Wasn't there a story on slashdot a while back on how the mileage ratings for hybrid cars were a crock? I read a review of the Escape hybrid in USA Today and they weren't able to get better than 28 mpg highway, which is a whopping 3 mpg better than the non hybrid version.
Hybrid technology may have room to grow, but escape is a ploy to seperate rich, stupid hippies from their money.
You do realize that the same thing has been said every time there has been a jump in media capacity, right?
Back when the first CD-ROM games came out, it was obvious that developers had no idea what to do with the extra space, and you saw lots and lots of "games" that were basically a collection of video clips. Now, even for smalltime developers, the thought of going back to cartridge or floppy media is ludicrous.
When the PS2 came out with the ability to read DVD-ROM games, few publishers took advantage and most PS2 games still came out on CD. Now it's a common occurance, and not simply because of cut-scenes. For example, SSX 3 (kickass snowboarding game) spools geometry off of the DVD, thus enabling courses that are so large they take upwards of 20 minutes to reach the bottom and at no time does it feel like you're on rails, thus side-stepping the RAM limitations inherent in consoles.
So, will developers initially not now what to do with 25GB initially? Sure. But history has shown that they will catch up and that you will see games that were unthinkable because of the technical limitations of the previous generation.
That doesn't mean that it isn't fun to play along. It's strongly suspected that the designers of this latest "game" are the same folks who created "The Beast", which coincided with the release of A.I.. So, did it serve as a marketing tool for the movie? Probably. But for many people it was engaging and thought provoking in its own right.
And no, "The Beast" didn't culminate in a mass-email that said "Thanks for playing, now go see A.I!!". In fact, I don't think there were any direct references to the movie throught the course of the game (but the game arguably did take place in the A.I universe). I'm imagining the ilovebees thing will play out in the same way.
I know it's microsoft and as such we are required to hate it, but please try to keep an open mind.
uh, my mail-order dvd version arrived the day it was released. pre-orders also scooped up the DVD version at the stores. So, you hate them for not releasing exclusively on DVD? I don't get it.
I do agree that Id's decision is frustrating. I wonder if it's harder to implement copy protection schemes on DVD. Otherwise, I can't see why id cares what the media is -- it's an issue for the distributor, not the developer.
Personally, I think that RTS games could be the killer app for the DS. The reason being is that you could exploit the main two features of the device (dual screens & touch sensitive input) in a way that wouldn't seem contrived.
Think about this. On your top screen, you have the "action" window, where you have all your characters running around. You select your orc/peasant/etc with your stylus, and then draw a line where you want him to go, or you draw a circle around where you want him to start building. On the lower screen, you have your "spells" window, where you you have all of the menu's and status information. this way it doesn't clutter the primary screen like what you have in a PC RTS. Someone mentioned in another reply that you can only have 3d rendering in one window at a time, but for the above scenario this wouldn't be an issue as your menu screen would be 2d anyhow.
Imagine this: you want to build a barracks, so you first click on your orc in the action window, then you click on the "build barracks" icon in the lower window, then you tap on the section of the upper screen where you want it to be built. That would be awesome!
One slight hitch, though.. are *both* screens touch sensitive, or just one of them? If not, the idea gets more complicated, but I think it could still work w/ some tweaking.
Okay, so admittedly I'm a cynic and I still feel someone burned from the original delay, but this sounds like an artful dodge around bad news.
Supposedly "Summer" is the release date for Half Life 2, according to Valve. My guess is that the reason why they chose Counterstrike for the beta test was as a test for the net code (and possibly the graphics engine) so that they could role-up any bugfixes into same engine that Half-Life 2 would be using. With that in mind, it seems highly unlikely that they would release Half-Life 2 before counterstrike concluded it's beta testing. So if the counterstrike beta will take place in late summer, that doesn't leave a whole lot of time to go from "Beta 1" (does that imply multiple betas then?) to "done".
Here's my take: Half-Life 2 is going to be delayed 'till fall, but the announcement of Counterstrike: Source is an attempt to stave off the lynch mob. I hope I'm wrong, but Valve doesn't have the best track record. Gabe Newell is probably is probably formulating a press release this very second blaming the delay on the Sasser worm.
Though I agree with you (Nintendo was ruthless company that had *very* heavy-handed tactics), I don't think the 3rd party licensing thing is accurate. The standard 3rd party licensing barred you from making the same title on another console, but I don't think that the licensees were able to get out of this -- the larger 3rd parties were able to negotionate less harsh contracts though.
