In the first one, setting up the PS2 as a dedicated server ie not actually playing the game, allowed more players. Plus there was the PC based server software: Run it on the PC, play the game on the PS2's.
More than the numbers playing Crimson Skies, Mechwarrior or Steel Battaliion.
Live is all about Halo, The Xbox is basically a Halo machine, you know that. Microsoft would probably be better off doing a Halo 3 in a joystick device rather than making the Xbox 360.
You see with the Xbox, everyones playing Halo, but with the PS2 there's online games for every taste, so it's smaller numbers of players, playing a more diverse set of games.
I do know there's still over 10000 on SOCOM 2after the release of SOCOM 3, Last I heard EQOA was around 30000, FFXI dwarfs that. I'd lay odds you could take some of the more obscure online PS2 games, go online and see people playing.
Crappy dev tools? vi (or emacs) is all the dev tool you really need.:-)
Sony likes Linux, they like GCC.. Which means that technically their boxes can be made to run anything
I think they wanted to give the developers freedom to do things their own way, but developers didn't really want that as much as they thought they did.
Oh well, scuttlebut says the PS3's dev tools are much improved over the PS2's. They should be, considering how easy it seems to port stuff to the PSP.
*Every* console game is sold on the strength of the single-player experience. Only PC games (BF2, CS) can be sold as primariliy multiplayer. Sure, Halo grew into a MP juggernaut, but everyone played the SP first.
Every? That's funny, because EQOA and FFXI for the PS2 have no single player and are played online. Also, people aren't buying the Star Wars Battlefront games (the first is a greatest hit) for the single player. Same goes for the SOCOM games. Can't forget SOE's Norrath based Diablo clones
because the PS2 does not have a standard ethernet port - to get ethernet one has to buy an additional network device, which sells for $40
All PS2's have either been bundled with network adapters or had them built in since late 2003. So the install base is large (though not as large as it would have been had the adapter been built into the PS2 from the start)
I'm surprised that there hasn't been more promotion of the PS2 games that support LAN play, but in the game store LAN parties it's all Halo instead of SOCOM, Star Wars Battlefront, or Gran Turismo 4.
Re:Is Ghost ever, ever EVER going to be released??
on
Blizzcon Writeup
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· Score: 1
The delay of SC: Ghost is not Blizzards fautl, they farmed that title out. Not a very good idea, they should have done it in house. They NEED modern console dev experience badly.
Re:That's odd IE found it real quick.
on
Blizzcon Writeup
·
· Score: 1
Blizzard ignores the consoles even though they got their start doing console dev as "Silicon and Synapse" Rock & Roll Racing for the SNES, that's Blizzard. They're PC partisans now. They'll let others do ports on ocassion, like the well regarded PSone port of Diablo
Well regarded enough that Snowblind did a sort of an "extended tech demo" Diablo clone using an amazing engine for the PS2 called Balder's Gate: Dark Alliance. That got Sony's notice, and they then bought Snowblind and incorporated them into SOE. It didn't take them too long to do an improved version of BG: DA set in the Everquest universe with internet play and headset support: Champions of Norrath. They did a sequel: Champions: Return to Arms. And there's a very similar game for the PSP set in new world called Aven: Untold Legends. (There's other games that use Snowblinds engine, or similar engines)
So essentially Blizzards lost any chance to seize any action RPG mindshare on the consoles. They had a couple of years from say late 2000 to 2002, but their PC only focus prevented that
You can convert your own videos easily, and oddly enough it uses the same format as the PSP videos, though it will only play videos formated for 320x200 (many psp videos are 368 x 208 since that is the screens native resolution). but that means you can use all those nice PSP video conversion tools to make video for your IPOD videos, talk about Irony!
Actually the PSP's screens native resolutions is 480x272.:-) Most PSP video is in 320x240, but you're right, I figured out the day of the announcement that the PSP tools would probably do the job. I tested out a PSP encoded video in Itunes 6 a few hours after the announcement. Why these Apple users haven't figured it out yet is beyond me. They haven't even mentioned ffmpegX!
I've tested what iPod encoded content I could find on my PSP and it didn't work for me.:-)
I thought it was strange that only quick time would play my converted PSP videos...but I think this might be the final nail the PSP's coffin.
I've got a PSP and 320x240 really is good enough for TV type content.
