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Gaming News & Discussion (Page 43)
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The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 1, 2013, 05:09 PM
 
So what do you guys think about new controllers? Even though Nintendo likes to reinvent the wheel every time, it slipped my mind.

PlayStation 4 revealed | News | Edge Online

The controller

Sources close to the hardware have revealed to us that PS4 will ship with a redesigned controller which is the same size as an existing DualShock but features a small touchpad in place of the existing Select, Start and PS buttons. The tech is based on Vita’s rear touchpad, and is similarly responsive in use.

A new Share button on the controller will, when pressed, launch a new feature that will allow screenshots and video to be distributed online. The PS4 hardware will continually record the most recent 15 minutes of onscreen action (with no processing penalty, claims our source), which users will then be able to edit and broadcast via the Internet.
     
knifecarrier2
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Feb 1, 2013, 05:38 PM
 
Huge let down. Huge.

Okay, you probably know this, but my background is in human factors and ergonomics. I have designed powertools, hand tools, controllers for industrial equipment, and controllers for the elderly.

The Playstation controller, when it came out, was an improvement..... to the super nintendo controler. The angled pods hanging off the bottom reflected the angles of your wrists when they are in a nuetral position. Great.

However, the Xbox 360 controller blows it completely out of the water. First off, the PSX controller, which basically hasn't changed in physical form at all, was designed to for the asian market. They have smaller hands than other countries, FACT. They were also designed to fit children's hands. I am an 'average' male; in fact, it is astounding how average my physical features are (excluding my feet and... uh... stuff). I am the 50th percentile in stature, width, arm size, hand size, and other things. I've done hand modeling for companies because of this.

Know what? The PS3 controller is too ****ing small! After an hour of gaming, my hand actually hurts. If htey made the pods bigger, and more blended into the rest of the controller, like the 360 controllers, it'd be a huge improvement. Better yet, make the pods detachable, and offer different sizes to fit different palms.

Also, touch pads are ****ing awful, unless you are staring at what you are touching. Physical buttons allow you to find things and reference their location WITHOUT LOOKING AT ANYTHING. A friend of mine purchased an expensive, programmable touch screen remote. It was utterly terrible. Want to tap up the volume? Good luck doing that without looking. Change channels? Same thing.

The fact that sony has used the same controller for 3 generations without changing a damn thing honestly really pisses me off. Human factors and knowledge of how to make things fit the human hand have advanced significantly in 20 years. So has modeling, digital scultping, 3d printing, testing, and assessments via pressuremapping. Yet they haven't changed shit.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 1, 2013, 05:42 PM
 
They did try.

     
lpkmckenna
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Feb 1, 2013, 06:48 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
They did try.

That looks kinda familiar:

     
Hawkeye_a
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Feb 2, 2013, 12:37 AM
 
Originally Posted by knifecarrier2 View Post
Huge let down. Huge.
It hasnt been officially revealed yet. If you see my Nintendo fanboyish posts from a console generation ago, you'll see that i agreed with a lot of what you said.

My favorite controller is the Gamecube controller primarily due to the different sized and shaped buttons. It also fit very snugly in my hands.

This current/past generation showed us that the controller can take many different forms. Consider the number of different unique controllers each console recieved. Third parties adding to it as well.

I think the "default" PlayStation controller should remain unchanged. Its iconic and people are acustomed to it. And i think third parties cater to those few who are not happy with it. IMHO.

I think Sony should have had an initiative internally to enable the vita to function as a ps3 controller. The synergy would serve to spur sales of the VITA IMHO.

Cheers
( Last edited by Hawkeye_a; Feb 4, 2013 at 09:16 PM. )
     
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Feb 4, 2013, 10:39 AM
 
Ballmer must have fired all the softies who know how to speak English:

Microsoft: False alarm. We aren't backing away from DirectX | ZDNet

Summary: MS is killing XNA, the "unified game development platform" for Xbox, Windows, and Windows Phone (at least partially aimed at getting indie games to the Xbox), but they announce this by way of eliminating the "MVP" title for being great at XNA - and they word that mail so it sounds like they're killing DirectX. When forced to explain, they basically say that they really killed XNA years ago and just forgot to tell anyone, and DirectX except for Direct3D (the important bit) has also been dead for a while, but no, they're actually not killing Direct3D. And btw, the mail sent out to everyone in the community that is supposed to communicate apparently has a big bunch of stuff that is under NDA. Fantastic. I'm sure all the developers are really calm now.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 4, 2013, 03:32 PM
 
VGLeaks: Durango GPU detailed - NeoGAF

NeoGAF thread on more leaked specs. Curious what the smarter among us (Read: P) thinks.
     
