I love the way no one is even considering the possibility of 4:3 ratio film downloads, even though the 5G iPod's screen is small enough as it is without films taking up even less of the 320x240 resolution if they're going to remain backwards compatible with it.
Its too bad that there is no 'software' way of dealing with pan and scan. One could see a method whereby the videos are encoded in anamorphic format, like widescreen DVDs. That way you could have true widescreen output when hooked to a TV, but 'pan and scan' software in the iPod that would 'move' the virtual frame when cued to do so. Of course this would require fairly hefty processing on the iPod's part; in the end a widescreen iPod is probably best.
just like you don't have the right to use my image for sale, just because I was unlucky enough to walk in front of your camera
Great post - I just wanted to point out, the above is not strictly true. If you are out in a public space (i.e. that old 'no reasonable expectation of privacy') then it is perfectly OK to take snaps of you and use them for whatever one likes. (At least in N.A.)
Sure, but the only real reason one would need to retrieve songs from an iPod would be after a re-format, and god knows that the average user simply does not reformat all that often. Hence this DRM is not really a worry for them.
There is another legitimate reason: limited HD space.
Up until a year ago, my girlfriend had an old 500Mhz white iBook (20GB drive) and a 20GB iPod. So logically she figured she had 40 gigs to store music. But because of the iPod's one-way street (at least with iTunes) you really only have 20GB again, as the iPod simply mirrors what you have on your HD. You can't use it as 'additional' storage unless you put the songs on the data partition, and then you can't access them on-the-go with the iPod.
Speaking of silly cliches that don't really work, why bring up the video game - cinema comparison?
It should be self-evident, but I think it does work. Tell me why you think it doesn't.
And why bring up the specter of out-of-touch studio bosses, when really that has nothing to do with what the article, or this discussion, or your point, is all about?
From TFA's write-up: "Finally, Raph Koster offers an ultimatum to the games business: evolve or die. From that article..."
Miss that part?
Anyway, video games gave been going strong for 25 or 30 years now, and are still a whole lot more like pinball than cinema.
Kind of a tautology, isn't it? Pinball games are an iteration of 'arcade games' which spawned the home video game industry. Besides, pinball - of which I am a fan - hardly had the same kind of success.
What a load of recycled crap this Raph Koster guy has spouted.
He's rehashing that dusty old argument about only 'AAA' titles finding shelf space. About how the industry must wake up from some kind of self-imposed creative coma. Woe, woe unto us.
Y'know I'm really tired of that line of thought. Its completely useless criticism. And its been around since the 'dark years' of the late 80s, when video games were really in a funk. He even uses a - get this - dinosaur extinction metaphor. Yawn. Nothing new to see here, move along.
Meanwhile, in the midst of all this industry atrophy, games like Okami quietly appear and fulfill the promise.
I've often said that the game industry of 2006 is akin to the film industry of 1926; i.e. we have a long way to go. We're developing a consistent 'language' (to use the film term again) and the auteurs are making their marks. But the studios say its expensive! Programming a multicore Cell or PowerPC CPU is hard!
"How are we ever going to record audio and filmed images in sync?? Do audiences even want 'talkies'? Where are we going to find the money?"
Its just nothing new. The only thing that surprises me are that dorks like Raph get anyone to listen to them.
Getting too close (within a couple feet) of the TV tends to make it hard for it to get exactly where you are pointing. I tried putting the Wiimote close to the TV to see if it helped me aim when I was playing it at E3, and when it made the pointer go nuts the representative told me that it loses sensitivity when you get that close and to stand back.
Interesting. Did you get any impression that this might cause difficulty for people with small living rooms? (or big coffee tables that get in the way, like mine?)
Now we need a distributed P2P app that runs over WiFi - so we can detect, graph, and measure the relative drunkeness of the MacBook-using population, using their tilt sensors.
How is this not a loss? Their operating income is NEGATIVE 232.3 million, I would call that a loss don't ya think?
Indeed it is. But you can't focus on one division - particularly one division that cranks out a huge product offering every 5-7 years (a console) and spends a lot of time in R&D between releases, and especially a division of a massive corporation like Sony who (like MS) uses its profitable areas to prop up others.
