That's odd, because my first Amiga was an A1000 and my last an A4000 and, unless you wanted to most basic functions, printers attached to Amiga's needed dedicated printer drivers.
For plenty of people PS2 backwards compatibility is a non-issue, either because they are keeping their PS2 or because they never owned one - some research I did last year (it may have changed) shows that the majority of the people on Earth don't own PS2s.
Soup
Sony did the same with the PSP firmware, relentlessly adding new functionality to it as an impressive rollout speed. Compare this to Microsoft, the world's biggest software company, who are very slow to in this respect. It took then 7-8 months to add background downloading to the 360's dashboard, Sony had it out four months after the Japan/US launch and on day one of the European launch. Impressive.
Trailers of cinematics and game play are par for the course these days when it comes to marketing, why do you think it's any more effort to produce a trailer for E3 than routine trailer releases? I drop in at Game Trailers (www.gametrailers.com) every few of days and there pages of new game trailers to look at. Likewise, how is the time spent taken to produce a playable demo "wasted"? With playable demos becoming the norm on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network, this just doubles as a try-before-you-buy opportunity. I doubt very much if I'd have bought Ninja Gaiden Sigma had I not got hooked on the playable demo on PSN. Sure, it's extra work but it's hardly time wasted if it widens you gaming audience.
Speaking for myself, I'd gladly sacrifice 2 weeks on every game release for the opportunity of a playable demo up front and plenty of devs already build the playable demo in to their project plan anyway.
As a gamer, I love E3. No I don't actually go - I'm in the UK and even if I wanted too, I don't think I could be having with all of the trekking around involved in the new format, but as a gamer, it's GREAT. Where else (maybe the TGS) do you get some much new information, screens, trailers and so on, released during so short a space of time?
Isn't E3 supposed to be about creating a buzz and enthusiasm for gaming? I'd hate to see it disappear, or even for Microsoft, Nintendo or Sony to drop out of attending. They already have their own 'Gamer Day' conferences, E3 is where we get to see them compete on even footing and try to out-do each other which is good for gamers. Journalists? Huh? You're PAID to do this, yeah it's hard work, but guys/girls - you're PAID to do this;-)
You see, developers may have some preference regarding consoles that are more powerful, or easier to program for, but their bosses don't. Their bosses care: if I make game for console X, what's my potential market.
This is a short-sighted view. It's going to take developers several years to learn to tap into the quirks of RSX and power of Cell in the PS3, probably more so than the 360 which has more conventional architecture and components. I doubt Insomniac made much, if anything, on Resistance but they've learned a lot about the PS3 and are banking on the PS3 being a long-term profitable platform.
Now three-to-four years down the line, the PS3 booms and those developers who overlooked the PS3 in favor of the [then] better-selling Wii and 360, step into the PS3 development, they may well be one or even two generations of software development behind those who got in on the ground floor and find it hard to compete.
Of course this may not happen, but this is the gamble that early-adopter developers like Insomniac (Resistance) and Ninja Theory (Heavenly Sword) have taken on the PS3. Both are third-party, neither are bankrolled by Sony but both obviously trust that Sony will pull off the hat trick and make the PS3 a viable, profitable platform longterm. The 360 may look safer but Redmond have still to turn a profit and they dumped the Xbox after a mere four years. Microsoft are habitual platform/project/partner droppers when things don't work out or fit in their business plans.
Yeah but how many of those 360 games are AAA titles? Microsoft had a year head start over the competition, a giant sackful of money to throw at developers and in the 19 months the X360 has been out, what is the only game that's really caused a stir? Gears of War. Gee, that's just.. great.
I have both a X360 and PS3 but for me the PS3 is currently looking like the better platform for this year and the next. Exclusives on the PS3 that I'm certainly or most probably going to grab are Ninja Gaiden Sigma, Lair, Warhawk, Singstar, Heavenly Sword, Little Big Planet, Metal Gear Solid, Ratchet & Clank, Uncharted, Wipeout and God of War 3 (when/if), Afrika also looks interesting. On the X360, games in the same category: Bioshock, Alan Wake, Mass Effect and Gears of War 2 (when/if).
And games where I have a choice: Eight Days, Burnout Paradise, Indiana Jones, Grand Theft, Pro Evolution Soccer, Assassin's Creed, Mercenaries, Star Wars Force Unleashed, Resident Evil 5. Note the lack of FPS's and hardcore RPGs in all three lists.
