The problem is that while TF2 has been languishing there have been numerous "realistic" shooters, both class-based and not, released for PC and console. If TF2 went that direction, it would probably be a yawn-fest for those who have been playing games like Battlefield 2 for quite a while. Sticking with the TFC formula - while, of course, tweaking and "Sourcing" it - gives it a hook that makes it different.
You're correct on the standards, but GP is kind of/sort of right...a bit. 1024x768 displays can be called HD (or "HD-ready") - assuming they can take an HD signal - because they can display all 720 lines of the 720p standard.
Do you even know what you're talking about? Are you thinking at all while typing that weird diatribe?
IF user online info was stored on the controller (which, of course, is speculation at this point), that wouldn't make online a "requirement" at all. That's like saying that because I could store my Xbox Live account info on my Xbox hard drive, Xbox Live becomes some sort of requirement (or the same for a PS2 or Dreamcast memory card).
You're trying way too hard to take a shot at the Wii.
Your concern about Li-Ion pricing is understandable considering the gouging that some companies do, but using Nintendo as an example, their Li-Ion batteries (user replaceable) for the DS and DS Lite are $15 a piece. Considering the life of each battery, that's far more economical [to the consumer] than alkaline or rechargeable AAs. That said, I don't think Nintendo is trying to screw consumers over since, obviously, they're not in the AA battery business. Their decision was probably motivated by what they could fit into the Wiimote while still keeping costs low.
You missed option 4 (or, actually, 1.5 in your list): "Proprietary" lithium-ion batteries that ARE user replaceable. When the battery loses a charge, you replace the battery. Cost to you: $10-50 depending on who's doing the selling/gouging. For the DS and DS Lite (different batteries), Nintendo sells replacement batteries for $15.
You also skipped over the length of time between replacements. Depending on the battery and your individual tolerance for diminishing battery life, Li-Ion batteries can end up being dirt cheap when compared to alkaline/NiMH/NiCad solutions. If used as recommended, and depending on how fast the particular device sucks down the power, such a battery could do two or more years of duty before requiring replacement. $15 (using Nintendo's DS batteries as a guide) every two years would likely end up being cheaper than any other option.
The real challenge will be interactivity. Now you'll want to be able to know when your generated object is being touched, how it reacts, it's physics, etc.
ATI and Nvidia seem to want to address that issue (and, of course, get people to buy more powerful graphic cards). Their intention is to have their GPUs (apparently the ATI x1900 has this capability, if the game engine supports it) handle physics calculations as well as those involving actual display. If those two processes can be handled on the graphics card then, in theory at least, it should be easy to take the objects generated "procedurally" by the CPU, which are sent to the GPU, and make them fully interactive within the game. This shouldn't be any more difficult than if the objects/levels are loaded from disc, as long as the objects are handled discretely (which would seem to be what will take up processing cycles and RAM).
In the case of CreateMediaOnTheFly(), the part it uses happens to be one that's probably already pretty busy just running the game engine.
Oftentimes, the CPU really isn't that busy, depending on the game. This is why people can run voice apps, IM programs, MP3 players, etc. in the background while playing their games. Add in multi-core CPUs (which will likely be the gaming norm no more than two years from now) and all of a sudden there are buckets of CPU cycles that could be used for this purpose. It's far more common that people are bottlenecked by their GPU than their CPU.
Longer load times aren't just it. There would also be more load times - most computers cant fit nearly as much stuff in RAM as they can on the hard disk, so you wouldn't be able to procedurally generate, say, an entire level in a visually complex FPS before the game starts.
This is a factor which would be dependent entirely on the speed of the CPU and, again, it is something that will be easier and easier as people have dual-, quad- and octo-core CPUs in their systems. As for the RAM, well, prices for that tend to go down as people have a desire for more. Besides, there are already graphic cards (admittedly, multi-GPU cards, each GPU able to address half the memory) that are shipping with a gigabyte of memory on board. As the CPU generates an environment it will be offloading that data to the GPU's RAM, just like it sends the textures loaded from disk now.
While single-CPU systems of today might have some difficulty with procedural synthesis, it really shouldn't be judged by that measure. The measure by which to judge it is by the gaming machines that will be in use two or more years down the line, when games using the technology to its fullest actually start being released (besides Spore, of course, but Mr. Wright always seems to be a bit ahead of his time).
