[itai195]

Originally Posted by Eug 

Television shows, HD movies and more are coming to Xbox 360.

Hmm, will be interesting to see how well this works. Too bad the 360 hard drive is so puny.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by itai195 

Hmm, will be interesting to see how well this works. Too bad the 360 hard drive is so puny.

[Dark Helmet]

Can you store these movies on a PC with windows Media centre?

Also a larger 100 gig HD for the 360 is on the way.

[Dark Helmet]

Originally Posted by Eug 

The fans are not super quiet, but at least in my setup they aren't loud from my viewing distance (5-6 feet away). I don't hear them when I play a DVD for instance.

Most of the noise from the Xbox 360 is the whirring of the DVD drive when playing games, but when playing movies the DVD drive is silent. I'm told that the HD DVD drive is also silent when watching movies.

The Xbox itself isn't that loud in the grand scheme of things, you can easily hear it in a quite room though even if no CD is in it.

Once you put a disk in it dear lord, it spins it like a mother**** and it has a noticeable whirling sound which you don't really hear over a game with a good speaker setup. To be fair all my computer drives are just as damn loud.

So far everyone is saying the PS3 is incredibly quite when spinning disks and general use. It is also much cooler than the 360 which is pretty remarkable considering it has a power supply built in. That never used to concern me until I got that 360 beast with its own fan, vents and status lights and all the widespread overheating problems they had.

[Peter]

Originally Posted by Dark Helmet 

Can you store these movies on a PC with windows Media centre?

Also a larger 100 gig HD for the 360 is on the way.

thats been denied by Microsoft.

[Dark Helmet]

Originally Posted by Peter 

thats been denied by Microsoft.

Ya but you totally know it is inevitable.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by Peter 

thats been denied by Microsoft.

Did you miss my post above?



P.S. For the Americans who have ordered the 360 HD DVD drive.

"The buyer for Gamecrazy Corporate office just called me after I sent an e-mail to the investor relations department yesterday. She said that they got their allocation of HD-DVD drives today and are shipping to their DC distribution center today, then sending out overnight to stores. It should be in stores the 8th or 9th. Said they got enough to cover all preorders."

[Dark Helmet]

Oh and if nobody has linked to it yet, the HD-DVD drive is all done though software and 4.7 million lines of code.

[ort888]

Yeah, the HD-DVD drive scares me. Plus, it does not upscale regular DVDs, which is one of the main advantages of HD-DVD players.

I'm going to continue to wait for a winner in this format war, because it's far from over.

But when I do get something, it's going to be a standalone, because game consoles typically make poor DVD players.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by ort888 

Yeah, the HD-DVD drive scares me. Plus, it does not upscale regular DVDs, which is one of the main advantages of HD-DVD players.

No HD DVD player upscales regular protected DVDs over component. This is the law, and so the Xbox 360 abides by it.

However, the Xbox 360 will upscale regular DVDs over VGA.

I'm going to continue to wait for a winner in this format war, because it's far from over.

But when I do get something, it's going to be a standalone, because game consoles typically make poor DVD players.

So far the reports from previews are that the image quality from the Xbox 360 HD DVD is stunning. However, there is no HDMI or DVI digital video connection, and there is no next-gen audio output. (The Xbox 360 will decode TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus, but it reencodes it to 640 Kbps Dolby Digital for output over SPDIF. MS has stated that they are considering adding reencoding support so that TrueHD and DD get translated to 1.5 Mbps DTS, but so far that has not been implemented.)

AFAIK, we have no reports yet of how well the PS3 works as a Blu-ray player.

Originally Posted by Dark Helmet 

Can you store these movies on a PC with windows Media centre?

I don't think so, which is stupid. You can erase it and then redownload it, but that would be a major pain.

[ort888]

Originally Posted by Eug 

No HD DVD player upscales regular protected DVDs over component. This is the law, and so the Xbox 360 abides by it.

However, the Xbox 360 will upscale regular DVDs over VGA.

Well, my TV does have VGA, but a VGA cable is $45 bucks. So it would be $245 total to get the HD-DVD add-on.

I can get a standalone HD-DVD player for $400, and I'd imagine I'll be able to get one for a lot less in a year. And since there is currently a turdly amount of good HD-DVD movies available, it really doesn't matter right now.

[Busemann]

eh? eh?

[Eug]

Originally Posted by ort888 

Well, my TV does have VGA, but a VGA cable is $45 bucks. So it would be $245 total to get the HD-DVD add-on.

