Let's talk about next-gen, shall we?
Boy, I can't stand reading "next-gen" anymore. But I can't come up with anything better than that.

Probably every GameSpot user saw the repercussions of the Xbox360 launch. To sum it up, not enough consoles to meet the demand, consoles going for $2.000 on eBay, just a handful of games ready for launch, most blockbuster games delayed.
As said by Tor Thorsen (sp?), a rocky launch.

What can we expect for the other two consoles, PS3 and Revolution?

For now, Sony kept the official launch date of the PS3 in spring 2006. Most people, like me, expect it to be delayed, just like Nintendo already did to the Revolution. The reasons are simple: prevent the same rocky launch that we just saw.

There's no word yet if developers got the final devkit. The ones issed by Sony, the last we heard, are 10x slower than the actual hardware on the PS3, since the cell is running at lower clock and it doesn't have the nVidia GPU yet.

I can't see developers finishing their games on this devkit (God, I pray it doesn't happen). Also, in theory, they have less than 4 months to finish their games for the console launch. No word as well on the production status of the consoles, not even if the factories already started working on this.

Now, what about Nintendo? We don't know. No official statements on games, except they are being made, no word on devkits, except that developers can use the GC devkit as a beta, just like Sony's current devkit. But the console is now rumored to launch holiday 2006, one year from now. Maybe they have enough time to sort all the problems MS had with it's launch.

I have no problem with free websites showing ads, since that generates money for their paychecks and servers.

But sometimes I have the impression that some websites that should be impartial and objective, get into some hideous deals to review or offer stuff looking better than it really is, or just plain talk about one product every half a second just to make sure it's name will be remembered for a few centuries. I think this kind of deals should be banned and people who do this should be tied to a... well, forget it.

Just a random rant...

It all started with chinese unlicensed cartridges.

Then the CD era came and you could borrow 200 hundred PSX games and make a copy of all those games in your own computer.

The DVD era came, and alongside came the DRMs, but after a short time (except for the GameCube), modchips made piracy once again possible on consoles.

Now we have proprietary DVD9 and Blu-Ray, with new DRM schemes and protection mechanisms. Looks like hackers around the world will have a hard time, right?

Wrong! In less than one month after release, you can already find Xbox360 games in peer-to-peer networks. Not that you can do anything with it right now, or should even think about downloading it, illegally.

Usually, I would expect the same modchip/pirate dvd duo for Nintendo and Microsoft next-gen consoles. Since Sony's will be using Blu-Ray proprietary format, unless the games can be crunched in 9GB dual-layered DVDs, I can't see the same happening. Sony scores a good one here.

Now, let's compare it with PC piracy. You can get pirate CDs/DVDs on the streets, or download disk images from websites, P2P, FTPs, IRC etc and burn them at your own computer, just like before. Most protection mechanisms have already been cracked and you can, most of time, find a fixed executable in less than twenty minutes, what can be compared to the modchip solution for consoles.

But nowadays, you don't even need to burn these disk images. There are dvd emulators for windows (and linux can do it natively) that create a virtual device and stream the data directly from the hard drive. Now think how many disk images you can fit in a 200Gb barracuda.

Ok, back to the consoles, and the whole point of this post.

Next-gen consoles are approaching the looks of a personal computer. CPU, GPU, USB ports and HDDs.
Now, how long until a firmware hack makes it possible for the consoles to run games from it's hard disks?

Not a problem for Nintendo, since there isn't a real HDD on it's next-gen console, just 512Mb flash memory, too small and slow for this.

Well, we can take the Xbox360 out of this as well, since the consoles HDD is really small compared to the disk size, and would fit only a couple of games. But possible anyway.

One of the features of the PS3 is that it might use bigger HDDs, making this approach possible as well. And since you won't be able burn your own BR disks, this would be the only possible way to pirate a PS3 game.

I do not support piracy, but I don't expect the next-gen to be any better than current in this fight, unfortunately. It's a real problem with no real solution, right now.

It's a shame that a lot of good developers devote their time to this. Proof of that is the number of already cracked protection schemes for PC software. Almost every protections were cracked in a matter of months.

