More console talk.
- Thread starter taeric
- Start date
Starfox Adventures was not a 1st party title. Luigi's Mansion was fun, just short and no replayability. Mario Sunshine was fun, I just got to a place in the game where I was stuck and couldn't finish a bunch of levels because of camera angles. I'm not going to argue 3rd party titles. You're right, there aren't alot on the home console right now.taeric said:
As for the Blu-Ray thing, I think everything has been said that can be. I think you're wrong by a long shot, but there really isn't going to be resolution until CES at the earliest when supposedly a lot of news will drop about it.
theacoustician said:
Starfox Adventures wasn't considered first party? I guess at that point I don't fully understand the difference between first party and second party. (It doesn't help at all that Capcom made some of the zelda games for the GBC.) I never even played it, but I heard a lot of bad things about it. As for Mario... mario never really made a graceful jump to the 3d to me. I realize I am in the minority on that one, though. The only games I missed out on from the Gamecube, though, were the Resident Evil remakes. The others I don't really care that I missed at all. (Except maybe Mario Tennis. The N64 one was just a lot of fun and I can't imagine the GC was any less. Though... I must admit that Mario Kart Double Dash was a major letdown in the replayability.)
And are you saying that the BR equipment in the PS3 is expensive? I've just not heard that. All of the arguments of cost I have seen have centered on the costs of retooling the media creation fabs. That is why I don't see that mattering for the PS3, the media can just be made on an older format for a while. Do you know of anything saying the BR equipment will be expensive in the PS3?
I've only heard reports stating that there are supply problems getting the components needed to make a BR drive and they currently have about the same failure rate as the physical media. The conservative estimate was $125 per read only 2x BD-ROM drive. That's just the drive. At this rate, it might go up further if production/component problems continue to nag on.taeric said:
There's also the issue with AACS right now. If its holding up HD-DVD, its holding up Blu-Ray as well. In order for the PS3 to make good on its promise of being a Blu-Ray movie player as well, it has to decode AACS at the hardware level as per spec. While this hold up won't increase cost, it will make hitting launch dates harder.
As for the idea of releasing games on DVD at launch, I'm not so sure. Sony needs at least a few examples to come out strong. Since they could barely fit 360 launch titles on a DVD, I'm not sure how the PS3 would manage. Multiple discs maybe, but I'm not sure how well that would go over. I think the death of them would be if too many people had elpmis' attitude "Looks neat, I'll wait till its cheaper though". If too many people wait, the costs won't fall. That's why they can't settle for so-so games at launch. It must come out as the must-have console for this to work for them so they can get the volume they need to bring the costs down.
taeric said:
Starfox Adventures was considered second party. That is it was made by an outside development house for nintendo. In reality it as doomed from the start. it was shown at e3 and spaceworld as Dinosaur Planet and the Starfox characters were thrown in litterally at the last 3 months of development. That game and the other bombs that were put out during that period is a major reason why Nintendo let Microsoft buy Rare out. As im hearing it was probably a good move since Perfect Dark Zero is pretty weak from what I'm hearing.
As for BR the disks are suposed to be about 20% more. The talk of making a BR disk on a standard DVD-9 is pretty recent and may only be left for video. Its also worth noteing that outside of Sony the only group that has been able to make disks en-mass has been Matsushita (Panasonic) and currently around 20% of those are not suitable for use, although Matsushita has gotten 50 gigs on a disk, and Sony is currently in the 20-27 gig range. Its also unknown if TDK's armor coating will drive the cost up more or not.
theacoustician said:
As I've taken it, in the end Sony wants the unit to last for 10 years in the market worldwide. This makes sense since Psone production lasted just about that long. (dec 1994, last game and end of production summer 2004) Maybe they are provideing the 1080p input just in case theres a few games 7 years from now that can take advantage of it kind of like how the PS2 can under some circumstances handle EDTV output.
I think you misunderstand. When I say releasing games at launch on DVD, I don't mean BR on a DVD-9 format. I mean simple DVD formatted discs. If the thing is backwards compatible, it will have to be able to read the old DVD format. No reason to think a game couldn't be put on it. This wouldn't even be unheard of, as quite a large percentage of PS2 games were on CD. (This includes my favorite Ico. 
