Well, I didn't give the URL's because they are now both owned by squatter companies and for one: I don't want to give them any traffic and two: they contain mad amounts of pop-ups and try to reset your homepage. They are ps2insider.com and gamezcore.com. Gamezcore was more laid back and fun, it was never a commercial site so it isn't as serious. They were both built on top of CMS systems so the wayback machine doesn't do that great of a job with them, but best of luck!
Actually I left the business as we had spent 4 years covering the PS2, and the lack of innovation and interest with that system really was not a good basis for us anymore. I used to write for Maxim/Stuff and I helped found/design/run ps2insider, and GamezCore. I am currently re-entering the console website game and it will be RevolutionInsider - the site is still in development and should be live by the end of January.
The Revolution is the first console in some time to ignite my interest in gaming again. I really hope the combination of wide target audience, low cost, innovative controls, focus on game design, and fun come back to the game industry and end this horsepower arms race and corporate greed for the biggest piece of the gaming pie.
Well then kiss almost all of the gaming magazines (even the so called independent ones) goodbye, as they solely exist as corporate mouthpieces. I've worked as a reviewer and have seen things that turned my stomach as an honest person.
Since I have worked in this field, people ask me all the time what a "reputable" review site/mag is then... my answer is always the same: None and all of them.
Aggregate review sites such as Rottentomatoes and Gamerankings which give an average score based on all reviews are the best way to get a feel for the true story. The results will still be skewed high, but this is where paying attention to single percentages becomes the real story and allows you to read a few good reviews and a few bad ones of the same title. Eventually you will see common Pro's/Con's crop up across all reviews and then you can weed out the filler and fluff.
Reviews simply are not reliable. I was a game reviewer and actaully quit writing for certain publications that did not allow low scores for key titles. To me this is why just about all reviews are worthless.
I partnered and created a 100% independent review site. One time I had panned MGS3, and GT3 for being piss poor while everyone else couldn't slap "Must Have" and "Best Buy" and "Gold Sticker" all over them. I called MGS3 out for being as interactive as Dragon's Lair, and GT3 for having no AI whatsoever. I got some of the quickest and angriest calls and emails from the companies and their reps. I explained that the reviews were accurate and were not going to be changed. They said they would not send titles any more and that they would speak to my supervisor... They were infuriated to learn I was the owner and they could do nothing.
My point is that 90% of the reviews out there are biased and inflated for various reasons. Ever notice how big magazines give everything easy passes and then they always dog out one budget title which they aren;t receiving any ad dollars or kickbacks for anyhow to seem as if they are real. It's all rubbish.
As your numbers show, the actual FPS increase is about 2-3x. Which is exactly my point.
Consoles are not computers (except for the Xbox 1) and do not work even remotely similar. The fact is that you can take the three cores and throw that right out the window. The system will run as a single 3GHz CPU, the extra cores will take some load off once utilized but the net gain is minimal.
So now we are comparing a 733MHz CPU to a 3GHz CPU. While this alone is a 4X theoretical increase, we all know that it is not a 4x real increase. More like 2-3x as I stated.
Consoles are all about I/O. The Xbox 360 has decent I/O specs. but in reality, once all of the system is taken into account, the net gain is about 2-2.5x increase. Now when you are ramming HD textures and high poly counts through, every single usable bit of bandwidth will be utilized very quickly.
Companies keep claiming that these initial titles are so under utilizing the system, but I don't see it. And as I stated I do have friends who are game programmers and two working on Xbox 360 titles, they claim there is a lot of oppotunity to eek out extra power, but that each one is a relatively small gain. Including threading. The titles you are seeing now are comparable to the first gen games on any system, and just like every system they will improve but it is never Night and Day from the 1st gen to the last. There are noticeable differences but not wholesale changes in quality.
People keep eating up the hype that they haven't seen what the 360 is "really" capable of yet... well, actually we have. The system is what it is, games will get a bit smoother and refined but not by leaps and bounds to where 1st gen titles will be laughable.
Also, please don't forget that this is NOT an Intel CPU. Comparing numbers is not relevant. That is why I said to look at GPU dependent games like Doom3 and Farcry to show the FPS difference. Just as PPC and Intel comparisons show weaknesses and strengths, the same here.