Today, this protection hurts more the consumers than those who use a "fixed" executable (StarForce comes to mind), but I won't discuss it now.

or How is Sony getting to love the money.

I've been thinking about the current direction of the behemoth media company based on Japan, and it kinds of remembers me of a distant past. Well, not that distant, but when Sony first entered this game.

Just a little flashback:

The year is 1996.
Nintendo dominates the game market.
Sega is struggling and going bankrupt.
Sony enters the market.

Nintendo is so close to monopolizing the game market, that it grows too proud and makes so many mistakes for the one thing every company aims: MONEY.

The first mistake is keeping games in carts, more expensive than CDs but less prone to piracy. Result: higher priced games.

The second mistake is charging high licensed fees from publishers. Result: higher priced games and 3rd parties dropping support.

And the final blow is trying to force the consumer to buy what Nintendo wanted, not the other way around.

We all know how it ended.

Ok, enough of history. But a teacher of mine always said that we study History to learn from past mistakes and try not to repeat them. Well, looks like Sony doesn't like History, just like me.

Sony currently owns the game market. Yes, it does, since the Playstaion marketshare is around 70%-80% if I'm not mistaken. That's enough to compare their position with Nintendo's, almost a decade ago.

Not only the position is market is the same, but for the upcoming Playstation3, I can easily grasp the same mistakes of the Nintendo64 era. I'm shock, to tell the truth.

Istead of carts, Sony is going for Blu-Ray, a new media designed in-house for high-def movies and storing huge amounts of data, like those in games.

Cool, nothing like carts at first. The main problem is that current CD/DVD factories can't make Blu-Ray disks, which means new factories will be built, or current factories will be completely refitted for that. How much that costs? US$Millions. Who is gonna pay that? Only Sony knows.

There's also the huge spectrum of DRMs on the disks. While it sounds nice not having your games pirated, the last patent (keep in mind that I'm not a patent/hardware/technical specialist, and the following is what I got from reading it. If I'm mistaken, please corret me, politely.) that shows how a Blu-Ray game could be made to work only in a single console, totally ending the market for rentals and second-hand games; that left a chill on my spine.

But what about developers and publishers? Well, aside all the fanboy talk, the next-gen isn't easy to code for. Also, complaints about the devkits started to rise, the same as the Playstation2. Not issues about it's performance, but about the software used to actually make games. The future shapes another generation of hard time for developers. Not to mention that now, instead of a 640x480 resolution, the standard will be 1280x720 and some games running at ~2000x1000, which translates in the need of higer polygon count models, bigger textures, more people needed to make these things and ultimately, higher costs.

For the last mistake, is the console itself. It's a wonderful supercomputer that can run Linux, plays high-def movies, plays Blu-Ray disks, supports dual screens, three gigabit ethernet, eight bluetooth devices (controllers, eyetoy and whatever else they have in mind), a USB hub and whatever else I forgot to mention. While that sounds ultra-cool, at least for the geek and hardcore communities that I think I might fit in, let's forget about this minority. The majority of gamers aren't that interested in this much technology. Most of them just want to pop-up a game in the console and play for a few hours in their free time.

But the technology is already there, and guess what: it's gonna cost. Mr. Kutaragi again, said that it's going to be expensive. That's true, but everyone keeps repeating that so when the console price gets released, the overall reaction would be: "Well, not expensive as I first thought." That's what I expect for us, but again, I don't see the whole mainstream market browsing forums discussing prices, or watching every press conference around the corner.

So, to sum it up:
Sony is forcing the consumers to get a lot of technology with its console, and that means more money.
Developers costs will rise, the standard high-def alone is a reason, and that means more money.
Blu-Ray is a new technology, incompatible with current factories, and that means even more money.

Where's this money coming from? Guess what: the consumer. Yes, game prices are going to rise, everyone knows that.

I could finish it here, but there's something else that just poped my mind. US$60-US$70 games are nice for those who makes money from them. But how's the pot going to be splitted? Sony spent US$millions to develop the console, to develop blu-ray, and is going to spend even more to build these wonderful machines.

That could translate in higher licensing fees. But I don't think they are stupid enough to do that. Yet, developers costs will rise, which means less money for developers/publishers, unless every game released is a multi-million seller, or Sony decides to lower the licensing fees. I can't really see those things happening. Where's all this money coming from? Market growth?! I really hope so.

