NVIDIA CEO backs Blu-Ray all the way

[marzetta7]

NVIDIA CEO backs Blu-Ray all the way

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=18528

"You cannot announce a game console for the next ten years and not have Blu-Ray" - Jen-Hsun Huang

NVIDIA's CEO has stated his confidence in the success of Sony's PlayStation 3 console, telling San Jose Mercury News journalist Dean Takahashi that the company has "backed the right horse" in the next-gen race.

Commenting on the company's decision to provide graphics processors for Sony, having previously worked with Microsoft to supply chips for the original Xbox, Huang stated: "You can't build chips for all the game consoles. That's not possible. No one has enough extraneous resources around to build chips for all the game consoles."

When asked if the company had "backed the right horse" in the latest console race, Huang was extremely confident in NVIDIA's commitment to Sony, adding: "I don't think that working with Sony is wrong. There is no way that is going to be wrong."

The CEO reaffirmed his belief in the success of Sony's Blu-Ray media format - in spite of the resultant high cost of the console compared to Microsoft's Xbox 360 or the Nintendo Wii - suggesting that the inclusion of Blu-Ray was integral to the hardware lifespan of the next-generation machine.

"I'm not sure how Microsoft is going to do in this transition," he stated. "They are clever and they will figure out a way. I'll make a prediction that Xbox 360 can't possibly be a DVD-only device by Christmas of next year.

"The important thing is you cannot announce a game console for the next ten years and not have Blu-Ray. It's an impossible scenario," Huang continued.

"If I'm going to buy a next-generation game console, I'm going to buy a console with next-generation media. It's going to last 10 years."

I have to say I'm in full agreement. I think Blu-ray has way too much going for it to fail. I think October will be the beginning of the end for HD DVD.

[JTK]

Originally Posted by marzetta7

NVIDIA CEO backs Blu-Ray all the way

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=18528



I have to say I'm in full agreement. I think Blu-ray has way too much going for it to fail. I think October will be the beginning of the end for HD DVD.

Most likely, but this all depends on the BDA getting the codec and transfer issues of these early releases ironed out.

[hmurchison]

I have absolutey no idea what he's trying to say. Honestly. His point is about as clear as mud.

The killer feature of these nexten consoles isn't the optical drive or even the graphics. It's who can build the best online infrastructure that brings the fans and cash in droves.

No gamer cares about the specs once the gameplay has started. I think Huang is basically showing his ignorance of networking. With internet connected consoles you don't need a huge optical drive you just sync the stuff you need via the "Net.

With SFF drives we're currently at 200GB. I wonder why we need optical drives at all. The next consoles will likely have flash memory for basic console features and a HDD at 500GB for storing games and loading new features and other ancillary items. This is the way you keep the content fresh and dynamic. Locking stuff on a plastic disc only serves to ensure that content remains static and stagnant after a while.

[JTK]

More than anything else: It's all about the games, first and foremost. It doesn't matter how good the hardware is if you don't have the content to back it up and make it all worthwhile.

A lot of Sony's rhetoric forces me into believing that they've lost focus of this concept, at least to a point.

[BTBuck1]

Originally Posted by JTK

More than anything else: It's all about the games, first and foremost. It doesn't matter how good the hardware is if you don't have the content to back it up and make it all worthwhile.

A lot of Sony's rhetoric forces me into believing that they've lost focus of this concept, at least to a point.

Sony's philosphy around gaming has always been...

"throw enough shit at the wall, and some is bound to stick"

They release games like there is no tomorrow, and thats how they've been successful. I think i read there is over 6 thousand ps2 games released to date! that gotta be some kind of a record.

Other companies that did this that where successful:

Nintendo NES
Nintendo SNES
Sega Genesis
Microsoft in 2003,4 XBOX
Gameboys=all
Atari2600

Those that didn't:

Sega Saturn, dreamcast
NEC Turbografx (funny the pc engine in japan did well, oh yeah it had thousands of games)
Panasonic 3do
nintendo gamecube
Every atari after the 2600
Coleco
Odyssey

^Sad i've owned all these and more....

[JTK]

Originally Posted by Brian@BBY

Sony's philosphy around gaming has always been...

"throw enough shit at the wall, and some is bound to stick"

This is some pretty expensive "shit" at $500-$600. That's some pretty nice upgrades for my PC.

They release games like there is no tomorrow, and thats how they've been successful. I think i read there is over 6 thousand ps2 games released to date! that gotta be some kind of a record.

Quality, not quantity brother.

I know what you mean, though.

Sony will be fine if they can get the big dogs rolling like MGS4 in a timely manner and games like that. Games like that are system sellers.

Other companies that did this that where successful:

Nintendo NES
Nintendo SNES
Sega Genesis
Microsoft in 2003,4 XBOX
Gameboys=all
Atari2600

Those that didn't:

Sega Saturn, dreamcast
NEC Turbografx (funny the pc engine in japan did well, oh yeah it had thousands of games)
Panasonic 3do
nintendo gamecube
Every atari after the 2600
Coleco
Odyssey

^Sad i've owned all these and more....

