Attention Ye Who Doubt the PS3

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Attention Ye Who Doubt the PS3

CELL is a beast, and remain as such for about another 3-5 years until we get Quantum Processors.

Practical quantum computing is more than 3-5 years away, in all likelihood. People with so little understanding of processors and supercomputing that they cannot tell the difference between marketing drivel and real advances in computer engineering and computational science should really not get so excited over "news" like these.

CELL really is an interesting processor for its architecture. A processor alone, though, doesn't determine the computation power of a "super computer." The fact that commoditized processors like Cell and Intel's various off-the-shelf CPUs can be used in supercomputing class machines already tells people something about where the real advances in supercomputing is not at. (Hint: It's not CELL, or any other desktop CPUs.)

(Those who don't understand the previous paragraph should refrain from making grand predictions about supercomputing, processing "power", quantum computing, and related topics.)

* * *

It's nearly trivial for any of the major CPU makers to create a chip with more computation "power" than CELL--just have to pick one test as measurement tool, and they can beat it with an existing chip or can whip up something which can do the job.

The trouble is making such a chip commercially viable--a very complex question about engineering, design, design/engineering goals, marketing (yes, marketing), time-to-market, cost, economy of scale, macro and industry economic conditions, etc. etc.

The "power" of the CELL is not where it impresses.

[Malacite]

Re: Attention Ye Who Doubt the PS3

but they didn't win the gaming war.

Not yet anyway. But all the analysts predict they'll come out on top in the end once again (and they probably will. Wii's enjoying a nice run for now, but just you wait >.>)

For the record I own and all 3 consoles & their respective companies (even if there's a shittonne of problems with Vista, Nintendo absolutely refuses to listen to their fanbase and fix long-standing problems in their games [unlike Bungie and Blizzard ] and Sony well... smarten up already @_@. Run on sentence FTW!)

[DakAttack]

Re: Attention Ye Who Doubt the PS3

For the record I own and all 3 consoles & their respective companies (even if there's a shittonne of problems with Vista, Nintendo absolutely refuses to listen to their fanbase and fix long-standing problems in their games [unlike Bungie and Blizzard ] and Sony well... smarten up already @_@. Run on sentence FTW!)

Bungie and Blizzard are not your best examples of companies that fix problems in their games.

The only problem I have with Vista at the moment is there's no Stereo Mix, but that's mostly a problem with Dell and SigmaTel. Without a Stereo Mix I can't record sound with WeGame.

[Ryuuhikiuu]

Re: Attention Ye Who Doubt the PS3

Nintendo absolutely refuses to listen to their fanbase and fix long-standing problems in their games [unlike Bungie and Blizzard ]

Oh God please do not praise Blizzard for fixing their games.. >_< After playing WoW hardcore for 3 years I have nothing but pure hatred for Blizzard and how much they suck at balancing their MMO.

I have no idea about Bungie!

[Armando]

Re: Attention Ye Who Doubt the PS3

At the risk of sounding ignorant, what are these long-standing problems you say that Nintendo refuses to fix? For the record, I'm also unaware of any problems Blizzard and Bungie's games have.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Attention Ye Who Doubt the PS3

Ah, yes, because having an opinion and randomly following trends are close to each other. Tell me, TGM, do you consider anyone that doesn't dump chemicals into their local water supply on the 'environmental' bandwagon? There are plenty of valid reasons to hate MS, and the 360 sucks completely independent of them. Problems like RRoD and overcharging for accessories rather speak for themselves. Are there people that jump on the 360 because they hate Microsoft, and hate Microsoft for no specific reason? Sure. But just because someone has an opinion one way or another doesn't mean they're hopping on some bandwagon just because it's popular.

Also, no. Competing consoles only drive better EXCLUSIVE titles. Which basically means that it turns the goal from producing quality hardware to hogging all the quality developers you can. Quality games would still exist on a single console because developers would be fighting to have THEIR game be popular.

Look at the PC games industry. There's basically only a single platform (Windows), and other platforms' (OS X, Linux) games consist entirely of ports. I don't think I've once seen even a minor game for a non-windows platform that didn't have a Windows port as well. Yet, there are still quality games. There are plenty of great independent games, such as Kenta Cho's titles (One of his games is being remade professionally for Wii.), Narbacular Drop (old, but was eventually turned into the amazingly popular Portal), and so on. There are also strong professional games, Command and Conquer 3, Orange Box. This has been the case for at least a decade or so in computer games, and the PC has the incredibly popular World of Warcraft, not to mention far too many classics to count.

