Frenetic Pony

This is the new (console) shit!

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I already answered this ages ago: http://www.idlethumb...140#entry220348 (and again for Thrik).

You said "I hope it's obvious that I was talking about the past". I'm talking about the past. It's *obviously* no sense to release a BR add-on in 2012, but I don't think it made financial sense in 2008 either.

Yep, this is where we definitely disagree. Everything I've posted supports the notion that MS were trying to strong arm the industry into adopting VC-1 (via HD-DVD) as part of a larger strategy to capitalize on the inevitable online market. (I.E., "Imagine if we could go back in time and patent the MP3 or JPG algorithms -- we'd have made a fortune! Maybe we can do it for the next iteration of online...?")

Fair enough. I think they tried and failed. It's a sunk cost, not something they were trying to salvage.

Secondly, MS have a long history of trying to use one market to control another. Using the 360 to do this seems like a no-brainer to me. (Wouldn't you try and do it, in their shoes?) Creating an online marketplace for content is a way of trying to leap-frog Blu-ray, and get an early jump in the Online movie/TV distribution market.

Again, I don't think we disagree here, but you frame this as MS vs. Blu-ray. I don't think it's that. I think it's a "MS needs movies & TV shows" plan not a "MS needs to crush BR" plan.

Actually, I'm curious now, do you feel the same way about Apple? After all, they've gone and done more-or-less the same thing (didn't support Blu-"bag of hurt"-Ray on their MacBooks, used iTunes for movies & TV) sans the HD-DVD part.

Not creating a Blu-ray add-on for the 360 in 2008 seems like an obvious attempt to doing this: All their customers can watch movies/TV over their network, encoded using their standards -- and most importantly, in HD. It's like MS saying, "No need to worry about that Blu-ray stuff, we've got everything you want right here!". Again, this just seems like common sense to me.

I'm not sure why you think BR was *such* a big deal to customers. If anything, MS were more worried about iTunes, as customers are increasingly moving online.

MS have such a poor history of playing nice with others that I'm actually kind of surprised that Durango (if the leak is real) doesn't support their own format for high-capacity games. They have the HD-DVD format to fall back on, after all. I'm surprised they didn't just rebrand that technology as "XBOX FILE FORMAT", or something like that, and insist that it was better for consumers in some way. Again, wouldn't this be better for MS? (You yourself seem to agree that high-capacity is the most important thing, and movies are secondary, after all.)

Just money again. Making their own format would be expensive. HD-DVD doesn't have the economies of scale benefits that BR has now.

(You still haven't explained how you think MS could force their way into BD, btw.)

Basically what Niyeaux said. As for the "reluctant" part, I guess we'll find out. Like you said they can brand it however they want, or they can at least disable Blu-ray videos on Durango. If that's the case (there's a BR drive but you can't watch movies) I would agree with your characterization. But I don't think they see BR as a threat to their business model.

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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

My contribution.

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I concur. This is an argument for the sake of an argument now. I've explained what I said, he apparently now understands it, and largely agrees with it. Now it's just arguing for the sake of arguing.

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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

My contribution.

I was really hoping that your spoiler would just be a longer "AAAAAAAAAAH"...

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I concur. This is an argument for the sake of an argument now. I've explained what I said, he apparently now understands it, and largely agrees with it. Now it's just arguing for the sake of arguing.

I don't, but I think we've articulated our points well, and it's time to move on.

So anyway, two things I wanted to bring up:

The terraflop argument. As long as they're in the same ballpark (and they are) it's largely irrelevant IMO. Think about this gen, and where the console hardware was bottlenecked:

Xbox: unable to guarantee a hard disk is present, low capacity discs

PS3: slow disc drive, 256/256MB RAM split, high latency for memory copies between SPE and SPUs.

None of those are CPU (or even GPU) bound. Terraflops is a nice number to throw around, but figuring out which console is more powerful from a practical POV is much more complicated.

The PS3 real-time OS point. Worth noting that this has been Sony's play for the past two generations. Powerful, but esoteric, hardware. Here's the thing though: they always screw up Tools & Documentation. And that (any sane dev will tell you) is critical. I hope they work more closely with their American & European counterparts this time around.

(Quick, kinda hilarious example: Carmack said that the PS3's GPU documentation was in English (from nVidia), then translated to Japanese (by Sony) and then translated back into English for Western developers!)

To end on a positive note: I hadn't read that Eurogamer article yet. I'm happy to hear that Sony & Microsoft are putting real work into making smaller, cooler, less power-hungry consoles. I think that's a very important, but often overlooked, part of a console's specs.

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Wow! I'm allowed to make my point without having to defend it any longer. Lucky me. Seriously folks, that was a passing observation based on years of following news and other developments. I have sound reasoning for what I posted, and I hope I've proved it is a valid opinion, even if you don't agree with it. I know I've got a reputation for being argumentative, but... what was that?

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The PS3 real-time OS point. Worth noting that this has been Sony's play for the past two generations. Powerful, but esoteric, hardware. Here's the thing though: they always screw up Tools & Documentation. And that (any sane dev will tell you) is critical. I hope they work more closely with their American & European counterparts this time around.

(Quick, kinda hilarious example: Carmack said that the PS3's GPU documentation was in English (from nVidia), then translated to Japanese (by Sony) and then translated back into English for Western developers!)

Man, I really wish I could back Sony but this is exactly the kind of stuff that makes me pretty neutral/centrist with the slightest leaning toward MS on this console stuff. This generation, they did tons of things right - awesome exclusives, PlayStation Plus, superior UI (FWIW), Blu-Ray, etc. But despite all this, they have the worst problem with communication, whether it's what I've heard down the grapevine with developers or their ad campaigns that seem to hit all the wrong points. Add to that some bad timing and the 360 became the console of choice for me this gen.

