A company, even one with M$'s deep pockets, will not green-light a project (Xbox-related or otherwise) if it is not expected to generate a profit and achieve measures that meet or exceed company standards for risk and return.
Which is why MS green lights all the projects that haven't turned a profit, ever, right?
And, if you took the 5 minutes to look, you'd see that Microsoft has NEVER made a profit from the Xbox, or its games. Since its launch, the Xbox has accounted for most of the Home and Entertainment Division's revenues... and yet, since the launch of the Xbox, Microsoft's Home and Entertainment Division has LOST over $2 billion.
Look it up on the SEC's webpage. Microsoft's quaterly reports are free and public knowledge. You'd be a little surprised, I think, to see that Microsoft has consitently lost over $100 million per quarter on the Home and Entertainment Division for quite some time now, with some quarters topping $300 million lost.
At the current rate, the current Xbox will not only never see a profit, but the Xbox 2 might not even recoup all the losses garnered from the Xbox and it's own losses in the beginning either (this being if, and only if, the Xbox 2 generates a profit during its life cycle).
But, do feel free to see the SEC's webpage to try and prove me wrong.
So Peter Molyneux isn't a developer? No one hypes up Lionhead games like Peter Molyneux... you know, the guy who is given the title "Lead Designer" on games like Fable and Black and White.
While what you say is often true, you can't always say it isn't developers hyping up their games early. Molyneux might have learned his lesson after hyping up TONS of features for over 3 years that were cut from the final release of Fable, but we'll have to see. And, although Molyneux is often one of the worst offenders of over-hyping his products, he certainly isn't the only developer to do so.
So thin, they've been non-existent for 2 years straight. Sony Corp., as a whole, has seen finacial losses, overall, for the past two fiscal years. The Games Division (PlayStation) was about the only thing profitable in the whole company, but not profitable enough to keep the rest of the company out of the red.
And, Sony saw a loss on the Games Division recently as well, thanks to lower than expected PS2 and PS2 game sales.
Not this time. The Krypt is smaller than in Deadly Alliance, and most of the characters are unlocked by playing the Konquest mode in Deception, and almost all the characters are unlocked by getting keys to their tombstones, not through money.
There is a Krypt FAQ on GameFAQs that tells you what each tombstone in Deception has in it. Kitana, Kung Lao, and the others are not in the Krypt.
It's got twice the textured fill rate of the Gamecube.
You're talking fill rates while I'm talking the texturing and mapping abilities of the consoles.
The PS2 can't bump map well, can't mip map well, can't normal map at all, etc. When we talk of textures in games and such, it mainly involves the ability to use different maps and effects and such that allow for games to look better. The PS2, in this regard, simply can't handle it.
Actually, it's 4MB of VRAM, but that's compared to the gamecube's 1MB of VRAM.
So I overestimated the PS2's VRAM, but you are assuming the embedded RAM on the Flipper GPU is the only VRAM the GC has. The 1 MB you speak of is simply texture buffering RAM, embedded into the GPU, and is in addition to a 2 MB Z-buffer that is embedded into the GPU as well. Like the Xbox, though, the GC can use it's main system RAM for graphics as well.
Technically, the GC and Xbox have no dedicated VRAM set aside just for main graphics memory, the PS2 does, and only uses that VRAM for graphics, and doesn't utilize any of the rest of the system memory for graphics ability.
The gamecube's architecture allows it to get more "free" special effects, but the PS2 has much more raw power.
The GC has a faster CPU, faster GPU, and more main system RAM (which is also more efficient RAM than the PS2's).
Your source of IGN for the GC's max polygon perfomrance is the only site that seems to magically have the numbers that Nintendo has never released to the press, and game developers would have NDAs against giving it out unless Nintendo gave them out, so I call them more of IGN's bullshit.
And, as has been said before, raw power alone isn't enough. Somemone might be able to put a F-16's engine in a Pinto for tons of raw power, but it won't mean shit if the Pinto can't move under the weight of the engine.
And, as per your other comment: if you aren't a gamer, why are you so adamant about touting the PS2's raw power? It's been shown that the PS2 is the WEAKEST console in this gen many times over. Hell, AnadTech showed it before, as has Tom's Hardware, and other reputable sources; which I'll say I can trust more than you and your listening to IGN's magic numbers on things that have never been released to the press/public.