I'm not trying to argue, or say that you are "wrong", I just want you to realize the true story. We will all see quite clearly with the 2nd string of releases, I'm not expecting magic to happen based on what I've seen on the dev side.
Information Science and Technology is closely associated with computer science in that it builds upon computer science theoretical foundations. IST provides an emphasis on such areas as computer networks, database development or administration, or internet development. It emphasizes state-of-the-art tools and technology and integration of technology for the end user.
Again, not arguing, and I'm definitely done with this thread now. I was unaware of this person joining the army, but also:
IST is recognized as an academic discipline by organizations such as the Computer Science Accreditation Commission (CSAC) and the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Again, actually it is not, it has numerous options and the student has the choice to take the exact same classes as a CS major. I'm not going to argue with you as I taught and developed for the program as well as graduated with a Bachelor's in it.
Again, even still I have 4 close friends who graduated around the same time as me with CS degree's and similarly high GPA's and they are struggling. One is still at his "internship" job from 5 years ago, one is working as a software tester and making peanuts, one is unemployed and has been for a few months with no promising prospects, and one makes a decent amount of money but has to travel 100% of the time and works 24/7.
Of all of us, I have the best job, and that is not saying much. I still believe a major in a more rooted field with a minor in CS along with a certification or two is all you need and allows for much greater flexibility in the job market. I do the hiring for my bank's IT dept. and I can say that of all the resumes and interviews I've done having a CS degree under education means NOTHING to us - and we are not alone here.
I would tell you to actually look into the IST degree at PSU before dismissing it. Not only is it very much equivalent to CS major, it custom tailors students for real work and is partnered and molded by just about all of the major corporations in some way. How much more of an "in" does one need?
To graduate #1 from a very well known and highly regarded school such as Penn State and not have 1 offer is insane.
Also, many of my friends were CS proper majors and have had the exact same fate as me... so the major title has nothing to do with it. Now, we do live in western PA which isn't a hotbed for tech, but it is still unbelieveable that there are no offers. And even here for SR. Net Admins, etc. the average pay is $50-60k, not college grads.
I would tell you to actually look into the IST degree at PSU before dismissing it. Not only is it very much equivalent to CS major, it custom tailors students for real work and is partnered and molded by just about all of the major corporations in some way. How much more of an "in" does one need?
To graduate #1 from a very well known and highly regarded school such as Penn State and not have 1 offer is insane.
Also, many of my friends were CS proper majors and have had the exact same fate as me... so the major title has nothing to do with it. Now, we do live in western PA which isn't a hotbed for tech, but it is still unbelieveable that there are no offers.
While your numbers are correct, again you are only looking at THEORETICAL performance. Not real life performance. Theoretical numbers are always deceiving.
You are making the same errors in reasoning in regards to the CPU and it's cores. Each core is not a whole new CPU... it is just like hypertrhreading except LESS efficient. Also if you do the math for HD texture size and resolution and effects you will quickly see that I/O bandwidth becomes a limiting factor quite quickly. Same with the GPU. While it is impressive, look at the numbers for the Geforces you quote running say Doom3 or Farcry at the resolutions the 360 does... they are nowhere near 4x as fast let alone 6x!
The 360 is an impressive bit o kit for the money, but it is not this amazing marvel as many are apt to make it out to be. You also have to remember that the CPU is NOT a finely tuned CPU like Intel or AMD puts out... it is a fairly inefficient and crude design compared to some of the more robust and mature technologies. There is no doubt that at some point in it's lifecycle Dev's will figure out some tricks but you will NEVER see 6x the power of the xbox 1. Could some features and applications see 4x improvements? Yes. Will entire games run at 4x? No way.
Also remember how MS stated the 4x AA was "free"? Then why is it that the first run games are only 2x AA? Hmm... Something doesn't add up, now does it.
heh, well think what you will but you are not even close. Theoretically you are correct, in reality you are wrong. You are looking at the individual components, not the whole. Look at I/O speeds, ram speeds, drive speeds. Now tak einto account the data transfer rate of HD content. You are forgetting that the 360 is having to process over 8 times the data with the new content, so even with component increases the overall speed is about 2-3x the original Xbox. You left out all of that. If it was the 360 running an Xbox level title it would be 7-8x, but it isn't and even Xbox titles need to be emulated and as such suffer from slowdowns. I have tried numerous original Xbox titles and at times the FPS slows to crawls.
