Another question is how long the Wii will last:
1) Do alot of more "hardcore" gamers want to be playing GameCube power and graphics in the next two-three years?
2) Will the Wii control be somewhat 'novelty', and people get tired of the controller.

People apparently have forgotten and forgiven the Xbox360 already, it was really critized too:
1.the lineup was crappy,
2.and kept braking all the time,
3.backwards compatibility was horrible.

People want to talk about the bad Sony has done, but IMO its ridiculous and unacceptable when your high end electronics has a tendency to break for no reason. I have a 360 from the first batches and it didnt break yet (never played it much) and Im very worried that it will later and I will be left with no way to get it repaired because it, frankly, didn't break soon enough for Microsoft to fix it for free.

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Those games had something going for them--good gameplay, good story, and pure innovation. Everything nowadays seems like a rehash. There's little innovation happening. It's all about graphics, which is that the PS3 is doing now...

You can still have plenty of fun with good gameplay and good story - Resistance was a good example- my favorite FPS for a console ever. Also, the SixAxis controller might open up some innovation eventually. Resistance you can shake off enemies who are on you, and you can steer in MotorStorm (granted, not that well)

IMO the PS3 > 360. I've did things on the PS3 the first week that I didn't do on the 360 in the first year.

Although, the Wii has a huge advantages ; cheap, innovation, and fun for all ages. oh yeah, and high supply...

the sixaxis is garbage
it was an add-on to the controller when sony found out what nintendo was doing with its controller
and fps are better on the wii (for me at least) because i hate doing fps on a ps/xbox style controller
as i said before, its more of a natural transition from keyboard/mouse to wii controller/nunchuck than to a ps/xbox style controller
honestly, hd is nice and all, but i could care less if my games are in hd
i care about how entertaining and fun a game is
plus the graphics are better on the wii than the cube, and even gamecube games look better on the wii (not a lot, but enough to notice)

Im not sure the SixAxis is junk yet i still think it has some potential. BTW do you even have a PS3??

Anyways, I never really cared for graphics either, but since Ive got the PS3 in HD, I really dont want to go back. Also, I have an HD tv at college, and at home we have a 50 something inch TV, and I can't stand playing PS2 on it, it looks like crap, so havign HD capability is alot better. I think in the next 5-10 years, HD TVs will be standard issue anyway.

and for FPS on the PS3, you could always get this

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1) Do alot of more "hardcore" gamers want to be playing GameCube power and graphics in the next two-three years?

Define hardcore gamer.

I define "hardcore" as someone who likes playing games. Not looking at fancy visuals with no content.

You dress a pig in a suit, and it's still a pig.

EZ3K1EL wrote:Im not sure the SixAxis is junk yet i still think it has some potential. BTW do you even have a PS3??

Anyways, I never really cared for graphics either, but since Ive got the PS3 in HD, I really dont want to go back. Also, I have an HD tv at college, and at home we have a 50 something inch TV, and I can't stand playing PS2 on it, it looks like crap, so havign HD capability is alot better. I think in the next 5-10 years, HD TVs will be standard issue anyway.

and for FPS on the PS3, you could always get this

i dont have to with a wii
it comes standard
sixaxis is just a last minute attempt by sony to try and be "revolutionary" and implementing something new even tho we have seen something similar to sixaxis in computer controllers my MS in the sidewinder

so its not even something new

Im not trying to say the PS3 is better, but I hate hearing the PS3 is crap, because I like it better than any console I've owned, it's got alot of great aspects. Wether you want to admit it or not, alot of people don't like it because of it's price tag alone. If it were closer to $300 or $400 it would be praised as a great machine.

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Not looking at fancy visuals with no content.

huh.?

I think the PS3 will deliver awesomes graphics, along with amazing power in-game pyshics and A.I. Like all systems it doesn't show the full potential at the beginning of the system

i agree that the ps3 is a good machine, no doubt
it will (hopefully) have much better games and a lot more support in a year (games in HD that is)
then we can gauge it against the xbox360 better
but for right now, the price and blue-ray is really hindering its growth

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Quote:

Not looking at fancy visuals with no content.



huh.?

