I'm not really interested in hidef movies right now (HD-DVD or BluRay), so why should I pay the BluRay tax? I would have preferred if the drive bay was swappable so I could eventually buy a BluRay (or even HD-DVD assuming they win the format war) drive and stick it in there. As for games needing BluRay, take a look at how big existing games are. Most are around 1-2 gigs in size. The only ones that span multiple disks are ones with lots of prerendered graphics which still don't need higher capacity if they take advantage of new codecs like VC-1 and Mpeg4. By requiring BluRay, Sony has priced the PS3 out of my price range.
From outside, it would appear that XBox was a "dismal failure". However, I think it really depends on the original goals. If the goal was to make a profit on XBox, then all would agree. However, at the beginning, Microsoft stated their long term strategy and did not expect XBox 1 to make money, but to get the brand out. Being late to the console game, Microsoft knew they had to spend lots of money to establish themselves as a legitimate player in the console business. For this, they succeeded. If XBox360 ends up winning the next round of consoles and makes enough money to cover the losses from XBox 1, would XBox 1 still be considered a failure?
If you actually read the article you linked to: "Sony's earnings were inflated in the past business year by windfall profits at its life insurance unit". Sony expects to lose about $900 million dur to PS3 launch. Since this article is about games, the context indicates that "Sony IS losing money" is about their games business.
Guess what, security by oscurity is no security. It's the same as if you just had a taller fence. Sure it'll slow them down, but if someone WANTED to exploit a PPC based OS, they would spend the time to learn PPC. So why don't people want to spend the time to exploit PPC? Because 90% of the potential systems to hack is Windows.
Wow, look at all the Wii games Nintendo presented, can't wait to play Mario, Smash Bro's, Zelda, Warioware, and Metroid... AGAIN. Wii needs more 3rd party support.
Just because you continue to play old games on it, doesn't mean it isn't dead as a platform. There isn't much of anything being developed for the Gamecube at this time. Mine's been sitting the closet for over a year now. I'll probably bring it out to play the next Zelda, but that's about it.
Double Dash came out 11/03
Mario Tennis came out 11/04
Mario Party 4 came out 10/02
Super Smash Bros came out 12/01
Saying the Gamecube is still alive is like saying the Atari 2600 is alive if I was still playing Adventure on it
Although I find it hard to believe that portable electronics have any effect on cockpit electronics, let's assume they do. The correct course of action is not to remove/disable portable devices from flight, they need to build better shielding for the cockpit and the plane in general. Based on the study, terrorists would bring on board modified cell phones that emit strong signals. They would be allowed to carry these on board since they have them turned off. Now they turn it on during flight. This is similar to telling hackers not to connect to your machine and trusting them rather than putting up a firewall.
If companies were required to show actual in-game footage, we wouldn't have to ask if the PS3 footage was real or not. Remember the next-gen Madden footage versus what actually came out? THAT was misleading.
Everything they've said indicates that Spring is only for Japan. The US could see a summer or autumn launch. However, if there continues to be BluRay delays, that could delay the PS3 launch as well.
Slashdot should not report on things the do not understand (the stock market). Yahoo reported earnings that was lower than expected (they missed earnings estimates). The interpretation here is that the market for online advertising (although Yahoo doesn't rely on advertising as much as Google) has slowed. Google was affected as investors believe that rather than Google (who has not released earnings yet) will also be affected by this and also miss their estimates.
So you are saying that if managed copy (as of now only HD-DVD makes it mandatory) works and iPod becomes a supported device then what is your argument against DRM again?
The only thing worse than statistics is statistics pulled out of thin air.
http://www.simmtester.com/page/news/shownews.asp?n um=8484
Last year, 17% of US households had HDTV capable TVs. This is expected to increase to 22% this year. And exceed 55% by 2008. Given the lifetime of a console, it seems that it is better to have HDTV capabilities now than to wait for the next-next gen.
You argue that MS can afford to lose money per X360 sold, but this is no different than Sony or Nintendo. You do realize that Sony is much more than just Playstation. Their consumer electronics, computer, movie, music businesses can more than carry any losses from their Playstation department. Similarly, if you look at Nintendo's most recent financial report, most of their profits have been from Gameboy and Pokemon, not Gamecube at all. Any smart business person is aware of diversification.
Lots of misinformation regarding BluRay vs HD-DVD
BluRay has larger single layer capacity, but HD-DVD supposedly will have dual layer on launch day, giving them the capacity edge.
BluRay uses Java for the interactivity while HD-DVD uses an xml based approach (I think it's called iHD)
BluRay is more expensive to manufacture while HD-DVD can adapt current DVD manufacturering equipment to produce HD-DVD discs
BluRay allows the content owner to decide on managed copy, HD-DVD requires managed copy (meaning you can copy it to your computer)
BluRay has must more industry support, HD-DVD has less
The point is that this isn't something particular to the X360. The original PS2 had many defects early on. The problem rate was reported as being within or less than the industry average for manufacturering defects. If it was a design problem, the incident percent would be much higher.
