The next question is will Sony or Microsoft be the first to let you add an external HD for content? You already can. The PS3 supports both USB flash drives and USB hard drives, in addition to being able to upgrade the internal HD with any standard 2.5" drive. It's actually a hell of a little machine, and it's a wonder Slashdot hates it so much when it's so open.
Basically whose responsibility is it to identify and remove infringing copyright material? According to law (DMCA), it's the content owners' responsibility.
Even if they had a little button there that said, "flag this video for copyright infringement" They do have that button. "Mark as inappropriate".
I mean really, you can tell me for instance that the PS3 will do everything from clean my laundry to wash my car but at the end of the day it doesn't have my Gears of War. It doesn't have my Crackdown. There's no Forza Motorsport. There's no XBLA. To top it off it's also a lot cheaper for me to get to play a large library (and ever-growing...just check out upcoming releases like The Darkness, Bioshock, and others) of great games that look spectacular with a superb online system. Can I play Blu-Ray movies? No, but then, did I really want to buy a game system to play movies? I mean really, you can tell me for instance that the XBox 360 is the end-all be-all of consoles but at the end of the day it doesn't have my Resistance. It doesn't have my Motorstorm. There's no flOw. There's no PS3 store. To top it off there's also a huge library of amazing and amazingly cheap PS2 games that I can play. Can I play Blu-Ray moves? Yes, and they look amazing and are a great added bonus.
Listen, I like my 360 (Worms + Viva Pinata = awesome), but your arguments make no sense.
I expect the Wii to be the most reliable of the consoles, given the simplicity of its hardware and the fact that it is mostly already proven.
There have actually been a few issues with bricking during firmware upgrades and also graphical artifacts due to poor heatsink installation. My Wii is suffering from the second problem, and it's annoying as hell.
I haven't heard anything bad about the PS3's reliability (yet, at least).
I work in a company that does open world games (and good ones actually). I have to tell you the "hobbling" isn't true. Insomniac would like to disagree with you.
If you ever hear someone say "Blu-Ray isn't needed for this generation," rest assured they don't make games for a living. At Insomniac, we were filling up DVDs on the PS2, as were most of the developers in the industry. We compressed the level data, we compressed the mpeg movies, we compressed the audio, and it was still a struggle to get it to fit in 6 gigs. Now we've got 16 times as much system RAM, so the level data is 16 times bigger. And the average disc space of games only gets bigger over a console's lifespan. As games get bigger, more advanced and more complex, they necessarily take up more space. If developers were filling up DVDs last generation, there are clearly going to be some sacrifices made to fit current generation games in the same amount of space.
Granted, some really great Xbox 360 games have squeezed onto a DVD9. Gears of War is a beautiful game and shows off the highest resolution textures of anything yet released, partly because of the Unreal Engine's ability to stream textures. This means that you can have much higher resolution textures than you could normally fit in your 512 MB of RAM. It also means that you're going to chew up more disc space for each level. With streamed textures, streamed geometry and streamed audio, even with compression, you can quickly approach 1 GB of data per level. That inherently limits you to a maximum of about 7 levels, and that's without multiplayer levels or mpeg cutscenes.
Sometimes people ask us, "If Resistance takes 14 gigabytes, why doesn't it look better than Gears?" Well, for one, Resistance didn't support texture streaming, so we had to make choices about where we spent our high-res textures. Resistance also had 30 single-player chapters, six multiplayer maps, uncompressed audio streaming, and high-definition mpegs. That all added up to a lot of space on the disc. Starting with Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction we are supporting texture streaming, which will make the worlds look even better, and will also consume even more space on disc.
There's no question that you can always cut more levels, compress the audio more, compress the textures more, down-res the mpeg movies, and eventually get any game to fit on a DVD. But you paid for a high-def experience, right? You want the highest resolution, best audio, most cinematic experience a developer can offer, right? That's why Blu-Ray is important for games, and why it will become more important each year of this hardware cycle.
