIC/HD and can play online (check the back of the PS2 version of Tony Hawk 3 next time you're in a software store!). GC has broadband/56K support on Nintendo's page. The Xfl-box has a built in NIC. DC has 56K support.

Previous: Saturn had an official modem and all that email, web, stuff, just not the DVD :) There have been consoles before with laser disk support though.

Previous to that: the 3DO was going to be a multimedia box every household needed. Before that in the late 80s/early 90s Commodore tried the CDTV for multimedia stuff and had Nolen Bushnell promoting it.

Previous: SNES and Genesis had the Xband modem for games and "email". Again there was planned modems, etc that never shipped. Still Nintendo etc always have those expansion slots-just incase. There was a CD-ROM add on for many of these era consoles so you didn't need to buy a seperate cd player to listen to the new music format..

During the NES era Nintendo partnered with AT&T to allow users to do banking/stock trading online through their NES! 10,000 homes were hooked up for a test in Minnesota and for $10 a month they could play the state's lotteries online.

In 1983 there was the CVC Gameline (used a catridge with a 1200baud modem with 8K of ram) for the Atari 2600 that offered news, stocks, "electronic mail", and banking services to 2600 owners. And you could download games for $1 each and keep them until you turned your system off.

Game consoles have always been "simply gaming machines" until there is enough of them people's homes to be something else. What MS is doing is nothing different than what has been going on for the last few decades.

Re:nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

SNES and Genesis had the Xband modem for games

We actually had cable modem games for SNES in the early 1990s. It was around for a few years.

Re:nothing new

[British]

They did have a modem for the Genesis. I bought one for a friend of mine 5 years ago on clearence.

They also had "the sega channel". Heck, the Atari 2600 had the gameline system!

Re:nothing new

[Erbo]

And the "cable games" idea goes back even further...to the PlayCable peripheral for the Mattel Intellivision console, 1981-83. It was a natural fit; General Instruments, the supplier of the Intellivision's chipset, also makes cable boxes. (To Mattel's chagrin, a couple of programmers hacked the PlayCable and were able to use it as a crude Intellivision development system; to keep them quiet, Mattel hired them to do the "Bump'n'Jump" arcade conversion.)

Eric

Re:nothing new

[cgadd]

> PS2 has planned NIC/HD and can play online (check the back of the PS2 version of
> Tony Hawk 3 next time you're in a software store!).

It's not just "planned". Get a cheap $30.00 USB Ethernet adapter, and you can connect the PS2 to a broadband connection. Tony Hawk 3 offers internet play right now. It can self-configure using DHCP, or you can enter the TCPIP properties manually.

I've also connected a USB Keyboard, and USB mouse and used them with no problems.

Re:nothing new

[frostgiant]

Yes, you are correct on all of this.
Also, remember the failed 64DD add-on for the N64 in Japan. It shipped with a modem and users could access the RandnetDD network to send e-mail and play games.
In the SNES days, once again for Japan-only, Nintendo released a deviced called the Satellaview. You would turn your TV to a certain channel during the day and it would download games for your SNES (technically Super Famicom).

Re:nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not just "planned". Get a cheap $30.00 USB Ethernet adapter, and you can connect the PS2 to a broadband connection. Tony Hawk 3 offers internet play right now.

Read the parent post again; he said NIC and HD are planned. Then he said it can (presently) play online.

Who cares?

[dimator]

Is anyone else tired of /. posting every single console hardware review? It doesnt really matter anyway, how many polygons each machine can pump.

Games matter. Instead of wasting time, I suggest you go to www.gamespot.com and take a good long look at the list(s) of games of each console, read the unbiased reviews, stare at pictures and movies, and then decide which console is coolest.

Re:Who cares?

[Osty]

Games matter. Instead of wasting time, I suggest you go to www.gamespot.com and take a good long look at the list(s) of games of each console, read the unbiased reviews, stare at pictures and movies, and then decide which console is coolest.

You're right, games domatter. However, I disagree with your suggestion for Gamespot as a useful source of information. They are very much biased towards the Playstation 2, to the detriment of both the Gamecube and the XBox. Yes, I know that pretty much any site is going to be biased, but Gamespot takes it to an extreme, to the point where their XBox reviews consistently rate 1.5-3 points lower than reviews on other web sites. Maybe they're just "telling it how it is", but when the reader reviews on Gamespot actually line up well with the editorial reviews of other web sites, you get a little suspicious ...

Sadly, I can't really recommend any better place, as most of the major gaming networks have gone the way of the dodo, or at least made most of their content subscription-only. What I do is keep my eye on Blue's News, which is mainly PC gaming but covers console gaming as well. Typically, you'll find links to better reviews than Gamespot reviews at Blue's. Otherwise, go to your local Blockbuster, rent a console and a couple games. Give it a spin for a week for $20 (console and a couple games), see if it's worth spending $300+.

Re:Who cares?

[minusthink]

or you could just go with the Gamecube because it's so damned cute.

and those games are just adorable!

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've found that gamespot is pretty solid. I use it for PC game reviews. I like their format for presenting stuff (though I wish each page had a bit less *stuff* on it...sidebars and whatnot).

Re:Who cares?

[kirkb]

Notice how these console reviews are posted under the "Games" topic (pic of an N64 controller)? Maybe you could update your slashdot settings to ignore this topic, and then just go to gamespot instead. Problem solved.

Re:When is Linux for the PS2 hitting the stores?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool write up, I just bought a PS2 mainly
for the purpose of running the Linux kit.
But I have to admit that I've found the
games fun. Aside from the previous
broadband pictures that appeared on /.
I've been trying to find details on the
port and the availability of the kit.
Anyone ??

Game Cube (A little OT and ranty, sorry)

[ffatTony]

Will you personally buy a game cube?

If you answer yes to this one you'll be the only one I know who will. Why? The Nintendo64 had such a sorry array of games when compared to the PS1, its a no-brainer to expect the same of their cube.

I think I represent the average gamer and I want strategy games, fighting games, REALISTIC images, great audio. I want games to move me and scare me. I especially don't want Mario this or Luigi that. Game cube commercials are already touting a new Mario + friends mortal combat style fighting game. I truly think you need to be 11 to get a kick out of that.

Re:Game Cube (A little OT and ranty, sorry)

[Anonymous Coward]

Come down off your mountain and give reality a try sometime.

Games are an escape not a realistic endeavour. Go play the GC games for a bit with some friends and then talk about how they are "not fun". I would be honestly suprised if you could.

Re:Game Cube (A little OT and ranty, sorry)

[iso]

Wow, I've found quite the opposite. A friend of mine has an N64 and now a Game Cube, and while there's a lot of kiddie games, there's a whole lot of what I'd call "social games." Games that are genuinely fun, with decent graphics, that are best played with at least three or four people.

These are the games that are actually fun, and aren't the kind that you only play locked up in a dark room all night by yourself. Of course, knowing slashdot, there are probably very few people here who would actually agree that being social is a good thing.

- j

Re:Game Cube (A little OT and ranty, sorry)

[irishmikev]

Super Smash Melee is one of the best 4 player games I've ever seen. It entertained several people well over the age of 11 for hours on end. Try it before you trash it.

Re:Game Cube (A little OT and ranty, sorry)

[druiid]

Hahahahaha, that's funny. Well, you see, disregarding all of the truly fun games that are/will be on the gamecube, if you want a game that will scare you then you need look no further than games like Resident Evil or Eternal Darkness. These are both not kiddie games, and both ONLY for the gamecube. On the other hand, if you want to play truly innovative and fun games then Nintendo is always a winner in my book. The comparison between the number of games on the N64 and PS1 isn't the best, as there might have been a lot of PS1 games, but there were also a HUUUGGE number of crappy non-innovative titles.

Re:Game Cube (A little OT and ranty, sorry)

[John_Booty]

Game cube commercials are already touting a new Mario + friends mortal combat style fighting game. I truly think you need to be 11 to get a kick out of that.

It looks like you're talking about Super Smash Brothers Melee, which is perhaps the greatest 4-player action game ever created. This game is a blast to play, as I can personally attest, and has gotten universally excellent reviews.

A good game is a good game, period, whether you wrap the gameplay in Mario Brothers graphics or ultra-realistic motion-capped characters with digitized skin. Apparently you prefer style (realistic images!) over actual gameplay to the point where you'll overlook a true gem of a games!

I'll agree with you that the N64's library was pathetic compared to the other systems. However, I had to take you to task for overlooking a true gem of a game just becase of cartoony graphics.

Also, consider this: N64 developers were hampered by having to use rom-based catridges when everyone else was using optical storage. Now, they don't have that restriction. It's too early to tell who's going to have the best games, but don't count Nintendo out yet.

Re:Game Cube (A little OT and ranty, sorry)

[RockyJSquirel]

I might buy one (and I already have a PS2). The main reason is that I like harmless, cute games. All the glorified violence of the so-called grown up games makes me uncomfortable.

Rocky J. Squirrel

Re:Game Cube (A little OT and ranty, sorry)

[xenocide2]

You mean the critically accliamed Super Smash Bros. Melee? The one game that everyone in my dorm is looking to get in on when I get back?

I think you may need to spend a bit more time absorbing the wisdom of Penny Arcade.

But you're right. If you're looking for bland photorealism, Gamecube is the wrong place for you. I've seen it mentioned elsewhere, and I think its true, that 3d graphics rendering is similar to oil pantings from one to two hundred years ago, where photorealism is quickly developing, and surrealism develops.

Re:Game Cube (A little OT and ranty, sorry)

[Anonymous Coward]

The Penny Arcade guys are infinitely wise...

Re:Game Cube (A little OT and ranty, sorry)

[Ziviyr]

The Nintendo64 had such a sorry array of games when compared to the PS1, its a no-brainer to expect the same of their cube.

Got the no-brain part right.

With 1500 megs versus 32 megs for game storage developers will have to spend less time squeezing out turnip-blood to get their games onto the medium. Oh, and its hardware isn't hard to work with as compared to the N64/PS2.

Its a brainer to expect more development taking less time, being more profitable, bringing more developer interest to the platform.

The cost of carts have been eliminated BTW. ;-)

Re:Game Cube (A little OT and ranty, sorry)

[Anonymous Coward]

that is exactly right. Look at Tetris Attack for SNES. Yeah, the style was cute and cartoonish, but man, that was a puzzle game with depth. And Now look at Pokemon Puzzle League. Same thing. As I have gotten older it seems like the style matters less compared with the game design. I wonder why I am a Nintendo fan? :)

Re:Game Cube (A little OT and ranty, sorry)

[NineNine]

Well, think about this... You're talking about "social" games for 3-4 people. Well, to play with that many people at the same time, you'd have to have someone bring another console and connect 'em. That's fine, but wouldn't you think that the people interested in doing this would already be the kind of people who AREN'T social, or if they are, it's only for a Quake frag-fest? I couldn't imagine a bunch of geeks getting together to play some Mario, Luigi, or Pokemon game together.

Re:Game Cube (A little OT and ranty, sorry)

[matticus]

Have you ever been to a college dorm? I know at least fifteen people with an N64 and Super Smash Bros at school, and there are lines outside their rooms to play. Oh, and you may not know this, but the GameCube and N64 (and Dreamcast) support up to 4 controllers, and Smash Bros is playable by 4 at once. It's a crazy good time with four 18-21 year olds fighting with little cartoon characters. I suggest you try it, as these are who own America right now, and these are who Nintendo aims at.

Re:Game Cube (A little OT and ranty, sorry)

[Anonymous Coward]

You, my friend, are quite in error. I'm currently 19 and in college, and once I broke the news to my friends that I was getting a Gamecube for Christmas, they were all begging me to get Super Smash Brothers Melee. Now that I have it, a couple of them are planning to purchase controllers so they can play, such is their eagerness. If you want to sit alone in your room all day by yourself playing your games, go ahead with another console.
If you _also_ want to be able to sit down with your friends and have some fun, you want a Gamecube.

-David 'Klep' Kleppinger, Raving Lunatic

Re:Game Cube (A little OT and ranty, sorry)

[ameoba]

Youd be suprised how well something like Mariokart works at a low-grade party. A single race is short enough that, if you have more than 4 people, you can rotate out the loser(s), and still be sure that everyone gets a shot at playing. The game is simple to play, and somebody who's never touched it before, or simply had too much to drink, can pick it up and do reasonably well.