Well you don't say which platform you're using, but the best place to get leads (be aware that Apple change iTunes on occasion to break de-DRM software from working) is on the FairPlay Wiki here -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairPlay
Here you'll find references (and some links) to current software. The most efficient type of software I've found are those which spoof the iTunes software, e.g. you give it your iTMS account details and it logs iTMS pretending to the iTunes, this way it can grab the crypto key on the server which makes removing the DRM quite easy. I'd suggest you change your iTMS password immediately afterwards.
Once the FairPlay DRM has been stripped, the resulting AACs will play on the PlayStation3 without further modification. There will usually be some 'artifacts' of the Apple DRM data in any stripped file, and this may be traceable back to you as the purchaser (I've not idea) so sharing DRM stripped files would probably be a bad idea.
I'll be happier when such measures aren't required and Sony buy into FairPlay (ha.. unlikely) or iTMS can finally free itself of DRM.
Let's be fair, nobody knows what Steve Jobbs or Apple really thought about DRM when they launched the iPod and iTMS, however few would argue that the DRM factor and the way it ties the huge catalogue of music on iTMS to the iPod is anything but a strong selling point for the iPod. I genuinely like the iPod and iTunes (the software, not the store) and would probably have bought an iPod anyway but I have friends who bought the iPod purely because of the convenience of music on demand from iTMS.
Well I don't think you'll find anybody here who views DRM as anything less than evil, however as of yet Apple have yet to arbitrarily drop support for it's FairPlay DRM system, Microsoft actually did this with the Zune by ignoring it's earlier DRM mechanism.
Further to this, Apple's FairPlay2 (the current implementation of it's iTunes DRM) really doesn't cause me any problems, there are multi-platform tools to remove the FairPlay2 DRM from your purchased tracks, it only gets tricky when your trying to break FairPlay DRM on tracks you don't own because you won't have access to the crypto key. I buy a fair bit from iTunes, all of it ends up on the PlayStation3 sans DRM.
Microsoft are well renowned for taking a few attempts to get a product into a state at which point it's appeal will start to take hold. Usually this is because any Microsoft foray in to a new market results in poorly-designed or badly thought-out products but with the Zune I think they got a good product out on the first attempt, it's just launching an MP3 package (player+store) in the shadow of iPod and iTMS, you need a KILLER product to make to get noticed and the Zune isn't it.
And anybody who bought into Microsoft's 'Plays For Sure' DRM, which Zune doesn't support, is surely going to think twice before picking a Zune over an iPod.
if the Mircosoft installation program detected something besides a DOS partition, it would blithely inform you that it had detected something non-Mircosoft and it would take care of it for you!
They've removed this feature from software but transferred it to Microsoft's legal department, but rest assured it's alive and kicking!
Like most people, I don't care who "wins" the "war", either in terms of profits or sales, but as a consumer Blu-ray is looking a safe bet right now.
100% of the people who bought HD DVD players, bought them to play HD DVD movies. I can guarantee you that the vast, VAST majority of PS3 owners got it to play games.
Which has what to do with the price of fish? Before the PS3 launched, Blu-ray disc sales were appalling; after it launched and steadily increasing since that launch, Blu-ray disc sales have increased, caught up with, and then overtaken sales of HD-DVD discs. Recall that HD-DVD launched earlier and the players are generally cheaper.
There are two plausible explanations for this. People with PS3s are - OH MY GOD - using the Blu-ray capabilities and playing movies. Or, those REALLY dedicated folks who stand-alone Blu-ray players are just buying tons of discs to make the format look successful. Hmmm, I wonder which..
Sony bundle the PS3 with Blu-Ray movies and put this in their sale figures. Again, notice the buyers didn't have much choice. They just got it with their PS3.
Yeah it was quite a shock when the Sony stormtroopers knocked at my door then forced me to buy a PlayStation3. Huh? You don't want a PlayStaion3 with Blu-ray? Don't buy a PlayStation3. I know, I know.. it amazed me to find out that purchasing wasn't compulsory and we don't live in a Stalinist society where we're forced to buy things we don't want.
How many studios (except Sony Pictures I presume) are only behind Blu-Ray?
In terms of major Hollywood studios, Universal are exclusively supporting HD-DVD; Columbia Pictures, MGM, Disney, Lionsgate, and 20th Century Fox are exclusively supporting Blu-ray and the remaining studios are agnostic.
