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PlayStation (Games) Sony The Almighty Buck

Rumor Control on the PS3's Pricetag 60

Posted by Zonk from the lotsa-bucks dept.
Gamespot's 'Rumor Control' this week is pretty interesting, covering the topics of the PS3's supposedly high pricetag, the possibility of the 360 coming pre-loaded with games, and a confirmation of the Inquirer story we ran earlier regarding the cost of ATI's exclusivity agreement with Valve. From the article (re the 360 preloaded game): "The preloaded 'game' in question is actually an interactive application titled Neon, created by lightsynth guru Jeff Minter of Llamasoft. The program is a music visualizer, similar to that used on Apple's iTunes, in that it creates psychedelic patterns and colors based on sound that is fed through the system (which in this case will be music on the 360's 'outrigger' hard drive or a portable music device)."
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Rumor Control on the PS3's Pricetag More

Rumor Control on the PS3's Pricetag

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  • So we're now up to the 3D0 days.

    Shame. I think the viz on my 3DO was one of the better ones to date.
    • "Shame. I think the viz on my 3DO was one of the better ones to date."

      Supposedly the Jaguar CD (remember,the old Atari faux 64 bit system?) had the best light synth. Interestingly enough, it was done by Jeff Minter.
      • The light synth on the Jaguar CD did indeed own. It was worth getting the cd attachment just for that. Which is fortunate, as there weren't really any cd games worth purchasing made for the system ... Minter also made Tempest 2000, which was probably one of the better games for the system (and probably the best selling game for the console). T2k is the only reason why I still have it sitting around here somewhere...

        Jeff Minter is to light synths as id is to first person shooters, so it shouldn't be surp
        • > there weren't really any cd games worth purchasing made for the system

          Believe it or not, Battlemorph was a great game. Even the critics agreed on that one...


          • >> there weren't really any cd games worth purchasing made for the system
            >
            >Believe it or not, Battlemorph was a great game. Even the critics agreed on that one...

            I agree, Battlemorph was good. Iron Soldier 2 was also pretty good. But that about does it for Jag CD games. (Good ones, anyway.)

            Now back to the topic at hand - the VLM (Virtual Light Machine) built into the JagCD was quite incredible. I've seen many imitators on the PC, but none seemed to look quite as good (especially full screen
            • I didn't even know there was an IS2 ... :) I loved the first one.

              The Geise Winamp plugin on the PC is probably as close to the VLM as you'd find, but it really isn't in the same league.

              Believe it or not, audio visualation has been present on just about every cd-based console, though it hasn't been terribly great nor well advertised. It is good to see someone put a decent effort into it again (they even found the same guy to do it as the JagCD! :)).

              • Believe it or not, audio visualation has been present on just about every cd-based console

                What I've seen on other consoles has been so simplistic and uninteresting I'm surprised anybody bothered to call them visualizations. I suppose I am being harsh, but I guess having seen the VLM before seeing the others in action kinda ruined me for other console visualizers. :-)
  • ...that someone put visualizations on a game console for playing CDs, dunno why they didn't do it sooner.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • G-Force isn't Winamp's... It was originally only for mac in the beginning (I think Audion and SoundJam) and later was ported to iTunes, Winamp, WMP, and every other windows and mac audio player.

        I also like whitecap (also written by Mr. Andy O'Meara). I just wish he'd combine whitecap with G-Force's foreground geometry thingie.

      • I'm not sure if the Xbox (1) visualiser even actually reacts to the music, it's just a pretty screensaver.

        The Xbox 360 visualiser does look incredible though, some info, screenshots and movies [llamasoft.co.uk], although I haven't used either of the visualisers you mentioned.

        Of course Microsoft are tempting fate with the curse of Jeff Minter. They're doooooooooomed!

