Doom 3 on the Xbox is considered a near-perfect port. Aren't you overestimating PC hardware superiority of the current consoles by just a tad?
You keep comparing the consoles to the PC graphics cards. Despite the fact that the same manufacturer produces very similar components, the output will not be the same. If the Xbox, a considerably old piece of gaming hardware, can play Doom 3 at the same level as a modern high-end PC, and equivalent PC hardware from the launch of the Xbox was just then starting to run games running on the Quake 3 engine, it's pretty reasonable to assume that PS3's graphics will be significantly superior to anything that you have seen to date.
The PS2, despite being hyped beyond all realistic boundaries, was lightyears ahead of the N64 (not to mention the PS1). The PS1 was lightyears ahead of the Super Nintendo. The Super Nintento was lightyears ahead of the original Nintendo.
It seems to me that you're going on the assumption that, for whatever reason, increases in graphical output of both hardware and software slowed down to a crawl in the last 5 years. Why do you think like this? All hype issues aside, why is it unrealistic to assume that, given previous generational advancements in gaming hardware, this one will see equivalent advancement?
They've actually said that the PS3's graphics chip is TWICE as powerful as the current top-of-the-line Nvidia card.
It's also worth noting that your example, Far Cry, was released in 2004 to run on hardware that was top of the line in 2003. PS3 is shipping in 2006, and when it does it's hardware capability will be superior to whatever the then-current retail PC hardware will be. The graphical capabilities you are comparing are 3 years apart. Is it honestly that surpsising that Far Cry would look "an order of magnitude worse", as you say, than a demo of an as-yet unreleased game on a piece of hardware that doesn't even completely exist yet in it's final form because of ongoing development?
Another thing worth noting when you compare PC to consoles, which you seem to be doing here instead of comparing the PS3 to the PS2 (something you SHOULD be doing) is that a significant percentagy of PC horsepower is spent on such resource-hogging applications as the Windows operating system and all the background services which are involved in that. You cannot compare PCs to consoles on specs alone, as more of the consoles' hardware is utilized in running the game. Even with comparable hardware, the console will still outperform the PC by a significant margin.
How does it look too good? Look at the previous evolutions of console generations. You expect there to be no significant improvement this time around? Based on what? The fact that PC games are currently not capable of this? One of the top graphical-intensive PC games, Doom 3, is running flawlessly on the Xbox, a 5 year old piece of hardware.
The GT video you speak of looks EXACTLY like the graphical evolution that one would expect between consoles released 6 years apart.
The Grand Canyon looks in no way more impressive than the real-time demo showcased of this system generating 3D terrain on the fly from satellite and topographical demo.
There is motion blur (often optional) in most racing games released in the last several years, see videos of the Need for Speed: Underground franchise for examples.
Focus depth has been shown in replay footage of racing games for a decade. The camera tracking, zooming, and focus in the footage you refer to are common in most modern racing games.
Why would there not be impressive lighting effects? What exactly would limit this? They have lighting effects of nearly this caliber on the PS2 and Xbox, systems that are 6 years old now.
Why would there not be realistic trees? If it can be done in CG with limited amount of effort, it can surely be done on this new system. All it requires is a well-modeled tree. Even current generation consoles have some games with trees far more realistic than anything on the PC.
Why would the pit stops not have tons of guys running around? Look at any game that features many well-animated characters on the screen. The most basic example would be one of the football videogames. Why would it be out of the question that this pre-scripted animation of each character be transported out of a sports stadium environment and into a race track pit environment? If you refer to numbers of characters, why is it out of the question that this system, which is SEVERAL TIMES more advanced that it's predecessor, would be unable to double, tripple, or quadruple the character count on screen while at the same time also significantly increasing each of their polygon counts?
There are only two reasons I can imagine why you would suggest that it looks "too" good: 1) You have not been following the evolution of gaming consoles in the past, or noted the significant differences they had (the improvements have always been incredibly significant); or 2) You have not played any of the top current console games at any great length.
That sounds exactly like the wildly uninformed speculation that surrounded the Xbox's launch. It didn't happen then, it won't happen now. Microsoft has a seperate "media center" division with their own software and devices. It will never be put onto the Xbox 360. Doing so would not only be a lousy marketing decision, but it would undermine a part of their own company's efforts.
Oh, and just to repeat myself for clarity, this was already speculated years ago.
Sony and MS support high definidion TVs because, if they don't, their consoles will not function in 10 years. Your analogy is poor.
And most PC games will not sell on consoles. There are plenty of PC ports already, they are not big sellers. Games that sell are games that people want to play in a living room. Living room means sitting on a couch (do you intend on balancing your keyboard and mouse on your testicles?), it means having other people watching you play or joining in. All those PC games you mentioned are not in any way suited for this type of gaming environment, and to pull the console out of this environment would undermine the console's marketing and target demographics.