Well, graphics and physics mean nothing if the game isn't immersive.

A.I. is great, if it enhances the game.

There's nothing worse than reading a game has great A.I. and physics. All that means is the enemies are smart, and they fall realistically.

Doesn't mean much if I don't care as to why I'm killing them.

But it's not just the PS3. The PC has a boatload of crap games out for it too. Games like FEAR or Half-Life 2...I've been very disappointed with. The gameplay is the same, driven by a sub-par storyline.

If more developers would go the route of Deus Ex (not the second POS, which coincidentally, was made for the XBox) then we'd have games that were a lot more interesting.

Yeah, I'm always annoyed when a game has zero storyline. Probably the best games I've seen up until now storywise were: Silent Hill 2, Metal Gear Solid 3, Resident Evil 4, Silent Hill 3, Silent Hill 4 and Killer 7 All had deep complex storylines that pushed you to play more just so you could see how all this was going to turn out. There's a lot of Silent Hill's in that list but SH games have always relied heavily on story and spooky graphics/sounds. RE4 was the big shocker of the bunch for me, the games that came before were so-so "horror" games, but 4 became a balls-to-the-wall action game that substituted tension for horror and really found it's niche. Sadly Silent Hill seems to have a taken a cue from this to try and copy Resident Evil 4, which it shouldn't because it was always very successful with being scary, unlike RE. Killer 7 takes some time to get into, but once you see how vastly your mind has been screwed with by the end of the game, you can't help but be a little awed. It's like a video game designed by David Lynch.

The PS3 is not so great right now because the games are lacking. Given time and sales, the games would improve and the PS3 would stay comparative with PCs for longer. The problem is that developers have to put in more work to make games that reach the full potential of the ps3. That is not an attractive option when coupled with low sales numbers and relatively equal profits for games that are easier to make for other consoles. So if a company makes a game for the ps3 and the 360, they are likely to be pretty similar in appearance and game-play, thereby giving the edge to the 360 because of price. The only hope that Sony has is to score exclusive games that people want to play and that offers something not available on other consoles. Ultimately, hardware power alone will not save the PS3.
The 360, which I have, has a few advantages over the PS3 and Wii. Over the PS3 it have a lower price, a bigger following, it's relatively easy to program for and it may have better games. The main disadvantage is less powerful processor and maybe less impressive graphics. Ultimately, I think the 360 will do better than the ps3 as long as they keep a price advantage and keep the games coming. The ps3 and the 360 really aren't too comparable with the Wii. The Wii will continue to mainly have "Japanese" style games along with the fun easily playable family friendly" games with a few "American style" games here and there. The 360, on the other hand, has many "American style" games and few of the "Japanese style" and "family friendly" games. Not to mention that the two are not in the same price range. IMO there are three different types of gamers, those that like FPS/ simulation sports and racing games and don't mind spending a little more money for better graphics and a console that has games they like.(PS3, 360 folks) Then there are those that don't place graphics at the top of their priorities and want fun games that are easy to get the hang, innovative and "kind of different".(Wii folks) Nintendo has their market niche filled and have nothing to worry about, the PS3 and the 360 will battle it out for the rest but the PS3 has some ground to make up. Sony will turn it around, but will still probably "play second fiddle" to the 360. Oh, the third type likes both the 360/ PS3 style & the Wii style games. I will probably get a Wii later, I haven't owned a Nintendo product since the N64 because the Gamecube sucked. Anyway, that's my .02.


________________________
Ron Paul in 2008!
Constitution > Politics

i found this, pretty amazing: PS3 helping cure diseases?

I already signed up for that, you can download it March 27th. I will be downloading the software from the playstations' store then.
Good cause.





PRND321 Till I DIE
Old Motor: 160whp & 152ft/lbs, 1/4 Mile 15.4 @88.2
M45 + LD9 + 4T40-E, GO GO GO

I played a Wii the other night...It was cool

Played a PS3 that night too...It was cool too

And one other time I played a 360...zOmG it was cool too

Personally, I'd have to choose the 360 as the winner... for now.