Are you insane? The PS2 has faster main memory bandwidth, *way* more graphics memory bandwidth, much more vector processing capability, four times as many graphics pipelines, etc.
And the PS2 has practically no textruing capabilities, as well as a mere 8 MB of VRAM to work with.
Extra memory bandwidth and such don't mean shit when you can't texture your games worth a damn to allow for less polygons to be needed while still maintaining a great looking game, as well as only 8 MB of VRAM to work with.
I could put out a console that produces polygons like mad; but if I limit my video memory to a mere 8 MB, and don't build in texturing capabilities that are worthwhile (the good textured games on the PS2 are from developers fighting the system and figuring out how to get the textures despite Sony's design and lack of adequate documentation on how to do it), it won't matter. The other consoles that do have more VRAM and better texturing capabilities will just have their games look better, period.
I mean, to have a console newcomer, with all the adoption hurdles that come with that, coming up at a dead-heat (and, as of the June, perhaps a touch higher--Nintendo reported 15.22 million Gamecube's worldwide, and Microsoft reported 15.5 million Xbox's) with a long-time behemoth like Nintendo really does add insult to the injury Sony has inflicted on Nintendo.
Actually, the numbers were the GC at 15.5 million at the end of June, and the Xbox with 15.2 million shipped at July 22.
Thing is, Nintendo likes to talked sold through numbers, Microsoft and Sony only talk sold through numbers in North America through NPD, for Europe and Asia they only talk shipped units.
I think we all know that shipped != sold through.
For example, Microsoft claimed 1.5 million units shipped to Asia/Pacific by July 22. We all know the Xbox hasn't sold anywhere near 1.5 million through in the Asian market.
So, as for their units, Microsoft claims a total of 5.4 million units shipped between Europe and Asia... but, as I said and we all should know, shipped does not equal sold to customers.
Sony, as well, when they speak of the 70+ million units, mainly speaks shipped. Those units were 'sold' in so far as Sony sold them to retailers, but not all of those shipped by Sony have sold through to customers. Sony even put down that they have shipped more units to Europe than the NPD has estimated installed users in North America for the PS2 by ~840k units as of June 30, 2004.
Somehow I think it would be big news if Europe had sold through more PS2s than North America.
So, remember, when speaking of units sold, only Nintendo talks of sold through numbers (based off of market data, I assume), while for the most part, Sony and Microsoft tout shipped to retailers numbers, not sold through to customers. Touting shipped units makes them look better because the shipped numbers are always higher than sold through numbers.
Microsoft doesn't allow X-Box Live to be used for bug-fixes.
Yes, they do, and quite often. Just go to FASA's page about Crimson Skies to see the info on the first patch that was released for Crimson Skies.
Street Fighter Vs. SNK 2 EO has also been patched, as has Unreal Championship, as has Links 2004, and many others (in fact, nearly every XBL game that supports downloadable content and online play has been patched).
Any time you log into Xbox Live from a game and you get a message that there is a "required download from Xbox Live in order to connect to Xbox Live", then you know it is a patch. Put in another XBL game and connect, and it should work fine to connect; it will only be the game(s) giving you the message that is (are) being patched.
Have any links with the official max polygon/second rate of the GameCube? Nintendo never released them, nor has ATI (which owns ArtX which designed the GC's GPU), that I know of.
So where are you getting the GC's max polygons/sec number? The only numbers officialy released, that I know of, are the ones touted for in-game numbers, not for max theoretical polygons/sec.
And, BTW, the PS2 can't come anywhere near 20M polygons/sec in-game, unless there are very few light sources, no physics, no Z-buffering, no gouraud shading, etc. At best, it comes to around 6M-12M polygons/sec in-game (at best, remember... with light sources, shading, physics, etc. it comes in lower than that, at between closer to 4M-8M polygons per second)... but it can't do the other effects the GC can do such as bump mapping and other effects which help the GameCube's games look much better than the PS2's games.
Even the Xbox won't hit 20M polygons/sec easily with full effects on; more like 8M- maybe 15M polygons/sec with full effects (simply adding 1 infinite hardware light source cuts the Xbox's 125M max polygons/sec rate by half).
Quote from,Mike Abrash, who helped design the Xbox (the former link seems to now need a subscription to see, but I knew of a Usenet post which had it), please note the article was written before the Xbox's GPU went from 250-300Mhz to 233 MHz:
"Having said all that, the Xbox GPU will be able, even at 250 MHz, to handle up to 125 million Gouraud-shaded, two-texture triangles per second, complete with transformation, clipping, and perspective projection. With one infinite hardware light added, the rate will be at least 62.5 Mtris/sec.; with eight local lights, at least 8 Mtris/sec."