That's not to say that Nintendo has a monopoly on these games, but they do have the most, since four player games never did well on the PSX because the 4-way hardware wasn't standard. I haven't looked much at the new consoles, but the XBox has a decent 4-way party game in Fuzion Frenzy, a game obviously designed with that sole purpose in mind.

Mind you, if everyone present is going to be a gamer geek, fighting games are a good substitute for the 4-way party game, but they don't provide much entertainment if there will be non-gamers, alcohol or females around.

To sum it all up, the key traits of good party game are:

• Shallow learning curve: it's a social gathering, not a contest. Make it easy to pick up and participate w/o being too embarrassed
• Short turn-around time: Keep people rotating through so that nobody who wants to play has to wait too long and anyone who wants to stop can leave on short notice
• Simultanious Multiplayer:2 players is OK, 4 is golden; more than 4 would probably have to strugiling to find room in front of and on the TV.

I think that cuteness (or at least low-violence) is a bonus. GoldenEye and Tekken were OK party games, but Mariokart was a great one.

Re:Game Cube (A little OT and ranty, sorry)

[zonker]

not with the gamecube as it has ports for 4 controllers out of box. you'll have to get a multitap for your poopstation2 though.

1 paragraph on graphics?

[Traa]

The article is pretty good overall but lacks a major component. GRAPHICS performance (duh)!. It has one paragraph telling us something about multitexturing (guess which box? it starts with an 'x'), high polygon performance to render some cute girlees hair (rrrright), anti alliasing (same 'x'), anisotropic filtering ('x'), writing z-buffer optimised code (goes for all graphics software), if multiple lighting and transforming calculations can be offloaded of the main CPU (xbox again, sorry). It doesn't even mention other texturing tricks that we are allready used to on the PC. Environmentmapping, bumpmapping, etc. (damn impressive in Halo on my xbox).

I would recommend those that want a deeper analysis of why the xbox is the graphics gaming console of the future (verses these other boxes) to have a good look at what DX8 brought us. Hint: vertex shading and pixel shading.

Oh, and Mr CmdrTaco, get with the program:
- PS2 has more games, yes. 425 PS1 + PS2 combined titles. Xbox has about 40 now and that list is growing fast. 100x...whatever
- Overheating? Don't pull a 'the prerelease box was rumoured to overheat' kinda bull on this forum please
- Luigi??? Abe farts in the fase of Luigi! In more colors, with surround sound and at 1080i

LINUX (kernel 0.9) SUCKS!!

Re:1 paragraph on graphics?

[Anonymous Coward]

Xbox games are mostly PC 'ports.' It seems a lot of dumb PC gamers are getting Xbox. I say dumb because, if they are PC gamers, they can play most Xbox games on PC, except the ports of Playstation 1 or 2 and Gamecube games.

Re:1 paragraph on graphics?

[The Axe]

That's 425 PS1 + PS2 games released since the release of the PS2. In late 1999, I had read that the PS1 had the largest gaming library with over 700 games. Besides that, there are many killer PS2 games: Final Fantasy X, Devil May Cry, Grand Theft Auto 3, Metal Gear Solid 2, Grand Turismo 3, and the list goes on. I already have a PS2 and some of the above games, but I want the rest plus an Xbox and GameCube - the games are what attracts me to the consoles.

Re:1 paragraph on graphics?

[Techi]

"LINUX (kernel 0.9) SUCKS!!"

so does MS-DOS 3.0

I agree with you though...the article's focus on the processing power of each system seems to be completely offtopic. Even when using PCs, your gaming experience greatly improves with faster GPU clocks, more dedicated DRAM for video, and hardware integrated T+L.

I would hate to see a review structured like this for something like a dedicated DVD Player, where the CPU wouldn't even be looked at twice....

Re:1 paragraph on graphics?

[strags]

I would recommend those that want a deeper analysis of why the xbox is the graphics gaming console of the future (verses these other boxes) to have a good look at what DX8 brought us. Hint: vertex shading and pixel shading.

Hmm... Actually vertex shaders and pixel shaders are nothing new - it's just that we've finally slapped a standard name on them. Even the Nintendo64 had a "colour-combiner" which could apply two passes of linear equations to the various different colour sources - no, it wasn't a fully programmable pixel shader, but then neither is DX8's most of the time, given the various hardware limitations. I believe the GameCube has a much more sophisticated colour-combiner step - capable of doing pretty much anything the XBox can do with its pixel shader.

As for vertex shaders - gimme a break! The N64 had completely updateable microcode - you could use the RSP for whatever you wanted, and perform whatever calculations you liked at the vertex transform/shading level.

DX8 didn't bring us either of these technologies. You would do well to examine the actual meanings of these terms, and look at the capabilities of the competing hardware rather than blindly accepting the hype.

Re:1 paragraph on graphics?

[Anonymous Coward]

Typical nintendo apologist BS. We all know that NVidia stomps ATI on the desktop. These new consoles are simply using souped-up variants of the desktop-grade GPU's, so obviously NVidia & XBox are superior to ATI's pitiful product.

Re:1 paragraph on graphics?

[Anonymous Coward]

SO owned! Woo!

Re:1 paragraph on graphics?

[Anonymous Coward]

Give it up. You got owned and switching to AC in order to flame is so transparent.
If you're going to AC, do it right.

Re:1 paragraph on graphics?

[tkrotchko]

While the GC has an ATI branded video chip, it was purchased by ATI. The chip that's in the GC now bears no relationship to the current or previous ATI offerings, but likely will make its way into future ATI chips.

BTW, all 3 have roughly equivalent graphics. Nobody has a lead in hardware right now.

And yes, I do own all 3 thanks. They all cost about the same as a top-end graphics card, and aside from the space they take up are worth getting if you like playing games.

Re:1 paragraph on graphics?

[KewlPC]

The GeForce3 offers programmable pixel and vertex shaders in hardware. This means that you can write your own shaders, just like you would if you were using RenderMan.

Nintendo has deliberately underpowered the GameCube to keep its cost down, enabling them to sell it for $100 less than the other consoles, thusly allowing them to remain in the child-oriented market that they're known for.

Re:1 paragraph on graphics?

[C64]

Ummm... huh? You do realize vertex/pixel shaders and color combiners are not the same thing, don't you?
<sarcasm> My GeForce2 claims to have color combiners. Yet, as perplexing as it may be, it does not claim to have Vertex or Pixel shaders. Must have left that off the box! </sarcasm>

Have you even looked at the DX 8 SDK? Or, if you refuse to "stare into the eyes of the beast", how about nVidia's vendor extensions for GL to support pixel and vertex shaders, or even the OpenGL 2.0 specs?

A linear equation for coloring and a programable pipeline are, well, completely different things. I'd love to see you magically be able to perform, say, deformed-skinned skeletal animation with a color combiner.

Re:1 paragraph on graphics?

[Traa]

ehh...the Playstation 1 and 2 games do not appear on a PC because Sony does not allow that to happend. Every game that has appeared and will appear on a Playstation2 could be ported to the PC without too much effort. Here is the simple reason why: A PC > Playstation2

Don't look so shocked, you know it's true. It is kinda true for an xbox too.
So maybee you should look into the part of "sony not allowing game ports".

Re:1 paragraph on graphics?

[feepness]

Chuckle. No, they left off the DVD player so they could sell it for $100 less. The graphics capabilities are very similar on the XBox/GameCube. The PS2 is a bit of a step down from either (a year behind), which just goes to show that graphics mean little given the PS2 sales lead this last season. You can fanboy all you want, but graphics don't mean squat.

What does matter?

Brand recognition.
Advertising.
Software.

Sadly, in that order.

Re:1 paragraph on graphics?

[strags]

I'm sorry if I confused you... let me clarify...

Colour combiners and pixel shaders are (more often than not) exactly equivalent. Have you actually used DX8? I've written a shitload of pixel shaders, and frankly, there's very little that you can't do with a suitably powerful colour combiner.

I never suggested that vertex shaders and colour combiners were equivalent - I don't know where you got that from. I did however point out the the N64 had completely replaceable RSP microcode, enabling you to do weighted blending, env mapping, etc... etc... - in other words anything a DX8 vertex shader can do and more besides.

I don't know why you're bringing up OpenGL - basic, vanilla OpenGL can't do much more than modulate a linearly interpolated colour value with a texture map - very PS1. What's your point?

Re:1 paragraph on graphics?

[timster]

If you're so obsessed with graphics, why don't you go back to your PC? Seriously, when I'm playing GTA3 I don't think "Man, if this had more bump mapping like Halo it'd be cool instead of sucking". Newsflash: I don't want to play Halo; as far as I'm concerned it's a FPS which means it sucks. What matters most to me about this new generation of consoles is mostly the larger media. If graphics aren't your most important priority, the xbox is a clear loser right now. It simply doesn't offer me anything much that I want. You may have different priorities, just don't forget that there are people who really prefer the PS2. I don't honestly think the xbox will ever come close to the PS2 in the titles race, but I could be wrong. We'll see.

Re:1 paragraph on graphics?

[tc]

Colour combiners and pixel shaders are (more often than not) exactly equivalent. Have you actually used DX8? I've written a shitload of pixel shaders, and frankly, there's very little that you can't do with a suitably powerful colour combiner.

This is broadly true of the 'combiner' or 'arithmetic' portion of a DX 8.0 pixel shader, but leaves out the texture sampling portion of the shader, which is arguably the most powerful. This portion drives the texture sampling units, and can do simple operations whereby the addresses of texel fetches can depend on texels fetched by other texture units ("dependent texture reads"). This extends as far as being able to do a 3x3 matrix multiply and a simple reflection calculation into a cubic-environment map per-pixel, which is how you get some of the groovy bump-mapping effects. There are ways to get bump-mapping effects without this but they generally don't look as good.

Re:1 paragraph on graphics?

[Hast]

Every game that has appeared and will appear on a Playstation2 could be ported to the PC without too much effort.

Yes, if you consider "Recoding from scratch" to be without too much effort. The PS2 has a radically different architecture from a PC. (Or other consoles.)

Here is the simple reason why: A PC better[changed from greater than] Playstation2

In some ways yes, in others no. More specifically. A PC has generally more memory and a beefier CPU than a PS2. A PS2 OTOH has more advanced co-processors and high bandwidth. Go read some articles on Ars Technica if you're interested in the details.

Re:1 paragraph on graphics?

[Anonymous Coward]

"whereby the addresses of texel fetches can depend on texels fetched by other texture units"

This sounds an aweful lot like the indirect texturing used by the game cube.

For example in Luigi's Mansion when you see Mario caught in the oil painting it looks like they've just rendered Mario to a texture and then combined with an "oil painting" texture which simply contains offsets for which texels to use.

Same thing, right?

Re:1 paragraph on graphics?

[tc]

I'm not sure exactly what the capabilities of the GC are (perhaps someone else here can share?) but what you describe is at least partly it. A vanilla "dependent texture read" does exactly what you say (this capability was actually available in the Matrox G400 graphics cards in the DX 6 era). A more sophisticated one, such as exposed in DX 8.0 and available in Xbox can perform some additional arithmetic on the sampled texel before using it as a texture address - for example, you can sample a normal from a normal map, rotate by a per-pixel iterated matrix, compute a reflection vector based on the iterated eye-vector and the rotated normal, and use that result to look up into a cube-map for a specular environment mapping term, all per-pixel. Maybe the GC can do this too - I don't know the details. I do know that the PS2 can't (heck, the PS2 can't even do a lot of pretty basic alpha blending modes). I was more responding to the assertion that DX 8.0 pixel shaders are really just simple combiners, because that is missing half the story.

Re:1 paragraph on graphics?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm... a few PS2 games have made it to PC.

One that comes to mind is "Summoner".

The newer games may not be so easy to port, if they start to really take advantage of the uniqueness of the PS2 hardware, which is a bit different it seems than the typical PC (or XBox) graphics card...

...and one overheats...

[sean23007]

If by "one" you mean the XBOX, then you are either a liar or an idiot. I purchased an XBOX and have not yet turned it off, indeed I have hardly stopped playing it (that includes 18 straight hours of Halo, during which I beat the game), and it has yet to overheat. In fact, the box itself is not uncomfortably cool (although it is noticeably warm to the touch), but the gameplay does not slow down. Only someone with 17 fans on their Athlon would think the XBOX overheats. Perhaps you editors should only post what you know, rather than whatever might make people think that Microsoft looks bad. Your propaganda battle is pointless, because you're preaching to the choir, who largely don't matter.

