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The PS2 failed, according to Sony Exec VP

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Rocket Punch

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How many of us outside of a handful actually use their console as an all around entertainment hub? With PS3 and Xbox360 again we see attempts to create converging multimedia units to encompass our living rooms in many more ways than games. Do you believe the general public are ready to embrace this technology this time around? Are consoles destined to become a hybrid multimedia product? If so it would seem the one console future is really the real way of the future. I'd be interested in knowing where this leave Nintendo who out of the three has only interest in videogames. The other two obviously having music, movie and software interest of their own. Are they going to have to be eventually integrated in super top boxes across the world?

Did anyone read about Bill Gates visiting the U of Waterloo? He gave as speech in which among other things he says that HD DVD would be the last physical media format available. He claimed that after that we would be stream dowloading our software products, be it music, videogames, movies via the internet. Xbox360 obviously fit the bill perfectly to fulfill his desires but again, will the people be buying? How much do you think this is hype and reality?
 
I think the Xbox 360 is getting closer to working out. It does 99% of what I would like to see.. but BR DVD and some sort of Tivo function would have put it over the top.. plus, if you could run your TV through your 360 (give it a 'TV' blade in the GUI) it would give you the ability to chat while you watched TV or whatever. Could have been pretty neat.
 
I use my PS2/Xbox for DVD play.

Music I buy with iTunes.
I can definetly see myself buying movies solely ala iTunes when it becomes practical.

But, I live in a AAA country so I can't speak for the rest of the world.
 
Now that Andrew House has been promoted to Global Chief Marketing Officer for all of Sony, I'd say the PS2 was pretty damn good for him.
 
By moving away from solid state media, they'd be limiting their audiences to a degree, I dunno if that's going to be happening anytime soon. And personally I'd hate not having a physical copy of a game.
 
Music and Movies aren't comperate. Music are 2-3 minute experiences and a person and reasonably download one song relatively quickly.

Increasing the pipeline with broadband increases the volume of songs one can download, but the pipeline isn't nearly wide enough for most users to download feature length films with suffient speed.

Apple's move into a video iPod serving up mainly downloadable music videos is the right track because music videos are only about as long as the songs they are based on and the pipeline is wide enough to allow users to download several of those videos.

Sony is really in dreamland if they think they can start a movie service like iTunes in the forseeable future. The technology isn't there and the market is small.
 
jaundicejuice said:
By moving away from solid state media, they'd be limiting their audiences to a degree, I dunno if that's going to be happening anytime soon. And personally I'd hate not having a physical copy of a game.
Click to expand...

MS doesnt expect games to go over 40GBs anytime soon.
 
Playstation could be the ressurection of the Amiga or the Atari ST if all the people could buy the Linux kit in the stores.

For me the fail it was reducing the Linux kit to the homebrew market.
 
Also bear in mind that the publishers probably quite like the status quo, I doubt they'd want a new world order where they're essentially obsolete.
 
I'd say PS3 has the first real chance of doing this. Xbox360 COULD have done it but, like I seem to say every few days, it's crippled by not having a HDMI output for DRM'd HD video. How can you call it a hi-def video player when it can't even play them back at their full resolution?
 
um... I already get movies streamed into my living room from my cable company. I haven't gone out to rent a movie in over a year.
 
StoOgE said:
I think the Xbox 360 is getting closer to working out. It does 99% of what I would like to see.. but BR DVD and some sort of Tivo function would have put it over the top.. plus, if you could run your TV through your 360 (give it a 'TV' blade in the GUI) it would give you the ability to chat while you watched TV or whatever. Could have been pretty neat.
Click to expand...
If you have Media Center you can watch tv (live or recorded) while you use voice chat. You can also use voice chat while watching dvds.
 
I don't think you'll ever had one device as an all around entertainment hub since technology moves so fast and there will always be a seperate device that does its job better than your convergant device.

My phone might play music, but I still have an mp3 player. It might have a camera, but the quality isn't as good as a digital camera. It might play games but it's no match for a PSP. Having something as a home entertainment "hub" will only happen when it out performs standalone devices.
 
No matter how much Sony and Microsoft want their systems to be about all-encompassing multimedia (A concept that dates back to the early 90s by the way) it will always come down to the primary function of game software in the end.
 