)
The AACS point is somewhat more concrete. I've not followed it, though. From the way I hear it, Toshiba is basically backtreading on why they don't have anything released yet.
And the costs... I still don't believe it will cost too much more than the PS2 did. I would hesitate to say 400, except MS has already broken that seal. We'll see though. Hopefully they release a lot of information Jan 6th. (I don't remember where I saw that date quoted.)
)The AACS point is somewhat more concrete. I've not followed it, though. From the way I hear it, Toshiba is basically backtreading on why they don't have anything released yet.
And the costs... I still don't believe it will cost too much more than the PS2 did. I would hesitate to say 400, except MS has already broken that seal. We'll see though. Hopefully they release a lot of information Jan 6th. (I don't remember where I saw that date quoted.)
Jan. 6 = CES. I mentioned that before as the next big date when things will really be announced.taeric said:I think you misunderstand. When I say releasing games at launch on DVD, I don't mean BR on a DVD-9 format. I mean simple DVD formatted discs. If the thing is backwards compatible, it will have to be able to read the old DVD format. No reason to think a game couldn't be put on it. This wouldn't even be unheard of, as quite a large percentage of PS2 games were on CD. (This includes my favorite Ico.
The AACS point is somewhat more concrete. I've not followed it, though. From the way I hear it, Toshiba is basically backtreading on why they don't have anything released yet.
And the costs... I still don't believe it will cost too much more than the PS2 did. I would hesitate to say 400, except MS has already broken that seal. We'll see though. Hopefully they release a lot of information Jan 6th. (I don't remember where I saw that date quoted.)
AACS is part of Blu-Ray spec as well, so it hurts all next gen formats if they can't get their ass in gear with that one. Theoretically Sony could release PS3 without it, but then its not a Blu-Ray deck (by spec) and the units sold without it will never play Blu-Ray movies.
theacoustician said:
Ah... for some reason thinking of CES makes me wish for the days when we used to get conventions here in Atlanta.
Anyway, do you know what parts of the spec are missing? It seemed to me that most of what is missing could be fixed with firmware updates. I'm not exactly fond of that sort of update, but it is a possability.
It could, you're right, but if you have players out there on the market without it, but I have a feeling that's a huge security loophole waiting to happen.taeric said:Ah... for some reason thinking of CES makes me wish for the days when we used to get conventions here in Atlanta.
Anyway, do you know what parts of the spec are missing? It seemed to me that most of what is missing could be fixed with firmware updates. I'm not exactly fond of that sort of update, but it is a possability.
theacoustician said:
It would be no different than the PSP and all of the changes it has gone through. Simply require a newer bootloader for each round of games. The vast majority of the people out there will upgrade. Downgrading, even when possible, is not that attractive of a solution for most people.
Sure it is. UMD is only made and supported by Sony, so they don't have to follow no stinking spec. Blu-ray players are made by several manufacturers (or will be) and the discs can be coming from all over the place. You have one player out there, especially the one that's supposed to have the most initial penetration and that player doesn't play movies its supposed to play, that's a big fucking problem. That right there could answer the question of who will win the next gen format war.taeric said:
theacoustician said:
I meant as far as updating the movie player of the PS3. Unless you can prove to me that the AACS crap can't be done in a software, I see no reason to think that it couldn't be added later. This isn't like a standard set top DVD player where no updates are allowed, period. The market has, unfortunately, shown that it will allow updates to consoles after they were released. Or, in the case of the XBox, the ability to play movies can be purchased as an add-on for a system.
It could be done in software, I'm sure. The problem is that BY SPEC it has to be done in hardware. I don't know why, but that's what was decided upon. Since AACS is seemingly one of the few things HD-DVD and Blu-Ray have agreed on, they both must think its a good idea.taeric said:
theacoustician said:
But does the spec say that the hardware can't simply be firmware? See what I'm saying? Specs are notorious for being stupid and not followed perfectly. especially newer ones.
And the thing they are trying to avoid is having the encryption key found by a mistake again. (like it was with DVD)