"It's all about history. A lot of (old) people are still bitter about having to replace their Betamax VCRs. The feeling of having been screwed by a corporation doesn't fade -- it ossifies in the brain."
Yeah, and a lot of "old" people fought in WWII, but have no problem buying a Honda car or Sony TV.
As far as the BluRay and Betamax comparison goes. People let it go! Yes there are some weak comparisons, but there are HUGE differences this time. First and formost is the content providers and second is the fact that they will flood the market with PS3's. Now every PS3 will have HDMI, so the old argument of certain PS3's being able to display movies goes away. The fact remains that on Nov 17th there will be over 4X as many BluRay players as HD-DVD on the market. By the end of the year it goes to around 10X. At that point the cost of manufacturing starts to come in to play. When you are producing over 10X as many as your competitor quantity of scale starts to set in and the tipping point is in full swing.
Does Sony have a lot at risk. Yes, but they also have a lot to gain. By locking up certain content providers, and using the PS3 they will cement BluRay as the defacto standard and they now have a console that will be a great feed for games like WoW 2 and EQIII. No more moving targets of processors and endless upgrades of crappy video drivers... Having said that WoW will probably never be on the PS3, but that is only because of their hatered of Sony and their love affair with endless patches.
Now fast forward a year or so. Games start to take more space on disk (as always), and more and more games take advantage of 1080P. The 360 and Wii will start to look very old for higher end and even moderate gamers. My belief is that the Wii will be less effected by this because their market is the 10 and under crowd, but the 360 will have a very short life. Please understand that I don't want to bash the Wii or 360, but when someone sits down with a great sports game at 1080P, and compares the same game to the Wii at 480i... well I think you see where this is going. A 1080P TV (42" Westinghouse) is currently $1,600 now and it isn't unreasonable to believe that in a year that will be very close to a grand.
Now, there will be some game companies that "standardize" on 480i or 720p, but more and more games will start to load up the 50GB of storage and use the extra resolution. That 9GB DVD will start to become more and more of an issue for the 360. Again the Wii is buffered from that because, to be honest it is just the GameCube 1.5 with a different controler.
"So the games industry wants to know what fuels piracy? Well, stuff like this certainly helps quite a bit."
Bzzzt! Wrong!
You know what fuels stealing software? The ability to steal software, music and video content easily and not have anything done to you. If people started to go to jail because they stole Microsoft Windows XP or Office then you would see it come to a halt in the U.S. You don't so you see the mess we live in.
It flat out floors me that almost everyone I know steals software AND movies AND songs, yet they don't see this as stealing. The only people I know that don't do it are the ones that are not tech savy enough to pull it off. So, do I hate the fact that GTHD (not to be confused with Vision GT) will sell cars and tracks. Yes! However, do I understand what the developers are doing? Yes. Honestly, any development shop worth their salt will be going to some online WoW, EQII setup soon. The only advice I can tell people is get use to it and pray for competition to drive down the prices, but the days of stealing "with ease" is coming to an end.
So lets be honest here, the people that are really going to bitch and moan about this are the ones that would never buy the game to begin with. They are the ones who would steal it. Also, please notice that I will not use the word "Pirate". It is stealing, and no different than going in to a store and stealing a computer. I will agree that there are a "few" and I mean very few that would have bought this game that won't because of this. Yes there will be a handfull of kids that get the game and are hurt because they don't have the cars and tracks they thought they would.
To continue with my rant. It has gotten so easy to steal this stuff lately that people in my area have actually started to print the real freaking labels on the DVD/CD's. It actually looks very real. These people are by no means tech giants and some would consider them "moral" people. By that I mean that this appears to just be accepted by todays society. I have literally been offered (for free of course), 60GB of music from one of the online music stores, and almost EVERY Disney movie for free. Heck I like Dragon Ball(Z,GT etc), and it cost me an arm and a leg to get the first 50 episodes on DVD. Yet I could just go steal them in about a day. I choose not to do that. I still can't afford to get the rest of the shows, and will just have to wait.
Slashdot and Digg seem to hate HDMI, DRM and downloadable content, but these are the same people that steal the stuff on a regular basis. So when the "game industry" does stuff like this, it is because of the typical digg/slashdot user out there. These people (myself included) want to earn a living at what we do. Most of these people don't care to have Bill Gates money, but they don't like to see their work stolen on a regular basis and absolutely NOTHING being done about it. These games are costing in upwards of $20 to $50 MILLION to make now and it isn't fun to be out of work.
Before people here start flaming me, ask this question. Do you have any illegal music, movies, games or software on your system. (Stallman, you don't count).
Yep and when the price difference is $200 or $100, then what will you do? What if the price was the same? You are obvously a Wii fan and would probably never buy a PS3, and this isn't a surprise around here on slashdot or digg, but the reality of it all is that the only thing the Wii has going for it is a very expensive controller that may or may not catch on. If it doe It is still going to cost a family over $300 when you add in the second controler and that is expensive for a lot of families. Granted, it isn't $600, and that is a saving grace, but I would be worried that all it takes is a serious price cut from Microsoft and Sony and the Wii starts to look very "last gen". If you take the attitude that graphics and processing power really don't matter that much, then why buy the new system?
In all seriousness what warranted this new console from Nintendo? They could have just released the weird controllers for the cube? The graphics are not that much better and the processor isn't that much better.
As my main point, Nintendo will OWN the 10 and under crowd and that will save them, but when you come out with a new console that is barely better than the last generation consoles and it definately not on the same par as the current next generation consoles, that says a lot about Nintendos ability to develop. Hence the guys article is spot on. The Wii fans around here may mark me as a troll, and trust me I am actually a Nintendo fan, I have owned quite a few and might own a Wii because of Mario and Pokemon, but their "New" console doesn't really excite me at all.
You do realize that more than 50% of ALL TV sales over the last 5 years have been HD. The people who can afford a "new" console more than likely have an HDTV.
Again, if you believe that Nintendo has much market share above the 10 year olds then you are drinking the Nintendo Koolaid. Look at the N64 and the Cube and tell me that the majority of the owners didn't have children in the home under 11...
Yes, Nintendo will actually have Madden and FF games. Now, when they get compared to a PS3 running at 1080i, and people see the difference between 480i and 1080i(1080P later), they will spend the extra cash for the PS3. You are starting to finally see it around the web with pro Wii game reviewers looking at games like Tony Hawk on both systems and saying things like "The wii version looks like a kids game compared to the PS3". Yes $500-$600 is expensive, but that price will fall and when the price difference between the Wii and PS3 start to close, the older hardware choices of the Wii will become more and more of a factor.
I will agree that Nintendo will have the kids 10 and under locked up as they always do, but to honestly think they are going to compete in the 12 and older crowd is wishfull thinking at best. Or you have been reading too much Digg and Slashdot. Does that mean the console will fail? Who really knows, but when electronic arts sells a vast majority of their titles on the 360 and PS3, they will start to think twice about the next version of their software for Nintendo.
I personally believe Mario and Pokemon are enough to carry the system, but then again I wouldn't be surprised to see Nintendo go the way of Sega and just start making software. Yes the may make money on their hardware, but they make a TON more money on their software. Think about it this way, what console has ever came out a year after it's competitor with far worse hardware and done well? Now when you factor in that the price is around the same as the 360 (add the $60+ for the second controller) and it doesn't look great for Nintendo to make any serious inroads.
Again, I don't see any doom and gloom for Nintendo. They OWN the 10 and under crowd and those families with children that span the 10 and under crowd. That is something that both Micosoft and Sony seem to be forgetting. I personally think that Sony will end up owning the high end market because 1080P,greater storage and better performance coupled with great 3rd party support almost alway wins the high end market. Nintendo will own the 10 and under gamers as always AND Microsoft will have made some inroads in to Sonys marketshare by getting a console out a year early. The question remains if those 360 owners will also get a PS3, and if they do will they buy the PS3 version of Madden because it is better. If so then the 360 sales will be hurting over the next few years and Microsoft will have to rush their next version of hardware like they did with the 360.
You said exactly what I did. I am now a Brighthouse cable user and was a DirectTV guy.
I called and actually eventually talked to a VP at DirectTV and at this time they have no intention of ever working with Tivo again.
Now, an interesting part was how difficult it was for me to actually cancel my account. It took 20 minutes on the phone to do it.
Here is how it went down:
Me: Um yes I need to cancel my account.
DTV: Ok, we are sorry to hear that, and are glad to help, may I ask why?
Me: Well, this is a long story and I have talked to many DTV people, but in short you have canceled your deal with Tivo and even though we like DTV and have been a customer for over 8 years we love the Tivo and will be moving to a company that supports it (Brighthouse with cable card).
