@MikeB

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360 games developers are required to make games which can still be run on the 360 without the need of a harddrive

This supposedly has changed. MMPORGs can now be released as HDD only installs. Sizes of Live games are getting larger which is near HDD only. Realistically this is a requirement which could be eliminated, as well as the billable multiplayer, if Microsoft sees this as a market impending situtation.

What I'd like to see this fall - Core w/ DVD+20GB HDD. Premium w/ Blu+20GB HDD. and Elite Blu+100GB HDD.

I hear your fear of the billable multiplayer but so far the market doesn't agree with you. There's plenty of online players. The online service is less expensive for multiple games then what PCs do for most single games. The market position is fine and will continue to grow.

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Sony brand earned its reputation for its good diverse Sony produced ... Microsoft earned its bad reputation..

Of course neither is as 100% great and 100% bad as you make them out to be. Sony for example has had RootKit, bad cameras w/ lawsuits, and attempts at market control (it's just Sony's tend to fail). Microsoft has made some really good games, good development suite, and Office really is a great product even if it has everything and the kitchen sink.

Nintendo + anyone is unlikely. Nintendo + Sony even more so. They broke ranks at the PS1. In Japan the 360 is nowhere, I can see where NIntendo would at least not see it as a threat to their Wii business.

Looked up the DS vs PS2. It's that the DS has surpassed the PS2 in Japan.

@BrianK

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The online service is less expensive for multiple games then what PCs do for most single games.

What do you mean? You don't need to pay extra to play PC games online...

A small minority of 360 owners subscribe to XBox Live Gold. So IMO there's just less potential.

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What I'd like to see this fall - Core w/ DVD+20GB HDD. Premium w/ Blu+20GB HDD. and Elite Blu+100GB HDD.

I would hope they skip DVD once they support Blu-Ray. Blu-Ray disc is for a games console is far more beneficial for gaming than for just playing movies, the PS3 does a much better job at this already. The 360's reputation as a DVD player is pretty bad (it also seems to sport some default color filtering which results white in pictures and movies to turn pinkish.

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Sony for example

They produce a large varierty of product and services, the bulk of user experiences and evaluations are top notch.

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and Office really is a great product

Not really, sadly it has become a standard. Even a free product like OpenOffice.org is as good as on par.

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Looked up the DS vs PS2. It's that the DS has surpassed the PS2 in Japan.

The Japanese love handheld devices. The PSP currently performs honorably in Japan as well.

@BrianK

Such as?

They did buyout some good games companies, but Bungie's first Halo is often considered to be the best in the series. Bungie was previously mainly focussed on Mac gaming and wanted to support alterenative solutions such as Linux before the takeover.

Rare's Kameo is also a very good game, but this game was under development and nearly done for the GameCube already before the takeover. I think this type of game would probably have done better on a Nintendo platform, but sadly Microsoft bought the company. The upcoming Banjo game looks underwhelming to me.

LionHead another multi-platform games developing company. People may never see Fable 2 on the Macintosh.

They also bought a company called Ensemble Studios (Ages of Empire). That's it, to me it seems for a company its size that's not a very impressive track record. They nearly only seem to purchase already established businesses with regard to games development, funded with Windows monopoly money. If you had billions to spare you could have bought any of those companies yourself as well.

IMO Bungie and Rare so far have shown a downward spiral with regard to the games they released more recently.

Last edited by MikeB on 08-Jun-2008 at 05:54 PM.

@MikeB

Flight Simulator line is one of the best Flight Sims evar.

As for Microsoft buying some good game companies is Sony different? Sony has purchased quite a few studioes for movies/TV, Columbia pictures, UA Studioes for example. Music studioes, CBS Music and BMG for example. They've also purchased game companies, Psygnosis for example. If you had billions of spare you could have bought any of those companies yourself as well.

You seem to be trying to sell this Sony did it all from within concept. They didn't . And even the PS1 was made with a relationship with Nintendo.

