Next Generation

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 10:55 am

With the Wii now out in Europe, the next generation is finally the current generation.
What's your favourite so far, and how do you think the PS3, Wii, and 360 will fare in the future?

WaWard · Post by **WaWard** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 11:34 am

There's a problem with this poll, the Wii is there.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 11:35 am

I still haven't played Wii

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 1:13 pm

I haven't played a single one. I'm hoping all my hint dropping emails home worked.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 2:18 pm

What would you prefer, a Wii?
You're really evil to your parents if you want then to import and pay for a PS3

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 2:52 pm

I can get away with it by telling them it's 'Relevant to my course'

Heck, we did a PS3 case study in my Platforms module the other day. Basically it was discussing the internal components.

Sony have a really sucky way of trying to lock out hackers from cracking it's region lock system. They've basically hidden the chip and the data on it from all developers.

However, since it's on some...7 chip system, if the developers can only access 6, then the data is inside another component. So..well done there! You've delayed them by...20 minutes.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 3:24 pm

It's like how they bother altering the insides of the PS2 every few months, just to give chippers and hackers a headache for half an hour, before they work out how to bypass yet another fullproof Sony product.

Which console (and games) would you prefer to play right now though?

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 3:26 pm

Ooh, good question.

I'm going to say Xbox 360. PS3 and Wii are too early out to have anything that interests me, and I'm sure the 360 might have one or two decent RPGs on it by the time I get my hands on one.

I really want to play the gay Enchanted Arms

Entr0pi3 · Post by **Entr0pi3** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 4:06 pm

Yuka is an electronics fag?

This region lock thing is so stupid. Wonder when they'll realize it's not worth the hassle, and get rid of it (just like Yahoo Music seems to be -finally- making a move toward getting rid of DRMs)

Also, wait wait wait! I had heard (when it was still early in dev) the PS3 was supposed to have no regional locks??? So you mean the idea got dumped at some point? (along with proper PS1/PS2 retrocompatibility?... I've heard a significant list of prev next game don't play properly

)

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 4:14 pm

Well, maybe not region locking specifically, but there's something Sony are keeping hidden.
Might be lockout codes to prevent piracy of the games, I can't remember.

When I go to Uni tomorrow I'll nab the slides from the case study and see if that details it.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 4:20 pm

You know what sucks just as much as Nazi region locks... HUUUUUGHE Pal borders on Wii's European virtual console games

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 4:23 pm

True.

I see no reason why we can't adopt 60hz and NTSC. Maybe I've not researched why we have it in the first place, but it's never really made sense to me.

With all the 100hz TVs and High Definition making it's mark, especially with consoles, there's no reason why we need to keep it around any longer.

Entr0pi3 · Post by **Entr0pi3** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 4:24 pm

Oh, some hidden mystery chip, eh?

Maybe parts of some secret weapon for Sony to take over the world?

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 4:27 pm

Aside from being a George Foreman grill, the PS3 also harbours weapons of mass destruction and when connected to the internet they all scheme with their massive processing power on how to rule the world.

Invasion@Home, they call it.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 4:32 pm

We've found the PS3 building at Canary Wharf btw

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 4:36 pm

Actually, that reminds me. On the case study was a quote from some guy I don't remember who said that for the price (££many) the PS3 was probably the most advanced piece of technology average market consumers could buy.

Considering it has so much processing power and all (and like 256 RAM, when the PC standard is 1 Gig) why can't we use it as a PC then?

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 4:38 pm

yuka wrote:Actually, that reminds me. On the case study was a quote from some guy I don't remember who said that for the price (££many) the PS3 was probably the most advanced piece of technology average market consumers could buy.

Considering it has so much processing power and all (and like 256 RAM, when the PC standard is 1 Gig) why can't we use it as a PC then?

...for the same reason we can't buy games on liksang anymore... because Sony don't want us to.

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 4:39 pm

I hope Blu Ray doesn't go the way of the BetaMax...

Calbrena · Post by **Calbrena** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 4:58 pm

Damien wrote:We've found the PS3 building at Canary Wharf btw

pix plz

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 5:05 pm

yuka wrote:I hope Blu Ray doesn't go the way of the BetaMax...

Maybe there's somethign I'm missing butI don't think the market can support multiple video strorage mediums right now.
The DVD business took off in a big way, mainly because the things were so different to what was currently available, and the players got really cheap really quickly.

The average pikey in the street isn't going to care about Blu Ray, are they?
That's how DVD built up it's userbase to such a level that it's become pretty much teh universal medium of movie and game storage for the last few years.
While the HD TV tie-in secures the future of blue ray somewhat, I think it'll always be a niche format.

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 5:08 pm

Trufax.

I see no reason why we need new media at all.
DVD, as my housemate put it, is 'too perfect as it is', especially when compared to the step up we made from VHS.

Sony didn't exactly have a ball when it made UMD, did it?

Entr0pi3 · Post by **Entr0pi3** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 5:31 pm

Yeah, that's my opinion too (the average joe doesn't need no stinking HD), and it seems to be shared be some market analysts as well. Sony played a very risky gamble... and it wouldn't be they're first mistake (but possibly they're last?

