I believe what the article was "bitching about" is that Microsoft interferes with online play to extort money. XBox Live Silver is really cool and useful.. while Gold is just a relic of the original flawed Live System. If MS did away with Gold and allowed games to offer free online play or pay to play then everyone would be better off.
Most games should be free to play online, but Live makes them pay-to-play, while a few games(MMOGs) should be pay-to-play at much higher levels than can be justified at a flat fee. Why bother with a flat fee system in the frst place?
"I talked to a manager at a Game Stop about that very issue. He said that the majority of the store profits comes from used game sales and that if Sony ever decided to distribute games like this that Game Stop would stop selling Sony PS3's all together."
GameStop still sells XBox 360s and some of the best games available for the 360 are downloadable. Store managers generally have an overinflated sense of importance and are known to say all kinds of crap...
Game stores can either try to cope with the decrease in game sales or go out of business. It's not just the PS3 that's headed in this direction, it's the 360 and Revoution to. The Department Stores, Electronic Stores, and Walmart will continue to carry consoles even if GameStop/EB closed up shop.
Not to mention the brick and mortar game stores. Generally game stores make almost nothing on the sale of the console, a reasonable profit on new games, and a lot of profit on used games.
I could easily see about half the games in 2008 being sold over the internet. If this happens then we are going to see a lot more consolidation of game stores.
That's interesting, I didn't know each individual device had it's own key, I thought it was one key per model... I wonder how hard they are to generate keys.
"They are hard to find because of the DMCA and as these new gen DVD players start hitting the street, look for these devices to be hunted down."
As demand rises, so will supply, which will bring the price down unless they have a way to stop these things from being produced. It's also probable that this first batch of them aren't using keys cloned from actual TVs, so these strippers are probably not going to work with actual HD-DVD/Blu-Ray players.
Key revocation lists are definately not the magic bullet to stop pirates. If the key for any popular TV becomes know then the studios have the choice of pissing off(and getting sued by) a LOT of customers, or dealing with the pirates.
Also, there is nothing stopping you from transcoding the movie back into any format that will play on HD-DVD/Blu-Ray players(or maybe just stripping AACS from the files). Once Blu-Ray burners become common I'm sure it will be a trivial task to pirate HD movies.
Yep, you can buy a Dell that's pretty comperable to the 360(sans 3d card) for under $300. Considering the fact that you need to have a High-Def TV to even get much of an improvment over current-gen games, the 360 just doesn't seem worth it.
I'm going to reserve final judgement(and my money) until after Sony and Nintendo get their consoles out, but unless Sony AND Nintendo both blow it bigtime then I don't see the Microsoft staying in the console business long. MSFT has to answer to their stockholders sooner or later, and operating such a high profile division at a loss for this long doesn't look good for a convicted monopolist.
Honestly I think the GBA Movie player is a better deal that that($20 + CF card), although you need to either PassMe or FlashMe your DS to use Moonshell, which plays MP3s, JPEGs, and movies at full rez.
Anyhoo, I'm using a FlashMe DS and a GBA Movie player with MoonShell. The Datatel will probably be a bit easier to use, but it is more expensive.
I've read about key invalidation, and it's the reason I haven't yet bought one of these yet(well, that and the $300 price). I'm betting that key revocation is going to be exploited by some cracker to invalidate millions of legit TVs, after which this feature will be removed from all future players.
HDCP is flawed, I wouldn't doubt if it gets completely scrubbed from the Blu-Ray and/or HD-DVD specs.
Re:1080p pointless anyway, except on projectors
on
A PS3 Hands-On Report?
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· Score: 0, Troll
This seems to hold up with my experiences.
I picked up a 37" CRT monitor at Salvation Army for $25(I love bringing that up).
I can tell the video quality difference between 800x600 and 1024x768 pretty easily from ~7ft, but telling the difference between 1024x768 and 1280x1024 is nearly impossible. The only true high-def content I've played to it has been from trailers on Apple's site, but I think it's enough to make a fair judgment.
If I was ordering a LCD/Plasma screen TV today I'd probably get one that does 720p natively. Not only are they going to be cheaper, but the picture will look better for any 720p native stuff.
What I could actually see happening is someone suing all MS-Office customers... would Microsoft pay 20 billion to idemnify customers? I'm sure some old fart has a great spreadsheet or word proccessing patent worth litterally Billions.
The disabled SPU could be configured to just pass the data through. It's likely that any problems in an SPU will be in the 256KB SRAM which is probably going to take up most of the space physically in each SPU. Passing the data through would add latancy, but probably not much.