Just because you and a bunch of other people want this to happen doesn't mean that it should, or that it would be a good business deicision.
The audience of PC games is very small. And as you get into more fetishist sub-genres of PC gaming, like god games and things of that nature, the demographic only decreases. Why would they spend money researching and developing these hardware add-ons that only the vast minority wants?
Consoles are designed, in every way, to be a living room entertainment center. Microsoft was smart enough to figure that out and turned the Xbox into a real game console. I still remember all the press and rumors that it would be a cheap little PC, and how strongly Microsoft reps denied it. Why would they do that? Whatever your opinion is, they had well-researched reasons for doing that, for going so far out of their way to not market the console as a cheap gaming-only PC.
I doubt there are many people out there who are anally-retentive enough to keep track of and publish up-to-date data on this. One of the most recent articles on the matter from a reputable source that I found after a 2 minute Google search (which you are more than capable of performing yourself) states that, as of 2002, Microsoft is losing anywhere from $20 to $150 per unit. And this was for when the system cost $299. It currently retails for $149.
While they did not say it is real-time or not, as far as Killzone is concerned, the PS3 seems more than capable of making a game look like this. The only issue I have with how the clip is presented is that it's a hell of a lot more "cinematic" than what actual gameplay would look like. I don't care if you script the hell out of everything that happens on the screen, it will still not end up looking like you're inside a CG "movie". It probably WILL look like a CG movie from a graphical standpoint, but not from the presentation.
At the press-conference, several real-time demos were screened. One of the most impressive was probably the boxing game that EA demoed. The character detail and animation looked absolutely staggering. It honestly looked like state-of-the-art CG of the Final Fantasy: The Movie variety. Like Killzone, it too featured an exagerated cinematic camera to showcase the game, but the game was completely controlled by the guy on the stage. He actually was playing it. They merely programmed the camera to zoom in on faces and really show off the graphics.
There is not a huge PC gamer community. PC game sales are a tiny fraction of the overall industry.
However, you're asking why would people stick with PCs and not consoles? Because PCs have different types of games on them than consoles. Although the console world has seen a significant explosion of first person shooters coming out left and right, these games are, for the most part, not quite suited for console gaming. Additionally, you won't find many games along the lines of Civilization on the consoles. So, I guess my point is that PC gaming and console gaming targets different demographics. This is why the MUCH cheaper cost of being a console gamer isn't enough of an incentive to outright "switch" and abandon PC gaming. And, this doesn't even take into account the fact that most people already have a PC in their house to begin with, so it wouldn't be much of a switch but rather ignoring one device that they already own for another.
PC hardware prices will not match console hardware prices for MANY YEARS after the console's release. Even today, if all the hardware in the Xbox was put into a regular PC case, that would still run you several hundred dollars at the least. Meanwhile, the Xbox current costs a measely $150. The kicker here is that it costs $150 to YOU. To Microsoft, it costs a hell of a lot more. The system hardware sales are sold as a loss to the company because profits in the console industry come from game licensing and sales. From each game sold, no matter who released it, Microsoft sees some money. So, it's an incentive to get the hardware into as many homes as possible.
And, by the way, for this same reason you should not pay attention to any of the wildly uninformed price speculations computer geeks will spew about these new console prices. If either the Xbox 360 or the PS3 costs anywhere above $299 when it comes out, expect a significant consumer backlash. The PS2 and the original Xbox were just as technologically impressive for their time as these successors are, and their final retail price remained very competitive. There will be no change in that because this is simply how this industry works. They're not in the hardware-selling business, they're in the game-selling business. Selling the hardware is merely a facilitator.
So, no. PC hardware prices will not come down. Not because of these consoles.
Ok, you're still missing the point of the original poster here. It doesn't seem to me like he was talking about graphics, and I certainly wasn't talking about graphics. My point was in the presentation of the game, particularly relating to the animation. As another poster pointed out elsewhere in these threads, it would be a lot more interesting if, instead of monsters strafing around or crouching behind boxes, they would leap over them in fluid motion or jump at the walls and scurry across them towards you. Most FPS games don't have anything even close to this, and are as visually impressive in these terms as FPS games of 10 years ago. Animation-wise, FPS games are some of the most primitive genres around.
Hopefully you understand now why I was referring to video clips of the latest Prince of Persia games, and if you don't, watch them and then you'll figure out what I'm talking about.
And, just to re-iterate, this has very little to do with graphical special effects. You seem to be confusing animation with graphics. Animation is not useless eye-candy. It is invaluable to the gameplaying atmosphere and entertainment.
You're changing the debate towards the issue of "performance". The original poster mentioned nothing about this. Besides, aside from the needs of more elaborate graphical effects which you're bringing up, more fluid animation is not much of a system drain.