Also, the Atari/Tengen lawsuit was over console licensing of Tetris, which Tengen *lost*.
What I think you're referring to is the lawsuit that the retailers brought against Nintendo. Back in the day, Nintendo wouldn't give you promotional materials, kiosks, and sometimes not even sell you games if you sold a competing console. Imagine coke not letting you sell pepsi at your grocery store.
That small point aside, you're right. Nintendo was every bit as evil as Microsoft. In fact, I think part of the reason that they faltered in the 90's was particarly because of the practices they used to such success in the 80's. Retailers, publishers, and developers were all pissed at Nintendo. As soon as a viable competitor came along, everyone jumped ship. Yeah, the cartridge-only thing was a dumb idea, too.
Is Nintendo still evil? Well, I don't think that they can afford to be (you can be an asshole when you have a monopoly, but not when you are 3rd in the US market). However, I think that Nintendo has always been a strong developer/publisher, and has always pushed gameplay over technology.
A very good book on the subject is Game Over. Definitely sheds a light on the tactics of Nintendo (and atari and sega) during the 2nd video game boom.
Dunst is valuable, too, bringing depth and heart to a girlfriend role that in lesser movies would be conventional. When she kisses her astronaut boyfriend upside-down, it's one of those perfect moments that rewards fans of the whole saga; we don't need to be told she's remembering her only kiss from Spider-Man.
True, she's been a lot of mediocre teen-movie fare, but to claim that she hasn't had a better performance since Interview with a Vampire indicates to me reviewer hasn't seen Drop Dead Gorgeous.
Are they meaningless? I don't think so, but I fear that some CIO's interpret certifications incorrectly. Schrange makes a valid point when he writes (emphasis mine):
Frankly, I'm with the school of economic thought that argues that the real value of credentials and certifications like CMMs and MBAs is not that they indicate greater skill, but they signal to the market that these individuals and organizations will jump through hoops to demonstrate how much they care about being seen as top-notch.
In other words, the willingness to procure credentials can reveal more about attitude than aptitude.
This is an excellent point, but is it so wrong to evaluate a candidate's attitude and drive just as much as their aptitude? In my experience, I've seen better results from hard-working, honest people than from very bright, unmotivated jerks.
Do certifications mean someone is more motivated? Well, I'd say that it's a good (but not infallible) indicator, and should be evaluated along with other factors.
Here's a stab at what might also work:
evaluating Certifications, degrees, and so on.
seeing how well candidate gets along with potential peers (a la group interview)
score on a mental alertness (read: IQ) test. Yeah, it's Orwellian, but generally speaking they are a good indicator at your capacity for abstract thought.
It's not so much that the PC market is dwindling per se, such that the console market is GROWING AT A MASSIVE SCALE. In fact, it's already enormous. And it's not because the consoles are stealing gamers away from the PC, it's because the consoles are tapping into a demographic that would never even touch a PC. It has to do both with the types of games as well as the economics ($200 for a console vs. $1500 for a PC) and ergonomics (would you rather play NFL Street on your couch in front of the big screen tv, or at your desk in front of a 19" monitor?)
So, put yourself in microsoft's shoes 5 years ago. Consoles are booming, PC sales are flat, and you don't make any money from licensing. If you ask me, Microsoft did what they did because they had to. The writing is on the wall for PC gaming. Microsoft didn't kill it by making the Xbox. If anything, the PS2 is more to blame for the state of PC games.
Yes, Microsoft could have put their xbox marketing money (half a billion) into promoting PC gaming. But do you really think this would grow the market such that Microsoft would get that money back? Keep in mind that when you buy a PC game, Microsoft gets NOTHING. Microsoft only get's money when a gamer decides to purchase a copy of windows XP.
If microsoft had done all the things you mention, I propose that it would barely make a dent in the growth of the consoles. So why not try to take a piece of the console pie as well?
when we see historic movies and play historic video games, it's only natural to believe it to a certain point.
Ever played Crimson Skies? It portrays a history of the United States in which the country splintered off into three or four seperate nation-states after the Great Depression. Was it banned in the United States? No. Did anyone bitch? No. Of course, you can buy it in a certain province of China without objection.
Banning a game (or book, or movie) because it portrays a history that differs from the government-approved version of history is reprehensible, and the motivation cannot be justified at any level.