Anyhoo, it's a good point, I'd like to know how Sony is handling this.
The last several times I've been to EB they've had a bunch. You may have a problem finding the premium edition though... It was pretty retarded of MS to release a crippled version. You could always just pay an extra $30+ and get everything that's in the premium.
Microsoft makes it sound like the ACPI daemon isn't thread safe, which if it is, then all Windows SMP(multi-CPU) computers are effected. It's just that the Core Duo is the first laptop with multiple CPUs.
From TFA:
"The issue, according to Microsoft, concerns the asynchronous scheduler component - a part of the USB 2.0 driver that determines when devices can access local memory. With the revision to that driver implemented in Windows XP Service Pack 2, the scheduler can inadvertently be left running. As a result, Windows' internal task scheduler (a separate item) treats the asynchronous scheduler as a running process involving the attached device, and thus stops itself from ever giving the processor the signal to power down, or power lower - to slip into one of its ACPI sleep states. Because the scheduler is running, Windows thinks the system is continually busy. As a result, the computer can use more battery power."
On the flip side I'm certain that Linux would drain the battery just as quickly. Frequency scaling doesn't work on SMP machines under Linux.
I'm pretty certain they are selling it with the longer battery life listed. The problem only happens when you hook up a USB device, and generally the battery life listed on the laptop is in it's super-efficient mode with nothing attached.
Microsoft/Intel/Laptop Manufacturers definitely should have warned people that plugging in a USB device would disable their CPU's power-saving features and while I hate litigious bastards, the grandparent is probably right. I'm betting Microsoft is going to end up paying out a settlement here since it's easiest to show that they knew about the problem.
"I think at this point we can all agree that the shortages are not intentional, at least not anymore. They're reaching the point where retailers and consumers are starting to not care about the product, and that's a bad thing for them."
360s on eBay are hardly fetching a premium anymore so I'd say there really isn't a shortage anymore. Shortages justify bundles, which are the only way either Microsoft or the retailer make any money off a console sale. Just try to buy a 360 locally without shelling out for several games at the same time. A shortage also implies desirability, which is great marketing, it keeps the hype going longer. People who wouldn't of bothered with the console might buy one at Walmart because this might be their "only chance".
eBay Premium 360 price. I can buy a 360 cheaper on eBay(including shipping) than locally because of the stupidly high sales tax in Tennessee. If I wanted one...
Wow you must have been surprised when your $1000 20lb mp3 player came with the ability to play games!! The iPod is still primarily a MP3 player, technology has just advanced enough that including a good-enough video player is possible, kinda like cell phones with cameras. Almost nobody looking for a digital camera is going to consider a cellphone camera, although someone looking for a phone may be interested.
Both the PSP and DS can be used as MP3 players, but the overhead(weight, cost, and fragility) make them less than desirable to anyone looking for an MP3 player.
The specs are officially finished and Blu-Ray and HD-DVD have almost exactly identical DRM.
What really puzzles me is that both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD require an HDMI connection to output high-def content, the specs clearly state that any content going out over analog connections must be downconverted to standard definition... the XBox360 only has analog video connections(component, VGA, S-Video, and composite).
Unless MS hid an HDMI connector somewhere on the 360 and didn't tell anyone, then this is going to make the HD-DVD drive very hackish.
"The only reason HD-DVD has alot of interest is because it's cheaper to produce, and requires only small modifications to current DVD players. More evidance that in the current capitalist buisness world, quality is the least important factor in anything. Money is the bottom line."
HD-DVD drives and disks share a common focal distance with DVDs which makes them easier to produce right now. The players are going to require considerable rework, especially since HD-DVDs are using iHD instead of standard Java MPH/OCAP.
Businesses only care about money, it is really that simple. Higher quality items are only produced if someone can make money off of them.
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Compact Discs (a.k.a. CDs) are a Sony format... and Sony was also involved in the DVD standard compromise.
I believe what the article was "bitching about" is that Microsoft interferes with online play to extort money. XBox Live Silver is really cool and useful.. while Gold is just a relic of the original flawed Live System. If MS did away with Gold and allowed games to offer free online play or pay to play then everyone would be better off.
Most games should be free to play online, but Live makes them pay-to-play, while a few games(MMOGs) should be pay-to-play at much higher levels than can be justified at a flat fee. Why bother with a flat fee system in the frst place?
