New Launch

[heatray5d]

This is the second sample.


New Launch
All three next generation consoles have been announced, their specifications delineated, tech demos displayed for the drooling appreciation of fanboys and Wal-Mart reps around the world. And so we enter a new era in which video games are so realistic they actually kick you in the junk before you can even turn on your Playstation 3.

Seriously. NFL 2007 is going to be so real, Tom Brady will actually come to your house and play catch with you.

Any venue in which some know-it-all claims to write authoritatively about video games will inevitably be accused to playing favorites with the big three, so I'm going to get that out of the way right now and tell you I prefer Nintendo. I have no reason for this other than the sentimental. Well, and the overwhelming superiority of their games.

And let's face it: if you're a gamer the Revolution has got to be looking pretty damn sexy right now. If Nintendo is to be believed, you'll be able to download and play their entire back catalog for a nominal per game fee. That's a launch roster of hundreds (possibly thousands) of great games, some fifty or sixty of which are not Pokémon titles.

I try not to be anti-Xbox. A lot of people sneer at the Xbox because it's a Microsoft product, and as you all know, Microsoft killed Princess Di to shore up support for its landmine division. Let's face it though kids, being anti-M$ because it's a giant, evil corporation when the most common alternative is Sony is like dumping Mary Kate for Ashley. And the Xbox 360 (so called because that's what you can expect to pay if you preorder now!) is a mighty fine machine, despite the fact that it looks like my refrigerator's sexy little sister, and the in-game footage I've seen so far doesn't look like much at all.

Then there's the Playstation, a machine I have had a meaningful, loving relationship with in various iterations ever since the first Wipeout and Resident Evil games. The PS3 is the clear winner as far as hardware goes, and it's the only console among the three that finally gives us all the chance to dust off those two extra high-definition televisions that've just been sitting in the garage all these years. I can't wait.

Your PS3 will also feature controllers that, if you attach a blade to one side, can be used to defend your post-apocalyptic desert stronghold from weirdo motorcycle fetishists, and enough USB ports that you'll want to plug things into it just because you can.

The feature of all three consoles that has the Luddite in me up in arms is wireless controllers. As much as I *heart* my Wavebird, there's something unholy about wireless controllers. It's probably just a function of age, but I worry about the demons that will flit back and forth between my joypad and the blank faces of my next gen consoles conveying my orders to Spiderman, et al, will escape their narrow mandates and infect my brain.

Comments

[popetom.livejournal.com]

Actually the biggest problem I have found with wireless controllers is that they are easily confounded by chubby house pets. Much like when I lay out clean clothing I plan on wearing for a night out on my bed my cat decides that that is the same spot on the bed she needs to lay. When I've used some form of wireless controller (at the moment limited to a dance pad) that is when the same above chubby cat decides that the best place to nap is right in front of the PS2.

-PT

[heatray.livejournal.com]

That dance pad's an IR controller though. The Wavebird for the Nintendo Gamecube (and I assume all next gen controllers) are radio-based, which means you should be able to continue playing when you go to another room or even, conceivably, outside, provided you have enough mirrors and the wherewithal to arrange them so that you can see the screen.

IR controllers aren't fast enough for "twitch" games like fighters and FPS. I'm curious to know, however, how Sony's solved signal conflict at their level of market penetration. For Microsoft and Nintendo, it's not so much a problem, because you won't have as many people in a smallish area as there are available radio channels, but some dorms will be full of PS radio noise.

[popetom.livejournal.com]

Maybe the PS3 will ship with instruction on how to build a Faraday Cage around you gaming room for the best possibly game experience. Plus I think it's possible that doing so would also protect you from an EMP pulse in case there in an atomic war while you are playing the hottest new platformer. And it'll protect you, to a degree, from the governments mind controlling space lasers. That way Sony's embedded subliminal mind-control programing that is a mandatory part of all games published for their consoles will have a stronger effect and make us all better consumers.

Wait, was that a tangent?

:)

-PT

[chipadeedoodah]

This is way better.

BTW: The answer to your question is that since the PS2 is doing bluetooth, it doesn't need to worry about interference, since it's designed to run on the already interference-heavy 2.4Ghz band, if I'm informed correctly. Devices will, once told they are part of a network with a particular base unit, continue to interface with only that base unit until they're trusted somewhere else.

At least, this is how my palmpilot and PC do it.

On the other hand, one greedy 2.4Ghz phone can knock out an entire wireless LAN if it gets in too close to the base station, so it's not like wireless tech is flawless. Guess we'll just have to see.

[heatray.livejournal.com]

I thought so too.

So on a Bluetooth base station, do you need to approve devices, or do the devices approve themselves? Meaning, could I theoretically take my PS3 controller across the street, look in through my neighbor's window, register my controller on his machine, and then mess with him while he plays Dead or Alive 4 or whatever?

[chipadeedoodah]

From what I understand, it'll work similarly to your existing wireless keyboard/mice. Press the 'I want to associate button' on the base station, press the 'I want to associate' button on the controller, and bind them.

Sounds like mayhem potential to me!