The future may be dire for us, gamers. Good luck!

For a change, I decided to give up on chemistry this year... too much stress fighting for my place on the University; and to think that I'm not sure if that's what I really want for my life.

Now, for a change, I started playing around with Adobe Photoshop CS2 (this is not an AD :D)... started when I found the demo installed in my sisters computer, and decided to give a go on my avatar.

Now, two weeks and a few tutorials later, I'm really into it. I'm just playing around with my own pictures, nothing serious... at least for now. I decided to give a try on this now, study a little, maybe try some course on computer graphics.

I have some jobs uploaded to http://arathorn2nd.fotopages.com/?entry=566727

But that's all...

--- originally posted on General Gaming quite some time ago, but it looks like something that would fit here, while I can't finish the previous entry ---

I've just finished reading one interesting article on Xbox360's Xenon CPU at Arstechnica, but most would like to jump to the article conclusion http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/xbox360-2.ars/

Some quotes:

Rumors and some game developer comments (on the record and off the record) have Xenon's performance on branch-intensive game control, AI, and physics code as ranging from mediocre to downright bad. Xenon will be a streaming media monster, but the parts of the game engine that have to do with making the game fun to play (and not just pretty to look at) are probably going to suffer. Even if the PPE's branch prediction is significantly better than I think it is, the relatively meager 1MB L2 cache that the game control, AI, and physics code will have to share with procedural synthesis and other graphics code will ensure that programmers have a hard time getting good performance out of non-graphics parts of the game.Article

In short, after analyzing how the PowerPC Processing Unit is built, the writer states that it's a little of a step backwards compared to current CPUs in the areas of AI and Physics, while being optimized for media streaming and 3D graphics.

Furthermore, the Xenon may be capable of running six threads at once, but the three types of branch-intensive code listed above are not as amenable to high levels of thread-level parallelization as graphics code. On the other hand, these types of code do benefit greatly from out-of-order execution, which Xenon lacks completely, a decent amount of execution core width, which Xenon also lacks; branch prediction hardware, which Xenon is probably short on; and large caches, which Xenon is definitely short on. The end result is a recipe for a console that provides developers with a wealth of graphics resources but that asks them to do more with less on the non-graphical side of gaming.Article

Now he explains why the most important feature of the CPU, multiple threads, will suffer because of the removal of some PowerPC hardware components present on current IBM CPUs to save die size and power consumption.

And before anyone screams "The Lemmings have been owned"

At any rate, Playstation 3 fanboys shouldn't get all flush over the idea that the Xenon will struggle on non-graphics code. However bad off Xenon will be in that department, the PS3's Cell will probably be worse. The Cell has only one PPE to the Xenon's three, which means that developers will have to cram all their game control, AI, and physics code into at most two threads that are sharing a very narrow execution core with no instruction window. (Don't bother suggesting that the PS3 can use its SPEs for branch-intensive code, because the SPEs lack branch prediction entirely.) Furthermore, the PS3's L2 is only 512K, which is half the size of the Xenon's L2. So the PS3 doesn't get much help with branches in the cache department. In short, the PS3 may fare a bit worse than the Xenon on non-graphics code, but on the upside it will probably fare a bit better on graphics code because of the seven SPEs.Article

This means that if the Xbox360 really is a letdown on these aspects, the PS3 would fare even worse, since the Cell have just one PPC core, compared to three on the Xbox360.

Also remember Nintendo's next-generation console will sport "Broadway", a custom-made IBM CPU, probably based on PowerPC architecture and suffering of the same problems above.

So, are we already screwed even before the first next-generation console is released? The dream of real-world physics will have to await another 5 years or so?

I believe this question was born even before polygonal rendering, but I'm just making an assumption since I remember this very same discussion with a friend when the SNES and Genesis were nothing but a picture in some gaming magazine back in the end of the 80's as I was only 7. The discussion went trough how many colours and pixels each console could put on our 14" TVs.

To this question, I think every hardcore gamer would probably answer gameplay. But we just can't ignore the fact that graphics plays an important role on the "enjoyment" of a game as well. I'd say both have the same importance in the formula. A game with really bad gameplay plays nothing, while a game with bad graphics (not old graphics, but plain bad graphics) are a turnoff for everyone I know.

