Upcoming games that makes me glad I'm a species born with opposabl

[Bun-Bun]

Another thing to note about the two formats, right now HD has the ability to hit 50 G of space on a single disk while Blueray is struggling to hit 25 G. If the drives get down in price, can achieve rewritable access, and someone produces these drives for computers, HD will get a major coupe. Overall, Blueray has some very steep technology hurdles to overcome that HD has already gotten over. If more information on these techonology hurdles comes to light, HD is going to start looking better and better over Blueray.

I don't think it matters. Either technology is sufficient to get the job done. Drives for computers will be a small fraction of the standalone mass-market, and won't have much influence. The determinant of a winner, if any, is the format that has the movies people want to see (and own). Right now, that's a split decision, with disc sales tipping in Blu-Ray's favor.

What's really interesting is the ~$150 million Microsoft paid Paramount and Dreamworks to keep HD-DVD on life support. It looks like they don't want a winner in this war. They'd rather they both fail and provide direct downloads as the only viable alternative.

[Lissa]

I don't think it matters. Either technology is sufficient to get the job done. Drives for computers will be a small fraction of the standalone mass-market, and won't have much influence. The determinant of a winner, if any, is the format that has the movies people want to see (and own). Right now, that's a split decision, with disc sales tipping in Blu-Ray's favor.

What's really interesting is the ~$150 million Microsoft paid Paramount and Dreamworks to keep HD-DVD on life support. It looks like they don't want a winner in this war. They'd rather they both fail and provide direct downloads as the only viable alternative.

There's another aspect though to providing larger discs, crisper pictures, more additional features, the possibility of putting entire series onto a single disc, and this is just from the movie perspective.

Also, MS paid the money for HD not for direct download, but to try and bury Sony as a console maker. MS has produced an add on HD drive for the XBox for around $100. If they can get enough of the XBox crowd to use the HD drives to play movies, this could tip things their way as well since XBox is around 10 Million people and PS3 is still trying to scrape up 2 Million people. If MS can get the XBoxers to spend $100 on HD drives so they can watch HD movies, that's more money in MS' pocket.

[Munkay]

Another thing to note about the two formats, right now HD has the ability to hit 50 G of space on a single disk while Blueray is struggling to hit 25 G. If the drives get down in price, can achieve rewritable access, and someone produces these drives for computers, HD will get a major coupe. Overall, Blueray has some very steep technology hurdles to overcome that HD has already gotten over. If more information on these techonology hurdles comes to light, HD is going to start looking better and better over Blueray.

Where are you getting your information from? My sources are skiddish at best - being mostly internet blogs, etc - but what I've read doesn't line up with your statement. I'd definitely like to read up a bit more to get my facts straight:).

My understanding right now is that hypothetically HD-DVD has a single layer size of 15 gigs, a double of 30, and a quad of 60. Blu-Ray on the other hand starts at 25gigs, double 50, etc. Blue lasers allow smaller read zone, etc, allowing Blu Ray to fit more on a layer, blah blah blah. Technological shoulds aside, I'm unaware of the tangible capacities in production discs. Is blu-ray really failing to hit the 25 mark? How could HD-DVD be hitting 50, when technologically speaking it should be either 30 or 60?

Personally I'm surprised HD-DVD has failed to bury Blu-ray out of the gate. Since unit volume will be the definitive point in declaring a victor, the first to hit the magic price-point will win. Since tech savvy readers only make up a minority of buyers, ultimately it will be the droves of average American's buying players at Walmarts, K-marts and Best Buys that determine the winner. HD-DVD doesn't have to contend with making a blue laser cheaper to produce, and with almost certainty will hit that price point first.

Though with that said, the twist of irony is that the following generation will be exclusively blue lasers. Granted of course, we still store data on plastic discs that require a laser to be read. So politics of the corporate world aside, I'll be surprised if Blu-ray can manage to be a winner - expensive technology in hand.

Cheers,

Munk

[Lissa]

Where are you getting your information from? My sources are skiddish at best - being mostly internet blogs, etc - but what I've read doesn't line up with your statement. I'd definitely like to read up a bit more to get my facts straight:).