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Feb 5, 2013, 09:46 AM
 
So much text for such a little leak. This smells like it was arranged by marketing - they're basically going over how the AMD GCN arch works without calling it that.

But anyway: This is basically a Radeon 7770, but integrated with the CPU, so it does not have a dedicated memory bus. With what we know of the CPU, you can think of it like this: Take four AMD E450, AMD's Atom competitor, and glue them together with a Radeon 7770, and combine all of this into one chip hanging on to a memory bus that...doesn't look too shabby, actually. 68GB/s. If they are indeed using DDR3 memory as rumored, they're using 4 memory channels and clocking things in the DDR3-2133 range. GDDR5 would mean only two memory channels, but 8 GB of GDDR5 would be expensive. DDR4 already? This will be interesting to follow.

Compared with modern graphics cards, the number is not exactly impressive - the CPU and the GPU have to share a memory bus that is slightly slower than the 7770 has alone - but I was expecting much worse and more dependence on the cache (later). Much will depend on the quality of that memory controller - 8 CPU cores and a rather powerful GPU have to share and share alike without getting in each other's way - and AMD hasn't exactly been known for the quality of its memory controllers lately.

To cover this deficiency, we have something called "eSRAM". "eSRAM" sounds like a fancy name for a big L3 cache - 32MB. Upside is that the latency is lower than the eDRAM solution I was expecting (what IBM uses, and what Intel is rumored to be using in Haswell) but also smaller. There is a lot of talk about how one might use it for certain textures, the antialiasing etc. If one wants to do that, it will get crowded, because you at least need the frame buffer and Z buffer in there to avoid hitting main memory.

I said "basically" a Radeon 7770. The Radeon 7770 uses 10 CUs (a CU is just a collection of shaders) running at 1 GHz, and the Durango GPU uses 12 CUs running at 800 MHz. It comes out to 96% of the shader power of the Radeon 7770, but 80% of some of the other resources. Basically MS spent a little on a bigger chip to be able to drop the clockspeed and get a cooler-running chip.

There is a lot of talk about texture compression and the special anti-aliasing modes using it. I think that they will be relying very heavily on that eSRAM to get where they want, and so I wonder why it isn't any larger than 32 MB.

One interpretation is that they assume that action games will remain at 720p for the lifetime of this console, and focus on doing that well. They barely have the shader power to do 1080p anyway. Fancy AA and lots of filtering on textures in the eSRAM can make things look good anyway. Alternatively, one could push it to 1080p with less complicated shader programs and framerates in the high thirties, but avoid filtering on any texture not in the eSRAM.

I see that the comment thread you linked is full of people saying it sucks, but I'm pleasantly surprised when seeing the main memory bandwidth - I expected about half that. This looks like it might run comparably to a Radeon 7770 (which is not a bad chip) on a straight PC port with some extra performance available if you spend some time on making use of the eSRAM.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
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Feb 5, 2013, 10:32 AM
 
Some comparisons with a few Macs: My iMac (Late 2009) has a Radeon 4850 Mobility. The Xbox Durango has about 50% more shader power and 20% more main memory bandwidth. If I software overclock it to desktop clocks, they're almost matched - the Durango has some 10-15% more shader power. Unfortunately this ignores the efficiency improvements in the more modern shader cores, not to mention the eSRAM. When the Durango launches, this old girl will be due for a replacement, as the PS4 is supposedly even more powerful, and that will be the level that developers will make their games to. The CPU will still be able to run rings around both consoles, but that usually doesn't help much. Only time that CPU really has to work is when I give Handbrake something to chew on.