You need to take more factors into account than what you are doing now to get the real numbers, 2-3x is right on.
I know it isn't a popular choice, but one I wish I had made now a couple years later. I graduated #1 in my major (IST, Information, Science, And Technology) at Penn State University. The number of job offers I received... 0. Zip. Zilch. Nada.
I was unsuccessful in landing a decent job for over a year, and had to work at an ISP for barely any money. I now run the network at a decent sized community bank and make around $40k. Not bad, but also not too great for all the work I put in.
I had doubts once the bubble burst, and I wish I had transferred to a Business or Criminal Justice major, which would have had more jobs available and always be in demand. I could have still minored in Computers and done just as well.
The choice is yours, but the more I look back with 20/20 hindsight, I wish I had taken a different route even with over 11 years of computer knowledge and a love for tech.
I'm not sure who you're trying to sell on that, but I'm not buying. I work in the industry and have friends who develop for consoles including the 360. I am well aware of what the system is capable of and while it is a step in the HD direction, I have yet to be wowed. Just because the term HD is thrown around like it is something new, it isn't. PC titles had far surpassed the resolution levels that the Xbox 360 tops out at for some years now. While they are great for a console, they really aren't all that amazing once the hype is done away with.
They will get better, but my PC has been able to do the same or better for quite some time and with no real AAA titles even on the local radar for the 360, I'm not getting too excited.
It's actually very simple. The GC had a GPU that offered 8 layer texture mapping... *8*. However the surrounding hardware could not do anything meaningful with a screen full of 8 layered polys. I've seen some dev studio demo's on the GC hardware and they would stagger you at the beauty... but then there was no headrrom for AI/gameplay.
The Revolution will finally have the hardware to handle these graphics so really nothing needs to change as far as the dev kit goes. The GC had the better graphics chip of both the PS2 and the Xbox, it just couldn't be utilized even at 50% capacity due to hardware constraints.
People keep seeing the fact that dev's are currently using GC dev systems... this is actually very exciting news and will prove to be a great thing in the end. The GC is a dream to develop for, and with Nintendo pledging to work with the independent developer, this news is some of the least covered and underrated news of the next gen consoles.
Gee, did you REALLY believe that this was a MS imposed "shortage"?!? Low processor yields and delivery problems were quite apparent. No company is going to spend millions to ship a product before Christmas and then hold back... for what gain? They weren't planning on charging a premium for the consoles so a self-imposed shortage would have been idiotic. The only ones who made out were the retailers who sold overpriced bundles, and even they were hurt by not having more stock. It was bad business the whole way around.
It really surprises me how gullible otherwise intelligent folks can be in the face of marketers and hype... this isn't directed at you... just the average/.'er who so blindly believed that original story.
No offense, but the reason that no third party companies have come out to say wether they will or won' tport to the Revolution.. is because it hasn't even been officially announced yet. NO company is going to begin to speculate in the media about a system they haven't even seen official specs or stats on.
Give it time, ports will be very common actually among these next-gen systems due to the high development costs, they need as much exposure as possible to even begin to recoup costs.
no wait... hah-hah-hah-heh-*snort*-hehhehehe... OK.
Now where are all the MS fanboy's who tried to say I was wrong about the low yields now??? Hehhehe
Let's see, they already cut back one of the "cores" to increase yields, and they still can't even get a decent yield. Massive power draws, and PSU problems, random crashing, no killer app launch title... NADA.
Let's just call a spade a spade here: MS fucked up. They got greedy and fucked themselves over better than Sony or Nintendo could have ever hoped to do. I'm glad too, because as a long time gamer I don;t want gaming going in this "Hollywood" direction nor do I want Microsoft to have any part in the business. They have been detrimental to it and Sony is close behind.
These guys got too big for their britches and had nothing but dollar signs in their eyes, now they begin to really see and feel their error. I hope it hurts, and bad... I hope Balmer gets canned and I hope MS stock takes a massive nose dive. I want to see Gates' fortunes crash down around him and all because they got greedy in a business they had no business being in.