What a spectacularly utilitarian opinion! It doesn't add things to the gameplay, but it adds things to the EXPERIENCE of playing the game. If you haven't seen a well-presented game like the newest Prince of Persia in action, go download some video clips and tell me that the pretty animatioin doesn't add to the experience.
I would be amused if, when it comes to films, you had the same attitude about the special effects, saying, "I don't care if it looks really cheap and amateurish, eye candy add nothing to the plot." While that may be true in some sense, the overall experience of a movie like Spider-Man would be ruined if the character's flight through the city looked like an action sequence from the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.
You have no kids? Gee, why doesn't that surprise me after reading your anti-censorship rant?
And, as is clearly labeled on MPAA's ratings logos: R -- Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian. NC-17 -- No one 17 and under admitted.
If it was really a blood bath, it would be rated R. There's probably not gonna be anything more violent here than what we saw in Spider-Man 2.
On the other hand, I think the previous two Star Wars movies have been some of the most violent PG-rated films since the introduction of the PG-13 rating in the 80s. So, if MPAA is continuing to rate Star Wars on a curve just because it's targetted at children, maybe my original analogy is wrong after all.
I'm with you on that. I had a really pedestrian opinion while watching the movie. Not impressive in the slightest, the most jarring thing to me being that the sets look like they were made for television.
The one thing the trailer did have that I enjoyed was the cool look of the spaceships flying around. However, that jarred pretty badly with the seemingly low budget of everything else.
From a dramatic sense, the trailer is also disappointing because, not only did it not get me excited to see this film, but I was also lost on what the hell is going on. It set up nothing about what I was watching. It was basically, "Ok, so here are a bunch of spaceships. Here are a bunch of actors you've never heard of. Here are the actors shooting guns. Here's some woman who climbs on cielings. Oh, by the way, this is written by the legendary guy-you've-never-heard-of-in-your-life who is responsible for the incredibly awesome WB network television!!"
Excuse me if I get no emotional response to this.
I'm well aware that legitimate opinions not shared by the majority are invariably marked as trolls. I'm not trolling, I'm merely giving my opinion as someone who has not seen a single episode of this TV show. Considering the show's low ratings, and disregarding the fanboyishness on Slashdot, I'm in the vast majority of the movie's target demographic -- people who have zero emotional investment in Firefly or this movie's hype. If they respond the way I have to this trailer (more than likely they will), this movie will be a huge flop.
Now allow me to watch and shake my head in disbelief as I STILL get marked as a troll or "overrated" simply because some fanboys disagree with my honest to god opinion as someone who is not a fanboy.
Since everybody else is talking about problems downloading it, let me be one of the first (I think) to write some kind of a review of the movie itself:
The special effects are more than impressive. The CG modeling is on a professional level. This is particularly obvious in the space battle -- dozens of finely detailed starships flying around in considerably more elaborate flight paths than I've seen in any fan film yet. The camera tracks and follows the ships in a nice theatrical manner rather than 1990s-style videogame CG. Earlier, there is also a very impressive fly-through of a large, futuristic city with nearly as much detail as was seen in the Fifth Element. A sequence seen later on of a spaceship flying towards and landing on a planet is on par with the non-character CGI of the Final Fantasy movie.
The most strikingly impressive special effects come in the form of blue screen. There seems to be extensive use of real-life sets (which are on par with most television productions), and the camera moves around quite freely (sometimes it's hand-held). The CG effects in the blue screen windows, as well as other little additions (holograms, neon signs on walls, etc) follow the camera movements extremely well. This in itself makes this superior to every other special effects-driven fan film I've ever seen.
The storyline, as with most fan films, is entirely irrelevant (unless you pay attention to storylines in videogames, of course). The whole point of the story here is to move the characters from one cool location to another (night club, ancient Jedi temple, etc), have them meet up and give them a reason to fight each other. The film heavily borrows elements from movies like "Unbreakable" and recycles plenty of scenes and dialogue from existing Star Wars films, as is common practice among most fan films. Other than that, it feels like a storyline from a Star Wars videogame, only shorter.
The acting is obviously not going to be that good, and the creaters once again continue the fine tradition of fan film casting by employing chubby, goatee-sporting geeks and goth girls to stand around and attempt to recite the cheesy lines given to them, though some try harder than most to sound convincing.
The lighting is also very nicely done, matching the CG and real-world sets quite well. On a greyish-yellow planet (all CG), for instance, the characters do not stick out like sore thumbs and generally blend in quite well with their surroundings.
Light saber battles are not the best. If you want to see how real light saber fights should be done in a fan film, watch "Art of the Saber", whose choerography and combatant skills match those in The Phantom Menace.