Re:...and one overheats...

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly.. And since when did Sony become the little guy?

"Oh yeah? well.. my multinational corporation is less evil than your multinational corporation!"

Re:...and one overheats...

[Ziviyr]

Only someone with 17 fans on their Athlon would think the XBOX overheats.

I'm sorry, I only have four fans on my Athlon (two are in parallel).

And I've seen one of those nonfunctioning X-Box displays, and I think the heat argument is a good one. Nevermind the ridiculous complexity of it.

Re:...and one overheats...

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop whining.

Re:...and one overheats...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm just amazed you could play it with that God-awful controller. That thing really is hideous and uncomfortable.

Re:...and one overheats...

[WildBeast]

I don't know where they get those ideas from. I never did play 18 straight hours but I did play 7 straight hours and haven't noticed anything, it kept running.

It's Software that matters

[DeadBugs]

This article at cnn http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/fun.games/12/27/video .games.sales.reut/index.html states "Games for the Sony PlayStation 2 platform held eight of the top-20 sales spots and represented five of the 10 best-selling titles over that period, according to market research firm, The NPD group." A game will still suck even on a 10ghz processor

GSODs and BSODs

[Glonk]

The BSODs and GSODs you hear of are actually not true. The "GSOD" you saw online is actually a disc error (inserting the wrong type of disc) into the XDK, not even the final Xbox (Next time you see it, check out the bottom).

If the Xbox crashes or freezes, you don't get ANY type of message. It'd just lock up (read the documentation). Same as the other consoles.

So somehow I actually doubt your "number of friends" got GSODs in games.

I've had my Xbox since launch day: No crashes, no freezes, no problems, and certainly no overheating.

Re:GSODs and BSODs

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow so many PC users are getting Xbox. I will let you in on a secret. Psst. Xbox will have tons of 'ports' of PC games. If you have a PC you can play those games when they come out for PC instead of waiting for the Xbox launch.

Xbox has a huge overlap with PC games and games that will be released on other consoles.

Re:GSODs and BSODs

[Anonymous Coward]

Oooh, good one. However much Microsoft pays you, they should double it.

Re:GSODs and BSODs

[Anonymous Coward]

So somehow I actually doubt your "number of friends" got GSODs in games

I knew that he was lying because he claims to have friends, yet also posts to slashdot. Impossible.

Re:GSODs and BSODs

[Anonymous Coward]

The GSOD may be a 'myth" but I've personally been present in an EB when the demo Xbox locked up in the middle of a Halo game (just like a PC locking up with a Direct X game, Sound freezing ont the note it was on, etc)

That being said, I have one of each of the three consoles, and none of them have locked up yet (I was told that the demo gamecube locked about as often as the Xbox by the EB staff)

Re:GSODs and BSODs

[Jace of Fuse!]

I've had my Xbox since launch day: No crashes, no freezes, no problems, and certainly no overheating.

Nor have I. I can't say the same for other consoles, but the XBox hasn't given me one bit of trouble.

I've seen just about everything lock up. Everything from the GENESIS (rarely), Playstation (OFTEN!!!!!!!), and Dreamcast (once or twice).

Consols are computers. They run software. Software has bugs. Sometimes those bugs crop up. It's (almost) forgivable. What I find hard to forgive is the instant dislike everyone took to the X-box due to it being a Microsoft console.

I have all of the systems, and I like the Playstation 2 the least. I don't quite hate the PS2, but it's certainly not a system I'm thrilled about. I can't say I like the XBox better than the Gamecube, but I definately can't say I hate the XBox, but I also can't say I like the Gamecube the best, either (not until Metroid Prime comes out anyway....) Overall I like all of the systems, but for right now I still think my Dreamcast has the most really excellent games. That will change since there won't be any new ones... but...

Re:GSODs and BSODs

[jgerman]

Hey I've only see a playstation lock up once, shocked the hell out of me. I don't particularly care for the X-Box (and I don hate MS) but I've never seen it lock up, or heard of it from a reliable source. My NES and Genesis used to lock up, but never enough to cause a real problem.

Re:GSODs and BSODs

[Anonymous Coward]

If some people were dying from taking a
prescription medicine, do they say "well
ted here has been taking the same medicine
and is fine, so.. the deaths must be fiction".
No they initially conclude that there may be
fatal side effects and look at the problem.

Point is just because you left your
XBOX on for 34 hrs inside of your easybake oven
without a problem does NOT invalidate the
fact that some people are having problems
with their XBOXes, freezing and perhaps
overheating.

"How anyone can have a computer called an
XBOX that doesn't run XWindows is beyond me"
jon phillip souza

Re:One

[Anonymous Coward]

Malda's Ex-GF

oversized...

[davmct]

I've actually reworked my XBox so my hamster can live inside of it. With all of the real-estate it takes on my entertainment center, I had to make it earn its shelf-space.

GameCube = half-arsed Nintendo

[inkswamp]

Enough already with this pro-GC bias! Quite frankly, the GC is pretty mediocre from what I've seen and this Slashdot bias toward it is annoying. The games I've played are hokey or stiff (Luigi's mansion looks like a warmed-over N64 game; the Star Wars game is the least fluid SW game I've ever played--compare it to the PS2 SW games.) It's underpowered compared to the other two competitors. At the time of this writing I've witnessed *3* GameCube crashes (that's 2 more than I've seen the XBox do) and the controllers look and feel like cheap toys. Don't get me wrong--I love Nintendo and if I were buying a console now, I'd try to avoid MS, but this GC bias on Slashdot underscores how willfully some bask in their own bias. The GC is half-assed, a bad showing for Nintendo, and not worthy of an editorial bias. I wish they had done better. I wish Sony and Nintendo had given MS a very rude awakening, but that didn't happen. Praise should be directed at the PS2, NOT the GC. And honestly, if it were between the GC and the XBox... I'd probably grit my teeth and get an XBox.

--Rick

Re:GameCube = half-arsed Nintendo

[druiid]

Actually, from what I've seen the bias is quite the opposite. The Slashdot bias seems directed at the PS2. As for the GC crashes, I'd like to know in which games and where. I've had literally no problems with mine, and most of the people who have a gamecube or use mine like the feel of the controllers, yet make fun of the X-Box controllers for feeling like a pumpkin.

Re:GameCube = half-arsed Nintendo

[Anonymous Coward]

How about not talking out of your ass next time?

Re:GameCube = half-arsed Nintendo

[Anonymous Coward]

The GameCube and the Xbox both outperform the PS2 by a large margin.

Also the slashdot bias is towards the PS2 NOT the GameCube.

Re:GameCube = half-arsed Nintendo

[Anonymous Coward]

How about not talking out of your ass next time?


I can't help it. I just ate a can of beans!

Re:GameCube = half-arsed Nintendo

[WildBeast]

dude I love the Xbox controllers. That's another reason why I got an Xbox. But I'm still not ruling out getting a Gamecube to.

Re:GameCube = half-arsed Nintendo

[inkswamp]

Actually, from what I've seen the bias is quite the opposite. The Slashdot bias seems directed at the PS2.

I haven't seen that at all. Everything I've seen rolling across the front page seems to be drooling over the GC and knocking the XBox. The fact is that, sadly, the XBox is, by far, the better of the two. I just played Cel Damage today--amazing, probably the most fun I've had playing a console in ages. None of the GC games I've played come up to that level. It's unfortunate.

As for the GC crashes, I'd like to know in which games and where. I've had literally no problems with mine, and

I've seen Luigi's Mansion crash twice, once while I was playing and this was only a few minutes into the game. The game just blanks out and the cube resets itself. I saw the Star Wars game locked up too. Both of these were public demo machines in stores, so I know it's not necessarily something to judge the whole system by but I haven't witnessed anything that bad in any other system. It just strikes me as fishy--makes me wonder if they cut some corners to get things out in time to compete with the XBox. :^/

most of the people who have a gamecube or use mine like the feel of the controllers, yet make fun of the X-Box controllers for feeling like a pumpkin.

The GC controllers feel (and look) like little Fisher-Price toys to me. I thought the XBox controller was awkward at first, but I have to give them the edge on feel and look. They are pretty comfortable after a few minutes, and after you get over the initial reaction. BTW, my 5-year-old can play the XBox very easily. The "big as a pumpkin" argument doesn't hold water with me.

I'm not one of these mindless MS apologists (in fact, I'm a Mac user, i.e. not a fan of MS one bit), but the GC is a misstep for Nintendo and the XBox seems to kick ass all around. IMO, the XBox is what the GC should have been.

--Rick

Re:GameCube = half-arsed Nintendo

[Anonymous Coward]

- Cel Damage is coming out for GC too.

- The demos in the stores are on timers (10 mins normally I think), where they are set to reset.. A subtle hint to let the next person play. That does not mean it is crashing.

- The GC controllers do look funny, but they have a good feel and are very easy to use. The X-Box controllers are okay, but have a few problems.. 1) they are big, 2) the buttons are poorly placed 3) all buttons feel the same and are too close together.. it is very awkward for somebody like me, with big hands and fingers, to use the controller. The GC and PS2 controllers are much easier, oddly enough.

To me, the X-Box is not a true game console. It is merely a PC masked as one. MS has done almost nothing for the hardware to distinguish it otherwise. Nintendo on the otherhand, designed an efficient system from the ground up, with efficiency in mind. The XBox has more horsepower (relatively more), but can only use 60 - 70% of it max.. The GC can use 90 - 95% of its max horsepower.

I picked up a GC, why? Because its cheaper and has better games (Super Smash Brothers Melee, Super Monkey Ball, Pikmin, Tony Hawk 3, etc)

Kyle

Re:GameCube = half-arsed Nintendo

[inkswamp]

- Cel Damage is coming out for GC too.

Good. They need some better games. Fast.

The demos in the stores are on timers (10 mins normally I think), where they are set to reset.. A subtle hint to let the next person play. That does not mean it is crashing.

I don' t think any of what I saw was a reset. The first one I saw, IIRC, was 3 or 4 minutes in and the screen totally whacked out on me, graphic anomalies, general weirdness for a second, then the reset. The other two I've seen were only a few minutes into the game and the screen went black. Nothing else... just black. These didn't seem like resets to me.

The GC controllers do look funny, but they have a good feel and are very easy to use.

Uck... I can't stand 'em.

The X-Box controllers are okay, but have a few problems.. [...] The GC and PS2 controllers are much easier, oddly enough.

Don't mistake what I meant. I'm not wild about the controllers on either the GC or the XBox. I was simply saying that, of the two, the XBox is clearly a nicer controller (to me at least) only because you can't get much worse than the rinky-dink GC controllers. I think the PS2 controller is far-and-away better designed than either of those however.

To me, the X-Box is not a true game console. It is merely a PC masked as one. MS has done almost nothing for the hardware to distinguish it otherwise.

Again, don't mistake what I'm saying. Despite the fact that my first post on this was modded as a "troll" (har-har... no pro-GC Slashdot bias, huh???) I am not encouraging people to run out and buy an XBox. I don't defend the XBox. I just wish the GC were more impressive and could put the XBox to shame. It doesn't.

--Rick

Re:GameCube = half-arsed Nintendo

[Anonymous Coward]

"The fact is that, sadly, the XBox is, by far, the better of the two"

That is completely silly. None of the systems are by far better than the others.

I'd say the GC and PS2 are tied for being best with the Xbox left trying to figure out a reason for people to own it.

"GC is a misstep for Nintendo and the XBox seems to kick ass all around"

Actually the GC is by far better for Nintendo:
-$199 vs $299 makes it more accessable. Watch the sales after christmas reflect this.

-I've read the estimated costs are $180 for Nintendo to manufacture each console and $340 for MS. Use google for the links to the Myrl-Lynch reports. Nintendo only loses $20 on each system $199 system while MS loses $100 on each $299 system.

-GC doesn't play DVDs. When you watch a DVD you aren't playing a game that Nintendo makes profit off of.

-GC doesn't fit full size CDs/DVDs. Piracy does cost companies money, this will make causual piracy (renting a PS1 game and burning a copy for your system with a modchip) slightly more difficult. More money to be made = more support.

-GC controller is awesome. It screams "look, this is your main button and here is a second button. You can use the other two in some rare situations" This results hearding developers into making reasonable control schemes instead of thinking they need to make every button equally important.