My understanding right now is that hypothetically HD-DVD has a single layer size of 15 gigs, a double of 30, and a quad of 60. Blu-Ray on the other hand starts at 25gigs, double 50, etc. Blue lasers allow smaller read zone, etc, allowing Blu Ray to fit more on a layer, blah blah blah. Technological shoulds aside, I'm unaware of the tangible capacities in production discs. Is blu-ray really failing to hit the 25 mark? How could HD-DVD be hitting 50, when technologically speaking it should be either 30 or 60?

Personally I'm surprised HD-DVD has failed to bury Blu-ray out of the gate. Since unit volume will be the definitive point in declaring a victor, the first to hit the magic price-point will win. Since tech savvy readers only make up a minority of buyers, ultimately it will be the droves of average American's buying players at Walmarts, K-marts and Best Buys that determine the winner. HD-DVD doesn't have to contend with making a blue laser cheaper to produce, and with almost certainty will hit that price point first.

Though with that said, the twist of irony is that the following generation will be exclusively blue lasers. Granted of course, we still store data on plastic discs that require a laser to be read. So politics of the corporate world aside, I'll be surprised if Blu-ray can manage to be a winner - expensive technology in hand.

Cheers,

Munk

Last I checked it, Blu-ray was having serious problems with trying to read their second layers, as such they couldn't do anything, but single layer. HD conversely was able to read up to 50 G of space at the time that Blu-ray was only doing single layer.

And the next generation will not be standard plastic disc for storing media, but proteins. Someone is working on using a protein from insects to create the film in the disc and a single layer is said to hold 300 G of information.

[Kevin]

Last I checked it, Blu-ray was having serious problems with trying to read their second layers, as such they couldn't do anything, but single layer. HD conversely was able to read up to 50 G of space at the time that Blu-ray was only doing single layer.

And the next generation will not be standard plastic disc for storing media, but proteins. Someone is working on using a protein from insects to create the film in the disc and a single layer is said to hold 300 G of information.

I'm not so sure you can say that will be next gen at this stage. I saw demos of HP's DLP chip back in 93 and they didn't hit production till what 2005 for HD sets. Plasma and other HD TV techs that were comparible hit market first. I was sure back in the mid 90's that DLP was going to be the it thing because it was so much better back then than anything else I had seen a working demo of. But right now it's still niche. I still think it provides a better picture quality than any other HD tech but they couldn't first to market (I think they had too many issues with mirrors sticking and if one got stuck you get a similar issue to a 'dead pixel' on an LCD.

I'm pretty sure that something else "next gen" will hit before any of the bio-chemical solutions that are being worked on hit market. Especially if you can't synthetically manufacture the bio material because quantity matters too. I've seen some of the stuff on the insect protien stuff but they are still having to extract the proteins from the bugs at this stage from what I understand, that won't fly for production products, they will have to be able to grow that protein in large quantities to produce anything for consumption by the public in most cases.

[Bun-Bun]

Also, MS paid the money for HD not for direct download, but to try and bury Sony as a console maker. MS has produced an add on HD drive for the XBox for around $100. If they can get enough of the XBox crowd to use the HD drives to play movies, this could tip things their way as well since XBox is around 10 Million people and PS3 is still trying to scrape up 2 Million people. If MS can get the XBoxers to spend $100 on HD drives so they can watch HD movies, that's more money in MS' pocket.

If MS wanted to pump their console, they could offer an HD-DVD ad-on AND a Blu-Ray add-on. Sure, the Blu-Ray drive means a few buck going to Sony for the rights, but it's attached to an XBox, so MS wins anyway. So I don't think that's their strategy here.

In any case the strategy of using consoles as market drivers for HD movies doesn't seem to be working for either side, as few people use them as movie players. I doubt it stands much chance of working the other way. Of course, for Microsoft, either an HD-DVD win or a continued muddle both serve their purposes.

[Chesspiece_face]

If MS wanted to pump their console, they could offer an HD-DVD ad-on AND a Blu-Ray add-on. Sure, the Blu-Ray drive means a few buck going to Sony for the rights, but it's attached to an XBox, so MS wins anyway. So I don't think that's their strategy here.

yeah because that's exactly what you want to do. pay your main competitor for the rights to use their hardware. ummm, no. When it comes to merging the HD battle with the next-gen console battle full blame can be laid at Sony's feet. Microsofts addition of the HDdvd drive to the 360 is not strategically part of the HD war, it's a console move. Last gen Sony was able to leverage their market share to pull in all sorts of exclusive content to their console, playstation 2 was unarguably the dominator and by the time the first xbox entered the scene there was nothing Microsoft could do to reasonably compete with the exclusives. By putting in the HDdvd drive add-on Microsoft is just countering Sony's ploy of merging the HD and console war. It all comes down to the exclusives, by offering an "equal but different" console experience Microsoft can delineate themselves enough that consumers won't just say "why buy this when i can just get a PS3" but they remain close enough in function to the competitor that Sony can never get the foothold they had last gen and subsequently pull in exclusives.

