I think you missed the crux of his point, which is that non-Japanese developers/publishers tend to put out each game on multiple platforms. This means that Splinter Cell, for example, saw sales on all three platforms because anyone with a game console could buy it. On the other hand, Super Monkey Ball hasn't sold even one copy to non-GC owners (ignoring portable releases) despite the fact that it could probably make a nice chunk of change with a PS2 port.
Of course, while this perception is indeed factually correct, the motive for pointing it out is obvious. More than the other three consoles, Xbox has the most to gain from multiplatform releases since, besides the political issue of online capability (see EA and others), multiplatform releases can look and play better on the Xbox due to its superior hardware. Sony doesn't benefit as much since they already get the lion's share of releases and Nintendo gains little because most GC owners bought the console in order to play Nintendo first-party games.
It's chicken and egg. Developers are reluctant to publish games for the Japanese Xbox market because there are so few Xbox owners. There are few Xbox owners because there aren't enough compelling Xbox games for the Japanese market. The best Microsoft can hope for now is that they get enough Japanese gamers to provide decent word of mouth when they release their next console. I suspect this is the reason they've decided to send over a lot of non-regionalized titles. They're hoping that enough English-speaking gamers in Japan will be interested in a few of these games to get a better spark for the next round. It'll be fun to see how it turns out.
Interesting on the HDTV resolutions, though I wonder how it is handled, I would think just bumping up the resolution would mess with games developed for and tested on NTSC level resolution, things would slow down for games that really push it.....
They don't just bump up the resolution on a whim. The games are tested at whatever resolutions the developers want to support, and if they can't get the proper performance at HD resolutions, they leave it at the standard 480. This is why most Xbox games don't have the higher resolutiosn (and why the Soulcalibur 2 720p mode is displayed in a 4:3 window inside of the standard 16:9 resolution).
Actually, the Xbox can output HDTV-compatible resolutions of 720p and 1080i (1280x720 progressive and 1920x1080 interlaced, respectively). There is indeed a bottleneck in terms of video memory that adds limits in terms of polygon count, texture detail, etc., but the resolutions are available - just like the PC, the usable resolution is dependent on what the game/program is trying to do.
Also, while admittedly NTSC is only capable of 30 full frames/second, since it's an interlaced format a game console can render 60 frames/second internally and provide that greater sense of motion and fluidity on an NTSC television (generating lines 1,3,5,... of frame 1 in the first field; 2,4,6,... of frame 2 in the second field; etc.) - while the actual picture displayed will have a lower true resolution (by not displaying every frame in full over both fields), in video games it still provides a "60 fps experience," particularly nice for the more twitchy games out there.
The only relatively economical option ($100-200) would be to get a component-to-VGA transcoder like this (this one should also work even though it's designed for Xbox, since that console outputs standard HDTV signals). Unfortunately, the DVI standard on HDTV products is different from that of computer monitors, so even if you have that connector it wouldn't help.
My apologies. You're right about Doom 3. I was referring to the capabilities of DX9 as opposed to DX8, and those differences translate to some extent to features currently available in OpenGL. Saying "DX9" was just a convenient frame of reference for me (being a Windows foo').:)
Right now, if I to hook up a TiVO to my digital cable system, the cable box decodes the MPEG, gives it to my TiVO, which ends up re-encoding it before saving it to the disk. This sucks.
Yes it does (and my ReplayTV works the same way). And it's NTSC, having nothing to do with HDTV.
The same happen would happen with digital satellite, with one notable exception that I'm aware of: DirecTV and TiVO jointly produce a unit which saves the MPEG stream directly to the disk
Your one notable exception isn't the only one. The same thing happens on DishNetwork with their PVR501/721 line (the 721 was the full-featured dual-tuner big dog before the HDTV-capable 921). The reason that it doesn't happen outside of satellite right now is because the vast majority of channels are NTSC, and NTSC channels aren't "naturally" compressed. Thus, if you want this kind of capability with current digital cable/satellite, yes, you have to go proprietary.
This is how I want to see it being done for HDTV.
You listed the DVR721 from DishNetwork which IS that way. DirecTV I'm sure will be releasing a similar unit at some point. What's the question again?
What you're talking about doesn't exist... where are you getting these signals from? Over the air? That doesn't interest me. I'm not going to invest the kind of cash to make this work just so I can watch CBS broadcast in HD.
What are you referring to? Everything I described in my post exists. There are currently at least two over-the-air PC HDTV card solutions that I know of, both of which can interface with D-VHS recorders. The DVR921 (again, YOUR example) is planned to be able to interface via Firewire with a D-VHS VCR, allowing you to archive HDTV programs on tape. It's not a stretch at all to assume that this will probably be compatible with PCs in the same fashion. Again, at all points until actual viewing, the MPEG-2 HDTV stream will REMAIN compressed.