Besides, its not like the SCEA division has lost money overall - just in the last 1.5 years, while PS2 has stagnated at the end of its lifecycle (and facing the X360 now) and they are about to launch a new unit. Don't forget that there are something like 120 million PS2s in the world; how much money do you think those made overall? Gotta look at the big picture.
It's amazing, isn't it? How you, as a "game developer" are more concerned about disk space than about gameplay? How many CDs did Pac Man fill? How many times did you have to swap cartridges playing through The Legend of Zelda? Were you frustrated when you scratched the disk of your Super Mario Brothers 3 cartridge?
Oh, well you are laughing, then. You don't even need a Wii, you just need MAME.
Me - I liked Final Fantasy VII. Cutscenes and all. PacMan is just a bit tired.
I'm struggling to remember the last time they did anything right.
Which Sony?
Sony-BMG brought us the rootkit. They haven't done anything useful in awhile.
SCEA is responsible for the Playstation line. They are wildly successful, although they have taken risks in the design of the PS3.
Sony Electronics has taken a hit lately but are still highly regarded; the Bravia TVs are much sought-after. The Pro video line has never been anything but incredibly successful (DigiBeta, Betacam SP, etc). The laptop battery issue is their fault, but the press seems to pin this one on Apple or Dell.
Sony Pictures makes tons of money (Spiderman, etc).
No idea how their financial services division does.
Oh I don't know, I think you give the general public too much credit in terms of attention paid.
* Rootkit CDs
Maybe... ask 5 family members if they know what that is, get back to me.
* Exploding batteries
Nope. John Q. Public knows that Dell and Apple recalled batteries for laptops. That's it.
* Delays and Failures associated with their new proprietary DVD format
* Delays and Failures resulting from the previously mentioned DVD stuff
That is practically unknown outside geek circles. Most people have never even heard of blu-ray.
And don't make the mistake of thinking of Sony as just SCEA. It is also a semiconducter manufacturer, a movie studio, a record label, hell I think they even sell life insurance and other financial instruments in some way.... they're not gonna die.
What a load of cobblers, the feature they are discussing requires good software, it has NOTHING to do with the power of the processor in the PS3. It's these kind of marketing / pr bullshit spins which makes me take everything they say with a large serving of salt.
Actually you answered your own question. To down-rez, say, an HD movie, and stream it as H.264 or MPEG-4 over the air via WiFi to the PSP would require a hefty chunk of CPU, particularly the kind of DSP'ish CPU like the Cell.
As to your "WTF is with Sony lately" question...
The problem is that you have been tracking it. The consoles always launch this way. There's tons of doubletalk, trash-talk, overhype, you name it. And Sony being the undisputed 'winner' last-go-round of the consoles certainly puts them in the spotlight.
Sony has done a lot of dumb shit but I actually see them starting to turn around. They have a very radical CEO now (for Sony, anyways) but the corporation is a huge multiheaded hydra. It takes forever for big decisions to trickle down. (Not really cutting them slack here, but it is what it is.) For instance I noticed when they dropped ATRAC3, they did not replace it with another lame proprietary format. MiniDisc, retired (and it was very popular in the UK for a while, as well as pro audio field recording - hardly a failure. Ignorance to call it that.) The PSP does not play back any protected audio formats, only plain old AAC, MP3, unprotected WMA, WAV etc. All the Sony Ericsson phones I've used, same thing - no DRM. I bluetooth stuff happily back and forth with nary a complaint. So they do learn. We geeks have long memories.
Sony is not doing poorly financially, although they could be doing better, but to say they are 'in the red' is inaccurate:
Sony Computer Entertainment reported revenue of 122.5 billion yen ($1.06 billion), down from revenue of 172.8 billion yen ($1.5 billion) during Q1 2006. The division had an operating loss of 26.8 billion ($232.3m) compared to a lost of 5.9 billion yen ($51.1m) during the same quarter last year. This was largely due to lower PS2 and PSP hardware sales, as well as lower PS2 software sales. Sony shipped 2.54 million PS2s and 2.02 million PSPs during the quarter. PS2 software sales dropped to 33 million units, down from 35 million units while PSP software sales increased to 9.1 million units, up from 4.9 million units.