Reasons? First off, the price... 300 for a base system, and 400 for the fully loaded one. That falls between the Wii's 250 for a base model, and PS3's 500 for a base.... Much much closer to the wii however, so the price point is basicly shot to hell for the Wii "winning". That, and extra controllers are the most expensive for the Wii.

Second... games. The 360 has more titles then the Wii and the PS3 combined. MANY more. Theres a good reason... because its been out the longest. Then theres your quality of games... in this respect, its mostly opinion. The Wii doesnt have anything amazing going for it... because with the exception of twilite princess (which was originally designed for the gamecube anyway) it doesnt have crap for storyline in any of its games. Gears of war is being touted as the best console FPS EVER.... what system? 360 of couse.

The PS3 has a lot of catchup to do, but the most potential. Sony has had the lockdown on all the best games on its previous systems, (With the exception of halo) and in time is going to have some HUGE hits on its hands. If they ever wise up, and drop the price of the PS3, its going to whoop both systems arses.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maybe Im just pissed, pissed that my freinds are spineless, What else would you
call abandoment some night, when you're in a fight, and they could make things right?
Spineless. I miss some of my old friends, the ones who you could count on,
bet a huge amount on, the fact that they'd always have your back... Its like a kick in
the sack, just knowing, you've got nothing to fall back on. @!#$ this, Im done.

The Wii has sold 6 million consoles to 9.66 for Xbox360. If the Wii keeps up it' steam, it'll pass the Xbox relatively quickly.

Of course, these things could change everything..

The release of Halo 3.

The acceptance of high-def movies.

The Ps3 actually getting some titles people give a damn about.


---

Last i checked, in sales for last month, the Wii led, with the Xbox360 in 2nd, the ps2 in theird, and the ps3 in fourth...

I think it's bad if your last gen console is beating your now-gen console in sales.

But who knows...the PS3 may get something going when they get some games that take advantage of the hardware.

Right now it looks like the real race will be with the Xbox360 and the Wii...if for no other reason than the Wii basically redefining gaming. The Xbox360 has the estabished market right now for the 18-35 gamer (since the Wii is mostly family-based). I don't see the PS3 breaking out unless they come out with a must-have game that none of the systems can even come close to modeling. It is a distinctive possibility, but it would have to be a game that develops a following like, say, Donkey Kong. Right now, for how good of a machine it is, there's no real reason to get one when the 360 can do it almost as good in sheer playability.


Goodbye Callisto & Skaði, Hello Ishara:
2022 Kia Stinger GT2 AWD
The only thing every single person from every single walk of life on earth can truly say
they have in common is that their country is run by a bunch of fargin iceholes.

Well, my neighbours from across the street came over a couple days ago. I had the Wii hooked up in the family room so my sister and her boyfriend could play Wii Sports.

The neighbours are both 45+, don't play video games, and stayed for around an hour playing...both swearing they were going out to buy one.

The PS3 can't do that.

I think a nice read.

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Mar 27, 2007 : 10 Reasons Why PS3 Will Win This Console Generation


Insomniac Games Chief Creative Officer Brian Hastings discusses why the PS3 is the console to beat

First of all, let me make it clear that Insomniac is a 100% independent development studio. Sony has neither endorsed nor authorized what I’m writing here.

When I started this blog post I was planning to write about Home and Little Big Planet from a developer’s perspective. But as I read some of the media and message board responses to Sony’s GDC presentation, I wanted to address an ongoing industry phenomenon. Specifically, the sheer volume of negative spin toward Sony from both the mainstream press and the internet community. Mere minutes after Sony announced a beautiful, ground breaking, free, community-enhancing online PS3 service, 100 internet posters were trying to argue that this was somehow a bad thing. Whether you love or hate Sony, if you’re trying to spin Home as a bad thing I can only conclude that you’re part of Microsoft’s $3.2 billion viral marketing campaign.

I’ll be the first to say that Sony has had a very rough road from last E3 up through this year’s GDC. Some of their wounds have been self-inflicted, but they’ve also had to face a conspicuously hostile media. Take the New York Times article “How the PS3 will kill your dog, steal your girlfriend, and infect you with Ebola.” And Time magazine’s piece “Global Warming: Is It The PS3?” And more recently, GameSpot’s “Ten Complaints We Thought Up While Everyone Else Was Watching Little Big Planet.”