-GC has no hd. Like it or not a console will get bumped. The less moving parts the less broken systems.

-G3 based CPU. Less heat. Watch for the GC to be the first silent console, which again means less breakage. I know fans are pretty reliable, but if you sell 10million units and 0.1% fail that's a lot more than 0 failing!

-G3 instead of PentiumIII. Look at the benchmarks. The PentiumIII is bigger, takes more power, is more espensive, and produces the lowest spec scores out of the possible choices. The only reason you'd want a P3 is to be compatible with all your windows software. Yuck!

-portable. The GC is light and has a handle. The Xbox is huge and is more fragile with the hd. Kids are more likely to drop a xbox than GC and a fall is more likely to break something.

-No NIC. As cool as internet gaming is when you put a bunch of friends together ANYTHING is fun. Watch some 90 year old duffers play golf horribly in florida. They aren't having fun playing golf, they're having fun inspite of playing golf. Even if the game isn't as good putting people together will make them have fun which will make others want to buy the affordable GC. For the Xbox people need to have one in the first place to play networked and then generally won't have as much fun because they are seperated.

-Equal power to a PC/Xbox. There are a bunch of advnatages/disadvantages for each of the three systems. The GC is not really any less powerful than the xbox/ps2. There is not going to be a single game that can't be done on any system. The only difference in a game released on all three systems at the same time will be the effort/time the developer choose to spend on that platform.

Some of those points you may not like, but if you are Nintendo you'll sure like those points. The GC is a great system for Nintendo and it kicks the xbox's ass all around. And IMHO the PS2 too.

Re:GameCube = half-arsed Nintendo

[inkswamp]

I'm not one of these mindless MS apologists

Yes you are. Shut your pie hole.

Look at my posting history. Figure it out for yourself instead of posting knee-jerk reactions and failing to distinguish yourself from most of the kiddies/Anonymous Cowards who read Slashdot.

--Rick

Re:GameCube = half-arsed Nintendo

[inkswamp]

Cel Damage is coming out for gamecube with a few graphics upgrades fuckface.

What is "graphic upgrades fuckface"? Is that some new techie lingo I'm unfamiliar with?

And the x-box controller is large. Very large.

No, very, very large. (Ha, try to one-up that!)

The buttons are horrible (smooth and extremely bumpy).

This is the first time I've ever seen a button criticized for being "bumpy." Funny.

It hurts my hands after a marathon halo (hahahahah) session.

Oh c'mon... I'm sure you've used your hands for repeated motions before. It couldn't have been that bad for you.

Just the other day we were playing Halo and it refused to load. It said there was a problem with a disk and told us to reset. I've never seen that happen on any other console. Ever. And the disk was fine by the way.

Whatever. I don't give a rip about the XBox. In comparing the XBox to the GC, I'm not defending the XBox. I'm not encouraging people to buy XBoxes. I'm just saying that I wish the GC had been more capable of dealing a serious blow to XBox sales. It didn't. It's not that hard to figure out what I'm saying. Do you need Cliffs Notes or something?

Stick that in your straw and suck it.

Ooh... with discussion of this caliber, I may have to give up on Usenet forever.

--Rick

Useless tidbit for Xbox owners

[Anonymous Coward]

If your Xbox is overheating, the green light around the "eject" button will turn orange. When that happens, I'd turn the thing off. ;)

God knows why that's not documented in the manual...

I'm buying a Gamecube.

[Sludge]

I've played all three systems (as well as many other consoles), and I think that the Gamecube is the best bet for the type of game I want to play.

When I want single player FPS action, I'll play games on my PC, where I have a mouse, keyboard, cable modem and an excellent 21" Sony Trinitron monitor. So far, the dark and gritty games are still done best on the PC, and this seems to be the major targets of the XBox and PS2.

Enter Gamecube, a system with games that are commonly colourful and very party oriented. If I'm going to be playing console games, I want to play them with my friends around a big TV. When I pick up my Gamecube, I'm definately grabbing Super Monkey Ball and Super Smash Bros. along with three additional controllers.

As a PC Gamer, I see the XBox and PS2 for people who don't have near top of the line PC hardware. I see the Gamecube's function as being something a bit different, and it's very attractive. I can't get that over here.

Besides, it looks like we're going to see some impressive first party titles. Is it possible not to be interested in a Zelda game on mass storage media for the first time?

Re:I'm buying a Gamecube.

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it possible not to be interested in a Zelda game on mass storage media for the first time?

Yes. ;)

Re:I'm buying a Gamecube.

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried playing through the Zelda game for N64 everyone was raving about. In the middle of the game I just got sick of solving all those stupid puzzles. Exploring a game world and trying to figure out what is just scenery and what you should interact with is boring. You can just react with the real world instead, much funner.

Re:I'm buying a Gamecube.

[Lumpy]

true, go and try to buy something other than a FPS or a racing game for the PS2. There are a total of 6 available and I own all 6 (BTW, Cookies and Cream is plain awesome as a game and I reccomend it to everyone. the pisser is that it reqires 2 players at a minimum.)

I really hope they get away from it and start making decent games again.. (although GTA3 is fun. Nothing like driving recklessly through traffic.... I hope they make a driver 3 for the playstation as I loved driver 1 and 2... getting cops to launch off of a bridge chasing you is really fun.)

What happened to game development? everything is just a warmed over copy of everything else.

Re:I'm buying a Gamecube.

[Vagary]

>As a PC Gamer, I see the XBox and PS2 for people
>who don't have near top of the line PC hardware.

Frankly, I am someone who is tired of buying top-of-the-line PC hardware. I'd love to be able to buy a CDN$500 console every 5 or 6 years instead of a CDN$300 video card every year. For that matter, I want to be able to run Linux, just Linux, on my primary desktop. No more dual-booting or relegating Linux to an older machine. And I'm tired of games getting bloated to feed Intel (eg: Tribes is more fun than Tribes 2, but the graphics are PS1-era).

So what I need from a console is:

• Built-in NIC (single-player games are for people with no friends)
• Standard USB controllers and VGA-out (so I can use what I want)
• DVD movie capability (there's no good reason to store games on anything else, so why not have it?)
• A reasonable selection of multiplayer FPS and RTS games -- if I can play with people on PCs or other consoles, all the better!
• Can be carried under one arm (for LAN parties)

Are these requirements really so complex that a console can't satisfy them?

Re:I'm buying a Gamecube.

[Anonymous Coward]

FFX is very decent, IMO at least.

Unless you meant Sony themselves, FFX is made by Squaresoft.

Re:I'm buying a Gamecube.

[Anonymous Coward]

FFX is lame. Take out all the animations to the combat sequences and all the FMV and scroll the text faster that tells the plot and the game can be beaten in 1 hour.

Re:I'm buying a Gamecube.

[jgerman]

Uhh, GTA3, FFX, Onimusha, RE:Veronica, Silent Hill 2, THPS3, MGS2, that's seven I could go on, but I won't. There are easily more non-FPS games for PS2 thatn there are games total for the GC.

Not that I don't want a GC as well but your statement is without an ounce of truth.

Re:I'm buying a Gamecube.

[timster]

I wasn't aware that there were ANY first-person shooters for the PS2. I certainly don't have one, and I have like 10 titles. Never heard of one either. And I've only got the one token racing game.

Re:I'm buying a Gamecube.

[bn557]

wow.... I have that system sitting in front of me on my desk..... oh wait.... nevermind...... that's my Dell laptop. Sorry to be mistaken like that.

Seriously, you should just get a nice laptop.

Pat

(p.s. sorry about the elipses abuse, I was trying to make the sarcasm more aparent)

Re:I'm buying a Gamecube.

[lifftchi]

come on. game development is going just fine. rumor says that DDR max will be ps2-only. play a dating sim. get familiar with the import game market. it'll make you happy.

seriously. . . i look at konami as a ray of hope in the morass of derivitave games. they've come up with the stunning bemani series, mgs2 (something other than an fps. . . maybe a 'third-person hide'? ^_^ ) and the very cute queen of the ren'ai games, tokimeki memorial.

i'm totally content with the variety of ps2 games available, not least because i can draw on the entire library of ps1 games.

Re:I'm buying a Gamecube.

[jrockway]

The PS2 does all that, except you have to go buy a USB NIC and plug it in. VGA-out is coming/already out.

Re:I'm buying a Gamecube.

[byran lei]

>I wasn't aware that there were ANY first-person shooters for the PS2.
>I certainly don't have one, and I have like 10 titles. Never heard of
>one either. And I've only got the one token racing game.>
>
>
>
Well, there's Extermination, but....it's not a pure FPS like Halo and the rest of that PC-based garbage. You actually have to think about what you are doing or you'll die a very ugly death.
I've love to see a PS2 version of say Parasite Eve II with the effects used in FFX. It'll scare people shitless.

Re:I'm buying a Gamecube.

[Anonymous Coward]

The game is called "Cookie and Cream". The yellow rabbit is named Cookie in the US and Chestnut everywhere else. I guess that like how they call it "Harry Potter and the Sorccer's Stone" in the US instead of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" like everywhere else in the world.

I concurr Cookie and Cream is a really good game.

Re:I'm buying a Gamecube.

[Anonymous Coward]

You need a built in NIC? You must be a geek.

For normal functioning people they want four controller ports. There is a whole world of subtle and not subtle social interaction that opens up when you are in the same room. A NIC is just a wall between you and your friends/random losers on the internet.

How many people play poker through a NIC? Nobody! The whole point of poker isn't statistics like techno-NIC-loving-vertex_shader-wanting geeks sometimes think it is. It's something better.

Standard USB controllers is a bad idea. There are more standard Playstation controllers than USB ones, so why not ask for a standard PS1 controller connection then? Developers are going to make games for Nintendo's and Sony's controllers. You don't want to deviate from that. If you could put a GC controller into a PS2 and vice versa you'd have a controller nobody wanted to use on the other system in multiplayer games. This is silly.

DVD? Maybe. But the PS2 and xbox don't support HDTV DVD output, just HDTV game output, so you'll want a higher quality DVD player anyway. Maybe even one with a remote that turns the system on and off. Its a nice feature, but not that important. Especially if you can get a game system for only $199 instead of $299 without it. $199 is less than a PC video card and DVD players can be had for $99 now. I don't see why you need your console to do it all.

A good selection of FPS and RTS? Those games work best with a keyboard/mouse. Keep your PC for those games.

If you want to play with other PC people at lan parties I suggest you just get a nForce + AthlonXP. By the time you add in the minimum components for a complete system you've got a pretty afforable "connsole" that plays PC games and has a NIC.

Re:I'm buying a Gamecube.

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhhh GTA3 is a driving game. ONI is basically a FPS, please re-list after really looking at it.. BTW just because you use an axe or 2by4 instead of a rocket launcher does't make it not a FPS.

oh and read the post as he said DRIVING and RACING GAMES! I agree, after GTA3 playing another 30 racing games is lame. and FPS is lame on anything without a mouse.

Re:I'm buying a Gamecube.

[jgerman]

GTA is NOT a driving games, Oni is 3rd person, hence your ability to see the character from over his shoulder. So yeah they stay in my list.

ps2 price drop soon?

[bendawg]

Does anyone know if there is going to be a price drop for the playstation 2 any time soon? I have heard for a while that we could expect one sometime early 2002, but no real news about it. I'd love to buy one, but I'd hate to buy it right now if the price is about to drop.

Re:ps2 price drop soon?

[SuiteSisterMary]

You should see drops around March/April, if history holds. I'll point out, as well, that a brand new Dreamcast is now 80 dollars Canadian, while a brand new Playstation 1 is over 100 dollars.

Re:ps2 price drop soon?

[Pxtl]

Where'd you see that price for a dreamcast? Been thinking about picking one up (Virtual On, Powerstone II, and Sonic II are not to be missed, not to mention 4-player Marver vs Capcom)

Re:ps2 price drop soon?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is 50 dollars (American) here in the States. The dreamcast is real cheap. At that price they could have won the console war if Sega did not chicken out and bail from the console market. A console that is now cheaper than many games for other systems and Dreamcast is not even close to obsolete.

Re:ps2 price drop soon?

[SuiteSisterMary]

Future Shop. Walmart has them for under a hundred, too. All prices Canadian, of course. futureshop.ca has them for 69.99 which is, of course, less than your average game for a current system. And don't forget Jet Grind Radio and Space Channel 5.