    • The later revisions of the original gray-box PlayStation also had a controllable visualizer that you could activate by pressing 'select' while playing a CD. It was actually pretty cool for something stupid you would never use. I was kinda surprised that the PS2 doesn't do anything similar. That block is kinda stupid, I think, but all my music is MP3s, so what should I care?
    • because you'd be out of your mind putting stress on your $200 game console's optical drive rather than your $20 CD player's optical drive? just a thought.
    • You could find visualizations on the Saturn too. Saturn had a star field and spaceship theme. The Saturn also could shift the pitch of your music without altering the speed and could drop out the voices so you could sing karaoke.
      • Xbox Media Center has been doing this as well for some time. Microsoft is always King in ripping shit off and acting as if they have 'innovated'. I like the interview with Balmer saying that, "The Open Source community hasn't really provided that much innovation." Yeah, we only took your xbox and actually made it do things people would actually want to use it for.

        If you look at the Xbox 360, it's actually just all the things that made a chipped xbox awesome, mixed with some better(we'll see) graphics.
    • This has been pretty much standard fair since consoles started shipping with the ability to play CDs. The 3D0 and Atari Jaguar had it, the PS1 had it, the PS2 has it, the Xbox has it ...
      • Interestingly, the ill-fated Atari Jaguar CD addon actually had this feature built into its hardware. It basically projected a fancy looking light show from the drive while audio CDs were playing.

        Obviously wasn't appealing enough that people actually decided to buy it though.


        • Interestingly, the ill-fated Atari Jaguar CD addon actually had this feature built into its hardware. It basically projected a fancy looking light show from the drive while audio CDs were playing.
          Obviously wasn't appealing enough that people actually decided to buy it though.

          Actually, many people HAVE bought it, just for this feature. But back in the day? Consider that to use the JagCD, you had to already own the Jaguar. And if you didn't own one, you were talking about a $250 investment in hardware ($1
        • Even more amusing, the VLM in the JagCD addon was written by the same guy who's doing the light synth for the Xbox360 ...
    • The XBMC [xboxmediacenter.de] guys just recently (past couple months) added the incredible Milkdrop viz.

      It's one of the best vizes ever! If you don't like it, you can choose from 10 others.
  • Quiet, you. [pressthebuttons.com] The PS3 does not exist. We don't know anything about such a console.

    Damn Sony Jedi mind tricks.

  • Submitter is wrong. (Score:4, Informative)

    by kryogen1x ( 838672 ) on Saturday July 09, 2005 @05:05PM (#13022840)
    ...a confirmation of the Inquirer story we ran earlier regarding the cost of ATI's exclusivity agreement with Valve.

    The article uses the word "probably" when discussing the agreement. Since when is "probably true" make something confirmed fact?

  • Hm. Astroturf much? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 09, 2005 @05:19PM (#13022905)
    So the submission title says that Playstation 3 isn't going to be expensive, then the submission body is being critical of the Xbox 360. Hello, fanboy article submitters.

    Anyway, Sony has become their own worst enemy with the Playstation 3. It's pretty obvious that they were forced to announce the PS3 because of the Xbox 360 announcement. They've now got a marketing nightmare where interest in the PS3 could peak too soon if they're not careful - because of their glacial pace, they're going to be seen as being late to the next-gen party:

    (1) They don't want to be talking about the PS3 because they're not ready [pressthebuttons.com]:

    While speaking at ELSPA's International Games Summit in London last week, Reeves declared that the Sony PlayStation 3 is going "underground" until next year. You heard the man: no more talk of this PS3 nonsense. Everyone go pick up a new PlayStation 2, I guess, and stock up on PlayStation Portables while you can.

    (2) The president of Sony Computer Entertainment himself said that it would likely be expensive [shacknews.com]:

    He said the PS3 is "for consumers to think to themselves 'I will work more hours to buy one'. We want people to feel that they want it, irrespective of anything else." Take that however you want, but the impression it gives off is that consumers may be a bit surprised at its price tag. Analysts have been pegging it at just under $500 to build with Sony selling it at $399.

  • Wait, did you way Nuon? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Psykechan ( 255694 ) on Saturday July 09, 2005 @05:52PM (#13023069)
    "The preloaded "game" in question is actually an interactive application titled Neon, created by lightsynth guru Jeff Minter of Llamasoft.

