Hell Sony didn't give anyone development hardware until 1 month ago.
Even if this were true (which I find no indication of), that doesn't mean anything about how games are being developed for the system. Since it's so close to the PS2 architecture, Sony can just give specs and prototypes can be made on existing devkits.
I don't buy that... The DS is basically a couple of GBA type screens, and a couple of GBA type processors. I get the feeling that they got word of PSP (word was out quite a while ago) and decided to cobble something together from the parts rack.
So let me get this, you think that if they had a longer battery life, they wouldn't have bothered with a battery emulator? If through a little careful programming you can half your power consumption, why not do it, whether you're talking 2 hours or 50?
HD-DVD _has_ more space, it's more than three times the capacity per-layer as current dvd (15GB). Blu-Ray is bigger again, but not by such a margin (25GB).
You might be right, ISS is currently at about ~210km altitude, and these guys made it up to 115 or so. Maybe someone more qualified can give us approximate energy requirements to make up that difference...
Isn't the idea for a video game system (to developers) is to make it as easy and efficient as possible to make games?
Efficient maybe, but definitely not easy. The idea is to make as many people buy it as possible, and then developers will just use it (PS2). Sure, ease of use may help, but it's never been a primary concern.
Oh, umm, maybe it's a harware and software problem. And maybe it's not a problem at all. Also, can you explain to me how a discman with one or two AA's can run for 50 hours, but this is going to be so much worse? Surely you must have some facts about how a 'simple spindle can drain a battery'.
Everyone seems to be forgetting that we have CD players that can play for 50+ hours on a set of batteries, and a CD likely requires more energy to spin. If you want to stream data, there's usually no need to do it at maximum speed, so developers are probably just going to have to change the speed to maximise battery life.
I suppose you could do this, but usually you'd translate code when you need to run it, so the other CPU would have to wait anyway. The other (and probably better) option is to do all the translation at load time, and just cache it on the mass storage (assuming it exists).
The question is not how cheap the actual processor is, but how expensive it would be to integrate it into the system. PS2 does a huge hackjob of this with the PS1 processor, and it's much, much simpler than xbox.
You are overrating the hardware similarities. I work on cross platform titles, and so little of the code is hardware specific, much more depends on the platform specific software (Win32, DirectX, Sony libs).
It'll still be easier to port a Win32/DirectX application from x86 windows to xbox than from osx/ppc. Considering the whole XNA thing, it also looks like they are going to be making it even easier.
Test drive 3 did this on a smaller scale, I really liked it. The race just had a destination and you could navigate yourself there using a highway map they provided.
It's not fractured or patchwork, because it's all built on top of the internet. Sure it's not available in all areas, but neither is mobile phone service, and around here it's easier to get internet access than a signal on your phone.
Having written network code for PS2, I'm going to say they just blew it. The processing time/memory required to play online are a pretty minimal increase over playing the same sort of race offline, plus you can probably dump a lot of the AI (except for prediction). They should have also budgeted for these things during pre-production.
I recently moved to an area where I can no longer get service for my GSM mobile phone, but I'm not going to go around saying that the world isn't ready for mobile phones...
Personally, I'm ready for on-demand content. I have high-speed internet access, and the nearest place that has a good selection of games to buy is like an hour away. So I can either drive an hour to find out that everywhere is sold out (Fable), or didn't get the game in the first place (Gradius), or I can just download the game to my phantom and play it.
Infinium might not be the company to bring it to me, but I know I'm ready for this sort of system.
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anybody can whip up in 5 minutes
What on earth makes you think this? Seriously, I don't even know what to say to that.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=14407
It's not final stuff, obviously, but as long as the software interfaces are reasonably stable, there's no problem.
That doesn't mean anything. People have Xbox2 development hardware right now, but it hasn't been 'unveiled' yet.
Hell Sony didn't give anyone development hardware until 1 month ago.