The PS2 helped extend DVD's reach at a time when it looked like the format might not catch on. Whether or not that was Sony's intention it seems like it worked out well for both PlayStation and DVD.
 
In retrospect, it's remarkable how little Sony ended up doing to expand the PS2's applications. After all the initial proclamations, they didn't even try.
 
StoOgE said:
I think the Xbox 360 is getting closer to working out. It does 99% of what I would like to see.. but BR DVD and some sort of Tivo function would have put it over the top.. plus, if you could run your TV through your 360 (give it a 'TV' blade in the GUI) it would give you the ability to chat while you watched TV or whatever. Could have been pretty neat.
Click to expand...

Tivo, a TV blade, BR DVD, an itunes like download service for music, movies, games and tv shows, and more are still possible with 360 down the road... I'm sure there are already plans for these things as we speak :) Remember, video chat is coming in '06 and that should be huge in itself, especially for parlor and live arcade games. Because of it's smart design, future hard-disk add-ons can not only be bigger, but they can have video inputs for Tivo support.
 
open_mouth_ said:
Tivo, a TV blade, BR DVD, an itunes like download service for music, movies, games and tv shows, and more are still possible with 360 down the road... I'm sure there are already plans for these things as we speak :) Remember, video chat is coming in '06 and that should be huge in itself, especially for parlor and live arcade games. Because of it's smart design, future hard-disk add-ons can not only be bigger, but they can have video inputs for Tivo support.
Click to expand...

No, TiVo support is not possible. Sorry. That requires dedicated hardware that would have to run 24/7 in order to work properly. You can't be playing a game and recording TV at the same time. These games are going to be designed to utitilize all of the 360 hardware, there won't be spare CPU cycles. Also, Xbox 360 would need to support coax input. It doesn't have those ports on it.

You would need an entirely new machine in order to support TiVo like functionality.
 
Shard said:
No matter how much Sony and Microsoft want their systems to be about all-encompassing multimedia (A concept that dates back to the early 90s by the way) it will always come down to the primary function of game software in the end.
Click to expand...
I'm still hoping for a holo-deck in ten years.
 
huzkee said:
Did anyone read about Bill Gates visiting the U of Waterloo? He gave as speech in which among other things he says that HD DVD would be the last physical media format available. He claimed that after that we would be stream dowloading our software products, be it music, videogames, movies via the internet. Xbox360 obviously fit the bill perfectly to fulfill his desires but again, will the people be buying? How much do you think this is hype and reality?
Click to expand...

Bill Gates sometimes likes to run his mouth. Check out this quote.

"No one will need more than 637 kb of memory for a personal computer."

WTF!? So I don't put much stock in the HD DVD quote.
 
maynerd said:
Bill Gates sometimes likes to run his mouth. Check out this quote.

"No one will need more than 637 kb of memory for a personal computer."

WTF!? So I don't put much stock in the HD DVD quote.
Click to expand...

He actually never said that, according to himself.
 
Gek54 said:
MS doesnt expect games to go over 40GBs anytime soon.
Click to expand...
 
I can do everything but the Blu Ray on my comp right now...I think next generation (ps4 , xbox...720) is when you will see some dynamite integrated solutions. The bandwidth will be there, hardware should all be integrated, massive storage. For now i think games will be the main draw of these systems i really dont see anything big like the dvd playback did for ps2 and xbox on these upcoming consoles. For what its worth youcould buy a media pc for similar cost and more functionality.
 
StoOgE said:
I think the Xbox 360 is getting closer to working out. It does 99% of what I would like to see.. but BR DVD and some sort of Tivo function would have put it over the top.. plus, if you could run your TV through your 360 (give it a 'TV' blade in the GUI) it would give you the ability to chat while you watched TV or whatever. Could have been pretty neat.
Click to expand...

You can do all of that, except for BR DVD, through the Xbox360. The catch is.. you must have a Windows Media Center PC. I'm glad I've got one.
 
thorns said:
He actually never said that, according to himself.
Click to expand...

Yeah it's not 100% certain he said it. But either way to say that a technology like HD DVD will be the LAST tech of this type is a bit...I dunno silly.
 
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