On May 22, 2013 at 20:38, Hasbeen said...
For the sake of seriousness here, I have questions.
#1. Do you have interest in this thing for your clients?
tough question. I will divide it into 3 parts
1) this kind of touches on this, but not exactly. That presentation was the worst reveal I have ever saw. At the end of the day it was an hour of my time that was wasted since they never really said anything. I did not get any real info as a techy, gamer or installer.
For example as a Techy they said 8GB ram, 8core CPU, 500GB drive with mandatory installs, but none of that mean anything. what is the configuration of the RAM, what type of RAM, what is the architecture of the CPU and at what clock speed, 500GB sounds like a lot but the mandatory full install where you won't need the disk, means that it will fill up in no time ( this generation there were games being close to 50GB of game data, we will have more games that are close to that size and some that will be much bigger and come on two BDs, add the game saves and possibly other stuff, such as extra DLC and movies/music) and the first question is how can I go beyond 500GB since that is practically a joke for today and the next 5 years.
As a gamer yes they said there will be some new IP and some games in development and they did show a few minutes of game trailers, but name that new IP, for all we know it is all crap Kinect games, show some in game play for the games you want to present, show videos that show what the console can do and that don't look last generation, you talk about the new Kinect and how it is way better at reading movement, but show me how it can be used in a game.
As an installer, they wasted a lot of time on a montage of the box when they could have done that in 1/10th the time and show it even better without the lights blinking and flipping from one view to the other. But let's face it, it is a boring black box with what I am guessing are vent holes on the sides, so it is not even an interesting device to look at and as an installer the majority of times it will be put in an equipment rack and won't be seen and even if it is not (like maybe in a simple Bedroom install) the person that wants a gaming machine does not care what it looks like they just want to play the games, they will want the same machine that is in the HT or LR. As for the hand waving/talking and TV, that will mostly be in part 2 but let's be honest they did not say how it will work.
2) since your post appeared to be about the guy flapping his arms and talking and switching channels on the TV, let's look at that aspect and how it will affect us.
Personally when the Pronto first came out some great minds on this site found a way to turn it into a voice activated remote (PC running voice SW and Pronto edit connected to the Pronto). As a gadget boy I just had to try it. Even though it worked well (technically) after the novelty wore off (which was extremely fast), I unplugged my Pronto and used it as normal. The simple reality is no one wants to have some ass hole (be it me or anyone else) speaking while they are trying to watch something. So for me this is completely useless and my clients won't get anything different in terms of controllers since I don't want to be called a couple of days later with someone justly complaining that I let them take that route.
That being said if they need help getting this set up I will, but the "backup" will be there because I can't imagine anyone would like this in the long run.
On the other hand the guy did all that in the show but he did not say how it works. Now "movie" and "game" are relatively simple, we can assume he was watching a BD or Netflix that are internal functions of the machine, same with gaming. But with TV it gets complicated. Does it have a built in Tuner? and then which one? does it have an add-on Tuner you need to buy separately like Sony's PlayTV (for Europe)
[Link: en.wikipedia.org] or Torne (in Japan)? or will it use the HDMI in and use the remote features in HDMI to control the box attached to it? depending on what they mean by watch Tv and how it is implemented it might not work for a client. The guy talked about Comcast(his provider) but what happens if your Client has something different and it is not supported (i.e. like Sony's play TV uses a DVB-T tuner and so useless in our market, if it uses HDMI to pass the commands what tuner box accept RC commands?) Also where does the programming come from, do you program what different things mean (i.e. can a francophone call it "Tele", "jeux", "film", where does it get what ESPN.... is it like in media center where if I go to zap2it I can get the guide for all my stations but because some of the info is not right media center has the wrong info).
So for me I see this as a none issue for my clients, it won't affect any recommendations and it won't change my installations
3) if we now talk more generally
personally I find people don't end to ask what to get and let's face it for the last few years it was simply I have Z and can we integrate it in the new set-up, or I want Z because I have Z in an other room.
But back in the xbox/PS2 days I did not have a business so even though I did not have a business when friends would ask I would tell them they are both more or less the same but get an Xbox because that is what I have (and that would mean we could play together more easily)
With the PS3/360, I liked the PS3 an that was enough for what I bought but not enough to start off with the basic answer of "get what your friends have" only if pressed would I recommend the PS3 over the 360
This generation I think I will have to recommend against MS console if asked, but if hey want one I will still install it.
It has nothing to do with the presentation, since they did not give any info and nothing to do with the guy talking and waving his arms to do stuff since that is useless.
But, from other articles that came out after the show that said with the HDD installs and in order for you to be able to sell the rights to the game you bought it will need an internet connection so the console can check every 24h if you still have the rights to the game. That might not seem like a big deal to some but of my clients have cottages, apartments..... out of town and when we worked on any of those second residences none of them had internet there. So even if the guy coming into my shop wanting something for home I don't want him coming in several months later (or even shorter) blaming me because him and his kids can't play the game they bought at the cottage on a rainy day.
The issue is that a large portion of my clients have cottages (or places in Florida or on the Mediterranean) and the ones that don't (like myself) tend to have friends and family that do so they would still be equally affected.
