"Mark my words. This is going to kill the PS3. If its delayed until Early 2007, the XBox 360 will have a massive marketshare and will be dominating sales. HD-DVD players will probably have become available by then with a large library of titles, making Blu-Ray more and more irrelevant."
PS3's will be at minimum $600-$700 at launch. It will have a decent Japanese launch (contrary to the 360), but will not survive against a 360 system costing under $250 with the same graphics.
It was stupid to incorporate Blu-Ray into this console. A simple dual-layer 9gb DVD is plenty for hi-res textures. How many cutting edge PC games take more than 9gb? None.
They knew they didn't have a shot at competing with Nintendo/Sony in Japan, so they didn't try.
Only a few games are actually in Japanese, there was absolutely 0 marketing, and very few consoles shipped over there. The Xbox trying to conquer Japan is like Hitler invading Russia. Just 'aint gonna happen and Billy boy knew it.
Meanwhile you still can't find a 360 in America after over a million have been sold. PS2 sold 200,000 in the first 3 months as a comparison.
Sequels are the best console-launch titles. Anyone with any experience in marketing will tell you that.
If PS3 was released with a bunch of games that no one heard of (despite how good they are) it wouldn't do NEAR as well as making sequels of everyone's favorite games from the previous system.
Wonder why? Probably because its miles behind schedule of coming out in "Spring" as previously announced.
Poor marketing strategy nonetheless. The only market Sony is worried about right now are families that will buy EITHER the 360 or the PS3. (Many people will buy both or just the PS3, those sales are already final). The longer PS3 waits the fewer families who will purchase just 1 will wait.
"Games made for HD-DVD won't even work for early adopters of the 360. Those of you who shelled out $399, or worse, $700 or more for an ebay'd 360, will have to come back and buy an aftermarket HD-DVD player for God knows how much "
HD-DVD will be supported for movies, not games. This way a 360 owner can keep 1 box in his living room to play 360 games, xbox1 games, DVD movies and HD DVD movies.
"What makes it a worthless language is that it has all the bad parts of C++ and Java without any of the benefits"
Most people experienced with the languages believe the opposite - it has all the benefits of Java with none of the problems (lack multiple inheritance, effective marshalling, etc).
People consider the 'classic' era of great games has come and gone. The reality is games were so simple then that a great one could really stand out. There wasn't much to compare besides pure gameplay.
Now games are judged on Dolby 5.1 sound, 1080i graphics, broadband online abilities, and gameplay. It is harder for a great game to stand out because there are so many different elements to master that appeal to so many different people. Add this to the fact that the gaming industry is booming creating massive competition and things get really blurry.
If we aren't in a golden age, oh well. Madden 2006 on 360 may not have the best gameplay of any football game (I think it does) but the surround sound and native wisdescreen HDTV graphics makes an amazing gaming experience.
The only part of the Xbox360 that overheats is the power brick. The console itself does not overheat.
Online system is susposed to be fantastic
on
DOA Ships Today
·
· Score: 4, Informative
The online options include everything from daily tournaments, monthly tournaments of the highest rated players, and even Guilds/Clans.
Kudos to a company that resisted the urge to release an unfinished game for the holiday season and made sure the game was perfect. This game should see a ton of success, and this decision should be a model for other companies.
Reason? Games with hi-res textures have been available for under 9 gigs for awhile now on a PC. No game for this console will require the ~45gig capacity.
Microsoft is pro HD-DVD due to the DRM located within Blu-Ray. This is one isntance where we should take sides with the monopoly. HD-DVD's are the better solution for the customer.
"...bad press everywhere including mainstream media"
Are you kidding me? Both on Launch day and last Sunday when Best Buys recieved another huge shipment every single channel was running a positive story on the Xbox. Pretty much every BB in my state had all 70 or so 360's claimed about 15 hours prior to opening.
I don't know if the shortage was deliberate, but it worked. The buzz around this system is completely unparalleled. People were waiting in line for 20 hours a month after launch date just to get one. That is unbelievable.
Mistake #1: Overheating CPU or GPU
-Actually it is the separated power brick.
Mistake #2: No MSN Music
-This can be incorporated at any time through the marketplace. When the legal issues are sorted I expect it.
