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Ubisoft CEO Says Next Gen Consoles Closer Than We Think
An anonymous reader writes "Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot tells CNBC that he believes the next generation of video game systems isn't as far away as the public has been led to believe. Guillemot noted that public demand for the best machine possible, as well as coming competition from companies such as OnLive could spur Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo to roll out new systems sooner than they want. That's not good news for publishers, though, as he says games in the next generation will likely cost $60 million to create."
It should say "Ubisoft"
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
If you go back all the way to the Atari 2600, you'll notice a consistent pattern of 5 year console "lifespans" (most recently, the Xbox and PS2 broke the pattern a little at 4 and 6 years respectively, but not by much).
Atari 2600 -1977
Atari 5200 - 1982
NES - 1986
SNES - 1991
N64 - 1996
PS1 - 1995
PS2 - 2000
PS3 - 2006
Xbox - 2001
Xbox360 - 2005
Of course, no one wants to admit that they have a new console just around the corner until they're pretty damn close to having it ready (within a year or so), lest it kill current-gen sales. But there is NO WAY it's going to be 2015 before we see a new Xbox 720 or PS4 (as some are trying to claim). Even with the economic downturn, there is no way we're no going to start seeing see ten year gaps between generations, when it's been 5 year gaps for the last three decades.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
That might work for a slow game like an RPG, but good luck getting a twitch game like Tetris to feel lag-free through a home Internet connection, even in urban areas of developed countries.
I just finished taking language arts finals too...Wonder how well I did :-)
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
Yeah, right. More like "Ubisoft wants more easy graphics-are-everything cash-ins and the current crop of consoles is losing its marketing effectiveness."
Some 50% of the marketplace currently indicates that public demand is not, in fact, for "the best machine possible": people just want better games, and they don't care very much about the technology used to deliver them. The only ones demanding "the best machine possible" are technophiles more interested in the hardware than they are in the games, and Ubisoft is looking to throw them a couple of buzzwords as an easy way to spur sales.
Oh please, Project Natal didn't take off years ago when it was called EyeToy, what makes you think it'll take off now ?
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
...could spur Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo to role out new systems sooner than they want.
Blatant misspell aside, what that will mean for us is more red rings of death(and the Sony and Nintendo equivalents) from rushed design and testing as well as games which are basically glorified tech demos with no real plots or stories.
Something tells me that if consumers aren't ready to fork over money for new hardware, console makers aren't ready to turn their backs on products that still haven't, or are just now starting to, turn a profit, and game developers aren't ready to start making games for hardware with even higher development costs, it's not going to happen. Anyone who jumps the gun here is going to see exactly what Sony did with the PS3, that is consumers and developers clinging to older hardware as long as they can while the newer, overpriced machines languish on shelves for a couple years until everyone is ready.
Yeah they all have their flaws, honestly I got sick of how Microsoft has nickel and dimed me this generation: pay to play online, $60 wireless headsets, 20 GB HDDs for $100!, full game downloads with no discount, a disc check on games that you install every time, I would be happier if it was random, etc. They have pretty much guaranteed my return to PC gaming once they release their next system and stop supporting the 360.
Are they really trying to shorten the console generation cycle down from what Playstation 1 had?
Are they still clueless about what is a good game and what is pointless graphics/realism crap?
New generations don't make games better.
No, but a new crop of buzzwords makes games very easy to sell to technophiles. That's what Ubisoft is after: sales without effort.
Enter the Wii Motion Plus. Check out these Youtube Wii Motion Plus Vids. The motions no longer seem limited for the games that support this new device.
Natal might start to get annoying as it seems you have to get scanned before each game.
I'm happy with a system that can display good games in high definition and take advantage of my home theater setup. The PS3 delivers that for me, but I'd like to see better games available. That said, Rock Band 2 gets a lot of play, and I really appreciate that the PS3 can play just about any media you throw at it.
The Wii has some fun games, and I have one of those too, but they look like absolute crap on a hi-def TV.
An updated Wii makes sense, a new PS3, no way. The PS3 has all the hardware I need -- just make some games already.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
Actually, what we are most likely going to see is incremental -- but significant! -- updates to the existing consoles. Updates that are large enough to be considered a "new release" but small enough not to be totally new architectures. We know, for example:
- Microsoft is planning an all-out marketing campaign + release schedule around Natal. It's not quite a new console roll-out, but Microsoft is treating it as such. Fully backwards compatible.
- Nintendo needs to get on the HD bandwagon, but doesn't necessarily need to push the envelope for HD gaming. Expect something that meets 720p criteria and is approximately [some smaller integer greater than 1 but less than 5]x as powerful as the Wii. Fully backwards compatible.
- Sony: not entirely clear. Open to suggestions. They have a PS3 slim in the works. No, not a new console. They released the PSP Go, dropping UMG support. That's interesting. The Cell is a pain-in-the-ass to develop for, but various shops are starting to get the hang of it. Maybe we will see a PS3, Mach II with 2 Cells, slim body and, of course, the now-mandatory motion tracking controllers.
The fact that future games are going to cost somewhere in the $60M ballpark is precisely why we will NOT see brand new architectures any time soon. No one, except maybe 1st party entities, is going to give up all of the applied dev resources to hop to an untested platform.
If you want to commence an interesting dialogue, I propose something like "What, exactly, constitutes a NEW console?"
Because its a bit more advanced that EyeToy was...
I actually think Project Natal will just come straight to the next xbox. I mean:
- Any of the previous games dont support it
- Its peripheral you have to buy separately - not everyone are going to buy it, so the games need to support 'normal' players too, so cant concentrate just for the Project Natal.
- Xbox360 is old and its successor will probably come soon anyways
- Its just way better idea to start from a clean table like Wii did. EyeToy was also an peripheral to PS2.
As many missteps as each of the Big 3 Video game makers have had, I think knowing and developing new systems is something they are on top of. They are all real secretive on their R & D, so I am sure they are further enough along then the CEO Ubisoft knows. I think he overestimates OnLive role in video games, which will be minimal at best.
But it is basically an Eye Toy with a mic. Even the Eye Toy had 3D recognition. I think natal will do better than Eye Toy but it will die a pretty quick death.
Considering how expensive it is to get the full and proper xbox experience and the fact casual gamers don't get a hard-on over graphics, what does the 360 offer them? Keep in mind you have to pay extra for wireless on the 360 where as it's free on the Wii. To most people that will seem like a scam.
Games don't take $60 Million to make. Spectacular extravaganzas with high-detail hero models, high-detail set designs, high-detail world designs, full-orchestral scores, full-cinematic cuts, companion toy merchandising, and highly-predictable-never-escapes-the-rails storylines. That's what takes $60 Million to make.
The cat will enjoy a ball of tinfoil more than the eighty dollar robo-mouse. Give the player an enjoyable challenge, something they'll understand on the first play but want to play again and again. Don't try to reinvent the concept of gameplay.
[
Right now would be an awful time to put forth the expense of a whole new console launch. I think the smart players will wait for at least two more years... even Nintendo, do they really need more power or do they just need more publishers to take full advantage of the Wii as we are just starting to see?
I think the new motion stuff announced by Sony/Microsoft is a stop-gap meant to offer something new but not have a new platform for some time.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The only Nintendo equivalent I know of is broken windows/TVs. I don't think a new system is likely to change that.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
Actually, what we are most likely going to see is incremental
What I think we are more likely to see is excremental.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
He seems to overlook the fact that the most popular console is the weakest machine, and its popular games (Wii Fit, Wii Sports...) are simple enough that I am not sure how they could benefit from a hardware upgrade beyond input devices. Add to that the motion-control expansions for all the consoles and you have consoles with longer life than usual. Add in the fact that PC gaming tends to work better for the big-ticket games that push performace, and I see no reason why a console maker or game publisher would care to start a new cycle already (I'll leave it to other comments to provide reasons for Ubisoft to want this).
My webcomic
This generation has seen console gaming taking the first painful steps into HD. Sony and Microsoft have lost billions on this step, while the comparibly simple Wii is far more profitable. So what are they going to do to increase profits for the next generation?
That's simple-next generation consoles will be entirely DLC-only. Forget about exchanging games, bringing your games over to a friends' house, etc. All games will be download-only and you'll max out your broadband cap by downloading a single game, unless you switch to a certain broadband provider that has a deal worked out with Microsoft so that M$ downloads don't count against your cap.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
>eternal torment in the bowels
I've got that already after having a 'special edition' curry last night.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
I'd strongly disagree that all current consoles suck. Just for disclosure, I have all 7 Current (PC, DS, PSP, PS2 + 3 Consoles) game systems plus many games for all, but still lean toward being a Nintendo fan(boy).