Technically, the Gamecube has 48MB of RAM, but the problem is that 24MB of the ram consists of relatively fast 1T-SRAM with a bandwidth of 2.6GB/sec and another 16MB of standard DRAM that has a bandwidth of only 81MB/sec. Here's a some good info on it
In contrast, the PS2 has 32MB of ram that runs at 3.2GB/sec (more linkage).
So, yeah, if your trying to feed geometry to the GPU the slower ram may not cut it. What some developers do (for example, lucasarts when they made jedi starfighter) is use the slower ram as a ramdisk "swap drive", or just use it to hold sound. In essence, though, you've got 8 megs less than a ps2.
My guess is this: If theywanted to make Driv3r for the Gamecube you could definitely do it (and make it look damn good), but it wouldn't be as easy as doing a simple port from the PS2 version. While profits may not have been the stated reason, perhaps revenue from the gamecube version were not worth the added cost/headache of porting.
Dunno... It's all speculation on my part. But the slow RAM issue isn't bullshit, for what it's worth.
Gotta agree with this one. DDR wasn't the cornerstone of my health plan (also trying to eat less and do weight training), but I found it to be a fun way to unwind after work and get decent aerobic workout.
Personally, I think that DDR is a very good thing for the industry.
-it broadens the gamer demographic (my aunt thought the ps2 was the devils work, now shes a ddr junky).
-it served as a shot-in-the-arm to the arcades. Don't know if it will save them, but hasn't hurt nontheless.
-finally, the media writes a story about a game that hasn't inspired someone to go on a shooting rampage!
But I always bristle at the notion that "games lately look so much the same" and "there's no originality anymore, not like back in the day".
Here's the deal: the reason why so many games look the same is because for every innovative game you have 20 or so derivative titles that want to cash in on the popularity of the original. Though we like to fondly look back to the early days of video games and think that they were so original, the truth is that the same problem existed back then as well. I recently got one of those 200-in-1 NES emulators for the GBA, and let me tell you that the 20-to-1 ratio of crap to innovation still applies.
The author of this article makes another mistake: thinking that games will stop looking like each other with the advent of pixel shaders. Of course this is rediculous. I do believe that technology can enable new aspects of gameplay, but to think that pixel shaders are going to make people more creative is just plain wrong.
It's clear that George Lucas is intent on directing, so we can't change that. However, I think the real problem is that the core group of people that he works with are a bunch of ass-kissing yes-men who indulge his every whim.
For example: Watch some of the behind the scenes clips on the episode 1&2 DVD's. You will not find one single instance of where Rick McCallum (the producer and close friend of lucas) disagrees with George Lucas. I'm no movie expert, but after watching Project Greenlight I realize how important the role of a producer is. The producer strives to balance the artistic wishes of the director with the reality of a production schedule, the target audience, box-office desires, etc. If it works right, you end up with a better movie. For Episode 5, there were 4 producers (not counting lucas) that Lucas had to fight with. For episode 1, there was nobody around to say "George, scenes that involve farting aliens will not appeal to the mainstream audience... or anyone over the age of four."
Another example: writing. For Empire Strikes Back, Lucas shared writing credits with Lawrence Kasdan. Lawrence Kasdan. For episodes 1,2,3 lucas shares writing credits with... stars wars book authors (ick). If Kasdan were still involved, surely he would say "George, the dialog between padme and anakin makes the dialog in Rocky 4 seem profound."
At the core, I think Lucas is the same guy he was for the first 3 movies, but this time around he has nobody to ground him in reality or to call him on the stuff that doesnt work.
They did, though not as prominently. Maybe nobody's biting? Dunno. They showed off 4 swords for the gamecube. I think that was at last years e3 but can't remember.
I'm curious as to what people thought were some of the more notable surprises / letdowns. I didn't spend a lot of time at the show, but here's some random thoughts:
PSP: Clearly this was shown only because of the Nintendo DS. Someone told me that Nothing shown on the PSP looked even remotely close to being complete. I heard some analyst predicting March 05 but I think even December 05 would be optimistic. That said, I think that it has potential -- it's just too soon to tell.
Nintendo DS: For me, this was the biggest surprise of the show. I had low expectations, and had serious doubts as to how dual screens or a touch screen could add much to gameplay. Boy was I wrong. The games they were showing were amazing. It turns out that the stylus makes FPS gaming on a handheld quite workable. For the Metroid game, you move/strafe with d-pad, and pivot/shoot by moving your stylus on the touch-pad... genious!! Even the chat program was a blast. If this thing sells for less than $150 I think it will do quite well. Very curious to see the pricetag.