So a big FUCK YOU to Microsoft and the Xbox 360. Burn in hell, along with your profits.
Scroll to the bottom and you'll see the fact that they are about an inch or two different. Not including the external brick, making the 360 BIGGER. Heh, did they really think the color white would throw the Japanese?
Every single point in console history has had two or three systems all of varying horsepower and porting has always happened and generally the ports were so close it made no massive difference.
Why do people still want to believe that the extra cores and slightly better GPU's in the 360/PS3 are so massively different? THEY AREN'T. They offer a DIFFERENT way of accomplishing things, but they really are only about 2-3x as powerful as current gen systems in REALITY. The Revolution will be about 2-3x the power as the Gamecube and that keeps it right in line as the current systems and porting has been no issue.
Let's all end the hype now, the 360 is out and even though MS is still making excuses and promises, the games are not that spectacularly different. Don't expect things to be that much different with the PS3. HD textures are about it, that is what all the hubub is about. Give it a rest now. The three systems will be competitive and no different than the current offerings.
For christs sake, I had installed a window in a Western Digital Caviar drive about 3 YEARS ago... AND I got the instructions from the internet so people had already been doing this FOR YEARS. Some breaking news. This guy is hardly the first.
If you google for installing a window in a hard drive you will get thousands of howto/tutorials. Man, I'd expect this "quality" from Zonk but not Taco.
Now, just imagine that if my small sampling of store numbers are true at approx. 20%... that number goes up by *five* times! That's 200,000 units. How about after Christmas when even more of these 1st run 360's get opened for the first time.
As far as Japan, they could honestly care less. I have friends/colleagues and family in Japan and the general consensus is that there is none. One friend just laughed and asked if MS felt he was stupid enough to accept the new xbox when it actually takes up MORE room when MS is saying it is smaller. Hardocp.com has a great photo showing the two side by side. On top of that simply hiring a few studios to forcefully put out a couple titles is hardly endearing either. MS knew Japan was their Achillie's Heel and they failed to capture them, so they tried this "worldwide" blitz intstead... it isn't working.
Actually, initially the turn around time was pretty quick... now it is a different story. Numerous accounts of people now being sent the pre-payed carton but not being given even a general timeframe to expect the replacement is becoming common.
It seems that they are having to use the supposed "weekly" shipments to fill the repair orders.
As much as MS has tried to downplay the number of defective units the number is quite large. In a number of posts I have been trying to show how a poll I did of 30 EB\Gamestop's in the Northeast U.S. the number of defective units is about 20%.
Everyone said I was full of shit and the usual crap that the average/. troll feels compelled to spout off... but at just my small sampling of 30 stores is showing around 20% I'm pretty confident this is accurate. At this rate were talking a fair number of replacement units needed. One Gamestop had used three of it's initial shipment for replacements... two to the same guy. He had bought one of each launch title and a few accessories and then got TWO lemon units, the third one worked finally.
MS was so sure of themselves boasting and hyping their new product:
* 10 Million by '06 - Not looking likely.
* Weekly shipments up to and after Christmas - umm, yeah.
* The total number of defective units is very small - uh-huh sure, tell me another story uncle Bill.
* Replacement is an easy process - Now customers are being sent the pre-payed carton but not being given any date/time to expect the replacement unit. Nice.
If this thing was such a top-notch massive sales bonanza, then why is MS so quiet now after the big release? Hmmm, could there be troubles? Nah... couldn't be. Everything is perfect, everything is fine, the 360 is fine, there are no defects, just pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Dude, you have serious problems. Anyone who would get bent to the extent you are about a silly farsical proposal is the exact type of person I would cash my card in on.
Calm down. Take your meds. Whack off. and go to sleep. KTXBYE!
Correct, but if there happens to be a big, strong, healthy guy running amok tipping wheelchairs... I'm pretty sure just about anyone has free license to kick his ass or bring him down with just about any means available even WITHOUT a free punch card and even today the police aren't going to prosecute you... they may thank you.