Since the Xbox can handle over 1.5x the maximum polygons/second of the PS2, and we see that adding things such as light sources detracts majorly from that, do you honestly still believe the PS2 can hit 20M polygons/sec in-game with full effects when the obviously more powerful Xbox can't do it?
The question ins't when but if if will get released on the PC.
Microsoft promised the PC version of Halo, because it originally started as a Mac and PC game, and people were clamoring for it.
Microsoft has made no such promise for Halo 2, though.
And, it could be argued that Microsoft actually likes the fact that Halo PC seems more unrefined than the Xbox version of Halo, because it makes people want the Xbox version. Halo is the best selling Xbox game to date, at almost a 1:5 ratio of copies of Halo to Xboxes.
And, I agree, UT2004 has a great multiplayer mode, it is the main draw of the game. And I can always get into UT2004 multiplayer, but have a hard time getting into Halo (Xbox) multiplayer as much. Halo just moves too slow for multiplayer, and playing splitscreen (4-8 people on 2 Xboxes) just isn't as much fun as playing UT2004 multiplayer. Hell, I found splitscreen GoldenEye more fun than Halo's deathmatch.
Unless you dig up the entirety of the land to do it, it will be easy to find. Just look for the freshly dug hole. Walking 15 acres is easy enough in a day, and finding a frshly dug hole in normal land is also easy enough.
Going by other murmurings and apparent leaks, the Xbox 2 will be based around a customised 3.5 GHz Power PC CPU
Which means years before release, right now. IBM has hit a wall, for the time being, at 2.5 GHz, much like Intel has hit a similar wall at around 3.6 GHz.
Otherwise, we'd be seeing (or at least hearing about) the 3.0 GHz and 3.5 GHz G5's in Apple PowerMacs soon. And Jobs admitted that Apple and IBM weren't able to hit the 3.0 GHz mark on the G5 just yet back at the WWDC in June, even though both companies had hoped to have the 3.0 GHz G5's out in the PowerMacs before the WWDC.
Initial rumors about 3.5 GHz PowerPC chips are fine and dandy... but, as of right now, IBM simply can't produce them. If the Xbox 2 goes with the PowerPC architecture, it might be at the 2.0-possibly as high as 3.0 GHz mark, depending on the price of the chips and the rest of the system components.
In all the years I've lived in various states in this country, WA is the only state where I encountered "use tax".
New Jersey has it too, to a degree.
I live in South Jersey, 10 mins from Philly and 30 mins from Delaware. Delaware has no state sales tax.
New Jersey, however, would really prefer if you listed what you bought in Delaware, so they can tax you on it at the end of the year. Many people go down to Delaware for cigarettes, because NJ has a $1.50 tax on eaxh pack of cigs, plus the 6% sales tax on top of that new price of cigs with the $1.50 sales tax. Average cigarette prices in NJ are around $5 per pack; average cigarette prices in Delaware are around $3 per pack with no sales tax.
Just watch out if coming back over the Delaware Memorial Bridge with like 10 cartons of cigs and you get pulled over by the state police and have your vehicle searched... they find those cigs, you get taxed on them, and failure to pay the taxes on them ($1.50 + (6% of new price) per pack) is tax evasion.
Same thing if you go down to Delaware and buy expensive electronics and come back to NJ with it. If you get pulled over, and they find the stuff, they'll tax you on it.
Hell, I went to Delaware to buy my iBook, because by buying the laptop and bag and such in Delaware, I saved over $120 in NJ State Sales Tax. If I had been pulled over on the way home, and they found all that in the car, they would have made me pay the $120+.
It depends on how they are used in a game, honestly. If the second screen just gets regulated to maps and item screens, then yes. If the second screen is used for other things, especially relating to control, then it is innovative.
stereo - still havn't reached the 60 have we?
7.1 3d audio in a handheld - innovative
Well, Sony has not provided an optical out on the PSP, only stereo out. Also, 7.1 surround sound headphones, last time I checked, were around $300 per unit. Are you honestly going to spend around $300 for a pair of headphones for use on a handheld device?
"It's so innovative that I spent as much on my headphones as I spent on my PSP!"