Half-Life 2: Still impressive, but you can tell that the community good-will is fading. At the demo I attended, when Gabe Newell said the release date would be sometime this summer, some guy got a few laughs by blurting out "For real this time??". Gabe was not amused.
Doom 3 (X-Box): While I'm sure the PC version will be quite awesome, I was unimpressed by the X-box version. Obviously it can't look as good as the PC version, but it didn't even seem to set a high-water mark for XBox. Didn't seem very fun to play. Still, I'll reserve judgement for the final product.
Chronicles of Riddick: Much like Vin Diesel's performance in Knockaround Guys, this game was surprisingly good. This could have easily been shovelware, but this is a game that could stand on its own without any licensing. Seemed like it had some innovative ideas for an FPS. It's hard to explain, but the viewpoint is more immersive. For example, you could look down and see your feet, your character casts his shadow on the wall, and a lot of little touches that gave you the environmental "perspective" of a third-person shooter.
NGage 2: Doomed. Booth had very little foot traffic. There were always more kiosks than people (a bad sign at e3), and half the people there were Nokia staff. New form factor is better, but the hardware is the same (still underpowered) and it still feels awkward both as a phone or a portable gaming device. What is Nokia thinking?
Nintendo showing (not including DS): Impressive, just like last year (though the konga game seems a bit silly). XBox Showing: Impressive, unlike last year. Sony showing: generally a disappointment.
Lots of other little things (maybe I'll add to this thread later), but those are the standouts. What did you guys think was neat / lame?
You're right: handhelds definitely had the spotlight this year. One odd exception was mobile phone based gaming -- even with NGage 2 it seemed like it was a hotter topic last year than now.
Personally I doubt consoles are going away any time soon -- I think there's a lot to be said for playing a game on a big screen on your couch. That said, I do think that the PC market will continue to decline -- mobile devices will cater to the solitaire/minesweeper type gamer, while consoles (with their increasing cpu power and online capabilities) will make further inroads into genre's typically reserved for PC's. But who knows...
...but this man is the suspected author of the worm. The authorities haven't released his identity, nor how they arrived at the determination that he is the author.
I'm not sure I understand all of the anti-intel sentiment myself. AMD isn't the "good guys" that the geek community has made them out to be. Just like Intel, AMD doesn't arbitrarily set their prices for chips. They charge less because they have low operating and production costs. Yes, every company strives for this, but they don't always resort to sweatshops.
For a time, lucusarts was a pretty unique entity. Many development houses find themselves under the thumb of a publisher, but with the staff at lucasarts was the developer *and* publisher for many of their titles.
With Sam and Max and FT2 cancelled, coupled with the resignation of president Simon Jeffrey and the firing of the director of some of the great adventure titles, I have a sinking feeling I know what has happened. Lucasarts has decided to put all of its weight behind Star Wars Licensing. The suits have taken over: why make novel titles when you can put out a star wars game that will make way more money?
On a certain level, I agree with you that alot of software today is way more bloated than it needs to be.
On the other hand, I think it's wrong for a game developer to focus on the disk space footprint as a primary goal. Every book and evey intstructor will tell you to make your code work and then optimize. When you start off with the intent to make a totally optimized piece of software, you can often times limit its scalability. Furthermore, if UT2k4 was delayed 6 months because the developers wanted to make the install take 200MB as opposed to 2GB they would make far more enemies than slashdot-reading codemonkies.
Also, keep in mind that game developers often have to keep a close eye on memory footprints (especially when developing for a console with 24-64MB of RAM for video, data, and sound).
While you are right that there are certification requirements, cross-platform publishing (and the strength of publishers in general) has really forced the console makers to become more lax in their standards.
Proof? Enter the Matrix. This game was a bug-ridden piece of garbage, and in my opinion the load times for the ps2 version were excessive. There's no way his game should have made it past the Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft QA department, but because each company was terrified of the prospect of the game being released on the two competitors' consoles before their own, they let the bugs slide. So, Atari/Infogrames was able to railroad the game through in spite of it's highly unpolished state.
Ultimately, I think load times are a function of:
System RAM
Data Transfer Rate of media (be it CD-ROM, Cartridge, or HDD)
I'm sure to get flamed, but I own all three consoles, and this theory seems to pan out. The Gamecube has the least amount of RAM (ostensibly 48MB, but 16MB of it is too slow for most developers to use for anything other than music or disk cache) and generally the shortest load times. The Xbox has the most amount of RAM and seems to me to have the longest load times.
