In the US, PC games still come on CDs. There are a few games that have CD and DVD versions in seperate boxes, but not too many DVD only games.
Of course, the games span on more than one disc, which is less annoying when you install it on a hard drive then on a console where you'd have to get up to change discs.
I still don't know why they do that. Are there really people who have the hardware necessary to play the latest games, but without a DVD-ROM drive? What're they now, $15? I guess the answer has to be yes, or companies would start releasing games only on DVD.
Watching the fight break out when the iPod gets stuck in the vending machine and thirty people claim they were the one who put the money in. Hey, free entertainment!
Yeah, but who has the room for that kind of setup? (let me guess, you) A case that has the mobo vertical takes up quite a bit less room than just spreading it on the ground.
Also, if you ever take your computer outside to a LAN party or something, it'd be much harder to carry.
One more thing- What keeps your PCI cards firmly in place?
Reviews at least help in that regard. Unfortunately, a lot of buyer reviews are two word "It's good" type things, but there are some good ones out there. if you're lucky, there'll be at least one professional review of the case you're thinking about buying. (Of course, anyone could put up a webpage with case reviews, so you have to take those with a grain of salt, too).
Ah, but is Live Anywhere really that much better than the way PC gamers have been playing multiplayer for years? Does it have to be a requirement?
Granted, if the market was split between LA and regular servers, LA might not work that well because so few would be using it, but it seems like a solution in search of a problem.
Wait, will LA have a yearly fee like regular Live? If so, it's all starting to make sense.
Is there any reason for such a requirement other than forcing people who want to play Halo 2 on PC to get Vista? Might as well require people to get Office while you're at it!
Looks like they've seperated game videos from demos. No more looking at the listing for a game and thinking "Hmm, 3 downloads, that's probably a 480p video, 720p video, and a demo, but there's only one way to find out"
Also, you can choose to have it boot to the dashboard instead of loading the game automatically. Great for those of us who paid $400 for "next gen grafx, d00d" but got addicted to Xbox Live Arcade games
Speaking of XBL Arcade, it's not mentioned in the article, but I hope they fix that interface. When you go to the menu, it takes like 15 seconds to count all the arcade games you have downloaded and to show you the one you last played, which makes the "last played" timesaver useless. Oddly, if you go to the list of arcade games you downloaded it shows you no problem, so I don't know what'w up with that.
In 2000, everybody wanted a PS2 even though it didn't have any real "must have" games. That might have been because of DVD (but DVD in 2000 was a lot more popular with the mainstream than Blu-Ray in 2006) Or, it might have just been the next "must have" item and people wanted it because people who had one were "cool"
Granted I don't have my finger on the pulse of the entire world, but the people I hang around have nothing but bad stuff to say about the PS3.
Sorry the market's so fickle, Sony, but 2001's "xbox is heavy" and "Gamecube is for kiddies" is this year's "PS3 is expensive"
Come on, it's not like you'd actually get arrested for ripping your own movies for "personal" use.
Oh shit! They have my IP! What I meant to say was 5 years, $250,000, etc. etc. etc. Oh, and the views expressed in the commentaries do not reflect the views of Fox.
Yeah, but the thing is, you have to plan ahead. If you might get a HDTV with HDMI in the next year or two, should you go for the $600 PS3 knowing that there's no way to upgrade the $500, or get the $500 one and hope you never want/need to use HDMI?
It'ss hard to buy a cheaper system knowing you'll never be able to upgrade part of it. That's why a lot of people see $600 as the real price even if there is a very capable system for $500.
How do the three options "unlikely" "indifferent", and "likely" make any sense?
Sure, if you were avoiding games with ads altogether, "unlikely" might be an option. Or maybe it just means that a lot of games don't have ads in the first place so you're unlikely to play a game that has ads.
Does "likely" really mean that you'd specifically seek out games with ads, or that you play a lot of games and are likely to run into a couple that have ads?
As for "indifferent", why is that a choice? How does the fact that you don't care either way about ads have anything to do with the fact that you're likely or unlikely to play a game with ads? It's not like games have a switch, "ads" or "no ads". You play whichever game you want to, and if it happens to have ads, you're "likely" to play a game with ads!
Then again, if enough HDMI-less players/TVs are bought, that 'feature' may never be enabled. Still, I think you'd have to be living in a fantasy world to think that no movie would ever have it enabled.
Because if the author of the disc enables it, HDMI would be the only way to get a full HD resolution picture; the analog outputs would output a much lower resolution.
Of course, there may be some way to hack it or something, but I wouldn't know about that.
Honestly, I have no idea about the status of importing PS2/1 game saves to the PS3. The card reader included in the 60GB PS3 has support for Memory Stick, Compact Flash, and SD, but not mention of PS2/1 cards.
Somebody'll probably make a USB accessory or something that accepts older memory cards, but the card reader in the 60GB version isn't it.
Although, I suppose it is always nice to get confirmation, didn't we know this stuff already?
Wi-Fi- Even if there was no sony specific adapter, you could always use an Ethernet bridge.
Card reader: I suppose it is nice to hear confirmation on this one. Still, it's not something I'd use that often.
Hard drive: Wasn't this announced to be removable a while ago? And if it's removable, you can be damn sure that Sony will let you spend more money than a hard drive actually costs to upgrade it.
HDMI: What's this about "mostly upgradable"? Maybe it's just me, but of the features on the $500 PS3 that're missing, this is by far the most important one. Granted, the studios don't seem to be using HDCP at the moment, but if they do eventually, you're screwed. Hello near SD resolution without buying a whole new player.