The plan seems to be working for microsoft, many of the games which were last gen exclusives for PS2 have been announced cross platform (GTA IV, Devil May Cry, and the reality is if PS3 sales don't pick up games like Metal Gear Solid and *GASP* even FFXIII could turn from Exlusives to Timed Exclusives to recoup some of the costs of making these huge games).

What this all adds up to is a great benefit for the gaming consumer (because they won't be put in the situation of having to buy mulitple systems for exclusive content) but a great detriment for the HD consumer. Sony may have started the merge of HD and consoles but the great irony is that if their ploy doesn't work the PS3s failure will be their own fault. When HDdvd players do drop down to around 200-250 if they pick up enough market share you may see a full swing in the console war to push all the exclusives that Sony had last-gen over to Microsoft.

[Bun-Bun]

yeah because that's exactly what you want to do. pay your main competitor for the rights to use their hardware. ummm, no.

Nice sarcasm, but the fact is, businesses are run by realists. They license stuff all the time, if it is to their net benefit. If Blu-Ray gets to be a dominant standard, can you say MS won't offer something to support it? Steve Ballmer may throw a chair or two, but the checks get signed.

When it comes to merging the HD battle with the next-gen console battle full blame can be laid at Sony's feet.

Agreed. I just don't think they've succeeded in merging the battlefields. I think that standalone players will be much more of a factor in the HD fight.

Microsofts addition of the HDdvd drive to the 360 is not strategically part of the HD war, it's a console move.

OK, let's take as a given that the addition of HD movie capacity is a move to sell more consoles. Wouldn't a larger range of content compatibility sell more consoles? If the eventual goal is to dominate the console space, wouldn't that be worth much more than some licensing fees?

Regardless, they're not making a Blu-Ray add-on. And they're paying Paramount/Dreamworks to support HD-DVD. So let's consider some possibilities:

1) MS is honestly trying to drive HD-DVD to be the standard bearer for digital movies.

MS is not unknown for swimming upstream, but this one's uncommonly salmon-like, and I don't see a huge payoff if they win. Maybe it's one in the eye for Sony, but Sony's doing a fine job of failing on their own.

2) MS is spreading FUD in the HD market to make digital downloads look more appealing, leaving them an opening to be the dominant technology provider in the dominant delivery mechanism for home entertainment.

That sounds a lot nicer to me for MS's long-term interests.

3) MS is hoping that HD movies become a driver for console adoption.

I don't think this is realistic. It's all about the games.

In the end, I think MS is hoping for (2). I think they may get their wish; the split standard is slowing adoption of a set of products that isn't all that compelling to start with.

[Quark]

Taking just what Paramount has said in their press release and the present trend of HDdvd price points I expect they are betting on HDdvd because that format will obviously be the first to have their stand alone players break the mass market $250 price point.

Nothing like a $150 million payout to revive a dying war.

[Munkay]

Nothing like a $150 million payout to revive a dying war.

Funny how when it comes to lost revenues from online file sharing, the same studios tell us how starving and strapped for cash they are. Yet somewhere in their meager leftovers they scrounge up a measly 150 mil to drop in a silly format war.

What was that idea again? Something about how truth is always subject to its context?;)

[Frag]

What was that idea again? Something about how truth is always subject to its context?;)

Relativist! :P
~Frag

[Bun-Bun]

Relativist! :P
~Frag

Absolutely!

[Frag]

Absolutely!

I've missed you so much. :wub:
~Frag

[Chesspiece_face]

Nice sarcasm, but the fact is, businesses are run by realists. They license stuff all the time, if it is to their net benefit. If Blu-Ray gets to be a dominant standard, can you say MS won't offer something to support it? Steve Ballmer may throw a chair or two, but the checks get signed.

Actually Microsoft has stated that if blu-ray becomes the dominant standard they would support it. my point is just that there is no reason for them to do it now. especially when it's quite possible that blu-ray is the noose Sony uses to hang itself.

