@MikeB

Quote:

MikeB wrote: @wegster Quote: Will have to go look for a few of those. White Knight, KZ2, GOW3, are very likely purchases from me. Infamous, Uncharted 2 and GT5 are 'highly possibles' assuming no surprises/decent reviews For me Killzone 2, God of War 3 and Uncharted 2 are the must-haves. Quote: Need to see what Heavy Rain, Quantum Theory and Twisted Metal are - is TM the next version of the 'crazy clown car game'? If so, I'm in on that one, awesome multi-player game. Regarding Twisted Metal, yes. Heavy Rain is one of the best looking games currently under development, very good real-time graphics and a great atmosphere judging from a level walkthrough by a dev. It's like a thriller game with maniac killers. Quote: Quantum Theory A trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfpgRYq3nFM

Thanks, I think I came across the same trailer or similar on ign, when looking for upcoming PS3 and 360 games. Holding back judgement on that one - saw a fight scene involving annoying 'flash a button, press a button' 'fighting' - I can tolerate that sort of gameplay if it's limited in scope (GoW2 for example), but not if it's a core part of gameplay, so...waiting for more info on that one.

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@Hammer

PLEASE resize your images to 800x600 or lower if going to put them in using image tags for in-thread display vs links.

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Are we not done with the same silly arguments and flames yet??!

@wegster

Quote:

misleading total sales, and Xmas sales drop year over year for PS3 by claiming it's up for the year

It's very easy to understand why November sales were down 20% compared to last year, the PS3 the year before just received a new model and an entry price cut. Overall sales were up 40% for the year. Rather this than vice versa don't you agree?

@minator

Quote:

minator wrote: @BrianK Quote: Thanks for the specs. Here is the ArsTechnia Link I think the last point of the article was interesting. I think that article got quite a bit of criticism at the time. He completely ignored the PowerXCell 8i. Quote: Summary -- Where is the ubiquitous Cell computing Sony talked about? Short answer: Cell=PS3 Erm: IBM blades, Mercury blades, Mercury Cell PCIe card, Toshiba Spurs engine and PCIe cards, the Qosmio laptop (includes the spurs engine), Toshiba's forthcoming TVs, Sony's new blade and of course this beastie. (SNIP)

"AMD announces petaflop supercomputer" built around ~1000 RV770 GpGPUs. It runs software from Otoy e.g. same software that did real time raytraced Transformers movie trailers.
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/322/1050322/amd-announces-petaflop-supercomputer

"Supercomputing now dominated by X86 architecture"
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/702/1008702/idc-performance-computing

Last edited by Hammer on 09-Jan-2009 at 09:31 PM.

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Amiga 500 (Rev 6A ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3A+/Emu68)

@Hammer

Toshiba's Cell based TV is cool. It does 4x1080p for resolution. It can record 6 streams at once. Now being nothing is 4x1080p Toshiba is going to have to find a technology to surplant Blu-Ray. What could they use? And I don't anything to record 6 streams at once . But certainly will be a nice feature for someone out there.

Anyone know this is the TV based on the spurs-engine derived a quad-spe Cell that Toshiba talked about about 2 years ago? I don't think they're using the full PS3 Cell are they? But a lower cost chip for that TV purpose.

There's a new PS3 motherboard. Looks quite a bit smaller.

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Whyzzat?

@Hammer

Quote:

"Supercomputing now dominated by X86 architecture"

That story is late - by several years, the slides are a bit weird, they appear to be specific to the far east, look at the slide HPC revenue by processor type, according to it Itanium has nearly half the revenue. Look at the Top500 and Itanium is only a small section now.


On the other hand PowerPC (and Cell specifically) dominates the Green 500.

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Whyzzat?

@minator

Quote:

That story is late - by several years, the slides are a bit weird, they appear to be specific to the far east,

USA doesn't equal the world.

Quote:

look at the slide HPC revenue by processor type, according to it Itanium has nearly half the revenue. Look at the Top500 and Itanium is only a small section now.

Note "revenue by processor type" i.e. Itaniums is not cheap.

Quote:

On the other hand PowerPC (and Cell specifically) dominates the Green 500.

It's missing Japanese CUDA based supercomputer..

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Microsoft at CES 2009 demos Halo Wars:



Reliability still a problem...

Last edited by MikeB on 12-Jan-2009 at 03:46 PM.

