MS regulating developers choices on other platforms *spawn

Why do you imply MS doesn't allow complete install? You mean still having to get off your arse to put in disc 2?

Yes, I'm not being lazy - I just prefer not to break the immersion by disk swapping...what I like about Uncharted is there's no 'loading' screens...really helps get you in the mood grab you into the world and not let go!
 
Yep, and have you wondered why the PS3 slipped 6 months? The Blu-ray launch also slipped a few months before Sony slipped the PS3 launch.
In 2005, the day the XBox 360 launched (to a resounding *thud* in Japan, where I was at the time) I was in Japan, at a Toshiba plant, working through HD DVD issues. That's _the day it launched_. If MS had wanted a HD DVD drive in the XBox, it would have had to be complete at least 6 months before that. At that time, the spec was still evolving.

Even had MS been willing to take on the insanity that is launching with a product that itself has not yet launched, neither BD or HD DVD drives at the time could meet the performance requirements. MS planned a hard drive-less console, and so was not going to skimp of optical drive streaming rate. 6 years later, and you've got mandatory HDD installs on a lot of PS3 games, and, surprise, none on the XBox.

Don't think that a HD format was never contemplated, it was, but the requirements couldn't be met in ship time, units manufactured, or performance specs. It was probably a simple choice in the end.

I'm fully aware of why PS3 launch slipped, I'm less aware of why the X360 had such poor supply at launch (especially on simple things like RGB scart leads and HDD add-ons). But even then, sorry, I don't buy the lack of HD DVD arguement, and in fact all these comments just add up to MS rushing to launch ahead of the competition at all costs (poor supplies, smaller capacity, no HDMI and bad reliability).
 
It still cached a bunch of data. Playing for the first time is significantly different from later on.

AFAIK, H3 preloads DVD data for a whole level into the HDD cache if one is present.

The system was broken at launch. I've had loading times of up to 10 minutes. The solution was to go into the dashboard, clear the game cache and the game would load normally.

I don't know if it was the MS caching system that was broken or Bungie made a bug. The whole thing resembled the Oblivion caching bug (where you had to hold down 'A' during boot to clear the cache).

Cheers
 
Which is completely true. I have a release day 360 and I can game in 1080P with component cables. So what's your point again? Not that many games are actually 1080P, but the 360 can output that without an HDMI cable. In fact it can do it with the cable that came in the box.

My point was the X360 launched 6 mths too soon, it could have done with longer in the oven for a better solution that didn't require endless hardware updates and add-ons. The only thing that let's the slim down is the external PSU and lack of BR/HD DVD.
 
There would have been severe supply constraints similar to Sony's, only worse, since MS didn't control their own supply of diodes, but technically, if the XBox had launched in June, it might have limped along.

Well one console launched with severe supply constraints and the other didn't ;)

In terms of technical specs, then no, the streaming rate would still not have been high enough. HD DVD never got past 2x (And it's 2x is a lower data rate than BD's 2x, from lower bit density), but even if it had, it would have been much later than 2006.

MS were desperate not to include the HDD as standard, to release a cheap console to get as much penetration as possible...if they had gone the Sony route they could have gone with HD DVD I'm sure most would be OK with having the extra functionality for the price of a bit of loading time...but I guess the desire to get out ASAP meant an add-on was the only option.
 
No, in the timeframe of 2005 HD DVD was not an option, and since you can't retroactively upgrade a console (note the PS3 is still using a 2x drive, despite much faster drives being available), DVD was the correct, and only, choice.

can't?

The PS3 is 2x because there's no reason to upgrade, however putting a HD DVD into an X360 would mean the user had the option to play HD DVD films (at least) and devs the option to use more space...but wait, if devs had that option then maybe more games would have required 2 disks...something MS didn't want.
 
The solution was to go into the dashboard, clear the game cache and the game would load normally.

I don't know if it was the MS caching system that was broken or Bungie made a bug. The whole thing resembled the Oblivion caching bug (where you had to hold down 'A' during boot to clear the cache).

This is not an experience that is exclusive to Halo 3 or Oblivion. It might have to do with the OS clearing older data (be it from DVD or game updates) when you play a certain number of different other games, so there may be some bad fragmentation depending on the data set combinations at play.

It might be worth keeping in mind the nature of the hardware itself: ancient and small capacity hard drives...
 
...if they had gone the Sony route they could have gone with HD DVD I'm sure most would be OK with having the extra functionality for the price of a bit of loading time...
And an extra $150 on the price. You seem to be completely ignoring the fact cutting edge blue-laser drives were extremely expensive and there's a reason PS3 cost an arm and a leg and reason why MS were very able to undercut Sony's pricepoint. Do you really think XB360 launching 6 months later and as expensive as a PS3 would have done MS any favours?

High capacity drives were not an option for any platform releasing before PS3. PS3 launched the moment mass-produced HD drives were available, and got delayed in its launch as a result. Anyone wanting a certain launch date a year in advance wouldn't contemplate using a technology not available and without any guarantees of availability for any specific time-frame after intended launch date. Furthermore including HDDVD as standard would ahve dumped MS in the missle of a format war they cared nothing about. They did offer HDDVD when it was available as an option for those who wanted the added value, and thankfully for all of us the format war was quick and relatively painless.
 
I'm a bit surprised the argument is still being put forward that the 360 launched too soon and without slow HD media and a mandatory HDD. It's far more likely it would have fatally wounded the 360 from day one.