For the last nine months it has been fashionable to bash the PS3. At first it was controversial, even titillating, to make sensational and dire predictions about the PS3’s future. You could watch it happen again and again – a rumor starts on a message board (“The PS3s all caught on fire at TGS!”, “Blu-Ray won’t have any Porn!”), then it gets picked up by a games industry website, and a few days later USA Today runs the story with the headline “Experts Say PS3 Doom3d!1!!” But the tide has changed so much now that it’s downright controversial to suggest that the PS3 may yet be a success. So, in the spirit of sensationalism and controversy, let me present to you 10 reasons why the PS3 will be the console market leader by 2010:

1. Home & Little Big Planet
One of my jobs at Insomniac is to try to come up with “the next big thing.” This is something everyone at Insomniac does, but as Chief Creative Officer it’s also part of my job description. For the last two years there have been two concepts that I have felt had the strongest potential to be the next big thing. At GDC, Sony came out of the blue and delivered fully-realized versions of both concepts.

The first concept is a realization of the ‘Metaverse’ from Neal Stephenson’s groundbreaking novel Snow Crash. For those who haven’t read it, it’s what inspired Second Life. Over the last couple years, many of us at Insomniac have come up with lots of different ideas on how to make such a system for consoles. So when Home came out, already nearly complete and looking beautiful, it was both amazing and humbling at the same time. In short, Home is exactly what the online console community needs. I’m not saying that because it’s on the PS3. I’m saying that because Home is a fully realized version of something I’ve been trying to figure out how to do for two years.

The other “next big thing” I had been thinking about is how to make a game that is primarily driven by player-generated content. So when Little Big Planet was announced I felt like Orville Wright tinkering on a bicycle-powered balsa wood plane as a learjet suddenly flew overhead. Not only does Little Big Planet have stunningly beautiful graphics, gorgeous animation, brilliant physics and intuitive controls, it’s also a cooperative four player online game! This alone makes it accessible to a much greater audience than player vs player games. And most important of all, it has an absolutely ingenuous system for creating and sharing your own levels. This is HUGE. This is something that’s never been done on consoles and now it’s being introduced not as a half-baked add-on to another game, but as an absolutely brilliant, fully realized, breathtaking experience. You can bet that dozens of developers will create their own Little Big Planet levels as soon as it comes out. Many future game designers will get their start by designing Little Big Planet levels. Gamers who previously had no way to get their foot in the door as a game designer will have developers calling them in the middle of the night if they make a top-rated LBP level. I say again, Little Big Planet is HUGE.

It’s humbling to know that other developers had not only thought of these two concepts, but brought them to fruition in such stunning fashion. Mostly, though, it’s very encouraging to see Sony taking more of a lead in online innovation. While some people were accusing them of merely copying the competition, Sony has been quietly working on two of the most innovative ideas of this generation. “Mii too?” Give me a break.

2. Free Online
Among all the talk about the price of Sony’s console, I almost never see anyone mention the significance of Sony’s free online service. Xbox Live Gold costs $70 to sign up for 1 year, or $20 for three months. You can renew your membership for $50 a year. So if the Xbox 360 stays around for five years, you’ll be paying 70 + 50 + 50 + 50 + 50 = $270 to access features that Sony gives you for free.

I agree, Xbox Live is overall offering a better online service right now. But $270 better? And Sony is steadily narrowing the gap in online features. With improvements to the messaging system and support for background downloading, Sony is rapidly catching up with many of the key advantages that Live has enjoyed. Add to that the fact that Sony is offering virtually lag-free dedicated servers at no cost, while on Xbox Live you are paying for a more laggy peer-to-peer service. Furthermore, one of the biggest advertised features of Xbox Live is matchmaking, yet the implementation of this feature has been inconsistent since it is left up to the developer. The matchmaking service on Resistance: FOM, meanwhile, has been one of its biggest successes, proving that even at this early stage the PS3’s online capabilities are very competitive. And free. As the PS3 community continues to grow with new features and player-generated content from Home and Little Big Planet, Sony’s online service is looking better and better. And, again, they’re not charging you $270 for it.