Mistake #3: No HDMI support
-Not needed. Microsoft has tested HDMI with the 360 and found there was no improvement in quality.
Mistake #4: 20GB is too small
-What? The hard drive was designed for XBOX Live Arcade games and MP3's (to play during games). Anything larger should be streamed from a media center.
Mistake #5: Microtransaction Security
-Have to do more research here.
Mistake #6: No Web Browser
-This introduces more problems than it's worth.
Mistake #7: No WMV-HD DVD Playback
-About.5% of the 360 target market cares. Not worth the extra development $$.
Mistake #8: No MPEG-4 AVI playback (i.e. XviD, etc)
-See #7
Mistake #9: No System-Wide Video Calibration
-This is just false. There is a universal option to change from Full/Wide screen and -420p/720p/1080i.
Mistake #10: Poor DVD Playback Quality
-Probably representative of your TV. I see the same quality on mine as any other DVD player that doesn't upconvert.
Mistake #11: No pressure sensitive face buttons
-yawn
"These included roving phone taps and secret warrants for documents from businesses and hospitals, and for records of library books taken out by private citizens."
DA's have been seizing library records for years, and roving wire taps just make sense. If a terrorist walks into Best Buy and can buy 10 pre-paid phones, we should be able to keep tapping him.
"Quit blowing partisan smoke out your ass AND WAKE UP! America as we know it is falling apart, and idiots like you that spout off talking points aren't helping matters any."
America as we know it is falling apart? Unemployment is down, the economy is booming, we haven't had a terrorist attack since 9/11, and we are continuing to strive through disasters such as Katrina.
If you think this place is "falling apart" by all means leave and tell me what you see elsewhere.
The sheer amount of ignorance around the PATRIOT act by liberals is astounding. You do realize that it was passed 98-1 initially?
The USA PATRIOT act does NOT introduce one new power not already available to the government or a DA in some form to Drug Dealers. Flexible roaming wiretaps, "after the fact" search notices, applying wire taps to Internet usage, etc.
Please, do the research and actually read through the entire legislation before making a judgement. I know it isn't the liberal way, but try it once.
"The PS3 and 360 will be indistinguishable from each other."
This is correct for one simple reason: 99% of the top selling games will be made for each system. Developers, for the sake of time and $$$, will create to the lowest common denominator.
Xbox had the same problem - Even with far superior power (from being released 2 years later) very few games took full advantage of the hardware. They instead created for as much as the PS2 could handle and ported the graphics.
The dev boxes for PS3 are still very limited so it is still impossible to tell how the performance trophey will be awarded. In the end, it won't even matter because of this. The deciding factor will be online activity, which seems to be dominated by M$ right now.
"I think products like this are extremely cool. Unfortunately, I can't really see a use. I love my old NES games, and I have a sizable collection of carts. Problem is, between the NES, SNES, Atari, Intellivision, and so forth, it's impossible to pile them all up around the TV. "
Buy a cheap used XBOX and a good modchip.
I put a cheap 80gig hard drive on there and with a few easy to find emulators it currently has every NES, SNES, Atari, Sega Genesis, and Gameboy game ever made. Since both the Xbox and the 360 play DVD's I only have 4 boxes around my TV (Digital cable box and home theater receiver are the others).
Slashdot Mirror
"Mark my words. This is going to kill the PS3. If its delayed until Early 2007, the XBox 360 will have a massive marketshare and will be dominating sales. HD-DVD players will probably have become available by then with a large library of titles, making Blu-Ray more and more irrelevant."
PS3's will be at minimum $600-$700 at launch. It will have a decent Japanese launch (contrary to the 360), but will not survive against a 360 system costing under $250 with the same graphics.
It was stupid to incorporate Blu-Ray into this console. A simple dual-layer 9gb DVD is plenty for hi-res textures. How many cutting edge PC games take more than 9gb? None.
They knew they didn't have a shot at competing with Nintendo/Sony in Japan, so they didn't try.
Only a few games are actually in Japanese, there was absolutely 0 marketing, and very few consoles shipped over there. The Xbox trying to conquer Japan is like Hitler invading Russia. Just 'aint gonna happen and Billy boy knew it.