Yeah, but patterns have to change sometime, right? Every single Playstation launched at $300 until the PS3. (Granted, Nintendo has 4 data points while Sony only has 2)
They're going in a completely different direction than everyone else this time. Who's to say they'll keep the same old price point? (Then again, $200 would be way different from 'everyone else')
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I have no way of forming a coherent argument.
If true, I think it has more to do with the fact that the PSP and PS3 were billed as "OMG HIGH TECH1111" while Nintendo won't even tell us what the specs of the Wii actually are, and the rumors are that it's not incredibly powerful.
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Of course, the games span on more than one disc, which is less annoying when you install it on a hard drive then on a console where you'd have to get up to change discs.
I still don't know why they do that. Are there really people who have the hardware necessary to play the latest games, but without a DVD-ROM drive? What're they now, $15? I guess the answer has to be yes, or companies would start releasing games only on DVD.
Watching the fight break out when the iPod gets stuck in the vending machine and thirty people claim they were the one who put the money in. Hey, free entertainment!
Also, if you ever take your computer outside to a LAN party or something, it'd be much harder to carry.
One more thing- What keeps your PCI cards firmly in place?
Reviews at least help in that regard. Unfortunately, a lot of buyer reviews are two word "It's good" type things, but there are some good ones out there. if you're lucky, there'll be at least one professional review of the case you're thinking about buying. (Of course, anyone could put up a webpage with case reviews, so you have to take those with a grain of salt, too).
They have flashy lights and windows! That's all that matters, right, guys?
That strip would have been 13.4 times funnier if the guy was sidetalkin' on his brand new N-Gage.
Granted, if the market was split between LA and regular servers, LA might not work that well because so few would be using it, but it seems like a solution in search of a problem.
Wait, will LA have a yearly fee like regular Live? If so, it's all starting to make sense.
Oh dear, I just gave them an idea.
Also, you can choose to have it boot to the dashboard instead of loading the game automatically. Great for those of us who paid $400 for "next gen grafx, d00d" but got addicted to Xbox Live Arcade games
Speaking of XBL Arcade, it's not mentioned in the article, but I hope they fix that interface. When you go to the menu, it takes like 15 seconds to count all the arcade games you have downloaded and to show you the one you last played, which makes the "last played" timesaver useless. Oddly, if you go to the list of arcade games you downloaded it shows you no problem, so I don't know what'w up with that.
Guess I'll just have to keep checking every five minutes.
In addition to cheaters, it's fun to have to wait 30 seconds for it to find a new houst every time the guy who's hosting decides to quit.
Granted I don't have my finger on the pulse of the entire world, but the people I hang around have nothing but bad stuff to say about the PS3. Sorry the market's so fickle, Sony, but 2001's "xbox is heavy" and "Gamecube is for kiddies" is this year's "PS3 is expensive"
Oh shit! They have my IP! What I meant to say was 5 years, $250,000, etc. etc. etc. Oh, and the views expressed in the commentaries do not reflect the views of Fox.
It'ss hard to buy a cheaper system knowing you'll never be able to upgrade part of it. That's why a lot of people see $600 as the real price even if there is a very capable system for $500.
Sure, if you were avoiding games with ads altogether, "unlikely" might be an option. Or maybe it just means that a lot of games don't have ads in the first place so you're unlikely to play a game that has ads.
Does "likely" really mean that you'd specifically seek out games with ads, or that you play a lot of games and are likely to run into a couple that have ads?
As for "indifferent", why is that a choice? How does the fact that you don't care either way about ads have anything to do with the fact that you're likely or unlikely to play a game with ads? It's not like games have a switch, "ads" or "no ads". You play whichever game you want to, and if it happens to have ads, you're "likely" to play a game with ads!
Then again, if enough HDMI-less players/TVs are bought, that 'feature' may never be enabled. Still, I think you'd have to be living in a fantasy world to think that no movie would ever have it enabled.
Of course, there may be some way to hack it or something, but I wouldn't know about that.
Somebody'll probably make a USB accessory or something that accepts older memory cards, but the card reader in the 60GB version isn't it.
Wi-Fi- Even if there was no sony specific adapter, you could always use an Ethernet bridge.
Card reader: I suppose it is nice to hear confirmation on this one. Still, it's not something I'd use that often.
Hard drive: Wasn't this announced to be removable a while ago? And if it's removable, you can be damn sure that Sony will let you spend more money than a hard drive actually costs to upgrade it.
HDMI: What's this about "mostly upgradable"? Maybe it's just me, but of the features on the $500 PS3 that're missing, this is by far the most important one. Granted, the studios don't seem to be using HDCP at the moment, but if they do eventually, you're screwed. Hello near SD resolution without buying a whole new player.
They're going in a completely different direction than everyone else this time. Who's to say they'll keep the same old price point? (Then again, $200 would be way different from 'everyone else')
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I have no way of forming a coherent argument.
If true, I think it has more to do with the fact that the PSP and PS3 were billed as "OMG HIGH TECH1111" while Nintendo won't even tell us what the specs of the Wii actually are, and the rumors are that it's not incredibly powerful.
If i had a nickel for every time an analyst made a prediction that turned out to be incorrect, I'd have the $200 necessary to buy the Wii!
Look at the big brain on Brad!
It didn't happen.
Hell, for $600, it should come with a blowjob machine.