Sound plays a major part as well, but it doesn't consume that much money, time and media space as the first two (not dissing any of you musicians and voice actors, don't take it as an offense). Also, if you really dislike the sound, you can just mute your TV and put your prefered CD to play, I've done this countless times playing Mario Party and Monopoly on the N64, and really enjoyed these games. That's why I won't consider sound in this "article".

Graphics being what you see on your screen or TV, I consider gameplay something difficult to explain. I consider it everything related to how the game plays: controls, game mechanics, storyline etc. By this, looks like gameplay is even more important, by including lots of things that are crucial for a game. And it really should look like that.

But selling a million games today include a lot of advertising. If you were trying to sell a game, what would you advtertise: mind blowing graphics, or some comments from magazines/websites praising how well the game plays? I don't think I need an answer for that. At least, today's publishers don't.

Graphics does deserves a big investment from the developers, not only for marketing, but for making the gaming experience immersive. And how much it costs in a game? Million(s) of dollars in paychecks for modellers, artists etc, not taking into account equipment and stuff.

Let's think of it as a movie: you need a story, some actors and enviroments and then, turn it into a film.
Then you have the graphic models and textures for actors and enviroments.
For storyline, you need people to actually think of something and programmers for the scripts. The very same programmers you need for everything else related to gameplay.

Then, it all comes to the point where you need to balance the number on these guys to get an actually good game.

[unfinished]

Original title: Nintendo, Revolution, mainstream and some random toughts. Originally posted on Nintendo Revolution forums.

I always thought Nintendo was all about hardcore and older gamers on the last two generations, after Sony and later MS joined the business. They kept ignoring marketing and mass-appeal games, and kept focus on gameplay. I was afraid for a moment that Nintendo would cease their console operations on usa, where the market was dominated by their competitors, and lock themselves on japan and exports to europe.

Oddly enough, while browsing some 3rd party websites, most of the poll show a great interest on Revolution. Sega and EA have Revolution on first with 40%-50% of the voters interest. There are others where NRev is on first or second place. But these companies aren't focused on hardcore gamers; how can a console which specs, features, release date/price, upcoming games and controllers are almost all unknown, released from the company on the last place, often referred as kiddie and ignorant of their customers wishes etc can get that much interest over the other console and they makers?

I don't think the whole backward compatibilities, which is great and by itself is a reason why I would buy it, or the "THIS IS GOING TO BE REVOLUTIONARY" is enough to sparkle that much interest. Or maybe it is? Maybe not releasing any info on the console created more hype than showing extreme graphically enhaced videos of games running on high definition and superb physics; why you ask? Possibly because all the features are on the gamers imagination right now. If you check this same forums, you can find a whole of "What If" posts. We are all talking about rumors, what we do expect, what we imagine on the hints, or what we want to be there when we open the box, like I did when I was a kid, opening my christmas gift that was an Atari 2600.

So, I think marketing is not just about having a specs war, realtime/prerender discussion on every board across the world, 42" plasma TVs that 1% of the gamers can afford, sheeps, cows or even lemmings. But that worked before, right? And this is the reason it won't work now. It happened before, it's past, been there, seen that; now what? We don't know, we can just imagine. And I think it'll be good. I want it to be good. Actually, I need it... well, you got my point.

Nintendo isn't going anywhere. They had a good fight with Sega, they were first, almost had the monopoly over the world gaming industry, but then abused 3rd party developers and consumers, and now they are paying for it. I don't think they are stupid enough to not learn from their mistakes (how could a company that stupid be #1 after all). Each generation is a step on the unknown, and this will not be different. No one knows what to expect, at least from Nintendo.

Each generation, from the Intellivision/2600 (that's what I remember) to the N64/PSX/DC (don't bash my for including DC on the previous generation ), I've seen an evolution. Each generation, faster processors gave birth to better graphics, better sound, but most important, new ways of gaming (like the born of online gaming, FPS, TPS, TPA). Sidescrolling in 2D turned into isomeric, which then turned in polygonal full 3D. Then what? PS2/GC/Xbox came to polish the rough surface of the polygons and textures. Instead of million of colors, we talk about million of polygons per second. Instead of how many megabits, we talk about how many teraflops. Instead of 2/4 split screen, we have 32 players online and link features.

