The HDMI Conspiracy Theory...

[Carl B]

Chef I have no choice but to review your post history - your posts constitute half of the posts on any given page in any number of threads.

Anyway I think you're taking my comments the wrong way; it's just you seem always to want to sort of toss the ball around from one side of the court to the other when there's a discussion at play. That's something that will happen naturally anyway.

 

[TheChefO]

I'm not questioning the content of your posts so much as the frequency. Right now you're averaging ~10,000 posts a year at this rate and there are some thread pages where your posts represent over 50% of the posts on the page.

It's a little frightening.

ahh - lol ... What can I say - most of you guys are slow

 

[Blazkowicz]

Are you crazy? The number one complaint I heard from IGN, 1UP, Gamespot, etc after Sony's E3 conference was "this sounded nice the first time, when we heard it from Microsoft".

I mean, you can argue, the biggest copy going is Sony copying Live. Which we know they will do, right down to microtransactions, an XBLA type service, voice chat, right down to the guide button on the controller.

Sony even copied MS two SKU's hardware system, after explicitly claiming they wouldn't since it "confused consumers".

A included HDD could be argued as a bit of a copy of Xbox, even. They copied the late Novemember launch date as well, and worldwide launch of 360 too.

Sony has copied arguably, many things about MS model, such as outsourcing production to flextronics type operations, right down to using GPU with PC lineage.

MS on the other hand NEVER hyped hi-def movies. Their stance was always, we're launching in 2005, that precludes us from including HD playback out of the box, simply due to time frame. After that let the chips fall where they may.

Sure, the 512MB thing was sort of a copy, I suppose. But it's more like, doing what it takes to be competitive. That's like saying Alienware copied Dell to put 1 GB RAM in their PC or something. RAM is not a copy.

By no means am I trying to make it sound like MS doesn't copy others, or whatever. Just pointing out some things.

Sega was first with GPU with PC lineage, they developed two versions of the Dreamcast : one with a 3DFX GPU, and the other one which ended being the final version, with a PowerVR GPU known on PC as Neon250.
And isn't XBLA a copy of Steam? did MS invent voice chat as well?

that said, back on topic : noone shoul whine about the lack of HDMI (and notably HDCP), it's a great thing! no HDCP crap till at least 31 december 2010, and even after that I doubt we'll see it (or the movie cartels will face consumer lawsuits)

 

[scooby_dooby]

Wait, from me? Because I'm not talking about trendsetting.

No not from you, I think LB deserves to be called out for these comments, and come back to us with some details an what exactly he's talking about.

My comment was to point out this is not an argument about who copied who, which you were alluding to, I agree wholeheartedly that's a pointless debate (i.e. who the F cares?) this is about the ridiculous claim that "MS's "me too" mentality is a bit embarrassing sometimes"

 

[London Geezer]

Whatever scooby. If you can't see what Sony started in the last 11 years in the console business, then there is seriously some ham in front of your eyes.

I don't think it should be made explicit what Sony have done for the console business in the last 11 years, something that MS still have failed to do.

And seriously, giving me bad rep for your lack of knowledge is very funny.

End of the day, you're not interested in the discussion, you're just interested, as usual, in painting Sony as the company which did absolutely nothing but evil in tha last 11 years, without even acknowledging that if it weren't for Sony, the console market would not have been mainstream enough from many other sides of the entertainment business for MS to be interested in entering it.

 

[TheChefO]

I'd say MS copying much of what ps2 set as standard in the games industry is a smart thing as that is what most gamers at this point are used to.

People are used to buying memory cards - check
People are used to paying $300 at launch - check
People are used to playing games on sdtv - check
People are used to wired controllers - check

There are other things that are not so good as well but to follow the model that has been proven highly successful (100million sold) is a very smart thing in my book. The other smart thing they did was ensure that if these standards don't live up to yours then you can upgrade.

