XNA and the alike crap. What a dissapointment

#21

Quote:I cannot imagine Sony pulling something like this out of the bag. Sony have a track record of deciding what people want, rather than seeing what peopel want :) Current example of that is BlueRay... just who the hell at Sony thought "people will want to sell all their DVD stuff and buy into this tech when its only a recent thing that people have moved onto DVD" ?

Sony dont have to be the inovators of this move, but imo to protect market share they do have to respond in some way to the MS 'Threat'

as for the blu-ray disks, i very much remember similar comments being made about the DVD, at the time developers were struggling to fill CDs with game stuff so they had to use huge FMV items to fill the CDs, the PS2 was a chunk of equipment way ahead of its time, which is why even now its a market leader even in the face of the new next gen consoles. Just as an additional comment how long did it take for developers to actually make games that took full advantage of the features and power that the PS2 had? 2 years? more? i imagine that the PS3 will (when/if it hits the market) will be very similar, however this is pretty off topic.

i still think that XNA is the start of changes to the gaming industry as we know it, and think that again this is something very positive (fingers crossed) for all indie developers out there.

#22

Quote:listening to the people who use/develop on their platforms

Why does that not qualify as market research? (or lack of as case may be)

Blueray technology is great, I agree. But its not wanted, therefore its crap :) Blueray to me is like betamax was to vhs.

Its not a case of being "afraid to change" its a case of "we have just changed" DVD is now the norm, why the hell do we want to change over to Blueray now? DVD isn't obsolete or outdated yet.

Anywho, wish I hadn't mention that as an off-the-cuff remark now. I feel it may turn into an (unrelated) can of worms. hehe. :D

#23 I think I'll take the bait here...

At first I was opposed to the XNA and TorqueX concepts, because I saw the same brick wall the original poster sees, but then I dug in a little deeper.

#1 If you don't have the BIG BUX, no you're still not going to be able to sell your game on the Xbox 360. However, with this system you do have a chance! Thats right, the "indie" version does have a pro upgrade option. That option won't be available until sometime between 1-2q 2007 but if you COULD crank out a quality game in that time, you still wouldn't have time to get it to press before the pro version does ship.

#2 It's using .NET (Not nessecarily C# BTW) .NET bites as a runtime in general, on the other hand so does Java. The reasons I dislike .NET are the same as the reasons I don't like Java, but amplified by the fact that while I do trust Sun, I do not trust M$, they have a habit of putting "partners" out of business. That said, this setup DOES allow you to write once, and have your code run on anything that supports XNA. This limited version of crossplatform, does mean that if you write a game for an XNA framework, you would have very few problems getting it to run on anything that runs the framework. PC, Xbox 360, and believe it or not, I'm hearing rumors of a Mac XNA framework (although I don't trust rumors, the fact that it is possible does make me happy). I guess this would be a similar concept to installing a Torque Binary on a machine, and then throwing it some .dso's

#3 This initiative WILL get you trained for making real world, full scale games, while honing your skills developing for 2 of the top platforms in terms of sales. So even if you NEVER ship your game, you WILL be that much more employable, to a larger game company, who may pick up your game and help you run with it.

So to sum it all up, I've gone from hating the whole thing, to actually putting this on my must haves list, and as soon as it releases there WILL be a major effort to port the MMORPG Enhancement Kit to XNA & TorqueX.

Regards,
Dreamer

#24 Betamax was a much, MUCH better format than VHS for tape-devices. In fact, you wouldn't catch a SINGLE tv station or tv commercial company using VHS. Every one of them used beta for their shoots because of it's superior quality and control editing machines had over beta which was greater than VHS. VHS became mainstream because of the advertising powers behind it, not because it was a better technology or newer technology.

People need to stop getting into the mindset of "I just switched to this, why would I want to switch again" to "holy crap this is awesome, we just figured out this format and now they already have something far better available."

Change is GOOD, change is needed, change is warrented.

Don't fear the future, embrace it!

#25 Actually, one of the big problems with Betamax in the consumer market is that VHS had already hit the consumer market and people could afford to buy new, shiny, better technology so soon after purchasing older tech. That doesn't change a whole lot. Sometimes it does not come down to "better, cooler tech" but to finances and budgeting more bang for the buck and convenience. If you have to drive 45 minutes to rent a blue ray movie or go to any corner and rent a DVD, then the choice becomes obvious to those who are not early adopters of new technology. For techhounds, the drive doesn't matter. But simply being superior technology does not ensure its success in the mass marketplace.