Good logic.
more mario games - got any other charactors? or is the plumber the only one making you money
ports from PS2, and completely new 3D games with real content - innovative for Portables
I haven't seen much in the completely new category for either handheld... or is a Metal Gear game completely new? Or THPS for the PSP? Or Tiger Woods 2005? Or Gran Turismo?
If I want to play console games, I'll play them on my consoles on my HDTV, not on a handheld. If I want to play games on a handheld not available on my consoles, then I'll play them on a handheld.
2-10 hour battery life depending on use and programmer skills - so far, the PSP's only shortcoming
Price? The fact it looks to, so far, be around double the price of the DS isn't a shortcoming? What about the lack of screen protection on the PSP? Is a scratched and broken screen not a shortcomming? Size? The PSP will not easily fit in normal sized pockets. This isn't a shortcoming? Oh, wait, you can always carry your PSP around your neck on this innovative and oh-so-stylish lanyard made from hard plastic (two pics)...
Then there's the need to buy Sony Memory Sticks to save your progress in games. Added price for that should be listed as a shortcoming.
Wow, I found 4 additional shortcomings that you neglected, or were too ignorant to mention. And that isn't including the $300 7.1 headphones you'd need to get 7.1 surround sound out of the PSP.
Seems, to me, that there are more shortcomings for the PSP than you think there are.
There's just absolutely nothing that Sony can do about this.
Actually, you're wrong here. They could put more RAM into the PSP. They could put out devlopment kits that allow developers to try and use Sony Memory sticks as RAM or at least cache. They could spend a little extra on the drive for one with a lesser seek time (thus not requiring the disk to spin as much or the laser to move as much), like Nintendo did for the GameCube's speedy little disk drive. They could use a more powerful battery in the unit.
Or, they could try and not foot the blame for their own inability to come up with an estimate for battery life off onto the developers by making something that "just works," or allow themselves to actually have something they can be balmed for because they tried to cut corners on manufacturing prices to try and maximize profit off of the PSP.
This is just Sony's way of trying to say it isn't their fault if the PSP dies 10 minutes into a game; it has to be the fault of developers who didn't follow their guidelines for battery estimates that Sony can't even give yet.
I dunno about a new demo, but the old demo was somewhat choppy sometimes, especially in the Assault map it came with.
But, the full version runs fine (except I can't demorec) on my iBook (1 Ghz G4, 640 MB RAM, Radeon 9200 w/32MB VRAM), provided I just keep the detail settings low. But, I can run it at 1024x768 with workable framerates (25-40 fps), or at 800x600 with better framerates. And the demo ran smooth on a dual 1.8 GHz G5 I played it on before as well.
I really want to try UT2004 on a dual 2.5 GHz G5 with 8 GB RAM and a GeForce 6800 Ultra, though...
Oh, if you want to read a review of UT2004 on Mac, there's a few to read:
True. With the PSX DVR/PS2 combo they promised MP3 playback, but dropped that support, and didn't inrom potential customers until a mere 2 weeks before the Japanese launch.
1. The 84 MB is a self-extracting zip file. OS X users CAN download the exe, change it to a zip, open with Stuffit Expander (open with>stuffit expander, the default app will not open the file, so Stuffit must be used, this works, I am on OS X and have successfully installed the new updates), and manually move the content to their UT2004 app folders if they wish to do so before MacSoft gets around to releasing a Mac installer. Just don't move the DLL files (no need on Mac OS X) and you don;t have to worry about overwriting your user.ini.
I'm sure a similar Linux workaround can happen as well before the Linux version is released, but I don;t know exactly how it would work on Linux.
2. The ECE update does NOT contain any mods that will ship with the retail version; just the maps, models, vehicles and engine tweaks. If you want the mods that are shipping with the retail version you can download them from their respective sites:
Most of these mods come with installers (.exe), or are UT4 files (UMod), while I know Red Orchestra has a Mac OS X installer and others can be downloaded as zip archives for manual instilation for OS X and Linux users..
There is no mention of either EA Sports' NHL 2005 or Sega Sports' ESPN NHL 2K5 in the press release, and the image shown in the press release is from ESPN NHL 2K5, not EA's NHL 2005.
To simply assume that it is EA's game is wrong. The press release does not state which game is used, and they could use either/or or both games to get them done.
The only mention of EA Sports is in talking about their Madden Challenge. No hockey game is mentioned by name in the press release at all.