DTV: You do realize that our DVR does everything that a Tivo does
Me: Yes I realize that you believe it does, and I know a ton about DVR's. I have built Myth boxes and know that you signed a deal with Microsoft for their DVR. The last thing I want is all the virus and spyware crap on my DVR. I also have never seen a blue screen of death on my DVR.
DTV: Our DVR is exactly the same as Tivo. Me: (Getting sucked in now) Really... It has a thumbs up and down feature? DTV: Yes. Me: (Now wanting to test the BS) It drops the video to my cellphone? DTV: Yes. Me: It will beam video to all my other players? DTV: Yes Me: (wow, how far can I take this?) It will allow me to burn DVDs? DTV: Yes. Me: Ok, I have a feeling that you are going to say "Yes" to any question I ask, so suffice it to say that this is like someone buying a new car. There are those that want a BMW and those that want a Honda. Both are cars and I am sure the Honda people will say that their car does "everything" the BMW does, they both have air, anti lock brakes, seat belts etc... but at the end of the day, there are people that want a BMW and think it is worth the money. DTV: (Start of loop) Ok, Our DVR does everything a Tivo does.
START OF LOOP FOR OVER 10 MIN: Me: Oh well, I want to cancel my account DTV: Ok, why? Me: Because you severed your deal with Tivo. DTV: Our device does everything a Tivo does... Me: Ok, you and I will disagree on that issue, so cancel my account DTV: Ok, we will do that, why? END OF LOOP FOR 10 MIN.
Finally... This is what ended the call Me: OK! Ok! I want you to write this down. I am canceling my account because DirectTV severed their deal with Tivo. Write that down! DTV: (Very angry now) OK! click.
They do NOT want to record that they lost a customer because of Tivo. So anyone who reads this and feels like me, please make them write it down. Some idiot at DTV has made an agreement with Microsoft and doesn't want anyone to know that they are loosing customers because of the Tivo deal.
It is too bad because we would have NEVER switched. We currently pay twice as much for cable, and we will probably drop the $800 for the new Tivo... That money "could" have went to DirectTV. I guess they don't want my money. Their loss... but then again what is an extra $50/month....
Now having said all this, I am greatly disappointed at the $800 price point. Man Tivo, come on, the box needs to be around $400. Will I actually pay it? I don't know the Scientific Atlantic box SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS... (They also said it was just like a Tivo), but man, $800 AND a monthly cost.
So here is the net cost for me. $1,100 for Tivo + 3 year subscription $6.00 a month for cable cards.
I pay $14/month now for the worst DVR in the world (Scientific Atlantic HD box).
Now the real kick in the nuts is that I want two Series 3s. No discounts at all from Tivo; I called Tivo today to confirm. At $400 I was about to buy two of them today. At $500 I was probably going to buy two of them today. At $800, the P.o.S. SA box starts to look better (man I hate that box).
Sorry Tivo, but it is tough to pay that much with the PS3 coming out in a month and a half.
A company I use to work in the U.S. tried to use Smalltalk before I was hired around 12 or so years ago. I will give you the number one reason it stopped being used by them. $2,000 a developer seat and a month of training for each developer.
This was an IBM shop and IBM pushed Smalltalk as an upgrade path from COBOL. Then came this language called Java and it was OO, granted not as OO as smalltalk, but the development tools were and are free, or at least a lot cheaper... IBM dropped their smalltalk push and very quickly (for IBM), started to push Java. I will say that I like the idea of primatives and the thought of doing Integer.intValue() + Integer.intValue()//made up syntax but you get the point... doesn't sound as good as i + y, but then again I am not an OO purist.
Now, I am not about to make any comments on the technical merrit of Smalltalk, it might have been the best language in the world, but from my perspective they could have taken over the world if they would have GPL'd the language from the start and because of its cost, it lost out.
I do want to say that NOBODY had a clue to what country the language came from. Trust me few people outside of Redmond Washington care where a product comes from. Now I will say that people here will tend to go to a product that has docs and support in English and they tend to want to play it safe. By safe they tend to be lemmings and follow what other businesses do, but a ton of businesses here run Linux, SAP and other software and they don't care at all.
Lastly, I will say that a ton of businesses here are starting to get pissed off at the support being in India. It has got so bad lately that most shops have just started to live with bugs and crappy software to avoid calling Oracle/Dell(India). So in the long run they will stop purchasing that product(s).
Sorry guys but when you only have less than 50k units sold so far combined AND one of the competitors is about to have 6 million out by March of 2006... Well the war is over.
Now add the fact that you will be able to get one of these units with a game console for the cheaper than the competion to boot, well this "war" is starting to look like a small third world country against EVERY world super power combined.
Now add that almost all the content providers also like this same format and only one major content provider likes the other and well the war continues to be over.
So now you have a somewhat better comparison between the two formats and suddenly the "quality" issues aren't there.
So lets see now. One content has a much higher capacity. Less compression is a good thing. One content will cost the same as the other but provide a game console with it. Nice... One content has all the content providers lined up. One content provides 1080P out of the gate.
The only other advantage I see for the other format is that it "can" have both the old standard DVD on one side and the new HD on the other.... Ahhh but then you loose yet another layer on an already limited disc.
Oh yeah and Microsoft hates JAVA and thus hates Blu-Ray. If only they could figure out a way to leverage Windows to keep Blu-Ray out of the living room...
I will have to translate for Yoda. You see he had to learn English on one DVD. Unfortunately to fit the language on the DVD they had to compress the crap out of it and thus he couldn't learn it correctly. So in short he is saying that yes more data is always better and thank you game developer for stating the obvious and slaving away giving us games. We love high texture games better than low texture games, but we prefer good games over poor ones.
So in short, if we have a choice of Madden at 1080P with high res textures and one in 480P with low res textures, then we want the 1080P version. Given that everything else is equal in the game.
Oh yeah, I forgot Yoda is dead now, so he won't be buying any of your games. He died a long long time ago...
"the average person is not going to buy a game machine to watch his/her movies on."
Not initially, but two things will happen. The first is that they will eventually try a movie out, and the second is that the cost of blu-ray goes WAY WAY WAY down .
So in short most of the content providers are behind Blu-Ray. BR will have significantly more users. I and a lot of people say by a factor of 10 to 1. BR has more capacity and thus will need less compression and at the end of the day, that will provide a better quality image. Even Dell is going to standardize on BR. HP will support both. So even with Microsoft strong-arming the OEM's they couldn't get the largest computer maker to switch to their standard.
What more do you need? Oh yeah, cost. The cost will be the same for both, except the manufacturing of BR will go down much quicker than HD-DVD.
This could have been a battle if Microosft would have shipped the 360 with a HD player, but they didn't and thus this war is over. Heck, even if they did, HD-DVD still would have lost, but it would have made the war more interesting. Microsoft will just have to regroup and figure out how to try and win another war.
You miss the main point. Those that spend >$500 on a console will hook it up to a HDTV. A vast majority of those people will then go out and rent a movie to try the new platform out. They will already own a Blu-Ray player and thus the chicken and egg problem is solved.
Now the problem with HD-DVD? Nobody will buy one. That is already being shown now.
NOBODY except Microsoft and Nintendo fanboys believes Sony won't sell all 6 million units. Now after that is when it gets interesting.
"Second, you're treating all those PS3's like they're being used as Blu-ray players"
Yes I am. You know why? How many PS3 owners will have a HDTV? Care to guess the percentage? It is a HUGE percentage. The PS3 and HDTV are in the exact same market and Sony knows this. The people that drop $500+ on a "game system" generally have HD. To say that the PS3 will be hooked up in a "kids room" on a crappy old tv would be true if the PS3 was around the same cost as the Wii. It isn't, and they are in two different markets. Now a ton of those people will want to "try" a new high definition DVD. They will go to blockbuster and get one, and that will be a blu-ray.
Just go in to any EB and wait around a few minutes. You will see someone come in and try and pre-order a PS3, and ask them if they have HD. Now I am not saying that a vast majority have 1080P sets, but a ton have 720P and 1080i. This coupled with the fact that you can now get 720P sets for under a grand just adds fuel to the fire.
Again the war is over. HD-DVD lost, heck it didn't even get started.
Blu Ray won. There hasn't been 50k HD-DVD players sold and there probably won't be by the end of the year. Now there will be 4 Million Blu Ray players out by the end of the year. The war is over come November. By March of 2007 it will probably be 6 million to 70k (being generous here to HD DVD). Manufacturing will only get cheaper with producing 6 million units vs 70k so the price of a player only will come down. Toshiba won't want to keep loosing money forever and they will eventually stop. Microsoft will hate it, but in the end they will have to live with Java and Blu Ray. They will have to wait another day to try and gain control of the living room.
The only thing that "might" change the war is "if" Microsoft wanted to give away full blown HD-DVD players. I doubt the government would allow that though... so they won't and only a small portion of 360 owners will buy their new HD DVD unit to "watch" movies.
