I've got a an extremely smart female chinese friend who goes to MIT. We agree on most things in life but the one thing we totally disagree on (I used get slightly fumed about it) is that she supports her government fully. "The chinese population is far larger", "You need a government like this", "It's run more efficiently and there is less fighting in the government", are things you'd here from her.
I am far from being in agreement but I can after a year almost come to an understanding of why she feels this way. I was initially surprised as she did move here during about middle school.
The HD drive they will show off is apparently external... Which makes sense as adding greatly to the price of the xbox360 after launch would be really odd AND alienate those who bought it early.
Throw in the fact that sony manufactures almost all of the main chips or will soon (they are setting up to manufacture cell without ibm and the graphics chip nvidia designed if the factories aren't already up) and their own drives quite unlike microsoft who has to buy almost all parts of their machine from different vendors including the hd-dvd drive. The cost increase would be too great to justify.
I see the hd-dvd as just another failed console addon. Dev's wont' support it since it will alienate a good deal of the market. For anything to be widely used in a console it has to be part of the hardware at initial launch. Thats why xbox's network took off and the ps2's weren't used at all. More examples can be found when looking at any console (sega, nintendo, older psx ones, etc.)
The first standalone hd players will be from $500 to over $1000. You can get hdtv's starting at under $799. Granted these aren't big screens but still. A respectible 32inch hdtv lcd can be bought around $1000.
$1500-$1700 for a new game system (if the ps3 is over 700, sony has forfeited the race), hd player, and tv. Or $1500-$2000 for just the tv and a hd player.
Now imagine if those creative people had awesome ideas but were weak at programming. Tetris is much simpler then modern 3d engines but if they screwed up the technical work and it affected gameplay it wouldn't have been so fun now would it.
The same is true of game engines, a really crappy one is really crappy.
I don't understand why one cares about things like formats, companies, or whatever... Are you purchasing the Revolution because of it's popularity in the online presses for the controller and the cheap price and Nintendo's "focus on games" (which is rather a rather laughable statement really--the hardware division is responsible for it's part while the devs are responsibel for making awesome games)?
If your purchasing the Revolution because your favorite games or genre of games will be on it then kudos to you. I will be buying the ps3 unless the xbox360 and less likely the revolution woo's me with much greater games. Which at this point both look highly unlikely (i keep my pc up to date and that negates 90% of the reason for me to want an xbox).
The UMD would be a valid comparison if the ONLY way to view blu-ray's would have been through ps3's and nothing else.
Sony is aiming for the blu-ray being much more universal and maintream. Not only will blu-ray run on the ps3 but it will also run on standard setup blu-ray machines made by sony and other companies.
The UMD's weren't supported by other portable viewing machines by Sony or any other companies.
2.0 ghz pentium-m's easily compete with 3 ghz p4's. The core duo is an improvement on the pentium m, plus you've got newer motherboard architecture and probably memory too.
Faster processer, faster chipset, and quite possibly faster memory. Why wouldn't you expect it to be faster?
I couldn't stand old big projection screens(big blurry images). Sure if your looking at a small screen from a distance it won't matter to you. But pixels most certainly are noticeable on bigger screens.
They barely had any launch "Video" demos that looked anywhere near a completed game (killzone and maybe 1-2 others, the rest were just tech demos) by last month. The hardware is so bleeding edge that they've only just started making the factories. Even if they launched it this spring it'd be rushed with bugs and possible shortages if it were popular.
The following quote from TFA worries me a bit. It will use a good chunk of the resources on the OS rather then purely for games. If the PS3 devs can't use a lighter version of the O.S. this could be a bit of an issue should they opt to do so in their games (some games may benefit from the voice/video chat but there are tons of games where this is unnecessary and annoying). Currently in the PS2 the default OS uses an almost negligible amount of resources that are pretty much needed to run the games
In the case of the PS3 this equates to 12.5% of the available Cores on the CPU always reserved, an additional 12.5% sometimes taken by the OS, 12.5% of the available RSX memory and 25% of XDR Cell memory. Balancing these out, one could argue that Sony has removed up to 25% of the available CPU power and 18.75% of RAM for these features as well as others that are not mentioned here or will be added in future updates to the PS3 Operation System.
The PS3 has a lot of expensive and powerful media hardware. They might as well create the software needed to use as much of the hardware as possible to market the beast at the $500-700 dollar pricepoint it will probably come out at.