Now, I agree that they have seemingly made a number of tactical mistakes with the PS3; the price is off, the blu-ray is premature, and the bifurcation of the models is idiotic. But I have also watched Sony for a long time, and I know they actually perform best when their back is against the wall. You notice all the tribulations because a) you actually follow some of this and b) they have just finished a massive restructuring, right up to the CEO. So yeah, continue to beat on them, but it is foolish to write them off - its practically a zaibatsu, its not going anywhere. Personally I want to see them feel the heat from Nintendo and MS. If any one of them dominates, it has been proven over and over again that this is a bad thing for the industry, overall.
I keep an Amiga 3000 running, for a variety of historical and legal reasons, though I can basically emulate it on my laptop much more practically.
Emulate an Amiga 3000? I'd like to believe you, but that particular machine is notoriously difficult to achieve anything near accurate emulation. Can I ask what you would use?
The PS3 is $600 for one reason, Sony pushing their Blu-Ray format.
I think they probably want to sell some games as well.
Now they have decided to release this ungodly expensive machine without an HDMI cable, which is required for playing Blu-Ray movies.
Wrong. HD movies will be viewable via component cables.
So for $600 dollars you are buying something most people don't want or need (Blu-Ray) but still will not even have the ability to use it.
You sort of made their point - for many people, the HDMI cable would not be useful. Its $20 anyways. All consoles to date have shipped this way; the composite cable is included and the HD cables are extras.
Yeah, I feel that way too. I got those big ass 75 watt incandesent bulbs in all my shit too. I used to give a ratts ass about the environment too but realized that I turn 40 real soon. By the time the environment changes so much that I care I'll be dead.
Now wait a fuckin minute man, who the hell do you th-- *gasp*
Lord Apathy! My liege! I... I had no idea, I... please, my apologies... [scurries away]
Only that statement is not true at all. Electricity is not oil.
I am aware that the majority of electricity production in North America is based on coal or nuclear (and I could have been clearer). But this is true only in the narrowest sense - where the actual juice comes from.
Oil accounts for something like 36% of all 'used' energy, and most of this is in transportation. 99% of manufacturing requires oil; 95% of manufactured goods have oil in then in some form; 99% of lubrication is oil. So while you can burn coal or use nuclear to generate electricity, the actual creation, upkeep, physical labour, and essential functioning components require direct oil inputs.
The entire economy and infrastructure of the first world requires hydrocarbons to do anything at all. But you are correct about the generation.
In terms of oil not burned, or greenhouse gases not exhausted into the atmosphere, one bulb is equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the roads.
Setting aside the debate over that statement - if it is even remotely true, then these bulbs are not just simply a 'good idea'. They are a moral imperative.
Remember where those $100 bills that Hezbollah is handing out come from. Hint: they do not originate in Iran.
Between the rootkits and the exploding batteries, is it too early to declare SONY a terrorist organization ?
By U.S. rules? Not at all. Invasive surveillance of private computers is a felony at a minimum. Exploding batteries, certain proof of terrorist activities. If they can arrest the dude for trying to light his shoes on fire, or the idiots that thought they could take down the Brooklyn Bridge with torch cutters, then I's say absolutely.
Of course... you used the word 'terrorist'. Which makes me suspicious. Your papers please.
Slashdot Mirror
Its too bad that there is no 'software' way of dealing with pan and scan. One could see a method whereby the videos are encoded in anamorphic format, like widescreen DVDs. That way you could have true widescreen output when hooked to a TV, but 'pan and scan' software in the iPod that would 'move' the virtual frame when cued to do so. Of course this would require fairly hefty processing on the iPod's part; in the end a widescreen iPod is probably best.
Great post - I just wanted to point out, the above is not strictly true. If you are out in a public space (i.e. that old 'no reasonable expectation of privacy') then it is perfectly OK to take snaps of you and use them for whatever one likes. (At least in N.A.)
go fuck yourself, troll.
There is another legitimate reason: limited HD space.
