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What Microsoft Should and Shouldn't Do For the Xbox 720
donniebaseball23 writes "Xbox 360 just came off a record November, with more than 1.7 million units sold in the U.S., but behind closed doors Microsoft is planning its next move for the successor to the popular console. Plenty of Xbox 720 rumors have surfaced in recent months, but veteran games journalist Chris Morris has filtered through them to provide a realistic take on what Microsoft should and shouldn't do with Xbox 360's successor. In particular, he notes that Microsoft should adopt the Blu-ray format from Sony. 'A DVD drive as a medium for storing larger and larger games is outdated – and it steps on the toes of a system that bills itself as the high definition leader,' Morris writes. 'Microsoft resisted the move to Blu-ray this generation without any ill effects. It even survived picking the losing side in the format battle between Blu-ray and HD-DVD, but it can't rely on the DVD to take it into the next generation.'"
They will use some proprietary disc format for sure.
What's up with that? A reference to the number of times an electron must rotate before it returns to its original state?
I wonder whether the next generation of consoles from Sony and Microsoft will use discs at all. Perhaps we are not yet at the point where it is practical to download 30GB of game data, but with incremental background downloads it might be feasible in the 720's timeframe.
Ultimately the OnLive model is clearly what we will all be using, but it'll be a while yet before low-latency broadband is ubiquitous.
will this machine be too early to just stream games rather than having discs?
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
They run, what? 11-13% hardware failure rate in the field? Just rename it Xboxski.
The big question is will the M$ management be smart enough to milk the 360, or will they kill it off to force everyone onto something new. You would think that people with 360 who subscribe to Xbox Live would be a cash cow, but the M$ management has a long history of screwing its own customers to make them buy something new. I would be surprised if it didn't have Blu-ray support, but I would be more surprised if the system was the least bit open. On the other hand, I don't care. I kept waiting and waiting for 360 or PS3 prices to drop, and I waited so long that I lost interest. Hmmmmm, the yard needs mowing.
Make love, not reality television.
That's a no-brainer. Or you would start seeing Xbox games shipping on 2, 3 or 4 DVDs. Sony would have a field day with that.
What next? A confident prediction that it will have a method of connecting to the TV set, possibly via HDMI?
Work like no one is watching. Dance like you've never been hurt. Make love like you don't need the money.
"What's wrong with Blu-ray? Everything except the fidelity of the content."
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
If it uses discs at all, Blu-ray level capacity will be essential. It will be a lot cheaper to base it entirely on online gaming, and XBox has established itself as an online system pretty well. But is there anuy need for this? The inclusion of a blu-ray movie player isn't going to be such a bonus by the time it is released. Blu-ray is reaching commodity pricing as it is.
Of course the rest of the online media is going to be in there. MS *knows* people want to stream movies, and know that the overlap between movie consumers and gamers is huge. And of course they need decent release titles.
They could use the standard blue ray format but simply use their own encryption on the data it contains. I can't see any good reason for them to spend millions developing a new hardware solution unless they're not confident of their own abilities to encrypt. And even if they did it wouldn't be long before someone plugged the drive into a PC and got it working somehow to be able to get the data off the discs.
AFAIK the Java Requirements is only for Blu-Ray Movies. For Storing Game Data, you dont need Java.
AFAIK the Java Requirements is only for Blu-Ray Movies. For Storing Game Data, you dont need Java.
These days people expect their Blu-Ray player to have a network port, and sing and dance and give blowjobs. Well, maybe not the last part. But if you have a blu-ray drive it's retarded not to play movies, and you ought to support all the functionality if your hardware is sufficiently capable. Having a DVD-ROM but not playing DVDs only worked for the Wii because it was so much cheaper than the competition, and because Nintendo customers have been trained to expect a system that only plays games for years.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
...or convert to radians.
sproketboy != Slashdot
What?
Really need to upgrade my Blu-Ray Player. I have none of those features.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
And spells Proprietary in a *very* different/new way too
I say we take off and nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure...