3. 50 GB games
If you ever hear someone say “Blu-Ray isn’t needed for this generation,” rest assured they don’t make games for a living. At Insomniac, we were filling up DVDs on the PS2, as were most of the developers in the industry. We compressed the level data, we compressed the mpeg movies, we compressed the audio, and it was still a struggle to get it to fit in 6 gigs. Now we’ve got 16 times as much system RAM, so the level data is 16 times bigger. And the average disc space of games only gets bigger over a console’s lifespan. As games get bigger, more advanced and more complex, they necessarily take up more space. If developers were filling up DVDs last generation, there are clearly going to be some sacrifices made to fit current generation games in the same amount of space.

Granted, some really great Xbox 360 games have squeezed onto a DVD9. Gears of War is a beautiful game and shows off the highest resolution textures of anything yet released, partly because of the Unreal Engine’s ability to stream textures. This means that you can have much higher resolution textures than you could normally fit in your 512 MB of RAM. It also means that you’re going to chew up more disc space for each level. With streamed textures, streamed geometry and streamed audio, even with compression, you can quickly approach 1 GB of data per level. That inherently limits you to a maximum of about 7 levels, and that’s without multiplayer levels or mpeg cutscenes.

Sometimes people ask us, “If Resistance takes 14 gigabytes, why doesn’t it look better than Gears?” Well, for one, Resistance didn’t support texture streaming, so we had to make choices about where we spent our high-res textures. Resistance also had 30 single-player chapters, six multiplayer maps, uncompressed audio streaming, and high-definition mpegs. That all added up to a lot of space on the disc. Starting with Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction we are supporting texture streaming, which will make the worlds look even better, and will also consume even more space on disc.

There’s no question that you can always cut more levels, compress the audio more, compress the textures more, down-res the mpeg movies, and eventually get any game to fit on a DVD. But you paid for a high-def experience, right? You want the highest resolution, best audio, most cinematic experience a developer can offer, right? That’s why Blu-Ray is important for games, and why it will become more important each year of this hardware cycle.

4. Casino Royale
Casino Royale is the first high definition title to crack the top 10 on Amazon’s DVD charts, rising up to number seven shortly after being released. This is significant because it dispels the myth that high definition discs are merely a niche and will never take off with the mainstream.

A lot of people have been waiting on the fence to see whether Blu-Ray or HD-DVD would emerge as the winner of the format war. Well, at this point the war is as good as over. Blu-Ray has won a TKO. It always had superior technical specs and much wider studio support, but there was the question of whether HD-DVD’s earlier release and initially lower price would capture enough of the market to make it the winner. But Blu-Ray has already surpassed HD-DVD in overall discs sold, and is currently outselling HD-DVD discs at about a 3:1 rate. Many neutral observers in the A/V community have called the war in favor of Blu-Ray. If you want minute-to-minute updates, you can follow what’s left of the format war at various locations on the internet:
http://www.eproductwars.com/dvd/
http://www.hdgamedb.com/amazon/versus.aspx
These sites mainly compare Amazon sales data, but the Nielsen sales data shows the same thing: Blu-Ray discs are outselling HD-DVD by a steadily increasing margin.

Many of Disney, Fox and Sony’s biggest box office movies will release exclusively on Blu-Ray in the next three months, likely pushing the sales separation between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD to a margin where many retailers will begin phasing out HD-DVD. Retailers hate a format war even more than consumers, and I suspect they’ll take the initiative to end it as quickly as possible.

5. HDMI
A lot has been said about Sony’s choice to ship with composite cables. I won’t say I agree with that decision, but I think too little has been said of the fact that even the cheaper PS3 SKU supports HDMI 1.3. The PS3 was the first consumer device to support it, and this is a very important future-proofing step. When you go to buy higher-end TVs, the PS3 will support the highest possible audio and video input the TV and receiver can accept. If and when high-def movies start requiring an Image Constraint Token, the PS3 will still be able play them in high definition.