Keep in mind that when I talk about signal modulation (8VSB and whatever the satellite companies are using - I can't recall the acronym off the top of my head), that's different from MPEG-2 compression. The former is the method by which the latter is transmitted through the atmosphere - once it hits the satellite or set-top box it is DEmodulated (before being decompressed) into the MPEG-2 stream. That stream can then be read and decoded by any HD-capable MPEG-2 decoder, whether it ends up on a satellite box hard drive (in the case of the DVR921), a D-VHS video tape or a PC hard drive. HDCP (high-definition copy protection which the MPAA is trying to force on everyone) adds a layer of complexity, but the basics I describe still hold true as long as the decoder can handle and pass HDCP.
And the unit I linked to earlier is far better than using the standard tuner the cable/satellite co. gives you, and then plugging that into a HD PVR.
I will only say that not once in my post did I describe anything like a standalone HD PVR. You're reading something that isn't there.
I'm fully aware that people will need to go through a cable or satellite box to receive all the available HD signals (right now, about half). That's no different, really, than the way the current NTSC signals are handled - I can't watch ESPN, Comedy Central, etc. without having a satellite decoder and most digital cable systems have the same limitation (though in many cases cable companies are required to offer a basic analog package that doesn't require a box).
Again, summing up: You seem to be confused as to what the DishNetwork DVR921 is capable of. Specifically, it can receive and store both NTSC and HDTV signals via satellite and "over the air" (regular broadcast networks). Said signals can then be decoded immediately for viewing and/or stored (BEFORE decoding) on the hard drive. With the Firewire, once it is enabled, it will be able to send the STILL-COMPRESSED recorded streams to other devices (such as a PC or D-VHS VCR) for archiving.
As to other devices that are available, they are indeed all restricted to over-the-air broadcasts unless they are sent a stream from a cable/satellite device such as the DVR921.
Considering the number of times I've had to go back and forth on Nvidia driver versions over the past few years because of incompatibilities, I would conclude that NEITHER company has it all together in that area.
I am looking at the Unreal Tournament 2003 benchmarks and the Nvidia cards are slower by a SMALL margin.
A margin that small will not put them out of business, unless the gap grows larger in future cards.
You have a point, but it only works in terms of people upgrading, for example, from the ATI 9800Pro to the ATI 9800XT, or the 9700 to the 9800XT, or the GeForce4 5800 to the 9800XT, so on and so forth.
What you're not taking into account is that most people (even the majority of the "hardcore") don't upgrade in those kinds of tiny increments. Most people will tend to upgrade about once a year (or when they notice a performance drop in new games), in which case they WILL get a significant performance boost from the newest card. It's also worth noting that none of the crazy high-end, hotly anticipated DX9 games (Half-Life 2 and Doom 3) have even hit the market yet, which has probably delayed the upgrades of the majority even further.
In short, the longer ATI stays on top the higher their market share will grow. After all, it worked for Nvidia. Two years ago, a hardcore gamer wouldn't have wasted their bodily fluids to spit on ATI's cards - now they're the performance leader and those same hardcore gamers are either buying ATI cards or at least considering it.
The situation will probably be different again in another two years because it's a dynamic business. The question is whether or not Nvidia is set up well enough to stay in the game if they continue to be in second place. I don't know myself, since I'm not a business analyst. It sure is fun to watch, though.:)
You are indeed a bit confused. The truth is that the PC HDTV cards available DO store the "raw" stream as it comes over the air in compressed form. This allows them to much more easily (less hardware overhead) save one HD stream while playing another - since the reception/save to hard drive doesn't need decoding, the card can handle decoding either a previously played stream or a delayed play of the stream currently being recorded. The same also applies to the currently available D-VHS tape recorders which receive and save HDTV signals in their compressed form with decoding saved for playback.
You can see this demonstrated on the page you linked to which says that the Dish PVR's 250-GB hard drive can store 25 hours of HDTV while the MyHD FAQ (a popular HDTV tuner card) lists the card as storing HDTV signals at a rate of 9.4 GB/hour.
As to why current HD recorders (both PC-based and stand-alone D-VHS) can't take satellite signals, it's because DirecTV and DishNetwork use a different signal from the OTA standard (FCC-mandated) 8VSB modulation. So, somewhat like NTSC VCRs and DVRs, you can't store the raw (compressed) satellite signal unless the unit is integrated or a method is provided by which the compressed signal can be transmitted (after the actual demodulation of the original satellite transmission) to the outside recording unit.