Am I really the only person who thinks the next generation of consoles should abandon optical media all together and get back to solid state drives similar to the cardridges of days gone by putting games and movies on USB drives or simply by downloading them over the internet?
I think that should be a drinking game.
One drink for reading a post from an Apple/Microsoft/Sony fanboy or anti-fanboy
One drink for grammer and speeling natzis
Two drinks for "First" in first post
Three drinks for reading a post responding to an AC.
I don't own a 360 (for a variety of reasons, of which I'm about to explain the key one) but every friend I know who owns one - _EVERY ONE_ - has had at least one fatal hardware failure with their device and several have had multiple fatal hardware failures. Simply put, I'm stunned at the failure rate for the 360 and I'm blown away that people tolerated it as much as they did. I really wish I was exaggerating when I say every friend I know who has one had it fail at least once. Usually it was a disk drive failure (kind of important for a disk-driven device...) but I really don't know of anyone who didn't suffer at least once failure.
I know I amount to anecdotal evidence but when I see that large a collection of device failures (and the friends of whom I speak are spread across multiple countries from coast to coast so it isn't a local phenomenon), I have to think I'm actually not anecdotal evidence - I feel I'm witnessing a significant trend.
The most important thing Microsoft needs to focus on with a new XBox is build quality. Everything else should come a distant second.
What Microsoft Shouldn't Do For the Xbox 720:
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
Why use Blu-Ray or any disc formats @ all? All it does is limit how many games they can bundle, and increase the risk of mechanical damage to the disks. Instead, since flash memory densities - currently @ par with Blu Ray densities from 25-125 GB will be available - will increase every couple of years, why not make the storage of the X-Box one of those formats - be it SD, CF, xD or something? Just like the Sony PSP used Sony's memory sticks, MS could use SD if they want something standard, or xD if they want something proprietary. That way, they save on the Blu Ray drive costs as well - just have a slot for removable SD cards. Game makers can then choose to make heavy games that need 64GB, or light games that would fit on a CD which they can put into a 1GB SD. This would enable them to have a range of games for a range of prices. It also gets rid of the problem of Blu Ray drive related failures.
Since I don't own games like PlayStation, Wii or X-Box, I have no ideas on what other improvements or pitfalls should be there.
Thumb drives now can easily exceed the capacity of a Blu-Ray. They are more expensive, but Microsoft can certainly bundle that price into the cost of the game and get a discount for buying in massive bulk? This would also prevent them from having an (expensive) optical drive with moving parts and the like. They could replace it with 2 (much cheaper) USB ports and call it a day.
Great warrior...hrmph! Wars not make one great.
DO: Make a sensible sized hard drive standard for every model. The 360 suffered early cycle because games were tentative about assuming that they could use a hard disk (the "core" model didn't have one). The 4GB drive that ships with the current model is also inadequate. 20GB for the bottom end model should be considered an absolute minimum.
DO: Pack in the RAM. Of all of the factors that are driving developer frustration with the current console generation, RAM seems to be at the top of the pack. It's worse for the PS3 (with its awkward memory-split and larger OS footprint) than for the 360, but still... RAM is pretty cheap and packing plenty of it in will pay dividends in 5 years time.
DO: Continue to develop what you've been doing on voice controls for the console's UI. I have mixed feelings about Kinect, but voice activation is really great - and has an appeal to a wide demographic.
DON'T: Worry too much about making a loss on each unit sold for the first year or two. MS's objectives should be to get a large installed base early on and to make sure that their machine is fairly future-proof. This probably means selling at a loss early on. The real profits from a console come later in the cycle, when component prices have fallen, so you can reduce prices and still sell at a profit, and when you have third party developers giving you free money, by putting out games for your system (and paying you a fee on each copy sold) without you having to invest in development.
DON'T: Allow your dev team to push out firmware updates every 5 minutes. The 360 has had a few too many firmware updates for comfort, but perhaps not to the extent of being a deal-breaker. With the PS3, the sheer frequency of updates (and the length of time they take) is intensely frustrating, when you just want to fire up the console and play a game.