Re:ps2 price drop soon?

[sprouty76]

Well, here in the UK they dropped the price from UK£299 to UK£199 a couple of months ago - I'd be surprised if a similar drop in price didn't happen elsewhere soon.

Re:ps2 price drop soon?

[Anonymous Coward]

The price will drop as soon as there is competition. Right now the GC and Xbox are going to sell out no matter what, even if Sony had a price cut. As soon as Sony needs to match the GameCube's price they will.

Personally I expect they'll drop to $250 first to get a price advantage over the xbox. Not going all the way down to the GC price (unless GC eats all the PS2 sales, which is very unlikely) so they don't piss off their christmas customers and can still seem better than the GC. If it is more expensive it must be better. That'll probably happen around april/march (again, just my guess). And looking way in the future to next christmas I see another cut to $199 as a possibility if they need it to continue to domiate the market.

Re:ps2 price drop soon?

[joeler]

The latest rumor is Sony promised retailers in USA they would not lower prices any time before or during this Christmas season. However, some speculate there will be a price drop by summer.

Personally I would rather see Sony offer $100.00 instant rebates towards any games purchased at the time the console is purchased. This would allow the PS2 to be purchased with 2 quality games for the same price as the console today. It would help the sale of PS2 and also help the game developers.

Re:ps2 price drop soon?

[zonker]

it's 49.99 here in the states with many games being sold for 8.99!

Re:When is Linux for the PS2 hitting the stores?!?

[pang]

this page sais:

PS2 Linux Kit is only available in Japan

• The Linux Kit is designed exclusively for the Japanese model of "PS2", SCPH-10000,SCPH-15000 and SCPH-18000. Since these models are for domestic use in Japan, the Linux Kit is only available in Japan.
  
  
• At this point, there is no plan to release the Linux Kit for non-Japanese model of "PS2".
  
  
• Overseas delivery is not available.

They'll all be garage sale heaps in three years...

[filtersweep]

...maybe four?

Re:DVD Remote = RCA 5215P

[syates21]

FWIW the DVD remote for the X-box is exactly the same as for the RCA5215 DVD player. The only difference is colors of the button and the fact that the power button on the RCA = the "Display" button on X-box.

Of course, you still need the little receiver to plug into one of the controller ports on the X-boxy, but this could be useful to know if you want to use a universal remote on the X-box for some reason.

(n/t)

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally?

[MisterBlister]

Finally, an in-depth article? This is just a summary of maybe 10-20 other articles Slashdot has posted on each individual console over the past couple months...Everyone who wants to know the guts of these systems has already heard about them...

Further, while all the next-gen consoles are nice pieces of engineering, and get impressive power for price, none of them is particularly groundbreaking, so these 'look inside' articles get old really quickly.

Cool .. I think ..

[AndroidCat]

So let me get this straight: My game console is going to be able to control my lights and whatever else is X-10 connected.

Why?

Don't get me wrong, I'm a toy-freak, but I'm having trouble thinking up uses for it: Alter the lighting to suit the game mood? Turn on the coffee maker when game-play lags? Signal the robot to get me another bheer? If you lose the next level, the goldfish loses life-support? Control those 22,000V chair electrodes for realistic game play?

It's cool, but I don't see what problem it's supposed to solve. (And I'd have to think twice before buying an X-10 module after those damned camera ads. How's that for negative advertising!)

Re:Cool .. I think ..

[jafuser]

Don't get me wrong, I'm a toy-freak, but I'm having trouble thinking up uses for it: Alter the lighting to suit the game mood?

Though the rest of your suggestions are obviously silly, the first one you mention may not be all that bad of an idea...

Re:Cool .. I think ..

[Anonymous Coward]

i think it's worthless too, but i suppose you could turn on the TV/speakers/receiver/etc automatically when the console is powered up.

Re:Cool .. I think ..

[IronChef]

And I'd have to think twice before buying an X-10 module after those damned camera ads.

X-10 the company has nothing to do with X-10 the home automation protocol. Even IBM makes X-10 equipment.

For a non-obnoxious place to get X-10 gear, try Smarthome.

Re:Cool .. I think ..

[AndroidCat]

Though the rest of your suggestions are obviously silly, the first one you mention may not be all that bad of an idea...

Sure, and the air-conditioner/heat could be hooked up too for that total gaming experience. But it's a "once funny" to quote Heinlein. (I am not karma whoring, I hit 50 a while ago. At least on Pyroto Mountain you could get to 500, and you could do more than mod someone down!) After the first time the lights dim, the only thrill will be dragging victim, er, friends in to see it. ("Oo ah eh, say is that the time?")

I get better silly toy use out of my RS232 to speech card sitting in a gutted 486 (to provide power) and a cron daemon as a talking clock. ("Bong! Bong! The time is two o'clock.")

Re:Cool .. I think ..

[AndroidCat]

Very true! And I'd think about alternative sources before buying an X-10 module from X-10. (Or build one, I must have plans in some back issue of Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar.)

But I'm still strapped for ideas on what to use a game console for in controlling X-10 modules.

Maybe if you could control your neighbor's modules? "Eyup, the lights are flashing, the sprinkler's on, and goldie just turned tits-up in her tank. I guess Bob's on the final level." "I'll git the shotgun."

Re:Cool .. I think ..

[adolf]

IBM sold their X10 rights awhile ago, and have since left the game. Even while they were still playing, it was the -same stuff- as X10 Corporation sold, rebranded IBM. Differences? The IBM-branded products were sometimes cheaper, and might've had different software.

Same thing with RCA's X10 stuff, RadioShack's X10 stuff, Magnavox's X10 stuff, and, well, almost everything X10 except the hideously expensive Leviton X10 stuff and a few other high-end, high-dollar items.

X10 Corp has almost -everything- to do with X10 the home automation protocol.

-

Re:Cool .. I think ..

[Anonymous Coward]

X10 is a name of a home automation technology suite. "X10.com" is the name of an actual company which sells X10 home automation technologies. It's like a company called "motherboard.com" which sells motherboards. See?

Re:Cool .. I think ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, here's a possible use: mood lighting. You mentioned it in jest, but think for a sec about those 3D movies and motion rides that combine a video playback with strobe lights, smoke, etc. With an appropriate "entertainment cave" add-on kit, you could get some nifty light effects going.... You could see the glow from explosions behind you, see a strobe light in a corner when someone is firing on ya, etc. This combined with the out-of-the-box 5.1 sound give some rather generous leeway for Microsoft.

Granted, X10 components are not known for their high accuracy and quick response time, but the concept is cool nonetheless. (I guess it'd be easier and more efficient to just design a special box that plugged into one of the USB-derivative ports to do the same thing as what I just described. But since when did Sick and Twisted Hacks have to be efficient? :-) )

Good Source of Reviews

[citizenc]

Disclaimer: I work for GameSpy

I've found that, for reviews, the best place to go is http://www.gamespy.com/reviews, and here's why: 95% of our reviews are outsourced just to prevent biasedness.

Re:Good Source of Reviews

[Anonymous Coward]

But I'll guess saving a little cake doesn't hurt either.

Re:Good Source of Reviews

[aka-ed]

just to prevent biasedness.

I hope you're not an editor. You are preventing bias.

Gamespot is just as biased

[xenocide2]

If you're looking for reviews that reliably reflect the views of the authors, you're best bet is to look at sites with MULTIPLE reviews. Gamefaqs and Gamerankings. Both allow user reviews, and gamerankings also contains links to major site reviews (however biased they might be).

My suggestion is to read the lowest rating and maybe one of the more verbose high ratings. Of course, as always, keep your wits about you to guard against fanboys and trolls.

Hardware is fine,

[iq in binary]

But what about the long term? As far as hardware goes, the PS was actually inferior to the N64, but won out in the long run after everyone knew how to program for it and create (at least aesthetically) better games. The fact that it's medium had 10 times more storage than the N64 is not why it won out, as many will testify; the fact that it was easier to program for becuase of the fact that size was literally not a problem (Final Fantasy, anyone?) opened the door to developers to pump out whatever game they could get approved. Where as the PS has practically countless games for it, almost all of the games for the N64 are generally good if not high-quality. That being the past, look at the race now. A 3-horse race, 2 of them similair and 1 lame. The fact that both the XBox and the PS2 can play DVD's has everyone wowed and blurry-eyed. The fact that the N64 had twice the bits of the PS accomplished much the same thing. I think that Nintendo's focus on pure gaming and affordability will win out in this one, as it did with Sony in the previous round.

Re:Hardware is fine,

[Anonymous Coward]

The N64 and the PS1 were tied in terms of consoles sold until FF7 came out. Whether FF7 caused the PS1 to win or was just a sign of the times I won't really speculate on. Probably both.

For the N64 publishers had the problem of paying up front for large pre-orders of carts. If the game sold well they would be burned because they couldn't get more ready in time to meet the demand. If they bought too many they lost all their profit in having expensive unsold inventory.

With the CD format publishers didn't face either problem.

For developers on the N64 they had to compete against Nintendo which is probably the best game developer in the world. And also the best marketter. They could see how technilogically the FF7 was nothing special, just a couple flat shaded characters on a pre-rendered background with lots of FMV. Sony's platform seemed a much lower risk for them too.

In terms of programming I'd say the N64 and PS1 were really about the same. The size advantage of the PS1 being CD based doesn't matter because it still had 2megs of ram + 1VRAM + 512K sound compared to the the 4megs of rambus memory in the N64. Loading from CD or decompressing from ROM is about the same. Neither was hard to develop for. The Saturn on the other hand was...

Sony won because it had more better games, because making games for its system was easier to not lose money on.

This time things may be different. The PS2 is hard to get maximum performance out of which may discourage small developers (but they rarely make hits anyway) or result in ports developed primarily for other systems looking bad on the PS2. The GC and Xbox on the other hand are a dream to develop for. The GC really takes almost no effort to get maximum performance out of other than a tiny bit of SIMD "paired-single" coding which is the easier than SIMD+vertex/pixel shader work on the xbox or the hoops you have to jump through on the PS2.

I see the PS2 coming out in the lead this generation since there are no flaws with it unlike the N64's cartridge format. Maybe the GC can tie like we saw in the 16bit generation, but Nintendo needs to kiss ass and get more 3rd party games if it wants to come out on top and I don't see it doing that since it is happy producing the software itself and making all the money.

GC+PS2=happy me.

Nintendo

[xenocide2]

Actually, Nintendo has had official console networks in the past. Bandai Satellite and RANDnet come to mind. Unfortunately, neither of these is really feasible in the wide and sporatic densities of populations in the States. As for their popularity, well, I think your point that online gaming ends up committing suicide remains.

Good choice

[dimator]

S.Monkey Ball and Smash Bros. are why I had to buy extra controllers. :)

No wonder the GC can lay claim to the "best reason to have friends" award. :)

(Don't count out the PS2, though. There are a few PS2 exclusive titles that you really should play.)

Re:Good choice

[GroovBird]

oh never mind Gran Turismo 3.

Re:West Side is the Best Side

[Anonymous Coward]

As a denizen of the East side, I fully agree that tha Xbox is phat. It is wonderful that our difference in sides doesn't lead to differences in console opinions.

Thank you for the greetings for my mother; I shall be sure to pass them on.

best,

VANILLA ICE

eminem is a stone cold sucka.

Re:When is Linux for the PS2 hitting the stores?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe this old Slashdot article from Oct. 22 will help.

Some MORE misinformation from the article

[Daath]

The article also states that the Xbox and the GC supports 4 controllers, while the PS2 only supports two.
This is not true. If you buy the Multitap (see here) you can play 1-5 players, buy one more and you can play 1-8 players!
I like my PS2, it's a shame that the games are so DAMN expensive!

Oh, and I agree, the article was one of the better I've read! Took a while to read it, but it was great!

Re:Some MORE misinformation from the article

[tshak]

Out of the box the PS2 does not support 4 players - that was their point. The multitap having >4 players is moot because beyond 4 players on one TV for most all games is obnoxious.

Re:Some MORE misinformation from the article

[tc]

The PS2 only supports two out of the box, however, which I think was the point. A multitap is a pretty ugly mass of cables, and you do have to pay extra for it. Yes, you can play up to 8 players with two multitaps, but I don't see any reason why the Xbox or GC couldn't support similar multiway extensions in principle (Xbox should just be a USB hub), it's just that they generally don't need to because wanting more than 4 players is rare (more than 4 player split-screen just gets silly) and they already provided sufficient ports for that in the first place.