Hah! You're talking about the same people that sell a $20 802.11g adapter for $100. Complete rip-off artists. It's cheaper to buy a nice, shiny new router and use it as a bridge than to get the adapter.
Sony has come out and said they have no problem with porn, they just won't duplicate the discs themselves. Anyone else who owns a blu-ray duplicator can do it just fine.
OH god I love this, don't you love the whiney Wii/360 people "but but our console didn't have enough so we sold out"
And, because I love pointing out this sort of thing, the 360 fanboys were the same ones who, during the PS3 launch, were saying "People aren't going to be able to find a PS3 so they'll buy a 360 instead!". Damned if you're in-stock, damned if you're out-of-stock.
(and no, I'm not anti-360. My PS3 has been folding while I've been playing Worms nonstop.)
The WRT54GL was an obvious money grab from them. They knew that people wanted to hack their routers, so they stripped down the WRT54G then released the 54GL, which was basically the same as the old 54G, for $20 more.
Between the XBox 360 which comes with Media Center capability and TiVo / Amazon's Unbox partnership (they'll even pay you to register!), I really don't see a reason to get an Apple TV at all, even still.
Want to stay legal? TiVo + Amazon has you covered, and you get all that fun TiVo functionality along with it. You can even put TiVo recordings onto your iPod video. Want to download shows/movies/whatever other videos for free and watch them on your TV? Xbox 360 + Vista/XPMC, and you get the ability to play some great games along with it.
In-game currency should only EVER be taxed when it is converted into real currency. Until then, it has no real value.
Incidentally, people who do make money from selling in-game currency should already be reporting it on their income taxes, so there's no need for extra laws whatsoever.
- Everyone knows about the lack of background downloading. Blech.
Word on the street is that this is getting added in the 1.6 firmware update this month.
Sony has actually done some great things with firmware updates, like adding Folding@Home (coming next release) and fixing some PS2 game display jaggies. It's great to see that they're addressing concerns and not just sitting back and not caring.
It's actually not as big of a deal as I thought it was when I first unpacked the cable. The battery in the controller lasts so long that going through all the power in one session is nigh-impossible. The real tragedy is that the controllers don't charge while the system is off, so you can't just plug them in and leave it overnight unless you want to leave your PS3 on too.
Yes, it can use DVI. You just need an HDMI -> DVI converter.
Get a 1080p HDTV and you'll have a great HDTV and a nice monitor. I've hooked my computer up to my 42" and it's gorgeous. 1920x1080 should be plenty of resolution, too. Granted, you'll still be paying > $1000, but it's oh-so-worth-it:D
Slashdot Mirror
IIRC, Microsoft doesn't allow that on the 360.
Sony does on the PS3, though, and the new Unreal is going to support it.
People scared of things they haven't done before!
(this is headline-worthy?)
Listen, I like my 360 (Worms + Viva Pinata = awesome), but your arguments make no sense.
I expect the Wii to be the most reliable of the consoles, given the simplicity of its hardware and the fact that it is mostly already proven.
There have actually been a few issues with bricking during firmware upgrades and also graphical artifacts due to poor heatsink installation. My Wii is suffering from the second problem, and it's annoying as hell.
I haven't heard anything bad about the PS3's reliability (yet, at least).
Granted, some really great Xbox 360 games have squeezed onto a DVD9. Gears of War is a beautiful game and shows off the highest resolution textures of anything yet released, partly because of the Unreal Engine's ability to stream textures. This means that you can have much higher resolution textures than you could normally fit in your 512 MB of RAM. It also means that you're going to chew up more disc space for each level. With streamed textures, streamed geometry and streamed audio, even with compression, you can quickly approach 1 GB of data per level. That inherently limits you to a maximum of about 7 levels, and that's without multiplayer levels or mpeg cutscenes.
Sometimes people ask us, "If Resistance takes 14 gigabytes, why doesn't it look better than Gears?" Well, for one, Resistance didn't support texture streaming, so we had to make choices about where we spent our high-res textures. Resistance also had 30 single-player chapters, six multiplayer maps, uncompressed audio streaming, and high-definition mpegs. That all added up to a lot of space on the disc. Starting with Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction we are supporting texture streaming, which will make the worlds look even better, and will also consume even more space on disc.
