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Microsoft vs Sony: Round 763

When it comes to the next generation console wars, it appears that the fiery anger and chest beating is greatest between Microsoft's XBOX 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Well, the heated war of words has been kicked up a notch as two top Xbox execs have leveled attacks against Sony and its inclusion of Blu-ray as standard equipment on the PS3.

Neil Thompson and Chris Lewis, both top-ranking executives for the XBOX's European division, scorned Sony for including Blu-ray as standard equipment and have likened Sony's inclusion of a Blu-ray drive to Betamax. “Sony are now making people pay an extra few hundred pounds for a Blu-Ray DVD drive which we don't know is going to be the standard in the next-generation DVD formats. This is the company that brought out Betamax – we don't quite know where they're going to go with this,” said Thompson.

Sour grapes maybe? Microsoft didn't have HD-DVD ready in time for the XBOX 360's launch -- even if it did, the price point would have jumped quite a bit if it were included as standard equipment. It remains to be seen if consumers will flock to the PS3 in record numbers given its high price of entry, but consumers can be a surprising bunch sometimes. gameindustry.biz reports:

Lewis also added that the price positioning of PS3 removed any immediate pressure on Microsoft to cut the price of 360 before year-end, commenting: “We're confident that we are at the right price at the right time and will remain so, and nothing I've heard in the last two days does anything other than frankly reinforce that view.”

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Blu-Ray FTW
By cochy on 5/31/2006 4:23:46 PM , Rating: 2
Congrats to Sony for having the guts to bank on an expensive however superior tech. Just imagine what game designers could do with a wopping 50GB? wow. This is a big plus for gamers! Forget about movies. As a home theater component HD-DVD might probably win the day, because of its lower price point. However for a game machine, which the PS3 primarily is, Blu-Ray kicks butt.




RE: Blu-Ray FTW
By Xenoid on 5/31/2006 5:03:21 PM , Rating: 2
If you're thinking supporting Blu-Ray just think back to the BetaMax days (some of you here probably weren't speaking then) and read this: http://www.tgdaily.com/2005/08/10/blu/index.html

And many other similiar examples of this. Also note that Sony movies are about half the quality of a regular movie. They love to cheap out on you but charge you the same ridiculous prices for their shoddy hardware.


RE: Blu-Ray FTW
By dome1234 on 5/31/2006 5:20:47 PM , Rating: 2
/quote

August 10, 2005

a rather dated article, no? I thought the bd delay was part due to the late finalisation of specs. But I won't be suprised the movie studios are gungho in their application.

They're blaming their revenue loss to "casual copying/sharing" when really major chunk of their sale are lost to other forms of entertainment such off/online gaming.


RE: Blu-Ray FTW
By kextyn on 5/31/2006 6:33:32 PM , Rating: 2
If you don't support it it will die. Money talks.


RE: Blu-Ray FTW
By segagenesis on 5/31/2006 5:35:03 PM , Rating: 2
Yes, because we all know how crippled game designers are now with 4.3GB DVD's. And those poor gamecube developers with 1/3rd the storage! Oh wait...

Obviously you were born yesterday and forgot that most of the first gen CD-ROM games when the technology was new consisted mostly of FMV to use all that space. Remember Sega CD? Look back at these old games and realize the ones that didnt have any video or little of it barely used 20MB of the disc, if that.

The same would be true with 50GB discs unless they start storing game data in plaintext uuencoded ascii ten times over. It's not about games, Sony is praying/gambling that including the drive with the PS3 will increase the chances of the format for movies.


RE: Blu-Ray FTW
By Clauzii on 5/31/2006 6:21:58 PM , Rating: 2
"We are never going to need more than 640K main memory" - Billy......

LOL

50 Gigs gives space for more differntlooking textures than a DVD can take. Let's get rid of repeated textures :)


RE: Blu-Ray FTW
By Clauzii on 5/31/2006 6:24:32 PM , Rating: 2
And with 128-bit colors, will textures not take up a LOT more space than today? :)


128 bit color ??
By ViperROhb34 on 5/31/2006 8:37:27 PM , Rating: 2
Notice the settings on Windows display..
32bit high.

Notice that the highest quality scanners you can buy are 36-40 bit..

You know why ? The human eye can't see anything over like 40 bit color.. anything over that is not only unnoticeable.. its just plain useless !!

24 bit Trucolor is 16.7 million colors.. virtually any color you'd come across in real life. 32 bit is quite a bit more.. beyond that the eye can't tell much and confuses color .. much like beyond a certain amount of frames in tv is worthless because its steady.. tv is 30 frames per second.. yet you can hide a frame with a pic of a hotdog in it.. and the person wont know he saw this.. Experimentation was done at one time on this.. it was used for advertisement in making subliminal messages.


RE: 128 bit color ??
By Clauzii on 6/1/2006 12:13:30 AM , Rating: 2
Why does every game graphics look like - well - game graphics then??


Textures
By ViperROhb34 on 5/31/2006 8:40:09 PM , Rating: 2
when it comes to the textures I agree they could take up more.. but it has been strongly stated by Sony, MS and the industry that HD -DVD nor Blu ray is needed for gaming within the next 4-5 yrs..

Putting games uneedingly on those disc would significantly raise prices of games. 50 gig Blu ray disc is 45 dollars blank.. now put a game on that.. which is normally ona DVD that cost 2 dollars to buy. Its simple.


RE: Textures
By Clauzii on 6/1/2006 4:28:25 PM , Rating: 2
But will the discs not be cheper in say 6 months time from now, AFTER the PS3 release?


RE: Blu-Ray FTW
By TheDoc9 on 5/31/2006 6:31:14 PM , Rating: 2
Textures can certainly take up loads of space. If you use few hi-rez 5MB textures in a game, which is still low, it only takes a few hundred to start running into space issues with DVD's.

