"On the launch day of Xbox 360, I recall seeing a line eight persons deep to play Super Mario Kart DS, and not one person even looking at the 360."
And this suprises you, how?
Nintendo = Japanese company. They heavily advertise and have a very deep market penetration there. Microsoft = American, they heavily advertise and have great market penetration here.
If you go to a game store here you see the exact opposite. The 360 has people huddled around and fighting over the chance to play COD2, and the DS is laying around unplayed.
"If they lose this fight, consumers will think twice about letting Google deep into their lives.''"
Consumers should think twice anyway. The Government knows much more about you than any Internet search engine, and they will continue to for years to come.
Trusting a publicly traded corporation with certain information over a Government is pure stupidity.
"The 360 is effectively dead and no longer relevant."
Too bad most market analysts disagree.
The PS3 will be released at a minimum of twice the price of the 360 ($250 vs >$500) and will be going against Halo 3.
The Blu-Ray disc player was implemented simply so Sony could push their own proprietary format. The extra few hundred dollars in manufacturing costs per unit will waterfall to the average consumer.
The result will be Sony fanbois buy a few of them up, but most Middle-America families on a budget will go with the 360 that has a larger selection of games, online play, and half the price.
"Microsoft is just stupid. They have the means to produce so many more 360's than they have."
They may be stupid, but they haven't made many mistakes with the 360. It is hardly their fault that other manufacturers aren't keeping up with their SLA's.
Re:Take all the time you need, to get it right
on
PS3 In U.S. In November?
·
· Score: 3, Informative
"Hardware and software glitches, not enough stock, no real nex-generation games"
Have you even played a 360 yet? The only hardware problems were around 2% of people who stuck their power brick behind a hot TV with ventillation. There haven't been any Microsoft software glitches.
The 360 is over a million out the door. It is far ahead of the PS2 pace 2 months into release.
No real nex-gen games? Play Kameo, COD2 and PGR3 on any TV with the full 1080 resolution. You are blind to call them non "nexgen".
Sony will fail with the PS3 unless they pull the plug on Blu-Ray. The system will cost about twice that of the 360 with less features (online play) and less games (same stuff minus Halo).
"If they minimize their shipments by avoiding doing something crazy like...oh...let's say giving away a PS3 every 10 minutes for a month. I guess the reality is that sort of scheme doesn't dent the overall shipments much."
Crazy?
60*24*31/10 = around 4,000 Xbox360's. That is nothing compared to the demand. It was effective advertising for both Mountain Dew and the 360. There were some people with a few hundred caps they saved for one drawing.
"Add to that that real audio/videophiles probably would consider it a sin to have an "accessory" to a game console as their HD-DVD player and there goes that segment of potential buyers."
Which is the reason 360 will be so successful.
PS3 will have the Blu-Ray player by default. This will push the console price to 600+ and will not effectively reach any market. Pure gamers will take the cheaper 360 and home theater enthusiasts will buy a separate player.
Having a Blu-Ray player over a 9gb dual-layer DVD is Sony force-feeding us a new format.
Unless they start bundling iPods with their macs, they aren't going to sell any better than they are now.
If people wanted to dual-boot, they would build their own rig and either buy a copy of OSX that will run on it (or just pirate it if Apple won't allow).
"No, Mac users aren't invulnerable. We're simply more secure overall. And we're proud of that."
This may very well be true, and I will bet it is.
Regardless, how do you prove it? There aren't that many people in the world with a combinatino of the 1)knowledge and 2) 'evilness' to create a virus for millions of computers.
What reason would these few people have to make one for an OS with around 2% market share? Why would they spend the amount of time to find a vulnerability and create a method of transportation?
The fact is Windows is more secure than we all think, and OSX is less. When you are the big dog with 97+% market share on the desktop you have a huge target on your back.
"Proving that iPod users are either scrupulously honest or more paranoid"
This simply proves the iPod has hit the mainstream. Many iPod users have one because they are "trendy", and don't have the computer knowledge required to find, download, and use pirated music.
Absolutely. Going out to the movies and reading books are also espacist activities. Life is work, and people need escapist activites to stay sane. No one wants to hear about the real world 24/7, because in reality the real world is harsh and cutthroat.
Video games let the user enter another world for a healthy stress relief. This is no different than watching Lord of the Rings or reading the latest Tom Clancy novel.
The question isn't if Video Games negatively affects the user in real life, but rather what would that person do in real life without video games? I'm guessing not everyone would be out gardening or street sweeping.
"Seriously though, cue all the 360 fanboys who are going to have to switch from HD-DVD is way better than Blu-Ray so the PS3 sucks to "Built in HD players are overrated, I'd rather the machine was cheaper"."
