Vidcons in the Year 2013: The News Thread

notbov · Joined: 14 Feb 2009

AMD as an whole entity is on a downward trend and supplying chips for the 360 and Wii didn't do much for them. Whatever's left of ATi as a complete company would probably be one of the first thing's AMD would sell off (remember that they vastly overpaid to acquire ATi back when; $6 billion versus a much, much smaller market valuation today).
_________________

notbov · Joined: 14 Feb 2009

oh god, that's a horrible top post

can we go back to hating on twinsticks
_________________

Lasakon · Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: Oregon Trail

Winona Ghost Ryder · lives in a monochromatic world Joined: 04 Dec 2006

Ronnoc · Joined: 26 Feb 2010

Heh, there kept being places where I was like, 'It sure looks like you could drive right up that wall' and then

Mikey · Joined: 11 Dec 2006 Location: endless backlog

All hype is lost :(

special blend · Joined: 06 Dec 2006

Toptube · Anti-cabbage Party Candidate Joined: 23 Apr 2007

AMD has also been doing well in the notebook/mobile sector and they've got interesting things to say in the server market, as well. It will be a long time, if ever again, that they will compete with Intel in the high end desktop/laptop segment. But with some restructuring, I don't think they will die completely. Unfortunately, Intel is already gearing up for no competitionville, by offering basically no large improvements for the forseeable future.

Felix · Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 11:12 pm

They're innovating like crazy in power per watt and mobile packages. Given that they do in fact have no competition in the high-end market -- a nearly-two-year-old 2500k which can be had for $150 beats AMD's highest-end chip, and given that those are being used for consoles, by extension beats any other home consumer electronics for, oh, the next three or four years, I really don't blame them for not having any real CPU muscle improvements scoped out before 2015 at the earliest. The margins on these things aren't especially high; they make money on CES fodder.

(you can get a server chip that performs approximately 2x as well as a 2500k for approximately 10x the cost if you really want to experience the current consumer ceiling).

Broco · Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: Headquarters

Intel got blindsided by the huge expansion of the phone/tablet market, and ARM competitors are eating the lunch there while Intel is stuck dominating the low-growth desktop/laptop space. The whole company is now focused on scaling their stuff down to mobile power envelopes so they can have a piece of that pie. Even though they are very late to that game, I think they have a chance, since they'll have more advanced fabs than the ARM folks and since the Android app ecosystem is mostly Java-based.

What's really sad is that Qualcomm's Adreno division was bought from AMD a few years ago for peanuts (50 million I think). Now Adreno is in tons of phones. I don't know what AMD's CEO was thinking; their company might be in much better shape today if they had kept that division.

notbov · Joined: 14 Feb 2009

That CEO got the boot within the last year, iirc, mostly because AMD had so little market share in comparison to Intel and how badly it dropped in addition to some of the poor investments.

Wired had a great article about Intel's efforts in the low-power mobile space 3-4 issues back and how Intel is more or less gearing up to fight ARM (though I have my doubts they'll win anytime soon, though they do have Intel money, so).
_________________

Felix · Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2013 3:03 am

The whole Windows 8 + Ultrabook business ("unusually specific and inauspicious hegemony" if you aren't into the whole brevity thing) actually gives Intel a decent chance since people like me will continue to want compact, powerful, non-Mac notebooks every few years, and they won't see any point to running Windows (which still does much better on a portable than Ubuntu) without the x86 legacy. They've done a good job of making it seem like a waste to get a notebook without a touchscreen, even though I have no great desire for a tablet and most of them still look unwieldy as hell (granted, I have fairly specific needs for a 12-13" machine with a resolution around 1440x900).

I will almost certainly buy a Haswell hybrid. It would be nice if said hybrid had an i3 so I can save money (particularly as the ULV i3s and i5s aren't at all different from one another except for clocking up), but still had a quasi-doable user memory upgrade like the Yoga 13 so I can give it significantly more ram than an i3 machine is likely to ship with, as well as a flush microSD slot so I can continue to save money on a smaller SSD and just stick a 64gb card in there permanently for bulk storage. This, along with my desired screen dimensions, will result in a machine who margins are so low that it will almost certainly never exist, but I can dream.

Speaking of which, what the heck is the deal with ARM Ubuntu? Are there compatible versions of Gimp and LibreOffice I just didn't know about? Would it kill Mark Shuttleworth to make a single move that wouldn't inevitably be perceived as milquetoast by his entire user community, except for people in Brazil who supposedly prefer Linux for usability reasons and may not actually exist?

I like AMD because they know how to engineer a $180 video card. However, now that I've switched to Linux for my discrete graphics machine, I can't continue to give them money, and this is only partially their fault. To be fair, I was also sort of getting tired of seeing PC games whose minimum nVidia reqs are about 2 years older than their minimum AMD reqs.