It's doubtful that it will $200 or less. $250 or more seems more likely, especially based on the fact that Sony has repeatedly stated they want to at least break even or even make a profit on the hardware sales of the PSP.
You do realize that Sony hasn't even had a prototype Cell chip made yet, right? And they don't expect the first prototype CHIPS to be ready until late this year or early next year.
Even considering they get the prototype chips ready by say November, they won't have final versions and manufacturing ready until early next year at the earliest, which means developers won't be able to get development kits until after that.
Sorry, there's no way in hell that sony is going to launch in 2005 with the PS3, provided it uses the Cell chip. Or, if it does, it'll have to survive for a good long time on PS2 games while developers learn the new chipset and architecture. In other words, if they launched at the end of 2005, their launch games would be worse than their PS2 launch games.
As for Nintendo, we don't know if they have sent out development kits or not, yet. They may have, but have the companies under a strict NDA until they unveil the console publically.
Slashdot Mirror
Which is why MS green lights all the projects that haven't turned a profit, ever, right?
And, if you took the 5 minutes to look, you'd see that Microsoft has NEVER made a profit from the Xbox, or its games. Since its launch, the Xbox has accounted for most of the Home and Entertainment Division's revenues... and yet, since the launch of the Xbox, Microsoft's Home and Entertainment Division has LOST over $2 billion.
Look it up on the SEC's webpage. Microsoft's quaterly reports are free and public knowledge. You'd be a little surprised, I think, to see that Microsoft has consitently lost over $100 million per quarter on the Home and Entertainment Division for quite some time now, with some quarters topping $300 million lost.
At the current rate, the current Xbox will not only never see a profit, but the Xbox 2 might not even recoup all the losses garnered from the Xbox and it's own losses in the beginning either (this being if, and only if, the Xbox 2 generates a profit during its life cycle).
But, do feel free to see the SEC's webpage to try and prove me wrong.
So Peter Molyneux isn't a developer? No one hypes up Lionhead games like Peter Molyneux... you know, the guy who is given the title "Lead Designer" on games like Fable and Black and White.
While what you say is often true, you can't always say it isn't developers hyping up their games early. Molyneux might have learned his lesson after hyping up TONS of features for over 3 years that were cut from the final release of Fable, but we'll have to see. And, although Molyneux is often one of the worst offenders of over-hyping his products, he certainly isn't the only developer to do so.
To each his own, though.
So thin, they've been non-existent for 2 years straight. Sony Corp., as a whole, has seen finacial losses, overall, for the past two fiscal years. The Games Division (PlayStation) was about the only thing profitable in the whole company, but not profitable enough to keep the rest of the company out of the red.
And, Sony saw a loss on the Games Division recently as well, thanks to lower than expected PS2 and PS2 game sales.
Thin profits isn't really the right wording...
There is a Krypt FAQ on GameFAQs that tells you what each tombstone in Deception has in it. Kitana, Kung Lao, and the others are not in the Krypt.
I beleive Mileena, Smoke, and maybe Kitana were all time released, only becoming available after the game had been on for a certain amount of time.
Noob Saibot was also a time released cxharacter in MK3, I beleive.
Other characters ended up being added to later versions of the games, like Johnny Cage in MK3.
You're talking fill rates while I'm talking the texturing and mapping abilities of the consoles.
The PS2 can't bump map well, can't mip map well, can't normal map at all, etc. When we talk of textures in games and such, it mainly involves the ability to use different maps and effects and such that allow for games to look better. The PS2, in this regard, simply can't handle it.
Actually, it's 4MB of VRAM, but that's compared to the gamecube's 1MB of VRAM.
So I overestimated the PS2's VRAM, but you are assuming the embedded RAM on the Flipper GPU is the only VRAM the GC has. The 1 MB you speak of is simply texture buffering RAM, embedded into the GPU, and is in addition to a 2 MB Z-buffer that is embedded into the GPU as well. Like the Xbox, though, the GC can use it's main system RAM for graphics as well.
Technically, the GC and Xbox have no dedicated VRAM set aside just for main graphics memory, the PS2 does, and only uses that VRAM for graphics, and doesn't utilize any of the rest of the system memory for graphics ability.
The gamecube's architecture allows it to get more "free" special effects, but the PS2 has much more raw power.
The GC has a faster CPU, faster GPU, and more main system RAM (which is also more efficient RAM than the PS2's).