Why are so many people mystified as to the reasoning behind this decision. People arguing that there is no technical reason why you can't have co-op on the PC are missing the point.
I'm almost positive that this has *nothing* to do with technical/time constraints and almost everything to do with a big fat check from Microsoft. In Id's Wired interview, they claimed that they were getting a lot of pressure to do an XBox exclusivity deal a la Halo or possibly a 6 month delay. I'm sure that this is a compromise.
Slashdot Mirror
Wasn't there a story on slashdot a while back on how the mileage ratings for hybrid cars were a crock? I read a review of the Escape hybrid in USA Today and they weren't able to get better than 28 mpg highway, which is a whopping 3 mpg better than the non hybrid version.
Hybrid technology may have room to grow, but escape is a ploy to seperate rich, stupid hippies from their money.
You do realize that the same thing has been said every time there has been a jump in media capacity, right?
Back when the first CD-ROM games came out, it was obvious that developers had no idea what to do with the extra space, and you saw lots and lots of "games" that were basically a collection of video clips. Now, even for smalltime developers, the thought of going back to cartridge or floppy media is ludicrous.
When the PS2 came out with the ability to read DVD-ROM games, few publishers took advantage and most PS2 games still came out on CD. Now it's a common occurance, and not simply because of cut-scenes. For example, SSX 3 (kickass snowboarding game) spools geometry off of the DVD, thus enabling courses that are so large they take upwards of 20 minutes to reach the bottom and at no time does it feel like you're on rails, thus side-stepping the RAM limitations inherent in consoles.
So, will developers initially not now what to do with 25GB initially? Sure. But history has shown that they will catch up and that you will see games that were unthinkable because of the technical limitations of the previous generation.
That doesn't mean that it isn't fun to play along. It's strongly suspected that the designers of this latest "game" are the same folks who created "The Beast", which coincided with the release of A.I.. So, did it serve as a marketing tool for the movie? Probably. But for many people it was engaging and thought provoking in its own right.
And no, "The Beast" didn't culminate in a mass-email that said "Thanks for playing, now go see A.I!!". In fact, I don't think there were any direct references to the movie throught the course of the game (but the game arguably did take place in the A.I universe). I'm imagining the ilovebees thing will play out in the same way.
I know it's microsoft and as such we are required to hate it, but please try to keep an open mind.
uh, my mail-order dvd version arrived the day it was released. pre-orders also scooped up the DVD version at the stores. So, you hate them for not releasing exclusively on DVD? I don't get it.
I do agree that Id's decision is frustrating. I wonder if it's harder to implement copy protection schemes on DVD. Otherwise, I can't see why id cares what the media is -- it's an issue for the distributor, not the developer.
Personally, I think that RTS games could be the killer app for the DS. The reason being is that you could exploit the main two features of the device (dual screens & touch sensitive input) in a way that wouldn't seem contrived.
Think about this. On your top screen, you have the "action" window, where you have all your characters running around. You select your orc/peasant/etc with your stylus, and then draw a line where you want him to go, or you draw a circle around where you want him to start building. On the lower screen, you have your "spells" window, where you you have all of the menu's and status information. this way it doesn't clutter the primary screen like what you have in a PC RTS. Someone mentioned in another reply that you can only have 3d rendering in one window at a time, but for the above scenario this wouldn't be an issue as your menu screen would be 2d anyhow.
Imagine this: you want to build a barracks, so you first click on your orc in the action window, then you click on the "build barracks" icon in the lower window, then you tap on the section of the upper screen where you want it to be built. That would be awesome!
One slight hitch, though.. are *both* screens touch sensitive, or just one of them? If not, the idea gets more complicated, but I think it could still work w/ some tweaking.
Okay, so admittedly I'm a cynic and I still feel someone burned from the original delay, but this sounds like an artful dodge around bad news.
Supposedly "Summer" is the release date for Half Life 2, according to Valve. My guess is that the reason why they chose Counterstrike for the beta test was as a test for the net code (and possibly the graphics engine) so that they could role-up any bugfixes into same engine that Half-Life 2 would be using. With that in mind, it seems highly unlikely that they would release Half-Life 2 before counterstrike concluded it's beta testing. So if the counterstrike beta will take place in late summer, that doesn't leave a whole lot of time to go from "Beta 1" (does that imply multiple betas then?) to "done".