1. You're not violating copyright law in the book example because you're not actually copying anything. It might be considered misrepresentation, but not copyright violation.
Given that I'm not a lawyer I could indeed be wrong. It seems to me, though, that intent would enter into the situation. If, for example, you're just ripping out pages for the hell of it, or a page gets ripped accidentally, there wouldn't be any copyright problem - you'd just be selling a "broken" book. However, if your intent is to change the content of the book and then distribute the modified version, that would seem to violate copyright since you're modifying and distributing the new version without the permission of the author and publisher.
While you might, in theory, be violating copyright law in your book example, nobody (besides the person to whom you sell the book) will know or care. Now, if you offered a service where you tore offensive pages out of books and then sold those books to stores who want only to stock "nice" things, someone would probably start caring.
It's like dodging copy protection (violating the DMCA) in order to make a backup copy of a game for yourself. As long as you don't start selling, or otherwise distributing, the backup nobody will ever know or care that you violated the DMCA.
This is why I only torture pets and then incinerate them in the privacy of my own basement...
Add to this the general damage the Sony brand has taken for releasing high priced electronic crap lately, the Root Kit fiasco, Sony's love for DRM and a generally poor performance of the PSP and you have a company which would have problem buying good press.
Oh, Sony could buy good press. Unfortunately for them, they've reserved that money to help pay for the loss they're still going to take on the PS3 despite its high price.
That will be true when player prices are about half of the PS3 costs, probably not for at least a few years.
I guarantee you that, assuming the format (and the war) continues, there will be HD-DVD players under $250 before the holiday season of 2007. It didn't take very long at all for DVD players to dip to that level and they started out even more expensive. The PS3 will have plenty of competition in terms of its movie-playing ability, in terms of both capability and price.
As for the ICT, I certainly hope you're right. I have no more desire for that thing to start working than anyone else. That said, though, I would never base my purchasing decision on some DRM "morality" issue. If I have an HDMI input and a device I like outputs via HDMI, I'm going to buy it and use it.
It could potentially be worse than the player in the PS2 given the fact that there has been no word if the PS3 will provide decoding for the new audio formats available for Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. The current players have those decoders built in, and the 5.1 outputs necessary to send the [at that point analog] audio stream to a receiver, and their digital outputs will only carry a traditional Dolby Digital 5.1 (or DTS if its present) signal. And, I have yet to see a home theater receiver that will accept and decode the new formats in the digital domain, even if HDMI and/or S/PDIF can carry them.
You know what would be great? It would be great if you could provide at least a shred of backup for that. When I hit Google, all I can find are references to the fact that Universal is the last of the "exclusive" HD-DVD supporters (at least among the major studios), including an April AVSForum post referencing a petition to get Universal to do Blu-Ray.
Me, I'd prefer that either everybody jump ship on one of the formats or everybody support both. Though I dislike Sony enough to wish them ill, I'd happily buy a Blu-Ray player (and recorder and juicer) if everyone was on board with the format. As it is, though, the choice is far from clear considering that while HD-DVD has fewer exclusive content providers there are far more HD-DVD titles available and with firm release dates than there are for Blu-Ray.
Either way, any attempt to portray Blu-Ray as having the complete support of all content providers is simply not true.
PS- And the phrase "locked up" would be out of place in any case. No studio, apart from those owned by Sony itself, has a contractual obligation to stick with Blu-Ray. If people start buying HD-DVD players either because they're cheaper or there are more movies out, companies previously giving Blu-Ray exclusivity will start jumping ship.
Universal is still HD-DVD only, to name one. Other companies who are planning to support both have still announced no Blu-Ray discs while actually having some HD-DVD titles on shelves.
HDMI carries digital audio (HDMI is DVI with digital audio added). Every HDTV I've seen with HDMI input also has a digital output which can be connected to a digital receiver. So, you wouldn't need any other output from the Xbox 360.
That primarily means if you're going to buy a PS3, but the cheaper $500 model with no HDCP. When buying a display, make sure it supports 1080p via component input (the newer Samsung HDTV units among others).