There's no question that you can always cut more levels, compress the audio more, compress the textures more, down-res the mpeg movies, and eventually get any game to fit on a DVD. But you paid for a high-def experience, right? You want the highest resolution, best audio, most cinematic experience a developer can offer, right? That's why Blu-Ray is important for games, and why it will become more important each year of this hardware cycle.
Hah! You're talking about the same people that sell a $20 802.11g adapter for $100. Complete rip-off artists. It's cheaper to buy a nice, shiny new router and use it as a bridge than to get the adapter.
Sony has come out and said they have no problem with porn, they just won't duplicate the discs themselves. Anyone else who owns a blu-ray duplicator can do it just fine.
Well, actually, one of the reasons I bought the 360 version is because it supports HD. Otherwise, I'd be playing Worms Armageddon in SD.
OH god I love this, don't you love the whiney Wii/360 people "but but our console didn't have enough so we sold out"
And, because I love pointing out this sort of thing, the 360 fanboys were the same ones who, during the PS3 launch, were saying "People aren't going to be able to find a PS3 so they'll buy a 360 instead!". Damned if you're in-stock, damned if you're out-of-stock.
(and no, I'm not anti-360. My PS3 has been folding while I've been playing Worms nonstop.)
Actually, none of them are next-gen. They're all current-gen. Next gen is XBox720, PS4, and Wii^2, or WiiWii.
The WRT54GL was an obvious money grab from them. They knew that people wanted to hack their routers, so they stripped down the WRT54G then released the 54GL, which was basically the same as the old 54G, for $20 more.
Between the XBox 360 which comes with Media Center capability and TiVo / Amazon's Unbox partnership (they'll even pay you to register!), I really don't see a reason to get an Apple TV at all, even still.
Want to stay legal? TiVo + Amazon has you covered, and you get all that fun TiVo functionality along with it. You can even put TiVo recordings onto your iPod video.
Want to download shows/movies/whatever other videos for free and watch them on your TV? Xbox 360 + Vista/XPMC, and you get the ability to play some great games along with it.
I thought they'd confirmed that GT5 was a full-fledged retail game? GTHD was supposed to be the micropayment one.
With the increasing popularity of sattelite radio, I wonder how that's affecting CD sales? I'm sure that's playing a decent part in all of this.
The terrible secret of music?
Hey, you might be interested in this mat I have. You see, it has conclusions written on it...
In-game currency should only EVER be taxed when it is converted into real currency. Until then, it has no real value.
Incidentally, people who do make money from selling in-game currency should already be reporting it on their income taxes, so there's no need for extra laws whatsoever.
- Everyone knows about the lack of background downloading. Blech.
Word on the street is that this is getting added in the 1.6 firmware update this month.
Sony has actually done some great things with firmware updates, like adding Folding@Home (coming next release) and fixing some PS2 game display jaggies. It's great to see that they're addressing concerns and not just sitting back and not caring.
It depends on the monitor, actually. A lot of the newer ones support HDCP over DVI.
They do encourage it. They even officially support Linux, and there's a menu option to install it.
Bad to who? Easy, bad to Sony. Which is kind of why it makes sense to ask Phil if he's worried about it.
It's actually not as big of a deal as I thought it was when I first unpacked the cable. The battery in the controller lasts so long that going through all the power in one session is nigh-impossible. The real tragedy is that the controllers don't charge while the system is off, so you can't just plug them in and leave it overnight unless you want to leave your PS3 on too.
Yes, it can use DVI. You just need an HDMI -> DVI converter.
:D
Get a 1080p HDTV and you'll have a great HDTV and a nice monitor. I've hooked my computer up to my 42" and it's gorgeous. 1920x1080 should be plenty of resolution, too. Granted, you'll still be paying > $1000, but it's oh-so-worth-it