As BYTE is now a subscription service I thought some people might enjoy reading some extracts.
Greetings from Smog City. It's finally warming up here after a ridiculously cool spring, although I was never terribly cold because I sit at a desk with a 3 Ghz Pentium 4 on either side of me. If that sounds like braggadocio, my point is actually that it's like being sandwiched between two hot plates. So I promise, just in time for summer, next month's column will be all about cooling.
First, a quick update on the new Intel chipsets. Last month I reviewed the 875P chipset, and it proved itself to be a winner. Intel has now released "Springdale," the 865 chipset, which will eventually replace the long dominant 845 set. The 875 is aimed at the performance market, while the 865 is for the mainstream to value markets.
Like the 875, the 865 has an 800 Mhz front side bus, Dual Channel DDR400 memory and Gigabit Ethernet. The only real difference is the 865 doesn't have ECC memory support, no Performance Acceleration Technology and lower pin counts on the RAM sockets. The resulting savings: $14. Whoopty doo. Intel will also sell motherboards without the RAID0, which will save a good amount of money, but it will come with on board video.
ECC stands for "error correcting code," which means ECC memory detects and reports memory errors, and in many cases, can correct errors without interrupting the operation of your system. PAT adds a small amount of performance and the higher pin count means a faster memory bus. I haven't had time to test the system, but next month you'll get a head to head comparison.
On to the main event. Last month was E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the videogame industry's equivalent to Comdex. E3 is primarily a software show, and a console software show at that, but I went hoping to find some PC hardware news.
Well, so much for that idea. There were maybe fifty PCs in the whole place.
It wasn't a total loss. Coaxsys showed off an Ethernet hub that would let you set up a wired network in your home using coaxial cable, which is often built into homes. The unit, which it expects to sell for around $350, lets you run a network over the existing RG 6 or RG 59 coaxial cable that is already in your home or office. It won't mess with cable TV signals, yet still offers 100 Mbit performance.
Microsoft made some nice PC software news by announcing that Halo, its popular XBox game, will be ported to the PC platform for release next year. Halo is an unqualified hit. Of the eight million XBox consoles sold worldwide, two million, or one quarter of the total installed base, have Halo.
Other than that, hardware news was about as rare as a normal haircut. NVidia and ATI were there to show off their new but previously announced cards, Intel was there to show off the 865/875 and 3.0 GHz P4, and AMD was a no show, even though it had just introduced the Athlon 3200+.
On the console side, though, things were pretty busy. The surprise of the show came from Nokia, the Finnish cellular phone maker, which announced N Gage, a $300 handheld unit that's part portable game player, part cell phone and music player. It will play games that you can plug in or download, and the screen was far more colorful, bright and detailed than anything else seen in the handheld market.
The N Gage is also a GSM cell phone and comes with an MP3 player and an FM radio, supports sending e mail and SMS messages, and will synch with the Outlook calendar on your PC. It will allow two players to play head to head via a Bluetooth connection. Nokia expects to ship it in early 2004.
After that, Sony announced some interesting new console hardware, Microsoft spread its wings with new types of games in an attempt to grow its audience, and Nintendo had a three course meal of crow.
Sony
Sony is now the king of the gaming hill, an incredible accomplishment. A decade ago, the whole market was Nintendo and Sega. When the PlayStation was announced, I figured it would be DOA, given Sony's gift for introducing advanced technologies and completely screwing up the marketing end (witness: BetaMax, MiniDisc).
Boy was that a mile off. Sony now has 50 million PS2 consoles out there, making it the undisputed leader of the console market. Not resting on its laurels, Sony decided to enter the handheld gaming market with PSP, although it's more than a year away. It will have a 480 x 272 pixel screen, meaning it will have the same dimensions as a widescreen TV. The unit will have a USB 2.0 interface, which means it will probably talk to PCs or perhaps a PS2.
The game content will be stored on a 1.8 GB optical disc the size of a minidisk, which is more than enough room for a lot of music or even MPEG4 video. Sony is the leader in consumer electronics and a major name in entertainment content, so it's very likely albums and movies could end up on these units.
Sony also introduced EyeToy, a USB camera peripheral that plugs into the PS2's USB port. What's really interesting about this little gadget is that it will come with 12 games that allow the gamer to project their own image into the game, so you can be the star of a videogame. Thanks to the motion tracking features in the camera, you'll be controlling the game by your movements by your movements, not by pressing buttons. You will be able to put down the joystick, get off the couch and throw punches in a boxing game. Keep an eye on this. If they get this right, we might see the advent of real interactive control of a computer.