Considering all of this generation of consoles suck.
Wii: Poor graphics, and lots of shovel ware -- this is the best console of this generation.
I'd strongly disagree that "graphics suck" on the Wii. The Wii is probably somewhat more powerful than the original Xbox. The original Xbox that people were gushing about its "amazing graphics" just a few years ago. If said graphics were good enough then, they are good enough now. I still play PS2/GC/XBX games around as much as their successors, and do not find the graphics limiting or sucky.
Actually the only generations that I tend to feel the graphics do suck on, are the 2600 and PS1 generations. (NES if you really are demanding). The most primitive 2D and 3D graphics. Beyond those, all systems have had graphics ranging from good (Wii, SNES, Genesis, GC, PS2) to amazing (PS3, 360). And yes, I do think SNES graphics were better than PS1 graphics. Good 2D > primitive 3D. OTOH, the PS1/N64 was the source of a great deal of innovation, because of the new technology.
Shovelware comes with being the market leader. The PS2, PS1, NES and 2600 are infamous for having tons of shovelware. Just don't buy it. A new console wouldn't change the shovelware situation.
Xbox 360: Horribly unreliable hardware, even after the jasper redesign.
Fair criticism, though I have heard the most recent ones are semi-reliable. However, this is justification for a new model, a Slim 360, perhaps, not an Xbox 720.
PS3: A BD player that can also play a few games.
Largely accurate in 2007. Not so much in 2009. There are PLENTY of good PS3 games, many of which are exclusive (MGS4, KZ2, Valkyria Chronicles, Uncharted, etc.)
The next generation of consoles can not come fast enough.
I fail to see why. Actually, I don't really see any benefit from another set of consoles, almost at all. Other than even more mind blowingly amazing (and expensive) graphics, I fail to see what would be gained. None of your problems would be addressed, except perhaps the 360 reliability. The market leader would still get shovelware, and the PS4 may or may not have the games you want. I feel, and the sales of the Wii back up, that graphics became "good enough" with the PS2 generation, and moving beyond that is rather excessive, especially when only something like 30% of Americans have an HDTV and I'd wager most of them can't hook it up correctly. (Next time I see a 4:3 screen stretched to 16:9, or a store's BD-Player hooked up to an HDTV by SD component cables, I think I will cry.)
I have 3 HDTVs, so I'd sort of like an HD-capable Wii, preferably like a GBC (IE, Wii 1.5, not Wii 2). But the Wii's graphics are still more than capable, and the PS3/360 are, if anything, excessive.
The 16 bit consoles were clearly miles ahead of the 8 bit machines, but each generation the improvement has been less significant. PS2 games and original XBox games still don't look that bad. The real advantage with the latest generation is higher resolutions. Reflections and shadows are just eye candy.
Now, the question is, why will it cost so much more to develop for a newer generation? Doubling the number of polygons isn't double the work. A lot of effects have already been written so they just need to use existing libraries for them. Game worlds may well get larger but games themselves don't need to do so substantially.
And the main point to realise is that budgets will not magically expand to match the cost of developing a game. The budget for a game is the amount that it can be expected to make in terms of sales so that the investors have a decent profit. The game will have to shrink to match that budget.
I think that both Sony and Microsoft would be insane not to build upon their current platforms with their next generations. Skipping to a new architecture (x86 + Larrabee has been suggested for Sony) would likely cost a lot to implement, and I think that both companies want to break even fairly close to launch this time.
Sony's best path, in 2011, is to launch a PowerXCell32 based PS4. This is basically a Cell with 2 PPUs and 32 enhanced SPUs (although I think they could do a 4 PPU version). Couple that to a GT300 series GPU and you've got a 1080p monster.
I also don't think that Sony can single-chip the PS3 unlike the PS2, because of the NVIDIA GPU. This might make it less economical to cost-reduce like the PS2 later in life.
Microsoft can just have an octo-core CPU running at higher clocks and whatever ATI can come up with in 2011 - R900 at 3TFLOPS?
Regardless, we'll only start hearing about the next generation when the current generation has had another price drop so people don't put off their purchase. I expect to start hearing concrete details in early 2010.
Ironically your list is very accurate except for the BS about the PS3. 90+% of the games that play on the 360 also are available on the PS3 as they're multi-platform and a good selection of excellent exclusives are also available only for the PS3.
The hardware is reliable, the system is quiet, the blu-ray player is very functional, the up-scaling for DVDs is very high quality and the gaming is excellent and free to play online.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
7th grade spelling FAIL
role != roll
Is driven by hardware manufacturers, not consumers: The most popular game in the world today look dated on its release almost 5 years ago.
How could the Eye Toy possibly have 3D recognition with only one "eye" ?
:)
With that 3D recognition, nearly perfect movement tracking (even in the dark, with people walking between you and the device), exact player recognition, all those 70 strategic points of the body tracked in real-time, and real 3D head-tracking perspective implemented in games, you actually can do much more than what the Eye Toy would ever be able to do...
What the Eye Toy basically did was play with the visual effects that a moving object can produce in a video... That's pretty much it.
There is no way you can do a controller out of that
Segmentation Fault in "Life, Universe and Everything" at line 42. Don't Panic.
God lied, Adam didn't die.
Satan was the one who wanted man to be smart and think for himself, god wanted to just be a control freak "the SIMS" player with his little garden.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
One that can take advantage of newer technology to deliver a better gaming experience?
Yeah I know the Indrema failed, but if the people making Linux distros for mobile devices and smart phones decided to port their code to the newer game console technology to creating a game console distro it would be a good idea if many gaming companies joined in and started to work out a standard for game consoles that will help reduce the cost of developing new game consoles for everyone. Not only that but if it is a Linux distro games can be put on LiveCDs that boot and then run the game on PCs and Macs.
I suppose one can just develop video games in Java or Python to be used across any computer platform and port Java and Python for various game consoles to run such games as well.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
The Wii does rather nicely with 480p widescreen. While 1080 would be nice, I don't know that anything over 720 is really needed. Like you said, most people don't even notice when the BD is hooked up using component cables. :P
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Spelt is fine in British English Spelt (2) (www.merriam-webster.com)
That's not much of a criticism of the PS3. Are you upset that it plays BD discs? Do you think it can't do that and also have good games? It has been a little slow in getting a broad range of top-notch games, but it's getting there quickly.
One thing I'd love to see is for a console to open up their development process and create an App Store similar to the iPhone. There would be an explosion of freeware, indie games, and assorted applications.
For example, imagine a Slashdot viewer optimized for TV usage. I can currently read /. on the PS3's web browser, but trying to navigate through it is a pain. If someone made a nice viewer with big text, easy navigation, ability to mark stories as read, etc., I'd pay $2.99 for that.
I'd strongly disagree that "graphics suck" on the Wii. The Wii is probably somewhat more powerful than the original Xbox.
I wouldn't say they suck, but they're not what you'd expect from a next generation console. You said as much yourself right there. If all I'm getting is last generation graphics with a nifty controller, why do I need new hardware?
I still play 2600 and PS1 games regularly, so I'm not bothered by shitty graphics. I am bothered by the lack of technological advance between console generations however.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
the Wii's graphics are still more than capable, and the PS3/360 are, if anything, excessive.
Graphics are not just there for "looks." Oftentimes they can add to gameplay, and change it, make it move in ways we haven't considered before.
Just because you like the SNES graphics more doesn't mean the PlayStation wouldn't be valid. The added power brings more to the table for 3D than the SNES could ever do. I'd like to see you try to do Resident Evil, Gran Turismo, or Tomb Raider on the SNES, for example. Look at a game like Mass Effect, which use the increasing technology to make more believable characters and interesting worlds.
This smacks of "Nobody's going to need any more than 647KB of RAM" to me.
The hardware issues seem to be worked out now with the latest motherboards. Xbox Live is really maturing and branching out into family fun kind of games like 1 vs. 100. Participating in a live game show is more fun then I thought it would be. I couldn't be happier with it right now and it just keeps getting better. Natal, looks gimicky too me will be good for casual gamers like the Wii is and probably attract a good following that way if it's not too expensive.
Unfortunately my favorite game last year was by far Fallout 3 on PS3. That was a monster of a game, and it turned out incredible. They may have set the bar very high!
