I thought the target demographic for gamers had long since switched to 18 to 23 years old, and that game players were getting to be a pretty old lot. [citation]. Yeah, kids are important, but they don't matter as much as they used to.
PS2 is down to $129, has been for sometime. It's stayed that high because of high demand. When I bought mine, I had to go to a couple electronics stores to find one. This was less than a year ago. Expect the price to drop to $100 when the ps3 picks up steam.
The ps3 will drop a little faster, because competition will be tougher this gen. Sony got lucky and killed Sega early, and dominated the market after that. Microsoft was too new and Nintendo's pissed off or alienated too many people (e.g. Namco, Square, etc). Now Microsoft's established, and unlike Sega not going anywhere and Nintendo's got a console that's profitable right out the door and fistfuls of DS fueled cash just in case.
it's just that when you swing the sword/cast the rod Link'll do it with his right hand. It'll be a tad disorienting, but there are more right handed people then left, so you're kinda stuck...
The AI's probably hard coded to expect a lefty or righty Link, but not both. Stuff like attacking link's sword arm instead of his sheild arm. Changing all that code wouldn't be trivial. Plus, if they're always in mirror mode, they can probably take a bunch of programming shortcuts to achieve the effect.
but DVDs are not encoded with Xvid or divx. Poorly encoded dvds don't give better quality than that. Reds and blacks are blocky, colors are faded, lines indistinct, picture is grainy, etc, etc. The Nadesico dvds, for instance, suck rocks. I notice on a mediocre 24" Sony. Anyone looking at them would notice, and anyone who's a fan of the series would care. My point is, you don't need an HDTV set to benefit from HD-DVD. If anime publishers had larger budgets (better encoding and/or fewer eps per disk), this wouldn't be the case. But if wishs where horses beggers would ride.
want HD-DVD. More space means higher bitrates means better picture. Blockbuster dvds from major studios look fine on even a 27" crt. Obscure anime from small publishers look pretty awful. Anime distributers often don't have access to masters, let alone the time to do anything with them.
here. Nintendo's tech is new and patented. You won't see third party controllers, or if you do they'll be priced the same as the offical Nintendo one (or more). So yeah, Sony and Microsoft gamepads aren't cheap, but if you just need a cheap pad for a few hours of Multiplayer, you can get one (eventually).
I forgot to add, I notice you (and others like you) are attacking the source of the evidence, not the evidence itself. That's a classic debate technique. Bravo sir. And sorry for replying to my own post.
is it just me, or was there almost no discussion of the possiblity of election fraud (which, unless you can refute all the evidence, seems pretty damn likely). Isn't it kinda f'd up when we've got to turn to a "gosip rag" for debate on one of the most crucial elections in American history?
and they will expect you to support it. Microsoft won't want to include it, because people will expect support. As someone who's fielded helpdesk calls about mspaint, I speak from experience.
proof of how obvious it is? I mean, yeah, it took time to invent then perfect the lightbulb. But voice chatrooms? It's just a conference call over ip. Moreover, I see more and more patents that don't cover technology, but the application of technology. Seen in that light, Amazon's "One click Shopping" wasn't an invention, it was an application of cookies.
they head to their friends house to get the song again for 3 days (and if you're a guy and you get it from a girl, so much the better:) ). two weeks later of doing this you're tired of the song, and away we go. We can only hope it works out this way.
I think what killed the Saturn was not being high end from the get go. It's generally agreed that Sega planned on making a single processor system with limited 3d capabilities for that gen, and added the second processor late in the game to compete with Sony's PSX. Sega probably didn't want to risk gutting their arcade business with a console that could compete head on with Virtua Fighter 2. Tekken 2, OTOH, was generally considered better on the PSX than in the Arcade (Tekken 3 restored the balance, but nowadays arcades are dead everywhere but japan, so it moot).
The Dreamcast was off the shelf all the way. An existing Hitatchi Processor, A PowerVR video chip that was already in use in PCs and a Yamaha sound chip. What made is so amazingly next gen was Sony and Nintendo's nearly 10 year old hardware. If the NES hit the market to compete with the Bally Astrocade, it'd be pretty revolutionary too.
Now the Jaguar, that was just poor design. The main proc didn't have any on die cache, which killed performance, and they stuck a Motorola 68k in to mediate between the graphics processor and sub processors. Developers took the easy way out and ported Genesis games to it with more colors. So instead of Rayman's and AvPs we got Double Dragon's and Bruce Lee's. Crappy Mortal Kombat wannabes instead of a Street Fighter II competitor didn't help. When everyone got tired of digitized gore there weren't any fighter's worth playing. It's too bad, I bet the Jag could've done some nice Neo-Geo ports.