I can get a standalone HD-DVD player for $400, and I'd imagine I'll be able to get one for a lot less in a year. And since there is currently a turdly amount of good HD-DVD movies available, it really doesn't matter right now.

Reasonable points.

The Xbox 360 drive does come with the King Kong HD DVD, but the new Toshiba A2 (which you could probably find for close to $400) comes with 3 HD DVDs.

[Eug]

Sony Says tell Customers PS3 CPU is THREE TIMES as powerful as 360

Sony has created a training website for store employees who will be stocking the PS3. They encourage people to relay to customers and other staff members that the PS3 CPU is THREE TIMES more powerful than that in the 360 and 35 times than the PS2.

After logging in, Sony marketing spin quotes can be found while employees read, learn & test their PS3 knowledge. Here’s the real gem:

“Welcome to your PS3 Retail Online Training. We trust that you will find the following information valuable and assist you in understanding and explaining PS3 Technology to your customers and staff. … The Cell Processor is essentially as powerful as 3 Xbox 360 CPU’s or 35 PlayStation� 2 CPU’s”

[Chuckit]

And Nintendo is talking about how they have a neat controller and fun games. Everybody is focusing on their strengths.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

And Nintendo is talking about how they have a neat controller and fun games. Everybody is focusing on their strengths.

Except Sony is spewing bull. Nintendo isn't.

[ort888]

Got my copy of Gears of War right here. Will post a mini-review soon.

Originally Posted by Eug 

The fans are not super quiet, but at least in my setup they aren't loud from my viewing distance (5-6 feet away). I don't hear them when I play a DVD for instance.

Most of the noise from the Xbox 360 is the whirring of the DVD drive when playing games, but when playing movies the DVD drive is silent. I'm told that the HD DVD drive is also silent when watching movies.

While I agree with your statement about the loudness of the 360 whilst watching a DVD, it's really not taxing the system at all to do that. It's been reported that the HD code for the HDDVD add-on player taxes the system more than any game has yet (even more than GoW) so I was suspecting that the fans will be blowing hard for HD discs. Since you can't really tell what the 360 sounds like sans disc rotation noise while playing a game, it's hard to know a baseline for the console's fan noise when being taxed.

Even in a pretty beefy 5.1 setup watching a movie, I can still hear the 360 from across the room during quiet scenes in a movie. It's white noise but still, it's there. I'm just expecting the machine to be even louder watching an HDDVD because of the increase in processing.

The 360 has going for it the modularity of the system. If Blue-Ray wins out in the format wars, MS can just make an external player. I'm sure Sony could make an external player if HDDVD wins but I think they wouldn't want to eat that much crow.

Studios are not going to run duplication for both formats forever and one format will eventually win out. With Sony's past failures at getting their standard to be everyone else's standard, I would suspect Sony will lose the game (again), even if their tech is superior.

The early adopters of both formats will eventually crown the winner in the format wars which, I would think, would end up being the defacto drive type in the next gen systems. Either one, I really don't care but I just don't want to sink a bunch of money into a player and media that might be obsolete in a while.

(Though, the 360 HD player and Fear and Loathing HD are pretty much crying out for me to buy, I think I'll just stick to watching the Criterion version upscaled.)

Originally Posted by ort888 

Got my copy of Gears of War right here. Will post a mini-review soon.

Please do and please make it negative! I've got a crap load of games that are still shrink-wrapped and I don't need to add another to the stack!

[ort888]

Sorry to inform you that you need to add another game to the stack.

This game is pretty damn cool so far. Nothing groundbreaking, but it does a lot of little things right. The combat feels very intense and the graphics are very good.

The game does some very cool things with the camera. I love the sprinting shakey cam effect. It's amazing. You can also hold down X to make your guy look at some important event or look in the direction of your objective. It's such a simple idea, and it works great.

I do have to take a second to bitch about the terrible story and voice acting though. I don't understand how a game with this much money behind it ends up with such a cheesy cliche riddled plot and characters.

There is one character in particular who is such a stereotype that it's unsettling and disturbing. I can only imagine Cliffy B and a bunch of other scrawny white nerds sitting around a table coming up with this crap. Ugh. Why!

[itai195]

Originally Posted by Eug 

Ahh missed that. Hm, any word on cost?