Your source of IGN for the GC's max polygon perfomrance is the only site that seems to magically have the numbers that Nintendo has never released to the press, and game developers would have NDAs against giving it out unless Nintendo gave them out, so I call them more of IGN's bullshit.
And, as has been said before, raw power alone isn't enough. Somemone might be able to put a F-16's engine in a Pinto for tons of raw power, but it won't mean shit if the Pinto can't move under the weight of the engine.
And, as per your other comment: if you aren't a gamer, why are you so adamant about touting the PS2's raw power? It's been shown that the PS2 is the WEAKEST console in this gen many times over. Hell, AnadTech showed it before, as has Tom's Hardware, and other reputable sources; which I'll say I can trust more than you and your listening to IGN's magic numbers on things that have never been released to the press/public.
And the PS2 has practically no textruing capabilities, as well as a mere 8 MB of VRAM to work with.
Extra memory bandwidth and such don't mean shit when you can't texture your games worth a damn to allow for less polygons to be needed while still maintaining a great looking game, as well as only 8 MB of VRAM to work with.
I could put out a console that produces polygons like mad; but if I limit my video memory to a mere 8 MB, and don't build in texturing capabilities that are worthwhile (the good textured games on the PS2 are from developers fighting the system and figuring out how to get the textures despite Sony's design and lack of adequate documentation on how to do it), it won't matter. The other consoles that do have more VRAM and better texturing capabilities will just have their games look better, period.
Actually, the numbers were the GC at 15.5 million at the end of June, and the Xbox with 15.2 million shipped at July 22.
Thing is, Nintendo likes to talked sold through numbers, Microsoft and Sony only talk sold through numbers in North America through NPD, for Europe and Asia they only talk shipped units.
I think we all know that shipped != sold through.
For example, Microsoft claimed 1.5 million units shipped to Asia/Pacific by July 22. We all know the Xbox hasn't sold anywhere near 1.5 million through in the Asian market.
So, as for their units, Microsoft claims a total of 5.4 million units shipped between Europe and Asia... but, as I said and we all should know, shipped does not equal sold to customers.
Sony, as well, when they speak of the 70+ million units, mainly speaks shipped. Those units were 'sold' in so far as Sony sold them to retailers, but not all of those shipped by Sony have sold through to customers. Sony even put down that they have shipped more units to Europe than the NPD has estimated installed users in North America for the PS2 by ~840k units as of June 30, 2004.
Somehow I think it would be big news if Europe had sold through more PS2s than North America.
So, remember, when speaking of units sold, only Nintendo talks of sold through numbers (based off of market data, I assume), while for the most part, Sony and Microsoft tout shipped to retailers numbers, not sold through to customers. Touting shipped units makes them look better because the shipped numbers are always higher than sold through numbers.
Yes, they do, and quite often. Just go to FASA's page about Crimson Skies to see the info on the first patch that was released for Crimson Skies.
Street Fighter Vs. SNK 2 EO has also been patched, as has Unreal Championship, as has Links 2004, and many others (in fact, nearly every XBL game that supports downloadable content and online play has been patched).
Any time you log into Xbox Live from a game and you get a message that there is a "required download from Xbox Live in order to connect to Xbox Live", then you know it is a patch. Put in another XBL game and connect, and it should work fine to connect; it will only be the game(s) giving you the message that is (are) being patched.
So where are you getting the GC's max polygons/sec number? The only numbers officialy released, that I know of, are the ones touted for in-game numbers, not for max theoretical polygons/sec.
And, BTW, the PS2 can't come anywhere near 20M polygons/sec in-game, unless there are very few light sources, no physics, no Z-buffering, no gouraud shading, etc. At best, it comes to around 6M-12M polygons/sec in-game (at best, remember... with light sources, shading, physics, etc. it comes in lower than that, at between closer to 4M-8M polygons per second)... but it can't do the other effects the GC can do such as bump mapping and other effects which help the GameCube's games look much better than the PS2's games.
Even the Xbox won't hit 20M polygons/sec easily with full effects on; more like 8M- maybe 15M polygons/sec with full effects (simply adding 1 infinite hardware light source cuts the Xbox's 125M max polygons/sec rate by half).
