[quote name='dalegnan']Duly noted, but if I wanted to buy/build a computer for gaming and multitasking I would. All you say about software and computing is clear as an azure sky of deepest Summer. But that's not what I'm talking about. Yes, a compy is a medium for transmitting thought to millions, and just as a D&D manual, it can provide a medium, a canvas if you will, for creative thinking.
SO CAN A SHEET OF PAPER AND A PENCIL. And for f*cks sakes man, what books have you been reading that aren't interactive? I'd be happy to recommend some fiction if you're dry.
I'm talking about the CONSOLE industry, not the fact that the CPUs in them are running software on a standardized platform. I'm talking about already having an iPod and then staring at a $100 memory card for the PSP that's practically required for uberfunctionality. And the same sh!tty headphones in the bundle to boot. As it happens, I'm not in the market for a PC, and the fact that consoles are moving towards a "pc-in-a-box" mentality that far exceeds the original XBOX, well....
What I do have a firm grip on is the fact that turning a console into a multimedia PC seems excessive... Regardless of what it does or doesn't do to prices (of the console or monthly fees,) multifunction in a console unit is meant to widen the target audience and ultimately make more money for the corporation. My question is, does all this extra crap help the games, or hinder them? Is anyone going to use video chat on Xbox Live on the 360? Are you planning to?
Perhaps I should get a grip. Maybe I'm drowning in nostalgia for when a single game could make a system great. It's possible I'm just a traditionalist thinking online play and the internet should stay where they belong- on the PC.
For the record, I give 2 sh!ts about the eyetoy, I'm talking about the camera that comes bundled with the 360. If you get a 360, you're getting one. If you get a 360, you get a DVD player and remote. You get a 20 GB HD and a headset. That's my understanding of the bundle anyway...
Man, I won't get a grip- because this current generation I eventually acquired all 3 consoles out of love for a particular title. This round I may have to sit out completely. And for a CAG channel, I hear very little bitching about prices.
Makes me wonder where the real CAGs are.
And to quote Dave Chappelle in Half-Baked: "I'm sorry for yelling...*toke*...But I'm SERIOUS."[/QUOTE]
Really. Tell me about these interactive books. Other than a few silly 'Choose your own adventure' volumes that feebly tried to do what computer games made common, what interactive elements are there to be found in an unchanging page of text? If you think a novel is interactive you have a very odd definition of the word. You can interact with a pencil and paper but it is a one way conversation to the person reading that sheet of paper when you're done. A minimal fraction of a book. Now if two people, each armed with pen and paper exchange a series of pages with each reacting to what the other has written, whether in the same room or through the mail, that is interactive. But once written the text on those sheets or in the books remains the regardless of how the reader reacts. I don't get to stop the author in mid-sentence and ask him to clarify something in the previous paragraph.
You're getting irrational in taking offense at someone's attempts to sell more stuff that has no bearing on the products value to you, positive or negative. The deluge of sales blather may get thick but try to remain calm. It's no different than any number of other product categories. Car dealers will try to sell you all sorts of options. Some may be desirable but unaffordable. (I had this exact experience. A car I leased for a couple years had a optional CD player for about $1,000 but when I bought the almost identical version two model years later the CD player was standard. In much the same way Microsoft felt DVD playback was too expensive to include as standard for the Xbox but the license costs have gone down a lot since then and it appears it'll be standard on the 360. A lot of people appreciate and so long the cost is minimal there is little to complain about.) Others may be just ridiculous for your needs and many others but so long as it didn't compromise the design of the car, what do you care?
Consoles are just specialized computers. All of the same rules apply. Expanding the definition of their specialty is inevitable as more power comes into play. I can understand some of the frustration. I've lost track of the number of people who couldn't understand why Microsoft didn't offer a web browser for the Xbox. If it was online capable out of the box why shouldn't it do it all? I tried to explain so many times how horrible it was to do web browsing on a TV and the lack of any easy way to leverage this as driving additional revenue. Had none of them ever tried a WebTV store demo? (I had to spend a month testing WebTV printer drivers several years ago and cured me of ever wanting to see an NTSC/PAL TV used that way ever again.)
But I don't mind extending the console if it's done in a rational way for all concerned. I have a PSP and five games for it but thus far I'm getting by fine with the bundled 32 MB card. The only likely to make me consider a larger Memory Stick is the promised volume of Wipeout Pure downloadable content. The PSP can do all those other whizzy things but that is just a lot of additional software in the flash ROM and none of it requiring any additions to the basde hardware that didn't already exist for games. It doesn't diminish my gameplaying on the PSP at all by its presence and the cost of developing it is a tiny, tiny investment compared to the chipset and other major elements of the system.