It should be capable of:
1) Live Video Streaming in HD (new hd movie trailers on your big screen vs. PC screen). 2) All kinds of communications, chat, voice, etc. 3) Linux networked device. 4) All the game related stuff like demo downloads, etc. 5) Release a $50 dollar tv tuner accessory + appropriate software to make this into a pvr (already has massive graphics and parallel processing power along with the output hardware built in).
Of course this isn't to say that they should put any less resources on games. They should keep their AA third party and in house development teams and release as much variety + quality of games as they can. However, I'd hate to see all this hardware potential go to waste. Then and again since theres a good chance it will be able to run on linux (if thats not the default os) we may have free alternatives made by hobbyists (depending on the strength of the drm).
The ps2 despite being extremely expensive to manufacture initially due to the size fo the main chips has been profitable from purely a hardware standpoint after the first 2 million units were shipped. The software sale is where the bulk of the profits came from and it was great enough to have a large impact on sony's bottomline.
The xbox on the other hand has been bleeding tons of cash. I don't think it's ever had a profitable quarter and they've lost up to one billion per year.
Oblivion runs decently on my 3 year old machine with a fairly low end graphics card (radeon 9500). I run it at a mere 800X600 resolution to keep the frame rate decent but it's such an old system. I don't have any hdtv's so it'd be pointless really to have a slightly higher resolution on my xbox.
Why the hell there weren't more light gun based first person shooters. I'm pretty sure the dreamcast had some but there needed to be more around especially for consoles.
In any case it doesn't seem revolutionary at all.
And I've known lots of people that buy saphire and your the first person i've found to ever make this complaint that hasn't destroyed their cards themselves.
While I don't care about being too realistic but randomly flying without any visible force or chi (as used in animes) was annoying. The action seemed too fake.
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I've got a an extremely smart female chinese friend who goes to MIT. We agree on most things in life but the one thing we totally disagree on (I used get slightly fumed about it) is that she supports her government fully. "The chinese population is far larger", "You need a government like this", "It's run more efficiently and there is less fighting in the government", are things you'd here from her.
I am far from being in agreement but I can after a year almost come to an understanding of why she feels this way. I was initially surprised as she did move here during about middle school.
Read the actual article.
The HD drive they will show off is apparently external... Which makes sense as adding greatly to the price of the xbox360 after launch would be really odd AND alienate those who bought it early.
Throw in the fact that sony manufactures almost all of the main chips or will soon (they are setting up to manufacture cell without ibm and the graphics chip nvidia designed if the factories aren't already up) and their own drives quite unlike microsoft who has to buy almost all parts of their machine from different vendors including the hd-dvd drive. The cost increase would be too great to justify.
I see the hd-dvd as just another failed console addon. Dev's wont' support it since it will alienate a good deal of the market. For anything to be widely used in a console it has to be part of the hardware at initial launch. Thats why xbox's network took off and the ps2's weren't used at all. More examples can be found when looking at any console (sega, nintendo, older psx ones, etc.)
The first standalone hd players will be from $500 to over $1000. You can get hdtv's starting at under $799. Granted these aren't big screens but still. A respectible 32inch hdtv lcd can be bought around $1000.
= 5&item=333226&pCatg=1338
Here's one:
http://www.samsclub.com/shopping/navigate.do?dest
$1500-$1700 for a new game system (if the ps3 is over 700, sony has forfeited the race), hd player, and tv. Or $1500-$2000 for just the tv and a hd player.
Yes, sony had a hand in those...
So of the 3 most popular formats used in home video/audio now. The only one sony didn't ahve a hand on at launch is vhs.
The lead designer of Diablo and Diablo 2 among a lot of other key devs are whom left to form flagship.
o m_content&task=blogcategory&id=18&Itemid=45
http://www.flagshipstudios.com/index.php?option=c
With how wow turned out looks like a lot of senior devs left bliz... I have no clue why but thats what happend.
Now imagine if those creative people had awesome ideas but were weak at programming. Tetris is much simpler then modern 3d engines but if they screwed up the technical work and it affected gameplay it wouldn't have been so fun now would it.
The same is true of game engines, a really crappy one is really crappy.
Phantom will be the laughingstock of this community until Venture capitalists realize that phantom is nothing but a black hole.
During a console's 5-6 year life almost all of them that have had any measure of success have had chip reductions.
This includes both of the playstations and most certainly the ps3 as well, not sure about nintendo, but definately the genesis and older systems.
I don't understand why one cares about things like formats, companies, or whatever... Are you purchasing the Revolution because of it's popularity in the online presses for the controller and the cheap price and Nintendo's "focus on games" (which is rather a rather laughable statement really--the hardware division is responsible for it's part while the devs are responsibel for making awesome games)?