These games are not out to sell computers, they're out to sell themselves. You don't have Dell or Gateway or HP making games that require some exclusive chip on their machines to play, in an attempt to sell them. You see hardware companies making hardware, and software companies making software. Not crappy hardware companies buying good software companies to attempt to sell their product, or good hardware failing because of a lack of software.

<insert long intelligent reply to Feba's post here>

I deleted it because I realized that once someone jumps into the "I hate MS so everything they touch sucks" camp that there just isn't any way to discuss something like this. All I'll say about this is that I come from the generation where MS was amazing and saved me from typing long lines of code. Every tiny thing we do on a computer now was a long laborious process back in the day....and many of the things we do daily just weren't possible. While there may be things that I don't agree with totally, I still have the utmost respect for what they've done in the pc/gaming community.

I game, thats all and I don't care what system its on or who makes the system. I buy them all and will continue to do so. While others fume and blather about how a system sucks, I'll just be laughing and enjoying myself on it which seems to me to be a lot more fun.

[DakAttack]

Re: Attention Ye Who Doubt the PS3

At the risk of sounding ignorant, what are these long-standing problems you say that Nintendo refuses to fix? For the record, I'm also unaware of any problems Blizzard and Bungie's games have.

Not to throw everything off-topic, but if you've played or monitored WoW for maybe a year or so you'd see the imbalancing cycles they go through. They're basically responding to the current disadvantaged group, and through the changes they make they simply make another disadvantaged group. This is the example that stands out the most to me.

Bungie on the other hand can't seem to create a ranking system that isn't plagued by hackers, cheaters, or glitchers. Back in Halo 2 players were able to edit maps they downloaded to their Xbox to place guns and other power-ups wherever they wanted. Not only that but the host of the game could drop the other players, or freeze the other team's game at a connection screen while they took easy kills and won. I don't think either were fixed.

[Feba]

Re: Attention Ye Who Doubt the PS3

I deleted it because I realized that once someone jumps into the "I hate MS so everything they touch sucks" camp that there just isn't any way to discuss something like this.

I never said that everything MS makes sucks. Everything I've ever seen from them has something sucky about it (except maybe the original Xbox, that was remarkably solid in my experience), but that doesn't mean it's crap automatically because they make it, it's just a trend. Either way, though, stop acting like people are joining cliques just because they have an opinion different from yours.

All I'll say about this is that I come from the generation where MS was amazing and saved me from typing long lines of code. Every tiny thing we do on a computer now was a long laborious process back in the day....and many of the things we do daily just weren't possible. While there may be things that I don't agree with totally, I still have the utmost respect for what they've done in the pc/gaming community.

Which would be what, exactly? They didn't create PC gaming, or GUIs. The biggest thing they've done for gaming is push hardware companies to make more powerful chips to power their OS.

I game, thats all and I don't care what system its on or who makes the system. I buy them all and will continue to do so. While others fume and blather about how a system sucks, I'll just be laughing and enjoying myself on it which seems to me to be a lot more fun.

It might be fun in the short term. However, Microsoft has done enough to damage an industry I care about, and will continue to do so as long as people feed them money. I, for one, cannot have fun knowing that my money is supporting that.

I dislike MS business practices, completely independent of the (also shameful) quality of their products. Google "Office Open XML"; "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish"; and "FUD" (specifically, their "Get the Facts" ad campaign). You can also take a look at Criticism of Microsoft - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia , it will give you a taste of a few other reasons I dislike them, although they are not all my opinion, of course.

You're perfectly welcome to continue putting your money into whatever you like. Do not criticize those who are willing to back up their opinions, however.


EDIT: I think I see your problem. You think I'm not buying the 360 because I saw a bunch of people hating Vista and decided to hate MS too, and that I just go "MICROSOFT SUCKS LOLZ IM NOT BUYING THAT". That's not the case. I have a problem with MS's business practices more than their products. It's called dollar voting. Their products are a small part of a much larger problem, but the profit from those products also happens to be what fuel that machine.