You may think the Bungie games have shown a downward spiral. Halo3 is the largest pre-ordered game ever. As for how bad you think RARE is Viva Pinata is a good game. It's a creative and very fun farm type of simulation. But, even that is a simplification.

@MikeB

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What do you mean? You don't need to pay extra to play PC games online...

Certainly there are games you pay extra to play online -- World of Warcraft, Everquest. Many others pay to subscribe to online game services to play cards and other games against real players. Sure there are free ones but there are many subscription based one's too.

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Blu-Ray disc is for a games console is far more beneficial for gaming than for just playing movies, the PS3 does a much better job at this already.

No reason to use a larger and more expensive media. Even most of the PS3 content would fit on a single DVD. Of course they'd have to eliminate the non-game playing content such as the movies.

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The 360's reputation as a DVD player is pretty bad

I thought your misconceptions have been put to bed. Subsequent tests with the updated codes are much better. I've detailed this problem responding to you and provided many links backing why what you're saying is not the case. The problem here is the 360 pays attention to properly flagged DVD content. Properly encoded and flagged movies come from the studioes. This is not how the test DVDs are written. As a result the 360 looks bad on the test DVD but looks pretty darned good on studio published DVDs. I agree the 360 may not be as great as the PS3 but it can easily be relied upon to replace many DVD players.

@BrianK

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Flight Simulator line is one of the best Flight Sims evar.

"Bruce Artwick was the creator of the first consumer flight simulator software. His original Apple II software was purchased by Microsoft and eventually became Microsoft Flight Simulator."

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As for Microsoft buying some good game companies is Sony different?

Yes and no. Of course takeovers are quite common. But IMO Microsoft's history of takeovers have been very bad for industry competition.

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And even the PS1 was made with a relationship with Nintendo.

Yes, Nintendo asked them to design technology. Previously they used Sony technology for the Snes. Nintendo did not like the previously signed contract, Sony had to redesign the Playstation concept to be able to not let already done work go to waste.

Last edited by MikeB on 09-Jun-2008 at 08:18 AM.

@BrianK

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any others pay to subscribe to online game services to play cards and other games against real players.

The card games my mother plays are free to play online. I don't think XBox Live provides similar services (maybe due to those games being better played with a mouse)

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No reason to use a larger and more expensive media. Even most of the PS3 content would fit on a single DVD. Of course they'd have to eliminate the non-game playing content such as the movies.

Motorstorm for example does not include cutscenes, the data is compressed 2:1 ratio. You could make a similar game on DVD or even CD with sacrifices.

I don't think realtime cutscenes take up too much space except for maybe good quality audio, many of the other assets are used in-game as well.

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I agree the 360 may not be as great as the PS3 but it can easily be relied upon to replace many DVD players.

It's probably the worst upscaling DVD player currently available, picture deformaties and wrong colors. It may be better to buy even one of those older non-upscaling DVD players and let your HDTV upscale the image instead.

Last edited by MikeB on 09-Jun-2008 at 08:15 AM.

@MikeB

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Which is quite an achievement because the Cell isn't a GPU, but a very powerful multi-CPU, multi-system chip.

SPU is not a CPU either i.e. refer to Fold@Home type of work.

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I only stated easier and more suitable to adapt.

Note that Toshiba's CELL based Spurs Engine is already running with a Toshiba laptop and it's not running on BeOS i.e. it's running with MS Windows Vista (without Aero Glass).

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Sure, but the SPEs are more flexible than that. There are far more other lessons to be learnt.

Note that Fold@Home GPU2 client's type of work is greater than the current CELL client.

http://eric_rollins.home.mindspring.com/ray/cuda.html
PS3 CELL (6) SPU vs Intel Core 2 Quad (not a Xeon; thus no slow FSB) vs NVIDIA CUDA (G80)

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_________________
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@Hammer

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SPU is not a CPU either

The SPEs are like tiny systems themselves within which the SPU act as a CPU. What kind of program you would write on a CPU you couldn't do on the SPU? Just because they can do many things usually only GPUs, DSPs or vector units are fast at does not change this.