The Cell CPU has a number of cores, all of which are on one chip. Sony owns the rights to make the chip
The cost of making a Blu-Ray player should fall dramatically once cheaper high-speed multimedia chips(a.k.a. Cell) are available.
"I talked to a manager at a Game Stop about that very issue. He said that the majority of the store profits comes from used game sales and that if Sony ever decided to distribute games like this that Game Stop would stop selling Sony PS3's all together."
GameStop still sells XBox 360s and some of the best games available for the 360 are downloadable. Store managers generally have an overinflated sense of importance and are known to say all kinds of crap...
Game stores can either try to cope with the decrease in game sales or go out of business. It's not just the PS3 that's headed in this direction, it's the 360 and Revoution to. The Department Stores, Electronic Stores, and Walmart will continue to carry consoles even if GameStop/EB closed up shop.
Not to mention the brick and mortar game stores. Generally game stores make almost nothing on the sale of the console, a reasonable profit on new games, and a lot of profit on used games.
I could easily see about half the games in 2008 being sold over the internet. If this happens then we are going to see a lot more consolidation of game stores.
That's interesting, I didn't know each individual device had it's own key, I thought it was one key per model... I wonder how hard they are to generate keys.
"They are hard to find because of the DMCA and as these new gen DVD players start hitting the street, look for these devices to be hunted down."
As demand rises, so will supply, which will bring the price down unless they have a way to stop these things from being produced. It's also probable that this first batch of them aren't using keys cloned from actual TVs, so these strippers are probably not going to work with actual HD-DVD/Blu-Ray players.
Key revocation lists are definately not the magic bullet to stop pirates. If the key for any popular TV becomes know then the studios have the choice of pissing off(and getting sued by) a LOT of customers, or dealing with the pirates.
Also, there is nothing stopping you from transcoding the movie back into any format that will play on HD-DVD/Blu-Ray players(or maybe just stripping AACS from the files). Once Blu-Ray burners become common I'm sure it will be a trivial task to pirate HD movies.
Already outC DA1.ASP
http://www.digitalconnection.com/Products/Video/D
Yep, you can buy a Dell that's pretty comperable to the 360(sans 3d card) for under $300. Considering the fact that you need to have a High-Def TV to even get much of an improvment over current-gen games, the 360 just doesn't seem worth it.
I'm going to reserve final judgement(and my money) until after Sony and Nintendo get their consoles out, but unless Sony AND Nintendo both blow it bigtime then I don't see the Microsoft staying in the console business long. MSFT has to answer to their stockholders sooner or later, and operating such a high profile division at a loss for this long doesn't look good for a convicted monopolist.
Honestly I think the GBA Movie player is a better deal that that($20 + CF card), although you need to either PassMe or FlashMe your DS to use Moonshell, which plays MP3s, JPEGs, and movies at full rez.
Anyhoo, I'm using a FlashMe DS and a GBA Movie player with MoonShell. The Datatel will probably be a bit easier to use, but it is more expensive.
I've read about key invalidation, and it's the reason I haven't yet bought one of these yet(well, that and the $300 price). I'm betting that key revocation is going to be exploited by some cracker to invalidate millions of legit TVs, after which this feature will be removed from all future players.
HDCP is flawed, I wouldn't doubt if it gets completely scrubbed from the Blu-Ray and/or HD-DVD specs.
Well, basically, the whole system is already compromised. There are devices that pretend to be a legit HDCP monitor, but just passes the signal through with HDCP stripped out.
I'm sure that there will other exploits.
This seems to hold up with my experiences.
I picked up a 37" CRT monitor at Salvation Army for $25(I love bringing that up).
I can tell the video quality difference between 800x600 and 1024x768 pretty easily from ~7ft, but telling the difference between 1024x768 and 1280x1024 is nearly impossible. The only true high-def content I've played to it has been from trailers on Apple's site, but I think it's enough to make a fair judgment.
If I was ordering a LCD/Plasma screen TV today I'd probably get one that does 720p natively. Not only are they going to be cheaper, but the picture will look better for any 720p native stuff.
Using proprietary technology doesn't help with indemnification... have you ever read any EULAs?
SCO may have worried some IT managers, but Timeline succesfully sued some of Microsoft's SQL server customers for 1.75 million.
What I could actually see happening is someone suing all MS-Office customers... would Microsoft pay 20 billion to idemnify customers? I'm sure some old fart has a great spreadsheet or word proccessing patent worth litterally Billions.
There could be a third option.
