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[kaching]

The XMB engineers weren't lying, they were talking about an SDK feature to enable custom soundtracks on a game by game basis. A universal custom soundtrack feature like this isn't what they were referring to.

 

[Dark Octave]

Custom soundtrack supporters: "Hit the road Nobuo Uematsu and Chris Huelsbeck! We don't want you to have anything to do with our games anymore! We have our own soundtracks now!"

*dances away singing* "My milkshake, is better than yours!"

"I used to make music for RPGs and adventure games... Damn custom soundtracks..."

 

[besada]

I assume this needs the game to support the feature. After all, how otherwise is the PS3 meant to know what sound is your music and what is other sound effects.

One presumes they run on different channels. Regardless, MS figured it out, so I'm guessing Sony will as well.

 

[besada]

I hate custom soundtracks. They never fit the game

So you enjoy listening to the terrible music in Motorstorm? How does replacing a shitty rock track with a good rock track not fit the game?

 

[jjasper]

So you enjoy listening to the terrible music in Motorstorm? How does replacing a shitty rock track with a good rock track not fit the game?

Yeah there are some games that I really like custom soundtracks, Racing games being #1 also games like SSHD.

 

[krypt0nian]

I hate custom soundtracks. They never fit the game

It's far far better than playing a racing game with shit ass soundtracks. And that Oblivion music got old after 20+ hours. Thank the gods for the Conan OST.

 

[_RT_]

Isn't that how it's done? Is it even possible to fix them all at once? Troll.

I was thinking the same thing.
Fixing all of the items over time on a system that doesn't seem to die after time = a win for me.

 

[Suikoguy]

It's far far better than playing a racing game with shit ass soundtracks. And that Oblivion music got old after 20+ hours. Thank the gods for the Conan OST.

Yes, Racing Games it is a big advantage. Built into the firmware, it works fine.

Oblivion being such a long game, it's nice but.. I would rather have the in game option that could specify albums/selections for certain instances, IE Battle Music, Exploring Music, Dungeon Music, Town Music.

Of course, being able to specify frequency would be nice too.

The ingame options just mutes the music and plays constantly, with no regards to what is happening in game.

 

[besada]

I was thinking the same thing.
Fixing all of the items over time on a system that doesn't seem to die after time = a win for me.

I'd prefer a system that didn't die all the time AND had all the features its competitors had, personally.

 

[dallow_bg]

I'd prefer a system that didn't die all the time AND had all the features its competitors had, personally.

Something about cake.... and something about eating it too....


Perhaps the PS Blog will say something about it. They seem to do a good job of commenting on stuff going on.

 

[cicatriz]

Wasn't it revealed that in game music selection has been enabled for developers all along?

 

[dallow_bg]

Wasn't it revealed that in game music selection has been enabled for developers all along?

Yes, however these pics show it coming straight from the PS menu while in a game. Not from a "music selecter" in the game itself.

 

[jjasper]

Wasn't it revealed that in game music selection has been enabled for developers all along?

This is a little different. What we have now is developers have access to the music stored in the hard drive and they can allow play back of it in their games (I think this is how xbox 1 worked).

Is is more like the 360 in that the OS allows you to access the music in the hard drive and play it (directly from the XMB?) while the game is playing, no developer support is needed.

 

[Dark Octave]

Yes, Racing Games it is a big advantage. Built into the firmware, it works fine.

Oblivion being such a long game, it's nice but.. I would rather have the in game option that could specify albums/selections for certain instances, IE Battle Music, Exploring Music, Dungeon Music, Town Music.

Of course, being able to specify frequency would be nice too.

The ingame options just mutes the music and plays constantly, with no regards to what is happening in game.

Exactly. I loved custom soundtracks in Burnout 3 and NFL2K5 on the original Xbox (because it fit those genres and the developer themselves created the feature), but the feature is sloppy on the 360. And because of it, developers are getting lazy. Burnout Revenge on 360, and every other 360 game, simply plays the music all the way to the end like a radio no matter what was going on in the game. It isn't cohesive at all like it was back on Burnout 3, where each track changed from menu to race.

With that said, I feel custom soundtracks should not be mandatory like they are on the 360. Just like my earlier post shows, I feel that making them mandatory is an intrusive slap in the face to music composers, sound studios, and designers in the game industry. I feel this feature should be left to each developer to use or not.

 

[Aeon712]

Yes dev's have always had the option according to Sony. Anyways I've never understood whats so good about custom soundtracks. Yet every XMB update I see people constantly asking for it.

 

[Madman]

Yes dev's have always had the option according to Sony. Anyways I've never understood whats so good about custom soundtracks. Yet every XMB update I see people constantly asking for it.