This is where the IEEE-1394 (Firewire) interface on the new Dish DVR 921 will eventually (when the software is enabled) comes in. It will have at least the ability to connect to a D-VHS VCR so that HDTV programs can be permanently archived (compressed, of course). It *may* (given the right software on the PC) be able to connect to a computer so that the compressed stream can be dumped to a PC hard drive/server. Of course, such a PC would need either decoding software (and a pretty decent amount of power) or a decoder card like the MyHD to decode the stream.
As I read back over this, it may be even more confusing, so I'll sum up:
1. As it currently stands, no high-definition recording solution decodes and then re-encodes before saving to hard drive. This is done a) to reduce the hardware overhead and b) because there are no current consumer-level hardware HDTV encoding solutions.
2. The DishNetwork PVR you mentioned (again, the 921) WILL have the capability, through Firewire, to connect to outside HDTV recording solutions - at least D-VHS and very likely PCs.
Why are you surprised that US residents/citizens would find fault with a government restricting what in the US would be someone's freedom of speech?
In the US, game companies are free to sell games in whatever language they wish. Louisiana, for example, could not pass and enforce a similar law because it would be determined unconstitutional when challenged in court.
Quebec and Canada can do what they want. Few people here in the US would advocate sending troops to Montreal in an effort to liberate French-Canadians from oppression, but a good many people in this country still find these kinds of laws offensive. There's a reason English has never been declared the official language of the USA.
By that logic, people should have gone for test drives in Corvairs before deciding they were unsafe. Or perhaps I should have played Custer's Revenge before deciding the concept was offensive. I can't believe I didn't go to the theater and spend $9 on Gigli!
Product reviews exist so that people don't always have to waste time and money on something they find out later is crap. Because of reviews, I didn't have to waste money buying Daikatana when it came out, nor did I run out to buy a Yugo.
Of course, there's always the possibility that I'll disagree with a review, and if the product getting a bad review still interests me I might find a way to give it a try, or perhaps even defy the reviews and just buy it. If I do like it, that doesn't mean that the reviewer's opinion was "baseless" or that I shouldn't pay any attention to reviews in the future. What it means is that people have differing tastes.
Compared to previous Nintendo history (NES and SNES), the N64 was indeed a failure. I'm not anti-Nintendo by any means, particularly given that I currently own two GBAs, a Gamecube and a Gameboy Player, and own more games for the Gamecube than I do for my PS2.
Profitability isn't the only measure of success...especially when a company loses market share in a business where they previously dominated.
Absolutely right on. The dismissive final paragraph tries to take the focus off of the point of the article. What he failed to mention was that even with a "mercifully short" Internet memory, bad products will die long before anybody forgets the bad web press.
Let's face it. Even if we don't have the true numbers of how many N-Gages have actually been sold to living, breathing, spending customers, it's pretty apparent that the thing has less support than the N64 (which most people felt was a failure, especially compared to the Playstation) and is going to die as a true gaming machine for lack of developers.
By the time we forget what an Internet PR debacle the N-Gage has been, surplus units will be given away with one-year cellular contracts - to users who may never insert a game into the unit.
Companies need to take this kind of thing to heart. Big-time ad campaigns aren't enough anymore to sell a bad high-tech product.
Is there any reason for the next generation of game consoles to also be DVD movie players?
Um, yeah: Because it's easy to do and if one of company puts the capability in and others don't, somebody falls behind in the system specs race (ask Sega how that worked out for them).
I envision TiVo-like functionality to be the next "It also plays DVDs!", but would Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft build this type of functionality into a game system? And would such a system stay around the $300 price point that seems to be the new standard?
It depends on how cheap NTSC/MPEG encoding chips are when they're ready to start production, since they can't do it in software without killing game performance.
My personal prediction would be that if Sony likes the financial performance of the PSX they'll offer a special PS3 version with the PVR functionality, separate from the basic PS3 (which will still have at least a small hard drive). Microsoft could either do something similar or once again take huge losses on sales of the next Xbox's hardware - I'd say 50/50 chance either way, though if it's the latter they'll leave the market if they don't get better penetration. There's no way on earth Nintendo will include PVR functionality on a console - they'd go to being a third-party software house first. They just don't have any experience in that market.
Your argument would carry more weight if the Playstation and/or Xbox were bad for playing game. The truth is that they're both quite good and there are many excellent games that can be enjoyed on them - games that wouldn't have been possible on previous platforms. Even the DVD playing aspects of the two systems are comparable with inexpensive standalone DVD players (apart from progressive scan, and with the latest firmware, the Playstation is actually better than many cheap standalones).
Sony's Playstation 2 problems had to do with a) using lousy equipment and b) lousy quality control, probably because they were racing to meet demand due to a bad launch plan. Blaming DVD video playback for PS2 hardware failures is like blaming audio CD playback for a failure of a computer CD-ROM - the device should be able to handle the different formats without problems.