    I find the name rather funny since the last console projects to contain a Jeff Minter light show built in tanked rather hard.

    Granted I can appreciate the Nuon [nuon-dome.com] and even the Jaguar CD [cheek.org] slightly but I'm really hoping for the 360 to die a miserable death. I can only see Minter's VLM as being another nail in the coffin.

    My apologies to Jeff Minter. I don't wish him bad, I just think he ties himself to doomed projects.
    • Heh, yeah

      Jeff Minter rocks though. After breaking out my old Jeff Minter games, I decided to find out what he is up to on the web. Looks like this visualization stuff and raising various lluvable llamas (and goats, and other stuff), same as always.

      For those less Minter-aware, he wrote Attack of the Mutant Camels, and a lot of other trippy games way back when.
  • Wait, wtf? I RTFA this, which starts off talking about the PS3's price tag, then goes into talking about some developer and a visualizer he is making for it. What does that have to do with anything? Then, the rest seems to talk about 'the 360.' Why does half of it talk about the 'the 360,' when the article is about the PS3 (By Sony, not M$).

    WTF did I miss?
    • This is a link to Gamespot's "Rumor Control" feature. It generally goes through three or four rumors a week, depending on how many came out, and addresses their feasibility. In this case, the above summary is about Rumor #4 only, and it is ruled to be bogus. The other rumors surround the X Box 360, and aren't addressed in the summary.
  • The rumor (at least the only real legitimate rumor) about the PS3 price tag has been $399.

    From, among others, the site that this article is on.

    And alas, no debunking of the $399 tag.

    Instead, there's a nicely created straw man argument that the PS3 is going to be "the most expensive console ever", and the straw man is beaten down by name-dropping the 3DO.

    As if any of this changes the real issue - distinct possibility of the PS3 being a full $100 more expensive than a $299 Xbox 360.

    • Don't worry, you'll probably have to buy the Xbox 360 in a bundle with two shitty games you didn't want in the first place, so that'll even things out.

      It's worth $100 not to give any more set top box marketshare than is absolutely necessary to Microsoft anyway.
      • You'll have to do the same for the PS3 and by the time the PS3 goes on sale the X360 will no longer be regarded the "hot item" that's going to sell out no matter what by the stores and they will no longer push stupid bundles on you. The stores put those bundles together when they believe the customer has no choice but to buy the bundle or forget about getting the system for the next few months. Once demand falls below supply the stores will actually have to compete for the customer's money as he can just ch
  • I'm in awe of how quick Gamespot is to dismiss the idea of a game, or multiple games, being preinstalled on the Xbox 360. One of Microsoft's big plans is for their Xbox Live Marketplace and the Xbox Live Arcade for more "casual" gaming. I would refer folks over to this article [winsupersite.com] which is one fellow's introduction to a bunch of the 360's Xbox Live capabilities (the article reads somewhat like a fanboyish droolfest but there are some interesting tidbits about the 360 UI). It's specifically mentioned that the
  • Every platform Jeff Minter has worked on for the past fifteen years has ended up in trouble. Even Nintedo felt the pinch, slipping into 3rd place in the current gen rankings after Jeff began developing for the Game Cube. The man writes great software, but he has the touch of death.
    • To be fair, the platforms he's worked on were already underdogs when he started on them - it's not like he hopped on board a popular platform and it suddenly fell apart.

      Besides, I don't think there's going to be any way the 360 is going to flop - as long as there aren't any critical flaws in the hardware, it will definitely be bigger than the Xbox was.

      Of course, if it does end up flopping, then I think it will be quite clear he does have that touch of death - but I'm hoping not!

  • At $299, it's a bargain! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by superultra ( 670002 ) on Sunday July 10, 2005 @05:14PM (#13028584) Homepage
    This kind of early speculation is kind of useless, because it's all PR right now. Isn't it entirely possible that Sony is using the sub-press to float around a $399 number, then later when they announce the console at $299 gamers and industry will think it's a bargain. By spreading rumors that the console is $399, they're placing a value on it higher than what the xbox is without actually committing to a price point. Hell, why wouldn't you do that?

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