I like listening to my own music wehile playing games. Not all games need this feature, but games like Resistance, Motorstorm, SSHD, ect can really use it.

 

[besada]

With that said, I feel custom soundtracks should not be mandatory like they are on the 360. Just like my earlier post shows, I feel that making them mandatory is an intrusive slap in the face to music composers, sound studios, and designers in the game industry. I feel this feature should be left to each developer to use or not.

I disagree. I think the choice should be left to the folks that paid money to play the game, which is what the 360 does. You aren't required to listen to a custom soundtrack, but you have the choice, no matter how lazy the developer was or how much in love he was with his shitty 80's guitar rock (I'm looking at you, Blue Dragon).

I don't get why so many people are down on giving the customer the choice rather than leaving it to the console manufacturer or the developer.

 

[cicatriz]

I can't wait to play Motorstorm, SSD, and UT3 with my own musak!

 

[Madman]

With that said, I feel custom soundtracks should not be mandatory like they are on the 360. Just like my earlier post shows, I feel that making them mandatory is an intrusive slap in the face to music composers, sound studios, and designers in the game industry. I feel this feature should be left to each developer to use or not.

It's about personal choice. We paid for the game already, so we should be able to do whatever we please regarding stuff like that. It would be bullshit if a develioper didn't allow it.

And if the guys from, let's say Evolution wanted me to listen to their music, then they shouldn't have chosen all those shitty songs.

 

[Crisis]

There's two things about that screenshot that are interesting. Yes, select music is interesting but the PS3 firmware guys said that game developers had to support it. "Adjust Screen Settings" is new, too. If I can change my display settings in-game, that would be amazing. I could finally figure out what settings were better for me. It's about impossible to do so now because taking before and after screenshots of my TV don't help me. :lol

 

[TONX]

Nice, i hope they do it right and have the ability to queue up the music instead of choosing 1 at a time.

 

[CrushDance]

I hate custom soundtracks. They never fit the game

.................

 

[Brofist]

EA games will once again be bearable to listen to

I hate custom soundtracks. They never fit the game

well you don't change epic music in games like RPGs and what not. you change the generic rage crap soundtracks in most racing and EA games.

 

[WasabiKing]

CoD 4 featuring Gimme Shelter and Fortunate Son.

 

[The Faceless Master]

Yes dev's have always had the option according to Sony. Anyways I've never understood whats so good about custom soundtracks. Yet every XMB update I see people constantly asking for it.

musical taste varies widely.

 

[besada]

CoD 4 featuring Gimme Shelter and Fortunate Son.

Sweetness. On the 360 I have on several occasions made special mixes just for certain games. I have 2 standard racing mixes on my drive, one for tooling around (full of classic road songs) and one for serious racing (high-energy techno and electronica). I have a classical mix for action/fighting games. I don't know why, but running around in Dead Rising while Ode to Joy plays in the background is great fun.

I've got a friend who, after playing Oblivion until the music made him want to choke himself (somewhere around 60 hours) made an all BeeGees track for Oblivion. Surreal watching him delve through dark caves while the BeeGees shrieked out their tunes.

Custom soundtracks are one of my very favorite parts of next-gen.

 

[kaching]

I don't get why so many people are down on giving the customer the choice rather than leaving it to the console manufacturer or the developer.

I don't have a problem with it personally but I'm sorta curious why this "give customers a choice" rationale only extends as far as the music and not say visual or gameplay elements. Seems arbitrary.

 

[Crisis]

Sweetness. On the 360 I have on several occasions made special mixes just for certain games.

Same here. They were mainly racing games though.

 

[The Faceless Master]

I don't have a problem with it personally but I'm sorta curious why this "give customers a choice" rationale only extends as far as the music and not say visual or gameplay elements. Seems arbitrary.

have you seen the polls where people were asked if they'd rather lose all their movies or all their music?

it's rather stacked... for many people, music is very personal.

 

[Dark Octave]

I disagree. I think the choice should be left to the folks that paid money to play the game, which is what the 360 does. You aren't required to listen to a custom soundtrack, but you have the choice, no matter how lazy the developer was or how much in love he was with his shitty 80's guitar rock (I'm looking at you, Blue Dragon).

I don't get why so many people are down on giving the customer the choice rather than leaving it to the console manufacturer or the developer.

Then let me change the visuals to fit something more my style too. I'm not really big on Halo 3's visuals but I know it'll be a very fun game. I already have the power to delete 1/3 of the product. Why not let us go all the way? Little big planet proved it is possible on consoles. I believe Unreal Tournament 3 for PS3 will allow for the same customizations as it's PC counterpart. Why not make this feature also mandatory accross all games as well? It's about choice right?