I would say that Sony has little to worry about now, and Microsoft on the gaming front should be prepared to release the 720 a few years early. That will hurt Sony, but I wonder how many XBOX/360 fans will start to feel like Sega fans?
"hh yea ok buddy, dropping like mad. After checking bestbuy.ca and futureshop.ca I found 1 1080P HDTV and it was not 1000 bucks, it wasn't even close.. I've only seen a 1080p TV in a super high end audio/video store. And they didn't even have anything that could drive 1080p at the time. So I doubt this point has any merit what so ever for driving sales of the PS3."
1080P sets at 37" are now going for around $1300. Go to FRY's and look at their 1080P sets, and the blu ray disc. The Westinghouse is around $1,300 online now. Granted some of the freaking demo isn't in 1080P, but the parts that are look great. Suffice to say 1080i and 720p sets are falling drastically in price because most HD buyers will opt for the 1080P. When you see a 1080P signal compared to a 1080i or 720p, you can definately tell a difference, even on a 37" set. At 50+ inches it is far more noticeable.
"so they're stockpiling hundreds of thousands of bluray drives to launch a couple million PS3's. Anybody else see what's wrong with this statement? what about the other 1.5million PS3's that will supposedly be ready?"
You miss his point. They will CONTINUE to produce the drives, but they have been working very hard to make sure they can meet their goal of 6 million PS3's by March of next year.
"Ah this must be the mystical 8-ball I was referring to. Where the hell did you get this information? Also NO MAJOR RETAILER HAS YET TO HAVE ANY PRE-ORDERS. Maybe it's different in Japan, but since I don't live there I can't comment on it."
Some places are taking pre-orders, but OBVIOUSLY Sony can't control that. What the grandparent is refferring to is the fact that places like Best Buy, EB et all, have requested as many as they can get and Sony is VERY VERY VERY comfortable that 4 Million units by Christmas will not be enough, but it is all they can produce. Let me turn the question around. Do you honestly believe Sony won't sell every unit they make this year? Nobody in their right mind thinks they won't. Well except for some Nintendo and 360 fanboys.
"ook, I want PS3 to be kickass, make me grill cheese and do my homework. But if they don't get they're shit together and stop being arrogant assholes they're going to fall like sega (Next gen doesn't start until we say so, ok buddy, piss off)."
Ok, they produce the best machine they can. Most argue that it is the only true "next gen" system. As the grandparent poster mentioned all the things you get with it, and he left out that they will be supporting OpenGL. What more do you want? They are selling the units at around a $200 to $300 loss per unit (estimated on various sites). They are going to loose over 1 BILLION dollars this year because of the PS3. They "hope" that they will make it up, and they will market the hell out of the box. Would you do any different? Do you honestly expect Sony to not market the machine to death?
The exact same people that are bitching about the PS3 are the same ones who tend to rush out and drop $500 on a new video card for their PC. OR they wouldn't buy the PS3 even if it was $200. The fact remains that Sony will sell all 6 million units by March of next year. That will be 6 Million Blu Ray players out, most of which are hooked up to HDTV's. Those people will then want to watch movies on their new device, and they will go to Netflix or BlockBuster and get their movies.
So Sony cements Blu Ray as the dominate platform, and gives gamers a great system for 2006 and early 2007. They can then decide "if" they need to lower the price...
Lastly, the PS3 won't do your homework, make food or have sex with you. No console will, but fully expect good marketing people to try and get you to believe that it will "virtually" do all those things. But remember this, without Sony, there would only by Microsoft and a little Nintendo. Sorry Nintendo fans, but in the world of HD, the 480P signal won't cut it.
Sony is evil Nintendo is great. Apple is good at the desktop. Java is slow. If your actions offend anyone then that is wrong, unless the person is Jewish or Christian. Profit == greed. Bush and all Republicans are evil. Protecting content is wrong. All content should be free.
I am sure I missed a few...
DirectTV just lost my business because of this
on
DirecTV's New HD-DVR
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I just moved and was evaluating between the big three and I was a DirectTV customer for 8 years and a DirectTV (low def) Tivo customer for 3 years.
I would LOVE to have stayed with DirectTV, but the fact that they severed their deal with TIVO and will NEVER upgrade their current HD/TIVO box killed the deal. I honestly don't care what this guys says in his review, the difference is significant and it is like comparing a Honda to a BMW. Yes they both have similar features, but you are either a Honda guy or not. The Honda guys will say all day long that their car is feature for feature as good, but they don't own a BMW.
So that left me with Cable and their DVR; in hopes that the Series 3 will be out soon. After working with this giant piece of crap for a month now, I can say that I am counting the days until the new Tivo series 3 comes out.
Now as far a cable VS sat goes, I can say that even Digital cable isn't near the quality of signal that my DirectTV signal was. The cable "fans" seem to disagree saying that "digital is digital" but that isn't the case for me. In my opinion, and I am willing to show just about anyone this; the quality kind of breaks down like this. (10 being the best). 1080P signal with BluRay input = 10 1080i or 720p signal input = 7 HD station on cable in standard format, normal DirectTV signal or good DVD (LOTR) = 6 Digital Cable = 4 Standard Cable = 3
Again, this is my opinion, but EVERYONE I have had over to look at this tends to agree. I still have my old TIVO and some stuff on it to compare so it makes it somewhat easy to compare the signals. What would have made me happy and I would have paid far more money for it would have been if DirectTV would not have killed their deal with TIVO. Also, it would have been great if they would have started to offer more HD content. But for some reason they decided to partner with Microsoft... I hope that works out for them as well as it has for every other company that has partnered with Microsoft...
Lastly, I don't want to hear how this "new" device is "just like or better" than a TIVO. That is your opinion, and if so then that is great for you. DirectTV just lost me as a customer for it, and everyone I can influence will never use them for service again.
Wii: $199 - Dominates kids 10 and under. However those over 10 want HD and "cooler" games. The market knows this and thus developers will do what they have always done with Nintendo... make kids games only. Granted the games are very fun.
360 - >$300, released early and has some early adopters, but it will be the "middle" child of the consoles. Microsoft had to release this one early otherwise they would have lost their only advantage.
PS3 - By all accounts the most advanced platform but over $500. At that price fanboys and people who love their HDTV's will buy them. Granted, that will be around 6 million people.
What gets interesting, is what the price point will be in a year or so. Lets say Microsoft cuts their price $100 next year. Will that make a difference in their marketshare? Would "most" new customers buy an 360 just because it cheaper than a Wii? Probably not. Those people want Mario and Pokemon. Now the PS3 is the real interesting one. If Sony lowers the price of the PS3 to around the same as the 360, and the hardware advantage is as much as expected then life will get difficult for Microsoft and the shelf life of the 360 will only be 4 years like the XBOX was.
So my prediction by Jan 2008. PS3 15 Million units sold and Blu-Ray will be the dominate HD player. 360 15 Million units sold. The online service will be the focus of their profitability. Wii 7 Million units sold. Families that don't care about FPS or online stuff and families with kids will buy this system, but the controller won't make that much of a difference.
My prediction by Jan 2009. PS3 30 Million units. Price drop of $150 across the board. Now that every fan boy has bought one 360 20 Million units. Price drop of $100 across the board. Wii 15 Million units. The same family types will continue to buy this console, it is less effected by fan boys.
My prediction by Jan 2010. PS3 40 Million units. The difference in hardware starts to show between it and the 360. 360 25 Million units. Bundled games offered to help sales. Wii 25 Million - Again, familes love Mario...
Long Long Long term future.. The difference between the PS3 and the 360 will continue to grow, thus forcing Microsoft to release a new console early yet again. At this point Sony has a tough decision to make, in that they really want a few more years to get maximum profitability out of the PS3. If Microsoft releases a new console then they will probably sit out one year, much like this year and release a PS4 in 2011.
The good news is that it is great time to be a gamer, and competition is great for all of us. We will see discounts on hardware we would have never seen in the past.
Man I can't wait to do what you have done... but to clarify, someone could go with Linux, Windows or Apple for "just a computer for work" and then get a 360, WII or PS3 for gaming. I just chose what I believe will give me the most bang for my buck and I am not about to fault anyone for their choice. It just kills me to see how much the Windows gaming fanboys get all up in arms any time someone mentions the pains of Windows gaming. As I have said time and time again... If it works for you then great. It has NEVER worked for me and I have been held hostage by Windows gaming for over 10 years now. I am tired of fighting with machines just to play a freaking game. My PS2 has NEVER caused me pain, and it appears that the PS3 will basically have enough horsepower and connectivity to keep me happy for many years. (PS2 lacks good Internet and isn't great for EQII type of games, in my opinion)
My only wish would be that somehow Pokemon would make its way to the PS3 for my son... But that probably won't happen so I will probably get a Wii sometime down the road also...