DON'T: Allow region locking. Sony have already ditched this and it did them no harm. MS knows region coding is junk; it doesn't use it for any of its first or second party games. Take the option away from developers; its time for them to grow up. It also reduces the incentive for people to get consoles mod-chipped - which in turn means they may be less likely to look into a bit of piracy. Which brings me onto the final point:
DO: Assume that whatever copy-protection you put into the machine will get broken sooner or later and plan accordingly. Reduce the incentive for people to mod their consoles, rather than going for the punitive route. Don't region lock. Do offer up an "other OS" walled garden. Do make it as easy as possible for indie developers to get their software onto the platform.
Why not just have a 1TB HDD? Or a swanky SSD? That's the inevitability anyway. Store games in the cloud a la Steam and download them at your convenience. Don't fear the cloud. These days, such a move isn't bound to exclude many as it would have in the past.
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k277/mrpane911/360.gif
Just replace one spin with two.
I'll wait for XBox 1.44
There you are, staring at me again.
"Sell at a mass market price", "Embrace the cloudloosely", "Incorporate Kinect into the box", "Keep building out the entertainment functionality", "Launch with major franchises"...
Come on!!!
What an extremely unimaginative list of suggestions. Here's a proper list:
* Max amount of RAM that fits in to the SRP, preferably 16 GB, at least 8 GB, probably more important than CPU nowadays for consoles
* Blu-Ray
* Expansion through USB-ports, connect any USB harddrive
Recently released benchmarks from Sony suggest the PS4 will do them all*
* some benchmarks may be aggressively inflated
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Stop using proprietary HDDs, controller protocols etc. This is one of the few things Sony got right this generation but I'm afraid MS don't feel enough pressure from them to do the same.
Stop charging for Xbox Live. But with Sony not being competent enough to provide a service that can compete with Xbox Live I doubt they'll have any reason to do so. I wish that Sony would launch ahead of MS (not gonna happen) and apply some pressure.
Provide a decent app store. Apple must be kept out of the gaming space at all costs. I want my developers to focus their efforts on $50 million projects, not on silly Angry Birds derivatives that would have been free Flash games on some obscure website 10 years ago.
But knowing MS, I doubt they will do any of those things.
I have three Xbox360s, each for a different room of the house. In addition to game consoles they function as media consumption devices for Netflix and for my mountain of movies on the NAS. However, It is such a pain in the ass to migrate between them (and you must, if you want your gamer profile & saved games to interoperate), that I've actually disconnected TWO of them and replaced them with smaller quieter Linux media centers (screw it, If I can only play games on one, I'll only play games on one).
The DRM they employ is hurting their business. I'm thankful that I can re-download my content on different consoles, or swap my hard-drives around, but the fact is, I can only be signed in to XBL in one room at a time, and my Netfilx bandwidth isn't tied to XBL servers except artificially. When I want to play a game online, no one else can watch the movies or surf the marketplace which I pay to access. Yes, I can use separate accounts, but I shouldn't have to fragment my usage needlessly. Besides, I tried that already, trying to find the right drive or profile to play a specific game or movie is RIDICULOUS.
Also, this "online pass" bullshit that's bundled with games has to stop. I already pay for XBL services, MS provides the matchmaking API, its XBL. Dear Epic, I've bought and played every game you ever made from Zork to Gears, but when your activation code prevented me from playing the game I purchased, because another player had used the online pass first, I decided to boycot you... We have 1 disc. Only one of us can play at a time online anyway. You once did produce truly beloved Epic MegaGames, but this bullshit attempt to rape the used game market has caused me to hate you.
In short: SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! People will spend a lot more if you make it easier us to do so. Get rid of the DRM, or at least make it marginally usable.
Until then, I think I'll start investing in your competitors: The DRM free, truly cross platform, charity supporting, indie games.
Why they should call it the Xbox 720:
1. Twice as much RROD
...and because everyone already has three or four devices plugged into their TV that plays DVD movies.