3D motion capture is possible from one camera actually (I'm working on it for my PhD). There's only a small number of configurations a body can be put into to fill the same 2D silhouette as seen from a single camera.
Besides that the demo's shown in the GP video really only need 2D motion capture anyway, except maybe the accelerator for the driving game. But seriously, why would I want to stand/sit with my leg in an awkward position when I could just hold "A" instead? For the same reason my Wii is also collecting dust.
I love 2D platformers. The last one that truly impressed me was Astal on the Saturn. Imagine what today's machines could do for this genre; imagine a new Turrican or Shinobi, in high-res 2D, all hand-drawn, with multiple layers of parallax and translucency, with more action and animation than the old systems could dream of handling. To sum it up: something that would be to platformers what The King of Fighters XII is to fighting games.
But sadly, no. These days, 2D platformers are relegated to portable systems. And I'm stuck playing a genre I love with emulators.
Won't somebody think of the platformer fans?!
Circumcision is child abuse.
I love how the default user action to to mod up trolls like this.
The current generation of gaming is more or less the same as the last generation, which is more or less the same as the generation before that. I really don't understand how people can say that games are so much worse now than before when they're basically the same game as before, but with an increment, or better graphics, or better controls.
As to the specific consoles, yes, we are all quite aware that each console has a downside, just as each console before had a downside. Yes, the wii has bad graphics. Yes, some 360s break (not all!), and yes, the PS3 library leaves something to be desired, but each console is pretty good.
Wii: Innovative motion control/point-and-shoot style gaming. Granted, it doesn't work as well as it should, and the graphics are terrible. Honestly, my least favorite system.
Xbox 360: Great catalog of games, solid online support. Everyone that's had their console break has also had a replacement, plus usually a free game or free month of live.
PS3: Has a decently sized game library, plus several online titles. Online support is good (but not as good as the 360) and there are some interesting single platform titles out there. Truth be told, if you're looking for a bluray player, it's also pretty much the best one you can get (and for awhile was the cheapest one you could get). All in all, by no means a bad console.
This generation has been far from a let down for any gamer willing to accept that trends change. Anyone that longs for the time of the playstation 1 or later needs a reality check. (problems with PS1: initial controller replaced with dual shock, which was necessary for some games. Each console more or less required a $20 memory card. the card held so little that everyone really needed 2 or 3 cards. The games had poor graphics even then, long load times, wired controllers, etc.)
More to the topic: I seriously doubt that any new console will appear in the next few years. Here's my reasoning:
1. People don't want to spend money right now. A new console has a sharp price increase for both the consumer and the producer of the goods.
2. There's nothing really wrong with this generation. The graphics still look fine, the consoles still cost too much and the sale of consoles is still quite strong (or was last winter)
3. The current generation is only about 4 years old. The last generation was an abnormality, but most generations last about 6 years or longer.
I personally am planning to get a PS2 in 2010 or so.
Wifi dongle that costs half as much as a full 360 arcade unit that comes with console, controller, memory card and power adapter and a few GAMES!
Good-bye
Wii: Poor graphics, and lots of shovel ware -- this is the best console of this generation.
Poor graphics is relative, especially when you take price into account. What I don't understand though is how "lots of shovelware" is anything but neutral. There's too much shovelware on ALL the consoles (and equivalents for TV, movies, music...), and it shouldn't get in the way of buying the good stuff.
The 360 is reliable: you can rely on it breaking down.
I kid, I kid. I'm only on my third.
What though gives you any indication that next gen is going to be any better? For me it's all about a balance of price vs performance. If next gen has incrementally better graphics, and slightly better stability, but is 100-200 dollars -more- than the current generation, then delay it forever. The devil I know and have already paid for is better than the devil I don't know that is more expensive.
Fair enough, but I still don't see why that would necessitate another console generation.
There is advancement in the Wii, much of it. It's just in a different direction than usual, and limited advancement in the direction of the PS360. (ie, they did upgrade the hardware a bit so now almost all games support 480p and widescreen, they did do some limited internet and DLC support, they have wireless controllers).
The advancement is the motion control, and it's worked quite well. Sure some games overuse it, others made it look bad, etc, but the same can be said for early inroads in any field (many, many 2600 and PS1 games sucked ass). Looking at what Nintendo does with it in Galaxy and such, shows that while often more subtle, it can add quite a bit when used in limited and intelligent quantities. They could have released it as a Gamecube add-on, except then no one would have bought it, and the other legacy problems (firmware, internet, wires, etc) would have remained.
Either way, I think sales show that Nintendo certainly picked up on a good percentage of people who wished advancement in a different field, other than pure horsepower. That's a good thing, IMO. I have a 360 + PS3 for when I want to play some Halo or MGS4, but the Wii provides a different, unique, and thoroughly fun experience, and I quite like variety.
I'm sort of rambling at this point, but the TLDR is, I can see where you're coming from, but I don't see why that necessitates another console generation, especially from Sony/MS.
PS I'm not singling Microsoft out, I'm sure Sony has something in the works too...the day that my console choice affects my broadband provider choice is the day I go PC only for games (and hope my broadband provider has a deal with Steam).
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Component (Red/Green/Blue/Red/White) cables will do HD just fine (although very few sets will support 1080p via component) I think you were looking for composite as the crummy SD cable type. (yellow/red/white)
I still like coax as a cable far more than HDMI/DVI. Before you say it doesn't have the bandwidth to send full digital HD signals, how do you think you get all those HD channels into your DVR? RG6 has plenty of bandwidth, and is far more durable.
There's a very real reason why Wii needed to be a new console. Just look at any gimmick controller and see how well they've done. The problem is that if the controller is not included in the bare-basics version of the console, at best it will be supported as an alternative control method but most of the time it will be entirely unsupported. Very few games will be designed specifically for it. With the Wii, everyone's guaranteed to have a wiimote, and the games are designed accordingly.
But it is basically an Eye Toy with a mic.
The EyeToy has a mic. It actually sounds pretty good on the PC as long as there isn't anything happening in the background, because this thing picks up EVERYTHING.
Even the Eye Toy had 3D recognition.
No it doesn't. It detects motion. That's why you have to wave your hand over on-screen buttons for several seconds to select them... because it needs to make sure that's the one you're trying to select. It really was a shitty implementation, but I'm not really sure if the PS2 could've handled much more than that.
As someone who just recently purchased a PS/2, I'd go so far as to say that it has yet to give up the ghost. While a lot of development effort is being put into the PS/3, it's hard to call the PS2 dead when new games are still being released.
Personally, I think people are overrating the Natal. I don't think people understand the importance of tactile feedback. Right now the natal is riding the "Wow that is really cool" wave. Nothing I've read about the natal has talked about the tactile feedback issue.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
I agree with much you said. However, I would like to inject my opinion that graphics, while very capable on the Wii or PS2 (God of War was awesome) do have a big role play in some games. Take Dead Rising for example. The Wii version was just god awful terrible and I attribute most of it to graphics. The biggest reason... immersion. The mall I ran around in on my buddies 360 did not feel as real as the one I ran around in on my Wii. I couldn't see the covers of books and magazines in the shops and I just felt like the whole thing was flat.
With that said, I do think the Wii has plenty of graphical power to make good games, but I find too many devs. jumping on the "motion sensing" band wagon and making motion sensing controls when none are needed. Don't make me 'waggle' the controller to attack. Just let me smash a button.
Though, the 360/PS3 are far more than just "graphical machines". Their ability to do impressive FPS while having far far more enemies on screen at the same time is a big boost to the potential games one can make. Again, Dead Rising is an example of this. That's the other side of just making things look photo-realistic. Cramming a lot of things on the screen at once and animating them. =)
_
And why is the HTML formatting all messed up? There's no magin's between paragraph elements anymore.
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
Aye, Sony's QC is a lot more rigorous than Microsoft's. Plus you could factor in that if the data were smartly positioned around the BD, you could potentially decrease read times by having the data replicated multiple times across the disk.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
It seems to me that the Wii, and PS/2 are still in their infancy in many ways. While the 360 has come down in price and stabilized to a degree, all three consoles are still a little expensive for the casual consumer, IMO. There's still a lot of life left in each console.
