Has MS screwed up now with the 360?

Given that games don't tend to need to use vast amounts of space like the HD-DVD add on would provide and stand alone HD-DVD players will come out I fail to see why we need the add on at all.

The Xbox360 is still a damn fine games console so I completely fail to see the point of this accessory, it isn't necessary, it isn't worth it and it'll be when hell freezes over i'll ever consider such a useless add-on. Rather buy a HD-DVD drive for my PC personally.

I think you're wrong there...
Companies have indeed complained that they do have some problem fitting all their games on a single DVD with High-Def graphics, so the HD-DVD add-on is a welcome add-on. The lack of HDMI is disturbing, however.

Only because today video games have to bake cakes, play movies, answer your phone and, well, ocasionally play games.

Yes well, the fact still remains that the space is nearly not enough for some companies especially due to High-Def. And remember that with high def comes higher resolution models and higher resolution movies and clips.

What is the cost of a disc against the cost of the hardware needed for HDMI?

On PS1 era, we used up to seven discs to a game, annoying but way chaper than to have the PS1 with a DVD drive, if they want more space, well use another disc, it will make the game a little more expensive for ppl who will buy them, not make the console way more expensive for everyone buying it.

Indeed. I've thought of that, as well, and I have no answer for it. I suppose we'll have to ask game manufacturers about it.
The main reason Microsoft does it, though, is to compete with Blu-ray, which IMO is a good thing. I do want the Blu-ray to flop.

So do I, i want Sony to die! :evil:

Today things are way more complicated, consoles are having to do all things a computer does and computers are getting sky rocketed prices to play games, i hope Wii can get past that time to remember a much simpler time when consoles played games and computers gave us acess to porn, i mean, knowledge.

Doomulation said:

I think you're wrong there...
Companies have indeed complained that they do have some problem fitting all their games on a single DVD with High-Def graphics, so the HD-DVD add-on is a welcome add-on. The lack of HDMI is disturbing, however.

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Tough luck for them, nobodies going to pay over $100 to play one or two games that actually use the technology... they should learn how to manage their data... look at Zelda Oot, 25mb... 25 bloody megabytes, look how long the game is, even as an n64 game that compression is damn bloody impressive right? Why can't more people do that. People have build a visually impressive demo with high-res textures in a <100kb exe before, its not a matter of space its a matter of laziness if it comes to storing textures. I'd rather have multiple discs than pay through the nose for the hardware to run one fancy disc.

The problem is that Microsoft and Sony want their consoles to be bloody DVD players, why the heck would I want to play my dvds on my xbox when i've got a dedicated dvd-player/recorder for that task, waste of bloody money! Now i've got 3 consoles that play dvd videos and 2 dvd players and a comptuer that plays dvds... OVERKILL. HD-DVD is more for movies than games trust me on that.

Yeah but what's the point of making CDs? Can't they just make another invention instead of CDs? I miss cartridges....

I don´t , i have a DS!

Ironic that Sony decided to include HDMI in the "cheaper" PS3.

ScottJC said:

Tough luck for them, nobodies going to pay over $100 to play one or two games that actually use the technology... they should learn how to manage their data... look at Zelda Oot, 25mb... 25 bloody megabytes, look how long the game is, even as an n64 game that compression is damn bloody impressive right? Why can't more people do that. People have build a visually impressive demo with high-res textures in a <100kb exe before, its not a matter of space its a matter of laziness if it comes to storing textures. I'd rather have multiple discs than pay through the nose for the hardware to run one fancy disc.

The problem is that Microsoft and Sony want their consoles to be bloody DVD players, why the heck would I want to play my dvds on my xbox when i've got a dedicated dvd-player/recorder for that task, waste of bloody money! Now i've got 3 consoles that play dvd videos and 2 dvd players and a comptuer that plays dvds... OVERKILL. HD-DVD is more for movies than games trust me on that.

Click to expand...

Yes, and as they put more and more effort into GRAPHICS and MOVIES, they need more SPACE. Sad, but true.
Sony and Microsoft is trying to promote HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players respectively, which both cost around $1000+ for standalone players.

Yes and you totally missed the point, developers aren't very efficient when it comes to storage, they tend to waste the space they are given... it is not used very efficiently. What's to stop them putting out 2 dvds for a game instead of one expensive hd-dvd disc which requires the hardware.

Nintendo for example are Masters of efficient data storage, Zelda OOT is an absolutely massive game do you think anyone besides nintendo could've pulled that off? even for more basic textures the n64 use what they did there is extremely impressive and more companies need to store data more efficiently and if they want the easy way out sure ... HD-DVD is for them.

I for one would prefer them to stick with dvds, force the bastards to learn how to store their data properly... anyway I repeat: HD-DVD is for MOVIES not games. Games will stay on DVD9 format (which is an 8gb disc) - even the newest high-res games only take up around 4gb for the PC and we have high-res monitors. If 8gb isn't enough they need to start using better video compression technology, as the majority of game data is mostly those pre-rendered videos these days. All they need to do is start using DivX and problem solved.

DivX at DVD bitrates is good enough for HDTV anyway, what the hells the point of these technologys? More space more carelessness. Not even enough people own HDTVs yet for the technology to even be WORTH it so again, I fail to see the point. Most likely i'd want to buy this add on so I can plug it into my pc. If its compatible with the pc. yeah could be handy.

