Sony - Kaboom - Financial Meltdown etc

[dataDave]

I used to think that way, but recently I noticed that I have basically made the switch already without realising. PSN etc.. I would have been dead against that a couple of years back but now I don't care, it's easier for me not having shelf loads of discs and stuff.

Same. I'm fed up with trying to keep stuff in good nik when it just gets covered in dust and sun/halogen-fades over time. I'm in a 2-room flat and can't fit much more in here.

On the other hand I find all forms of emulation unacceptabley wank.

Music on the other hand - I take pride in my downloaded MP3s and like my albums complete, even down to the correct album art as I like the idea of my PC also acting as a sophisticated jukebox... if a record is EXTREMELY good I'll pick up the vynil.

[JP]

I take pride in my downloaded MP3s and like my albums complete...

Off topic but it is relevant to the subject of downloads maybe but surley that's a contradiction in terms? If you're listening to an MP3, you're losing approximately a third of the recording anyway.

I know size used to be an issue with downloaded music hence the reason for not bothering to record the whole song using MP3s but size & quality is still an issue for me, even if some, possibly the majority of people really don't care about it.

[saif]

John, not noticing the drop in quality is cool now. Catch up.
Lower quality items downloaded are better.If younotice thedifference you must be somekind of geek.

I don't know when people could become *proud* of not being able to tell the difference between low quality and normal.

[Ady]

The quality issue is another reason why I prefer CDs, and was precisely why I waited for the CD version of Radiohead's 'In Rainbows' last year.

That said, everything tends to get ripped to my external HDD and I do actually play most of my music through my PC now instead of my hi-fi (last.fm is partly to blame for this...), but I still prefer to have the actual CD at the end of the day. I also DJ now and then and I'm sure as hell not dragging my laptop and HDD around with me for that...

This thread's been derailed somewhat. Maybe a name change is in order?

[Ish]

Regarding games and digital download:

Hell will freeze over before I pay £40 for what amounts to a rental.

[JP]

John, not noticing the drop in quality is cool now. Catch up.
Lower quality items downloaded are better.If younotice thedifference you must be somekind of geek.

I don't know when people could become *proud* of not being able to tell the difference between low quality and normal.

Hey, I've been forced to do the blind tests by mates who think I'm being a tit. There hasn't been one I've not picked up on straight away although MP3s certainly do a better job on certain types of music than others.

I've got a few hundred lossy files myself but they are all recordings that aren't available in any other way, or at least I'ev not been able to trace any.

I'm really into things like studio rehersals that bands do before recording an album and a lot of that stuff is unfortunately only available as a download. I've got a lot of unrealeased Velvet Underground stuff and people have been looking for years for non lossy stuff for some of it and every now and again one will appear but it's always been obvious in the first few seconds that it's the same old crap.

[Lyris]

Funny you mention the Dreamcast as if it was innocent of this, because in fact the first time I ever had such a problem was with Samba de Amigo's unlockable content on the DC.

First time I had an issue was on the release date of Crazy Taxi 2 (PAL), if I remember rightly, the Dream Arena features for it (web site browser, nothing special) were never even launched.

[Lyris]

Off topic but it is relevant to the subject of downloads maybe but surley that's a contradiction in terms? If you're listening to an MP3, you're losing approximately a third of the recording anyway.

If there's anything to lose that is. If I gather rightly (correct me audiophiles), the standard of mastering on CD is even worse than it is on DVD-Video.

[CMcK]

CD's still have a far higher quality than MP3, AAC etc. 1142kbit per sec versus common 128k MP3's. Also there are design limitations on MP3 as well which leads to sounds being smeared.
MP3's at >500kbit do sound pretty close to the casual listener but will easily be picked up on a decent quality CD player.

[Lyris]

I was talking about the dynamic range compression though, not differences between PCM and compressed formats. My argument being that the source material is still, sadly, a bit crap.

[JP]

DRC is a serious problem on a lot of the more commercial CDs at the moment and it's something that really makes no sense at all to be honest.

I've mentioned it on here a while back with the recent Metallica on RockBand or Guitar Hero. I'd not heard the CD version myself the DRC was apparently very obvious and in this case was a correct version to listen to as the in-game versions didn't suffer from the same mess as the CD version.

I've only heard the differences online which is really no way to hear them at all but the waveforms were all over the net within hours of release. There was comparison videos on YouTube but they were as useful as the trailers that get posted on there with HD Version stamped all over them.

I did find this video though which exaggerates but it's not that far from the truth.


With DRC it really tends to depend on the market the CDs are aimed at as the sort of stuff that is likely to be played in HMV can get better treatment. I'm a big fan of MFSL and the way they handle recordings. They are limited in what they can release though and the discontinued stuff can be expensive to buy and I've spent over well over ?30 getting hold of CDs before but for me, they are worth it.

[belmondo]

I don't understand the hate for downloading games (DRM notwithstanding), the convenience of having games available on a hard disk is great.

I guess it is feasible that you may lose access to your content somehow, but this is no different to a physical disk getting lost/damaged.

[Lyris]

I guess it is feasible that you may lose access to your content somehow, but this is no different to a physical disk getting lost/damaged.

Yes it is - if your hard drive (or Xbox 360) goes tits up, you have to replace these. With a disc based game on optical media (which is very reliable), just reinstall/play from the disc.

