*music starts playing* "Take time, with a wounded han.."

Me: "Hello?" pauses to listen

Me: "It's for you."

You: "Who is it?"

Me: "2007, they want their joke back."

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i think that the reason we didnt have all this other stuff from the jump was because it didnt exist.. as soon as compact discs became common place and inexpensive.. it was a braggable feature of consoles. when film went to discs.. the same thing happened there. now were in a digital revolution for our entertainment.. less focus on physical copies and more on digital copies.. so now thats a feature to brag about.

but in the end.. all of these devices continue to be set top boxes that we cant change (legally) without an upgrade from the manufacturer.

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Very valid point!!

Though what i did mean is that because of the advent of Internet and HDD in gaming consoles, the possiblities and limits of Standard consoles have changed. Back in the days, every 3 or 4 years, you'd expect a new console from one of the big players, But honestly now, i dont know when the next console will be coming out. It's interesting that Sony keep talking about the 10 year cycle... because What is to say that the 360 wont have a 10 year cycle too? (i doubt it, but with projects like Natal, you know MS are looking to keep the 360 around for some time yet)

Even if developer reach the limits of what the 360 can do in terms of disk space, thats not to say that the current standard of games for the 360 are bad. I think gamers would be quite happy with this standard of games and added features for the next few Years, unless the PS3 start producing games that make people stand up and say WOW (we have had a few stand out games for the PS3 and there are more upcoming)

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you would think we really dont have much further to go in games to hit that point where theres not much of a change.. but i dont even think we've hit pixar quality let alone photo realism. i do see that being a reality one day though, and although i dont really like realistic looking games.. things like cel shading also get better along with the maturity of 3d graphics. i still dont think we've seen the best.. and when pcs (and in the past arcades) start showing what they can do that current consoles cant even begin to try... its time for a new machine. since dev costs are high, console manufacturers supporting a console for 10 years is a good thing because devs can make a few ps3/360 games to get started while ps4/xbox3 are out.

but yeah.. i agree, the limits are definitely lessened.. and i do think that devices that were created specifically for watching shows/movies and using the internet helped to change that. it is kind of silly to me to get a set top box to browse the web when you could do it on a console that can also play games. another reason we have this convergence is the introduction of companies that didnt get their fortunes from games entering the fray. this is why i believe apple will be the next to make a console. apple tv is useless for the most part, but make it a functional gaming device that you can buy "apps" on your tv for.. we'd have a whole different story then.

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Seriously. My console just fucking sits around all day, playing games.

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Love,

Everyone.

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I guess it's possible, though. MS has a bigger problem, because I can't even fathom that someone would want to see twitter/facebook/last.fm on their tv monitor. If they weren't doing it on their PC, they'd want to do it portably from, say, an iPhone. Reggie F-A was dead right about that, I think.

Private facebook msgs on your tv screen? no thx.

Netflix, though, was a great idea. Genius. It makes perfect sense. They need to find a way to get them to make more movies available, sure, but I've used my 360 more for that than gaming in the last 6 weeks or so. (though I need to actually get around to a session of SF4 on it...)

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When the PS3/Blu Ray players first game out, yeah. The PS3 was about 100-200 dollars cheaper than the next nearest Blu-Ray player. For realz. So you have to imagine lots of movie-philes who supported blu-ray going 'Oh well, might as well get a PS3'.

Even now, you get one or two people going 'Well... might as well get a PS3, since it plays blu rays and I guess if I really wanted to I could get a PS3 game at some point...'.

Nobody buys a 360 going 'SWEET! I CAN PLAY SOME DVDS! And uh... oh yeah, a game, I guess.'

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On a tangent, though, the g/f and i use our 360 as a dvd player more often than we use our ps... don't know why that is.

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Did I say people didn't buy games? Or did your reading comprehension fail when I said that once upon a time it was the cheapest Blu-Ray player out there, so there would be a 'I bought it just for the high def movies' market?

Epic fail on someones part, certainly, but not mine.

*cough*

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Also,
@electricmine, there are plenty of home theatre design companies that explicitly advertise the PS3 as a part of their packages specifically for the HD movie playback. As for your comment about "could've said that back in '06/'06 but not now," maybe the recession came in reverse for you...?

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