I used to be a real fan of Molyneux and Bullfrog - back in the Amiga/Atari ST days of Populous, Powermonger and Syndicate but the uber-hyped Black & White and it's lacklustre follow-up have just engendered an inate dread of any new Molyneux game. Better this time? Uh-huh.. lessons learned? Uh-huh.. The games always sound incredible but always seem with have some humungous gameplay deficiency or the game shipped before it was really finished/fleshed out (ignoring the damn bugs). There no doubt Molyneux is a a great game designer but I question his ability to manage a game project and deliver a complete decent game and not 75% of a decent game.
Of course, Sony's business model for PlayStation has always been to take a hit on the hardware and profit on the software, so the most important thing they need to do it get the PS3 into as many hands as possible, however it's still selling steadily which suggests that despite all outcry about it's cost, there are plenty (certainly millions and millions) of people who can afford it at it's current price-point so I wouldn't have though Sony would feel compelled to cut the retail value until sales start to slow.
Sony are also in the enviable position of having 140m PlayStation2 owners out there still buying games so while there is no doubt that PlayStation3 is costing them a bomb, on paper Sony PlayStation division doesn't look like the financial fiasco that Microsoft's Entertainment and Home Division (Xbox, Zune etc) is. You can sure as hell bet that Sony would rather reduce their costs than stick out a big loss on hardware, but - contrary to popular belief and past mistakes/decisions, they know their business model and it requires them to sell more consoles than they are now - even Howard Stringer, acknowledges the PS3 price is a problem, it's their No.1 problem to fix. Take care of the price, get some good first party games out there and everything else will take care of itself.
These would be great options if Microsoft's Entertainment and Home Division (primarily, Xbox, Live, Zune and Microsoft Marketplace) weren't several billion down and, as far as the Xbox venture goes, the last quarterly filing showing no sign of profit turn-around. On the [highly speculative] subject of cutting losses some - and which itself is no guarantee of profit - investors are unlikely going to sanction any decisions which leads to further losses.
What I can't fathom is how Microsoft are failing to make profit on Xbox? It's far from cutting edge, Live! must be bringing in a fair amount, Microsoft have to be one, if not THE, largest software publisher in the world so 360 games publishing must be dirt cheap, they are selling peripherals (memory cards, hard drives) way about high street retail prices for such technology, so where is all this money going? Advertising, at least here in the UK, is low key. Are they smoking it?
Finally, there's strong rumors that Microsoft has gotten their manufacturing costs down to the point where they may actually be making a small profit on each 360 they sell. If this is true, they could easily match any price drop by Sony, if not exceed it.
No they can't because Microsoft desperately need to turn a dime (or about 5 trillion dimes) on Xbox and they've entered into this generation about $5bn down. Even with production costs down or level - depending on who you believe - they really can't afford further needless loss, even to disadvantage Sony, who are still skimming plenty of $$$ on PS2.
Well said. Wrong, but well said. The PS3s RSX has full access to Cell's 256mb XDR via one of the two FlexIO bus channels, this operates up to 35GB/sec. You can think of it as Turbocache/Hypermemory without associated latency issues. Far from insurmountable.
There's no fooling you, huh? Stock on shelves = not selling. Who are Apple fooling with those fabricated iPod sales statistics? They're never out of stock, they're clearly not selling. I'm not sure how it works elsewhere in this ball we live on, we have have some retail witchcraft in the UK that we call "RE-stocking". It's er like.. you have some stock, and some muppets buy some stock and you er.. like.. you get some MORE stock. Stop me if I'm going too quick for you.
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That's odd, because my first Amiga was an A1000 and my last an A4000 and, unless you wanted to most basic functions, printers attached to Amiga's needed dedicated printer drivers.
For plenty of people PS2 backwards compatibility is a non-issue, either because they are keeping their PS2 or because they never owned one - some research I did last year (it may have changed) shows that the majority of the people on Earth don't own PS2s. Soup
Sony did the same with the PSP firmware, relentlessly adding new functionality to it as an impressive rollout speed. Compare this to Microsoft, the world's biggest software company, who are very slow to in this respect. It took then 7-8 months to add background downloading to the 360's dashboard, Sony had it out four months after the Japan/US launch and on day one of the European launch. Impressive.
Trailers of cinematics and game play are par for the course these days when it comes to marketing, why do you think it's any more effort to produce a trailer for E3 than routine trailer releases? I drop in at Game Trailers (www.gametrailers.com) every few of days and there pages of new game trailers to look at. Likewise, how is the time spent taken to produce a playable demo "wasted"? With playable demos becoming the norm on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network, this just doubles as a try-before-you-buy opportunity. I doubt very much if I'd have bought Ninja Gaiden Sigma had I not got hooked on the playable demo on PSN. Sure, it's extra work but it's hardly time wasted if it widens you gaming audience.