Okay, the PS3 part makes sense. But buying a display that supports 1080p via component doesn't help at all from a "marked penetration versus ICT implentation" standpoint if the display also supports DVI/HDMI/HDCP, which of course is the situation with any new Samsung HDTV (and virtually every other new HDTV).
The truth is that even if the PS3 sells PS2-like numbers over the course of its life, it will still be a drop in the bucket compared to non-PS3 Blu-Ray player sales if the format succeeds. And the strong likelihood is that every non-PS3 Blu-Ray player WILL have HDMI/HDCP output.
Well, it depends on what is meant by "killing off." I've seen several newer sets that have just one component input (and two HDMI/DVI inputs) where previously sets of the same size would have at least two. Part of this can be chalked up to the fact that home theater people are increasingly more likely to have some form of component switching already in their setup (even cheap 5.1 receivers now come standard with HD component switching), and part of it is the replacement of component analog inputs with digital ones.
In other words, the component input death toll is growing while a few are kept alive in captivity...
BluRay has the full support of every movie company.
No, it doesn't.
BluRay has the support of computer OEMs.
A couple. Most are riding the fence, committing to nothing.
BluRay has Sony putting them in the 100+ million $499 and $599 PS3 that are going to be sold over the next five years.
Which will only be important if people feel the PS3 is worthwhile, and if it doesn't cause other Blu-Ray manufacturers to jump ship because Sony is taking away their sales with the PS3 loss-leader.
It's worth noting that while all the currently available next-gen disc players available so far have problems, the $1,000 Samsung Blu-Ray players seems to be the worst of the lot. It's also fairly important that both Toshiba and RCA are already selling their HD-DVD players for half the price of the Samsung unit and the forthcoming Sony Blu-Ray player. Finally, there are more HD-DVD titles on store shelves than Blu-Ray so far.
Personally, I'm still in wait-and-see mode, but your assertion that HD-DVD is already dead is premature at best.
Plans for dual HD-DVD/Blu-Ray[/DVD] players have always been in the works. This particular technology simply has the potential to make such a device more cost effective since manufacturers can use just one laser/lens assembly instead of two. We can expect to see combo players - probably not using this particular tech - by this time next year at the latest if LG (and probably Samsung - they've been waffling on the issue) have their way.
It's just the way things are being talked about all over. The idea that Zonk/Slashdot has some inherent anti-Sony bias may be true, but the Zonk-haters out there would be hard-pressed to find new articles out there talking about how great the PS3 will be and how Sony is giving gamers a great gift with its released.
What folks don't seem to understand is that Slashdot isn't a news generator. It's a news linker. It would be exactly like getting upset at Google because a search generates negative press about the PS3. If anyone is to blame, it's Sony and the writers of the linked articles. But, then again, maybe the people here at Slashdot subscribe to the "If you don't have anything nice to say..." philosophy...you know, until they get a chance to bash something they dislike.
Personally, I hope that the PS3 turns out to be a kick-ass game console that, after a year or so, I'm ready and willing to buy. Until that happens, though, it seems too expensive for its intended purpose, and I'll be purchasing other game systems in the meantime.
Man, thank God you got one of the most obvious and overused troll posts in history out of the way. Yes, any parent who lets their children watch television and/or play videogames is doing a lousy job and doesn't even really like their kids. It's good that people like you are around to point that out.
You're kidding around a bit, but the route Nintendo is taking with the Wii could indeed permit them to go with a shorter lifespan (measured by the time between release of consoles, not their "active" lifespan) for their home consoles.
Because the Wii is behind the high tech curve (not an insult, just true), Nintendo could develop a high-def followup to the Wii - still backward compatible - in a relatively short period of time but still be able to sell it for their more reasonable price ($200-250) because the cost of the technology will have gone down. That kind of strategy could really work against Sony and Microsoft who seem to be locked into their "best/fastest technology available" paradigm.
The "stark contrast in price" will be apparent whether the Wii is launched day and date with the PS3 or it comes out tomorrow. It will be even more apparent since Nintendo will likely be buying plenty of commercial time through the holiday season touting their price.
...and the entire product landscape is crippled by DRM.