Based on previous experience with the Saturn/Dreamcast, as well as with the amount of time, money, and energy spent bootstrapping the PS3, I cant see any of the major manufacturers doing much more than a refresh on their major consoles. Releasing a new console requires a huge amount of tooling effort with the developers, and generally tends to kill the installed base on your old console. With the huge development requirements of today's consoles, I wouldn't be surprised if developers were to see a console refresh as a form of betrayal, and turn their backs on the next gen offering.
If anything, I expect the current generation of consoles to last even longer than the last generation.
Resident Evil
Huh? RE is 2D, until RE4. It doesn't take 3d to scale sprites.
Yeah they all have their flaws, honestly I got sick of how Microsoft has nickel and dimed me this generation: pay to play online, $60 wireless headsets, 20 GB HDDs for $100!, full game downloads with no discount, a disc check on games that you install every time, I would be happier if it was random, etc. They have pretty much guaranteed my return to PC gaming once they release their next system and stop supporting the 360.
Agreed. Console ships without a game, one controller. So when you buy an Xbox it's:
$350 for the box (depending on when you bought it)
$75 for wireless ethernet card that wasn't built-in
$60 for additional controller
$30 for the recharager battery pack designed to work with the controllers but doesn't leaving you stuck with conventional batteries
$x for cabling if you need hdmi or whatever.
Wireless headphones are required in a household larger than one but I won't label that as equipment that should have come with the unit. Would be another $120 or something? Not required if you're pc-gaming at your desk but if the PC is a media center unit, you'd be spending the money anyway.
And as you mentioned, the default 20gb HD is small and you want to buy a bigger one for all the DLC and shit but wait, it has to be MS-branded, you can't save your stuff onto a conventional usb drive. And you'll have to buy a flash-based card to serve as backup to your HDD because you know the HDD could crash at any time. Don't want to lose a hundred hours worth of gaming to a dead disk.
And the worst part of all this is you know the peripherals will all change with the next system that comes out. Consoles were supposed to be for budget gaming and pc's for people with deep pockets. Console gaming remains extremely expensive.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
One thing I'd love to see is for a console to open up their development process and create an App Store similar to the iPhone.
That's the future, especially if they made it simple (relatively) to develop for, say by including some 2-D API's.
The Linux portion of my PS3 is promising right now, but it took a loooong time from launch for all of the hardware to work (controllers, wireless, etc.) such that development on the system wouldn't be a pain.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
Very good post.
The Wii is probably somewhat more powerful than the original Xbox.
I'd say it's indisputably more powerful than the Xbox at roughly 2x a GC, but not nearly the leap in performance we're used to which combined with time means it "seems" to be barely more powerful than last gen.
And yes, I do think SNES graphics were better than PS1 graphics. Good 2D > primitive 3D.
The PSX was basically the pinnacle of 2D game consoles. Sure it was highly underutilized for that, but when called to the task it performed extremely well and was what the SNES had always wished to be. See Castlevania:SotN for a shining example.
But the Wii's graphics are still more than capable, and the PS3/360 are, if anything, excessive.
The only thing excessive about the graphics on those consoles is the price attached. Both of the system (and no crippled "base" 360 systems don't count) and more importantly the costs of the developers. As long as they don't try to push the envelope of console graphics as much as they did this generation, the system price should be manageable. On the development side, that'll either require better tools/methodologies to lower cost (easy for me to say) or simply not utilizing the full capabilities. Which of course would kinda defeat the purpose of having them.
The enemies of Democracy are
You do realize that this:
Xbox 360: Horribly unreliable hardware, even after the jasper redesign.
was caused, in large part, by this:
The next generation of consoles can not come fast enough.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
With Ubisoft putting out such fantastic titles such as "Imagine: Horsez" by the bucketload, they'll need to show me their full financials before I buy into the $60 million argument.
Developers had no problem jumping ship to the current gen and making money. Games went up $10 on average if you own a 360 or a PS3. They charge you for updates that used to be free, and they charge you to download unlock codes for maps, levels, game modes, costumes, and fucking furniture for your virtual corporate tool. Developers will work out plenty of ways to make morons pay through the nose to cover increasing costs.
OnLive as competition?
Yeah, and I hear that Apple is going to be seriously entering the game market aaaaaaaaaaaany second now.
This is a fucking joke.
The next generation will come around when the current players decide that it's strategically viable.
Let's look at the charts, shall we?
Nintendo has won. They want the current generation to last for as long as they are making buckets and buckets of money.
Nintendo will be the last of the three to go to the next generation (in terms of hard announcements). The ONLY possible scenario that would cause Nintendo to be the first to announce would be the motion controllers from MS or Sony taking away from Nintendo's profits. Nintendo would then make an announcement merely to fuck with the competitors' time tables. (Hint: Natal and Sony's tech will NOT save the 360 or PS3.)
Nintendo will be the last to announce.
MS is in second place, and will likely be the first to announce their next console. MS really want to push Natal to try and steal Nintendo's thunder, but despite their lines about Natal being the next generation XBOX, the fact is the only way MS can capitalize on it is if it's bundled with ALL systems. MS will push this generation as long as it can sell Natal units or Natal + 360 bundles. They need to recoup major cash from their warranty fiasco. MS likely wants Natal to get an extra 18 months to 2 years out of the 360. I don't think it'll be the hot shit they want it to be, but who knows.
MS will announce their next-gen hardware first.
Sony is fucked. I own a PS3 myself and enjoy it, but there's no denying that it simply didn't have the success of the PS2. I think five hundred and ninety-nine US dollars may have had a part to play with that. And with the 360 a year ahead, no one wanted to learn how to develop for the Cell. The bottom line is that Sony will announce the slim PS3 this fall and try to get some momentum, especially in Japan. Sony can capitalize on the release of Final Fantasy XIII along with the slim PS3 in Japan at the end of this year. I don't know if they can do the same thing in the US, especially since FFXIII is on the 360 as well. I expect Sony to keep trying for the "year of the PS3" until someone else makes an announcement. Sony has lost so much cash with the PS3 that they need to get as much mileage out of it as they can and can't risk jumping ship too early. Once MS reveals their hand, Sony will be free to show theirs without much risk of cutting off the PS3 before it's prime, or being one-upped tech wise or timewise for the next gen.
Sony will be second to announce.
The timeline as I see it is basically:
MS releases Natal and Natal + 360 bundles in 2010.
Sales aren't great.
MS announces E3 2011.
Details about the PS4 "leak" in the fall of 2011.
Sony announces E3 2012.
Nintendo teases E3 2012, in response to Sony's announcement. Nintendo won't have a full reveal until E3 2013.
Late 2013 MS launches.
Early 2014 Sony launches.
Fall 2014 Nintendo launches.
The games aren't so bad on the 360.. if the damn thing'd ever work reliably, it'd be a nice console. The Ps3 is my multiplatform game choice simply because I'm on my 4th 360 and only my 1st PS3 (bought at launch... I waited a bit for the 360 to calm down... but relatively launch-worthy.). I just don't want to put hours into a game only to have the console die on me at a critical point in the game and wait a week or two to get it back. It's just not worth the hassle, considering the price of games to begin with...
:) I tend to lean towards games being better than last-gen, because I simply play more of them now than I did last gen I suppose. But you're right, People aren't going to spend even $200 to $300 for a console now and all of a sudden next year be burdened with ANOTHER console that little Timmy whines about. And as for the PS3, it's WAY more of a wallet hit initially (and worth it IMHO) and replacing it in 2-3 years is corporate suicide. Sony likes longevity... Microsoft doesn't... but MS isn't in a position to dictate to the longsuffering fans "we've got ANOTHER $400 console for you, and in only 5 YEARS!)
And regarding #3, Microsoft got HAMMERED for shuffling the original Xbox out to pasture too soon for people. They won't make that mistake again. They would lose what little goodwill they have left (*cough* shitty hardware *cough*) if they orphaned the 360 in the same timeframe as the original Xbox.
You've made some excellent points... and as an AC no less.
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
[Microsoft] have pretty much guaranteed my return to PC gaming once they release their next system and stop supporting the 360.
yeah that'll show them...
Collecting scenery videos, converting them to a polygon-based rendering engine, installing it on a server and then playing it using video-streaming sounds a bit retarded to me. You could just as well hire 1000 Chinese for their lifetime, give them Wireless cameras and send them into the jungle. Ok, it may be a bit costly. It will likely cost about $60 million ... oh wait.
The PSX was basically the pinnacle of 2D game consoles.