Other recent Macs... The 6970M in the top 2011 iMac compares favorably on the main memory bandwidth, and matches the shader power almost exactly. Considering the eSRAM, they should be comparable. The 675MX in the current top iMac is more powerful, as is the 680M BTO option. The 650M in the current MBP is about 60% of Durango's GPU, and the 660M in the base 27" iMac should be comparable to my (overclocked) old iMac - significantly weaker but reasonably close. Anything else is not in the same division. Looking at it from that perspective, it's not so bad.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 5, 2013, 11:51 AM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
It's a new generation because enough time has passed since the last generation.
Vindication?

Wii U graphics power finally revealed • Articles • Eurogamer.net

It was ballpark speculation at the time based on what we had eyeballed at the event, but the final GPU is indeed a close match to the 4650/4670, albeit with a deficit in the number of texture-mapping units and a lower clock speed - 550MHz. AMD's RV770 hardware is well documented so with these numbers we can now, categorically, finally rule out any next-gen pretensions for the Wii U - the GCN hardware in Durango and Orbis is in a completely different league. However, the 16 TMUs at 550MHz and texture cache improvements found in RV770 do elevate the capabilities of this hardware beyond the Xenos GPU in the Xbox 360 - 1.5 times the raw shader power sounds about right. 1080p resolution is around 2.5x that of 720p, so bearing in mind the inclusion of just eight ROPs, it's highly unlikely that we'll be seeing any complex 3D titles running at 1080p.

All of which may lead some to wonder quite why many of the Wii U ports disappoint - especially Black Ops 2, which appears to have been derived from the Xbox 360 version, running more slowly even at the same 880x720 sub-hd resolution.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 5, 2013, 11:54 AM
 
If I may ask, P, what is it you do for a living that you're so well versed in this stuff?

Originally Posted by P View Post
One interpretation is that they assume that action games will remain at 720p for the lifetime of this console, and focus on doing that well. They barely have the shader power to do 1080p anyway. Fancy AA and lots of filtering on textures in the eSRAM can make things look good anyway. Alternatively, one could push it to 1080p with less complicated shader programs and framerates in the high thirties, but avoid filtering on any texture not in the eSRAM.

I see that the comment thread you linked is full of people saying it sucks, but I'm pleasantly surprised when seeing the main memory bandwidth - I expected about half that. This looks like it might run comparably to a Radeon 7770 (which is not a bad chip) on a straight PC port with some extra performance available if you spend some time on making use of the eSRAM.
Well NeoGAF is a mixture of every gamer, but as Leonard illustrates in my other thread, people want MOAR POWAH. It's understandable as whatever you're given is going to have to last roughly 5 years, so the lower the bar the earlier it becomes dated.


I read some speculation in that thread that this weaker card might be an indication that they're trying to get the price down to perhaps $299 level, which after last gen would be a huge move. Any thoughts on that?
     
mattyb
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Feb 5, 2013, 12:27 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
If I may ask, P, what is it you do for a living that you're so well versed in this stuff?
Pretty sure that he works for Volvo Cars. Seat ergonomics comes to mind.
     
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Feb 5, 2013, 03:19 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
For who? The architecture is much closer to the rumored Durango than to anything of the previous generation.

If I may ask, P, what is it you do for a living that you're so well versed in this stuff?
Almost as matty said: I work with automotive seating, but at a supplier rather than at Volvo Cars itself. This doesn't really have anything to do with GPUs - that's just a silly interest. Whenever AMD or nVidia or Intel for that matter launch a new architecture (which happens about once or twice a decade), there is an article about the fundamentals of how it works at Anandtech and similar sites. Most readers skip that and go straight to the benchmarks - I do the opposite. Once I have the fundamentals, I can read the spec numbers and figure out roughly what chip it is similar to and dig up a benchmark. In theory there are a million things that have to align, but both nVidia and AMD design their GPUs by taking rather big blocks off the shelf and arranging them, so one can simplify to two areas: shader power and memory bandwidth.

Shader power = Number of shader cores * clock speed. The shaders are different in design between manufacturers, and they all count them differently, but you can compare inside a manufacturer. The Durango GPU above has 768 so-called stream processors running at 800 MHz. The Radeon 7770 has 640 stream processors running at 1 GHz.