So, I guess I envy you and look forward to buying my Macintosh in a couple of months. The new tower systems look great.
"Agreed! While I believe OSX is more secure than Windows, as Apple's share of computers increase more and more blackhats, crackers, and others will write more malware for Apple. This would be true with any OS that has a significant market share."
Apache has a far larger market share than IIS yet it has almost no serious security threats. So using your logic above how can that be?
I have a reason for it. Microsoft has made a killing off of making data "easy" to work with. Want data from Word to Excel... no problem here is DDE, then OLE... Oh security??? Well we will bolt that on afterward. They have NEVER taken security or reliability seriously, but then their customers have never demanded it. Their customers were happy paying far less money than IBM or SUN wanted, and they would put up with these issues. But then Linux and open source came along... that changed the argument of Microsoft costing less... heck they needed to compete with free and that is hard enough, but not impossible to do. Now their customers are starting to get angry and Microsoft is trying to address these issues, but the problem is all that legacy code and API's need to be addressed and that is a real pain when your major competitor is giving away their products.
Yes you do if you want to play the latest games in the best resolution. So dont play on the highest resolution. Despite an uber system you're risking lag when the shit hits the fan anyway which you're already going to get when using the console version. Guess which way you fix that problem on either platform.
We somewhat agree. I will use a PS3 and not EVER have to dork with any ATI driver crap issue again. Yes I will be limited to 1900X1080 resolution but that will be good enough for me. Where we will disagree is the amount of effort Windows gaming takes.
The facts speak for themselves 50% of well educated I.T. people couldn't play a freaking game on their systems given 4 hours to dork with it. I'm calling BS on this one but either way I have a very poor view on "I.T people" in general. I can give you stories about ITT grads who specialize in databases that didn't even know what a fucking "object" was or "educated" ITT's that can't troubleshoot for crap. Heck the GeekSquad guys call themselves IT's and we all know just how good they really are. The fact that they couldn't figure out their problem after 4hrs is pretty sad.
Your opinion, but then you were not there and you seem to want to generalize about I.T. people. The fact is this. You don't have a freaking clue on what the problems were and yet you feel completely comfortable saying the people there are idiots. Well one of the many issues was the latest patch had serious problems. So bad in fact that they had to relase yet another patch within a day, ahhh but that is life with PC games... release early and then relase patch after patch. EQII, Blizzard et all. I and a ton of other people are sick and tired of this type of attitude with Windows fanboys. The "it works for me, so you all must be idiots". Well that is great for you!
Heck it took over an hour to install the freaking patches. Patches are game software issues, usually fixing minor bugs they new about but shipped anyway to meet a deadline. Thats common practice now. You'll have to download patches despite running Windows, Linux, or OSX. Not too mention that this is already starting to happen with console games. Expect it to become more commonplace down the line. Drivers? Are you kidding me? The only driver you really need to run a LAN party is a vid driver and those you should have downloaded at home on your own ages ago. They dont change that often.
Some patches are one thing, but to force guys to download around 600MB is insane. That is for the first freaking patch, then you have to apply yet another patch... Ah but wait there is more... You need to appy the first patch, launch the game then apply the second one. But wait there is more fun... skip that step and you get to reload the entire game again. Have you loaded a bare bones version of Battlefield 2 lately?
No more blue screens of death, no more adware, no more spyware, no more weird crap running on my system. Dear god man what are you doing to your machine?! Do you have a firewall or even an anti-virus running? Are you clicking every single.exe file you find? Blue screens are hardware compatibility issues these days unless you're playing with some weird software.
Typical windows fanboy... Ok I am freaking glad you don't have problems, but you are a fool to believe that Windows isn't plagued by this. You can hide you head in the sand as much as you want to and say yet again "It works for me" but trust me a vast majority of people out there it doesn't "just work". Yet the Macintosh pretty much does, and it is my belief that the PS3 will as well (much like the PS2 does now).
I am not trying to persuade you in to purchasing a Macintosh and PS3, but I can say without a doubt that my productivity will definately increase by just having a dedicated computer for work and a PS3 for gaming. My fun will definately go up not having to spend time patching my PS3 every time I want to play a game. Again I am glad it "works for you" and you ne
You certainly don't need to drop $350-$500/year for a new video card. I...
Yes you do if you want to play the latest games in the best resolution. Want DirectX 10 on your card? How about 11? How about 12? You see Microsoft keeps updating it every year or so, and the video card makers generally don't support the latest coolest tech in the older cards. So yes you can still run your "old" card, but a LOT of people start to see weird problems and things like 50% of a Lan party won't be able to get a game to play because of some video card issue. Did I mention that all the Lan party members are in I.T. We are talking about people very comfortable working on machines. I also want to say that I have heard time and time again things like... I never get blue screens of death, and "My Windows XP never crashes" and "I never get any spyware or adware". Well all I can say is good for you. The facts speak for themselves 50% of well educated I.T. people couldn't play a freaking game on their systems given 4 hours to dork with it. Heck it took over an hour to install the freaking patches. That does NOT include the download time!!!!! You also miss the point. I have NO intention of playing games on my Macintosh. I will do work on my Macintosh. I will play games on my PS3. To be honest the games I have seen look incredible and the days of PC gaming for me and a lot of people appear to be comming to an end. The huge difference between the console and the PC use to be graphics, but with 1080P resolution (1900 X 1080) and Internet connectivity the console more than competes (PS3 that is).
So I could buy a Dell and a PS3, but the difference in price between a Dell and an Apple now is about the same. The components are about the same and the only real difference is the OS. The only thing that was holding me back was games and with the PS3 coming out in three months, that will no longer be an issue. So why do I need to run Windows at all? No more blue screens of death, no more adware, no more spyware, no more weird crap running on my system. Now I could run Linux on Dell, but I can also do that with Apple, and Apple has more of the software I currently use. Please understand that I am writing this using Ubuntu now (I have a separate hard drive for games and Windows), and like Ubuntu, but for me I prefer the Macintosh experience more.
You mention a mainstream box. To me a mainstream box is a box I can do everything on except game. I have made the decision that PC gaming is over for me the day the PS3 is released. Now given that, the Macintosh can do everything the PC can and a little more than Ubuntu can (for me). The cost difference isn't huge at all (for me less than $200, and I get some cool stuff that I would not get with a Dell) and lastly I don't have to put up with all the Windows crap that I and a lot of other have had to endure. That is worth far more than $200. Heck the day I can take my PS3 over to a lan party and just freaking play for 4 hours instead of fighting with patches and drivers is worth $200.
Again, for those of you that Windows works for I say "congrats". My experience (and others) has not been that way.
So I guess I am saying that Dell and Microsoft XP isn't bad, but for a general purpose box I wouln't say it is there yet.:-) Once they get their security, stability and reliability down then it might be.:-)
You are correct and that is exactly what I plan on doing. I plan on getting a PS3 and a new Macintosh. For me it came down to a few things but in short here it is.
I have an Alienware laptop P4 3GH, around a year and a half old. It is still a nice machine and it runs most games ok. I then went out and purchase some new WWII game to play at a local lan party... Well 50% of the people there spent over an hour installing the freaking game and all the patches. Then the ATI people had to dork with their video drivers... another 30 min.... then after all that the game freaking killed my machine... I was able to uninstall it but for me this was a waist of 4 hours. Now the machine does one purpose and that is play EQII. My Windows/PC friends suggested getting a new machines and or reloading my OS from scratch. At this point I looked at a new video card for a PC and found that they still range around $300-$600. So to "play games" on a PC is going to set me back more than the cost of a PS3.
This is when the wheels started turning... I could get a PS3 (my PS2 has never caused me 4 hours of frustration just to game) and I could get a Macintosh for my work. So for me, a small gamer, I can say that I am very happy to be dumping the whole PC "gaming" experience and I will actually be saving money. I figure that the Macintosh will last me for around 4 years and the PS3 will be a viable gaming console for 5. "If" I was to do a new Alienware/Dell, I would need to buy one every two years to keep up OR I could get use to waisting time reloading my OS and downloading new crappy drivers every so often.
Please understand I am not knocking you PC gamers out there. I was someone who dropped $350-$500 for a new video card every year or so and upgraded my system every year or so, but I am tired of doing that now and I see a viable escape and lastly, please please please don't tell me "All my games load" If that is the case then good for you, it wasn't the case and NEVER has been with any LAN party I have been to.
Slashdot Mirror
"It's all about history. A lot of (old) people are still bitter about having to replace their Betamax VCRs. The feeling of having been screwed by a corporation doesn't fade -- it ossifies in the brain."
Yeah, and a lot of "old" people fought in WWII, but have no problem buying a Honda car or Sony TV.
