I've been using Windows 7 primarily since March. Except a few quirks (which are fixed now), all my hardware and games worked perfectly*.
Many of my friends moved on to Windows 7 (from Vista, XP, and one from Ubuntu), and they are also not looking back.
Thus in my experience Windows 7 has already succeeded.
Edit: I still have issued with PowerDVD for Blu-Ray playback. But this is clearly Cyberlink's fault. It does not even work with Vista either.
I think they'll bundle Blur and one other game this year. They do it for every holiday season (I got my (pro) with Forza 2 + Ultimate Alliance, last year elite was with Loge Indi + Kungu Fu Panda).
They also put several arcade games (free ones), plus lots of demos in the hard drives. We bought a 360 for a friend, it was set to go when we turned it on.
I hope somebody will be able to patch the demo for CFW 5.03. My PSP is more valuable with homebrew applications. :(
You can also play it on your 360.
Look what I did here :)
But older 80GB models (CECHExx) have BC as well.
There is a chart at wikipedia. Basically it contains MGS4 and Motorstorm bundles of the last year.
Having such a large compatibility library would be a big advantage of PS3.
The rumor seems to be have some validity. Even though it's still in "talks" stage, it will stir up competition.
Let memtest86+ run for a day. It is almost sure to find even the most obscure errors on your RAM.
And I don't think you need it.
If you have RAM issues, it's better to get some new sticks from newegg. (I'm sure you can get an extra 4GB for less than $50 during holiday season).
It depends on what games you're playing, and what your expectations are.
I'm able to get 30fps (depending on the game) at 1920x1200 for 3-4 year old titles (like Bioshock). Anything older is 60+fps (DOOM3, Counter-Strike, etc).
For later games, I usually need to drop to 1280x800. Sometimes decrease the quality from max too.
I did not play Crysis, only the demo. But it was not working very well.
I believe you can record what you see. So that's either SD/SD or HD/HD.
There is an option to split 360 output using component cable. But as far as I know, you get 480i from composite, and 480p from component.
Good to hear that some people receive better service.
Can you tell where do you live, and how long have you been a subscriber?
I'm a current Netflix, and a then-GameFly subscriber. There are two basic differences between their services.
Netflix almost always ships whatever is on top my list. Yesterday I received X-Men Origins: Wolverine on release day (yes they shipped one day before), and with many other popular releases in the past (including The Dark Knight). However I don't remember receiving anything in top 25% from GameFly after my first trial month.
The second difference is shipping t...
Given the track record of Xbox "exclusives", I'm expecting to be able to buy this separately after holidays, maybe early 2010.
Piracy is a problem, yet custom firmware is not always about it.
1 - You can play your PS1 games, and given the vast library of PS1 titles, and relatively small one of PSP's, it's a good thing.
2 - You can play games without UMD. However people usually don't use their own backups, but use backups from "the internetz". Unfortunately this is a real issue. :(
3 - There are many nice utilities and games in the homebrew scene. (Like YouTube players,...
id software was the last big shop that was OpenGL centric (thus providing us with Linux ports of their games), but in one of the latest interviews, Carmack told they might not port id tech 5 (Rage) to Linux at this time.
This is sad.
I know it's slightly off topic, but everybody was using macs during the presentation. Even when they showed footage from voice acting studio, the computers had that apple logo.
Nevertheless it was a good panel.
Natal CPU is the one that does face detection, 3d-scanning, and voice recognition. It makes sense to add a powerful CPU for these jobs, since the internal one is already utilized by the games.
This allowed them to use retail Burnout game without modifications with Natal. Otherwise there would be framedrops / glitches in the game while it was doing motion sensing.
Anyways, I don't know anything else which could be "big" with the Natal CPU.
Crackdown is probably the precursor for inFamous (which was a better implementation). Think it like the original doom and Half-Life.
Being first and early gives you an extra edge.
There is always a way. Even the latest hardware (last 2000s and 3000s) are hacked (and actually it's pretty simple).
The problem is not hacking (hacking opens doors to homebrew and also many small utilities - like youtube applications), but people using them for wrong reasons (i.e.: playing game backups, where the "backup" was not actually made by them).
Introduction of PSP minis may solve the problem, but it still is not open enough, and the development en...
DMC4 was great, but several animations - especially jumping - did not feel right. This one seems to be better.