A more sensible argument could be made that Sony launched late and with an overspecced machine, and that if they had used DVD they could have launched in 2005, wouldn't have needed a HDD to prop up the Bluray drive, wouldn't have been supply constrained by the optical drive, could have taken away MS's cost advantage, could have stopped the 360 becoming entrenched with developers, could have avoided shabby ports, could have got Cell development up to speed earlier and would have basically won.

And if Sony had gone with DVD in 2005, they wouldn't now be complaining that no-one is taking advantage of Bluray! :p
 
A bit of revisionist history? Both 360 and PS3 launched with supply constraints for several months.

Agreed. Lets not forget that Sony had to delay the Euro launch of the PS3 due to lack of supply and that ultimately Sony was suppose to launch during spring 06 not holiday 06. The PS3 was far more supply constrained than the 360.
 
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Well, it's hard to be supply-constrained when you're demand-constrained. :p

Touche!

How do you figure? Mandatory installs are a direct result of the inadequate performance of the optical drive.

Because all games would have to be BC with the slower speeds meaning faster units wouldn't gain any advantage - I don't think mandatory installs are 100% because of the slower HDD. there's plenty of games that do no installing and the load times are comparable (from rubbish memory)...however I do believe it helps devs get around some other issues and many saves them time and effect.
 
Agreed. Lets not forget that Sony had to delay the Euro launch of the PS3 due to lack of supply and that ultimately Sony was suppose to launch during spring 06 not holiday 06. The PS3 was far more supply constrained than the 360.

Well in my defence I was talking about 'on the ground' from day of sale - I had to wait for my pre-order of X360 and then when I finally got it (having turned down a core as there were no HDDs to be had due to shortages) I then couldn't get a lead for love or money - well, I could have for stupid money off eBay. Conversely the PS3 had no such issues at launch (probably due to lower demand and higher price)...also the sockets were standard HDMI & PS2 compatible so no issues with accessories.

Maybe it was different for different areas but I recall quite a difference where I live.
 
How do you figure? Mandatory installs are a direct result of the inadequate performance of the optical drive.
More like it's a direct result of having a mandatory hard drive. If every 360 shipped with a hard drive I'd bet you'd see more flexibility on mandatory installs from Microsoft.

Blu-ray is advantageous for the PS3 but the content isn't there, and will probably never come in the form of a multiplatform title. Really it's up to Sony first parties and third party exclusives to take advantage of this. I recall Tetsuya Nomura once saying that FF Versus XIII would be exclusive to the PS3 and that developers working on it were tailoring the game content for Blu-ray. Given the large open world structure the game seems to exhibit this could mean huge continuous game worlds that maximize Blu-ray capacity.

Let's also remember that in a year's time Wii U will launch with higher capacity discs. Depending on how strong Microsoft's position in the market is, we may see multiplatform titles offer larger game worlds on high capacity discs if such releases aren't held back by the 360.
 
Actually I think it is also again a direct result of Sony's weakness in software support. Considering how simple it is to do clever streaming from BD to HDD to Memory etc, they should have put examples of this in their SDK day one. Compare this with Microsoft who put a lot of effort into making life easy for developers who just target the optical drive, and then get caching improvements for free on 360s that do have a harddrive.

For their next generation, they should combine their best studios with some of the weaker and multi-platform 'customers'.
 
Actually I think it is also again a direct result of Sony's weakness in software support. Considering how simple it is to do clever streaming from BD to HDD to Memory etc, they should have put examples of this in their SDK day one. Compare this with Microsoft who put a lot of effort into making life easy for developers who just target the optical drive, and then get caching improvements for free on 360s that do have a harddrive.

For their next generation, they should combine their best studios with some of the weaker and multi-platform 'customers'.
Are you sure that hard drive caching isn't part of the SDK or edge tools or provided somewhere in some library? I mean given that Naughty Dog does hard drive caching and they're the ones that write the edge tools I'd be surprised at this point if it weren't provided by Sony.

Also caching isn't quite the same as a partial install. See Carmack's keynote at quakecon 2011. It's weird how on 360 you can't have partial installs, which would help those with smaller hard drives, but you can do full installs on games. Carmack recommends you do a full install for Rage, which at a whopping 22 GB is bigger than the original 360 hard drive. Whereas on PS3 there's mandatory partial installs but no option for full installs. This makes absolutely no sense since the PS3 is the console with easily upgradable storage.
 
Except Joker was talking about BRD performance on current games that are DVD-size. For a 6GB game, according to that quote PS3's drive should provide better seek times than 360's DVD drive.

At the end of the day take a genuine bonified game, run it on both drives and time it, the dvd drive will be faster. Feel free to ask around about that, I have yet to have anyone tell me their game loads slower on dvd unless they compare it to hdd+bluray.


A more sensible argument could be made that Sony launched late and with an overspecced machine, and that if they had used DVD they could have launched in 2005, wouldn't have needed a HDD to prop up the Bluray drive, wouldn't have been supply constrained by the optical drive, could have taken away MS's cost advantage, could have stopped the 360 becoming entrenched with developers, could have avoided shabby ports, could have got Cell development up to speed earlier and would have basically won.

Yup I agree there except early games would have probably still been weak because presumably if they launched sooner then their tools would have been even worse than what they were, and there still would have been the rsx and low memory situation to contend with.


Actually I think it is also again a direct result of Sony's weakness in software support.

Definitely, but they learned the hard way about that this gen, I suspect next gen will be very different. Unfortunately though that doesn't remedy their other weaknesses, like lack of a cohesive strategy going forwards. In my mind they don't seem to have a long term plan to content with whats coming from the opposition.
 
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