Right now, HDMI seems primarily to be a selling point to the hardcore audio and videophiles of the world. But HDTVs are getting cheaper and more popular all the time, and consumer sophistication and knowledge of high definition audio and video is growing. In a couple years, HDMI devices will be the standard. Graphics and audio in games will also continue to improve, and more and more consumers will want HDMI in order to get the best results on their home theater setups. As this happens, Microsoft has a difficult choice – do they stick with “last gen” video output, or do they release a premium version of the Xbox 360 that includes HDMI but effectively forces early adopters to re-buy the system to get the best results? Sony ultimately made their console more expensive by including HDMI, but over the next couple years it’s likely to play out as the right choice.

6. Standard HDD
When we were developing for PS2, I was jealous of Xbox’s standard hard drive. There are so many things this allowed you to consider as a developer – virtually unlimited save data, improved load times, custom music, downloadable content and user-created content just to name a few. But since hard drives, no matter what the size, never get cheaper than about $50, Microsoft lost money trying to compete with the PS2’s price. That may be the reason they left it out of the cheaper Xbox 360 SKU, thinking that Sony would again leave out the hard drive on the PS3. Instead, Sony made the hard drive standard for both SKUs. This added to the cost of the PS3, but it also let developers use the HDD in games.

The problem with including a hard drive in one version of the 360 and not in the other is that developers can’t use it for the games. Or, at least, they can’t use it for any required features. When you are guaranteed to have at least a 20 GB hard drive in the console, you can write your load caching routines around it, or use it for your application’s storage needs. To a developer, an optional hard drive is roughly equivalent to no hard drive at all.

Another advantage of the PS3 is that it will let you put in any third party hard drive you want. From a developer’s standpoint, this is good news because the market will gradually be able to support larger downloadable games over the course of the PS3’s life. As downloadable content gets larger and more sophisticated, PS3 owners can choose to buy larger hard drives at the best market price. The more this happens, the more developers will be encouraged to create better and better downloadable games.

7. The Wii Fad Will Fade
OK, this one’s going to be controversial, but I have to say it. I like Nintendo a lot. I think Nintendo has innovated far more than any other company in the industry. And I think the Wii is really, really fun. But… let me relate to you a story that may sound familiar:

Your friend Reggie invites you over for a Wii Party. It’s awesome. You and your friends partake in whatever beverages are legally appropriate for your age group. The next day everyone who went to the party rushes out and buys a Wii.

A week later Reggie hosts another Wii Party. This time only half the group comes. It’s still fun, but there isn’t quite as much shoving to get at the Wiimote.

The next week Reggie hosts another Wii Party. You tell him you have bird flu.

Obviously I’m exaggerating, but the Wii does have many characteristics of popular mainstream fads. It’s instantaneously accessible, it’s unlike anything you’ve tried before, and it’s great fun to share with friends. In short, it’s everything Nintendo said it would be and it has captured the world’s imagination. The only downside is that the world is easily distracted. Tickle Me Elmo captured the world’s attention at one point, as did Furbies. They were both instantly accessible, were unlike anything people had seen before, and were fun to share with friends. But a year later, after everyone had seen them and tried them out, their popularity waned.

The Wii is currently riding on a massive wave of mainstream attention and has been purchased by lots of people who don’t normally play games. But how many of those people who are hooked on Wii Sports will also buy Wii Need For Speed? Mainstream fads usually run their course within a year. As the honeymoon period fades, the Wii will be going up against more and more graphically impressive games on the PS3 and Xbox 360. More people will be buying HD televisions and looking for the most immersive and stunning experiences available. For these reasons, I think the Wii will be more successful than the GameCube or N64 but in the long run will still be outsold by the PS3.

8. PS3 Has a Major CPU Advantage
The GPUs on the Xbox 360 and PS3 are roughly equivalent, with the Xbox 360 arguably having a slight edge. The difference in CPU power, however, is far greater with the PS3 enjoying the advantage. The PS3’s eight parallel CPUs (one primary “PPU” and seven Cell processors) give it potentially far more computing power than the three parallel CPUs in the Xbox 360. Just about any tech programmer will tell you that the PS3’s CPUs are significantly more powerful. The problem is that it has been challenging thus far to take advantage of the Cell’s parallel architecture.

