The PlayStation 3 Slim already had an ability penalty of -35 Geekiness because of its lack of the "Install Other OS" option, and now the regular PlayStation 3 will follow in its footsteps. A PS3 firmware update, scheduled to land April 1, will disable this option on regular PS3s as well. This, dear readers, is what we in the business call a "testicle move", especially since only a few weeks ago, Sony bold-facedly claimed the feature would not be removed.
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Member since:2005-11-10
Because it had 6’000 games, many of which came from bedroom coders. Where do you think Code Masters came from? People like the Oliver Twins. Many of the companies and the people in them making games today came from the Commodore 64 / Spectrum era.
Sony and Nintendo are ensuring that developing on their platforms is only available to a select few that climb the ranks, get the lucky breaks, are in the biggest companies with enough money; where as back in the C64 days talent came from the freedom users had at home.
The PSX era was written on the back of the bedroom coding era, Code Masters et al. Without the C64 there would not have been as many good PSX games like Colin McRae Rally.
If the PS3 and Wii were open to development by anybody then the next generation of programmers would be cheaper, more creative and producing much, much more innovative stuff than Kill Death 3: The Sequeliser.
Edited 2010-03-29 16:18 UTC
Member since:2009-08-26
It sounds to me like you don't even follow console gaming. Modern consoles have channels for indy developers and all platforms have innovative titles. If any platform has stagnated in genre focus it is the pc with the constant focus on MMOs. Highly polished, single player games are often being skipped on the pc due to low sales which are likely from a combination of MMO addiction and piracy. Games like 3D Dot heroes and Alan Wake are going to consoles, not the pc. Software economics matter more than how open a platform is.
Member since:2009-01-03
Member since:2007-02-17
For the Wii
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_homebrew
http://www.wiibrew.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WiiCade
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_Opera_SDK
http://www.wiigamestudio.com/
Hope for the PS3:
http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2010/03/geohot_looks_to_enable...
Edited 2010-03-30 09:49 UTC
Member since:2009-01-03
The CD32 was not a closed console I believe ? Couldnt everyone get the devkit ?
However it was severly limited, having virtually no IO except the CDROM out of the box, although it was later made a couple of extensionkits that made it into a regular A1200 compatible computer.. Sadly Commodore went bust before these expansions gained any large userbase..
Member since:2009-01-03
The C64s success was mainly its openness, that ANYONE could sit down and type programs into that "READY" prompt ! It INVITED us to it !
I grew up in that era and know it firsthand .. !
Even the Amiga was not as good as C64 .. Even then devtools and manuals cost an arm and a leg.
Member since:2006-05-09
I completely agree with all the things you say right now.
I do not know why they forbid YOU to install anything YOU want in YOUR device; that's quite ridiculous... I know, you accepted the license when you bought such device but being forbidden to use the things I buy in the way I want to use them does not make sense to me.
I do not know if Apple with its iPhone started this trend but I do not like it and I do not want it to continue.
"So in summary... Google has pulled the plug on support on a protocol they've helped popularize, after years of promising interoperability, for reasons that are dubious at best, and in a way that leaves people who don't jump to the new Hangouts app unable to talk to their contacts without any feedback that their IMs aren't getting through... And they've done that with no warning to anyone. I imagine there's a bunch of people out there wondering where some of their buddies have gone, or why their messages aren't getting responses, because this isn't documented anywhere." Google really messed this up. Such a dick move.
The Tizen Greek Community has some screenshots of a very recent build of Tizen running on a Samsung GT-i8800. It looks wholly unremarkable.Joint statement to The Next Web from Microsoft and Google: "Microsoft and YouTube are working together to update the new YouTube for Windows Phone app to enable compliance with YouTube's API terms of service, including enabling ads, in the coming weeks. Microsoft will replace the existing YouTube app in Windows Phone Store with the previous version during this time." Good to know these children stopped acting like little pricks. Can we have full Google support in Windows 8 now, please?
Yahoo is acquiring Tumblr, the microblogging and social networking website, for $1.1 billion USD. Tumblr offers little revenue but lots of eyeballs if Yahoo can monetarize them. Now Yahoo is bidding for Hulu, the streaming video service. After years of ineffective responses while Google, Facebook, and others took large chunks of the online advertising market, Yahoo is fighting back. Can Yahoo reignite the momentum it had at the turn of the century? What do you think?
"Sources have described iOS 7 as 'black, white, and flat all over'. This refers to the dropping of heavy textures and the addition of several new black and white user interface elements." I couldn't be happier.
"Ilja van Sprundel, a security researcher with IOActive, has discovered a large number of issues in the way various X client libraries handle the responses they receive from servers, and has worked with X.Org's security team to analyze, confirm, and fix these issues."
"Google is facing a new antitrust probe by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission into whether the company is using its leadership in the online display-advertising market to illegally curb competition, people familiar with the matter said." Sucks to be Google today, apparently."In the midst of the major press blitz surrounding its annual I/O Conference, Google dropped some unfortunate news about its instant messaging plans. In several places around the web, the company is replacing the existing 'Talk' platform with a new one called 'Hangouts' that sharply diminishes support for the open messaging protocol known as XMPP (or sometimes informally Jabber), and also removes the option to disable the archiving of all chat communications. These changes represent a switch from open protocols to proprietary ones, and a clear step backward for many users." That's why I always say: only suckers trust companies."The wave of departures is a sign of internal struggle, but amidst all the bad news, there is a glimmer of hope. According to an anonymous HTC executive cited by WSJ, the crucial HTC One is selling 'pretty good so far'. The executive revealed that HTC sold about five million One units since launch, a performance that is deemed encouraging. However, sales have been limited by the persisting supply issues that still plague the production of the HTC One." Finally some good news for HTC. Five million units amidst supply constraints is very impressive."Sony gave the PS4 50% more raw shader performance, plain and simple (768 SPs @ 800MHz vs. 1152 SPs & 800MHz). Unlike last generation, you don't need to be some sort of Jedi to extract the PS4's potential here. The Xbox One and PS4 architectures are quite similar, Sony just has more hardware under the hood. Weâll have to wait and see how this hardware delta gets exposed in games over time, but the gap is definitely there. The funny thing about game consoles is that itâs usually the lowest common denominator that determines the bulk of the experience across all platforms. On the plus side, the Xbox One should enjoy better power/thermal characteristics compared to the PlayStation 4. Even compared to the Xbox 360 we should see improvement in many use cases thanks to modern power management techniques." AnandTech does its usual in-depth thing.
Member since:
2009-03-17
... and yet Sony and Nintendo are still in business, while Commodore went the way of the dodo. Their last efforts to remain in business, involved the creation of a closed console of all things.
The C64 success was due mainly to one thing: it's price. It was also sold as a computer, why you used it to compare against a console is beyond me.
Edited 2010-03-29 15:50 UTC