I haven't looked at Blue Ray yet, but if it is not standardized, it will lead to the same difficulties among early DVD manufacturers with some DVD's not working on other players, etc. That was a nightmare as a consumer trying to give people DVD's to play on their solid state players. In the computer medium with updatable drivers and such it is not as large an issue, but it is still a solid-state concern.

#26 I think its premature. Just because you might be able to afford bluray and have at least one HDTV in your home doesn't mean your average joe can. DVD has only become the norm recently. VHS is still with us, and most people don't really care about new tech to feel they need the next half assed solution that pops up every couple of years.

In 2 years time there will most likely be a newer cheaper tech with larger capacity, and it will be around at a time when 80% of people have HD displays to make use of them on. Sony have introduced about 5 proprietary formats in the last few years that tied you down to some device of one sort or other and all have ultimately failed for the same reasons I don't really expect bluray to take over. Right now I still think HD video is a fad amongst the nerdy gadget and home entertainment enthusiasts.

Best to just see what happens, the way I see it Sony is gambling on the PS3 giving them a opportunity to get a largely uninterested public to use their format and give it a fighting chance of being the next video data format. I hope they fail because I really believe something better is just around the corner.

#27 Since the topic got derailed a while ago, he's my beef with DVD. This is factual information as far as my brain is concerned, but the truth is probably worse, so I'll stick to my version:

The tech companies saw that video on a CD was coming, so they designed DVD as a way to get everybody to switch formats to a "standard" before someone monopolized the whole thing. To ensure that everyone got a piece of the pie, every company had to contribute something, even if it wasn't necessarily best for the format. Best of all, it isn't just a media storage device. It's software. Buggy software. With buggy players. No two discs have the same interface or features (ok, only 99.9% true). And best of all, they planned to replace it within 10 years with a more mature technology.

So don't think of DVD in terms of evolution or innovation. High capacity DVD isn't being offered to us as a superior replacement technology, but rather greedy companies trying to take advantage of the current interest in all things digital using whatever parts they have on hand. They couldn't even agree to fleece us with one product this time.

I'd much rather wait for something like the THX standard that will play on my HDTV, use lossless compression and had a player-based interface. But I'll probably end up buying a Bluray in a year or two and venting to my psychiatrist instead.

#28 @David -

Who do you think pioneered the DVD technology? =P You keep falling back on 'movie' related stuff. BlueRay isn't going to replace, for the time being, DVD in the movie realm, just like CD's didn't replace VHS. BlueRay is a storage medium that makes sense for things such as games and data, not movies and songs. VHS was not released before betamax was, betamax came a year before VHS did. Betamax didn't pick up because VHS was #1 a little bit cheaper, #2 backed by much better marketing, #3 3-hour recording timeframes (initially compared to the 60 minute limit for betamax). When CD's came out, everyone thought there's no way these expensive discs would replace tapes, yet tapes went away faster than any other media (including 8-track) that ever existed.

@Adrian -

I'm wondering where you get your information? What are the 5 formats that Sony came up with that no one but them are using? HD isn't a "disc" or "storage" format, HD is a "transmission" format. It's how the video, etc. is encoded and delivered and decoded onto the screen. HD is in no way a 'fad' just like DVD wasn't a 'fad' like everyone called it in the beginning. The thought of all movies being on DVD and not VHS baffled people 5 or 6 years ago. Yes, VHS is still around, but it HAS been replaced. DVD rentals topped VHS rentals in mid 2003. There isn't any store you can go into and find more VHS's than DVD's (new ones). Vinyl is still around, but that doesn't mean CD's haven't replaced them. Something better is always around the corner.

@James -

Again, I'm wondering where you get your information? DVD came about from two main formats that several companies (some on one side, some on the other) got together (thanks to IBM) to avoid the 'VHS/Betamax' wars that had happened in the past. The result was an agreed standard which became DVD. recordable DVD is a seperate beast in and of itself. HP created the first recordable DVD for internal needs as the only use in the beginning for DVD was in Hollywood. At that point, everyone else jumped on the bandwagon to produce recordable formats which led to the many different versions you see out today.