As far as complaining about potential cost increases due to multiple functions, why don't we burn that bridge when we get to it? In this most recent generation, it's unreasonable to blame DVD playback for more than $20-30 (licensing and software development) of the cost for PS2s, and the Xbox shifted that cost over to an optional add-on. There's no indication yet that the next consoles will cost any more than they did in this past generation and we all know that people will be less likely to buy the consoles if they cost more, so they'll probably debut again at $300. If I end up getting some extra potential functionality for that money, what is there to complain about? If the argument is against the inclusion of hard drives in consoles because of increased failure rates, well, I'm not buying that either. I've had the same 20-GB hard drive in my Panasonic Showstopper (ReplayTV) since purchase (at its debut several years ago), running for several hours per day, and I don't have problems outside of wanting more space and being too cheap/lazy to replace it with something bigger.
I read nothing in that editorial that makes me think that adding functions to consoles is a bad idea on its face. It only made me think that the writer, like so many people on the Internet, is a curmudgeon who enjoys hunting down things about which to complain.
As has already been pointed out above, that comparison is fallacious. Microsoft's MP3 player is NOT going to be bundled with new computers or Windows XP purchases. If the comparison was valid then Logitech would have already been forced out of business (or bought by AOL) because Microsoft sells mice, keyboards and other PC input devices.
Heck, like their foray into console gaming with the Xbox this is an underdog situation since the iPod has been so heavily marketed and has become so hugely popular (by the way, Apple leverages their hardware/software monopoly on OSX systems with iTunes in order to sell more iPods).
Considering any MP3 player one buys will come with some sort of music management software (MusicMatch, iTunes, the Creative bundle, etc.), even the fact that WMP is already on a Windows computer isn't a huge advantage when you're talking about connecting to extra [expensive] hardware.
Reminds me of the generalizations (which were rampant on Slashdot game discussions) that said the Japanese market wouldn't respond to Grand Theft Auto 3 because it was just too pointlessly violent. Maybe if the marketing departments of the big publishers weren't so devoted to their narrow perceptions of the various markets, all gamers would be more appreciative of a wider variety of genres.
But, as you said, you're not interested in playing THUG online anyway;).
Exactly. It was my hope that by mentioning that I would make it clear that I was offering an academic argument as opposed to complaining about your game in particular (though my "lazy and uncaring" comment was over the line by that measure).
I'm simply an advocate of the idea that console games (especially beyond FPS games) should be placed online whenever possible, especially when their competitive elements are compelling. Tetris is much maligned (to the point that it's the butt of its own joke) but it's a game that should always have online capability because multiplayer Tetris is fun. Had this particular discussion been about SSX3, which is also a "trick game" that has online capability on the PS2 and not on the Xbox, I would be similarly taking EA to task - not because I have an all-consuming need to play multiplayer SSX but because in my opinion there's no good reason not to do it unless they're going to charge bucks for SSX3 matchmaking.
Of course, I'm also of the opinion that the video game market is such that it can support multiple consoles, an opinion which Activisition/Neversoft, EA and the rest seem to share since every third-party company develops for multiple consoles. If that's true, it seems like a bad message is sent when features are left off one version and included on another despite comparable technical ability (in other words, if both PS2 and Xbox CAN do Internet then the two versions should be feature-equivalent).
Note: Yes, Gamecube fans, I left that console out because Nintendo has little to no interest in pushing online play. If a console company can't even bother to make their own games online-compatible, I'm not going to get mad at developers who follow suit.
In any case, I appreciate the conversation and, despite my irritation, I can understand to some extent Neversoft's decision not to include Xbox Live compatibility and I certainly don't hate your company - in fact, considering it's the fifth time dipping into the Tony Hawk well, I consider it a minor miracle that none of the sequels have been rehashed crapfests and that each has been upgraded enough to make fans happy. I would only close by suggesting that you folks think hard about making it happen for the next iteration of the series. It would be a shame if people jumped off a good series because they think y'all hate Xbox users.
You're right. I shouldn't be so critical. I mean it's not like Tony Hawk games are huge money-makers like Midnight Club 2 (networking on both PS2 and Xbox Live), Phantasy Star Online (networking on both Gamecube and Xbox Live) or Castle Wolfenstein (networking on both PS2 and Xbox Live), and thus are able to support multiple networking schemes. I don't know what I was thinking!
1. If you mean people are paying for Xbox Live, so what? Anyone who is playing Xbox Live-enabled games has already paid for it anyway. If you mean paying extra for access to something extra, that's easy: Just allow people to connect and play online. If we can't put our own face in the game, most of us won't consider that a crisis of epic proportions.
2. You really need to elaborate on point 2. If you're complaining about the fact that Xbox Live has an online framework in place with which you would have to comply, that's an odd thing to complain about..."Gee, they've already done all this work for us and we hate them for it" or "Oh darn, now we don't have to set up our own matchmaking service for Xbox players."