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Well, I didn't give the URL's because they are now both owned by squatter companies and for one: I don't want to give them any traffic and two: they contain mad amounts of pop-ups and try to reset your homepage. They are ps2insider.com and gamezcore.com. Gamezcore was more laid back and fun, it was never a commercial site so it isn't as serious. They were both built on top of CMS systems so the wayback machine doesn't do that great of a job with them, but best of luck!
Actually I left the business as we had spent 4 years covering the PS2, and the lack of innovation and interest with that system really was not a good basis for us anymore. I used to write for Maxim/Stuff and I helped found/design/run ps2insider, and GamezCore. I am currently re-entering the console website game and it will be RevolutionInsider - the site is still in development and should be live by the end of January.
The Revolution is the first console in some time to ignite my interest in gaming again. I really hope the combination of wide target audience, low cost, innovative controls, focus on game design, and fun come back to the game industry and end this horsepower arms race and corporate greed for the biggest piece of the gaming pie.
Well then kiss almost all of the gaming magazines (even the so called independent ones) goodbye, as they solely exist as corporate mouthpieces. I've worked as a reviewer and have seen things that turned my stomach as an honest person.
Since I have worked in this field, people ask me all the time what a "reputable" review site/mag is then... my answer is always the same: None and all of them.
Aggregate review sites such as Rottentomatoes and Gamerankings which give an average score based on all reviews are the best way to get a feel for the true story. The results will still be skewed high, but this is where paying attention to single percentages becomes the real story and allows you to read a few good reviews and a few bad ones of the same title. Eventually you will see common Pro's/Con's crop up across all reviews and then you can weed out the filler and fluff.
Reviews simply are not reliable. I was a game reviewer and actaully quit writing for certain publications that did not allow low scores for key titles. To me this is why just about all reviews are worthless.
I partnered and created a 100% independent review site. One time I had panned MGS3, and GT3 for being piss poor while everyone else couldn't slap "Must Have" and "Best Buy" and "Gold Sticker" all over them. I called MGS3 out for being as interactive as Dragon's Lair, and GT3 for having no AI whatsoever. I got some of the quickest and angriest calls and emails from the companies and their reps. I explained that the reviews were accurate and were not going to be changed. They said they would not send titles any more and that they would speak to my supervisor... They were infuriated to learn I was the owner and they could do nothing.
My point is that 90% of the reviews out there are biased and inflated for various reasons. Ever notice how big magazines give everything easy passes and then they always dog out one budget title which they aren;t receiving any ad dollars or kickbacks for anyhow to seem as if they are real. It's all rubbish.
As your numbers show, the actual FPS increase is about 2-3x. Which is exactly my point.
Consoles are not computers (except for the Xbox 1) and do not work even remotely similar. The fact is that you can take the three cores and throw that right out the window. The system will run as a single 3GHz CPU, the extra cores will take some load off once utilized but the net gain is minimal.
So now we are comparing a 733MHz CPU to a 3GHz CPU. While this alone is a 4X theoretical increase, we all know that it is not a 4x real increase. More like 2-3x as I stated.
Consoles are all about I/O. The Xbox 360 has decent I/O specs. but in reality, once all of the system is taken into account, the net gain is about 2-2.5x increase. Now when you are ramming HD textures and high poly counts through, every single usable bit of bandwidth will be utilized very quickly.
Companies keep claiming that these initial titles are so under utilizing the system, but I don't see it. And as I stated I do have friends who are game programmers and two working on Xbox 360 titles, they claim there is a lot of oppotunity to eek out extra power, but that each one is a relatively small gain. Including threading. The titles you are seeing now are comparable to the first gen games on any system, and just like every system they will improve but it is never Night and Day from the 1st gen to the last. There are noticeable differences but not wholesale changes in quality.
People keep eating up the hype that they haven't seen what the 360 is "really" capable of yet... well, actually we have. The system is what it is, games will get a bit smoother and refined but not by leaps and bounds to where 1st gen titles will be laughable.
Also, please don't forget that this is NOT an Intel CPU. Comparing numbers is not relevant. That is why I said to look at GPU dependent games like Doom3 and Farcry to show the FPS difference. Just as PPC and Intel comparisons show weaknesses and strengths, the same here.