With the PS2, Sony got away with making a fairly developer-unfriendly system, and its success allowed their hardware designers to ignore developer’s complaints as they made the PS3. People high up at Sony have realized that approach simply won’t work anymore and are trying to fix the problem. Sony is actively improving their libraries, tools and developer support in order to make PS3 development easier. They are giving first party developed techniques and code to third-party developers so that multi-platform games should start looking better on PS3.

Games developed from the ground up on PS3 are the ones that will really show off the PS3’s CPU advantage. The complexity of the distributed processing architecture means that PS3 engines won’t fully blossom until a little later in the lifecycle than the PS2. This has put the PS3 at a disadvantage early in its lifecycle, but within two years you will see games that surpass what is possible on the Xbox 360.

9. PS2 still outselling 360
I know, it’s outselling the PS3 by an even larger margin. But the continued strong PS2 sales really are a good thing for Sony. Anyone buying a PS2 at this point is probably not going to buy a PS3 or Xbox 360 in the next year. And when they do choose to buy the current generation of hardware, the PS3 will be in a lot better position. The price will have come down, the game library will be broad, and the top PS3 titles will probably have the edge in both graphics and sound. Just as important, the people buying into the PS2 now will be getting into many of Sony’s exclusive franchises that they will then later want to play on the PS3.

10. Something For Everyone
One of Sony’s biggest advantages is that it has strong franchises in every genre. Whereas Microsoft’s successful titles are mostly M-rated, and Nintendo’s are mostly E-rated, Sony has a big list of hit titles across the spectrum. When a 30-something gamer (like me) goes to buy a game console, it’s a lot easier to justify the purchase when there are games he can play with his kids as well as more mature stuff.

To Microsoft’s credit, they are doing a good job of catching up. The acquisition of Rare and the development of Viva Pinata have helped to broaden their spectrum. But it takes time to build a franchise, and Sony has been building their suite of titles for over a decade. Consider the breadth, success and critical acclaim of some of their exclusive properties: The Getaway, God of War, Gran Turismo, Hot Shots Golf, Jak and Daxter, Killzone, Ratchet & Clank, Shadow of the Colossus, Singstar, Sly Cooper, SOCOM, and Twisted Metal. These are all million-plus sellers worldwide that are either already announced or likely to appear on PS3. Add to this Sony’s new line up of first-party titles, including Heavenly Sword, Lair, Motorstorm, Resistance: Fall of Man, Uncharted and White Knight Story, and they have an even deeper and stronger line-up than what they had on PS2.


A lot of industry watchers and even a handful of publishers have been quick to write Sony off this generation, and I think that’s near-sighted. Sony has made a lot of decisions with the PS3 that may have slowed them down in the short run, but should give them a big advantage in the long run. The high price, hardware complexity, and the uncertainty of the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD format war have contributed to the PS3’s slow start out of the gate. But as the price drops, developers master the hardware, and Blu-Ray becomes the new DVD standard, Sony’s early disadvantages turn to advantages. As downloadable games become more common, the 60 GB hard-drive will be a big advantage to developers and consumers. As games get bigger and more sophisticated, Blu-Ray storage will increasingly become a major advantage. And as more and more of Sony’s exclusive first-party titles get released, the PS3 will begin to outsell the competition on a monthly basis. Those publishers who have shifted resources away from PS3 development will find themselves behind the curve and losing money as the market center gradually shifts toward the PS3 over the next two years.

PRND321 Till I DIE
Old Motor: 160whp & 152ft/lbs, 1/4 Mile 15.4 @88.2
M45 + LD9 + 4T40-E, GO GO GO

^^

There are some really good points there. I have to agree that it's foolish to think the PS3 is down and out.

For me, I'd be most likely to buy a PS3 because of my high-def television. Why spend $700-900 on a standalone player when I can get the PS3 for the same price? I'm bound to buy a high-def format very soon. The only thing that would change that fact is if the standalone players hit $200 for Christmas 07.


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I also think that the game chief is discounting the potential of the Wii in the same way that he wants us to stop doing to the PS3.