Overall, I'd say that this film is an extremely fine technical achievement. The production design has a very expensive look to it. The ending credits are downright HUGE. This is a fine achievement, and shows exactly what big budget fan films can accomplish. Copyright issues and the whole Star Wars labeling apart, this looks like something that could easily have come from a production company that works for the Sci-Fi Channel. It may not be as impressive compared to the real Star Wars, but it is definitely not any worse than, at the very least, cable television production.
Most of the book's best lines and situations survive. The phrase "Don't Panic!" is liberally sprinkled around, "42" is still the answer to the ultimate question, Arthur still can't quite get the hang of Thursdays - and a towel, a manic-depressive android and a whale falling from the sky all make important appearances.
This isn't directed specifically at you, this is merely a general observation, but anybody who uses the argument that MTV doesn't play many music videos to explain MTV's suckyness is a fucking IDIOT!
Why the HELL would you sit in front of the goddamn TV, switch over to a channel, and WATCH a goddamn music video marathon!? What the fuck is wrong with you?
You want to know why radio works? Because you can listen to it playing IN THE BACKGROUND. You could do something like read a book or clean the house, and you hear the music in the background. It livens up your activity, or relaxes you, or excites you. But it's usually not the primary activity during music listening.
You want to know why this won't work with TV? Because it's fucking TV! How many times can you watch the same music video by the same 5 bands you like (out of the 50 that you don't)? You'd have to be extremely lethargic or have way too much time on your hands to just sit there and watch fucking music videos! Music videos are nothing but commercials for a band's album. Do you really want a TV channel that plays 24 hours of music commercials? That's what it would be like! That's what it was in the early 80s! It worked then because flashy commercials with sexy singers and dancers were NEW and EXCITING. They're now neither.
If you have satellite or digital cable television, you probably have something like 20 or more TV channels that basically act like a radio, broken up by a genre. How many times do you go sit on your couch, turn the TV on and turn it to one of those channels? Probably not that often. Sure, they don't have actual video to go along with the sound, but they at least devote each channel to a specific genre. With MTV playing videos non-stop, you won't have that. It'll be an avalanche of multiple genres, consisting mostly of whatever genres would bring in the biggest audience. Why the hell would you sit through that? Why would you watch until the commercial, sit through the commercial, and then watch MORE music videos!? You wouldn't! That's why they don't do this on MTV! Because nobody in their right fucking mind would watch that crap!
MTV may suck, but it has nothing to do with the number of music videos they play. It's the fact that neither I nor most of you are in their target demographic!
I was prepared for this show to be in the same league as all the other sci-fi shows since TNG went off the year: campy, bad acting, bad directing, lousy production design, boring storytelling... you know, all the things you can see in shows like Andromeda, Cleopatra 2525, Farscape, Stargate SG1, Enterprise, etc...
It's amazing that Battlestar Galactica is NOTHING like that! It's actually GOOD TELEVISION! Written by REAL WRITERS! Not the same 22 year old testosterone-fueled film school grads that write Sci-Fi Channel's "monster of the week" flicks, but real professionals! Every week that I've watched a new episode, I was completely blown away. Science fiction television isn't supposed to be THIS GOOD!
Surely a free subscription to this free downloadable content would at least help ensure that you get localized advertising based on your user info.
Plus, there are ways to ensure that you won't be skipping over the ads... such as a custom video player without a fast-forward feature, among other possible techniques. Or you can just have ads all around the video. Make it letterboxed, and put banners over the black areas on the top and bottom within the video file itself.
It all comes down to what's worth more to you, whether you'd rather be annoyed but spend no money, or spend money and not be annoyed. Personally, I don't mind being annoyed if I get something for free in the end.
I never understood the concept behind either paying for TV show downloads, or for the broadcast networks rejecting the medium. Last I checked, broadcast television access was free. It's free because they show several segments of advertising in the middle of the show. Why would the medium matter to these companies? Why stick with television sets?
The advantage of downloading stuff is that you can watch it whenever you want. My schedule may not permit me to watch the shows I want. If you give me the same exact show with the same exact ads over the internet, I will gladly watch it! With the ads! I don't give a damn about the show not being ad-free, and I don't give a damn about them even developing a technology preventing you from fast-forwarding past the advertising. I'll watch the damn advertising, just like I watch it on TV. Just let me watch the damn show at the computer if the need strikes me! You lose NOTHING. Even if someone does fast-forward through the commercials, someone else will watch the same file TWICE, thus increasing their exposure to the advertising. Is this not an acceptable trade-off?
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Doom 3 on the Xbox is considered a near-perfect port. Aren't you overestimating PC hardware superiority of the current consoles by just a tad?