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Note that Toshiba's CELL based Spurs Engine is already running with a Toshiba laptop and it's not running on BeOS i.e. it's running with MS Windows Vista (without Aero Glass).

So? Vista itself isn't running on them, but on a X86 CPU instead. And FYI, Be Inc bandkrupted a long time ago.

@MikeB

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His original Apple II software was purchased by Microsoft and eventually became Microsoft Flight Simulator."

Okay and realistically what % of his code is in Flight Simulator X? You're reaching.

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. But IMO Microsoft's history of takeovers have been very bad for industry competition.

In some aspects yes. But in some aspects Sony's have been too. MGM was the last major independent film studio, they're now part of Sony. So if independence is good then Sony's move ended that competition.

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The card games my mother plays are free to play online. I don't think XBox Live provides similar services

Yes Xbox Live has card games. Poker and Uno come to mind. There are likely others if you check for them. Others are coming Gin, Cribbage, and Magic The Gathering.

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It's probably the worst upscaling DVD player currently available, picture deformaties and wrong colors

Being polite but strong in a response -- You are wrong. IF the content is flagged properly the 360 does a fine job. Purchased DVDs work good. If you're only playing spotty home made content then yes you'll get spotty results.

One plus of my 360 over my PS3 is the 360 playing HD content doesn't turn the fans on full blast half way through the movie. The last half of any BR movie on my PS3 results in annoying additional sound.

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The SPEs are like tiny systems themselves within which the SPU act as a CPU.

No the SPE is closer to a co-processor. It can't predict that it needs and it's cache is non-transparent. It can't fetch from main memory but relies upon the PPE to feed it it's data.

Last edited by BrianK on 09-Jun-2008 at 12:35 PM.

@BrianK

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Okay and realistically what % of his code is in Flight Simulator X? You're reaching.

I haven't played it but reviews weren't exactly raving.

IGN: "I know... I'm bitching and moaning. Thinking that it might be my PC, I tested the game on an additional system with a better video card and 3 GB of RAM. Sad to say it also chugged and the graphics remained sub-par."

GA: "That’s right, FSX doesn’t appear to be multithreaded. On a game that is CPU limited and intended to be an example of next generation gaming, there’s no excuse to ignore dual core processors."

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MGM was the last major independent film studio, they're now part of Sony.

Again Sony owns a minority stake of about 20%, they don´t own that company. MGM for example supports XBox Live.

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No the SPE is closer to a co-processor. It can't predict that it needs and it's cache is non-transparent. It can't fetch from main memory but relies upon the PPE to feed it it's data.

One of Mike Acton's lessons by using the Cell is not to treat the SPUs as co-processors. Nice of you to want to undue this lesson.

Insomniac's Rule 1:" The SPU is not a co-processor!
Don't think of SPUs as hiding time “behind” a main PPU loop"

I think you got the SPE's fast LS mixed up with the SPE's atomic cache units.

Data transfer between an SPE Local Store and Main Storage is performed by the Memory Flow Controller on the SPE. Each MFC can autonomously manage a sequence of DMA transfers in response to a DMA list command from its associated SPU. Each MFC has a synergistic memory management (SMM) unit that processes address-translation and access-permission information supplied by the PPE operating system.

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@BrianK

Bungie developed Halo DS but it was never released. There is an IGN video of an editor playing it...
... and Rare coders did something with the camera that would have allowed the DS' Viva Pinata game to import characters into the 360 version but it didn't make the development cut.

Microsoft did publish AoE DS...

So it seems they have a DS license...

@MikeB

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I haven't played it but reviews weren't exactly raving.

Flight Simulator X has some of the most realistic rendering out of any Flight Sim.