If you ignore the Sega Saturn, which most people regrettably do.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Then it's officially cheaper to play PC games than console games. It's almost the same price now anyways. And considering 50%+ of the best next gen games for 360 are just ported from PC (or ported to) that are inferior to their PC counterpart, what would be the point?
The only games I play right now on 360 are Halo 3 (occasionally) and Guitar Hero, everything else I would otherwise play has a better version that I just played on PC (Fallout 3, L4D, Call of Duty). Oh wait, I played Braid, but I could probably run that game on a PSX (and it's available on Steam, I just wanted to use a big HDTV and it felt right to play it on a console).
No way a new gen is released anytime soon... I mean, there hasn't even been ONE final fantasy release on the next gen consoles... PS2 had 3.
What a load of BS.
It sounds like someone is looking to convince consumers that a 50% increase in the price of games is reasonable.
Isn't anyone learning anything from what's happening in the world's economy? People paid about the same retail price for Halo as for Oblivion as for Half-Life 2. Obviously, their production budgets were different.
When I read that Grand Theft Auto 4 cost "$100 million" to make, I just have to assume that they must have used military contractors to produce it.
What it basically means is that there are going to be a lot fewer games produced and most of them are going to suck. Then, someone will produce a game on a small budget that will make huge profits and then that developer/designer is going to get $100 million to make a game and it will suck.
We've seen this wash/spin/rinse/repeat cycle in the movie industry for the past few decades. Tell me, for those of you who watch a lot of movies, how many of them are really the huge blockbusters and how many are the low-budget indie films. Now think of the ones you liked the best, the ones that stayed in your head long after the movie was over. How many of those were the huge blockbuster?
Now, a show of hands: how many of you spent full price to go see the Tom Cruise movie where he plays the nazi with the eye-patch? How many of you saw Superbad? Which one did you like better?
Why do entertainment providers think that huge budgets are going to impress us? Or is it, as I suppose, a matter of them looking to excuse their having to keep raising prices and using draconian copyright protection measures?
100 million to produce a video game... They really believe all their customers are morons.
You are welcome on my lawn.
> The Wii is probably somewhat more powerful than the original Xbox.
Uhm, no. Having worked on the Wii, The GX (GPU) is _not_ as powerful as a GeForce 3.5. (The XBox's GPU was about half way between a GeForce 3 and GeForce 4.) The is more like a GeForce 2.5. It has half a pixel shader. Translation: Very limited, and takes specific planning to work around it.
> And yes, I do think SNES graphics were better than PS1 graphics. Good 2D > primitive 3D.
Agreed. Most people don't seem to understand that is a hell of a lot easier to make art look good from only 1 angle, then from 360 directions. (Due to _baked_ in lighting / shadows.)
> that I tend to feel the graphics do suck on, are the 2600 and PS1 generations.
Agreed. Not having a Z-buffer and having to manually sort polys is total suckage on the PSX aka PS1 for the public.
Personally, I don't even see why there is even talk about new "next-gen" -- the US economy is still in the toilet, and I don't see too many people rushing out to buy the current "next-gen" consoles. The only thing I _do_ see, is that now is probably the time to start developing next gen consoles, given a 2 - 3 year lead time.
If you ask me, hardware became good enough when the Sega Megadrive came out. I've had more fun with old Sega games than I've had with any PS2 game.
After 1996, it seems like games are getting worse with each new game system.
Short game, but it's really good.
http://www.gamespot.com/search.html?qs=braid&om_act=convert&om_clk=search
But seriously, why would I want to stand/sit with my leg in an awkward position when I could just hold "A" instead? For the same reason my Wii is also collecting dust.
Because getting off your ass to play is fun. Especially in a multiplayer party-type environment (especially with a couple of beers) - The kind of casual gaming environment the Wii targets.
I know this is slashdot and we're all supposed to jump on the "moving is hard" bandwagon, but come on. I've been playing Wii with my young kids pretty much since it came out and it certainly has yet to get old for us. It's even fun with adult friends/family over. Pumping your arms up and down to pretend to run, depending on who you're playing with, can be much more satisfying than holding down "A".
Don't know much about the Eye Toy stuff, but I do appreciate that there are efforts to innovate controls beyond the "Hold B to run fast" mentality of Super Mario Brothers.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Wrong. The first three games had 3D characters on top of pre-rendered backgrounds. Code: Veronica was fully 3D.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Who cares when the new consoles come.
Best selling non-handheld console of 2005/2006? PS2.
I predict the PS3 will be a great selling console until at least 2010, even if they could push something better out the door today.
And using Steam would be different how, exactly?
More appropriately, I call this BS FUD. It reminds me of the prelude to the current gen of consoles how all the publishers were whining that the games are so much more advanced and that they are spending a lot more money developing them. They tried to use that as a vehicle to bump game prices up. They succeeded to a degree, but not as much as they initially wanted. They wanted to charge (in NZ Dollars as that's what I'm familiar with) an average of $140-$150. As it is, most games are being released at $100-$120 with big releases going up to $140, where the last generation they cost $90-$100 with big releases at about $110 or $120.
So I think that this is just a way of them putting the seeds out to try and bump prices up again.
Why do I believe this is bullshit? Because these days game developers use ready-to-run engines. The amount of work they have to do is pretty minimal compared to their workload if they had to build the engines from scratch each time. It also means that using one engine, the game can be released on multiple platforms with minimal rework.
So I'm calling BS. They're able to get games into production much faster thanks to ready made engines, and they can release the games on multiple platforms to maximise their profits. They've never been able to do that as much as they have with the current gen consoles. Next gen it will be even better for them, therefore minimising their cost per platform.
The reason girls and Windows users don't understand UNIX is because all the documentation is in Man files.
Component (Red/Green/Blue/Red/White) cables will do HD just fine (although very few sets will support 1080p via component) I think you were looking for composite as the crummy SD cable type. (yellow/red/white)
I still like coax as a cable far more than HDMI/DVI. Before you say it doesn't have the bandwidth to send full digital HD signals, how do you think you get all those HD channels into your DVR? RG6 has plenty of bandwidth, and is far more durable.
Yeah, I meant the 3-pronged one, not the 5-pronged. Composite and component as words are too similar for someone like me. :D I have my PS2/Wii hooked up by the 5-pronger, haven't touched the 3-prong cable for a few years.
I'm not too cably-inclined, but I do know I love HDMI. While I understand there is some DRM concerns about it, or something, the idea of a single, USB-style cable to hook stuff up is amazingly nice.
Why would you want the Next Gen consoles? They explode every time the Enterprise gets fired on!
Guilty as charged.
The enemies of Democracy are
The PSX was basically the pinnacle of 2D game consoles. Sure it was highly underutilized for that, but when called to the task it performed extremely well and was what the SNES had always wished to be. See Castlevania:SotN for a shining example.
For some reason, I've always been under the belief that the PS1's 2D performance sucked, horribly, possibly worse than the SNES. I don't know where I got that idea from though, and the only 2D PS1 game I played was Toomba. Been meaning to try SotN for a while though. Downloaded it through PSN on my PS3, but haven't touched it yet. :(
Either way, in retrospect, I wish the PS1/N64 generation had focused more on 2D, but I very much remember everyone going gaga over anything with the 3D! moniker attatched to it, even if it wasn't really 3D (Sonic 3D Blast).
[Microsoft's nickel-and-diming tactics] have pretty much guaranteed my return to PC gaming once they release their next system and stop supporting the 360.
So what will you play when you have friends over? Because most PCs are connected to a monitor far smaller than a living-room TV, PC games are far less likely to be in a shared-view genre (e.g. Bomberman or Super Smash Bros.) or to support split-screen play than console games. So apart from Serious Sam, Lego $MOVIE, and EA Sports, you usually need a separate PC and a separate copy of the game for each player. That can get more expensive than Wii60 real quick.
Besides, aren't most PC games designed for a Microsoft operating system anyway?
I have 3 HDTVs, so I'd sort of like an HD-capable Wii, preferably like a GBC (IE, Wii 1.5, not Wii 2).
Wii already is the Game Boy Color to the GameCube's Game Boy. What you want is the equivalent of a Game Boy Advance.
Agreed. Console ships without a game, one controller. So when you buy an Xbox it's: $350 for the box (depending on when you bought it)
The "standard" model (wireless controller + 60 gig drive) is $300
$75 for wireless ethernet card that wasn't built-in
What, because an unreliable wireless connection is so much better than sticking with wires? Actual price of it is $100, but it's hardly a requirement
$60 for additional controller
More like $50 if you need a wireless, less for a wired controller (which also works with your PC). These go on sale fairly often, and can be had for more like the $35 range
$30 for the recharager battery pack designed to work with the controllers but doesn't leaving you stuck with conventional batteries
$20 for a battery and charging cable, and I have no idea what you're smoking that they don't work. Only one I've ever had a problem with was a used third-party battery pack I got off ebay.
