And games will cost how much?Originally Posted by kupomogli
And games will cost how much?
Looks like 3d glasses are making their way back and also 3d HDTV. There were lots of demo at the CES 2010.
.:Collection Pics:.
There was one CES back in the 90s where just about every electronics company was showing off a new head-mounted display. Just saying.
Five-hundred and ninety-nine US dollars...
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It's about time. People lost interest when VR was in it's easly stages and wasn't like in the movies. Now that we finally have the tech, it's nice to see it make a comeback...but not as a replacement of course.
I heard that Boom-Blox was going to support head tracking, which can be really cool, but they took it out for some reason. I can see that as being a feature on next-gen consoles. The Wii, as far as I know, is the only system than can currently support it with very little extra add-ons(cheap IR-LED head mount) but no one's doing it yet.
Though, I can't see 3d HDTV's becoming mainstream for quite some time. Everyone just recenty upgraged their TV to a new expensive one and I can't see them doign it again any time soon.
Last edited by jb143; 01-12-2010 at 11:29 AM.
"Game programmers are generally lazy individuals. That's right. It's true. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Since the dawn of computer games, game programmers have looked for shortcuts to coolness." Kurt Arnlund - Game programmer for Activision, Accolade...
First off, I think the Economy is the biggest reason. Even though it seems the worst is behind us, I don't think anybody is really excited about spending $399.99 plus tax on a new game console. Maybe the diehard graphics whores, but that's about it.
Now, I'm sure that Microsoft and Sony, and even Nintendo to a lesser degree are seeing the writing on the wall in terms of the whole digital download thing. I honestly think that these companies are going to try to prolong this generation as long as humanly possible. The idea would be that if they could keep this generation going all the way till around 2014 or 2015, then they could actually come out with a console that has no optical drive whatsoever. They won't be able to get away with that in 2011 or 2012, but if they wait till 2014 and 2015, that just might be feasible.
Now for the people that think it's absolutely impossible for MS or Sony (or even Nintendo) to go this route, because it will affect a huge portion of the world that doesn't have high speed internet access, well, I'm sure they will have a solution for that.
The solution will be incredibly simple. Right now they are selling 32 gig USB thumb sticks at Fry's Electronics for about $60 (on sale), and 64 gig usb thumb sticks for about $99. By the time we get to November 2014, a 64 gig USB thumbstick will be like $10.
Now, this is how it will work. 70 percent of the market will just download their games online. You will be able to start the download a couple of days prior to the release date, so that at 12am on the release date, the game will be fully downloaded, and installed, and ready to go.
The other 30 percent of the market that doesn't have the high speed connection will take the 64 gig USB stick (that is supplied with the console when you buy it), to an authorized game download center inside Wal-Mart, Target, GameStop, whatever. They will give their thumbstick to the clerk, who will copy the file to the thumbstick, they will pay the money, and that will be that. Then they will go home and copy the file to their terrabyte HDD on their console.
Now, will it be somewhat of an inconvenience for the customer to have to go thru that process? Yes it will, but that will be the price you pay for not having a high speed connection at home. This inconvenience will spur the customer to finally climb out of the dark ages and get themselves a real deal internet connection. The real question is whether Wal-Mart, Target, GameStop, Best Buy, etc, etc, will play ball. If they won't, then Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony will have to go with the direct sale formula that Gateway used for a number of years. There will be Sony stores, Microsoft stores and Nintendo stores at the local mall, that will sell consoles and offer the download center. 80 percent of their hardware sales will likely come from online and telephone orders, but they will have to offer a brick and mortar solution for those people that need to come into to copy whatever game onto their USB stick.
Eventually, you will go into a Target, Wal-Mart, BestBuy or whatever, and they won't have a section that sells physical media. There is no escaping it, it's just a question of when.
Why would the manufacturers bother with a thumb stick when disc media will always be much cheaper and easier to protect? Why wouldn't they just go the RedBox route and just stick kiosks with burners in grocery stores and in strip malls?
Because the whole idea is not to have any optical media whatsoever. No optical media means no optical drive. No optical drive means no moving parts. Moving parts break, wear out, get out of alignment, etc, etc.
Also consider the fact that often the Xbox 360 has the noise level of a jet engine. A big part of that is the optical drive creating tons of noise. No optical drive means no noise from that optical drive. The real reason of course that they would want to move away from optical drives, is because they want everyone to move to a digital download only future. The only reason for the thumb drive thing, is just so consumers who live in remote places without high speed broadband would have a way to still get their games. The thumb drives wouldn't be used as a replacement for the DVD disks we are using now, it would just be a transportation method. A way to transport the game from the "authorized download center", to your consoles HDD. You wouldn't be playing games from the thumb drive itself, it would require the game to be transferred to the HDD, and once transferred the file remaining on the thumb drive would automatically corrupt itself, so that it would be unusable, thus you wouldn't be able to buy the game once and transfer it to multiple consoles.