You keep comparing the consoles to the PC graphics cards. Despite the fact that the same manufacturer produces very similar components, the output will not be the same. If the Xbox, a considerably old piece of gaming hardware, can play Doom 3 at the same level as a modern high-end PC, and equivalent PC hardware from the launch of the Xbox was just then starting to run games running on the Quake 3 engine, it's pretty reasonable to assume that PS3's graphics will be significantly superior to anything that you have seen to date.
At least it's reasonable to me.
The PS2, despite being hyped beyond all realistic boundaries, was lightyears ahead of the N64 (not to mention the PS1). The PS1 was lightyears ahead of the Super Nintendo. The Super Nintento was lightyears ahead of the original Nintendo.
It seems to me that you're going on the assumption that, for whatever reason, increases in graphical output of both hardware and software slowed down to a crawl in the last 5 years. Why do you think like this? All hype issues aside, why is it unrealistic to assume that, given previous generational advancements in gaming hardware, this one will see equivalent advancement?
They've actually said that the PS3's graphics chip is TWICE as powerful as the current top-of-the-line Nvidia card.
It's also worth noting that your example, Far Cry, was released in 2004 to run on hardware that was top of the line in 2003. PS3 is shipping in 2006, and when it does it's hardware capability will be superior to whatever the then-current retail PC hardware will be. The graphical capabilities you are comparing are 3 years apart. Is it honestly that surpsising that Far Cry would look "an order of magnitude worse", as you say, than a demo of an as-yet unreleased game on a piece of hardware that doesn't even completely exist yet in it's final form because of ongoing development?
Another thing worth noting when you compare PC to consoles, which you seem to be doing here instead of comparing the PS3 to the PS2 (something you SHOULD be doing) is that a significant percentagy of PC horsepower is spent on such resource-hogging applications as the Windows operating system and all the background services which are involved in that. You cannot compare PCs to consoles on specs alone, as more of the consoles' hardware is utilized in running the game. Even with comparable hardware, the console will still outperform the PC by a significant margin.
How does it look too good? Look at the previous evolutions of console generations. You expect there to be no significant improvement this time around? Based on what? The fact that PC games are currently not capable of this? One of the top graphical-intensive PC games, Doom 3, is running flawlessly on the Xbox, a 5 year old piece of hardware.
The GT video you speak of looks EXACTLY like the graphical evolution that one would expect between consoles released 6 years apart.
The Grand Canyon looks in no way more impressive than the real-time demo showcased of this system generating 3D terrain on the fly from satellite and topographical demo.
There is motion blur (often optional) in most racing games released in the last several years, see videos of the Need for Speed: Underground franchise for examples.
Focus depth has been shown in replay footage of racing games for a decade. The camera tracking, zooming, and focus in the footage you refer to are common in most modern racing games.
Why would there not be impressive lighting effects? What exactly would limit this? They have lighting effects of nearly this caliber on the PS2 and Xbox, systems that are 6 years old now.
Why would there not be realistic trees? If it can be done in CG with limited amount of effort, it can surely be done on this new system. All it requires is a well-modeled tree. Even current generation consoles have some games with trees far more realistic than anything on the PC.
Why would the pit stops not have tons of guys running around? Look at any game that features many well-animated characters on the screen. The most basic example would be one of the football videogames. Why would it be out of the question that this pre-scripted animation of each character be transported out of a sports stadium environment and into a race track pit environment? If you refer to numbers of characters, why is it out of the question that this system, which is SEVERAL TIMES more advanced that it's predecessor, would be unable to double, tripple, or quadruple the character count on screen while at the same time also significantly increasing each of their polygon counts?
There are only two reasons I can imagine why you would suggest that it looks "too" good: 1) You have not been following the evolution of gaming consoles in the past, or noted the significant differences they had (the improvements have always been incredibly significant); or 2) You have not played any of the top current console games at any great length.
That sounds exactly like the wildly uninformed speculation that surrounded the Xbox's launch. It didn't happen then, it won't happen now. Microsoft has a seperate "media center" division with their own software and devices. It will never be put onto the Xbox 360. Doing so would not only be a lousy marketing decision, but it would undermine a part of their own company's efforts.
Oh, and just to repeat myself for clarity, this was already speculated years ago.
Sony and MS support high definidion TVs because, if they don't, their consoles will not function in 10 years. Your analogy is poor.
And most PC games will not sell on consoles. There are plenty of PC ports already, they are not big sellers. Games that sell are games that people want to play in a living room. Living room means sitting on a couch (do you intend on balancing your keyboard and mouse on your testicles?), it means having other people watching you play or joining in. All those PC games you mentioned are not in any way suited for this type of gaming environment, and to pull the console out of this environment would undermine the console's marketing and target demographics.
Just because you and a bunch of other people want this to happen doesn't mean that it should, or that it would be a good business deicision.