But, now, just upgrading horse power, doesn't seem to continue this evolution. Online isn't something new. Backward compatibility is 15 years old at least. Graphics and sound get better each generation, but it's something that must happen, not an added feature. The added features are mostly about turning a console into a multimedia device/computer hybrid. PC gaming is faded to die and to be the ultimate form of gaming at the same time?

But now, what about gaming? Nothing new, the same old franchises, the same old gameplay, the same "controller held with both hand we invented ourselves" (Satoru Iwata if I'm not mistaken).

I believe that deep down in our minds, everyone want something that some gaming companies can't see: new ways of gaming. Something to surprise, blow us out of the water. It's not like we can forget that we already played one game, and a sequel with the very same gameplay will do that. But that's what we have been offered for this generation. I agree there were some surprises, I can only think of PC and Nintendo games because that's what I have in my hands, but I do not ignore the other ones. I've been a Sega fanboy in the past, a big mistake that I don't plan to repeat, but yet, I don't have enough time and money to be a multiconsole hardcore gamer. So I stick to what apeal to me.

New ways of gaming has been a Nintendo BIG marketing slogan. Reggie speaks that a lot in Nintendo's E3 press conference. They even show that with some Nintendo DS. Even tought these are bashed as hell by fanboys and mainstream gamers, for being for kids, some of these games are selling big. I think it's like I felt when playing Final Fantasy VI a few years ago, Skies of Arcadia a few months ago or Final Fantasy I&II a few weeks ago: "I absolutely love J-RPGs, but I can't play more than half and hour anymore. I can't stand the random battles. I love the story, they should turn this into a movie, but I can't enjoy this awesome game. What's wrong with me?"

Now I see that nothing is wrong with me, but after playing three of these games, what's the point? Good story? Ok, turn it into a movie and I'll enjoy it. But I can't stand the random battles anymore. Why don't you try a faster peaced game? Ow, it's there already, and it's not J-RPG. Zelda? Yes, pretty cool, but been there already.

I feel strange. I can't enjoy these games anymore, but I still love them. I'm trying to finish FF6 for the third time. I can't play for more than 10 minutes, but I force myself to do so. I'm playing Guild Wars, because I loved Diablo, but it gets boring after some time. I want to play these games, even if I don't have a good time. The same happens to FPS and RTS games.

I'm so attached to these genres I love, to the same formula that worked before. I can't see myself playing Nintendogs instead of Command and Conquer. Or electroplankton istead of Guild Wars. I feel like I would love to play the NES/SNES games, but now, I'm a bit afraid of the deja-vu effect. These are the classics, that build the pillar to the genres we have today. But we did that already. Will we enjoy it? Probably. Will we feel nostagic? Obviously. Will it surprise anyone? Not even the kids.

The most weird part of today gaming refers to the kids. Gaming is for kids, my father told me when I got my gamecube last year, you are 21 and should focus on your university and work. I used to think the same. But with the ammount of mature games coming around, game publishers seems to disagree. More than that, games for kids are bashed now. But bashed by the very same audience they are intended to. This is the MTV, Resident Evil and Playboy era. Kids don't want colorful graphics. The need dark hallways with mutant soldiers and a big -censored- gun. Adult players like those as well, to the same extent, but I don't see they bashing Pikmin i.e. J.Allard (Microsoft press conference) pointed the hardcores as 18-28 (or was it 18-34?) years old. But that's because the games are rated 18+, so in theory, only 18+ plays these games. What isn't true. You can easily check that by playing a mature game that supports voice comm.

So, what's the point? Let's feed them with blood, bfgs, bouncing breasts and linking park. These sell. Guaranteed. Don't forget bloom effects, by the way.

It feels like the game industry reached a point where it can't go forward. If someone try something new, people will bash it for being for freaks, nerds, kids or any other minority that people think they are not part. If it's more of the same, people will bash for being a sequel/rehash/copy, but it'll sell anyway, and the publishers will continue to feed us that.