If a GB Memory Stick dropped to $50 (or the slot magically morphed to accept SD cards) I might be tempted to have some videos and stuff on it but I find I'm hard put to get enthused about it. I enjoyed the Spider-man 2 UMD but it turned into a bit of an endurance event watching on that size screen for that long. (Even though playing on it for an equally long time is fine.) It reminds of all those early CD-ROM add-ons like the Turbo CD and Sega-CD and early CD-ROM based consoles. Most of them had a CD+G app in their ROM and usually a bundled demo disc. This mutant spinoff of Karoke systems with a terribly brief novelty. I knew exactly one person who felt compelled to seek out music CDs with CD+G content. It was harmless, though. Just a few kilobytes of ROM wasted like the space used by the secondary features of the PSP. Nice try, Sony but I'll stick to the games. Congratulations on all those people who buy the UMD movies but I won't be one of them unless they turn up for under $5. OTOH, if it helps sell a lot more PSPs and the resulting installed based encourage more support from publishers, I benefit in the form of more game choices. And I didn't have to do a thing.
As it stands, I think it's very unlikely the camera Microsoft demoed will be part of the basic package. While many may love it dearly it represents too much of an expense item to force on every buyer. MS is under a lot of pressure to deliver the product at the lowest possible price without getting into the same hardware subsidy sinkhole as before. The camera was shown in a display cabinet at the MTV party and some interpreted that as meaning it was standard equipment even as the base level inclusion of the hard drive was still in doubt. The closest I've heard MS suggest it might be bundled was in discussing their willingness to create different packages for different regions. There is already a video chat camerapackage available for the Xbox but it is only offered in Japan and some other Asian markets. Apparently video chat is seen as more attractive there and serves as a testing ground for the feature set. If some guy in Japan thinks using his Xbox as a video phone is a good idea he's welcome to spend his yen. Doesn't affect me. now would if Americans are offered the chance to buy it either, so long as it's optional.
The 'pc-in-a-box' mentality was far worse 25 years ago. Back then we had things like the Coleco Adam. Every console had some kind of add-on to make it into a home computer in an era when the value of such was very limited if didn't wish to take up programming as a hobby or career. The current stuff is far more rational. If this game console is in my entertainment center and can talk over the network to my PC that contains all of my digital music files, why not let it feed that music through to my surround sound system? Not everybody is going to use the capability but they aren't losing anything for not using every last feature of the console anymore than if they never buy a game that uses every button on the controller.
There have been recent attacks of trying to push the wrong stuff on consoles. The Xbox has PC innards because that was the fast track to getting it on the market fast but look at how resistant they were to common PC things like supporting mouse and keyboard in game where those are the prefrred controls. In that case, and in seeking to discourage many PC ports that would have been valuable additions to the library, Microsoft went out of their way to keep the Xbox confined to a console world. Sony, OTOH, tried to pitch AOL and Netscape clients early on and wanted the PS2 to expand into, you guessed it, a home computer. (Having a computer platform they own completely is longrunning Sony obsession. They sank over $10 million into an OS initiative that disappeared without a trace.) Thankfully, Sony demoed this stuff at E3 once and forgot about it forever after.
I wouldn't say the era of the console selling game is over. What name is more likely to come up when the Xbox is discussed than Halo? How many waited to buy the Gamecube until their favorite Nintendo franchise put in an appearance and made it a necessity? How many bought a PS2 when it had the exclusive on playing Madden online?
You can be a CAG in some areas but not others as it suits your personality. I have about 1500 games but I've only paid higher than 50% of SRP (and usually much less) about a dozen times over the last 25 years. But, the allure of getting my hands on a new console and examining it close up has been a mighty temptation. But even when I bought at launch (as I did with all three [or four counting Sega] in this generation) there was some sort of major discount involved to help grease the skids. (The TRU Visa card comes in handy there.) Overall, I'd say there are few who can claim to have gotten more for less without theft or exceedingly generous gifting involved. My own acquisitions have never required crime but the means were often creative.
When you bought those current gen consoles, was it when the must-have game appeared or when the console had dropped to the right price to make the combined cost acceptable? I've suggested to some price conscious people that the best time to buy a console is after it's dead as a retail product. The hardware can be found on closeout or used for next to nothing and most of the software prices go through the floor, too. It's just a matter of patience and resistance to following fashion.