Maxell has a HVD pending release this year that stores data up to 300GB per disc (the size of a DVD) by storing data on beams of light (now THAT is cool). Do you need 300GB of storage for a console game system? Heck no, which is why Sony isn't going with it. Sony looked at DVD and said "this isn't big enough" so developed their own solution. I applaud this, not look down on it.

edit: what were we talking about again on this thread? ;)

#29 For the love of god why did I mention BlueRay? Stop it ya gits :P Get the thread back on topic or someone may be eaten whole by VHS/Betamax bad feeling :)

#30 Hehe, I'm not a nerdy geek, I'm just talking about media Jonathon. And both HD DVD and Bluray are not a big enough step up.

Anyway I was guessing when I said 5, I looked it up and there are more, most of which failed.

Mini-Disc (1991)--custom disc format, and used ATRAC audio compression, which is proprietary.
Sony Dynamic Digital Sound (1993)--a competitor to the Dolby Digital 5.1 standard.
Multi-Media Compact Disc (1994)--Sony's proprietary format for high-density optical storage, developed in conjunction with Phillips. Negotiations merged this format and Toshiba's Super Density disc format into what would become DVD.
Music Clip (1999)--Sony's first digital player, used ATRAC audio compression.
HiFD (1998)--a competitor to Iomega's Zip drive.
Memory Stick (1998)--proprietary memory device as a competitor to SD and Flash memory.
Super Audio CD (1999)--an optical disc format with higher fidelity than the CD.
PSP (2004)--Uses Universal Media Disc (UMD) media, a proprietary media format.

#31 Part of my frame of reference comes from a film/video background and media distribution background, or "movie stuff", which is relevant to DVD/Beta/VHS discussions such as this has strangely turned into. As "tech", sure BluRay is a neat technology as are gel drives. I am an early adopter in a lot of tech and have been burned more than wowed by it in the past. New exciting tech dies more often than it catches on with each company hoping that their tech is the 'it tech'. EA's do not control whether it becomes popular, though they do have some say in its transience to the mainstream (The Tipping Point and Unleashing the Idea Virus both include views on EA and viral spreading of corporate information).

#32 @Adrian - None of those besides PSP are "in the last few years" but instead some are 15 years old. I don't think you can really count PSP in this catagory considering you're not counting that EVERYONE who has a portable device like the PSP (nintendo, sega, etc) all have their own format. I'll just leave it at that so we quit hijacking the thread.

#33 Heh didn't even realise this was an XNA thread. as I was just replying to the post before mine via email. Sorry about that, I figured it was a bluray thread from the way the posts were going.

#34 Didn't Sony introduce Betamax, too?

I do tend to agree that some of these companies roll out new products just to get consumers to buy something new.

#35 Umm..
you know the guy who posted this thread has not made a single response.

give it a rest, let this old horse die.

#36 Awful lot of negative speculation on the future there....

Seeing as how GG has good tools and people are selling games.. I think he's full of BEEP.

#37 @Jonathon

http://www.dvddemystified.com/

I was at Tsunami Media when we were working on one of the first DVD-ROM game titles. I spent a lot of time with people who worked on the related standards, hardware, software and dupliction processes as it happened.

I freely admit, however, that the years may have skewed my recollections, Senator. I blame the evil burning within my soul. That and my Laserdisc player made me do it.

#38 Ok, ok, enough fighting already! jeez! you guys are worse than that Anton guy!

let's all relax, and enjoy He Man singing.

He Man sings

it sucks for the 1st 1/3, but then it just gets funny as hell. I was rolling on the floor laughing.

Now, for the funniest thing I've ever seen... look up He-Man & the BIG Lebowski 2... and prepare to die laughing.

#39 This topic got totally derailed by the whole Blue-Ray debate. I am not going to get into this. I'd rather wait a year or two and pickup a player for $100, than waste my money on a failed standard. If developers start doing innovative things with the format, I may change my mind. Most likely the space will just be filled with HD FMV cutscenes.

On the topic on XNA, the OP really has no idea what hes talking about. XNA is just a platform for developing games on PC/Xbox. Microsoft is practically giving the development kit out for free. This doesnt guarentee you anything. They are giving us indies *a shot*. If you have no artistic talent or are otherwise technically retard, you still have zero chance of getting a game on Xbox360. But if you have some skill and a small team, you have *a chance*. You still need to go through publishers and have some financial backing if you expect to publish a game. But with XNA you can *develop* a game for almost nothing. If you wish to make money off this game then expect to make some sort of investment. It takes money to make money, you know.

#40 Okay, I normally defend people here, but for this exones guys I am switching teams,

Either get your facts right, or dont post things. You only started this to start a fight, we dont need that here.

Michael Kowalski