As far as the BluRay and Betamax comparison goes. People let it go! Yes there are some weak comparisons, but there are HUGE differences this time. First and formost is the content providers and second is the fact that they will flood the market with PS3's. Now every PS3 will have HDMI, so the old argument of certain PS3's being able to display movies goes away. The fact remains that on Nov 17th there will be over 4X as many BluRay players as HD-DVD on the market. By the end of the year it goes to around 10X. At that point the cost of manufacturing starts to come in to play. When you are producing over 10X as many as your competitor quantity of scale starts to set in and the tipping point is in full swing.
Does Sony have a lot at risk. Yes, but they also have a lot to gain. By locking up certain content providers, and using the PS3 they will cement BluRay as the defacto standard and they now have a console that will be a great feed for games like WoW 2 and EQIII. No more moving targets of processors and endless upgrades of crappy video drivers... Having said that WoW will probably never be on the PS3, but that is only because of their hatered of Sony and their love affair with endless patches.
Now fast forward a year or so. Games start to take more space on disk (as always), and more and more games take advantage of 1080P. The 360 and Wii will start to look very old for higher end and even moderate gamers. My belief is that the Wii will be less effected by this because their market is the 10 and under crowd, but the 360 will have a very short life. Please understand that I don't want to bash the Wii or 360, but when someone sits down with a great sports game at 1080P, and compares the same game to the Wii at 480i... well I think you see where this is going. A 1080P TV (42" Westinghouse) is currently $1,600 now and it isn't unreasonable to believe that in a year that will be very close to a grand.
Now, there will be some game companies that "standardize" on 480i or 720p, but more and more games will start to load up the 50GB of storage and use the extra resolution. That 9GB DVD will start to become more and more of an issue for the 360. Again the Wii is buffered from that because, to be honest it is just the GameCube 1.5 with a different controler.
"So the games industry wants to know what fuels piracy? Well, stuff like this certainly helps quite a bit."
Bzzzt! Wrong!
You know what fuels stealing software? The ability to steal software, music and video content easily and not have anything done to you. If people started to go to jail because they stole Microsoft Windows XP or Office then you would see it come to a halt in the U.S. You don't so you see the mess we live in.
It flat out floors me that almost everyone I know steals software AND movies AND songs, yet they don't see this as stealing. The only people I know that don't do it are the ones that are not tech savy enough to pull it off. So, do I hate the fact that GTHD (not to be confused with Vision GT) will sell cars and tracks. Yes! However, do I understand what the developers are doing? Yes. Honestly, any development shop worth their salt will be going to some online WoW, EQII setup soon. The only advice I can tell people is get use to it and pray for competition to drive down the prices, but the days of stealing "with ease" is coming to an end.
So lets be honest here, the people that are really going to bitch and moan about this are the ones that would never buy the game to begin with. They are the ones who would steal it. Also, please notice that I will not use the word "Pirate". It is stealing, and no different than going in to a store and stealing a computer. I will agree that there are a "few" and I mean very few that would have bought this game that won't because of this. Yes there will be a handfull of kids that get the game and are hurt because they don't have the cars and tracks they thought they would.
To continue with my rant. It has gotten so easy to steal this stuff lately that people in my area have actually started to print the real freaking labels on the DVD/CD's. It actually looks very real. These people are by no means tech giants and some would consider them "moral" people. By that I mean that this appears to just be accepted by todays society. I have literally been offered (for free of course), 60GB of music from one of the online music stores, and almost EVERY Disney movie for free. Heck I like Dragon Ball(Z,GT etc), and it cost me an arm and a leg to get the first 50 episodes on DVD. Yet I could just go steal them in about a day. I choose not to do that. I still can't afford to get the rest of the shows, and will just have to wait.
Slashdot and Digg seem to hate HDMI, DRM and downloadable content, but these are the same people that steal the stuff on a regular basis. So when the "game industry" does stuff like this, it is because of the typical digg/slashdot user out there. These people (myself included) want to earn a living at what we do. Most of these people don't care to have Bill Gates money, but they don't like to see their work stolen on a regular basis and absolutely NOTHING being done about it. These games are costing in upwards of $20 to $50 MILLION to make now and it isn't fun to be out of work.
Before people here start flaming me, ask this question. Do you have any illegal music, movies, games or software on your system. (Stallman, you don't count).
Yep and when the price difference is $200 or $100, then what will you do? What if the price was the same? You are obvously a Wii fan and would probably never buy a PS3, and this isn't a surprise around here on slashdot or digg, but the reality of it all is that the only thing the Wii has going for it is a very expensive controller that may or may not catch on. If it doe It is still going to cost a family over $300 when you add in the second controler and that is expensive for a lot of families. Granted, it isn't $600, and that is a saving grace, but I would be worried that all it takes is a serious price cut from Microsoft and Sony and the Wii starts to look very "last gen". If you take the attitude that graphics and processing power really don't matter that much, then why buy the new system?
In all seriousness what warranted this new console from Nintendo? They could have just released the weird controllers for the cube? The graphics are not that much better and the processor isn't that much better.
As my main point, Nintendo will OWN the 10 and under crowd and that will save them, but when you come out with a new console that is barely better than the last generation consoles and it definately not on the same par as the current next generation consoles, that says a lot about Nintendos ability to develop. Hence the guys article is spot on. The Wii fans around here may mark me as a troll, and trust me I am actually a Nintendo fan, I have owned quite a few and might own a Wii because of Mario and Pokemon, but their "New" console doesn't really excite me at all.
You do realize that more than 50% of ALL TV sales over the last 5 years have been HD. The people who can afford a "new" console more than likely have an HDTV.
Again, if you believe that Nintendo has much market share above the 10 year olds then you are drinking the Nintendo Koolaid. Look at the N64 and the Cube and tell me that the majority of the owners didn't have children in the home under 11...
Yes, Nintendo will actually have Madden and FF games. Now, when they get compared to a PS3 running at 1080i, and people see the difference between 480i and 1080i(1080P later), they will spend the extra cash for the PS3. You are starting to finally see it around the web with pro Wii game reviewers looking at games like Tony Hawk on both systems and saying things like "The wii version looks like a kids game compared to the PS3". Yes $500-$600 is expensive, but that price will fall and when the price difference between the Wii and PS3 start to close, the older hardware choices of the Wii will become more and more of a factor.
I will agree that Nintendo will have the kids 10 and under locked up as they always do, but to honestly think they are going to compete in the 12 and older crowd is wishfull thinking at best. Or you have been reading too much Digg and Slashdot. Does that mean the console will fail? Who really knows, but when electronic arts sells a vast majority of their titles on the 360 and PS3, they will start to think twice about the next version of their software for Nintendo.
I personally believe Mario and Pokemon are enough to carry the system, but then again I wouldn't be surprised to see Nintendo go the way of Sega and just start making software. Yes the may make money on their hardware, but they make a TON more money on their software. Think about it this way, what console has ever came out a year after it's competitor with far worse hardware and done well? Now when you factor in that the price is around the same as the 360 (add the $60+ for the second controller) and it doesn't look great for Nintendo to make any serious inroads.
Again, I don't see any doom and gloom for Nintendo. They OWN the 10 and under crowd and those families with children that span the 10 and under crowd. That is something that both Micosoft and Sony seem to be forgetting. I personally think that Sony will end up owning the high end market because 1080P,greater storage and better performance coupled with great 3rd party support almost alway wins the high end market. Nintendo will own the 10 and under gamers as always AND Microsoft will have made some inroads in to Sonys marketshare by getting a console out a year early. The question remains if those 360 owners will also get a PS3, and if they do will they buy the PS3 version of Madden because it is better. If so then the 360 sales will be hurting over the next few years and Microsoft will have to rush their next version of hardware like they did with the 360.
Are you sure about this? I hope you are correct, but none the less, the box could have been running Ubuntu, it isn't a Tivo.
You said exactly what I did. I am now a Brighthouse cable user and was a DirectTV guy.
I called and actually eventually talked to a VP at DirectTV and at this time they have no intention of ever working with Tivo again.
Now, an interesting part was how difficult it was for me to actually cancel my account. It took 20 minutes on the phone to do it.
Here is how it went down:
Me: Um yes I need to cancel my account.
DTV: Ok, we are sorry to hear that, and are glad to help, may I ask why?
Me: Well, this is a long story and I have talked to many DTV people, but in short you have canceled your deal with Tivo and even though we like DTV and have been a customer for over 8 years we love the Tivo and will be moving to a company that supports it (Brighthouse with cable card).
DTV: You do realize that our DVR does everything that a Tivo does
Me: Yes I realize that you believe it does, and I know a ton about DVR's. I have built Myth boxes and know that you signed a deal with Microsoft for their DVR. The last thing I want is all the virus and spyware crap on my DVR. I also have never seen a blue screen of death on my DVR.