So what? Console manufacturers have no incentive to remove optical drives and in fact, their lack of reliability over time is actually to their benefit since the warranties on consoles typically expire well before an optical drive will die. The manufacturers aren't opposed to optical drives or media per se, their interest is in having direct access to customers without a retailer intervention. Any type of protection or file limitation which can be done with a thumb drive can be done cheaper on an optical disc. I don't know if you recall this, but Blockbuster actually had a prototype of a DVD disc that locked itself after a single play through in the early 2000s and similar technologies exist today. I agree that once downloading becomes the dominant delivery format, optical drives may go away, but it's not gonna happen in this upcoming generation and I doubt that thumbsticks or a similar removable media will be the replacement.
If Natal is anything like the actual 360, its insides will melt within six months of purchase.
Seriously though, I'm not putting any faith in Natal. At this point, I agree that it'll end up being another 32X, if not flat-out vaporware. It'd be awesome if Microsoft proves me wrong and releases Natal on time, it functions well, and has an impressive lineup of games, but right now, I'm skeptical.
Where in the world can people afford a $300 game system, but can't get broadband, and why would they want one if they can't play it online?
How is it easier to protect? Disc media is so cheap anybody with a computer can download and burn games themselves. Back in the day there were pirate carts available, but most people couldn't make them at home. Just check on craigslist, how many people are selling disc based systems that are modded? If you move to a custom format type of flash memory you'll reduce piracy and sell more games. The only thing to worry about are flash carts now, there's plenty for the DS and that's a problem since plenty of people use them to pirate(there's plenty of cool homebrew stuff too though).
Plus how long does it take to burn a disc compared to write to a flash drive? I honestly don't burn discs but doesn't it take a long time if there's lots of data?
I don't see how it would reduce piracy. It's not harder to copy data to a hard drive than to burn a disc. Sure, they'll employ a good copy-protection scheme, but it'll be cracked. Piracy is rampant on the iPhone.
Way to be objective.
York, South Carolina. It's where I live. I'm 40 minutes outside of Charlotte, NC and 20 minutes outside of a town with 67,000 residents. And 5 minutes outside of a town with high speed internet from DSL and Cable. I have a PS3 and completely-unusable-for-online-gaming satellite internet. I believe I've already said something about our not-so-perfect data infrastructure earlier in this thread and you commented on it.
And I know it's hard to believe, but there are people who can drop $300 on a game system and not live in an area with broadband coverage.
And I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that they're are many people in the country like me. If you have television where you live, you may see ads on the TV for satellite internet. Satellite internet can afford TV airtime because people like me, pay $90 a month for a sub par connection.
I don't see a need for a hard drive, the games should play off of the flash memory just like DS games do. That's more in line to how the Famicom Disk System worked, the games were recorded to those floppy disks and played off of them, they weren't copied again to a hard drive. It could reduce the number of used games on the market though, just re-write over a game you're bored with instead of buying a new flash card first to have a game written to it. More people will be forced to buy new games instead of waiting for a used copy to turn up. If a disc has a game burned to it, it can be sold later as you can't re-burn it.
There probably still will be piracy though, I originally didn't think of re-writable flash cards like the DS has when I thought of using memory cards for new systems(I actually added that into my post above right before posting it). Some company will probably make them and people will just use flash carts to download games, there were even those backup units for the SNES that people used back in the day, though they weren't exactly common. I forgot about those too.
Pretty sure Blu Ray hasn't yet been cracked, at least not in a way that allows for mass piracy. There is literally nothing that can be done on a flash memory stick that can't be done on a disc copy protection wise. Similarly, high speed disc duplication can easily be put into kiosks which will be as fast as if not faster than transfering gigs of data to a flash cart. I realize you guys really want a return of the cartridge or the modern version of it, but it ain't gonna happen. The next major iteration is going to be download only with no retail or kiosk component, it's just going to take another console generation since Internet speeds are still 5-10 years away from where they need to be to make it practical in many areas of the country. I have no doubt that we will get there, however, and just like cable TV, we will have 95% or more of households able to receive high speed reliable broadband.
That's way different. DS sells games on cards; the post you quoted was talking about digital distribution using USB flash drives (secondarily to having the games on hard drives).
Either way there will be piracy. A situation like the SNES where you need a special, uncommon, and somewhat expensive copier that's specific to the system, is not going to happen again.
That's more due to the expense of the discs than anything else. It's only a matter of time.
Indeed.There is literally nothing that can be done on a flash memory stick that can't be done on a disc copy protection wise.
I was not aware of the fast burning speed of discs, I didn't know as I don't burn discs(I have an old PC). I just looked up Blu Rays and I didn't know they held about 25GB of data, I just thought maybe a few GB.
I did do a search about Blu Rays before I posted originally, there are plenty of sites that say how to copy/burn them. I'll just post links to a couple of them.
http://wesleytech.com/burn-blu-rays-...d-r-discs/713/
http://www.burnworld.com/
You pay $90/mo for dial-up?
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