If Sony can just step up their messaging and actually manage to sell all the good games they bankroll (hello, Resistance 3 selling like... sub-1 million units yet still being one of my favorite games that year) I will almost certainly make the Orbis my primary console.

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See, I was with you on MS before I got both. Now that I have both systems, I barely turn on my 360. Sony has stepped it up SO HARD this generation that pretty much the only thing MS has going for it is clarity. I feel like I'm done with them unless/until they can make a really compelling exclusive games argument. I'm sure they will eventually and I'll end up with the trinity again sooner or later, but man. PS3 vs 360, no contest. And that statement has the opposite meaning of what I would have thought in, say, 2007.

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I don't think I'll ever find myself on the Sony side of the fence, purely because of how much Forza has been kicking Gran Turismo's ass for the last couple iterations. I'm a huge sim racing junkie, and played the hell out of GT3 A-spec back in the day, but that franchise is really not looking so hot these days.

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I just so much vastly prefer the X-box Live experience to that of PSN, and have grown disillusioned with the layers of DRM and service walls that pervade PC gaming.

Also, things like Halo, Gears of War, and a ton of niche games that were bizarrely 360-exclusive for no apparent reason kept me significantly in the Microsoft camp this generation. (Treasure has pretty much been developing exclusively for XBLA over the last few years.)

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and a ton of niche games that were bizarrely 360-exclusive for no apparent reason

I'm willing to bet it's related to what I mentioned above: Tools & Documentation. Although Treasure is a weird case since they are Japanese. But still, the Xbox architecture is simpler to understand (and closer to the Naomi/DC architecture) than the PS3 is.

See, I was with you on MS before I got both. Now that I have both systems, I barely turn on my 360. Sony has stepped it up SO HARD this generation that pretty much the only thing MS has going for it is clarity. I feel like I'm done with them unless/until they can make a really compelling exclusive games argument. I'm sure they will eventually and I'll end up with the trinity again sooner or later, but man. PS3 vs 360, no contest. And that statement has the opposite meaning of what I would have thought in, say, 2007.

I feel very much the same way. My Xbox went from "second best* console ever!" to basically "the Spelunky machine". However, it's worth noting what a freaking mess the PS3 UI is. Some how the design is both clean AND completely useless to navigate. The whole games tab is a mess. There are a million useless apps installed. The Settings menu is endless. PSN storefront some how got worse. Buying games still uses the weird download-the-demo-and-key mechanism half the time. I could go on...

This, plus the messaging stuff JonCole said, has me worried. I mean, it doesn't really matter ... I'll get all three consoles eventually, but it's heartbreaking to see Sony hit so many high notes, but totally fail on the fundamentals.

(* because DS, obviously)

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The problem with the PS3 UI is it hash really been substantially updated to integrate new features properly — they've just added endless sub-items all over the place. It was actually pretty concise when it launched.

As stupid as it sounds, I think a key part of this has been all the premium themes Sony's spent this generation peddling. Many of them customise the icons too, so if Sony wants to make dramatic changes suddenly there's 500+ themes that need updating or they'll look retarded. Sony should learn from Microsoft and stick to backgrounds next time.

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I'm willing to bet it's related to what I mentioned above: Tools & Documentation. Although Treasure is a weird case since they are Japanese. But still, the Xbox architecture is simpler to understand (and closer to the Naomi/DC architecture) than the PS3 is.

There's a fairly significant number of small Japanese developers that have been developing games with a preference towards the 360 rather than the PS3. Cave is another one, for example, that has frequently expressed in interviews that they have a close relationship with Microsoft in Japan and that it makes the 360 very easy to develop for. It seems like Microsoft has, either intentionally or inadvertently, fostered some fairly dedicated support from several small, well-loved indies in Japan. However, given that Microsoft seems to finally be giving up on Japan, i don't know if it will carry on through to the Durango, but for the 360, it's been one of the reasons i've enjoyed it so much.

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See, I was with you on MS before I got both. Now that I have both systems, I barely turn on my 360. Sony has stepped it up SO HARD this generation that pretty much the only thing MS has going for it is clarity. I feel like I'm done with them unless/until they can make a really compelling exclusive games argument. I'm sure they will eventually and I'll end up with the trinity again sooner or later, but man. PS3 vs 360, no contest. And that statement has the opposite meaning of what I would have thought in, say, 2007.

This is basically where I am. PS+ gives me new, free games each month, whereas Xbox Live gets me...access to Netflix, which is free everywhere else. I'm amazed that people even spend money on it.

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I think the Netflix thing is super dumb, i'd have an easier time arguing a defense for X-box Live if it wasn't for that. The equation simply used to be: Do you play multiplayer games and value a service that facilitates that in some really great ways? Then pay for a sub, otherwise don't, because everything else on the service doesn't require it. (This scenario is, of course, why Microsoft is starting to paywall other things. They're afraid of people finding reasons not to have a gold sub.)

Me though, I do play a lot of multiplayer games, and i think the online experience on the 360 is unparalleled amongst the consoles. I think it's even better than the experience on the PC a lot of the time. So it comes down to me not having a problem paying for a service that i think is really, really good. There's no specific thing to it beyond that.

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I wonder if that's a representation of what the new start up animation will be, and that the ps4 will boot up to the sound of a woman climaxing.

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More importantly, it they are unveiling on the 20th feb they're going to have to show some new games! Uncharted 4? The next battlefront (read the other day that it will be a launch title)? A new killzone or infamous? Parapper the rappass? Just cause 3? Video game 12?

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Just Cause is on PC, though. With an awesome (hilarious) multiplayer mod, no less.

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