It looks blocky when enlarged on your computer and when piped to a TV, and it most certainly will look embassingly bad if outputted to HDTV.
But that's not the IPod (or PSP) encoded contents intended displays is it. Trust me, on those small portable screens bitrate and framerate is more important than resolution.
Online distribution should be all about increasing the quality, not decreasing it.
This is special purpose online distribution for a special purpose device.
How many people are going to wait 3 hours to get broadcast quality TV? And then how many are going to be happy converting it to a crappy lower iPot resolution?
What will probably happen is that people will download content already in the iPod format using "various methods"
I've played 320x240 video on my PSP and trust me, on small screens like the PSP's and even smaller screens like the iPod's you won't notice the resolution.
Here's the supported formats from Apple's on website
H.264 video: up to 768 Kbps, 320 x 240, 30 frames per sec., Baseline Profile up to Level 1.3 with AAC-LC up to 160 Kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in.m4v,.mp4 and.mov file formats MPEG-4 video: up to 2.5 mbps, 480 x 480, 30 frames per sec., Simple Profile with AAC-LC up to 160 Kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in.m4v,.mp4 and.mov file formats
Looks like audio needs to be AAC.
Hmm those format's look very familiar (check the sites relating to PSP video)
The iPod video formats are almost as limited as the PSP's.
Take a look at those IPod Video formats again....they ARE the PSP's, or very similar. Similar enough that you can play PSP encoded video in iTunes 6. I just checked. I'm tempted to buy Quicktime 7 Pro just to see if the video it creates can be played on my PSP.
iPod: H.264 video: up to 768 Kbps, 320 x 240, 30 frames per sec., Baseline Profile up to Level 1.3 with AAC-LC up to 160 Kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in.m4v,.mp4 and.mov file formats MPEG-4 video: up to 2.5 mbps, 480 x 480, 30 frames per sec., Simple Profile with AAC-LC up to 160 Kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in.m4v,.mp4 and.mov file formats
PSP (with 2.foo)
MPEG4 SP and MPEG4 AVC/H.264
And guess which PC software plays PSP formatted video with no trouble at all....Quicktime. I'd lay odds that you can take your PSP formatted video and play them on the iPod. And it might work the other way too, at least for non DRM'd video. And one guess as to the name of the portable game/music/video playing machine that is the only other device that can play non DRM'd AAC audio created with iTunes.
How long do you think it will take Sony to get TV episodes on Connect. (and why haven't they done it already)
Slashdot Mirror
In the first one, setting up the PS2 as a dedicated server ie not actually playing the game, allowed more players. Plus there was the PC based server software: Run it on the PC, play the game on the PS2's.
SWB I has LAN play like you describe, I don't know about II but it probably does.
The AI wasn't that bad in the PS2 version, except for the Jedi heroes. Were you playing Xbox or PC?
The game was just simply a lot of fun to play, no matter what.
More than the numbers playing Crimson Skies, Mechwarrior or Steel Battaliion.
Live is all about Halo, The Xbox is basically a Halo machine, you know that. Microsoft would probably be better off doing a Halo 3 in a joystick device rather than making the Xbox 360.
You see with the Xbox, everyones playing Halo, but with the PS2 there's online games for every taste, so it's smaller numbers of players, playing a more diverse set of games.
I do know there's still over 10000 on SOCOM 2after the release of SOCOM 3, Last I heard EQOA was around 30000, FFXI dwarfs that. I'd lay odds you could take some of the more obscure online PS2 games, go online and see people playing.
Crappy dev tools? vi (or emacs) is all the dev tool you really need. :-)
Sony likes Linux, they like GCC.. Which means that technically their boxes can be made to run anything
I think they wanted to give the developers freedom to do things their own way, but developers didn't really want that as much as they thought they did.
Oh well, scuttlebut says the PS3's dev tools are much improved over the PS2's. They should be, considering how easy it seems to port stuff to the PSP.
Probably they decided that it just wouldn't sell many copies on the GC, a system that:
Doesn't have many owners with the network adapter.
That doesn't have a strong base of fans of third person shooters with online capabilites (that don't already own a PS2 or Xbox)
*Every* console game is sold on the strength of the single-player experience. Only PC games (BF2, CS) can be sold as primariliy multiplayer. Sure, Halo grew into a MP juggernaut, but everyone played the SP first.
