Archive for July, 2005
Fox Does Blu-ray
Posted by Blackstaffer in PS3 on July 30th, 2005
The little shiny discs that your PS3 will gobble up can be CDs, DVDs, or BDs. BD? Blu-ray Discs. And there’s somewhat of a format war going on between HD-DVD (backed by Toshiba and others) and Blu-ray (backed by Sony and more others). Disney, MGM, and Columbia/Tristar back Blu-ray. Universal, Paramount, and Warner Brothers back HD-DVD. And now Fox has joined the Blu-ray camp officially. There have been hints that they may go this way, Sony is sure to be happy that Fox has made it official. It’s a good thing for Blu-ray, and therefore a good thing for the PS3.
Console Developers Should be Terrified
Posted by Blackstaffer in Hardware on July 29th, 2005
Valve boss Gabe Newell gets right into it. “Technologically, I think every game developer should be terrified of the next generation of processors. Your existing code, you can just throw it away. It’s not going to be helpful in creating next generation game titles.”
Bold words, maybe just a tiny bit sensationalistic. There’s lots of code programers can keep for the next generation, but Mr. Newell is trying to make a point. The next generation of consoles will rely heavily on multi-threaded programming. The consoles will be able to execute more than one thing at the same time (not to be confused with multi-tasking, whereby the processor just switches between all the applications really quickly). And programming for a processor that can execute several processing threads at once is a very tricky task. Problems include getting the threads to communicate, getting them not to wait on each other (deadlock), and managing them. Mr. Newell says “Really good engineers are going to be much more valuable and engineers who used to be valuable writing game code in the previous generation may end up becoming thorns in the side of key programmers who can write multi-core game code.”
But you know, the main core of the PS3′s Cell is a powerful PowerPC based processor. The Xbox 360 has three of them. The Revolution has two. And the graphics chips in these consoles are very powerful. There’s nothing to stop developers from using just one core and ignoring all the others. Doing this, the games will still be a lot better technically than anything on the market today. So my guess is that this is how most developers will start. Create some cool games that don’t even begin to tap the full potential of the hardware. As they get familiar with the hardware, they’ll start using it more.
Usually, as a console progesses towards maturity, the games get better and better. That’ll happen again with this generation, but probably to a larger degree because there’s so much more to learn and use.
So hats off to Mr. Newell for trying to scare developers, but I don’t think they’re cowering in any corners.
Lost e-mails
Posted by Blackstaffer in Talk on July 28th, 2005
I just found out that my redirect for receiving e-mails from the contact page hasn’t been working. So if you tried to contact me I wasn’t snubbing you – I apologize! It’s working now, so I promise to reply to any contacts made from now on!!!
Henning
Hidden Xbox 360 Costs?
Posted by Blackstaffer in Xbox 360 on July 28th, 2005
Yesterday I wondered about the audio/video cables, and whether or not they’d be included in the Xbox 360 box. It seems like I’m not the only one. joystiq is wondering the same thing.
If no AV cables are included, you’ll have to buy something like Microsoft’s HD AV Pack
Only it’ll be worse.
If I didn’t buy the multitap, when I brought my PS2 home I could still play it. Now, if I were to buy a 360 without the AV cables, I’d bring home an expensive lawn ornament. So I hate to nip this train of thought in the bud right now, but I think I have to. Microsoft will include AV cables. They just have to. They’d be shooting themselves in the foot if they didn’t. And while Microsoft is a lot of things, stupid ain’t on that list.
Link: joystiq – Xbox 360 packaging details, A/V cables sold separately?!
Microsoft Still Losing on Xbox
Posted by Blackstaffer in Xbox 360 on July 28th, 2005
Ah, poor Microsoft. They are so used to making money hand over fist and here’s their Home & Entertainment division, losing $179 million in the last quarter. (The Home & Entertainment division includes the Xbox.)
Asked when Microsoft will expect to make money on the Xbox 360, Stephen McGill replied “We’re thinking long term.” (Mr. McGill is head of UK marketing for the console.)
So money keeps getting stuffed into the Xbox funnel, waiting for something special to dribble out the bottom.
But the dribble is coming. Oh yes, it’s coming. And Sony better be prepared.
Playable PS3 at TGS?
Posted by Blackstaffer in PS3 on July 28th, 2005
At the PlayStation Meeting held recently, Ken Kutaragi said “We hope to use the Tokyo Game Show as a chance for everyone to get to know, or possibly experience, what next-generation entertainment is all about.”
Hmmmm. “Possibly experience”. Two little words, so chock full of meaning. Tantalizing, taunting, and ultimately… meaningless. We probably don’t know until the Tokyo Game Show actually arrives whether or not there will actually be playable demos, and by the time we find out, it won’t matter whether or not we heard this rumour anyway.
*SIGH*
That’s the problem with being a PS3 and next-gen website when the PS3 isn’t even out yet. Just too much speculation and not enough specification.
Link: Eurogamer – PS3 to be playable at TGS?
Xbox 360 Packaging and Accessories
Posted by Blackstaffer in Xbox 360 on July 27th, 2005
At the Xbox Summit 2005, Microsoft showed a packaging mock-up for the Xbox 360. The side of the box said that it would include a wireless controller, a hard drive, Xbox Live, headset, and ethernet cable. A pretty good list of inclusions, though by Xbox Live I guess they mean the hardware supports Xbox Live Silver out of the box. It’s nice to see the headset included, but what about audio/video cables?
They also announced a list of accessories that you’ll be able to purchase separately. Among them are hard drives, controllers, memory cards, extra batteries, charge units, headsets, faceplates, a remote control, and cables. Included in the list of cables are a VGA HD cable, component video cable, and S-Video cable. Gamespot says that you’d need the VGA HD cable to play HD, but I wonder why you couldn’t play HD over the component connection? It’s certainly capable.
PGR3 Video
Posted by Blackstaffer in Xbox 360 software on July 27th, 2005
I’ve never owned a standard. I’ve always been more of an automatic kind of guy. My first car was an ’83 Buick Regal. I found it quite convenient to put my arm around my girlfriend while driving (the Regal had a middle seatbelt up front) and I liked it.
But recently I’ve had the urge to drive standard. I’m really enjoying driving my car more and more, and think that a standard would do me pretty well. I’m a family guy so we have a sedan and a minivan. But our sedan (a Malibu) is starting to get old so I’m fantasizing about what I could replace it with. The Mazda3 GT is looking mighty fine. Standard. 2.3L engine. Ooooh. One reviewer said that the stickshift was so nice, that’s how BMW would do it if they sold a car at this price. Nice complement.
What the? Maybe not. I can’t afford a new car right now. But I can look at the new PGR3 video shown in Japan recently. And it looks nice!
Link: team XBOX – Project Gotham Racing 3: Tokyo WMVHD Trailer
Link: Xbox 360 IGN – Xbox Summit 2005: Project Gotham Racing 3 Update
Oh, and if anybody can find me a good deal on a charcoal Mazda3 GT, drop me a line. I’m in Ottawa.
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