Confessions of a cat

7th generation console gaming systems

Well well well. This is what we’ve got now. These are the 7th generation console gaming systems. All of them have their pros and cons. I am not gonna go into a flame war now, or get into miniscule details on what the differences amongst them are. If you are interested in the topic you already know that.

I only want to share my thoughts on what I’ve read last night about the PS3. The article (from ars technica) said that the new playstation store allows you to buy and download full-featured games (not only demos). The PS3 is also the only system that has a built-in - user replaceable and upgradeable - 2.5″ notebook hard drive. A 500 GB drive like that sets you back with USD 99 as of now.

True, the MS xbox 360 also has a hard drive, but it is built into a custom shell, and the hard drive’s firmware is deliberately replaced with a custom-made one to disallow getting cheaper and bigger drives. MS’s biggest drive is only 120 GB, and it costs 150 bucks. There are hacks that you can use to get one with cheaper and it involves buying the cheaper (cheaper? the 60gig one costs USD 99, 20gb one no longer being sold officially) drive and replacing it with a 120gb WD with hacked firmware. Also a 120GB laptop hard drive sets you back only with 45 bucks. 45 <-> 150 quite a difference, isn’t it?

All this storage space married with a broadband internet connection and you can see where I’m headed.

I think the future of gaming is without borders and retail stores.

And the reason is simple: it is that much simpler and easier - since you do not even need to lift your ass up the coach. If you have a broadband internet connection, chances are you’re already using bittorrent, and downloading shitloads of crap (movies, music, programs, games, etc.) Some of you only use it to check the thing out, and if it’s shit do not bother anymore. Some keep all the stuff. But anyways, as is the case with Valve’s Steam on the PC we could really make use of similar shit on these consoles. Having not to deal with DVD’s and discs in general is just great. 

And something else now. For instance in Hungary most games are at least 50-60% more expensive than in the US. One thing is the stupid tax (VAT currently 20% going up again it seems). But then the distribution channel also gets its share (the wholesalers, retailers, etc.). And there’s also customs duty fees, etc. Region locking is quite stupid as well, though I understand it is there to somehow ‘lock’ these profits for the guys selling shit in their proper area. So for instance ‘the way Nintendo intended’ I can’t just buy a game from the States, and put it into a Wii and play it (of course there’s gecko os to do it, but leave that for now). I gotta probably wait for months (Okami EU version was released 6 months after the US one), and then pay double the price. Fuck it. This is a really biased issue. 

I imagine if most of the games were time limited fully playable demos (time limit can be anywhere from 1 hour to a few more) and the price would be similar all over the world (and cheaper, because makers would only need to put it up to their servers and the only cost is bandwidth - or even save something off of that, and use a p2p torrent-like system..) modchip makers and other hackers would probably not be that much interested -commercially- in these systems as they are now. For instance there are at least a dozen different (I know lots more) and decent modchips for the wii alone. xbox 360 has the xtreme firmware, and you do not even need to buy anything, all you need is a PC with a sata port and the freely available firmware. The last one standing is the PS3 - but I have heard rumours about that as well. It needs a good hack too

All of these consoles have an upgradeable system software - which can also be hacked. 

I know, there are people without broadband internet and a wii / ps3 / x360. That might be true. Or not. But it’s certainly a valid point. So discs will still be around for a while.