Here's my take: Half-Life 2 is going to be delayed 'till fall, but the announcement of Counterstrike: Source is an attempt to stave off the lynch mob. I hope I'm wrong, but Valve doesn't have the best track record. Gabe Newell is probably is probably formulating a press release this very second blaming the delay on the Sasser worm.
... because it would have sucked if the reward was, say, a ornamental mahogany elephant. Ouch.
Though I agree with you (Nintendo was ruthless company that had *very* heavy-handed tactics), I don't think the 3rd party licensing thing is accurate. The standard 3rd party licensing barred you from making the same title on another console, but I don't think that the licensees were able to get out of this -- the larger 3rd parties were able to negotionate less harsh contracts though.
Also, the Atari/Tengen lawsuit was over console licensing of Tetris, which Tengen *lost*.
What I think you're referring to is the lawsuit that the retailers brought against Nintendo. Back in the day, Nintendo wouldn't give you promotional materials, kiosks, and sometimes not even sell you games if you sold a competing console. Imagine coke not letting you sell pepsi at your grocery store.
That small point aside, you're right. Nintendo was every bit as evil as Microsoft. In fact, I think part of the reason that they faltered in the 90's was particarly because of the practices they used to such success in the 80's. Retailers, publishers, and developers were all pissed at Nintendo. As soon as a viable competitor came along, everyone jumped ship. Yeah, the cartridge-only thing was a dumb idea, too.
Is Nintendo still evil? Well, I don't think that they can afford to be (you can be an asshole when you have a monopoly, but not when you are 3rd in the US market). However, I think that Nintendo has always been a strong developer/publisher, and has always pushed gameplay over technology.
A very good book on the subject is Game Over. Definitely sheds a light on the tactics of Nintendo (and atari and sega) during the 2nd video game boom.
True, she's been a lot of mediocre teen-movie fare, but to claim that she hasn't had a better performance since Interview with a Vampire indicates to me reviewer hasn't seen Drop Dead Gorgeous.
This is an excellent point, but is it so wrong to evaluate a candidate's attitude and drive just as much as their aptitude? In my experience, I've seen better results from hard-working, honest people than from very bright, unmotivated jerks.
Do certifications mean someone is more motivated? Well, I'd say that it's a good (but not infallible) indicator, and should be evaluated along with other factors.
Here's a stab at what might also work:
evaluating Certifications, degrees, and so on.
seeing how well candidate gets along with potential peers (a la group interview)
score on a mental alertness (read: IQ) test. Yeah, it's Orwellian, but generally speaking they are a good indicator at your capacity for abstract thought.
It's not so much that the PC market is dwindling per se, such that the console market is GROWING AT A MASSIVE SCALE. In fact, it's already enormous. And it's not because the consoles are stealing gamers away from the PC, it's because the consoles are tapping into a demographic that would never even touch a PC. It has to do both with the types of games as well as the economics ($200 for a console vs. $1500 for a PC) and ergonomics (would you rather play NFL Street on your couch in front of the big screen tv, or at your desk in front of a 19" monitor?)
So, put yourself in microsoft's shoes 5 years ago. Consoles are booming, PC sales are flat, and you don't make any money from licensing. If you ask me, Microsoft did what they did because they had to. The writing is on the wall for PC gaming. Microsoft didn't kill it by making the Xbox. If anything, the PS2 is more to blame for the state of PC games.
Yes, Microsoft could have put their xbox marketing money (half a billion) into promoting PC gaming. But do you really think this would grow the market such that Microsoft would get that money back? Keep in mind that when you buy a PC game, Microsoft gets NOTHING. Microsoft only get's money when a gamer decides to purchase a copy of windows XP.
If microsoft had done all the things you mention, I propose that it would barely make a dent in the growth of the consoles. So why not try to take a piece of the console pie as well?
Ever played Crimson Skies? It portrays a history of the United States in which the country splintered off into three or four seperate nation-states after the Great Depression. Was it banned in the United States? No. Did anyone bitch? No. Of course, you can buy it in a certain province of China without objection.
Banning a game (or book, or movie) because it portrays a history that differs from the government-approved version of history is reprehensible, and the motivation cannot be justified at any level.
Technically, the Gamecube has 48MB of RAM, but the problem is that 24MB of the ram consists of relatively fast 1T-SRAM with a bandwidth of 2.6GB/sec and another 16MB of standard DRAM that has a bandwidth of only 81MB/sec. Here's a some good info on it
In contrast, the PS2 has 32MB of ram that runs at 3.2GB/sec (more linkage).