"Pragmatic standpoint": Guess what. People are generally willing to wait for a full-featured game. Xbox owners had to wait for both 2[x] and 3 and as I recall those sold rather well. Gamers tend to be very understanding about delays when they're told that they'll be getting a good game because of it...Not to mention the fact that Xbox Live is NOT a new thing. You've had this game in development for quite a while and XBL has been "live" for a year now. That would seem to be enough lead time to add the feature and accomplish testing in a timely fashion.
In short, while I wouldn't accuse Neversoft of malicious intent in not offering Xbox Live support, it's pretty easy to accuse you of being lazy and uncaring on the issue.
Sidenote: I enjoyed THPS4 quite a lot and it's entirely likely that I'll buy THUG for Xbox since I don't consider a lack of online play to be a critical factor in this kind of game. I just don't like lame excuses.
It's really not cool to correct someone with wrong information. PlayOnline is NOT a Sony product and is instead a Square [Enix] creation created initially for Final Fantasy XI and will cover future Square online-enabled projects.
"And guess what," PlayOnline has been around since 2002 - before Xbox Live (not by that much) but not "much longer than the Xbox."
There are two examples from the last two days. Both of those appear on the "main page" if you choose not to disable them - just like stories from the games section. It's certainly nothing to complain about. If you want to remove games from your "main page," it's a simple matter to go here, select "Preferences" and then select "Homepage" to make such changes.
Would you rather they give you something newer, like maybe Postal 2? Because that's about the kind of game you could expect to get free with a video card that's already going to give you Half-Life 2. Not to mention the fact that there aren't that many games that are going to test a new graphics card's capabilities until Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 come out.
ATI and Valve are trying to make the best out of a bad situation. The gaming community would piss and moan for months, maybe years, if Half-Life 2 went gold in a beta form, so the delay has to happen. I think the fact that they're giving away ANYTHING extra to compensate for the HL2 wait is a good deal and shouldn't be the subject of any negativity. Anyone who would buy one of the new ATI XT cards is almost guaranteed to be a customer for Half-Life 2 (assuming they would buy instead of steal), so despite the wait the bundle was already a fantastic deal and now has a little extra bonus.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, while this perception is indeed factually correct, the motive for pointing it out is obvious. More than the other three consoles, Xbox has the most to gain from multiplatform releases since, besides the political issue of online capability (see EA and others), multiplatform releases can look and play better on the Xbox due to its superior hardware. Sony doesn't benefit as much since they already get the lion's share of releases and Nintendo gains little because most GC owners bought the console in order to play Nintendo first-party games.
It's chicken and egg. Developers are reluctant to publish games for the Japanese Xbox market because there are so few Xbox owners. There are few Xbox owners because there aren't enough compelling Xbox games for the Japanese market. The best Microsoft can hope for now is that they get enough Japanese gamers to provide decent word of mouth when they release their next console. I suspect this is the reason they've decided to send over a lot of non-regionalized titles. They're hoping that enough English-speaking gamers in Japan will be interested in a few of these games to get a better spark for the next round. It'll be fun to see how it turns out.
They don't just bump up the resolution on a whim. The games are tested at whatever resolutions the developers want to support, and if they can't get the proper performance at HD resolutions, they leave it at the standard 480. This is why most Xbox games don't have the higher resolutiosn (and why the Soulcalibur 2 720p mode is displayed in a 4:3 window inside of the standard 16:9 resolution).
Also, while admittedly NTSC is only capable of 30 full frames/second, since it's an interlaced format a game console can render 60 frames/second internally and provide that greater sense of motion and fluidity on an NTSC television (generating lines 1,3,5,... of frame 1 in the first field; 2,4,6,... of frame 2 in the second field; etc.) - while the actual picture displayed will have a lower true resolution (by not displaying every frame in full over both fields), in video games it still provides a "60 fps experience," particularly nice for the more twitchy games out there.
Good luck!
My apologies. You're right about Doom 3. I was referring to the capabilities of DX9 as opposed to DX8, and those differences translate to some extent to features currently available in OpenGL. Saying "DX9" was just a convenient frame of reference for me (being a Windows foo'). :)
Yes it does (and my ReplayTV works the same way). And it's NTSC, having nothing to do with HDTV.
The same happen would happen with digital satellite, with one notable exception that I'm aware of: DirecTV and TiVO jointly produce a unit which saves the MPEG stream directly to the disk
Your one notable exception isn't the only one. The same thing happens on DishNetwork with their PVR501/721 line (the 721 was the full-featured dual-tuner big dog before the HDTV-capable 921). The reason that it doesn't happen outside of satellite right now is because the vast majority of channels are NTSC, and NTSC channels aren't "naturally" compressed. Thus, if you want this kind of capability with current digital cable/satellite, yes, you have to go proprietary.
