The G4 E3 show has been pretty entertaining and informative except when they try to be funny and/or hip.
Yes, and the funny stuff comes across very forced and you know they have to be aware that very few people still find Beavis & Butthead humor worthy. Why do they bother?
My wife summed it up nicely last night. Sessler said “Well, we don’t have time to cover all these games but here’s a quick…” and the wife says “Well, if they’d stop with the unfunny schtick, then they’d double their usable air time, eh?”
Also I’d like to see a lot more show floor.
But you only have to do the real super accurate sub-surface scattering light mapping stuff for faces that you are really, really close to.
No reason an engine couldn’t do LOD type stuff and do much less work (even much less subscattering work) rendering faces that are further away from you.
This is like saying “it takes an 8K x 8K texture map to render the face at that level of detail, so you’ll never see a whole world of characters with faces like that.” You don’t need that level of graphics memory usage for every character in the world – just the ones near the camera. Combine that with PCI Express-type graphics virtual memory, and sure, you can get an engine to have that level of graphics on every face… just with careful level of detail engineering, so you only see the super detail when you’re right next to it.
But you only have to do the real super accurate sub-surface scattering light mapping stuff for faces that you are really, really close to.
No reason an engine couldn’t do LOD type stuff and do much less work (even much less subscattering work) rendering faces that are further away from you.[/quote]
Good point. Though there are other instances (non-face) of sub-surface scattering that are far more “necessary” for believability (marble statues and candles come to mind). But yeah, there are ways around it. My point is simply that there’s heavy marketing spin going on to promote the machine as if it’s capable of producing 100% of that quality all the time, and it’s not. I’m therefore a bit skeptical about other things I see that I know to be in the same general quality regime (e.g. nice explosions with debris, modelled rather than animated fire, etc…). Inasmuch as the thing seems capable of doing near pre-rendered, professional CGI stuff realtime on some constraints, there’s a lot of potential for far more/better/more dynamic cutscenes and the like. However, I don’t expect to be fighting multiple wax baddies inside a cathedral with realistic swirling dust motes and volumetric projected shadows/lighting of indistinguishable realism on this console cycle.
You grew up with MTV – like I did – but you don’t like current music, so you don’t watch it. Hence, you’re not the current target demographic. :) And that’s on the assumption that MTV even plays music anymore, which it hardly does. Its programming is made up mostly of shows geared to the teen set.
We grew up with a very different MTV, and we’ve also grown out of it while it continues to target the demographic we used to be.
I’d agree with this. Also, the Gamespot interviews being conducted with honchos of various companies— the chick interviewing the Ensemble studios dude demoing Age of Empires 3, she wasn’t even paying attention. She’s sitting there text messaging her buddy list on her Sidekick. Way to go! I don’t care if it is for questions to ask him from internet audience members, it is RUDE to be staring at it while he is talking to you. That’s what you have the headset for, and you have someone OFF camera reading it and feeding you the good questions. Yeesh.
I can’t take how fast Adam talks when he isn’t reading script. That interview with Specter could have been really good if I could have understood the questions.
I can’t take how fast Adam talks when he isn’t reading script. That interview with Specter could have been really good if I could have understood the questions.
Shhh, don’t tell that to everyone! If the secret gets out people will know companies are just being lazy!
One question about the 360, though – has one of these all-in-one gizmos ever been successful, commercially? Companies have been trying to force-feed people new tech that handles three or four jobs, or becomes a home entertainment hub or something for years now, and the public has never bitten (with the exception of digital cameras in cell phones, but the camera options are so cheap that it’s not like you’re paying a lot more for the phone).
Personally, I don’t see the attraction of an Xbox that can play MP3s, burn DVDs, let people chat online, etc. Virtually anyone interested in these features already has a device that they use for such tasks – a PC. Also, a lot of these things are generally done away from the family room, where the TV usually is, and where somebody in the family is often, well, watching TV. For single people, kids in dorm rooms, etc., the added 360 features are going to be great. For everyone else, this stuff is rarely going to be used. I mean, come on. Unless you’re living alone, you’re never going to take up the living room TV with an online chat, or burning a CD – you’re going to head to the PC room and do it there, leaving the TV free for the spouse or the kids.
So, really, the only thing that the 360 really brings to the table that’s new is games. And they seem to be something of an afterthought now, even with the system shipping in five-six months. There’s no franchise game lined up, HALO 3 is probably 12-18 months away, and Sony is gearing up for a mid-2006 launch (perfect timing, this is shaping up as a repeat of Sony’s massacre of the DreamCast) that might very well include a new GTA.
There’s way too much of a disconnect right now between the techies who design this stuff – and think products like the N-Gage, the PSP, and the 360 will fly off the shelves simply because they’re just so fucking COOL that nobody will be able to live without them – and Joe Public, who’s pretty practical when it comes to spending money, at least when it comes to spending $500-600 USD (estimated cost of a 360 and game, including taxes).
I think the PC was pretty successful. ;) Mashing together digital cameras and cell phones has been wildly successful, too.
The 360 isn’t really all THAT much of an “all in one” device. It plays DVDs, music (off a portable device via USB, that you rip to the hard drive, or off your WinXP machine on the network), and shows photos (same deal and music). If you have a Media Center PC, it’s an “extender” for that. The rest of the features are pretty much game-centric - a pretty broad extention of Live.
(with the exception of digital cameras in cell phones, but the camera options are so cheap that it’s not like you’re paying a lot more for the phone).
That’s a good point, becuase it’s what we’re looking at here. It’s going to be a game machine, it’s going to cost what a game machine costs, and that’s going to be the draw. All the other stuff will just be gravy - at least at first. The hope is that you get it for the games, and get attached to the other features.
So, really, the only thing that the 360 really brings to the table that’s new is games. And they seem to be something of an afterthought now, even with the system shipping in five-six months.
Not an afterthought at all, I would say. Sure we talk about the other stuff, and honestly it’s well thought-out and quite cool. But games was absolutely, positively the dominant thing for Microsoft at E3. By far. In fact, they didn’t have any demos of the non-gaming stuff on the floor at all. It was included in their promo videos, sandwiched between tons of game trailers and other promo videos of how awesome the gaming is.
There’s no franchise game lined up, HALO 3 is probably 12-18 months away, and Sony is gearing up for a mid-2006 launch (perfect timing, this is shaping up as a repeat of Sony’s massacre of the DreamCast) that might very well include a new GTA.
GTA wasn’t even mentioned by Sony, and wasn’t in their promo reel of “franchices coming to PS3” (not at launch, necessarily). As for 360 franchise games: Project Gotham was incredibly successful, especially in Eurpose. Final Fantasy XI, though it’s already out on PC and PS2, is definitely a franchise game (especially if it gets a bit of a face lift). Some would argue that Perfect Dark Zero is a franchise game. Ghost Recon is a huge franchise. Dead or Alive is a huge franchise. But the sports stuff is maybe the biggest deal. With a spring launch date (maybe later in the US and Europse) for PS3, the 360 is going to be the only place with next-gen sports games this season.
Another thing to remember is that the added media center functionality is something that was in high demand with the older xbox. There are a lot of chipped Xboxen out there running Xbox Media Center. MS was smart to fold this functionality into the next gen design. I know a few people who will be getting one based on the additional media features this time around.
– Xaroc