So, yeah, if your trying to feed geometry to the GPU the slower ram may not cut it. What some developers do (for example, lucasarts when they made jedi starfighter) is use the slower ram as a ramdisk "swap drive", or just use it to hold sound. In essence, though, you've got 8 megs less than a ps2.
My guess is this: If theywanted to make Driv3r for the Gamecube you could definitely do it (and make it look damn good), but it wouldn't be as easy as doing a simple port from the PS2 version. While profits may not have been the stated reason, perhaps revenue from the gamecube version were not worth the added cost/headache of porting.
Dunno... It's all speculation on my part. But the slow RAM issue isn't bullshit, for what it's worth.
Gotta agree with this one. DDR wasn't the cornerstone of my health plan (also trying to eat less and do weight training), but I found it to be a fun way to unwind after work and get decent aerobic workout.
Personally, I think that DDR is a very good thing for the industry.
-it broadens the gamer demographic (my aunt thought the ps2 was the devils work, now shes a ddr junky).
-it served as a shot-in-the-arm to the arcades. Don't know if it will save them, but hasn't hurt nontheless.
-finally, the media writes a story about a game that hasn't inspired someone to go on a shooting rampage!
But I always bristle at the notion that "games lately look so much the same" and "there's no originality anymore, not like back in the day".
Here's the deal: the reason why so many games look the same is because for every innovative game you have 20 or so derivative titles that want to cash in on the popularity of the original. Though we like to fondly look back to the early days of video games and think that they were so original, the truth is that the same problem existed back then as well. I recently got one of those 200-in-1 NES emulators for the GBA, and let me tell you that the 20-to-1 ratio of crap to innovation still applies.
The author of this article makes another mistake: thinking that games will stop looking like each other with the advent of pixel shaders. Of course this is rediculous. I do believe that technology can enable new aspects of gameplay, but to think that pixel shaders are going to make people more creative is just plain wrong.
Simple: Destroy the inner circle.
It's clear that George Lucas is intent on directing, so we can't change that. However, I think the real problem is that the core group of people that he works with are a bunch of ass-kissing yes-men who indulge his every whim.
For example: Watch some of the behind the scenes clips on the episode 1&2 DVD's. You will not find one single instance of where Rick McCallum (the producer and close friend of lucas) disagrees with George Lucas. I'm no movie expert, but after watching Project Greenlight I realize how important the role of a producer is. The producer strives to balance the artistic wishes of the director with the reality of a production schedule, the target audience, box-office desires, etc. If it works right, you end up with a better movie. For Episode 5, there were 4 producers (not counting lucas) that Lucas had to fight with. For episode 1, there was nobody around to say "George, scenes that involve farting aliens will not appeal to the mainstream audience... or anyone over the age of four."
Another example: writing. For Empire Strikes Back, Lucas shared writing credits with Lawrence Kasdan. Lawrence Kasdan. For episodes 1,2,3 lucas shares writing credits with... stars wars book authors (ick). If Kasdan were still involved, surely he would say "George, the dialog between padme and anakin makes the dialog in Rocky 4 seem profound."
At the core, I think Lucas is the same guy he was for the first 3 movies, but this time around he has nobody to ground him in reality or to call him on the stuff that doesnt work.
just my two cents.
They did, though not as prominently. Maybe nobody's biting? Dunno. They showed off 4 swords for the gamecube. I think that was at last years e3 but can't remember.
PSP: Clearly this was shown only because of the Nintendo DS. Someone told me that Nothing shown on the PSP looked even remotely close to being complete. I heard some analyst predicting March 05 but I think even December 05 would be optimistic. That said, I think that it has potential -- it's just too soon to tell.
Nintendo DS: For me, this was the biggest surprise of the show. I had low expectations, and had serious doubts as to how dual screens or a touch screen could add much to gameplay. Boy was I wrong. The games they were showing were amazing. It turns out that the stylus makes FPS gaming on a handheld quite workable. For the Metroid game, you move/strafe with d-pad, and pivot/shoot by moving your stylus on the touch-pad... genious!! Even the chat program was a blast. If this thing sells for less than $150 I think it will do quite well. Very curious to see the pricetag.
Half-Life 2: Still impressive, but you can tell that the community good-will is fading. At the demo I attended, when Gabe Newell said the release date would be sometime this summer, some guy got a few laughs by blurting out "For real this time??". Gabe was not amused.