[Mhurron]

Re: Attention Ye Who Doubt the PS3

Which would be what, exactly? They didn't create PC gaming, or GUIs. The biggest thing they've done for gaming is push hardware companies to make more powerful chips to power their OS.

DirectX

You're too young to know just how big that is.

[Feba]

Re: Attention Ye Who Doubt the PS3

MS didn't create that, either. They purchased the D3D technology.

[Mhurron]

Re: Attention Ye Who Doubt the PS3

MS didn't create that, either. They purchased the D3D technology.

Guess again, and there is significantly more to DirectX then Direct3D.

SGI created IrixGL. SGI hired a moron CEO. CEO drove SGI into the ground. SGI opened and released IrixGL as OpenGL. GL creators were out of a job. MS hired them. They went to work on the beginnings of Direct3D and DirectDraw. MS hired a bunch of others to create DirectSound and DirectInput.

After some work and because MS knows the ins and outs of Windows and how it's drivers work, they created in DirectX a single multimedia and IO library package. This allowed game companies to use these methods and focus on games as opposed to how to draw a circle on the screen or how to interpret a mouse click.

[Feba]

Re: Attention Ye Who Doubt the PS3

yes, but I don't consider "buying up innovative technology" and "innovating" the same thing, unless said technology had absolutely no chance of making it on its own.

[Malacite]

Re: Attention Ye Who Doubt the PS3

Smash Bros for one thing.

What's the #1 complaint among the fan base? Clones. And Brawl will have the greatest number of clones to date. Way to totally ignore the fan base Nintendo.


Bungie and Blizzard on the other hand at least listen to theirs and attempt to fix things. Look at Star Craft 2 for example. They've given Supply Depots the ability to bury into the ground! This is an obvious response to the well-known Terran tactic used on The Lost Temple. They also seem to be addressing a number of other concerns people had, like how crappy Siege Tanks were outside of Siege mode and other misc. things.

Bungie just recently fixed Halo 3's melee system. Now unless you have a decisive health advantage, both players in a beatdown contest will die. They're also giving the players what we want with new maps and hoppers and general little fixes. Even if neither company gets everything right (I agree match making is BS for the record. WTF generals in low ranked games...) it's the fact that they at least listen and make an effort. That's something I about American companies over Japanese Companies (I'm looking at you Shitcom. STOP MAKING BAD MEGAMAN GAMES!!!)

Though to be fair, SE has really started to shine in recent years.

[Mhurron]

Re: Attention Ye Who Doubt the PS3

yes, but I don't consider "buying up innovative technology" and "innovating" the same thing, unless said technology had absolutely no chance of making it on its own.

By this definition there is no innovation. Ever.

Innovation != brand new that no one ever thought of before.

MS learned from its implementation of OpenGL on NT that OpenGL is a pain but solves a very specific need. They saw that OpenGL didn't go far enough in solving the need. A few of the people involved in NT's graphic subsystem pitched the idea of a unified library that could be maintained by MS to take advantage of MS's internal knowledge of the workings of Windows and would be able to track updates closely. It would be able to talk to all graphic cards, input devices and sound cards in a standard way. It would know about each cards capabilities and expose them in a way that would still keep the games isolated from the system and other applications on the system.

And actually, no one had done anything like that before, the only thing that comes close to it are the Core services on OS X which aren't complete yet.

MS didn't buy Direct3D anymore then they bought WindowsNT, they hired people with a proven tract record, then gave them a project to shine.

But again, you're too young to know what things were like before DirectX when game makers had to write routines to handle input and drawing and sound each and every time a new OS or patch was shipped for each game they made; when you had to have a Soundblaster or you didn't hear sound because the developer didn't write support for anything else because they just couldn't afford to buy, write and test drivers for every card on the market; when you had to reboot your computer to play this game and then again to play that one and then again to use a wordprocessor because each of those games had drivers for the hardware that conflicted with the OS's drivers.

[jwalton]

Re: Attention Ye Who Doubt the PS3

Yeah, I sure as hell don't miss having seperate bootup floppies, each with their own unique autoexec.bat and config.sys files. I spent countless hours tweaking settings just so games like Wing Commander II would run at their absolute best, then have to use completely different settings to make Ultima VII bootup at all.

Hate Microsoft all you want, but they simplified things considerably for computer users.