Memory bandwidth is usually printed explicitly, but in any case it is memory bus width * transfers per cycle. That last is the clockspeed times a multiplier from the memory type - DDR3 transfers twice as much per cycle as DDR2 does - but often the number of transfers is printed with a "GHz" unit even though it is strictly incorrect - e.g. DDR3-1600 uses chips that run at 200 MHz. Even though they seem to use different memory setups, Durango and the 7770 have almost exactly the same memory bandwidth.

The trick to this is that a chip will essentially always be bottlenecked by one of these numbers - if you are starved for memory bandwidth, you can pile on as much shader power as you like without moving the fps. There are many, MANY low-end GPUs like this - strangled by low memory bandwidth but with differing number of shader cores to make you pay more for a chip that is no faster in practise. Moore's law means that the amount of shader power has been trending up at a fairly straight line over the years, but having lots of memory bandwidth costs money. Fast GDDR5 memory is expensive, having lots of leads on the circuit board for a wide memory bus costs money in manufacturing, and boosting the clockspeed means that chips run hot. This is where integrated graphics usually has a problem - they usually only have a 128 bit memory bus, and they are stuck with DDR3 instead of the faster GDDR5 because CPUs need so much more memory than GPUs. This is why I am so interested in the idea of a graphics cache (eDRAM or eSRAM) - if you can manage to put some of the most used data in this small, fast, on chip memory, you can avoid the memory bandwidth problem. With this problem solved, we can use some of that unused CPU area (modern CPUs are much smaller than they were 5 years ago) to raise integrated graphics to a level where one can game on just about any modern computer again. I think that this is what gaming needs to become truly mainstream (beyond the casual games).

I read some speculation in that thread that this weaker card might be an indication that they're trying to get the price down to perhaps $299 level, which after last gen would be a huge move. Any thoughts on that?
That seems likely. We don't have chip area figures or even which process it uses, but assuming that it's a 28nm chip and the CPU part is smaller than the GPU part, we'd have a chip on the size of a 7800-series chip or so with a motherboard that is of comparable difficulty to manufacture. There are 7850/2GB cards on the market for $200, and I don't think anyone is selling them below cost. Assuming the memory switch is a wash, that leaves us $100 plus whatever bath MS would want to take on the console for a small PSU, some Flash storage, case and a controller. The joker here is the eSRAM thing, which I can't estimate the cost for since I don't know anything about how they do it. Seems doable.
( Last edited by P; Feb 5, 2013 at 03:32 PM. )
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
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Feb 6, 2013, 10:08 AM
 
The next Xbox: Always online, no second-hand games, 50GB Blu-ray discs and new Kinect | News | Edge Online

50GB Blu-ray, always online, new Kinect, activation coded discs so no more used games.

It'll be much easier if you just comply.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 6, 2013, 10:32 AM
 
Originally Posted by ajprice View Post
The next Xbox: Always online, no second-hand games, 50GB Blu-ray discs and new Kinect | News | Edge Online

50GB Blu-ray, always online, new Kinect, activation coded discs so no more used games.
I still can't believe they'd do always online. It seems like just a few years ago estimates of offline 360s was near 50%.

Also, if they disable the ability borrow or lend games, **** them. I hate Gamestop, but not enough to cut off my nose.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 6, 2013, 12:19 PM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
For who? The architecture is much closer to the rumored Durango than to anything of the previous generation.



Originally Posted by P View Post
Almost as matty said: I work with automotive seating, but at a supplier rather than at Volvo Cars itself. This doesn't really have anything to do with GPUs - that's just a silly interest.
You sure know a lot for a silly interest. (Or appear to do so – I wouldn't know either way)

Originally Posted by P View Post
Most readers skip that and go straight to the benchmarks - I do the opposite.
That's cos its all I understand.
     
mattyb
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Feb 6, 2013, 12:55 PM
 
Originally Posted by ajprice View Post
The next Xbox: Always online, no second-hand games, 50GB Blu-ray discs and new Kinect | News | Edge Online

50GB Blu-ray, always online, new Kinect, activation coded discs so no more used games.
Dunno if its in Frogland or another European country, but there's a law about restricting 2nd hand products in place. Guess that they'll just not get the Xbox then. But maybe they mean that software purchases will be linked to your XBL profile. Always requiring an internet connection will be shitty as well.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 6, 2013, 01:01 PM
 
I dunno. Not buying these rumors... yet.
     