Speaking for myself, I'd gladly sacrifice 2 weeks on every game release for the opportunity of a playable demo up front and plenty of devs already build the playable demo in to their project plan anyway.
As a gamer, I love E3. No I don't actually go - I'm in the UK and even if I wanted too, I don't think I could be having with all of the trekking around involved in the new format, but as a gamer, it's GREAT. Where else (maybe the TGS) do you get some much new information, screens, trailers and so on, released during so short a space of time?
;-)
Isn't E3 supposed to be about creating a buzz and enthusiasm for gaming? I'd hate to see it disappear, or even for Microsoft, Nintendo or Sony to drop out of attending. They already have their own 'Gamer Day' conferences, E3 is where we get to see them compete on even footing and try to out-do each other which is good for gamers. Journalists? Huh? You're PAID to do this, yeah it's hard work, but guys/girls - you're PAID to do this
This is a short-sighted view. It's going to take developers several years to learn to tap into the quirks of RSX and power of Cell in the PS3, probably more so than the 360 which has more conventional architecture and components. I doubt Insomniac made much, if anything, on Resistance but they've learned a lot about the PS3 and are banking on the PS3 being a long-term profitable platform.
Now three-to-four years down the line, the PS3 booms and those developers who overlooked the PS3 in favor of the [then] better-selling Wii and 360, step into the PS3 development, they may well be one or even two generations of software development behind those who got in on the ground floor and find it hard to compete.
Of course this may not happen, but this is the gamble that early-adopter developers like Insomniac (Resistance) and Ninja Theory (Heavenly Sword) have taken on the PS3. Both are third-party, neither are bankrolled by Sony but both obviously trust that Sony will pull off the hat trick and make the PS3 a viable, profitable platform longterm. The 360 may look safer but Redmond have still to turn a profit and they dumped the Xbox after a mere four years. Microsoft are habitual platform/project/partner droppers when things don't work out or fit in their business plans.
I have both a X360 and PS3 but for me the PS3 is currently looking like the better platform for this year and the next. Exclusives on the PS3 that I'm certainly or most probably going to grab are Ninja Gaiden Sigma, Lair, Warhawk, Singstar, Heavenly Sword, Little Big Planet, Metal Gear Solid, Ratchet & Clank, Uncharted, Wipeout and God of War 3 (when/if), Afrika also looks interesting. On the X360, games in the same category: Bioshock, Alan Wake, Mass Effect and Gears of War 2 (when/if).
And games where I have a choice: Eight Days, Burnout Paradise, Indiana Jones, Grand Theft, Pro Evolution Soccer, Assassin's Creed, Mercenaries, Star Wars Force Unleashed, Resident Evil 5. Note the lack of FPS's and hardcore RPGs in all three lists.
Yeah, they're failing to the tune of billions dollars of year in profits. What on Earth if wrong with this doomed company?
Here you'll find references (and some links) to current software. The most efficient type of software I've found are those which spoof the iTunes software, e.g. you give it your iTMS account details and it logs iTMS pretending to the iTunes, this way it can grab the crypto key on the server which makes removing the DRM quite easy. I'd suggest you change your iTMS password immediately afterwards.
Once the FairPlay DRM has been stripped, the resulting AACs will play on the PlayStation3 without further modification. There will usually be some 'artifacts' of the Apple DRM data in any stripped file, and this may be traceable back to you as the purchaser (I've not idea) so sharing DRM stripped files would probably be a bad idea.
I'll be happier when such measures aren't required and Sony buy into FairPlay (ha.. unlikely) or iTMS can finally free itself of DRM.
Let's be fair, nobody knows what Steve Jobbs or Apple really thought about DRM when they launched the iPod and iTMS, however few would argue that the DRM factor and the way it ties the huge catalogue of music on iTMS to the iPod is anything but a strong selling point for the iPod. I genuinely like the iPod and iTunes (the software, not the store) and would probably have bought an iPod anyway but I have friends who bought the iPod purely because of the convenience of music on demand from iTMS.
Further to this, Apple's FairPlay2 (the current implementation of it's iTunes DRM) really doesn't cause me any problems, there are multi-platform tools to remove the FairPlay2 DRM from your purchased tracks, it only gets tricky when your trying to break FairPlay DRM on tracks you don't own because you won't have access to the crypto key. I buy a fair bit from iTunes, all of it ends up on the PlayStation3 sans DRM.