The audience of PC games is very small. And as you get into more fetishist sub-genres of PC gaming, like god games and things of that nature, the demographic only decreases. Why would they spend money researching and developing these hardware add-ons that only the vast minority wants?
Consoles are designed, in every way, to be a living room entertainment center. Microsoft was smart enough to figure that out and turned the Xbox into a real game console. I still remember all the press and rumors that it would be a cheap little PC, and how strongly Microsoft reps denied it. Why would they do that? Whatever your opinion is, they had well-researched reasons for doing that, for going so far out of their way to not market the console as a cheap gaming-only PC.
If what you want is PC gaming, use a PC.
Go to Google. Type in any of the following:
PlayStation 2 keyboard
Xbox keyboard
GameCube keyboard
After you finish with that, return to Google. Type in any of the following:
PlayStation 2 VGA adapter
Xbox VGA adapter
GameCube VGA adapter
I doubt there are many people out there who are anally-retentive enough to keep track of and publish up-to-date data on this. One of the most recent articles on the matter from a reputable source that I found after a 2 minute Google search (which you are more than capable of performing yourself) states that, as of 2002, Microsoft is losing anywhere from $20 to $150 per unit. And this was for when the system cost $299. It currently retails for $149.
I hope CNet is reputable enough?
Check the video of the full conference at the bottom of this page.
While they did not say it is real-time or not, as far as Killzone is concerned, the PS3 seems more than capable of making a game look like this. The only issue I have with how the clip is presented is that it's a hell of a lot more "cinematic" than what actual gameplay would look like. I don't care if you script the hell out of everything that happens on the screen, it will still not end up looking like you're inside a CG "movie". It probably WILL look like a CG movie from a graphical standpoint, but not from the presentation.
At the press-conference, several real-time demos were screened. One of the most impressive was probably the boxing game that EA demoed. The character detail and animation looked absolutely staggering. It honestly looked like state-of-the-art CG of the Final Fantasy: The Movie variety. Like Killzone, it too featured an exagerated cinematic camera to showcase the game, but the game was completely controlled by the guy on the stage. He actually was playing it. They merely programmed the camera to zoom in on faces and really show off the graphics.
There is not a huge PC gamer community. PC game sales are a tiny fraction of the overall industry.
However, you're asking why would people stick with PCs and not consoles? Because PCs have different types of games on them than consoles. Although the console world has seen a significant explosion of first person shooters coming out left and right, these games are, for the most part, not quite suited for console gaming. Additionally, you won't find many games along the lines of Civilization on the consoles. So, I guess my point is that PC gaming and console gaming targets different demographics. This is why the MUCH cheaper cost of being a console gamer isn't enough of an incentive to outright "switch" and abandon PC gaming. And, this doesn't even take into account the fact that most people already have a PC in their house to begin with, so it wouldn't be much of a switch but rather ignoring one device that they already own for another.
PC hardware prices will not match console hardware prices for MANY YEARS after the console's release. Even today, if all the hardware in the Xbox was put into a regular PC case, that would still run you several hundred dollars at the least. Meanwhile, the Xbox current costs a measely $150. The kicker here is that it costs $150 to YOU. To Microsoft, it costs a hell of a lot more. The system hardware sales are sold as a loss to the company because profits in the console industry come from game licensing and sales. From each game sold, no matter who released it, Microsoft sees some money. So, it's an incentive to get the hardware into as many homes as possible.
And, by the way, for this same reason you should not pay attention to any of the wildly uninformed price speculations computer geeks will spew about these new console prices. If either the Xbox 360 or the PS3 costs anywhere above $299 when it comes out, expect a significant consumer backlash. The PS2 and the original Xbox were just as technologically impressive for their time as these successors are, and their final retail price remained very competitive. There will be no change in that because this is simply how this industry works. They're not in the hardware-selling business, they're in the game-selling business. Selling the hardware is merely a facilitator.
So, no. PC hardware prices will not come down. Not because of these consoles.
Ok, you're still missing the point of the original poster here. It doesn't seem to me like he was talking about graphics, and I certainly wasn't talking about graphics. My point was in the presentation of the game, particularly relating to the animation. As another poster pointed out elsewhere in these threads, it would be a lot more interesting if, instead of monsters strafing around or crouching behind boxes, they would leap over them in fluid motion or jump at the walls and scurry across them towards you. Most FPS games don't have anything even close to this, and are as visually impressive in these terms as FPS games of 10 years ago. Animation-wise, FPS games are some of the most primitive genres around. Hopefully you understand now why I was referring to video clips of the latest Prince of Persia games, and if you don't, watch them and then you'll figure out what I'm talking about. And, just to re-iterate, this has very little to do with graphical special effects. You seem to be confusing animation with graphics. Animation is not useless eye-candy. It is invaluable to the gameplaying atmosphere and entertainment.