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Feb 6, 2013, 04:19 PM
 
I've read through some of the previous posts, and just because I don't have a lot of time before I have to hop off of here, I'll be brief.

Controllers - The 360 controller is clearly the majority's favorite controller. I believe the ergonomics could be tweaked just a bit to make it more comfortable on the ring fingers and pinkies (mine go numb), but the buttons and thumbsticks (including their placement), particularly on the silver model, are about as good as you can get. The Wii U Pro Controller is an evolution in this regard, but the freaking thumbstick placement and lack of triggers kills it.

NOTE: if there are any other Wii U owners out there, you should know my user name. Hit me up.

I'm waiting and seeing about the PS4, but I'm almost certainly going to have to snatch up a 720 on release day. The always-connected requirement sounds a bit suspect to me. They'd potentially cut out millions of sales (thought I wouldn't think tens of millions) if they institute an online-only requirement. I suppose the widespread acceptance of such a rumor just proves how strongly second-hand game sales are affecting the industry.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 6, 2013, 04:23 PM
 
Originally Posted by Jawbone54 View Post
I suppose the widespread acceptance of such a rumor just proves how strongly second-hand game sales are affecting the industry.
It's 'believable' because Sony patented some process to prevent second hand sales. I still think it's linkbait. The console wars are starting up anew and this adds fuel to the fire.
     
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Feb 6, 2013, 06:50 PM
 
Locking games to profiles is pretty much the only thing M$ could do to stop me from buying the next XBox. I sure as heck hope they don't.....
     
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Feb 7, 2013, 06:01 AM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
It's 'believable' because Sony patented some process to prevent second hand sales. I still think it's linkbait. The console wars are starting up anew and this adds fuel to the fire.
It would make more sense to go to completely digital distribution, drop the price per game down to $45 or something to make everyone feel they're not getting screwed and put the saving from the optical towards more storage.

Something has to happen, though. From the perspective of the entire gaming ecosystem, Gamestop is a huge inefficiency, and with the consoles being squeezed from below, it's not one the business can afford any more.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 7, 2013, 10:08 AM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
It would make more sense to go to completely digital distribution, drop the price per game down to $45 or something to make everyone feel they're not getting screwed and put the saving from the optical towards more storage.
That's the thing, they could have made massive inroads into DD this gen if they weren't so dead set on milking everyone for every last penny.

Whether publishers want to admit or not, part of the value in $60 game is the ability to trade it, lend it, sell it, and transport it. Take that away and you can't expect people to pay full price. Many, however, see the convenience of downloading as mitigating the loss in value, which is, at best delusional. And this doesn't even factor in the price lag between the price of the physical disc at stores and online once it starts dropping.

Second, of the two consoles, MS relied on small, proprietary, expensive drives for storage on XBOX. Anyone who willingly committed to DD despite the price gouging would run out of space very quickly. The inability to upgrade past a certain point was very real.

If their entire strategy is going to be strong-arming consumers into their wishes rather than luring them there with beneficial policies, I suppose I'll have no alternative than to resist.
     
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Feb 7, 2013, 11:50 AM
 
I don't think it's milking, I think it's the fact that Gamestop would retaliate against any game that was cheaper digitally than physically.

If you sell your game used to your friend directly, then that is not really a big problem for the publisher. Whatever they pay you for that game goes directly to another gamer (namely you), who generally puts at least a good chunk of that towards new games. Also, if you know that you will get $30 back from selling that game, it's much easier to swallow that $60 pricetag.

The problem is that the used game market doesn't work like that. Gamers do not in general sell their game to other gamers, they sell them to Gamestop or another retailer. The first buyer gets less money, which hurts the first buyer. The second buyer pays more, which hurts the second buyer. The first buyer also gets an expectation of less money for a used game, which hurts their willingness to buy new expensive games, which hurts the publisher. The only party that makes money from this is the retailer - specifically Gamestop, who sits on the retailing business like a 19th century robber baron.