I'm not trying to argue, or say that you are "wrong", I just want you to realize the true story. We will all see quite clearly with the 2nd string of releases, I'm not expecting magic to happen based on what I've seen on the dev side.
Information Science and Technology is closely associated with computer science in that it builds upon computer science theoretical foundations. IST provides an emphasis on such areas as computer networks, database development or administration, or internet development. It emphasizes state-of-the-art tools and technology and integration of technology for the end user.
Again, not arguing, and I'm definitely done with this thread now. I was unaware of this person joining the army, but also:
IST is recognized as an academic discipline by organizations such as the Computer Science Accreditation Commission (CSAC) and the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Again, actually it is not, it has numerous options and the student has the choice to take the exact same classes as a CS major. I'm not going to argue with you as I taught and developed for the program as well as graduated with a Bachelor's in it.
Again, even still I have 4 close friends who graduated around the same time as me with CS degree's and similarly high GPA's and they are struggling. One is still at his "internship" job from 5 years ago, one is working as a software tester and making peanuts, one is unemployed and has been for a few months with no promising prospects, and one makes a decent amount of money but has to travel 100% of the time and works 24/7.
Of all of us, I have the best job, and that is not saying much. I still believe a major in a more rooted field with a minor in CS along with a certification or two is all you need and allows for much greater flexibility in the job market. I do the hiring for my bank's IT dept. and I can say that of all the resumes and interviews I've done having a CS degree under education means NOTHING to us - and we are not alone here.
I would tell you to actually look into the IST degree at PSU before dismissing it. Not only is it very much equivalent to CS major, it custom tailors students for real work and is partnered and molded by just about all of the major corporations in some way. How much more of an "in" does one need?
To graduate #1 from a very well known and highly regarded school such as Penn State and not have 1 offer is insane.
Also, many of my friends were CS proper majors and have had the exact same fate as me... so the major title has nothing to do with it. Now, we do live in western PA which isn't a hotbed for tech, but it is still unbelieveable that there are no offers. And even here for SR. Net Admins, etc. the average pay is $50-60k, not college grads.
I would tell you to actually look into the IST degree at PSU before dismissing it. Not only is it very much equivalent to CS major, it custom tailors students for real work and is partnered and molded by just about all of the major corporations in some way. How much more of an "in" does one need?
To graduate #1 from a very well known and highly regarded school such as Penn State and not have 1 offer is insane.
Also, many of my friends were CS proper majors and have had the exact same fate as me... so the major title has nothing to do with it. Now, we do live in western PA which isn't a hotbed for tech, but it is still unbelieveable that there are no offers.
While your numbers are correct, again you are only looking at THEORETICAL performance. Not real life performance. Theoretical numbers are always deceiving.
You are making the same errors in reasoning in regards to the CPU and it's cores. Each core is not a whole new CPU... it is just like hypertrhreading except LESS efficient. Also if you do the math for HD texture size and resolution and effects you will quickly see that I/O bandwidth becomes a limiting factor quite quickly. Same with the GPU. While it is impressive, look at the numbers for the Geforces you quote running say Doom3 or Farcry at the resolutions the 360 does... they are nowhere near 4x as fast let alone 6x!
The 360 is an impressive bit o kit for the money, but it is not this amazing marvel as many are apt to make it out to be. You also have to remember that the CPU is NOT a finely tuned CPU like Intel or AMD puts out... it is a fairly inefficient and crude design compared to some of the more robust and mature technologies. There is no doubt that at some point in it's lifecycle Dev's will figure out some tricks but you will NEVER see 6x the power of the xbox 1. Could some features and applications see 4x improvements? Yes. Will entire games run at 4x? No way.
Also remember how MS stated the 4x AA was "free"? Then why is it that the first run games are only 2x AA? Hmm... Something doesn't add up, now does it.
heh, well think what you will but you are not even close. Theoretically you are correct, in reality you are wrong. You are looking at the individual components, not the whole. Look at I/O speeds, ram speeds, drive speeds. Now tak einto account the data transfer rate of HD content. You are forgetting that the 360 is having to process over 8 times the data with the new content, so even with component increases the overall speed is about 2-3x the original Xbox. You left out all of that. If it was the 360 running an Xbox level title it would be 7-8x, but it isn't and even Xbox titles need to be emulated and as such suffer from slowdowns. I have tried numerous original Xbox titles and at times the FPS slows to crawls.