I imagine once day broadband infrastructure will catch up with streaming demands and when that happens, more and more gaming companies will look into adopting services similar to OnLives model. You may laugh now, but consider that such a service is a DRM lovers wet dream. No game resources are sent to the consumer, only the final output. If consumers are only sold a simple client and all the processing can be done on company property then sent to the consumer, it will give publishers total control over where and when consumers have access to their product. We all know this is what these companies want, so you can bet each one of the major console makers are at least looking into this model.
Why would Microsoft adopt Blu-Ray to replace DVD as the standard disc format? The only reason they would do so is to provide an option for playing Blu-Ray movies on the system, and I don't see a need for doing that. If anything, they would probably use the existing HD-DVD technology for it's games instead of paying Sony licensing costs per system to include Blu-Ray. They already have the technology, it's capacity is close to that of Blu-Ray, there are no licensing costs, and it's a possible (though minor) counter against piracy, since not many people have readers/writers. Someone please tell me if I'm totally wrong in thinking this.
Looks like Microsoft... *puts on sunglasses* is going around in circles (with sound).
Two Drinks + n for a "First" in a post that's not first, where n is the number of threads into the comments where it appears.
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
I'm a 360 gamer, not really the best gamer but I like my occasional game of COD. I've played it on the PS and thought nothing different from the two.
One thing I can't for the life of me is understand the infatuation with mobile games android or iwhatever. There are 1000s of games all of which could be categorized under a dozen or so different types, astroid wannabe, tetris wannabe, mahjong wannabe, card games, angry birds / angry birds wannabe, board games.
PC gaming is becoming rarer though you get slight graphical and performance advantages it hardly holds a mainstream market anymore.
I say Sony and Microsoft keep doing what they are doing and that is keep holding the high standard they have against each other by offering low cost solutions that anyone can afford and stay ahead of the curve while doing it, other than the nit picking I hear from the occasional non-gamer about overheating or bad DVD drives which really means fuck all since both consoles are mature enough to be fairly stable out of the box.
My only gripe is the separation of networks PSN and XBox Live, how wicked would it be if they were linked in someway.
Don't call it an xbox 720 or 1080, or people will assume they're talking about its resolution, whereas the current xbox does 1080 anyway
... to the point where I can boot XBox 720 discs on my PC, even without booting Windows first.
Anyone remember how some games on the Amiga loaded very fast because they did not boot an OS first?
Why do we need competing platforms from Microsoft? Windows 7, Phone, Xbox?
I don't think that'd be a drinking game so much as an effective method of causing acute liver failure.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't Microsoft use a "points" system to purchase games, DLC, and features instead of charging an exact dollar price? Example: I want to download a copy of a new Batman skin and it will cost me 575 "points" instead of say "$1.25". I don't like artificial currencies. I would like to see them go with free online access, bluray drive (since believe it or not, everyone does not have access to broadband for digital distribution), don't force updates on people who just want to play single player games (online ones sure, but if I want to play single player and deal with any bugs then let me do it since it will be my own fault if I choose to not update), and clean up the hardware design a bit.
And, most important:
What Microsoft Should and Shouldn't Do For the Xbox 720
Pump out stories about what they should do so people will have it on their mind while buying christmas presents.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
The PS3 has a 2x Blu-ray player, meaning 9 MB/s
It also does DVDs as an 8x player, meaning about 10.5 MB/s
The XBox 360 has a 12x DVD player, meaning 16 MB/s
DVDs and BDs have close to the same rotational speeds defined as "1x", DVD at around 600-1600 and BD at around 800-1900, so a BD does spin faster. The difference isn't much, so you're right about data density being mainly responsible for the throughput.
The XBox 360 just spins the disc much faster to achieve higher throughput, which is why an XBox 360 sounds like a wind tunnel during reads compared to the PS3.
The 1st of the new line of 4k TVs goes on sale this month:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20116433-1/toshibas-$12000-55-inch-4k-3d-tv-dazzling/
and there's lots more in the pipeline. We're on the edge of another jump in resolution for home media. (I hope.)