This is how I want to see it being done for HDTV.
You listed the DVR721 from DishNetwork which IS that way. DirecTV I'm sure will be releasing a similar unit at some point. What's the question again?
What you're talking about doesn't exist... where are you getting these signals from? Over the air? That doesn't interest me. I'm not going to invest the kind of cash to make this work just so I can watch CBS broadcast in HD.
What are you referring to? Everything I described in my post exists. There are currently at least two over-the-air PC HDTV card solutions that I know of, both of which can interface with D-VHS recorders. The DVR921 (again, YOUR example) is planned to be able to interface via Firewire with a D-VHS VCR, allowing you to archive HDTV programs on tape. It's not a stretch at all to assume that this will probably be compatible with PCs in the same fashion. Again, at all points until actual viewing, the MPEG-2 HDTV stream will REMAIN compressed.
Keep in mind that when I talk about signal modulation (8VSB and whatever the satellite companies are using - I can't recall the acronym off the top of my head), that's different from MPEG-2 compression. The former is the method by which the latter is transmitted through the atmosphere - once it hits the satellite or set-top box it is DEmodulated (before being decompressed) into the MPEG-2 stream. That stream can then be read and decoded by any HD-capable MPEG-2 decoder, whether it ends up on a satellite box hard drive (in the case of the DVR921), a D-VHS video tape or a PC hard drive. HDCP (high-definition copy protection which the MPAA is trying to force on everyone) adds a layer of complexity, but the basics I describe still hold true as long as the decoder can handle and pass HDCP.
And the unit I linked to earlier is far better than using the standard tuner the cable/satellite co. gives you, and then plugging that into a HD PVR.
I will only say that not once in my post did I describe anything like a standalone HD PVR. You're reading something that isn't there.
I'm fully aware that people will need to go through a cable or satellite box to receive all the available HD signals (right now, about half). That's no different, really, than the way the current NTSC signals are handled - I can't watch ESPN, Comedy Central, etc. without having a satellite decoder and most digital cable systems have the same limitation (though in many cases cable companies are required to offer a basic analog package that doesn't require a box).
Again, summing up: You seem to be confused as to what the DishNetwork DVR921 is capable of. Specifically, it can receive and store both NTSC and HDTV signals via satellite and "over the air" (regular broadcast networks). Said signals can then be decoded immediately for viewing and/or stored (BEFORE decoding) on the hard drive. With the Firewire, once it is enabled, it will be able to send the STILL-COMPRESSED recorded streams to other devices (such as a PC or D-VHS VCR) for archiving.
As to other devices that are available, they are indeed all restricted to over-the-air broadcasts unless they are sent a stream from a cable/satellite device such as the DVR921.
PERIOD.
A margin that small will not put them out of business, unless the gap grows larger in future cards.
You have a point, but it only works in terms of people upgrading, for example, from the ATI 9800Pro to the ATI 9800XT, or the 9700 to the 9800XT, or the GeForce4 5800 to the 9800XT, so on and so forth.
What you're not taking into account is that most people (even the majority of the "hardcore") don't upgrade in those kinds of tiny increments. Most people will tend to upgrade about once a year (or when they notice a performance drop in new games), in which case they WILL get a significant performance boost from the newest card. It's also worth noting that none of the crazy high-end, hotly anticipated DX9 games (Half-Life 2 and Doom 3) have even hit the market yet, which has probably delayed the upgrades of the majority even further.
In short, the longer ATI stays on top the higher their market share will grow. After all, it worked for Nvidia. Two years ago, a hardcore gamer wouldn't have wasted their bodily fluids to spit on ATI's cards - now they're the performance leader and those same hardcore gamers are either buying ATI cards or at least considering it.
The situation will probably be different again in another two years because it's a dynamic business. The question is whether or not Nvidia is set up well enough to stay in the game if they continue to be in second place. I don't know myself, since I'm not a business analyst. It sure is fun to watch, though. :)
You can see this demonstrated on the page you linked to which says that the Dish PVR's 250-GB hard drive can store 25 hours of HDTV while the MyHD FAQ (a popular HDTV tuner card) lists the card as storing HDTV signals at a rate of 9.4 GB/hour.
As to why current HD recorders (both PC-based and stand-alone D-VHS) can't take satellite signals, it's because DirecTV and DishNetwork use a different signal from the OTA standard (FCC-mandated) 8VSB modulation. So, somewhat like NTSC VCRs and DVRs, you can't store the raw (compressed) satellite signal unless the unit is integrated or a method is provided by which the compressed signal can be transmitted (after the actual demodulation of the original satellite transmission) to the outside recording unit.