 

[London Geezer]

Not that i feel i should explain myself to you, scooby, but maybe if you emotionally detached yourself from your buddy corporations enough to have an objective mind about conversations, you'd have read my further post, which obviously explains things a bit more, regardless of what was an admittedly bitchy comment that maybe i shouldn't have posted here, cause it obviously offended you on a personal level, which is a bit sad...

I was only commenting on the fact that MS should very well say "If Sony don't, we DO", instead they limit themselves by what Sony wants to do.
So what if the cheap PS3 don't have HDMI? How is that stopping MS to cover that area, even if Sony don't?
That's what i was commenting on, about "covering areas" the competition isn't covering without limit their product by what the competition has, nothing to do with "copying", because we all know that everyone copies everyone else anyway.

My post was never a negative remark against MS (not much anyway). It was more of an encouragment for them to think outside the box, to try and DO include things in their hardware regardless of what Sony are doing.

 

[TheChefO]

Whatever scooby. If you can't see what Sony started in the last 11 years in the console business, then there is seriously some ham in front of your eyes.

I don't think it should be made explicit what Sony have done for the console business in the last 11 years, something that MS still have failed to do.

And seriously, giving me bad rep for your lack of knowledge is very funny.

End of the day, you're not interested in the discussion, you're just interested, as usual, in painting Sony as the company which did absolutely nothing but evil in tha last 11 years, without even acknowledging that if it weren't for Sony, the console market would not have been mainstream enough from many other sides of the entertainment business for MS to be interested in entering it.

While I agree Sony did add positive things to the games market I would also say MS has been influential as well with the list that I posted previously. To say that they are merely following Sony's trend is to imply that everything up to this point that has gone into xbox/xbox360 is only up to the standards set by sony and nothing beyond which obviously isn't the case.

edited - LB you bring up an interesting point WRT reasoning for posting. Whether its emotional attachement or not, I myself find that dispelling false statements to be a lure I can't resist.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Whatever scooby. If you can't see what Sony started in the last 11 years in the console business, then there is seriously some ham in front of your eyes.

I don't think it should be made explicit what Sony have done for the console business in the last 11 years, something that MS still have failed to do.

And seriously, giving me bad rep for your lack of knowledge is very funny.

End of the day, you're not interested in the discussion, you're just interested, as usual, in painting Sony as the company which did absolutely nothing but evil in tha last 11 years, without even acknowledging that if it weren't for Sony, the console market would not have been mainstream enough from many other sides of the entertainment business for MS to be interested in entering it.

pretty funny how you have to go back 11 years to find examples of Sony setting the trend. Lets talk about NOW, I mean that IS what you were referring to in your post was it not? MS's 'me-too' attitude is embarassing in TODAY's marketplace?

I never said sony was evil (i have over 4000 posts and have never claimed sony was evil, exagerate much?) , I never said any of those things you are ranting on about, so how about you give that nonsesne a rest? It's pretty funny when I ask for a few simple examples of what you're talking about, and you bust into a rant about how much sony has done for the industry and how much I 'hate' them, why don't you just answer the question?

I asked you very simply, to give us your reasons for claiming MS has a 'me too' attitude, that is 'embarrassing.' If anyone is afraid of discussion it's you, because you seem to be unable to back up this claim with any examples whatsoever.

I ask you again, right now, in today's marketplace, what trends are Sony setting, and how is MS following them. It's a very simple question.

As for lack of knowledge, I spent many years gaming on PS1 and my own PS2, so what exactly do you think you know that I don't?

 

[drpepper]

I asked you very simply, to give us your reasons for claiming MS has a 'me too' attitude, that is 'embarrassing.' If anyone is afraid of discussion it's you, because you seem to be unable to back up this claim with any examples whatsoever.

I ask you again, right now, in today's marketplace, what trends are Sony setting, and how is MS following them. It's a very simple question.

As for lack of knowledge, I spent many years gaming on PS1 and my own PS2, so what exactly do you think you know that I don't?