)

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 6:18 pm

It's like surround sound home cinema. For those with the ambition/money/tech interest, it's great. For the others (aka the vast majority), it's not something that crosses the mind while shopping.

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 6:23 pm

Hasn't 5.1 moved into 7.1 for the purists now?

I have a mono TV

Chi · Post by **Chi** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 6:53 pm

yuka wrote:I see no reason why we can't adopt 60hz and NTSC.

Preamble:
Analogue video systems and colour encodings.
* The UK use PAL-I: PAL encoding, with ITU broadcast system I (625 lines, 30fps)
* The USA use NTSC-M: NTSC encoding, with ITU broadcast system M (525 lines, 29.97fps).
* Japan use NTSC-J: NTSC encoding with ITU broadcast system J (same as the Yanks, but fiddled a bit in a small technical detail just 'cause they could!).

Anyway. NTSC is simply a colour encoding standard. A way of adding a colour signal to an existing B&W source (remember, we all had B&W tellies before colour). The difference between NTSC and PAL is purely in the way in which they handle this colour signal (called Chroma). NTSC also has a problem in the way it conveys colour, if there are any chages in phase due to e.g. reception issues - and so sets have a tint adjust to compensate for this (this is why it was informally know as "never twice same colour').

You can easily encode a 525-line 59.94Hz* video signal with PAL, that isn't the issue. In fact, we already can do that. We call that PAL-M (AKA PAL 60). Most modern (UK) TVs can handle it, but then again most modern UK TVs can now handle NTSC, too.

(* why 59.94Hz? This is simply 60 / 1.001, chosen for way outdated technical reasons, as is much the case for all these broadcast standards)

The BBC toyed with the idea of NTSC back in the day, and then rejected it in favour of PAL. Now, since we have so many legacy TV sets that have to use PAL, changing would be impractical... until we obsolete them all.

I don't think that is what you were taking about though ;p

...

If you are asking is why do we use video standard I (=625 lines @ 25 frames per second) instead of M or J (both =525 lines @ 29.97 frames per second), this was to avoid interference with local AC devices (mainly lightbulbs ;p). A pretty old and now practically obsolete argument.

Why do we continue to use it now? Backwards compatibility, with all those sets that run only at 50Hz. However, as we all go digital, this will most likely make this difference all but obsolete in the near future... PAL, NTSC and SECAM (dodgy Frog colour system ;p This is a bugger to edit with, btw) are for analogue systems only.

(of course, *then* we'll have the argument about DVB-T vs. ATSC vs ISDB ;p)

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 7:00 pm

Ahar.

Next...what the crap is 720, 1080i and 1080p?

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 7:04 pm

*Chi is typing a message*

Chi · Post by **Chi** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 7:09 pm

[google]Digital format[/google]s. 'Nuff said.

I CBA to go into detail (gotta go home now, plx), but in a nutshell, the number refers to the number of lines of resolution, the 'i' or 'p' refers to whether it is progressive scan (like a computer monitor), or interlaced (like a traditional TV).

Entr0pi3 · Post by **Entr0pi3** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 8:56 am

... Or, like I put it to my dad the other day:

me wrote:resolution is how many little squares you can put in your picture

while explaining HD normally meant bigger screens, but bigger screens weren't necessarily HD...
And that considering "standards" (insert it's many barbaric norms name/acronym here) weren't quite standardified at the moment, it wasn't too much of a good idea investing now in ultra-expensive hardware that might very well become obsolete/unsupported in very few years.
That's all nubs need to know at the moment, rly

(and that's what they tend to memorize, anyway, as that conclusion of mine was met with a "ah, yeah, that's pretty much what the guy talking about it on the radio said the other day" from my dad)

WaWard · Post by **WaWard** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 11:46 am

1080p is pure shit guys. buy it, but it's pure shit. the future is 1440p.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 2:24 pm

Technology

I still have my portable that I got for the Megadrive

Mitsurugi CP · Post by **Mitsurugi CP** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 7:05 am

Play beyond (your budget)

HKK · Post by **HKK** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 3:31 am

360 ftw

WaWard · Post by **WaWard** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 9:10 pm

WaWard wrote:There's a problem with this poll, the Wii is there.

guys, it means post ps2 gen, like the one that will have the newer games in the next couple of years. not the one that has just ended.

we should restart the poll with this clarification.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 10:20 pm

Like it's worth it

Etch · Post by **Etch** » Fri Dec 29, 2006 1:18 am

I haven't gotten to even play a WII yet so for me personally, that system is #3 based on the fact I haven't gotten to play one yet.

PS3 is #2 becos the only game I have played on there is a single level of Resistance: Fall of Man. While that level was very fun, it's not enough to make it # 1 because again, it is all I have played on the PS3.

Currently, Xbox360 is #1 in my eyes because it's loaded with First person shooters and I have played a bunch of em. There's also gears of war which reeks of teh awesome and dead rising which gives into my love of slaughtering zombies en masse.

If I can get my hands on a PS3 or Wii, their positions might change, but given the fact that the 360 has been out longer and has considerably more to offer, it is teh #1 in my personal opinion.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Fri Dec 29, 2006 1:48 am

It's taken a while, but the 360 really is starting to build quite the catalogue.

Square Gamer

Next Generation

Best Next (current) Generation Console

Next Generation