Yeah...me, too.

[BTBuck1]

Originally Posted by JTK

This is some pretty expensive "shit" at $500-$600. That's some pretty nice upgrades for my PC.

I meant it on the software side of things, not the Hardware.

[AV_Integrated]

Originally Posted by hmurchison

Locking stuff on a plastic disc only serves to ensure that content remains static and stagnant after a while.

Strange - I thought putting the games on a plastic disc meant you could take it to your friends house to play it. I thought it meant that if your hard drive failed, you had to get a new game machine, not a new copy of all your games.



Really, disc based technologies may be on their way out the door, but disregarding the value of hard copies will never paint a complete picture of why the transition will be so difficult. Downloading HD content will be the future of HD... so why bother with HD disc technologies now? Because it isn't actually where people dream it will be... yet.

"Sorry son, I know we just got you a new online gaming system, but you'll have to wait 120 hours for the first game to download because we only have a dial-up Internet connection."

[no_wei]

i also think there's a lot to be said in terms of the psychology of consumerism.

often times, people buy things to have things. the gameplay will be astonishingly similar no matter how you get the data to your console, so i don't think that's going to be a major issue for most consumers. it's just nice to be able to actually have a 50-70 dollar product that you can hold, and take with you, and leave on your carefully-positioned shelf with all of your other 50-70 dollar products so that they impress all of your friends whenever they come over to your house. saying, "look at all the files i have in this directory" just isn't the same.

/no

[BTBuck1]

Originally Posted by no_wei

often times, people buy things to have things.

I take pride in my collections of DVD's, Games etc.

People out there aren't going to spend money on vapor. Who's going to buy a file off of you? what collecting is a thing of the past? never happen...not in my life.

The day Gaming goes file based only is the day they lose me as a customer for ever. Unless games are pennies on the dollar.(which i doubt)

[hmurchison]

I don't think we'll see the eradication of some sort of physical medium but what you will see is that more data will be pushed at the Net. Xbox Live is a pretty solid product and it's highly adaptable. The idea is to immerse the game player in a bunch of options that can be monitized.

Imagine carrying a flash card with carries the rights of games you've published so that a single flash could be taken to other game player households plugged in and all those games are available. Just like a CD but how much info do you really need to carry around.

Games should be skeltons and the Internet should be the life support system.

Huang seems to be saying that there is some functional limitations that cannot be overcome without Blu-Ray yet he doesn't support this statement with any empirical information. Do we need more local storage or can a network provide that we cannot have on disc?

In the next 5 years people with broadband will have 30Mb connections for what we pay today for 4-6Mb. It makes more sense to pool the resources of the net for distributing and updating content.

[no_wei]

it's also interesting that one of the best arguments the music industry could muster against music piracy was, "yeah, but you don't get the album cover art."

it's interesting now that most of the albums i download also include the cover art.

i think as content--be it music, movies, games, whatever--moves to a more digital base, the desire and justification to simply pirate it will increase.

i don't think it's any great secret that i put myself into the pirate category, but i also own hundreds, maybe even thousands of legitimate copies of various things. if the product is good, accessible, and fairly priced i don't have a problem paying for it.

theoretically, this does extend to purely digital content. i have, i admit, actually paid, via credit card over the net, for a few software applications i use and consider to be a very good value. in those instances, however, i believe i did pay less than i would of had i got the actual disc, yet nothing really prevented me from making my own hard copy of said software.

i'm actually very intrigued at the prospect of being able to download games from nintendo's entire back catalog with the wii, and i won't even mind paying for them. i will however, expect to pay only a few bucks per game. i would consider anything over five dollars to be exorbitant, and anything over ten to be unacceptable. i'm thinking more in the 1-3 dollar range. although i think i could justify a higher price for some of the newer gamecube games.

my other big issue is accessibility. i'm hoping to be able to play a lot of games that have become lost to me over time. i really like the idea of having the ENTIRE back catalog available. this is one of the reasons i started pirating music in the first place, and one of the reasons i'm still reluctant to switch to a legitimate digital distribution service. before mp3s i was paying up to 40 or 50 dollars for some import discs (and i'm not talking special japanese editions of north american cds, i'm just talking about the regular old edition of a disc that just happened to be by a british artist), and as a teenager back then, and even as a young adult now, i just can't buy cds at those prices. i can buy one or two, and i did, but the rest i ended up downloading. furthermore, there were other discs that i could not buy, at any price, even if i wanted to. yet i could find them easily on the internet. even now, if i look up a disc on gracenote, it'll show me that half of the tracks are available on itunes, and the other half are not. i realize that there might be some licensing issues involved in this, but seriously, get your act together music industry. as a whole, the piracy community is just a much better and more efficient organization to deal with. the fact that everything is free is really just a bonus. furthermore, once i buy license to something, i want to be able to back it up or share it with my friends (which, in my country, is 100% legal). if my ipod is destroyed i shouldn't have to repurchase all of my songs as well as a new ipod. so i'm expecting that when i download "blades of steel" onto my wii, i will be able to save it to a memory card or a flash drive or something and then take it over to my friend's house to play it there. although the odds are that if it's only a buck or two, my friends would just download it themselves. i think they'd have little problem in doing so, because they know it's a quality product.