Every? That's funny, because EQOA and FFXI for the PS2 have no single player and are played online. Also, people aren't buying the Star Wars Battlefront games (the first is a greatest hit) for the single player. Same goes for the SOCOM games. Can't forget SOE's Norrath based Diablo clones
All PS2's have either been bundled with network adapters or had them built in since late 2003. So the install base is large (though not as large as it would have been had the adapter been built into the PS2 from the start)
But it is simiple, really simple. You create the connection save and games use it. And it's free for everything but EQOA and FFXI.
All 3 of mine. :-)
One with a Linux kit
One with the FFXI HD
Another with an FFXI HD that I wiped to put Linux on.
So tell me, how many online enabled action RPG's are there on the X-Box
How many MMORPG's?
Is there an online enabled Risk game?
Online poker with support for a USB video camera?
When it comes to online game diversity the PS2 has it all over the Xbox.
I'm surprised that there hasn't been more promotion of the PS2 games that support LAN play, but in the game store LAN parties it's all Halo instead of SOCOM, Star Wars Battlefront, or Gran Turismo 4.
The delay of SC: Ghost is not Blizzards fautl, they farmed that title out. Not a very good idea, they should have done it in house. They NEED modern console dev experience badly.
Blizzard ignores the consoles even though they got their start doing console dev as "Silicon and Synapse" Rock & Roll Racing for the SNES, that's Blizzard. They're PC partisans now. They'll let others do ports on ocassion, like the well regarded PSone port of Diablo
Well regarded enough that Snowblind did a sort of an "extended tech demo" Diablo clone using an amazing engine for the PS2 called Balder's Gate: Dark Alliance. That got Sony's notice, and they then bought Snowblind and incorporated them into SOE. It didn't take them too long to do an improved version of BG: DA set in the Everquest universe with internet play and headset support: Champions of Norrath. They did a sequel: Champions: Return to Arms. And there's a very similar game for the PSP set in new world called Aven: Untold Legends. (There's other games that use Snowblinds engine, or similar engines)
So essentially Blizzards lost any chance to seize any action RPG mindshare on the consoles. They had a couple of years from say late 2000 to 2002, but their PC only focus prevented that
.
Well I wouldn't go that far, it's my favorite controller. But it might be less fanboyish to say it's the best overall compromise in controller design.
Actually the PSP's screens native resolutions is 480x272.
I've tested what iPod encoded content I could find on my PSP and it didn't work for me.
I don't think so.
I wouldn't be surprised if PSP Video 9 wouldn't do the trick.
But that's not the IPod (or PSP) encoded contents intended displays is it. Trust me, on those small portable screens bitrate and framerate is more important than resolution.
This is special purpose online distribution for a special purpose device.
Try ffmpegX:
http://homepage.mac.com/major4/
What will probably happen is that people will download content already in the iPod format using "various methods"
I've played 320x240 video on my PSP and trust me, on small screens like the PSP's and even smaller screens like the iPod's you won't notice the resolution.
Looks like audio needs to be AAC.
Hmm those format's look very familiar (check the sites relating to PSP video)
Look for PSP encoded "Lost" episodes, those might work with out any transcoding. (they'll play in iTunes 6).
If not try ffmpegX.
Take a look at those IPod Video formats again....they ARE the PSP's, or very similar. Similar enough that you can play PSP encoded video in iTunes 6. I just checked. I'm tempted to buy Quicktime 7 Pro just to see if the video it creates can be played on my PSP.
Checking video formats:
.m4v, .mp4 and .mov file formats .m4v, .mp4 and .mov file formats
iPod: H.264 video: up to 768 Kbps, 320 x 240, 30 frames per sec., Baseline Profile up to Level 1.3 with AAC-LC up to 160 Kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in
MPEG-4 video: up to 2.5 mbps, 480 x 480, 30 frames per sec., Simple Profile with AAC-LC up to 160 Kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in
PSP (with 2.foo)
MPEG4 SP and MPEG4 AVC/H.264
And guess which PC software plays PSP formatted video with no trouble at all....Quicktime. I'd lay odds that you can take your PSP formatted video and play them on the iPod. And it might work the other way too, at least for non DRM'd video. And one guess as to the name of the portable game/music/video playing machine that is the only other device that can play non DRM'd AAC audio created with iTunes.
How long do you think it will take Sony to get TV episodes on Connect. (and why haven't they done it already)