$x for cabling if you need hdmi or whatever.
Why stop there? What if you need a TV to play on? How about $1000 for that?
Wireless headphones are required in a household larger than one but I won't label that as equipment that should have come with the unit. Would be another $120 or something? Not required if you're pc-gaming at your desk but if the PC is a media center unit, you'd be spending the money anyway.
Required? Pish tosh. Turn the volume down, or get an extender cable for headphones. I see 25' for $1.62 at monoprice.
And as you mentioned, the default 20gb HD is small and you want to buy a bigger one for all the DLC and shit but wait, it has to be MS-branded, you can't save your stuff onto a conventional usb drive. And you'll have to buy a flash-based card to serve as backup to your HDD because you know the HDD could crash at any time. Don't want to lose a hundred hours worth of gaming to a dead disk.
Boy, this is fun. Default drive size nowadays is 60 gigs. 20 gigs was the old usual (and is what I have), and has been plenty big for me. Newsflash: you don't need DLC, and even if you get it, you don't need a huge drive. I'm not totally knowledgeable about this process, but I guess you can get the 120 gig platter that MS uses and install it yourself, run ya $50 or something.
And the worst part of all this is you know the peripherals will all change with the next system that comes out.
So... you're still doing computer games on the same hardware setup that you were using in '05?
Consoles were supposed to be for budget gaming and pc's for people with deep pockets. Console gaming remains extremely expensive.
[citation needed] By my count, it's somewhere in the $500 games for a full setup, including games. Good luck getting a decent computer for that much.
The first three games had 3D characters on top of pre-rendered backgrounds.
In other words, graphics like Final Fantasy VII. But you don't need 3D graphics for Final Fantasy: the Super Famicom/Super NES had three Final Fantasy games, and even the Famicom/NES had three. On the other hand, Animal Crossing would have been impossible on the NES due to lack of RAM.
Eye toy for the PS2 was rubbish but there is a PS3 version. Here is a video from E3 from a few years ago: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3166063496020415395
There are some more videos on YouTube where people demonstrate that you can lift the card and it will track movement towards and away from the lens.
Natal probably does it better (I would hope since it's newer) but I don't expect it to be perfect and it's certainly not a new idea.
Personally I think motion through controllers, like the Wii, is easier to get into because you have something to manipulate. I think the problem with Eye Toy and Natal is the lack of a controller. MS's comment about being able to use the 360 controller in conjunction with Natal seems rather pointless. It's a quick fix with them almost certainly knowing that no controller would really limit what sort of game people can realistically play even if they have full use of their body.
Yeah, what's even worse, is the people who bought "fullscreen" movies ("Ah don like movies not usin' all mah TV") are now stretching them to 16:9, getting the worst of everything.
I'm still amazed that Wal-Mart has managed to sell any HDTVs or BD-Players. The last time I went there they had one of those Blu-Ray vs. DVD comparison BDs playing on a 52" TV, hooked up by SD cables, letterboxed to 4:3 by the BD-player, and then stretched to 16:9 by the TV. I think I almost vomited. Some of the overheard comments included, unsurprisingly:
"I _think_ I can tell a little difference" and
"You know, I think my TV from the '80s looks better."
The Wii saved this gen, in my opinion, and may save next gen. Games for the PS3 and 360 are much like big, expensive summer blockbusters. Huge budget, impressive, technically proficient, and with little creativity and absolutely no risk. Games for the Wii are like direct-to-video movies. Cheap, generally crappy, but often entertaining and innovative.
Developers should be HOPING that the next gen follows the Wii pattern instead of the PS3 pattern. Except... maybe the big publishers view upping development costs as a way of eliminating their less-well-funded competition.
More what I mean, is a semi-upgrade, with both forward and backward-compatible games.
For instance, they could release Wii games that when played on a Wii HD would use the extra power only to go HD, a few HD-only games, and of course, standard Wii games, with no HD benefit, just like GBC games could usually be played on a Green-and black GB, just without color.
Get the component cables... it really does improve the Wii's output, and it will let you properly use a widescreen TV. It's still not HD, but 480p is a lot nicer than 480i
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
If you stand in front of the natal, turn to the side, and then turn back facing it... how can it tell whether you turned back toward it or away from it? The body silhouette is the same. Would it actually be smart enough to tell that it's seeing your face, not the back of your head?
I think it's good tech, and Microsoft has been putting a lot of work into developing these sorts of innovative new interfaces; but it just seems like it will have a severely limited scope. Much like speech recognition is GREAT in a very small set of circumstances, and a nuisance in most others.
The biggest problems with Natal for a console that I see, is that any game with any depth at all will require that an additional controller be used. That's not really a problem, but makes it a little less exciting.
One thing I'd love to see is for a console to open up their development process and create an App Store similar to the iPhone. There would be an explosion of freeware, indie games, and assorted applications.
Microsoft's getting real, real close to that with XNA: http://creators.xna.com/en-US/
Comment of the year
It wouldn't be any different. I guess I should have put a smiley on it. Steam is shit, but at least it kinda works for PC because most games are 1 player per PC. On a console with multiple players, that could be a real hassle. I should say, "will be a real hassle," because it's gonna happen.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
I would much rather use a mind reading control than get up to play using motion, and I own a Wii.
Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.
I just barely agree. The shift to 3d from 2d can add to gameplay (and, can take away, as well). If you do have a 3d world, a certain amount of processing power is really necessary to build a scene that isn't so crudely rendered that it really does subtract from the gameplay.
However, I think the PS2, heck, the Dreamcast, hit the threshold of 'good enough' in that regard. I really don't believe that the additional power of the 360 and PS3 is being used to improve gameplay, to create larger worlds, to make better AI. I think Mass Effect (which is a great game) could have easily been published on the PS2 with pretty much not a single instance of changed gameplay... just less detailed models, simpler textures, fewer animations, and so forth. This is subjective, so tastes vary, but for me I could care less about the difference between standard and high def, or whether the control panel is a simple texture, or every button is an intricately and individually modeled.
What, because an unreliable wireless connection is so much better than sticking with wires? Actual price of it is $100, but it's hardly a requirement
Actually, it is somewhat a requirement, depending on how old your house is. In my current apartment (built in the early 70s) there is one cable jack in the whole apartment, meaning my placement of a modem is limited to one wall, in the middle of the living room. So, in order to have a computer in any other room, or an Xbox, I need a wifi router.
My girlfriends apartment is even worse (built in the early-mid-60's), she only has one cable jack, and only has 2 functioning phone jacks. So basically she needs wifi to have any choice in placement.
[citation needed] By my count, it's somewhere in the $500 games for a full setup, including games. Good luck getting a decent computer for that much.
Or you could just throw a $100 video card in your existing computer, and have a decent gaming box (if it was made in the last 3 years), if you really want to be risque, you could throw in an extra $75 of RAM in as well. Most people have existent computers, so there is no need to buy a new one.
So $175 is much cheaper than $500.
I'm sure you could build a better computer than an Xbox for around $500 (sans monitor), and even if it went over, a computer is more useful for more things than a console.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
it just seems like it will have a severely limited scope. Much like speech recognition is GREAT in a very small set of circumstances, and a nuisance in most others.
I agree with you here, we've discussed how unimaginative the majority of the Wii games are going with just a 'waggle' to perform actions...I suspect with Natal game designers will end up having to put in a load of crazy gestures because there is no standard controller. Also think about things like golf/baseball/driving - I'm pretty sure all of these would feel much more immersive if you actually had an object in your hands as with the Wii.
Either way, I think sales show that Nintendo certainly picked up on a good percentage of people who wished advancement in a different field, other than pure horsepower.
And console utilization and third party sales show they disappointed them.
The Wii was the only true next gen system due to its control system. All that Sony and Microsoft are interested in right now is playing catch up.
It was pretty obvious that for realism you can't drive a car with buttons and analog sticks. It's amazing how much emphasis is put on graphics and so little has been put on the human interaction aspect of gaming.
The controllers in use on the XBox 360 and PS3 are barely more sophisticated than those on first generation games consoles.
