But you know all the things mentioned so you didn't learn anything. To someone ignorant about consoles it might be a good article.
But I agree with your point about software - that is what matters more than anything (at least in the battle between the PS3 and the XBOX 360). I think the best selling Wii game is the bowling game - and that about sums up what the Wii is all about.
If the patent infringement suit filed in the ITC will affect all bluray players or not. From what I understand, anyone providing a bluray player is using an LED that infringes a patent owned by the lady initiating the law suit. So the interesting question will be whether people like Sony try to fight again or just pay the lady the money. The ITC lets you block importation and destroy infringing goods.
It would be ironic for Sony to win the format war and then be barred from ...
The ITC can shut imports down - this lady is one of the key inventors of LEDs that are used for Blu-ray (and HD DVD when it was still alive - RIP). So this is potentially a major deal.
Sony is probably going to have to pay or the PS3 will cease to be imported. Hard to see how this will play out but all of a sudden the decision to not include an HD DVD player in the 360 looks smart again.
That is why I was so bummed about the Wii - you need the additional processing power to do procedural things that can bring games alive. How cool is it that no one is going to have exactly the same experience. A game that is linear suddenly becomes more random (not saying that GTA is linear since it is a sandbox game).
I am excited about the changes happening - in a generation or so Deus Ex might be possible again (right now it would be probably be too expensive to make such ...
Is that you have to react so fast that it is more about your ability to be one with the interface than thinking strategically. I prefer the 4D types games myself - where you have time to consider a strategy and then attempt to implement it. But I suppose with enough time (or if you are young enough) this game rocks.
Here is a qoute from one of the developers:
"We have said several times that DA is 'dark heroic fantasy' and that is has been inspired by Martin's world. I haven't read all of his works, so I don't think I could really compare DA and A Game Of Thrones and say "Yes, we're similar because of X, Y, and Z, and dissimilar because of A and B." I do, however, have a very clear understanding of what DA is, and what sort of world Thedas is.
It's not sparkly...
I cannot disagree your basic point - far too many cliches in SciFi/fantasy games in general.
The problem (I think) is a general is a fear of taking risks on the one hand and limitations imposed by the technology on the other. Part of the problem is that making a game is so expensive that people are reluctant to try to take serious risks.
Still, perhaps we don't need too many typical fantasy setting CRPGs - there are a lot of other possibilities that have not b...
But Take Two's stock price already included the expectation of selling a lot of GTA IV - so I don't think it will sky-rocket once GTA turns out to sell a lot.
My reason for not wanting the purchase is that EA was a terribly run company - they habitually run on crunch and that is a terrible way to run a company. Maybe EA will improve with the new management but things like that take a while.
So I would rather not see EA grow bigger until EA gets smarter.
That was RPG magic. Just like Dues Ex was action/RPG magic.
If BioWare is suggesting this is going to be an amazing game in the same vein of Baldur's Gate 2 how can you not be a little excited?
I guess everyone has a right to be cynical about something. But it is not like there have been a lot of good fantasy RPG lately - Oblivion was okay but the stupid leveling of enemies made it kinda pointless to level up - which is the whole point of an RPG. I haven't played ...
I think the problem is more related to the strengths of the PS3 versus the strengths of the 360 - you have to keep both in mind and find the right compromise. That is why a lot of people hate multi-platform games - they have compromises.
But I get the sense that the Unreal engine has greatly improved with version 3.5 so we will probably see a lot more in upcoming games. Still - in the end the PS3 design will always be a pain to deal with and in that regard Sony made a mistake. ...
I am not sure about troubles but probably the normal issues of ramping up production with a new SKU (the 60 gig version).
Still - you have to expect sales to trail off at some point as there have not bee a big price drop yet and the price is still pretty high for mass market. Once things drop to about $250 we will see supply problems (and I am not talking about the silly arcade - that model should be dropped so we can all use the HDD for something other than demos).
The dragon age boards are an annoying way to find out information, even though people have kindly cut out the details.
Still - I have been waiting a long time for more information. Still - I like the fact that it will be done by April of next year - that suggests less than a year wait.
I just wonder if it will have as much replay value as Baldur's Gate II.
I don't think there is a direct comparison to massively parallel distributed computing - unless it is taking common tasks and making them more finely divisible. Multicore is more about ensuring that you efficiently use all the cores while maintaining concurency where as massively parallel distributed systems tend to send out work that gets done but don't really care about concurency.
But a well designed engine should help (especially if it can handle procedural generation, rea...
I suspect the GTA IV will help MS the most - especially with the exclusive content advertising that is sure to come. Frankly, I think MS is going to do quite well in Europe as well once its price drop happens.
But you have to love the price drop - that means the PS3 is going to drop in price too.
But I might do something in a game because I know there is an achievement involved, if that something is otherwise cool. Like I climbed the tower in Crackdown to get the base jump achievement. I normally would have not bothered to do that but since I knew it was an achievement I did (plus you have to try to climb the tallest building around).
So I am not sure how much of a difference achievements make but they are kinda cool. But there are different types of achievement ge...
I do suspect the next generation of CPUs to include a larger number of cores. And with Intel's recent interest in gaming I suspect the next gen of consoles will have Intel inside. If the next gen includes the power to raytracing it will be interesting to see if people decide to use procedural generation and basically eliminate much of the development process when it comes to asset generation or if people decide to continue to do things the old way but provide amazing graphics (realistic peo...
Basically the techniques that allow developers to be efficient in writing code don't work on the PS3 - you have manage all the details to get decent performance.
I understand better why certain developers said all you will get is a hatred for the architechture while other developers said it is no big deal. The techniques to make it run are straightforward but a pain to use and require a lot more planning. And if you don't carefully plan for what is needed you will run into pr...
I suspect it will never see real world speeds like that - it is going to take at least 3-5 minutes to download the movie :-)
Everyone says they would rather have a disk to watch a movie on - but that presumes that you want to watch it more than once. The number of movies I would be willing watch more than once is very small (kid movies mostly).
The thing is, a move costs $20-30 bucks - I would much rather download it, watch it once and then move on for $5-6. I haven't purchased a DVD in a long time but I regularly watch HD movies on demand. All it takes is about 10 Mb for 720p or about 20 Mb for 1...
I think having a race car game without damage is something that should be left in the last generation of games (or at least be a feature that is only turned on for certain types of races). Heck, I remember games from the C64 that included damage - it make the race a lot more strategic - if you push to hard you were going to pay and start smoking or something. Otherwise, it seems too Mario to me. But I am not a big racer anyway and obviously there are a large number of people that disagree ...