Dutch consumer protection agency Kassa sues Microsoft on behalf of thousands of Dutch consumers. Due to an ongoing lawsuit in the United States, internal Microsoft emails revealed that Microsoft already knew about disc scratching issues.

Kassa demonstrated earlier during tests 360s could scratch discs even in super steady laboratory conditions, all recorded on tape.

http://www.telegraaf.nl/digitaal/games/2983060/__Kassa_onderneemt_collectieve_actie_tegen_Microsoft__.html?p=22,1

@MikeB

Quote:

Microsoft at CES 2009 demos Halo Wars: Reliability still a problem...

Are you really sure that picture is from CES 2009...!? It says Xbox 360 starting 279 dollars (which was the Core price) and shows a wired arcade (Core) ... and Elite at $449.99.

I call hoax. This is like the time you posted the image of a broken Halo 3 Falcon and it turns out it wasn't a Falcon at all but still the old motherboards. (Mind you, I'm not saying MikeB is the hoaxer, just that MikeB hasn't been a hurry to confirm this kind of story first...)

Anyways, it still wouldn't surprise me to see a broken Xbox 360. As it wouldn't surprise me to see a broken PS3. These things do break and will break forever. An image of the sort really doesn't say anything about reliability overall.

We know Xbox 360s track record for the first two motherboards. Falcon may be better, time will tell. Jasper may be a lot better, time will tell. But a single image, even if not a hoax (or an old image), will not prove it.

The Kassa links, that is a much more interesting story. I always wondered why Microsoft didn't add padding to solve it - would have been an easy fix I think like someone proposed online.

Last edited by jtsiren on 12-Jan-2009 at 06:43 PM.
Last edited by jtsiren on 12-Jan-2009 at 06:28 PM.

@jtsiren

I dunno if that picture is actually from CES 2009, but it's no hoax.

A news report:
http://www.n4g.com/xbox360/News-257052.aspx
The picture is from here:
http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2009/01/11/microsoft-reveals-glitches-at-ces-09-surface-xbox-360/

Quote:

The Kassa links, that is a much more interesting story. I always wondered why Microsoft didn't add padding to solve it - would have been an easy fix I think like someone proposed online.

Having now watched the program, a summary: The boy's dad who sued Microsoft as talked some time ago apparently got a complete refund on bought console, games and lawsuit costs. Others who didn't go that far were treated badly, one of the guys interviewed bought his 360 last November and already 4 games were scratched.

Some snips from US Microsoft employee testimonials:

"This is information we as a team, optical disc drive team, knew about."

"360 was routinely scratching discs"

They put in drives known to have the same problems when doing repairs. Just to give customers the idea they get a new device (paying 100 dollars!).

"Just to give the customer a new optical drive, so that from a customer perspective they're getting a new device and that improves customer satisfaction"

Kassa is in co-operation with various European consumer agencies to address these problems for the whole of the EU. Like in the US, together they stand stronger, European Commissioner for Consumer Protection Meglena Kuneva outed her support and approval.

Last edited by MikeB on 13-Jan-2009 at 12:40 AM.

@jtsiren

BTW, one of the guys interviewed bought his 360 last November and already 4 games were scratched.

People contacted Microsoft and they got only misinformation (like, it's impossible the 360 scratches discs), are being completely lied to (Kassa's commentator input, "glashard gelogen") and were told it's their own fault. The people who did not sue Microsoft didn't get their damaged discs refunded, although Microsoft did provide the option to repair the console (why does it need to be repaired, if there's nothing wrong?).

Basically it's a very similar experience like I got at the time, but I didn't have the stamina to go on like that boy's dad (or that unsuccesful mom on the phone with M$ for over an hour with no result), sending half a dozen letters and dragging them to court (so kudos to him for that!).

Killzone 2, so awesome!
http://threespeech.com/blog/2009/01/new-killzone-2-trailer-hit-response/

@MikeB

Quote:

A news report: http://www.n4g.com/xbox360/News-257052.aspx The picture is from here: http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2009/01/11/microsoft-reveals-glitches-at-ces-09-surface-xbox-360/

Interestingly the article referrs to 2 red lights, an indication of overheat, not 3. The picture has 3.

Quote:

I dunno if that picture is actually from CES 2009, but it's no hoax.