Meanwhile you still can't find a 360 in America after over a million have been sold. PS2 sold 200,000 in the first 3 months as a comparison.
Every time you download a new security update for Windows you should consider that a new "version" if each Linux Distro is considered a version.
$300 for an Xbox360 core was cheaper at launch than the NES, SNES, N64, Xbox1, PS1, and PS2 when you consider inflation.
$300 is still a chunk of change, but I wish my $1500 computer had 3x 3.2ghz processors and that monster of a video card.
Sequels are the best console-launch titles. Anyone with any experience in marketing will tell you that.
If PS3 was released with a bunch of games that no one heard of (despite how good they are) it wouldn't do NEAR as well as making sequels of everyone's favorite games from the previous system.
The 360 took this path, as will PS3.
Wonder why? Probably because its miles behind schedule of coming out in "Spring" as previously announced.
Poor marketing strategy nonetheless. The only market Sony is worried about right now are families that will buy EITHER the 360 or the PS3. (Many people will buy both or just the PS3, those sales are already final). The longer PS3 waits the fewer families who will purchase just 1 will wait.
"Games made for HD-DVD won't even work for early adopters of the 360. Those of you who shelled out $399, or worse, $700 or more for an ebay'd 360, will have to come back and buy an aftermarket HD-DVD player for God knows how much "
HD-DVD will be supported for movies, not games. This way a 360 owner can keep 1 box in his living room to play 360 games, xbox1 games, DVD movies and HD DVD movies.
There is no plan to create GAMES on HD DVD's.
"How can a language that runs on such a limited number of Operating Systems be considered "Pro"?"
.NET is designed to work on any and all operating systems. They simply need a unique CLR.
"What makes it a worthless language is that it has all the bad parts of C++ and Java without any of the benefits"
Most people experienced with the languages believe the opposite - it has all the benefits of Java with none of the problems (lack multiple inheritance, effective marshalling, etc).
People consider the 'classic' era of great games has come and gone. The reality is games were so simple then that a great one could really stand out. There wasn't much to compare besides pure gameplay.
Now games are judged on Dolby 5.1 sound, 1080i graphics, broadband online abilities, and gameplay. It is harder for a great game to stand out because there are so many different elements to master that appeal to so many different people. Add this to the fact that the gaming industry is booming creating massive competition and things get really blurry.
If we aren't in a golden age, oh well. Madden 2006 on 360 may not have the best gameplay of any football game (I think it does) but the surround sound and native wisdescreen HDTV graphics makes an amazing gaming experience.
"Forget college, forget healthcare, we need radio bandwidth and tax cuts for the richest to help fight the terrorists."
Anyone else interested in seeing the person that actually modded this +5 Interesting? Lets not forget that In fact, the percentage of GDP spent on health is higher in the United States than in countries with government-provided health care and the government pays over 300 billion a year in grants towards college.
Heaven forbid we spent 1/200 of that on television. Crazy liberal whiners.
"And yet I can't find a single person over the age of 18 that has one. Other than... me..."
Which is an important point. Playstation and Xbox tend to sell more games per unit sold due to the audience. This statistic may be skewed.
The average PS3/360 user will be early/mid20's middle/upper class males with more money to spend than the average Revolution/NDS owner.
Nothing but a publicity stunt.
The only part of the Xbox360 that overheats is the power brick. The console itself does not overheat.
The online options include everything from daily tournaments, monthly tournaments of the highest rated players, and even Guilds/Clans.
Kudos to a company that resisted the urge to release an unfinished game for the holiday season and made sure the game was perfect. This game should see a ton of success, and this decision should be a model for other companies.
"lol speculation, how exactly did this become slashdot news?"
You have been here before, right?
"So either one or both agencies in question are simply incompetent, or lying to us"
I know, how dare they place a cookie on my machine! No other site in the intarweb does!!
Don't you think you overreacted just a little??
"Microsoft is considering HD-DVD for the next hardware revision of the XBOX 360"
Microsoft has said no to HD-DVD inside the 360.
Reason? Games with hi-res textures have been available for under 9 gigs for awhile now on a PC. No game for this console will require the ~45gig capacity.
Microsoft is pro HD-DVD due to the DRM located within Blu-Ray. This is one isntance where we should take sides with the monopoly. HD-DVD's are the better solution for the customer.