Quote from,Mike Abrash, who helped design the Xbox (the former link seems to now need a subscription to see, but I knew of a Usenet post which had it), please note the article was written before the Xbox's GPU went from 250-300Mhz to 233 MHz:
"Having said all that, the Xbox GPU will be able, even at 250 MHz, to handle up to 125 million Gouraud-shaded, two-texture triangles per second, complete with transformation, clipping, and perspective projection. With one infinite hardware light added, the rate will be at least 62.5 Mtris/sec.; with eight local lights, at least 8 Mtris/sec."
Since the Xbox can handle over 1.5x the maximum polygons/second of the PS2, and we see that adding things such as light sources detracts majorly from that, do you honestly still believe the PS2 can hit 20M polygons/sec in-game with full effects when the obviously more powerful Xbox can't do it?
The question ins't when but if if will get released on the PC.
Microsoft promised the PC version of Halo, because it originally started as a Mac and PC game, and people were clamoring for it.
Microsoft has made no such promise for Halo 2, though.
And, it could be argued that Microsoft actually likes the fact that Halo PC seems more unrefined than the Xbox version of Halo, because it makes people want the Xbox version. Halo is the best selling Xbox game to date, at almost a 1:5 ratio of copies of Halo to Xboxes.
And, I agree, UT2004 has a great multiplayer mode, it is the main draw of the game. And I can always get into UT2004 multiplayer, but have a hard time getting into Halo (Xbox) multiplayer as much. Halo just moves too slow for multiplayer, and playing splitscreen (4-8 people on 2 Xboxes) just isn't as much fun as playing UT2004 multiplayer. Hell, I found splitscreen GoldenEye more fun than Halo's deathmatch.
Halo's co-op is fun as hell though.
A metal detector would work wonders as well.
Which means years before release, right now. IBM has hit a wall, for the time being, at 2.5 GHz, much like Intel has hit a similar wall at around 3.6 GHz.
Otherwise, we'd be seeing (or at least hearing about) the 3.0 GHz and 3.5 GHz G5's in Apple PowerMacs soon. And Jobs admitted that Apple and IBM weren't able to hit the 3.0 GHz mark on the G5 just yet back at the WWDC in June, even though both companies had hoped to have the 3.0 GHz G5's out in the PowerMacs before the WWDC.
Initial rumors about 3.5 GHz PowerPC chips are fine and dandy... but, as of right now, IBM simply can't produce them. If the Xbox 2 goes with the PowerPC architecture, it might be at the 2.0-possibly as high as 3.0 GHz mark, depending on the price of the chips and the rest of the system components.
New Jersey has it too, to a degree.
I live in South Jersey, 10 mins from Philly and 30 mins from Delaware. Delaware has no state sales tax.
New Jersey, however, would really prefer if you listed what you bought in Delaware, so they can tax you on it at the end of the year. Many people go down to Delaware for cigarettes, because NJ has a $1.50 tax on eaxh pack of cigs, plus the 6% sales tax on top of that new price of cigs with the $1.50 sales tax. Average cigarette prices in NJ are around $5 per pack; average cigarette prices in Delaware are around $3 per pack with no sales tax.
Just watch out if coming back over the Delaware Memorial Bridge with like 10 cartons of cigs and you get pulled over by the state police and have your vehicle searched... they find those cigs, you get taxed on them, and failure to pay the taxes on them ($1.50 + (6% of new price) per pack) is tax evasion.
Same thing if you go down to Delaware and buy expensive electronics and come back to NJ with it. If you get pulled over, and they find the stuff, they'll tax you on it.
Hell, I went to Delaware to buy my iBook, because by buying the laptop and bag and such in Delaware, I saved over $120 in NJ State Sales Tax. If I had been pulled over on the way home, and they found all that in the car, they would have made me pay the $120+.
It depends on how they are used in a game, honestly. If the second screen just gets regulated to maps and item screens, then yes. If the second screen is used for other things, especially relating to control, then it is innovative.
1.8GB DVD in a handheld - innovative
Easily scratched, longer load times, skipping problems, drains battery faster. Where's the innovation there?
stereo - still havn't reached the 60 have we?
7.1 3d audio in a handheld - innovative
Well, Sony has not provided an optical out on the PSP, only stereo out. Also, 7.1 surround sound headphones, last time I checked, were around $300 per unit. Are you honestly going to spend around $300 for a pair of headphones for use on a handheld device?
"It's so innovative that I spent as much on my headphones as I spent on my PSP!"