While were at it, let me change the music in my favorite high definition movies too. I didn't really care for Spiderman 3, Casino Royale, or 300's soundtrack. They could have used some 50 Cent or some Pussycat Dolls influence. Especially during the emotional scenes. I paid for the movie right? Why would this be any different from a game I paid even more money for?

Game stores allow their employees to play custom music in the display 360s. As a consumer, if I didn't know any better I would have believed Bone Thugs and Harmony did the soundtrack for Eternal Sonata.

If your playing my game then I want you to experiance all of it. Every color and every sound that was intedned for that game is important to set the mood for the developers vision. MS is allowing people to water that down and delete a vital part of what you paid money for.

A lot of people seem to want this pretty badly so I guess it'll happen eventually. I've already expressed enough of how I feel about this feature being forced on developers. It has taken decades for game music to become respected to where it is today. And now all that is being washed away with a push of a button. Many people will not experiance great soundtracks because they will become too comfortable with this feature. There's not much more I can say on this topic. Whatever is gonna happen, is gonna happen.

 

[kaching]

have you seen the polls where people were asked if they'd rather lose all their movies or all their music?

it's rather stacked... for many people, music is very personal.

On that note, why aren't we all clamoring for a way to wholesale replace the soundtrack in movies then?

 

[The Faceless Master]

On that note, why aren't we all clamoring for a way to wholesale replace the soundtrack in movies then?

because we generally have no control in movies, while we generally do control things somewhat in videogames.

 

[besada]

I don't have a problem with it personally but I'm sorta curious why this "give customers a choice" rationale only extends as far as the music and not say visual or gameplay elements. Seems arbitrary.

Because so many developers tack on shitty music and we have the option of replacing it? Whereas replacing the graphics would make it hard to actually play the game. (Note, I actually like choice in gameplay elements, which is why I enjoy sandbox games, as they allow me to play the way I want). While music is important in some games, it's not as big a feature in others. Sports games, specifically, are notorious for craptastic soundtracks.

Look, I don't think anyone's arguing that people should ignore the soundtrack on games where it's clearly an important part of the work, but that's just not the case for an entire range of games.

 

[Raistlin]

Incredibly overdue. Has the XMB team abandoned it for Home or something? These updates are unbearably slow.

What? 1.8 was frigging huge, and we just had two small fix revisions since then.

Christ, are you expecting significant upgrades every week? :lol

Would there be ANY advantage at all to trickling these out slowly, even though they've been finished for a while? I can't think of any, so I assume that they're just catching up with all of these features, which frankly should have been there at launch.

Protip: many of the features we take for granted on Xbox weren't there at launch. As a matter of fact, Live itself ... as in the very first revision ... didn't come out until around a year after launch.

 

[WTFing]

Then let me change the visuals to fit something more my style too. I'm not really big on Halo 3's visuals but I know it'll be a very fun game. I already have the power to delete 1/3 of the product. Why not let us go all the way? Little big planet proved it is possible on consoles. I believe Unreal Tournament 3 for PS3 will allow for the same customizations as it's PC counterpart. Why not make this feature also mandatory accross all games as well? It's about choice right?

While were at it, let me change the music in my favorite high definition movies too. I didn't really care for Spiderman 3, Casino Royale, or 300's soundtrack. They could have used some 50 Cent or some Pussycat Dolls influence. Especially during the emotional scenes. I paid for the movie right? Why would this be any different from a game I paid even more money for?

Game stores allow their employees to play custom music in the display 360s. As a consumer, if I didn't know any better I would have believed Bone Thugs and Harmony did the soundtrack for Eternal Sonata.

If your playing my game then I want you to experiance all of it. Every color and every sound that was intedned for that game is important to set the mood for the developers vision. MS is allowing people to water that down and delete a vital part of what you paid money for.

A lot of people seem to want this pretty badly so I guess it'll happen eventually. I've already expressed enough of how I feel about this feature being forced on developers. It has taken decades for game music to become respected to where it is today. And now all that is being washed away with a push of a button. Many people will not experiance great soundtracks because they will become too comfortable with this feature. There's not much more I can say on this topic. Whatever is gonna happen, is gonna happen.

I spend more time playing the same game, than watching the same movie.

 

[besada]

If your playing my game then I want you to experiance all of it. Every color and every sound that was intedned for that game is important to set the mood for the developers vision. MS is allowing people to water that down and delete a vital part of what you paid money for.