Agreed. I just don't think they've succeeded in merging the battlefields. I think that standalone players will be much more of a factor in the HD fight.

Standalone players most definately will be the biggest factor when it comes to the HD war. the real decider of which will come out on top is what happens when HDdvd players drop down to 200-250. The problem for Sony, at least, is that they have hinged the success of their console on the success of blu-ray. if blu-ray doesn't succeed than the 10 year plan for the PS3 goes down the toilet and takes any hope for Sony to have a dominant console with it (along with a good portion of the company). That being said, why would Microsoft do anything to support blu-ray? Until blu-ray is unarguably the dominant media you won't see MS support blu-ray at all because it benefits their console not to.

OK, let's take as a given that the addition of HD movie capacity is a move to sell more consoles. Wouldn't a larger range of content compatibility sell more consoles? If the eventual goal is to dominate the console space, wouldn't that be worth much more than some licensing fees?

Regardless, they're not making a Blu-Ray add-on. And they're paying Paramount/Dreamworks to support HD-DVD. So let's consider some possibilities:

Like I mentioned above. It was Sony who hitched their console strategy onto the success of blu-ray. Microsoft will support HDdvd until one of two things happens; either HDdvd becomes the standard and Sony crumbles with blu-ray (best case scenario for microsoft) or Blu-ray becomes the dominant force and in that case Microsoft didn't lose much overall. Their console is only built to last 5 years (unlike Sony's investment of a ten year plan) so if blu-ray does come out on top in the next couple years they can just build it into the xbox 720. This investment of 150 million to get paramount is actually a good risk/reward proposition. 150 million isn't all that much money in the long run for these media giants and if HDdvd does win out than the xbox will most likely be able to secure the success status that the PS2 had long into the future.

[Munkay]

Absolutely!

:lol:

Ahem. Sorry, the philosophy degree in me had to laugh. Now back to the serious topic about a silly format war!:whistling:

Cheers,

Munk

[Lissa]

I'm not so sure you can say that will be next gen at this stage. I saw demos of HP's DLP chip back in 93 and they didn't hit production till what 2005 for HD sets. Plasma and other HD TV techs that were comparible hit market first. I was sure back in the mid 90's that DLP was going to be the it thing because it was so much better back then than anything else I had seen a working demo of. But right now it's still niche. I still think it provides a better picture quality than any other HD tech but they couldn't first to market (I think they had too many issues with mirrors sticking and if one got stuck you get a similar issue to a 'dead pixel' on an LCD.

I'm pretty sure that something else "next gen" will hit before any of the bio-chemical solutions that are being worked on hit market. Especially if you can't synthetically manufacture the bio material because quantity matters too. I've seen some of the stuff on the insect protien stuff but they are still having to extract the proteins from the bugs at this stage from what I understand, that won't fly for production products, they will have to be able to grow that protein in large quantities to produce anything for consumption by the public in most cases.

True, there are some technologies that have been on the back burner for a while. Crystalographic drives is a good example where you can store 250 TB of data in a crystalline cube that is a quarter inch on a side. This has been around since the early 90s, but it has real issues with shock as the data is stored in the atomic bonds in the crystalline lattice. Even a small variation in how the lasers are pointed will wipe a drive clean of data.

But right now, protein platters seem to be making a big in road, not just in the removable disk market, but also in the hard disk market. The ability to store data at such high densities makes for some interesting possibilities for data centers and information warehousing.

[Lissa]

1) MS is honestly trying to drive HD-DVD to be the standard bearer for digital movies.

MS is not unknown for swimming upstream, but this one's uncommonly salmon-like, and I don't see a huge payoff if they win. Maybe it's one in the eye for Sony, but Sony's doing a fine job of failing on their own.

No, this is a move to try and bury Sony. Sony is in dire finiacial straights between the battery recall and the lack of sales of the PS3 and Blu-ray. MS is doing what MS always does, it goes for the jugular and MS knows that if they can knock of Blu-ray, Sony is going down.

2) MS is spreading FUD in the HD market to make digital downloads look more appealing, leaving them an opening to be the dominant technology provider in the dominant delivery mechanism for home entertainment.

That sounds a lot nicer to me for MS's long-term interests.

MS was caught flat footed when the Internet started to take off. Bill and Steve have done everything in their power to get MS into the world of the internet, why do you think they created The Microsoft Network? It wasn't because they thought more competition in the Internet access market would be a good thing, they were trying to get their portal up and going. They continue to push their portal, MSN*.com to leverage themselves and give them more revenue.