Anyway, the point is, Sony's in a very different position today. They're the clear market leader, they've got tons of cash and other businesses to keep them afloat. They've still got hype left over from the ps2 launch, which should have been a disaster. They're entering a market that blows thousands on consoles off ebay. And they've got tons of major third party devs (and unlike Sega, they're not going tick them off, at least not the big ones). Yeah, Sony's dropped the ball on a few things, but trust me, they'll do fine. They'll gonna be No. 1 for at least one more Gen.
at RPGamer.com yesterday. Sequals and spinoffs, spinoffs and Sequals. It be one thing if the games didn't tend to be pretty lame (FFX-2 was a travesty). Oh well, as long as Tri-Ace keeps making good games and Enix keeps the DQ series interesting, I'm happy. But it's sad to see Square, who used to make great gameplay-driven RPGs tossing out so much junk lately.
instead of a pledge. A pledge is all nice and pretty, but a good 'ole legally binding license would be even better, and would remove any doubts (since it wouldn't matter what MS decided to do later on).
but you've got highly trained/payed professionals doing everything in their power to grab the kid's attention. I mean, seriously, how do you as a parent compete with the multi-million dollar juggernaut that is Disney? Unless you toss 'em in a monastary the kids are going to see this crap, and it's going to sink in, because billions are spent making sure that it does.
yeah, but that's OK, because people can live without the HD content. Besides, games that aren't programmed for HD won't benefit as much from it. You'd mostly do it for marketing, so the ps3 couldn't say it was HD ready. There are plenty of idiots out there that'll look at the two systems (after the prices come down, they will) and buy the ps3 on the off chance that someday he'll want an "HD Console".
Trouble is, obscure japanese cartoons don't generally get made in the better authoring houses (and they generally get re-authored, since they're released on fewer disks here than in japan). You're right, it has improved a lot, but it could be a lot better. I still see artifacting on recent releases (e.g., Final Fantasy Unlimited). OTOH, Mononoke Hime (a pretty early dvd) looks great. If you're a small time authoring house, the best, easiest way to improve picture quality is high bit rate.
Hi-Def and Regular-Def versions on the same disks. It'd be easy to load higher def textures and movies on the HD Layer. This makes the transition away from dvd easy.
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I thought the target demographic for gamers had long since switched to 18 to 23 years old, and that game players were getting to be a pretty old lot. [citation]. Yeah, kids are important, but they don't matter as much as they used to.
PS2 is down to $129, has been for sometime. It's stayed that high because of high demand. When I bought mine, I had to go to a couple electronics stores to find one. This was less than a year ago. Expect the price to drop to $100 when the ps3 picks up steam.
The ps3 will drop a little faster, because competition will be tougher this gen. Sony got lucky and killed Sega early, and dominated the market after that. Microsoft was too new and Nintendo's pissed off or alienated too many people (e.g. Namco, Square, etc). Now Microsoft's established, and unlike Sega not going anywhere and Nintendo's got a console that's profitable right out the door and fistfuls of DS fueled cash just in case.
it's just that when you swing the sword/cast the rod Link'll do it with his right hand. It'll be a tad disorienting, but there are more right handed people then left, so you're kinda stuck...
The AI's probably hard coded to expect a lefty or righty Link, but not both. Stuff like attacking link's sword arm instead of his sheild arm. Changing all that code wouldn't be trivial. Plus, if they're always in mirror mode, they can probably take a bunch of programming shortcuts to achieve the effect.
in order to drive out competition, that's dumping. Next question please.
but DVDs are not encoded with Xvid or divx. Poorly encoded dvds don't give better quality than that. Reds and blacks are blocky, colors are faded, lines indistinct, picture is grainy, etc, etc. The Nadesico dvds, for instance, suck rocks. I notice on a mediocre 24" Sony. Anyone looking at them would notice, and anyone who's a fan of the series would care. My point is, you don't need an HDTV set to benefit from HD-DVD. If anime publishers had larger budgets (better encoding and/or fewer eps per disk), this wouldn't be the case. But if wishs where horses beggers would ride.
want HD-DVD. More space means higher bitrates means better picture. Blockbuster dvds from major studios look fine on even a 27" crt. Obscure anime from small publishers look pretty awful. Anime distributers often don't have access to masters, let alone the time to do anything with them.
here. Nintendo's tech is new and patented. You won't see third party controllers, or if you do they'll be priced the same as the offical Nintendo one (or more). So yeah, Sony and Microsoft gamepads aren't cheap, but if you just need a cheap pad for a few hours of Multiplayer, you can get one (eventually).