See, here's the problem. I don't care what you want. As the maker of the game, I owe you nothing. If you gave me the game, then maybe I would owe you, but you aren't giving me the game. I'm buying it, and therefore can use it however I see fit. Any company that makes that easier for me gets my dollars.

As for changing the visuals, that's pretty much what Game 3.0 is about, allowing users the ability to change the look and gameplay. The modding community has been doing it forever. Do you have a problem with them, too?

 

[Yama]

Very nice. I wonder if it'll replace the BG music, I doubt it. At least not for early games. Still, most games have the option to turn off the BGM, so it should work just fine.

 

[The Faceless Master]

What? 1.8 was frigging huge, and we just had two small fix revisions since then.

Christ, are you expecting significant upgrades every week? :lol



Protip: many of the features we take for granted on Xbox weren't there at launch. As a matter of fact, Live itself ... as in the very first revision ... didn't come out until around a year after launch.

so we should compare 2002 to 2007?

 

[Gattsu25]

See, here's the problem. I don't care what you want. As the maker of the game, I owe you nothing. If you gave me the game, then maybe I would owe you, but you aren't giving me the game. I'm buying it, and therefore can use it however I see fit.

I never thought I'd hear the "I support Piracy" argument being used to justify custom soundtracks :lol

 

[cicatriz]

so we should compare 2002 to 2007?

Was online gaming invented in 2002?

 

[Raistlin]

so we should compare 2002 to 2007?

Not this argument again >_<

 

[kaching]

because we generally have no control in movies, while we generally do control things somewhat in videogames.

You could have as much control as you want once it's released on DVD.

Because so many developers tack on shitty music and we have the option of replacing it?

Developers tack on all kinds of shitty elements in their games, it's not confined to music.

Whereas replacing the graphics would make it hard to actually play the game.

Not necessarily. Plenty of examples of games getting reskinned and still being playable. And it's not like replacing music couldn't lead to the same issue - you could end up replacing the original soundtrack of the game with music that makes it harder to pick up on specific audio cues.

Look, I don't think anyone's arguing that people should ignore the soundtrack on games where it's clearly an important part of the work, but that's just not the case for an entire range of games.

I'm not trying to put you on the spot specifically, I'm just trying to understand why game soundtracks are viewed as something that should mandatorily support the option to be replaced wholesale by the player.

 

[Dark Octave]

See, here's the problem. I don't care what you want. As the maker of the game, I owe you nothing. If you gave me the game, then maybe I would owe you, but you aren't giving me the game. I'm buying it, and therefore can use it however I see fit. Any company that makes that easier for me gets my dollars.

As for changing the visuals, that's pretty much what Game 3.0 is about, allowing users the ability to change the look and gameplay. The modding community has been doing it forever. Do you have a problem with them, too?

Your right, that kind of attitude is a problem. I agree that you already paid your gratitude with your dollars but they paid you with a product worth purchasing, music included. They owe you no more than you owe them. If this feature was truly embraced by developers, they would have been adding it themselves and/or simply leaving their games audio blank for people to add their own music.

The PC gaming world is like the wild wild west. It's a lot harder to stop a PC mod than it is a console mod. As long as the company embraces modding, then I'm all for it.

 

[captive]

i want custom soundtracks, lots and lots of metal would fit better for Motorstorm, i ended up turning off more than half the songs in motorstorm.
But i wont be using custom soundtracks for LAIR.

 

[WTFing]

I hate freedom

 

[Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew]

Sony: Adding 1 functionality at a time.

Fixed.

 

[Dante]

If so, then Startdust HD will get ven more awesome, if that's at all possible.

 

[Zombie James]

Sounds good, but it'll probably get the background downloading treatment: It's something to bitch about when it's not there, but once it's implemented it suddenly won't be worth mentioning.

 

[Paranoid_Robot]

So am I right in saying that we will probably be able to play music straight from the XMB in the next firmware update just like the 360. Then, in future games which have it enables, we will be able to put select songs into specific games, like the Xbox one. As in put stadium songs in NBA games?

If so, the only thing I want them to fix is the ability to login two profiles at the same time on two controllers, so I can play VF5 with my profile against someone elses loaded profile. If this is already implemented and I'm being stupid, please tell me .

 

[The Faceless Master]

You could have as much control as you want once it's released on DVD.

and it would be nice too.

if dvd players had hard drives or network streaming to allow custom soundtracks, i'd check it out for sure!

i wish that were an option, i wish someone would try it and show that it's possible.

in gaming it has been tried and shown to be very possible years ago, and i'd love to play stardust with some vybz kartel or sean paul in the background.