This is where the IEEE-1394 (Firewire) interface on the new Dish DVR 921 will eventually (when the software is enabled) comes in. It will have at least the ability to connect to a D-VHS VCR so that HDTV programs can be permanently archived (compressed, of course). It *may* (given the right software on the PC) be able to connect to a computer so that the compressed stream can be dumped to a PC hard drive/server. Of course, such a PC would need either decoding software (and a pretty decent amount of power) or a decoder card like the MyHD to decode the stream.
As I read back over this, it may be even more confusing, so I'll sum up:
1. As it currently stands, no high-definition recording solution decodes and then re-encodes before saving to hard drive. This is done a) to reduce the hardware overhead and b) because there are no current consumer-level hardware HDTV encoding solutions.
2. The DishNetwork PVR you mentioned (again, the 921) WILL have the capability, through Firewire, to connect to outside HDTV recording solutions - at least D-VHS and very likely PCs.
Hope that helps! :)
In the US, game companies are free to sell games in whatever language they wish. Louisiana, for example, could not pass and enforce a similar law because it would be determined unconstitutional when challenged in court.
Quebec and Canada can do what they want. Few people here in the US would advocate sending troops to Montreal in an effort to liberate French-Canadians from oppression, but a good many people in this country still find these kinds of laws offensive. There's a reason English has never been declared the official language of the USA.
Product reviews exist so that people don't always have to waste time and money on something they find out later is crap. Because of reviews, I didn't have to waste money buying Daikatana when it came out, nor did I run out to buy a Yugo.
Of course, there's always the possibility that I'll disagree with a review, and if the product getting a bad review still interests me I might find a way to give it a try, or perhaps even defy the reviews and just buy it. If I do like it, that doesn't mean that the reviewer's opinion was "baseless" or that I shouldn't pay any attention to reviews in the future. What it means is that people have differing tastes.
Profitability isn't the only measure of success...especially when a company loses market share in a business where they previously dominated.
Let's face it. Even if we don't have the true numbers of how many N-Gages have actually been sold to living, breathing, spending customers, it's pretty apparent that the thing has less support than the N64 (which most people felt was a failure, especially compared to the Playstation) and is going to die as a true gaming machine for lack of developers.
By the time we forget what an Internet PR debacle the N-Gage has been, surplus units will be given away with one-year cellular contracts - to users who may never insert a game into the unit.
Companies need to take this kind of thing to heart. Big-time ad campaigns aren't enough anymore to sell a bad high-tech product.
Um, yeah: Because it's easy to do and if one of company puts the capability in and others don't, somebody falls behind in the system specs race (ask Sega how that worked out for them).
I envision TiVo-like functionality to be the next "It also plays DVDs!", but would Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft build this type of functionality into a game system? And would such a system stay around the $300 price point that seems to be the new standard?
It depends on how cheap NTSC/MPEG encoding chips are when they're ready to start production, since they can't do it in software without killing game performance.
My personal prediction would be that if Sony likes the financial performance of the PSX they'll offer a special PS3 version with the PVR functionality, separate from the basic PS3 (which will still have at least a small hard drive). Microsoft could either do something similar or once again take huge losses on sales of the next Xbox's hardware - I'd say 50/50 chance either way, though if it's the latter they'll leave the market if they don't get better penetration. There's no way on earth Nintendo will include PVR functionality on a console - they'd go to being a third-party software house first. They just don't have any experience in that market.
So that means that because something was true in the past, it's always true in the future even if you don't have the data to prove it? Neat!
In other words: Bad comparison.
As far as complaining about potential cost increases due to multiple functions, why don't we burn that bridge when we get to it? In this most recent generation, it's unreasonable to blame DVD playback for more than $20-30 (licensing and software development) of the cost for PS2s, and the Xbox shifted that cost over to an optional add-on. There's no indication yet that the next consoles will cost any more than they did in this past generation and we all know that people will be less likely to buy the consoles if they cost more, so they'll probably debut again at $300. If I end up getting some extra potential functionality for that money, what is there to complain about? If the argument is against the inclusion of hard drives in consoles because of increased failure rates, well, I'm not buying that either. I've had the same 20-GB hard drive in my Panasonic Showstopper (ReplayTV) since purchase (at its debut several years ago), running for several hours per day, and I don't have problems outside of wanting more space and being too cheap/lazy to replace it with something bigger.
I read nothing in that editorial that makes me think that adding functions to consoles is a bad idea on its face. It only made me think that the writer, like so many people on the Internet, is a curmudgeon who enjoys hunting down things about which to complain.
Heck, like their foray into console gaming with the Xbox this is an underdog situation since the iPod has been so heavily marketed and has become so hugely popular (by the way, Apple leverages their hardware/software monopoly on OSX systems with iTunes in order to sell more iPods).