Even if this were true (which I find no indication of), that doesn't mean anything about how games are being developed for the system. Since it's so close to the PS2 architecture, Sony can just give specs and prototypes can be made on existing devkits.
I see, so this 90 minute thing is actually a _rumour_ from an analyst, not even a developer.
I don't buy that... The DS is basically a couple of GBA type screens, and a couple of GBA type processors. I get the feeling that they got word of PSP (word was out quite a while ago) and decided to cobble something together from the parts rack.
Link?
So let me get this, you think that if they had a longer battery life, they wouldn't have bothered with a battery emulator? If through a little careful programming you can half your power consumption, why not do it, whether you're talking 2 hours or 50?
HD-DVD _has_ more space, it's more than three times the capacity per-layer as current dvd (15GB). Blu-Ray is bigger again, but not by such a margin (25GB).
You might be right, ISS is currently at about ~210km altitude, and these guys made it up to 115 or so. Maybe someone more qualified can give us approximate energy requirements to make up that difference...
Isn't the idea for a video game system (to developers) is to make it as easy and efficient as possible to make games?
Efficient maybe, but definitely not easy. The idea is to make as many people buy it as possible, and then developers will just use it (PS2). Sure, ease of use may help, but it's never been a primary concern.
Actually people on this site talk a lot more about how they are superior to people who actually care about fancy graphics and sound.
Oh, umm, maybe it's a harware and software problem. And maybe it's not a problem at all. Also, can you explain to me how a discman with one or two AA's can run for 50 hours, but this is going to be so much worse? Surely you must have some facts about how a 'simple spindle can drain a battery'.
Everyone seems to be forgetting that we have CD players that can play for 50+ hours on a set of batteries, and a CD likely requires more energy to spin. If you want to stream data, there's usually no need to do it at maximum speed, so developers are probably just going to have to change the speed to maximise battery life.
Wow, what a comprehensive argument, I'm so glad I got to read that. It's not as if discman, or minidisc ever worked.
I suppose you could do this, but usually you'd translate code when you need to run it, so the other CPU would have to wait anyway. The other (and probably better) option is to do all the translation at load time, and just cache it on the mass storage (assuming it exists).
The question is not how cheap the actual processor is, but how expensive it would be to integrate it into the system. PS2 does a huge hackjob of this with the PS1 processor, and it's much, much simpler than xbox.
Why do you think that? How are multiple processors going to significantly help emulation of a single processor?
You are overrating the hardware similarities. I work on cross platform titles, and so little of the code is hardware specific, much more depends on the platform specific software (Win32, DirectX, Sony libs).
It'll still be easier to port a Win32/DirectX application from x86 windows to xbox than from osx/ppc. Considering the whole XNA thing, it also looks like they are going to be making it even easier.
Test drive 3 did this on a smaller scale, I really liked it. The race just had a destination and you could navigate yourself there using a highway map they provided.
It's not fractured or patchwork, because it's all built on top of the internet. Sure it's not available in all areas, but neither is mobile phone service, and around here it's easier to get internet access than a signal on your phone.
Having written network code for PS2, I'm going to say they just blew it. The processing time/memory required to play online are a pretty minimal increase over playing the same sort of race offline, plus you can probably dump a lot of the AI (except for prediction). They should have also budgeted for these things during pre-production.
More competitive? Like Basketball would be more competitive with jet-packs???
How about the fact that people can sit down on the couch and comfortably use a gamepad without being totally outclassed by people using mice?
I recently moved to an area where I can no longer get service for my GSM mobile phone, but I'm not going to go around saying that the world isn't ready for mobile phones...
Personally, I'm ready for on-demand content. I have high-speed internet access, and the nearest place that has a good selection of games to buy is like an hour away. So I can either drive an hour to find out that everywhere is sold out (Fable), or didn't get the game in the first place (Gradius), or I can just download the game to my phantom and play it.
Infinium might not be the company to bring it to me, but I know I'm ready for this sort of system.
But don't point that out, because then you're off topic. :)