SO CAN A SHEET OF PAPER AND A PENCIL. And for f*cks sakes man, what books have you been reading that aren't interactive? I'd be happy to recommend some fiction if you're dry.
I'm talking about the CONSOLE industry, not the fact that the CPUs in them are running software on a standardized platform. I'm talking about already having an iPod and then staring at a $100 memory card for the PSP that's practically required for uberfunctionality. And the same sh!tty headphones in the bundle to boot. As it happens, I'm not in the market for a PC, and the fact that consoles are moving towards a "pc-in-a-box" mentality that far exceeds the original XBOX, well....
What I do have a firm grip on is the fact that turning a console into a multimedia PC seems excessive... Regardless of what it does or doesn't do to prices (of the console or monthly fees,) multifunction in a console unit is meant to widen the target audience and ultimately make more money for the corporation. My question is, does all this extra crap help the games, or hinder them? Is anyone going to use video chat on Xbox Live on the 360? Are you planning to?
Perhaps I should get a grip. Maybe I'm drowning in nostalgia for when a single game could make a system great. It's possible I'm just a traditionalist thinking online play and the internet should stay where they belong- on the PC.
For the record, I give 2 sh!ts about the eyetoy, I'm talking about the camera that comes bundled with the 360. If you get a 360, you're getting one. If you get a 360, you get a DVD player and remote. You get a 20 GB HD and a headset. That's my understanding of the bundle anyway...
Man, I won't get a grip- because this current generation I eventually acquired all 3 consoles out of love for a particular title. This round I may have to sit out completely. And for a CAG channel, I hear very little bitching about prices.
Makes me wonder where the real CAGs are.
And to quote Dave Chappelle in Half-Baked: "I'm sorry for yelling...*toke*...But I'm SERIOUS."[/QUOTE]
Really. Tell me about these interactive books. Other than a few silly 'Choose your own adventure' volumes that feebly tried to do what computer games made common, what interactive elements are there to be found in an unchanging page of text? If you think a novel is interactive you have a very odd definition of the word. You can interact with a pencil and paper but it is a one way conversation to the person reading that sheet of paper when you're done. A minimal fraction of a book. Now if two people, each armed with pen and paper exchange a series of pages with each reacting to what the other has written, whether in the same room or through the mail, that is interactive. But once written the text on those sheets or in the books remains the regardless of how the reader reacts. I don't get to stop the author in mid-sentence and ask him to clarify something in the previous paragraph.
You're getting irrational in taking offense at someone's attempts to sell more stuff that has no bearing on the products value to you, positive or negative. The deluge of sales blather may get thick but try to remain calm. It's no different than any number of other product categories. Car dealers will try to sell you all sorts of options. Some may be desirable but unaffordable. (I had this exact experience. A car I leased for a couple years had a optional CD player for about $1,000 but when I bought the almost identical version two model years later the CD player was standard. In much the same way Microsoft felt DVD playback was too expensive to include as standard for the Xbox but the license costs have gone down a lot since then and it appears it'll be standard on the 360. A lot of people appreciate and so long the cost is minimal there is little to complain about.) Others may be just ridiculous for your needs and many others but so long as it didn't compromise the design of the car, what do you care?
Consoles are just specialized computers. All of the same rules apply. Expanding the definition of their specialty is inevitable as more power comes into play. I can understand some of the frustration. I've lost track of the number of people who couldn't understand why Microsoft didn't offer a web browser for the Xbox. If it was online capable out of the box why shouldn't it do it all? I tried to explain so many times how horrible it was to do web browsing on a TV and the lack of any easy way to leverage this as driving additional revenue. Had none of them ever tried a WebTV store demo? (I had to spend a month testing WebTV printer drivers several years ago and cured me of ever wanting to see an NTSC/PAL TV used that way ever again.)
But I don't mind extending the console if it's done in a rational way for all concerned. I have a PSP and five games for it but thus far I'm getting by fine with the bundled 32 MB card. The only likely to make me consider a larger Memory Stick is the promised volume of Wipeout Pure downloadable content. The PSP can do all those other whizzy things but that is just a lot of additional software in the flash ROM and none of it requiring any additions to the basde hardware that didn't already exist for games. It doesn't diminish my gameplaying on the PSP at all by its presence and the cost of developing it is a tiny, tiny investment compared to the chipset and other major elements of the system.
