...is my company still using Windows XP SP2, but we are still using IE6. Feh...and they complained that Audacity was a security risk because it was "open source, so anyone could hack it".
Insanity.
Well they better upgrade to SP3 really soon as Win XP SP2 stops receiving security updates July 13th http://blogs.technet.com/lifecycle/
Buying the game gives as signal that you agree with Blizzard-Activision's actions. $1 Billion revenue says that Blizzard-Activision did an excellent job. The following screenshot is a clear indication a lot of people can't stick to their principles: http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/images/mw2_boycott.jpg
To be fair steam sorts players by in-game first then online then offline, so the screen-shot is somewhat misleading. That said there were a fair number of people I know that said they would boycott it (including my son) that ended up buying the game. I have no idea what the percentage is, but probably two orders of magnitude less than the people that did say they would boycott and bought the game just because of the hype.
Streaming to my legacy device which cannot be easily reprogrammed such as my Xbox 360 really relies on XVid. So, for now, I guess Handbrake is the rough beast. Oh well, I use dvd::rip anyway and avidemux when I need to do some transcoding. Computers can be easily upgraded, devices not so much: that is something to keep in mind too.
I stream h.264 encoded M4V files to my Xbox 360 using windows Media Player 11 without any issues. Now there is a "media update" on the Xbox required to do it, but as long as you have a valid Xbox Live account it should happen automatically.
So in other words you're just twisting the figures to suit your argument?
How do the figures look for 5 years- a reasonable life for a console, possible even an underestimate, by which time you'll have had to pay another $1200 to upgrade your PC again whilst your 360 is still playing it's games just fine and still looking great?
And it's not like people with an apparent ax to grind against PCs don't twist the numbers also. In my not to unusual circumstances Console gaming is not really much cheaper than PC gaming. In 5 years I will probably end up replacing the 360 and/or upgrading the hard drive (at 4-5x normal retail price) and possibly a Natal add-on ($100??). On the PC side I'll probably be spending $700-800 or so for a major upgrade (MB, CPU, RAM, GFX) in a year or so.
It's not as if a $1200 PC will even play the latest and greatest PC games. I bought a high end PC for double that (and yes, I used the cheapest possible source for components, I've been building gaming PCs years, I know what I'm doing) 18 months ago without a monitor as I already had one and it still wouldn't run Crysis in full detail at a reasonable framerate. It ran the likes of Spore, Warhammer Online and Dawn of War II fine of course, but you'd have to spend far more to get all games to run fine.
Never played Crisis, it seemed to be mostly a tech demo than a real game, mostly suitable for benchmarks. I will agree that there are a couple games that *require* the latest and gratest and then still won't play decent when released.
Again, you just don't get this problem with a console, it just works, and still nearly always looks better than the PC, even as the console hardware ages and drops below the spec of your average gaming PC, largely because it's a single gaming dedicated hardware platform and hence easier to optimize for.
It's not always easier, I've had DLC break games on the 360 and the consoles generally seem to take longer to get patches than the PC version of major titles because each patch has to be "certified" and even then the patches add new bugs and exploits like "infinite ammo" exploit in MW2 on the 360 which is funny as it apparently acts like a worm and anybody that joins a game with the hack get the hack also and can pass it on to other matches, or so I've read. Now gearbox has been a bit better patching Borderlands on the consoles than the PC and the same probably can be said for other games.
There's realistically too many factors to do a sensible price comparison, you'd have to do it long term rather than cherry picking favourable stats like the life of the PC, rather than the life of the console. Mentioning 2 chat pads when most people use a headset and you can only use one chatpad at a time because the onscreen keyboard can only show one at a time doesn't exactly help your cause for providing a balanced comparison either.
I will agree that it varies alot depending on what you play
You forgot to include the cost of a house to live in and a solid gold gaming hat which you need if you use a console.
Well that's a constant between the two so I did not happen to include them
Well I found the text on Resident Evil 5 unreadable and Fable II tended to be half off the top of the screen on my SD TV. On the other hand Eternal Sonata, Tales of Vesperia and probably 80% of the games are OK on a SD TV.
To reply to some others
As far as used games, that is one minor console advantage, though it's not hard finding games on steam for half regular retail quite often. Used games I normally see for only $5 less than the new version at Gamestop, I've never sold a game at Gamestop, I just usually give them to somebody else or keep them, hmmm I seem to give more games than I get.
As for a second controller for the PC
As far as using a computer monitor, it's possible, though if multiple people are playing a 32" is pretty much the minimum unless you like being crammed shoulder to shoulder 4' from the screen. A 32" LCD HD TV will run $300-350 new on the bottom end unless you catch a sale on a no-name brand. The 32" size seems to have dropped in price the most, though a 42" plasma or 40" LCD at full HD is good for 2-3 people sitting about 8' away.
Actually since my Daughter plays on live also on her own account I could have added another $50 a year. My son has live also, but that's out of his pocket book.
The costs are similar, for casual games using steam the PC could be cheaper, for somebody that plays more hardcore games it's about the same or somewhat cheaper on the console.
Consoles generally are easier to use, but I've had to wait longer for patches on the 360 than on the PC. Mass Effect Pinnacle station DLC caused issues with some players and it was patched in a couple days on the PC, but took over two weeks for the 360.
Also DLC in the past has been free on the PC, but that seems to be coming to an end.
I doubt that he meant $400 (amount sited by person he replied to).
But he is right, if your upgrading every year, then you are doing it wrong by buying the cheapest components that will just barely play current games right now. I built my gaming system three years ago and spent about $1200 (system, keyboard, mouse, new LCD) and just now starting to feel some performance issues.
A 360 does not cost $300, it costs $300 + $50/year for Live + $10 extra each game over PC + $600 for HD TV + $50 for an additional controller + $30 x 2 for chatpads or about $1300 in three years.
Don't tell me console gaming is any cheaper as I happen to own both.
Don't say "well you can use your regular HD TV" and I say my wife & kids would like to watch their TV programs, or "you don't need a HD TV" and I tell you it sucks as I've had to suffer playing games that the text is unreadably small on a SD TV.
Slight correction
It still is better performing in the benchmarks I've seen than the 4830, and matches the 4850 in many.
First, the 4770 is running GDDR5 at approximatly the same clock rate as the 4830 running GDDR3 so they have the same effective memory bandwidth.
Second, while they both have 640 universal shaders, the shaders on the 4770 are running ~40% faster.
Third, so the 4770 has approximately the same or better performance than a 4850 that costs $130-150.
So I think the 4770 is a deal at $109
AMD has the Geode LX and NX lines.
Geode LX is very low powered and the highest clock speed (I've seen) is 566Mhz.
Geode NX is targeted directly at the Atom. Although I have yet to see any of these out in the wild.
I've only ever found a Geode in the wild clocked as high as 500Mhz (see the ALIX boards)
Actually the Geode is a dead end processor, AMD already has stated they are disconinuing it.
AMD recently announced a new processor "Conesus" that is intended for netbooks and UMPC.
http://gizmodo.com/5086703/amds-upcoming-conesus-netbook-chip-wont-stoop-to-mid-levels
C++ is the best example of second-system effect since OS/360.