I don't know if Blu-Ray media has the bandwidth/throughput to stream 4k.... if not, we could be in for another format war again. (Or media would come on a disk, and have to be transferred to hard drive before it could be played.) Remember, both MS and Sony consoles were keen on being movie playing devices as well as gaming devices.... I doubt they will move away from that position.
What Microsoft needs to do is look at the upcoming tech and plan for it. If they make a device that's only capable of 1080p, and a year or two later Sony comes out with something that will do 4k.... it'll be ugly for Microsoft.
Old Joke:
I can't believe that anyone would need more than an Xbox 640.
With 20-35GB being the standard monthly cap in many places like Canada, digital distribution for console games just isn't going to be feasible for a decade or two.
Why does everyone bill this the 720? This thing should be called the Xbox 1080. Everyone's billing their next gen systems as being 3x as powerful (360x3, do the math). Also, the next gen systems will all do 1080p. Despite marketing, there are only a small handful of current gen console games that run at 1080p. Even if the game states 1080p on the box, it's generally just stating that it will upscale the game to 1080p. The only real 1080p you're getting are menus and title screens.
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
may be aggressively inflated
Will it help with "giving blowjobs" part?
Scrap 30Hz support, and only allow 60Hz and 120Hz.
Not to mention rural areas that get a cap of just barely over one single-layer DVD-ROM per month over satellite.
They could support blu ray and their own proprietary format from the same drive. Though Apple being Apple they'd probably not support Blu Ray even if their drive were physically capable of doing so, or if they did of charge $20 or something to enable the functionality.
I don't usually do this, but: FTFY.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
Thats where the inflation part comes in, those dolls wont blow them selves up you know! At least not the cheap models...
Benchmarks, smenchmarks. The only thing we want to know is if it includes a giant enemy crab.
If you want to buy a game when it's Saturday night, and the buses don't run again until Tuesday (no service on Sundays, New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas), then three days vs. three days is a wash unless you have a severe monthly cap on your connection.
Do make it as easy as possible for indie developers to get their software onto the platform.
I thought Microsoft already offered Xbox Live Indie Games. The steps to get started resemble the steps to get started with iOS app development (well actually vice versa, because XBLIG came out before iOS 2):
Correct. ISPs in a lot of places, especially in Microsoft's home country, still have trouble pushing GBs through Wi-Fi.
Yes, I can use separate accounts, but I shouldn't have to fragment my usage needlessly
I would expect that you can only use your gamer tag on 1 Xbox at a time.
Not everybody lives alone. How many gamertags can access a single household's Netflix subscription?
The one thing it should not do is call it the Xbox 720. The number 360 makes sense, 720 on the other hand does not.
...and because everyone already has three or four devices plugged into their TV that plays DVD movies.
And which hog all the TV's inputs without some sort of external switchbox. And which take up space, especially in cramped markets like Japan and NYC.
I went on GEICO's web site a month ago and discovered that insurance alone would cost more per month than my $45/mo bus ticket, let alone buying the car, adding fuel, and changing the oil every 3000 miles. So how do people afford a car?
Oh proprietary. I thought he was aiming for priapistic - some people do get overly excited by these things, after all.
Shit, now I'm going to be in a coma after reading your post. Hope you're happy.
-1 overrated isn't the same thing as "I disagree".
The Women in my family all insist on playing their Elder Scrolls/Might&Magic/etc/etc on PCs running windows because they prefer the mouse. They will not consider playing on a console because they don't like the joystick or D-pad. I would rather they played on a console so they didn't call me with Windows problems. Sound familiar?
How much trouble would it be to replace one of the joysticks on a Xbox controller with a mini-trackball? (sorry if I have offended any diehard shooter fans if the second joystick is really that important) Wouldn't that help duplicate the Windows experience on a living room console?
USPTO of the future: consider this prior art ;)
PC's gaming advantages are not slight at all. My PC DESTROYS my consoles in graphical fidelty on all fronts.