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That’s right, FSX doesn’t appear to be multithreaded

This reviewer is wrong. It is multithreaded and terrain loading is on another thread. However, it is not multi-core aware. Thus a dual core provides an improvement but nothing stunning. Service Pack 1 extended some multi-core awareness.

These cases are similar to most all games on the PC. They came from a single processor and single graphic card environment. None the less FSX is seen as one of the leading Flight Sims on the market today.


As for the Cell not being a full fledged CPU.... You and are going to end up throwing developer and IBM quotes at each other. We'll believe what we believe anyway. SO until you or I program it ourselves I think the discussion is moot.

Last edited by BrianK on 09-Jun-2008 at 04:05 PM.

@Lou

Yup thanks for the data on the DS. Viva Pinata 2 and AOE on the DS are one of the reasons I think it'd make sense for Microsoft to partner more with the DS as a portable extension to Xbox360 gamings.

Analysts say... GTA IV wasn't a console seller...

"In a preview of May's NPD sales, the analytical crew over at Lazard Capital Markets and Wedbush Morgan securities are reporting that GTAIV's tremendous software sales in May did not result in a "meaningful increase" for either the Xbox 360 or PS3 as was previously expected. "We do not believe the recent release of GTA IV has generated meaningful incremental demand for the Xbox 360 or PS3 platforms" commented Colin Sebastian of Lazard Capital Markets, suggesting that an actual hardware price cut would generate a more noticeable increase in demand."

@BrianK

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As for the Cell not being a full fledged CPU....

Depends on your definition of full-fledged. The by far fastest supercomputer in the world is Cell technology based.

If full-fledged to you means, most suitable to run Windows legacy style applications near unmodified the Cell is not, neither would many other processors.

A lot of non-crucial legacy bagage and features have been removed, this allowed for so much more raw performance on such a small and efficient chip. But the real ingenious innovation is in the design.

@MikeB

You luv'em some Cell so here's some Fap material for you..

The IBM Supercomputer Roadrunner combines Cell processors, a family of chips found inside the PlayStation 3, and processors from Advanced Micro Devices processes more then 1.026 quadrillion calculations per second. Doubling the calculation rate of the last supercomputer speed record holder BlueGene/L.

The Roadrunner is based on a radical design that includes 12,960 chips that are an improved version of an IBM Cell microprocessor, a parallel processing chip originally created for Sony's PlayStation 3 video-game machine. The Sony chips are used as accelerators, or turbochargers, for portions of calculations. The Roadrunner also includes a smaller number of more conventional Opteron processors, made by Advanced Micro Devices.

@BrianK

Some additional comments on CNN:

" Some elements of the Roadrunner can be traced back to popular video games, said David Turek, vice president of IBM's supercomputing programs. In some ways, he said, it's "a very souped-up Sony PlayStation 3."

"We took the basic chip design (of a PlayStation) and advanced its capability," said Turek."

Government unveils world's fastest computer

One step closer to Skynet.

Amazon top 10

01. Wii Fit—Nintendo (Wii)
02. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots*—Konami (PS3)
03. Mario Kart w/ Wii Wheel—Nintendo (Wii)
04. Guitar Hero III Bundle—Activision (Wii)
05. Wii Play w/ Remote—Nintendo (Wii)
06. Grand Theft Auto IV—Rockstar (360)
07. Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures—LucasArts (Wii)
08. Grand Theft Auto IV—Rockstar (PS3)
09. Ninja Gaiden II—Tecmo (360)
10. Fallout 3: Exclusive Survival Edition*—Bethesda (PC)

@Lou

Amazon was out of their MGS4/80GB PS3 bundle stock in a matter of 5 minutes just before their server crapped out.

There's a high demand for the 80 PS3 due to the PS2 graphics chip being included.

MGS4 on the 360?
http://my.break.com/Content/view.aspx?ContentID=516244