If a GB Memory Stick dropped to $50 (or the slot magically morphed to accept SD cards) I might be tempted to have some videos and stuff on it but I find I'm hard put to get enthused about it. I enjoyed the Spider-man 2 UMD but it turned into a bit of an endurance event watching on that size screen for that long. (Even though playing on it for an equally long time is fine.) It reminds of all those early CD-ROM add-ons like the Turbo CD and Sega-CD and early CD-ROM based consoles. Most of them had a CD+G app in their ROM and usually a bundled demo disc. This mutant spinoff of Karoke systems with a terribly brief novelty. I knew exactly one person who felt compelled to seek out music CDs with CD+G content. It was harmless, though. Just a few kilobytes of ROM wasted like the space used by the secondary features of the PSP. Nice try, Sony but I'll stick to the games. Congratulations on all those people who buy the UMD movies but I won't be one of them unless they turn up for under $5. OTOH, if it helps sell a lot more PSPs and the resulting installed based encourage more support from publishers, I benefit in the form of more game choices. And I didn't have to do a thing.
As it stands, I think it's very unlikely the camera Microsoft demoed will be part of the basic package. While many may love it dearly it represents too much of an expense item to force on every buyer. MS is under a lot of pressure to deliver the product at the lowest possible price without getting into the same hardware subsidy sinkhole as before. The camera was shown in a display cabinet at the MTV party and some interpreted that as meaning it was standard equipment even as the base level inclusion of the hard drive was still in doubt. The closest I've heard MS suggest it might be bundled was in discussing their willingness to create different packages for different regions. There is already a video chat camerapackage available for the Xbox but it is only offered in Japan and some other Asian markets. Apparently video chat is seen as more attractive there and serves as a testing ground for the feature set. If some guy in Japan thinks using his Xbox as a video phone is a good idea he's welcome to spend his yen. Doesn't affect me. now would if Americans are offered the chance to buy it either, so long as it's optional.
The 'pc-in-a-box' mentality was far worse 25 years ago. Back then we had things like the Coleco Adam. Every console had some kind of add-on to make it into a home computer in an era when the value of such was very limited if didn't wish to take up programming as a hobby or career. The current stuff is far more rational. If this game console is in my entertainment center and can talk over the network to my PC that contains all of my digital music files, why not let it feed that music through to my surround sound system? Not everybody is going to use the capability but they aren't losing anything for not using every last feature of the console anymore than if they never buy a game that uses every button on the controller.
There have been recent attacks of trying to push the wrong stuff on consoles. The Xbox has PC innards because that was the fast track to getting it on the market fast but look at how resistant they were to common PC things like supporting mouse and keyboard in game where those are the prefrred controls. In that case, and in seeking to discourage many PC ports that would have been valuable additions to the library, Microsoft went out of their way to keep the Xbox confined to a console world. Sony, OTOH, tried to pitch AOL and Netscape clients early on and wanted the PS2 to expand into, you guessed it, a home computer. (Having a computer platform they own completely is longrunning Sony obsession. They sank over $10 million into an OS initiative that disappeared without a trace.) Thankfully, Sony demoed this stuff at E3 once and forgot about it forever after.
I wouldn't say the era of the console selling game is over. What name is more likely to come up when the Xbox is discussed than Halo? How many waited to buy the Gamecube until their favorite Nintendo franchise put in an appearance and made it a necessity? How many bought a PS2 when it had the exclusive on playing Madden online?
You can be a CAG in some areas but not others as it suits your personality. I have about 1500 games but I've only paid higher than 50% of SRP (and usually much less) about a dozen times over the last 25 years. But, the allure of getting my hands on a new console and examining it close up has been a mighty temptation. But even when I bought at launch (as I did with all three [or four counting Sega] in this generation) there was some sort of major discount involved to help grease the skids. (The TRU Visa card comes in handy there.) Overall, I'd say there are few who can claim to have gotten more for less without theft or exceedingly generous gifting involved. My own acquisitions have never required crime but the means were often creative.
When you bought those current gen consoles, was it when the must-have game appeared or when the console had dropped to the right price to make the combined cost acceptable? I've suggested to some price conscious people that the best time to buy a console is after it's dead as a retail product. The hardware can be found on closeout or used for next to nothing and most of the software prices go through the floor, too. It's just a matter of patience and resistance to following fashion.
D 
oh i almost forgott.