You're changing the debate towards the issue of "performance". The original poster mentioned nothing about this. Besides, aside from the needs of more elaborate graphical effects which you're bringing up, more fluid animation is not much of a system drain.
What a spectacularly utilitarian opinion! It doesn't add things to the gameplay, but it adds things to the EXPERIENCE of playing the game. If you haven't seen a well-presented game like the newest Prince of Persia in action, go download some video clips and tell me that the pretty animatioin doesn't add to the experience.
I would be amused if, when it comes to films, you had the same attitude about the special effects, saying, "I don't care if it looks really cheap and amateurish, eye candy add nothing to the plot." While that may be true in some sense, the overall experience of a movie like Spider-Man would be ruined if the character's flight through the city looked like an action sequence from the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.
You have no kids? Gee, why doesn't that surprise me after reading your anti-censorship rant?
And, as is clearly labeled on MPAA's ratings logos:
R -- Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.
NC-17 -- No one 17 and under admitted.
If it was really a blood bath, it would be rated R. There's probably not gonna be anything more violent here than what we saw in Spider-Man 2.
On the other hand, I think the previous two Star Wars movies have been some of the most violent PG-rated films since the introduction of the PG-13 rating in the 80s. So, if MPAA is continuing to rate Star Wars on a curve just because it's targetted at children, maybe my original analogy is wrong after all.
I'm with you on that. I had a really pedestrian opinion while watching the movie. Not impressive in the slightest, the most jarring thing to me being that the sets look like they were made for television.
The one thing the trailer did have that I enjoyed was the cool look of the spaceships flying around. However, that jarred pretty badly with the seemingly low budget of everything else.
From a dramatic sense, the trailer is also disappointing because, not only did it not get me excited to see this film, but I was also lost on what the hell is going on. It set up nothing about what I was watching. It was basically, "Ok, so here are a bunch of spaceships. Here are a bunch of actors you've never heard of. Here are the actors shooting guns. Here's some woman who climbs on cielings. Oh, by the way, this is written by the legendary guy-you've-never-heard-of-in-your-life who is responsible for the incredibly awesome WB network television!!"
Excuse me if I get no emotional response to this.
I'm well aware that legitimate opinions not shared by the majority are invariably marked as trolls. I'm not trolling, I'm merely giving my opinion as someone who has not seen a single episode of this TV show. Considering the show's low ratings, and disregarding the fanboyishness on Slashdot, I'm in the vast majority of the movie's target demographic -- people who have zero emotional investment in Firefly or this movie's hype. If they respond the way I have to this trailer (more than likely they will), this movie will be a huge flop.
Now allow me to watch and shake my head in disbelief as I STILL get marked as a troll or "overrated" simply because some fanboys disagree with my honest to god opinion as someone who is not a fanboy.
Since everybody else is talking about problems downloading it, let me be one of the first (I think) to write some kind of a review of the movie itself:
The special effects are more than impressive. The CG modeling is on a professional level. This is particularly obvious in the space battle -- dozens of finely detailed starships flying around in considerably more elaborate flight paths than I've seen in any fan film yet. The camera tracks and follows the ships in a nice theatrical manner rather than 1990s-style videogame CG. Earlier, there is also a very impressive fly-through of a large, futuristic city with nearly as much detail as was seen in the Fifth Element. A sequence seen later on of a spaceship flying towards and landing on a planet is on par with the non-character CGI of the Final Fantasy movie.
The most strikingly impressive special effects come in the form of blue screen. There seems to be extensive use of real-life sets (which are on par with most television productions), and the camera moves around quite freely (sometimes it's hand-held). The CG effects in the blue screen windows, as well as other little additions (holograms, neon signs on walls, etc) follow the camera movements extremely well. This in itself makes this superior to every other special effects-driven fan film I've ever seen.
The storyline, as with most fan films, is entirely irrelevant (unless you pay attention to storylines in videogames, of course). The whole point of the story here is to move the characters from one cool location to another (night club, ancient Jedi temple, etc), have them meet up and give them a reason to fight each other. The film heavily borrows elements from movies like "Unbreakable" and recycles plenty of scenes and dialogue from existing Star Wars films, as is common practice among most fan films. Other than that, it feels like a storyline from a Star Wars videogame, only shorter.
The acting is obviously not going to be that good, and the creaters once again continue the fine tradition of fan film casting by employing chubby, goatee-sporting geeks and goth girls to stand around and attempt to recite the cheesy lines given to them, though some try harder than most to sound convincing.
The lighting is also very nicely done, matching the CG and real-world sets quite well. On a greyish-yellow planet (all CG), for instance, the characters do not stick out like sore thumbs and generally blend in quite well with their surroundings.
Light saber battles are not the best. If you want to see how real light saber fights should be done in a fan film, watch "Art of the Saber", whose choerography and combatant skills match those in The Phantom Menace.