Nintendo products are built like tanks.
However, I am on my 4th Wii.
First (launch) Wii showed graphical artifacting in Twilight Princess.
Second Wii wouldn't sync remotes properly.
Third Wii crashed consistently when trying to load Wii Sports Golf (disc was fine, and I believe I got it to crash consistently with other games).
Fourth Wii is going strong.
Been meaning to try SotN for a while though.
Yeah, try it. For one, it's simply a great game. For two, if you compare it to a very similar SNES game, Super Metroid (rules), you'll see that the PSX had way more 2D horsepower. The giant screen-filling bosses of Metroid were a little clunky and not overly animated. The giant screen-filling bosses of SotN look fluid and alive in comparison. For three, it's one of the last AAA 2D titles, so as a 2D fan you should definitely check out this piece of history. :)
The enemies of Democracy are
I'm sure there's a way to do it right, though. Guitar Hero's doing all right selling games that require special controllers - not that putting out a new or crazy controller is guaranteed to be a great sales plan, but as long as they put out a few good games to go along with it it ought to do all right on the current xbox.
Oh please, Project Natal didn't take off years ago when it was called EyeToy, what makes you think it'll take off now ?
The E3 Project Natal - Milo Demo with Peter Molyneux is pretty damned impressive.
Sure it is...now. Any owner of a 30001 PS2 or a 1001 or 5001 PS1 can tell you that some years back it wasn't quite as good. Course, those 50001 PS2's are tanks.
$350 for the box (depending on when you bought it) $75 for wireless ethernet card that wasn't built-in $60 for additional controller $30 for the recharager battery pack designed to work with the controllers but doesn't leaving you stuck with conventional batteries $x for cabling if you need hdmi or whatever.
Where did you buy yours? Mine was $400 for the machine, a 20GB HDD, 2 wireless controllers, 1 wired headset, 1 "charge and play" kit, and two games. That was in 2007. Costco.
I then bought the wireless dongle, which was overpriced; and the wireless headset, which was overpriced; and a different AV cable, which, like all cables for anything, was overpriced. However, the only thing that was really necessary was the AV cable, and that was just because my TV is goofy. The other 2 are totally optional, and I don't actually use the wireless anymore (I've given up on wireless for any high-bandwidth activities--I've sunk way too much time and money into trying to get it to play nice in my apartment and just ran concealed LAN cable to switches everywhere I need proper net connectivity--works right every time and is cheaper to boot).
Personally speaking, switching to the 360 from Windows for gaming has been way cheaper than what I was spending to keep my gaming machine up. I haven't bought any gaming hardware for 2 years. None. I haven't upgraded my gaming rig at all. I've saved a lot of money.
Okay, that's a blatant lie. I did spend quite a bit of money on a computer upgrade. I switched to a Mac Pro. The Xbox team screwed the Windows team out of at least one customer (I'm sure it's many more than one).
Or you can just DIY with a new barebone from tigerdirect and get out of there for $500 or less easy. My new one is an AMD 7550, a 4650 PciE card, a 300Gb Sata2, a nice black case,4Gb of DDR2 800Mhz, and a 20x DVD +/-. Adding in the cost of XP X64 and shipping I got out of there for a hair over $500, something like $509.
Plays games like Bioshock and Left4Dead really nicely, and I'll be able to keep it for several years as the board will support Phenom II Quad and 32Gb of RAM. i don't know why folks say PC gaming is expensive because it really ain't. My oldest is playing Left4Dead(he was the one that talked me into getting a copy for myself) on a 3Ghz Celeron with a X1650Pro while he waits on me to get this 3.6Ghz P4 refurb finished for him. It plays smooth and does what he wants to do.
Sure, if you gotta have the latest epeen and get a 1000FPS in Crysis it's gonna cost, but who really cares about those tech demo games except the guys looking for bragging rights? My new box not only plays games and surfs the web, it transcodes video, lets me get office work done, with a cheap capture card makes a great little DVR, etc. For all you can do with it $500 really isn't a bad price. And now that I have the new box I can get several years out of it with just a $50 part here, or a $100 GPU a couple of years down the road. And when I'm done I can pass it off to a family member and THEY will get several more years worth of use out of it. Hell I still have an old 1.1Ghz Celeron HP that makes a great little Nettop 9 years after I first picked it up for gaming. You really can get a lot of mileage out of a PC these days, and even the cheap CPUs are ludicrous speed.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Can we have world size, lots of monsters and HD for real this time? :)
The interweb detectives will find out again
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Re: Microsoft
As has been mentioned elsewhere, the dominant console cycle for the past few decades has been about 5 years. Microsoft released the 360 four years after the original Xbox probably for two primary reasons: 1) losses associated with the manufacture of the Xbox, and 2) to get the jump on Sony. The cost of that strategy has been record-setting poor quality, and they have had to compensate with a $1 billion 3-year limited warranty replacement/refurbishment system to stay in the game. So far from their current market share of about 30% (if one includes the Wii) or 60% (if one only includes the PS3), they are still very much in the game, but I wonder about the long-term effect on customer loyalty. Maybe I am completely wrong here in questioning this aspect of their business, and we should look as this whole RRoD (and E74) experience with reverence?
Re: technology and costs
As the videogame medium contains a very significant technical element, it is probably prudent to consider where performance is heading for the next generation. Realism as style in this medium has been very influential affecting everything from real-time ambient lighting, physics-based animation, precise collision detection, industrial design in modelling, and detailed, organic entity design. All of this detail can make for a more involving experience, and I believe it is essential for maturing the medium. The market for games has grown significantly, and so it makes a lot of sense that the industrial systems that produce films (with all those producers, directors, writers, actors, designers, and expert consultants) will also move into the creation of videogames, which of course carries with it significantly increased costs. The console as a device for creating these virtual experiences should provide as much capability as possible, as efficiently as possible. Currently the hardware designs most suited to processing the vast amounts of data required for constructing these virtual worlds involve many cores coordinating access to a very fat bus. Sony has overwhelmingly demonstrated that they understand these relationships, and appear to be set to launch a low-cost version of the PS3 sometime this year that will probably give them parity in the marketplace with their competitors.
I expect backwards compatibility to be more important for the next generation, especially considering the increased investment in software and services. I'd be surprised if any current player can again afford to start from scratch. As others have mentioned, Microsoft is likely to launch first probably in 2011, with Sony not too far behind. I believe Nintendo sees themselves as more of a toy company, and so occupy a different part of the market, but will still probably follow the 5-year-cycle.
Re: Motion control
Sony is obviously positioning themselves to both relate to the market that Nintendo created, and to offer a new experience to their customer base. Microsoft is attempting to break new ground by creating something entirely different, but I am not so sure that their technology gives them an advantage that Sony cannot largely replicate with some clever software, their motion and PSEye peripherals.
Re: OnLine
OnLive is interesting as the Cloud Computing/Timeshare model for gaming, but of course it depends on some pretty wide, low-latency pipes (which most of us can expect at some point in the future). It could offer a unique MMO experience where thousands of users could be in one shared virtual environment, but it is unclear whether this will be a compelling experience any time in the near future. OnLive's suitability for any serious gaming of course comes down to the latency and image quality issues, and I question whether this is a viable business in the near-term. But of course, I have not seen the demos, and I am not an investor, but I doubt any of the other console players are seriously concerned as of yet. When this model becomes viable, what prevents the other players from doing the same? Or will they have some arrangement with OnLive's service?
Oh, I agree, there is a place for graphical wankfests, and Dead Rising does rock. :) Dead Rising is the perfect example of why developing a game specifically for a system is the best way. Dead Rising takes advantage of the 360's power, and does not work so well on the Wii. OTOH, stuff like Tiger Woods is showing why motion control can kick serious ass. (On that note, I never really got the point behind those "press the button on the line" golf games. I don't think that's anything like RL golf.)
On the motion control, I couldn't agree more. Third parties complain their games don't sell well on the Wii, but the primary problem (other than an extreme lack of effort) is most don't seem to "get" the Wiimote. Waggle is best used in specific, limited ways (Galaxy does this great, only really using waggle for spin attacking), not as an entire control scheme. The Wiimote + Nunchuk can work perfectly fine as a traditional controller, with a waggle being an added button or two.
Making motion sensing the basis of a game can make sense though, Tiger Woods is the perfect example.
The real, underused, revolution of the Wiimote is the IR pointer. Full games can be based around this, the Pikmin Wiimake is a good example. It's pretty much like having a mouse and a gamepad at the same time.