If your purchasing the Revolution because your favorite games or genre of games will be on it then kudos to you. I will be buying the ps3 unless the xbox360 and less likely the revolution woo's me with much greater games. Which at this point both look highly unlikely (i keep my pc up to date and that negates 90% of the reason for me to want an xbox).
The UMD would be a valid comparison if the ONLY way to view blu-ray's would have been through ps3's and nothing else.
Sony is aiming for the blu-ray being much more universal and maintream. Not only will blu-ray run on the ps3 but it will also run on standard setup blu-ray machines made by sony and other companies.
The UMD's weren't supported by other portable viewing machines by Sony or any other companies.
We've got tons of 360's... All the samsclub's have a large number of the $399 bundles.
2.0 ghz pentium-m's easily compete with 3 ghz p4's. The core duo is an improvement on the pentium m, plus you've got newer motherboard architecture and probably memory too.
Faster processer, faster chipset, and quite possibly faster memory. Why wouldn't you expect it to be faster?
The SCEI has always been massively profitable. Only the original xbox and 360 have been losing a great deal of money.
I couldn't stand old big projection screens(big blurry images). Sure if your looking at a small screen from a distance it won't matter to you. But pixels most certainly are noticeable on bigger screens.
They barely had any launch "Video" demos that looked anywhere near a completed game (killzone and maybe 1-2 others, the rest were just tech demos) by last month. The hardware is so bleeding edge that they've only just started making the factories. Even if they launched it this spring it'd be rushed with bugs and possible shortages if it were popular.
The following quote from TFA worries me a bit. It will use a good chunk of the resources on the OS rather then purely for games. If the PS3 devs can't use a lighter version of the O.S. this could be a bit of an issue should they opt to do so in their games (some games may benefit from the voice/video chat but there are tons of games where this is unnecessary and annoying). Currently in the PS2 the default OS uses an almost negligible amount of resources that are pretty much needed to run the games
In the case of the PS3 this equates to 12.5% of the available Cores on the CPU always reserved, an additional 12.5% sometimes taken by the OS, 12.5% of the available RSX memory and 25% of XDR Cell memory. Balancing these out, one could argue that Sony has removed up to 25% of the available CPU power and 18.75% of RAM for these features as well as others that are not mentioned here or will be added in future updates to the PS3 Operation System.
The PS3 has a lot of expensive and powerful media hardware. They might as well create the software needed to use as much of the hardware as possible to market the beast at the $500-700 dollar pricepoint it will probably come out at.
It should be capable of:
1) Live Video Streaming in HD (new hd movie trailers on your big screen vs. PC screen).
2) All kinds of communications, chat, voice, etc.
3) Linux networked device.
4) All the game related stuff like demo downloads, etc.
5) Release a $50 dollar tv tuner accessory + appropriate software to make this into a pvr (already has massive graphics and parallel processing power along with the output hardware built in).
Of course this isn't to say that they should put any less resources on games. They should keep their AA third party and in house development teams and release as much variety + quality of games as they can. However, I'd hate to see all this hardware potential go to waste. Then and again since theres a good chance it will be able to run on linux (if thats not the default os) we may have free alternatives made by hobbyists (depending on the strength of the drm).
The ps2 despite being extremely expensive to manufacture initially due to the size fo the main chips has been profitable from purely a hardware standpoint after the first 2 million units were shipped. The software sale is where the bulk of the profits came from and it was great enough to have a large impact on sony's bottomline.
The xbox on the other hand has been bleeding tons of cash. I don't think it's ever had a profitable quarter and they've lost up to one billion per year.
Oblivion runs decently on my 3 year old machine with a fairly low end graphics card (radeon 9500). I run it at a mere 800X600 resolution to keep the frame rate decent but it's such an old system. I don't have any hdtv's so it'd be pointless really to have a slightly higher resolution on my xbox.
Why the hell there weren't more light gun based first person shooters. I'm pretty sure the dreamcast had some but there needed to be more around especially for consoles. In any case it doesn't seem revolutionary at all.
And I've known lots of people that buy saphire and your the first person i've found to ever make this complaint that hasn't destroyed their cards themselves.
You don't need a laptop to teach kids about unprotected sex. You need to provide them with a school to learn this and other things.
A guy on the street passing out condoms and a lil info booklet on std's would be more effective then laptops.
While I don't care about being too realistic but randomly flying without any visible force or chi (as used in animes) was annoying. The action seemed too fake.