Curmudgeon GamerIf you ask me, all the furore surrounding the HD-DVD gloom and doom buzzing around the internet can only be a "good thing" for Sony. It's all just further proof that the symbiosis between games console and media accessory is irrevocably complete and the resulting abomination is the future. And I'm not even going to begin to theorise about how the PS3 might have helped Sony's Blu-Ray empire.
Sony are probably going to use the news as a metaphorical ladder to climb towards their metaphorical goal in the universe, which is to sell the PS3 as a "lifestyle" console. This serves the dual purpose of inevitably infuriating people who spend a considerable chunk of their time browsing internet forums (i.e: me) and also generating a huge swathe of attention (case in point: this post) where the ensuing knock-on effect will cause some people to put down money and actually buying one.
There's got to be some fence sitters, who both want to adopt a HD format and not buy the next Betamax. This news will surely encourage them towards a PS3. Right?
Of course, there's the bigger picture. We all want to be seen as cool and Sony are no different. By touting their universally-panned fence-sitting jack of all trades black box as some sort of arbitrary accessory to life then Sony aren't just making a games machine for teenagers they're making something you're not ashamed of having in your living room. I'm sure that's the sort of general consensus that Sony are getting at. I'll bet you my right arm that's the kind of stuff they talk/make Powerpoint graphs about in business meetingsDon't get me wrong, Sony are no worse than the competition. After all, my 360 has spent the last three weeks slapping me round the face with news about how I can download movies onto my games playing console, provided it's not too busy randomly exploding and I can buy a sound system big enough to drown out the console's turbine engine.
I bet even Nintendo would do it if their little white brick was powerful enough.
On the other hand, it is rather...sinister.
Three things jump right out at me:
- As soon as you start the game it has a little note saying that you must have an HDMI cable and an HDTV with an HDCP compatible HDMI port to run the game in 1080p. Basically, you have to have an encrypted connection from the PS3 to the TV. Baffling. What am I going to do...steal high resolution video of myself tossing one in the gutter? Bizarre.
- The menu options right off the bat include various modes of play and...buy new characters. In-your-face microtransactions! None are available now, but if this works like the PSN game PAIN released last week, there will be little dudes you can add to the game for $0.99 very soon...
- Then at the bottom of the menu screen you can see that tapping the triangle button does something special. It displays the End User License Agreement, or EULA. Because, really, you never know when you might want to check the possibly-binding legal document you virtually signed when you booted the game the first time.
There are newer guns that work with LCDs and plasma sets -- the RGT G1 and the LCD TopGun are two -- but they don't appear to work with older systems since they both use USB. (Aside: I'm told the RGT G1 is not very good. Their pages say there is a new model due soon, during Q2 2007.) Working with USB means that older systems like the Dreamcast and PSOne aren't really in the mix. Unless, of course, there is a way to hack together an adapter.
So here's my idea of how I might be able to play something like House of the Dead 2 on the Dreamcast using this newer gun:
LCD TopGun -> USB to PS/2 adapter -> Total Control 2 -> Dreamcast
That's PS/2 -- the keyboard and mouse interface -- not PS2 as in PlayStation 2. Anyone have ideas about whether this would work or not? Even better, anyone in a position to try it out?
Then again, I should be able to pick up a cheap CRT TV in a year or so as they're pushed out of the market, so maybe I should just wait.
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