Going with HD is them trying to gain control over the console market. They know right now that they can't stop Nintendo and they've realized that Nintendo may help them in the strategy sense of the Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend (although Nintendo isn't, but Nintendo isn't challenging MS in the graphics market like Sony is).

3) MS is hoping that HD movies become a driver for console adoption.

I don't think this is realistic. It's all about the games.

It's not, it's about removing a rival. Typically when it comes to consoles, their is only room for two companies. MS has realizes that they can't push out Nintendo as Nintendo has the price point and the "fun" factor with their various games. This means that MS has to target Sony and with sales of PS3 being sluggish, MS figures that if they can bury Blu-ray, they bury Sony (which is what it looks like will happen if PS3 fails).

In the end, I think MS is hoping for (2). I think they may get their wish; the split standard is slowing adoption of a set of products that isn't all that compelling to start with.

Not really, it's part of it yes, but more so than anything it's removal of a rival and if they can push Sony out, Sony will be the next 3DO and will disappear which will be a shame as a number of their products are quite good. MS is taking advantage of Sony's situation and very likely, if things don't turn around soon, Sony is going to go under.

[Munkay]

True, there are some technologies that have been on the back burner for a while. Crystalographic drives is a good example where you can store 250 TB of data in a crystalline cube that is a quarter inch on a side. This has been around since the early 90s, but it has real issues with shock as the data is stored in the atomic bonds in the crystalline lattice. Even a small variation in how the lasers are pointed will wipe a drive clean of data.

But right now, protein platters seem to be making a big in road, not just in the removable disk market, but also in the hard disk market. The ability to store data at such high densities makes for some interesting possibilities for data centers and information warehousing.

Thinking more about the issue of the next generation of storage has me torn. On one hand I think a lot of technology (science for that matter) is done for the sake of science alone. But on the other hand, more often than not its necessity that lights the fire that makes technology spill into the main stream. But in this case, really where is the fire?

I'm sure I'll be looking back at this post sooner than I expect and thinking, god did I really say that? But here goes:

What real market is there going to be for large capacity discs in the foreseeable future? 100+ Gig video games are possible if you bump texture quality higher, but there's still significant bottle necks to displaying all those textures at once. The hardware bottlenecks that aren't likely to resolve themselves before more space is needed. 100+ gig movies? Hrm. Not until 'high def' goes through the roof. The only market I can see is for TV series to be released on one disc. Putting all seasons of Seinfeld on one disc would certainly call for some monstrous storage.

Internal HD's are already at 1TB (what are they up to now, +200 gig plus single platters?). Solid State drives promise more reliable backup than their spinning counterparts, and better long term storage than plastic cds/dvds/hddvds/blu-rays.

All of this is to say, I give up on speculating on the future technology. I don't think the need for a new data storage type will come soon enough, and with the fast (and set-back haunted) pace of technology these days the next true storage may be something entirely incomprehensible to me at this date.

Cheers,

Munk

PS. I'm getting old - I still can't get over how cool the idea of a blue laser is!:P

[Quark]

No, this is a move to try and bury Sony. Sony is in dire finiacial straights between the battery recall and the lack of sales of the PS3 and Blu-ray. MS is doing what MS always does, it goes for the jugular and MS knows that if they can knock of Blu-ray, Sony is going down.

Last financial report I can find from Sony:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070726/bs_...lectronics

Or were you forgetting how successful MS as a whole is even though the Game division is one giant money pit itself?

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070...x-ravaging.html

[Pantalaimon]

- Bioshock
(Spiritual successor to System Shock2. Yes it's a good looking shooter, but what really gets my crank going is the underwater dystopian setting, and hints that it was built by someone described as Ayn Rand meets Howard Hughes. Some spoilers, don't click if you want to go in fresh http://www.gametrailers.com/player/20691.html )

Starting a new tangent, does anybody have anything good to say about this game? From what I've read, I won't be picking it up, partly because of their draconian anti-pirate measures but also the overall look of the game if you're not lucky enough to have DX10. I'd love to hear from anyone who got the game and is loving it :)

Link to massive complaints about anti-pirate measures:
http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5527

Mind you, it's a public company-run forum, so it reads sorta like blizzard's WoW-General:P