DTV: Our DVR is exactly the same as Tivo.
Me: (Getting sucked in now) Really... It has a thumbs up and down feature?
DTV: Yes.
Me: (Now wanting to test the BS) It drops the video to my cellphone?
DTV: Yes.
Me: It will beam video to all my other players?
DTV: Yes
Me: (wow, how far can I take this?) It will allow me to burn DVDs?
DTV: Yes.
Me: Ok, I have a feeling that you are going to say "Yes" to any question I ask, so suffice it to say that this is like someone buying a new car. There are those that want a BMW and those that want a Honda. Both are cars and I am sure the Honda people will say that their car does "everything" the BMW does, they both have air, anti lock brakes, seat belts etc... but at the end of the day, there are people that want a BMW and think it is worth the money.
DTV: (Start of loop) Ok, Our DVR does everything a Tivo does.
START OF LOOP FOR OVER 10 MIN:
Me: Oh well, I want to cancel my account
DTV: Ok, why?
Me: Because you severed your deal with Tivo.
DTV: Our device does everything a Tivo does...
Me: Ok, you and I will disagree on that issue, so cancel my account
DTV: Ok, we will do that, why?
END OF LOOP FOR 10 MIN.
Finally... This is what ended the call
Me: OK! Ok! I want you to write this down. I am canceling my account because DirectTV severed their deal with Tivo. Write that down!
DTV: (Very angry now) OK! click.
They do NOT want to record that they lost a customer because of Tivo. So anyone who reads this and feels like me, please make them write it down. Some idiot at DTV has made an agreement with Microsoft and doesn't want anyone to know that they are loosing customers because of the Tivo deal.
It is too bad because we would have NEVER switched. We currently pay twice as much for cable, and we will probably drop the $800 for the new Tivo... That money "could" have went to DirectTV. I guess they don't want my money. Their loss... but then again what is an extra $50/month....
Now having said all this, I am greatly disappointed at the $800 price point. Man Tivo, come on, the box needs to be around $400. Will I actually pay it? I don't know the Scientific Atlantic box SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS... (They also said it was just like a Tivo), but man, $800 AND a monthly cost.
So here is the net cost for me.
$1,100 for Tivo + 3 year subscription
$6.00 a month for cable cards.
I pay $14/month now for the worst DVR in the world (Scientific Atlantic HD box).
Now the real kick in the nuts is that I want two Series 3s. No discounts at all from Tivo; I called Tivo today to confirm. At $400 I was about to buy two of them today. At $500 I was probably going to buy two of them today. At $800, the P.o.S. SA box starts to look better (man I hate that box).
Sorry Tivo, but it is tough to pay that much with the PS3 coming out in a month and a half.
A company I use to work in the U.S. tried to use Smalltalk before I was hired around 12 or so years ago. I will give you the number one reason it stopped being used by them. $2,000 a developer seat and a month of training for each developer.
//made up syntax but you get the point... doesn't sound as good as i + y, but then again I am not an OO purist.
This was an IBM shop and IBM pushed Smalltalk as an upgrade path from COBOL. Then came this language called Java and it was OO, granted not as OO as smalltalk, but the development tools were and are free, or at least a lot cheaper... IBM dropped their smalltalk push and very quickly (for IBM), started to push Java. I will say that I like the idea of primatives and the thought of doing Integer.intValue() + Integer.intValue()
Now, I am not about to make any comments on the technical merrit of Smalltalk, it might have been the best language in the world, but from my perspective they could have taken over the world if they would have GPL'd the language from the start and because of its cost, it lost out.
I do want to say that NOBODY had a clue to what country the language came from. Trust me few people outside of Redmond Washington care where a product comes from. Now I will say that people here will tend to go to a product that has docs and support in English and they tend to want to play it safe. By safe they tend to be lemmings and follow what other businesses do, but a ton of businesses here run Linux, SAP and other software and they don't care at all.
Lastly, I will say that a ton of businesses here are starting to get pissed off at the support being in India. It has got so bad lately that most shops have just started to live with bugs and crappy software to avoid calling Oracle/Dell(India). So in the long run they will stop purchasing that product(s).
Sorry guys but when you only have less than 50k units sold so far combined AND one of the competitors is about to have 6 million out by March of 2006... Well the war is over.
Now add the fact that you will be able to get one of these units with a game console for the cheaper than the competion to boot, well this "war" is starting to look like a small third world country against EVERY world super power combined.
Now add that almost all the content providers also like this same format and only one major content provider likes the other and well the war continues to be over.
So now you have a somewhat better comparison between the two formats and suddenly the "quality" issues aren't there.
So lets see now.
One content has a much higher capacity. Less compression is a good thing.
One content will cost the same as the other but provide a game console with it. Nice...
One content has all the content providers lined up.
One content provides 1080P out of the gate.
The only other advantage I see for the other format is that it "can" have both the old standard DVD on one side and the new HD on the other.... Ahhh but then you loose yet another layer on an already limited disc.
Oh yeah and Microsoft hates JAVA and thus hates Blu-Ray. If only they could figure out a way to leverage Windows to keep Blu-Ray out of the living room...
I will have to translate for Yoda. You see he had to learn English on one DVD. Unfortunately to fit the language on the DVD they had to compress the crap out of it and thus he couldn't learn it correctly. So in short he is saying that yes more data is always better and thank you game developer for stating the obvious and slaving away giving us games. We love high texture games better than low texture games, but we prefer good games over poor ones.
So in short, if we have a choice of Madden at 1080P with high res textures and one in 480P with low res textures, then we want the 1080P version. Given that everything else is equal in the game.
Oh yeah, I forgot Yoda is dead now, so he won't be buying any of your games. He died a long long time ago...
"the average person is not going to buy a game machine to watch his/her movies on."
Not initially, but two things will happen. The first is that they will eventually try a movie out, and the second is that the cost of blu-ray goes WAY WAY WAY down .
So in short most of the content providers are behind Blu-Ray.
BR will have significantly more users. I and a lot of people say by a factor of 10 to 1.
BR has more capacity and thus will need less compression and at the end of the day, that will provide a better quality image.
Even Dell is going to standardize on BR. HP will support both. So even with Microsoft strong-arming the OEM's they couldn't get the largest computer maker to switch to their standard.
What more do you need? Oh yeah, cost. The cost will be the same for both, except the manufacturing of BR will go down much quicker than HD-DVD.
This could have been a battle if Microosft would have shipped the 360 with a HD player, but they didn't and thus this war is over. Heck, even if they did, HD-DVD still would have lost, but it would have made the war more interesting. Microsoft will just have to regroup and figure out how to try and win another war.
You miss the main point. Those that spend >$500 on a console will hook it up to a HDTV. A vast majority of those people will then go out and rent a movie to try the new platform out. They will already own a Blu-Ray player and thus the chicken and egg problem is solved.
Now the problem with HD-DVD? Nobody will buy one. That is already being shown now.
NOBODY except Microsoft and Nintendo fanboys believes Sony won't sell all 6 million units. Now after that is when it gets interesting.
"Second, you're treating all those PS3's like they're being used as Blu-ray players"
Yes I am. You know why? How many PS3 owners will have a HDTV? Care to guess the percentage? It is a HUGE percentage. The PS3 and HDTV are in the exact same market and Sony knows this. The people that drop $500+ on a "game system" generally have HD. To say that the PS3 will be hooked up in a "kids room" on a crappy old tv would be true if the PS3 was around the same cost as the Wii. It isn't, and they are in two different markets. Now a ton of those people will want to "try" a new high definition DVD. They will go to blockbuster and get one, and that will be a blu-ray.
Just go in to any EB and wait around a few minutes. You will see someone come in and try and pre-order a PS3, and ask them if they have HD. Now I am not saying that a vast majority have 1080P sets, but a ton have 720P and 1080i. This coupled with the fact that you can now get 720P sets for under a grand just adds fuel to the fire.
Again the war is over. HD-DVD lost, heck it didn't even get started.
Yes, I am counting the PS3 as a blu-ray player.
Yes you "can" put a standard DVD format on a HD-DVD as you mentioned, but who cares? The people that buy these want HD.
So, to make the math simple.
6 million blu ray players that can play 1080P content.
70k HD-DVD players that can play 1080P content.
Again, the war is over.
Blu Ray won. There hasn't been 50k HD-DVD players sold and there probably won't be by the end of the year. Now there will be 4 Million Blu Ray players out by the end of the year. The war is over come November. By March of 2007 it will probably be 6 million to 70k (being generous here to HD DVD). Manufacturing will only get cheaper with producing 6 million units vs 70k so the price of a player only will come down. Toshiba won't want to keep loosing money forever and they will eventually stop. Microsoft will hate it, but in the end they will have to live with Java and Blu Ray. They will have to wait another day to try and gain control of the living room.