New Systems

[rasactive]

Can somebody please explain to me the thrill of buying a system that just came out? It seems like it would be the same thrill as buying a car that hasn't had its crash dummy tests. I personally am on the lookout for a Dreamcast. A savvy consumer can buy the DC and about 6--7 games for it, and an extra controller for about $150.. And maybe I'm blind, but I can't even tell the difference in graphics.

So I'll let you 1337 gamers spend $300 on your new systems and I'll scoop em 'up in a couple years when you're selling 'em for $50 and buying the next Tomagotchi.

Re:New Systems

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you aware that since the Dreamcast went under, there aren't going to be any more games made for it? If you're happy with the current selection go ahead, but once you're tired of all your Dreamcast games you're gonna be selling it and getting a console with new games actually being put out for it.

Re:New Systems

[Anonymous Coward]

The joy of getting a new GameCube or PS2 is you know that they'll have support for the next 5 years. With the Dreamcast WYSIWYG. I completely agree that the dreamcast is one hell of a deal given that its so cheap and has dozens of good games selling for pennies. But there won't be new titles in a year, so paying an extra $250 for a PS2 is worth it to a lot of people.

Considering the work to port BSD/Linux to the DC the system is especially cool to us geeks. For just $50 its hard to justify not getting one or two.

Re:New Systems

[Anonymous Coward]

I just bought a used Dreamcast. For $90 I got a system, controller, vmu, rumble pack, keyboard, and three games. I've very happy with my purchase so far.

Re:New Systems

[k_187]

Because it is like buying a new car. The smell of the plastic when you open the box, holding the controler in your hands, sitting in front of the TV, watching it boot up. I personally don't think there is a greater thrill (but then again, I don't get out much).

Re:New Systems

[Anonymous Coward]

There are gonna be new games being developed in Brazil. Maybe they can translate them to Engrish. Engrish games rock.

Re:New Systems

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, there has still been some development for the DreamCast, and a few games have been released (such as NBA 2k2) since the Dreamcast went under. There's nothing like the development going on for PS2 or XBox right now, and development will eventually cease, but there are still dozens of high quality games out there at a very low price. Especially when you compare Dreamcast graphics to the PS2.

I care!

[Skuld-Chan]

I care... Games are a geekish thing. Games drive modern technology.

Jeez

[popeydotcom]

Nice of you to say 'one has Luigi'. How about 'one has Rouge Leader, possibly the best Star Wars game ever'?

Re:Jeez

[Anonymous Coward]

Because that would be false. There is no game called "Rouge Leader" for the Gamecube.
Rouge Leader, the best space whores game ever!

x-box problems

[terrymr]

A friend of mine toured local retailers before Christmas - and he was told by them that they were seeing a 37% approx failure rate on XBoxes.

This may have been BS to cover for them having no stock but it seems like a bad way to sell something to me.

Get a clue

[Nerds]

Will you personally buy a game cube? If you answer yes to this one you'll be the only one I know who will.

Get out a little more. They've sold a million of the things. By the way, great argument there. My dad can beat up yours.

I think I represent the average gamer and I want strategy games, fighting games, REALISTIC images, great audio.

Nah, the average gamer wants The Sims and Pokemon.

I want games to move me and scare me. I especially don't want Mario this or Luigi that.

Fair enough, but if you're going to speak for the average gamer, keep in mind that Nintendo sold about a billion dollars worth of software in 2000. Their closest competitor? EA, with under 500 million. Keep in mind that EA publishes games on all platforms and that Nintendo is restricted to their own. And in case you're wondering, those numbers don't include hardware, it's just the games. Doesn't sound like the average gamer is agreeing with you so far.

Game cube commercials are already touting a new Mario + friends mortal combat style fighting game. I truly think you need to be 11 to get a kick out of that.

Yeah, you definitely need to be eleven. Like last night, I was playing Smash Brothers with my roommate and two friends and it was so fun that we played for about two hours. Then I remembered that we're all over 24 so we threw that game out. I don't know what Gamespot was thinking when they put it in the top ten console games of the year, because I'm pretty sure their editors are over 11 (although sometimes it's a tough call). Good thing, we stopped playing, though, so we could move on to a game that lets you drive one of these armed cycles on some huge courses and blow your friends up.

But I'll admit that the Gamecube's graphics aren't that great, like that Rogue Leader game. I mean, did they really think anyone would want to play a game with graphics like this?

And in fighting games, we'll put aside the fact that you're superficial and clearly have no idea what you're talking about. I know Kirby and Pikachu are cute as all get out, but the fighting system in SSB is way more fun than DOA3's. And if that's not enough for you, Soul Calibur 2, successor to the real king of 3D fighters (OK, fine, Virtua Fighter rules, too), will be exclusive to the GameCube when it first arrives.

Speaking of realism, did you know that the water in Wave Race: Blue Storm, an amazingly addictive racing game with a tight control system, was so good, that Gamespot created a new category in their year end awards for it?

Oh, right, and you want to be scared. So, how about four Resident Evil games and Eternal Darkness? Is that enough blood for you, mister sophisticated mature gaming man?

I've got a GameCube, a Playstation 2, and a Dreamcast (which, as far as I'm concerned, still has the best catalog of games around), couldn't be happier.

Re:Get a clue

[tshak]

Soul Calibur 2 will be on the XBOX as well.

Re:Get a clue

[Anonymous Coward]

What part of
'will be exclusive to the GameCube when it first arrives.'
don't you understand? It will be months later when Soul Calibur 2 gets out on Xbox. I don't mind though Soul Calibur on the Dreamcast is still lots of fun.

Re:Get a clue

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? ;)

Fair enough, but if you're going to speak for the average gamer, keep in mind that Nintendo sold about a billion dollars worth of software in 2000. Their closest competitor? EA, with under 500 million. Keep in mind that EA publishes games on all platforms and that Nintendo is restricted to their own. And in case you're wondering, those numbers don't include hardware, it's just the games. Doesn't sound like the average gamer is agreeing with you so far.

First of all, where did you get your EA numbers? Check out the financials. Sales in Q2-2001: $122.40M, Q1-2001: $92.92M, Q4-2000: $157.84M, Q3-2000: $334.17M. Total: $707.33M.

And as for hardware sales...you do know that the console makers lose money on hardware sales, right?

Review something useful, willya???

[EvilStein]

How about a Slashdot review on how the hell you plug all of these game consoles into your existing video system? :P

Re:Review something useful, willya???

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called an RCA jack, your VCR has one. Plug the game system into your VCR. Viola!
There, was that so hard?

Re:Review something useful, willya???

[sunhou]

How about a Slashdot review on how the hell you plug all of these game consoles into your existing video system?

Ok, I guess you were joking, but it's a good question. I've mentioned this here before, but:
For $20, you can get a video/S-video switch (the SVS1000, not the AVS500 on that page) to connect more things to the TV. When I mentioned it a few weeks ago, I had my N64 and Dreamcast hooked up to it. Since then, I also got a PS2 (thanks to Grand Theft Auto 3). So I've still got one more input jack free on mine. As soon as a version of Mario Kart comes out for Gamecube, that'll take care of the last input on my video switch!

Plus, I suppose if you have more than 4 things you want to hook up, you could chain a couple of these switches together, i.e. make the output of one of them be one of the inputs to the other. If you had two switches, you could hook up 7 devices in total. If you had N switches chained together, you could hook up 3N+1 devices. :-) Although don't start whining if you chain 10 of these together and the video quality has decreased...

Re:Review something useful, willya???

[blair1q]

Almost there.

Game consoles have Component Video outputs, too, and I could tell the difference between composite, S, and component video on my PS2.

The only component (other than my TV itself) I've found that has more than one CV input (without costing $2k) is this one:

Kenwood VR-510

prices and (glowing, possibly astroturfed) reviews

I got the $399 one; $27 for ground shipping. It should arrive early this week.

--Blair
"No, I did need a new receiver, too."

Re:Review something useful, willya???

[sunhou]

(Kenwood VR-510 for $399 + shipping)

Sounds nice, although too rich for my blood at this point (and I think it's overkill for my current needs). Although the downside of the little pushbutton box I recommended is that you have to get up to push the buttons. :-) Back when I was often switching between N64 and Dreamcast, that was more of a pain, but now I only seem to be using the PS2.

How big a difference does component versus composite video make on the PS2? (Or versus S-video for that matter?) My TV has all 3 inputs, but so far I'm still just using the composite cables that came with the PS2. Although if I switch to S-video or component, then I need to send audio through my stereo receiver, which means more remotes I'd have to fumble with whenever I use the PS2. Hmm, that VR-510 may be handy after all...

Re:Review something useful, willya???

[blair1q]

How big a difference does component versus composite video make on the PS2? (Or versus S-video for that matter?)

It's subtle. S-video is a little sharper and deeper than composite video, and component video has slightly richer color than S-video.

But mostly, S-video uses that nifty mini-DIN connector* and two audio connectors, and for component video you need five plugs, which makes you super-l33t with the chix in the AV club...

--Blair

* - Actually, it's not really nifty. I despise multi-pin connectors with symmetrical housings. If I can't insert it blind without hunting for alignment or using my finger to make a wax impression, it sucks. D-sub was the only connector that was ever designed correctly. RJ's are okay, but still require a little poking to get them in right.

Mod parent up!

[Anonymous Coward]

Both interesting and informative, that one.

load of bull?

[Scrameustache]

Seeing how the article makes blatant mistakes (the PS2 does not, in fact, require an extr remote to play DVD, nor does it require extra consoles to play with more than two players, its got an optionnal multi-tap for that), I'm wondering how many more subtle mistakes it makes in the less easily verified points: Numbers, architecture descriptions, etc.

And I reiterate: The GAMES are the important thing.
Xbox has nothing worth buying it (ooo, halo, big freakin' deal) while PS2 has Metal Gear Solid 2 (greates game of all time???), the Game Cube has super monkey ball (come on! A monkey in a ball? You can't get any more fun!), an pikmin and more coming.

I bought a PS2...I'm thingking about a game cube, but xbox is NOT interesting.

Re:load of bull?

[Anonymous Coward]

And I reiterate: The GAMES are the important thing.
Xbox has nothing worth buying it (ooo, halo, big freakin' deal) while PS2 has Metal Gear Solid 2 (greates game of all time???), the Game Cube has super monkey ball (come on! A monkey in a ball? You can't get any more fun!), an pikmin and more coming.
I guess you'll be pissed off once Metal Gear Solid X comes to Xbox in Spring 2002 then (MGS2, ported with "Xbox enhancements"). Check the Gamespot news archives for proof, Konami announced it a while ago. And there's also a GTA3 port coming through (also "enhanced"). And Xbox also does have Halo (which is as good as MGS2, but looks better).

Re:load of bull?

[KewlPC]

From the article:

Each strand of Aki Ross' "hair," for example, reportedly contained hundreds of polygons, and each movie frame took 90 minutes to render on a Sun workstation farm.

Sorry, no. Aki Ross' har wasn't made up of polygons. Polygons may be popular in the game world, but in the pro CG and SFX world, they're about as popular as that math-nerd girl you sat next to in class, whereas NURBS et al would be the sexy cheerleader by comparison.

And no Sun Microsystems computers were used. SGI machines, because of their monstrous memory bandwidth, were used as workstations for the modelling, animating, compositing, and editing, and also as servers for setting up the batch renders and divying up render jobs among the render farm. The render farm itself was 900+ Pentium III powered PCs w/768MB RAM each, all running Linux.

I hardly need to mention that the SGI machines were most likely running IRIX.

Re:load of bull?

[tshak]

...while PS2 has Metal Gear Solid 2...

They are making "Metal Gear Solid X" for the XBox right now. Essentially, Konami is going to be developing future games for both platforms.

Also, I have heard rave reviews of Halo from some pretty critical friends (I have yet to play it), so I wouldn't be so quick to judge it.

Re:load of bull?

[byran lei]

>I guess you'll be pissed off once Metal Gear Solid X comes to Xbox in
>Spring 2002 then (MGS2, ported with "Xbox enhancements"). Check the
>Gamespot news archives for proof, Konami announced it a while ago.
>
Moron. If I have MGS2 for the PS2, why the hell would I buy a Xbox to play the same game? NOBODY WILL. Don't even think that these rumored ports of PS2 games to the Xbox will result in increased Xbox sales. They won't. It'll just increase the "Big Fucking Deal" sentiment towards the Xbox.