You need to take more factors into account than what you are doing now to get the real numbers, 2-3x is right on.
I know it isn't a popular choice, but one I wish I had made now a couple years later. I graduated #1 in my major (IST, Information, Science, And Technology) at Penn State University. The number of job offers I received... 0. Zip. Zilch. Nada.
I was unsuccessful in landing a decent job for over a year, and had to work at an ISP for barely any money. I now run the network at a decent sized community bank and make around $40k. Not bad, but also not too great for all the work I put in.
I had doubts once the bubble burst, and I wish I had transferred to a Business or Criminal Justice major, which would have had more jobs available and always be in demand. I could have still minored in Computers and done just as well.
The choice is yours, but the more I look back with 20/20 hindsight, I wish I had taken a different route even with over 11 years of computer knowledge and a love for tech.
I'm not sure who you're trying to sell on that, but I'm not buying. I work in the industry and have friends who develop for consoles including the 360. I am well aware of what the system is capable of and while it is a step in the HD direction, I have yet to be wowed. Just because the term HD is thrown around like it is something new, it isn't. PC titles had far surpassed the resolution levels that the Xbox 360 tops out at for some years now. While they are great for a console, they really aren't all that amazing once the hype is done away with.
They will get better, but my PC has been able to do the same or better for quite some time and with no real AAA titles even on the local radar for the 360, I'm not getting too excited.
It's actually very simple. The GC had a GPU that offered 8 layer texture mapping... *8*. However the surrounding hardware could not do anything meaningful with a screen full of 8 layered polys. I've seen some dev studio demo's on the GC hardware and they would stagger you at the beauty... but then there was no headrrom for AI/gameplay.
The Revolution will finally have the hardware to handle these graphics so really nothing needs to change as far as the dev kit goes. The GC had the better graphics chip of both the PS2 and the Xbox, it just couldn't be utilized even at 50% capacity due to hardware constraints.
People keep seeing the fact that dev's are currently using GC dev systems... this is actually very exciting news and will prove to be a great thing in the end. The GC is a dream to develop for, and with Nintendo pledging to work with the independent developer, this news is some of the least covered and underrated news of the next gen consoles.
It will become clear soon enough.
Gee, did you REALLY believe that this was a MS imposed "shortage"?!? Low processor yields and delivery problems were quite apparent. No company is going to spend millions to ship a product before Christmas and then hold back... for what gain? They weren't planning on charging a premium for the consoles so a self-imposed shortage would have been idiotic. The only ones who made out were the retailers who sold overpriced bundles, and even they were hurt by not having more stock. It was bad business the whole way around.
/.'er who so blindly believed that original story.
It really surprises me how gullible otherwise intelligent folks can be in the face of marketers and hype... this isn't directed at you... just the average
No offense, but the reason that no third party companies have come out to say wether they will or won' tport to the Revolution.. is because it hasn't even been officially announced yet. NO company is going to begin to speculate in the media about a system they haven't even seen official specs or stats on.
Give it time, ports will be very common actually among these next-gen systems due to the high development costs, they need as much exposure as possible to even begin to recoup costs.
no wait... hah-hah-hah-heh-*snort*-hehhehehe... OK.
Now where are all the MS fanboy's who tried to say I was wrong about the low yields now??? Hehhehe
Let's see, they already cut back one of the "cores" to increase yields, and they still can't even get a decent yield. Massive power draws, and PSU problems, random crashing, no killer app launch title... NADA.
Let's just call a spade a spade here: MS fucked up. They got greedy and fucked themselves over better than Sony or Nintendo could have ever hoped to do. I'm glad too, because as a long time gamer I don;t want gaming going in this "Hollywood" direction nor do I want Microsoft to have any part in the business. They have been detrimental to it and Sony is close behind.
These guys got too big for their britches and had nothing but dollar signs in their eyes, now they begin to really see and feel their error. I hope it hurts, and bad... I hope Balmer gets canned and I hope MS stock takes a massive nose dive. I want to see Gates' fortunes crash down around him and all because they got greedy in a business they had no business being in.