/no

[BTBuck1]

Originally Posted by hmurchison

The killer feature of these nexten consoles isn't the optical drive or even the graphics. It's who can build the best online infrastructure that brings the fans and cash in droves.

No gamer cares about the specs once the gameplay has started. I think Huang is basically showing his ignorance of networking. With internet connected consoles you don't need a huge optical drive you just sync the stuff you need via the "Net.

SO if what you say is true, then the regular XBOX is just fine and dandy???...but hell even M$ realized it was a turd nugget now! Best Buy hasn't carried the regular XBOX system in months, and will never again. Only games & ACCY's which will slowly get replaced by 360 gear (soon as they start actually pumpin out some games)

Graphics & sound are just as important as The online community. Graphics & sound are the foundation, you can't have "next gen" without improving these first...Hell even dumb ass nintendo (somewhat) realized this with the inclusion of 480p & widescreen on all titles. however sacrificing Graphics & sound (no HD & DD) in an effort to be profitable and only release a novelty nun chucka remote is not going to do anything if you don't have games to use it with. And nintendo alone can't crank out the games to keep up with 360 & ps3. It works in the handheld world, but consoles gamers require much more attention than 8 yr olds with Findining Nemo & Super mario advance GBA in their pockets. And I know, I know...Nintendo says "they aren't trying to compete" blah blah...average joe doesn't look at Wii as anything different than xbox or ps3 and some get scared when they see the price is signifigantly less, lower prices and "free games" in the box usually spell trouble for game companies.

[Shadowself]

Originally Posted by hmurchison

I have absolutey no idea what he's trying to say. Honestly. His point is about as clear as mud.

Actually I thought his point was quite clear, "We're on the Sony team because they are buying out stuff. Thus we support Sony's PS3, and we support Blu-ray. Hurray for our side."

Originally Posted by hmurchison

The killer feature of these nexten consoles isn't the optical drive or even the graphics. It's who can build the best online infrastructure that brings the fans and cash in droves.

While online access is important, it is not all consuming. I know a small company which is 100% based on the online gaming world -- it is the largest site for guilds and such on the 'net. However, when I stopped over to the owner's house lately and he and his children were playing games on his 360 they were not playing online games. His belief (and his information from talking to several people in the field) is that the console market is just not up to it yet with the online experience. He believes it is well behind the PC market and probably won't catch up this generation. Maybe next.

Also graphics *is* quite important. If graphics were not important then things like Doom would never have evolved like they have. New graphics hardware and new graphics software engines are coming out every year. If graphics are so unimportant maybe we should all go back to playing Adventure on our VAX 780s.

Originally Posted by hmurchison

No gamer cares about the specs once the gameplay has started.

Again, so we should all go back to Adventure? Want to play the latest Oblivion? Try to do that on the average PC sold. Specs are important. Want to play something eye catching on the 360? Don't try to do it on the origial xbox.

Originally Posted by hmurchison

I think Huang is basically showing his ignorance of networking. With internet connected consoles you don't need a huge optical drive you just sync the stuff you need via the "Net.

It is not about syncing stuff. It is about the original game load. Many years ago I was a beta tester for EverQuest. It was a 13 GB download IIRC. Even at the 5 Mbps link I had at the time it took many hours to download the entire data set. If Sony had sent me a set of DVDs I'd have been much happier, but one of the conditions of being a beta tester was doing the download (and downloading any patches/updates) and having a broadband connection to do it. Luckily I backed everything up to a series of DVDs (single layer at the time). (They weren't testing the dial-up capabilities at that time.)

Originally Posted by hmurchison

With SFF drives we're currently at 200GB. I wonder why we need optical drives at all.

The MMORPGs with massive and intricate worlds require a lot of space. They are only going to get more expansive. How would you, or anyone else, react if they had downloaded a 20+ GB game then then had a HDD crash? Now apply that to a couple dozen games. I would guess you'd be extremely frustrated to have to re-download all those file again since you seem to believe that a high density optical drive is irrelevant.

Originally Posted by hmurchison

The next consoles will likely have flash memory for basic console features and a HDD at 500GB for storing games and loading new features and other ancillary items. This is the way you keep the content fresh and dynamic. Locking stuff on a plastic disc only serves to ensure that content remains static and stagnant after a while.

"Locking" as you call it is a safe archival method. There are many ways that you can lose information on consumer electronics: systems crash, flash gets corrupted (just as my wife about how many times she's had to reset her PDA over the past 5+ years), HDDs crash, file systems get trashed, etc. While an optical disk is absolutely NOT fool proof, they are the best media for massive storage in the consumer market. With reasonable care they can last much longer than the console will be of interest.