This is likely a semantic issue. RRoD is no hoax. The picture can't be proven to be from CES09. The $ on the picture are wrong for 2009 sales amounts. This is evidence against a CES09 Xbox. Here is some futher evidence. A Nintendo site which has this picture tagged to Aug 2007 Someone else used that image in late 2008. The claim this is a photo of the RRoD CES09 360 is a hoax.

Other problems.. We don't know what model of the 360 this is. In addition, it appears to be in a display w/o front or side venting. Along with highly questionable photos and lots of unknowns. Doesn't add to our knowledge that the 360 can RRoD. Everyone knew that. Doesn't prove the new 360s are having problems. *shrug*

@MikeB

Quote:

MikeB wrote: @wegster Quote: misleading total sales, and Xmas sales drop year over year for PS3 by claiming it's up for the year It's very easy to understand why November sales were down 20% compared to last year, the PS3 the year before just received a new model and an entry price cut. Overall sales were up 40% for the year. Rather this than vice versa don't you agree?

I did ask you for a link showing PS3 was up for the year. Regardless, you also tried to ignore sales were down for November, while up for the 360 and Wii. And once again, PS3 is the loss leader for the year. Rewording it doesn't change that.

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@wegster

Quote:

did ask you for a link showing PS3 was up for the year

http://www.psu.com/Sonys-PlayStation-3-up-40--in-sales-from-last-year--a0005994-p0.php

Quote:

. Regardless, you also tried to ignore sales were down for November

That was already expected, see above. I was talking about year totals.

Quote:

while up for the 360

Of course that was already expected also, due to selling for as low as 119 Euro with 19% taxes and some free games.

Quote:

And once again, PS3 is the loss leader for the year.

If talking about hardware investments, of course that was already expected by looking at the specifications back in 2005, although yen - dollar exchange rates worsened the situation.

@MikeB
Thanks for the link. It's still not enough at this point, though. Let's see if 2009 is 'the year of the PS3' or the year of the PS3 turns out to be it's final year of relevance, when the 720 come out and Sony doesn't release PS4 for another year, two, or more. I hope they don't go that route, because I believe that would mean the PS4 is the last console we see from Sony, as in, they lose.

An interesting quote, from CNET, that mirrors many people's feelings, besides yours of course:
Quote:

“There’s no secret that Sony’s console is priced too high. And although Sony zealots try to pretend that it offers more value and it’s the “Cadillac” of the video game industry, it’s abundantly clear that what consumers want — an affordable console — isn’t something they find in the PS3. Value or not, consumers want to save money.”

It also covers pricing, and isn't a bad read:
http://news.cnet.com/why-sony-needs-to-but-cant-drop-the-price-of-the-ps3/

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@wegster

Quote:

It's still not enough at this point, though.

IMO it's enough at this point.

Quote:

et's see if 2009 is 'the year of the PS3' or the year of the PS3 turns out to be it's final year of relevance

The PS3 already has great relevance. 3rd party developers aren't going to ignore the 20 million install base we have now. Blu-Ray is significantly outperforming the adoption of DVD and other key consumer electronics, taking equal time frames and it's as good as certain the PS3 has a lot to do with that.



"It turned out to be a phenomenal year for Blu-ray," said Tom Adams of Adams Media Research. In the fourth quarter of 2008, which is only too important for tech companies, U.S. consumers bought up 28.6 million Blu-ray titles."

http://news.therecord.com/printArticle/469824

http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/16575.cfm

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090109/ap_on_hi_te/tec_gadget_show_blu_ray

According to Videoscan 22.7 million DVDs were sold for North America in 1999 as a whole.

Older news:

- Blu-Ray bestseller Dark Knight sold 1.7 million units its first week in 2008.
- For comparison Matrix DVD bestseller in 1999 sold 780K units its first week.

Quote:

An interesting quote, from CNET, that mirrors many people's feelings, besides yours of course

The quoted CNET text seems far too offensive and unprofessional to me. The Amiga could have been cheaper if it was specced like an Atari ST at launch, personally I am glad the Amiga was specced and thus costed like an Amiga. Sony still isn't making money on PS3 hardware sales (certainly if you include Cell R&D and such), so it's not expensive from that perspective.

Last edited by MikeB on 13-Jan-2009 at 06:47 PM.
Last edited by MikeB on 13-Jan-2009 at 06:42 PM.

@MikeB

Quote:

MikeB wrote: The PS3 already has great relevance. 3rd party developers aren't going to ignore the 20 million install base we have now.

....hmmm....that's what I thought about the Gamecube....