Don't need to load the level or even the games code. Just need to stream the video. The next xbox could follow the Onlive model and be a dumb client.
So XBOX 360 is 360 since it is a revolution.
The next XBOX should be XBOX 1080 since consumers are dumb and know 1080 is good from TVs
It used to include a giant enemy crab, but then it took an arrow to the knee.
Chinese companies without a strong North American brand are still making "Famiclone" consoles based on a system-on-chip with a 6502 CPU and an old Ricoh/Nintendo graphics core. But then in a way, I guess you could classify this sort of 1983 tech as ARM because so many concepts from 6502 found their way into ARM via the BBC Micro fans who designed the ARM architecture.
If all these companies played nicely I could have one device for playing DVD/BDR shared over the network that all the others could hook into. I wouldn't need to buy the same bit of kit whenever I bought a new associated bit of kit, and if it ever failed I'd be able to swap out a single component instead of sending the entire thing off for repair. That's the kind of utopia we could have but likely never will, because everyone's too busy trying to focus on being everything to the living room instead of doing one or two things really well.
Seriously. Of all the things the next XBOX should do or not do, it should NOT use bluray, and in fact should certainly NOT be restricting itself to physical media!
Have people learned nothing over the last say oh 12 years or so? Who won the HDDVD VS BluRay wars? The Internet, that's who. Just ask Blockbuster and Netflix.
Sure XBOX has made some small positive steps, such as some downloads, and Netflix access. However these shouldn't be small addendum's, these should be major/primary features if they want to be leaders for the future.
More and more will be downloads, that is just a fact of where things are going. If they can't see that, or are blinded by DRM dreams they are insane. The DRM should be in the form of the console itself or tied to subscriptions, or XBOX live hardware validation etc... not some stupid DVD.
I am lazy. Gamers are lazy. I do not want to have to get up off my ass, to physically change a DVD, when I could just use my wireless controller to browse to whatever game I want to play next that I have previously downloaded and installed to my XBOX. Sure if you don't think we are all there yet with bandwidth, keep some sort of DVD device, or even flash of some kind... but use it for install only, do not require it to actually play. Its just another moving part to fail also.
Seriously if they are building for the future, then they should look to where we are headed, not to where we have already been. Also I swear the "not getting off my ass to change games" feature would be more important selling feature than any bells or whistles they might add (That includes downloads not making me go to brick and mortar store to buy games either)...
In a word... keyboard. Maybe they'll get a pile of PC gamers who detest the controller. The only use I find for it is streaming video because I detest the controller.
Wuddooeyeno? IITYWYBMAD? Like nuts? eclecticallyincorrect.com
From my old Magnavox to the N64, I barely had to wait at all to go between games or parts of games while booted. Now I can wait up to several minutes for the next part of the game to load (especially when it's caching itself on the hard drive). It screws up the flow.
I can't wait until flash is so cheap they distribute 50 GB games on a card. Then we may finally get close to the no-wait we used to have. 1 GB SD cards already cost pocket change in the bulk amounts game makers would be buying them (sad to think I got a good deal on one for $100 some years back).
Added bonus: downloadable content can reside on the card with the game instead of on the machine's storage.
Added added bonus: Harder for kids to destroy a memory card.
These days people expect their Blu-Ray player to have a network port, and sing and dance and give blowjobs. Well, maybe not the last part. But if you have a blu-ray drive it's retarded not to play movies, and you ought to support all the functionality if your hardware is sufficiently capable.
In the industry, this is known as the "Who's the king of the living room" fight. Which box is in charge? The TV? The disc player? The game console? The cable box? The amplifier? Some Boxee/RokuRevue box? Which ones have an Internet connection? Which one talks to Netflix?
And let's not even get started on remotes for all this.
Mantastic!!!
Duh. It's his propitiatory(tm) spelling of propitiatory(tm).
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.
propitiatory adj. (comparative more propitiatory, superlative most propitiatory) intended to propitiate, reconcile, expiate or appease; conciliatory
propitiate v. trans. (third-person singular simple present propitiates, present participle propitiating, simple past and past participle propitiated) To conciliate, appease or make peace with someone, particularly a god or spirit.