But you need to consider that when using such high quality graphics, most things cannot be spent rendering it - thus it needs to be stored pre-rendered. And movie clips are huge, especially in HD.
It's a wonder Nintendo fit things in such small cartridges, but would you want to create a program for a Pentium 2 400 MHz? I think not. Give the developers SOME space, at least. We don't need HD DVD - though you could use multiple DVDs if necessary.

Anyway, bottom point is, as you noted - the developers need to learn. They use the space for additional things - for increased graphics or movies, etc, etc. I rest my case.

So THIS is why Nintendo just stuck with 480i/480p for all their games. They probably saw this coming and thought it wasn't worth the hassle of putting faster and extra hardware in their wii, plus it's cheaper. The Wii is gonna cost $250 when it comes out I heard. They don't need the extra space on their CDs for HD content. It's all good. Component cables will do good enough on SDTV's that have 480i/480p.

Maybe I'm just a Nintendo fanboy.. but Nintendo has always done a good job sticking only to things that matter. It would be nice if the Wii will support mp3's and dvd's though, but it won't. It'll still have internet support and what not though

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6157685.html?part=rss&tag=gs_news&subj=6157685

smegforbrain said:

A CD is 650-700meg.

A standard DVD is 4.7gig.

And that HD/BR disc will offer more space per disc than 4 DVD's.

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Wrong, a standard dvd that we buy and burn ourselves is 4.7 gb, the companies like Microsoft and others use dual layer discs which hold twice the amount of data, 4.7gb wrong again! You really haven't researched this have you, a DVD5 only holds 4.38gb of data not 4.7. DVD9 what Microsoft use for their xbox360 holds around 8.76gb

Even so what does this prove? A CD is tiny compared to a DVD9 and its not like DVD9's aren't good enough for the time being - for the xbox360 its perfectly fine... maybe the next generation needs this crap but not yet.

smegforbrain said:

And?

I guess you're not a fan of FMV's. I happen to like them. Final Fantasy 7, for example, had it's flaws, but, man, those FMV's made it a helluva lot more fun to play and watch than some of those games that were still coming out on cartridges at the time

Click to expand...

Oh I like FMV's, but games always tend to compress them with things like Bink video or Mpeg2 - both of which are high-space hoggers and aren't really that efficient. DivX video compression allows you to store an extremely high-res video in small amount of space, and if DivX licencing is a problem, go to Xvid and get a very similar codec for free, its not like the Xbox360 isn't powerful enough to decode XVid.

I watched an episode of 24 in 960x540 resolution once, xvid and it was 700mb... we're talking around 45minutes for 700mb here, the quality was amazing... you don't need space to store FMV's in high quality, you need to actually know what the hell software technologys already exist. If you had actually bothered to read maybe you'll have got that along with my rant about developers wasting space when there are ways of dealing with these issues without new hardware.

smegforbrain said:

And if it was really that easy, you'd be the CEO of MS, Sony, AND Nintendo. Hell, you'd rule the earth!

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And if you got your head out of your arse for five seconds maybe you'd realize that what I suggested actually works, hell DivX is employed in a very recent game called "Company of heroes" the game only takes up 4gb of space and the video quality of the FMV's is excellent.

smegforbrain said:

The prices of Plasma and LCD tv's are falling at the rate of 35-50% a year.

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So what, by the time enough people have them to make it worthwhile one of the formats HD-DVD/Bluray will either be extinct or less common. I'd rather take a wait and see approach than be like you and blindly follow one of them in, also would rather wait till the HD-DVD drives of which we are speaking drop in price as you say the HD-DVD's will.

smegforbrain said:

Well, that much was obvious.

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What's obvious to you is you think i'm against HD-DVD, WRONG again, I just do not see it as a necessary device for games considering I heavily doubt many a company will use it for games. It's movies their going to use it for... and I'm not the owner of an xbox360 to use it as a dvd player, its a friggin games console.

Also for next time, don't make such obvious mistakes and actually learn what a DVD is... 4.7gb ha. thats what they put on the discs but it aint the real data storage capability.

Don't get so worked up on the 4.7 GB point. All drives and DVDs and other things are counted as 1 GB = 1000 MB, while Windows does it the right way: 1 GB = 1024 MB. It's all to fool us. Anyway...
Nintendo wanted to make a console that is not too expensive. A console which everyone can buy. And they wanted to make it possible to have it on 24/7. Can you do that with the processing power required for HD? I think not. T'would be expensive.

And why is everyone still talking about DivX? Hey, I mean there's XviD which is much more popular than DivX from what I've gathered, since many more films are compressed with it than DivX. But oh, don't forget MPEG4 AVC, or H264. The newest format on the market. 100 MB for a 45 minutes clip with decent quality isn't bad!

I think Nintendo is doing right by not using either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray, since both are expensive and non-standard, as of yet. In the next console, maybe... Who knows?

Oh and a media player? C'mon, they removed that to save manufacturing costs, and you probably already have a Media Player for your TV, no?

That kind of thought that we need HDMI to display a decent ingame FMV is to think a console to the hardcore, not to the mainstream but isn´t it, well, the "main stream"?