The only thing that "might" change the war is "if" Microsoft wanted to give away full blown HD-DVD players. I doubt the government would allow that though... so they won't and only a small portion of 360 owners will buy their new HD DVD unit to "watch" movies.
I would say that Sony has little to worry about now, and Microsoft on the gaming front should be prepared to release the 720 a few years early. That will hurt Sony, but I wonder how many XBOX/360 fans will start to feel like Sega fans?
Ok, the only way to settle this thing once and for all is to have them fight it out in a steel cage. The last astronomer standing gets to decide.
"hh yea ok buddy, dropping like mad. After checking bestbuy.ca and futureshop.ca I found 1 1080P HDTV and it was not 1000 bucks, it wasn't even close.. I've only seen a 1080p TV in a super high end audio/video store. And they didn't even have anything that could drive 1080p at the time. So I doubt this point has any merit what so ever for driving sales of the PS3."
1080P sets at 37" are now going for around $1300. Go to FRY's and look at their 1080P sets, and the blu ray disc. The Westinghouse is around $1,300 online now. Granted some of the freaking demo isn't in 1080P, but the parts that are look great. Suffice to say 1080i and 720p sets are falling drastically in price because most HD buyers will opt for the 1080P. When you see a 1080P signal compared to a 1080i or 720p, you can definately tell a difference, even on a 37" set. At 50+ inches it is far more noticeable.
"so they're stockpiling hundreds of thousands of bluray drives to launch a couple million PS3's. Anybody else see what's wrong with this statement? what about the other 1.5million PS3's that will supposedly be ready?"
You miss his point. They will CONTINUE to produce the drives, but they have been working very hard to make sure they can meet their goal of 6 million PS3's by March of next year.
"Ah this must be the mystical 8-ball I was referring to. Where the hell did you get this information? Also NO MAJOR RETAILER HAS YET TO HAVE ANY PRE-ORDERS. Maybe it's different in Japan, but since I don't live there I can't comment on it."
Some places are taking pre-orders, but OBVIOUSLY Sony can't control that. What the grandparent is refferring to is the fact that places like Best Buy, EB et all, have requested as many as they can get and Sony is VERY VERY VERY comfortable that 4 Million units by Christmas will not be enough, but it is all they can produce. Let me turn the question around. Do you honestly believe Sony won't sell every unit they make this year? Nobody in their right mind thinks they won't. Well except for some Nintendo and 360 fanboys.
"ook, I want PS3 to be kickass, make me grill cheese and do my homework. But if they don't get they're shit together and stop being arrogant assholes they're going to fall like sega (Next gen doesn't start until we say so, ok buddy, piss off)."
Ok, they produce the best machine they can. Most argue that it is the only true "next gen" system. As the grandparent poster mentioned all the things you get with it, and he left out that they will be supporting OpenGL. What more do you want? They are selling the units at around a $200 to $300 loss per unit (estimated on various sites). They are going to loose over 1 BILLION dollars this year because of the PS3. They "hope" that they will make it up, and they will market the hell out of the box. Would you do any different? Do you honestly expect Sony to not market the machine to death?
The exact same people that are bitching about the PS3 are the same ones who tend to rush out and drop $500 on a new video card for their PC. OR they wouldn't buy the PS3 even if it was $200. The fact remains that Sony will sell all 6 million units by March of next year. That will be 6 Million Blu Ray players out, most of which are hooked up to HDTV's. Those people will then want to watch movies on their new device, and they will go to Netflix or BlockBuster and get their movies.
So Sony cements Blu Ray as the dominate platform, and gives gamers a great system for 2006 and early 2007. They can then decide "if" they need to lower the price...
Lastly, the PS3 won't do your homework, make food or have sex with you. No console will, but fully expect good marketing people to try and get you to believe that it will "virtually" do all those things. But remember this, without Sony, there would only by Microsoft and a little Nintendo. Sorry Nintendo fans, but in the world of HD, the 480P signal won't cut it.
You forgot a few:
Sony is evil
Nintendo is great.
Apple is good at the desktop.
Java is slow.
If your actions offend anyone then that is wrong, unless the person is Jewish or Christian.
Profit == greed.
Bush and all Republicans are evil.
Protecting content is wrong.
All content should be free.
I am sure I missed a few...
I just moved and was evaluating between the big three and I was a DirectTV customer for 8 years and a DirectTV (low def) Tivo customer for 3 years.
I would LOVE to have stayed with DirectTV, but the fact that they severed their deal with TIVO and will NEVER upgrade their current HD/TIVO box killed the deal. I honestly don't care what this guys says in his review, the difference is significant and it is like comparing a Honda to a BMW. Yes they both have similar features, but you are either a Honda guy or not. The Honda guys will say all day long that their car is feature for feature as good, but they don't own a BMW.
So that left me with Cable and their DVR; in hopes that the Series 3 will be out soon. After working with this giant piece of crap for a month now, I can say that I am counting the days until the new Tivo series 3 comes out.
Now as far a cable VS sat goes, I can say that even Digital cable isn't near the quality of signal that my DirectTV signal was. The cable "fans" seem to disagree saying that "digital is digital" but that isn't the case for me. In my opinion, and I am willing to show just about anyone this; the quality kind of breaks down like this. (10 being the best).
1080P signal with BluRay input = 10
1080i or 720p signal input = 7
HD station on cable in standard format, normal DirectTV signal or good DVD (LOTR) = 6
Digital Cable = 4
Standard Cable = 3
Again, this is my opinion, but EVERYONE I have had over to look at this tends to agree. I still have my old TIVO and some stuff on it to compare so it makes it somewhat easy to compare the signals. What would have made me happy and I would have paid far more money for it would have been if DirectTV would not have killed their deal with TIVO. Also, it would have been great if they would have started to offer more HD content. But for some reason they decided to partner with Microsoft... I hope that works out for them as well as it has for every other company that has partnered with Microsoft...
Lastly, I don't want to hear how this "new" device is "just like or better" than a TIVO. That is your opinion, and if so then that is great for you. DirectTV just lost me as a customer for it, and everyone I can influence will never use them for service again.
Wii: $199 - Dominates kids 10 and under. However those over 10 want HD and "cooler" games. The market knows this and thus developers will do what they have always done with Nintendo... make kids games only. Granted the games are very fun.
360 - >$300, released early and has some early adopters, but it will be the "middle" child of the consoles. Microsoft had to release this one early otherwise they would have lost their only advantage.
PS3 - By all accounts the most advanced platform but over $500. At that price fanboys and people who love their HDTV's will buy them. Granted, that will be around 6 million people.
What gets interesting, is what the price point will be in a year or so. Lets say Microsoft cuts their price $100 next year. Will that make a difference in their marketshare? Would "most" new customers buy an 360 just because it cheaper than a Wii? Probably not. Those people want Mario and Pokemon. Now the PS3 is the real interesting one. If Sony lowers the price of the PS3 to around the same as the 360, and the hardware advantage is as much as expected then life will get difficult for Microsoft and the shelf life of the 360 will only be 4 years like the XBOX was.
So my prediction by Jan 2008.
PS3 15 Million units sold and Blu-Ray will be the dominate HD player.
360 15 Million units sold. The online service will be the focus of their profitability.
Wii 7 Million units sold. Families that don't care about FPS or online stuff and families with kids will buy this system, but the controller won't make that much of a difference.
My prediction by Jan 2009.
PS3 30 Million units. Price drop of $150 across the board. Now that every fan boy has bought one
360 20 Million units. Price drop of $100 across the board.
Wii 15 Million units. The same family types will continue to buy this console, it is less effected by fan boys.
My prediction by Jan 2010.
PS3 40 Million units. The difference in hardware starts to show between it and the 360.
360 25 Million units. Bundled games offered to help sales.
Wii 25 Million - Again, familes love Mario...
Long Long Long term future..
The difference between the PS3 and the 360 will continue to grow, thus forcing Microsoft to release a new console early yet again. At this point Sony has a tough decision to make, in that they really want a few more years to get maximum profitability out of the PS3. If Microsoft releases a new console then they will probably sit out one year, much like this year and release a PS4 in 2011.
The good news is that it is great time to be a gamer, and competition is great for all of us. We will see discounts on hardware we would have never seen in the past.
Man I can't wait to do what you have done... but to clarify, someone could go with Linux, Windows or Apple for "just a computer for work" and then get a 360, WII or PS3 for gaming. I just chose what I believe will give me the most bang for my buck and I am not about to fault anyone for their choice. It just kills me to see how much the Windows gaming fanboys get all up in arms any time someone mentions the pains of Windows gaming. As I have said time and time again... If it works for you then great. It has NEVER worked for me and I have been held hostage by Windows gaming for over 10 years now. I am tired of fighting with machines just to play a freaking game. My PS2 has NEVER caused me pain, and it appears that the PS3 will basically have enough horsepower and connectivity to keep me happy for many years. (PS2 lacks good Internet and isn't great for EQII type of games, in my opinion)
My only wish would be that somehow Pokemon would make its way to the PS3 for my son... But that probably won't happen so I will probably get a Wii sometime down the road also...