[charlesr]

I currently do lovefilm. Fixed price per month. A friend does napster - vast amounts of music for a fixed price per month (quality is a bit naff, but will improve with time). If the Xbox Live film downloads were a fixed price per month and had the same catalogue as lovefilm, I'd switch in an instant.

[Strolls]

If downloads didn't exist, would games like Braid even exist? How else would a single person cost effectively distribute a game like Braid?

That you can get budget PC games for a couple of quid in the Post Office or Lidl, and that newspapers give away DVD movies proves that economical physical distribution is possible.

If Microsoft wanted to they could offer a discount for mastering titles that consumed (say) 700 meg or less of the DVD. Likewise Sony could offer an update to the PS3 that allowed it to play Sony-mastered DVDs, as these are cheaper to press than blu-rays. The console manufacturers could mandate a requirement that these budget titles feature an "arcade" or "budget" logo on the cover - or that they be sold in jewel cases instead of the larger boxes used by regular games - in order to differentiate them to the consumer.

I do fear that such an approach would result in shovelware, but maybe that's the case with the cheap games in Xbox Arcade & the Playstation Store, anyway? Such titles could be sold alongside regular releases in stores and become "pocket-money" games for kids, along with building up a following for the better titles among aficionados. I don't really know much about the Simple Series of games, but they would seem to be an example of this approach to sales & development.

Obviously, whilst people are happy to buy from Arcade, the Playstation Store & the Wii Shopping Channel, it's not in the console manufacturers' interest to offer discounted mastering as I suggest. But I'd happily pay a tenner for some of these games on disk that I won't buy because of my opposition to DLC, and I wish that more people would recognise the fallacy of paid DLC so that it would become cost-effective to publish budget disks like this.

The consoles' online stores don't suddenly somehow make game development accessible to anyone - you can already develop for the 360 with the free version of XNA and prototype on the PC. In the case of Braid the author spent 3 years of his life developing the game and estimates the cost at $180,000. If we consider that games must reach a certain minimum standard before being accepted for online distribution, the cost of mastering to disk is probably not so great - this is perhaps proven by Alien Hominid. This is a low-budget indie game that was released for consoles without the benefit of digital distribution and which can be bought directly mail-order from the developer's website. They've obviously now gone to Xbox Arcade & digital distribution for newer games, because that suits them as publishers better, but they've demonstrated the ability for an indie to distribute disks, if enough customers still preferred that media.

One question I must ask of people that use Xbox arcade & the PS3 store - is there much shovelware? Have you bought any or many titles that you've later regretted because they've turned out to be utter tripe? Do you see much in the online stores that you think "who the heck buys that rubbish?".

I perceive a big part of the success of paid-DLC to be the instant gratification part of it, like putting chocolate & Cosmopolitan next to the checkout at Tesco. If it meant walking into town to buy these games you probably wouldn't bother, or maybe you'd get to Game and instead of paying ?10 for Braid (??) or Lumines, put that money towards a full-length game.

Strolls, you're off the mark there. Games bought by DD can still be played as long as they still exist on the console.. if Sony shut up shop tomorrow I could still play Lumines because it'on my PS3 and I don't need to be online to play it.

I don't use these stores, so please forgive me if I've got it wrong.

As I understand it, once the store goes offline or stops supporting a game (I read that Microsoft are now delisting games with poor ratings) your copy of the game has a limited lifespan.

So you have all these games saved on your hard-drive, what happens if the hard-drive dies? What happens if the console itself dies? Can you transfer a hard-drive from your dead PS3 to a new one and still play the downloaded games? In the case of a NES or PS1 console dying, you can just buy a secondhand console for ?20 or whatever and still play your collection of game disks. Surely if there's a back-up mechanism for the games you've saved on the hard-drive then the games are then locked to your specific console?

I can imagine that any such strategy that works at the moment depends upon you being able to log into the Playstation network, which may cease to exist if Sony go bankrupt.

I don't understand the hate for downloading games (DRM notwithstanding), the convenience of having games available on a hard disk is great.

I can really see that, and that it's a key part of the stores' success.

I really dislike paid-DLC, but I can see that an aspect of this is wanting something physical in my hands that I own when I pay for a product.

I find the whole concept of paid-DLC frustrating, but I can see that many people just don't care. They shell out some money and get some entertainment. The stores are successful because people use them.

I guess it is feasible that you may lose access to your content somehow, but this is no different to a physical disk getting lost/damaged.

No, it's not, because YOU control the physical disk. You can keep it in good condition, keep it somewhere safe and ensure that it's not lost. In the case of DRM - whether of games or movie downloads - you can get screwed by a failing hard-drive or by the consequences of someone else's actions (the DRM authentication server going down, for instance). And this may affect many titles - your whole games collection - not just the one disk your cat has inadvertently scratched.

Finally a little rant about those scumbags McAfee. I visited a customer this week who was having problems with their antivirus and who has a subscription until 2010. I wanted to uninstall & reinstall in order to try fixing the bug, but they offer no way for her to download the McAfee installer. Dispite the fact that she has an existing subscription, their website tells her that she can only reinstall the software if she can find the original setup.exe. If she can't, she has to pay to download it again. Thieving eff'ing scumbags!

Stroller.