You do know that the 360 will use HD-DVD's only for movies, not games, right? Sony is including Blu-Ray as a punishment to the wallets of gamers just to push the format.
"Pricing the PS3 below the price of the Xbox 360 (or at the same price as the $299 Core version) may very well sound the death knell for MS. As great as the Xbox 360 is in many things, it cannot in any way compete with a Blu-Ray player that is $100 less."
The PS3 BR player will not fit *any* market.
Any Home Theater enthusiast would definately NOT use a PS3 BR player for movie watching. The enthusiast market with 50" plasmas and custom audio systems ONLY buy the highest quality movie players (Denon for example). A PS3 BR player will not compete with these other high-end systems, it simply can't for the money.
The other market, the gamer market, is very low on HDTV's. These people on standard NTSC 4:3ratio televisions will not see an image quality difference over a normal DVD due to the resolution limitations of the monitor.
Blu-Ray = one true flaw of the PS3
on
CNN On The $500 PS3
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
This new technology is 1) Extremely expensive to manufacture and 2) Very primitive in its current state.
I expect the PS3 to hit at 500-600, and cost nearly double to manufacture. PS3 will sell more units than the 360 (due to Japan) so they can take a larger loss-per-console. In the end the Blu-Ray will not be worth the extra price, and I guarantee the quality (and image quality in movies) of the first generation Blu-Ray drive will suck.
I disagree. The review should be done on the hardware the game was intended.
Half Life 2, to continue my example, would NOT run on the average computer. Average right now is probably 1ghz 256mb RAM etc.
The cutscenes are far above that of the actual gameplay graphics. For a game that should concentrate on gameplay and balance, the graphics definately do not take away from the game.
"The rest of the game looks good, but the moment-to-moment gaming only looks about as good as a high-end Xbox title"
I hope you were playing this game on a WideScreen HDTV. I have the old DOA3 and have played both on my Sony SXRD and the differences are jaw-dropping. The cut scene and level detail are simply breathtaking.
Stop reviewing 360 games without the proper hardware. Its like reviewing Half Life 2 with a 13" monitor and playing with a gamepad.
.. for the 360. The dual-layer DVD's hold around 9 gigs, and now its been proven that even the most absolutely mammoth games with 1090i HD resolutions will fit. If you have never played Morrowind you have no idea how much content is actually included.
The PS3's one true weakness will be the Blu-Ray player. Its already been claimed that early standalone BR players will cost well over $1,000. There is no possible way Sony can create a console with a BR player and price it competitively with the 360 and have it released early this year.
I'm a conservative (the "Right", you would say) and in no way would I want to invade China.
Besides the obvious "Never fight a land war in Asia", China has not been slaughtering hundreds of thousands of their own citizens and does not present a threat to our American way of life.
Saddam has killed hundreds of thousands of innocent citizens. He has tried to invade other countries and attempted to extend his missle program to ICBM's. America frees the country, backed by a 99-0 vote in the senate, then the Left complains.
When another country simply rejects access to a website filled with unsubstantiated information, the Left is up in arms demanding action.
The hypocracy of the radical left in this country is truely amazing.
1) The 360 has sold fewer units to this point due to the limited supply rather than low demand. This doesn't take away from the "buzz" around the product, rather the opposite.
2) PS2 has sold over 100 million units, and the 360 will never reach that point for 2 reasons. 1) The 360 is strictly marketed to the United States. Hell Japan barely even knew a new console was coming out, same in Europe. M$ is avoiding the "Land War in Asia" against the PS3. 2) The 360 will make money from Xbox Live rather than extra units.
Too many people consider this a standard console. Sell a piece of hardware underpriced and make up the difference on a cut of every game sold.
The 360 is doing the same, but rather relying on Xbox Live membership fees and marketplace downloads. This is a business model that will strive. Every single 360 game is beautifully integrated.
Does anyone else here actually agree with DRM?
on
A Look at Google DRM
·
· Score: 1
I honestly have no problem with basic (ie non-Sony rootkit) DRM. These people create content in which we consume. In a capitalist society they can choose to deliver the content in whatever means they choose.
As a consumer we can also choose not to buy the product.
The simple fact that this stuff sells like hotcakes is enough to show that DRM is here to stay. But how bad is it really? Millions of sites require subscription fees and passwords to access protected content, how is that any different?
Most people around here complain simply because they have the right to complain. If you want to beat DRM you need to find a better solution for the consumer AND the corporations. If this "necessary evil" is the best we can come up with, I believe it is a fair compromise.
but rather all the companies hired to make the pieces. Thats the problem when you auction out each individual piece of a console to the lowest bidder - one of them missing their mark pushes everything back.
Good news for them is the PS3 launch is looking further and further out, possibly 2007.