Re:load of bull?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try not talking about things you know nothing about. Even professionally, 3d models are tessalated into triangles (Which count as polygons) before they are rendered. Just because you know an acronym (know what it means?) doesn't mean you know how it works. Grow up and go to college. There they'll have you write a rendering engine, and you'll find out how it works. Or even easier, read a book.

Re:load of bull?

[Anonymous Coward]

Metal Gear X is just Metal Gear 1. But MS insists on exclusive titles, so it is called X and has a bonus level. Konami will develop for the PS2 first, and port to the xbox much later and add a level which MS marketting will try to sell like its the best thing ever. Konami is still a PS2 company.

I've heard good and bad things about Halo. Going by what I've heard it is a very good game. But when pushed everybody who says its the best game ever changes to say "It's the best *fps* ever on a *console*" Still a very good game, but not as good as other FPS on the PC.

Re:load of bull?

[MikeBabcock]

For anyone who's interested a Google Search turns up several good results for NURBS.

Re:load of bull?

[MikeBabcock]

I should learn to use preview ... someone please mod my last comment down a lot ;-)

Here's that Google search on NURBS rendering I'd mentioned.

Re:load of bull?

[Scrameustache]

Actually, no. I've finished it already, and now I'm having fun playing around with it (I'm trying to finish it with a clean conscience, not killing anyone). I'm not waiting months for a port.

What would make me pissed would be to have to play it with that monstrous Xcontroller...

XBox is evil

[t_allardyce]

Microsoft is just trying to create a closed pc where they can control everything. The XBox is an evil machine, even the name 'X' is evil, what does it mean? why 'X'? are they trying to hide something? Also, everyone knows that the XBox crashes all the time and that it overheats because there is a hampster fused with a plutonium core inside which they can use to make a nuclear device, i've seen the plans!!!

10 years on, and Microsoft's XBox is the industry standard. After the system was reverse engineered by an independent party, the market opened up for XBox 'clones' also known as Microsoft Compatables. These clones were produced by 3rd parties but the OS and DRM systems were provided by Microsoft - Because of the wide software base (Microsoft bought up Sony in 2004), the 3rd parties wanted to maintain compatibility with the Microsoft OS, and, because it was law in America, the Digital Rights Management System had to be provided by an approved company - either Microsoft or AOL/Time Warner. On the other side Nintendo provided their range of computers - the Polyhedron series. However no-one took them seriously except artists and writers.

Re:XBox is evil

[Anonymous Coward]

The X does not represent evil. The X part is derived from Xfl. The system's full name is the "Xfl-box".

You can tell by the way they threw money at it for useless things like a NIC, HD, etc to create an unreasonably huge system with a goofy green jewel on it and managed to get it lots of hype. Too bad they didn't get any substance for the system.

But the truth is people don't watch football for extra camera angles or locker room cameras. A game is still boring with any amount of special effects. People want to see the best football players and be entertained. Period.

But the truth is people don't play games for vertex shaders or more Mhz. A game is still boring even with good graphics and sound. People want to play the best games and be entertained. Period.

Get an Xfl-box? The best game is Halo. I'll wait six months and buy a better version for my PC, thank you.

Nintendo already has the market share.

[Anonymous Coward]

They already sold plenty to capture a large margin .. And the fact that it works with the GB Advance brings in even more peeps. Nintendo will never die. Microsoft may pull out, however, since they basically didn't innovate anything. They just sold a $300 celeron system with a GForce 3 card .. Which most(all?) of us have on our home PCs. Not to mention all their games are simple ports for the most part. Yay directx ...

GET PIKMIN!!!

[cyb3r0ptx]

Sorry for the caps, but I cannot stress how cool this game is. I bought it the other day, and am enthralled w/ the detail and cleverness of the whole thing.

That said, my wife and I have also had trouble turning off Super Monkey Ball and Luigi's Mansion.

Happy gaming.
p.

My friends come over daily to play on the Gamecube

[Anonymous Coward]

You hit the nail on the head, bub. I can't get a single day of playing on my Gamecube by myself since I bought it. My friends are all addicted as hell to SSX Tricky, Super Smash Brothers, Tony Hawk 3, and Super Monkey Ball. These are INCREDIBLE multiplayer games where you can have a room full of friends all going spaztic over these games. Gamecube is TRUELY a party machine. Nintendo has succeded far more than I think they have given themselves credit for. I cannot wait for the Bomberman Generations to be released, my friends are waiting for that like you wouldnt believe. And you know what the kicker is? I bought this machine PURELY for the Nintendo titles - Mario, Metroid, and Zelda. I can certainly wait now for them all to appear because Nintendo has such a killer smattering of games off the shelf. I cannot say this for the XBox. I played it on my friends and it was pretty dull compared to anything Gamecube has. If Nintendo doesn't reign king after a year, i'll eat my shoes. And that's a promise.

Unbiased?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft has SEVERAL lucrative deals going with ZDNet and Gamespot in particular. Use of their news engine, reviews etc. In these tough times it wouldn't surprise me if Gamespot compromises their integrity to meet their monthly bottom line by writing favorable reviews for XBox. Fuck them.

Re:Consoles the future?..Dumbing down.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Geez, I never thought I'd see someone on /. that thought that dumbing down the system was a good thing."

Obviously you don't hang around for the "What does Linux need, to...?" articles.

It's not a G3...

[melatonin]

It's amazing how many articles think Gekko is based on a G3. At least this one mentioned 'unspecified' modifictions (which ain't true).

cube.ign.com has a great interview with two of the designers of the chip, and it's really informative. Part 2 is even better, where they talk about the competition's chips :)

The interviews really shed some light onto the chip's functionality; it's engineered for gaming and a far cry from the off-the-shelf XBox CPU. Additionally, they mention that IBM detailed the chips at Hot Chips and the Embedded Processor Forum. Can anyone dig that info up?

X10, hmm

[Animats]

Multiplayer over X-10 would be too slow, except as a joke. You could, though, use it to make two Xboxen on the same power transformer vaguely aware of each other.

The XBox seems unsuitable for general home control, since it can't do home control and run a game at the same time. So that's out.

A "Parental Interrupt" button would be a cute feature. Sell an X10 sender with a button on it as an accessory. When Mom pushes a button, it pauses any currently playing games and displays "Dinner", or some such message. But support for this would have to be in disks already distributed, so it's too late.

It's hard to do much with X10 blind, because the control modules are pure receivers; you can't query them. You could send "All Lights On" or "All Lights Off" to all 256 house codes, but that's about it.

Are you sure the XBox supports only X10, and not CEBus, LonWorks, or something else more advanced?

Re:X10, hmm

[Fjord]

Or to broadcast licensing information to Windows XP, which then relays it to Microsoft over the internet.

XBox

[cube00]

I just got an Xbox and I am quite happy with it.. except for one thing: It does over heat. While playing a great game of Project Gotham after finishing a one on one with a Skyline (with my Ford Focus lol) it just froze on the loading screen... I havent had this problem with other games I have but its quite annoying...

Re:XBox

[DrHoneydew]

I just got an Xbox and I am quite happy with it.. except for one thing: It does over heat.

Having the game freeze doesn't necessarily mean the box overheated.

Re:XBox

[Anonymous Coward]

You Dingbat! Having it freeze at a point doesn't mean that the device overheated! That's like saying that "My Transmission Went Out... Because the car won't move." When in reality, the car is up on blocks with no tires.

Dumbass.

as usual...

[Anonymous Coward]

the usual Nintendo deregatory by CmdrTaco is there. WHY do you hate Nintendo? Did mommy forgot to give you the NES when you where a little lad or is the big bad Mario giving you bad dreams? Do you still want Big buff Snake to protect you?

Inaccuracies in Article

[acoustix]

1. PS2 can also use a hard drive as mass storage.

2. PS2 can have 8 controllers max using a Multi-tap (not 2).

3. I'm pretty sure that they meant Dolby Digital decoding, not encoding. Because what is there to encode? Is there a line-in jack somewhere? All of the data on the disc is ENcoded, so it needs to be DEcoded when played back.

4. PS2 does NOT require a seperate remote for DVD Video.

Re:Inaccuracies in Article

[gabebear]

Actually the ability to encode Dolby 5.1 Audio is useful. True 3d audio in games will be very cool and you will need to CREATE the signal inside of the console somehow. I'm guessing most games are not going to use this though, instead opting to put the power on the eye candy.

Re:Inaccuracies in Article

[Anonymous Coward]

no, they meant encoding. obviously you have no clue what the purpose of dolby digital is.

Re:Inaccuracies in Article

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they do mean encoding. Ya'd want to do Dolby Digital encoding in order to take your 3D sound environment, pump it out encoded to your surround sound system, and then have it decode the audio so as to put the sound in the correct speakers. On-the-fly Dolby Digital encoding sounds like a really cool feature that I'm looking forward to trying as soon as I can find the $20 digital audio out adapter for the Xbox.

Re:Inaccuracies in Article

[tc]

I'm guessing most games are not going to use this though, instead opting to put the power on the eye candy.

In Xbox (and I think GC too, but I'm not sure) the Dolby encoding is handled by a separate audio processor, and so is essentially free, the game just has to set the right parameters. There is no tradeoff between eye-candy and audio fidelity on this score (although of course there may be the usual memory constraints for sound samples versus textures).

Re:Inaccuracies in Article

[acoustix]

All of the audio data on the disc used for Dolby Digital is ENCODED so the console does DECODING. Why is that so hard to understand?

Re:Inaccuracies in Article

[Hidyman]

No you don't get it. The sound effects are created when you play the game. You shoot something and it goes boom. If it blows up on the right, it is ENCODED in Digital Dolby, goes out the optical cable, into your Dolby Digital Receiver, then is DECODED and the amp sends the sound to the appropriate speakers. Why is THAT so hard to understand. Even the DVDs that are pre-Encoded for Dolby Digital simply pass through the console to the digital receiver that then DECODES it.

Re:Inaccuracies in Article

[Anonymous Coward]

2. PS2 can have 8 controllers max using a Multi-tap (not 2).

the original nintendo could have 8 players as well with a multitap, but how many games can you think of that actually supported that many players? i can count the ones i can think of on one hand...

18 to 21 year-olds own America

[aka-ed]

That makes me regret not screwing up the country a little more before I passed it on.

Amazingly, it *wasnt* Slashdot FUD

[nobodyman]

Let it be known that I don't really have any axe to grind for any particular system. I'm an avid gamer, and I like all three systems.

That said, the xbox runs hot and is prone to nervous breakdowns. The nearby Toys R Us received a Xbox kiosk about mid-november. When I came by on December 1, I noticed the Green Screen of Death. According to an employee, it was the *second* Xbox to bite the dust since they got the kiosk.

Same story at Game Crazy. The system would go for a few minutes and die (regardless of the game). Same with Fry's Electronics. And Gamestop.

So, while one incident would be enough to dismiss, I have seen enough fried xboxes to assume that something is up with the first batch (or at least the batch that retailers where getting for demos).

Alot of people have faulted the kiosk for poor cooling. The kiosk has *three* cooling fans, and the xbox has about 3 inches of clearance on any side. Far better than what you typically see with consoles in the home. Furthermore, I have only ever seen one fried PS2 kiosk, and haven't seen a dead N64/Dreamcast/Gamecube kiosk *ever*. I don't buy the kiosk excuse. I do think there are alot of zealots who like to play up Microsofts misteps, but the overheat issue is for real.

ps: What sadist designed the xbox controllers?

Re:When is Linux for the PS2 hitting the stores?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

A previous /. article stated otherwise, here
is a cnn link that references sony announcing
the US release plans. Also search /. for
playstation and you will see the post.

http://asia.cnn.com/2001/TECH/fun.games/10/24/li nu x.ps2.idg/

I looked at his website...

[Codifex Maximus]

and it scared the hell out of me.

I've never seen such a revisionist and clueless pile of drivel in my life.

I have to apologize to euroderf, if not for any other reason than the fact that he has his own opinion and is welcome to it. I however do not agree with him.