[Hawkeye_a]

Originally Posted by ort888 

I can only imagine Cliffy B and a bunch of other scrawny white nerds sitting around a table coming up with this crap. Ugh. Why!

By the "hardcore gamer" for the "hardcore gamer".

[Gamoe]

Originally Posted by screamingFit 

Either one, I really don't care but I just don't want to sink a bunch of money into a player and media that might be obsolete in a while.

Thing is, and I'm sorry if I'm stating the plainly obvious here, but Sony's inclusion of Blu-Ray into the PS3 is part of Sony's plan to gain further market penetration, and in the end, they hope, make Blue-Ray the standard. And Microsoft just wants world domination, as usual (which I won't help contribute to in any way, shape or form).

Not that Nintendo's any kind of saint, but at least they plan to win over gamers' hearts and money through actual gaming, with no hidden or secondary agenda to push.

[ort888]

Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a 

By the "hardcore gamer" for the "hardcore gamer".

I'm referring to the dialog of a specific black character.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Gabriel Morales 

Thing is, and I'm sorry if I'm stating the plainly obvious here, but Sony's inclusion of Blu-Ray into the PS3 is part of Sony's plan to gain further market penetration, and in the end, they hope, make Blue-Ray the standard.

I'm sure it will be just as successful as UMD.

[Hawkeye_a]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

I'm sure it will be just as successful as UMD.

And the Memory Stick, Mini Disc, Betamax..... Sony's desire to control the medium of delivery is a bit scary. I hope they(no one coorperation anyway) never succeed in doing that.

[Gamoe]

Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a 

And the Memory Stick, Mini Disc, Betamax..... Sony's desire to control the medium of delivery is a bit scary. I hope they(no one coorperation anyway) ever succeed in doing that.

What's really concerning is that Sony now owns a large volume of content as well as physical mediums and consumer electronics which play that content. If this were the case back in the day for VCR makers they would have tried to control the consumer's recording ability to their advantage, or not have made the VCR in the first place.

Again, another reason I'm pulling for Nintendo on this one.

[Hawkeye_a]

Originally Posted by Gabriel Morales 

What's really concerning is that Sony now owns a large volume of content as well as physical mediums and consumer electronics which play that content. If this were the case back in the day for VCR makers they would have tried to control the consumer's recording ability to their advantage, or not have made the VCR in the first place.

Again, another reason I'm pulling for Nintendo on this one.

Yup. Agreed. the word "monopoly" comes to mind.

[Eug]

Some people ordering the HD DVD drive for the Xbox 360 from Amazon.com are gonna be p!ssed. King Kong is only going to be included in the first allocation of drives they got. They've already sold out 2 or 3 allocations before the drive even launched, so those in the later waves of orders are out of luck for the free HD DVD.

Mind you, Amazon.com never advertised King Kong would ship with those later orders.

[Dark Helmet]

Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a 

Mini Disc, Betamax.

The sad part is those are actually better yet consumers went with cheaper over quality.

MD was huge in Japan and it should of taken off here as it was way better than any alternative.

[fhoubi]

Originally Posted by Dark Helmet 

Quote: Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a
Mini Disc, Betamax.

I guess you're all too young to remember Elcaset .

[Eug]

Originally Posted by Dark Helmet 

The sad part is those are actually better yet consumers went with cheaper over quality.

MD was huge in Japan and it should of taken off here as it was way better than any alternative.

Betamax sucked, cuz the tapes were too short. VHS won because it had longer recording times.

MD sucked because of ATRAC. Sony try to force ATRAC down our throats even when MP3 became popular.

[Dark Helmet]

Holy.. friggin... cow. Gears of War is spectacular. I swear I didn't think visuals could look this good on the current generation. The amount of details is staggering and the art direction is very well done.

I hate 1st and 3rd person shooters but this one is actually super fun. They made reloading fun, the shaky cam is awesome, the chainsaw on the game, the AI is the best I have seen, and the duck and cover approach is much more fun that run and shoot. Duck and cover is the other thing I liked about perfect dark Zero and this game is full of them!

I'm glad I didn't follow this games development at all as the wait would have killed me.

[Eug Wanker]

Hmmm... I still haven't finished my Call of Duty 2 game I bought months ago. Never really got into it that much.

I wonder if I should just forget it and buy GoW instead...

[rickey939]

The prices of PS3 on eBay already are insane! If I could get my hands on one next Friday, I could flip it on eBay and make a few hundred within a day. Incredible!