Doom 3 (X-Box): While I'm sure the PC version will be quite awesome, I was unimpressed by the X-box version. Obviously it can't look as good as the PC version, but it didn't even seem to set a high-water mark for XBox. Didn't seem very fun to play. Still, I'll reserve judgement for the final product.
Chronicles of Riddick: Much like Vin Diesel's performance in Knockaround Guys, this game was surprisingly good. This could have easily been shovelware, but this is a game that could stand on its own without any licensing. Seemed like it had some innovative ideas for an FPS. It's hard to explain, but the viewpoint is more immersive. For example, you could look down and see your feet, your character casts his shadow on the wall, and a lot of little touches that gave you the environmental "perspective" of a third-person shooter.
NGage 2: Doomed. Booth had very little foot traffic. There were always more kiosks than people (a bad sign at e3), and half the people there were Nokia staff. New form factor is better, but the hardware is the same (still underpowered) and it still feels awkward both as a phone or a portable gaming device. What is Nokia thinking?
Nintendo showing (not including DS): Impressive, just like last year (though the konga game seems a bit silly).
XBox Showing: Impressive, unlike last year.
Sony showing: generally a disappointment.
Lots of other little things (maybe I'll add to this thread later), but those are the standouts. What did you guys think was neat / lame?
You're right: handhelds definitely had the spotlight this year. One odd exception was mobile phone based gaming -- even with NGage 2 it seemed like it was a hotter topic last year than now.
Personally I doubt consoles are going away any time soon -- I think there's a lot to be said for playing a game on a big screen on your couch. That said, I do think that the PC market will continue to decline -- mobile devices will cater to the solitaire/minesweeper type gamer, while consoles (with their increasing cpu power and online capabilities) will make further inroads into genre's typically reserved for PC's. But who knows...
...but this man is the suspected author of the worm. The authorities haven't released his identity, nor how they arrived at the determination that he is the author.
Btw, Here'a an english version of the story.
I'm not sure I understand all of the anti-intel sentiment myself. AMD isn't the "good guys" that the geek community has made them out to be. Just like Intel, AMD doesn't arbitrarily set their prices for chips. They charge less because they have low operating and production costs. Yes, every company strives for this, but they don't always resort to sweatshops.
For a time, lucusarts was a pretty unique entity. Many development houses find themselves under the thumb of a publisher, but with the staff at lucasarts was the developer *and* publisher for many of their titles.
With Sam and Max and FT2 cancelled, coupled with the resignation of president Simon Jeffrey and the firing of the director of some of the great adventure titles, I have a sinking feeling I know what has happened. Lucasarts has decided to put all of its weight behind Star Wars Licensing. The suits have taken over: why make novel titles when you can put out a star wars game that will make way more money?
On a certain level, I agree with you that alot of software today is way more bloated than it needs to be.
On the other hand, I think it's wrong for a game developer to focus on the disk space footprint as a primary goal. Every book and evey intstructor will tell you to make your code work and then optimize. When you start off with the intent to make a totally optimized piece of software, you can often times limit its scalability. Furthermore, if UT2k4 was delayed 6 months because the developers wanted to make the install take 200MB as opposed to 2GB they would make far more enemies than slashdot-reading codemonkies.
Also, keep in mind that game developers often have to keep a close eye on memory footprints (especially when developing for a console with 24-64MB of RAM for video, data, and sound).
Proof? Enter the Matrix. This game was a bug-ridden piece of garbage, and in my opinion the load times for the ps2 version were excessive. There's no way his game should have made it past the Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft QA department, but because each company was terrified of the prospect of the game being released on the two competitors' consoles before their own, they let the bugs slide. So, Atari/Infogrames was able to railroad the game through in spite of it's highly unpolished state.
Ultimately, I think load times are a function of:
I'm sure to get flamed, but I own all three consoles, and this theory seems to pan out. The Gamecube has the least amount of RAM (ostensibly 48MB, but 16MB of it is too slow for most developers to use for anything other than music or disk cache) and generally the shortest load times. The Xbox has the most amount of RAM and seems to me to have the longest load times.
Why are so many people mystified as to the reasoning behind this decision. People arguing that there is no technical reason why you can't have co-op on the PC are missing the point.
I'm almost positive that this has *nothing* to do with technical/time constraints and almost everything to do with a big fat check from Microsoft. In Id's Wired interview, they claimed that they were getting a lot of pressure to do an XBox exclusivity deal a la Halo or possibly a 6 month delay. I'm sure that this is a compromise.