Here are some excerpts from the website and it's articles - not verbatim:
Microsoft created object oriented programming.
Microsoft concieved a workable internet when no one else could.
Microsoft has the common man at the core of it's heart.
All linux users are hackers and zealots.
All linux users hate Microsoft because they charge for software.
Windows95 was written in Visual Basic.
Microsoft is the saviour of the common man when it comes to computers. Trust them(tm)
etc... etc... etc... ad infinitum.

What I want to know is if he ACTUALLY believes what he writes or is he trying to deliberately misleed Joe Public?

Inaccuracies in Your Post

[tc]

1. PS2 can also use a hard drive as mass storage.

If you buy an extra add-on thing for an undisclosed price that Sony have not actually released yet and that no current games will take advantage of.

2. PS2 can have 8 controllers max using a Multi-tap (not 2).

Again, this supposes that you buy an extra add-on (although at least this time the add-on in question is more than vapor). 8 players doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me - sure, it's great for a few games, but I think the usefulness for most tops out at around 4 (if only because split-screen becomes silly after that point).

3. I'm pretty sure that they meant Dolby Digital decoding, not encoding. Because what is there to encode? Is there a line-in jack somewhere? All of the data on the disc is ENcoded, so it needs to be DEcoded when played back.

And I'm certain they meant encoding. There is plenty to encode - the game produces sound effects that can be spatialized and encoded as Dolby Digital, so that if you have a nice surround sound setup you hear the sound effects coming from the appropriate spot. Your receiver does the decoding, the console does the encoding.

4. PS2 does NOT require a seperate remote for DVD Video.

Ok, I guess I'll give you that one.

While we're making judgements...

[aka-ed]

Built-in NIC (single-player games are for people with no friends)

And NICs are for people whose friends live inside their computer.

think about Nvidia...

[Fuzuli]

Ok, so XBox is superior in hardware, and it may be possible to produce better looking and fun games on it compared to other consoles, but just because the hardware has the capability does not mean that you will be able to play those promised "awesome" games. Why ? just take a look at nvidia, they have been producing engineering wonders, and their hardware is really expensive, but how many games can use that power ? I'm not a hardcore gamer, but my brother and his crew live for games, and with an athlon 1 ghz using a ge-force mx2 400, they can play max payne which is a really power demanding game.So why they should give their money for a ge-force ultra giga bla bla... ?
XBox may be the console of future, but i don't see a reason for buying it now, and waiting for the "games of the future" to come out while others play with ps2 and have fun. 1.5 or 2 years and so new games for XBox: and i'll choose it, but why buy a hardware with high power, when there is not much way to use that power ?

BSOD is a reality on XBOX

[sh0rtie]

The BSODs and GSODs you hear of are actually not true

Please look at this
XBOX BSOD

The picture taken at DreamHack 2001, a big LAN event held in Sweden. Microsoft is a sponsor of the event and they were demoing XBOX on site. The picture is taken from the XBOX there.. which is a beta unit, according to Microsoft. It probably is :p

Re:BSOD is a reality on XBOX

[Anonymous Coward]

That's obviously a beta unit, since it's also obviously debug output. Final hardware has no BSOD or GSOD.

I sold my gamecube to buy a PS2

[Jish]

I just thought I would put in my 2 cents on this...

I bought a gamecube at launch cause I am a longtime nintendo supporter and wanted to try it out. I bought Rogue Leader, Tony Hawk 3, and Super Smash Brother Melee. Rogue Leader is a great game, but the PS2 version of tony hawk 3 gets better reviews across the board and the gamecube port has some serious issues (slowdown on certain levels)....

Super Smash Brothers is good as well but not something I would play a lot by myself... so when I sat back and looked at the situation I realized there were a good dozen games I want to play on PS2 but just not that much out for gamecube yet. I realize this was the problem with PS2 at launch as well but in my impatience I have switched over to PS2. I may buy a gamecube later down the line but not just yet.

In other words, I don't really think for a lot of us the features and graphical abilities are the most important thing... its purely who has the best games at the moment.

Re:When is Linux for the PS2 hitting the stores?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you remember the slashdot article entitled
"U.S. Playstation 2 Linux Hits the Streets"?
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/12/04/0254 22 9&mode=thread

There were 446 comments, so perhaps there is some interest here.

X-Box = PC

[kjeldsen]

X-Box = PC without Keyboard and Mouse

PS2 & GC = Console without Keyboard and Mouse

So why would anyone buy a "SECOND PC" when there is way more and better games for the Playstation 2?

Maybe those people that wants PC games but have a shitty PC?.

Anyway, Microsofts only chance of winning this war is buying exclusive titles and keeping them away from the PC, in reality turning the X-Box into a hardware key for "PC" games.

For a more indepth view of the PS2 vs PC look here:
http://www.arstechnica.com/cpu/2q00/ps2/ps2vspc- 1. html

It describes the fundemental differences between the two designs and much can be compared to the X-Box vs PS2.

Mod parent up...

[liposuction]

This is great. Helps throw a little water on the FUD fires that all the little Xbox weenies start.

The whole "mature games" ploy is the dumbest thing ever.

Xbox fan boys continue to make up little facts; or as I like to call them, lies.

FPS for the PS2

[Anonymous Coward]

There are UT and Quake3. For UT you can plan networked with an IEEE 1394/i.Link/Firewire connection and even hook up a keyboard and mouse. I think it was a launch title too.

More recently there was Red Faction where you could blow up the walls instead of just following the maze.

You forgot the Dreamcast...

[MsGeek]

Dreamcast can get you or your Granny on the Internet right out of the box. I know, I did it. And wrote about the results.

It requires a keyboard to be 100% practical, but that will only cost you roughly $20 more, or less if you get an adapter plus a PS/2 or AT keyboard from your stash. (The Mad Katz adapter will play nicely with both, the others are PS/2 only but how many people still have AT keyboards lying around?)

Certainly using a real computer to surf and get your mail with is better than kludging it with a DC. But this is certainly the cheapest way on. And hey, you can play DC games with this too!

Hi, I'm Ms. Geek, and I'm a DC addict.

Re:They'll all be garage sale heaps in three years

[Anonymous Coward]

You're slightly off. The PS1 came out in 94 and the PS2 in 2000. I'd say five years.

DC still has a future!

[MsGeek]

Actually, there has still been some development for the DreamCast, and a few games have been released (such as NBA 2k2) since the Dreamcast went under. There's nothing like the development going on for PS2 or XBox right now, and development will eventually cease, but there are still dozens of high quality games out there at a very low price. Especially when you compare Dreamcast graphics to the PS2.

Read "there has still been some COMMERCIAL development." As far as a Dreamcast hacking/development community goes, that's where the real action's gonna be for DC in the future.

The beauty of the DC is this:

1. DC can run multiple operating systems, including Linux;
2. There is even an open source, game-oriented OS being developed called Kallisti!OS;
3. Most DC consoles can boot off of CD-Rs specially tweaked for the purpose, and there are workarounds for most others;
4. DC has got to be one of the most developer-friendly consoles ever made. Anyone I know who codes games loves writing for DC;
5. DC's hardware is 100% documented. Not so for Sony, Nintendo and XBox.

Someone's gotta step up to the plate and build a reverse-engineered Broadband Adapter. There are too many DCs out there and too much demand, particularly amongst geeks, for that not to happen. The v90 dialup modem that comes with the box is pretty damn good as dialup modems go, btw.

It is more than likely that there will be DC development going on for years into the future. Buy a DC now, and it will indeed have a future. Also RIGHT NOW it has Unreal Tournament, Quake III, Soul Calibur 2 and on and on.

Don't take my word for it...drop in at these sites and see what's going on for yourself:
http://mc.pp.se/dc/
http://www.fivemouse.com/dclinux.html

Re:It is based on the G3

[Anonymous Coward]

The Gekko is a G3 with a few new instructions and is hooked up to SRAM (sort of..) instead of DRAM. It is not an off the shelf G3, but the Gekko chip most deffinatly contains a G3 CPU at its core.

It is still a four stage in order CPU that can execute two instructions per cycle (three if one is a branch). For longer instructions like mult and divide these take more than one cycle and clog the pipe.

The only difference between a Gekko and a G3 to a programmer is simply that IBM added SIMD (paired single you'll hear a lot) floating point operations and cache management (data prefetch).

Head to Google and search for "Gekko site:eet.com" and you'll see the Gekko is at it's core nothing more than a G3.

The Gekko is a great CPU for what it has to do, but don't think because Nintendo sent some IBM people to be interviewed as a PR move that it is anything more than what it is.

Re:PC != console

[Anonymous Coward]

When you develop for the PC platform your game is targetted to systems up to three years old. Actually up to five if you aren't an action game since some of the systems sold three years ago are obsolete two year old systems :)

Right now games have to look good on an AthlonXP 2000+ with a 64meg GeForce3 and SB Audigy. Yet only a few hundred people have that system, so you still have to sell to the people with a Celeron 300A from August 1998 with a Voodoo2/TNT and SB AWE32. There is quite a bit of a difference there.

With a console you know the resolution the game will run at, the frame rate you want, the EXACT hardware, etc. Everything. Everybody will have the same system.

Console games wont wait a year or two before showing off what your system is capable of because they don't need to worry about games running on obsolete systems. So don't worry about games not using a console's hardware.

Of course you do have to worry about no good games comming out for the xbox as all the top developers are writting for the GameCube and PS2.

Re:It is based on the G3

[melatonin]

The Gekko is a great CPU for what it has to do, but don't think because Nintendo sent some IBM people to be interviewed as a PR move that it is anything more than what it is.

The problem is that people are claiming it is an off-the-shelf G3, which it's far from. Of course the coure is going to be G3- it's by far and wide most suitable/best PowerPC they have for this. The first rev G4s were barely more than G3s with an AltiVec unit.

Re:It is based on the G3

[Anonymous Coward]

The first G4s also had OOE in addition to Altivec, right? But still an amazingly short 4stage pipe like the G3 and could only execute a pair or instructions per cycle?

Since game developers will optimize the crap out of their code OOE isn't a big win, and a full altivec implementation would go wasted I wonder if there would really be any advantage to using a G4 instead of a G3? Probably not.

100 times as many games, one overheats

[Anonymous Coward]

(Besides the fact that one has about a hundred times as many games, one overheats, and another has Luigi)

Why do people like this always end up in the media?

PDF documents?

[MikeBabcock]

Anyone else irritated by the senseless use of PDF documents for their figures and references?

gamecritics.com has good reviews

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly since they aren't a commercial venture they don't get the games ahead of time to review them, but gamecritics.com is the one place that truely critiques reviews in the way Siskle & Ebert did for movies.

PS2 and GC make a PROFIT on hardware.

[zak]

> And as for hardware sales...you do know that the console makers lose money on hardware sales, right?
This is no longer true - the only console maker losing money on hardware sales is M$ - PS2 and GameCube are cheaper to make than sell. Sony practically manufactures the whole machine, and the GameCube is made of such cheap parts that it's still making a profit at $199.
Check out http://www.actsofgord.com/Proclamations/chapter02. html

agent scully probing the guts of aliens

[Anonymous Coward]

agent scully probing the guts of aliens

In my day....

[raindog2]

Microsoft would have plastered the X10 ability all over the cardboard box the console came in, along with pictures of racially integrated kids with awful haircuts playing together in the family room while 3D spaceships and soccer players came zooming out of the TV at them, and faked up screenshots on the back of all the titles that hadn't been released yet and a convenient plastic handle for all those times you wanted to pack up your machine in its original console and take it to your friend's house. They would also have "Can be converted into a REAL COMPUTER!*" in 72 point type on the back, followed by a much smaller "*Using optional Super X-Pander Module, coming in Fall 1983."

And best of all, in six months they'd be in Chapter 11.

DC Online Help

[Adamb154]

I have DSL ,a non dialup ISP. How do i get it to work with my dreamcast? Does DC only support dialup web connections? I have an ADSL modem and i would love to get online and play/telnet into it and do all sorts of stuff I know the broadband adapter works with only 2 games so thats stupid. please answer ASAP, ive got a good feeling i can get where no techie has been b4 in this machine.

Ummmm.......

[Halcyon-X]

That's probably because they're going online with their PCs, of course PC online gaming will be popular to them!

What you don't notice are the other 80% of the population who don't go online and play FPSes with their PCs... Because why would they be talking to you online about FPSes?

Personally I've kinda been bored of FPSes since I finished DOOM II... online gaming was fun with Quake 2 for a while... but still, it's a fad and it's dying out.