I forgot to add, I notice you (and others like you) are attacking the source of the evidence, not the evidence itself. That's a classic debate technique. Bravo sir. And sorry for replying to my own post.
is it just me, or was there almost no discussion of the possiblity of election fraud (which, unless you can refute all the evidence, seems pretty damn likely). Isn't it kinda f'd up when we've got to turn to a "gosip rag" for debate on one of the most crucial elections in American history?
where are my mod points when I need 'em :).
and they will expect you to support it. Microsoft won't want to include it, because people will expect support. As someone who's fielded helpdesk calls about mspaint, I speak from experience.
proof of how obvious it is? I mean, yeah, it took time to invent then perfect the lightbulb. But voice chatrooms? It's just a conference call over ip. Moreover, I see more and more patents that don't cover technology, but the application of technology. Seen in that light, Amazon's "One click Shopping" wasn't an invention, it was an application of cookies.
they head to their friends house to get the song again for 3 days (and if you're a guy and you get it from a girl, so much the better :) ). two weeks later of doing this you're tired of the song, and away we go. We can only hope it works out this way.
I think what killed the Saturn was not being high end from the get go. It's generally agreed that Sega planned on making a single processor system with limited 3d capabilities for that gen, and added the second processor late in the game to compete with Sony's PSX. Sega probably didn't want to risk gutting their arcade business with a console that could compete head on with Virtua Fighter 2. Tekken 2, OTOH, was generally considered better on the PSX than in the Arcade (Tekken 3 restored the balance, but nowadays arcades are dead everywhere but japan, so it moot).
The Dreamcast was off the shelf all the way. An existing Hitatchi Processor, A PowerVR video chip that was already in use in PCs and a Yamaha sound chip. What made is so amazingly next gen was Sony and Nintendo's nearly 10 year old hardware. If the NES hit the market to compete with the Bally Astrocade, it'd be pretty revolutionary too.
Now the Jaguar, that was just poor design. The main proc didn't have any on die cache, which killed performance, and they stuck a Motorola 68k in to mediate between the graphics processor and sub processors. Developers took the easy way out and ported Genesis games to it with more colors. So instead of Rayman's and AvPs we got Double Dragon's and Bruce Lee's. Crappy Mortal Kombat wannabes instead of a Street Fighter II competitor didn't help. When everyone got tired of digitized gore there weren't any fighter's worth playing. It's too bad, I bet the Jag could've done some nice Neo-Geo ports.
Anyway, the point is, Sony's in a very different position today. They're the clear market leader, they've got tons of cash and other businesses to keep them afloat. They've still got hype left over from the ps2 launch, which should have been a disaster. They're entering a market that blows thousands on consoles off ebay. And they've got tons of major third party devs (and unlike Sega, they're not going tick them off, at least not the big ones). Yeah, Sony's dropped the ball on a few things, but trust me, they'll do fine. They'll gonna be No. 1 for at least one more Gen.
The way I see it, Democrates aren't any less evil, they're just not as good at it, and I really think that's the best we can hope for.
are worth money? The question isn't how many dial up customers are there, it's how many are there you can sell crap to.
at RPGamer.com yesterday. Sequals and spinoffs, spinoffs and Sequals. It be one thing if the games didn't tend to be pretty lame (FFX-2 was a travesty). Oh well, as long as Tri-Ace keeps making good games and Enix keeps the DQ series interesting, I'm happy. But it's sad to see Square, who used to make great gameplay-driven RPGs tossing out so much junk lately.
instead of a pledge. A pledge is all nice and pretty, but a good 'ole legally binding license would be even better, and would remove any doubts (since it wouldn't matter what MS decided to do later on).
but you've got highly trained/payed professionals doing everything in their power to grab the kid's attention. I mean, seriously, how do you as a parent compete with the multi-million dollar juggernaut that is Disney? Unless you toss 'em in a monastary the kids are going to see this crap, and it's going to sink in, because billions are spent making sure that it does.
how is that possible?
yeah, but that's OK, because people can live without the HD content. Besides, games that aren't programmed for HD won't benefit as much from it. You'd mostly do it for marketing, so the ps3 couldn't say it was HD ready. There are plenty of idiots out there that'll look at the two systems (after the prices come down, they will) and buy the ps3 on the off chance that someday he'll want an "HD Console".
Trouble is, obscure japanese cartoons don't generally get made in the better authoring houses (and they generally get re-authored, since they're released on fewer disks here than in japan). You're right, it has improved a lot, but it could be a lot better. I still see artifacting on recent releases (e.g., Final Fantasy Unlimited). OTOH, Mononoke Hime (a pretty early dvd) looks great. If you're a small time authoring house, the best, easiest way to improve picture quality is high bit rate.
Hi-Def and Regular-Def versions on the same disks. It'd be easy to load higher def textures and movies on the HD Layer. This makes the transition away from dvd easy.