With whom will their new format make peace?
Please insert disc 9.
That was also the case for the switch from cartridges to discs. Even in the 8-bit home computer era, game developers had to plan for cassette drives being dog slow, and we got Invade-a-Load out of that. I guess one trick is to make the tutorial small, using more repeated textures.
What an opinionated piece that article is.
Don't launch in 2012. Fuck off... I don't care what is best for Microsoft. I am tired of consoles holding back game development. Having to dumb down the graphics and use clever object fade techniques so games will run on the consoles. In most cases, the PC ports of the games are the same shit as the console versions. Launch the new console as soon as it's ready and never mind strategically holding it back, assholes.
I play games on both Xbox 360 and PC and I see the same games on both platforms.
I don't give a fuck about shaking up game studios who think they can keep using the same engines over and over for their games.
Games used to drive hardware development on the PC. Now we get similar iterations of video cards with higher model numbers every year instead of significant improvements in performance. Remember Crysis? When it was released video cards that could play it well with the highest graphics settings weren't invented yet. It wasn't long before that was remedied. They did it as an after thought with Crysis 2, but the original release was disappointing on the PC, with console quality graphics. That's the only game I have seen in a long time that pushes modern hardware limits (if you installed the new high res texture packs and DX11 overlay)
If they keep the Xbox 360 on the market, then many game developers are going to stick with the lowest common denominator and keep their games compatible with both systems. Again, we'll see no improvement and the only one who benefits is Microsoft.
What I would expect is that the Xbox 720 or whatever they call it will still be able to run older games but it's time to retire sales of the old systems. The price of the new ones should be kept comparable to the old (within reason... maybe a little higher at first) At least it better be, or they can shove it up their ass.
New iterations of the Xbox 360 have seen slimmer form, wireless controllers with built in receivers, new designs that don't let you clip on your old hard drive anymore etc. and has kept the cost of replacement units up there. The hardware inside that counts is still the same.
The PSP had a unique disc format, but games could be ripped to and played from the memory card. XBox 360 games can be ripped to and played from the hard drive. PS3 games as well. How would HD-DVD help with this?
Twinstiq, game news
Normally, using the HTML notation of π or &pi will enable you to do that. Only problem - /. has disabled the usage of special characters via HTML, so you are stuck w/ just writing pi, and getting a pinprick in your punchline
Considering IBM has put eighteen PowerPC 64-bit cores in the A2 processor which is manufactured using 45nm while using less then 50-watts, Microsoft can easily fit six PowerPC 64-bit cores using either a 45nm or a 32nm process while staying under 15-watts.
You didn't notice a difference between the two platforms because its the same game (although very slightly different to the really anal) produced for multiple systems.
To really compare consoles, one should compare its exclusives. Exclusive content made specifically for the 360 is more likely to show off its power, while the converse is also true for the Playstation 3.
To avoid a troll tag, I'll not bother citing any examples that come to mind ...
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Speaking of Java ... imagine Sony bringing out its next Playstation with fully integrated Android support for on-screen widgets and games. Its plausible when you look at things like the PSP Phone (Xperia Play) that is both a PSP and an Android phone, or the Playstation market items for playing PS games on compatible Android systems.
I'd be interested in whether Microsoft might do something similar in making it possible to run WP7 mobile games on its new console platform... just saying.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Back in the day, the Dreamcast suffered hard against the not-even-out-yet PS2 because of no DVD player support. Not supporting movie disc playback is a major market fail.
If you sell a Blu-Ray player, and someone compromises your encryption keys, you owe the Blu-Ray Disc Association 40% of your gross profits.
That's not "40% of your gross profits on the player", that's "40% of your gross profits" -- period.
This is why companies are either a member of the BRDA cabal, or they create wholly owned subsidiary C-corps to isolate themselves from liability.