Good logic.
more mario games - got any other charactors? or is the plumber the only one making you money
ports from PS2, and completely new 3D games with real content - innovative for Portables
I haven't seen much in the completely new category for either handheld... or is a Metal Gear game completely new? Or THPS for the PSP? Or Tiger Woods 2005? Or Gran Turismo?
If I want to play console games, I'll play them on my consoles on my HDTV, not on a handheld. If I want to play games on a handheld not available on my consoles, then I'll play them on a handheld.
2-10 hour battery life depending on use and programmer skills - so far, the PSP's only shortcoming
Price? The fact it looks to, so far, be around double the price of the DS isn't a shortcoming? What about the lack of screen protection on the PSP? Is a scratched and broken screen not a shortcomming? Size? The PSP will not easily fit in normal sized pockets. This isn't a shortcoming? Oh, wait, you can always carry your PSP around your neck on this innovative and oh-so-stylish lanyard made from hard plastic (two pics)...
Then there's the need to buy Sony Memory Sticks to save your progress in games. Added price for that should be listed as a shortcoming.
Wow, I found 4 additional shortcomings that you neglected, or were too ignorant to mention. And that isn't including the $300 7.1 headphones you'd need to get 7.1 surround sound out of the PSP.
Seems, to me, that there are more shortcomings for the PSP than you think there are.
Actually, you're wrong here. They could put more RAM into the PSP. They could put out devlopment kits that allow developers to try and use Sony Memory sticks as RAM or at least cache. They could spend a little extra on the drive for one with a lesser seek time (thus not requiring the disk to spin as much or the laser to move as much), like Nintendo did for the GameCube's speedy little disk drive. They could use a more powerful battery in the unit.
Or, they could try and not foot the blame for their own inability to come up with an estimate for battery life off onto the developers by making something that "just works," or allow themselves to actually have something they can be balmed for because they tried to cut corners on manufacturing prices to try and maximize profit off of the PSP.
This is just Sony's way of trying to say it isn't their fault if the PSP dies 10 minutes into a game; it has to be the fault of developers who didn't follow their guidelines for battery estimates that Sony can't even give yet.
But, the full version runs fine (except I can't demorec) on my iBook (1 Ghz G4, 640 MB RAM, Radeon 9200 w/32MB VRAM), provided I just keep the detail settings low. But, I can run it at 1024x768 with workable framerates (25-40 fps), or at 800x600 with better framerates. And the demo ran smooth on a dual 1.8 GHz G5 I played it on before as well.
I really want to try UT2004 on a dual 2.5 GHz G5 with 8 GB RAM and a GeForce 6800 Ultra, though...
Oh, if you want to read a review of UT2004 on Mac, there's a few to read:
GamesAreFun (yeah, I wrote it, so I get to plug myself)
Inside Mac Games
Applelinks
And others like GameSpy and such.
So, like you, I'll beleive it when I see it.
Macs, graphic designers... Epic... HELLO MCFLY!!!
I'm sure a similar Linux workaround can happen as well before the Linux version is released, but I don;t know exactly how it would work on Linux.
2. The ECE update does NOT contain any mods that will ship with the retail version; just the maps, models, vehicles and engine tweaks. If you want the mods that are shipping with the retail version you can download them from their respective sites:
Air Buccaneers
Alien Swarm
Chaos UT2
Clone Bandits
Deathball
Domain 2049
Frag.Ops
Jailbreak
Red Orchestra
UnWheel
Most of these mods come with installers (.exe), or are UT4 files (UMod), while I know Red Orchestra has a Mac OS X installer and others can be downloaded as zip archives for manual instilation for OS X and Linux users..
To simply assume that it is EA's game is wrong. The press release does not state which game is used, and they could use either/or or both games to get them done.
The only mention of EA Sports is in talking about their Madden Challenge. No hockey game is mentioned by name in the press release at all.
Even considering they get the prototype chips ready by say November, they won't have final versions and manufacturing ready until early next year at the earliest, which means developers won't be able to get development kits until after that.
Sorry, there's no way in hell that sony is going to launch in 2005 with the PS3, provided it uses the Cell chip. Or, if it does, it'll have to survive for a good long time on PS2 games while developers learn the new chipset and architecture. In other words, if they launched at the end of 2005, their launch games would be worse than their PS2 launch games.
As for Nintendo, we don't know if they have sent out development kits or not, yet. They may have, but have the companies under a strict NDA until they unveil the console publically.
Great, now the G5 has been infected... now no one is safe...