Shortly after the show, Sony announced a new console, the PSX, an upgraded PlayStation 2 system with a DVD recorder, 120 GB hard drive, Internet functionality, a TV tuner and personal video recorder (PVR) features like TiVo. The PSX will be released in Japan later this year and the U.S. and Europe sometime next year. No price has been announced.
Microsoft
Microsoft kicked off the show with the news it would cut the XBox price by $20 to $179 in the U.S. and $249 in Canada, which means an even bigger loss for the company. Its home entertainment division is losing a fortune on XBox, and it won't get better any time soon.
So, perhaps to make up for it on the other end, Microsoft did announce a price increase for XBox Live, its online service. The one year subscription remains $49.99, but the Xbox Live Starter kit will go up from $49.99 to $69.99 this fall and the one month trial will now be $5.99 instead of free. It's not all bad, though. There will be a free two month trial available and some games will include free trial subscriptions to Xbox Live.
On the product side, Microsoft and WildTangent introduced XBox Music Mixer, a new title that lets consumers mix music and share digital photos and music stored on the PC. You can transfer media from your PC to the XBox through the Ethernet port and listen to music and view pictures on your TV screen or use the software's mixer mode to add audio effects and transitions to the songs. Of course, it wouldn't be complete without a karaoke feature as well. It should be in stores by Christmas at a price of $39.99.
The lines to see a preview of Halo 2 were almost as long as the lines for The Matrix Reloaded. Nintendo has Mario, Sony has Final Fantasy, and Microsoft has Halo, simple as that.
However, Microsoft is looking to expand down into the younger market. It bought Rare last year, which specializes in kids' games. Rare had a nice chunk of the Microsoft booth with titles like Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Conker: Live and Uncut, and Kameo: Elements of Power. All of these will nicely contrast with games like Counter Strike and Doom III, id Software's incredible first person shooter, which will only be on XBox, aside from the PC.
Nintendo
Nintendo finds itself in a place it's never been before: the back of the pack. It's running third, with around seven million GameCubes on the market, compared to Microsoft's eight million consoles and Sony's 50 million.
The problem is this: Nintendo always aimed for the kid's market, but the gamers are getting older. The Interactive Digital Software Association places the average age of videogame players at 28 years. For Nintendo, with a console that looks like a child's lunchbox and an endless supply of Mario and Zelda games, it's been labeled as the kiddie console, and not unfairly.
Then there's the sanitizing of games. Around a decade ago, id Software took a crack at porting its then popular Castle Wolfenstein 3D game to the Super NES. Nintendo made them change the dogs to rats and blood flying from gunshots to sweat. They were also forced to remove crosses and other religious images. id did so, but were furious; id founder and president John Carmack swore he'd never work with Nintendo again, and has kept his word. Subsequent Nintendo ports of id games were done by third party developers.
Nintendo recognized this and is trying to change its image. President Satoru Iwata admitted at a pre E3 press conference the company has blown it and is trying to gain more third party developers to port their games to GameCube. More important, the company isn't sanitizing them any more. Splinter Cell and Enter the Matrix on GameCube are the same as they are on PlayStation 2. Nintendo's plan is to stick to Mario, Metroid and Zelda games and leave the shooting games to the experts.
Other Stuff
I had a chance to chat with someone from Electronic Arts regarding their misfortunes in the online gaming world. One of the first big names in the market with Ultima Online, EA has misfired lately. Earth & Beyond, a truly great space game, and The Sims Online, based on the hit single player game, have both stumbled. Earth & Beyond and The Sims Online have cost the company millions and are not attracting players in the numbers they need. As much as 50 percent of the people who have tried The Sims Online didn't renew after the first month.
Part of the problem is that EA approached these games like a single player game, a mistake I would not expect a veteran company like this to make. Single player games are done within four months of release. Either you're a hit out of the gate or you're not. Online games, on the other hand, take years to build, as EverQuest has shown. So EA is retrenching, lowering expectations, and planning for long, slow growth rather than for it all to be over in a few months.
The most impressive game of the show, without a doubt, was Doom III from id Software. The detail was beyond anything seen in a game, almost approaching a Pixar movie. So were the game physics. Bodies and bullets fly around like they are supposed to move, and the lighting looked much more realistic than anything I've seen. But all that detail will come with a price. Playing on anything lower than the fastest machines on the market will probably be painful.
Right behind Doom III is Half Life 2. It looks every bit as impressive as the original, but of course has a more modern look, and it has the intricate storyline that made the first game so popular. Unlike Doom III, it has a release date: September.
Not even bothering to show up this time was 3D Realms, the alleged maker of Duke Nukem Forever. Supposedly they've been making this game since 1997, although I didn't realize the "Forever" part of its name would refer to the development cycle. The fact that they didn't even show up says volumes. Perhaps it's time for them to give up and move onto something new, like Prey.
I hope someone gets that joke.