The disabled SPU could be configured to just pass the data through. It's likely that any problems in an SPU will be in the 256KB SRAM which is probably going to take up most of the space physically in each SPU. Passing the data through would add latancy, but probably not much.
Anyhoo, it's a good point, I'd like to know how Sony is handling this.
Plenty in Johnson City, TN.
The last several times I've been to EB they've had a bunch. You may have a problem finding the premium edition though... It was pretty retarded of MS to release a crippled version. You could always just pay an extra $30+ and get everything that's in the premium.
Oh, come on, that's not true... The American public is just to apathetic. The governemnt doesn't even seem to be trying to cover anything up anymore.
On a more serious note, the U.S. is probably one of the worst developed nations in this regard.
Plenty of land stealing in America's history as well(see Native Americans).
Microsoft makes it sound like the ACPI daemon isn't thread safe, which if it is, then all Windows SMP(multi-CPU) computers are effected. It's just that the Core Duo is the first laptop with multiple CPUs.
From TFA:
"The issue, according to Microsoft, concerns the asynchronous scheduler component - a part of the USB 2.0 driver that determines when devices can access local memory. With the revision to that driver implemented in Windows XP Service Pack 2, the scheduler can inadvertently be left running. As a result, Windows' internal task scheduler (a separate item) treats the asynchronous scheduler as a running process involving the attached device, and thus stops itself from ever giving the processor the signal to power down, or power lower - to slip into one of its ACPI sleep states. Because the scheduler is running, Windows thinks the system is continually busy. As a result, the computer can use more battery power."
On the flip side I'm certain that Linux would drain the battery just as quickly. Frequency scaling doesn't work on SMP machines under Linux.
I'm pretty certain they are selling it with the longer battery life listed. The problem only happens when you hook up a USB device, and generally the battery life listed on the laptop is in it's super-efficient mode with nothing attached.
Microsoft/Intel/Laptop Manufacturers definitely should have warned people that plugging in a USB device would disable their CPU's power-saving features and while I hate litigious bastards, the grandparent is probably right. I'm betting Microsoft is going to end up paying out a settlement here since it's easiest to show that they knew about the problem.
"I think at this point we can all agree that the shortages are not intentional, at least not anymore. They're reaching the point where retailers and consumers are starting to not care about the product, and that's a bad thing for them."
360s on eBay are hardly fetching a premium anymore so I'd say there really isn't a shortage anymore. Shortages justify bundles, which are the only way either Microsoft or the retailer make any money off a console sale. Just try to buy a 360 locally without shelling out for several games at the same time. A shortage also implies desirability, which is great marketing, it keeps the hype going longer. People who wouldn't of bothered with the console might buy one at Walmart because this might be their "only chance".
eBay Premium 360 price. I can buy a 360 cheaper on eBay(including shipping) than locally because of the stupidly high sales tax in Tennessee. If I wanted one...
Wow you must have been surprised when your $1000 20lb mp3 player came with the ability to play games!! The iPod is still primarily a MP3 player, technology has just advanced enough that including a good-enough video player is possible, kinda like cell phones with cameras. Almost nobody looking for a digital camera is going to consider a cellphone camera, although someone looking for a phone may be interested.
Both the PSP and DS can be used as MP3 players, but the overhead(weight, cost, and fragility) make them less than desirable to anyone looking for an MP3 player.
The specs are officially finished and Blu-Ray and HD-DVD have almost exactly identical DRM.
What really puzzles me is that both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD require an HDMI connection to output high-def content, the specs clearly state that any content going out over analog connections must be downconverted to standard definition... the XBox360 only has analog video connections(component, VGA, S-Video, and composite).
Unless MS hid an HDMI connector somewhere on the 360 and didn't tell anyone, then this is going to make the HD-DVD drive very hackish.
Are you arguing that Windows is safer??? It may just be that Windows is targeted more, but Windows is definately a sess pool of all kinds of malware.
What exactly are us Mac users supposed to be doing about viruses that don't exist yet?
"The only reason HD-DVD has alot of interest is because it's cheaper to produce, and requires only small modifications to current DVD players. More evidance that in the current capitalist buisness world, quality is the least important factor in anything. Money is the bottom line."
HD-DVD drives and disks share a common focal distance with DVDs which makes them easier to produce right now. The players are going to require considerable rework, especially since HD-DVDs are using iHD instead of standard Java MPH/OCAP.
Businesses only care about money, it is really that simple. Higher quality items are only produced if someone can make money off of them.