Well, you could, but every so often you'd have to buy a new ball, or bat. Then there's club fees, munchies costs, having to buy a new wardrobe because you lost all that gamer fat...
They looked very pretty (The PS3) But all of the truly cool stuff EA demod is on both platforms. Also, most of the 3rd party games use standard technologies built by others (Like speedtree, Quake engine, etc), so the differences in gameplay will be negligible, which is a death knell for a system which will be at a minimum $100 more. (I personally expect MS to either drop the price in November, or phase out the core and sell the full system at the core's price - in which case, the difference would be $200... at launch.)
Don't be blaming an act created by Republican dominated house and senate on "the clinton administration". All clinton did was sign it, and add a note that portions of the bill "raised serious constitutional concerns".
No, since PSP games are designed in the same way as PS1 titles, and are not really related to PS2 development. Gameboy and DS can be added together. But the Gamecube again uses a different set of tools and abilities.
In general though, you don't want to be comparing the handhelds with the standard consoles, they're a different market entirely.
Now when Revolution comes out, it should be added to gamecube sales when determining development cost and possible returns from a game, since from what I can tell, the systems appear to be binary compatible. Development for them could release two games, one with a normal controller profile and toned down graphics, and a second with upgraded graphics and nifty controller stuff. Very little added cost, but huge benefit in established user base.
In these days of multi million dollar game titles, you can't afford to release a game to a small audience. Games have to sell over a million copies to break even a lot of the time, which makes being a launch or early title for a new console a daunting prospect. Being able to leverage known toolsets, or being able to parallelize development for multiple consoles with low overhead is a boon to game makers.
I'm not surprised the PS2 is selling more than the 360, it's _half the price_ of the core system.
In fact, I'm impressed that the 360 is making the inroads it's making, if you compare the shares from February to March, the numbers go from 34% of the combined 360/PS2 sales to 42% of the combined sales. And the PS2 absolute numbers are trending down. That's a very good trend for a console that costs twice as much at a minimum.
When you count both XBox and 360 sales, they outperformed the PS2 last month. While you may consider this irrelevant, it's not, since the development tools and libraries on the two boxes are similar, so it's not that much extra work to target both (as a number of games have done, Ghost Recon, for one). In that way, you mitigate the risk of releasing on a new console with the established user base of the old one. That will make companies more likely to support the 360, and more support means more games, more games means more users etc.
Will the PS3 have the same advantages? I don't know. Initial reports from game developers indicate that the development environment is quite different, which requires all new skillsets, and therefore more risk for a company supporting the platform. But that's just initial reports. The toolset may change.
Oblivion is not only about the the sandbox. It's also about the stories. Admittedly smaller more numerous stories instead of a single all-consuming storyline, but still, you play it because you're enjoying yourself. If you didn't enjoy yourself, you would play something else. While the physics, like the shadows and the HDR lighting and nifties to showyour friends when they come over, you tend to ignore them when you;'re actually playing. (Except when you're chasing the stupid boneless bear rolling down the slope so you can loot it).
And I loved final fantasy, and jade empire, and I really like oblivion too.
I keep having the urge to see if I can depopulate an entire town...
If you look at the exclusive games for each console there isn't even a competition. Sony's got stuff. Nintendo's got stuff. And microsoft has what, halo and Ninja Gaiden? And halo isn't even very good.
Er? Dead or alive series, Elder scrolls (game of the year), Jade Empire (Probably the best game ever!), Star Wars: KoToR, Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from butcher bay (I've heard that this is an amazingly good game - never played it myself since I don't own an xbox), Fable...
I could go on, but essentially, all three consoles have very interesting and compelling games that I'd love to play, but never will since I refuse to buy any game consoles. (God of War and Katamari Damacy come to mind)
So you're saying that unless you spend 30 million dollars on a game, it's crap? Well, that may be true if all you're going for is eyecandy, but you don't need stupendous graphics for really fun and addictive gameplay.