I don't want to just jump into what appears to be a hot frying pan but in terms of me-too attitude wrt to MS, it's blatently obvious that MS has in the past shown that kind of strategy.

Windows
Internet Explorer
Xbox
MSN Network

These are the obvious examples I can think of.

I don't believe Sony is setting any trends today, just following what they consider a "winning" formula. so you have a point there.

IIRC scooby, you said you sold or gave away your PS2 after your dissapointment with MGS2:SOL. It must have been a short year of gaming on the PS2 eh?

 

[Subtlesnake]

MS's "me too" mentality is a bit embarrassing sometimes. Now that mentality has become a "If sony don't, we don't..."

God forbid they would at least try to do something different or even better than Sony!

Sony announced they would put 512MB RAM in PS3, MS announces they would increase X360 RAM to 512MB.

That wasn't an official announcement. The officially released specifications have always claimed that the Xbox 360 would have 512 MB of memory.

The decision to switch from 256 MB to 512 MB was completely internal, and it was made before the specifications of the PS3 were released. Now yes, one of the justifications was that they didn't want to fall behind the PS3 in the memory stakes, but equally they were heavily influenced by developers like Epic, who showed them the difference in terms of the actual content possible.

A team was set up to look at the issue because Robbie Bach wasn't prepared to make a decision based on a "best guess" and following the recommendation of the team, they decided switch to 512 MB. This would cost them $900 Million over the console's lifetime. Spending this money meant they had to cut back elswhere.

So I don't think it's fair to say they only made the decision in response to Sony. Clearly there was a reasoned decision making process involved, and they made the final choice based on the actual benefit to the consumer.

Sony shows an active interest in HD movies, MS starts playing games with HDDVD.

They'd already considered HD DVD and decided that they would release a separate HD DVD player if the market demanded it. Well, they've subsequently decided that the demand is there, so they're releasing it.

They've been entirely consistent.

The list goes on and on and on. I wouldn't mind if MS would at least try to do something more than Sony, but as it is they're stuck at "we'll only give you as much as Sony is giving you, nothing more!".

They're trying to carve out a different niche entirely, focusing on the online space, on the connections between players, on player individuality and customisation. They've pioneered a new distribution model over Xbox Arcade and the Marketplace, and they're expanding Live as a centralised hub for media distribution.

That's to say nothing about XNA, and their continuing attempt to improve the development process.

Now of course in the process of developing the console they've made similar decisions to Sony, but that doesn't mean they don't have a unique focus.

 

[scooby_dooby]

I don't want to just jump into what appears to be a hot frying pan but in terms of me-too attitude wrt to MS, it's blatently obvious that MS has in the past shown that kind of strategy.

Windows
Internet Explorer
Xbox
MSN Network

These are the obvious examples I can think of.

I don't believe Sony is setting any trends today, just following what they consider a "winning" formula. so you have a point there.

IIRC scooby, you said you sold or gave away your PS2 after your dissapointment with MGS2:SOL. It must have been a short year of gaming on the PS2 eh?

They are a software developer, you could acuse any software developer of a me too attitude as they ALL copy other programs in existence, that's the nature of software development. Regardless, we're not speaking about spoftware packages, of which MS has thousands, we're talking about the console space.

As for XBOX, they came in with an embedded HDD, and an embedded NIC, sorry but that's setting the trend far more than PS2 at the time which was nothing more than a continuation of PS1 (console + memory card.) And again, this is not relevant to the discussion, as we're talking about now.

btw - i sold it a while after red faction 1 came out, like jan. 2002, so the games played the most were MGS2, GT3, and Red Faction, a couple years ago I borrowed my roommates ps2 to play GT4 and FFX for a few months, and now I wanna borrow one again to play Kingdom Hearts, FF12 and GOW!! Also played TONS of ps1 back in the day, though I owned an N64.

