Be Excellent To Each Other

I think providing women with voice command interfaces just teaches them to have unrealistic levels of expectation.

I have a quiet, well-built Htpc. But I also have 2 living rooms.

BeeX - create a problem, solve a problem.

That is just posh...

His and hers? Or one for the Summer and one for the Winter?

One for the family, one for the servants.

I wonder if MS will dump subscriptions or reduce the costs if they start making enough money through none game media? I say this because if people see this as a media device that plays games they stand the chance of selling to more people for many more reasons and making more $$$.

Pure speculation but I could see that model working if it's the media side they're after.

I only mention it because there have been rumours of exactly that. Whether it'll be any fucking good or not is a different matter of course.

As for media playback, we currently use the PS3 because it's an easy way to get HD content (i.e. Bluray discs and downloaded MKV files) onto the big screen so anything that didn't do at least that is a step backwards for me; although it's certainly it's game playing capabilities I'm concerned with first and foremost so as long as it does that well nothing else is a deal-breaker. I will buy some small form PC and stick it under the TV if I really need to but if I can do that from a games-playing box of some kind then it's an undeniable advantage.

On that note, why do people (i.e. Grimm) think you're more likely to get better media functionality from Sony than MS? The last time I looked at this getting MKV content onto the Xbox was a transcoding nightmare compared to the PS3 and the PS3's played most everything I've thrown at it (avi, mp4); is that likely to change in the next gen or some reason?

I think it depends where your getting the files , although both systems do some subscription based (or free) streaming services there seems to be a lot more choice and a much better integration for the Xbox over the PS3 , and even just looking at the Xbox dash you can see thats something that Microsoft are putting a lot of effort into.

Yes the 360 built in media playing is not as good as the PS3 but that tends to be more for <cough> downloaded items :-)

I don't, I think you're far less likely... Wait - the first sentence doesn't tie in with the second.

Anyway, MS are more likely to let you play loads of video formats because they don't own a film company, and Sony does. The PS3 certainly doesn't play .mkv files (or it didn't used to, at least. Mine does, but it's all hacked up to do that).

Well, okay, it doesn't play MKV directly but you can convert them to AVCHD directly with no transcoding in about thirty seconds so it's as good as. The Xbox, when I last looked into it, totally didn't and you were left lengthily transcoding to fucking HD-WMV or whatever. MS may not own a film company but they do own lots of proprietary media formats that they've always tried to push onto people over the more widely used formats so there's reason to be pessimistic on that side as well.

They did that for the Xbox original. No DVD playback without the remote.



"enough"?

That's certainly true. Probably not going to be great news either way.

You'd arguably be better off with a cheap PC based around an AMD APU chip.

You'll get roughly the same amount of horsepower for roughly the same amount of money, in about the same sort of 'space and noise' footprint, but have the freedom of a completely open operating system and far cheaper games.

As it stands it looks like the choice for the next-gen will be to buy into a completely closed Microsoft or Sony console ecosystem, who will be free to fuck around with the user experience as they see fit (HAVE MORE ADVERTS MOTHERFUCKERS!), restrict access to some sorts of media playback, demand subscriptions for x, y and z etc etc, the games will cost more as well, and there'll be a more limited range to choose from.

I'm still undecided, but in some regards I don't think the wind is blowing in a favourable direction for the next generation of consoles, as all signs point towards Sony and Microsoft trying to extract as much money as possible for anything they can.

I still use my 360 on a reasonably regular basis, and I'm pretty fucked off with how GAMES has become about the fourth most important thing it's for according to the list of stuff along the menu. The last time it updated itself it took me a little while to even find my XBLA games. And there's another thing, as something of an 'occasional' player by standard metrics, it seems that every time I turn it on it wants to update itself, and the dashboard changes and there are fucking adverts everywhere, and then if I want to play a game that needs to patch itself as well.

With the Steam Box on the horizon along with Linux support (no Windows needed!), and Steam's Big Picture mode being so damn good (it's actually focused on GAMES!) - there's potentially a case for my next games console being a Steam Box instead.