Seriously, considering the "quality" of the big name games out there, I'd encourage the "independants" all I could. Some of the best games I've ever played were made by tiny independant game makers. (Popcap games, Star Control 2 and The Horde by "Toys for Bob", Starscape by Moonpod). All I see when I look at the big game makers are stupid sports games, eyecandy rich Wolfenstein 3d clones, and more and more complex Civilization and Dune 2 clones.
I'd love to see more of the old style games that are actually fun to play come out for Arcade. For instance, I miss those great top down shooters like "Slapfight" or the really fun puzzle games like Rockford. There are limitless possibilities for revamping old titles that were actually fun, and creating new titles that don't take 300 graphic artists and 3 years to make. And I believe thats's where the XBox will win, not lose the console war.
Well, it depends. I've seen a HDDVD that's dual layer HD on one side, and dual layer DVD on the other. 9GB and 30GB. Of course, you have the same issues you have today with the "widescreen/4:3" double sided DVDs, you can never work out which side holds which content. Although since the HDDVD layer looks a lot different to the DVD layer, it would be pretty easy.
I've also seen the "twindisk" format, where they have a DVD layer and a HD-DVD layer both on the same side. That one has the low densities, 4.7GB and 15GB. 15GB is more than enough for a HD movie and 2 hours of SD extras, or half an hour of HD extras. This would be sufficient for most backlist titles, but would be insufficient for the big titles. I've heard they're working on 4 layer, 2DVD and 2HD-DVD on a single side, but I have not seen any disks of this form.
Same technology? I do not think that means what you think that means.
The Toshiba player has a normal DVD chipset in it, yes, to decode normal DVD, (And probably to do some processing for type 1 HDDVD discs, but that's speculation). Most of the HDDVD pipeline is completely new and not at all related to the DVD pipeline. HDDVD has to support multiple audio formats, as well as VC1, H-264, and MPEG-2 decoding, DVD only has to support MPEG-2. The bandwidth requirements, mentioned elsewhere in this thread, are huge. HD-DVD requires two video decoders that can both operate at the same time for picture in picture, something BD doesn't support at all. (The secondary decoder is SD, but still needs to support all the HD video formats).
On top of that you have the interactive iHD layer, which doesn't exist at all on normal DVD, and adds an amazing amount of complexity to the player. It's a ECMAScript (read Javascript) compact interpreter and an XML markup language, with a huge amount of integration with the base player.
All that technology didn't exist before, and isn't cheap. You're not just getting an "upgraded dvd player", you're getting an entirely new piece of technology.
As an aside, the player I've played with (looks like the $799 model) has both component out and HDMI. I have no idea if the final version will have this, somebody could ask someone at CES I suppose, or look at the back of the demo players. Component out is analog, so I see no reason not to support it. The player will never support DVI digital output though, only HDMI.
Electoral votes are counted as (Number of Senate seats)+(Number of House Seats). Which equates to 2+(relative size of state). So Electoral votes are biased towards bigger states. It's the only way to remain fair, because if every state got 2 votes (All states are equal) Alaska would have the same power as California. Silly, yes?
The crazy thing about the electoral colege is that if you only get 50% of the state voters voting for you, you get 100% of the electoral votes.
Let's work a little calculation.
Lets say Al Violence wins only 11 states and he wins them with 51% vote. These 11 states are: CA, FL, IL, MI, NC, NJ, NY, OH, PA, TX, VA. No little weeny ones, only huge big states.
Then let's say GW Sex wins the other 39 states with 100% of the voters there voting for him. (This is just supposition after all).
And we'll use approximations of the 2000 numbers for this.
End result of this calculation:
Al Violence: 28 million votes, 270 Electoral votes, President.
GW Sex: 72 million votes, Something less than 270 Electoral votes, Loser.
This is a valid scenario, it completely ignores the little states "which are so important to the country" and it leaves a man with only 1/4th of the pople having voted for him in the white house.
Slashdot Mirror
You forgot:
Rumble controllers:
PS3: N/A
XBox 360: Included
Being able to play a game for less than $500
PS3: N/A
XBox 360: Included
XNA Framework:
PS3: N/A
XBox 360: Included
You can say anything you want by carefully tailoring what you claim to be "Features"
Ok, so what you're saying is that the base PS3 has the same features as the 360, at $100 more?