Slashdot Mirror
"On the launch day of Xbox 360, I recall seeing a line eight persons deep to play Super Mario Kart DS, and not one person even looking at the 360."
And this suprises you, how?
Nintendo = Japanese company. They heavily advertise and have a very deep market penetration there. Microsoft = American, they heavily advertise and have great market penetration here.
If you go to a game store here you see the exact opposite. The 360 has people huddled around and fighting over the chance to play COD2, and the DS is laying around unplayed.
"If they lose this fight, consumers will think twice about letting Google deep into their lives.''"
Consumers should think twice anyway. The Government knows much more about you than any Internet search engine, and they will continue to for years to come.
Trusting a publicly traded corporation with certain information over a Government is pure stupidity.
"The 360 is effectively dead and no longer relevant."
Too bad most market analysts disagree.
The PS3 will be released at a minimum of twice the price of the 360 ($250 vs >$500) and will be going against Halo 3.
The Blu-Ray disc player was implemented simply so Sony could push their own proprietary format. The extra few hundred dollars in manufacturing costs per unit will waterfall to the average consumer.
The result will be Sony fanbois buy a few of them up, but most Middle-America families on a budget will go with the 360 that has a larger selection of games, online play, and half the price.
"Microsoft is just stupid. They have the means to produce so many more 360's than they have."
They may be stupid, but they haven't made many mistakes with the 360. It is hardly their fault that other manufacturers aren't keeping up with their SLA's.
"Hardware and software glitches, not enough stock, no real nex-generation games"
Have you even played a 360 yet? The only hardware problems were around 2% of people who stuck their power brick behind a hot TV with ventillation. There haven't been any Microsoft software glitches.
The 360 is over a million out the door. It is far ahead of the PS2 pace 2 months into release.
No real nex-gen games? Play Kameo, COD2 and PGR3 on any TV with the full 1080 resolution. You are blind to call them non "nexgen".
Sony will fail with the PS3 unless they pull the plug on Blu-Ray. The system will cost about twice that of the 360 with less features (online play) and less games (same stuff minus Halo).
"If they minimize their shipments by avoiding doing something crazy like...oh...let's say giving away a PS3 every 10 minutes for a month. I guess the reality is that sort of scheme doesn't dent the overall shipments much."
Crazy?
60*24*31/10 = around 4,000 Xbox360's. That is nothing compared to the demand. It was effective advertising for both Mountain Dew and the 360. There were some people with a few hundred caps they saved for one drawing.
"Add to that that real audio/videophiles probably would consider it a sin to have an "accessory" to a game console as their HD-DVD player and there goes that segment of potential buyers."
Which is the reason 360 will be so successful.
PS3 will have the Blu-Ray player by default. This will push the console price to 600+ and will not effectively reach any market. Pure gamers will take the cheaper 360 and home theater enthusiasts will buy a separate player.
Having a Blu-Ray player over a 9gb dual-layer DVD is Sony force-feeding us a new format.
Unless they start bundling iPods with their macs, they aren't going to sell any better than they are now.
If people wanted to dual-boot, they would build their own rig and either buy a copy of OSX that will run on it (or just pirate it if Apple won't allow).
"No, Mac users aren't invulnerable. We're simply more secure overall. And we're proud of that."
This may very well be true, and I will bet it is.
Regardless, how do you prove it? There aren't that many people in the world with a combinatino of the 1)knowledge and 2) 'evilness' to create a virus for millions of computers.
What reason would these few people have to make one for an OS with around 2% market share? Why would they spend the amount of time to find a vulnerability and create a method of transportation?
The fact is Windows is more secure than we all think, and OSX is less. When you are the big dog with 97+% market share on the desktop you have a huge target on your back.
"Proving that iPod users are either scrupulously honest or more paranoid"
This simply proves the iPod has hit the mainstream. Many iPod users have one because they are "trendy", and don't have the computer knowledge required to find, download, and use pirated music.
"Video gaming is an escapist activity "
Absolutely. Going out to the movies and reading books are also espacist activities. Life is work, and people need escapist activites to stay sane. No one wants to hear about the real world 24/7, because in reality the real world is harsh and cutthroat.
Video games let the user enter another world for a healthy stress relief. This is no different than watching Lord of the Rings or reading the latest Tom Clancy novel.
The question isn't if Video Games negatively affects the user in real life, but rather what would that person do in real life without video games? I'm guessing not everyone would be out gardening or street sweeping.
"Seriously though, cue all the 360 fanboys who are going to have to switch from HD-DVD is way better than Blu-Ray so the PS3 sucks to "Built in HD players are overrated, I'd rather the machine was cheaper"."
You do know that the 360 will use HD-DVD's only for movies, not games, right? Sony is including Blu-Ray as a punishment to the wallets of gamers just to push the format.