Considering any MP3 player one buys will come with some sort of music management software (MusicMatch, iTunes, the Creative bundle, etc.), even the fact that WMP is already on a Windows computer isn't a huge advantage when you're talking about connecting to extra [expensive] hardware.
Reminds me of the generalizations (which were rampant on Slashdot game discussions) that said the Japanese market wouldn't respond to Grand Theft Auto 3 because it was just too pointlessly violent. Maybe if the marketing departments of the big publishers weren't so devoted to their narrow perceptions of the various markets, all gamers would be more appreciative of a wider variety of genres.
Exactly. It was my hope that by mentioning that I would make it clear that I was offering an academic argument as opposed to complaining about your game in particular (though my "lazy and uncaring" comment was over the line by that measure).
I'm simply an advocate of the idea that console games (especially beyond FPS games) should be placed online whenever possible, especially when their competitive elements are compelling. Tetris is much maligned (to the point that it's the butt of its own joke) but it's a game that should always have online capability because multiplayer Tetris is fun. Had this particular discussion been about SSX3, which is also a "trick game" that has online capability on the PS2 and not on the Xbox, I would be similarly taking EA to task - not because I have an all-consuming need to play multiplayer SSX but because in my opinion there's no good reason not to do it unless they're going to charge bucks for SSX3 matchmaking.
Of course, I'm also of the opinion that the video game market is such that it can support multiple consoles, an opinion which Activisition/Neversoft, EA and the rest seem to share since every third-party company develops for multiple consoles. If that's true, it seems like a bad message is sent when features are left off one version and included on another despite comparable technical ability (in other words, if both PS2 and Xbox CAN do Internet then the two versions should be feature-equivalent).
Note: Yes, Gamecube fans, I left that console out because Nintendo has little to no interest in pushing online play. If a console company can't even bother to make their own games online-compatible, I'm not going to get mad at developers who follow suit.
In any case, I appreciate the conversation and, despite my irritation, I can understand to some extent Neversoft's decision not to include Xbox Live compatibility and I certainly don't hate your company - in fact, considering it's the fifth time dipping into the Tony Hawk well, I consider it a minor miracle that none of the sequels have been rehashed crapfests and that each has been upgraded enough to make fans happy. I would only close by suggesting that you folks think hard about making it happen for the next iteration of the series. It would be a shame if people jumped off a good series because they think y'all hate Xbox users.
Peace!
Now THAT is a troll. :-)
1. If you mean people are paying for Xbox Live, so what? Anyone who is playing Xbox Live-enabled games has already paid for it anyway. If you mean paying extra for access to something extra, that's easy: Just allow people to connect and play online. If we can't put our own face in the game, most of us won't consider that a crisis of epic proportions.
2. You really need to elaborate on point 2. If you're complaining about the fact that Xbox Live has an online framework in place with which you would have to comply, that's an odd thing to complain about..."Gee, they've already done all this work for us and we hate them for it" or "Oh darn, now we don't have to set up our own matchmaking service for Xbox players."
"Pragmatic standpoint": Guess what. People are generally willing to wait for a full-featured game. Xbox owners had to wait for both 2[x] and 3 and as I recall those sold rather well. Gamers tend to be very understanding about delays when they're told that they'll be getting a good game because of it...Not to mention the fact that Xbox Live is NOT a new thing. You've had this game in development for quite a while and XBL has been "live" for a year now. That would seem to be enough lead time to add the feature and accomplish testing in a timely fashion.
In short, while I wouldn't accuse Neversoft of malicious intent in not offering Xbox Live support, it's pretty easy to accuse you of being lazy and uncaring on the issue.
Sidenote: I enjoyed THPS4 quite a lot and it's entirely likely that I'll buy THUG for Xbox since I don't consider a lack of online play to be a critical factor in this kind of game. I just don't like lame excuses.
"And guess what," PlayOnline has been around since 2002 - before Xbox Live (not by that much) but not "much longer than the Xbox."
Linux 2.6.0-test9 Released
FreeBSD 4.9-RC4 (i386) Available For Pounding
There are two examples from the last two days. Both of those appear on the "main page" if you choose not to disable them - just like stories from the games section. It's certainly nothing to complain about. If you want to remove games from your "main page," it's a simple matter to go here, select "Preferences" and then select "Homepage" to make such changes.
ATI and Valve are trying to make the best out of a bad situation. The gaming community would piss and moan for months, maybe years, if Half-Life 2 went gold in a beta form, so the delay has to happen. I think the fact that they're giving away ANYTHING extra to compensate for the HL2 wait is a good deal and shouldn't be the subject of any negativity. Anyone who would buy one of the new ATI XT cards is almost guaranteed to be a customer for Half-Life 2 (assuming they would buy instead of steal), so despite the wait the bundle was already a fantastic deal and now has a little extra bonus.