Well, you could, but every so often you'd have to buy a new ball, or bat. Then there's club fees, munchies costs, having to buy a new wardrobe because you lost all that gamer fat...
Micropayments will be cheaper in the end.
They looked very pretty (The PS3) But all of the truly cool stuff EA demod is on both platforms. Also, most of the 3rd party games use standard technologies built by others (Like speedtree, Quake engine, etc), so the differences in gameplay will be negligible, which is a death knell for a system which will be at a minimum $100 more. (I personally expect MS to either drop the price in November, or phase out the core and sell the full system at the core's price - in which case, the difference would be $200... at launch.)
Don't be blaming an act created by Republican dominated house and senate on "the clinton administration". All clinton did was sign it, and add a note that portions of the bill "raised serious constitutional concerns".
No, since PSP games are designed in the same way as PS1 titles, and are not really related to PS2 development.
Gameboy and DS can be added together. But the Gamecube again uses a different set of tools and abilities.
In general though, you don't want to be comparing the handhelds with the standard consoles, they're a different market entirely.
Now when Revolution comes out, it should be added to gamecube sales when determining development cost and possible returns from a game, since from what I can tell, the systems appear to be binary compatible. Development for them could release two games, one with a normal controller profile and toned down graphics, and a second with upgraded graphics and nifty controller stuff. Very little added cost, but huge benefit in established user base.
In these days of multi million dollar game titles, you can't afford to release a game to a small audience. Games have to sell over a million copies to break even a lot of the time, which makes being a launch or early title for a new console a daunting prospect. Being able to leverage known toolsets, or being able to parallelize development for multiple consoles with low overhead is a boon to game makers.
I'm not surprised the PS2 is selling more than the 360, it's _half the price_ of the core system.
In fact, I'm impressed that the 360 is making the inroads it's making, if you compare the shares from February to March, the numbers go from 34% of the combined 360/PS2 sales to 42% of the combined sales. And the PS2 absolute numbers are trending down. That's a very good trend for a console that costs twice as much at a minimum.
When you count both XBox and 360 sales, they outperformed the PS2 last month. While you may consider this irrelevant, it's not, since the development tools and libraries on the two boxes are similar, so it's not that much extra work to target both (as a number of games have done, Ghost Recon, for one). In that way, you mitigate the risk of releasing on a new console with the established user base of the old one. That will make companies more likely to support the 360, and more support means more games, more games means more users etc.
Will the PS3 have the same advantages? I don't know. Initial reports from game developers indicate that the development environment is quite different, which requires all new skillsets, and therefore more risk for a company supporting the platform. But that's just initial reports. The toolset may change.
Oblivion is not only about the the sandbox. It's also about the stories. Admittedly smaller more numerous stories instead of a single all-consuming storyline, but still, you play it because you're enjoying yourself. If you didn't enjoy yourself, you would play something else. While the physics, like the shadows and the HDR lighting and nifties to showyour friends when they come over, you tend to ignore them when you;'re actually playing. (Except when you're chasing the stupid boneless bear rolling down the slope so you can loot it).
And I loved final fantasy, and jade empire, and I really like oblivion too.
I keep having the urge to see if I can depopulate an entire town...
If you look at the exclusive games for each console there isn't even a competition. Sony's got stuff. Nintendo's got stuff. And microsoft has what, halo and Ninja Gaiden? And halo isn't even very good.
Er? Dead or alive series, Elder scrolls (game of the year), Jade Empire (Probably the best game ever!), Star Wars: KoToR, Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from butcher bay (I've heard that this is an amazingly good game - never played it myself since I don't own an xbox), Fable...
I could go on, but essentially, all three consoles have very interesting and compelling games that I'd love to play, but never will since I refuse to buy any game consoles. (God of War and Katamari Damacy come to mind)
So you're saying that unless you spend 30 million dollars on a game, it's crap? Well, that may be true if all you're going for is eyecandy, but you don't need stupendous graphics for really fun and addictive gameplay.