Up until a year ago, my girlfriend had an old 500Mhz white iBook (20GB drive) and a 20GB iPod. So logically she figured she had 40 gigs to store music. But because of the iPod's one-way street (at least with iTunes) you really only have 20GB again, as the iPod simply mirrors what you have on your HD. You can't use it as 'additional' storage unless you put the songs on the data partition, and then you can't access them on-the-go with the iPod.
You know, there is a preference to hide these stories from your view. Just sayin'.
It should be self-evident, but I think it does work. Tell me why you think it doesn't.
From TFA's write-up: "Finally, Raph Koster offers an ultimatum to the games business: evolve or die. From that article..."
Miss that part?
Kind of a tautology, isn't it? Pinball games are an iteration of 'arcade games' which spawned the home video game industry. Besides, pinball - of which I am a fan - hardly had the same kind of success.
He's rehashing that dusty old argument about only 'AAA' titles finding shelf space. About how the industry must wake up from some kind of self-imposed creative coma. Woe, woe unto us.
Y'know I'm really tired of that line of thought. Its completely useless criticism. And its been around since the 'dark years' of the late 80s, when video games were really in a funk. He even uses a - get this - dinosaur extinction metaphor. Yawn. Nothing new to see here, move along.
Meanwhile, in the midst of all this industry atrophy, games like Okami quietly appear and fulfill the promise.
I've often said that the game industry of 2006 is akin to the film industry of 1926; i.e. we have a long way to go. We're developing a consistent 'language' (to use the film term again) and the auteurs are making their marks. But the studios say its expensive! Programming a multicore Cell or PowerPC CPU is hard!
"How are we ever going to record audio and filmed images in sync?? Do audiences even want 'talkies'? Where are we going to find the money?"
Its just nothing new. The only thing that surprises me are that dorks like Raph get anyone to listen to them.
!!!...
Thanks. Thanks for that.
I wasn enjoying my coffee until I read the word 'v-max' and was immediately filled with white hot rage, and bitter memories of yesteryear's StarForce.
Interesting. Did you get any impression that this might cause difficulty for people with small living rooms? (or big coffee tables that get in the way, like mine?)
In the name of Science, of course.
While I think he's right about the privacy part, I have no intention of getting over it, now or ever.
Indeed it is. But you can't focus on one division - particularly one division that cranks out a huge product offering every 5-7 years (a console) and spends a lot of time in R&D between releases, and especially a division of a massive corporation like Sony who (like MS) uses its profitable areas to prop up others.
Besides, its not like the SCEA division has lost money overall - just in the last 1.5 years, while PS2 has stagnated at the end of its lifecycle (and facing the X360 now) and they are about to launch a new unit. Don't forget that there are something like 120 million PS2s in the world; how much money do you think those made overall? Gotta look at the big picture.
Oh, well you are laughing, then. You don't even need a Wii, you just need MAME.
Me - I liked Final Fantasy VII. Cutscenes and all. PacMan is just a bit tired.
Which Sony?
Sony-BMG brought us the rootkit. They haven't done anything useful in awhile.
SCEA is responsible for the Playstation line. They are wildly successful, although they have taken risks in the design of the PS3.
Sony Electronics has taken a hit lately but are still highly regarded; the Bravia TVs are much sought-after. The Pro video line has never been anything but incredibly successful (DigiBeta, Betacam SP, etc). The laptop battery issue is their fault, but the press seems to pin this one on Apple or Dell.
Sony Pictures makes tons of money (Spiderman, etc).
No idea how their financial services division does.
My point is - Sony is much more than just SCEA.
Actually you answered your own question. To down-rez, say, an HD movie, and stream it as H.264 or MPEG-4 over the air via WiFi to the PSP would require a hefty chunk of CPU, particularly the kind of DSP'ish CPU like the Cell.
As to your "WTF is with Sony lately" question...
The problem is that you have been tracking it. The consoles always launch this way. There's tons of doubletalk, trash-talk, overhype, you name it. And Sony being the undisputed 'winner' last-go-round of the consoles certainly puts them in the spotlight.