"DRM" has to be the most tired excuse for hating on HDTV, the new disc formats, Apple's iTunes, etc. Virtually every videogame I've bought since around 1984 has had copy protection or, as you call it, "DRM." Virtually every VHS tape and DVD disc I've bought has had "DRM." While at times screwy protections have messed me up with videogames (mainly on PC and the old C64), I've never suffered any significant problems with VHS and DVD due to "DRM." DVD is infamous for having DRM and yet, somehow, it's never bothered me when I've decided to put one of my discs in the player. If you want to talk about something that most people don't care about, it's the DRM on their DVDs and, apart from the ICT (which would clearly be irrelevant to "everyone" you know since any HDTV they'd buy would be new and would have DVI or HDMI making the image constraint token a non-issue), eventually on their HD-DVDs/Blu-Rays.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is that while TF2 has been languishing there have been numerous "realistic" shooters, both class-based and not, released for PC and console. If TF2 went that direction, it would probably be a yawn-fest for those who have been playing games like Battlefield 2 for quite a while. Sticking with the TFC formula - while, of course, tweaking and "Sourcing" it - gives it a hook that makes it different.
You're correct on the standards, but GP is kind of/sort of right...a bit. 1024x768 displays can be called HD (or "HD-ready") - assuming they can take an HD signal - because they can display all 720 lines of the 720p standard.
Do you even know what you're talking about? Are you thinking at all while typing that weird diatribe?
IF user online info was stored on the controller (which, of course, is speculation at this point), that wouldn't make online a "requirement" at all. That's like saying that because I could store my Xbox Live account info on my Xbox hard drive, Xbox Live becomes some sort of requirement (or the same for a PS2 or Dreamcast memory card).
You're trying way too hard to take a shot at the Wii.
Your concern about Li-Ion pricing is understandable considering the gouging that some companies do, but using Nintendo as an example, their Li-Ion batteries (user replaceable) for the DS and DS Lite are $15 a piece. Considering the life of each battery, that's far more economical [to the consumer] than alkaline or rechargeable AAs. That said, I don't think Nintendo is trying to screw consumers over since, obviously, they're not in the AA battery business. Their decision was probably motivated by what they could fit into the Wiimote while still keeping costs low.
You missed option 4 (or, actually, 1.5 in your list): "Proprietary" lithium-ion batteries that ARE user replaceable. When the battery loses a charge, you replace the battery. Cost to you: $10-50 depending on who's doing the selling/gouging. For the DS and DS Lite (different batteries), Nintendo sells replacement batteries for $15.
You also skipped over the length of time between replacements. Depending on the battery and your individual tolerance for diminishing battery life, Li-Ion batteries can end up being dirt cheap when compared to alkaline/NiMH/NiCad solutions. If used as recommended, and depending on how fast the particular device sucks down the power, such a battery could do two or more years of duty before requiring replacement. $15 (using Nintendo's DS batteries as a guide) every two years would likely end up being cheaper than any other option.
[blockquote]mario is still alive and well.[/blockquote]
True. They just don't draw in his colostomy bag...
ATI and Nvidia seem to want to address that issue (and, of course, get people to buy more powerful graphic cards). Their intention is to have their GPUs (apparently the ATI x1900 has this capability, if the game engine supports it) handle physics calculations as well as those involving actual display. If those two processes can be handled on the graphics card then, in theory at least, it should be easy to take the objects generated "procedurally" by the CPU, which are sent to the GPU, and make them fully interactive within the game. This shouldn't be any more difficult than if the objects/levels are loaded from disc, as long as the objects are handled discretely (which would seem to be what will take up processing cycles and RAM).
Oftentimes, the CPU really isn't that busy, depending on the game. This is why people can run voice apps, IM programs, MP3 players, etc. in the background while playing their games. Add in multi-core CPUs (which will likely be the gaming norm no more than two years from now) and all of a sudden there are buckets of CPU cycles that could be used for this purpose. It's far more common that people are bottlenecked by their GPU than their CPU.
This is a factor which would be dependent entirely on the speed of the CPU and, again, it is something that will be easier and easier as people have dual-, quad- and octo-core CPUs in their systems. As for the RAM, well, prices for that tend to go down as people have a desire for more. Besides, there are already graphic cards (admittedly, multi-GPU cards, each GPU able to address half the memory) that are shipping with a gigabyte of memory on board. As the CPU generates an environment it will be offloading that data to the GPU's RAM, just like it sends the textures loaded from disk now.