So, I guess I envy you and look forward to buying my Macintosh in a couple of months. The new tower systems look great.
"Agreed! While I believe OSX is more secure than Windows, as Apple's share of computers increase more and more blackhats, crackers, and others will write more malware for Apple. This would be true with any OS that has a significant market share."
Apache has a far larger market share than IIS yet it has almost no serious security threats. So using your logic above how can that be?
I have a reason for it. Microsoft has made a killing off of making data "easy" to work with. Want data from Word to Excel... no problem here is DDE, then OLE... Oh security??? Well we will bolt that on afterward. They have NEVER taken security or reliability seriously, but then their customers have never demanded it. Their customers were happy paying far less money than IBM or SUN wanted, and they would put up with these issues. But then Linux and open source came along... that changed the argument of Microsoft costing less... heck they needed to compete with free and that is hard enough, but not impossible to do. Now their customers are starting to get angry and Microsoft is trying to address these issues, but the problem is all that legacy code and API's need to be addressed and that is a real pain when your major competitor is giving away their products.
Yes you do if you want to play the latest games in the best resolution. So dont play on the highest resolution. Despite an uber system you're risking lag when the shit hits the fan anyway which you're already going to get when using the console version. Guess which way you fix that problem on either platform.
.exe file you find? Blue screens are hardware compatibility issues these days unless you're playing with some weird software.
We somewhat agree. I will use a PS3 and not EVER have to dork with any ATI driver crap issue again. Yes I will be limited to 1900X1080 resolution but that will be good enough for me. Where we will disagree is the amount of effort Windows gaming takes.
The facts speak for themselves 50% of well educated I.T. people couldn't play a freaking game on their systems given 4 hours to dork with it. I'm calling BS on this one but either way I have a very poor view on "I.T people" in general. I can give you stories about ITT grads who specialize in databases that didn't even know what a fucking "object" was or "educated" ITT's that can't troubleshoot for crap. Heck the GeekSquad guys call themselves IT's and we all know just how good they really are. The fact that they couldn't figure out their problem after 4hrs is pretty sad.
Your opinion, but then you were not there and you seem to want to generalize about I.T. people. The fact is this. You don't have a freaking clue on what the problems were and yet you feel completely comfortable saying the people there are idiots. Well one of the many issues was the latest patch had serious problems. So bad in fact that they had to relase yet another patch within a day, ahhh but that is life with PC games... release early and then relase patch after patch. EQII, Blizzard et all.
I and a ton of other people are sick and tired of this type of attitude with Windows fanboys. The "it works for me, so you all must be idiots". Well that is great for you!
Heck it took over an hour to install the freaking patches. Patches are game software issues, usually fixing minor bugs they new about but shipped anyway to meet a deadline. Thats common practice now. You'll have to download patches despite running Windows, Linux, or OSX. Not too mention that this is already starting to happen with console games. Expect it to become more commonplace down the line. Drivers? Are you kidding me? The only driver you really need to run a LAN party is a vid driver and those you should have downloaded at home on your own ages ago. They dont change that often.
Some patches are one thing, but to force guys to download around 600MB is insane. That is for the first freaking patch, then you have to apply yet another patch... Ah but wait there is more... You need to appy the first patch, launch the game then apply the second one. But wait there is more fun... skip that step and you get to reload the entire game again. Have you loaded a bare bones version of Battlefield 2 lately?
No more blue screens of death, no more adware, no more spyware, no more weird crap running on my system. Dear god man what are you doing to your machine?! Do you have a firewall or even an anti-virus running? Are you clicking every single
Typical windows fanboy... Ok I am freaking glad you don't have problems, but you are a fool to believe that Windows isn't plagued by this. You can hide you head in the sand as much as you want to and say yet again "It works for me" but trust me a vast majority of people out there it doesn't "just work". Yet the Macintosh pretty much does, and it is my belief that the PS3 will as well (much like the PS2 does now).
I am not trying to persuade you in to purchasing a Macintosh and PS3, but I can say without a doubt that my productivity will definately increase by just having a dedicated computer for work and a PS3 for gaming. My fun will definately go up not having to spend time patching my PS3 every time I want to play a game. Again I am glad it "works for you" and you ne
You certainly don't need to drop $350-$500/year for a new video card. I...
:-) :-)
Yes you do if you want to play the latest games in the best resolution. Want DirectX 10 on your card? How about 11? How about 12? You see Microsoft keeps updating it every year or so, and the video card makers generally don't support the latest coolest tech in the older cards. So yes you can still run your "old" card, but a LOT of people start to see weird problems and things like 50% of a Lan party won't be able to get a game to play because of some video card issue. Did I mention that all the Lan party members are in I.T. We are talking about people very comfortable working on machines. I also want to say that I have heard time and time again things like... I never get blue screens of death, and "My Windows XP never crashes" and "I never get any spyware or adware". Well all I can say is good for you. The facts speak for themselves 50% of well educated I.T. people couldn't play a freaking game on their systems given 4 hours to dork with it. Heck it took over an hour to install the freaking patches. That does NOT include the download time!!!!! You also miss the point. I have NO intention of playing games on my Macintosh. I will do work on my Macintosh. I will play games on my PS3. To be honest the games I have seen look incredible and the days of PC gaming for me and a lot of people appear to be comming to an end. The huge difference between the console and the PC use to be graphics, but with 1080P resolution (1900 X 1080) and Internet connectivity the console more than competes (PS3 that is).
So I could buy a Dell and a PS3, but the difference in price between a Dell and an Apple now is about the same. The components are about the same and the only real difference is the OS. The only thing that was holding me back was games and with the PS3 coming out in three months, that will no longer be an issue. So why do I need to run Windows at all? No more blue screens of death, no more adware, no more spyware, no more weird crap running on my system. Now I could run Linux on Dell, but I can also do that with Apple, and Apple has more of the software I currently use. Please understand that I am writing this using Ubuntu now (I have a separate hard drive for games and Windows), and like Ubuntu, but for me I prefer the Macintosh experience more.
You mention a mainstream box. To me a mainstream box is a box I can do everything on except game. I have made the decision that PC gaming is over for me the day the PS3 is released. Now given that, the Macintosh can do everything the PC can and a little more than Ubuntu can (for me). The cost difference isn't huge at all (for me less than $200, and I get some cool stuff that I would not get with a Dell) and lastly I don't have to put up with all the Windows crap that I and a lot of other have had to endure. That is worth far more than $200. Heck the day I can take my PS3 over to a lan party and just freaking play for 4 hours instead of fighting with patches and drivers is worth $200.
Again, for those of you that Windows works for I say "congrats". My experience (and others) has not been that way.
So I guess I am saying that Dell and Microsoft XP isn't bad, but for a general purpose box I wouln't say it is there yet.
Once they get their security, stability and reliability down then it might be.
You are correct and that is exactly what I plan on doing. I plan on getting a PS3 and a new Macintosh. For me it came down to a few things but in short here it is.
I have an Alienware laptop P4 3GH, around a year and a half old. It is still a nice machine and it runs most games ok. I then went out and purchase some new WWII game to play at a local lan party... Well 50% of the people there spent over an hour installing the freaking game and all the patches. Then the ATI people had to dork with their video drivers... another 30 min.... then after all that the game freaking killed my machine... I was able to uninstall it but for me this was a waist of 4 hours. Now the machine does one purpose and that is play EQII. My Windows/PC friends suggested getting a new machines and or reloading my OS from scratch. At this point I looked at a new video card for a PC and found that they still range around $300-$600. So to "play games" on a PC is going to set me back more than the cost of a PS3.
This is when the wheels started turning... I could get a PS3 (my PS2 has never caused me 4 hours of frustration just to game) and I could get a Macintosh for my work. So for me, a small gamer, I can say that I am very happy to be dumping the whole PC "gaming" experience and I will actually be saving money. I figure that the Macintosh will last me for around 4 years and the PS3 will be a viable gaming console for 5. "If" I was to do a new Alienware/Dell, I would need to buy one every two years to keep up OR I could get use to waisting time reloading my OS and downloading new crappy drivers every so often.
Please understand I am not knocking you PC gamers out there. I was someone who dropped $350-$500 for a new video card every year or so and upgraded my system every year or so, but I am tired of doing that now and I see a viable escape and lastly, please please please don't tell me "All my games load" If that is the case then good for you, it wasn't the case and NEVER has been with any LAN party I have been to.