This is a Gordian knot for the publishers, who appear to be the only ones who have figured out the problem. They can't sell their games cheaper digitally, or Gamestop will retaliate by not ordering games or simply not advertising them. If they sell them digitally at full price, gamers feel that they're losing something when they can't sell them second hand. The only thing they can do is make them more convenient (and that runs directly counter to their instincts, at least of Activision and EA).

The only good idea to combat this that I've seen so far is Steam sales. Steam can have massive sales to compete with the used game sales. I think all the new consoles need to have some sort of game store that includes AAA games - not because they should sell a lot of $60 games, but because they can sell a lot of games on regular sales.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
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Feb 8, 2013, 01:33 PM
 
Which brings it all down to price. $60 is too much for games, which is why Gamestop exists in the first place. Steam is proving this to the letter, but they just won't listen. I can point at quite a few games on the PSN that cost more than going to store. Why would I pay MORE for a digital copy than a physical one that I can trade in towards a new one? Until they recognize this, there will always be a problem.

I've bought so much stuff from Steam just because it was cheap or reasonable, that I haven't even played yet. This is why their business model works. Pricing digital and physical games at the same price is always going to be a problem when you are doing both. The discrepancies will always happen, and the digital needs to be as flexible in pricing, but they never do that often enough, and they cry poor. I'm glad to see consumers making dollar votes on this and forcing them to make changes. Unfortunately they haven't made the right ones that are fair to everyone, just for them.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 8, 2013, 01:36 PM
 
At this point it seems like amazon replicates the steam effect for consoles. Constant deals, dropping prices, etc. And amazingly, they do it with physical copies.
     
exca1ibur
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Feb 8, 2013, 05:00 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
At this point it seems like amazon replicates the steam effect for consoles. Constant deals, dropping prices, etc. And amazingly, they do it with physical copies.
I agree, which is why I tend to do 100% of my physical game purchases between Amazon, Gamestop and on rare occasions Fry's.
     
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Feb 9, 2013, 04:49 AM
 
Finally, the Rage Tool Kit is available for modders.

I don't have high hopes for anything elaborate, but if modders made custom missions in the already available environments, that would be pretty cool. For one thing, there weren't enough outdoor combat scenarios in the original game.

And maybe modders will make a death match mode. Or maybe a Vehicle Capture the Flag mode like in Unreal Tournament III.
     
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Feb 9, 2013, 10:16 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
I still can't believe they'd do always online. It seems like just a few years ago estimates of offline 360s was near 50%.

Also, if they disable the ability borrow or lend games, **** them. I hate Gamestop, but not enough to cut off my nose.
I don't put it past MS. The entire software market is moving towards online-only, cloud based solutions, so it's inevitable really. If not this generation, then next.
     
mattyb
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Feb 10, 2013, 01:23 PM
 
If MS cut-off the 2nd hand market and make it online only, and Sony don't ...
     
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Feb 10, 2013, 06:32 PM
 
I think they both want to limit used game sales, obviously, but neither wants to be the first (because it would give the other the advantage in the consumer space).

The best way for either of them to block used games would be to first offer day 1 digital downloads of any game released on disc (the digital download will not be able to be transferred to anyone else, obviously), and to give the third party publishers the option to release on disc, digital download or both.

If they can price the digital download version of a game lower than the disc version, people will shift to that model voluntarily.
     
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Feb 11, 2013, 05:18 AM
 
Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a View Post
If they can price the digital download version of a game lower than the disc version, people will shift to that model voluntarily.
Yes, but if they do, Gamestop will remove that game from shelves. We're talking about a company that thinks nothing of opening game boxes to remove coupons for an online service that it deems to be competing with it and, when called on it, reacts by pulling the game off shelves. Gamestop needs to DIAF. I don't even live in the US, and their BS still affects me.
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The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 11, 2013, 11:24 AM
 
Originally Posted by mattyb View Post
If MS cut-off the 2nd hand market and make it online only, and Sony don't ...
This is part of why I don't buy it – Sony patented the technology, but MS is executing it? And as your pointing out it'd be quite the competitive disadvantage to be the only one implementing it. Its an all or none scenario.

But since you're asking if – yeah our loyalty isn't that high. I'd miss the controller and xbox live and that's about it.