Microsoft are well renowned for taking a few attempts to get a product into a state at which point it's appeal will start to take hold. Usually this is because any Microsoft foray in to a new market results in poorly-designed or badly thought-out products but with the Zune I think they got a good product out on the first attempt, it's just launching an MP3 package (player+store) in the shadow of iPod and iTMS, you need a KILLER product to make to get noticed and the Zune isn't it.
And anybody who bought into Microsoft's 'Plays For Sure' DRM, which Zune doesn't support, is surely going to think twice before picking a Zune over an iPod.
There are two plausible explanations for this. People with PS3s are - OH MY GOD - using the Blu-ray capabilities and playing movies. Or, those REALLY dedicated folks who stand-alone Blu-ray players are just buying tons of discs to make the format look successful. Hmmm, I wonder which..
Yeah it was quite a shock when the Sony stormtroopers knocked at my door then forced me to buy a PlayStation3. Huh? You don't want a PlayStaion3 with Blu-ray? Don't buy a PlayStation3. I know, I know.. it amazed me to find out that purchasing wasn't compulsory and we don't live in a Stalinist society where we're forced to buy things we don't want. In terms of major Hollywood studios, Universal are exclusively supporting HD-DVD; Columbia Pictures, MGM, Disney, Lionsgate, and 20th Century Fox are exclusively supporting Blu-ray and the remaining studios are agnostic.I used to be a real fan of Molyneux and Bullfrog - back in the Amiga/Atari ST days of Populous, Powermonger and Syndicate but the uber-hyped Black & White and it's lacklustre follow-up have just engendered an inate dread of any new Molyneux game. Better this time? Uh-huh.. lessons learned? Uh-huh.. The games always sound incredible but always seem with have some humungous gameplay deficiency or the game shipped before it was really finished/fleshed out (ignoring the damn bugs). There no doubt Molyneux is a a great game designer but I question his ability to manage a game project and deliver a complete decent game and not 75% of a decent game.
Of course, Sony's business model for PlayStation has always been to take a hit on the hardware and profit on the software, so the most important thing they need to do it get the PS3 into as many hands as possible, however it's still selling steadily which suggests that despite all outcry about it's cost, there are plenty (certainly millions and millions) of people who can afford it at it's current price-point so I wouldn't have though Sony would feel compelled to cut the retail value until sales start to slow. Sony are also in the enviable position of having 140m PlayStation2 owners out there still buying games so while there is no doubt that PlayStation3 is costing them a bomb, on paper Sony PlayStation division doesn't look like the financial fiasco that Microsoft's Entertainment and Home Division (Xbox, Zune etc) is. You can sure as hell bet that Sony would rather reduce their costs than stick out a big loss on hardware, but - contrary to popular belief and past mistakes/decisions, they know their business model and it requires them to sell more consoles than they are now - even Howard Stringer, acknowledges the PS3 price is a problem, it's their No.1 problem to fix. Take care of the price, get some good first party games out there and everything else will take care of itself.
These would be great options if Microsoft's Entertainment and Home Division (primarily, Xbox, Live, Zune and Microsoft Marketplace) weren't several billion down and, as far as the Xbox venture goes, the last quarterly filing showing no sign of profit turn-around. On the [highly speculative] subject of cutting losses some - and which itself is no guarantee of profit - investors are unlikely going to sanction any decisions which leads to further losses. What I can't fathom is how Microsoft are failing to make profit on Xbox? It's far from cutting edge, Live! must be bringing in a fair amount, Microsoft have to be one, if not THE, largest software publisher in the world so 360 games publishing must be dirt cheap, they are selling peripherals (memory cards, hard drives) way about high street retail prices for such technology, so where is all this money going? Advertising, at least here in the UK, is low key. Are they smoking it?
Well said. Wrong, but well said. The PS3s RSX has full access to Cell's 256mb XDR via one of the two FlexIO bus channels, this operates up to 35GB/sec. You can think of it as Turbocache/Hypermemory without associated latency issues. Far from insurmountable.
There's no fooling you, huh? Stock on shelves = not selling. Who are Apple fooling with those fabricated iPod sales statistics? They're never out of stock, they're clearly not selling. I'm not sure how it works elsewhere in this ball we live on, we have have some retail witchcraft in the UK that we call "RE-stocking". It's er like.. you have some stock, and some muppets buy some stock and you er.. like.. you get some MORE stock. Stop me if I'm going too quick for you.