[Eug]

Confirmed: The Xbox 360 HD DVD drive is a standard PC-compatible drive:

Ok I connected the HD-DVD to my PC via USB. My PC recognized it right awat as XB360 HD-DVD player. I get a pop up window of the "WELCOME TO THE FOUND NEW HARDWARE WIZARD" I minimized that win & went to MY PC, then saw that my PC listed the XB360 HD-DVD add-on as CD DRIVE (G) , when i cliked on it, it asked me to insert a disc, I popped in KING KONG, then clicked on it again & I got the following error pop up message: "Win can not read from this disk, this disk might be corrupted, or could be using a format that is not compatible with Win."

I suspect that Windows XP needs a UDF 2.5 driver.

It will be interesting once someone with a Mac tries it, cuz IIRC, Mac OS X 10.4 has UDF 2.5 support built-in. It still won't recognize the DRM or VC-1, but at least a Mac should recognize the disc.

[starman]

Try PowerDVD or WinDVD. I read that one of the two was playing movies with a drive from the Toshiba player.

[Eug]

This guy seems far too pessimistic, but hey...

Atari Founder Trashes Sony, PS3

Q: But what about Sony’s success with the PlayStation and PS2? They sold more than 100 million of each system.
A: It wasn’t anything brilliant that they did. With the PS and PS2 it was timing. They had the right pricing at the right time [and were] almost the accidental winner. It would not surprise me if a year from now they’ll be struggling to sell 1 million units. [Factoring in the PS3’s price], I think in the U.S. the number of early adopters you have is actually around 300,000.

---

Box opening pix for the Xbox 360 HD DVD drive

[ajprice]

So they unbox the HD DVD drive and then show everything except the actual drive???

[Eug]

Originally Posted by ajprice 

So they unbox the HD DVD drive and then show everything except the actual drive???

Yeah, odd. Then again, the drive looks like all the pix on the net already available.

This pic has a side view of the drive, but the picture is lousy.

EDIT:

Engadget has some better pix

[Eug Wanker]

Xbox 360 HD DVD first impressions

"The HD-DVD is much quieter than the DVD drive built into the Xbox. During quiet moments in the movie you can not hear any drive noise. That's a big improvement over the internal DVD drive."

"As far a performance for the drive goes, it's incredible to see. From the very first image on the screen - the FBI Copyright Warning - I noticed a drastic improvement in clarity and color saturation. When the movie started it blew me away. The picture is absolutely gorgeous. Colors are vivid, crisp, simply beautiful. This is the type of performance I've been waiting for out of my HDTV. I've had DISH Network HD service for a long time and I thought their video was good, it pales in comparison to what the Xbox HD-DVD Player is providing."

This guy bought 5 of the drives, BTW.

[Dark Helmet]

Well you gotta give sony credit for something. What is better engineered and designed here.

This:



plus:


Or this:

[Eug Wanker]

Yeah, the Xbox 360 ain't necessarily the prettiest. Then again, it's already been out for a YEAR. The PS3 still has yet to launch.

[Dark Helmet]

Originally Posted by Eug Wanker 

Yeah, the Xbox 360 ain't necessarily the prettiest. Then again, it's already been out for a YEAR. The PS3 still has yet to launch.

I actually think the 360 is pretty nice looking except for the HD-DVD add on and power supply.

[Dark Helmet]

Playstation user guide online:

PLAYSTATION�3 System Software User's Guide

[Jawbone54]

Originally Posted by Dark Helmet 

I actually think the 360 is pretty nice looking except for the HD-DVD add on and power supply.

Ditto. And I love the controller.

[Chuckit]

The 360 is OK-looking. The Wii is really slick. The PS3 looks like a hairdryer I used to have, like, 15 years ago. Only gigantic. I guess there are worse things to look like than a gigantic weird hairdryer, but it certainly doesn't make me think, "Whoa, sexy."

[Jawbone54]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

The 360 is OK-looking. The Wii is really slick. The PS3 looks like a hairdryer I used to have, like, 15 years ago. Only gigantic. I guess there are worse things to look like than a gigantic weird hairdryer, but it certainly doesn't make me think, "Whoa, sexy."

I definitely hate the PS3's design. The Wii's size is great, but I'm not yet sure if I prefer its overall look until I see one in person. I'm going to give one a spin. If I really like it, I'm sure I'll be picking one up someday soon.

[Jawbone54]

And, oh yes...the PS3 Spider-Man font is ridiculous.