Originally Posted by P View Post
Yes, but if they do, Gamestop will remove that game from shelves. We're talking about a company that thinks nothing of opening game boxes to remove coupons for an online service that it deems to be competing with it and, when called on it, reacts by pulling the game off shelves. Gamestop needs to DIAF. I don't even live in the US, and their BS still affects me.
I still don't understand how a coupon included in a game is considered an endorsement by the company selling it.

Also, this is part of what lends credence to the the not gonna happen argument – why would GS stock consoles if the manufacturers cock-blocked them?
     
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Feb 11, 2013, 11:40 AM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
why would GS stock consoles if the manufacturers cock-blocked them?
Because they'll go out of business? Sure the way they make their margins on used games are criminal but I see that as a market issue.
     
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Feb 11, 2013, 12:22 PM
 
Originally Posted by BLAZE_MkIV View Post
Because they'll go out of business? Sure the way they make their margins on used games are criminal but I see that as a market issue.
From what I understand they get even worse margin on consoles. Would going software only be that unthinkable for a company that will pull games that get simultaneous day one digital download and rip open other with coupons they don't like?
     
exca1ibur
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Feb 11, 2013, 03:00 PM
 
Originally Posted by BLAZE_MkIV View Post
Because they'll go out of business? Sure the way they make their margins on used games are criminal but I see that as a market issue.
If games were prices fairly there would be no need for them. I don't feel most games I've purchased this generation are worth $60 so I buy used or wait for a sale, I've only bought like 5 first day games in the last 2 years.

Look at the App Store and Steam. They prove that not all these games are worth $60 a pop. There was an interview with a developer, I forget who it was, that was asked about the profit between going with a major publisher and selling on Steam. He says they had higher profit margins selling the game at $20 on steam than they made on selling $60 with the publisher.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 11, 2013, 03:07 PM
 
Originally Posted by exca1ibur View Post
If games were prices fairly there would be no need for them. I don't feel most games I've purchased this generation are worth $60 so I buy used or wait for a sale, I've only bought like 5 first day games in the last 2 years.

Look at the App Store and Steam. They prove that not all these games are worth $60 a pop. There was an interview with a developer, I forget who it was, that was asked about the profit between going with a major publisher and selling on Steam. He says they had higher profit margins selling the game at $20 on steam than they made on selling $60 with the publisher.
You bring up something I wanted to mention. It won't happen, but games next-gen should drop back down to $50. Between used games, the constant deals, and the rapid price drops, the market is screaming that $60 is too high (Short of a handful of AAA titles). That or convert to a $60/$40 system and start debuting non-AAA games at the lower price and hold them there longer before price dropping.
     
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Feb 11, 2013, 04:16 PM
 
I probably buy half my games during sales or with gift cards. But I've still bought a few games like HALO 4, Assassin's Creed 3, and Bioshock Infinite at full price. I haven't really been put off by the price tag on games - I mean I could easily buy more games at the current price, if I had the time to play them. DLC, on the other hand, is another story...
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The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 12, 2013, 12:38 PM
 
Microsoft Shares Xbox 360 Stats at Dive Into Media - Liz Gannes - Dive Into Media - AllThingsD

The Xbox installed base is now 76 million, up from 70 million at the end of September of last year, said Yusuf Mehdi, who leads Microsoft’s interactive entertainment business, speaking at D: Dive Into Media this afternoon.

---

Microsoft also sent over some more stats: 24 million Kinects have been sold, up from 20 million last year, and there are 46 million Xbox Live accounts, up from 40 million.
A third of 360 owners have kinects. That's astounding. There are 30 million XBOXs without Live accounts – does making the next xbox online only really sound feasible from that perspective?
     
mattyb
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Feb 12, 2013, 12:58 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
does making the next xbox online only really sound feasible from that perspective?
This is MS remember. A team of psychoanalysts is needed to figure out why they think the way the do.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 12, 2013, 01:04 PM
 
Originally Posted by mattyb View Post
This is MS remember. A team of psychoanalysts is needed to figure out why they think the way the do.
I think the XBOX Division has proven itself to be far more astute than rest of the cluster****.
     