It would be much more fun to poke and laugh at a bad video blog than just reading an bad text-based one.
"...bad press everywhere including mainstream media"
Are you kidding me? Both on Launch day and last Sunday when Best Buys recieved another huge shipment every single channel was running a positive story on the Xbox. Pretty much every BB in my state had all 70 or so 360's claimed about 15 hours prior to opening.
I don't know if the shortage was deliberate, but it worked. The buzz around this system is completely unparalleled. People were waiting in line for 20 hours a month after launch date just to get one. That is unbelievable.
Mistake #1: Overheating CPU or GPU
.5% of the 360 target market cares. Not worth the extra development $$.
-Actually it is the separated power brick.
Mistake #2: No MSN Music
-This can be incorporated at any time through the marketplace. When the legal issues are sorted I expect it.
Mistake #3: No HDMI support
-Not needed. Microsoft has tested HDMI with the 360 and found there was no improvement in quality.
Mistake #4: 20GB is too small
-What? The hard drive was designed for XBOX Live Arcade games and MP3's (to play during games). Anything larger should be streamed from a media center.
Mistake #5: Microtransaction Security
-Have to do more research here.
Mistake #6: No Web Browser
-This introduces more problems than it's worth.
Mistake #7: No WMV-HD DVD Playback
-About
Mistake #8: No MPEG-4 AVI playback (i.e. XviD, etc)
-See #7
Mistake #9: No System-Wide Video Calibration
-This is just false. There is a universal option to change from Full/Wide screen and -420p/720p/1080i.
Mistake #10: Poor DVD Playback Quality
-Probably representative of your TV. I see the same quality on mine as any other DVD player that doesn't upconvert.
Mistake #11: No pressure sensitive face buttons
-yawn
"These included roving phone taps and secret warrants for documents from businesses and hospitals, and for records of library books taken out by private citizens."
Delayed notification search warrants are a long-existing, crime-fighting tool upheld by courts nationwide for decades in organized crime, drug cases and child pornography
DA's have been seizing library records for years, and roving wire taps just make sense. If a terrorist walks into Best Buy and can buy 10 pre-paid phones, we should be able to keep tapping him.
"Quit blowing partisan smoke out your ass AND WAKE UP! America as we know it is falling apart, and idiots like you that spout off talking points aren't helping matters any."
America as we know it is falling apart? Unemployment is down, the economy is booming, we haven't had a terrorist attack since 9/11, and we are continuing to strive through disasters such as Katrina.
If you think this place is "falling apart" by all means leave and tell me what you see elsewhere.
The sheer amount of ignorance around the PATRIOT act by liberals is astounding. You do realize that it was passed 98-1 initially?
The USA PATRIOT act does NOT introduce one new power not already available to the government or a DA in some form to Drug Dealers. Flexible roaming wiretaps, "after the fact" search notices, applying wire taps to Internet usage, etc.
Please, do the research and actually read through the entire legislation before making a judgement. I know it isn't the liberal way, but try it once.
"The PS3 and 360 will be indistinguishable from each other."
This is correct for one simple reason: 99% of the top selling games will be made for each system. Developers, for the sake of time and $$$, will create to the lowest common denominator.
Xbox had the same problem - Even with far superior power (from being released 2 years later) very few games took full advantage of the hardware. They instead created for as much as the PS2 could handle and ported the graphics.
The dev boxes for PS3 are still very limited so it is still impossible to tell how the performance trophey will be awarded. In the end, it won't even matter because of this. The deciding factor will be online activity, which seems to be dominated by M$ right now.
"I think products like this are extremely cool. Unfortunately, I can't really see a use. I love my old NES games, and I have a sizable collection of carts. Problem is, between the NES, SNES, Atari, Intellivision, and so forth, it's impossible to pile them all up around the TV. "
Buy a cheap used XBOX and a good modchip.
I put a cheap 80gig hard drive on there and with a few easy to find emulators it currently has every NES, SNES, Atari, Sega Genesis, and Gameboy game ever made. Since both the Xbox and the 360 play DVD's I only have 4 boxes around my TV (Digital cable box and home theater receiver are the others).