For Playstation 4 Owners, Bad News On USB, Bluetooth Headsets 292
itwbennett writes "Until now Sony has done a pretty good job of keeping future Playstation 4 owners happy. But last week they finally hit a rock when Game Informer posted an article about headset compatibility. At launch, USB headsets that work with the PS3 won't work with the PS4. Sony says that eventually there will be a system update that addresses the problem but for now, even your Sony-branded USB headset won't work. If you use a Bluetooth headset (as most PS3 owners do) the news is even worse. Bluetooth headsets will not be supported and no update is planned to address this. ITworld's Peter Smith is shedding a tear for his $250 Turtle Beach PX5 headset."
Huh? (Score:4, Informative)
Worth Noting that a Compatible Headset (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Bluetooth is not about backwards compatibility (Score:4, Informative)
yeah it's not like bluetooth was invented at what is now part of sony.................. oh wait it was.
Let's talk about headphones for a minute. (Score:5, Informative)
A good pair of headphones can easily run you $500 (that's considered mid-tier).
You can easily spend that much if you don't find the less-known options while doing your research, that's very true. Stay away from the marked-up versions that are easily accessible and order yourself something for professionals instead. Especially look out for the brands like Sony, which may have innovated with their high end MDRs in the 1980s, but can't really justify the price tag today when everyone else is using the same drivers for much less money. You don't have to spend that kind of money.
I am a sound engineer, live and in the studio. I have to have accurate, reliable cans that I can use for hours every day and I can find them for far less than $500. You can get Etymotic in-ears for vocalists, drummers, etc onstage for $200-250. You can buy a nice pair of professional 250-ohm DT990 over-the-ears for $160 (new on Amazon no less) that you can wear all day. They stand up very well to a pair of $1500 electrostatic headphones and blow everything under $1500 away. Haven't heard them? Don't believe me? Try them out, A/B test with any more expensive pair through a few different audio clips, and you'll see exactly what I mean if your ears aren't shot. I acknowledge that some people have blown out their ears with concerts and construction equipment, or old age has taken its unfair toll on the ears. To them, there will be no difference and you just want comfort and construction quality at that point. But for those of us who somehow retained good hearing despite the odds... Talk to studio professionals to find out how to get a good pair of headphones, not gamers or people listening to their iPod on the bus. Good involves accurate sound, wearability all day, and replaceable parts that you can still order 10 years down the road. If you're spending that kind of money, you want it to be good.
To gamers: I guess that at the end of the day though, if you really want that unnatural jaw-vibrating bass boost for your explosions and dubstep soundtracks (and who wouldn't want that for their entertainment!!) you will probably want to start with good headphones that reach down very low and boost that bass with active electronics like an EQ or old DFX box. There's no substitute. Otherwise you'll have to buy the gimmicky crap like those battery-powered Beats / Monster headphones, but you know you're getting ripped off the whole time you do it. Get something that makes you happy but shop around for goodness' sake, you can be happy for a lot less than $500.
Helpful link to check out objective qualities of headphone sound: http://www.headphone.com/buildAGraph.php [headphone.com] - and if you only shop by frequency response curves... you're missing the point. Look at the harmonic distortion curves as well.
Re:What works? (Score:4, Informative)
See this image [google.com]
Re:Backwards compatibility is not a right (Score:3, Informative)
Their systems driver group has drivers that work with everything already. This is a corporate decision, not a technical or even support costs issue.
Thanks for reinforcing my decision, Sony (Score:1, Informative)
I just don't understand why any thinking person would support a company that still runs its business on the razor/blade model of entrenchment and vendor lock-in, especially for tech. To deliberately cripple functions or expend engineering resources to create obstacles to easy operation is just insane. The entire point of having standards is to make components interoperable. It's this modularity that vaulted the PC clone to the top of the microcomputing world. It's why I will likely never buy anything from Apple.
Ugh. Just UGH. Not knowing the first thing about the PS4, I hope it goes down in flames.
Re:Bluetooth woes (Score:4, Informative)
You mean 2.5mm. The original Xbox had one of these too, but you had to use a doodad that connected through the memory card port in the controller. Kind of like how they forced you to purchase a remote control in order to watch DVDs [gamestop.com]. Also the original headset for the 360 was designed in such a way that it utilized a connector that prevented its use with anything other than a first party (or similarly designed third party) Xbox 360 controller.
The PS3 instead supported standard USB headsets and Bluetooth headsets [playstation.com] which are just as prevalent (if not more so, combined) than 2.5mm headsets. Also, this is in stark contrast to the Xbox 360's wireless headset, which used a proprietary RF interface [wikipedia.org]. The only time, to my knowledge, that the Xbox 360 supported a USB microphone was in Rock Band and its sequels.
Then there's the storage drives. For the PS3 it was a 2.5" SATA drive hidden behind a little door, and could be easily removed and replaced [playstation.com]. The Xbox 360 utilized 2.5" SATA drives as well, but hidden inside a proprietary case with a proprietary connector [anandtech.com] that was only to be replaced with other Microsoft manufactured drives. The 360 S *also* used 2.5" SATA drives, but in a different casing that made it entirely incompatible with the original 360 drives [xbox.com] (both of which are sold at an exorbitant markup versus standard SATA drives), and to transfer data between drives you had to have a proprietary cable [xbox.com].
Then there was the proprietary Wifi adapter for the 360 [gamestop.com], and Xbox Live, which is necessary to play games online, be involved in party chats, use the web browser, and watch videos through other services you may already be paying for (including YouTube, Hulu Plus, Netflix, and Comcast's Xfinity among many others) [wikipedia.org] which went from $45 per year to $60 per year (or from $8/mo to $10/mo) [majornelson.com].
So let's not get all high and mighty about which console manufacturer is better than the other. They all do it. That's what console gaming has become. And if you don't like it, your option is to either wait for Steam Machines or build yourself a PC, because that's the alternative.
Re:Bluetooth woes (Score:5, Informative)
What made the US an immediate 'first world' nation? Was it born that way, fully industrialized and ready to go
Yes, it was, because the term was invented in the 50's to represent wealthy capitalist democracies aligned with the US and NATO, as opposed to the Second World (Soviet Bloc countries) and the Third World (counties not aligned with either of the first two).