BLAZE_MkIV
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Feb 12, 2013, 01:40 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
Microsoft Shares Xbox 360 Stats at Dive Into Media - Liz Gannes - Dive Into Media - AllThingsD


A third of 360 owners have kinects. That's astounding. There are 30 million XBOXs without Live accounts – does making the next xbox online only really sound feasible from that perspective?
Your thinking about it wrong. They're missing out in xbox live subscription fees from half of their install base.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 12, 2013, 01:44 PM
 
Originally Posted by BLAZE_MkIV View Post
Your thinking about it wrong. They're missing out in xbox live subscription fees from half of their install base.
Actually I'm sure not much more than 30 million of the 46 million Live accounts are Gold. And no, I don't think they'll require Gold for every single Durango console. That's even more preposterous.
     
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Feb 12, 2013, 02:51 PM
 
Bungie : News

So, our game is called Destiny.

In a matter of days, we're going to give you your first glimpse into the vision and ambition that's driving the creation of our brave new world.
Looks like a space game. Sadly this makes me oddly pessimistic.
     
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Feb 12, 2013, 03:51 PM
 
I saw the "leaked" concept art back in November. Looks interesting.

Bungie's Destiny Story Details, Concept Art Leaked - IGN

Slick shoes?! Are you crazy?!
     
Leonard
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Feb 12, 2013, 05:10 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
Bungie : News

Looks like a space game. Sadly this makes me oddly pessimistic.
I guess it depends on who's left at Bungie and who stayed with HALO at 343i. Bungie made some good games in the past, but this will be the first game since the split. Obviously 343i has kept some of the talent because HALO 4 is fantastic.
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The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 12, 2013, 05:17 PM
 
Originally Posted by Leonard View Post
I guess it depends on who's left at Bungie and who stayed with HALO at 343i. Bungie made some good games in the past, but this will be the first game since the split. Obviously 343i has kept some of the talent because HALO 4 is fantastic.
I think the development studio is fine. What I'm questioning (while in the dark) is what appears to be choice of tackling another futuristic sci-fi game. On one hand, they're going to make it far too easy for critics to compare it to HALO and it reeks of a lack of creativity. On the other hand, do what you know, do it best, and do it without the constraints of a franchise you built who's gameplay design is now close to sacrosanct.
     
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Feb 13, 2013, 03:15 PM
 
Gamasutra - News - Several out of work as Valve makes 'large decisions' about its future
Several employees were let go from Steam and Half-Life maker Valve on Tuesday, Gamasutra can confirm.

We've been unable to determine an exact headcount, but phrases we've heard from affected employees describing the incident include "great cleansing" and "large decisions." We've seen the number "25" tossed around, but are unable to confirm this.

We can, however, confirm that the cuts have affected more than one department, namely hardware and Android development.

Affected employees were asked not to speak about specifics, but the impression we get is that these cuts were driven more by company challenges than by individual performance issues.

Valve has not responded to our requests for clarification. This story will be updated as we learn more about what happened.
Early speculation is the SteamBox may have been killed off or as the least seriously restructured.
     
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Feb 13, 2013, 05:10 PM
 
Valve lays off several employees in hardware, mobile teams [Updated] | News | PC Gamer

UPDATE: Garry’s Mod creator Garry Newman tweets the appearance of a number of differences on Valve’s staff page seen through Diff Checker. The comparison tool indicates the removal of nine employee bios from the People section of Valve’s company page, listed below:

Moby Francke, Half-Life 2 character designer and Team Fortress 2 art lead
Jason Holtman, director of business development for Steam and Steamworks
Keith Huggins, character animator and animator for Team Fortress 2 “Meet the” video series
Tom Leonard, software engineer for Half-Life 2 and Left 4 Dead
Realm Lovejoy, artist for Half-Life 2, Portal, and Left 4 Dead. She was also part of the original DigiPen-turned-Valve team that created Narbacular Drop, the inspiration for Portal
Marc Nagel, test lead for Half-Life, Counter-Strike, and patch updates
Bay Raitt, animator for Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal
Elan Ruskin, engine programmer for Left 4 Dead, Portal 2, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Matthew Russell, animator for Team Fortress 2 “Meet the” video series
     
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Feb 13, 2013, 07:44 PM
 
Ouch, not looking good there. That is a lot of great talent to loose.
     
 
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