Sony has done a lot of dumb shit but I actually see them starting to turn around. They have a very radical CEO now (for Sony, anyways) but the corporation is a huge multiheaded hydra. It takes forever for big decisions to trickle down. (Not really cutting them slack here, but it is what it is.) For instance I noticed when they dropped ATRAC3, they did not replace it with another lame proprietary format. MiniDisc, retired (and it was very popular in the UK for a while, as well as pro audio field recording - hardly a failure. Ignorance to call it that.) The PSP does not play back any protected audio formats, only plain old AAC, MP3, unprotected WMA, WAV etc. All the Sony Ericsson phones I've used, same thing - no DRM. I bluetooth stuff happily back and forth with nary a complaint. So they do learn. We geeks have long memories.
Sony is not doing poorly financially, although they could be doing better, but to say they are 'in the red' is inaccurate:
Sony Computer Entertainment reported revenue of 122.5 billion yen ($1.06 billion), down from revenue of 172.8 billion yen ($1.5 billion) during Q1 2006. The division had an operating loss of 26.8 billion ($232.3m) compared to a lost of 5.9 billion yen ($51.1m) during the same quarter last year. This was largely due to lower PS2 and PSP hardware sales, as well as lower PS2 software sales. Sony shipped 2.54 million PS2s and 2.02 million PSPs during the quarter. PS2 software sales dropped to 33 million units, down from 35 million units while PSP software sales increased to 9.1 million units, up from 4.9 million units.
Now, I agree that they have seemingly made a number of tactical mistakes with the PS3; the price is off, the blu-ray is premature, and the bifurcation of the models is idiotic. But I have also watched Sony for a long time, and I know they actually perform best when their back is against the wall. You notice all the tribulations because a) you actually follow some of this and b) they have just finished a massive restructuring, right up to the CEO. So yeah, continue to beat on them, but it is foolish to write them off - its practically a zaibatsu, its not going anywhere. Personally I want to see them feel the heat from Nintendo and MS. If any one of them dominates, it has been proven over and over again that this is a bad thing for the industry, overall.
Emulate an Amiga 3000? I'd like to believe you, but that particular machine is notoriously difficult to achieve anything near accurate emulation. Can I ask what you would use?
Yes - because we all know there is no such thing as a sleeper hit like Ico. Not ever.
The core system does not include it, but yes, you are correct in saying the high-end X360 bundle does indeed include a component cable.
I think they probably want to sell some games as well.
Wrong. HD movies will be viewable via component cables.
You sort of made their point - for many people, the HDMI cable would not be useful. Its $20 anyways. All consoles to date have shipped this way; the composite cable is included and the HD cables are extras.
Now wait a fuckin minute man, who the hell do you th-- *gasp*
Lord Apathy! My liege! I ... I had no idea, I... please, my apologies... [scurries away]
I am aware that the majority of electricity production in North America is based on coal or nuclear (and I could have been clearer). But this is true only in the narrowest sense - where the actual juice comes from.
Oil accounts for something like 36% of all 'used' energy, and most of this is in transportation. 99% of manufacturing requires oil; 95% of manufactured goods have oil in then in some form; 99% of lubrication is oil. So while you can burn coal or use nuclear to generate electricity, the actual creation, upkeep, physical labour, and essential functioning components require direct oil inputs.
The entire economy and infrastructure of the first world requires hydrocarbons to do anything at all. But you are correct about the generation.
Setting aside the debate over that statement - if it is even remotely true, then these bulbs are not just simply a 'good idea'.
They are a moral imperative.
Remember where those $100 bills that Hezbollah is handing out come from. Hint: they do not originate in Iran.
By U.S. rules? Not at all. Invasive surveillance of private computers is a felony at a minimum. Exploding batteries, certain proof of terrorist activities. If they can arrest the dude for trying to light his shoes on fire, or the idiots that thought they could take down the Brooklyn Bridge with torch cutters, then I's say absolutely.
Of course... you used the word 'terrorist'. Which makes me suspicious. Your papers please.
Oh I don't know, I think things could get much worse for them.
For instance, if the general public had any fucking clue as to what you are on about.