Goodbye Callisto & Skaði, Hello Ishara:
2022 Kia Stinger GT2 AWD
The only thing every single person from every single walk of life on earth can truly say
they have in common is that their country is run by a bunch of fargin iceholes.

Hey, I know the PS3 has potential but:

Quote:

The Getaway, God of War, Gran Turismo, Hot Shots Golf, Jak and Daxter, Killzone, Ratchet & Clank, Shadow of the Colossus, Singstar, Sly Cooper, SOCOM, and Twisted Metal.

Regardless of whether they're million-plus sellers, there are really only four games there: 3D-Platformers, racing, FPS(or TPS), and a sports game.

Out of all of those games, there's really nothing new. That's the point.

I mean, I won't speak to whether or not I'd play some of the titles, but Wii Sports/Wii Play, WarioWare, Cooking Mama, Trauma Center: Second Opinion, Medal of Honor, and Excite Truck are each from a different genre, and they let you play the game in a different way.

Regardless of what you think of the games (Cooking Mama boggles my mind, personally) people are having fun playing them, and it's showing.

Will the PS3 come out on top? I don't know, honestly. My gut says yes, but I also didn't think the Wii would be doing this well.

I still can't find the system, the controllers, or the nunchuks ANYWHERE in Winnipeg. That's insane for a console that launched almost five months ago. Think of that base of gamers, most who probably already own a PC or 360, and the PS3 has to offer something new, not Ratchet & Clank HD.

That's all I'm saying. The guy proved my entire point in his article: Sony is resting on it's laurels, doing exactly what it has done before, hoping that it's big name franchises will boost PS3 sales.

Nintendo, give them credit, knows what people want and how to innovate. The DS could have been considered a fad, too. Think about it, Nintendo is big, but to go up against Sony and Microsoft when other console companies have bit the dust. They hire smart people.

compared to the PSP, the DS has sold a lot better.

my take is this: The 360 is doing what they've done well--there's no way they can really go from where they have been to make thenselves better--except to push that console to the limit at it's pricepoint to make people say, "So what if the graphics look better, i can play this on the 360 and it's just about the same, plus i'm saving a couple of hundred bucks..."

The PS3 CAN'T sit on it's laurels and expect the big-name companies to bail them out--if i remeber right, that led to the decrease in Nintendo's market share (among other reasons). They NEED to have games out there that will showcase the higher-end processer power and graphical capabilities and all that, along with games that have good play value and preplay value in a "I have GOT to get me that" sort of way. They have to get games that prove the superiority of the console--otherwise, they will fall to the fate that the PS1 gave to the Sega Saturn.

The Wii has game out with a HUGE gain in sales and people playing the system, but at this point, they NEED to build on that. Nintendo, and it's developers have to come out with more games that will get the non-VG public to play the system, as well as titles that will get the VG public to play it for a new, exciting means to play games. Moreover, the current batch of games is pretty much a "glimpse" at what could be done--getting the minds of the public swayed to the new style of play. Great. Now, to prevent it from becoming a fad, they have to build on it. They have to keep the innovation coming. If not, it will be just a fad. If they can build on it, they will be able to go head-to-head with Micro$oft and $ony, transcend fad-dom, and set a new standard for playing games.




Goodbye Callisto & Skaði, Hello Ishara:
2022 Kia Stinger GT2 AWD
The only thing every single person from every single walk of life on earth can truly say
they have in common is that their country is run by a bunch of fargin iceholes.

Here is my question. If PS3 has a bluray and suposed to be the "new wave" of gaming and the BEST graphics in video games. Then ... why when I go to IGN.com ... they always choose the 360 over the PS3 in terms of graphics? Please explain.

dan

BlueRay is a storage format for high capasity optical media. It competes with HD-DVD. It has little to do with what you actually see on screen.

PAX

Quote:

they always choose the 360 over the PS3 in terms of graphics? Please explain.

The 360 has been out longer, and graphics do tend to get better over time.

Also, when a game comes out that is 50GB of uncompressed data compared to whatever the 360 has, I think the graphics of the PS3 will be slightly better.