While single-CPU systems of today might have some difficulty with procedural synthesis, it really shouldn't be judged by that measure. The measure by which to judge it is by the gaming machines that will be in use two or more years down the line, when games using the technology to its fullest actually start being released (besides Spore, of course, but Mr. Wright always seems to be a bit ahead of his time).
Given that I'm not a lawyer I could indeed be wrong. It seems to me, though, that intent would enter into the situation. If, for example, you're just ripping out pages for the hell of it, or a page gets ripped accidentally, there wouldn't be any copyright problem - you'd just be selling a "broken" book. However, if your intent is to change the content of the book and then distribute the modified version, that would seem to violate copyright since you're modifying and distributing the new version without the permission of the author and publisher.
While you might, in theory, be violating copyright law in your book example, nobody (besides the person to whom you sell the book) will know or care. Now, if you offered a service where you tore offensive pages out of books and then sold those books to stores who want only to stock "nice" things, someone would probably start caring.
It's like dodging copy protection (violating the DMCA) in order to make a backup copy of a game for yourself. As long as you don't start selling, or otherwise distributing, the backup nobody will ever know or care that you violated the DMCA.
This is why I only torture pets and then incinerate them in the privacy of my own basement...
Oh, Sony could buy good press. Unfortunately for them, they've reserved that money to help pay for the loss they're still going to take on the PS3 despite its high price.
I guarantee you that, assuming the format (and the war) continues, there will be HD-DVD players under $250 before the holiday season of 2007. It didn't take very long at all for DVD players to dip to that level and they started out even more expensive. The PS3 will have plenty of competition in terms of its movie-playing ability, in terms of both capability and price.
As for the ICT, I certainly hope you're right. I have no more desire for that thing to start working than anyone else. That said, though, I would never base my purchasing decision on some DRM "morality" issue. If I have an HDMI input and a device I like outputs via HDMI, I'm going to buy it and use it.
It could potentially be worse than the player in the PS2 given the fact that there has been no word if the PS3 will provide decoding for the new audio formats available for Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. The current players have those decoders built in, and the 5.1 outputs necessary to send the [at that point analog] audio stream to a receiver, and their digital outputs will only carry a traditional Dolby Digital 5.1 (or DTS if its present) signal. And, I have yet to see a home theater receiver that will accept and decode the new formats in the digital domain, even if HDMI and/or S/PDIF can carry them.
You know what would be great? It would be great if you could provide at least a shred of backup for that. When I hit Google, all I can find are references to the fact that Universal is the last of the "exclusive" HD-DVD supporters (at least among the major studios), including an April AVSForum post referencing a petition to get Universal to do Blu-Ray.
Me, I'd prefer that either everybody jump ship on one of the formats or everybody support both. Though I dislike Sony enough to wish them ill, I'd happily buy a Blu-Ray player (and recorder and juicer) if everyone was on board with the format. As it is, though, the choice is far from clear considering that while HD-DVD has fewer exclusive content providers there are far more HD-DVD titles available and with firm release dates than there are for Blu-Ray.
Either way, any attempt to portray Blu-Ray as having the complete support of all content providers is simply not true.
PS- And the phrase "locked up" would be out of place in any case. No studio, apart from those owned by Sony itself, has a contractual obligation to stick with Blu-Ray. If people start buying HD-DVD players either because they're cheaper or there are more movies out, companies previously giving Blu-Ray exclusivity will start jumping ship.
Universal is still HD-DVD only, to name one. Other companies who are planning to support both have still announced no Blu-Ray discs while actually having some HD-DVD titles on shelves.
This page might help you out with YOUR denial...
HDMI carries digital audio (HDMI is DVI with digital audio added). Every HDTV I've seen with HDMI input also has a digital output which can be connected to a digital receiver. So, you wouldn't need any other output from the Xbox 360.
Okay, the PS3 part makes sense. But buying a display that supports 1080p via component doesn't help at all from a "marked penetration versus ICT implentation" standpoint if the display also supports DVI/HDMI/HDCP, which of course is the situation with any new Samsung HDTV (and virtually every other new HDTV).
The truth is that even if the PS3 sells PS2-like numbers over the course of its life, it will still be a drop in the bucket compared to non-PS3 Blu-Ray player sales if the format succeeds. And the strong likelihood is that every non-PS3 Blu-Ray player WILL have HDMI/HDCP output.
