Mark

I'm disgusted by this whole thing. It's pathetic. It would be one thing if they wrote Tempest a check for it, and credited him on the album for the original composition, but it appears they didn't do anything of the sort.

Pathetic. Down with Nelly Furtado. Down with Timbaland. Down with whatever their label is.

Periodical nailed it on the head: there are serious problems with this test that have severely colored the results. I'm a sound designer with a console games developer (won't say who, but we're in development on 360 and PS3 currently), and I have all three consoles sitting in my living room at home. While I have not conducted an accurate test, based upon personal experience the 360 is the loudest. It's also the most-played, so believe me I'm not biased against it.

Setting the SPL meter on the shelf makes it very susceptible to transmission of waves, which will cause all sorts of problems. Also, he is right in saying that the SPL meter will not take into account the inherent frequency response curve of the human ear (fletcher-munson curves anyone?), and there are two schools of thought among sound engineers as to whether these should be considered or not (as they are an approximation, due to the differences in the hearing of every human). So, while something may appear louder on paper, our perception of the systems' loudness may be dramatically different.

There are way too many variables in this, and I would not attempt to conduct a scientific test of this sort. I don't have the environment to conduct it in nor the desire to waste half a week getting it done. However, I can tell you that from discussion with colleagues (the majority of which are audio professionals in the game, tv or film industries), the general feeling is that the Xbox 360 is the loudest of the three consoles.

I think it all depends upon the developer, to be honest. The most acceptable use of this, in my opinion, has been Hideo Kojima's name on the packages of his games. Toward the bottom, elegant font, "A HIDEO KOJIMA GAME." I think that's nice. It shows that a respected developer was at the helm, but it doesn't beat you over the head with it.

I've never been a big fan of people putting their names at the head of a title, whether it be in games, movies or anything else. It just seems tacky to me.

This is fantastic, and a great example of why I am such a Nintendo fan. If anyone needs a bit of brain improvement, it's this warmongering idiot. Kudos to Nintendo!