Not if you want Xbox Live fun, though.

Well therein lies the 'critical mass problem' I suppose, for me it's a done deal since all my 'live' gaming mates (i.e. we actually play together rather than just high score table jostle) are already Steam users anyway, so we'd have to make an active decision to migrate back to XBox Live.

What I'm saying is that potentially, you could get a group of players like the BEEX regulars, and say 'Hang on guys, looking at this logically, we can get something better for less money and retain all the functionality of XBox Live, what do you reckon?.....'

Enough as in they'll make more money by being more open. There must be a pay off point with being able to attract more customers? Perhaps the ability to offer more content is enough instead.

I don't give a shit about any of the other stuff Xbox Live offers me - it's all done better by my computer.

They're doing it because it makes them a shitload of money:
http://penny-arcade.com/report/editoria ... dvertising

$30CPM for a targeted ad? We should totally run a Beex campaign.

Is CPM "Cost per minute"?

Cost per 1000 impressions I believe.

Oh and yes. $100 for 3000ish targetted ads, could be hilarious

Right?

Female gamers, 21-25 years old, please.

I'm sure they don't give you access to their names, addresses and access to their Kinnect Cameras Grimm...

...hang on, I've just had an idea for MS to make even more monies.

Maybe you should charge people £2 a month to use the forum and then you could put this money towards advertising?

Why is everyone calling me "Grimm..." (or, worse, "Grimm") all of a sudden?

Maybe you listen to a lot of grindcore lately, and they're confusing you with Davydd.

The TV show?

The extra m is for 'manly'

Recursive acronym: Grimm Rakes In Much Money.

Maybe it's something to do with the cost per thousand Grim...s?

Because you're yuMMy.

And you put you're love all over Craster's tuMMy.

My are love what?

You are love.

Now that we've found Grimm...,
What are we going to do,
With hi-im?

With the new Xbox, PS4 plus Ouya, Shield, Edge and Steambox it's all feeling a little 1993 for me again.

Sony have started a countdown to an announcement !

http://www.examiner.com/article/sony-te ... laystation



http://gamingbolt.com/sony-to-announce- ... ruary-20th

What happened to the 10 year life span of the PS3? I mean, I know that the PS3 will still be around but it won't be the main focus of Sony with the PS4 out will it?

The PS2 got support long after the PS3 came out. It shifted a bit more casual, with stuff like Buzz and Singstar, but there was proper games too.

In fact, FIFA 13 and Madden 12 both came out on the PS2.

Sony have done quite a few PS3/Vita cross releases too, I'd not be surprised if many Vita games get an upscaled PS3 port, maybe on a disc or just as a download.

They certainly do a better job of supporting their previous consoles than either Nintendo or Microsoft.

It *was* launched in 2006 (in Japan). So it could easily reach 10 years of usable life during the overlap to the next gen.

Also, the Super Slim just came out.

Which had the look and feel of a bargain basement run-out model, even if the price tag disagreed.

Well exactly, every hardware redesign Sony do is to cut costs. They spend a bunch of money designing a new model to reduce component and manufacturing costs. It's an indication that they plan on selling it for quite a long time still.

Although it was only this year that they announced they were no longer making PS2's ?

Also regardless of what they announce its unlikely we're going to get our hands on anything in the next 8 or 9 months ?

Also for those asking about age and 10 year plans etc

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStatio ... .282013.29

Playstation 1 - launched 1994
Playstation 2 - launched 2000 (along with the psone)
Playstation 3 - launched in 2006 (the slimline Ps2 was launched 2004 but the last hardware revision with a smaller PSU was 2008)

They only stopped making the PS2 last month.

Cock!

No PS4 for Christmas

But you might be able to get a NeXBOX instead

Given the way the marker share is right now (Xbox winning in US / PS3 winning here) why would Sony screw over Europe like that

Obvious answer is 'because they can' or 'because they are Sony and they screw everything up'

A touchpad! A share button! What more could we dream of?