So a big FUCK YOU to Microsoft and the Xbox 360. Burn in hell, along with your profits.
Here is the link to the photo comparison: http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODk3
Scroll to the bottom and you'll see the fact that they are about an inch or two different. Not including the external brick, making the 360 BIGGER. Heh, did they really think the color white would throw the Japanese?
Every single point in console history has had two or three systems all of varying horsepower and porting has always happened and generally the ports were so close it made no massive difference.
Why do people still want to believe that the extra cores and slightly better GPU's in the 360/PS3 are so massively different? THEY AREN'T. They offer a DIFFERENT way of accomplishing things, but they really are only about 2-3x as powerful as current gen systems in REALITY. The Revolution will be about 2-3x the power as the Gamecube and that keeps it right in line as the current systems and porting has been no issue.
Let's all end the hype now, the 360 is out and even though MS is still making excuses and promises, the games are not that spectacularly different. Don't expect things to be that much different with the PS3. HD textures are about it, that is what all the hubub is about. Give it a rest now. The three systems will be competitive and no different than the current offerings.
For christs sake, I had installed a window in a Western Digital Caviar drive about 3 YEARS ago... AND I got the instructions from the internet so people had already been doing this FOR YEARS. Some breaking news. This guy is hardly the first.
If you google for installing a window in a hard drive you will get thousands of howto/tutorials. Man, I'd expect this "quality" from Zonk but not Taco.
Now, just imagine that if my small sampling of store numbers are true at approx. 20%... that number goes up by *five* times! That's 200,000 units. How about after Christmas when even more of these 1st run 360's get opened for the first time.
As far as Japan, they could honestly care less. I have friends/colleagues and family in Japan and the general consensus is that there is none. One friend just laughed and asked if MS felt he was stupid enough to accept the new xbox when it actually takes up MORE room when MS is saying it is smaller. Hardocp.com has a great photo showing the two side by side. On top of that simply hiring a few studios to forcefully put out a couple titles is hardly endearing either. MS knew Japan was their Achillie's Heel and they failed to capture them, so they tried this "worldwide" blitz intstead... it isn't working.
Actually, initially the turn around time was pretty quick... now it is a different story. Numerous accounts of people now being sent the pre-payed carton but not being given even a general timeframe to expect the replacement is becoming common.
It seems that they are having to use the supposed "weekly" shipments to fill the repair orders.
As much as MS has tried to downplay the number of defective units the number is quite large. In a number of posts I have been trying to show how a poll I did of 30 EB\Gamestop's in the Northeast U.S. the number of defective units is about 20%.
/. troll feels compelled to spout off... but at just my small sampling of 30 stores is showing around 20% I'm pretty confident this is accurate. At this rate were talking a fair number of replacement units needed. One Gamestop had used three of it's initial shipment for replacements... two to the same guy. He had bought one of each launch title and a few accessories and then got TWO lemon units, the third one worked finally.
Everyone said I was full of shit and the usual crap that the average
MS was so sure of themselves boasting and hyping their new product:
* 10 Million by '06 - Not looking likely.
* Weekly shipments up to and after Christmas - umm, yeah.
* The total number of defective units is very small - uh-huh sure, tell me another story uncle Bill.
* Replacement is an easy process - Now customers are being sent the pre-payed carton but not being given any date/time to expect the replacement unit. Nice.
If this thing was such a top-notch massive sales bonanza, then why is MS so quiet now after the big release? Hmmm, could there be troubles? Nah... couldn't be. Everything is perfect, everything is fine, the 360 is fine, there are no defects, just pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
*cough*Bullshit*cough*
Dude, you have serious problems. Anyone who would get bent to the extent you are about a silly farsical proposal is the exact type of person I would cash my card in on.
Calm down. Take your meds. Whack off. and go to sleep. KTXBYE!
Correct, but if there happens to be a big, strong, healthy guy running amok tipping wheelchairs... I'm pretty sure just about anyone has free license to kick his ass or bring him down with just about any means available even WITHOUT a free punch card and even today the police aren't going to prosecute you... they may thank you.