PS3 is reported to only come out in the Spring time in JAPAN. Based on the launch delay of the PS2 between Japan and the US, the estimate for when the US gets the PS3 is Nov 2006.
Mario Party, as you stated, has had MANY sequels Paper Mario, this IS a sequel on the Gamecube, read some of the reviews, it's essentially the same game, just different graphics (for the record, I finished this game since I didn't play the first one) Mario Kart, the only "innovation" here is having two characters on one car, otherwise, it's the same game as on N64. I would actually say that Mario Kart on the SNES was superior gameplay wise to the Gamecube version (for the record, I own the Gamecube one and never play it) Mario Baseball (or any sports game), I wouldn't exactly call these games innovative
Let's look at some others:
Zelda on Gamecube is basically the same game as on Nintendo64, instead of a horse, you have a boat. Instead of digging, you fish. The puzzles are exactly the same (push stuff around, light torches). (for the record, I finished this game) Mario Sunshine has a few new things, but nothing groundbreaking and is clearly an evolution of Mario64. I also finished this game. Metroid, basically the same game but with 3D graphics. Even the backtracking is the same. I also finished this game.
I'm not saying that these sequels aren't fun, but I didn't bother with Metroid Prime 2 or any othe other Mario games simply because the novelty had worn off. I'm sure the party games will be great on the Revolution with the new controller, but I'll take more of a wait and see approach, but will probably get the X360 and PS3 sooner than later.
Interesting that you consider PS3 and 360 more of the same when Nintendo's innovation is putting out more sequels. I don't see how Nintendo is any more innovative than anyone else in regards to software when all you get are Mario, Zelda, Metroid, etc... repeats. I currently have an XBox, PS2, and Gamecube. I've bought the least amount of software for the Gamecube and played it the least amount simply because I was tired of playing the same game with new graphics. What makes PS2 and XBox better is the 3rd party support.
If code is written well, it should have few comments as the logic should be fairly obvious. In the case of if (x == 456), this should really be something like "if (STATUS_BUFFER_FULL == statusCode)..." now it's obvious what is going on. Descriptive variable names and method names mean less comments are needed.
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I'm not really interested in hidef movies right now (HD-DVD or BluRay), so why should I pay the BluRay tax? I would have preferred if the drive bay was swappable so I could eventually buy a BluRay (or even HD-DVD assuming they win the format war) drive and stick it in there. As for games needing BluRay, take a look at how big existing games are. Most are around 1-2 gigs in size. The only ones that span multiple disks are ones with lots of prerendered graphics which still don't need higher capacity if they take advantage of new codecs like VC-1 and Mpeg4. By requiring BluRay, Sony has priced the PS3 out of my price range.
From outside, it would appear that XBox was a "dismal failure". However, I think it really depends on the original goals. If the goal was to make a profit on XBox, then all would agree. However, at the beginning, Microsoft stated their long term strategy and did not expect XBox 1 to make money, but to get the brand out. Being late to the console game, Microsoft knew they had to spend lots of money to establish themselves as a legitimate player in the console business. For this, they succeeded. If XBox360 ends up winning the next round of consoles and makes enough money to cover the losses from XBox 1, would XBox 1 still be considered a failure?
If you actually read the article you linked to: "Sony's earnings were inflated in the past business year by windfall profits at its life insurance unit". Sony expects to lose about $900 million dur to PS3 launch. Since this article is about games, the context indicates that "Sony IS losing money" is about their games business.
Guess what, security by oscurity is no security. It's the same as if you just had a taller fence. Sure it'll slow them down, but if someone WANTED to exploit a PPC based OS, they would spend the time to learn PPC. So why don't people want to spend the time to exploit PPC? Because 90% of the potential systems to hack is Windows.
Wow, look at all the Wii games Nintendo presented, can't wait to play Mario, Smash Bro's, Zelda, Warioware, and Metroid... AGAIN. Wii needs more 3rd party support.
See subject
Everyone knows that Wingdings is a more readable font than Frutiger Next
Just because you continue to play old games on it, doesn't mean it isn't dead as a platform. There isn't much of anything being developed for the Gamecube at this time. Mine's been sitting the closet for over a year now. I'll probably bring it out to play the next Zelda, but that's about it. Double Dash came out 11/03 Mario Tennis came out 11/04 Mario Party 4 came out 10/02 Super Smash Bros came out 12/01 Saying the Gamecube is still alive is like saying the Atari 2600 is alive if I was still playing Adventure on it
Although I find it hard to believe that portable electronics have any effect on cockpit electronics, let's assume they do. The correct course of action is not to remove/disable portable devices from flight, they need to build better shielding for the cockpit and the plane in general. Based on the study, terrorists would bring on board modified cell phones that emit strong signals. They would be allowed to carry these on board since they have them turned off. Now they turn it on during flight. This is similar to telling hackers not to connect to your machine and trusting them rather than putting up a firewall.