Overall, I'd say that this film is an extremely fine technical achievement. The production design has a very expensive look to it. The ending credits are downright HUGE. This is a fine achievement, and shows exactly what big budget fan films can accomplish. Copyright issues and the whole Star Wars labeling apart, this looks like something that could easily have come from a production company that works for the Sci-Fi Channel. It may not be as impressive compared to the real Star Wars, but it is definitely not any worse than, at the very least, cable television production.
RTFA:
Most of the book's best lines and situations survive. The phrase "Don't Panic!" is liberally sprinkled around, "42" is still the answer to the ultimate question, Arthur still can't quite get the hang of Thursdays - and a towel, a manic-depressive android and a whale falling from the sky all make important appearances.
That has got to be the absolute funniest thing I've ever heard on Slashdot! I applaud you, sir!
This isn't directed specifically at you, this is merely a general observation, but anybody who uses the argument that MTV doesn't play many music videos to explain MTV's suckyness is a fucking IDIOT!
Why the HELL would you sit in front of the goddamn TV, switch over to a channel, and WATCH a goddamn music video marathon!? What the fuck is wrong with you?
You want to know why radio works? Because you can listen to it playing IN THE BACKGROUND. You could do something like read a book or clean the house, and you hear the music in the background. It livens up your activity, or relaxes you, or excites you. But it's usually not the primary activity during music listening.
You want to know why this won't work with TV? Because it's fucking TV! How many times can you watch the same music video by the same 5 bands you like (out of the 50 that you don't)? You'd have to be extremely lethargic or have way too much time on your hands to just sit there and watch fucking music videos! Music videos are nothing but commercials for a band's album. Do you really want a TV channel that plays 24 hours of music commercials? That's what it would be like! That's what it was in the early 80s! It worked then because flashy commercials with sexy singers and dancers were NEW and EXCITING. They're now neither.
If you have satellite or digital cable television, you probably have something like 20 or more TV channels that basically act like a radio, broken up by a genre. How many times do you go sit on your couch, turn the TV on and turn it to one of those channels? Probably not that often. Sure, they don't have actual video to go along with the sound, but they at least devote each channel to a specific genre. With MTV playing videos non-stop, you won't have that. It'll be an avalanche of multiple genres, consisting mostly of whatever genres would bring in the biggest audience. Why the hell would you sit through that? Why would you watch until the commercial, sit through the commercial, and then watch MORE music videos!? You wouldn't! That's why they don't do this on MTV! Because nobody in their right fucking mind would watch that crap!
MTV may suck, but it has nothing to do with the number of music videos they play. It's the fact that neither I nor most of you are in their target demographic!
I was prepared for this show to be in the same league as all the other sci-fi shows since TNG went off the year: campy, bad acting, bad directing, lousy production design, boring storytelling... you know, all the things you can see in shows like Andromeda, Cleopatra 2525, Farscape, Stargate SG1, Enterprise, etc...
It's amazing that Battlestar Galactica is NOTHING like that! It's actually GOOD TELEVISION! Written by REAL WRITERS! Not the same 22 year old testosterone-fueled film school grads that write Sci-Fi Channel's "monster of the week" flicks, but real professionals! Every week that I've watched a new episode, I was completely blown away. Science fiction television isn't supposed to be THIS GOOD!
If you want to see a real musical set in the Star Wars universe, check out this disturbing fan film.
Surely a free subscription to this free downloadable content would at least help ensure that you get localized advertising based on your user info. Plus, there are ways to ensure that you won't be skipping over the ads... such as a custom video player without a fast-forward feature, among other possible techniques. Or you can just have ads all around the video. Make it letterboxed, and put banners over the black areas on the top and bottom within the video file itself. It all comes down to what's worth more to you, whether you'd rather be annoyed but spend no money, or spend money and not be annoyed. Personally, I don't mind being annoyed if I get something for free in the end.
I never understood the concept behind either paying for TV show downloads, or for the broadcast networks rejecting the medium. Last I checked, broadcast television access was free. It's free because they show several segments of advertising in the middle of the show. Why would the medium matter to these companies? Why stick with television sets?
The advantage of downloading stuff is that you can watch it whenever you want. My schedule may not permit me to watch the shows I want. If you give me the same exact show with the same exact ads over the internet, I will gladly watch it! With the ads! I don't give a damn about the show not being ad-free, and I don't give a damn about them even developing a technology preventing you from fast-forwarding past the advertising. I'll watch the damn advertising, just like I watch it on TV. Just let me watch the damn show at the computer if the need strikes me! You lose NOTHING. Even if someone does fast-forward through the commercials, someone else will watch the same file TWICE, thus increasing their exposure to the advertising. Is this not an acceptable trade-off?