I don't really like nVidia at all though I'm glad they're making such a funny doomed product.

RobotRocker · Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2013 9:10 am

After complaints from creditors during the court filings and fiddling by THQ management and Clearlake to make the situation seem worse than it was when filing for chapter 11, THQ has agreed to auction off their assets on January 22nd

Let the scrambling begin.
_________________

Toptube · Anti-cabbage Party Candidate Joined: 23 Apr 2007

Man, Atlus should buy Saints Row. I'm not even kidding.

Mikey · Joined: 11 Dec 2006 Location: endless backlog

I doubt they have the money to beat anyone at auction for a franchise like that, though.

boojiboy7 · Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2013 1:49 pm

notbov · Joined: 14 Feb 2009

There's rumblings that Warner Bros. is going to going after THQ's stuff aggressively and that they've sent scouts to the studios, so a good chunk of the bigger franchises might end up at the same publisher.

Personally, I want Sega to buy Relic and throw them in with the Creative Assembly. Then they'll have all of the strategies.
_________________

RobotRocker · Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2013 3:59 pm

another god · Joined: 04 Dec 2006

Total Warhammer please?
_________________
interdimensional

notbov · Joined: 14 Feb 2009

Sega/CA already have the Warhammer Fantasy license; grabbing Relic and/or the rights would then give them the 40K license as well.

Thinking about it, EA getting the WWE license makes total sense (especially after the poached UFC last May) and would probably end well if they still have a relationship with Syn-Sophia.
_________________

Toups · tyranically banal Joined: 03 Dec 2006 Location: Ebon Keep

THQ is going indie! lol
_________________

bort · Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2013 6:00 pm

Tales of Game's is going to snap up the Bratz license, believe it.

Teflon · Joined: 11 Jan 2007

Squeenix take Saints Row for the non-GTA sandbox singularity.

I'd rather talk about Felix' freakish torch TV though like for example note that it is a torch rather than a lantern. Say you're camping and you want a light source and a TV to put in your tent. You could buy portable versions of both and lug those, but a combination TV/upwards facing omnidirectional lantern actually makes a startling amount of sense! They share the power circuitry and battery, it's kind of heavy but you're only carrying it from your truck to the tent when you set up, no biggie. Smart thinking Coleman! BUT THIS IS A FUCKING TORCH. A LAMP YOU LIFT AND POINT AT THINGS. ATTACHED TO A HEAVY ASS 80s TV.

Dracko · a sapphist fool Joined: 06 Dec 2006

http://kentuckyroutezero.com/
_________________

MattCD42 · Joined: 13 Sep 2011 Location: Under the rock

Honestly why would anyone buy Saint's Row? It seems like you could just make a game like it, use a different title, and be everyone's new favorite on the block. That's cheaper right?

Maybe I'm just deluded...
_________________
Steam: Godamn_Milkman

Felix · Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2013 9:45 pm

Saints Row is actually pretty inspired in parts (and they have a lot of fun with the music licensing &c.)

Ultimately its failings are the failings of lazy shootman sandbox games, but its highs are more unique than its lows

Swimmy · Joined: 04 Dec 2006

Loki Laufeyson · Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2013 10:46 pm

thestage · banned Joined: 27 Sep 2011

Can they even sell stuff like the WWE and Warhammer licenses? Wouldn't those just revert back to to WWE and Games Workshop to resell as they see fit?

CubaLibre · the road lawyer Joined: 02 Mar 2007 Location: Balmer

Dark Age Iron Savior · Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2013 3:06 am

Takashi · Joined: 04 Dec 2006

home pinball destroyed the bar industry

i guess paging luvcraft for insight?
_________________

low-end.net | Whimsy (soon) | Serfdom 2.0

chevluh · Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: Switzerland

another god · Joined: 04 Dec 2006

Jigsaw · Joined: 11 Sep 2008 Location: Eskilstuna, Sweden

Lasakon · Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: Oregon Trail

The renamed AKI, they recently just made Style Savvy.
_________________

Drem · Joined: 04 Dec 2006 Location: The Planet Bookshelves

I thought Syn-Sophia was just the moniker they used for their girl-focused games, not a complete replacement for the name AKI Corporation.

Takashi · Joined: 04 Dec 2006

Drem · Joined: 04 Dec 2006 Location: The Planet Bookshelves

Yakuza PSP was definitely aimed at the same demographic as Style Savvy.

Teflon · Joined: 11 Jan 2007

another god · Joined: 04 Dec 2006

Isn't that what keeps Game Informer alive? Hyping games that need it? I mean, it's gotta be cheaper to buy Game Informer preview space than to buy the Saints Row franchise. And, to be honest, I really doubt a dev team can really get behind Saints' Row as much as they could their own franchise.

Who here bought SR3 for full price?
_________________
interdimensional