Well, it depends on what is meant by "killing off." I've seen several newer sets that have just one component input (and two HDMI/DVI inputs) where previously sets of the same size would have at least two. Part of this can be chalked up to the fact that home theater people are increasingly more likely to have some form of component switching already in their setup (even cheap 5.1 receivers now come standard with HD component switching), and part of it is the replacement of component analog inputs with digital ones.
In other words, the component input death toll is growing while a few are kept alive in captivity...
A couple. Most are riding the fence, committing to nothing.
Which will only be important if people feel the PS3 is worthwhile, and if it doesn't cause other Blu-Ray manufacturers to jump ship because Sony is taking away their sales with the PS3 loss-leader.
It's worth noting that while all the currently available next-gen disc players available so far have problems, the $1,000 Samsung Blu-Ray players seems to be the worst of the lot. It's also fairly important that both Toshiba and RCA are already selling their HD-DVD players for half the price of the Samsung unit and the forthcoming Sony Blu-Ray player. Finally, there are more HD-DVD titles on store shelves than Blu-Ray so far.
Personally, I'm still in wait-and-see mode, but your assertion that HD-DVD is already dead is premature at best.
Plans for dual HD-DVD/Blu-Ray[/DVD] players have always been in the works. This particular technology simply has the potential to make such a device more cost effective since manufacturers can use just one laser/lens assembly instead of two. We can expect to see combo players - probably not using this particular tech - by this time next year at the latest if LG (and probably Samsung - they've been waffling on the issue) have their way.
It's just the way things are being talked about all over. The idea that Zonk/Slashdot has some inherent anti-Sony bias may be true, but the Zonk-haters out there would be hard-pressed to find new articles out there talking about how great the PS3 will be and how Sony is giving gamers a great gift with its released.
What folks don't seem to understand is that Slashdot isn't a news generator. It's a news linker. It would be exactly like getting upset at Google because a search generates negative press about the PS3. If anyone is to blame, it's Sony and the writers of the linked articles. But, then again, maybe the people here at Slashdot subscribe to the "If you don't have anything nice to say..." philosophy...you know, until they get a chance to bash something they dislike.
Personally, I hope that the PS3 turns out to be a kick-ass game console that, after a year or so, I'm ready and willing to buy. Until that happens, though, it seems too expensive for its intended purpose, and I'll be purchasing other game systems in the meantime.
Man, thank God you got one of the most obvious and overused troll posts in history out of the way. Yes, any parent who lets their children watch television and/or play videogames is doing a lousy job and doesn't even really like their kids. It's good that people like you are around to point that out.
You're kidding around a bit, but the route Nintendo is taking with the Wii could indeed permit them to go with a shorter lifespan (measured by the time between release of consoles, not their "active" lifespan) for their home consoles.
Because the Wii is behind the high tech curve (not an insult, just true), Nintendo could develop a high-def followup to the Wii - still backward compatible - in a relatively short period of time but still be able to sell it for their more reasonable price ($200-250) because the cost of the technology will have gone down. That kind of strategy could really work against Sony and Microsoft who seem to be locked into their "best/fastest technology available" paradigm.
The "stark contrast in price" will be apparent whether the Wii is launched day and date with the PS3 or it comes out tomorrow. It will be even more apparent since Nintendo will likely be buying plenty of commercial time through the holiday season touting their price.
"DRM" has to be the most tired excuse for hating on HDTV, the new disc formats, Apple's iTunes, etc. Virtually every videogame I've bought since around 1984 has had copy protection or, as you call it, "DRM." Virtually every VHS tape and DVD disc I've bought has had "DRM." While at times screwy protections have messed me up with videogames (mainly on PC and the old C64), I've never suffered any significant problems with VHS and DVD due to "DRM." DVD is infamous for having DRM and yet, somehow, it's never bothered me when I've decided to put one of my discs in the player. If you want to talk about something that most people don't care about, it's the DRM on their DVDs and, apart from the ICT (which would clearly be irrelevant to "everyone" you know since any HDTV they'd buy would be new and would have DVI or HDMI making the image constraint token a non-issue), eventually on their HD-DVDs/Blu-Rays.