I'm not really seeing Microsoft doing this for the XBox, and I'm not seeing Apple doing it, either. This is in fact the major reason Apple decided against Blu-Ray drives in the Intel MacBook line, and is in fact getting rid of optical media support altogether. I can't see Microsoft being that less smart about things.
You want Blu-Ray? Buy a USB drive with player software.
-- Terry
Backwards compatibility. Heck I still play c64 games! Old games are still fun!
No internal optical disc drive. Make it optional by offering an external device.
Noise > performance. I don't want to hear that box.
Todays Xbox 360 controller is fine, I do not want to buy a new controller just because it comes with an extra button.
That would be cool. Sun worked with Sony for years on blue ray and wanted a JVM for the playstation. Sony unfortunately declined.... We'll have to wait and see...
propitiatory is a perfectly cromulent word.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Avoid Bluray- just go straight to USB3.
My only gripe is the separation of networks PSN and XBox Live, how wicked would it be if they were linked in someway.
Yeah, letting fanboys for both systems flame each other during games will surely make for a fun time.
into the store and saw the xbox 720... then I spun around 720 degrees and walked away.
Back in the day, the Dreamcast suffered hard against the not-even-out-yet PS2 because of no DVD player support.
Back in the day, the Dreamcast suffered hard against the not-even-out-yet PS2 because Sony published specifications that they knew to be fraudulent and advertised their superiority over the Dreamcast repeatedly... which turned out to be damned near as powerful as the PS2 despite predating it considerably.
The difference here is that the Wii actually has the hardware to play DVDs, but Nintendo wouldn't spring for the license, whereas the Dreamcast does not have the hardware to play a DVD, depending instead on their wacky proprietary 1GB CDROM format for copy protection, which failed hard and delivered the final death blow to a system crippled by a fraudulent, anticompetitive assault by Sony.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
In fact they are the enhanced version of the previous version, all for the profits it.cheap ugg boots
Download problems can be mitigiated if games are designed with on-line distribution in mind.
i.e.: dowbload Level 1 first, so you can start playing the game while the other parts slowly download in the background.
Download brings a lot of stuff that game distributor might like: ...
- Porionnable content release (a la DLC or Episodic format)
- Steady stream of revenue through subscriptions scheme.
- More DRM craziness
- No physical media logistics required.
- Easier post-release modification (patch vs. physical box recall) in case of legal problems (USA getting "Hot-Coffee"-level paranoid about some forgotten left-over nipple texture, or Germany freaking out because asian Hindu-inspired design share something in common with a lot less popular political logo of latest centruy)
- No 2nd hand sale (no boxed media to sell).
- Possibility to extract even more fee through crazy licensing scheme (want to access your games from another machine? Pay an extra 10$ for the extended privilege)
- More tracking possibility (even if the software it self doesn't have any data gathering capability, some interesting facts could be gathered by the software-distributing server).
and much more alike.
Optical media will probably only exist as a backup solution (for legacy (non-streamed) media playing and for games in markets with less connectivity).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Now I can wait up to several minutes for the next part of the game to load (especially when it's caching itself on the hard drive). It screws up the flow.
This is more a hardware limitation:
- Most modern console have high resolution graphics (FullHD 1920x1080p)
- Most modern console use somewhat detailed models and textures (not as high as PCs but still)
- All consoles have only tiny weeny ridiculously small amounts of RAM (well, when compared to modern PCs).
Thus, very few games can implement background streaming of game data (loading neighbouring part of the level while you explore the current part, so when you reach the new part, data is already loaded and no load-screen are required). (Soul Reaver on DreamCast was an older example of such technology).
In upcoming generation of gaming console :
- Visual quality has reached a plateau. Due to HD TV screens limitation, the resolution won't get any higher, and model/texture quality won't increase much beyond what's done on current PCs.
- Price for RAM has fallen since last generation.
- CPU performance per watt and per cost has risen.
You can now expect that the next generation of consoles could be able to pre-cache more level data in advance and thus require less loading screens.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
http://bit.ly/v3wXkW - make money tutorial.
Call it the Triple X-Box... ;-)