If companies were required to show actual in-game footage, we wouldn't have to ask if the PS3 footage was real or not. Remember the next-gen Madden footage versus what actually came out? THAT was misleading.
Everything they've said indicates that Spring is only for Japan. The US could see a summer or autumn launch. However, if there continues to be BluRay delays, that could delay the PS3 launch as well.
http://xbox360.ign.com/objects/772/772076.html
Slashdot should not report on things the do not understand (the stock market). Yahoo reported earnings that was lower than expected (they missed earnings estimates). The interpretation here is that the market for online advertising (although Yahoo doesn't rely on advertising as much as Google) has slowed. Google was affected as investors believe that rather than Google (who has not released earnings yet) will also be affected by this and also miss their estimates.
Is there something in the EULA that says I have to throw away my old player and discs if I want to use one of the new formats? Wasn't aware of that.
So you are saying that if managed copy (as of now only HD-DVD makes it mandatory) works and iPod becomes a supported device then what is your argument against DRM again?
My Direct TV Tivo records the binary stream as-is (it's already mpeg2 encoded). So no analog step.
The only thing worse than statistics is statistics pulled out of thin air. http://www.simmtester.com/page/news/shownews.asp?n um=8484
Last year, 17% of US households had HDTV capable TVs. This is expected to increase to 22% this year. And exceed 55% by 2008. Given the lifetime of a console, it seems that it is better to have HDTV capabilities now than to wait for the next-next gen.
You argue that MS can afford to lose money per X360 sold, but this is no different than Sony or Nintendo. You do realize that Sony is much more than just Playstation. Their consumer electronics, computer, movie, music businesses can more than carry any losses from their Playstation department. Similarly, if you look at Nintendo's most recent financial report, most of their profits have been from Gameboy and Pokemon, not Gamecube at all. Any smart business person is aware of diversification.
Lots of misinformation regarding BluRay vs HD-DVD BluRay has larger single layer capacity, but HD-DVD supposedly will have dual layer on launch day, giving them the capacity edge. BluRay uses Java for the interactivity while HD-DVD uses an xml based approach (I think it's called iHD) BluRay is more expensive to manufacture while HD-DVD can adapt current DVD manufacturering equipment to produce HD-DVD discs BluRay allows the content owner to decide on managed copy, HD-DVD requires managed copy (meaning you can copy it to your computer) BluRay has must more industry support, HD-DVD has less
The point is that this isn't something particular to the X360. The original PS2 had many defects early on. The problem rate was reported as being within or less than the industry average for manufacturering defects. If it was a design problem, the incident percent would be much higher.
PS3 is reported to only come out in the Spring time in JAPAN. Based on the launch delay of the PS2 between Japan and the US, the estimate for when the US gets the PS3 is Nov 2006.
Let's look at the games you mentioned:
Mario Party, as you stated, has had MANY sequels
Paper Mario, this IS a sequel on the Gamecube, read some of the reviews, it's essentially the same game, just different graphics (for the record, I finished this game since I didn't play the first one)
Mario Kart, the only "innovation" here is having two characters on one car, otherwise, it's the same game as on N64. I would actually say that Mario Kart on the SNES was superior gameplay wise to the Gamecube version (for the record, I own the Gamecube one and never play it)
Mario Baseball (or any sports game), I wouldn't exactly call these games innovative
Let's look at some others:
Zelda on Gamecube is basically the same game as on Nintendo64, instead of a horse, you have a boat. Instead of digging, you fish. The puzzles are exactly the same (push stuff around, light torches). (for the record, I finished this game)
Mario Sunshine has a few new things, but nothing groundbreaking and is clearly an evolution of Mario64. I also finished this game.
Metroid, basically the same game but with 3D graphics. Even the backtracking is the same. I also finished this game.
I'm not saying that these sequels aren't fun, but I didn't bother with Metroid Prime 2 or any othe other Mario games simply because the novelty had worn off. I'm sure the party games will be great on the Revolution with the new controller, but I'll take more of a wait and see approach, but will probably get the X360 and PS3 sooner than later.
Interesting that you consider PS3 and 360 more of the same when Nintendo's innovation is putting out more sequels. I don't see how Nintendo is any more innovative than anyone else in regards to software when all you get are Mario, Zelda, Metroid, etc... repeats. I currently have an XBox, PS2, and Gamecube. I've bought the least amount of software for the Gamecube and played it the least amount simply because I was tired of playing the same game with new graphics. What makes PS2 and XBox better is the 3rd party support.
Underwriters Laboratories tested and certified the XBox360 as being safe, why shouldn't they share some of the blame?
If code is written well, it should have few comments as the logic should be fairly obvious. In the case of if (x == 456), this should really be something like "if (STATUS_BUFFER_FULL == statusCode) ..." now it's obvious what is going on. Descriptive variable names and method names mean less comments are needed.