"Pricing the PS3 below the price of the Xbox 360 (or at the same price as the $299 Core version) may very well sound the death knell for MS. As great as the Xbox 360 is in many things, it cannot in any way compete with a Blu-Ray player that is $100 less."
The PS3 BR player will not fit *any* market.
Any Home Theater enthusiast would definately NOT use a PS3 BR player for movie watching. The enthusiast market with 50" plasmas and custom audio systems ONLY buy the highest quality movie players (Denon for example). A PS3 BR player will not compete with these other high-end systems, it simply can't for the money.
The other market, the gamer market, is very low on HDTV's. These people on standard NTSC 4:3ratio televisions will not see an image quality difference over a normal DVD due to the resolution limitations of the monitor.
This new technology is 1) Extremely expensive to manufacture and 2) Very primitive in its current state.
I expect the PS3 to hit at 500-600, and cost nearly double to manufacture. PS3 will sell more units than the 360 (due to Japan) so they can take a larger loss-per-console. In the end the Blu-Ray will not be worth the extra price, and I guarantee the quality (and image quality in movies) of the first generation Blu-Ray drive will suck.
I disagree. The review should be done on the hardware the game was intended.
Half Life 2, to continue my example, would NOT run on the average computer. Average right now is probably 1ghz 256mb RAM etc.
The cutscenes are far above that of the actual gameplay graphics. For a game that should concentrate on gameplay and balance, the graphics definately do not take away from the game.
"The rest of the game looks good, but the moment-to-moment gaming only looks about as good as a high-end Xbox title"
I hope you were playing this game on a WideScreen HDTV. I have the old DOA3 and have played both on my Sony SXRD and the differences are jaw-dropping. The cut scene and level detail are simply breathtaking.
Stop reviewing 360 games without the proper hardware. Its like reviewing Half Life 2 with a 13" monitor and playing with a gamepad.
Reprinting 5,000 DVD's would be much less costly than an early pirated version of the movie.
.. for the 360. The dual-layer DVD's hold around 9 gigs, and now its been proven that even the most absolutely mammoth games with 1090i HD resolutions will fit. If you have never played Morrowind you have no idea how much content is actually included.
The PS3's one true weakness will be the Blu-Ray player. Its already been claimed that early standalone BR players will cost well over $1,000. There is no possible way Sony can create a console with a BR player and price it competitively with the 360 and have it released early this year.
I'm a conservative (the "Right", you would say) and in no way would I want to invade China.
Besides the obvious "Never fight a land war in Asia", China has not been slaughtering hundreds of thousands of their own citizens and does not present a threat to our American way of life.
Saddam has killed hundreds of thousands of innocent citizens. He has tried to invade other countries and attempted to extend his missle program to ICBM's. America frees the country, backed by a 99-0 vote in the senate, then the Left complains.
When another country simply rejects access to a website filled with unsubstantiated information, the Left is up in arms demanding action.
The hypocracy of the radical left in this country is truely amazing.
"And I think Bill has doubts, too. "
1) The 360 has sold fewer units to this point due to the limited supply rather than low demand. This doesn't take away from the "buzz" around the product, rather the opposite.
2) PS2 has sold over 100 million units, and the 360 will never reach that point for 2 reasons. 1) The 360 is strictly marketed to the United States. Hell Japan barely even knew a new console was coming out, same in Europe. M$ is avoiding the "Land War in Asia" against the PS3. 2) The 360 will make money from Xbox Live rather than extra units.
Too many people consider this a standard console. Sell a piece of hardware underpriced and make up the difference on a cut of every game sold.
The 360 is doing the same, but rather relying on Xbox Live membership fees and marketplace downloads. This is a business model that will strive. Every single 360 game is beautifully integrated.
I honestly have no problem with basic (ie non-Sony rootkit) DRM. These people create content in which we consume. In a capitalist society they can choose to deliver the content in whatever means they choose.
As a consumer we can also choose not to buy the product.
The simple fact that this stuff sells like hotcakes is enough to show that DRM is here to stay. But how bad is it really? Millions of sites require subscription fees and passwords to access protected content, how is that any different?
Most people around here complain simply because they have the right to complain. If you want to beat DRM you need to find a better solution for the consumer AND the corporations. If this "necessary evil" is the best we can come up with, I believe it is a fair compromise.
PS2 sold 200,000 units within the first 6 months in America.
360 is already at 1.3 million in about a month and a half. They still deserve some credit.
but rather all the companies hired to make the pieces. Thats the problem when you auction out each individual piece of a console to the lowest bidder - one of them missing their mark pushes everything back.
Good news for them is the PS3 launch is looking further and further out, possibly 2007.
The Democrats are out of control with "Hell"ery leading the liberal charge against our simple rights to play video games we choose.