Seriously, considering the "quality" of the big name games out there, I'd encourage the "independants" all I could. Some of the best games I've ever played were made by tiny independant game makers. (Popcap games, Star Control 2 and The Horde by "Toys for Bob", Starscape by Moonpod). All I see when I look at the big game makers are stupid sports games, eyecandy rich Wolfenstein 3d clones, and more and more complex Civilization and Dune 2 clones.
I'd love to see more of the old style games that are actually fun to play come out for Arcade. For instance, I miss those great top down shooters like "Slapfight" or the really fun puzzle games like Rockford. There are limitless possibilities for revamping old titles that were actually fun, and creating new titles that don't take 300 graphic artists and 3 years to make. And I believe thats's where the XBox will win, not lose the console war.
Well, it depends. I've seen a HDDVD that's dual layer HD on one side, and dual layer DVD on the other. 9GB and 30GB. Of course, you have the same issues you have today with the "widescreen/4:3" double sided DVDs, you can never work out which side holds which content. Although since the HDDVD layer looks a lot different to the DVD layer, it would be pretty easy.
I've also seen the "twindisk" format, where they have a DVD layer and a HD-DVD layer both on the same side. That one has the low densities, 4.7GB and 15GB. 15GB is more than enough for a HD movie and 2 hours of SD extras, or half an hour of HD extras. This would be sufficient for most backlist titles, but would be insufficient for the big titles. I've heard they're working on 4 layer, 2DVD and 2HD-DVD on a single side, but I have not seen any disks of this form.
Same technology? I do not think that means what you think that means.
The Toshiba player has a normal DVD chipset in it, yes, to decode normal DVD, (And probably to do some processing for type 1 HDDVD discs, but that's speculation). Most of the HDDVD pipeline is completely new and not at all related to the DVD pipeline.
HDDVD has to support multiple audio formats, as well as VC1, H-264, and MPEG-2 decoding, DVD only has to support MPEG-2. The bandwidth requirements, mentioned elsewhere in this thread, are huge. HD-DVD requires two video decoders that can both operate at the same time for picture in picture, something BD doesn't support at all. (The secondary decoder is SD, but still needs to support all the HD video formats).
On top of that you have the interactive iHD layer, which doesn't exist at all on normal DVD, and adds an amazing amount of complexity to the player. It's a ECMAScript (read Javascript) compact interpreter and an XML markup language, with a huge amount of integration with the base player.
All that technology didn't exist before, and isn't cheap. You're not just getting an "upgraded dvd player", you're getting an entirely new piece of technology.
As an aside, the player I've played with (looks like the $799 model) has both component out and HDMI. I have no idea if the final version will have this, somebody could ask someone at CES I suppose, or look at the back of the demo players. Component out is analog, so I see no reason not to support it. The player will never support DVI digital output though, only HDMI.
Electoral votes are counted as (Number of Senate seats)+(Number of House Seats). Which equates to 2+(relative size of state). So Electoral votes are biased towards bigger states. It's the only way to remain fair, because if every state got 2 votes (All states are equal) Alaska would have the same power as California. Silly, yes?
The crazy thing about the electoral colege is that if you only get 50% of the state voters voting for you, you get 100% of the electoral votes.
Let's work a little calculation.
Lets say Al Violence wins only 11 states and he wins them with 51% vote. These 11 states are: CA, FL, IL, MI, NC, NJ, NY, OH, PA, TX, VA. No little weeny ones, only huge big states.
Then let's say GW Sex wins the other 39 states with 100% of the voters there voting for him. (This is just supposition after all).
And we'll use approximations of the 2000 numbers for this.
End result of this calculation:
Al Violence: 28 million votes, 270 Electoral votes, President.
GW Sex: 72 million votes, Something less than 270 Electoral votes, Loser.
This is a valid scenario, it completely ignores the little states "which are so important to the country" and it leaves a man with only 1/4th of the pople having voted for him in the white house.
Seem fair to you?