The truth is, if you have the space you will use it.


RE: Blu-Ray FTW
By segagenesis on 5/31/2006 7:23:11 PM , Rating: 2
Thankfully you all ignored something called compression, but thats ok to believe were still in 1994. Despite the fact we have DVD storage in modern gaming texture compression is still used because you fit more in the same available space. Hell, even the PS One at the time was very capacious with CD media but alot of games used palletized textures to fit enough in the systems partly video memory. Even sound was compressed with ADPCM and allowed discs to hold alot more than the standard 74 minutes of audio. Multi disc games were limited to... surprise... ones with heavy FMV.

As far as repeating and/or low-rez textures still present in modern games, blame the developers and not the media. If UT 2004 looked pretty sharp on a 64MB card with DXTC5 at its time, then they are not even trying hard enough today. Maybe I'm cynical because I'm tired of newer games still having Nintendo 64 blurry texture syndrome 10 years later when the hardware is vastly better.

</rant>

People dont think logically anymore apparently and 50GB discs will be vastly underutilized for gaming outside high defenition FMV. Do more with what you have before throwing the baby out with the bathwater. And you really thing BD-ROM media is free even when manufacturered? I expect to see it affect the cost of games, too.


Textures
By ViperROhb34 on 5/31/2006 9:01:45 PM , Rating: 2
Yes youre adressing a relal issue.. space..

Want to know why it doesnt matter though for either system ? Espcially Sony Ps3 ?

The PS3 has a slightly more powrful GPU the Xbox360.. will truth is.. it has to ! The odd thing is its already been debated by developers that PS3's graphics card and memory is its bottleneck.. Some of the complex games will not be in 1080P on Ps3 because the memory on PS3 becomes a bottlneck. All the storage in the world doesnt matter if the other hardware can't handle those textures !

And one more thing. This is getting old. People keep talking about Blu ray and needing room for more textures. Its been said that games will not be on Bluray. Space is not needed and would make games cost much more. A blank 50 gig bluray disc is 45 dollars. The reason the Ps3 likely has a 60 gig hardrive is so you can load a game off DVD and run it from hardrive. This makes sense. I mean Even if the Bluray player on PS3 could record ( im hearing that it wont be able to record - only play ) it still couldnt write fast enough to blank spots - saying they theoretically had them ) to write game data.. saves.. etc.. in a way that wouldnt stall the game or make you see the game shudder.. while the hardrive can do all this much faster then an optical read/writer..


RE: Textures
By Clauzii on 5/31/2006 11:07:32 PM , Rating: 2
If this is true - Why don't we still use floppys for games? :)


RE:
By ViperROhb34 on 5/31/2006 11:43:24 PM , Rating: 2
Does that need to be answered?

Comparing a regular DVD to CD maybe a better analogy.. And yet here YOU are trying to make YOUR point by comparing the conversation here which is Blu Ray VS. HD-DVD storage-wise.. next to a floppy disc that is more then 40 yrs old technology !

I have 2 high def movies recorded on my tivo's 30 gig hardrive with plenty of room left. We really don't need that much space in the next 5yrs on One disc... One disc has advantages.. but also disadvantages.. if you screw up that one disc and have alot on it.. you're screwed.. larger capacity disc cost more.

Bluray advocates here keep talking about how 'quickly' the price will drop on media. A blank Bluray disc cost 45 dollars now.. and comments are being made about how fast that will change.

Well it hasn't changed much at all for blank DVD disc media - which are much cheaper to make. Why do you think it will change for this much higher cost media so quick ? The reason is still cost alot for DVD media is because 200 million people don't have DVD recorders at home for regular use.. I think more people have them in their PC's !

Reality is I doubt Blu-ray or HD-DVD will grow huge anytime soon.. Reality is PS3 - while it could be moderate sucessful - will not be the huge sucess PS2 was.. I'm not the only PS2 owner around who is likely passing on this one.. I told myself if the price dropped alot then maybe in one or 2 yrs if its not a failure.. definately not anytime soon though..


RE:
By Clauzii on 6/1/2006 4:36:10 PM , Rating: 2
On BluRay (or HD-DVD for that matter) I could see not only the game itself, maybe the movie of the game (if that xists of course :) Even the game with a lot more different audio that we have today, so we don't need repetitions like we hear in a lot of games still. It could also be interesting to maybe have xtra material like "the making of" the game/movie etc. etc. THEN the price and capacity would be satisfaction guaranteed :)

I think that either format is going to stay, but I'll consider BR the most futureproof since the capacity is at the moment able to go higher than HD-DVD.


RE: Blu-Ray FTW
By ViperROhb34 on 5/31/2006 7:58:37 PM , Rating: 2
Just imagine what game designers could do with a wopping 50GB?

You have no clue. Both manufacturers have already echoed what the gaming industry has stated many times. They don't need the space for games !! games won't be on Blu ray or HD DVD ! There is still plenty of room on regular old fashioned DVD !!!

Let me say this.. to sum it up..
Blu ray 50 gigs disc cost 45 dollars by themselves !!!


More...
By ViperROhb34 on 5/31/2006 8:03:42 PM , Rating: 2
Let me say this.. to sum it up..
Blu ray 50 gigs disc cost 45 dollars by themselves !!!

I just want to explain more for you Sony kids posting here who post whatever to kiss some Japanese company's @sses..

If they were to put a game ona 50 gig disc.. that game would be over 100 dollars.. the regular game cost plus the cost of the blu ray disc.. Did I spell it out for you ?

A regular DVD disc cost about a Two dollars..


RE: More...
By TheDoc9 on 6/1/2006 11:24:42 AM , Rating: 2
Ok thats it viperohb, I think no one has called you on your bs because the're tired of reading it. B