I think I might start saving up for a PSThree

[Mardroid]

I saw one guy on you tube (it was a response too that another guy mentioned above... Chudda, jabba, whattever his name is) and he reckoned Blu-ray was poor compared to HDDVD.

I think he's got his facts wrong there though. It is more expensive as it requires an extra coating but overall it's probably the better format due to capacity. That being said the other format is fine for game capacity for the near future.

It's curious seeing how different 'fanboys' (for want of a better term) state their case, a lot of the time both sides a wrong.

Fact: Xbox 360, very good system (despite that red ring thing which appears to be sorted.)

Fact: PS3 also very good system, technically probably the most powerful (although I've seen figures that suggest 360 out performs it in certain issues, but those figures were supplied by Microsoft... so I'm not sure how trustworthy they are.). Came out too late and is lacking games and it is rather expensive . (Actually the 40GB one isn't  far from the high end 360s but then theres the whole backward compatibility stuff discussed earlier.)

Still early days for the PS3 though. The Xbox came out after the PS2, and it still did pretty well, (although grantedy the time gap wasn't as big as between the 360 and the PS3.)

[vzzbux]

I have heard Blue Ray is better but more expensive. So cost will probably be its downfall. I fucking hate sony as a corperation anyway with the way they shit all over music artists.

My inlaws commented that Beta Max was the better over VHS but it was the cost that killed it off. As my family was poor in the 70's I knew nothing of Beta max so it might be all bollox.




V

[WoD]

Apparently the DVD player on the 360 will upscale to semi-HD.  I've tried it and the picture is good, but I've not seen another upscaler in action so I don't know how it compares.

[Adrian Bamforth]

Link: Ghostbusters Game... At Last

[philt]

Lack of software support killed Beta despite it's obvious superiority to VHS. When the choice is quantity over quality the public will take quantity - see mp3, LCD TV's, Sky Digital etc etc

[WoD]

Wasn't Beta the choice for Industry though, prior to it all becoming digital?

[Bico]

Beta was too expensive to produce on an industrial scale for mass public consumption, so it went down the plughole.  See also: VHS once DVD came along - one costs 10p to make, the other a penny.  I can't imagine why the industry embraced the latter...

When PS2 first came out, there was a lot of complaints that it was "too hard to programme for", but as the machine aged and the industry realised "hard" was different from "impossible", and that it was their job to programme for the damn thing if they wanted paid, we started seeing better games come out - compare the first Timesplitters* game (hailed as a technical masterpiece at the time, but in reality it was as big a pile of shite then as it is now) to Timesplitters 3 or Black.
Xbox, on the other hand, didn't see a lot of technical progression in the complexity of it's games as time went on.  I'm not sure how this observation relates to 360, though - if at all.

[WoD]

Hmm...interesting point about game progression on the machines.  I think that the original Xbox was withdrawn well before its natural life (especially compared to the PS2 - still going now!), it is possible that programmers woulf have got more out of it given time.

If you look back to what was achievable on the ZX81 and the Spectrum in their final days compared to the first batch of games, there was no comparison...clever lot these programmers.

[Satanist]

"If you look back to what was achievable on the ZX81 and the Spectrum in their final days compared to the first batch of games, there was no comparison...clever lot these programmers."


Pfft C64 was miles better. Colours AND music.
C64 FTW


;D

[Bico]

"C64 FTW "

8P

Crazy tawk!  Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy, Tetris, the Darling Brothers and their shameless self-whoring, and not forgetting the generation of geeks who learned to program in their bedroom and created world-renowned games all on their ownsome that can charitably be described as 'shite' nowadays - all the result of the humble zx speccy, a machine with so small a memory that the average word document is five times larger than the machine could have handled.  On the flipside, the machine is probably also responsible for the career of Jane Goldman.

Although I did like the music from the Rambo game on C64...

[philt]

++Beta was too expensive to produce on an industrial scale for mass public consumption, so it went down the plughole++

Beta died for two reasons. Lack of software support and Sony's refusual to licence the hardware to other Japanese consumer electronics companies at a reasonable level. Sony have learnt from both these mistakes. See the successful launch of CD, DVD and the Playstation brand as good examples and their aggressive purchasing of software providers in the shape of movie studio's, games houses and record labels.

Betacam was the defacto standard for ENG for many years, replaced with DigiBeta when the digital revolution got into full swing.

[philt]

Link: http://www2.b3ta.com/heyhey16k/" target="_blank">Hey Hey 16K

[Mardroid]

Lack of software support killed Beta despite it's obvious superiority to VHS. When the choice is quantity over quality the public will take quantity - see mp3, LCD TV's, Sky Digital etc etc

And add Microsoft Windows to that list. Every computer I've had has had some problem or other. Even my most recent acquisition, my laptop, the touchpad stopped working after a short while. (Got a USB mouse now,that works a treat. Will get the other fixed though at some point though while it's still on warranty.)

Interesting someone aboves hates Sony for pissing over music. I dislike Microsoft for much the same.. except with software. That was one reason I got the PS2 when it came out even though I knew the upcoming Xbox (at the time) was more powerful. That and I wanted a DVD player and the Xbox of the time needed extra software for that.... And I couldn't wait... ;)

[Something Fishy]

As a software developer I find it a bit amasing to consider that MS pissed all over software?

They have created some of the most sophisticated and well featured Operating Systems Ever.

From having first programmed back in the days of a multitude of OS's on every format it wa sa delight to find a unified standard.

For that standard to then get to the point where it's so sophisticated it all but configures itself (n workstations, not servers) is incredible and involved very clever programming.

They also provide fantastic dev tools.  VS.Net provides some of the best dev tools I have ever used, it also underpinds XNA (used for 360 development) and helps to explain why developees gets such good and quick results. Far in advance of the dsparate collection of libraries other companies offer.

Oh.. and a laptop having a faultu touchpad is nothign to do with MS or their software.  Look at the make of the laptop and blame them.

As a software developer I have seen them hugely support my industry and i think it's crap to suggest they have pissed over it.  Utter crap actually.

[Bico]

Fishy - I'd be more sympathetic to that view if I didn't see a blue screen EVERY SINGLE FUCKING TIME I turn on my computer, and then have to sit through the load-up to make sure Vista doesn't automatically enter system repair and uninstall all my art software - which it's done on more than one occasion.

Microsoft has helped enable the development of advanced OS in the early days when they had competition as impetus, but they've latterly pushed out a cash-grab turd of a product onto a market that now offers little or no alternative to it thanks to their virtual monopoly.  I can't help but think if there was an alternative product offered by a rival company that actually did the fucking job it was supposed to, Vista would have been a lot better-developed and tested before it got within a mile of a shop, but now they have a virtual monopoly, MS can afford to push out a product for no other reason than it's been a few years since the last one and they want more money coming in.