 

[habbe]

As for XBOX, they came in with an embedded HDD, and an embedded NIC, sorry but that's setting the trend far more than PS2 at the time which was nothing more than a continuation of PS1 (console + memory card.) And again, this is not relevant to the discussion, as we're talking about now.

Well it isn't easy for microsoft to copy ps3 if it isn't released yet.

I still think London-boy statement has some truth to it, Sony announces that PS3 comes with nextgen media format and Microsoft tries to keep up...But it's like last generation when sony tryed to keep up with hdd and the network adapter.

And you mention something about setting trends, what new trend does the Xbox360 bring to the table ?

 

[Sis]

And you mention something about setting trends, what new trend does the Xbox360 bring to the table ?

Seriously? HD gaming, media streaming, and Xbox Live Arcade, just to name a few. (And some maybe not so good trends: multi-SKU approach and martketplace "points".)

EDIT: I would like to note that I believe it's VERY rare for a company to actually bring something new to the table. If any of the consoles are actually setting trends--as opposed to taking advantage of them--then Nintendo would be my pick.

 

[TheChefO]

Well it isn't easy for microsoft to copy ps3 if it isn't released yet.

I still think London-boy statement has some truth to it, Sony announces that PS3 comes with nextgen media format and Microsoft tries to keep up...But it's like last generation when sony tryed to keep up with hdd and the network adapter.

And you mention something about setting trends, what new trend does the Xbox360 bring to the table ?

simlutaneous worldwide launch
first out of the gate with next gen system
multiple sku
wireless controller available out of the box
console on/off from wireless controller (I love that)
AA
HD res standard

to name a few

edit - late

 

[habbe]

Ok.
if that is the definition o new trends, then i agree that Xbox360 brought somthing new.

I was under the impression that trends was something groundbreaking that has not been widley used in gaming industry before, like the marketplace points.

I have played hires games before and i am used to turn of my tv with the remote. (just kidding)

 

[TheChefO]

Ok.
if that is the definition o new trends, then i agree that Xbox360 brought somthing new.

I was under the impression that trends was something groundbreaking that has not been widley used in gaming industry before, like the marketplace points.

I have played hires games before and i am used to turn of my tv with the remote. (just kidding)

Hey remote on/off via console is the best!

So you agree with LB then that Sony is leading the way and MS is following? If so, perhaps you can illustrate this viewpoint for us?

 

[habbe]

So you agree with LB then that Sony is leading the way and MS is following? If so, perhaps you can illustrate this viewpoint for us?

Yes i do agree to an certain point.

From what i can see the big competition is between Microsoft and Sony, i think they will end up with biggest marketshare this generation.

And with Xbox360 at market now Sony has a big advantage to overcome with more/better features/specs and make an more featurepacked,powerfull console to the consumers. Just like Microsoft had the advantage last genereation(I think xbox did pretty good with no brand rekognition and the first console).

But i'm not saying that Sony will end up with the biggest marketshare, that's all about pricing,software, and so on.

 

[TheChefO]

Yes i do agree to an certain point.

From what i can see the big competition is between Microsoft and Sony, i think they will end up with biggest marketshare this generation.

And with Xbox360 at market now Sony has a big advantage to overcome with more/better features/specs and make an more featurepacked,powerfull console to the consumers. Just like Microsoft had the advantage last genereation(I think xbox did pretty good with no brand rekognition and the first console).

But i'm not saying that Sony will end up with the biggest marketshare, that's all about pricing,software, and so on.

I agree but how is MS following Sony's trends?

 

[habbe]

I agree but how is MS following Sony's trends?

As i said in an earlier post sony hypes an nextgen media support and microsoft tryes to keep up with there hddvd addon. And it was the other way around last gen(not the media format thou).

I feel like i repeating myself, Let's say that this moition sensing controllers would be a huge success don't you think MS will have that feature in there next consol ? (even thou i might be nintendo who is trend setter,or let's say sony will announce dlna features).

Don't you agree that they all brought someting to the table that will exist in all consoles nextnextgen ?