So what will you play when you have friends over? Because most PCs are connected to a monitor far smaller than a living-room TV, PC games are far less likely to be in a shared-view genre (e.g. Bomberman or Super Smash Bros.) or to support split-screen play than console games. So apart from Serious Sam, Lego $MOVIE, and EA Sports, you usually need a separate PC and a separate copy of the game for each player. That can get more expensive than Wii60 real quick.
Besides, aren't most PC games designed for a Microsoft operating system anyway?
Even though I have 4 controllers for the damn thing, I actually haven't had enough people over or dragged it to a Halo LAN in forever now, mostly due to Xbox Live and the logistics respectively. I am aware that Windows is practically required to play games on PCs, but at least I won't have to pay to play and I have a ton more games to choose from plus no disc swapping, if I could get it hooked up to my TV that would be an added bonus.
PC gaming has only gotten better in the last 3-4 years. You can get GREAT discounts from Steam if you don't mind downloading your games and not having physical media. I guess a lot of thanks goes out to Valve for this, and not PC per se.
Maybe Microsoft wants to go download-only and nickel-and-dime its users even more, but Nintendo relies heavily on its retail ecosystem (including the used market), which provides massive amounts of free marketing for the company. This is particularly true in Japan.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
The slow down in processor speedups and the egalization of the GPU market (thank you ATI) has made PC gaming pretty cheap. MMORPGs are also pulling gamers back to the PC and that won't stop (MMORPG gaming on consoles is a joke, they take too much time investment to not invest in the best platform to play them ... which will always be the PC). If consoles fall too far behind the PC will start eating into their business.
So in other words, it took them less than 1 console generation to get their shit together. The PS2 was the first console they actually designed as a console.
Here's a bit of a history lesson for you. Nintendo was planning on grabbing a disk player accessory for their newest generation console to keep up with Sega. Instead of designing it in house they contracted Sony to build a disk reader for them. In the end, Nintendo decided on not using a disk for the next generation and continued with the cartridge for the N64. So Sony was sitting their with this disk read designed for a console system. They thought, what the heck, let's bundle this into our own console and sell it, so they did.
PS1 = Console adapted from accessory
PS2 = Console built from ground up
In the grand scheme of things, I can forgive Sony for having a not 100% good product for the PS1, and the fact that they got good QC for the PS2 after the first production round is astounding.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Wrong. The first three games had 3D characters on top of pre-rendered backgrounds.
3D characters rendered in a 2D space is still a 2D game. Games like RE have been done long before any console actually supported true 3D graphics.
lmao, touche... that was their master plan all along anyways, just fuck with console makers until PC gaming is cheaper and better.
Even though I have 4 controllers for the damn thing, I actually haven't had enough people over or dragged it to a Halo LAN in forever now, mostly due to Xbox Live and the logistics respectively.
I guess my perspective must be tainted by the fact that I provide the video games at an annual family party, which is held somewhere without cable or DSL access, and I'm not ready to pay $720 a year for MiFi service. Over the past near-decade, Super Smash Bros. series has got the most play time.
if I could get it hooked up to my TV that would be an added bonus.
If your PC has a DVI-D or DVI-I out, most HDTVs have an HDMI in. If your PC has a VGA or DVI-I out, most HDTVs have a VGA in, and you can use a $40 adapter to convert VGA signals into composite and S-Video signals for an SDTV.
Oh please, Project Natal didn't take off years ago when it was called EyeToy, what makes you think it'll take off now ?
It really depends on the marketing. Microsoft has a really hot product, but if they treat it as a simple add-on, as the EyeToy was treated, it's not going to go anywhere. Some developers will add support for it; most will ignore it, because it's just extra cost to support it.
The Wii is a success because the whole platform is built on motion control, and every game HAS to support it.
Does Microsoft have the balls to bundle the Natal with the next XBox and make it the primary/only controller? It's a helluva risk.
My Dad owns a 720P DLP and I find the picture quality to be far superior then some of my friends LCDs and Plasmas.
www.squizzi-designs.com | graphic & web design
I cant see DLC-only being limited to being your console only. These companies know that even though there has been less emphasis on playing together with friends in the home (as opposed to over the internet) in recent years, its still a major reason to own a console and a major part of the video game experience. So, the companies like Microsoft could easily follow the steam approach, where a user could login to there friends console through Xbox Live, download the games and DLC that they have and still enjoy the gaming experience with there friends, only to be booted off if he signed in somewhere else. Still though, its a long way away. A majority of the market still doesn't participate in Live or even PSN, and the requirements for DLC content, bandwidth, etc, to be reliable and worth the money to push for, aren't in most homes yet, and don't meet the budgets of most console gamers.
www.squizzi-designs.com | graphic & web design
The Wii is a success because it was introduced at the right price point with a concept that got people interested in the system.
Most of the people that bought the system, though, have bought few (or no) games for it, and even though you see massive amounts of shovelware on store shelves for the thing because it has the largest installed base, no one is selling large numbers on it, except for a handful of Nintendo titles (usually bundled with hardware, such as Wii Fit, Mario Kart, and Wii Play).
Almost every game I play regularly on the Wii has limited or no support for the motion control. It's not compulsory for the games released on the system. An interesting note, though, is that support has to be added to the game for each type of controller available for the system, so if you have a Wii Classic controller or a GameCube controller, they can only be used on games that have support for them.
In any case, though, I agree that anything released as an add-on is pretty much doomed to limited support. The best example of this is pretty much any hardware add-on released for the PS2: HD video, hard drive, ethernet, eyetoy. The GameCube had a network adapter, as well. Even the newest PS2 games don't often support HD video, and the hard drive and ethernet have extremely limited support in the US, despite being nearly must-have features on all of the current generation consoles (though internal storage is obviously limited on the Wii).
-PainKilleR-[CE]
Depends on what you call a "2D game" or a "3D game".
You can have games made with sprites that play in 3D (i.e., F-Zero).
You can have games made with polygons that play in 2D (i.e., Ikaruga).
Regarding gameplay, the old Resident Evils, as well as pioneer Alone in the Dark, are 3D. There is a sense of depth: the (actual) 3D characters move in a (faked) 3D environment.
Circumcision is child abuse.
That's fine for some people, but I'd rather go out and play soccer for fun. Playing games is how I relax. I'm not saying you are wrong to enjoy it. I am saying it is wrong to tell others to feel differently about something just because you like it.
And for the record, Slashdot is much more pro anything Nintendo than it is "moving is hard". I am glad to know that other people feel it is cool but mostly gimmicky. But if you enjoy it, more power to you.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
Good point... The TV has as much to do with it as the signal.
I hadn't thought of that point.
-Pope Peter Porker, S.O.W., K.M.K.R., U.G.O.A., F.S.G.S.D.
Aren't you a fantastic little smart ass. I was referring to how I agree with you that over 720p is really not needed, since my fathers DLP can only display up to 720p, I found the quality of the picture to be superior even though my friends' TVs are displaying the same signals in 1080 as opposed to 720...
www.squizzi-designs.com | graphic & web design
No. I was being serious.
I hadn't thought of how most 1080 TV's can be upstaged by a really good 720p TV. I've seen it myself too.
-Pope Peter Porker, S.O.W., K.M.K.R., U.G.O.A., F.S.G.S.D.
The PSX was basically the pinnacle of 2D game consoles.
Actually, no, the PSX sucked at 2D. The NEOGEO hardware was much better for 2D graphics (It had a lot to do with the games coming on a truckload of ROM chips). Compare the PS1 and the NEGEO versions of metal slug for example.
Ok, then, I apologize for that.
www.squizzi-designs.com | graphic & web design
Yeah, okay, I felt bad about forgetting post-Genesis Sega consoles, but I don't feel bad at all for neglecting to mention a 'console' that was essentially an arcade rig minus the cabinet with a price for both the hardware and the games to match.
The enemies of Democracy are
No, but saying that the PSX was the pinnacle of 2D gaming is wrong. The NEOGEO was just an example of how that was even evident at the time, with much older hardware. It wasn't until the PS2 generation that we had maxed out 2D games and animation.
Or you can run cable through your place. Pop off the baseboard, some minimal drywall work to install the face plates. Something that can be done on a Saturday morning. Wired connections are better for watching videos or playing games and you're going to end up with the same issue regardless of it being an xbox or a pc.
My apartment doesn't have baseboards. :)
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey